Once A Hero (41 page)

"But who would do this? Would the Haladina risk adding to the Eldsaga by raiding here in our lands?"

I shook my head, then balled my fists against my desire to stroke her hair and kiss away her tears. "This was an act of cruelty—as cruel as the laws that keep us apart right now—and an act of revenge. The Lansorii died because your brother dared fight beside me to overthrow Tashayul's empire. He and Marta were taken as hostages so they can be traded for something of incalculable value." I raised Cleaveheart and watched the moonlight skitter down its unblemished edge. "With this sword comes a means to win an empire, and those who staged this raid mean to have it in exchange for the lives of your brother and his bride."

The raven on Atholwin's shoulder hopped into the air, and as it spread its wings, it began to change. Feathers melted back into black flesh that stretched taut between the bony fingers of the demon's batwings. Its head expanded and fattened while flattening. Its two eyes swam up into the center of the forehead and merged, then split apart into three eyes that formed a triangle pointing down at the serrated beak. The bird's feet remained the same, but the body and legs changed to become more anthropomorphic. Little infant arms sprouted from its sternum, vestigial limbs that could only clap and grasp and, at points, looked as if they were part of a baby trying to fight its way to freedom from inside the demon.

Gena recognized it from descriptions given of the foul creatures that had served Reithra. It was a ferghun, a demon from some obscure pit of her inferno that seduced men through their fear of death, promising them much and denying them everything in the end. Such creatures, as nearly as she could determine, had not been seen on Skirren since the fall of the Reithrese, and the presence of this one meant Atholwin had dabbled in dark practices best left forgotten.

Fear sent a jolt through her that burned away the magical fog generated by the syncopated candle flames. With a deliberate speed that seemed ever so slow to her, she brought her hands out from beneath the thick bedding, flicked the primer covers off, and thumbed back the talons on Durriken's flashdrakes. Stabbing the first handcannon forward, she pulled the trigger and braced as the talon sparked into the primer pan. After a heartbeat or perhaps two as hers raced, earsplitting thunder followed a bright flash and gout of smoke.

The first ball took Atholwin clean in the chest. It made a neat round hole over his heart amid the peppering of unburned powder that flecked his robe. The old man sighed explosively, then seemed to collapse in around the wound, while his dagger twisted and bobbled up out of his grasp. His body flew back into one of the two swordsmen behind him, but before they could collide with the candlebearer, Gena fired the second flashdrake.

The shot blew straight through the ferghun and the muzzle-flash burned a ragged hole through the center of the beast. It screamed in the voice of the raven, wrapped in anguish and threaded with madness, then began to dissolve from wound outward. Behind it the candlebearer snapped forward in an abrupt bow as the ball took him in the stomach. His candle dropped, the flame dying seconds before he did, and Gena felt her ability to work magick return.

Dropping the flashdrakes in her lap, she grasped the heavy coverlet and threw it forward to entangle the lone standing swordsman at the foot of the bed. Without moving from her place, she swung her hands wide and gestured at the two remaining candlebearers. Even as their eyes cleared and focused on her, the black candles they bore immediately and completely combusted. Each man reeled away in a flash of light, with singed hair stinking and white robe burning.

The first swordsman regained his feet as Gena rolled from the bed, but never got a chance to close with her. The door to her room disintegrated beneath a powerful kick. Berengar, his eyes blazing, swept into the room, turned the swordsman's thrust with a casual parry, then riposted with a slash that carried clean through the left side of the man's chest. A recovery and a lunge sent the entangled swordsman stumbling back into a human torch, and the both of them crashed against the wall. The tapestry hanging there immediately caught fire, and flames leaped from it to the canopy over Gena's bed.

"Come on, this place is a firetrap!"

Gena scooped the flashdrakes and her old clothes into her satchel, then picked up her boots and ran out behind the count. As big as a bear and growling in a suitable manner, he stalked through the house awaiting attack. She followed behind him with a spell or two in mind to use if any more demons opposed them, but they reached the courtyard unmolested.

"Wait here." Berengar turned to head back into the manor, but black smoke had already begun to pour out of the doorway. He ducked his head and disappeared into it, then came running back out coughing loudly and swiping tears from his eyes. "Too much fire."

"It was a tinderbox. Lots of debris and old wood."

Berengar smeared soot across his face. "When I heard the flashdrakes go off, I came running. Now my boots and clothes are burning up there." He scowled for a moment, then looked from the building to Gena and back. "You said the first spell every magicker learns snuffs fires. Can you?"

Gena shook her head. "Magick I can work, but miracles, no." She reached out and pulled him back away from the building as burning wooden shingles crashed down amid a shower of sparks. "Let it burn, all of it, then scatter the stones and salt the earth."

Berengar looked strangely at her. "What happened in there?"

"I'll tell you as we get our horses and get away from here. Maybe in the stable we can find you more than just breeches to wear."

The count nodded, and they did find an old polish-stained shirt amid the tack in the stable. They pulled Spirit and Teague from the stable and got their packhorses out as well before the fire spilled over to engulf that structure, While they worked, Gena told Berengar of what she had seen in her room and shared with him the conclusions she had drawn from her experience.

"If I had not chosen to load the flashdrakes and keep them with me because I felt frightened, I would be dead right now, because they knew how to neutralize my magick. I think the ferghun would have supplied them with that information—it is rumored that those demons know a great many things, including facts hidden in the past or lurking in the near future."

Berengar shook his head slowly. "A ferghun? I cannot believe . . ."

"Believe it, Berengar, I saw it. Its presence there with your uncle suggests he let his studies of folklore and legend carry him too far." Gena found her anger growing hotter than the fire consuming the castle. "It is known that some of the Haladina worship the Cold Goddess, but I had thought civilized Men would have found her a detestable mistress."

"It was not his fault, Gena."

"How can you say that? He would have murdered both of us."

"He was a frightened old man, haunted by ghosts. It is not surprising that he sought assurances from the Goddess of Death concerning his fate and that of his sons."

"The Cold Goddess is a curious mistress to court if you want sanctuary against death. She and her people are abominable!"

"But you remember that, we do not." Berengar raked hair from his face. "Time wears away the cruel edges of history. Your grandfather fought against the Reithrese, so you have the tales directly from him. You know how horrible the Reithrese were. We do not. Men hear only the seductive tales of power that will make us the equal of the Elder races. For an old man, one who has seen his dreams of immortality evaporate, that is very seductive. I'm certain he felt he could master her."

"Another myth disproved."

"Yes, yes, you are right, Gena, but he was sick and not thinking correctly. Had he been the Atholwin I had known in my youth, he never would have dabbled in Reithrese magicks." Berengar shook his head as he led the horses through the gate and away from the burning castle. "It is odd, of course, that in his ravings he was correct; we did kill him."

"But we did not go there to kill him." Leaving Spirit with Berengar, Gena slipped away behind a tree to change from her nightdress into traveling clothes. "We did not betray him, merely stopped him from murdering us, so accusing us of being betrayers was wrong."

"Point well-taken." Berengar took a deep breath and seemed to slow down. "Please, forgive me, I am overwrought."

Gena smiled at him as she returned from changing. "It was a difficult ordeal for us both."

"Let us hope we face no more in the future." He swiped a hand over his face, then yawned. "Castle there, burning hot / roasting and toasting all the clothes I've got . . ."

Gena laughed at his rhyme, and that brought a smile to the count's face. "So, Berengar, do we press on to Jarudin, or do we go back to Aurdon and resupply ourselves?"

He frowned and thought for a moment, then nodded. "We go on, if that appeals to you. We are almost halfway to our goal, and a return to Aurdon might mean that my Elders change their minds about our mission. I would rather fail in Jarudin and return than fail here and return."

"I understand. I have a little gold, and if we forage while on the road, I think we should be able to make it to Jarudin. If we need more, we will put you to work spinning rhymes in taverns for food and lodging."

Berengar groaned and hauled himself into the saddle. "I would sooner flaunt the Emperor's justice as a highwayman than sing for my supper."

Gena mounted Spirit and brought the horse alongside Berengar and his horse. "That may be well and true, but when we get to Jarudin, explaining away bad rhymes and worse songs might be easier than dodging reports of criminal activity, especially when it comes to getting us an audience with Hardelwick."

"As always. Lady Genevera, your beauty is exceeded only by your wisdom." Berengar laughed lightly and gave his horse a touch of his heels. "Let's find a place where they will trade food for song and pray we get the better of the bargain."

Though I had slept for nearly a day and a half since my arrival in Cygestolia, I felt very tired as I stood before the Elven Council. Every seat in the council amphitheatre itself was filled, and Elves of every description clung to the branches and boughs above and around it. The story of the massacre and our unescorted journey back to the Elven capital had spread firefast through the city, and everyone wanted to be present when the council summoned me.

I suppose that it should not have surprised me that I had been brought to the council with a charge of misconduct against me or the death penalty hanging over me. I should have been used to it. In fact, as much as I abhorred politics, I had to admire the way the charge had been laid so there would be an excuse to destroy me if I proved to be as much a threat to Elvendom as some feared I was.

I breathed in slowly, pleased with the calmness I felt dwelling inside me. "My answer to the charge that I engaged in physical contact with Lady Larissa is that the charge is false." I glanced to my right where she stood with Lomthelgar and Shijef. "I charged the Dreel with the duty of keeping her safe."

I let an edge slip into my voice. "Even at the moment when she saw the slaughter, in a moment of horror when any two living creatures would search out a companion for comfort and reassurance in life, he kept us apart. We abided by your law even in a situation where that law stripped us of all that makes us living, breathing, feeling creatures. Your law robbed us of the most basic consideration and compassion. As unjust as the law was in that situation, we respected it. On this you have my word, as well as that of Lady Larissa and the Dreel."

Most of the Consilliari met my defiance and anger with defiance of their own, but when Larissa nodded toward me and gave all of them a stern stare, some shrank back from it. Whispers from the gallery buzzed and hummed above me. Though the words escaped me, tones of shock and outrage did not. I could not tell if they were directed at the law or my audacity, but I took heart in my ability to provoke a reaction among a people who saw me as little more than an animal.

Thralan stood at his place in the council. "Calarianne, so there is no stigma upon my daughter, I demand these charges be dismissed by acclamation." Lomthelgar capered forward. "Second!"

The sylvanesti overseeing the proceeding nodded. "If there are no objections . . . seeing none, I have it that the charges are dismissed without opposition."

She raised her staff to bring it down and adjourn the session, but I raised my hand. "Wait! I must speak to the council on another matter."

Calarianne hesitated and another of the Consilliarii rose to move that I be allowed to speak. Thralan seconded the motion and it passed on a voice vote. "The council will listen to you, Neal Roclawzi."

I bowed my head respectfully to her, then looked up the Elves facing me. "I understand that it is believed Haladin raiders slew the Lansorii and carried Aarundel and Marta away. I must inform you, lest the reputations and abilities of those Lansorii and my friend be slandered, that the Haladina did not kill them. The Reithrese did."

"What proof have you of this?" A black-haired Elf stood in the front row. "By all accounts you arrived too late to see the raiders."

"I've been thinking on the problem all the while we traveled here." I held my left hand up with the palm facing me and my fingers all splayed out. I curled the smallest under saying, "First off, there were no Haladin bodies present, and there is no way at least one of them would not have died. And, without a doubt, the Haladina could have carried off their dead, but they're not much of a mind to do that when there is so much loot."

The Elf nodded carefully. "But the bodies were not looted."

My ring finger curled down. "Another atypical fact about the fight. I'm thinking I've never seen a battlefield where the Haladina didn't make off with as much in the way of booty as they could pile on their horses. Elven armor and arms were left behind, as well as the personal effects of the slain Lansorii. The Haladina would have treasured those things, for they would have been seen as powerful both among the Haladina and as symbols of their skills to their Reithrese masters."