INBORN (The Sagas of Di'Ghon) (9 page)

“I proclaim, Elycia, to be free, as the Caller’s eternal kiss.”

From the kitchens, the sound of a dropped platter broke the silence.

Silence

He finished with a shuddering growl. The second he was done he shoved her off and wiped himself clean on her tattered skirt. As he tucked himself back in, arranging his clothes and armor plates in quick jerks, he sighed. He wasn’t satisfied in the least.

Women always wanted
Keriim. In fact, he had three riding him the night of the festival like he was some prized stallion. The problem was that he just couldn’t enjoy himself unless they looked like the crying whore bent over in front of him.

“Stop your sniveling.
You wanted it.”

Keriim
realized why he was so angry. He liked it better when they looked at him with their scared little woman eyes. How dare she look away from him? Hadn’t he told her not to do that? Keriim took a fistful of the woman’s brittle yellow hair and yanked her head back until she was face to face with him.

“Did I tell you to look away?”

“My Lord…” She started but never finished the sentence. When she opened her mouth to speak she ruined everything. She was missing most of her front teeth. Elycia, the girl he would have had instead of her, had a full set of straight white teeth.

He was so close… if it wasn’t for that damned messenger’s meddling.

After he set off the glowing dra, what could he have done? He had no choice but to ride out the next couple days in agony. Every moment he had to be around either Thaniel or Elycia was another nail in their coffins. Not only did he want to kill them both, but he intended to take his sweet time about it.

How the
little bastard managed to evade the dra was dumb luck. He paid the blacksmith a lot of money to be slow about throwing that lever in hopes that if the beast came, it would eat the scrawny bastard. That would have been fun to watch.  But when it was clear that wasn’t happening right away, Hobb was supposed to accidentally throw the lever and crush him instead.  Getting his money back from the big oaf didn’t even come close to making it better. That cost the blacksmith a finger. Keriim smiled as he patted the little lumpy leather satchel. The man had a big finger.

After hours of fuming
, he came upon the wretch carrying a pile of kindling. Keriim couldn’t contain himself anymore. He didn’t even look at the woman. He just shoved her in the closet. Keeping the image of the little blonde in his mind, he didn’t remember much of it. But now that he was past the moment, the thought of having to settle for this whimpering wretch infuriated him even more.

“Shut up
, or I’ll have my way with your eye sockets next.” Keriim adjusted the axe at his hip and let his hand rest on the heavy weapon. The woman looked up at him, knees quaking.

“My Lord, I… I wouldn’t say anything.”

She was about to say something else when he realized he couldn’t stand to look at her anymore. He backhanded her onto the stone floor watching with a mixture of anger and satisfaction as she slid across the stone.

Keriim
stood over her watching her cower in a ball. He raised his boot and smashed it down on her neck. Bones crunched and the old wretch wiggled about like a strip of crackling pork. Keriim stared into her eyes, watching with fascination as the light of life faded away. They always looked so pitiful when they went limp. Hastily he took up one of her hands and grasped one of the fingers and twisted. It broke away with a delightful snap.

“Silence please.” He grinned.

Soon

Clist, the scraggly old man that took care of the messenger birds shifted to one side of the hall as he passed the limping servant with an eternally stupid grin.  No one liked to notice the broken people. It was the quickest way to be ignored by humans.

“Watch where you’re walking,
Ghile.” Clist barked, but the old man never even gave him a second look as he disappeared around a corner. Clist was all cleaned up and heading for the noble’s quarters. That must have been where he was going because he wasn’t draped in his excrement covered tunic. The man wore that thing everywhere but there, and in Bella’s dining hall of course. The woman would beat him with that rolling pin of hers for that. He might like to see that.

Ghile
listened for sounds of someone coming before he unlocked the door and slipped into the pigeon aerie. Once he locked the door behind him, he straightened, gaining nearly six inches in stature. He let his leg untwist and allowed his face to relax. Relief.

Messenger pigeons cooed in alarm.

How Clist lived and breathed in this room he couldn’t possibly imagine. The aerie stank of bird excrement so much that even his eyes watered. Feathers and straw were strewn about the place, even though every bird had its own little wooden perch. 

Lucky piece of work that the Caller turned out to be Thaniel, one of Ontar
Hold’s only two messenger boys. Since a new one hadn’t been appointed yet, a lot of people were running their own messages. It would take old Clist an hour or better to make it all the way down to the noble’s quarters and back.

Regardless of the time he had, he moved quickly. With the bent lilting gait gone, he darted through the aerie with stealth and speed. It felt good to move again.

He slid a small scrap of paper into the message tube, snapped it into place on the right pigeon’s leg, and tossed the bird out the window. The sky around Ontar Hold was bright blue, but dark rolling clouds walled the horizon in all directions. It would take an extra day or so in the weather that had kicked up out there, but his masters would get the message. He would let them decide what to do next but it was obvious what was going to happen. They would want him, of course.

Ghile smiled in anticipation. He had served obediently. He imagined the reward would be great for the service he had rendered here. More than that
, he was looking forward to being rid of the dreadful place.

He moved quickly back through the aerie and enjoyed one more moment of erectness before he slipped on the idiot, and out of the room.

“Ghile, you wretch, what were you doing in there?” A woman’s voice scorned from behind.

Damn. He hadn’t checked the hall before he entered it. Everyone knew only Clist was allowed in the aerie alone and that he never left it unlocked. Darla had a big mouth. She would make half the hold aware of his transgression by the time she made it back to the seamstress lofts. 

“No.” He exaggeratedly clamped a twisted hand over his own mouth. “Me… I made promise…” He made a show of kicking at the stone wall with his twisted leg and wincing in fake pain. “I won’t blabber out no surprise.” He shook his head vehemently.

“What? News?” She looked at him with her head cocked to one side. “Spit it out you lump…”

“No.” His face screwed up and twitched when he spoke. He gestured at the door adding, “Ask him yourself, I… promised.”

She looked at the door, eyes narrowing. He shrugged and started limping away, leaving the door open.

Hooked.

“Clist, you old dog, where are you?” She called as she stuck her head through the door. Eager for her little piece of gossip, when she didn’t hear anything right away, she went in looking for him. Humans were so stupid. Quietly he shut the door behind him as he slipped inside.

“Don’t you tell em I spilled it…” He made a show of trying to move fast with his limping twisted form. “I din’t say nuttin, Clist! I swears it.” He called ahead pretending the old excrement covered bird keeper was just up a bit further. Pigeons cooed and flapped wings, stirring the stink, dust, and tiny feathers in the air.

She bowled forward, deeper into the aerie,
intent on reaching Clist before he did. Darla was a plump one and it took her a bit to negotiate through the cramped place. He took his time. Once she made it all the way to the back, she turned with her pudgy fists on her hips and rounded on him. She was angry, ready to pounce on the little wretch that tricked her into climbing through the dirty space.

“I don’t know what kind of game you’re up to, but when the guards hear you were back here, you’re gonna get yours. Maybe they’ll finally turn you out in the cold.” She went on… looming closer and over him. “Serves you right. I don’t see why they keep feeding you
anyway… useless cripple.”

“Darla.”  He said with that stupid voice he used. He straightened his neck and let his face relax.

Her eyes widened a bit.

Then, he uncurled his hand, smiling as he flourished it out like it had been healed by magic.

“Stupid, Darla.” Crafty was more the tone of his voice as he feigned surprise at his perfectly good hand. He untwisted his leg until his foot faced forward again.

“
I will always remember you, Darla. The little girl who liked to throw rocks at the useless cripple.” He let the threat enter his deep smooth baritone.

When he completed the transformation she looked dumbfounded.
By the time that she finally realized she was in danger, it was too late. The look on her face, a mixture of bewilderment and horror, as he effortlessly strangled the light out of her eyes, was exquisite.

He stared hungrily at the whirling teeth protruding from his palms. It took every ounce of his control not to feed. Soon, if his masters did what he expected they would, he would be free of this place.

He would, at last, have his fill again. He would be free to feed at will.

Bargain

“It’s a shame you were busy being the Caller last night. I missed you at the gate race. I would have dusted you.” Even though the sun hung in bright blue sky overhead it was still so cold that his taunts came out in puffs of frosty mist.

“Caller indeed.” Thaniel wanted to say but decided to bite his lip instead. He couldn’t shake free of the feeling that there was going to be some serious fallout from what happened in that damnable chamber. Whe
n the iron grate slammed shut and sealed the dra away from its beloved sky, the beast had turned its gaze on him, as if accusing him of an unforgivable betrayal. Last night those solid blue orbs haunted his dreams.

“Tristan
bet on you.” Thaniel shrugged further into his cloak. He didn’t argue, letting him literally have his moment in the sun. The truth was that Thaniel won the gate race three years in a row by a wide margin, and if anything had changed, he was even faster this year.

“Tristan?” Jorel cupped a hand over his eyes and stared up at the tower with a grin
, as if he somehow expected to be able to see the soldier up there through the glare.

“
He said you won him a bunch of coin.” Thaniel glanced up at the monstrous towers that Tristan commanded.

Thaniel’s eyes flickered to the left where Elycia had migrated into the group. She hadn’t once even turned her face to look at him. He would have recognized how the brilliant morning sun caught in every one of her curls from the other side of the hold. To have her so close to him and yet feel how she deliberately ignored him was an agony worse than anything that the dra could have inflicted. Who could blame her though for not wanting anything to do with him? Not only did she watch him light up the stupid
dra door thing, she had actually been there when he called the dra. To make matters worse, as if that were possible, Lisella Ontar proclaimed her his eternal kiss in front of everyone. After they dragged her out of the kitchens, the way she looked at him made him feel like he was the monster that needed to be chained up.

Thaniel set his jaw and willed his eyes dry. There was one good thing that had come from it all. In a magnanimous gesture Lisella Ontar set Elycia, the Caller’s Festival Kiss, free as well. Thaniel braved a quivering smile at that. He would endure the dra and even losing Elycia a thousand times over again rather than leave her to
Keriim’s hand.

“
A bunch of coin, huh?” Jorel beamed at that. Then he dug a knuckle into Thaniel’s shoulder.  “I definitely would have dusted you. Too bad I’m not going to be around to appreciate all that gratitude.” As a reward for winning the gate race Jorel was also granted his freedom. 

Thaniel
just nodded. He still had a hard time believing what he had to do to gain his own freedom.  Every time he thought of it, those two azure orbs stared back at him from his mind’s eye.

“Hey, is that Elycia?” Jorel bobbed up on his toes. He was already taller than most of the other people there, child or not. “It is her. Thaniel, you lucky boob
.” Jorel grabbed him by the arm.

“Don’t.”
He already knew what Jorel would do next.

“Elycia!” Jorel called out, waving.

She turned with a strained smile and waved back. Jorel gestured down at Thaniel with both hands like he was pointing out something she didn’t want to miss. He could imagine the sly grin on Jorel’s face without even looking up at his friend.

He probably should have told him. Guilt wiggled in his gut, like it really was something Jorel should get to decide. After all, who would really want anything to do with him if they knew what he had done
? Yet, Irkhir couldn’t have made it plainer. The ceremony was off limits. One word about it would cost him his tongue. Thaniel noticed that even though every soldier of the First had witnessed the calling, not one of them talked about it. In fact, that morning he had heard a number of them dance around the subject, making the event seem little more than some ritual, instead of the real thing. He wondered why it had been kept secret. Something didn’t seem right about it all. But then again… Who cared? He was leaving. And by the looks of things a whole bunch of them were. Jorel probably wouldn’t even believe him anyway. Who would? It was like a bedtime story meant to scare children into their covers.