Child of the Sword, Book 1 of The Gods Within (17 page)

“What?” he asked.

“I asked if you are as good a swordsman as
they say.”

“Who me? Who says I’m a good swordsman?”

“The story I’ve been told is that you’re a
master.”

Oh no!
Morgin thought, but without
hesitation he confessed. “It’s all false. I’ve been trained with
the sword, but I’m an exceedingly poor student.”

“But how did you overcome Valso?” she asked.
“He is a master.”

Morgin laughed uneasily, knowing he had no
choice but to tell her the truth. He told her of the incident in
the inn as he remembered it. “So you see,” he said. “I came out of
nowhere. I had surprise with me. Were it not for that, I could
never have succeeded.”

Her lips turned upward as he spoke, and when
he was done she threw her head back and laughed heartily. “Oh
that’s funny, Morgin. That’s so terribly funny.”

He was humiliated, but then she saw the look
on his face and she stopped laughing. “Oh not you, Morgin. I’m not
laughing at you. Don’t you see? The joke is on them. What you did
still took great courage, and yet they don’t realize it.”

He laughed uneasily. “I didn’t feel
courageous at the time.”

She smiled at him warmly. “My father says
brave men never feel brave while they’re being brave.”

The dance ended then and Morgin escorted her
off the floor. She was very pretty, and very popular, and much in
demand by all the young men who were far more handsome than he. But
he wanted to dance with her again, and hoping beyond hope he
dallied for a moment.

The music began again, and sure enough a
young Penda lord approached. He was tall and handsome, and Morgin
could see her face light up as he requested the next dance. But
instead of accepting she said, “I am honored Lord ErrinCastle, but
alas I’ve promised the next dance to Lord AethonLaw here.”

Morgin had heard of ErrinCastle. He was
BlakeDown’s son, and the heir to Penda. He smiled politely at
Rhianne, managed to avoid acknowledging Morgin’s presence with so
much as a look. “Perhaps the next dance, then?” he asked.

She nodded politely and agreed. “The next
dance.”

Once she and Morgin were again out on the
dance floor, she whispered excitedly in his ear, “I’ve been hoping
he’d ask me to dance.”

“Then why didn’t you dance with him.”

“Oh you wouldn’t understand these things,”
she said, then proceeded to spend the rest of the dance talking
about ErrinCastle, and how he was so handsome and brave and strong.
By the end of the dance Morgin had developed a healthy dislike for
the young Penda lord.

Morgin surrendered her to ErrinCastle for
the next dance, rejoined his brothers and cousins and tried not to
spend the rest of the evening watching her from afar. But he did
nevertheless, though he was careful to avoid being obvious about
it. He would have forgotten Valso completely where it not for one
short incident. He was talking to JohnEngine about girls when
suddenly he heard the prince’s voice speak from close behind his
back. “Elhiyne.”

Morgin jumped, spun quickly about, faced
Valso squarely. A ripple passed through the crowd and the music
stopped. Silence descended heavily.

But Valso stood casually, not menacingly,
and holding onto his arm, almost clutching it desperately, was a
beautiful woman about AnnaRail’s age. But her face bore the sharp
lines and characteristics of House Decouix; her beauty was
something dark and cold, and her eyes were touched by a hint of sad
madness.

“Jumpy,” Valso said, “aren’t we?”

Morgin shook his head. Something was
muddling his senses. It was as if the woman at Valso’s side had
enthralled him with a spell, as if reality were slipping away from
him. When he spoke he could not hide the tension in his voice.
“Good evening, Lord Valso.”

“Is it?” Valso asked. He smiled, but the
corners of his mouth held the hint of a sneer, as if he would snarl
were they not in public. “May I introduce my older sister?” he
said. He looked at the woman at his side. “Haleen et Decouix. This
is the Elhiyne pup I told you about.”

Haleen looked at Morgin strangely, not with
malice, but with the look of one stricken by some great sorrow. She
reached out wonderingly and touched his cheek with a soft gentle
caress, as if she were drawn to him by some invisible thread. Her
reaction surprised them all.

Again Morgin felt himself sliding into a
thrall. It scared him. He flinched away from her touch, and that,
more than anything, seemed to hurt her.

Valso tugged viciously on her arm and
cursed. “What are you doing, whore?”

She ignored him, continued to reach out to
Morgin. “Don’t fear me, child,” she pleaded. “Please don’t fear
me.”

Valso slapped her face brutally. “Silence,
whore.”

He raised the hand to strike again, but
Tulellcoe appeared out of nowhere, knocked the hand aside, then
struck Valso in the face and sent him sprawling onto the floor.

Valso jumped to his feet, blood trickling
from his lip, anger and hate flashing across his face.

Tulellcoe was enraged, though Morgin had
never before seen him show anger. He snarled at Valso through
clenched teeth, “We Elhiynes treat our women with respect,
Decouix.”

Valso flicked his wrist, and an evil little
dagger appeared in his hand.

Several women nearby gasped and stepped
back. But Morgin stepped forward to stand supportively beside
Tulellcoe. And then suddenly Elhiyne clansmen made themselves
visible everywhere.

Malka stepped in front of Valso. “If I were
you, Decouix, I’d think again before using that knife on an
Elhiyne.”

Valso scanned the crowd of Elhiyne clansmen
that surrounded him. He flicked his wrist and the knife
disappeared.

“And if I see you strike that woman again,”
Malka continued, “I’ll wring your disgusting little neck.”

Valso gave Morgin one, last hateful look,
then turned and walked out of the room. Haleen followed not far
behind, but ever looking over her shoulder at Morgin.

Much later Morgin forgot the incident,
though he found it difficult to forget the look on Haleen’s face.
Rhianne had called Haleen the
mad whore
, and when Morgin
asked her why, she shrugged and said, “Everyone calls her
that.”

He asked her to dance again, but she
declined, pleading tired feet. A few minutes later ErrinCastle
joined them, asked her to dance again, and she accepted
readily.

~~~

During the week that followed there were no
formal events that required Morgin’s attendance. The entire city
slowed down as life returned to normal, and while that was the time
during which the great houses conducted most of the serious
interclan business, it was done in small informal groups that
Morgin had little trouble avoiding. In fact, the only event he was
required to attend was a small banquet at the Inetka compound.

Upon arriving he found to his pleasure that
Rhianne was there with her parents Edtoall and Matill, and her
three older sisters whose names he could never keep straight. He
was further pleased to find that the seating arrangements put him
next to Rhianne. But his pleasure ended quickly, for all she cared
to talk about was riding in the country that afternoon with
ErrinCastle.

After dinner he was approached separately by
Edtoall and Roland, who were both interested in what he thought of
Rhianne. He shrugged their questions off, managed to get excused
from the rest of the evening and left early. Olivia intended to
leave the city at dawn the next morning, so he thought he’d get a
head start on packing.

This was the Clan’s Quarter, and the streets
were well lit and frequently patrolled, but his walk back to the
Elhiyne compound was a solitary one, for the place seemed deserted
as almost everyone else prepared to leave in the morning. He walked
carelessly down the middle of a street, thinking of Rhianne and
trying to devise a plan to get her to pay more attention to
him.

“Kinsman,” a voice said sweetly.

Morgin froze, instantly recognizing Valso’s
voice. It had come from the shadow of a nearby alley.

He scanned the street quickly, checking his
backside before turning to face the alley. It was dark and unlit,
filled only with black shadow. It could hide any number of Kulls,
and Morgin was unarmed, but then he thought of France’s advice
about feet and knees and elbows and fists and claws and teeth.

“Kinsman,” the voice said again.

Suddenly Morgin was not sure it was Valso.
He approached the alley slowly, stopping well out of reach of any
swordsman that might be hiding there. He stood in a crouch with the
full width of a well-lit street behind him. He would not be
surprised from the rear.

“Kinsman,” the voice said again. “Why do you
fear me?”

Morgin answered carefully. “Step into the
light of the street so I can see who is speaking.”

It was Haleen, not Valso, who stepped out of
the alley. Morgin relaxed, realizing he had mistaken her voice for
her brother’s. She stood just within the light thrown by the street
lamps, the darkened shadow of the alley immediately behind her. “Do
you distrust me?” she asked.

“Should I?” Morgin asked. He scanned the
street again, checking either side, listening for any noise that
might signal an attack from his rear.

Haleen sighed unhappily. “You certainly have
no reason to trust me, do you? But then I am not my brother,
kinsman.”

Valso had supposedly left the city that
morning. “I thought you’d already left?” Morgin asked flatly.

“My brother has,” she said. “But I stayed
behind with a small escort.”

“Why?”

Her demeanor broke. “I wanted to see you
again.”

She raised her hand plaintively toward his
face and stepped further into the street, and again Morgin felt
drawn to her, enspelled. He back-stepped, shook his head to clear
it. “Stay away from me,” he shouted.

She stopped. Her hands dropped to her sides.
A tear rolled down her cheek. “Very well. I’ll not bother you
again.”

Her shoulders slumped. She turned toward the
alley. “Come Salula,” she said. “Let us go.”

That name struck fear in Morgin’s heart, and
he back-stepped into the street. Salula, senior captain of all
Kulls, a man of whom Morgin had heard but never met. The infamous
Captain Salula. The stories of the halfman’s brutality, and the
pleasure he derived from it, were known to all.

There was no movement in the alley. Morgin
squinted, hoping to catch a hint of from where Salula might strike,
for there was no doubt that Salula would strike. Morgin
back-stepped further, trying to put distance between him and his
enemy, wishing he could see something within the shadow of the
alley, but it remained black and still and silent and deadly.

He stepped back again, then heard something
behind him, and in that instant realized he’d played right into
their hands. He ducked instinctively and turned, saw the blow
coming, a blunt object appearing out of the night. He was surprised
to find that he’d moved fast enough to sidestep it, but then the
spell took him, the mad whore’s spell, a wave of terror and fear
and sorrow that pulled at him, slowing him, defeating him.

~~~

Cold fire splashed across his face and
shoulders, dripping to the ground where he lay. He gasped, sucking
in air as the icy water cascaded off his bare chest.

“Ah! Good,” a nearby voice growled, a voice
filled only with hatred. “He’s conscious. Call the prince.” The
voice was harsh, a voice Morgin had never before heard. All about
him other voices responded to the first voice, and even through the
pain Morgin could sense a touch of fear in their replies.

“Bring him to his knees,” Valso
commanded.

“Aye, lord,” the voice said.

Cruel hands lifted Morgin by the arms his
body had forgotten, arms tied behind his back for some unknown
length of time, and now gone completely numb. His shoulders ached
unmercifully, sending flashes of agony down to his elbows. Beneath
that, his forearms and wrists were lifeless.

The cruel hands set him down on his knees,
then a fist knocked his head back and a rush of flashing lights
burst through his mind. But the hands prevented him from falling,
pushing him forward, driving his face cruelly into the dirt. The
toe of a boot crashed into his ribs; a heel into his back.

“Don’t hurt him. Please.” Morgin recognized
Haleen’s voice.

“Get the whore out of here.” That was Valso.
“And restrain her. I don’t want her interrupting.”

A hand tore at his hair, pulling his head
back, his chin up. The voice that brought such fear to the others
hissed in his face, “Listen to His Highness when he speaks,
fool.”

“Now Salula,” Valso said casually. “Not yet.
I want him conscious for a while. A slap will do.”

The slap brought the flashing lights again
as it echoed through the night and took Morgin to the brink of
consciousness. Then the fist knocked him forward into the dirt
again.

“That’s better, Captain,” Valso encouraged.
“Now. A bit more water.”

This time Morgin braced for the icy cascade
that engulfed him, though he still gasped and coughed. He opened
his eyes, conscious only of a throb at the back of his skull.

He was on his knees in a small clearing,
obviously far from Anistigh, his hands tied behind his back, his
cheek pressed into the dirt. To one side an open fire crackled
loudly, close enough for him to feel its heat. All about him stood
Kulls, gray black shadows in the night, and in front of him stood a
pair of shiny black boots, covered by a layer of soft, brown
dust.

Morgin raised his head slowly. Above the
boots were a pair of knees, then hips, then chest, and finally the
face of Valso et Decouix.

“Well,” Valso said sweetly. “Lord AethonLaw.
You’ve decided to join us, I see. How kind of you. But I don’t
believe you’ve met Captain Salula yet.”