Well of the Damned (3 page)

“My
liege,” one of the men said. “We can handle it from here.
Why don’t you go inside and dry off? We wouldn’t want you
catching your death.”

Gavin
grinned and shook his head. “And let you have all the fun?”

He
preferred any sort of physical labor to sitting on his arse listening
to people bicker over whose idea had the most merit or whose fault
this or that problem was. Becoming king hadn’t been his choice.
Not truly. He’d gotten trapped into the job when his ancestor
Ronor Kinshield made a promise to King Arek two hundred years
earlier, but that wasn’t where the story started. It hadn’t
even started when the king’s trusted mage, Crigoth Sevae,
summoned the beyonder champion Ritol to kill King Arek. It had begun
when Sevae decided to take the throne for himself, begging the
question that tapped Gavin’s shoulder: why? He didn’t
have the answers, not yet, though he awoke every morning with the
question on his mind. Hauling and stacking sandbags in the pouring
rain was a pleasant diversion.

After
he’d closed the rift between the realms to stop the constant
invasion of beyonders upon Thendylath, clearing the palace of debris
had provided Gavin a means to keep his body strong, but that task was
finished. Now, his most pressing concern — more urgent than
satisfying his curiosity about the country’s history —
was keeping his people safe.

He
took another bag from the woman beside him and stacked it on the
ground to build up the eroded riverbank. If the residents of Tern
were in danger of losing their homes or livelihood from the flooding,
the people living in towns downstream could be worse off. If the
levees held, they might escape disaster, but many of those levees
were old and in need of repair. His mind continued to churn as he
arranged bags until the rivulet disappeared. How was the rest of
Thendylath faring in this torrential rain? Crops would be under
water, livestock would be going hungry. A hard winter was in store
for his people.

Gavin
paused with a bag in his hands, uncertain whether the sound he heard
was a rumble of thunder or something else. There was no lightning
flashing among the dark clouds.

“Anyone
hear thunder?” he asked.

“No,
my liege,” came several replies.

Aldras
Gar,
his sword whispered in his mind. He didn’t think he
would ever hear the enchantment’s warning again, after the
beyonders had been vanquished.

Gavin dropped the bag of sand and
looked around for an enemy while he reached over his left shoulder
for the hilt of his sword.

Small
rocks tumbled down the face of the mountain slope on the opposite
bank, and then what looked like a sheet of earth started to slide.
“Get back!” he yelled, waving his arms to the people
working beside him. “Everyone, get back.” He gathered
them up with arms spread wide and pushed them towards the street.
From behind him came a deep rumble. Rocks and bits of dirt began to
rain down on the river from bank to bank and beyond. A few large
rocks fell with a hard thud and spit debris and water in all
directions, spattering the wary onlookers. A boulder came loose and
first slid, then bounced down the slope, its leaps getting bigger as
it picked up speed.

Aldras
Gar.

It
took an angled bounce and veered towards Gavin and his team. People
screamed and turned to run. One hand grabbed Gavin’s arm and
another his shirt to try to pull him out of the boulder’s path.

And
then everything slowed. A couple men yelled, “Save the king!”
as they leaped towards him to shield him from the brunt of the force.
Gavin’s mind went immediately to the hilt of his sword. With
his will, he focused through its gems as if they were spectacles for
his magic. He swung the sword and at the same time
pushed
from
his gut. The hands pulled him off balance, and he started to fall. In
a brilliant flash of light, Aldras Gar sliced the boulder in two. The
force of the blow sent the boulder halves hurtling through the air.
One landed in the raging river, and the other slammed into the
mountain, burying half of its mass in the wet dirt. The impact sent a
spray of water, pebbles and mud outward. The onlookers shielded their
faces with their arms just as the gush of water drenched them. The
onslaught ended as quickly as it had started. Mud and rocks settled,
and all was still again on the mountain slope.

Everyone
cheered. Hands patted Gavin’s shoulder and back, and grasped
his arm to help him stand.

“By
the gods, did you see that?” someone exclaimed.

“You
saved our lives,” said another.

“That
was the most excitement I’ve had in three months,” Gavin
said. He grinned broadly, standing there wet from head to toe and
speckled with bits of earth. In his hand, Aldras Gar vibrated like
the fading gong of a bell. He missed times like this — working
hard, saving people, and showing off for the ladies.

“I’ve
never seen such a thing!” one woman said.

“My
first glimpse at your magic. It was a marvel!” another
exclaimed.

“My
liege,” a man said, “are you injured?”

Gavin
snorted. Falling on his arse in the mud wasn’t quite enough to
hurt him, though he understood their concern. He was the first king
in more than two hundred years, and nobody wanted to bury him before
he sired an heir. “I’m fine. Anyone get hurt?”

Assured
that all had returned to normal, Gavin resheathed his sword and went
to inspect their work. A few of the sandbags had taken a beating and
spilled their guts into the river, but for the most part, the bank
was holding. “Let’s patch this up and move on to the next
spot.”

“Your
Grace,” someone called.

Gavin
flinched, realizing that meant him. It was going to take him a while
to get used to answering to the various titles people gave him,
though he supposed he preferred majesty and grace to ’ranter.
If he heard that denigration ever again, he would be wearing
someone’s teeth around his wrist.

A
rider, hunched under his cloak, trotted towards him, splashing
through the mud and puddles and waving an arm. “Your Grace,
Lord Dawnpiper asked me to find you. He requests you return to the
palace straight away.”

Chapter 4

“Cirang
Deathsblade. Get up. The lordover wants to see you,” the warden
said. He unlocked and opened the cell door. Over his red and black
uniform, he wore a dripping wet, leather cloak. Behind him stood a
guard, similarly dressed, his hand resting on the hilt of his blade
as if Tyr had the strength to attack and flee.

“So
soon? And I was just getting comfortable.” Tyr’d been in
this gaol cell for nearly three months without being questioned as
the chancellor’d promised, but the warden just stared at him
blankly. There was no sport in taunting a man too stupid to know he
was being taunted.

Though
the rain’s incessant drumming on the roof irritated the ears
and made him long for a single moment of silence, the worst part was
when it had started soaking into the rear wall of his cell. A puddle
had appeared at the junction of the floor and wall and had grown to
cover almost a third of the cell.

Tyr
avoided stepping in it when he stood. Though he’d be walking in
the rain shortly, he took care to keep the dry area dry, in case he
had to come back after his hearing. Of course, it wouldn’t be
long before the entire gaol was flooded and he’d have no dry
spot to stand on.

The
warden had told him he was the king’s prisoner, yet every time
Tyr asked for an audience with Kinshield, he was told the king was
busy with important matters and couldn’t be bothered with the
likes of
her.
“Is
he taking me to the king?”

“You
can ask him yourself.” The warden tossed Tyr a wet cloth,
followed by a bundle of white fabric. “Clean yourself up, and
then put that on.”

Tyr
dropped the gown to the ground, where it began to soak up water. “I’m
not wearing that. Not for the lordover, not for the king, not for
anyone.” Despite the body having female parts, Sithral Tyr had
always been a man, and he would dress as one. Even
she
wouldn’t have submitted to it. The last time she’d worn a
gown was before she’d joined the Viragon Sisterhood when she
was fourteen.

“The
Lordover Tern has more traditional values,” he said. “The
meeting’ll go better for you if you do.”

Cirang
had met the man before, and Tyr knew from her memories the warden
spoke truly, but he stood defiantly silent. He wouldn’t wear a
dress, and they couldn’t force him into one.

“Suit
yourself. At least clean up so you don’t offend him with your
stench.”

Tyr
started to unlace his trousers and stopped, mindful of the men’s
blatant stares. He’d never been modest before, but in this
body, he was vulnerable to the disreputable longings of a man. Could
he best the warden a second time? The question wasn’t one Tyr
wanted to put to a test, and so he turned around. “Close the
door and step away from the window. I won’t have you gawking
while I make myself presentable.”

The
warden licked his lips and grinned but stepped back into the corridor
and shut the door.

Tyr
used the cloth to wipe his face and hands clean and then let his
trousers slide down to his ankles. Three puncture scars puckered the
skin on the front of his left hip, a permanent reminder of how Cirang
Deathsblade had met her end. If he twisted his torso and craned his
neck, he could see the other two in the back, but he didn’t
need to. Even the gentlest swipe of the cloth told him the injury
hadn’t fully healed. Marring his chest, shoulder and back on
the left, a similar wound made him wince when it came time to wash
his upper body. He ran the cloth under his arms and between his legs,
reminded again the body wasn’t the one he was born in.

He
paused, unsure whether he’d imagined the hot breath on his neck
or it was real. He turned to find the warden standing only inches
away with one hand down the front of his trousers. He grabbed Tyr by
the hair and yanked him up close. “Don’t fight and it
won’t hurt as bad.”

Something
poked his belly. Something Tyr didn’t want to think about.
“Don’t. I’ll tell the lordover,” he said.

“I’ll
tell the lordover,” the warden said in a mocking voice. “You
think Celónd cares about a dirty wench like you?” His
breath was hot in Tyr’s ear. He shoved Tyr away with a laugh.
“Soon, bitch, but not today.”

With
the trousers bunched around his ankles, Tyr stumbled and barely
caught himself. He yanked his trousers up and laced them, then
smoothed the tunic’s hem into place. “Not any day, if you
value your life.”

The guard snapped iron shackles
onto Tyr’s wrists, tossed a cloak over his shoulders, and
gripped his upper arm as they walked past the other cells filled with
hooting, lustful men and outside into the rain. The injury to his hip
made his step uneven, though the pain wasn’t as bad now as it
had been at first. Tyr squeezed his eyes shut against the rain and
trusted his escort to lead him.

They
entered a building in which the foyer was clean and stylish,
decorated by a statue of a breaching whale. A handsome man in a trim,
red and black suit met them at the door. “Wipe your boots,”
he said. “I won’t have you tracking mud across the
lordover’s floor.” Satisfied Tyr and his guards had wiped
their feet sufficiently on the small rug, he led them down the
hallway, knocked twice on a closed dark oak door and opened it.
Inside, Dashel Celónd, the wiry, redheaded Lordover Tern, sat
at a wide desk, writing.

From
his pinched expression and stiff shoulders, the lordover struck Tyr
as a churlish and resentful man who made snap judgments. This wasn’t
the kind of person Tyr could easily manipulate, nor was he in the
position of doing favors for Celónd to win his loyalty, as had
been his favored business strategy when he’d been a man.
Without his resources, reputation, and exotic look, he needed a new
approach, and he had what men wanted.

It
was time for Sithral Tyr to abandon his identity as a Nilmarion man
and start thinking of himself as the swordswoman, Cirang Deathsblade.
He didn’t need to adopt her weaknesses, but he was stranded in
her body, perhaps forever. It was time to explore her strengths.

“The
king’s prisoner, my lord,” the guard said.

Cirang
smiled seductively and stepped in.

Chapter 5