No Quarter (35 page)

"Oh, then I thought of something to fill the hole. An Imperial command.

Remember duty, Vree? And honor? Oh, no. I forgot. You gave that up for the carrion eater, too."

She spat in his face. When the return blow came, she rolled with it, curled around the ropes and kicked him in the back of the thigh with both heels. He pitched forward and she threw her body up to meet his.

The back of her head slammed into his cheek and it was over a moment later.

"You're going to pay for that," he growled. "You're going to… to…"

Her own head ringing, it wasn't at all hard to believe she'd hit him hard enough to scramble his thoughts.

*No. Listen.*

*All hear are trees and leaves.* She heard Bannon stand, heard him shuffle around making no effort to hide the noise his boots made in the carpet of dried leaves. A sound stroked the edge of her hearing, too indistinct to identify.

Incredibly, she heard Bannon walk away, his footsteps hesitant as though he went reluctantly.

Then the sound of his footsteps stopped and a familiar voice said,
"Albannon
Magaly, do not move until I release you."

Chapter Twelve

"Does anyone else think that dragging him along with us is a really stupid idea, or is it just me?"

Sitting by the fire with a wet tunic of Karlene's wrapped around her knee to keep the swelling down, Magda scooped up a pebble and threw it at her brother. It had been a long day—healers were unable to Heal themselves—and she didn't need him making it a long night. "What do you
suggest
we do, Ger? Leave him tied to a tree and come back for him when we've settled things with Kars? Or should I say come back to what's left of him. There are wolves around here, you know. And bears."

Gerek glared at her, past Bannon's blindfolded, bound, and hobbled figure. "At least being eaten by bears would have some dignity!" He turned on Karlene. "Look, if holding him captive is as temporary a solution as you say it is, why can't you keep him under Command?"

"Because it isn't good for him."

"And this is?"

"He could still kill you, Your Grace." The bard waved a hand at Bannon's semi-prone body—only the slow rise and fall of his chest, barely visible in the light from the leaping flames, indicated he was alive. "Even like that."

"Yeah, except he doesn't want to kill me. As far as I can tell, he doesn't want to kill anyone." Gerek pulled his sword, swung around, and viciously beheaded a small evergreen. Vree and Bannon both turned their heads to follow the swing of the blade although Bannon couldn't actually see it. "Kidnapping, yes. Murder, no."

When the weapon remained unsheathed, Karlene moved prudently to the other side of the firepit. "You're forgetting, Your Grace, that Bannon is an Imperial assassin."

"No, he isn't." The point of the sword rose until it was on a level with Bannon's heart. "He's the personal bodyguard of His Imperial Highness, Prince Otavas. He's no more an assassin than Vree is!"

The only sounds were the crackle of the flames, the lapping of the river against the shore, and a breeze pushing through the tops of the trees.

Finally, Magda shook her head. "Bullshit," she said succinctly.

"Maggi!"

At Gerek's outraged tone, Vree found herself looking toward Bannon to share the joke—except he couldn't see her.

"We may all be what the past has made us," Magda declared, ignoring her brother, "but we are just as much what we've made of the past. Vree made a choice, a conscious decision to break with her training. Bannon hasn't. By taking over his body, Gyhard forced him away from the army. By saving Gyhard, Vree forced him away from her, by giving him an order, the Emperor forced him into this confrontation. I'll bet he never chose to tell the Emperor that Gyhard was alive, it just spilled out one day."

"Maggi…"

This time, she jabbed a finger toward him, the light in her eyes not entirely a reflection of the fire. "And stop saying
Maggi
in that obnoxious tone, like you're trying to sound like Father. I hate it when you do that. I've spent the last two years learning to Heal, Gerek, and I know what I'm talking about. This isn't going to end until Bannon
actually
makes a choice!"

"I think you're both forgetting that Bannon isn't
actually
the problem," Karlene said softly, poking at the fire with a stick. "Kars is. And since I can't get rid of you…" She swept a resigned gaze around the circle of light. "… any of you, and since we're probably all going to have to cope with a great deal of very unpleasant death tomorrow, I suggest we get some sleep. So that we don't inadvertently cut off Bannon's circulation, I'm going to lullaby him and untie him for the night." A raised hand cut of Gerek's protest. "First of all, Singing him to sleep is nothing like keeping him under Command and secondly, if you don't trust me, Your Grace, stick your fingers in your ears."

He sheathed his sword, sank cross-legged to the ground, and did exactly that.

Karlene continued the Song for a few minutes after Bannon sagged against his bonds and then let it trail off. "He'll sleep until I wake him," she said easing him into a more comfortable position and loosening the ropes. Her gaze met Vree's and held it while Magda and Gerek settled down for the night. She wanted to say something, but had no idea of what. Finally, she shook her head, went back to the spot she'd chosen, and rolled herself up in a blanket.
So near and yet so far
. She sighed.
Cliche, but appropriate
.

Wearing every piece of clothing she'd brought, Vree moved closer to the fire and lay down, pillowing her head on one arm.

*You know that either Gerek or Karlene would be willing to keep you warm.*

Her brows drew in. *Don't start.* It had been an interesting evening; Gerek leaping to Bannon's defense, Magda standing up to him, Karlene suddenly acting like a corporal or a squad leader. *You know what I'm wondering?*

She felt him shift, as though he were settling in, getting comfortable for the night. *What?*

*How much Shkoden does Bannon actually understand?*

*He didn't react to anything.*

Vree closed her eyes and listened to the comforting sounds of people sleeping all around her. *Neither did I.*

From the far end of the valley, the timber-holding appeared peaceful enough.

"Is the gate closed?"

"I can't see from this angle, but there are some big, orange hairy things outside the stockade."

Karlene squinted but could only see gradations of brown on brown, broken by the occasional small evergreen and clumps of golden-leafed willows by the river.

She hated being without the kigh; it made her feel as blind and bound as Bannon.

"They're probably cows."

"Cows?" Vree shifted her grip on the branch and peered down at the bard.

"Orange cows?"

"They're a mountain breed. They can live on just about anything and they don't mind the cold. Anything else."

"Someone's…" About to say alive, she changed it to, "… awake. There's smoke. I don't see anyone moving around the piles of logs, though."

*Kars could easily be the one who lit the fire.*

*Or not.* If it were Kars, it would soon be over and Bannon would no longer be an inconvenience but a problem that had to be solved—one way or another. Trouble was, she couldn't think of another. "I don't see anything else. I'm coming down."

On the ground, Bannon frowned behind the masking blindfold. They used to spend hours, sometimes days, on reconnaissance; tucked into a safe vantage point they'd watch and weigh every inconsequential movement until they found the pattern. It drove him crazy, but Vree would insist. It was the way they'd survived for five long years when the life expectancy of an Imperial assassin seldom passed three. Today, in comparison, Vree had climbed up the tree, glanced around, and come straight back down again.

She'd changed in less than obvious ways.

"
He's no more an assassin than Vree is
!" Gerek's declaration chased itself around and around in his head.

What a load of slaughtering louse shit
. He hadn't changed, not the way she had. A twig cracked as she came back down the tree, not making a lot of noise but not moving nearly as quietly as she could.

What's the slaughtering rush
? he wondered.
If Kars is there, then hurrying
saves no lives and might risk ours
. Bannon wasn't looking forward to running into the crazy old man with his hands tied behind his back and his ankles hobbled.

While he wasn't completely defenseless, he certainly wasn't at his best.
At least His
slaughtering Grace got them to drop the slaughtering blindfold while we're
moving
. Once he would have trusted Vree to lead him blindfolded through an enemy camp. Not anymore.

Even sitting a careful distance away, Magda could feel the emotions rolling off Bannon like smoke. Besides the petty, self-absorbed jealousy, the "if I can't have my own way I'm going to eat worms" petulance, and the understandable anger at being captured, she could sense a deep hurt. Although she couldn't tell for certain without trance work, it seemed he honestly didn't understand how, after everything that had happened, Vree could've chosen to save Gyhard.
At least he's admitting
she did choose
. Magda supposed that was progress.

When she sighed, Gerek turned. "Troubles, Maggi?" he asked, concerned.

She shrugged; Bannon's emotional state was none of his business.

"It's that wrongness, isn't it? Maybe you shouldn't go any closer."

Magda started. The wrongness was still there, like a great dark weight in the back of her mind, growing larger and heavier with every step they'd taken toward the valley, but she hadn't actually thought about it all morning. It frightened her how quickly she could get used to something like that. "I have to go." Her voice was a little too high, the words spilling out a little too fast. "I have to heal Kars."

Karlene went down on one knee beside the young healer. "There's only one way to heal Kars," she said softly. "And that's by returning him to the Circle."

"…
and when there is nothing left but pain, I will not deny my patients the
embrace of the Circle
. It's part of the Healers' Oath." Magda sighed again and tucked a damp curl behind one ear. "Some pain only death can cure."

"And are you prepared for that?"

"I think so."

"Have you ever done it before?"

"No." Her chin lifted. "Have you?"

Killed someone. Taken a life. Even a life that should have ended years ago. It was the bard's turn to sigh. "No."

Magda shifted gaze and question to her brother.

He spread his hands; she already knew the answer.

When she looked at Vree, the ex-assassin shook her head and sighed. "I guess it's a good thing I came," she muttered dryly.

Bannon couldn't help it. He snickered.

Kars could feel lives approaching; five lives, moving slowly up the valley. One of them felt almost like the demon that had convinced his last family to leave him.

There were differences, he would never mistake the two, but the similarities were terrifying.

*Father?*

"It's all right, Kait." She worried so. He was glad there were others now to keep her company. Such a young girl shouldn't have to spend all her time with… with…

He reached for who he was, nearly touched it, and felt it slip away toward the five new lives.

They were moving closer. They were coming here. They would try to take this family away as they had taken the others.

"No." He shook his head, confused by names out of the recent past. Wheyra.

Iban. Hestia. Faces half-formed in memory. Twisted fingers rose to stroke the necklace of bone that Anca and Kait had retrieved for him. He had no token from those three, from Wheyra, Iban, and Hestia, snatched from his side by the demon.

Just as he had no tokens from the seven who'd been taken from him such a short time before. He hadn't even had time to learn all their names.

Gyhard.

His heart pounding, he turned toward the gate, but the approaching lives were still too far away to see. That name did not belong to one of his. Had never belonged to one of his. But it had left him, too.

They all left him.

"No. Not this time. This time I can protect you. Kiril, Ondro, close the gate."

As the two dead men shuffled forward to do as he commanded, he herded the other four together and got them moving toward the cool depths of the timber-holding's root cellar.

"If they cannot reach you," he told them happily, "they cannot hurt you." He waited by the door until Kiril and Ondro climbed down to join them, then smiled lovingly on all six, five of whom smiled involuntarily back at him, their lips already beginning to pull up off their teeth. "Wait here. When they are gone and you are safe again, I will come and get you."

He closed the door and sighed. He would miss them, but hopefully, they wouldn't have to stay there long.

*Father, you need to eat.*

"I do?"

*Yes, Father.*

Patting her cheek, completely undisturbed by his hand passing through the shadowy outlines of her face, he murmured, "You take such good care of me, Kait.

What would I do without you?"

Enrik's tongue dragged across dried and cracking lips. While his kigh shrieked and fought within the confines of its prison, his body, driven by desperate need, shuffled forward until stopped by the rough wall of the cellar. Hands splayed out, he moved blindly to the right, face pressed up against a row of stone crocks. The earliest of all instincts opened his mouth and he sucked at the moisture dribbling down their sides.

"He's there." It suddenly became impossible to take another step forward. Not because she was physically exhausted, although she was. Not because the damage to her knee made walking painful, although it did. But because the dark wrongness had moved from the back of her mind to the front of her thoughts. If she squinted, Magda could almost see it, pulsing on the path they'd been following along the riverbank.