Unbound (40 page)

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She had the mage brought to the top of the white marble spire in the morning, a pair of Tormented forcing him up the steps and onto the balcony where she waited. Sharrow-met noted his evident exhaustion, though his defiance remained undimmed. She turned her gaze to the city, eyes tracking over the Shar-gur gliding above on their blackwings to the Raptorile prowling the streets and parks below, crouched low as they hunted, blind to their prey.

She could see them now, clustering together in fear, crouching in doorways, some sitting in the parks, slumped and accepting of their fate, and all surely baffled to the point of near-madness as to why the monsters who had seized their city paid them no mind at all. The people were everywhere, revealed the instant she made her way from the Diamond Queen’s chambers to the great hall below where they huddled in their hundreds, some crying out in terror as they realised she could see them, mothers clutching infants, the elderly staring with grim resolution. She had wandered the city for hours, clad only in her silks, heedless of the cold whilst the jewel about her neck throbbed constantly with the Voice’s entreaties.
She lied, my Sharrow-met. You are mine. You have always been mine . . .

“Remarkable,” she said now, gesturing for the Tormented to bring Dralgen to her side and nodding at the streets below. “Don’t you think?”

Dralgen said nothing, wariness and puzzlement dominating his sagging features.

“You can’t see them, can you?” she asked, reaching out to touch a finger to his head. He stiffened momentarily in pain, then blinked like a man waking from a troubled sleep. On looking down at the city, his eyes grew wide and a soft gasp of amazement escaped him.

“Perhaps the most powerful spell ever woven,” Sharrow-met said. “Thousands of souls hidden in plain sight by nothing more than the will of a long dead woman. My mother was surely the greatest of mages.”

“Therumin spoke of her power,” Dralgen breathed. “But this . . .”

“Did he tell you?” she asked. “Did his people know they faced destruction at the hands of his heir?”

He shook his head, gaze still fixed on the newly revealed populace below. “He was a greatly sorrowful man. His daughter stolen, his wife driven to madness and death in grief. Sometimes I wonder if he hungered for your coming.”

I prayed . . . that I might never see your face again . . .
“No,” she murmured. “No he did not.”

Her hand went to the jewel resting on her breastplate, now visibly thrumming as her steel fingers closed on it.
I made you,
the Voice said, and for the first time she heard something new in it, something beyond the serene certainty, something more than the unfettered affection it had always shown her; a faint, fearful whine, like a petulant child caught in a lie.
I was lonely, so I made you. Have I not shown you love, my Sharrow-met? Was not the Dark Glory everything I promised?

“Yes,” she replied, lifting the amulet’s chain over her head and laying the jewel on the balustrade before her. “Everything and more.”

It began to scream as she drew the scimitar, a shrill, desperate exhortation reaching out to the Shar-gur.
Sharrow-met is Abominate! Kill her! KILL HER! KI-

The scimitar’s pommel came down in a hammer blow, driven with all her unnatural strength, the Voice choking to silence as the red jewel shattered into a cloud of sparkling dust. She glanced up to see the Shar-gur had been quick to answer the Voice’s call, six blackwings formed into an arrowhead aimed straight at the spire, Harazil in the lead, axe held high. She could feel his rising hate and wondered if it had always been there, hidden behind unfaltering loyalty all these years, festering away as he waited his chance.

She turned to Dralgen, reaching out to touch his chains, which fell away in an instant, leaving him gasping with the shock of release. She glanced at the two Tormented, both staring at her in abject bemusement. She blinked and the clasps holding their chains in place shattered. They both cried out in unison, falling to their knees, a great chorus of agony and wonder rising from the city as she turned back, her will reaching out to free every Tormented under her command.

“I’ll bring the Shar-gur to you,” she told Dralgen, leaping over the balcony. “Kill as many as you can.”

She plummeted for twenty yards before Keera caught her. The Shar-gur may still belong to the Voice but Keera had always been hers. The great bird’s talons snatched her from the air and Sharrow-met swung herself onto the harness on her back, immediately guiding the bird in a low sweeping pass over the plaza below. The Shar-gur had the advantage of height, and she needed speed to have any chance of executing this stratagem. Behind her the Shar-gur’s blackwings screamed and air thundered as their riders forced them to greater efforts, Harazil’s hate-filled challenge cutting through the din.

Sharrow-met guided Keera into a climb, sending them soaring high, ascending to the same height as the spire in a few beats. Keera folded her wings and they spun in the air, turning to face the pursuing Shar-gur, their formation tight as they rounded the spire and drew level with the balcony where Dralgen waited.

The mage’s fire caught Harazil first, searing away his bird’s left wing in a blaze of white flame and cinders, sending both rider and bird spiralling towards the plaza below. The torrent of flame swept through the other Shar-gur, killing two and wounding the others before it flickered and died, Sharrow-met seeing the mage’s slim form slumping in exhaustion. She took Keera in a dive through what remained of the Shar-gur, scimitar flashing, the blackwing’s steel-shod talons rending the flesh of her own kind. The frenzy of battle was different without the Dark Glory, no surging exultation or joyous thrill at the spatter of blood on her skin, just the grunts and jolts of savage contest. The Shar-gur were mighty indeed, stolen heroes from once great kingdoms, but they were not her, and although they died hard, still they died.

She decapitated the last of them as he fell from the back of his mortally wounded bird, head and body describing strangely identical bloody spirals as they tumbled towards the earth. Sharrow-met followed the corpse down and had Keera land outside the door to the great hall, near to where Harazil lay amid the smoking remains of his bird. She stepped down from Keera’s back, wincing from the stinging cut on her cheek, certain to scar now there was no jewel to heal her.
Finally, a crack in the porcelain mask,
she thought, wondering why the notion made her laugh.

She noticed the city-folk gathering on the steps to the plaza, plainly fearful but edging ever closer. She knew they would kill her; once they realised she offered no more threat they would take bloody vengeance for their fallen men. She paused to play a hand through Keera’s feathers, whispering a final command. The bird gave a brief squawk, perhaps in reluctance, but nevertheless spread her wings and ascended into the sky once more. Sharrow-met watched her rise to circle the spire before striking off on an eastward course, towards the Iron Peaks where her kind made their home.

Sharrow-met held up the scimitar’s blade, dark with the blood of Shar-gur and blackwing alike, then tossed it away with a grimace of disgust before slumping down on the steps, weary and waiting for the peoples’ judgement.

“Abominate!” She turned to see Harazil rising from the corpse of his blackwing, face half-burned and smoking, one arm charred to the bone, but the other whole and strong enough to raise his axe as he stumbled towards her. “You are deaf to the Voice!”

Sharrow-met’s eyes went to where her scimitar lay and found her weariness so deep she had no desire to reach for it. So she simply sat and watched the maimed Shar-gur lurch towards her, spitting hate with every faltering step. “You were always unworthy! The Voice should have chosen me! I will make him an offering of your traitorous heart! I wi—”

The Raptorile fell on him in a blur of lashing tails and flashing teeth, a full war-pack of thirty redbacks, soon joined by more. Harazil was transformed into a flailing, dark shadow in the midst of their frenzy, killing many but never enough. Sharrow-met looked away as the shadow was shredded to nothing. She wondered at her own surprise, for the Raptorile, like Keera, had always been hers, she it was who led them to much meat and so many trinkets after all.

They formed a tight cordon around her as the city-folk drew closer, warning hisses and raised tail-spikes enough to force them back. She could see the tall, pale figures of former Tormented amongst them, some still plainly astonished at their liberation, others clutching weapons with enraged intent.

“Move back!” She turned to see Dralgen emerging from the temple doors. He waved his arms at the people, voice croaking with weariness but still loud enough to hold a note of command. “This is Princess Mara! Risen to save us. Move back!”

At her nod the Raptorile made way for the mage and he came to her side with a bow. “My queen.”

She groaned and got to her feet, surveying the people crowding the steps, more thronging the streets beyond, their ranks swelled by the unchained Tormented. Their expressions varied: fear, joy, relief, but through it all a simmering and growing anger.

“Hardly,” she told Dralgen. “I think, perhaps, these people are deserving of a new dynasty.”

She turned to the Raptorile, gesturing for the most senior pack-chief to come forward. “Send word to gather your sisters,” she said. “We leave this city by nightfall. They may keep their loot but take nothing else. None are to feed.”

The pack-chief assumed the customary servile posture, but paused before bounding off, her tail describing the shape that indicated puzzlement. “Where now for the hunt, Sharrow-met?”

She glanced down at her scimitar and one of the redbacks quickly scooped it up and brought it to her, crouching low as she proffered the hilt. Sharrow-met returned the weapon to the scabbard on her back and turned to the east, where the sun rose high over distant mountains. “There are many shiny things,” she said, “in a place called the Black Vale, far to the east. The treasure of a hundred kingdoms. Follow me there, and you can have it all.”

The pack-chief bobbed lower but still hesitated. “And what reward awaits you there, sister?”

“Silence,” she replied, feeling a smile spread across her lips. “I shall be content with silence.”

Brian Staveley

We weren’t fucking stupid.

It was obvious even early on, even when we were just pimply kids, that Royal wasn’t one of us. His skin was too smooth, for one thing; while we were busy popping zits and digging dirty fingernails into our blackheads, Royal’s skin seemed to glow. Dirt just didn’t stick to him the same way it did to us. Even when he’d been slopping hogs all day long, he didn’t stink the way we did. He wouldn’t wash his hair for half a year, and it still looked like silk. Mine? I had to hack it off with a kitchen knife each spring.

Did I mention his name was
Royal
?

If that weren’t enough, there were the midnight visitors to consider. Two Streams is the sort of place that city-folk call a hamlet; I’d call it a shithole. A couple of streets, mostly mud mixed with piss. A slouching tavern, half burned-down when Twisted Nick got drunk and set the kitchen on fire. Pigs everywhere. It’s not the sort of place with much to offer a well-dressed traveler on his high horse, but ever since Royal showed up—Sera’s cousin’s orphan from out west, they told us—we started seeing more of these strangers, men and women in silk and muslin worth more than our whole farm, coming and going long after the last lights had burned down.

They’d sit in the tavern trying not to grimace, holding one of Nick’s filthy tankards as though he’d filled it up with some pox-victim’s phlegm instead of ale, which, considering Nick’s ale, was about right. They’d ask questions they had no reason to ask:
How’s the harvest this year? You have any good farmers?
As if they gave any sort of a shit about the harvest or our farmers. Eventually, they’d make some sort of excuse to head out Sera’s way, where they’d pretend to study the pigs without ever taking their eyes off Royal.

It was obvious. Even Brick-Leg Jack knew the kid was a prince—maybe a prince in hiding, but still a prince—and Brick-Leg Jack was too drunk to remember his own name half the time.

The only people who didn’t seem to be in on the joke were the sinister sons-of-bitches in black cloaks who showed up from time to time. They’d hiss, and gnash their teeth, and skulk around for a few days, asking questions that were even more obvious than the questions from the rich bastards with the nice horses: “Have you sssseeen any orphanssss?” they’d ask. “Ssstrange orphanss?”

We knew who they were talking about. How could you
not
? There was only one strange orphan in town. We could have handed Royal’s lily-scented ass over to them, but we didn’t, mostly because it was more fun just to fuck with these guys.

“Sure,” we’d say, pointing. “That little hog over there lost his mother just last week.” It was worth it for the hisses of vexation. By god, those pale, pockmarked sons-of-bitches were dumb.

There was just one—a tall, gaunt hisser with fingers like claws—who seemed to understand we were pulling his leg. He went for his sword, which was a bad mistake. I don’t know what kinds of towns he’d been lurking in earlier, but if you go for your sword in Two Streams, you’d better be ready to drop some motherfuckers. We were on him in a blink with bricks, sticks, fists—whatever came to hand, really. He left town half-dead, and we never saw him again. Looking back, maybe we should have let him have the little prince. Would have sidestepped what happened later, at least.