by Julia Knight
Finally the pain loosened enough that he could think past it, could let thoughts other than the dream of duria into his head.
This offer from the Reethan was not all it seemed, he was sure. Yet what else could they do? Maybe he was wrong. Maybe only Valguard’s eagerness gave him these lingering doubts. Valguard had filled Aran’s head with tales of Nerinna’s legendary beauty, and the lad was in a state of such excitement. Excitement and pride, that finally he could do something for his countries. Between them Aran and Valguard had arranged everything. Who would accompany them on the visit that Nerinna had requested to formally arrange terms. The celebrations that would follow. Aran seemed so happy, Hunter hadn’t the heart to say anything more of his misgivings.
A scuffed step at the doorway brought him out of his reverie with a jolt and a spasm of pain.
“You would do better to observe your devotions to Oku.” Valguard stepped into the torchlight. “You’ve been very lax of late. Do you not have faith in your god?”
Hunter stood up and faced him. “Of course.” It’s just that I hate Oku, for taking Hilde’s oath, for taking the eternal life she could have had.
Hunter had sworn to protect young Hilde—a lifetime ago it seemed—an oath that, along with the girl herself, had gotten him through the blackest time of his life. Little Hilde, feared and despised by men and kyrbodans alike for her mixed blood, for her ability to dream the future and read men’s hearts. Who had known all that was inside him and never judged, only quietly accepted and hurt with him, for him when anger and grief threatened to overwhelm him. And who had done the one thing he could not protect her from—fallen in love with that bastard of a mage Ilfayne, and sworn her life away to an eternity of service to the merciless god Oku to save him.
Valguard smiled as though he knew Hunter’s thoughts, a smile that chewed his stomach to shreds. “Are you ready for your guards to hang? My Disciples are ready for your intervention. You’ll not get these out as you once escaped. They’ll not wriggle from the charge like you, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Does that gall you? Nothing. They will hang.”
Hunter kept a tight rein on his temper and spat his words out through stiff lips. “They won’t. I’d personally vouch for either of these men.”
But that wouldn’t be enough, because Sannir had failed to find any witnesses. Valguard would find them guilty, the Disciples’ word being unimpeachable. Even in his position there was little else Hunter could do for them. His teeth rattled with anger, and dreams of using his sword danced through his head. If only he could, if only he didn’t have this oath-sworn duty of regency.
“Oh yes, and your word is worth so much, is it not? I have evidence, my lord. A witness.”
“I don’t believe it. Not these two. They’ve never even been so much as in a tavern brawl.”
“I’ve never yet hung an innocent man.”
“No, but it was a close-run thing, wasn’t it? And you have yet to forgive me for escaping your noose, that I know.”
“You weren’t innocent! Innocent of murder, possibly, though I cannot take the testimony of a madman, even if he was the king. But guilty of many other things. I know.”
Hunter turned away before he said something he might regret and stared up at the sword, willing it for advice. There was only one recourse for his men now, one he’d taken himself all those years ago. Get them out before the trial. But he couldn’t give the order because Valguard watched his every move. He must trust to Sannir.
Valguard’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Such a petty little shrine, I always thought.”
Hunter took a deep breath, swallowed his anger to make a hot, churning ball in his stomach and allowed himself a smile of his own. “But very popular. Even more so than Oku’s, if I’m not mistaken.”
Valguard snorted in disgust as he looked around and glared up at Shadow’s Curse. “Pathetic, what people will believe in, given the wrong sort of encouragement.” His gaze slid over Hunter disdainfully. “If it hadn’t been for that mage, it would never have happened. He should never have been allowed in the city! It was you who brought Ilfayne here, against all our most sacred laws. The law these Three Kingdoms were founded on. No magic. And it was you who let him use that magic for your own ends, to become regent.”
“You’re lucky he didn’t fry your arse. Never did get those scorch marks out of the stone, did we? I liked him as little as you—but there’s no doubt that without him there would be no Ganheim left. The sorcerer would have destroyed it all.”
“Ah yes, him and that kyrbodan murderess you allowed to escape the noose.”
Hunter let his good hand fall to the hilt of his sword and took a step forward, ready to forget he was regent, forget the pain, forget everything. He would bear what he had to when Valguard spoke about him, but he wouldn’t hear a word against Hilde. “Don’t you dare—”
Valguard looked over his shoulder to where Hunter’s guards stood with their backs to the door and held up a finger to his lips. “Shhh. We don’t want the right tale getting out do we? That it wasn’t Regin the Great who killed the sorcerer.”
Hunter had never known how Valguard had found out. How he knew that the tale Hunter had told the bards about the war’s end was false, to protect Hilde from another charge that would have brought her to Valguard’s noose. “You wanted her in the story? A kyrbodan to be our saviour, or a mage? Would you have me tell the bards the right tale?”
“I wonder though, would all these people worship Regin so much if they knew it wasn’t him who had saved them? Would there be flowers and gifts? Would people bend their head to the sword and burn applewood on his day if they knew it was that little bitch who saved them?”
Hunter’s hand dropped from his sword hilt—even livid as he was, he was not stupid enough to threaten Valguard with it—and flew out to shove Valguard hard up against the wall in a jingle of mail. Valguard’s head smacked into the plaster but he just smiled and nodded to where Hunter’s own guards watched them with open mouths.
Hunter kept his voice low, hoarse with anger. “Whatever you’re trying to do to me, keep her out of it. Or will you tell them that magic and the kyrbodan saved them? The two things you loathe most, after me? I think not.”
Valguard smiled his stomach-gnawing smile again and stared down to where Hunter’s hand pushed him against the wall. Hunter dropped his arm and stood back, shaking and sweating, in desperate need of his duria now to calm his mind. Anger had flayed it so much it hurt almost worse than his arm.
Valguard inclined his head. “Maybe I won’t have to. Maybe you will shame him more than enough in the days to come, Regin’s heir.” He spat on the floor before the sword, spun on his heel and left.
***
Early the next morning Sannir helped Hunter with the buckles that still sometimes, with his arm as it was, gave him trouble on his mail. They were due in the Court soon, first to swear the preliminary agreement with Fadeen, and then for his guards’ trial.
Sannir seemed agitated and kept getting the buckles wrong. When the door flew open without even a knock and Valguard stormed in, he dropped one buckle entirely.
Valguard didn’t stop to let them speak. “Where are they?”
Hunter frowned at him. “I suspect Fadeen and his countrymen are waiting at the Court, where else? I’m late, I’m afraid.”
Valguard took a menacing step forward but Hunter faced him with a smile. “That’s not who I meant, and you know it!”
“I can’t think who else you could mean.”
“Your bloody guards! Gone from the cells, just like you. Where are they? Tell me now and I might be lenient when it comes to your trial, because you’ve gone against the Court, against Oku for the last time!”
“Gone? Past your guards? That is lax of you.” Hunter chewed at his lip to hold in his smile. Oh well done, Sannir. Remind me to promote you. “Trial? Wouldn’t you need some kind of evidence for that? Because I was here all night, since I saw you. The guards who
stood outside my door will swear to that.”
Valguard took another step, his head thrust forward. “And they’d lie to the Court for you. That’s not evidence.”
“But what evidence do you have that it was me? None, I’ll be bound, because it wasn’t me. Sannir, did I give any such order?”
“No, sir.” Sannir’s voice was oddly quiet behind him.
Hunter smiled at Valguard, enjoying the discomfort in his eyes as Valguard’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “There, you see?”
“No evidence yet. But I’ll find some. There’s always evidence, of one sort or another.”
“Then you’d best be quick finding it. Fadeen wants us on the road within two days, at the Reethan capital as soon as we can. I see no reason to delay, and every reason to hurry. So you’d best get your evidence before then. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish getting ready. It wouldn’t do to attend to the ambassador half dressed, would it?”
Valguard glared at them, his eyes promising that he would do whatever he must, if he could prove Hunter guilty of something. Of anything. Without another word he stalked out the door and slammed it shut behind him.
“Where did you take them?” Hunter asked quietly, still looking at the door.
“Pardon, sir?”
“Don’t play the simpleton with me, Sannir. Where did you take them?”
There was a short silence as Sannir gathered his wits. “I—I sent them out Hergun way, my lord. My sister’s got a farm there, could do with a couple of extra hands about the place for a while. I’m sorry—”
Hunter turned to face him. “I’m only sorry you’ve yet to tell me how you managed it. Very impressive. Make sure their families get their wages while they’re gone, won’t you?”
Sannir’s eyebrows shot up. “I wasn’t sure you’d approve sir, going against the law and all.”
Hunter laughed at that. “And miss the opportunity to give Valguard an apoplectic fit? I’d have given the order, if I didn’t know damn well he’d use it against me. What low regard you must hold me in.”
“Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again, sir.”
Hilde and Ilfayne
Far to the south of the Three Kingdoms
Wrongness crept into Hilde’s blood. It wormed into her bones and slithered in the part of her that was not human, but she couldn’t name it. A blur of white slipped past her vision and was gone. She blinked the sweat out of her eyes and scraped back a few tendrils of hair that had stuck to her face. There was nothing there, she had lost the beasts they were after. One minute they were there in her heart to feel, the next, gone.
She pulled her horse to a stop and cursed the damp heat that enveloped her, the sulphurous smell that made the fog catch in her throat, the jangling nerves that told her something was wrong. Her sleeve was soaked already and when she wiped her forehead with it, it did nothing but smear the sweat around.
“Gods, I hate this place,” she muttered. There seemed no end to the permeating smell and the fog that had embraced them since they had come down from the mountains into this bog of hot springs and hotter mud. Sweat tickled her skin as it ran down her back and chest, sticking the shirt to her in uncomfortable folds. She hadn’t seen a bath, nor even the inside of a building, for more than a fortnight.
The soft plod of hooves slurped in the mud behind her. Ilfayne loomed into view through the steam, tendrils of it billowing around him. Like her he was stripped down to leggings, though his chest was bare under his waistcoat, dark with sweat. Its hundreds of ornaments and tassels clinked in time with his horse’s gait. The brim of his hat dripped silver beads of moisture and even the jaunty feather stuck in it seemed dejected.
He brought his horse to a halt next to the shrine where she’d stopped and gave her a weary grin. His soft voice with its syrupy accent and peevish tones barely penetrated the air between them, swallowed by the steam. “Another one? That’s the third one in the last two days. Regin’s getting everywhere these days isn’t he? Pretty good going for someone who’s dead.” Even so, he bowed his head.
It was only a small shrine, an upstanding black stone draped in scraps of red and black material. A few wilted flowers drooped at its base. Hilde took a moment to think of Regin, of his solid and reassuring presence, and hope he was content now, where he wanted to be, in the Halls with his wife.
Ilfayne interrupted her thoughts. “Are we any closer to finding them? Because as much as I’d like a hot bath with you, I’d like to be able to get out.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “I quite like the way that shirt’s sticking to you though.”
She rolled her eyes but couldn’t hide her smile. “We’ve lost them.”
“What! How could you lose them?”
“A circle, I think.” In which case they must be using magic. Not a pretty thought, that the dark god Mithotyn’s servants still remembered how to use it. “There’s men about though.”
The thickening steam all but obscured his dark features as he thought for a moment.
There it was again. A blur of white ran across her eyes and she could feel something, something—no, it was gone, leaving her brain fuddled as though the fog had made her thoughts its own. She shook her head and a spray of sweat splattered on her horse’s already drenched mane. She only realised she was clinging to the saddle to keep from falling when Ilfayne’s worried voice came through the fog.
“Hilde? Hilde! Are you all right?”
She nodded slowly. “I think so. It’s this bloody place.”
He nudged his horse closer, looped the reins around the pommel and put his hot, clammy hand over hers. “Hilde?”
Her shoulders twitched impatiently. She just wanted to be out of here, away from this damned hot bog and things that weren’t there jumping in her vision. “I’m fine.”
He looked at her carefully for a moment, then nodded and took up the reins again. He sketched a small bow. “Let’s see if we can find them again then. After you.”
She let the horse pick its way through tufts of rough grass and pools of treacherous hot mud. Sound was muffled and she could hear only the plod of the horse’s hooves and the occasional plop as another dollop of steam escaped the mud.
Mithotyn’s dread servants were nowhere, not by sight, mind or heart. She slid from the saddle, wincing at every sore, unhooked her mace and slid the length of chain attached to its haft over her wrist. She tried wiping the sweat from her face again, with no more luck than last time, and stared down at the ground. The mud was churned and cut about where someone had camped.
Ilfayne slid down next to her, as quietly as a man could who was covered in jewellery. His ornaments jangled, his bangles quivered and rang as they bounced together, but he could no more go without them than she could go without her mace. Each of his carefully crafted trinkets held a spell, for protection or for those times he had no strength left of his own. “Stick near to me. You’ve no need to get too close.”
“Don’t be an idiot. Why am I here if you’re just going to have me stand around and do nothing? I told you, there’re people about, but they’re gone.”
“Well, just be careful. Don’t do anything risky.”
“Honestly, don’t start all that again.” She rolled her eyes and checked about more carefully. There it was again, flicking past her eyes, stronger this time, in her heart now as well as her vision. She found herself holding on to the stirrup leather. Ilfayne came up behind her, full of sudden worry. She shook her head. Gods, he was like an overprotective hen clucking round a chick. “I’m fine!”
His eyes, his heart, did not believe her but he said nothing and she moved forward. They had camped here, that was plain. The remains of a small fire still smouldered and the bones of some animal lay scattered where they had been thrown. But Mithotyn’s servants were nowhere to be seen, or felt. Someone was here though. Men, travelling cautiously towards her and Ilfayne.
The whiteness blurred her eyes again, startling her. Then it was gone, and she stood there open-mouthed as the men
loomed out of the fog.
A soft voice from behind penetrated her thoughts. “Hilde, shouldn’t you be intimidating these gentlemen?” He sounded reproachful.
A shake of her head sent beads of sweat flying from her skin and she managed to come back to the here and now. Five men, dressed in little more than strips of cloth and leather, stood before her. Two of them took a horrified step back, their lips curled, when they saw her eyes.
They made a sign with their free hands, always the sign, it dogged her every step. Kyr’s Ward they called it in her homeland. It had many names, but it always meant the same—a protection, an entreaty to the goddess of mercy to guard them from evil spirits, from her. A common thing even among such men as this. If only they knew.
“Kirayo,” one of them whispered through stiff lips and made the sign before his face as though it would shield him from her eyes.
She’d soon learned what that word meant in his tongue. Soulstealer.
The tallest one lifted his spear and aimed it at her, his voice high and hard. And then the wrongness was back, the white flicker at her eyes, stronger than before. Not now, not now! She gritted her teeth against it, against the sound of metal scraped on bone, against a blinding light that pierced her head. The man who confronted her was a wavering image barely seen through the whiteness that blinded her. A splash of flame across the steaming water of the bog and the man faltered, hesitant now.
Ilfayne raised his hand again as the first man took a step towards them. Half a dozen words in the spidery language that always gave Hilde a shiver between her shoulders. Flames dripped from his fingers and fell to the ground, to dance among the steam. The man in front of her dropped his spear and staggered back, saying one word she recognised. “Ilfayne.” Then they turned and fled.
