Wrath of Lions (69 page)

“Captain Jenatt…Pulo,” she said, trying to keep herself together despite her ordeal.
Cornwall Lawrence would do the same.
“Please, tell me what is happening in our city.”

Mite continued to work, now busily wrapping her midsection. Pulo took a deep breath and stared directly into her eyes. She was impressed with his self-control.

“It happened suddenly,” he said, his gaze still locked with hers. “Soon after the mumbling priest began to set the lions loose at night, the Sisters arrived. They entered the throne room as a huge mass. The king was confused, as were we all, since they’d arrived with Joben, not their merchant owners. The priest then told the king that he knew of his plan to overthrow Karak’s law and cast all of Neldar into chaos in the god’s absence, and he was guilty of blasphemy. King Eldrich was beside himself. He demanded that we remove Joben from the throne room, but before we could take hold of him, the fighting began. The Sisters attacked the Palace Guard, killing many men before they could raise their weapons in defense. Then the two damned lions came bolting through the doors, ready for blood. In a blink of an eye, they slaughtered six more of my men.”

Laurel shuddered, expecting worse to come given what she had just experienced.

“The king’s bodyguard—you know him, Karl Dogon—snatched up the screaming king and pulled him into the Council chambers behind the throne. My fellow guards and I followed, holding off the Judges and Sisters as best we could. Once inside, we barred the door and ushered the king into his quarters, where we led him to
the secret exit behind his bed. Twenty of us left the castle while our pursuers broke the door down below us. From there we fled into the city. Luckily, none followed.”

Pulo paused.

“What then?” a breathless Laurel asked as Mite began the process of binding her breasts beneath the cloth.

“We headed north, toward the slums. It was there we hid, only coming out at night. We called the rest of the Watch, who were themselves being hunted, to join us. This was all two weeks ago.”

Two weeks ago. That must have been just after Mite, Giant, and the Crimson Sword saved her from the Judges.
So much horror in so little time.
Her shivering began to subside, and a sort of numbness took over.

“What have you done since?”

“We have called others to our cause. Thieves, miscreants, rapists—we embrace any we find who are fleeing the Judges’ wrath. We remained hidden until the day our lookout spotted you entering the city. King Eldrich demanded that we protect you from certain death—he is very fond of you, Miss Lawrence—and so we assaulted the gates. We lost thirty men before we retreated. The king fell into a deep depression, for he was certain you were dead. It wasn’t until your servants sought us out that we learned you were being held captive.”

She looked at Mite. “But they are Sisters. How did you know to trust them?”

Pulo shook his head, obviously more at ease now that her womanly features were concealed.

“They did not come to us as Sisters, Miss Lawrence. They were not wrapped. And seeing who they were…who one of them was…well, we felt inclined to trust the story they told.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, feeling baffled.

He pointed at Mite, but said nothing.

Mite was busy tying up Laurel’s hair with a piece of twine when Laurel grabbed the Sister by the wrist, stopping her.

“Please, Sister,” she said. “In the dungeon, you spoke. Would you do so again?”

The diminutive Sister dropped her head. “I will, if you command it,” she replied.

“There is no commanding here.” She placed a kind hand on Mite’s shoulder and smiled, the numb feeling slowly growing stronger. “Please, I don’t wish for you to wrap my head. I would like to do that myself. Will you show me how?”

“I…I suppose.”

“It would be most appreciated.”

Those deep blue eyes stared at her with uncertainty before her hands finally got to working, undoing a knot in her own wrappings and slowly uncoiling the fabric from the top down. The Sister’s hair was revealed first, a dark shade of brown and hacked short. Next were her feminine brow, her exotic nose, her full lips and slender jaw. It was a young girl who stood before her, no older than sixteen and dainty, her pale cheeks flushed red. Laurel traced the girl’s jaw with her fingers. There was something so very familiar about her, but she did not know what.

“Did you see, Mistress?” Mite asked.

“Did I see what?”

“How the wrappings are applied?”

She shook her head. “I apologize, I wasn’t paying attention. But forget that for now. Tell me your name, please.”

Mite bowed slightly. “Mistress, I am called Sister,” she said.

“I am not your mistress,” Laurel said kindly. “Call me Laurel, or Miss Lawrence if that pleases you. And the name I want is your
true
name, the one given to you before you were forced into the Order.”

The girl backed away from her slightly, her lips twitching. She glanced all around her, as if to speak such an atrocity would summon a bolt of lightning from the heavens to strike her dead.

“My name was taken from me,” she whispered. “By Karak’s law.”

“Karak’s law is shit,” said Pulo from behind her. “Just answer the question, girl.”

She took a deep breath, straightened up, and met Laurel’s eyes.

“My name was Lyana. Lyana Mori,” she said finally.

Laurel fell speechless. She took a deep breath, her numbness replaced by a burning anger that rose up in her gullet. Deep inside, she channeled her father, the strongest and most righteous man she had ever known, who hated the Sisters of the Cloth as much as she.

“You were once Lyana Mori, and now you are Lyana Mori again. As your rightful owner, I free you from your bonds, from any servitude to me.”

Lyana’s eyes widened. “But if I serve neither you nor Karak, whom
do
I serve?”

Laurel thought of those corpses, of Soleh and Ibis and Vulfram, the girl’s father. She thought of what her own father might have said under the same circumstances.

“You serve vengeance,” Laurel said. “Now show me again how to put these wrappings on. I want out of this damn tower.”

C
HAPTER

37

T
he weary travelers circled a bend in the road, and suddenly Mordeina loomed before them. Patrick’s jaw dropped the moment he saw the wall surrounding his place of birth. It was at least sixty feet high and stretched out in either direction for what looked like miles.

“By gods!” he said.

“Impressive,” said Preston.

“Never seen a wall like that,” added Tristan.

“Eh? The one around Port Lancaster’s just as high,” Ryann said.

Big Flick punched the smaller man in the arm. “You never even
been
to Port Lancaster.”

“I have so,” whined Ryann.

“Have not.”

“Enough!” shouted Preston, and all went silent. “I swear, if you didn’t look like men, I’d mistake you for babes who still suckled at your mother’s tit.”

“I’d suckle on
your
mother’s tit,” Patrick heard someone say. When he glanced behind him, he noticed that Preston’s two sons were smirking. A chuckle escaped his throat.
That
was humor he could appreciate.

Preston, apparently deaf to the jibe, rode up beside him.

“You grew up here,” he said, “yet you seem shocked. Why?”

“Because that wall wasn’t here when I left,” Patrick said. “There were fields and forests and rolling hills for as far as the eye could see.”

“It’s been a long while since you’ve been home, eh?”

“It has. At least a year, give or take a month.”

Preston grabbed his arm.

“You’ve only been gone a year?”

Patrick nodded.

“And now there’s a huge wall around the city?”

“That’s no city. It’s not even as advanced as Haven was. I would say it’s more like a…huge collection of well-built tents.”

“Not really the point I was making,” said Preston. “It would not be humanly possible to raise a wall that large that quickly. By Karak’s stinking nutsack, when my sons and I built the wall around our field in Felwood, it took three months to finish…and was only three feet high, circling a single field!”

Patrick shrugged. “That was you and your sons. Trust me when I say that Mordeina is home to more than three people.”

“I don’t care. Even ten thousand people slaving away day and night could not have raised this structure in such a short time.” He shook his head adamantly. “It’s not possible.”

“Argue all you want, but it wasn’t there before, and it is now, plain as day. Let’s just thank the stars it’s there instead of bickering about how it was built, eh?”

“I’ll give you that one,” Preston said with a nod.

“Good. Now can I please have my arm back? Hard to ride with one hand, especially for one as top-heavy as me.”

“Sorry.”

The closer they drew to the wall, the more impressive it became. Patrick realized that it was not a single wall, but two, the one in front shorter and gray, with a slightly taller one behind it that was reddish-tan
in color. This realization brought on yet another series of admonishments from Preston, which made him shake his head and sigh.

A branch of road from the east led toward the walled settlement, and all eight horses turned onto it. A massive gate loomed before them, its bars made of ominous black iron. Patrick’s face scrunched in confusion, as there was, of course, no mining for steel in Paradise, so far as he knew.

When they reached the gate, Patrick dismounted and walked up to it. He peered through the bars, only to see the secondary wall staring back at him. He had to crane his neck to see the porthole cut into that second wall, itself barred, off to the left.

“Hello?” he shouted. “Anybody there?”

No one replied, but he could clearly hear the clamor of voices and other noises that indicated there were plenty of people inside. He took a step back and looked up. There was nothing to see but the ridged top of the outer wall.

“What’s wrong?” asked Edward.

“No one’s answering,” he said.

Ragnar cleared his throat. “Can we open the gate ourselves?”

“What do you think?” Patrick shot back. “We’re in front of a wall that was obviously built to keep out an army. Do you really think it would be so simple to storm our way in?”

“You never know until you try,” said Joffrey with a shrug.

“The boy has a point,” added Preston.

Patrick rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “But you really think one man could lift this on his own?”

The Flicks, Ragnar, and Edward joined him at the gate, and the youths wrapped their hands around two of the bars. “How’s that?” Big said with a grin.

“Whatever,” Patrick mumbled.

The five of them stooped and shoved upward, and surely enough, the twenty-foot-high gate lifted off the ground, and the sound of pulleys spinning echoed from inside.

“Looks like they were right,” he heard Preston say.

Patrick felt his ears grow hot. He grunted, dug in, and helped the rest shove the gate up as high as they could. He then snatched his mare’s reins in frustration and led the beast through. The horse had to duck in order to avoid impaling its head on the spiked ends of the bars, and the rest followed suit.

The space between the first wall and second was slim, barely ten feet. Simply being in the gap made Patrick feel claustrophobic, with two unscalable walls on either side of him and no way out but through one of those two gates. The effectiveness of such a constricted killing field left him more than a little impressed.

He turned to the left and walked the fifty or so paces leading to the second gate. When he looked through the bars—iron as well, he noticed—he was shocked to discover he could not see the expanse of Mordeina stretching out before him. There were strange rock formations lining the other side of the entrance, blocking his peripheral view, and a mass of people was gathered in between them. The only thing he could see was Manse DuTaureau, looming over everything from its spot on the distant hill.

He tried to lift the second gate, but it didn’t budge.
At least this one is locked.
“Hey!” he shouted through the bars. “Anyone feel like letting in a tired group of travelers?”

One from the throng between the stone barriers turned his way. It was an older man, someone he recognized but couldn’t place. The dumb smile on the man’s face faltered as he neared the bars, his head cocked to one side.

“Patrick?” he asked finally. “Patrick DuTaureau?”

Patrick stepped away from the gate and gestured to his body. “Anyone else look like this?” he asked.

The man spun around and jogged past the gathering of clueless chatterers, disappearing into the crowd beyond. Patrick could hear his voice shouting out to someone, but there was too much clamor on the other side for him to distinguish his words clearly. The itch
of panic made him shuffle his feet. He hadn’t known what to expect in Mordeina, and he wasn’t sure what to make of these new developments.

“What’s going on?” asked Tristan.

“Shush,” Patrick said. “Be patient.”

“Fine,” the youth grumbled.

Patrick rolled his eyes and clenched his fists. Someone had better arrive to let them in soon. Otherwise, he just might smash someone’s head in.

A few minutes later, an imposingly tall figure emerged. He leaned over the group on the other side, saying something inaudible, and the gathering dispersed quickly, as if there were lions on their heels. Patrick grinned as the Warden turned their way and approached the gate. Patrick knew him quite well, and he actually remembered his name.

“Judarius,” he said, nodding to him, “I heard you were here. Pampering a king, as it’s said.”

Judarius’s expression was stony. “How did you get through the gate?” he asked.

“Someone forgot to lock it,” he replied, flexing his fingers. “Pretty easy to open an unlocked gate.”

“Damn,” Judarius grumbled to himself, then turned around and glanced over the stone barriers as if searching for someone. A moment passed before he returned his attention to Patrick. “You are late,” he said, and then he leaned forward, staring at Patrick’s companions. His round eyes widened. “And who are they?”