Her exhausted voice failed to bring me to her. The evil I’d committed must never taint her. The guilt was mine alone. I turned my face away. “You should go.”
“My son –”
“Go.”
“First, take this.”
She held out her hand, palm down. A thin filigree chain swung lightly from between her fingers, catching the faint light of the moon. I stared at her pale hand, my senses dull, uncaring. The gem swinging back and forth caught my curiosity, and my interest, despite my inner woes. “What is it?”
“A scrying crystal.” Her voice sounded as dead as the little boy. “Use it. Hold it within your hand and think of the one you wish to see. It’ll help you find the princess and the child.”
I permitted her to lay the object on my bloody palm. I closed my fingers over it without looking at it and tucked it away in my belt pouch. It might be of some use. Maybe. I didn’t thank her.
She walked a few paces away before her small face appeared over her shoulder. Her eyes glittered under the moonlight – tears? Or something else entirely? “Remember how much I love you, Flynn.”
Where once her voice might pierce me, I felt only a desperate ache instead. “Ditto.”
“You have the power to defeat her,” she said, walking away, her voice hushed under the whispering wind. Only her silhouette showed dark against the trees, her face a pale blob amid the shadows. “His bloody mistress. Kill her you must, or all you love are dead and lost.”
“I will kill him,” I whispered as she walked away from me amid the dense trees. Her lustrous gown shimmered in the night, and vanished on a breeze. “I will kill them both. Mother?”
Under the light of the moon, the wolves howled.
After wiping the boy’s blood away, I stared down at my empty hands. Sim’s blood upon my flesh dulled them to a pale pink. The boy’s innocence, however, turned my skin a dark, deadly shade of purple-red. Heart’s blood. No amount of cleansing will ever make them clean again.
I should bury him, I thought dully. His blackened blood dripped from the altar to the stony ground beneath, his corpse a small shrunken husk. His lively brown eyes now filmed in death, his face a frozen mask of disbelief, terror and rage. Rage? Of course, he’d feel rage. He trusted me and I –
I dug a deep grave beneath a tall pine tree. Using rocks and my hands, I hollowed out a well from the soft earth. Lifting his small body from the cold stone, I embraced him. My face against his still-warm cheek, my tears dripped onto his slack lips. Laying him in his resting place, I crossed his small hands over his waist and closed his eyes.
“Rest ye well, my brother,” I murmured, kissing his cooling brow. “May we meet again, in hope and glory. Perhaps one day you may forgive me. Should I ever dare ask you for it.”
I marked his grave with a large stick, crudely carved with his name. As the eastern sky turned pink with the coming dawn, I stood at the cairn I built over him and stared down. Where once I felt love and hate, grief and fear, hope and joy, terror and despair – now I felt nothing at all. Power thrummed through my veins. Yet, without emotions I was no better than the corpse at my feet.
Is there absolution for me? I asked the pale stars above. Can I one day pay for this sin? Might I find absolution if I search hard enough?
I heard no answer, not even the soft sough of the mountain breeze. The wolves had long since shut up. Even deep within me I heard no echo within me where once I discovered joy.
I must pay – somehow.
CHAPTER 7
All the Fires of Hell
I sat before the roaring bonfire and listened as my brothers plotted my death.
Obviously, they had no clue I was within listening range, or they’d move their conversation elsewhere or halt it entirely. As it happened, they’d no idea I hid among them, disguised, and listened to every word.
“Just what did he do?”
The question came from young Second Lieutenant Kasi, the Griffin newly appointed to the Atani and Iyumi’s official escort on this hare-brained mission. She sat, wings furled across her massive shoulders, her tail coiled delicately around her lion haunches and eagle talons. Catlike, the black-tufted tip swung back and forth, telling all she felt calm and relaxed despite the conversation’s topic.
Murder.
Padraig sipped from the silver flask before passing it to Edara. She took a small drink, winced, her mouth screwed into a tight, fine line, her green eyes squeezed shut. She passed it along to Gaear, hastily. He also drank, licked his lips, his action slow, melancholy. He drank again, his eyes on the blazing fire. Yet, he held onto the flask as though intending to drink it dry, and refused to pass it on. No few eyes watched him with speculation.
“Uh, gonna keep that, Lieutenant?” Edryd asked, reaching across Windy’s front legs to nip the flask from Gaear’s fingers. Gaear’s jaw dropped in silent protest, but Edryd already tipped his head back to sip.
“He listened to his ego,” Padraig said heavily, poking the fire with a long stick. “He refused to listen to the courier issuing his orders.”
Like most Centaurs, Padraig stood on his equine legs, a hind hoof cocked, resting. When not aggravating the fire, his arms hung at his sides, brushing his massive shoulders occasionally, as he all but drowsed before the warmth and light. Unfortunately, his bright eyes and lowered brows informed me his intent wasn’t pre-sleep, but pre-meditation.
Beside him, Edara folded her arms across her bosom, as if cold, and kept all four hooves solidly on the ground. Her heavy red tail swept across her hocks now and again, restless. Her dark auburn hair hung in tangles to her shoulders, yet her pale emerald eyes roved the camp, circling from one to another, unsure.
“And?” Kasi prompted when Padraig fell silent.
Padraig roused enough to eye her sidelong, in annoyance. “Egos and orders never mix, young missy. Never forget that.”
“Hello? I’ve never disobeyed an –”
“My father died at Dalziel.”
Edryd’s voice, quiet and solemn, hushed the voices and swung every eye toward him. He never raised his dreamy gaze from the blazing fire, yet raised the silver flask to his mouth. He drank deep, and, with droplets clinging to his full lips, he passed the flask to Windy. “He burned.”
“No shit,” Windy muttered, and tossed half the flask’s contents past his parted beak. He swallowed not once, but thrice before at last lowering it. With but a few drops left, he shook the nearly empty vessel in confusion, and passed it back to Gaear. Padraig scowled, half raising his hand as if to stop the swift action.
“Vanyar is a traitor and a murderer,” Gaear intoned heavily, his fingers toying with the flask. “He should be hanged as one. I for one will tie the knot in his rope.”
“Rather harsh, yes?” Windy said, eyeing Gaear sidelong, dislike clear in his narrowed raptor eyes. “He hasn’t been tried for a crime much less found guilty.”
“Only because the King –”
Gaear broke off, muttering behind the flask as he drained it quickly, and, after wiping his mouth, tossed it to Padraig.
“Got more of that?” Aderyn asked brightly. “I didn’t get any.”
“Bloody hope so,” Padraig muttered. He rummaged through his packs for long moments before emerging with a fresh one. “Don’t give it to Windy,” he muttered. “Whatever you do.”
“Excuse me? Edryd and Gaear drank it all.”
As the fresh flask passed from hand to hand, Padraig folded his arms across his broad, bare chest. The firelight danced across his heavy features, lit upon his dark hair and set his eyes to glittering. “Vanyar was the best,” he finally admitted. “He could change into anything, anytime, anywhere. Nothing daunted him. He feared nothing, and laughed at everything. He rose high within the ranks – too high, some say. Too fast. The youngest First Captain on Atani records.
“And the first to fall.”
“I still don’t know what he did that was so wrong,” Edara commented stiffly, her tail sweeping across her red
flanks. “He’s likeable, handsome, agreeable, talented, and the Captain loves him. As does Her Highness and the King.”
Iyumi loves someone outside herself? That was new.
“The Captain is blind,” Padraig replied, his tone stiff. “Don’t get me wrong, for I’d follow the Captain into hell and not feel the fires. But he refuses to see. Get it? He likes Vanyar too much to blame him for the deaths.”
“So what happened?” Aderyn asked, sitting cross-legged between Windy and Kasi.
I thought she knew, but by her quizzical posture and earnest expression, I suspected the rumors slipped past her. She always did keep her eyes and attention on what was, literally, in front of her nose and naught else.
Padraig lifted his face and filled his chest in indignation. “He ignored a direct command from headquarters,” he snapped. “He was told not to engage the enemy, but to hold until reinforcements arrived.”
“How can –”
“In his ego,” Padraig continued, his tone icy, “First Captain Vanyar disregarded current dispatches that two terrorists lived, inside. The hostages escaped, yes, but Captain Vanyar knew better than to send in the troops. He believed the Raithin Mawrn mercenary wished to surrender, despite our spotters’ reports he still pressed his thumb on the trigger. Should we kill him, his bomb takes out all within a hundred rod radius.”
“But –” Windy began, his right fist raised with the flask enclosed within his talons.
“No buts,” Padraig replied, his tone low and savage. “Vanyar knew the Raithin Mawrn intended suicide. Like all Raithin Mawrn spies, he’s willing to take as many of us with him as he could. Vanyar sent soldiers in anyway, knowing they risked their lives for little gain. All save one hostage lived. Twelve Atani died as a result. He escaped the fires, but he should never escape justice.”
My throat shut down. I seized the flask from Windy and tossed back a huge mouthful. The burning liquid took its sweet time to trickle into my belly, and I suppressed the sharp urge to cough. My guilt. The blood on my hands. I can never wash the stain from my soul.
Windy eyed me curiously before retrieving the flask and taking his own drink. “That can happen to any of us. War is what we do.”
“Vanyar’s ego and stupidity caused the needless deaths of many,” Padraig snapped, glaring at Windy. “Like a coward, he fled before I could arrest him.”
“For what?” Edara asked. “Stupidity isn’t a crime.”
“It should be,” Padraig growled. “When it costs Atani lives.”
“If the Tribunal wouldn’t have convicted him for any wrongdoing,” Windy said, handing the flask to Edryd, “you haven’t the right to bitch.”
“I’ll bitch about Vanyar alive and unpunished anytime I please, you feathered ass.”
“Hey,” Aderyn protested, half-reaching for the flask. “It’s my turn.”
As Edryd swallowed a large gulp, Padraig put his fists on his equine shoulders. “That’s my mead after all.”
“Ours now, Lieutenant,” Edara said as she took the next turn drinking from the silver flask.
“Bloody ingrates,” Padraig grumbled sourly, tossing more wood on the fire at the same time Edryd asked, “What do we do, then, Lieutenant?”
Padraig threw several faggots on the already blazing fire, his high cheekbones shadowed by the rising flames. Sucking in a slow, deep breath to calm the craving for more mead, I pushed my self-castigation to the back of my mind. This is a fact-finding mission, I told myself and quelled my inner tremors. The urgent need to drink more from the flask laughed and giggled, sending my heart into flopping about like a fish in a net. Where was that mead? Only the hot, burning alcohol sliding down my throat could quell the guilt, the horror, at what I’d done. Only its soothing ache silenced the ghosts within my soul.
“Only thing we can do,” Padraig answered heavily. “He deserves our justice.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Windy asked, rising to his feet and stretching wide his wings. “It’s getting late, boys and girls. I know some of us have second and third watches.”
Padraig shrugged his bare shoulders. “Since the King is reluctant to execute him, it’s up to us.”
Shocked silence fell over the Atan soldiers loosely grouped around the fire. I glanced over my shoulder toward the second blaze several rods away where Malik and Iyumi sat, nibbling the remains of their meal and talking in low tones. I half-wondered if his keen hearing or instincts for trouble alerted him to the current conversation. He never failed to know when problems brewed in his units. This time, however, Malik never glanced our way.
“You can’t mean it,” Windy said, his voice low, his tufted ears back.
Even Edryd froze in place, his jaw slack. “That’s murder.”
“It’s justice,” Padraig snapped.
“I’m with you, Lieutenant,” Gaear said, glaring at Windy. “A chance to hang that bastard from his toes – just give me a chance.”
“If the Captain gets wind of this – ” Windy said. “We’re all for Braigh’Mhar.”
“He won’t,” Padraig replied. “We keep it among just us, and the others.”
“And when Van’s body is found?” Edara said, rubbing her arms as if cold. Her archers’ steel wrist cuffs clanked on her armbands, illuminated under the light of the half-moon. “The Captain will know we killed him.”
“That’s why we make it appear an accident.” Padraig glanced around, his eyes shadowed. “Like shit, they happen. If Van falls victim to one, then who’s the wiser?”
“This isn’t right,” Windy muttered. “He saved Sky Dancer’s life!”
“One good deed is never enough to wash the blood from his hands.”
“I won’t be a party to this.” Windy’s tail lashed back and forth, his dark neck feathers erect and bristling. He flared his wings and glared at Padraig. “I don’t think you’ll kill him anyway. He’s too smart for you.”
“I’ll kill him,” Padraig snarled, his tone low enough to not reach beyond the fire. “Are you a snitch, Windy?”
“You know better than that.”
“You know what happens to snitches, Windy, my lad.”
I heard the low threat in Padraig’s voice, as did Windy and everyone else. Aderyn cringed, refusing the flask for the first time. Edryd hung on every word Padraig said, while Edara shook her red mane and shivered, her bare arms pimpled in goose flesh. Gaear nodded fiercely, his heavy fall of black hair bouncing across his pale eyes.
Windy shook his head, his tufted ears flattened. “I won’t listen to more of this. It’s treason. You’re too stupid to know this is dead wrong, Padraig. I for one won’t mourn your death.”
His black-tipped lion tail swinging back and forth, Windy stalked away from the fire. Padraig watched him closely, just in case he walked toward Malik and Iyumi. Instead, Windy vanished into the darkness beyond the light of either fire. He may not agree, yet he won’t betray his brothers, either.
“I’m with you, Lieutenant,” Edryd said. “He killed my father.”
As Padraig nodded sharply, a new voice spoke up. “I’m not.”
Padraig and his new cronies shifted in surprise. Obviously, they hadn’t expected her to reply much less defy them. I came near to grinning openly as they gawped at the flame-haired Centaur. Despite her courage in battle and keen abilities with a bow, Edara seldom spoke up or ventured her opinions. She hugged the shadows, obeying every order given her.
Edara frowned, her delicate features crinkling into half-defiance, half-terror. She combed her fingers through her red locks as they flowed over and past her waist. “The Captain, he’ll kill you,” she said, her voice rising in fear. “I won’t die, not yet nor for so little. He’ll hang you all, for this stupidity. Or the King will.”
“Edara – “
She shook her wild mane. “Count me out. Dumbass.”
“I’m in,” Gaear said. “Of course.”
“And we all know you’re as thick as river granite,” Edara snapped, stabbing
her finger downward toward Gaear’s startled face. “Grow up, boy.”
With an agitated flick of her tail, Edara followed on Windy’s heels, perhaps to talk with him. She broke into a trot as the night swallowed her. The clop of her hooves over stone and tundra vanished into the darkness. No eye but stared after her, jaws slack. I shut my own tight to halt the grin that tried valiantly to spread and reveal me to the others.
“Who’d have thunk,” Padraig muttered, puzzlement crossing his dark features as he watched Edara vanish into the night. “She has sand, after all.”
“He’s my cousin, Lieutenant,” Aderyn broke in, her voice apologetic. “I won’t turn you in, but I can’t kill him. I just can’t. Sorry and all that, but count me out, too.”
“Blood doesn’t count that much – “
“Let her be, Padraig,” I said, speaking for the first time.
Padraig glared at me. “Are you with me, Moon? You among them all should help us. You were there, you saw what he did. He must pay for his crimes. Right?”
“I dunno,” I replied, scratching beneath my right eye with my talon. “Seems to me you’re not truly avenging Dalziel. Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you want Van dead because he’s the Captain’s favorite? A very sore point with you, yes?”
“Bah!” Padraig snorted and waved his hand at me. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right,” I said, my tone sarcastic. “Go on, pretend no one knows of your pathetic rivalry. Van’s always been better than you and you can’t handle it.”
“You’re an ass, Moon.”
“Commit treason,” I scoffed, slanting my ears back, annoyed. “Once those fools find their guts, the game’s off. And don’t think they won’t turn you in to save their own hides.”
“We’ll succeed.”
“Just you, this fool boy and Gaear the Inept? Good luck with that.”
“Hey,” Gaear protested, his tone hot as he scowled at me.
I made as though to cut Gaear’s throat with my naked talon, watching him flinch back, afraid. Though I just made Moon Whisperer a new enemy, I didn’t fret it over much. Gaear was no match for the huge, battle-scarred and experienced Griffin.
The Unforgiven Page 21
