Unbroken Chain (single books)

by Jaleigh Johnson

  He walked up to the bar, leaned against it, and motioned to the human with his empty goblet.

  “More wine,” he said. “The Cormyrian.”

  The silence was loud in the room. The human stared at him, his mouth agape, and didn’t move. Next to Ashok, the wild shadar-kai wore a similar expression, but it quickly shifted to irritation.

  “I was ’ere ‘fore you, friend,” he said. He swatted at Ashok as if to push him out of the way.

  Ashok grabbed the shadar-kai’s wrist and held the man’s arm extended in the air. With his other hand he calmly slid his wine goblet across the bar. He didn’t look at the shadar-kai; he never took his eyes off the barkeep. “You do have the Cormyrian?” he asked.

  The human nodded, glancing between the two men uncertainly. The wild one struggled in Ashok’s grip, his teeth clenched like a furious animal; but his mind was too sluggish to do more than pull ineffectually at the hand that held him captive.

  “Then I’d like some more, please,” Ashok said, his tone conversational.

  The barkeep pivoted, took a bottle off the floor behind him, and uncorked it. He poured the red liquid into Ashok’s goblet. The aroma wafting from the bottle made the hairs on Ashok’s neck stand up. The wine’s scent conjured the same inexplicable sensations the music had.

  He took a sip, aware of his captive growing more and more agitated. His gray face had turned red with rage and humiliation. He clawed at Ashok’s fingers with his free hand, but the fruit had dulled his strength, and Ashok barely felt the stings. The wine held all his attention.

  “This is indescribable,” he told the barkeep. He spoke carefully, aware of the rest of the tavern listening. Darnae came down the stairs in small, hesitant steps, watching him. “I never knew … there was so much more,” he said. “It’s not like wielding a blade or taking pain from a dagger cut, but it’s similar enough, isn’t it?”

  The barkeep just stared at him.

  “Yes,” Ashok continued, talking mostly to himself. “By itself, the wine would do nothing. But taken together … this city … All of it keeps you sane.”

  Ashok’s heart pounded. His body hummed with the tension of exquisite restraint, the feeling starting in his chest and funneling out to each of his limbs. The hand that held the struggling shadar-kai could have crushed the man’s wrist, but Ashok held the pressure in check. He wasn’t fighting himself anymore, only enjoying the sensation of control, the suspended time between inaction and action. His body was on fire and yet serene at the same time.

  Carefully, he put down the goblet and released the man’s arm. The shadar-kai stumbled back from the bar. He blinked in surprise, as if he couldn’t believe he was free, then his face twisted in rage, and he went for the sword at his belt.

  Ashok moved quickly. He crouched, swept the man’s legs out from under him and pulled the sword from his scabbard, disarming the warrior before his back hit the floor. He tossed the weapon to Skagi, who was standing at the bottom of the stairs with Cree, Chanoch, and Vedoran.

  Skagi looked like he was trying not to smile. “I’ve called the Guardians,” he said. “They should be here in a breath or two. Aren’t you glad we decided to celebrate?”

  Ashok picked up his wine. “Definitely,” he said.

  Vedoran left Hevalor while his companions were still immersed in their celebrations, giving the excuse that he needed to have his blade worked on by the forge masters before the next training session.

  When he was outside the tower, he stopped and probed his right flank with his fingertips. Fire licked his ribs. Vedoran savored the painful breath as his chest rose and fell, but he knew the feeling couldn’t last. At least two of his ribs were broken, possibly more. He’d suspected the injury after a particularly hard training session two days before, but he’d done nothing about it, on the chance the bones were merely cracked. He wished he had known better. If he didn’t seek out healing before his next training session, he might start bleeding inside.

  Vedoran had had few occasions to seek out the clerics, but when he did he went deep into the trade district market, to a small, well-kept building with a green-painted door. Carved into the stone above the door was the symbol of Beshaba, the lady of misfortune.

  Vedoran knocked on the door, then pushed his way inside to a dark, herb-scented chamber. There were three beds arranged along one wall, a fire pit in the corner, and an altar to Beshaba opposite the door.

  A curtained doorway near the altar led to an inner room, and from that room Vedoran heard the sound of prayer. When he closed the door behind himself, the chanting ceased, and he heard footsteps.

  A shadar-kai cleric pulled back the curtain and came into the room. He wore Beshaba’s vestments and had thin black hair and a scar that half-closed his left eye. There were three such clerics that shared the small temple, but the scarred one tended to Vedoran most often when he came. His name was Traedis.

  “Greetings, Vedoran,” the cleric said. “Are you in need of Beshaba’s blessing?”

  “I have flesh that needs mending,” Vedoran said gruffly. “Beshaba can give her blessing or not, it makes no difference to me.”

  The cleric smiled. “You never change, Vedoran,” he said. “I believe the Lady enjoys this trait in you. Please sit down.”

  When Vedoran was seated, the cleric probed his wounds. “You were right to come to me,” he said. “These blows are serious. You must be facing a mighty opponent in your training sessions.”

  Vedoran scowled. “Ashok is not so mighty,” he answered. “He’s undisciplined. He fights every sparring match as if he’s going to be killed. But his control improves daily.”

  “And a good thing for you that it does,” Traedis said. He closed his eyes and murmured a prayer. By the time he had finished speaking, Vedoran’s wounds were healed.

  “My thanks,” Vedoran said. He left a handful of coins on the bed as an offering and rose to leave.

  “You say this warrior’s name is Ashok?” Traedis asked. “I’ve heard his name around the city. There are whispers that he is The Watching Blade’s pet.”

  Vedoran shrugged. “If he is, it’s nothing to me,” he replied.

  “Isn’t it?” Traedis said. “From what I’ve heard, Ashok and Vedoran have much in common. They are both great warriors, though neither one worships Tempus.”

  Vedoran stared at the cleric. “And what interest could that hold for anyone?” he said.

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” Traedis said, his voice deceptively casual. “I make it a point to know who in this city follows the warrior god, and who chooses not to be swept along by Uwan’s will.”

  “I see,” Vedoran said carefully. “But those individuals … their numbers can’t be large, can they? It’s no secret that Uwan’s way is the way to power and prominence in Ikemmu. Most choose to follow his path.”

  The cleric shook his head. “There are more of us than you think, Vedoran,” he said. Many believe that Uwan has led the shadar-kai according to his-and Tempus’s-whims for too long. Perhaps you and this Ashok should think about your place in this city and your future.”

  Vedoran stood with his hand on the door latch. “You speak persuasively,” he said. “But I have a secure place in Ikemmu. I’m not ready to trade that for the word of one Beshaban cleric.” He opened the door and stepped through.

  “Come and see me again, Vedoran, when you have need,” Traedis called after him. Vedoran detected amusement in the cleric’s voice. “That day might come sooner than you think.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The following day Ashok spoke to Skagi and Vedoran after their training session ended. Cree and Chanoch were off sparring with some of the other shadar-kai. After those first two tendays, Jamet had widened their pool of fighting partners to give them experience battling different types of weapons and fighting styles.

  Skagi grinned when Ashok told them Olra’s conditions for training the nightmare. “As if we’d miss that spectacle,” he said. “Of course I want to be there w
hen the beast plants you in the dirt. I’ll tell the others.” He moved off.

  “The Tet bell,” Ashok called after him.

  Vedoran hadn’t spoken, though that was no surprise. The shadar-kai rarely spoke in mixed company, Ashok found, unless it was to trade barbs or jests. He regarded Ashok in a considering silence.

  “What is it?” Ashok asked, finally growing impatient.

  “I must congratulate you,” Vedoran said.

  “For what?”

  “You are a Camborr now, or soon will be. I didn’t quite believe it before, but there can be no doubt.”

  “I was never truly a warrior in training,” Ashok said. “One can’t move up to a rank when he started with none.”

  “Even so,” Vedoran said, “Uwan favors you with a great honor.”

  “You mean a great honor for a prisoner,” Ashok said.

  “More than that,” Vedoran said. “You refuse to wear Tempus’s mark. You reject Ikemmu’s god, yet you’ve earned the city’s favor.”

  Though he hadn’t agreed to Ashok’s request, Vedoran started walking in the direction of the Camborr pens and outbuildings. Ashok followed, considering the shadar-kai’s words.

  “Does it give you hope?” he asked.

  Vedoran glanced at him sidelong. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Ashok chose his words carefully. “Hope that someone of Vedoran’s prowess might hold military rank one day, under the banner of whatever god he chooses,” he said.

  “Or no god at all?” Vedoran said.

  “Or no god at all,” Ashok replied.

  Over their shoulders, the canyon wall cast long shadows. The wind blew cold against Ashok’s face.

  “I have worked my sword for the merchant lords these past six years,” Vedoran said. His voice betrayed no emotion, but his black eyes smoldered. “I began with nothing. I had no place but a guard’s standing in front of a store of food crates. But I worked my sword.”

  “Now you have the ear of the lord himself,” Ashok said.

  “Lord Karthen has rewarded me well for my service,” Vedoran agreed. “But the path I’ve followed, the line behind me, ends at the same place, the same store of food. What is that worth, after all?”

  “Everyone in Ikemmu must eat,” Ashok said.

  “Yes,” Vedoran said bitterly. “Every animal must take from the trough.”

  Ashok thought of Gaina, and his uncomfortable truth of the shadar-kai race. Darnae had said the same thing, though far more diplomatically. Some tasks were not meant for the shadar-kai. What they considered lesser professions were filled by the other races-the dark ones, the humans, the dwarves, and the halflings like Darnae.

  Shadar-kai like Skagi, Cree, and Chanoch can nourish their pride on their military service, Ashok thought. What of Vedoran’s pride, no lesser a force and too long diminished by his rank as a Blite?

  “You could leave,” Ashok said, “take your services to another enclave. You could go far.”

  “I was born here,” Vedoran said. “It’s my city. It belongs to me as much as it belongs to Tempus.”

  He looked at Ashok, and the burning was still there, but mingled with it was a curiosity that softened him and made him voice his next words with trepidation.

  “I look at you,” Vedoran said, “and see the last place I should look to find hope. Yet I do. Perhaps with you, things will be different.”

  They had reached the paddock. The wide field was empty, and Olra was nowhere in sight. Ashok knew she was preparing to bring the nightmare out. The only time they could force a lead on him was when he was in his cage, deep in the caverns, where his deathly screams wouldn’t touch the nearby buildings.

  For in the Camborr compound the forge masters also worked, the Guardians who created all Ikemmu’s weapons for its warriors and its trade. There at least, was a craft the shadar-kai could engage in. They worked the dangerous fires, day and night, forging the tools of battle. Ashok had learned to recognize the black smoke that drifted up in a constant plume from the forges. Olra came out of the cavern first, leading the nightmare with his face chained and hooded. Beside her walked a contingent of guards with spears. She nodded at them to spread out along the fence.

  “Are you prepared for this?” Vedoran asked, as Olra released the nightmare into the paddock. The beast immediately began to run in ever-widening circles, striking sparks off the rocky ground, stamping his black marks into the cave grass.

  “Worried your great hope might get his brains dashed out under a flaming hoof?” Ashok asked in a light tone.

  “Why is it so important to you that he be broken?” Vedoran asked. “I’d have thought … you of all the rest would want him to stay as he is.”

  Ashok met Vedoran’s shrewd gaze. “Did I ever say I intended to break him?” he said.

  “Then what are you planning?” Vedoran asked.

  But Ashok just shook his head. “You’re right,” he said. “I do want him to stay the way he is. So I hope he and I can come to an understanding. Though I admit, he is the last place I should look to find hope.” Smiling crookedly, Ashok checked his armor and weapons, then pulled himself up and swung a leg over the iron fence. “If he tears me apart,” he called down, “you’ll know I was wrong.”

  He landed in a crouch. The dry, scorched grass crackled under his boots. His heart rate had already picked up, but he worked to even his accelerated breathing. He fought to show his respect for the red-eyed menace bucking wildly across the paddock, so the beast would not misinterpret the relish in Ashok’s eyes.

  Olra caught sight of Ashok standing on the wrong side of the fence. Her eyes widened in furious horror.

  “That wasn’t our agreement, fool!” she shouted at him.

  “Don’t stop him now, I beg you,” came Skagi’s voice. “The fun’s just beginning.”

  Skagi, Chanoch, and Cree walked side by side toward the fence from the direction of the training yard. Vedoran joined them, and together they spread out and climbed the fence at various points, forming a protective perimeter around Ashok. The guards filled in around them.

  The nightmare stilled when he saw Ashok inside the fence. Ashok watched his cunning eyes and saw them register that something was different. Somehow, the beast knew what was coming.

  A quiver ran down the nightmare’s body as it regarded Ashok from a distance. He didn’t charge, as Ashok had expected him to do. Instead he regarded the shadar-kai calmly, pacing back and forth thirty feet in front of him. There was almost no fire burning up the beast’s mane, only the intermittent flashes of gold nested in the flowing black hair.

  Ashok stood with his arms loose at his sides. Slowly, he removed the chain at his belt.

  “What’d you do to your spikes?” Chanoch called out, and the nightmare froze, hissing a steamy breath that hung on the cold air like a phantom.

  Ashok turned a brief, fierce glare on Chanoch, and the young one obediently fell quiet. He unwrapped the chain and let the spikes loop upon the ground. The sharp points he’d wrapped in a protective coating of leather-stiff, but not fire resistant-into an iron whip, except he had no intention of striking the beast unless it was absolutely necessary.

  But the nightmare couldn’t know that. As soon as he saw Ashok loop the end of the chain across his knuckles, he backed off, rearing high in the air, his flaming fetlocks streaking yellow afterimages across Ashok’s vision.

  Ashok slid a step forward, refusing to show any sign of intimidation.

  The nightmare snorted a breath and charged, his scream echoing across the paddock and beyond, into the city.

  Ashok dived to the side. He felt the wall of heat graze his body as the nightmare barreled past, but it was the scream that tore into his concentration and shredded all his carefully composed plans.

  In the open space, the sound echoed off the canyon wall and came back magnified a dozen times. Skagi, Cree, Chanoch, and Vedoran all wavered on the fence, but they held, balancing with their legs and clamping their free hands over thei
r ears until the sound became bearable.

  Ashok didn’t have that luxury. As soon as the nightmare could, it skidded to a stop and turned its huge body, charging again. Ashok leaped to his feet and whipped the chain over his head in a wide arc. He brought the weapon down in front of his body to strike the ground, over and over, warning the nightmare off.

  “My ground,” Ashok cried, and his voice was loud and disjointed in the wake of the awful scream. “Yield!”

  But the nightmare kept coming, heedless of its own safety. It was going to run Ashok down.

  Ashok knew it was a critical test. If he gave way, the nightmare would always be in control. No matter what he tried, the beast would know that in the end, Ashok would be the one to yield.

  So Ashok swung the chain and forced himself to stand while the flaming death charged him, eating up the ground between them in mere breaths. The scream rang out again, and crimson eyes were all Ashok could see.

  It happened so fast, Ashok hardly had time to register the outcome.

  The nightmare changed its course a fraction and charged past him. Ashok felt the heat again, so close that his eyes watered. He felt the burn in his nostrils. But he was still standing. The nightmare charged past him and screamed in terrible fury.

  The nightmare ended its failed challenge by ramming its head into the fence inches from where Cree perched. The shadar-kai was forced to jump down to safety, and Ashok caught the faint scent of singed hair where the nightmare’s flames had kissed him.

  The beast’s mane was fully ablaze, with flames that glowed blue at the roots. The nightmare gave off a horrible scent of burning flesh, though Ashok knew he was unharmed by the fire that came from within. The stench of burning was for the benefit of its prey, a warning to any who would dare attack him.