Grudgebearer (33 page)

“Because,” Kholster said as he stood, making sure to give her time to shift her grip to the stool, “I am a monster.”

“Will you kill me now?” She looked small and frail in his shadow, as if, oath fulfilled, she was diminished, an old wine skin into which no new wine would ever be poured lest it burst.

Giving her his back, Kholster headed toward the opposite side of the street, the crowd parting for him as he walked.

“Why?” The voice, now tired and trembling.

“Who can know why monsters do what they do?”

Rae'en kept watching to see when her father would wipe the spit from his face, but it dried there, untouched by all save gravity and the weather.

CHAPTER 32

NO SIGN OF THE ZAUR

King's Watch was as quiet as North Guard had been. Farther west along the coastline, situated near the tip of a small peninsula, the tower of King's Watch provided an excellent outpost from which the Eldrennai kept an eye on the Holsvenians to the northwest. The only substantive differences between the two watch posts in Wylant's eyes were the view and the cuisine.

Seated alone at a small table on the balcony outside the office's quarters, Wylant looked down at the brilliant blue shell of the broiled Nar Lobster on her plate and sighed.

“Sir?” Kam, the youngest member of her Lance, stepped out onto the balcony after a curt knock and paled when he saw the dead crustacean on her plate. “Great Aldo, is that . . . I mean . . . I've never seen you . . .”

“Eat meat?” She took a forkful of the tender flesh and teased it free of the shell, dipped it in drawn butter, and put it in her mouth. It tasted wonderful, but her appetite was still off.
Too much
jallek
root.

“What do you think I crumbled up into your stew when that broken hand wasn't healing last moon?”

“That?” He pointed at the lobster.

“No, but it was meat.”

“General!” His eyes widened.

“The only reason we stopped eating meat to begin with was so we'd have plenty to feed the Aern, Kam.”

She took another bite. Not eating it would offend the tower's old caretaker, Hakkin. For a human, he had served long and well.
For a human, Wylant?
She chided herself as she caught the casual racism in her thoughts.

His post was always in good repair, his journals always well organized and up to date. His performance was exemplary regardless of race, and she knew that. So why had she qualified her appraisal? She didn't really know, and the pang of guilt she felt at that lack of self-knowledge drove her to keep her seat and continue eating.

Hakkin always remembered her eating habits and had something wonderful for her to eat. She couldn't shame him by turning her nose up at food just because worry was turning her stomach in knots and the continual use of
jallek
root left a constant bitter aftertaste in her mouth.

The food was excellent and it was a delicacy and she was going to eat it, by the gods.
Well, no, not by the gods
, she thought.
Never by the gods.

“The Vaelsilyn,” Kam began.
He is such an infant
, Wylant thought. Barely seventy and still so new to the service Wylant felt sure he'd snap to attention in his sleep if she walked past his billet in the middle of the night.

“Vael,” Wylant corrected. “You even met one, Kam. Remember Malli?”

“Yes. Of course. Sorry, sir.” Kam flushed at that. Yes. He would never forget his first Vael sighting. At his shoulder, the batwinged storm cloud that was his elemental familiar darkened as well, reflecting its master's emotions, if imperfectly. “The Vael representative has arrived safely in Port Ammond.”

He held out a crystal. “A courier sent this.”

“Activate it,” she said around another mouthful.

She felt Kam touch the elements, wending a delicate combination of air magic into the blue crystal. An image in rich colors sprang to life, revealing Yavi, full grown in the thirteen years since Wylant had seen her, the Vael who, if it were at all possible, would wind up keeping the uneasy peace between the Aern and the Eldrennai and, given the yellow tint of her hair, the subtle curve of her mouth, and the narrowness of hip Wylant knew Kholster found so appealing . . . stood a fair chance of sharing her husband's bed.
Ex-husband
, she reminded herself.

“What do you think?” she asked Kam.

“Sir?”

“The Vael,” Wylant pushed, “what do you think of her.”

“She's quite shapely?”

“And is that what's important?”

“Sir?”

“Her physical attractiveness.” It was almost cruel to make the young Lancer feel so trapped, but Kam had potential and Wylant wanted him to show her how much. “Is that the key to her success at Oot?”

“Oh, I see.” Kam's eyebrows arched as he considered the Vael more closely. “No. That she's female is important, because her scent will have a calming effect on a male Aern, which will help her keep Kholster calm in the presence of the lackluster wit King Grivek is sending to represent the Eldrennai, but that alone . . .”

“It will help, but don't expect an Aern to be overpowered by the scent of some Flower Girl.” Wylant winced at her own use of the racial slur, but she bulled on. “Even one as pretty as this one. It will help, but what else?”

Another burst of energy flowed from Kam as he enhanced the image, allowing it to grow to full size. “An unscored dental ridge,” he tapped the image, “shows no desire to appease the Eldrennai with her appearance. A well-used and maintained heartbow slung over her shoulder. The Vael is obviously capable of taking care of herself in a fight. And there's something in her eyes. They are pretty, and compassionate, but also . . . clever.”

“And?”

“I would think all those things would be important.”

“You'd be correct.”

“General?”

“Yes, Kam?”

“Permission to speak freely?”

“Of course.”

“She looks a great deal like . . . you?”

Wylant's laugh was a rough bark. “That's not why I picked her out, but Kholster has a . . . a few specific types. She and I are one of those.”

“You always pick them out?”

“No . . .”
Just when your prince has doomed his people
. She trailed off, took a sip of wine and started over. “In the past I've rejected two representatives and sent them back. One male and one female. He was too gentle, too doe-eyed. The other was a pretty enough girl, but she was vapid. She'd have run off with Kholster at the drop of a hat and agreed to anything he wanted, including your destruction.”

“So . . . you've been sizing them up, doing a strategic assessment.” Kam seemed impressed. “This isn't—”

“Some strange jealous ex-wife control issue?” she interrupted. “No, it isn't.”

Wylant breathed a shallow sigh. Kam had good instincts. If Kholster didn't kill him, she might even be able to train him to lead a squad in another decade or so.

Wylant stood up.

“Tell the Lance to mount up,” she said.
If I'm going to look as if I've taken leave of my senses
, she thought,
might as well drool on my tunic and foul my breeches
,
too.
“We're riding to Albren Pass. Now.”

*

Wylant reined in her horse. The Sidearms reined in as well, the hoofbeats of their horses muffled by horseshoes the elderly mage Sargus had prepared using some sort of Artificer magic with which Wylant was wholly unfamiliar.

“If it helps,” Sargus had said, having tried and failed to explain the intricacies of the Artifact Creation to her, “I don't understand your elemancy either.”

And—in a way—it had helped. That hunchbacked mage might be Uled's get, but thank Aldo for the acolyte whose blood spared Sargus his father's madness.

Wylant removed her helmet and sniffed the chill air, hesitantly at first, then with increasing urgency, like a hound on the scent of its prey. Light from the noonday sun glared off her shaven head where the bone-steel studs in her ears (a wedding gift from Zhan) caught the light but did not flash in its gaze.

From their vantage point atop Hunter's Hill, Wylant expected to see the hustle and bustle of the watch city below. Instead, a massive oblong chasm yawned where the watchtower had once been, the city itself lay ruined at the bottom, and the only sound was that of the waves crashing against the cliffs beyond. A foul stench issued forth from the depths of the oblong trench, heavy and reptilian. Wylant sneezed, and her horse tossed its head but did not whinny.

Now I wish I'd been wrong about all of this
, Wylant thought.

Peering into the hole from this distance revealed almost no detail, but the lack of bodies disturbed her. Wylant grunted softly.
We have to go in.

“Sir,” Kam asked in hushed tones. “Where is the town?”

“The Zaur tunneled under and collapsed it,” Wylant replied, patting her horse's withers absently. “Can't you smell them?”

She drummed her gauntleted fingers on her saddle horn while she thought. “Ride back and report this to the king. Show yourself to no one. Even if you see someone in need of aid, ignore them. It could be a trap.” Wylant raised a hand to her forehead. She couldn't help but feel that she was forgetting something. “If you are compromised, send up green lightning, as long a burst as you can, straight into the air. Go.”

Kam gave a quick salute then galloped back along the way they'd ridden.
Good soldier
, Wylant thought. She watched him go and waited for a hundred count, scanning the horizon. Quiet, but not deathly so, the land lied to her and she resented it. The birds still twittered merrily, and farther away an irkanth yowled.
It can smell them, too.

“A clan raid wouldn't have been this organized. It's a warlord,” she whispered to herself, “but of which clan?” Wylant scratched at the slight point of her ear.

“Gzimoch Clan has dug ambush pits before,” Mazik said, his voice unearthly and metallic, “but nothing this big.”

“Xira Clan hired a mage to cast illusions for them once,” Hira said peering down into the destruction; the red crystal where his elemental focus had replaced his left eye caught the light, reminding Wylant of a warsuit. “But,” he said after a moment's study, “this is no illusion.”

Roc dismounted, the wind tussling his curly hair as his bare metal feet settled onto the ground. “This,” he said, wriggling his toes, “feels like a big tunnel. Really big. So long I can't feel the end of it. This is bad.”

“I agree.” Wylant trusted her instincts, and her gut told her that this was what Dienox had been hiding from her. Now that he was done toying with her senses, it was time to see how bad it was. She cursed the god of war under her breath.

“Sir?” asked Hira.

Wylant raised an eyebrow in his direction.

“Did you say something, sir? I thought . . .”

Wylant put her helmet back on and looked at her Sidearms. “We're going into that trench, Lancers, and then we're going into the Zaur tunnel that must be down there. We're going to find out where it goes, what it's hiding, and we are going to report back to the king in time for the army to respond to it.” She drew Vax, currently a double-edged sword, utilitarian and nondescript except for an uneven blue tint to the steel.

Her soldiers were worried; Wylant could feel it. It had been too long since many of them had seen real action, and Frip and Frindo—only a hundred years or so older than Kam—had only fought in skirmishes against a few odd human raiders. Going into a Zaur tunnel, they knew they might not come out alive.

Isn't that always the way of it, though?
Wylant held Vax overhead and willed it to change. The blade caught the sun, elongating into a heavy lance. Wylant pulled at her reins as the king's Lancers stared at Vax, Roc struggling to remount as quickly as possible.

Hira and Griv frowned at the weapon, making Wylant wonder what they, with their artifact eyes, saw when they looked at him.

“You know me; I am not one for speeches.” Her voice was flat, sword-edged. “Success or death.” She met their gazes, each in turn, and willed them to be the brave, strong knights she had trained them to be. “I've taught you everything I could. If you die, don't come whining to me about it.” That drew a grim chuckle from them. They were good soldiers. “Now ride!”

As one they charged down Hunter's Hill toward the massive hole, raising a cloud of dust in their wake. There was no longer a need for stealth. The Zaur would feel the vibrations of eleven riders long before they heard them, even with Sargus's magical horseshoes.

The edge of the pit loomed before them, and they rushed past it without pause. At Wylant's signal she, Mazik, and Ponnod called on the element of air, hardening it beneath the hooves of their horses. Each mount accepted this without surprise. Roc's mount rode a few inches below the others, but Wylant chalked that up to being an Aeromancer short in Kam's absence . . . and Roc's geomancy talent was strong enough that it seemed the ground didn't like him to be too far from it.