Through the Veil (31 page)

“I thought the wyrms were a bigger threat than that.”

Kalen shrugged. “Up until recently, you would go weeks without coming to us. We’ve been developing these weapons for years, but this is the first time we’ve really been able to use them. They power up from the so-gens.”

The so-gens were the generators that converted solar energy for use in most of the weapons and transports. Some of their smaller equipment had been designed solely for use of solar power, but the larger equipment hadn’t been intended for it. Modifications were made where they could be, and they had a surplus of equipment that could be fueled with the energy processed for the so-gens, but not directly. The energy was transferred to the power grid, and while Lee didn’t understand the tech behind it, the basic explanation was that the power was modified, broken down into its most raw form, and from there it could be manipulated and modified to suit whatever uses they needed it for.

Of themselves, the so-gens were reliable and safe enough. They could store the energy without posing a threat, but transporting that energy was the threat. Power grids couldn’t store the energy safely, so until it was needed, it was kept in the so-gen. When the energy was transferred from the so-gen to the power grids, the power grid gave off the minute vibrations that lured the wyrms.

Strange that the things that called to the wyrms were the same things that gave Kalen’s army the chance to destroy them. “How strong are those tripod-looking things?” Lee asked softly.

“We call them plas-beams—same basic tech we use in the plasma rifles. Just with more kick.” Then he smirked and added, “As to how strong . . . well, they cut through the wyrms.”

That was answer enough. Although the knowledge still didn’t feel like her own, she knew that wyrms had skin that would make Kevlar look fragile. Under the tough skin there was a membrane of thick, nearly indestructible tissue, so the wyrms were doubly protected. A weapon that could cut through those built-in protections—damn. “Whoa.”

Intrigued, Lee looked westward. The brilliant blue of the gate continued to glow against the sullen gray sky. The gates seemed to eat whatever energy was launched at them, but no matter how hungry a creation got, eventually it could eat too much. “I wonder what would happen if we turned those on the gate.”

But by the look on his face, Lee guessed Kalen had already made an attempt. He shook his head. “It won’t work. We don’t have enough of the plas-beams, and we can only maintain the energy for the ones we have, so building more is a waste of time and materials.” Aggravated, he added, “That’s assuming we could scavenge up the materials we’d need. We’ve been working on these for years. It took ten years just to develop the idea, and another five to build them and work out all the problems.”

A little discouraged, Lee looked back to the gate. Okay, so the tripod/beam things wouldn’t work.

But still . . .

“How many casualties?”

Arnon murmured, “Early estimates are in the thousands.”

A cut crystal goblet went flying across the room, striking the wall and shattering in thousands of tiny little pieces. Neither Char nor Arnon even flinched. As the shards fell to the floor, the High Lord turned around and looked at Arnon, his black eyes cold with fury.

“Thousands.” Taise shook his head, an incredulous look on his face. “Thousands.” It was as if the old Warlord couldn’t wrap his mind around the number. It was as though he’d been told fleas had mounted and managed to wipe out entire contingencies of men. It had been decades since Taise had begun his slow slide into madness. At first, he hadn’t seemed so irrational as he ordered more frequent raids on Ishtan. But Char had seen the damage that was being done to the Veil and had advised caution. It was as though each piece of advice pushed the High Lord that much further along on his decline into insanity. Then Taise had decided he no longer wanted to raid the offworld’s female population. He wanted to own it, all of it, from the oldest crone to the newborn babe. They’d begun construction on Anqar for the massive dwellings that would be needed to contain all of the slaves.

Char, once more, had warned the High Lord against his plan. Ishtan’s people might be primitive, but they were, in their own way, as arrogant and proud as the Warlords. They would not quietly go into slavery. They would fight, and they would do considerable damage. That had been nearly thirty years ago, but Taise hadn’t listened then any better than he listened now. It was as though the High Lord had never entertained the possibility that the resistance wouldn’t break under their full strength.

“How is this possible?” Taise snarled.

Arnon looked at Char out of the corner of his eye. Char caught the warning there, but he ignored it. “High Lord, we knew of their technology. I gave fair warning that their unusual weapons might be a bigger threat than we were prepared to handle.”

“That is what the bloody wyrms were for!” Taise roared.

In a smooth voice, Char replied, “They found a way to kill the wyrms.” He still couldn’t quite believe what he had seen as he observed through the Veil. Yes, he’d been aware of their little weapons, but nothing could kill the wyrms. Even the Warlords hadn’t had much to control them once they had sent them into Ishtan. The wyrms were indestructible. Or so Char had thought. The ugly giants were Taise’s favored pet. The wyrms couldn’t survive in much of Anqar—the land was too arid and hot. Wyrms required less intense heat, but more, they couldn’t survive in the dry deserts that made up most of their world. The swamps where they bred were their only natural environment on Anqar, and seeing the destruction the beasties wreaked, it was a bloody good thing, Char figured.

The High Lord’s voice shook as he repeated, “They found a way to kill them?” Then he threw back his head and screamed. Char fought the urge to clap his hands over his ears as the scream droned on and on. Char braced himself as the High Lord’s anger spun out of control, and his magick along with it. The earth shuddered under their feet, and the glass in the windows trembled. Across the receiving chamber, an ornate mirror, dating back more than three hundred years, fell from its mounting and hit the floor. Little mirrored slivers went flying, and Char found himself staring at his splintered reflection.

“You.” The High Lord stopped screaming and pointed at Char. “You will go and fix this. You cost me thousands of my men and bring me back nothing. You will fix this—or I will see your head torn from your shoulders and mounted in front of the manse.”

Char cocked a brow. Finally. “Are you sending me into Ishtan, High Lord?”

Taise’s mouth twisted in a mocking smile. “Yes, Char. I am. Do you disapprove?”

With a respectful bow, Char said, “Of course not, my lord.” Disapprove? Hell, he had been waiting for this chance for nearly three decades. But the High Lord’s most trusted hand didn’t leave the homeworld unless the High Lord ordered it. As the High Lord’s health and sanity declined, it was required that Char remain closer and closer to High Keep, leaving him no other choice than to try and let others do his job. Others who failed.

But it wouldn’t do to appear too eager. “But are you certain that this is the wisest course of action? Your enemies are many, Devoted Uncle. I hate to leave you unprotected.”

Taise’s face split into an ugly smile. “Yes. I am sure you do. However, I am far from unprotected. Go, Char. And do not return until you fix the mess you made.”

Oh, I won’t . . . Uncle
. Char forced himself to smile politely and bow once more. “I will prepare myself for the journey then. I may be gone for some time.”

Already, Taise had dismissed Char’s presence and was mumbling to himself. Probably counting his new body slaves. Well, Char would make sure a few pretty ones crossed over—a sad waste, but he’d have to if he wanted the old, sick bastard occupied elsewhere while Char dealt with his daughter.

He would find her. All it would take was being in the same world and he would find her. Blood called to blood. Anticipation had his blood pumping hard and fast as he walked toward his chambers. Char was tempted to move faster, perhaps even run. But Warlords didn’t show that sort of emotion. As long as he had awaited this moment, he could certainly manage to walk instead of run.

He would find her and somehow, he would learn who had helped the child’s mother slip across the gate. Whoever had helped them would be better off dead. Because if Char found the man who had aided a mated Tiris in fleeing her Warlord, the man would be put to death in a manner so slow, so painful, he would plead for death long before it came. Disgusted, Char acknowledged that if the High Lord had been in his right mind, Char could have sought her out before this.

He could have gone to the High Lord and requested a raiding party with the sole intention of finding his missing daughter. Daishan were highly prized, and a sane leader would have understood Char’s request. But Taise had parted ways with sanity when Char was still in formal training. Char had ascended through the ranks hearing tales of his uncle’s increasing paranoia and delusions.

Taise had done the unthinkable, things no Warlord would dare, and he had done so without fear of recrimination. Not one soul dared to speak against him. He had taken body slaves that had been mated and bred, taken them away from the Warlord who’d sired the slave’s children, and he claimed it was his sovereign right. Many High Lords in the past had claimed sovereign right to take what body slaves they chose immediately after a raid, but none had ever taken a slave from a Warlord who’d impregnated and claimed a slave as his own personal woman. Taise had even sunk to claiming slaves so young they were naught but children, as though he thought claiming their youth would bring back his own.

Few spoke of it, but over the past ten years, the High Lord had become impotent and many Warlords breathed a sigh of relief. The raids, for so many years, had seemed vital to their way of life, providing females for a race that was, by far, predominantly male. Raids resulted in an adequate supply of females for all the Warlords, as well as the highly ranked Sirvani.

But as the High Lord went further into madness, he’d claimed more and more females, killing them with the fervor that had once been reserved for seducing the offworld females into accepting their new fates. Killing females . . . it was something most of them found utterly repugnant, yet the High Lord killed indiscriminately in his rages.

The younger slaves were no longer brought to the manse, not even for menial labor. There was little to be done about the High Lord claiming the best body slaves presented to him, although some of the Sirvani that led the raids had turned a blind eye to the Warlords waiting at the gate for their return. Char knew it happened. While it might be his duty as his uncle’s second to stop it and punish the Sirvani and Warlords responsible, Char pretended ignorance. Bad enough serving under a crazy High Lord—he wasn’t going to deny the men their well-earned rewards by letting Taise claim most of the body slaves for his personal use.

Those who survived the High Lord’s attentions were all but broken by the time Taise was done with them. Not because he used them too harshly, but because if they failed to arouse him, the High Lord had his personal guard beat and rape them. If they survived, no man could go near them without the woman going into hysterics.

Most of the Warlords were above using such brutality with their women. It was considered a mark of honor for a Warlord to learn to seduce a body slave so that her screams were of passion rather than rage, fear or pain. Even if she tried to run once she recovered. It was a slow, subtle possession, thoroughly binding the body slave to her Warlord, so that eventually she came to crave his touch more than she craved her freedom.

Beating them bloody was a needless cruelty that left Char with a bad taste in his mouth. It was not unheard of, but worse, too many of the younger generation saw the High Lord’s brutal treatment of the body slaves and began to echo it. More and more slaves began to run away, but they were ill-equipped to function in a world as harsh as Anqar.

Which led to death or recapture. The punishment for escaping wasn’t a pleasant one, and most of the escaped slaves would rather end their lives out under the harsh sun than return to a Warlord. So many wasted lives, so much wasted power and Warlords that were cutting their teeth on the ways of cruelty, undermining thousands of years of tradition. All because Taise continued to rule.

As long as that insane bastard breathed, Char wasn’t going to parade his daughter in front of the High Lord. If Taise would assert his sovereign right to take whatever woman he wanted, even mated and claimed women, then what was to stop him from crossing the line and taking a Daisha? Char’s gut instinct was that nothing would stop the High Lord if Char’s long-lost daughter caught his interest.

So he wouldn’t proceed with this under the High Lord’s blessing and rule. He would find his daughter, on his own, and he would bring her back to his personal province, and there she would stay until Char knew she wasn’t in danger from the High Lord. His daughter was a Daisha, the rare female offspring between a Warlord and an offworld woman with great talent. There was no telling what magicks ran in her bloodstream. She was destined for great things.

Char had always known that, and he had spent so many years searching for her, wanting to bring her back so she could claim her rightful place in their society. It was going to take time—like any other offworld woman, she was going to resent his interference in her life, but once she realized who she was, it would be better. Once she realized that she was the daughter of the man who would rule Anqar, that she would be loved, valued and worshipped, that she wasn’t to be a slave, she would accept her place.

Her place as his daughter. In time, he’d present her to his most loyal men, and when she chose her mate, she’d breed. Char would get grandsons, possibly even granddaughters, off her, securing the family line. Securing his power base.

Taise was such a doddering old fool. The man actually thought that the gates were representative of his power. He was wrong, though. Char knew just how wrong the High Lord was. In all his years, Taise had failed to realize the one lesson that Char had learned early on. The gates weren’t a sign of power.