The irony was, using simple human tactics, she was coercing him into showing her something he thought far too dangerous for her to learn. At least she had agreed to leave, once the deed was done. Brak couldn’t put his finger on it, but he had a feeling of impending danger and it had been growing steadily stronger ever since he had entered the Citadel.
He wished the Citadel was easier to read, easier to understand. He could feel its anxiety and it was making him very nervous.
Chapter 43
Loclon waited until almost sundown before finally accepting that R’shiel and her half-breed companion were not going to appear. Cold, wet and thoroughly disgusted, he made his way to the Blue Bull tavern to meet with Garanus and report his lack of success.
Loclon had thought the tavern an odd choice for a meeting place. It was far too public for his liking, and a Karien priest would stand out like a red-coated Defender in a snowstorm. Garanus had shrugged off his concerns. He had private rooms available, he said, and had paid the tavern keeper well to ensure her silence. Besides, it was Founder’s Day and the Citadel was full of strangers. A few more would barely rate a mention.
The rain had dwindled to a light drizzle about an hour after the First Sister arrived and had completely stopped an hour or so after that. Not wishing to be seen defying Garet Warner’s orders, he had paid an urchin to watch Francil’s Hall, and another to keep an eye on the Main Gate. It had proved a waste of good coin. Nobody even remotely fitting R’shiel’s description had entered the Citadel since the parade. She had either arrived early, or the priest was wrong.
Tavern Street was still crowded when he arrived, the revellers determined to get full value from the public holiday, particularly now the rain had stopped, although the air was bitterly cold and many of the party-goers stood hugging the small fires that lined the street. He pushed through them impatiently into the crowded taproom of the Blue Bull, where he spied Lork standing guard outside the door to one of the private dining rooms. The big man wore an expression that turned away the curious, simply by its ferocity. When he reached the door, Lork barred his way with a low snarl.
“I’m expected,” he said. Lork glared at him for a moment before dropping his thick arm. Loclon opened the door and pushed past him.
He froze in shock as the door snicked shut behind him. He was expecting Mistress Heaner and Garanus to be waiting for him, not five more Karien priests and a tall man with hooded eyes, who by his bearing just had to be a Karien nobleman, despite his unremarkable clothing.
“Ah, Captain,” Garanus said, looking up at the sound of the door closing. “You bring us good news, I trust?”
For a fleeting moment, Loclon wanted to run. This was getting out of hand. His desire to see R’shiel suffer had not included treason. He had been able to convince himself for months that his association with Mistress Heaner was simply a ploy. He had made himself believe that information he passed on was not critical, that he was using them rather than the other way around. Confronted with incontrovertible proof of Karien involvement at the highest level, what was left of his conscience gave a dying cry of protest. He ignored it.
“Your information was wrong. R’shiel was not with the First Sister.”
The Karien Lord glanced at Garanus, frowning. “You claimed you could feel her.”
“I could,” Garanus assured him. He glanced at the other priests, who nodded in agreement. Their tonsured heads and pale skin made it hard to tell one from the other. “We all could. Our captain here may have missed them, but the glamour the demon child and her lackey wove to conceal themselves is like a beacon to those of us who are close to the Overlord. Trust me, Lord Terbolt, she is here.”
Loclon studied Terbolt guardedly. The name meant nothing to him, he had little interest in Karien politics, but he was bound to be a personage of some note. A man whose good will he needed to foster if he was to continue on this path.
“They must have arrived earlier, before the parade.”
Garanus shrugged. “When they arrived is not important. The fact that they are here is all that counts.”
“So what now? I can hardly kill this half-breed if I can’t find him.”
Lord Terbolt nodded in agreement. “Nor can we expose this ungodly Harshini alliance with the Sisterhood, with either of them on the loose. Can’t you use your... powers, or whatever it is that you do, Garanus, to track them down?”
“What Harshini alliance?” Loclon asked, before the priest had a chance to answer.
Lord Terbolt turned to him. “The Sisterhood has been secretly allied with the Harshini for years, Captain. The demon child was raised under their protection. Now they have openly allied with the Hythrun, and the Harshini, whom the Sisterhood claims have been extinct for more than a century, begin to reveal themselves once more. We already have reports of Harshini appearing again in Greenharbour. Before long, they will overrun the entire continent with their insidious heathen gods. We are here to put a stop to it.”
Loclon wasn’t sure that he believed the Karien, but it made sense. Until she had run away with Tarja, R’shiel had been training for the Sisterhood. Her mother was the First Sister. The thought that his career had been destroyed by a Harshini bitch who was secretly working to destroy Medalon burned like acid in his gullet.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I think we should pay a visit to the First Sister,” Terbolt said.
The Sister’s Hall was all but deserted. Every Blue Sister in the Citadel was heading for the Gathering. Getting past the guards was easy. Loclon knew the effect a barked order had on men conditioned to follow their officers without question. He and Gawn had led Lord Terbolt, his priests, and the silent Lork to the main residential wing of the Sister’s Hall quite openly. With their heads covered by hooded cloaks, and their staffs hidden in their folds, the Kariens looked as ordinary as any other visitors to the Citadel.
Gawn’s inclusion was not part of Loclon’s original plan. The captain had appeared on the verandah of the Blue Bull as they were leaving, looking for some entertainment with a willing Probate. Now that he was a widower, he spent a great deal of his off duty hours entertaining willing Probates. They were safer than tavern-keepers’ daughters. As a rule, if you impregnated one, you were not required to marry her.
Gawn’s eyes had widened at the sight of Loclon’s companions, but he was even further along the road of treason than Loclon, these days. He acted as if he really did believe all that nonsense about the Overlord. A thing made easier, no doubt, by the fact that the Overlord had answered his prayers and his slut of a wife lay buried these past few weeks, dead from a fatal dose of heckleweed that she unfortunately mistook for seasoning. Loclon had grabbed his arm and dragged him along, explaining the situation in a low voice as they made their way towards the Sister’s Hall. Gawn had fallen in with them willingly.
The guards at the entrance were easily dealt with. One did not question a captain without very good cause. The men on the upper levels were just as efficiently disposed of. Loclon ordered them downstairs, accusing them of hiding inside the building to escape the cold. The men saluted sharply and hurried outside.
The guards in the hall outside the First Sister’s apartments were a different matter. These were Garet Warner’s men. Loclon could order them about until he turned green without any noticeable effect. He stopped just out of sight on the landing of the broad, carpeted staircase and motioned the Kariens to silence.
“What do you think, Gawn?”
“I think we’re going to have to fight,” the captain replied softly.
“There is no need to fight,” Terbolt informed them in a low voice. “Lork, take care of it.”
Before Loclon could protest, the big man stepped into the hall and walked towards the two Defenders standing either side of the First Sister’s door. The men looked up at his approach, hands on the hilts of their swords as they challenged him. Lork did not answer them. He just kept walking. As soon as he was in reach of the Defenders
, who, by this time, had begun to draw their weapons, he grabbed a man with each of his plate-sized hands and smashed their heads together so hard Loclon could hear their skulls cracking. He hurried forward as the men collapsed at Lork’s feet.
“You fool! You’ve killed them!” he hissed.
“They were agents of evil,” Garanus announced as he came up behind them with Lord Terbolt and the other priests. “Their deaths will please the Overlord.”
“Well, they won’t please anyone around here! We have to get the bodies out of sight!”
“We can move them inside,” Terbolt said, turning to face the bronze-sheathed door. “Should we knock?”
Gawn muttered something as the Karien pounded on the door. It was opened a few moments later by Lord Draco, who took in the fallen guards and the tonsured priests with a glance, reaching for his sword with a speed that belied his age. Lord Setenton was prepared, however. He plunged his dagger into Draco’s breast while the older man’s blade was still in its scabbard. The Duke of Setenton shoved him backward into the room. Draco slid off the blade and collapsed on the expensive patterned rug, his red jacket darkening with blood. He cried out an unintelligible warning but there was nobody around to heed it.
Loclon stood frozen in shock, as Lork dragged the bodies of the guards into the room and locked the door behind him. They had killed two Defenders. They had killed the Spear of the First Sister.
He was damned whichever way he looked at it.
“Find the First Sister,” Terbolt ordered. The priests spread out, checking the numerous doors that led off the main hall of the First Sister’s apartments. Loclon stared at Draco who lay groaning softly, hand clutched uselessly over his punctured chest.
“Finish him, Captain,” Terbolt ordered brusquely. “His moaning offends me.”
“But he’s...” Loclon began uncertainly.
“I’ll do it,” Gawn offered, drawing his sword. He walked to where Draco lay dying and barely even hesitated as he plunged the blade into him, over and over again. Draco was long dead before he stopped.
Loclon watched Gawn mutilating Lord Draco and discovered, somewhat to his embarrassment, that rather than repulse him, the smell of the blood was arousing him. He turned away to hide the evidence of his excitement.
“Can’t bear to watch, eh?”
Loclon composed himself before turning back, trying to sound nonchalant. “A bit excessive, don’t you think?”
Gawn shrugged. “I thought you’d be pleased.”
“Pleased? To watch you hack an old man to death?”
“He’s not just an old man, Loclon. I thought you knew. Lord Draco is Tarja Tenragan’s father.”
Before that startling news had time to register, one of the priests cried out from a room up the hall. They hurried to the door and pushed their way through.
Across the threshold lay the body of a statuesque middle-aged woman, blood pooling beneath the knife wound in her chest. Her dark hair partially covered her face, but could not hide the startled look in her dead eyes. Loclon stepped over the body and stared, open-mouthed at the sight before him.
They had found the First Sister.
She was sitting on the floor, dressed in a simple grey tunic, her long, grey streaked hair undone and hanging limply over her shoulders. In her hands was a tattered rag doll with one eye missing. She was rocking back and forth, humming tunelessly.
Joyhinia Tenragan, the most ruthless First Sister in living memory, the woman who had ordered a Purge that had killed thousands of Medalonians, looked up as they crowded in her room and smiled at them.
“Do you want to play with dolly?” she said.
Chapter 44
Since befriending Dace, Mikel rarely spent a full day among the horses. Whenever Dace appeared, Sergeant Monthay would suddenly turn to Mikel and dismiss him, along with the warning that he did not expect to see him again until dinnertime. Mikel had no idea why Dace had that effect on the Medalonian and finally decided to stop questioning his good fortune. Perhaps it was the Overlord’s way of sparing him a life of forced labour.
Sometimes, Kali would join her brother on their daily jaunts. Every time he saw the barefooted little girl, she would stare at him closely and demand, “Do you love me?”
Mikel thought it the strangest question, and it seemed to annoy Dace too, but he had begun answering yes, simply because Kali would sulk if he answered any other way. An answer in the affirmative left her beaming for the rest of the day. She would hold his hand, and smile at him a lot, and not say blasphemous things about the Overlord, which Mikel found something of a relief.
Dace pouted a lot when Kali was with them, and he argued with her all the time. But he seemed incapable of refusing her anything. If Kali had been his sister, Mikel thought, he would have ordered her to stay at home and expected her to comply. These Medalonians really did lack the proper understanding of the place of a female.
When Dace and Mikel were alone, they spent hours exploring the Medalonian camp. They were never challenged by the Defenders, never asked what they were doing, never in trouble. The followers’ camp was even more interesting. Dace had a knack for smiling at people so charmingly that they never thought to question his right to be there. Mikel had no success trying to emulate his companion’s winning smile. The one time he had tried it on a Defender, hoping to sneak into the Keep to find out how the princess was faring, the Defenders on guard had sent him packing with a blistering reprimand.
Of course, one had to be on their guard around Dace. He was always trying to coax Mikel into stealing things. He did not seem to care what Mikel stole, just that he stole something. Its value was irrelevant, it was the act that mattered. But Mikel had been true to his faith and had not fallen to the dangerous charms of his new friend. If anything, he felt he was a positive influence on the young thief and was certain that he had saved the youth from sinning on more than one occasion.
Today however, Dace had finally suggested they steal something that even Mikel could not resist.
There was, according to Dace, a blue swallow’s nest in the tower of the old keep. The mother swallow must have gotten her seasons mixed up because it was almost winter, and the chicks would die if they hatched at this time of year. Dace’s noble plan was to steal the eggs from the nest and take them somewhere warmer, where they could incubate safely. Once hatched, they could dig up worms for the chicks and nurse them through the bitter weather. By spring, they would be ready to make it on their own and the boys could release them.
Try as he might, Mikel could find no fault with Dace’s plan. Saving the chicks from a freezing death was a good deed, and brave too, when one considered where the nest was located. Although Dace insisted on calling their rescue mission “stealing” he joined in the escapade willingly. His enthusiasm pleased the young thief enormously. He acted almost as happy as his sister Kali, the first time that he had agreed he really did love her.
Strange people, these Medalonians.
“How are we going to get into the Keep?” Mikel demanded as he hurried alongside Dace toward the old fort. Dace had been disturbingly vague on that point. The ground was slushy underfoot from a light snowfall the night before which had turned to mud almost as soon as the sun touched it. Mikel hated this Medalonian weather. He fervently wished it would snow properly, like it did in Yarnarrow or Kirkland, not this half-hearted mucky stuff that fell from the skies every few days with no other purpose than to make everything muddy and damp.
“They change the guard just before sundown,” Dace explained. “We’ll sneak in then.”
Mikel had not been inside Treason Keep since the day he had been interrogated by Tarja and Lord Wolfblade. He tried hard not to think of that day. The memories still hurt too much for him to be able to recall them willingly. Even the Keep’s unofficial name seemed to taunt him.
“But aren’t there guards on the tower?”
“Lord Jenga says it’s too dangerous up there and not worth repairing. The guards stay on t
he wall-walk. Once we get inside, we’ll be fine.” Mikel could hardly question such a confident assurance, so he trudged alongside the thief and prayed to the Overlord that Dace was right. “Besides,” Dace added cheerily, “It’s Founder’s Day. Lord Jenga declared a holiday. There won’t be many guards on duty.”
“What’s Founder’s Day?”
“It’s when the Medalonians celebrate the day they stole Medalon from the Harshini.” Dace suddenly stopped walking and grinned at Mikel. “Now that was an interesting time, let me tell you! The others were steaming mad. Of course, a theft on that scale made me stronger than Zegarnald for a time, but then the Sisterhood launched their purge and the fighting started and I went back to being just plain old me. It was fun for a while, though.”
“Dace, what are you talking about?”
The thief shrugged. “Nothing. Come on, we’d better hurry. It’s almost sundown and we won’t be able see the nest in the dark.”
Shaking his head, Mikel hurried after Dace. The boy had a habit of wandering off like that. It was very disconcerting.
As Dace predicted, they were not challenged as they passed through the gate into the Keep. The Defenders barely even glanced at them. Mikel followed as he walked boldly across the muddy yard to the dangerously crumbling steps that led to the tower. As they carefully climbed the broken stairs, Mikel understood why Lord Jenga had condemned the tower. The masonry wobbled under even his slight weight.
The sun appeared to be resting on the steep peaks of the Sanctuary Mountains as they reached the top of the tower. It was a blocky, square structure but the merlons had crumbled and in one corner there was nothing but a pile of fallen rubble, almost as tall as Mikel. It was to the pile that Dace led him, squeezing in through the narrow opening between the rubble and the wall. It smelled musty in the tiny cave formed by the ruined masonry, but the mother swallow had picked her location well. The nest was protected from the wind and from the eye of any roving hawk looking for an easy meal.
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