The False Martyr (84 page)

She just kept staring at
him, eyes smoldering, hands held out to her sides, body pressed
against him. Her mouth opened slightly. Ipid’s met it. He kissed
her hard, pressing his lips to hers until their teeth clicked
together, until he tasted blood. He forced her hands down to the
desk and abandoned them for her legs. He reached down to the hem of
her dress, mouth hard on her neck then breasts despite the silk
covering them. He ran his hands up her legs, bringing the dress
with them until the fabric pooled around his wrists and his hands
rested on her naked hips. His mouth met hers, teeth smashing into
hers as they sought to catch her lips or tongue. Her hands worked
his pants to free him. His came up, pulled down the top of her
dress. He squeezed her until she gasped then found her throat,
clasping her chin with all his might to force her face
away.

He lifted her onto the
desk. Her legs spread around him, dress thrown back, breast
standing out. She tried to wrench her face from his grip. He
slammed her hard onto the desk, forcing her face and head into its
surface, pressing it down so he would not have to look at her. Her
only defense was to arch her back and reach to the far side of the
desk to brace herself.

She did this. She brought
you to this. She made you into this.
He
wanted to hurt her, wanted more than anything to make her feel the
pain he was feeling. He pressed his fingers against her face and
throat with one hand as the other reached between.

He entered her as hard and
fast as he could, relishing her scream.

#

Hileil be merciful, what
have I done?
Was all Ipid could think when
the rage finally left him. It had gone in a single mighty climax
like he had never known, so powerful that he had thought he might
black out before he collapsed, panting and utterly spent, on top of
the woman whose screams had been matched only by his own. Now, he
laid on her, unable to even support himself so that he did not
smash her small body into the hard surface of the desk, and
wondered if he’d ever be able to look at her again, if he’d ever be
able to forgive himself, if she’d even give him the
chance.

He had gone too far. He
knew that, but in that moment, Eia had personified every emotion he
carried. All the pain, all the grief, all the anger and frustration
of the last two months had been there before him, and he had wanted
to destroy it, had wanted to destroy her. He had heard her cries,
her moaning, her gurgling and had known that it was too much, that
he had crossed the line, but it had only made him want to thrust
harder, to squeeze her face and neck all the more, to press her
into the wood until he thought she might break.

The pictures of himself
moments before ran through his mind. Her screams echoed in his
ears. Her crying and begging shook his every breath. He was the
monster now, the very creature he had feared to become. How could
he ever climb from such a deep pit?

Hileil be merciful, please
let her be
alright, he prayed as he
started to rise. Already, he struggled for the words to apologize,
fumbled for some way to make it better, begged the very Order that
she recover, that she forgive him.

Eia caught him, held him
to her with her hands on his shoulders, gripped him with her legs,
kissed his ear between pants. “Better,” she whispered. She moaned
low and squirmed beneath him. “Definitely better.”

Chapter 46

The
39
^th
Day of Summer

“
The words of our savior
are clear. His lesson is plain. We need only live it, need only to
stop fighting his plan and give ourselves up to the Order. Disorder
cannot defeat disorder.” Valati Nommeck delivered a sermon full of
fire without so much as a spark. Even as he said the words, his
face seemed to dismiss them. His strong voice carried to the crowd
but held no enthusiasm for the words he spoke.

Dasen tried to concentrate
on the valati’s words, but they were delivered with such a lack of
conviction that they flowed over him like water, passing over in a
rush without a drop absorbing. If Lareno was to be believed, the
valati hadn’t even written the words he was speaking. Lareno had
told them that the lessons were now written by the di valati and
delivered by special couriers. If true, it meant that every
counselor and valati in the Kingdoms was, at this very moment,
saying the same words, extolling their subjects to trust their
leaders, to maintain order, to do what they were told. It was not a
legitimate lesson, it was the Chancellor’s – his father’s –
propaganda, just another way to keep the people compliant while he
and the invaders stole the food from their mouths.

The thought sent Dasen’s
eyes to the sides of the temple where an even stranger and more
terrifying change had taken hold. Soldiers stood in a row along
each of the temple’s outside walls with more at the back. They wore
simple helms and chain shirts, but far more significantly, stout
spears were clasped in their hands. Weapons of any kind were
normally forbidden in the presence of the Order whether that be a
temple, a village green, or anywhere a lesson or the judgements
that followed were being given. The fact that the governor had
brought armed soldiers into the temple in the first place was a
sacrilege far more significant and apparent than the false lessons
being delivered.

But the sanctity of this
sacred place was clearly the least of the governor’s concerns. His
own sword had been in plain sight as he strode up the aisle to take
his seat on the first bench. A half-dozen soldiers, armed and
liveried as members of the Chancellor’s Own had dislocated a
wealthy family in order to sit behind him. Governor Colmar had
shown as much concern for them as he had the rightful governor when
he’d had him imprisoned so he could take his post. Himself an
officer in the Chancellor’s Own, he had a broad build that looked
natural in the dress uniform he still wore. His face was a chiseled
block with short hair framing a growing bare stretch down the
middle. A close-trimmed beard only accentuated the square line of
his jaw. His nose was flat as if having been smashed to his face
and his eyes were small and dark, shadowed by a dominant brow. His
mouth was a stark line, thin lips lost. He had the look of a stern
and imposing man, and Dasen understood why the people of Gorin West
were hesitant to cross him. As a purportedly important noble, Dasen
was seated with Teth and Garth near the front of the temple, only a
few rows back and on the other side of the aisle from the governor,
so he’d had ample opportunity to study the man, to wonder how he
lived with the cruelty he imposed upon the people he
ruled.

At his side, Teth sighed.
She looked bored, which Dasen supposed fit her role as a
fourteen-year-old boy. In a fine black suit with a white shirt and
blue scarf, she certainly looked the part. If she lacked an
adolescent’s fuzz and blemishes, it could simply be attributed to a
late bloom. If her features seemed a bit too fine, they certainly
did not have the softness of a girl. And if she was a bit too tall,
a touch too broad for a lad who had not yet reached his growth, it
only supported the rumors that the Esthers had crossed with Morgs.
And not a single one of those were things that any polite person
would ever question.

Dasen just wished he could
wear his disguise with the same ease. It seemed to take Mrs.
Tappers an eternity every morning to plaster him with her pastes
and powders. Then came the wig and the layers and layers of clothes
all which had to be buttoned, tied, and clasped in a thousand ways.
The clothes, cut in the most conservative possible styles to hide
any hint of masculinity, were stiflingly hot. The makeup made his
face itch and break out, and the heavy wig pulled on his own hair
so that his head constantly pounded. Beyond the humiliation, it was
a daily torture that made him almost long for Kian’s purported
revolt so that he could be himself again.

And defend the city using
. . . .
Dasen did not even want to think
about the powers he’d used outside Thoren. It was why Kian’s plan
would never work. Beside the fact that it probably would be
soldiers, not monsters that he was using his powers against, he was
not sure if he could control those powers, wasn’t sure how he’d
done it in the first place. What if the time came and he couldn’t
do anything? And more importantly, what if he didn’t want to? What
if he couldn’t bring himself to do it? The people here – Dasen
looked around the temple packed to bursting with ragged faces –
will pay the price. They will be killed. The city will be
destroyed. And it will be my fault. Dasen swallowed hard,
reconsidering his part in the whole reckless venture.

“
This is the way of the
Order,” the valati intoned to bring an end to his lesson. He took a
deep breath and looked out over the congregation. The Chancellor
had decreed that every person was to eat today. The temple was to
provide a special soup line with the additional food that had been
released for the occasion, so the building was packed nearly to
bursting. Ragged families filled the benches and flooded the back,
flowing out the doors to the steps below. The day was hazy and the
temple was dim, but it was promising to be hot. Already the air was
thick and permeated by the smells of the unwashed so that it was
difficult to breath. Dasen was sure it would only get
worse.

The valati spent a long
time looking at the people before him, eyes scanning the back of
the temple where the ragged had been crammed. He drew the breath to
speak the next part of the ceremony but seemed to lose the words.
He dropped his hands and gaped at the aisle before him. There was a
rustling from the crowd. Dasen found the governor, saw his body
shift forward, the guards at his sides began to stir, heads
pivoting to the rear. Dasen spun just in time to see a young man
break through the crowd to claim a place in the center of the
aisle.

“
Dorington has risen!” he
yelled. “We reject the Tyrant and have declared ourselves free of
his rule. We call on Gorin West to join us, to stand with us
against the Exiles and the tyrant that serves them, to rebuild that
which never should have been surrendered. The Kingdom of Dor is
reborn! Join us brothers, and we shall be free!” The man wore the
uniform of a Dorington border guard, but it was ragged and
travel-worn. He looked around at the silent crowd, too stunned to
react, then to the soldiers who were pushing their way to where he
stood. “Down with the Exiles! Down with the Tyrant! Long live Dor!”
The man yelled just before the guards reached him. The blunt side
of a spear flashed toward his head. He fell without another word as
the soldiers surrounded and secured him.

Murmurs filled the temple,
growing in intensity, the words “Dorington” and “revolt” floating
time and again to the top of the raucous froth. Dasen searched the
crowd expecting to see them rise as one against the governor and
his men.
This is it
, he thought, but he found confusion more than revolution on
the faces around him. Every eye looked to the ones around it,
searching for someone to follow, someone to tell them what to do,
someone to tell them what it all meant. The valati said nothing. He
and his counselors looked aghast, but Dasen could not tell if it
was at the intruder’s words or the violence used to subdue him – if
bringing weapons into a temple was sacrilege, using them was
damnation. In the end, it was the governor who provided the
leadership that the people sought even more than food.

“
If what that man said is
true,” he bellowed as he climbed the steps to the dais, “then the
people of Dorington are as good as dead.” He paused to let that
sink in and allow the crowd to settle. “I was in Wildern when the
invaders attacked. They destroyed a quarter of the city, reduced it
to rubble and ash in a matter of hours. Buildings and walls that
had stood since the Exile were gone in minutes. Dorington, for all
its might, would be dust before the sun reached its height.”
Another pause to allow the people here to compare themselves to the
Kingdom’s second largest and, in many ways, strongest
city.

“
You know me as a member
of the Chancellor’s Own,” the governor continued. “I charged the
invaders with five hundred of the finest knights these Kingdoms
have ever known. In a single second, we were thrown from our
saddles, every single man, cast to the earth, and defeated. In a
second!” He snapped his fingers to make the point. The crowd
flinched. “And the invaders’ losses? To have unseated every knight,
to destroy a city, must have required all their armies. They must
have fought through every street, scaled every walls, and lost
thousands in the process. No! They lost . . . NOT . . . A . . .
SINGLE . . . MAN! Do you think the outcome will be any different in
Dorington? Do you think their border patrols will fare better than
the Chancellor’s Own?” He waited as if someone might actually
answer his question. Silence, clear and absolute, was answer
enough.

“
To fight is suicide. It
is death and destruction with no possible chance of victory. Now, I
know you think me cruel. You think me a tyrant, a tool of the
invaders, but you should know that my only goal is to keep you
alive, to keep this city standing. Soon, the invaders will move on.
Our obligations under the treaty signed by the previous Chancellor
will be met, but until that time, we do what we must. The
alternative is death, a quick and pointless death.”