The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood (29 page)

“Great One?”

“There has been a challenge. I name your slave as my champion to meet this girl’s kinsman in combat.”

Amdra took one look at Hadi and broke into a grin. She said, “Thank you, thank you, Great One.”

Outrage surged through Dindi. Combined with the fact that Xerpen had looked away from her, releasing her from his stare, the anger flushed the lethargy from her blood. She jumped away from Xerpen before she lost her will again and turned her back on him.

“No!” she shouted. “I will not let Hadi fight for me.”

“Girl, get back here!” snapped Xerpen.

She refused to turn around, even when Amdra drew a dagger and put it to her throat.

“Once Ram’s Right is issued, the challenge cannot be withdrawn,” said Amdra.

“I don’t withdraw it!” insisted Hadi.

“Then I demand the right to fight on my
own
behalf!” said Dindi.

Behind Amdra, Hawk said, “I don’t want to fight a girl.”

“It’s my right!” said Dindi.

“Dindi, no!” protested Hadi.

“She’s right,” said Amdra. “She is the one who stands to gain or lose the most. She is allowed to fight her own battles. A fool,” Amdra added acidly, “but a fool allowed by our traditions.”

“Girl, turn around and look at me!” commanded Xerpen.

“I’m not yours to command,” said Dindi, without turning. “I’m going to fight for my freedom.”

“Dindi!” Hadi pushed through the warriors and clasped her hand. “That’s not what I intended. There’s no way for you to win against that man… he’s a shape shifter! I know I don’t have much of a chance either, but let me try. I want to save you.”

She squeezed his hand. If she lost this battle, at least she would be dead, not licking Xerpen’s feet… or whatever else he had in mind for her to lick. She shuddered. “You already have, Hadi.”

Finnadro returned too soon.

The fire crinkled and snickered at Umbral, anticipating licking his limbs with agony again. The hollow, glowing eyes of the skulls beat on him. He was drained, famished, and very thirsty again. Umbral focused on this moment, surviving it and resisting it. Finnadro would do whatever he could to destroy that focus. Beating? Blinding? Bone breaking?

The black pit?

Finnadro approached a table, made from a slice of a tree trunk and three legs, which held an assortment of whips, switches, stone knives, scrapers, and bone hooks.

Cutting.

Bad.

But better than the fire. Far better than the pit.

Finnadro removed the knives, piling them neatly on another, smaller table further in the shadowy corner of the room. The scrappers remain.

Flaying.

That makes sense
. The skin on Finn’s thigh had been peeled like a mink being culled of its fur. No doubt he held a grudge.

Flaying was worse than cutting. Possibly worse than burning—Umbral would know soon enough. But still better than the pit.

Finnadro removed the scrappers.

The blindmutes took Umbral down from the loom frame, though they hobbled his feet with ropes weighted by rocks.

Finnadro spread a white and orange cloth across the table and placed a jug of clear water and a bowl filled with food in the middle. A dozen black potatoes, dried chokeberries, and blood sausages, four plump ones. Smelling hot and savory and utterly out of reach and damn him, damn him, damn him.

“Join me for middle meal, Umbral.”

The blindmutes brought log stools. It was all so civilized.
Except we are still in the Blood House
.

Attack Finnadro?

This place did something to his power, binding and draining it, even as it gave Finnadro the power of six Chromas. An attack would fail. Or was he too afraid to risk losing the water, the food? He knew Finnadro was offering him a chance: play nice, be rewarded.

Don’t play nice
. The rocks hobbling him grated across the packed dirt floor on his way the table. He sat down. He reached for the jar of water. He ignored his own good advice.

The water tasted wonderful.

Finnadro pushed the bowl of food toward him.
The whole bowl
.

The blood sausages tasted delicious. He never cared for them before? He must have been mad. The best food in Faearth.

“Thank you.” What was worse was that Umbral didn’t just mouth the words. He bubbled with gratitude, warm like the food in his belly, all the while he warned himself:
Finnadro is a hunter. He knows all about bait.

Umbral wiped the last of the grease off the bowl with the last crumb of potato. Nothing left. He wished he had a second bowl, twice as large. Still, it had been a good decision to eat.
Sometimes the bird escapes with the worm
.

“I know you’re embarrassed about what I saw this morning,” Finnadro said. “You don’t need to be, Umbral. I
felt
it too, you know. Everything you experienced, I went through it, too, with you.”

So mucking what
.

“I learned who you really are.”

“That,” said Umbral, “I doubt.”

“A good man.”

Is he serious?
Umbral studied Finnadro for signs of mockery.
Nothing obvious, but he’s a sneaky bastard.

“We have a common enemy,” said Finnadro.

“The Aelfae.”

“The Deathsworn.”

“And here I thought we were getting along so nicely.”

“You have more reason to hate the Deathsworn than I do. What they did to you…”

“They did what they had to.”

“They tortured you.”

Umbral grinned mirthlessly at him.

“They had no right and no reason,” said Finnadro. “Except to turn you into an assassin.
You
never wanted that. How did they turn you, Umbral? Why protect them? Why protect the Aelfae Traitor?”

“You could never understand.”

“But I can. I told you. I feel what you feel. Even now, although it’s not as strong as during the Vision.”

Umbral had not noticed the snaky leash before, but he saw it now, scaly and sly, feeding his emotions into Finnadro’s aura.

“Get out of my mind!” Umbral jumped across the table, hands ready to close around Finnadro’s throat.

The leash pulsed, and a blast of pain curled Umbral into a ball of misery. He stuffed his fingers into his mouth to keep from screaming. He burned from the inside out.

Finnadro roared too.

The pain stopped.

A hand.

It made no sense.

Finn was offering him a hand up. “I felt only a fraction of that, Umbral, and it was bad. I’ve never… had the power to do that before.” The whites of his eyes gleamed around pupils too small. “It’s this place.”

“You’re not very good at it,” said Umbral.

“Oh, I am, Umbral. I’m afraid I am.”

“You’re not supposed to share the pain with your victim.”

“That’s what makes me good at it.”

“Who else have you tortured, Finn?”

“Interrogated.”

Umbral shrugged away the distinction.

“Beasts pretending to be men. Mostly. Sometimes a man pretending to be a beast. Which are you, Umbral?”

“I thought you said I am a good man.”

“You
were
a good man. Are you still? Or did they beat that out of you?”

“How many ‘beasts’ have you tortured?”

“How many men have you killed?” Finnadro shot back.

Too many.

“How many women have you killed?”

Too many.

“How many children?”

“Shut up.”

“It bothers you.” Finn nodded. “Umbral, that’s
good
. It
should
bother you.”

“I did what I had to.”

“I know. To survive.”

“No! More than that. It was my duty. That’s what Deathsworn do. It’s…I don’t expect you to understand this…sometimes more merciful…”

“I don’t blame you for delivering mercy to those who had no chance to survive.” And Finnadro was sincere and warm as he said it. Umbral believed him. “But you know there were others. They weren’t given
mercy
.”

“Some men are beasts. You said it yourself.”

“So they deserved to die like that?”

“Maybe they did.”

“What about the woman you violated, burned, and almost killed? Did she deserve to die like that?”

“Let me go and I’ll ask her.” He felt a flash of anger and disgust, not his own, and hid a smile. Finnadro’s leash could go two ways, if Finn was not careful.
He’s never used a leash before. He makes mistakes.

Umbral had a lot of experience with leashes.

Time for the bird to bait the trap to catch the hunter
. Umbral pushed fear down the leash, along with an image of the Dark Initiation they’d both re-lived recently. He allowed a whine to enter his voice. A plea for understanding.

“You don’t know what they’ll do to me if I betray them.”

“You don’t have to fear Obsidian Mountain. I can protect you.”

As if
. But Umbral pushed hope down the leash. Tentative hope, nothing too unbelievable.
Don’t move too fast or Finn will suspect
.

“How?”

“I am the Henchman of the Green Lady. She would give you sanctuary in groves the Deathsworn dare not enter, if I asked her.”

Umbral pretended to mull this over. Shoved another bite of hope along the leash.

“Even if I wanted to, Finn, I can’t give you what you want. I don’t know the name of the Aelfae Traitor. Or even what he looks like. I heard a voice in my mind saying, ‘Flee over the edge!’ He made the light flash to help me escape, and that was all I knew.”

“We already know the identity of the Traitor, Umbral. That’s trivial.”

Finnadro was being careful now, marvelously careful. Not a jot of emotion leaked through the leash, so Umbral had no idea if this were true or not. Finn hadn’t lied to him yet, though, so it might be. Except why hadn’t he corrected Umbral’s deliberate use of ‘he’ instead of ‘she’? Maybe that, too, was a test.

“The thought of the Traitor betraying you upsets you,” said Finnadro.

Damn.

Umbral was giving away too much. There was nothing equal about the leash. Finn had all the power. Umbral could only glean from his crumbs.

This is too dangerous. Take control. Send him on a goose chase. Feed Finn a memory he can chew over for a long time, yet taste nothing.

Umbral didn’t have a lifetime of memories to choose from, only one year’s worth. Most of that year had been spent killing or planning to kill, and that wouldn’t serve. He needed something to paint himself in a good light and win Finn’s further sympathy.

“The Deathsworn are not your friends, Umbral. Lady Death is not your friend.”

“I honestly don’t know the Traitor’s name, and apparently you don’t need it anyway, since you already know who it is. So what can I trade in exchange for sanctuary? Without a promise of sanctuary, there’s no deal.”

“You tell me, Umbral. You know I don’t have much reason to trust you. Earn my trust.”

“What if I let you in—without the flames?” asked Umbral. “No torture, no threats. Just take the Vision from my mind. You could see that I’m telling the truth.”

“You won’t fight me?”

“Just get it over with,” Umbral said through gritted teeth.

Finnadro touched the side of his face, and the leash thickened like a net. Before Finn could go rummaging around, Umbral pushed a memory down the threads.

After the Deathsworn Initiation ceremony, the Elders concocted a spell—some sort of magic cord—that let Ash keep me on a leash. The cord encircled my neck in a noose. She held the other end. The leash was of a penumbral substance that normally did not hurt me. However, if Ash squeezed her handle of the leash, the ring around my neck would constrict.

The Elders didn’t usually tie up their Dark Initiates like dogs. Weeks after my initiation ceremony I still refused to cooperate. I had tried to escape Obsidian Mountain three times. Ash was my main watchdog because she relished the duty. Ash loved the leash. The Elders had told her she would be off guard duty if she abused me while I was still recuperating from my ordeal, but with the leash, she could torment me without leaving a mark.

There were few strong, healthy adults available for labor on Obsidian Mountain, so Dame Vulture had decreed it was time I be put to work. It wasn’t safe to have me in the mines, some of which led to egresses from the Mountain. Instead, I was to rebuild a house on the south slope. The structure had been destroyed in the landslide during heavy rains. They would not let me put on the black of a full Deathsworn, nor wear any other color, so I had on nothing but a loincloth. Despite the cold, sweat cascaded down my back. Ash sat on a boulder and watched me work.