Warrior (71 page)

“And we’re one Warlord away from Alija Eaglespike gaining majority control of the Sorcerers’

Collective,” Damin added, thinking of Rorin’s equally gloomy assessment of their current situation. He frowned at his stepbrother in the darkness. “You’re just a regular little ray of sunshine, aren’t you, Adham?”

His stepbrother smiled humourlessly. “If you think that’s bad, consider this. Who normally leads Hythria’s combined troops in battle?”

Damin had to stop and think about that one. Such a situation hadn’t arisen in living memory.

“It’s been so long since it happened last . . . I don’t know . . . the High Prince, I suppose.”

“So that renowned tactical genius we all know and love, the brilliant Lernen
Wolfblade
, is going to lead us into battle against Hablet of Fardohnya, eh? Now there’s something to look forward to. Good thing I already know how to speak Fardohnyan.”

Damin shook his head; like Adham, he couldn’t imagine anything worse than Hythria’s incompetent High Prince let loose with an army at his back . . . in the unlikely event, of course, that any Hythrun army would actually follow him to war in the first place.

Damin found it a little unsettling, however, to have Adham Tirstone point this out to him. These were all things he should have considered. He consoled himself with the thought that his stepbrother might be a trader rather than a soldier, but he’d had much longer to reflect on all the ramifications of this news.

The young prince was neither slow nor ignorant of the politics of his nation, however. He knew what needed to be done. “We need to find ourselves a general.”

“Marla won’t allow it.”

“She may not have a choice, Adham.”

“Your mother will never willingly invest that much power in someone who isn’t a member of the family.”

“Then who does she think is going to . . .” Damin’s voice trailed off as the awful truth dawned on him. He pulled his cloak tighter around himself, but the chill he felt didn’t come from the still, clear night.

Adham nodded as he saw Damin’s expression. “And now you see the problem, don’t you?”

Damin sighed heavily. “If the High Prince can’t lead the Hythrun to war, then they’ll expect to follow his heir.”

“There goes your precious ‘Let’s Convince Everybody Damin’s an Idiot Until It’s Too Late For Them to Do Anything About It’ plan, I suspect,” Adham pointed out with a faint grin.

Damin cursed savagely for a moment, which did nothing to solve the problem, but did make him feel marginally better. “Why couldn’t this damn plague have hit Fardohnya instead of us?”

“Maybe the gods want to give you a chance to prove yourself.”

“Almodavar said much the same thing earlier. I thought he was just trying to keep my spirits up.

I didn’t realise he was being prophetic.” He turned and leaned his back against the railing, scuffing at the loose dirt with his boot. “You realise, of course, that my entire practical experience of battle consists of capturing Luciena tonight? There hasn’t been a decent war in Hythria since I was born. Everything I know is just theory.”

“I sat in on those same theory lessons, Damin,” Adham reminded him. “I know what you were taught. Trust me, if you remember even half of it, you should be able to muddle through without losing Hythria to the Fardohnyans.”

“You think I can muddle through without losing the country, do you? Thanks for the resounding vote of confidence, Adham.”

“Well, I’ll follow you to war, brother,” Adham assured him, clapping his shoulder encouragingly.

“And so will Almodavar, I daresay.”

“Oh, well . . . that thought should keep Hablet awake at night. You, me and Almodavar.”

Adham shrugged. “Like I said, I already speak Fardohnyan. If you lose . . . well, I’m adaptable. I’m sure I can learn to shout ‘Long Live Hablet’ with the same forced enthusiasm that I shout ‘Long Live Lernen Wolfblade’!”

Damin smiled thinly, appreciating the sentiment. It was hard sometimes to get excited about the idea that Lernen was the rightful High Prince of Hythria when they all knew Marla was the actual ruler and that without her steady hand at the helm, Hythria would have descended into anarchy a long time ago.

But he couldn’t let Adham get away with a remark like that without some sort of comeback.

“You damn traders are all alike, aren’t you? You’d sell your own grandmother if you thought you could show a profit.”

“Why do you ask?” Adham shot back with a hopeful grin. “Are you in the market for one?”

Damin laughed. “Ruxton must be so proud of you.”

“I think he’s more proud of Rodja than me. He’s the one who likes to sit up all night going through the books, looking for another rivet to squeeze out of somebody. And both Rodja and Rielle have given him grandchildren, which makes them seem so much more considerate than me. I suspect my father thinks Almodavar corrupted me when we were children and turned me from Patanan, the God of Good Fortune, and into a follower of the God of War.”

“He may not be far off the mark,” Damin agreed. “Given half a chance, Almodavar would turn Aunt Bylinda into a follower of Zegarnald, if he could.”

“It’ll be good to see her again when we get back to Krakandar,” Adham said. “Nobody ever spoiled us the way Bylinda did when we were children. Which reminds me, with all this talk of your new career as Hythria’s saviour, I forgot to ask after Leila and Starros.”

“Ah . . . Leila and Starros. Now there’s a battle yet to be fought.” Damin had done a rather good job of not dwelling on that particularly awkward situation for the past few weeks. But he couldn’t put it off much longer. They were only a few days from home.

Adham looked at him curiously, obviously wondering at Damin’s odd tone. “I take it that means you and Leila still aren’t formally betrothed?”

“Nor are we ever going to be, Adham. And I’m probably going to have the monumentally unpleasant job of breaking that sad fact to Mahkas when we get back home.” He smiled sheepishly. “It’s half the reason I’m out here stealing cattle with the Raiders, actually. I’m starting to think running away is a valuable and oft-maligned battle tactic that should be used much more often than it is.”

“I know I’m not a soldier, Damin,” Adham advised solemnly. “But if I could make a suggestion? If it comes to war . . . if you do happen to find yourself leading Hythria’s army . . . when you’re looking across a battlefield at a hundred thousand Fardohnyans and trying to think of something to rally the troops, keep that little bit of wisdom to yourself, eh?”

One of the disadvantages of beating a man repeatedly with a mailed fist, Mahkas Damaran discovered, was that after a time he stopped looking like the man you wanted to punish and began to resemble nothing so much as a large black, red and purple hanging sack that had, miraculously, sprouted arms.

The Bastard Fosterling had passed out again, so Mahkas eased the chainmail glove from his hand, a finger at a time, and stepped back from the limp body hanging from the chains suspended from the ceiling of the cold cell. The young man was too weak to stand, even when he was conscious; his wrists were raw around the metal cuffs, bloody and bruised from holding his entire weight.

It was six days now since Mahkas had found The Bastard Fosterling attempting to violate his daughter. He had come to visit him every one of those six days. Come to punish him for his temerity.

Each day he vented a little more of his wrath on the hanging carcass that had once been The Bastard Fosterling and it would be a long time yet, Mahkas was determined, before he would allow the foul brute the blessed release of death.

“Call me when he wakes again,” Mahkas ordered the guard standing watch over The Bastard Fosterling’s cell.

“Sir,” the man replied, clasping his fist over his heart in a perfectly correct salute.

Mahkas frowned, sensing the man’s unspoken disapproval. It was a problem he had with all the Krakandar Raiders. Mahkas had told them what had happened. He had explained to them that The Bastard Fosterling had tried to rape his only daughter, but it seemed to have made little difference. At best, they seemed sceptical.

Mahkas knew exactly what the problem was. The Bastard Fosterling had grown up around these men. Many of them had trained him as a boy. They liked him. Trusted him, even. To make matters worse, he wasn’t just any old bastard—he was Almodavar’s bastard, and most of these men would have given their lives for their captain.

Perhaps it was better this way. There wasn’t a bruise, a cut, not so much as a mark on The Bastard Fosterling that Mahkas hadn’t put there. That, in itself, made him feel as if he’d in some way redressed the ill done to him and his kin.

But if the Raiders thought he didn’t notice who was slow to obey his commands, who was a little too quick to rush to The Bastard Fosterling’s aid when they thought Mahkas was gone from the cells, they were sadly mistaken.

Mahkas knew who was secretly defying him behind his back. He knew the mercenaries he would send on their way when their contracts came up for renewal on the Feast of Zegarnald, a few months from now. He knew the men who would find themselves on night watch for the next year without relief.

The worst punishment, however, he decided, would be reserved for those traitors who whispered to each other when they thought Mahkas couldn’t hear them. The ones who spread the vicious rumours that Leila and The Bastard Fosterling had been lovers for more than a year. The ones who smirked behind his back, claiming everyone in Krakandar had known about it except her father. The ones who sniggered and leered and whispered behind their hands,
“I hear she was the one on top when he found
them . . .”

They were the ones Mahkas intended to silence permanently. Perhaps a raid over Krakandar’s southern border to steal some of Rogan Bearbow’s precious sorcerer-bred horses? The Warlord of Izcomdar crucified poachers who tried stealing his stock and left them hanging by the roadside (a tactic Mahkas had borrowed and used himself, to great effect, on more than one occasion in Medalon).

Mahkas could always claim his Raiders were on an unauthorised mission. He could deny any knowledge of the raid and even
thank
Rogan for putting the miscreants to death.

The more he thought about it, the better an idea it seemed. Old Rogan might be dead, but his son was cast in the same mould as his father. And his sister was currently sheltering here in Krakandar from the plague. He’d have no reason to suspect Mahkas of any wrongdoing at all. For that matter, Tejay would probably champion her host as being an honest and upstanding man. She must have been impressed with the way he’d dealt with this awkward situation.

No daughter of Rogan Bearbow’s, Mahkas was certain, would even question the need for discipline.

Mahkas sighed as he turned for the door, wishing he’d been half as successful with Leila as old Rogan had been with Tejay. No one heard so much as a whimper of protest when her father arranged her marriage to Terin Lionsclaw. And look at her, the mother of four healthy sons, waiting in the safest place possible during the plague before she could return them to their home and their father.

What secret of parenting did Rogan Bearbow know that has eluded me? Was I too soft on Leila
as a child? Should I have whipped her before this? Should I have restricted the contact she had with her
mother?

Maybe that was the secret. Perhaps this was Bylinda’s fault. Tejay’s mother, as far as Mahkas could recall, had died giving birth. She’d not been corrupted by a whining woman’s touch.

I will forbid Leila to see her mother
, Mahkas decided, relieved to think that none of this might be his fault, after all.
It’s too late to undo the damage, perhaps, but at least I can prevent the rot from
spreading
.

Satisfied that he finally had an answer to his failure as a parent—one that left him blameless—

Mahkas looked back at the pitiful, unconscious thing hanging from the chains.
Not feeling quite so
romantic now, are we, old son?

“He’s to have no food or water,” Mahkas added, as an afterthought. No point in making it too easy on him.

“If those are your orders, my lord.”

Mahkas glared at the Raider. “You disapprove, Sergeant?”

“I was just thinking—”

“I don’t pay you to think, man.”

The sergeant squared his shoulders before replying. “I was just thinking, my lord, that if you wish to keep the prisoner alive, to enable you to punish him sufficiently for his . . .
crime
, then you should at least allow him some water. He’ll be dead from dehydration soon if he keeps on like this.”

That was actually quite a valid concern, but Mahkas was reluctant to admit this self-important sergeant might have a point. “Water him then, if you must,” Mahkas ordered after a moment, with ill grace. “Just don’t let him die.”

“Sir?”

“He’ll die when I decide he’s repented sufficiently, Sergeant. And when I’m here to witness it.

Not a moment before then, do you hear?”

“As you wish, my lord.”

Mahkas turned and headed for the stairs that would take him to the upper level of the cells, past another half-dozen disapproving Raiders on guard duty.
Perhaps the sergeant should be one of the
men sent to Izcomdar on the horse-stealing raid
, he thought.
That should take care of his insolent
attitude
.

Mahkas emerged from the barracks, a little surprised to find it was almost sundown. He must have been down in the cells for hours. The wind was icy as he walked across the plaza towards the palace, the promise of spring a distant hope yet to be realised. As he approached the palace steps, he was a little annoyed to be met by a delegation of two, consisting of his wife and his niece, both of whom were refusing to accept that his way of handling this terrible situation was the only possible way to deal with it.

“Uncle Mahkas,” Kalan began, in her very best, most reasonable tone, as he reached the top step.

He appreciated his niece’s efforts to avoid turning into the screeching harpy his wife had become this past week, but remained unmoved. “Please, Kalan. See your aunt back to her room and leave me be. I have work to do.”