Bloodraven (54 page)

And Elvardo had laughed knowingly, as if he’d let Yhalen in on some close kept confidence. That had been intolerable, Elvardo’s amusement. Elvardo, whose magic was most definitely not pure, and not above reproach. Novice that he was, even Yhalen could sense the caliginous underthread that made the dark lord’s magic different from his own.

He had come back here, loathing himself. Exhausted and confused, seeking punishment/pleasure for his weakness. Bloodraven had proven a reliable source for both. And he had compounded the sin by working that magic that came easiest of all to him in the midst of it. He tried to work up regret, to work up fuel for self-flagellation, but found it hard to come by this morning.

How long Bloodraven had been gone, Yhalen had no idea. The bed beside him was cool and didn’t evidence the imprint of the halfling’s considerable weight. From the angle of the light through the window, Yhalen estimated that dawn was long past.

He rose and dressed, then spent some time in the mindless task of neatly braiding his hair. He looked after the fire, adding a few split logs to keep the chill off the room during the day.

Contemplating the low flame, he considered rousing its intensity as Elvardo had shown him, then shuddered and turned away, leaving it to its own state of affairs. He didn’t like the feel of fire, nor of the summoning of it. It was too mindless and greedy, and he was wary of it.

But Elvardo had shown him other things. Things that sat better with him. He laid the fingertips of one hand upon the cold, thick glass of the window and stared out at the long, green valley below. Then he focused on the glass, willing something subtler than fickle flame. Something less destructive by far.

Beads of condensation began to form, spreading out from Yhalen’s fingertips. Both sides of the pane became moist with it, fogging up as if it were a frigid, wet day outside instead of a sunny, crisp one.

He drew his hand away, rubbing wetness between his fingers, and then wiping that upon his pants leg.

There was nothing to do, but go out into the keep to discover what the rest of the world was about.

He headed towards the courtyard, for of all the places Bloodraven would be, the likeliest was the furthest he could be from the dark lord himself. Either that or he had taken off into the vale again, which foray would have surely garnered Sir Alasdair’s displeasure.

Yhalen would have liked to go with him, and smiled grimly at the realization that Bloodraven had become the lesser by far of two evils.

There was a commotion in the courtyard when he reached it. The knight’s men loitered in interested groups, watching as two of Elvardo’s women compiled oilskin packages with considerably more

interest than they paid to their captain, who seemed to be having a one-sided disagreement with Bloodraven near the stone trough at the center of the courtyard. Bloodraven looked up, eyes finding Yhalen across the tumult of the courtyard, fixing upon him for a long moment, before he returned his attention half-heartedly to the knight.

“So, it appears you’ll be leaving our company sooner than expected.”

The lady Duvera’s voice oozed up from behind him. She moved from the shadows of the entrance and to his side, looking out over the courtyard with feigned interest. He could feel the weight of her regard upon him. He looked at her coldly, not prepared to rise to her bait, even though his pulse quickened as the ramifications of the packing in the yard and Alasdair’s irritation began to hit home.

“If I were you,” he said softly. “I wouldn’t linger here. Whatever your purpose in coming...there’s no need for it now, and I think Lord Elvardo won’t be as forgiving if you try your witcheries within his keep again.”

“You’re not one to speak. I know what you’ve been about,” she sneered.

Yhalen canted his head at her, feeling a desperate little probe urging him to reveal his secrets to her.

He ignored it—as if he had any secrets other than the midnight meetings with Elvardo. She knew nothing, he realized, and that lack of knowledge and her lack of power over him, enraged her.

“Does the captain know that it was your witchery that spurred his man to attack Elvardo?”

She glared at him, the promise of slow death in her eyes. If he’d been in her keep and under her care he’d have feared for his life, magic or no magic. As it was, her threats affected him little.

“Do you think he’d believe you over me?”

He shrugged and moved down the steps into the yard, leaving her behind him. He walked around Elvardo’s women, who looked up from their work to follow his passage slyly with their tilted eyes. He felt nothing of a magical nature from them, but he had to wonder if servants of the dark lord were entirely what they seemed.

“Yhalen. Yhalen, I want to talk to you.”

It was Alasdair beckoning him, seeming put upon. Bloodraven crossed his arms, a threatening scowl upon his face, but it was no more or less threatening than usual, so Yhalen wasn’t concerned.

“This fool is set on trekking into the mountains now and that fool up there,” Alasdair waved an arm towards the keep, “has agreed to help him on his way.”

“Did we come here for another reason?” Yhalen asked and Alasdair pursed his lips in frustration.

“We haven’t had time to plan it properly. There are maps to be scoured, routes decided.... Damn it, the lot of us need to be clear on what to expect and when. Talk sense to him.”

Yhalen looked from the knight to the ogre, then back again to the dark facade of the keep. The freedom of the mountains, even the cold mountains of the north and in Bloodraven’s company, was more appealing that spending more time in Elvardo’s keep.

“He makes no sense to me.” He shrugged, owing Alasdair and his king absolutely nothing. “Nor does he ask for, or follow advice from me. Fight your own battles.”

He wasn’t certain, but he thought the corner of Bloodraven’s mouth twitched up in a smile.

“There are no human maps that show the routes I’ll take,” Bloodraven said. “Any plans you make, fate and chance will more than likely shred. I’ll follow the paths that open to me and plan no further than the next step I take. I’ll return when I return and if you’re here, so be it. If you tire of waiting and are not, then that’s fine, as well.”

“That isn’t acceptable,” Alasdair cried.

Bloodraven shrugged, clearly having explained as much as he was willing. The knight threw up his hands and stalked away, towards the stables where his men and horses were sheltered.

“It’ll be cold in the reaches. Snow and ice. They’ve provided heavy boots and furs that won’t arouse suspicion among any of my people we pass,” Bloodraven said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Yhalen drew a deep breath, enforcing the idea upon himself that this was inevitable. That he’d be leaving with Bloodraven and willingly traveling into the territories of the ogre clans.

“When do we leave?” he asked, voice shaking only a little.

“Soon. Late afternoon. I’ll spend no other night within this keep. Nor will you.”

Yhalen looked up at him sharply, squinting his eyes against the sun behind Bloodraven’s head. Was this sudden exodus because of him? He found the notion of such concern hard to fathom.

“There’s more.”

Bloodraven took his arm, steering him towards the shadow of the keep. From his tunic he pulled out a broken bronze circle with a ring at its center. A replica, almost, of the collar that Yhalen had worn during his captivity with the ogre raiding party. He swallowed back a lump of revulsion, glaring at the thing in Bloodraven’s big hands.

“No,” he spat.

“Yes,” Bloodraven disagreed. “Without it, you’re fair game. With it, you’re property of worth and not to be killed out of hand. With it you have protection.”

“Protection? I know how you people treat your human slaves.”

“There’s a difference between a collared slave who wears the brand of a warrior and an enemy captured during the heat of battle. You’ll wear the collar.”

Yhalen looked away, past Bloodraven, past the vile collar, at the stable yard that was a blur of color through the furious tears that collected in his eyes. He pushed past Bloodraven, prepared to flee somewhere he could seethe at the injustice in private. Bloodraven caught his shoulder in a hard grip, bringing him up short. He bent low over Yhalen’s shoulder, breath warm against the skin at Yhalen’s ear.

“You’ll wear it and no arguments—but on my word, when we return from this, you may dispose of it as you like.”

Yhalen stood stiffly until Bloodraven released him, then stalked away.

It was not an unreasonable request, all things considered. It made sense, what Bloodraven asked of him, and if he took the thing again of his own volition, it made him no less of a free man because of it.

Still, visions of that huge, ogrish blacksmith pressing him face first onto stone and holding him fast while he sealed the collar shut about his neck continued to plague him. Memories of pacing, caged and restless and frightened, tethered by collar and chain to a post in the middle of Bloodraven’s tent made him clench his fists in anger.

He didn’t retreat so far as the interior of the keep. Not when everyone else was outside and he might be fair game to the keep’s dark master. Elvardo would have something to say to him, he was certain, before he fled this place with Bloodraven. If he had his druthers, he’d put it off as long as possible.

It was not to be, though. The redhead approached him, the unique, enticing scent that all Elvardo’s woman wore warning him of her presence before he heard her step.

“My lord wishes a word with you.” Her fingers touched his arm ever so lightly, urging him towards the broad steps. He might have balked at the rough touch of a man, but her presence evidenced no threat and so he was unable to summon resistance. He walked with her, thoughts of the collar fading away in the face of the more prominent uneasiness of Elvardo.

Almost, Yhalen expected to be led to some dark, private chamber, even perhaps down the secret stairs to Elvardo’s private workshop. Instead, the fair-faced lord of this keep stood not far inside the atrium, leaning insolently against a column, slim and plainly clothed in featureless black.

“Your ogr’ron is eager to be on his way.”

Yhalen stared, stopping two body lengths away and refusing to come closer.

Elvardo shrugged, unconcerned. “I might think to deter him, if his haste didn’t antagonize the knight so much. His irritation I find amusing.”

“What do you want?” Yhalen asked plainly.

“He looked as if he wished to snap my neck this morning, when he announced his plans. Does he think, perchance, I infringed upon his territory?”

“No.” Yhalen felt himself blush. “I don’t know. How am I to know what passes through his head?

Perhaps he simply tires of your games.”

“Games? Have I been playing with him? Granted, I like dangerous toys, but not so dangerous as that, eh?”

Yhalen doubted that, but simply pursed his lips and remained mute.

“What do I want?” Elvardo repeated Yhalen’s earlier question. “Maybe I’m bored, hmm? Perhaps living here in isolation for longer than you’ve been alive has finally worn thin? I think I’ve years of entertainment ahead. One way or another. I’d have liked to have had you for longer, Yhalen. You’ve

proved a different sort of amusement altogether. But it’s not to be, at least not at present. You may not like the things I showed you—awoke in you—but you may also find them useful.”

Yhalen lifted his chin, eyes burning with frustration. “You’ve made me into what you are.”

“A pale imitation.” Elvardo laughed at him.

“Outcast!” Yhalen snarled. “Never able to return home with anything but lies on my tongue. And they would know.”

“You cling so stubbornly to the ethics of your father—and his father and his father. The day that you let them go, you may find that there is a great deal more to enjoy in this world than the Ydregi would have you believe. And for the Goddess’ sake,” Elvardo said with a sly smile, “wear your ogre’s slave collar, for both of us know that you well enjoy submitting to his hand anyway.”

Elvardo’s women were swift and organized with their packing, though Yhalen had little enough care what supplies went into the bulging packs that were fastened to the backs of the two sturdy, mountain mules. The old man who had masqueraded as the dark lord of this keep when they had first arrived, assured them the mules were bred especially for rough mountain terrain and might travel places with ease that even an agile man might not. They would be of use long after the two horses that Elvardo provided from his own stables had reached the limit of their ability.

Both mounts were shaggy and thick-legged, of a different breed than the horses they’d ridden here from the south. Yhalen’s was of normal height, dun of coat with a bristly black mane and tail.

Bloodraven’s was of similar color, but large as a war-horse and broader of back. The beast’s legs were thicker above the knee than Yhalen’s waist, its hooves the size of platters. Yhalen stepped back from it, no small bit intimidated, but the beast gazed serenely and stupidly at him from gentle, brown eyes, in no wise interested in his apprehensions.

Attached to the great saddle was a thick scabbard from which protruded the hilt of a massive sword. It was very obviously not human in design, and Bloodraven drew it and tested its great weight and balance to the obvious wariness of the knight and his men. It was no new blade, as faint nicks along the broad side of the blade attested, and the leather grip was well worn, but Bloodraven seemed pleased with it, for his face eased into almost happy lines as he wielded it. There was also a heavy hatchet and a long curving dagger, the latter of which Bloodraven fastened at his side.