Warrior

by Jennifer Fallon

  .”

  “Leila’s dead!” Damin yelled at him, making his uncle flinch. “And it might as well have been you who wielded the blade!”

  Mahkas looked past Damin to Tejay and Rorin in confusion. “Dead? What’s he talking about?”

  “Leila has killed herself, Mahkas,” Tejay informed him. “That’s what all that screaming was about, in case you were wondering.”

  He shook his head, denying Tejay’s words, smiling patronisingly at her ignorance, as he stood a little straighter. “No, no, no . . . you must be mistaken, Lady Lionsclaw. Bylinda’s just being hysterical, that’s all. Leila’s fine. She’s waiting for Damin. They’re to be married, you know—”

  “This is her blood I’m wearing, you bastard!” Damin exploded. “She killed herself because you wouldn’t let it go! You couldn’t let her be happy. Leila is dead because of your pathetic ambition!”

  Mahkas backed away from him in shock, but it seemed more for his nephew’s ingratitude than grief at the loss of his only child. “But Damin, I don’t understand. Why are you saying these things? I did all of this for you! I’ve kept Krakandar safe, made her more prosperous than she’s ever been. Everything was for you. All of it. Even my own daughter . . .”

  It was more than Damin could stand, to listen to his uncle justify Leila’s death by claiming it was done on his behalf. He grabbed Mahkas again, slamming him against the wall once more, this time with his gauntleted hand around his uncle’s throat. “You did this for yourself, you miserable prick! Don’t you dare try to shift the blame onto me for your sorry delusions.”

  “Damin! No!” Tejay cried, as she sensed what little self-control he had left beginning to slip.

  Damin ignored her. Instead, he focused all his anger and rage on his uncle, his grip tightening inexorably. When he spoke, his voice was steel dipped in icy rage. “So let’s clear this up, once and for all, shall we? There is not now, or ever, going to be a wedding between me and Leila. Do you get that yet?”

  He slammed Mahkas’s head against the wall to emphasise his point.

  “When your mother hears of this . . .,” Mahkas managed to gasp weakly.

  “My mother already knows, you stupid bastard! I wrote to her weeks ago, demanding she finally set you straight. She should have done it years ago. She told me that herself, but she didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Well, I don’t give a pinch of shit about your feelings, Uncle Mahkas, so let’s see if I can state this clearly enough so that even you will get it through your thick, brainless skull. There never was going to be a wedding. You just seem to be the only person in the whole damned world who doesn’t understand that! And now,” he added, slamming his uncle’s head against the wall once more, just because it felt so damned good, “thanks to you and your sad delusions, Leila is dead and I’m going to rip out your miserable heart with my bare hands.”

  “Damin,” Rorin warned anxiously. “Don’t do this.”

  Mahkas was gasping for breath, choking again as Damin’s fist closed on his windpipe. The desire to crush it completely was overwhelming.

  “Don’t give Krakandar away because of something your uncle did,” Tejay advised behind him.

  He hesitated once more. Tejay was right, Damin knew it. In his mind, at least. But his heart wanted vengeance and it was proving an almost equal fight between the two warring factions inside him.

  “Mahkas Damaran simply isn’t worth Krakandar or the High Prince’s crown, Damin.”

  And that, Damin realised, was the crux of it. Mahkas wasn’t worth it. He was nothing—a deluded fool who couldn’t see past his own ambition. With a disgusted shove, he let Mahkas go, unable to look at him any longer.

  He turned away and found himself face to face with Tejay.

  She nodded her approval. “Marla Wolfblade raised our next High Prince far too well to have him falter this close to the finish, Damin.”

  Behind him, Mahkas staggered to his feet, grasping his bruised throat. He snarled at Tejay’s words and then coughed painfully. “Raised him well? That’s a joke! Did you see what this ungrateful bastard just did? He . . . he tried to kill me! Guards!”

  They were waiting outside the door for just such an order and burst into the study at Mahkas’s shout. The room rapidly filled with armed men, but they hadn’t drawn their weapons. Not yet, at least.

  “Arrest my nephew!”

  The sergeant stared at Mahkas in surprise. “My lord?”

  “You heard me! Arrest him! He just tried to kill me!”

  “But . . . your nephew is the prince, my lord,” the sergeant pointed out nervously. “Our prince . .

  .”

  “I know who he is, idiot. Now arrest him! Get him out of my sight!”

  Damin faced the Raiders defiantly for a moment and then shook his head and held up his hands to show he intended no resistance. He could feel Tejay and Rorin relaxing at the gesture.

  “It’s all right, Sergeant,” he assured the Raider, taking a deep breath to calm his raging pulse.

  “I’m done here. All the people who are going to die in this place tonight are already dead.”

  “Perhaps, if you’d loved Leila the way she loved you, my daughter wouldn’t have felt the need to take her own life,” Mahkas sneered behind him.

  Damin had taken a bare two steps towards the door when his uncle spoke, and his derision sent Damin toppling over the edge of reason. He was on Mahkas before anyone could stop him.

  It didn’t take much to slake his need for retribution. He delivered one savage blow, one short, sharp jab with his gauntleted fist. Mahkas was quick enough to dodge the punch, but not quick enough to get out of its way completely. He turned his head at the last instant and the blow glanced off his chin and grazed his throat instead, dragging the gauntlet’s sharp spikes across his windpipe. Blood gushed from the wound but when Mahkas opened his mouth to cry out, nothing came out but a wet, bubbling noise.

  Damin stepped back, shaking off the Raiders who’d attempted to restrain him, satisfied that if he couldn’t kill him, he had silenced Mahkas at least.

  In stunned disbelief, everyone—even Tejay and Rorin—fell back out of his way as the Prince of Krakandar strode from the room, leaving the regent lying on the floor, covered in blood, fighting to draw breath through the hole in his windpipe, his severed vocal chords robbing him of the ability to give voice to his pain.

  Chapter 71

  It was days before Elezaar could bring himself to return to Marla’s townhouse. In the intervening time he wandered blindly through the plague-infected city, not caring about his own welfare; tempting fate, begging it to offer him a release. Unfortunately for Elezaar, just as the rat drive in Krakandar had kept the plague at bay, so it had begun to have an effect here in Greenharbour. It seemed as if the tide had turned and the first tenuous signs of recovery were already visible. He didn’t catch the plague and no cutpurses attacked him and beat him to death. It was as if the gods wanted him to suffer, so they allowed him to roam Greenharbour’s normally dangerous streets with impunity.

  Denied even an accidental death as an avenue of escape, Elezaar eventually faced the fact that he could not walk away from the consequences of his betrayal so he made his way back home.

  The least he could do for Marla—the last thing he could do for his mistress—was warn her of the danger he’d placed her and her whole family in.

  It took him another day to gather the courage to do what must be done, but finally, after pawning the silver wolf’s head brooch that held his cloak together, Elezaar was able to buy what he needed from an apothecary in the merchant quarter. The herbalist was one of the few who could see the first signs of recovery and he was anxious to sell his medicines and perhaps claim some credit for plague cures that he’d actually had nothing to do with. The man didn’t question Elezaar as he made his purchase. He simply took the money, handed over the small vial to the dwarf, and went back to mixing his potions.

  Elezaar drank the contents of the vial down before
he turned and finally headed for home.

  Marla hurried into the hall when she heard Elezaar was back. She was clearly worried about his disappearance and expected a satisfactory answer about where he’d been. Elezaar was ready for that.

  He intended to tell her the truth.

  He’d told all the lies he was ever going to tell.

  “Where have you been!” the princess demanded of him, as soon as she laid eyes on him. “Look at you, Elezaar! You’re filthy! I’ve been out of my mind with worry. We all thought you taken by bandits, or become a victim of the plague!”

  And she would have been worried, he knew. She cared about him, perhaps even loved him, in her own way, although in all his years in her service nothing sexual had ever passed between them.

  Nobody had ever cared about Elezaar the Fool before Marla Wolfblade came along. Yet I betrayed her anyway . . .

  “I am a victim, your highness. But only of my own weakness.”

  Marla looked at him oddly. “Is there something you want to tell me, Elezaar?”

  He nodded. “Something I must tell you, your highness. I certainly don’t want to do it.”

  “You’re being terribly cryptic. What’s going on?”

  He was starting to feel a little nauseous as the contents of the vial began to take effect. “Can we sit, your highness? I’m not feeling well.”

  Marla nodded her permission and allowed him to take a seat on the cushions around the low table normally reserved for visitors of her own class. She seated herself opposite, curious and a little concerned perhaps, but with no inkling of the devastating blow he was about to deliver.

  “Now, out with it,” she ordered. “Where have you been? And what is this thing you must tell me?”

  “I have a brother.”

  Marla smiled. “Well, I can see I shall have to have you whipped for keeping that from me.”

  She was still beautiful, he thought, as he studied her face. She had turned forty last year but still managed to look five years younger. A combination, the dwarf knew, of being able to afford the best, never having to work outdoors and picking the right mother. Marla came from a long line of women who aged well.

  “You may wish more than that on me, your highness, by the time I’ve finished my tale,” he warned ominously.

  “Are you drunk, Elezaar?” she asked, looking at him with concern. He was sweating profusely and feeling quite unwell.

  He shook his head. “No. Just . . . weary. Did I ever tell you I was born in Pentamor Province?”

  “You mentioned it once, I think.”

  “I was happy as a child. For a time. I mean, I was born a slave, but not all of us are doomed to a life of desperate helplessness. I had a brother. He was two years younger than me. His name was Crysander.”

  “Elezaar—”

  “Please, my lady, let me finish this.”

  She nodded, clearly not happy with his request. Elezaar hoped he would have enough time to do what must be done.

  “When Crysander was eight, our owner sold us to a court’esa school. My brother was always going to be handsome but I’m not sure why they wanted me. I think it was because they had plans to make Crys into a Loronged court’esa and thought they could try the poison on me first. Perhaps the logic was that if I survived it, Crys probably would too. So I trained as a court’esa and, when I was sixteen, they held me down and poured Loronge down my throat and, much to everybody’s astonishment, I survived it. Two years later, so did Crysander.”

  “Your brother is also a Loronged court’esa?” Marla asked, a little surprised.

  “He was.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He was sold to a man from Dregian who bought him as a wedding gift for Barnardo Eaglespike.”

  Marla was silent for a moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was icy. “Are you telling me, Elezaar, that all this time you’ve had a brother who is a court’esa in Alija’s household and you didn’t think it worth mentioning?”

  “No, your highness, of course not!”

  “Then you’d better finish your tale, Fool. Now that you have my undivided attention.”

  Elezaar wiped his sweaty brow with his sleeve and blinked several times to clear his vision before continuing. “We were separated after I was Loronged. I only heard much later that Crys was sent to Dregian Castle. My first owner was a woman in Greenharbour who thought I’d make an interesting conversation piece at dinner.” He shook his head, not wanting his last thoughts to be of that best-forgotten time. “I was bought and sold a number of times after that—I was an accomplished musician, after all, as well as a novelty. But I never served in the same household as my brother until I was purchased by Ronan Dell.”

  Marla frowned. “I know that name . . . wasn’t he the friend of my brother’s who was murdered all those years ago? It was around the time I first came back to Greenharbour, wasn’t it? When Hablet made an offer for my hand? If I remember it correctly, Kagan Palenovar was convinced the Patriots were behind the assassination, but he could never prove it.”

  “Ronan Dell and his entire household were slaughtered on the Feast of Kaelarn the year you arrived back in Greenharbour,” the dwarf confirmed.

  “Not his entire household,” Marla remarked coolly. “You escaped, obviously.”

  “They killed everyone except me,” Elezaar continued, as if Marla hadn’t spoken, his one good eye glazing over in dark remembrance as he related his tale. He could see it as if he was still standing in the room. He could hear the flies. Smell the blood . . .

  “They killed Lord Dell first,” Elezaar said. For twenty-five years he’d told this tale to nobody. It astonished him how difficult it was to finally talk about it.

  “I heard them coming. We were in his bedroom when they killed him. I hid behind the curtains.”

  He fixed his one good eye on Marla, his voice hardening as he relived the nightmare. “I almost gave myself away, cheering for his assassins as they struck the killing blow. Ronan Dell was a monster, your highness. He made your brother’s worst obsessions seem almost harmless by comparison. He had all these instruments, you see . . . scores of them . . . from all over the world. He collected them like other men collect insects or precious stones . . . And he used them, every chance he got; sometimes on his court’esa, sometimes on a random slave unfortunate enough to enter the room carrying a tray of drinks when Ronan was showing off to his friends.”

  “Friends like my brother, you mean?” the princess asked frostily.

  “Yes, my lady, the High Prince was a regular visitor to Ronan Dell’s palace,” he agreed, knowing there was little about Lernen that would shock Marla after all these years. And this was a time for absolute truth. Trying to gild over the unpleasant parts of his story would defeat his purpose. “His favourite toy, and the worst of them all, was a carved bull’s horn wrapped in jagged wire . . .” Elezaar hesitated, not sure if he had the words to describe what he had seen, or how it had made him feel.

  Marla could see he was distressed. Although obviously still angry with him, her face creased with concern. “Oh gods, Elezaar! Surely, he didn’t make you . . . ?”

  The court’esa shook his head and forced himself to go on. “I used to wish he had. Then I would have bled to death, too, after a while, and the torment would have stopped. But I was there to watch. I was there to play my instrument while he had his fun with his toys, because the sick bastard liked to do it to music. Keep playing, Fool! he’d shout, if I began to falter. He killed them in time to the tempo I set.”

  Tears filled Elezaar’s eyes, blinding him to everything but the memories. “It was up to me, you see . . . if I played fast, then they died at that speed, and if I slowed down, then the torment just went on for longer.”

  Elezaar pulled at his own silver slave collar as his breathing became more ragged. He wasn’t sure if it was reliving his time with Ronan Dell that made him short of breath. He thought he might be rambling and knew he should try to stick to the point. His
time was running out. “Did I mention that he had a particular fondness for virgins? He used to buy them from the slave markets. Really young, sometimes only twelve or thirteen. That way he was certain they were pure.”

  Elezaar wiped his eyes, ashamed by his weakness. He’d never shed a tear about it before today.

  To have appeared even a tiny bit moved by what he was witnessing would have amused Ronan too much and urged him on to greater feats of torment. The dwarf fixed his gaze on Marla and attempted to pull himself together. “I didn’t have to suffer Ronan Dell’s particular brand of perverse pleasure just once, your highness. I got to suffer it night after night after night.”

  Disturbed as she was by his story, Marla was clearly puzzled by his sudden need to unburden himself. “Why are you telling me this now, Elezaar?”

  “Because Ronan Dell was murdered, your highness. He was betrayed and murdered. By my brother.” He’s not in any danger from the assassins. Crysander is one of them. “When I accused him of betraying our master, he told me he’d been faithful to his real master all along. He told me he’d always belonged to the House of Eaglespike.”

  Marla sagged back against the cushions in shock. “Alija had Ronan Dell killed?”

  The look on the princess’s face tore Elezaar apart. It was as if he could see her trust, her belief in him, evaporating before his very eyes. And it was only going to get worse. His betrayal went far deeper than mere silence.

  “And all this time you could bear witness to this crime, Elezaar? And you never uttered a word?”

  “I told nobody what I witnessed, your highness. The day you found me at Venira’s Slave Emporium, I was hiding from Alija. When you walked in with her, I was certain my life was over. And then I realised you were the High Prince’s sister and that under your protection, I might escape her . . .”

  “So you set out to make yourself indispensable to me,” Marla concluded, making no attempt to hide her bitter disappointment.

  “I wanted to make certain you were strong enough to defy her if she ever demanded you hand me over to her.” He hung his head in shame. “There was nothing selfless in my willingness to help you, your highness. In the beginning, I kept what I knew to myself because I thought I might need it as insurance some day. And then . . . well, after you came to rely on me and listen to my counsel, I was terrified of losing your trust. I knew how you’d react if you learned I’d known about this and not told you. And now I’ve just made things worse.”