Bloodsongs (4 page)

“I thought you'd be reasonable,” Kel whispered in her ear. “I'm the warrior in this family now. I've need of such a blade and its power. Or did you plan to give it to Kirigi someday?”

She brought a foot up and smashed her heel down on his toes. It wasn't hard enough to break any bones, but it startled him, and his grip loosened enough to let her pull free. She spun and backed away a few steps.

“Your jealousy has warped you!” she snapped, keeping her voice low for fear of alerting her younger son. Now, she recognized the light in his eyes, and it made her shiver. “Get out!” she demanded. “Would that I had died before seeing you come to this! Leave while my sweeter memories are still intact!”

He set his hand on the hilt of the sword at his hip, but he didn't draw it. Still, the threat was clear. He loomed over her. “I'll leave when the dagger is mine!” he said. “You'll tell me where it is, or I'll carve your precious brat and hang his heart on a thorn!”

A bitter cold fell over her. Her fingers curled into fists, and she drew herself erect. “Kel, listen to me and believe what I say.” She fixed him with a look and crept closer. “By Orchos and every demon in the nine hells”—she shook her fist at him—“if you
ever
harm Kirigi, I'll kill you. He doesn't even know how to use a sword. Kimon never taught him.” Her hands curled in the fabric of his tunic and she pulled his face to hers. “Even if I'm dead and you try to hurt him, I swear I'll rise up and strike you down!”

Kel roared. His hand crashed down against her cheek. She reeled, fell to the floor. His sword glittered in the faint light, free of its sheath. “So you prove with your own foul mouth that you love him more than the flesh of your loins! Sterile bitch! You couldn't give me a true brother!”

“You would have hated him, too!” she spat back. “Kirigi would have loved you as much as your father and I loved you. But jealousy perverted your heart and made you a sick thing!”

His sword descended until the point hovered at her throat. His face twisted into something she no longer recognized. “You almost push me too far,” he said thickly, “but your time hasn't come yet, Mother. Not quite yet.” The point moved down between her breasts. She felt the cold steel through the thin material of her apron tunic. “Just give me Demonfang, and I'll leave you for now.”

She forced a laugh. “I told you, fool, that was only a story.”

He leaned ever so slightly on the sword. A spot of warmth trickled on her skin. In moments it would stain her garment.
Another scar
, she thought with a sigh, almost grinning at such a ridiculous worry.

“You push me with your lies,” he warned.

She looked down at the point against her body, trailed her gaze up its gleaming length until their eyes met again. “You know we can never be friends after this,” she told him with a mocking dispassion.

Obscenities burst from his lips. The sword flew up, crashed down, and carved a slice from the edge of the table nearest her head. It was the breakfast table, and mugs overturned from the impact. One rolled off, clattered on the floor, and stopped near her hand. She picked it up, ran a finger along the inside of the rim, licked it, tasted beer. Making a face, she cast it away. “Bitter,” she said disdainfully.
 
“It must have been your mug.”

“I'll find it,” he raged. “I have the means, if only you knew! You can't keep it from me.”

She inclined her head toward the door. “Get out, Kel.”

A sickly smile spread over his face. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “Demonfang will be mine,” he assured her, regaining his composure. “I'd hoped to save myself some effort by asking for it. I'd hoped that out of guilt for what you'd denied me as a mother you might be generous. I'd thought you might worry about my safety when you learned I was a soldier and give me a powerful weapon.” He sighed and sheathed his sword. “Obviously I was a fool to think you cared.”

She got slowly to her feet. “Good-bye, son,” she said sadly. “I did love you. Some part of me still does even after this.” She touched her swollen cheek. “But I know you don't believe it.”

Kel strode to the door, seized the iron ring, then hesitated. For a moment he looked as if he wanted to say something. Then his shoulders sagged, and his head drooped toward his chest. She resisted an impulse to go to him; something in her heart wouldn't let her make the gesture. Kel had chosen his road. She couldn't walk it with him. Perhaps he realized that, too, for he straightened wordlessly and pulled open the door.

There was a shout and the briefest glimpse of someone outside.

Kel slammed the door with a force that shook the walls. In one smooth motion he slid the bolt home. His sword leaped from its sheath again, and he ran for the rear door. Before he reached it, someone kicked it open. New sunlight flashed on ring-armor and ready blades. Window shutters around the inn burst open, revealing helmed and armored troops. The front door shivered on its hinges, splintered, and broke.

A huge soldier filled the entrance, one massive arm locked around Kirigi's throat, a short-bladed sword braced against the youth's ribs. Samidar could see more men behind him, and the wagons of the caravan she had spied earlier. It was a trap, then, a planned ambush. But why?

Kel's sword described a shining, humming arc in the air and stopped suddenly, gripped in both hands. His eyes raked around the inn. Enemies on three sides, the kitchen behind him. There was another door through there, but it was always bolted with three bolts. Troops would be waiting beyond it, anyway, she was sure.

“Drop that sticker, rebel,” the big soldier commanded. He gave Kirigi a violent shake. “Or this one gets it clean.”

“Mother!” Kirigi croaked, his wind nearly choked off.

“Quiet, son,” she said quickly. “Be still.”

The big man nodded, apparently in charge. “She's a smart one,” he said to Kel. “Now, you be just as smart. Thirty men surround this pigsty. And I know you wouldn't want any harm to come to your little brother, here.”

Kel's smile was purest evil. He threw a swift glance at his mother. “Send him to hell for all I care,” he answered. Then a bloodcurdling cry bubbled from his throat, and he ran straight at the men who blocked the rear exit.

“Get him!” the giant roared, and before Samidar could move or cry out, she saw the muscles of his sword arm bulge. Half the blade's length slipped between Kirigi's ribs. The youth's eyes clenched tight; in a spasm he bit his lip and blood ran down his chin.

His murderer jerked the blade free and cast the boy aside.

Samidar screamed and flew across the room to her son. She sank beside him. Kirigi managed to roll over. He looked up, and his eyes were moist with pain and confusion. “Son!” she cried. “Don't die, don't leave me!” She wrapped him in her arms, pressed his face against her body, and rocked him back and forth.

His hand came up weakly and brushed her cheek. “Mother.” The words were feather soft, dry as dust. “Don't cry.” He tried to swallow, but more blood welled between his lips. She wiped it away. “It hurts,” he moaned. “It . . .”

He went limp in her arms.

She screamed again, shook him, then brought her lips down on his. “No, no,” she moaned, and kissed him again. He stared at her, but there was no sight in those sea-blue eyes. Gently, she closed the lids.

The sounds of fighting penetrated her grief. The clang of steel on steel rang hollow in her ears. The crash of overturning furniture, the shouts, the huffing, and the screams of the luckless reached her with a dreamlike ethereality. Kel fought like a demon, using the skills his father had so arduously drilled into him. The attackers got in each other's way, their unorganized numbers actually a disadvantage. Kel had only to swing at any movement.

She couldn't tell the death he had done already. The only one that mattered rested in her arms.

Kel forced a way into the short hall that led to the back door. That made sense if he could get to the stables and his horse. But, of a sudden, he twisted and disappeared through the door to her own small sleeping room. It slammed shut.

“Break it down!” the big commander ordered, and a pair of shoulders leaned to the job. “Smash it!” he shouted, sneering at his own men. “Put some muscle to it!”

“He's barred it on the inside!” someone called in response. But an instant later wood cracked, and the door sprang back on wrenched hinges.

“What the hell?” one of the soldiers shouted.

Another bellowed, “He's not here!”

“Search the grounds!” The commander shoved a couple of his men. “You two, tear this place apart! There must be a trapdoor. Find it! If he gets away, I'll have all your miserable hides!”

He left his men and came toward her then, kicking a broken stool out of his path. “Where'd he go?” he demanded hotly. “Show us how he got out of that room, or I'll wring your disloyal neck!”

She stared at the raven on his chest, the emblem of King Riothamus. Damn him to the blackest pit! She laid Kirigi's head easily down to the floor and stood.

“Pig!” she answered him. “Murderer!”

His huge, meaty hand seized her by the hair, and he jerked her head sharply back. He shook the fist that held his sword before her nose, and she could smell his breath as he bent close to her.

“None of that now, you old whore. You're going to tell us where that son of yours has gone and everything else you know about the rebel scum he runs with.”

“Murderer!” She spat in his face and brought her knee up with all the strength she could muster. It slid off the inside of his thigh, doing little damage, but her nails scored a trio of crimson streaks near his left eye.

“Filthy, traitorous bitch!” he roared. Stepping back, he wiped the blood and spittle with his sleeve. She flew at him again, raking with her nails. But the fight ended quickly when he introduced the pommel of his sword to the bony ridge above her temple.

The last thing she saw as she fell was the not-quite-faded rose of Kirigi's cheeks. She reached out to touch her son.

 

 

 

Chapter Three

 

Samidar woke slowly, completely blind. Her head throbbed desperately. She rubbed her eyes, wishing vision into them, and discovered an area above her left eye where the pain was worst. She touched the spot and winced. It was tender, very swollen. The floor beneath her was rough stone, and cold. Carefully she sat up, fighting nausea.

She rubbed her eyes again, uselessly.

The air was cool and stale, her tunic thin. If only there was some water to quench her thirst. She sat quietly for a time, holding her aching head, fearing her new blindness, reliving Kirigi's murder again and again in her mind. She cried until the tears stopped. After a while, she cried again. The sound of sobbing rose all around her, echoes of despair and loneliness and grief.

She slept a little, or passed out. Thunder continued to roll inside her skull when she woke, and she was sick on the floor. Disoriented, she tried to stand but settled back on her rump in her own vomit. Doggedly, she tried again and found a precarious balance on her feet. She held her hands out, searching for any obstacle, and she took a few hesitant steps.

The effort cost her in pain. Her head was a drum, Kirigi's drum, she thought dully. An incredible, frantic tattoo beat at her temples until she nearly screamed. But a moan was all that escaped her lips, and she forced her legs to move.

It might have been one of the nine hells, a road of darkness through a land of darkness where she would wander blind until the stars burned out and the fires of time burned out and the souls of the gods themselves shriveled into black husks. She gritted her teeth and kept walking, fearing at any moment she might trip and fall or the pain in her head would overwhelm her. The scuffling of her feet on the stones rasped in her ears, and the rustling of her skirts was the only other sound.

She broke a nail when at last she encountered a wall. She sagged against it, sucked the tip of the injured finger. A tiny laugh gurgled in her throat at the new, insignificant pain. She felt a sudden dizziness, realized she was breathing much too fast, and forced herself to a semblance of calm.

The wall was rough stone, the mortar between the crudely cut blocks old and crumbling. She ran her hand along it, hoping to pace out the size of her prison, exploring for a door or window.

When the throbbing in her head became too unbearable, when her legs would no longer move where she willed them, she sank down, leaned her back against the wall, and drew a long breath. Only when she rested did she begin to guess where she was.

The walls had no angles. She knew now she had been walking in circles. There were no doors, no windows. The answer should have been obvious sooner, would have been if not for the fog that shrouded her brain.

It was the oubliette at the old garrison, a deep pit used to hold criminals. It couldn't have been used in years, certainly not since the garrison had been withdrawn by Riothamus. The citizens of Dashrani didn't bother with prisons or pits anymore. The few lawbreakers careless enough to get caught received more specialized punishment: either they made instant restitution, or they forfeited limbs, or sometimes life itself.

She fell asleep again and dreamed that Kimon came to rescue her. She saw him, shining with a soft light, descending from the center of the darkness, walking with bold strides on the very air. He bent with a broad, reassuring smile, extended a hand to help her up. But there were no fingers on that hand.

She woke with a start. The pain in her head had eased a little. She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them, still blind. A fine, clammy sweat filmed her skin. She should get up, she told herself, but to what purpose? Instead, she pulled her knees up to her chest, tucked the skirts around her ankles, locked arms around her legs, and rocked herself.