Icefall (38 page)

‘No,' he said, but he didn't sound as if he was arguing.

‘There it goes.' Blinking her silky lashes, she flicked her serene gaze to a spot above my head, as if watching a small bird fly. ‘It'll be gone so soon. And I thought you'd hold onto it harder.'

The tip of his blade glinted on her skin, depressing it very slightly. She swallowed, and the sword tip pricked flesh.

‘She's losing so much blood, Murlainn. And you're losing so very, very much more.'

Sweat dripped from his temple. ‘My clann,' he said hoarsely.

She smiled fondly. ‘They'll live. On my royal word.'

I shut my eyes. They burned like my wrist. God,
don't let Seth see me cry …

I heard the clang of metal on rock.

‘No,' I shouted at Seth.

He ignored me. It was too late anyway. They'd moved like oiled lightning. His sword was kicked aside, his arms were seized, someone punched him hard in the gut and as he doubled over his arms were yanked up behind him. Four of them had Branndair by the scruff of the neck now, and I saw others piling onto his cowering form with ropes and a muzzle. Tears stung and blurred my vision.

Grian raced to me, shoved the Wolf violently aside, and unsnapped my wrist from its manacle. I thought Kilrevin would kill him but he only smiled, stepping back and giving me up with a casual shrug. Desperately Grian shoved his finger into my wrist, hunting for the vein.

God, the healing stung a lot worse than the cut. I clenched my jaw. Seth had straightened, sucking in air, and he was watching me. I couldn't help crying, now.

‘I'm sorry,' I whimpered as Grian cursed under his breath. ‘
Aow.
I'm so sorry. I'm sorry.'

‘It's not your fault,' said Seth. A fist caught his cheek, and he snarled and snapped his teeth.

‘I didn't want you to do that. I didn't mean to cry. I'm sorry.'

His arms had been twisted behind him and I heard the hideous metallic snap of shackles once again. Going on him, this time. His eyes didn't leave mine.

‘Right, get this. Didn't make a difference. You crying. Get that into your ginger head.'

Another rabbit-punch silenced him for seconds, and that was time enough for me to cough it into the silence.

‘Strawberry.' I gasped. ‘Blonde.'

Seth's head jerked up once more, and he was grinning at me, eyes brilliant. ‘Ah, Gingernut, but I love you. It's the same as before. Same as it ever was and ever will be. I won't stand by and watch him kill you.'

Now I could hardly see for tears. ‘He's going to kill me anyway, you stupid faery! He's going to kill us all!'

There were two swords at his throat, and Kate at his back. Our fighters, one by one, were dropping their weapons, spitting, cursing, falling silent. You could cut the emptiness with a blunt dirk.

‘Hannah,' said Seth, and his voice was clear and bitter. ‘If Kate and I are no different, does it honestly matter who wins?'

‘A MacGregor makes a deal with Lammyr,' said Kate softly, bringing her lips close to his ear. ‘It shouldn't have been possible. It
wasn't
possible.'

You could see she was in his mind. He shuddered with it, but his face stayed dark and angry.

Kate bit his ear gently, then raised her head and smiled around her fighters. ‘Yet I
made it
possible. I took so much of his soul, he gave up his blood-brother to Lammyr, and sealed an oath with them, and because of that and that alone, Murlainn almost defeated me. The blessed, beautiful
irony.
'

As her protectors surrendered their weapons, Finn flung down her knives. Ignoring the threatening jab of enemy blades, slapping aside spearpoints, she stalked to where the guards had taken hold of the disarmed Seth.

‘Finn,' he said urgently, ‘Finn. I knew there'd be a price for what I did.' He raised his head, desperately seeking out Rory. ‘I just never thought the price would be Jed.'

‘Dad,' yelled Rory, ‘you didn't kill him. It wasn't you.' The Wolf thunked an idle fist into his cheekbone and he staggered.

‘I paid the price and it broke my heart, Finn. I couldn't let the price keep rising.'

‘I know.' Slipping her arms around his neck, Finn kissed him, and she went on kissing him even when her arms too were wrenched behind her and manacled. One of her captors seized her by the hair and began to drag her away.

‘Now, now. Let them say goodbye.' Kate smirked. ‘Don't worry, either of you. You're not going to die. Yet.' She brushed down her coat, making a face of distaste as her fingers touched a splash of blood. ‘Be assured, you'll still be able to hear one another later. It's nice that you can exchange a last few intelligible words.'

Seth smiled into Finn's eyes. ‘I love you. It's not going to be good, Finn.'

‘I know. It's okay.' She smiled back as she was tugged away from him. ‘I'll be with you.'

‘No, you won't,' said Kate.

Finn turned on her. ‘You can't stop us.' But she sounded truly afraid through her rage.

‘Watch me. Dear.'

‘No.'

‘I know where you're linked, Caorann. You showed me that yourself. You showed me your link and you had the
utter insolence
to drive me out of him. I can cut that link like butter.' Seizing Finn's hair, she ripped out a tangled fistful.

‘Don't do that to them,' Rory shouted. He'd got maybe three paces from his guards before they grabbed him.

His guards pulled him across to Kate, so she could slap his face. ‘Don't
you
tell me what I can and can't do, you infant. Ah, look at you! A sickly stripling the first time I saw you. Small, like your father. You were such a surprise to me, Rory.' She glared at Seth. ‘I never thought it right that Cù Chaorach's runt brother could sire the Bloodstone.'

‘Aye, Kate.' Seth's eyes glinted. ‘Now if you had any balls yourself—'

His guard didn't have to strike him. Kate strode swiftly to him, and did it herself.

He licked his lips, shook his head clear of the blow. Smiled.

‘Ah, Kate, all this time. All the time in the world, and you did this with it.' He smirked. ‘But you're still looking good, sweetie. Is that surgical?'

Kate breathed deeply, her high colour receding. I could tell she wanted to slap him again. Instead she dusted her hands in contempt.

‘It's a soul that ages you. But I can understand how you might have forgotten that.'

‘You do talk mince,' said Seth. ‘You've got lucky skin genes, is all.'

‘And you've
such
unlucky genes yourself.' She gave him a brittle smile. ‘One could never accuse a MacGregor of immortality. Which brings me back to business.' Kate stroked his cheek. ‘I confess, a soul's a devil of a thing to get rid of. You may not be incorruptible, but in some ways you're incorrigible. You loved being that close, didn't you?'

‘Actually,' he said, ‘I don't mean to sound rude, but it made me feel a bit dirty. Sorry.'

Snatching her hand back, she struck him again on the side of the face.

‘You will be, Murlainn,' she said softly. ‘Things were never going to go well for you, but they just got a lot worse. Take him, Alasdair. And his lover. Have fun.'

 

Finn

He was gone: from my soul, my mind, my heart. I was torn apart. The pain of the wound was astonishing and I realised I'd never really known how it was for him. How could I not have known? How could I not even have tried to know? We'd never known each other, not truly. We'd never been bound. We were strangers and now we were lost to each other.

The guards were relaxed. They sat against one wall of my cell, gossiping, laughing, giving me occasional contemptuous glances. I sat curled on the floor, hugging my legs against me because I was afraid my whole body was going to collapse into pieces. I'd have liked to look fierce or at least impassive, in front of Cuthag in particular, but I didn't care enough to try. I wanted to die already, and she'd only started. I was shrivelled, nothing left of me but fear and despair. Where had my strength gone, all that power I'd grown so stupidly proud of?

Wasted. Vanished.
No no no.

Yes!

The guards didn't say a word and that was almost the worst part. The waiting. I say
almost,
because when it came down to it, it wasn't the worst part, of course it wasn't.

It was an age, hour upon hour upon hour. When the door swung open at last, Kilrevin walked in, cocksure and grinning. There was blood on his face and hands and clothes: Seth's blood. The knife in his right hand was wet with it: a long curved evil blade, jagged along one edge.

I thought I heard it. One more time.

~
You can't have him.

~
I already do.

~
NOT ANY MORE.

Now I knew whose voice was whose. Pain and terror sawed into me.

I wanted to scream but I didn't. No. Rowanwood or no, I'd know if he was dead. Forget my mind: I'd know it in my soul.

Kilrevin shut the door firmly behind him and bolted it with a flourish. Tenderly he laid the knife down on the bench, right where I could see it best.

‘This is how we play the game, Caorann.' He looked into my eyes, and I made myself hold his Cyclops gaze. ‘You have a choice to make. The longer I'm with you? The longer I'm not with him.' He laughed. ‘And vice versa. You've each got to let me know if you ever want me to go back to the other. Let's see how long you can hang onto your souls.'

‘Please don't,' I said. Just once.

He didn't listen. I didn't think he would. I didn't beg again.

‘Right now your lover's a bit upset, Caorann. He couldn't take that blade any more, and he passed out. He didn't actually ask me to go to you instead, but it's a start, and I took the hint. Anyway, I brought him round to let him know I was coming to see you.' He stroked his mutilated fingers along my cheekbone. ‘Do you know, Caorann, he cried?'

If my hate could have killed him then, it would have.

That's what I had to remember later.

 

Rory

He didn't know how much time had passed. It could have been hours, it could have been days. Rory's brain swam as the guards marched him down another passageway. His cell had light, constantly, so he had no way of knowing how fast or slowly the hours passed. As for his sense of direction, it was screwed. This was another tunnel he didn't recognize. They weren't rushing him, and he knew why. They wanted him to hear the enraged screams of the chained and hobbled roan in the cavern they passed, and the whinnying of his own heartbroken filly. They wanted him to see Branndair, muzzled, collared, whimpering his grief in his tiny lightless kennel. They wanted him to see the raven's corpse, hung like a tattered black rag on an iron stake, wings stretched.

They particularly wanted him to see Seth's fighters, sullen but obedient, drilling with wooden swords under Gealach's contemptuous command. There were some missing, and he couldn't help but count names in his head:
Braon, Diorras, Oscarach, Meachair, Osran … Leoghar of Faragaig.
He stopped. Too many. At least Sulaire was there alive, miserable as he looked. And Orach, and Fearna. Rory tried to smile at them as he was marched along a high walkway, but no-one looked up at him, although they must have heard the footfalls on metal. Not one of them would meet his eye.

They looked despairing and defeated, but at least Kate was keeping her word. At least they were being treated reasonably. He wouldn't let himself think about how they were treating Seth and Finn.

The room they steered him into was no cell. The starkness of the black stone walls was warmed with silk brocade hangings, the chairs and the table were elegantly beautiful, and there were sculptures in alcoves around the walls. Nothing he'd have wanted in his own room. He averted his eyes from the vile carved faces, and concentrated on the far viler flesh-and-blood one smiling pleasantly at the head of the table.

A chair was pulled out, and one of his guards put a hand on his shoulder and shoved him into it. He didn't take his eyes off Kate's.

‘I want to see my father.'

‘No.'

‘I want to know if he's alive. There's no way I'm helping you till I know that.'

Kate chuckled. ‘First of all, Laochan, you will help me, sooner or later. Secondly, of course your father is alive. You think I'd kill him now? You think I'd let him off so lightly?'

He twisted his fingers tightly together so he wouldn't launch himself across the table and make a grab for her. His hands ached to be around her throat, and he knew she knew it. She was loving this.

‘Now, Rory.' Rising to her feet, Kate walked a languid circle round the table, trailing her fingers across his cropped scalp as she passed behind him. ‘I've had your father here for forty-eight hours.'

His guts froze.
‘Two days?
You've left me doing nothing for two days while—'

‘Forty-eight hours, Rory. Put that into perspective: it's been
such
a long war! I dare say by now your father wishes he was dead, but I assure you he isn't. Imagine how much he'd like it to stop, hm? The longer you hold out on me, the longer he'll suffer, it's as simple as that. His lover, too. Alasdair is having the time of his misspent life.' She returned to her chair, sinking gracefully into it and smiling. ‘And Alasdair's life has been a long one.'

Rory stood up so fast, his own chair fell with a clatter to the floor.

‘You'd love to kill me, wouldn't you, Rory?'

‘I will kill you,' he said. Staring into her amber eyes, he saw a brief spark of fear. It was gone quickly. She smiled.

‘No, you won't. You see, your uncle Conal told me the same thing, once upon a time. He was mistaken; so are you. Now, Laochan. You have only one decision to make, and your father would like you to make it quickly. You
will
cooperate with me. If you do it now, Murlainn and his lover will hang. If you leave it too long? They'll burn. Understand?'