Bloodchild

by Anna Stephens

  He turned back. ‘In the meantime, we need to deal with these fucking Evendooms. How many did Silais name?’

  Valan consulted the papers scattered across a small table. ‘Fourteen, Sire. Women and bastards, mostly, but he’s right: the Rilporians will be so desperate they’ll rally to anyone with a drop of royal blood who might be able to save them. Simultaneous attacks?’

  ‘I don’t know if we’ve the numbers to spare,’ Corvus admitted; then he grinned. ‘Bring the royal women to me instead of killing them outright. Perhaps one of them will be pretty enough to rival even the luscious Neela. A consort of royal blood could legitimise my rule in the eyes of some, including Listre and Krike. If it allows us time to consolidate our hold and recruit more warriors from converted Rilporians, as well as crush any surviving rebellion within our borders, then I suppose I can lower myself to fucking a princess, illegitimate or not.’

  ‘A noble sacrifice,’ Valan said and chuckled.

  Corvus returned to his throne. ‘Speaking of princesses, any news of my sister? She’s a few months gone now, isn’t she? The Blessed One is beginning to devise the ritual to bring back the Dark Lady’ – another pain in his heart, hinting at the depths of agony rolling like a slow swell deep within – ‘but it would be better to have Rill in our possession in good time. With proper instruction, by the time she births the vessel that will hold our Bloody Mother, she’ll have come round to our way of thinking.’ And if not for your loyalty to skinny Neela, you could have had her, Valan. Then if I don’t sire an heir, at least my blood still sits the throne when I am gone.

  ‘Nothing yet, Sire. The East Rank is consolidating its grip on the main towns and villages, recruiting from or replacing the local watchmen. There’ve been uprisings, of course, but nothing serious. They’ve all got a description of your sister, though.’

  ‘Tell them to keep looking and to send me those royal women,’ Corvus said, ‘and then get me Fost. It’s time to make Rilpor a true home for the Red Gods and all the Mireces people.’ He stretched and gave a self-satisfied grunt as Valan’s face lit up. ‘It’s time to show our women and children the wealth of their new land.’

  TARA

  Seventh moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus

  South barracks, Second Circle, Rilporin, Wheat Lands

  ‘Tomaz? Tomaz, my love? Call to me, darling. Tell me where you are.’

  Tara rushed along the rows of beds with their manacled, staring occupants, easily outstripping her guard, skirts bunched in a sweaty fist and praying none of the soldiers outed her as one of them. She passed an open-mouthed Captain Salter, a man who’d served under her for a year and had never once in that time heard Tara call anyone ‘my love’. He looked down and away.

  Too many weeks of eyes-down, mouth-closed hard labour and a dedication to duty that would have astounded Mace, and Valan, her owner, had finally allowed her to visit the makeshift prison and her husband. Valan himself stood by the entrance with the other barracks guards, the door open to clear some of the miasma of sweat, shit and sickness from his delicate nostrils. Tara barely noticed it, both out of respect for the Rankers chained here and because if this went wrong, she could measure her remaining life in breaths, not years.

  You better figure out the ruse fast, Tomaz my lad, or we’re both dead.

  ‘Slow down, wench,’ Bern, the barracks guard escorting her, grumbled, a note of warning in his voice.

  Tara gritted her teeth and complied. ‘Forgive me, honoured, I am anxious to see my beloved after so long. I’ve been so worried …’

  ‘He’s a heathen traitor, an enemy of Rilpor, and a bastard,’ Bern grunted. ‘You want to get anywhere in this life, you’d be better off finding yourself a real man. Your so-called marriage laws count for nothing now, remember. It’s only because you belong to Second Valan that you haven’t been fucked seven ways from midsummer already. Though I bet he’s done a good job of showing you what a real man can do, hasn’t he?’

  Tara didn’t answer. Instead she hurried for the row of small rooms at the rear of the barracks, the officers’ quarters, where word had it that the captive high command were imprisoned. Not dead. Not dead yet, anyway.

  ‘Tomaz?’ she called again, and this time a bearded face appeared at the barred window in one of the heavy wooden doors. ‘Darling!’ she shrieked, running to the door and pressing her face to the bars. ‘I’m your wife,’ she hissed. Major Tomaz Vaunt blinked once in confusion and Tara’s stomach threatened to exit via her throat, and then the guard was unlocking the door and she shoved her way inside and fell into his arms, showering his face with kisses and clutching his unresponsive body to hers.

  ‘Oh my love, my love,’ she said breathlessly, ‘I never thought I’d see you again. Oh, my darling Tomaz, my husband, my Tomaz.’

  Please, please, you fucking idiot. Play along.

  She could feel the disbelief in Vaunt’s rigid frame and dug her fingers hard into his back. He coughed. ‘Tara?’ he said hoarsely and squeezed her to him. ‘You there,’ he added a moment later as Tara was swallowing tears of relief, ‘any chance you can piss off for a while? This is my wife.’

  The man staring through the door sniggered and made a few comments, but they heard the turning of the key in the lock. ‘One hour,’ Bern said, ‘and if you come out of there with a babe in your belly, you’ll still work until you drop it. No light duties, no extra rations. And if Valan wants to put one in you, you’ll abort it and thank him while you do, understand?’ He spat at them, the thick glob of saliva clinging to the window bar, and left.

  Tara gave it a few more minutes, murmuring endearments and pressing kisses to Vaunt’s face and neck. He thawed quickly and soon enough was playing the part of loving husband with vigour.

  Eventually, Tara pushed him away. ‘Put a curtain up over the window, my love,’ she said huskily and he grabbed up a blanket, hooked it awkwardly over the frame; they heard a cheer, and more ribald jests that made even Tara blush. As a soldier, she’d thought she’d heard them all. Apparently not. Fucking pig.

  Vaunt sat cautiously next to her on the bed, close enough to drag her into an embrace if needed. ‘You’re alive.’

  Tara snorted. ‘Of course I’m alive. What do you think I am, some soft Palace Ranker?’

  Vaunt’s mouth quirked. ‘No. Though you do appear to be married to one.’

  She shrugged. ‘I didn’t fancy being passed around the Mireces, thought a high-ranking husband’d be my best bet. Working so far.’

  Vaunt shook his head. ‘What the actual bollocking fuck are you doing here, Major?’ he hissed. ‘I mean here, in Rilporin? Last we heard, you were cut off in the city, no idea if you were dead or not. Why didn’t you get out?’

  Tara took a second to rub the taste of him off her mouth, her chest suddenly tight at his use of her rank. A reminder of who she really was, not this, this drudge, this slave.

  I’m a soldier. An officer. I’m a godsdamned West Ranker.

  ‘Assassination, rebellion, insurrection. The usual,’ she said flippantly, but Vaunt wasn’t taken in by her act.

  His face paled. ‘Assassination? Corvus?’ he guessed and she blinked acknowledgment. He ran distracted hands through his hair. ‘That’s a big ask, Carter.’

  She waved it away. ‘First things first: what do you know?’

  He looked ready to argue, then slumped. ‘Not much. I haven’t been out of this room since they caught us at the King Gate, even though the rest labour from dawn to dark every day repairing the walls and gates.’

  ‘All right, listen up. You’re the only captives who haven’t been sold as slaves yet,’ she told him. ‘You and any soldiers still alive in the north barracks, but as I have no reason to go there, I can’t find out who’s left. Everyone else, every other civilian, now belongs to someone. You belong to the city itself, or the Mireces as a group, maybe. I don’t know why they haven’t sold you, but it can’t be out of a sense of fair play. So they’ve got something planned. I’m trying to
find out what, but no luck so far. I’ll keep digging.’

  ‘And you?’

  She tapped the heavy metal collar around her neck. ‘Oh, I’m special, I am. I was a gift to Valan the king’s second himself. Hence the need for a husband, though he’s … got a sort of honour, in a way. Hasn’t touched me yet, anyway.’

  ‘Carter—’

  ‘I’m your wife. Get used to calling me Tara. And don’t worry about it.’

  Vaunt was grim, but he didn’t press and she was glad. ‘What else?’

  ‘The East Rank has been sent up the Tears and the Gil to subdue the towns and villages and take a tax in food and goods to send here. So that means there’re only Mireces guarding this place. That could give us an advantage.’

  ‘You want to start a riot?’

  ‘I want to start a fucking war,’ Tara snarled and then interrupted herself with a string of endearments and a giggle she could tell by Vaunt’s face he never expected to hear from her. The footsteps outside the cell paused and then carried on. More than one guard now, ready with their fists and clubs no doubt.

  ‘My orders are to kill Corvus and Lanta too, and for that I’m going to need a distraction. I’ll ready the palace slaves to fight and if we co-ordinate with an uprising among you lot, we can take this city back and kill every Mireces Raider we find, those two included.’

  ‘Shitting hell, Cart— Tara. You want to ghost Lanta and Corvus? That’s insane. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent plan, but the risk is huge,’ Vaunt said; then he pressed a finger to her lips and listened hard. Tara held her breath until he shook his head slightly and gestured at her to continue.

  ‘I think we’re past worrying about risks. Besides, no one knows I’m a soldier,’ Tara said with more confidence than she felt. ‘I’m in a good position as Valan’s property. There’re a lot of logistics to work out, but it’s doable. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t. But it’s not just my orders. That Blessed Bitch Lanta has apparently come up with some insane plan to bring the Dark Lady back from death, a plan that involves Corvus’s sister Rillirin, who’s at large somewhere in Rilpor. Yes, I know how it sounds. The woman’s touched by the moon, madder than a frog in a skillet, but she believes, so if it comes down to it, I reckon she needs killing more than Corvus does. He’s just a man, after all; she’s got the power to resurrect a goddess.’

  Vaunt scrubbed his fingers through his short beard. ‘Maybe I’m the one who’s gone mad,’ he muttered, ‘because that’s the craziest bloody story I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘Try being on this side of the slave collar,’ Tara muttered and then threw Vaunt back on to the bed and followed him down, a leg over his hips. A sudden rattling of the door, shaking it hard enough to dislodge the blanket, and faces crowding the window.

  Vaunt shouted a curse and tucked Tara behind him against the wall as if to shelter her. His acting was good, and she felt a sudden urge to stay there with him and let him protect her for real. Just for an hour. Just a little while. Please, gods. Please.

  Colonel Dorcas’s voice rose loud from the next room – cell – along, and the guards drifted reluctantly from the door again. Vaunt replaced the blanket, threading it between the bars this time to hold it firm.

  He came back to the bed and managed a smile. ‘Good ears,’ he whispered approvingly, ‘I’d no idea they were there.’

  ‘You learn to sense it,’ she said and an involuntary shudder rippled down her back.

  Some of the gleam went out of Vaunt’s face. ‘Are you really all right? Have you been hurt?’

  ‘Yes, I’m all right and yes, I’ve been hurt. What did you think would happen, I’d be showered with gifts? I’m a thing.’ She waved away his concern and her own scalding bitterness. ‘Sorry, ignore that. It’s nothing I can’t handle.’

  Again, he didn’t press and again, she was grateful. ‘All right, I’ll let this lot know we’ve got someone on the inside and to be ready to fight. With luck and the Dancer’s grace, they’ll get word to the soldiers in the north barracks too. Anything else?’

  ‘Code words,’ Tara said. ‘Something to identify friendlies. It needs to be—’

  Three metal-on-stone taps on the wall from the next room interrupted her and this time it was Vaunt who jumped on her, pinning her to the cot and forcing her legs apart with his knees.

  Tara heard a mumbled ‘sorry’ against her mouth before his hand was inside the neck of her gown and fumbling at her breast band. She stiffened, hooking her fingers into claws to drive at his eyes, when the lock rattled and the door swung open without so much as a knock.

  ‘Godsfuckingdamnit, sir!’ Vaunt roared, leaping up off Tara and leaving her thoroughly dishevelled, one breast peeking from its restraint and her skirts halfway up her thighs. Vaunt stalked towards the guards smirking and staring and poked Bern in the chest with his finger. ‘One hour, you said. One hour of privacy for myself and my wife. Get the fuck out of my quarters immediately!’

  Tara scrunched against the wall next to the cot, tidying herself and not having to fake the shock and anxiety on her face. She held out an imploring hand. ‘Tomaz, darling, don’t. They’ll hurt you.’

  ‘Listen to the little wifey, soldier,’ Bern snarled, ‘or you’ll lose that fucking finger and more besides.’ The flat of a dagger slapped Vaunt between the legs and he grunted, twitched and took a halting step back.

  ‘Hour’s up,’ Bern added and Tara slid off the bed.

  ‘No, it bloody well isn’t,’ Vaunt snapped and this time the guard sheathed his knife and then slapped him so hard across the face it spun him around. His eyes narrowed to murderous slits and Tara stepped quickly past him.

  ‘Your will, honoured,’ she said quietly, eyes downcast.

  ‘It isn’t,’ Vaunt insisted, but Tara turned and put her palms on the sides of his face.

  ‘Hush now, don’t make them angry. I’ll be back soon.’ She kissed him, and even meant it this time, wanting something of warmth and softness to remember. Something real. It seemed Vaunt wanted the same, because he wrapped his arms around her and his mouth parted under hers and his tongue flicked, gentle as a butterfly’s wing, over hers.

  And then he pushed her away. ‘Stay safe, Tara,’ he murmured. ‘Do as you’re told and no harm will come to you. I love you.’

  ‘I love you too. I’ll visit again soon, I swear it.’

  Vaunt kissed her knuckles. ‘I’ll be ready,’ he promised, his eyes telling her they all would. She stepped back, nodded once, and then walked to the open door and the waiting Mireces.

  ‘Touch her and I’ll kill you,’ she heard Vaunt promise as she left the room. It didn’t matter that the threat was empty; it comforted her nonetheless.

  Bern fell in beside her, the other guard behind, as they walked the length of the barracks through the shit-stinking, red-stained gloom of a thousand shackled, despairing men. Salter gave her the barest nod, which she ignored.

  ‘Get yer wet, did he?’ Bern asked as they reached the exit; Valan was just outside. Tara didn’t answer. ‘Asked you a question, bitch,’ he grunted.

  ‘I am an officer’s wife,’ Tara said, ‘and that is no sort of question to ask a lady.’

  Bern’s hand was big enough to encircle her throat and he slammed her back-first into the wall next to the door. ‘You are a fucking slave,’ he muttered, teeth stained and cracked and foul breath blowing in her face. ‘You are fucking nothing.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Tara gasped, struggling to prise his fingers away. ‘I am a slave. I am Second Valan’s slave. I belong to him, not you.’ Her collar was biting into her neck under his hand and she could feel the sting of skin parting.

  ‘Asked if he got you wet,’ Bern grunted. ‘You don’t answer, I got to find out for myself. Don’t need no fucking permission for that.’

  ‘Stop,’ she choked. ‘Please. Please, honoured.’

  The worst of it, she thought as Bern’s fingers dragged up her skirts and she pushed at arms thicker than her thighs, wasn’t even
what he was doing. It wasn’t that she couldn’t kill him without revealing herself as more than a simple slave woman, even though she could practically taste his death she wanted it so badly.

  No. The worst was that she could just make out, over his shoulder, the faces of both Major Vaunt and Colonel Dorcas at their windows. Dorcas turned away, unable to watch, but Vaunt was bellowing threats and curses in their direction. Tara closed her eyes.

  You die first, Bern.

  Believe me, shithead, you die first.

  ‘What is this?’ The voice was soft and cold and very, very lethal. Bern disappeared, to the sound of flesh smacking flesh and tearing cloth. Tara looked down at a long rip in her skirt. Her thigh was visible, as were the red fingerprints Bern had left in her skin. The man himself was sitting on his arse and clutching his bleeding mouth.

  She fell to her knees in front of Valan. ‘Forgive me, honoured, forgive me. I didn’t want … but he insisted and I, I was afraid. My husband is so angry, but …’ She let the tears come, tears from weeks of fear and responsibility and grief. ‘I told Bern that I belong to you now.’ She whispered the last, casting a guilty glance in Vaunt’s direction, and then dared to look Valan in the eye. ‘Although my heart forever belongs with Tomaz. Please don’t hurt him for my error, lord.’

  Valan hauled her to her feet, not unkindly. ‘The error was not yours. The error was Bern’s, who failed to realise that a slave collar means a woman is fucking claimed by another.’ He roared the last in Bern’s face and all of them flinched.

  Bern fought his way to his feet. ‘Just checking that fucking Ranker hadn’t had a go at her,’ he whined. ‘Didn’t want you raising no bastard of a Rilporian.’

  ‘Touch her again and I’ll cut your cock off, roast it and make you eat it – do you understand?’

  Bern spat blood. ‘Aye, Second,’ he said, tone sullen and eyes defiant. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Get out.’ Bern and the other guard sidled through the barracks entrance and Valan glared at the men chained closest. They turned away. He put a finger beneath Tara’s chin and raised her head. ‘Did he hurt you?’