Warrior (77 page)

Don’t leave me, little man
, he imagined he could hear her sobbing.
What will I ever do without
you?

Elezaar knew her words were merely his own wishful thinking. He understood what he had done and knew he was beyond redemption. Beyond forgiveness. But it was nice to dream. It was nice to think he would draw his last breath with her forgiveness on his lips.

With death so close he could reach out and touch it, the dwarf felt cool lips pressing on his forehead and wondered if he was dreaming again. Then he felt a soft cheek pressing against his face and tasted salty tears on his swollen tongue.

And then, when the effort to hold on became too much for him, he willingly let go. Wrapped in the embrace of the only woman he had ever loved, Elezaar let the darkness take him.

Wrayan Lightfinger and Kalan Hawksword worked through the night on Starros, but as dawn broke over Krakandar City, Wrayan still wasn’t certain they’d be able to save him. The young man had been beaten more savagely than anything Wrayan had ever encountered before, and he was astonished that Starros was still able to draw breath.

Wrayan wished, not for the first time, that his magical ability included more healing. He knew a little. The Harshini had shown him a few things during his years with them, but having the knowledge of how to fix something and having the power to make it happen were two entirely different things.

Starros was probably still alive because Wrayan had used what little power he wielded to keep him that way. To heal him completely, however, would take somebody with Brak’s formidable power or the active cooperation of the gods, a step Wrayan was extremely reluctant to take unless it was their only option.

The last time Wrayan had begged a god for help, it had cost him his soul.

The door opened behind him and Kalan slipped into the dim room, holding a steaming mug of tea. She closed the door and handed it to Wrayan, then looked down at Starros’s unconscious body with a frown.

“How is he?”

“Unchanged,” Wrayan told her, sipping the tea appreciatively. “Any word yet about how much longer before Rorin gets here?”

“No.”

He glanced out of the dusty window and noticed it was lighter outside. He’d been up all night, watching over Starros. Kalan had stayed with him for much of the time and he was surprised by how much he’d enjoyed her company as they worked to use what skills they had—Kalan’s quite-substantial medical knowledge (
they have to teach us something at the Collective, you know
) and Wrayan’s limited Harshini healing skills—to keep Starros alive.

Wrayan had always had a soft spot for Kalan, and in between tending their wounded friend, they’d spent a lot of the night catching up. She kept him entertained with tales of her life in Greenharbour and her apprenticeship at the Sorcerers’ Collective—an institution that seemed quite different and far more structured than the haphazard organisation Wrayan remembered.

He was amazed at how grown up Kalan seemed, how mature and in control of herself she was.

He supposed he shouldn’t really have been surprised. Princess Marla’s youngest daughter was twenty-two years old now and had always been the brightest of the bunch. More like her mother than either Damin or Narvell—well-educated, a little cynical and accustomed to the viper-pit politics of Greenharbour—Kalan Hawksword was far removed from the child Wrayan remembered.

He stretched his shoulders to ease the stiffness a little, leaned forward, pinched out the candle stub beside the bed, and then glanced up at her. She looked remarkably fresh and alert for someone who’d been awake the better part of the night. She’d even had time to brush out her long fair hair and braid it loosely down her back. Only her rumpled green silk gown betrayed the fact that she’d not come straight from the palace.

“Shouldn’t you be getting back home?”

“Not until I know he’s going to be all right,” she said, looking down at Starros with concern. His breathing was shallow and laboured, but it was steadier than it had been when Kalan first brought him to the Beggars’ Quarter last night. “Did you want to get some sleep? I can sit with him for a while.”

He shook his head. “I don’t need sleep as often as—”

“Us poor humans?” she finished for him with a smile. “Rorin says the same thing.”

Wrayan looked up at her. “I wasn’t going to say it quite like that, but yes, one advantage of having even a little bit of Harshini blood in your veins seems to be the ability to go for a long time without sleep. How about you?”

“I got a few hours. Fyora made up a pallet in the other room for me.”

The safe house where they had brought Starros was a couple of streets away from the Pickpocket’s Retreat. Wrayan used it sometimes, when he wanted to be alone, or when he had business to conduct that he didn’t want witnessed by the patrons of the Pickpocket’s Retreat. Only Fyora, Luc North and a few other trusted lieutenants knew about it and he was certain they would never betray either Starros or the location of the house.

Kalan sat on the edge of the bed and took Starros’s swollen hand in her own, stroking the splinted bandages gently. Two of his fingers were broken, and quite a few of the bones in his hand, as if Mahkas had deliberately laid his hands out and smashed them with his iron bar. “He’s not getting any better, is he?”

Wrayan shrugged, unable to answer her question. “It’s hard to tell. I think he’s going to live.

Unless he’s bleeding internally. Rorin will be able to tell better than me.”

“And then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at him, Wrayan. We’ve managed to keep him alive, but even with Rorin’s help, some of these injuries are never going to heal properly. He’ll be crippled, at the very least.” Kalan fell silent, but Wrayan got the impression she wanted to say something else.

“And . . .?”

“I was just wondering . . . isn’t there something else you and Rorin can do?”

“You mean magically, I suppose?”

She nodded.

“I’ve done everything I know how to, Kalan. Rorin should be able to do more. His power is more inclined towards healing than mine.”

“But he’s not as strong as you.”

“But the Harshini taught him,” Wrayan reminded her. “Shananara gave him the knowledge he needed to use his power. I know it included some healing. I’m just not sure how much.”

“I remember once, not long after we got to Greenharbour, we sneaked out of the Sorcerers’

Collective during the Festival of Jashia to watch the fireworks. I slipped off the wall and hurt my ankle.

Rorin fixed it without even knowing how he did it.” She smiled in remembrance. “It drove him mad for weeks afterwards, trying to recall what he’d done. He said he just knew what he had to do, but afterwards he couldn’t say what it was.”

“Then let’s hope that when he gets here, he can help Starros, because the only other alternative is to ask the gods for help.”

Kalan looked at him in surprise. “You can
do
that?”

He shook his head reluctantly. “Don’t get too excited about the idea, Kal. Calling on the gods for direct intervention comes at a very high cost.”

“What sort of cost?”

“Your soul, usually.”

She laughed at him, obviously thinking he was teasing her. “Are you telling me you’ve sold
your
soul to a god, Wrayan Lightfinger?”

“Every last bit of it. To save your mother, actually.”

Kalan’s smile faded. “Are you serious?”

Wrayan nodded. “It happened a long time ago. Before your mother was even married to Laran Krakenshield. I accidentally cast a spell on her and had to call on a god to lift it.”

“The God of Thieves,” Kalan guessed. “Dacendaran.”

He smiled. “I had to promise to become the greatest thief in all of Hythria.”

“And are you?” she asked.

“I like to think so,” he replied smugly.

She smiled. “And if you call on Dacendaran again?”

“Then I suspect Starros is going to have to consider a career change.”

Kalan shrugged and looked down at her foster-brother. “That may not be such a big deal, you know. I’m fairly certain he doesn’t have a future waiting for him in Krakandar Palace any longer.”

“Even so, it’s a big thing to ask of someone. My father was a pickpocket. I grew up worshipping the God of Thieves. I made my deal with Dacendaran fully aware of what it meant. Starros doesn’t have that luxury, and I’m not sure, in his place, that I’d like to wake up to find my soul’s been traded away on my behalf without being consulted.”

“Let’s see what Rorin can do first then,” she agreed, “before we start invoking divine intervention.” Kalan glanced up at the rapidly brightening day and frowned. “Speaking of Rorin, I wish I knew what happened up at the palace last night. Damin looked pretty angry when I left.”

“Well, you can be fairly certain both your uncle and your brother are still alive.”

“How?”

“No bells,” he told her. “If anything really awful had happened to either Krakandar’s regent or her prince, the city would be ringing with them.”

“That’s a really comforting thought, Wrayan.”

He grinned at her tiredly. “I do try my hardest to help, you know.”

The sound of the front door opening put an end to any further speculation about the fate of her uncle or her brother. Wrayan put the tea down beside the smoking candle stub and together they hurried out into the main room to find Fyora carefully locking the door behind her. Rorin was with her, dressed in regular street clothes rather than his black sorcerer’s robes—a wise move if one didn’t particularly want to be noticed in the Beggars’ Quarter.

“Where have you been?” Kalan demanded of Rorin, as soon as she saw him.

“I came as soon as I could,” Rorin replied. “How’s Starros?”

“Struggling,” Wrayan told him. “It’s time to find out how much healing knowledge Shananara left you with.”

The young man nodded. “I’ll do what I can. Have you seen Damin?”

“No,” Kalan replied. “Why?”

Rorin seemed more than a little concerned. “I thought he might have come down here last night, after he . . .” His voice trailed off, and he looked at Kalan as if he didn’t have the words to tell her what he must.

Wrayan studied him for a moment, reading Rorin’s unease simply from the way he was standing, the whole manner in which he spoke, rather than picking up on his thoughts. Whatever news the young man brought, it wasn’t good.

“Fee, can you put the word out on the street that Damin might be somewhere in the city? See if anybody’s seen him?”

Annoyed by the realisation that she was being sent away, Fyora nodded her agreement reluctantly and let herself out of the small house, muttering about ungrateful wretches who didn’t deserve her aid or assistance.

Kalan waited until she saw Fyora’s shadow pass by the window facing the narrow street before she demanded an explanation. “After Damin
what
?” she asked suspiciously.

Rorin looked away uncomfortably. “Damin and Mahkas had something of an
altercation
, I suppose you could call it.”

“What’s that mean in reality?” Wrayan asked doubtfully.

“He damn near killed him.”

“Mahkas almost killed Damin?” Kalan gasped.

“Damin almost killed Mahkas,” the young sorcerer corrected. “I’ve never seen anybody so furious in my entire life, Kal. I swear, if Tejay Lionsclaw hadn’t been there to reason with him, Damin may have actually killed your uncle with his bare hands.”

“I’m not surprised,” Wrayan said. “Damin and Starros were always close. He wouldn’t have stood by and let what’s been done to his best friend go unchallenged.”

Rorin shook his head. “It wasn’t about Starros . . .” He hesitated, obviously unsure about how to go on. “I guess there’s no easy way to break this to you. I’m so sorry, Kalan. Leila killed herself within minutes of Mahkas telling her Starros was dead.”

Kalan cried out in wordless despair and sagged against Wrayan with the shock of Rorin’s news.

He caught her in his arms and helped her sit down on the narrow wooden bench by the fire, where she put her head in her hands, sobbing for her cousin, muttering something about it being her fault.

Squatting beside her, his arm around her shoulders, he glanced up at Rorin. “And you don’t know where Damin is now?”

“Nobody’s seen him since last night when he left Mahkas bleeding on the floor of his study with a severed windpipe.”

“Will he live?” Wrayan wasn’t particularly concerned for Mahkas Damaran, but he was acutely aware of what it would mean if Krakandar’s regent died.

“He’ll live,” Rorin confirmed. “I healed it as best I could, but I doubt he’ll ever speak in much more than a whisper again. Damin punched him in the throat.”

“That’s got to hurt,” Wrayan grimaced.

Rorin nodded grimly. “I imagine it did, given Damin was wearing a spiked battle gauntlet at the time.”

“Ouch,” Wrayan said, thinking of the pain and the damage a strong gauntleted fist could do to something as delicate as a human throat. “And you say you can’t find Damin now?”

“It’s like he’s vanished completely.”

“He won’t have done that,” Wrayan said confidently. “After you’ve seen to Starros, I’ll see if I can sense him. Given enough time, I should be able to track him down. Failing that, Fee may have some luck. Damin Wolfblade won’t get very far in Krakandar City without somebody recognising him.”

“I thought you couldn’t find a shielded mind?”

“I said I had almost no chance of finding one shielded mind in the vastness of the southern Medalonian plains, as I recall,” he reminded the young sorcerer. “Finding someone here in the confines of the city is a different matter entirely. I can’t speak directly to Damin’s mind, of course, because of the shield, but I should be able to pinpoint every shielded mind within the walls of the city if I try hard enough. There’s not that many of them.” He turned back to Kalan who was still sobbing inconsolably.

“Come on, Kal,” he said gently. “It’s not your fault.”

She turned and buried her head into his shoulder. “It
is
my fault, Wrayan,” she sobbed, her voice muffled by his coat. “I made Leila believe Starros was dead. She killed herself because she thought he was gone. I
know
she did. That’s why she was so calm, so serene, when I left her. She’d decided to do it even then . . . Oh, gods, if only I’d stayed with her . . .”