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submit. "What proof do you have of this?"
Beilal laughed and called for his guards. They dragged a battered female
nibari into the room. Beilal cupped her chin and tilted her face up. The Hawk
almost did not recognize her and then she registered as one that Isranon had
played with since childhood. "Tell him what you told me. Isranon has been
dipping his dagger in your chalice for months."
Tears ran down her cheeks. "Isranon and I& we've been fucking for months."
"Satisfied?" Beilal sneered. "You will bring him tomorrow. If you force me to
come for him, it will be with fire and sword."
The Hawk's thin shoulders sagged. "I will bring him."
"Good." Beilal drew his blade and shoved it upward beneath the nibari's
breastbone, angling it through her heart. She jerked with a dying moan. Beilal
shoved the blade around several times just to watch her body move. Then he
passed the corpse to his sycophants who fastened upon it for a drink.
The Hawk felt sickened by the excesses of the intransigent young king. "May I
leave now, Majesty? It will take time to ready my grandson."
"Of course."
The Hawk felt his centuries of existence heavily as he left the palace,
riding home troubled in mind and spirit. He had begun to suspect over the past
months that someone was teaching the younger Isranon the ways of the Dark
Brothers. The long ride gave him time to consider which of the sa'necari
dwelling on his property might be the one doing so. His thoughts kept being
drawn back to Sauman, who always found a reason to be absent whenever a
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holiday required the performance of the rites. Sauman was also one of the few
sa'necari preferring to live alone at the edges of the grounds in a small
cottage. The mon owned only three nibari, which meant he had to be a very
light feeder.
Arriving at his estate, the Hawk turned his mount away from the stables and
rode south across the greensward to a small cottage among a stand of rowans.
The rowans were also an oddity: most sa'necari disliked those trees for their
negating effects upon dark magic. He dismounted and tied his horse to a post
in front of Sauman's cottage. Walking around to the back, he found the
sa'necari working in his garden with his nibari.
Sauman was slight of build, wiry and nimble. He scrambled to his feet when
hesaw the Hawk and stood brushing off his robes. "My Lord, it is always good
to see you. Please come inside and I will make you some tea. Toli made fresh
crescent cakes this morning, you will like them."
The Hawk gave a curt nod and followed Sauman into the cottage. It was cozy
and warm to his arcane senses. There had never been a single act of violence
here, or he would have smelled it. "I wish to speak to you about my grandson."
Sauman looked startled and covered it quickly by putting a kettle on the
stove to heat the tea water. "Of course, lord, what is it you wish to know?"
"Are you a Dark Brother?"
"No, lord! Whatever makes you ask that?"
"Because someone is teaching my grandson."
"Not me, lord."
The Hawk frowned, sensing distress in the mon's voice and aura. He was not
considered one of the most powerful sa'necari in Waejontor without reason. He
couldtaste the lies in the mon. "Show me your eyes."
Sauman hesitated. "Lord, please& . I have never done anything to hurt you, or
your family."
"Show me your eyes," the Hawk growled. "Show me your true eyes."
Sauman began to weep. "Please, lord, just let us go."
The Hawk nodded. "I intend to."
"Lord?" Sauman's voice caught between desperation and incredulity.
"Tonight, you will take my grandchildren and flee this place. King Beilal has
ordered Isranon to be forced into the rites tomorrow, possibly with his little
sister as victim. Instead, you will take him and his sisters far from here.
You will hide them and bring them up in your ways."
Sauman came to the Hawk and fell to his knees before him. "Do you know what
you are doing? The king "
"Yes. When we do not appear tomorrow, the king will come here, bringing fire,
swords, and magic. All who remain will die, including myself. But I am old,
Sauman. I am no loss. I will hold them off as long as I can, force them to pay
in blood for every inch of this estate."
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Then he thought of his long dead wife, a powerful mage captured in one of the
wars with Shaurone. Two sa'necari had been in the process of riting her when
he demanded her for his own and took her away. In the beginning he had tried
to break her, permanently severing her connections to her magic and forcing
her into his bed; in the end the indomitable spitfire had mastered him. With
his sylvan genes from his ancestor, Dawnhand, he had outlived her by
centuries. She would have approved of his actions here. "Josina, may your
spirit watch over them."
Isranon woke with tears in his eyes. He knew how the Hawk's tale ended; it
was family legend. The Hawk and his two sa'necari daughters mounted a powerful
defense of the estate to cover the escape of his grandchildren. Then a traitor
planted in their ranks two years earlier by Beilal betrayed them into
captivity. The Hawk was forced to watch his daughters impaled and was,
himself, taken in mortgiefan by Beilal. Thus the mystic inheritance of
Dawnhand's lineage, carefully fostered by Nighthand and his first three
descendants, passed into the arcane Legacy of Waejonan.
He wished he could share his stories with Edvarde, have them written down at
last where they could be remembered. The suffering and struggles of his
people, especially the Dark Brothers, should be a lesson in tolerance for the
world.
CHAPTER NINE. the peddler
They had come south in hopes of crossing the Sharani borders and eventually
moving on into foreign lands where no one would notice what they were, to
possibly found a new city state in the wildernesses where the Dark Brothers
could flourish in peace with their families and their nibari. Isranon, tenth
of his name, called the Ghostsinger, was sixteen when he and his father
decided to try the Sharani border. They had left a small band of their people
hidden on the Waejontori side while they scouted.
Ghostsinger heard horses before he saw the riders and sprang to his feet. His
father remained sitting by their fire. Ten women rode into view, they were
large and strong, as heavily muscled through the chest and shoulders as men.
One of them worethe crimson robes of a fighting priest of Aroana, a bradae in
the color that would not show the enemy their blood. The leader appeared to be
a ha'taren, paladin of Aroana. A green surcoat covered her chain, a golden
gryphon rampant of Danae on her chest and the unicorn of Aroana on her
shoulder. The rest were myn-at-arms in Danae colors.
Tension threaded Ghostsinger's muscles with hot wires of fear. He and his
father had known they were taking dangerous chances along this border, yet
they had hoped to find a way past the patrols especially since there had been [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]