Bloodraven (23 page)

Yhalen’s stomach lurched. He wanted to back up, retreat to the surface, but he doubted any of them would let him go. The lady slipped her hand through his arm and he had no choice but to move forward at her urging, into the group of guardsmen and through to an empty space before a large barred cell at the end of the hall. The cell itself was chiseled out of stone, rough-hewn and more like a cave than a room. The floor was covered in dirty straw and the bars that fronted it, as thick as Yhalen’s wrists. The cell door was open and three guards with drawn weapons stood inside the doorway, eyes fixed upon the corner.

And in the shadows of that far corner, a large figure sprawled. Chains encircled his wrists, ankles and neck. His head was bowed, so Yhalen couldn’t see the damage to his face, but his formerly clean, long black hair fell in bloody, matted tangles about his shoulders. One of the long side braids had come loose, and a lock of hair longer by a head than the others stuck to the new blood matting a naked chest and stomach. He was wounded gravely, Yhalen thought, judging by the color of blood that slowly seeped from untended wounds on shoulder and side. They’d taken his armor and his boots, as well, and Yhalen thought no few of the gold rings that had dangled from his ears had been ripped out. There were marks aplenty on pale green skin, some which were as fresh as moments ago. He’d walked in upon their
efforts
then, at gaining information from their captive and it made him tremble in revulsion “This is the one, is he not?” Duvera asked, giving Yhalen a little shove towards the open door of the cell.

If he lied, perhaps they’d cease this torture for the sake of information and simply kill Bloodraven.

Wouldn’t that be the kinder course? Wouldn’t he rather someone had done him the same courtesy when he’d been at the mercy of Deathclaw?

“Yes,” he said and his voice wavered as his eyes fixed on the tattered figure in the corner, vision diluted by a surprising sting of tears. “Yes,” he said again. “May I go?”

He half turned his head to seek approval of his escape from the lady, and missed the sudden surge of movement from the shadows. The guards did too, distracted by his presence, and it was only the chains that kept Bloodraven’s hands from him, though stone powdered from the bolts holding the chains fast. The ogr’ron roared in frustration, his golden eyes gleaming in a not quite sane fury—and very, very intent upon Yhalen. Yhalen scrambled backwards, as did the guards—even the armed ones in the cell, startled by violence where there had been none a moment before.

Hands grabbed Yhalen from behind and hauled him out of the cell, his retreat followed with alacrity by the guards. The cell door shut and locked in the face of a growling, lunging ogr’ron.

“Well,” said the lady. She seemed satisfied, her cheeks flushed from the excitement. “He does seem to respond to you. More so than to anything else we’ve tried. How interesting.”

Her brother frowned, not as thrilled at the excitement of Bloodraven’s reaction as his sister, and marched forward to stand before the bars of the cell.

“We know who you are, beast. We know you’re well able to speak our tongue. This boy confirms that, yet still you refuse. Is it your ogre blood that makes you so dull—or your injuries?”

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Bloodraven didn’t look up, crouched in his corner like the beast Lord Dunval called him, his breath coming hard from his exertion and fresh blood pooling in the filth of the cell floor from wounds torn freshly asunder. And they didn’t see it. None of them realized the sheer intelligence and vitality that dwelled behind those fierce golden eyes. All they saw was a monster. Not even a true monster, but a mongrel one. If they treated him as such and neglected to kill him in their arrogance, they’d suffer for their stupidity. Yhalen knew that as surely as he knew that those same fierce eyes were staring at him from under the tangled veil of Bloodraven’s hair.

“He’s a dog. A dangerous beast,” Lord Dunval sneered in angry frustration.

His lady sister, though, tilted her head. Her eyes were full of a speculation that perhaps hinted she wasn’t so blind as the others.

“Not so monstrous, I think,” she said very softly—so softly that perhaps it was intended only for Yhalen’s ears as she stood behind him. “What say you on the subject, Yhalen of the Ydregi?”

He stood rooted to the spot, speechless and besieged from all sides. Bloodraven’s appalling attention on the one, and the lady’s sly whispers from the other.

“I’ve known a man or two as large,” she added softly. “And before this one woke up and his features became twisted in his rage, his face was not...unappealing, in an exotic sort of way, don’t you think?”

How did one answer that? Not at all, if Yhalen had his druthers. Just as he’d rather be far away from this dank dungeon, back above ground and in the light of day. Lady Duvera seemed not to notice or care about Yhalen’s discomfort, and leaned in close over his shoulder, one hand on his arm and her lips close to his ear, though her eyes remained very much fixed on the chained halfling within the cell.

“Tell me,” she whispered, “I’ve not seen the whole of him. Can the rest of him be measured in human terms, or would it be beyond the capacity of a woman to accommodate such a thing?”

If it had been a man who asked, Yhalen would have shrugged him off violently, as affronted as he was by the inquiry. As it was, he rather thought he’d find himself in similar circumstances as Bloodraven if he cast the lady off. He swallowed, flushing as he chose silence as an answer in the face of her embarrassing question.

She laughed and very softly answered her own query. “Ah, but you’re alive, so I suppose that is proof enough, eh?”

She whirled then, radiant in her satisfaction, and beckoned to her personal guard. “I’ve had enough of this moldy darkness for today. I’ve other duties to attend.”

She swept away, her guard trailing in her wake. As uncomfortable as she’d made him, Yhalen shivered at her retreat, left alone in even less savory company. Her brother, Lord Dunval, made no pretense over his dislike and his guards mirrored their master’s emotions.

“My lord—” Yhalen started to say, flinching a little when Bloodraven growled at the sound of his voice, rattling chains in his agitation. Best to ignore him. He was safely behind bars and no threat, for the moment. “If you’ve no further need of me?”

Dunval slowly moved his gaze away from Bloodraven to Yhalen, eyes speculative. For a moment he was lost in thought, than he moved his hand dismissively. “For the moment, no. You may go.”

Yhalen didn’t waste time uttering thanks, but simply turned on his heel and hurried down the corridor towards the stairs. He needed out of this place so badly he felt short of breath. It was only when he reached the fresh air of the surface that he felt he could breathe freely again. It wasn’t simply the dungeons. He felt trapped in this keep, below and above, almost as much as he had in Bloodraven’s care. It was just a different sort of yoke they wanted about his neck. One he was expected to happily comply with. He hated the caste system these people employed. He hated having to bow his head in respect to a man that he in no wise respected.

The Ydregi had no such separation of classes. Everyone had as much right to respect as the next and honor was given where it was due. No one served the clan chief and neither the clan chief nor the shamans expected anyone else to do work that they themselves were not prepared to do, or had done to excess in their youth. One might bow their head in respect to man older and wiser by far than one’s self, but no one would slap you upside the head to force it.

Meliah found him in the courtyard, dazedly taking in the healing rays of the sun. She wrapped her fingers about his arm and gently led him to one of the rough benches against the outer bailey wall.

“What happened?” she asked, and he blinked at her concern, thinking how terrible he must have looked to have warranted it.

70

“They—they took me to see him—below the castle.”

“It’s still alive then,” she grated out.

“Him,” he corrected numbly but she shrugged that clarification away.

“They should kill him now. As retaliation. As a warning to the others.”

“I don’t think there are that many others left,” he said slowly. “I think chances are they’re dead or have fled. There’s no one to impress.”

“Us,” she said. “There’s us to impress. And the souls of the dead to avenge.”

“The ones that slaughtered your village—he wasn’t there. He stopped it—” Yhalen broke off at her incredulous stare.

“You defend him?” she gasped, and he was as horrified as her at the realization that he had.

Perhaps it was simply his nature to always take the contrary side, even if that contrary side was his enemy who very clearly wanted him dead.

“No...no,” he said, strangled, adrift. He laid his head back against the bailey wall, assaulted by slight nausea. “I need to go home. They must think me dead. I need to let them know....”

“Then you should go,” Meliah said. “So many are already returning to their villages that it must be safe.”

Yhalen took a breath, trying to collect his wits. “What will you do? With so few left of your village?”

The girl shrugged, and squared her slender shoulders. “I don’t know. Stay here for the time being.

Work in the laundry or the kitchen until I can figure what to do. Marry a man at arms, maybe, and be a proper housewife. Wouldn’t that be grand?”

“Yes,” he said, though her aspirations baffled him.

There was a commotion at the gates. One of the watchers atop the wall sprinted towards the castle while a good many others hurried up the narrow steps to the top of the wall to look beyond it. But none of them took the stance of men preparing to defend against enemies, and there was no sense of fear in the air, simply excitement. Very soon the front doors of the keep opened and Lord Dunval and his sister appeared, accompanied by their usual hangers-on.

The lord tromped down the steps while his sister waited at the top with a handful of her own guards and a few of the lesser ladies. The gates opened and a troop of riders rode through. No simple soldiers returning to the keep, but a group of armed knights whose tunics were clean and unbloodied.

Men accompanied by a standard different from the one that flew over the gates of Keis Keep. Perhaps another lord, come to aid the lord of this province against attack.

“Who is it?” Yhalen asked Meliah and she shook her head, eyes wide as her fingers clutched at his arm.

“I don’t know. But just look at him. He seems a great lord.”

Yhalen followed her eyes, picking out the knight foremost among the newcomers, not by the quality of his armor or expensiveness of his tunic so much as by his bearing. This was a man who wore his mantle of leadership as if he were not only born to it, but had earned it fairly and well. The new lord dismounted and Dunval inclined his head in respect and clasped his armored hand, exchanging words.

The strange lord took off his helmet, handing it to one of his men, revealing hair the color of flame, neatly held back in a short tail at the nape of his neck. There were perhaps a few strands of gray within the red, hinting that this man of was of middle years, and his broad face was lined with the signs of harsh life. His body was that of a soldier, broad, strong, and economical of movement. He wasn’t a lord who sat back and watched a battle from afar, but one that fought at the forefront with his men.

“Who is he?” Yhalen asked of a man at arms passing by.

“Don’t you see the banner?” the solider asked. “Tangery. It’s the lord of Tangery himself, the king’s own brother and protector of all the northern provinces.”

“Ohh,” Meliah whispered, shivering, clutching at Yhalen’s arm for support as if her legs had gone weak. “It’s him. Lord Dunval’s lord. The protector of us all. I never thought to see him in the flesh. He came to destroy the beasts.”

Tangery. Yhalen did know that name. He was one of the great lords that his grandfather had gone to meet with over this selfsame problem of invaders from the north. If he was here, then the meeting in Nakhanor was over, and his grandfather had likely discovered the remains of his party, slaughtered in the woods. But no Yhalen. For all they knew, the ogres could have eaten him, or his body dragged off 71

by wild beasts. Strangely enough, it hurt more to think of his family’s pain at his loss than it did remembering his own. He needed to leave this place.

He and Meliah worked their way to the side of the open gates after the lords had retreated to the castle. Men came and went, both from Keis and soldiers of the newly arrived lord of Tangery. Beyond the gates, out in fields that had already been well trampled, a small army was busy setting up camp.

There were hundreds of men and horses that had likely ridden hard to reach here, for there were no foot soldiers or supply wagons that might have slowed their pace. The lord of Tangery had made haste then, possibly coming straight from Nakhanor upon hearing that this province was under attack.

Meliah was called away not long after by one of the kitchen maids, desperate to find extra hands to help with the preparation of a great deal more food than the keep had expected to make at the start of the day. They had a small army to feed now, as well as a feast to prepare to honor the king’s brother.

Before she left him though, she laid a hand on his arm and leaned close, whispering, “If you have the chance, go. Leave before they close the gates or find a reason to keep you here longer.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek then, quickly, blushing afterwards as she ran off towards the kitchen.