Destiny (24 page)

Until that moment Lauryn had felt strong again but suddenly her fragile defence crumpled. He was staring at her in that way he had that seemed to drag her into a private cocoon.

‘Oh, you didn’t know?’ he added, feigning innocence, once he noticed that the barb had struck home. ‘Your father, Torkyn Gynt, is my brother. Isn’t that cosy?’

‘You lie!’ she shouted, her voice sounding suddenly ragged.

‘Do I?’ he said. ‘Think about it. You’re a very clever woman. You worked out who I was…now work out
how it all fits together and I think you’ll agree that we are very much family.’

He took her hand and kissed it. ‘We are here. Welcome to my palace,’ he said and alighted from the carriage.

Orlac heard a deep chuckle from within himself.

A masterful move,
Dorgryl admitted.
She will not recover swiftly from that.

As Adongo stepped down from the carriage and bowed to his master, he kept his face deliberately devoid of all emotion, although inside he was anything but calm. Torkyn and Orlac were brothers! So, the King of the Host had sent his second son. He closed his eyes with silent grief at this news and what lay ahead.

Tor and Alyssa had spent a joyful night of rediscovery, giving themselves completely over to one another. They bathed in the pool where they had first made love and sat naked against each other’s body, revelling in being able to share this special time.

‘You’ve learned some new tricks,’ Alyssa admitted, her eyebrow arched slightly.

‘Are you complaining?’ Tor countered, as he kissed her full and perfect breast.

‘Not at all. I’m just wondering where you gained such experience.’

‘Well, they say practice makes perfect and so I kept practising over and over and over again until I knew it was just right,’ he said, a look of innocence on his face.

‘Oaf!’ She threw a stick at him. ‘I hate you!’ But she laughed anyway.

‘But I love you,’ he said, pulling her close again and kissing her softly.

‘Have you loved anyone since me, Tor?’

‘No.’

‘What about that girl you were so distraught over…will you tell me about it?’

He became suddenly serious. ‘Eryn—she was a very special friend. I still can’t believe she’s dead, and so horribly. Goth will pay with his life this time, I swear it.’

‘We must make him pay for all the lives he’s taken or ruined,’ she said sadly. ‘Tell me about Eryn.’

And so he did. Alyssa felt a stirring of jealousy, not that he and Eryn had been intimate, but that she had shared part of his life that Alyssa had not been permitted to enjoy.

She stroked his cheek. ‘Don’t be sad about her. Be angry. We’ll avenge her death, I promise you. Don’t let’s spoil these few precious moments we have.’

‘Are you sure you want to hear this?’ he asked.

‘I do. I hold no grudge, Tor. I just feel cheated that we were kept apart.’

‘I know. And of course then there was Sylven…’ he continued, a wicked undertone to his voice, goading her into asking more.

‘The Queen!’

‘No less.’

‘Tor! Who haven’t you bedded?’

‘Well, let’s see now…I’d always hoped I might sneak between the sheets with the Lady Augusta. I never got the chance though I got close once. She was—’

Alyssa punched him this time. Hard. ‘Stop it! Vile man.’

‘Well, you asked,’ he said plaintively, trying to force down the smile bursting from him.

He hugged her, then stood, theatrically, moving his arms for effect. ‘The truth is I have bedded plenty of women but I have loved none of them. I have only ever loved one girl, since she was nine and I not much older. Alyssandra Qyn of Mallee Marsh—be she Queen of Tallinor or simply Naked Wench of the Heartwood—is my true love; my heart’s desire, the reason I breathe.’ He grinned then. ‘And you’ll note I’m far too much of a gentleman to even mention the slight indiscretion of bedding a king or falling in love with him.’

She looked at him seriously now. ‘I do thank you for that. It was never the same love as I experienced for you.’

He took her hand and lifted her to her feet, wrapping a cloak they had been lying on around her slim shoulders. ‘I already know it.’ He kissed her. ‘There is nothing to forgive.’

They heard a sound and turned to find Solyana staring gravely at them.

Is it time?
Tor asked, hoping Rubyn had been found.

Strangers approach…you are needed,
she replied and loped away into the undergrowth. They heard her as she disappeared.
Meet at the clearing
.

They dressed and quickly made their way to the meeting spot where they found Arabella and Saxon waiting.

‘Have you heard anything?’ Tor asked.

Saxon held up a brace of rabbits. ‘I was hunting just outside the Heartwood. Solyana summoned me.’ He shrugged and threw the rabbits down. ‘Plenty of rabbit stew tonight for all.’

Arabella nodded when Tor looked towards her. ‘Solyana called me. Do you know who comes?’

‘No,’ Tor admitted.

‘Is it Goth?’ Alyssa said.

No one answered, for they heard the sound of people crashing through the trees and the snap and crunch of twigs and branches breaking underfoot. And then suddenly three figures emerged into the clearing, fright written over their faces.

‘Locky!’ Tor exclaimed.

He looked towards the lad’s two companions. ‘The Light save us! Is that you, Hela?’

Alyssa saw a handsome woman curtsy. She looked dishevelled but relieved to see them. She did not miss the glint in the woman’s eye as she looked upon Torkyn Gynt again.

‘It is me, Tor. And I bring with me, her majesty, Queen Sarel of Cipres.’

Tor looked aghast and turned his gaze fully on the statuesque young woman before him. The last time he had seen Sarel she had been sobbing over the body of her dead mother and seemed to be just a young girl with ribbons in her hair. Here stood a proud young woman.

There was a defiance in her stance which shone through the obvious fear they were all emanating. He bowed. Saxon followed suit he noticed, though Alyssa he saw remained upright. He smiled inwardly; so the Queen of Tallinor does not bow to the Queen of Cipres. No time to think on it. He strode towards them.

‘Your majesty.’ He took her hand and kissed it.

She smiled. ‘I’m glad we found you.’

He led her towards Alyssa. ‘Sarel, this is her highness, the King’s Mother; our former Queen of Tallinor, Alyssa.’

Sarel felt herself blush—she had been thinking how impudent of that golden-haired woman not to curtsy before royalty. Oh, she had a lot to learn about curbing her impetuous nature. She nodded graciously, bending very slightly to the older woman.

‘Your highness.’

Alyssa followed suit Tor was relieved to see. ‘Welcome, Sarel. But you arrive in such haste—are you being followed?’

Locky was at Tor’s side in a few strides and Saxon joined them.

‘Tell me quickly,’ Tor said.

Locky rubbed his face. Curiously, he was suddenly very distressed now that he felt safe. Until this moment, he had found steely courage in getting the women into the Forest and to sanctuary. He felt as though he could pass all the fear of responsibility over to Tor now. The relief was huge and he found his knees were trembling; in fact he fought hard not to break down.

Saxon laid a huge hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Calm, lad. You’re safe now. Tell us, but fast.’

Locky took a deep breath. ‘Goth follows. He nearly had us just past the last village. Janus,’ he gulped and then found his composure. ‘Janus forced us to leave him behind. He hit the horses, made us gallop at breakneck speed towards the Forest. I…I don’t know what’s become of him. He stayed to fight them…delay them I suppose, alone. Eryn will never forgive me.’ He looked devastated.

Tor stiffened at the mention of Eryn’s name and was glad when Hela came up beside them and took his hand, preventing him from further explanation to Locky. Alyssa, who had encouraged Sarel to sit and catch her breath, did not fail to notice the intimate gesture but she forced herself to rise above the jealousy it provoked.

‘Hela,’ Tor said, and embraced her. ‘What has happened here?’

They all gathered near Sarel, sitting down and allowing racing pulses to slow in the warmth and safety of the Heartwood as Hela related their story as quickly as she could, beginning with a dream visit from a woman called Lys.

Goth was furious. He was down to just a pair of men, having left the two horseless men behind to bury their dead and make their way back to the north. He could not care less what happened to them, in truth. His duty was to find the Queen and he simply could not wait to dispatch the troublesome maid. The head of Quist banged unhappily beside him in the sack, blood leaking through the loose weave of the hessian, but it gave Goth comfort that it was another of Gynt’s supporters dead and done with.

They were upon the Forest now. Rather impossibly a donkey stood grazing ponderously at the fringe. It reminded him of the bastard creature that had created havoc at Caremboche all those years ago. He ignored it and spurred his horse on, kicking and whipping at it
viciously to go straight towards the trees which it seemed disinclined to do.

He entered the cool of the dark Forest at high speed, ahead of the other riders, knowing the branches were more than high enough for a mounted man to pass beneath. And so it came as a powerful shock when he felt his cloak snag on a branch and lift him from the saddle. He wrenched at the cloak but more branches seemed to entangle and entwine him and suddenly his horse was gone from beneath him, galloping into the depths of the Forest, riderless and with no direction. He found himself swung about, which was odd for there was no wind, and the trees began to pinch his skin where they held him.

He screamed to the man racing behind but was stopped in his command by the sight of the donkey suddenly kicking with its back legs, high enough to connect with the rider who had no chance of staying in the saddle. He dropped like a stone to the Forest floor where the donkey, more than just reminiscent of the one at Caremboche, waited until the dazed guard staggered to his feet. Then with one more well-aimed and very powerful kick of his hind legs, laid the man out cold…dead, Goth presumed from the trickle of blood he could see emerging.

He yelled to the final rider who had slowed his horse.

‘Get me down, you cur!’

The man cast a glance towards his fallen companion and then back to Goth. ‘You can hang there and die for all I care, you scum. You are not one of us. You are a murderer and a coward to boot. Our men die and you
care not. You torture women and kill without mercy.’ He spat towards Goth. It was an empty gesture for Goth was way up in the trees. ‘I go no further in this place. I’ve heard the legends of the famous Great Forest of Tallinor. I hope you rot in its branches,’ he said. The man turned his horse and led it out into the sun.

Goth twisted and cursed but he was well and truly held. He had no idea how it could be so but he stopped struggling and set his mind to work out an escape. No brilliant idea had leapt to mind after several minutes. He was in trouble and alone.

Without warning and hardly daring to believe it was happening, he witnessed a large branch reaching towards him. He took a sharp breath and tasted fear—a rare sensation for Goth—as the branch wrapped sinews of itself around him. He could not cry out; he felt frozen and his throat too dry to make a sound. And then he was being whipped savagely from tree to tree. He lost all sense of which way was up or down. All Goth could focus on was the next fierce and unpredictable movement he would travel in. He felt like a child’s rag doll as the strength seeped from his body and the trees had their fun with him. At one stage he felt his arm dislocate from its shoulder socket and the pain was immense but the trees cared not. They continued to sometimes throw, sometimes stretch him impossibly, but mostly whip him from branch to branch. Sometimes they grabbed him by the leg, other times the damaged arm and he screamed out in agony but no one heard.

Goth lost track of how long the punishment lasted. He was beyond registering the pain now. His body
was so racked with it, everywhere hurt. The magic of it stunned him. At one point he thought he heard the trees whispering, laughing at him. He thought he must have passed out because he suddenly felt the huge thump as his broken body hit the ground with force. He lay there dazed and confused. Somehow he knew he could still move his legs and one arm, though all movement was painful. The other arm was useless. He wondered if the trees somehow knew not to break him completely.

Goth opened his eyes and stared into the pair of bright blue ones he hated more than any eyes in the Land…it was Torkyn Gynt.

‘Welcome to the Heartwood, Goth. I’m delighted you could join us. There are others here who wish to offer their warm welcome too.’

Alyssa came into view. He felt a pang…was it a thrill, hate? He knew not. She said nothing, just stared at him with disdain.

He looked beyond her, squinting through his pain. The bastard Kloek stood looking pleased by her side, as well as a woman he did not recognise. Quist’s brother-by-marriage, the lad, stood next to the despised Ciprean maid, Hela. They both had hate written on their faces.

‘Greetings, Goth,’ Hela sneered.

And then finally the Queen. The young woman he had been told to retrieve by a vengeful master. It was all over now.

‘We beat you, Goth. You’re pathetic,’ was all she said before turning her back on him.

And in that moment of desperation as he realised he was indeed beaten he somehow found he could laugh.

‘I’ve brought you something, Gynt,’ he said in his effeminate voice, having noticed that the sack was still tied to his side. ‘Open it.’

Tor would never know why he did as Goth suggested. He was still quite shocked that the former chief inquisitor had been delivered to him with such ease and in such a manner. The Forest must have dealt with any of his companions.

He tipped the sack’s contents onto the ground. Janus Quist’s bloodied head rolled to rest by his feet. He heard Locky retch and he presumed it was Sarel screaming behind him.