Knightswrath (The Dragonkin Trilogy Book 2) (17 page)

He called out to her for help. She faced him, expressionless. Then she turned and walked away. Rowen’s limbs went stiff. He sank deeper into the cold.

Rowen woke from the nightmare, shivering. The campfire had burned out. Not even cinders remained. Cursing, he pulled his cloak tighter. He guessed it must still be hours before dawn, when the night was at its deepest.

Silwren was sleeping soundly, so still that she might have been carved from painted stone. He reasoned that must be why the fire had gone out. The sight of her frightened him for a moment, before he reminded himself that he’d just been dreaming. He considered waking her so that she could use magic to reignite the fire. He glanced up. Armahg’s Eye was obscured by a palm of blue-black clouds, but the full moon was bright in the cold sky.

He heard Jalist snoring then realized Igrid was gone. He cursed again, in panic, but found Knightswrath lying on the ground next to him. The hilt felt strange to him, though he could not say why. He relaxed a little, figuring she had only gone off to relieve herself in privacy. He lay back down, using his pack as a pillow, and closed his eyes. He felt supremely exhausted, but his weariness felt like a thick quilt drawn over his face. He could not give in to it. Besides, Jalist’s snoring roused his nerves as much as the echoes of his nightmare did.

He tried staring at the moon, focusing only on its gleaming craters, hoping the process would weary him—he’d learned the trick as a sellsword. But the light seemed oddly hollow. Finally, cursing, he sat up.

Igrid still had not returned. He wondered for a moment if she had left them—he would almost welcome that, though he would miss the sight of her. However, the pack containing her few possessions, mostly stolen, was still in the camp. Igrid would not have left anything behind.

Sitting up, he girded Knightswrath over his plain clothes. Again, the weight of the sword did not quite feel right, but he shook his head. He heard a faint rustle from below, by the pond. He headed toward it. The walk was a short one, but by the time he arrived, his heart thumped in his throat. He had some idea what he might find, but he could not stop himself from peering through the trees.

Igrid was bathing in the pond, thigh deep in dark waters lit by a sheen of moonlight. Her smallclothes were piled on the bank. Her back was to him, arched beautifully as she combed her fingers through her wet red hair.

Rowen blushed with shame and arousal, knowing he should leave. But she turned, naked and moonlit, and flashed him a crooked smile. “If you’re going to stare, Sir Knight, at least come down and talk to me.”

He tensed then shuffled forward awkwardly. “I’m sorry. I just… saw that you were gone and…”

“And you dashed off to rescue me from cutthroats, Olgrym, and sorcerers.” She squeezed water from her hair, making no attempt to cover herself. “Naturally, you left in such a hurry that you didn’t bother waking the others.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be. Glad I could distract you from the Dwarr’s snoring.”

Rowen smiled despite himself. He spotted a flat, mossy boulder sunk into the bank of the pond and leaned against it. It was soft, almost like a bed. He shook himself, vowing to look only at Igrid’s eyes, but she had turned again. Water and moonlight cascaded down her backside.

“Feel free to join me,” she called over one shoulder.

Rowen’s heart leapt again, but he did not move. Suspicion blocked his excitement. “You’re rather forward for a woman who tried to knife me less than a week ago.”

Igrid cupped water in her hands, arched her back, and let the water run down between her shoulder blades. “I’m a woman of many moods. Tonight, I feel like apologizing.” She turned sideways. Moonlight glittered off the jewel in her navel. “While you were asleep in the village, the Dwarr spoke of you. He said you’d been an orphan in Lyos. He even told me about your brother…”

Rowen shifted, suddenly angry. “Get to it, Igrid.”

Igrid winced and folded her arms across her breasts. “You aren’t what I thought you were. I’m sorry. That’s all I wanted to say.”

Rowen could not gauge her sincerity in the darkness, but he forced himself to laugh. “Well, Iron Sister, it seems you know more about me than I know about you. Is that a line you intend to hold?”

She turned her back to him and stirred her finger through the water. “What would you know of me, Sir Knight?” The sarcasm in her voice was unmistakable.

“For starters, how a thief and a whore became an Iron Sister.” As soon as he spoke, he regretted the words.

Igrid dipped her hands in the water again. “I was an orphan, like you.”

“Where were you born?”

She shrugged. “Cassica, maybe. I don’t remember… except that wherever it was, I hated it.”

Rowen watched the shadows of branches pass over her body like dark spears. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pressed. You don’t have to tell me a damn thing if you don’t want to.”

The crooked smile returned. “Save your chivalrous apologies, Sir Knight. If I can face Dhargot steel without flinching, I should be able to mumble some honest words when called for. Still, there isn’t much I can tell you about where I started out. Maybe my parents died. Maybe they just abandoned me. Either way, I was living on the streets by the time I was four or five. Some women at the local Temple of Dyoni took me to Phaegos, along with about a dozen other dirty brats. That wasn’t too terrible until the Knights sacked the city for not paying taxes.”

Rowen blushed. “I didn’t have any part in that.”

“Didn’t say you did. Anyway, the clerics gave me my first name. At least, the first one I remember.”

“What was it?”

“Anza.” She shrugged. “Never cared for it. By the time I was eight or nine, I was back on the streets. Lived like that for a while, then a brothel owner took me in.” She smirked again at Rowen’s expression. “It wasn’t like that. He just wanted to recruit as many pretty orphans as he could, so he’d have a fine roster once they grew up.” She struggled with a tangle of hair then ripped it through without wincing. “I didn’t have to…
entertain
for a few years yet. But he gave me a new name—Ilreeth—and took me to his brothel in Lyos.”

Rowen smiled sadly. “We might have been there at the same time. I don’t remember you, but I was down in the Dark Quarter. I couldn’t even get into the real city without risking my life.”

She continued as though she had not heard him. “I was… a whore until I was sixteen. The owner was worse than some, better than others. But I had food and clothes, not so many bruises, and the few coins he let me keep now and again.” She shrugged. “It was what it was.”

“What made you leave?”

She continued bathing as she spoke. “At the brothel, I entertained women as well as men. One was this delegate from Hesod. An Iron Sister. Some kind of officer, a captain, or something. She told me about their order.” Igrid’s lips formed a rare, slight smile, genuine and free of sarcasm. “An order of women who fought as well as men, who were free, well paid, and answered to no one but their queen. That sounded nice. I asked her to take me with her. She said she would. I snuck out that night to meet her at the gates. Only when I got there, the bitch had already left.” She massaged a crick in her neck. “I actually thought she’d take me to Hesod. Gods, I was dumb! But I had brains enough not to go back to that brothel. I had a knife, some food, and a pouch of coins, so I set off on my own.”

Rowen’s eyes widened. “You traveled by yourself from Lyos to Hesod? That’s—”

“A tough road. Merchants hire a half dozen guards to make that journey. But I had sense enough to travel at night and hide during the day. I got lucky.”

She started toward the bank. Rowen’s pulse quickened, but she was only getting her clothes. He forced himself to divert his gaze while she dressed. When he heard her moving again, he thought she was returning to the camp, but she joined him on the boulder.

“So there I was in Hesod—just another dirty orphan girl clamoring to join the Iron Sisters. There must have been two hundred of us, most just looking to get away from empty bellies or abusive husbands. But the Sisters aren’t a charity. You have to prove yourself to get in. Then you have to work twice as hard to stay there. But I did it. They accepted me. I became an Iron Sister.”

Rowen heard the pride in her voice. “Did you ever see the woman again, the captain?”

Igrid laughed. “Thank the gods, no! Maybe she got killed traveling from Lyos. Wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I wasn’t the same person. I was Igrid. That was my new name. That’s who I was for two whole years.”

“Before the Dhargots, you mean.” Rowen instantly regretted saying it.

Igrid crossed her arms over her chest again. “Gods, it’s cold! I thought I was used to it.”

Rowen gave her his cloak.

She accepted it without comment. “The Dhargots sent an ambassador first—if that’s the word for the kind of man they sent. Same kind of man as that bastard you killed. Only, unlike Atheion, we don’t take kindly to threats. We killed him and returned his head to the empire.”

“They killed a Dhargothi ambassador? Didn’t they think there would be some kind of reprisal?”

“As I recall, Sir Knight, you beat a Dhargothi ambassador to death with a piece of armor. Turns out he was royalty, too. Were
you
worried about reprisal?” When he did not answer, she continued. “We were far from the empire, so close to the midlands that even the Throng hadn’t troubled us. We were fortified. We thought we’d be all right.”

But you weren’t.
Rowen could guess easily enough why Igrid of the Iron Sisters had become Haesha, a priestess of Dyoni, and fled southward. He knew he should let the matter drop. Instead, he heard himself saying, “There’s no shame in what you did.”

Igrid gave him a chilling look. “I asked for no absolution, Sir Knight. Least of all from a fellow orphan who carved the life out of his own brother.”

Rowen tensed. With great effort, he pried his fingers off Knightswrath’s hilt and forced a smile. “Good point.” He stood. “I’ve intruded enough. Good evening, milady.” He started to go.

Igrid grabbed his wrist. “Wait—”

Rowen broke free, but she grabbed him again. She was on her feet. Rowen tried a third time to pull away from her, terrified that she would see the tears in his eyes, but she kept after him, unrelenting. Dimly, he heard her apologizing over and over again. He kept trying to get away, then his strength failed him, and he wept. The air around him seemed to turn to ice, as cold as his nightmare.

He felt Igrid pulling him close, opening her borrowed cloak to let him in. The heat of her embrace startled him. He was even more startled when she kissed him. He hesitated a moment, oddly afraid, then gave in. She led him back to the mossy boulder, somehow laying him down without breaking their kiss. His cloak covered them both, blotting out even the moon.

“Igrid…”

“Shut up, Sir Knight.”

And for a time, nothing separated them.

Chapter Fifteen

The Red Steppes

I
grid lay on the mossy boulder, appreciating whatever act of chance made it curve to fit the shape of her back. She stared up at the moon then at the starry swirl of Armahg’s Eye when the blue-black clouds parted. The latter made her shudder, considering what she was about to do. She lay there a moment longer, listening to the Knight’s slow, even breathing. Then, very carefully, she untangled herself from his embrace.

She dressed quickly. She considered going back to the camp to retrieve her possessions first or to take a horse, but she decided against it. A horse could be tracked too easily, and she had no possessions really worth keeping. She eyed the sleeping nude figure of Rowen Locke a moment longer. She had to admit he was attractive—though not enough to make her stay.

“Sorry, Sir Knight.” She stooped and drew his sword, leaving the scabbard behind. She was surprised by its weight. Its curved blade was as long as that of a longsword, but it felt lighter than any bastard sword she’d ever held. She took a moment to study the violet swirls and intricate carvings in the dragonbone hilt. She smiled. Even without the hilt, a true adamune
from the Lotus Isles was worth more than most families saw in a lifetime.
With
the hilt, she would have more coins than she could carry.

Of course, she was breaking her word, but that didn’t matter. She’d come with the Knight to get revenge on the Dhargots. They’d killed a handful of them in that Noshan village, including a Dhargothi royal. That was enough for the time being. If she desired more revenge down the road, she could always track one or two and kill them in their sleep.

Still, guilt clawed at her as she girded the stolen sword. She considered circling the pond then changed her mind and waded across it, half hoping to rinse away her memory of the Knight’s touch. She emerged from the waters and paused by the tree line opposite the campsite.

She remembered Silwren’s spell, wondering if the Shel’ai would wake once Igrid crossed over. She doubted it. The stolen sleeproot she’d slipped into the wineskin, which she’d only pretended to drink from, should have been enough to make all three of them sleep like the dead. She might even have pried Rowen’s fingers off the sword hilt and taken it while he slept had his nightmares not been enough to wake him.

I should not have told him so much
.
Why did I do that?
She had even allowed herself to get angry, nearly driving him away and spoiling everything. Those were concerns for another day. She braced herself and ran. Stealth was no longer necessary. The trees blurred, shimmering past her in an odd trick of moonlight. She did not slow or turn around. On the grasslands, she broke into a sprint. The grass was cold and damp beneath her bare feet. In addition to her boots, she’d also left behind the bow Rowen had given her and the knife she’d stolen from the village. She had no weapons, save his sword, which she was not accustomed to wielding.

No matter
. She could hide the sword, steal enough coins to buy shoes and another dagger, then make for Lyos and sell her prize. If the sword was really so precious to the Knights, surely they were willing to pay a tidy ransom for it.

Of course, she was not so foolish as to take it to the Lotus Isles directly. Once she set foot in one of the Knights’ temple keeps, they would simply take the sword and likely kill her. But Lyos was a protectorate of the Knighthood, practically a part of their kingdom. She might find a delegate there who could take word of her bargain back to the Isles then return with the necessary price.

She considered the price as she traveled east, walking through grasslands lit by moonlight. The Isle Knights would deal in cranáfi
,
but coins were coins
.
A good sword cost fifty silvers—a fortune to most farmers and simplefolk but less than what that brothel owner in Lyos had made off her intimate labors in a single night. An adamune
,
on the other hand, might cost thrice that. One with a dragonbone hilt would fetch at least double that again. But Rowen’s sword was also supposed to be the Sword of Fâyu Jinn, a powerful symbol and relic from ancient times.

Igrid doubled the figure twice more, for good measure.
Twelve hundred silvers…
She grinned. That was more than enough to open her own tavern or a brothel—maybe both—and plenty of bodyguards besides.

Then she had a new thought. Rowen Locke was a Knight of the Crane—the lowest of the three orders, sure, but he wore the Sword of Fâyu Jinn. If he survived his foolhardy mission into the Wytchforest, surely he would be promoted to Knight of the Stag. Perhaps he would even be a Knight of the Lotus one day. That meant he would have an entire temple and a garrison at his command. The wife of such a man would be powerful, too…

No, that won’t do.
With or without the sword, Rowen was a crusader. If the Sylvs didn’t kill him, surely the Olgrym, the Dhargots, or the Shel’ai would.

The thought of the Shel’ai sent a chill down her spine. Silwren wielded an even greater power, reminiscent of the ancient Dragonkin. Surely she would help Rowen pursue Igrid. She wondered if she had acted too hastily. But they would have arrived at the Wytchforest soon, and she could not have stolen it then.

I could have taken it while we were still in the village, before Silwren returned, while Rowen was healing… but I didn’t. Why?

She decided to fix her thoughts on her journey. Best she avoid the Dhargots, the Noshans, the Lochurites, and everyone else, for that matter. That meant traveling only at night, as she had when she left Lyos for Hesod, so long ago. She shuddered. As before, if cutthroats and rapists set upon her, no one would come to her rescue.

Won’t matter. I’m different now. Stronger.

She hugged the sword to her, drawing strength from its weight. She lowered her head and pressed on, toward Lyos. When the knot in her stomach felt like two interwoven serpents—one guilt, the other fear—she blamed it on hunger and quickened her pace.

Shortly before dawn, she came upon a village in the distance, which was little more than a cluster of shacks near a sheep pen. A cord was strung between one shack and an empty storehouse whose door was simply an open wall. Someone had carelessly left drying clothes splayed out on the cord. She hesitated, glancing down at her own attire. The low-cut tunic and tight britches had been successful in catching Rowen’s eye, but they were not so good or practical for a woman traveling alone through lands giving way to autumn.

She saw no guards or dogs, but she still moved stealthily as she crept up to the clothesline and took what she wanted. She scouted around and even found a woman’s boots, left outside the door of a shack. They were unimpressive, dirty and weakly sewn from poorly tanned leather, but Igrid took them anyway.

Ducking behind an empty storehouse, she stripped off her old clothes. She shivered as the morning air chilled her skin, but her new clothes were warmer. She used her old clothes to fashion a crude scabbard for Knightswrath and made a belt from strips of cloth. She’d even found a plain cloak that would give her a little more warmth and help conceal the sword girded about her thin waist.

She was about to set off again when she remembered her hunger. Though she knew she was pressing her luck, she searched the hamlet’s storehouses until she found one that wasn’t empty. All it contained were a few sacks of paupers’ root. She grimaced. Paupers’ root tasted only a little better than urusk meat, but it was better than nothing. She took what she could carry and set off again.

As she was leaving, she heard an angry shout behind her. She flashed a coy smile over one shoulder and ran. When she was well away, she slowed to eat. Her stomach tightened as she chewed and swallowed the bitter roots, but she felt better once her belly was full.

By then, the rising sun cast a red-gold sheen over the hills and grasslands before her. She felt the muscles in her legs turning to stone and knew it was time for her to sleep. She had to find a place to hide first. But all she saw for miles were more hills and grasslands.

Cursing, she trudged on, then eventually surrendered to her weariness and chose a place where the grass grew higher. She lay down, covering herself—and the sword—with her new cloak. She closed her eyes and was asleep almost instantly. She slept lightly and woke often, often clawing the sword hilt and half drawing the blade as she looked around.

Better this than nightmares
. She stayed there as long as she could bear it then rose at midday. She forced down the last of the stolen paupers’ root and pressed on. She felt horribly thirsty. She headed east, hoping at least to find a stream or a better place to hide. She tried to remember the last time she had looked at a map, wondering if any cities were nearby. She would be foolish to take the sword anywhere it could be seen, but she could always hide it, slip in and cut a few purse strings, then return for the sword and be on her way.

She traveled for hours and met nothing of consequence—no cities, not even a farmhouse or another little hamlet. Late in the afternoon, she froze in her tracks and looked down. The grasslands seemed to wilt into rougher soil spotted with thick deposits of red clay. She frowned at the eastern horizon, realizing that the distant hills looked faintly crimson, too. She cursed.

The Red Steppes. Gods, no wonder there’s nothing here!
She shook her head. She’d veered too far south. The Red Steppes were barren, practically uninhabited save for a few exiled tribes of Dwarrs. South of the steppes were the Stillhammer Mountains, the Dwarrs’ ancestral homeland. Neither place would offer her any help or hospitality.

Wait, this can’t be…
The Red Steppes were almost directly south of Lyos. That meant she could not be more than two or three days from her destination. But she had only been traveling one day. She could not have crossed so much of the sprawling Simurgh Plains so quickly.

She knelt and examined the soil. The red clay was unmistakable. No other realm in Ruun had it. She straightened, turned, and even thought she could see the gray-white blur of the Stillhammer Mountains, far to the south. She trembled.

How could this—
“Silwren…”

The Shel’ai must have bewytched her somehow. Igrid rubbed her eyes. She remembered the way the trees had blurred as she raced from the camp and how suddenly quiet everything had seemed. Silwren must have used the same kind of magic that had spirited Igrid out of her jail cell to move her farther east, nearly all the way across the plains, far from Rowen.

“You weren’t asleep at all,” she whispered to the empty air. “You watched him bedding me. Then when you saw your chance, you spirited me as far away from him as you could.” Knightswrath still hung from her waist. She touched the sword. Her frown deepened.

“Why let me keep the sword?” She puzzled over that until her grumbling stomach captured her attention. She turned north and started walking again.
I suppose I should thank you. You shaved a week off my journey when you should have turned me to cinders!
She tried to laugh, but the sound died in her throat. She found herself shaking. She clasped her cloak with one hand and kept the other on her sword hilt as she started running.

Not long after, Igrid stumbled upon an orchard of wild fruit trees. She was so hungry that she nearly wept with gratitude. She did not recognize the small blue-black fruits, but they were pleasantly sweet. She ate all she could, wiping the juices from her chin. She knotted up her cloak and filled it with more fruits to take with her. The juice from the fruits had helped sate her thirst, too, but she was still grateful when she came across a stream.

It was barely a trickle, but she drank thirstily. Glancing around to make sure she was alone, she stripped off her clothes and bathed as the sun set. When she was done, she waded out of the red water and wrung the water from her hair. Then she turned and realized she was not alone.

A wide-eyed girl stood on the banks of the stream, staring at her. Igrid did not think the girl could have been older than fourteen, though her belly was round and obviously in the late months of pregnancy. The girl was quite homely and wore dirty patchwork clothes. One hand carried an empty wicker basket.

Igrid saw Knightswrath on the bank of the stream, still covered by her cloak, and rushed toward it. She knew she had nothing to fear from an unarmed pregnant girl, but she had no desire to chase after her should the girl decide to steal her possessions.

Igrid brushed aside the cloak and snatched up the sword. It fairly leapt from the crude scabbard, gleaming in the setting sun. “Get out of here,” Igrid told the girl.