The Bloodforged (17 page)

Which was just how you wanted to greet a new day, really.

“Maybe you cannot read the note?” said the shorter, stockier of the two in heavily accented Erromanian. The pair started to walk toward Liam.

“I'm not so great with my letters,” Liam said, stalling as he manoeuvred the dagger into position. “Do you want to tell me what it said?”

“It said you to
leave
,” the short man hissed. “It said you to take the others and go.” That was definitely a cudgel in his hand, the kind city guards sometimes used to break up brawls.

“You were warning,” he continued in his broken Erromanian. He pointed the cudgel at Liam. “Now you pay.”

Liam snapped the dagger into his hand and said, “Please go away.”

They rushed him together, ready to bash his skull in. Liam liked his chances well enough until a third man stepped out of the bushes and joined the fun. That just felt
excessive
.

The one who'd jumped out of the bushes reached him first. Liam cracked his nose open with an elbow, then landed a heavy blow to his temple, dropping him to the dirt. The thin one was next, just two steps ahead of his stockier friend, but Liam ducked easily under the cudgel and twisted away. He planted his feet, dagger raised, ready. His pulse was steady in his ears, his breath even. He knew this dance. Every step, every variation, a geometry as familiar as walking. Politics and intrigue might be beyond his ken, but
this
 . . . this he knew.

The first man was on his knees, still sluggish. Liam focused on the other two. They spread out, trying to flank him. Liam waited until they lunged, then spun around behind the stocky one and opened a nice big gash across his shoulders. When the thin one darted in, Liam threw the sort of punch that usually resulted in fewer teeth. The man weaved for a moment before dropping unceremoniously onto his arse.

Liam backed up, dagger raised. “This isn't going anywhere, lads. No offence, but it looks like it'll take a lot more of you to get this done.”

He must have convinced them, because they tore off down the road, leaving behind a few spots of blood and a discarded cudgel.

Liam straightened, stretched a kink in his neck. Not the best way to wake up, but it could have been a lot worse. It probably
would
be worse, he reflected, and soon.

But not today.

E
rik woke to a blinding headache. For a moment, he could not recall where he was or how he came to be there. Then the memories rushed back in, and he sat bolt upright.

Or at least, he meant to. But when he tried to brace his hands at his sides, he found that his wrists were bound. His ankles too.

“Be still.”

Erik froze. His eyes raked the gloom, eventually settling on a dark shape crouched nearby. Somewhere behind him, a fire snapped. “If you move too suddenly, you will vomit.” A woman's voice, cool and matter-of-fact. She was speaking Harrami, but with a strange accent.

Another voice spoke, a man this time. Erik could not understand what he said.

“Who are you?” Erik barely managed to force the words past his dry mouth. Speaking Harrami gave him a sore throat at the best of times, with its rolling
R
s and hard-edged consonants.

He heard a sharply drawn breath. The man spoke again, sounding surprised.

“Yes,” the woman said, “he does. That is why I used it just now. I heard him speaking it in his sleep.”

Erik cursed inwardly. He must have been dreaming about Ost, though he had no memory of it.
What did I say?
Nothing too damning, or he would be dead already.

“Where did you learn that, dog?” The darkness shifted, a looming shadow in the vague shape of a man. Beside him, the woman remained crouched, watching. Erik could just make out the edge of her jaw, framed by long, dark hair. “Why do you speak the tongue of the
mustevi
?”

Erik shook his head, trying to clear it. The darkness swam around him. “Alix. My friend. Where is she?”

“She sleeps,” said the woman.

“What did you do to us?”

“You do not ask questions, dog!” A boot blasted into Erik's side, sending a bright arc of pain through his skull. He curled over himself, coughing, fighting a wave of nausea.

The woman shot to her feet with a string of sharp words. Erik tried to understand, but though it sounded like a form of Harrami, he could not make it out. It seemed to be a different dialect from the one he had been taught.

Footsteps scraped heavily against loose rock, someone storming off into the night. There was a stretch of silence. Then: “He should not have done that.” The woman's voice.

Erik swallowed against the nausea still threatening to overtake him. “Do you have water?”

“Here. Sit up.”

A curtain of black hair brushed against his face as she helped him to sit. He felt a weight in his lap, and his hands curled around a waterskin. He brought it to his lips and gulped it down.

“Not too much. You will be sick.”

Reluctantly, he heeded the advice, passing the waterskin back. “The dart you shot me with. It was poisoned?”

“
Hrak.
Spider venom. We use it for hunting.”

“Why did you attack us? Why am I prisoner?”

The woman snorted quietly and uncoiled from her crouch. “You know why.”

“We have done no wrong. We are just passing through.”

“You should not be. These are not your lands. Imperials are not welcome here.”

“Imperials?” Erik shook his head. “I do not . . . I am from Alden.”

“Erroman.” She spat the word, as if it tasted foul on her tongue. “The Imperial City.”

“It has not been that for centuries,” Erik said, but he knew he was wasting his time. When it came to matters of war and conquest, memory was eternal.

The woman did not bother to reply. She moved behind him, busying herself with something near the fire.

“My friend,” Erik said. “She is not well.”

No response.

“She needs water. Let me wake her.”

A sizzling sound, as of meat being put on the fire. A moment later, he could smell it; his stomach turned over. “Please—”

“She sleeps. You should sleep, if you wish to feel better. The poison lingers many hours.”

Erik tested the bonds at his wrists, but they were securely tied. Besides, his sword and dagger had been taken, and there was nothing to hand he might use as a weapon. The rocks were too small to do much good, even if he had not had poison in his veins.
Patience
, he told himself.
The time will come.
He twisted around to look at the woman. She crouched over a fire, roasting something thin and grizzled-looking on a spit. Erik's mouth watered, which made him want to throw up. He looked for Alix, but it was too dark to see more than a few feet beyond the greedy glow of the flames. “What will you do with us?” he asked.

“You will be brought to the
pasha
. They will decide your fate.”

Pasha.
He didn't know the word, but it sounded like a council of some kind. “Are they far from here?” he asked.

She took the spit of meat from the fire. “Sleep,” she said, and she left him.

Erik tried to defy her in that, but found he could not; with the smell of food gone, his stomach settled, leaving empty exhaustion behind. He fell asleep to the snap of the dying fire and the cold, distant whisper of the mountains.

*   *   *

“Erik.”

He opened his eyes and immediately regretted it. Sunlight knifed through his eyeballs. That part, at least, had not improved since last night.

“Erik.”

Alix's voice, barely more than a hiss. She lay only a few feet away, looking pale as death. “Thank the gods,” she breathed.

Erik glanced around. What he could see of the campsite appeared to be deserted. From the angle of the sun, it was still early. “Where are they?”

“I don't know. They were gone when I woke up. Do you suppose they've left us?”

Erik wriggled his wrists: still bound. “No. They'll be back.”

“Kerta's here.” Alix gestured with her chin. Rolling over, Erik saw blond curls spilling out from under a bundle of furs. He tried calling to her, but she didn't move.

“What about the others?”

“I don't know.” Alix started to sit up, but something stirred out in the trees, and she dropped back down and squeezed her eyes shut. Erik did the same.

A voice spoke; it might have been the man from the night before. Erik opened his eyes a fraction and saw two men making their way out of the trees. The one who had spoken—a tall, raven-haired tribesman with a bow slung over his shoulder—gestured at the camp and said something in a tone of disgust.

“Lazy,” said the other one, and both men laughed.

The first man spoke again. Erik found he could make out a word here and there, once he got past the accent. His head had been too muddled last night, but he was certain now it was a form of Harrami, though a different dialect, instead of the High Harrami he had been taught. The men were discussing their prisoners; specifically, how much longer they were prepared to wait before they kicked them awake. Erik decided not to test them; he sat up.

“The dog awakens!” said the tall one in High Harrami, sounding amused. Erik recognised the voice from last night. “Lucky for you. I was going to piss on you.”

Alix opened her eyes. She lay with her back to the two men, body tensed and ready. She was thinking about trying something, Erik could tell. He could also tell it was not a good idea. “Can you sit up?” he called to her, deliberately giving her away.

She stared at him incredulously for a moment before wriggling upright. She started to reply, but the tall man swatted the back of her head. “No talking!”

Erik strained against his bonds, but of course it was no good. Alix froze, head bowed, copper hair spilling over her face. For a long, tense moment, Erik feared she was going to do something foolish. In the event, however, she settled for an icy glare.

The shorter of the two laughed. “Look, Fahran, she is . . .”
He spoke his own language now; Erik didn't recognise the word that followed.

The tall one, Fahran, agreed. Grinning, he knelt and grabbed Alix's chin. He made a great show of looking her up and down. He repeated the word, and the two men laughed.

Erik's breath quickened. He had to glance away so the tribesmen would not see the death in his eyes. It would only earn him a beating, or worse.
Patience
, he reminded himself.

Alix jerked her face away. “Water,” she said in High Harrami.

Fahran sneered. “So, she speaks the language of the
mustevi
too.” He spat in the dirt.

“I speak some small,” Alix said. “Your kind attack my home.” It was halting, her accent poor, but she made herself understood. Erik was relieved. It had not occurred to him to ask her if she spoke Harrami; given her breeding, he had simply assumed she would.

Fahran certainly had no trouble taking her meaning. His expression darkened, and he jabbed a finger at her chest. “Lies. My people never go into the valley.”

Alix's lip curled, but she did not otherwise dignify that with a response. “Water.”

“Dabir,” the tribesman called over his shoulder.

The other man frowned. “Where is yours?”

Fahran made an impatient gesture, and Dabir threw him a waterskin. He unstopped it and held it out, making as if to hold it to Alix's lips. But instead he upended it over her head, letting it dribble down her face and over her chin. Alix blinked, but she didn't open her mouth. She was too damned stubborn.

“Don't be a fool, Alix,” Erik said quietly. “There's no telling when you'll get another chance.”

She opened her mouth, letting the water run into it. Then she spat it in the tribesman's face.

Erik was already scrambling to his feet when the blow fell, snapping Alix's head brutally to the side, but Dabir had seen it coming too; he had his knife out, pointed at Erik's chest.
“Si
t.”

Fahran grabbed a fistful of copper hair and snarled something Erik could not understand. Alix spat again, blood this time, into the dirt. Fahran released her roughly and rose.
Levelling a finger at her, he said, “Remember that. Next time, I will mean it.”

Alix shook the hair out of her face. Blood reddened her already-swelling lips, and her cheekbone blossomed where she had been struck, rosy against pale skin. The effect was perversely beautiful.

Erik fought down a surge of fury—and not just at the tribesman.
Why must you be so hotheaded, Alix?
If she didn't learn a little self-control, and soon, she was going to get herself killed. They had argued about it more than once. It was, in fact, the first thing they had ever argued about, a quarrel that had ended with her in his arms, fingers twined in his hair . . .

He shook his head fiercely, banishing the memory.
Where did
that
come from?
It was ridiculously inappropriate—disturbing, even, under the circumstances. Apparently, Alix was not the only one who lacked self-control today.

Fahran stood over Kerta now, grinning. “Time to wake up,” he said, and threw the rest of the water in her face. She gasped and tried to sit up, but instead she rolled onto her side, retching. The tribesman laughed roughly. Meanwhile, Dabir shoved another bundle of blankets with his boot; it rolled over, groaning.

“Look,” Erik said. “It's Alfred.”

Alix nodded, spat again in the dirt.

“Are you all right?”

Another nod, and a guilty look. She knew what she had done was foolish. She always knew—too late.

Kerta sat up, looking pale and miserable. “Is everyone all—”

“No talking!”
Fahran whipped around, hand on the curved sword at his hip. Kerta quailed and fell silent.

Dabir dragged them to their feet one by one, cutting the bonds at their ankles so they could walk. Erik looked for Frida, but didn't see her. He hoped that meant the scout had escaped. From what he could see, everyone and everything else had been taken. Their horse stood at the edge of the camp, their armour and weapons piled nearby.
Quite a haul
, Erik thought grimly. It would be the second bloodblade he had lost.

“Erik.” Alix gestured at the far end of the camp. An animal carcass hung from a tree, skinned. A panther, he judged.

Dabir noticed them looking at it. “Man eater,” he said. “It had the rage.”

It must be the same one that killed Leola
, Erik thought. “You were tracking it?”

Dabir's eyebrows darted up in the Harrami gesture of assent. “It killed Uthal. Then it led us to you.”

Erik cursed their luck. Encountering tribesmen had always been a risk, but they had taken every possible precaution to avoid it, and had very nearly succeeded. If that panther had not had rage . . . if it had not attacked a tribesman, setting his kin on the hunt, leading them here . . .
We were so close. We might have made it.
The accident. The fever. The avalanche. And now this . . . Calculated risks, each and every one; threats known and planned for. Yet to face so many of them, to have them stack up one after another . . .
This mission has been blighted from the start.
Erik wondered what he could have done to offend the gods so.

He looked over what remained of his party. Alix, Kerta, and Alfred all looked sick, but steady. As for Erik, a vicious headache still throbbed between his temples, but he let no hint of it touch his features. His people needed him to be strong. He stood straight, brow smooth, shoulders square, looking each of them in the eye with a calm, cool gaze that said,
Patience
.

Fahran had nearly finished packing up the camp. “Where is Sakhr?” he asked irritably.

“Here.” A third man stepped out of the trees, a brace of birds slung over his shoulder. Like the others, he was tall, raven-haired and dark-skinned, beardless. He was also strikingly handsome, moving with a grace that reminded Erik of his dead brother. Like Tom, there was a coiled power about him, like a panther ready to pounce.

Solemn golden eyes scanned the prisoners. “They are ready?” Erik did not catch Fahran's reply—he was still having trouble with the dialect—but it sounded scornful. The newcomer, Sakhr, listened impassively. Then he said, “Qhara is still tracking the other one. She will meet us.”