Lady of Mercy (The Sundered, Book 3) (3 page)

Erliss of Mordechai had been far too young to see the last priest disposed of, but the lesson and the story had traveled down from Lord Mordechai to all of his clan: Do not interfere in the matters of Mordantari. It will bring ill fortune upon us all.

The words came back, sharp and clear, as he sat stiffly in a winged chair in the cramped little living area that passed as a room for travelers. It was wood-walled and mud-sealed, with windows that weren’t even glassed in—and were small, at that. The ceilings near the fireplace were low and ugly, and the decor—what there was of it—was laughable. In any other village, he and his attendant slaves would have merely requisitioned use of the reigning noble’s manor—usually some small officiant to the Church itself. There were none in the Vale.

Vellen,
he thought, as he rose for the thirteenth time to walk
in a circle over a rug made up of braided rags—rags!—
there had best be worthwhile information here.

But of course there was, information and more, all of a highly valuable nature. Why else would Lord Vellen, first of the Karnari, holder of the high seat of the Greater Cabal, make his trek here in secrecy and silence? Why else would he travel with so small and unimpressive a party of Swords—without even slaves in attendance?

And where is Lord Vellen now
? he asked himself darkly.
Has he escaped cleanly and left us to the Lord of the Empire?

Erliss ran a hand through dark, perfect hair. A man who sought power was wise to counsel himself in the ways of patience; he had been told this many times as he struggled out of his youth. As always, it was a particularly painful trial to follow that advice.

But patience was willing to reward him, this one time. The knock came.

He forced himself to walk slowly to the door; he forced his hand to lift the latch and pull it open with a casual strength. He even forced himself to remain silent as the Sword fell to one knee beneath the door’s frame.

“Lord Erliss.”

“Rise,” the lord responded, “and give me your news. Have you sighted Lord Vellen?”

“No, Lord,” was the quiet response. But the tense, stretched look of the Sword’s mouth promised worthwhile information anyway. He rose at the priest’s command and entered the room as Erliss stepped back.

“What news, then?”

“Two people left the castle by the front gates. They came down the road toward the Vale. One was a woman, one a boy.”

“And?”

“We tried to stop them. To interrogate them.”

“Openly?”

The Sword cringed at the edge in the single word. “There was no observer, lord.” He bowed his head. “They—resisted.”

“Where are they now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Pardon?”

“The woman—she—” he swallowed. “She had a sword.”

Lord Erliss’ eyes narrowed. “There were four of you.”

“Yes, lord. But she also—she had the Enemy’s magic.”

Lord Erliss was still a young man; at twenty and one years of age, he had not the wisdom or the controlled, silent power of his older cousin, Lord Vellen of Damion. His dark eyes widened in astonishment; the line of his brows rose and vanished beneath his hair. “
What?
”

“She—I think she cast the Greater Ward. Her eyes were of the Light. Captain Sanderston attacked.”

“Did he kill her?”

“I hope so.”

“Idiot!.” Erliss spun so quickly on his feet that the Sword jumped back and dropped into a defensive stance. “You had best hope he has not. This—this is what Lord Vellen bid us watch for.” Erliss breathed deeply and more regularly. Yes, even though no one had thought to mention a woman, this was obviously the reason that Lord Vellen had left him in the village.

The Sword fell again to one knee, in a silence that was not the product of fear alone. For he had seen the green light in this woman’s eyes, and had felt the sting and call of the Enemy. Lord Erliss had not.

“Quickly—get the others. All of them. Meet me on the northernmost edge of the village and be prepared to lead us to her.”

The Sword nodded grimly. His feet barely touched the ground as he leaped up to do his Lord’s bidding. His Lord smiled openly as the door swung back on its hinges.

Lord Vellen had lied, both to the nobility, which was a minor crime, and to the Greater Cabal, which was not. He had stated, for the record of the Church and the Karnari, that all of the lines were destroyed. Erliss wanted to shout with inappropriate glee. This woman, this single enemy, was quite possibly worth the high seat of the Greater Cabal to the man who could both capture and play her properly.

Oh yes, Erliss well understood why Vellen had come in swiftness and secrecy, daring the anger of the Lord of the Empire. She was a sign of his failure. And if Erliss could, without intervention, bring her back to Malakar, she would serve as the sign of his success. What, with this knowledge and proof of it at hand, could he not receive from Lord Vellen? Perhaps he would ask for a place in the Greater Cabal—at the youngest age in history. Perhaps he would be forced to ... disagree with his
cousin, and take his acquired possession to Benataan, Lord Torvallen—Lord Vellen’s greatest rival for the high seat, and second of the Karnari.

The plans were pleasant and had such a ring of authority to them that Erliss of Mordechai was happy for the first time in almost a month.

 

Darin was afraid now. All of the glory and glow of victory had been burned away by the weak red light, the cold, straight steel, and the final, sudden deaths of the Swords. He knew who the Swords must have served. He knew that the priests would follow. And he knew that Sara was tired, nearly exhausted—she didn’t have any power left for another battle; she hadn’t even used the power she did have to heal her wound. Surely, surely they would be caught, and he would once again serve as slave in House Damion. Maybe this time, he’d be forced to watch Sara’s death on the altars at the quarters and carry her blood in the silver pail only to spill it carefully along the grooves of the Damion crest.

But it wasn’t just the Church, the priests, or Lord Vellen that frightened him. It was the look, burned into memory, that had twisted Sara’s face as she’d killed the Swords.

The sun was up—how could it be so high already? He felt its bite on the back of his neck. He felt naked and completely helpless as he followed the bends the road took. His neck developed a kink because he was constantly looking over his shoulder, even though Bethany told him—and sharply—that it only slowed them down.

But at least Sara walked with quiet strength and purpose. He paced her well and tried not to notice the ugly red blotch at her thigh. At least the wound had closed somewhat; the blood no longer left a visible trail upon the ground.

She stopped after walking for an endless amount of time and squinted into the darkness of forested land to their right. The undergrowth was meager here, although weeds sprang up at any crack of sunlight that showed through open branches.

“Here,” she said softly. She turned back and touched his shoulder. Even through his tunic he could feel her fingers: they were icy; they shook. “It isn’t going to be an easy passage—but it won’t be much longer, either. Come on.” Her hair had slipped
out of her back-knot; strands of it ran across her pale cheeks like dried blood.

“Sara?”

“Yes?”

“What is the Lady’s Woodhall?”

“It is,” she replied, as she turned and began to navigate between the trees, “the hall that the Lady of Elliath dwelled in. She created it with her blood and Lernan’s magic. It was her castle, her private retreat.”

He scrambled to keep up with her as the shadows fell upon his upturned face, darkening his hair and his eyes. And he listened as she told the tale of the Woodhall and its creation; listened in a way that he would never have done as a student of Line Culverne, in the teaching halls of the Grandmother. Her words, soft and distant, flowed in the cadence of a teacher’s voice. For a moment he felt safe as he pulled images from her words: the great, white height of the Lady’s arches, the towering walls, the plain, majestic hallways. Sara said they would reach it soon, and perhaps, in that magical, unearthly realm, they might be safe.

He was not to find out that evening. An hour’s march into the forest, Lady Sara stopped walking. Her brow rippled, and her eyes narrowed; she teetered on knees as she gazed out into a sea of great trunks. “I think,” she said quietly, “that I must call a rest.”

Darin had just enough time to catch her before her eyes rolled up and her legs collapsed beneath her.

Erliss of Mordechai was quiet; among the Mordechai clan this
was considered a bad sign. The Swords that served him had been handpicked by Lord Vellen—he didn’t trust them to follow all of his orders, but that was not his concern.

Adorning the wide, rough road that led from the village toward the borders of Mordantari were three bodies. Where blood had pooled into the dirt, the ground was wet and heavy. He walked, taking no care to avoid them; death was a part of his province, and the bringing of death, his duty; he would have made a poor priest if such painless deaths as these gave him any feeling of discomfort. Still, his thick face was dark, and his forehead gathered in lines that would, through the years, become etched there. If he survived that long.

“You said,” he murmured, to the Sword who had brought them here, “that there were only two. A woman and a child.”

“Yes, Lord.”

Erliss knelt in the dirt, taking care to avoid the worst of the mess. He reached out, touched cold, slack skin, and pushed. Muscles, locked in death’s grip, resisted a moment before he stopped. “You.”

“Lord.” A Sword stepped forward. He had a hand on the pommel of his sword and, although he stood in formal stance, did not remove it. Captain Sanderston was a vicious fighter who now lay dead—too cleanly dead.

“Take up the watch. You,” Erliss said, pointing almost at random, “join him. If anyone else seeks to leave the castle, do not interfere. Watch or follow. Is that clear?”

“Lord.”

“Good. Go, now.”

Erliss rose, leaving the captain behind. Sanderston had, after all, failed. Burial and other such niceties were not the proper concern of a priest. “You two—get your mounts. Follow the road.” He bit down on the rest of the words; the Swords were already running in crisp, even steps. The sound of his voice barely had the time to die out into stillness.

A woman. A boy. He shook his head. These deaths must have occurred minutes after the Sword—the only one with brains of the four—had left to bring the report to his commanding priest. The danger the woman presented had been real in theory and report; now, he felt it fully as a fact against which he had no desire to argue.

He had to know where she was running.

He had to think, and he felt, truthfully, that there was little time for it.

“Lord?”

“What?”

“Priest Tarantas wishes to speak with you.”

Tarantas? Just what he needed. Gritting his teeth, he glared at the Sword who had interrupted his reverie with such unwelcome news. “Who informed Tarantas of our whereabouts?”

The Sword heard the death in the question without any reaction at all. There was no time for an answer; the aged Priest Tarantas was already upon them.

Erliss greeted him with poorly concealed ill-humor. “Ah, Tarantas. Is it not rather early for you to be abroad?”

“It’s early,” the old priest replied. But early or no, he was still dressed in the out-of-place black robes that marked him as full priest. Even in the Vale, he chose to announce himself with very little care for subterfuge or silence. His hair was long and pale, streaked black by artifice rather than any lingering youth, and his fingers, slightly bent with time—not labor—ran through the thin, long line of his beard. It, too, was peppered white, but it shone without tangle or knot; he attended it well. “But it seems that early or no, I am required.” He glanced sideways at Erliss. “Lord Vellen gave me explicit instructions, Erliss.”

No doubt. “And those?”

“I have made a study of Mordantari’s history. You would find it quite interesting—had you any talent for academia.” He turned before Erliss could reply and began to examine the bodies. This
he did while maintaining a fastidious distance; if his body was aged, his eyes were still quite capable—and he recognized death when he saw it.

“Your point?”

“House history, Erliss. These lands, claimed by the Lord of the Empire, were once the seat of all resistance to God’s power. They were ruled by the Lady of Elliath—you might remember her?”

“Tarantas.” Erliss’ stiff face was quite grim. Although Tarantas was of the lesser nobility, in an unlanded house, he was also under Vellen’s command, and to argue openly with him was to question the leader of the Greater Cabal. Erliss was a cousin, but family blood flowed freely between relations; this had always been the case.

Tarantas shrugged elegantly. “She was the First of the Enemy, and hers was the first line to fall to the Lord of the Empire.”

“Your point?”

“She dared the veils of the future; we do not know how long she walked, or how far she saw. But we have heard that she foresaw a path that would lead to the end of our reign.”

Erliss shrugged, his face dark. “She’s dead.”

“But her work remains, or so we believe. You said that this was done by a woman and a young boy?”

He had said no such thing, but was too annoyed to play word games.

“Ah. Good. You saw the fires two evenings past. You did see them?”

“Yes.”

“There was a power in the air that has not been seen in the Empire since the fall of Culverne. There was a power there, quite strong, quite old. I think that power”—and he glanced down at the hem of his robe as it brushed across a stiff face—“was responsible for these deaths.”