Blood's Pride (Shattered Kingdoms) (26 page)
Read Blood's Pride (Shattered Kingdoms) Online
Authors: Evie Manieri
She kicked him away in disgust, and as he went sprawling, a second shriek careened off the corridor walls and the Shadari holding Dramash cried out in pain and anger and dropped the boy, who streaked back to Frea.
‘Dramash!’ the lame man bellowed, ‘
get back here!
’
Rho heard a strange splitting sound, like a board being torn in two, and the rock beneath him trembled. He looked dizzily up at the ceiling. Another earthquake.
A black fissure wormed its way down through the red rock, and dust and small rocks pattered down onto his head and shoulder. He tasted chalk on his lips. The crack widened and extended down the wall and across the floor, snaking towards him – no, this was no earthquake. He looked at the boy standing rigidly behind Frea’s legs. The look on his face was just the same as it had been at the mines.
Daem grabbed Rho and jerked him to safety just as the floor spread open beside him, a crack several feet wide, running from one wall to the other. The Norlanders were all on one side of the rift and the Shadari – except for the boy – were on the other. Rho looked down into the fissure. He could see the flicker of torches on the level below, and even as he looked, more of the edge on either side crumbled away, widening the breach.
‘Dramash!’ the lame man shouted, and thrust out his hand to the boy. He hobbled towards the crack. ‘Jump, Dramash – come on!’
‘I want to stay here,’ the boy said obstinately. ‘I’m going to be a soldier. I’m going to have a dereshadi. Mama’s going to come here and live with me.’
‘Come here, you little brat! I’ll teach you to defy me!’ He shook his sword, but it was an idle threat; he couldn’t leap across the gap, not with that lame leg. Rho saw the other Shadari arguing now, and finally, after one last long look at Frea, they fled. Doubtless they were planning to come around and cut Frea off from the other side, but of course she’d be long gone by then.
In fact, when Rho looked back, she was gone already, and the boy with her.
! – it doesn’t look too deep. If I can get this closed up, you should be on your feet again in a few hours.> He darted into Frea’s chambers.
Rho’s eyelids felt heavy and he wanted to sleep, but Daem finally returned carrying one of Frea’s spare swords.
body had drifted off somewhere very far away. The need to sleep was overpowering, but he knew he mustn’t give in, not yet.
You have to stay here. Do you understand? Stay here with me.>
Daem’s hand rested for a moment on his forehead; it felt wonderfully cool. He forced his eyes open again and saw Daem holding the blade of the sword in the torch’s flame.
‘You can’t be serious?’ Daryan asked wearily. His head was still pounding from his confrontation with Shairav and that strange conversation with Rahsa in the hallway, and now Omir had cornered him with news of Faroth’s astounding and preposterous rescue plan. He wouldn’t have believed a word of it if Omir hadn’t hastily introduced him to Binit – a thick-waisted, nervous man whom Daryan had never laid eyes on before – and the short, tarnished sword he clutched to his side. Two others, Hakim, and Daryan’s friend Tal, kept a nervous watch over both ends of the corridor. ‘Omir, you don’t really believe Faroth wants me back in the city, do you?’
‘That’s what he says,’ Omir replied grimly. ‘And as for him being serious, I just saw him slice a guard open right in front of the White Wolf.’
‘But Faroth has no use for me – or Shairav,’ he protested. He wished they weren’t crowding around him so closely. ‘Harotha made that clear enough: it was one of the things they argued about before she came here. Why would Faroth do something like this? Why now?’
‘I don’t know, but the longer he’s here, the more trouble he’s going to stir up. That’s why I came to find you.’
‘Well, let me talk to Lord Eofar first, then we can—’
‘Lord Eofar can’t even help himself now,’ Omir broke in. ‘I thought you’d heard: Governor Eonar is dead and the White Wolf is using her soldiers to take control of the colony. She’s declared Lord Eofar and Lady Isa traitors to the empire – they’re to be killed on sight, along with anyone caught helping them.’
Daryan clenched his fists. ‘I knew something like this would happen. I tried to warn him—’
‘Daimon!’ Tal interrupted in an urgent undertone, and he looked up to see someone staring at them from a dozen paces away.
Rahsa still had that nasty gash on her forehead, and under the dirt her cheeks were bright red from exertion. Her robe was torn at the shoulder and bloody scratches marked the soft flesh above her breast. She blinked too often and she breathed in sharp, shallow gasps. Even as Daryan watched in horror, she raked her nails across her chest, bringing up lines of fresh blood.
‘Oh, no,’ he breathed to the others. ‘Wait here – let me talk to her. And don’t move, please,’ he implored them as he pushed past.
The girl’s face broke into a shy smile as he came towards her, but the smile was an ill match for the eager look in her eyes and did little to reassure him. ‘Is everything all right, Rahsa?’ he asked her, trying to sound as casual as possible. ‘You look like you want to tell me something.’
She giggled, a horrifying sound that chilled him to the bone.
‘No. I don’t want to tell you. That would spoil it. I want to show you. Everything’s going to be all right now.’
‘That’s good.’ He tried to smile back. He could see that she was holding something behind her back, hiding it like a child with a stolen sweet. ‘You can show it to me later, okay? I have to talk to these people now. You look tired. Why don’t you go lie down and I’ll come and find you?’
The expectant smile on her lips crumbled away, making the intensity in her eyes even more alarming. ‘But you have to come with me,’ she sang out softly. ‘I did it for
you
. I have to show you – you have to see it for yourself.’
‘I really can’t, Rahsa,’ he said apologetically, holding up his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘Not right now. I’m sorry.’ He turned away and began to walk back to the others, but he could feel her staring at him. He turned back and said firmly, ‘Really, Rahsa: go and get some sleep. I mean it.’
Something like anger flashed across her face, but so quickly that he thought he must have imagined it. Then she smiled at him again, even more broadly this time. ‘You just don’t understand yet,’ she said, nodding to herself. She walked towards him. ‘Don’t worry. It will be all right. I’m going to help you. I’ll always help you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.’
Before he realised what was happening, she had grabbed his shoulder and thrust her lips violently against his. He struggled, trying to push her away, but no sooner had he loosened her grip than she shoved him, so hard that he fell backwards onto the ground, winded.
‘I won’t
touch
you!’ she shrieked, her shrill voice almost
belonging to a different person. ‘Her stink is on you – traitor! Traitor!’
‘Rahsa, what—?’ he gasped as he struggled back to his feet. He heard voices raised in alarm and as the others rushed forward, her own dreadful scream ripped through the air and she covered her ears with her hands. And now Daryan saw what she had in her right hand: Eofar’s knife, the same one he had so carelessly left in the bathing room after he’d knocked it away from her; he’d never had the presence of mind to go back and retrieve it.
She shrieked again and lunged for him, and as he stared at the point of the blade, with the suddenness of a thunderclap he became acutely aware of the precarious collection of bones and soft tissues that made up his body, the flesh that offered no more resistance than the skin of a fruit. He was not so amazed that he was about to die as he was confounded that a creature so fragile could have survived as long as he had.
A heavy arm shoved him out of the way and he crashed into Binit as Rahsa’s scream suddenly choked off: Omir had grabbed Binit’s sword and plunged it straight through her chest.
‘No!’ Daryan screamed, as Omir tugged the blade out and Rahsa crumpled to the ground. He scrambled over to her on his hands and knees. The front of her robe was already soaked with blood. She was still alive, but each breath was a gasp of pain, and her eyes were rolling heavily in their sockets. ‘Why did you do that?’ he demanded frantically of Omir, who stood over them with the bloody sword clutched in his hand. ‘You didn’t have to kill her!’ He tried to lift her up, but the jostling made her cry out in pain.
‘What do you mean? She tried to kill you!’ exclaimed Binit, circling around next to Omir and staring in consternation at the blood dripping from the point of his sword. ‘Omir just saved your life!’
‘He knows that,’ the tall Shadari told Binit quietly. He was looking down at Daryan, frowning thoughtfully. ‘She was going to kill you,’ he told Daryan, ‘but your first thought was for her. Not yourself.’
‘I just—’ began Daryan, but then he saw Rahsa’s eyes fix on him. Her lips moved and dark blood bubbled up at the corners of her mouth – he bent his head closer to hear what she was trying to tell him.
‘I did it … for you,’ she gasped out.
‘I know,’ he said, trying to reassure her, though he still had no idea what she meant. ‘I know you did.’
Tal picked up Eofar’s knife from the floor. ‘There’s blood on this!’ he announced, holding it up in the torchlight.
‘Daryan, are you hurt?’ Omir asked quickly.
‘No, no,’ he answered, watching Rahsa’s face as she struggled to form more words.
‘She’s burning now,’ she whispered. ‘I wanted us to watch together.’
‘We will,’ Daryan reassured her, then he realised what she’d said. ‘Burning?
Who’s
burning? Rahsa?’
‘The blood’s on the handle, not the blade,’ said Tal, running his fingertip over the hilt of the knife and then holding it close to his eyes. ‘It’s all right, it’s not Shadari blood.’
Daryan looked down at Rahsa’s right hand, which was resting
on his chest. Her fingers had left a bloody handprint on the front of his robe: a
blue
handprint.
‘
Who’s
burning?’ He pulled her closer to him. ‘Rahsa!’ he cried as her eyelids fluttered, ‘
Rahsa!
Who’s burning?’
As suddenly as if a string had been cut, her body went limp and heavy in his arms. Her head smacked down on the stone floor: she was dead.
‘Poor girl,’ Hakim said sadly, staring at her. ‘Temple madness, I guess. I’ve seen it before. And now with Shairav leaving she won’t even get a real funeral. She’ll have to stay shut up in the Dead One’s tombs—’
Daryan rocketed to his feet, crying, ‘That’s it – the tomb! She said “burning” – the sun – the sun shines on the tomb. She’s there – she’s
burning
—’
‘I don’t—’ Hakim started, but Daryan had turned to Omir and was clutching his robe.
‘Find Shairav – get to the stables; I’ll meet you there. Go!’ He grabbed Eofar’s knife out of Tal’s hand.
‘Daryan, what—?’ Omir called out after him.
‘
Go!
’ he yelled back, running as hard as he could for Eleana’s tomb.
Isa was burning.
She had to move – but the body that she inhabited no longer belonged to her. She couldn’t feel her heart beating. She couldn’t feel the stone beneath her. Her eyes were open, but looking through them was like looking through a window; she could only guess that the wheezing gasps that occasionally broke the silence were the sounds of her own breathing; if she still had lungs, she couldn’t feel them.
Her mother’s letter lay open on the tomb a few inches from her face, shifting gently back and forth in the breeze from the skylight above. There was a bright light near her knee which might have been the sunlight glancing off her sword. She thought she could remember putting it down there just before she’d perched on the edge of the tomb to read the letter. But mostly she could see her left arm. She didn’t want to look at it, but she couldn’t turn her head away, and she was afraid that if she closed her eyes, she would never open them again.
She had to move: she knew that. But she knew the reason she couldn’t move was because she couldn’t feel, and the reason she couldn’t feel was because she didn’t want to, not since
she’d woken up screaming, convinced that someone was pounding her hand over and over again with a hot poker.
The sun had been blazing down on her hand and forearm. It had taken just a few frantic heartbeats for her to realise that the pounding was the rhythm of her pulse. Then the pain had stopped; it hadn’t gone away – she wasn’t stupid. She knew it was waiting for her, daring her to acknowledge that the mangled thing connected to her shoulder still belonged to her. And as unbearable as the pain had been then, by now it would be far worse, for all this time the sun had been beating down, it had also been steadily creeping over the tomb, and by now it was past her elbow. The skin on her forearm was bubbling with inky-black blisters; shortly, the flesh would begin to char away and poisoned blood would seep out, as it was already doing on her wrist and the back of her hand.