Wings of Wrath (24 page)

“Listen,” he said, pulling out the cloak that he kept with him for night jobs. The mountain evenings could be chilly.

“I'm going to take you somewhere safe, you understand? But you will have to ride with me to get there.” The green eyes grew wide and fearful. He tried to look directly at them, and not at the taut, full breast that had slipped free of its cover. “I won't hurt you, I promise.” There was a growing tightness in his groin now, which was making it hard to think clearly.

She bit her lip for a moment, and then, very hesitantly, nodded.

She let him help her up, wincing in pain as she moved. He handed her the cloak and turned away while she wrapped herself up in it. Then he mounted his horse, shifted forward in the saddle as far as he could, and gave her a hand up behind him. She had some trouble mounting—
probably used to riding sidesaddle,
he thought—but then finally managed to get onto the horse behind him, legs astride. The sudden heat of her thighs against his own was disconcerting, and the fact that this new position pressed his groin up hard against the forward curve of the saddle didn't help matters. Her hands wrapped about his waist from behind, her breasts a warm pressure against his back. Thank the gods she couldn't see what effect she was having on him. Given what he guessed her kidnappers had done to her before discarding her in the middle of nowhere, that would scare her off for sure.

They'll have use for her information at the Citadel,
he thought as he focused his thoughts on that, rather than on the soft heat of the woman behind him.
I'll be rewarded for finding her.

He did not even hear the whisper of his sword being drawn from its sheath until it was too late.

Water engulfed Rhys, cold and choking, dragging him back from darkness. He tried to draw in a deep breath but another wave broke over him and he breathed it in. Coughing, he struggled to turn himself over so that gravity would help him empty his lungs, but his hands were fixed behind his back and he couldn't manage the maneuver. All he could do was gasp for breath helplessly, like a beached fish, turning his head to the side when he finally began to cough the fluid up.

No more water, then. Only pain, and a pinpoint of light before him. The back of his head felt like someone was pounding on it with a hammer. His left shoulder and right leg were on fire, and each time he tried to move them, fresh pain lanced through them.

“You awake now?”

Someone kicked him roughly in the side, which made his body jerk away, sending new spears of pain shooting down his wounded leg. But his vision was starting to come back to him now, and he could see the three men standing above him. One was holding an upside-down bucket, no doubt the source of his recent drenching. He seemed to be enjoying Rhys' discomfort.

Then one of them saw his eyes focus and ordered, “Get him up.”

The other two grabbed him by his arms and lifted him roughly to his feet. The pain from his wounded shoulder nearly made him pass out again. One of the men reached out with a length of cloth and wiped it once across his face, quickly. Possibly he had meant to remove the spittle that Rhys had coughed up, but in its wake the cloth left streaks of grime that did not smell good. Hard to say which was worse.

“He'll see him now,” the third man said, and he nodded for the other two to drag Rhys along. Along the way he cast the bucket aside, and Rhys could hear it land noisily on some stone surface. There was the sound of water dripping in the distance, but he could not tell where it came from.

He tried to walk, but his right leg had stiffened from its wound and he found it hard to move. They neither slowed nor stopped for him, but merely dragged him along at the same inexorable pace, whether his feet were under him or not. It hurt far less if they were under him, so he struggled to keep up.

Where am I?
he thought desperately. His surroundings offered no clue. The narrow, windowless stone corridor they were dragging him through might have been in the lower levels of a keep anywhere in the known world, and there was no telling what manner of building stood over it. But they could not have taken him very far in his current condition, he told himself. And Magisters did not like to go close to the Wrath, so it was unlikely that anyone had provided sorcerous transportation to move him. Which suggested that he was still in the Alkali Protectorate, and probably not very far from the place where he'd been taken down.

I am a Guardian,
he thought, as his wounded arm was jerked half out of its socket by an impatient escort.
No man has any reason to harm a Guardian.

But he no longer had Favian's letter of passage on him, and after what had happened in the glen, he wasn't all that sure they would respect it if he did.

They dragged him into a large room that was so brightly lit by comparison to where he had been that he blinked his eyes in pain as they adjusted. His two escorts forced him to his knees, and one of them grabbed him by the hair and forced his head to bow down before releasing him. He was in no condition to argue with them. There was a single figure at the far end of the room; as Rhys raised up his head once more it walked slowly toward him. As he struggled to get his eyes to focus properly he could hear booted footsteps and the jingle of spurs.

“Identify yourself,” a harsh voice commanded.

The nebulous dark shape in front of Rhys finally resolved into the figure of a man: short, broad-shouldered, physically powerful. There was no mistaking the Alkali cast to his features. Glancing about the room, Rhys saw that all the other men present—and there were only men—were of the same type. Black-haired, ruddy-skinned, with broad features and narrow, almond-shaped eyes, the Alkali had not changed in appearance since the day the Wrath had fallen. Or so it was said. Certainly they disdained to take mates from among the other peoples of the north, claiming that “foreign blood” was inferior to their own.

“My name is Rhys.” His voice was raw and rasping; it was hard to make the words form properly. “Rhys sera Kierdwyn.” Normally he would not lie about his heritage—normally there was no need to—but he was suddenly wary of admitting to his royal ties.
Sera Kierdwyn
meant only “servant of Kierdwyn,” and was a name that any man who served the royal famly might claim. “I am a Guardian of the Wrath,” he said. Even in this battered state, there was pride in his voice as he spoke the title.

“Indeed. A Guardian. How fortunate for us.” The man's tone was dry. “I take it you believe the Alkali Protectorate does not have Guardians of its own. Otherwise our loving brothers to the west would have no reason to enter our territory. Yes?” He waited for a response, and when Rhys offered none his voice grew hard and cold. “Why are you here, Guardian of the Wrath? Tell me honestly, for I can read the truth in a man, and lies will cost you dearly.”

He drew in a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves.
You are innocent of any wrongdoing,
he reminded himself.

“The Guardians of Kierdwyn feared that the Wrath has been weakened. They saw that their brothers in Alkali had gone silent. They sent us here to seek out the reasons for those things.”

“Indeed. How benevolent of them. How . . . paternal.” The black eyes narrowed; it seemed to Rhys they burned with hate. “And so they sent a Skandir into the heart of our territory, with no word of warning to precede her. For our own good, of course. Is that the story?”

A sudden lump in Rhys' throat made it hard for him to speak. “Namanti . . . is she . . .” He could not finish the question.

“The Skandir bitch? Dead, and lucky to be so. Her interrogation would not be half as pleasant as yours, I assure you.”

He shut his eyes for a moment.
Don't let him see how much that affects you. Don't let him have that power over you
. “We carried a letter,” he said hoarsely. “With the seal of Kierdwyn's Master of the Guard. In accordance with custom—”

“Where?” His interrogator spread his hands wide. “I see no letter.” He looked to the men who had brought Rhys into the room, now flanking him. “Do either of you recall this person having a sealed letter?”

“I do not,” one said.

The other shook his head. “Nor I.”

Rhys hung his head. He didn't want his captor to see the fury in his eyes.

“You see, Rhys nas Kierdwyn? I warned you not to lie to me.”

He wanted to scream out his indignation, he wanted to curse this man before all the northern gods—how dare he treat a Guardian of the Wrath like a common criminal! He wanted to—

And then it sank in what had been said.

Shaken, he looked up. His interrogator was holding a leather-bound book open in one hand and was leafing slowly through the pages. Favias' maps. “You signed and dated your notes, you know. Such a well-trained Guardian. I am sure your Master would be quite proud of you.” He snapped the book shut. “So you are the son of a Lord Protector, but not one officially acknowledged as such. Very interesting.”

There was nothing he could say that would make the situation better, so he said nothing.

“That would make you half
lyr,
would it not? Possessed of the gift of the gods. Whatever that is supposed to mean.”

Rhys drew in a deep breath, fighting to stay calm. “If you know that I am
lyr,
then you know why I was sent here. If one of the Spears has been damaged, you will need someone to repair it—”

His interrogator slammed the book of maps down on the floor, silencing him.

“You really do not understand, do you?” He lowered himself in a crouch until his eyes were level with Rhys' own. “
There are no gods,”
he whispered fiercely. “All the things you were ever taught about them were
lies
. All the missions you have undertaken in their name were hollow tasks. Meaningless. The Wrath is the work of men, nothing more, and if you understood the source of its power you would vomit up every lesson you'd been forced to swallow. An entire lifetime of lies.” He stood again; his expression was dark. “The gods—if there are gods—are surely laughing at our gullibility.”

He's mad,
Rhys thought. He glanced at the other men, who seemed unshaken by the tirade.
They're all mad.
Most likely the Wrath was responsible for that. The Guardians knew how to resist the power of that ancient curse, but few men outside their ranks would be able to do so. Spend enough time within range of its baleful magic and you might begin to believe all sorts of crazy things—including dark fantasies like the one this man had just described.

“Please,” he said. Struggling to keep his voice calm, to remove even the faintest hint of confrontation from his tone. “Let me speak to your Master of the Guard. Give him my books, let him read my notes, let me explain to him why I was sent here. He knows our customs and our purpose. He will know how to judge me.”

The interrogator stepped back. His black eyes narrowed. “Do you know who I am, Rhys nas Kierdwyn? Do you have any idea where you are?”

Rhys hesitated, then shook his head.

“I am Anukyat,” he pronounced. “Master of the Guard for the Alkali Protectorate. So now you know.”

Rhys' opened his mouth, but no words would come. The room seemed to spin about him.

“Take him back,” Anukyat ordered the men standing behind him. “Lock him up. We may have use for him yet, or at least for his
lyr
blood . . . now that the gods no longer have any use for him.”

The two Alkali Guardians lifted Rhys by the arms again, and dragged him away.

“Hold, there!”

The guard approaching the Citadel gate was not mounted, but walking beside his horse. The animal was limping badly and clearly was in no condition to support a rider. A makeshift bandage around the guard's head was covered with blood, obscuring much of his face and covering one eye; where his skin was visible it looked as if it had been ground into the dirt. He, too, was limping.