Swordmistress of Chaos (3 page)

‘Aye. And you know it.’

‘Perhaps. Steel to steel it would be an interesting combat. But where’s the sense?’ The bloodied broadsword dropped to bury its tip in the sand. ‘I’d as lief fight you as I’d kill my brother. And I have a feeling seated deep in my gut that you might win, if not by the sword, then by your sorcery.’

The one called Spellbinder laughed, and it was a sound of humour tinged with sadness, as though he knew the outcome of such a combat and preferred to avoid it. He sheathed his black sword and clapped a hand to Argor’s armoured shoulder.

‘Free them, old friend, and let’s away before some patrol happens upon us.’

Argor turned, shouting orders at his waiting men, and they set to breaking the golden slavechains, ushering the women and the male slaves off towards a nearby ridge. The girl was one of the last to be freed, though she scarcely noticed the cleaving of her anklet: her eyes were fixed firm on the face of the black and silver warrior. In turn, he appeared to study her with inexplicable interest, as though he had found some long-sought treasure of unguessable value. She waited for him to speak, wondering what prompted his curious interest. It was clear that the lust she had roused in Argor was not shared by this one—or I shared, controlled with care. He looked the kind of man to rule his emotions with a firm will, unlike his outlaw companions, and she felt a strange, instinctive kinship.

He sheathed the black sword and gestured for her to rise.

‘Come.’

She followed obediently.

The outlaws had horses concealed beyond the ridge, and those, together with the animals of the dead slavers, mounted most of the freed prisoners. The black and silver warrior lifted the girl onto his own beast, mounting behind her. There was something oddly comforting about the encirclement of his mailed arms, and she leant against him as they rode away across the sand.

Behind them, kites and buzzards spiraled down from the sky, their raucous cries hoarse with anticipation.

The outlaw camp was situated around a small oasis, tall palms growing from the luxuriant sward edging the water. Tents of green and blue and black were scattered amongst the trees, and guards armed with longbows watched their approach.

The man had not spoken during the journey, and now he reined in before a tent of black silk, its sides marked with the same strange symbols that covered his shield. He handed her to the ground and tugged on the chinstraps of his helmet. When he removed the headgear, a mane of jet-black hair tumbled around his shoulders and he pushed it back with a long-fingered hand. He was, she noticed, exceeding handsome in a fine-boned way. Were it not for the steel in his pale eyes, and the firm, almost sad, set of his mouth, he might have looked weak in this company of fierce, hand-eyed men.

‘This is my tent.’ His voice was soft and rich, its tone gentle. ‘Inside there are clothes and perfumes, dresses. Clean yourself and await my return.’

Oddly, she felt that his words constituted a request rather than an order.

‘Should anyone molest you, tell them you belong to Spellbinder.’

She nodded, waiting until he turned away to unsaddle his horse before entering the tent. It was spacious and cool inside, rugs and cushions of bright colours giving a simply luxury. An awning of some material she had never seen before partitioned the rearward section, and behind it she found a tub and the promised unguents. With a delighted cry, she tore off her flimsy shift and sank into the water. To her surprise it was warm, and she wondered—for a brief instant—how the strange warrior had arranged for it to be heated. Comfort overrode curiosity and she enjoyed the unaccustomed luxury with the unthinking pleasure of a happy animal.

She had no idea how long she spent in the tub, for the water remained pleasantly tepid and then there were lotions and balms to intrigue her. After those, dresses of silk and find-spun cotton, necklaces of silver and of gold, bands of platinum and precious gems to contain her hair, and rings of foreign design. She chose a dress of black silk that clung to the contours of her body, emphasizing the fullness of her breasts, the smooth, clean curve of her hips. It was sleeveless, and she set a silver torque about her upper arm, matching it with a heavy silver bracelet around her left wrist. A slender belt of platinum links encircled her waist, further emphasizing the enticing fullness of her hips, and she drew small sandals of black and silver over her feet. She left her hair free, so that it cascaded in waves of gold onto, and past, her shoulders.

When she was done, she studied her reflection in a great mirror of polished silver, and wondered at the result. The reflection showed her a woman in the first flowering of her maturity, little more than a girl, but shapely and sensual: a woman to please a man’s eye.

She had never worn clothes like these before, nor even seen some of the ornaments, but they fitted her as though the finest of Lyand’s many fine dressmakers had worked long to suit her. She was, she realized with a start of surprise, beautiful.

Her own assessment was born out by Spellbinder’s admiring glance. The warrior was waiting for her in the outer tent, sipping a goblet of rich Saran wine. He, too, had changed his attire and now sat in a flowing shirt of black cotton, belted round with a wide swathe of black leather. He wore tight-fitting black trousers tucked into high, black boots and his weapons and armour were stowed neatly to one side of the tent. A long-bladed dagger was sheathed on his left, and the girl noticed the hilt of a second protruding from his right boot. She smiled and curtsied as he rose to his feet.

‘Sit here.’ He filled a second goblet as she sank to the cushions. ‘There are things I would know about you. And things you must learn about yourself.’

Curious, she waited for him to continue. She felt safe, though she knew not why. The fate of a captured slavegirl was usually pre-ordained: life if she pleased the man who took her—at least until he grew bored—or death if she argued the rape. She had been prepared to die. Once was enough.

‘How are you called?’ He asked it as though he knew already.

‘Su’uan.’

‘No other name? No patronym?’

She shook her head so that her hair flew around her eyes. ‘Slaves have only one name.’

‘So it goes.’ He smiled, and the smile seemed to light the dusky tent. ‘Your parents? You knew them?’

‘They came from Ishkar. My father was called Zan, a farmer. My mother, Cara. She carried me when the Lyand slaveship came raiding along the coast, so they let her keep me. I was born in the slaveyards. When my father tried to see my mother they took him away and killed him. I was still a baby then.’ Her voice was filled with bitter resignation. ‘The first thing I can remember is my father screaming as they branded him. They used the irons until he died. It was an example to the others.’

‘Your mother?’ His voice was gentle, comforting. ‘She lives?’

‘No.’ The girl shook her head, swallowing wine to drown out the hatred and despair. ‘Lyand was fighting Vartha’an, and hired mercenaries. The soldiers wanted women—my mother was one of the chosen. They took her one by one and killed her for their pleasure. After that I was alone.’

‘Not now. You escaped.’

‘Aye. Better the desert than Karl ir Donwayne.’

‘Donwayne?’ The pale face was abruptly intense, blue-silver eyes probing hers. ‘What dealings had you with Donwayne?’

‘What dealings has Donwayne with anyeone?’ Her voice was bitter. ‘Destruction in his trade. Suffering, his entertainment.’

She paused, choking on the bitter bile of hatred that stopped her throat, her blue eyes staring at some vision of things past, things branded on her memory as sure as the brand upon her thigh.

‘Karl ir Donwayne commanded the mercenaries who killed my mother. He remained in Lyand after the war was ended to become the city’s Weaponmaster. I grew, and Donwayne saw me. He watched me after that, waiting for the years to pass, waiting until he deemed me ready. Then he took me.’ Her words, now, came from between clenched teeth and her voice grew flat. ‘They called me from the slavepen one evening. The overseer had me stripped and bathed, dressed in a fresh shift. They lead me through the city to the Weaponhall. Donwayne waited there. He was drunk, his cheeks red with excess so scars stood white against is skin. The overseer left me. Donwayne tore the shift from me and when I tried to run, he beat me until I bled. Then he raped me. He told me, as he did it, that he liked it better with the blood on me.

‘The next day I was given a room in the hall. It was two levels from the ground and the door was locked. I was to await the pleasure of Karl ir Donwayne. Before he came, I risked the drop and fled. I climbed the wall and ran into the desert. I knew the slavehounds would be loosed, but even they seemed better than a life as Donwayne’s whore.

‘It was strange. The hounds were on me when something came out of the night. A bird—something—I cannot be sure, except that it saved me. I woke a prisoner of the eunuchs. The rest you know.’

‘Aye,’ murmured Spellbinder, ‘and perhaps more than that, even. Perhaps too much.’

He sat in silence for a moment, his eyes blank so that the girl stared at him, wondering what he meant.

Then, soft and slow, he began to recite a verse as though chanting a litany:

‘Out of Ikshar into Lyand,
Squalling soft the baby comes,
Doomed to suffer, doomed to conquer,
Knowing not the sacred tomes.
Life and death, they both are hidden
In the chosen, infant frame.
New world born and old one dying,
Who to guess the godlike game?’

A chill that was both cold and simultaneously warm settled over the girl. She felt terror and joy, a great, overwhelming doubt and an uplifting wave of certainty. Though certainty of what, she could not guess. Spellbinder looked up, smiling, his eyes suddenly clear again as though a decision had been made and he saw a path clear before him.

‘You are no longer Su’uan,’ he said quietly, though his voice rang like a war-bell in her mind. ‘You are Raven. Raven, Chaos-bringer. The chosen one.’

She began to protest, unknowing the ordained pattern he described, aware only of a watershed in her life, that somewhere on the cosmic plane powers shifted and fell into place as though a great storm of mystic proportion gathered around her.

‘Come.’ His voice was awed, yet commanding, and she followed him from the tent.

Outside, the night was dark and the wine-rich shouting of the outlaws rang loud around the oasis. Spellbinder lifted his arms to the sky and called something in a tongue she could not understand.

There was a beating of wings, a hoarse cry that seemed to block out all others sounds. And from the night there descended a great black shape. Wings beat around her head, and she saw the flash of razor talons, the glint of curved beak. Then two eyes, red and fierce and knowing, peered at her. Something gripped her shoulder, but she ignored the pain, aware only of a strange inner strength. A weight settled upon her and she knew the great bird that had saved her from the slavehounds perched upon her shoulder.

‘Aye,’ said Spellbinder with joy and fear in his voice. ‘You are Raven.’

‘A tool is as good as its maker. When the required material has been found, careful working is vital.’

The Books of Kharwhan

Claws sharp as Tirwand steel locked over her shoulder, yet—curiously—she felt no pain. It was as though the great bird-thing upheld her even as it perched upon her. She twisted her head around and found herself looking into eyes as red as hellfire, as old as time. Cruel, they were, with a timeless dispassion, yet knowing, friendly; all at the same time.

She shuddered, feeling the talons bite into her skin. Yet when she looked for bloodmarks, there were none. And then the bird was gone, if bird it was, beating up into the night on wings loud as thunder and silent as snowfall. Its blackness disappeared amongst the star-pricked darkness of the night, and it was gone.

She started, as a person waking from a dream stars, remembering, yet only half believing. And she turned to Spellbinder.

‘What was it? What happens?’

The man smiled, reaching out to touch her arm. Soft was his touch, and gentle, now, as his pale eyes.

‘Many things, Raven. And upon them, the world turns. As to the bird…It accepted you.’

‘And had it not?’

‘You live still: it accepted you. Had it not, you would be dead.’

He watched her face as he spoke, his voice assuming once again the chant-tone:

‘Black its wings,
And black its soul.
Bird of night and bird of knowing,
Heed its call and heed its sowing.
Take the seed and let it grow,
All within your own soul growing.’

‘What say you?’ Her voice was frightened, yet defiant. ‘What means the bird to me?’

‘Everything,’ he answered, simply. ‘The books tell of your coming. The bird was chosen to recognize you. The lore of Kharwhan has it so.’

‘Kharwhan?’ Now she was frightened. ‘What has the Ghost Isle to do with me?’

Spellbinder smiled reassuringly, knowing the fear the name aroused in mortals. In a world of struggling city-state and infant kingdoms, the Isle of Mists represented an enclave of half-guessed knowledge, and a xenophobic terror.

‘Nothing and everything,’ he said quietly. ‘Better to ask what
you
have to do with
it.
In time, it will be explained; for now I cannot tell you. Know that you are safe; know that you have a destiny greater than the Lyand slavepens; know that you have two friends, sword-companions: myself and the bird.’

‘Sword-companions?’ Her lustrous blue eyes grew wide with surprise. ‘What know I of swords? How sword-companions?’

‘Soon,’ smiled the man in black, ‘you shall know. For now, let us over and join the others. There is much you must learn from Argor; my teaching will come as it comes.’

He took her elbow, and his hand was ice and fire upon her naked flesh, and she knew that she was safe in his care. And safer still in the care of the black bird; though how she knew it, she could not tell. The knowing was enough in itself, and she crossed the sward as a queen on the arm of her champion, accepting the admiring glances of the outlaws as a queen drinks in the admiration of courtiers.