Furies of Calderon (46 page)

Kord turned back to her. “The thing about all of this, Isana, is that you’re too naive to be as afraid as you should be. I want to help you with that. I want you to know what’s going to happen.”

“This is useless, Kord,” Isana said. “You might as well kill me.”

“When I’m ready.” Kord walked over to Odiana, then reached down and seized her casually by the hair. The woman whimpered and twisted her shoulders, struggling feebly to get away from him. Kord gathered her hair up, lock by lock, until he held the length of it in his fist. “See, this one here. She’s a hard case. Knows what she’s doing. Knows the game. How to survive it.” He shook her hair, eliciting a whimper. “All the right sounds to make. Right, girl?”

With Odiana’s face bowed, facing away from Kord, Isana could see her expression now. The water witch’s eyes were hard, her expression cold, distant. But she kept her voice weak, shaking. “P-please,” Odiana whispered. “Master. Don’t hurt me. Please. I’ll do anything you want.”

Isana saw the contents: a strip of metal, a band perhaps an inch wide, lay on the cloth within the box, dully throwing back the light of the fires.

Odiana’s expression changed. The hardness vanished from her eyes, and her mouth dropped open in an expression of something close to horror. She recoiled from the box, but was brought up short by Kord’s grip on her. Isana heard her let out a whimper of pain and, unmistakably, of fear. “No,” she said, at once, her voice suddenly harsher, high, panicky. “No, I don’t need that. You won’t need it. No, don’t, I promise, you won’t need it, just tell me what you
want
.”

“It’s called a discipline collar,” Kord said to Isana, in a conversational voice. “fury-crafted. They’re uncommon this far north. But useful, sometimes. She knows what it is, I think.”

“You don’t need it,” Odiana said, her voice high and desperate. “Please, oh furies, please, master, you don’t need that, I don’t need it, no, no, no, no—”

“Aric, put it on her.” Kord jerked Odiana up, holding her weight up off the floor by her hair, forcing her chin up, the slender strength of her throat to be exposed.

Odiana’s eyes, still fastened on the collar, widened, white surrounding them. She screamed. It was a horrible sound, one that welled deep in her throat and rose up through her mouth without regard for meaning, for shape, horrible and feral. She turned and struggled, even as she screamed, her hands reaching toward Kord’s face with desperate speed. Her nails left bloody weals down one of his cheeks, and even as she got her feet underneath her, she kicked one bare foot at the inside of his knee.

Still holding her hair in one hand, Kord dragged her to one side, off of her feet, and with the other clutched her throat. Then, with a casual surge of power, doubtless drawn from his fury, he lifted her clear of the ground by her throat, so that her feet dangled and kicked below her torn skirts.

She fought him, even so, struggling wildly against him. She raked at his arm with her nails when she couldn’t reach his face, but he held her, expression never changing. She kicked at his thigh, his ribs, but without any leverage the blows did nothing to deter the big Stead-holder. She struggled, grunting, gasping, making low, animal sounds of fear.

Then her eyes rolled back in her skull and she went slowly limp.

Kord held her suspended for a moment more, before he lowered her to the floor again, and once more held her by the hair, baring her throat. “Aric.”

The young man swallowed. He flicked a glance at Isana, his expression strained, difficult to read. Then he stepped forward and slipped the metal band about Odiana’s throat. It settled into place with a quiet, sharp click.

She took a ragged breath and let out a little groan, a desperate sound, even as Kord released her hair with a contemptuous jerk. She fell onto her side, her eyes clutched closed, and lifted her fingers to her throat. She began pawing and jerking at the collar, desperate and clumsy.

Kord drew a knife from his belt and pricked his thumb with it, then grabbed Odiana’s wrist in his huge hands and did the same to hers. Her eyes opened and saw him, and once again she went wild, letting out a little shriek and struggling against him with a confused and disoriented determination.

Kord smirked. With casual strength, he forced her bloodied thumb to the collar—and then pressed his own down beside it, scarlet marking the metal.

Odiana whimpered, “
No
,” frustration warping the word, tears making her eyes shine. Then she shuddered. Her lips moved again, but nothing intelligible came from them. She shuddered again, and her eyes lost focus. Her body relaxed, the straining against Kord’s hands easing slowly away. Once more, her body shook, this time accompanying it was a low gasp.

“Bonding,” Kord said, looking up at Isana. His eyes glittered. His hands roved over the woman on the ground now, casually intimate, possessive. “This will take a few minutes to set in.”

Odiana gasped, arching into Kord’s touch, her eyes empty, lips parted, her body moving in a slow, languid roll, all hips and back and bared throat. The collar gleamed against her skin. Kord sat over her, petting the woman like an overexcited animal. In a few moments, she was making soft, cooing sounds, curling toward him like a sleepy kitten.

“There.” He stood up and said, casually, “That’s a good girl.”

Odiana’s eyes flew open wide, then fluttered slowly closed again. She gasped, clutching her arms to her chest as though to hold something in, and for perhaps half a minute she writhed that way, letting out soft moans of unmistakable pleasure.

Kord smiled. He looked at Isana and said, quietly, “Stupid little whore.”

Odiana’s body convulsed, back abruptly arching into a bow. She let out another scream—this one thin, high, somehow sickened—and flung herself onto her side. She retched, violently, though there was little enough content in her stomach to come up onto the dusty floor. Her legs and arms jerked in frantic spasm, and she lifted huge, desperate eyes to Isana, her expression agonized, pleading. She reached toward the collar at her throat and spasmed again, more violently, thrashing and flailing and rolling dangerously close to the circle of coals.

Isana stared at the woman in horrified confusion for a breath, before she lurched forward, unsteady herself, and caught Odiana before she could convulse into the ring of coals. “Stop it,” Isana cried. She looked back at Kord, knew that her face was pale and desperately afraid—and saw the glitter of satisfaction in his expression when she turned to him. “Stop it! You’re killing her!”

“Might be kinder,” Kord said. “She’s been broken before.” But to Odiana he said, voice smug, “Good girl. Stay here and you’ll be a good girl. Do what you’re told.”

The frantic spasms eased out of the woman, very slowly. Isana drew her back away from the coals and kept her arms around her, her body between Odiana and Kord. The woman’s eyes had lost focus again, and she shuddered in slow waves in Isana’s arms.

“What did you do to her?” Isana asked quietly.

Kord turned and walked toward the door. “What you need to learn is that slaves are just animals. You train an animal by providing rewards and punishments. Rewarding good behavior. Punishing bad. That’s how you turn a wild horse into an obedient mount. How you train a wolf into a hunting hound.” He opened the door and said, casually, “Same with slaves. You’re just more animals. To be used for labor, breeding, whatever. You just have to be trained.” Kord left the smokehouse, but his words drifted back to them. “Aric. Build up the fire. Isana. You’ll wear one tomorrow. Think about that.”

Isana said nothing, stunned by what she had seen, by Odiana’s reaction to the sight of the collar, to her condition now. Isana looked down at her and brushed some of the dark, tangled hair from her eyes. “Are you all right?”

The woman looked up at her, eyes heavy and languid, and shivered. “It’s good now. It’s good. I’m good now.”

Isana swallowed. “He hurt you, before. When he called you…” She didn’t say the words.

“Hurts,” Odiana whispered. “Yes. Oh crows and furies, so much hurt. I’d forgotten. Forgotten how bad it was.” She shivered again. “H-how good it was.” She opened her eyes, and again they were wet with tears. “They can change you. You can fight and fight, but they
change
you. Make you happy to be what they want. Make it hurt when you try to resist. You
change
, hold-girl. He can do it to you. He can make you beg him to take you. To touch you. Make you.” She turned her face away, though her body was still wracked with the long, shivering shudders of pleasure, and turned her face from Isana. “Please. Please kill me before he comes back. I can’t be that again. I can’t go back.”

“Shhhh,” Isana said, rocking the woman gently. “Shhhh. Rest. You should sleep.”

“Please,” she whispered, but her face had already gone slack, her body begun to sag. “Please.” She shuddered once more and then went completely limp, her head falling to one side.

Isana laid the woman down as gently as she could. She knelt over her, testing her pulse, putting a hand to her forehead. Her heart still beat too quickly, and her skin felt fevered, dry.

Isana looked up, to where Aric stood next to a hod for coal, watching her. When she looked up at him, he ducked his head, turning to the hod, and began to dump coals into a bucket beside it.

“She needs water,” Isana said, quietly. “After all of that. She needs water, or she’ll die in this heat.”

Aric looked at her again. He picked up the bucket and, without speaking, walked to one side of the ring and started shaking fresh coals out of it and into the fire.

Isana ground her teeth with frustration. If she was only able to Listen, she might be able to gain important insight. The boy seemed reluctant to follow his father’s commands. He might be convinced to help them, if only she could find the right words to say. She felt blind, crippled.

“Aric, listen to me,” Isana said. “You can’t possibly think he’s going to get away with this. You can’t possibly think that he will escape justice for what happened tonight?”

He finished dumping out the bucket. He walked back to the hod, his voice toneless. “He’s escaped it for years. What do you think happens to every slave who comes through here?”

Isana stared at him for a moment, sickened. “Crows,” she whispered. “Aric, please. At least help me get this collar off.” She reached down to Odiana’s throat, turning the collar about and trying to find the clasp.

“You can’t,” Aric said, his voice frustrated. He turned and threw the bucket at the wall of the smokehouse. It clattered against it and fell to the floor. He leaned his hands against the wall and bowed his head. “You can’t help her. The way he’s left her, anyone can tell her anything and she’ll keep feeling good as long as she does it. She tries to resist and she’ll… and it will hurt her.”

“That’s inhuman,” Isana said. “Great furies, Aric. How can you let this happen?”

“Shut up,” he said. “Just you shut up.” Motions stiff, angry, he pushed off the wall and recovered the bucket and started filling it with coal again.

“You were right, you know,” Isana said, keeping her voice quiet. “I was telling the truth. So was Tavi, if he told you that the Valley was in danger. That the Marat may be coming again. It could happen soon. It could have begun already. Aric, please, listen to me.”

“I’m not,” Isana said. “Aric, you’ve known me your whole life. When that tree fell on you that Winterfair, I helped you. I helped everyone in the Valley who needed it, and I never asked for anything in return.”

Aric added more coal to the fire.

“How can you be a part of this?” she demanded. “You aren’t stupid, Aric. How can you do this to other Alerans?”

“How can I not?” Aric said, voice cold. “This is all I have. I don’t have a happy stead-holt where people take care of each other. I have
this
. Men who no one else would take live here. Women who no one would want to be. He’s my blood. Bittan—” He broke off and swallowed. “He was my blood, too. As stupid and mean as he could be, he was my brother.”

“I’m sorry,” Isana said, and found that she felt it. “I never wanted anyone to get hurt. I hope you know that.”

“I know,” Aric said. “You heard what happened to Heddy and you wanted what was right to happen. To keep her safe, and girls like her. Crows know they need it, with Pa around like some—” He shook his head.

Isana fell silent for a long moment, staring at the young man, an understanding dawning on her. Then she said, quietly, “It wasn’t Bittan that was with Heddy. It was you, Aric.”