Winter Be My Shield (30 page)

‘So you will,' he said, after a moment. ‘Do what you have to.'

Sierra shook her head. ‘If the Akharians come he'll be defenceless.'

‘But they're miles away,' Mira insisted.

‘They've already come further than you think,' Sierra said.

‘We've no proof of that,' Mira said. ‘You may well have fallen asleep and dreamed the whole thing.'

Sierra clenched her fists as her power flared along with her anger.

‘I saw it too, Mira,' Isidro said.

Mira tossed her head. ‘Well then. I'll speak to Ardamon and leave a couple of men here with you. Once you're well enough to ride, they'll escort you to Terundel to meet up with us again.' She turned to Cam. ‘Will that satisfy you?

He gave a sigh of relief and nodded.

‘But what if that's not enough?' Sierra said. ‘Rasten ran into those scouts only a few days ago —'

Watching her with narrowed eyes, Mira cut her off. ‘He's ill and in pain, and pushing on now could well kill him, but you want to take him with us anyway? Do you care about him at all? Or is it just that you don't want to lose this little feast of power?'

‘Black Sun take you!' Sierra leapt to her feet and the sudden pulse of anger sent her power spilling over and erupting in a shower of crazed blue sparks that rippled over her skin and rained down from every movement she made. ‘Do you think I'd do that to him? You think I'm no better than Rasten and Kell?'

‘Aren't you? Cam told me what you are. He explained where your power comes from and why Kell lusts after you so badly. You couldn't
have found a better place for yourself if you'd tried, could you? Not only do you have someone to feed your power but he's so desperate for the relief you give him that he'll do whatever you want to get it.'

‘Mira!' Cam snapped. ‘Sirri, I had to tell her —'

Sierra dismissed his words with a wave of her hand. ‘She would have heard it soon enough from Rhia or the others. You listen to me, Mira of the Wolf. I have never caused anyone pain for my own ends and I've only ever used this power against another living creature in order to save my own life. I've never stood back and let a friend of mine be injured to protect my own interests and I've never withheld any help I could offer until I can get something else in return. By the Black Sun, I never chose this power, but it's all I have and I'll be cursed if I won't use it to help when I can!'

When she fell silent, no one spoke, but the chamber was full of the angry crackle of power that seemed to be seeping from her every pore. The grass mat at her feet was beginning to smoke.

‘Sirri —' Cam began and she backed off it onto the flagstones.

‘I'd better go and cool off,' she said. ‘Issey, I'll come see you again before we leave.' She strode across the chamber and ducked out through the curtain. Outside in the hall, a servant carrying a tray laden with bowls screamed and dropped it at the sight of her, but Sierra didn't pause. Still in her soft indoor clothes, she strode out into the cold and darkness of the early morning and wept until the tears froze in her tangled hair.

 

Heaving a sigh, Cam got to his feet and stamped out the small flames that flickered over the grass mat. In the sudden darkness he said, ‘Well, that could have gone better. Anyone have a flint and steel handy? What happened to that lamp?'

‘Mira?' Isidro said from the bed.

‘What is it, Issey?'

‘That was a cursed stupid thing to do.'

There was a scrape of metal and stone and Rhia held up a candle stub she'd had tucked away in her kit.

Pale and shaking, Mira raked her braids back from her face. ‘I don't want to hear it, Isidro.'

‘That's too bad. You're not going to be able to kill Rasten without Sierra and the less she trusts you the harder that's going to be. She's
not
like him and Kell. Just because she's a mage doesn't make her your enemy.'

Mira stood with a toss of her head. ‘I need to make arrangements with the High Priestess,' she said and swept out of the chamber.

Isidro lifted his head to watch her go and then lay back with a sigh. ‘Rhia, I need to speak to Cam.'

Rhia hesitated, then nodded and set the candle stub on a shard of broken bowl. ‘I'll go and speak to the temple physician. I wish I could stay here, Isidro, but Mira has no physician. If there is a battle they will need me.'

Isidro nodded and Rhia left.

Cam sat on the foot of the bench and wiped his palms against his thighs. Sierra's display had left him in a cold sweat. He only hoped Mira hadn't noticed.

‘Cam, I need you to promise me something.'

‘Of course.'

‘Look after Sierra. You read Mesentreian better than she does and she'll need help with that cursed book. And don't let Mira and Ardamon drive her away. If she feels as if she's alone among enemies and that Kell and Rasten are the only ones who'll accept her …' He trailed off and Cam felt himself go cold. Isidro's instincts had always served them well. He would be the first to admit they were only hunches, but every once in a while events would unfold in just the way he had predicted.

‘I'll do whatever I can,' Cam said. ‘On our father's grave, I swear it.'

Isidro lifted the hand that shielded his eyes and sought Cam's face in the gloom. ‘Bring her back to me, Cam. Please, just bring her back.'

 

Cam found Sierra still out in the darkness, letting the pre-dawn cold burn off her nervous power. She had been watching as Ardamon assembled men, horses and sleds; she was beginning to shiver when he strode towards her through a scattered fall of snow with her coat hanging over his arm.

‘Ardamon says we're ready to ride,' Cam said, holding the fur out to her. ‘I told him you'd need a few minutes with Isidro.'

Sierra nodded. ‘I'm sorry. I never wanted to put you and Isidro in this kind of danger.'

He folded his hands under his arms. ‘Don't worry about it now. Once Rasten's disposed of we'll work it all out.'

Sierra pulled her hood up as she followed him back to the hall, letting it shield her from Mira's men as they stared at her with a mixture of fear and awe. She hurried up the steps, anxious to be beyond their gaze.

Inside there wasn't a priest in sight, but Sierra saw Brekan sitting on the common-room floor, sorting through his gear with the slow movements of a man in shock. On the far side of the room, Eloba was talking to Mira while a tearful Lakua embraced Rhia with the air of someone delivering her farewells. They all fell silent as Sierra entered the hall and crossed the floor to Isidro's chamber.

She dropped to her knees beside his bed. He reached for her hand and then winced at the touch of her skin. ‘Sirri, you're cold.'

‘I'll warm up,' she told him. ‘Issey, I have to go.'

‘I know,' he said. He caught her hand and brought her palm to his lips.

Her voice grew thick. ‘I'll miss you.'

He began to speak, but the words died in his throat, and he simply shook his head. Sierra felt as if she couldn't breathe. What was coming over her? It couldn't be love. They'd known each other for so little time. It was infatuation, perhaps, and simple gratitude that they'd found a safe harbour in each other, just when they needed it most.

Isidro reached out and stroked a tear from her cheek with his thumb. ‘You can do this, Sirri.'

She nodded, dumbly. She
had
to do it. Killing Rasten was their only hope for safety.

His pain was coming back, clawing at his arm as it throbbed and burned beneath the splints. With a breath to compose herself, Sierra opened the neck of Isidro's shirt and laid her palms against his chest. ‘I'll come back to you if I can,' she murmured, and drew the pain from his body like the poison it was.

By the time she finished, he was asleep.

 

Cam was waiting for her at the foot of the steps, holding the reins of his horse and hers. Sierra let him keep them for a moment while she checked that the book and the enchantments she had worn during her escape were all still there. She swung into the saddle and pulled the hood up to hide her face. ‘Let's go.'

The cut to the back of his head stung and his shoulder throbbed. When Rasten closed his eyes he could still feel the knife sliding in and grating over bone. Pain was a teaching tool for the fledgling mage — the rituals gave him an echo of the suffering of his victims and a blood-mage had to be able to focus and channel power despite it. Once, Rasten had dreaded it, had fought and pleaded to avoid it, but now he knew that pain was as inevitable as the sunrise and, in the subterranean world of his master, about as relevant. It came and went as it always did and the world carried on regardless.

Still, he hadn't expected such a simple wound to
hurt so cursed much.

You lost her
? Kell said through the connection.
How in all the hells did you lose her, boy?

It was Balorica
, Rasten said.
I nearly had her, master, but then he came up behind me —

Spare me your excuses! How bad is the wound?

It didn't sever anything important. It should heal cleanly enough.

If you lose any use of that arm I'm going to hunt Balorica down and skin him alive. By all the hells, boy, how could you be so foolish? Where is she now?

Back with the Wolf Clan, I believe, master.

After they already tried to kill her? Idiot girl!

Rasten could feel Kell's rage burning through the connection. The sigil carved into his back was throbbing with it, as though the iron that had scored it was glowing still.

Well, you can't do anything until that wound heals. How long?

At least a few weeks, master.

A few weeks? By all the Gods! Perhaps you'd better come back here.

Thinking of the punishment Kell would exact for his failure made Rasten's control waver for a moment and with a flare of power flames
licked over the bare skin of his hands.
Master, I believe it would be better for me to stay here. Sierra must know she cannot trust the clan and she has developed a certain … fondness for Balorica. I might be able to convince her she can spare him by giving herself up.

The little fool might even believe it. Well then, spin her whatever tale you like, boy, but do not move against her again without my command. If you fuck this up a second time, I'll cut the price of the failure out of your wretched hide.

Yes, master.

Kell broke the connection, leaving Rasten shivering in his tent and trembling with the effort of maintaining the contact. He'd killed his last sacrifice in preparation for Sierra's capture and hadn't arranged another. It would have been too dangerous given she could derive power from a subject more quickly than he could.

When he closed his eyes Rasten could still see her on the riverbank, wreathed in a nimbus of lightning. She wasn't the same terrified girl who had surrendered in the ruined temple. Properly fuelled, if she tried again to kill them both with all the strength and determination desperation would give her, Rasten was far from certain he would be able to stop her. All his fears that she wasn't ready seemed laughable now. She'd grown so strong!

That didn't mean the danger was past. Kell was uncommonly brutal with his apprentices; he had been ever since one snapped and attacked him, delivering the wound that had left Kell needing a cane for support. Rasten himself had been a Sympath like Sierra, one of the rare breed of mages who could raise power without the elaborate rituals of the blood-mages, but Kell had crippled him with hard use. While Rasten was powerful compared to the charlatans who eked out a living in Mesentreia, he was still far less than he might have been.

It was Sierra's sex that had saved her from the same fate. By the time Kell had finally tracked her down, she was old enough to have a woman's body. A few years younger and Kell might have been able to convince himself she was boyish enough to arouse his desire, and she would have been ruined as he was. Now that her power had matured, Kell would set about breaking her down to a true slave, a living reservoir of power to be filled and tapped as required.

Rasten remembered clearly the day he realised she would one day outstrip him and had fully understood just what he'd lost to Kell's hands.
She'd awoken a dream Rasten had buried long ago; she'd let him hope that one day, perhaps, he could be free of Kell and his torments. Free of the dungeons and their stench and the perpetual cold and the gloom.

Rasten knew he couldn't kill Kell. He lacked the strength. Sierra, on the other hand …

He could use her power, but that alone wouldn't be enough. She had to be so powerful Kell couldn't break her. So powerful that his attempts would only make her stronger and bring her through torment and pain until she came into the full flush of her power.

And once she did they could turn on their master, the one who had slaughtered their families and stolen their innocence, murdering the people these stolen children would have become. Together, they could destroy Kell.

‘Oh, Sirri, my love,' Rasten whispered. ‘You're going to hate me before it's over, but in the end you'll understand. It's the only way.'

 

Sirri.

Sierra's eyes flew open and she stared up at the roof of the tiny tent Mira's servants had found for her.
Not him
, she thought.
Not now.

Sirri!

She hated it when he used the intimate form of her name. There was nothing she could do about it — they were intimates, after all. It was only a matter of time before Kell captured her again and they would be as intimate as two people could be, entwined together in blood and pain.

What do you want, Rasten?

His reply, when it came, was hesitant.
I … I just wanted to know if you're alright.

I'm fine,
she replied.
How's the shoulder?

It'll heal. What about your lover's arm?

A wave of anger sent the power breaking over her naked skin, filling the tent with rippling blue light. For a moment neither of them spoke, but Sierra could feel his attention still fixed on her. Pain was of no importance to Rasten. He thought nothing of inflicting or receiving it. Any normal person would want to spare those they loved, but to Rasten the concept was inconceivable. Pain was unavoidable.

More than anything else right now, she didn't want him thinking about Isidro.
What do you want?
she said again.

She felt him draw a breath, as though steeling himself for something difficult.
Little Crow, we need to talk.

I have nothing to say to you.

Perhaps not, but you do need to listen. Sirri, you have to know that Kell will never stop hunting you.

Sierra pressed her head back against the furs. So, he was doing this to hound her, to keep her exhausted and fearful.
Anyone who shelters me will suffer and decent folk will drive me off with stones and spears. I know this tale, Rasten.

Good. Then you understand that you can't go on like this for long.

Sierra laughed silently, but the giggle that echoed down the line to Rasten had an edge of hysteria to it.
You want me to give myself up? Rasten, you're either mad or you're desperately trying to avoid whatever punishment Kell will use to reward your failure —

I can take whatever Kell gives me
, Rasten said evenly.
Sirri, just listen. I've been watching you grow, but until last night I didn't realise how far you've come. I'm not sure I could take you alive and your power is still growing. But if Kell comes here it will be a different matter. You're powerful enough for his purpose — if he captures you again, he'll break you like he did me and he'll see to it that you're not capable of running again. You'll be a slave for the rest of your life.

And you woke me up to tell me this?

Just listen, Sirri. You've no shortage of power and it's growing every day you use it, but you lack the training and the skill you'll need to stand against Kell. For now he's pinned down by the Akharian army and he's given me permission to stay here in the east until this wound heals and I can bring you in. I can help you, Sirri. I can give you the training you've been denied. I can make you so powerful that Kell won't be able to break you down.

Rasten, I am not going to give myself up. I'd sooner die than go back.

Then Kell will hunt down and slaughter everyone you come into contact with. Your crippled lover and the prince will die slower deaths than you can imagine. He will keep them alive just to torment you, but if you come home, he'll be so focussed on you they'll be able to slip away.

And why would you let that happen after what Isidro did to you?

Because I don't care about them. There's only one thing I care about now and that's you. I need you. I can't do this on my own. I need you to
help me destroy Kell. It's the only way, Little Crow. It's the only way we'll ever be free.

 

Sierra lay awake for hours after Rasten left her in peace. It would be beyond foolish to trust him. It had to be a trap. He had never rebelled against Kell, not in all the months she had known him. Rasten loathed his master's lusts but he would not resist, no matter what Kell inflicted on him. It sickened her to think what he must have suffered to bring him to that point … and that he was right: Kell would subject her to the same treatment.

He had to be lying. There had never been so much as a hint of this plan, of such a deep thirst for revenge.

But there wouldn't be, would there? Kell punished any intransigence with swiftness and brutality. Rasten would have learned long ago to police his every thought and expression, but he couldn't trust her to do the same. Even with the restraints Kell had chained around her wrists she couldn't control herself. Every peak of anger and emotion sent her power roaring to the surface, overwhelming her control. And she had barely been tested with Kell's darker lessons. The few times she had earned a punishment on the rack had been minor compared to the rituals Kell performed on his sacrifices, but they had left her so traumatised that she had never pushed against his bounds again. The needle scars on her back prickled at the memory. He wouldn't have trusted her with his secret before she had been tested — so why trust her now?

If Isidro were here, she could talk it over with him. He would listen to her rambling fears and recollections and offer his own dry and detached opinion. Or would that be asking too much of him, to talk this way about the man who had tortured and crippled him? She had never told Isidro just what sort of life she had shared with Rasten, but not because he wouldn't understand what it had been like for her. She didn't want him to have to understand. His path was hard enough without having to muster compassion for the man who'd crippled him.

She couldn't tell Cam, either. His situation was difficult as it was, as he tried to walk the line of diplomacy between her and the Wolf Clan. She would not put him in a position of having information that would allow the Wolf Clan to condemn her.

Beneath it all, gnawing at her like a snake coiled amid her vitals, was the fear that Rasten was right. Kell would never give up. The only way she would be free was if he were dead.

 

Ardamon set a hard pace as they rode south from the temple and, within half a day, Sierra was forced to admit that leaving Isidro behind had been the right decision. Ardamon's men were all well rested, but she, Cam and Rhia had already spent the last week cramming as much distance into each day as they could. By the time Ardamon called a halt on the first evening, Sierra's head was swimming with exhaustion.

No one came out and told her she wasn't welcome in Mira's tent, where Cam and Rhia laid their bedrolls. One of Mira's serving-women simply came and said her tent was ready, guiding her to a tiny structure set up some distance from the rest of the tents of the heir's escort, where the sentries would be able to keep watch on her throughout the night.

Solitude was something most Ricalanis found uncomfortable. Everyone, from the poorest peasant to the chief of the wealthiest clan, spent most of their lives surrounded by friends and kin, and rarely went out alone even when hunting and trapping. Two wives and two husbands was generally considered to be the smallest stable family unit and Sierra had grown up with twice that number, as the eldest of nearly a dozen siblings.

Her first months of solitary confinement in Kell's dungeons had been an agony of loneliness and fear, but since then Sierra had grown accustomed to being alone. With her bedding laid out and coals glowing in the little stove, Sierra was simply too weary to care if she slept alone or with company.

Mira's women had left a dish of food on the corner of the stove to keep warm but she was also too tired to eat. Sierra managed to hang her socks and boot liners from the ridge-pole to dry before she wrapped herself in her furs and slept until Mira's servant returned to wake her in the morning.

If Ardamon was setting a hard pace, then Rasten was driving his men unmercifully. After the speed they'd been setting to chase Cam's little party, they would be feeling the effects by now, and Rasten himself was in constant pain. Sierra could feel it occasionally when exhaustion made his control falter and his senses spilled into her with a rush of heat and
power. But when Ardamon's scouts returned to the main camp on the second evening of the chase their news was grim. Rasten and his men were still hours ahead and had maybe even gained a little time.

The problem, Cam explained to her, was that his horses were the best the king could provide, bred from a mix of tough little Ricalani ponies and the longer-legged, swifter southern breeds, whereas the Wolf's best horses had gone with the war-leader's army. Ardamon's men had been equipped for little more than a brief jaunt through safe territory, not a chase like this.