Dawn of Swords (33 page)

If Davishon knew about the grove, and about the prayers conducted there, then so did others of his race.…

He shoved his sore, oversized body to its limits. He ran over the hilly ground, grass whipping against him like a million tiny knives, opening slender cuts on his bare shins and knees, while roots, briars, and stray twigs gouged the bottoms of his bare feet. As he ran, the sun slowly climbed higher in the sky, and his body soaked with sweat that evaporated beneath its heat.

It was closing in on late morning by the time he heard the first of the shouts. The bunching of willow and palm trees that contoured the grove came into view. Bardiya pushed himself harder, the echo of those pained, continuous wails piercing his ears like
a flaming knife. He roared, moving much too quickly as he came upon the bordering trees and ground cover, his right foot catching a vine and sending him sprawling. Soaring forward, his side struck a thick trunk, which sent him spiraling in the other direction. He put out his hands to brace his fall as he flipped over and over again, his vision a wash of coalescing color. His hip struck the ground first, sending a bolt of pain across his abdomen, and when his back struck something fleshy yet substantive he heard a shout of surprise.

He came to rest on his hands and knees, panting, the ache in his bones cramping his gut and making it difficult to focus. The red and green of the mangolds were beneath him now, but there was something strange about it; the red stems glistened in the soft glow of the late morning sun, appearing much more visceral than they should have.

People bellowed orders. Others howled in misery. A shadow loomed over him, as giant as he, and the sound of displaced air swooshed past his ear. He flinched and was struck with a jolt, something sharp sinking into in his collarbone. Whatever it was didn’t strike him deep—Bardiya’s bones were thick and strong, and they had never been broken in all his long life.

He snapped to attention, flicking his massive hands out in a warding off motion, sending the figure before him flying. He sat up then, grabbed the object jutting from his flesh, and tore it free. It was a slender blade, a khandar of the sort he had often seen the elves wield in their sparring matches. The steel was soaked red. The air grew thick with an eerie silence. His gaze shifted from the blade to the grove before him, and his heart caught in his throat. The strange color infusing the mangold was blood; the ground was coated with it. There were bodies resting in the tangled plants, unmoving, their forms athletic, their flesh dark. There were eight elves before him, all armed with blood-soaked swords of their own, save the one closest to him. They formed a semicircle around three terrified, huddled forms: Gordo and Tulani Hempsmen, and their young daughter,
Keisha. Their water-rimmed eyes lifted to meet his, and they huddled even closer together.

The elves made no move against him. They froze as if they knew not what to do, like a group of deer mesmerized by a predator. Bardiya shut his mouth and breathed deeply through his nose, trying to steady himself, trying to quell the pain that squeezed his bones. Slowly he rose to his feet. He approached the first prone body and used his foot to roll it over. It was Zulon Logoros, his father’s most ardent spiritual advisor. Zulon’s neck had been split from ear to ear. Blood-bubbled gasps still issued from his mouth, even though the man’s heart no longer beat and breath no longer blew from his lungs.

There were six bodies beside that one. He knew who two of them were without turning them over. His ardent desire was to collapse beside his parents’ remains, to weep and howl over them and bathe their faces with his tears. Bessus and Damaspia Gorgoros, First Family of Ker, embraced even in death, their eyes shut against the horror of their fate.

Bardiya stood tall, his shoulders back, his vision marred red with his fury.

“Why?”
he bellowed.

There was no answer from the elves, only action. The one in front, whose khandar had been embedded in Bardiya’s neck, clucked his tongue. The other seven surged past him, swords raised, their war cries pulsing through the air.

Despite the danger, Bardiya felt unnaturally calm. He still held the khandar in his hand, his fingers so large that they could have wrapped around the handle twice. The thing looked pathetically small in comparison to his great size. He swung the sword sideways as two elves came near enough to hack at him. So powerful was his strike that the attackers’ blades shattered on impact, as did his own. Shards of metal rained to the mangold-covered ground with the sound of tinkling glass.

Bardiya tossed the broken khandar aside and grabbed one of the elves, lifting him as if he were nothing. With a cry, he launched him through the air. The body struck another two assailants, knocking them over like a gale-force wind. Bardiya snatched up a fallen limb from a willow tree, this weapon far more comfortable in his grasp. With an easy swing he cracked the other nearby elf across the face, snapping his head back. A gush of red ejected from his mouth as he fell.

There was sound behind him, soft footsteps and crinkling leaves. Without thinking, Bardiya flipped the tree limb to his side and thrust it backward. It met resistance, followed by the gasp of someone struggling for air. Two more elves came at him from the front, trying to keep their distance, maximizing their reach with elongated lunges. It meant nothing, though; Bardiya’s arms gave him a reach far greater than that of the short, lithe elves. His branch crashed through their bodies, smashing bones, pushing aside their blades as if in mockery of their futile attempts at defense.

One of the elves held up his hand, halting the others from advancing. Bardiya looked at him closely, studying his face, and recognized him as one of those who had come to threaten Ang after Bardiya’s merciful slaying of the kobo. The elf’s name was Ethir, and a hateful sneer twisted his lips.

“Leave,” Bardiya said in a low murmur, “and tell Cleotis to never step foot in our land again. Do that, and I will let you live.”

“Cleotis is in Stonewood no longer,” Ethir replied, puffing his chest out to look bigger, a fool’s gesture with Bardiya so close by. “His reign was weak and foolish. I answer only to Detrick Meln, the new Lord of Stonewood. Your threats mean nothing to me.”

“They should,” Bardiya said.

“And what of them?” the elf asked. He gestured toward the Hempsmen family, still surrounded by the remaining elves. The parents cried as they held their daughter close. Blades rested against all three of their necks.

“Would you let your grief doom them as well?” Ethir asked. Bardiya let his body relax, let his head dip in defeat. Ethir laughed, and the anger that had fueled Bardiya’s earlier rampage returned. He leapt from his kneeling position, crossing the distance between them with shocking speed. His hands clamped around Ethir’s shoulders, and with a simple twist of his waist he slammed the elf into a nearby tree. Ethir’s head crashed against the trunk, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

The remaining elves drew their bows and aimed in his direction. Going against his every inner principle, Bardiya screamed over his shoulder, “Which is faster, your arrows or my hands? Put them down, or I’ll cave in his skull!”

He sensed their uncertainty, saw the tension of the men who held the family captive. Bardiya prayed Ethir was important enough for them to make such a compromise. It appeared as though he were. Bows dipped, and the elves stepped aside so Gordo and Tulani Hempsmen could shuffle their daughter out of the grove. He hoped they reached safety, that there weren’t more elves lying in wait around the grove.

Bardiya turned to his captive, who coughed and wheezed under his grip. Ethir’s expression was no longer quite so impudent. The elf looked frightened. Bardiya took a deep breath. Never before had the commandment of forgiveness been so hard.

“I do not know why you hate us so,” he said, “nor why you wish us harm. If my parents had lived through this, they would have hunted you down and placed your heads on spikes along the Corinth’s western banks. But I am not my parents. I am Bardiya Gorgoros of Ker, the land we have so named. Violence is not in my heart, nor in the hearts of my people. You will never again see us near your forest home, but hear this: should you ever step foot into these plains again with any intention but love and cooperation, I will strike you down. That is a promise, from one man of honor to another. Am I understood?”

Ethir nodded.

“Good.”

Bardiya released his grip, allowing the elf to fall. Ethir stood up shakily, brushed himself off, and flexed his arms. He whistled to his fellow elves, and one by one they disappeared from the thicket. Ethir was the last to leave, fixing Bardiya with one final, conflicted stare.

“You will not see us again,” the elf said.

“Before you go,” said Bardiya. “I must know. Please. Was this my fault, because of our misunderstanding about the birds?”

Ethir shook his head. “Birds? No, giant, there are things much greater than you moving through this world now. I will not weep for the rulers of House Gorgoros, but neither would I have moved against them if not for the gods. Put the blame on them, if you must.”

Before Bardiya could ask him what he meant, the elf ducked out of sight. Once he was gone, an emptiness flooded into Bardiya’s massive chest. The tree limb, the blood on it still drying, dropped from his limp fingers. Slowly he shuffled over to where his parents lay. He fell to his knees before them, rolling them apart so that he might gaze at their beautiful faces. He placed his hands on their broken, blood-soaked chests, and began uttering his prayers. In the back of his mind he knew it was hopeless, but in that moment he didn’t care. His father and mother, the people who had raised him, who had first imparted to him the glory of Ashhur and the virtues of peace and prosperity, were gone. No matter how much healing magic he poured out of his fingers, he could not reverse that.

Death was permanent—forever.

Tears flowed down his cheeks. He felt no hatred for the elves, but he wished he could dive into their minds. He wished he could hunt them down, drag them before the corpses, and plunge into them the sadness and ache he felt. But what could he do? What explanation was there for such madness? He scooped up the corpses, all seven of them, and positioned them in a line beneath the shade
of the largest willow in the grove. That done, he knelt beside them and let loose his despair, weeping as he waited for the Hempsmen family to return with more of their people. Then they could begin the procession into the desert, where the bodies would be buried beneath the silhouette of the black spire.

Love and forgiveness, that is the key
, he heard Ashhur’s voice whisper in his mind. Bardiya clung onto that mantra for all it was worth. The first man solely created by Ashhur, Bessus Gorgoros, was dead. As far as omens went, none could be darker or more ominous.

C
HAPTER

17

T
he liquid burned as it flowed down his throat, but it was better than the pain in his chest. He welcomed the calming numbness that followed, and even the nausea the liquor caused as it worked its way through his veins. In the end, though, it was no real comfort. Nothing was. Vulfram knew that the drunkenness would subside as it always did, and his thoughts would return to Lyana.

He dropped his head into his palms and worked at his eyes as if trying to pry them from his skull. He couldn’t sleep, could barely eat. It had been this way ever since that fateful day two weeks ago, when his lashings had stripped the flesh from his daughter’s back. On the rare moments he did stumble into unconsciousness, he was plagued with nightmares of Lyana’s future life as a Sister of the Cloth, of the abuses she would endure at the hands of the men who purchased her services, especially the young and nubile. More than anything he wanted to seek out the Sisters who had scurried away with her, perhaps even storm into their large vicarage in Felwood and free her. But he wouldn’t—couldn’t. Lyana’s punishment had been Karak’s decree, a decree given to him personally the evening
before that fateful day. He could never turn his back on the word of his god.

Even if it killed him inside.

It was destroying his relationship with Yenge as well. When he was away, all he did was dream of home, and now that he was here, there was no happiness, no comfort. Yenge blamed him for their daughter’s penalty—
him!
—as if he were responsible for her wild behavior. “She was a girl in need of a father,” she said, “and you weren’t here.” Even Alexander and Caleigh grew distant, acting as if they were afraid to speak with him. His children meant everything to him, and seeing their wary glances tore at his heart. Every night he listened as Yenge wailed herself to sleep in the chamber down the hall, and every night he thought to go to her, to comfort her, but he never did. He stayed in his study, using the fireplace to warm his hands on each progressively chillier fall evening, wallowing in self-revulsion.

And it wasn’t only Lyana’s fate that inflicted him with guilt. Broward Renson was never far from his thoughts; Vulfram was haunted by the image of his oldest friend’s head rolling away from the executioner’s stone. He often cursed Broward’s name, but that was always followed by a moment of doubt. Why would his friend have partaken in an act that hovered between irresponsible and outwardly evil? And why hadn’t Vulfram possessed the patience to stop and ask? His friend’s cries haunted him. What might Broward have said if he’d stayed Vulfram’s blade? But Karak himself had ordered that the judgment be swift, meaning that Vulfram’s questions were a sign of doubt and cowardice, a lack of faith in his deity.

It was a destructive cycle of self-hate that saw no end.

He tipped back the jug of brandy and took another hard swallow. This time he choked on the bitter juice while pounding the table with his fist. His lips formed Yenge’s name, wanting to call out to her, but his throat remained still. He stumbled to the door of their bedchamber, pressed his ear against it, and heard his wife
sobbing again. His fingers brushed the polished ivory door handle but stopped short of lifting it. Instead, he wandered back to his desk and slumped behind it. He pulled out a piece of parchment and then dabbed the tip of his quill into a tub of ink, but in his drunkenness all that came out was an illegible smear when the tip touched the page. He stared at the paper, hardly aware of what he was trying to write or whom he even planned to write to.