Blood's Pride (Shattered Kingdoms) (48 page)

Rho watched Isa walk down the sloping shore, towards the water, shells crunching under her heels. Her boots splashed in the shallows. He said to Daryan, ‘If I hadn’t turned on Frea, Daem and the others wouldn’t have either – they wouldn’t have been in the temple. And without me, Dramash would have had no reason to destroy it. You see? The more I do, the more people die. Daem tried to explain it to me, but I wouldn’t listen. And now he’s dead. Now they’re all dead.’ He rested his hands on his knees and watched Isa turn and walk along the waterline. ‘So yes. I’m just going to sit here.’

Daryan stepped closer. His face was still red and his hands were clenched into fists at his sides. ‘You saved my life. I haven’t forgotten that.’ His mouth moved as he tried to compose his thoughts. ‘There’s no excuse for what you did. You can’t undo it—’

‘I know.’

‘—but that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to give up. Do something.
Fix it
.’

The surf was getting rougher. Was the tide going out, or coming in? Isa walked back up from the water with the spray chasing her heels. Wet sand caked the hem of her cloak as it dragged behind her.

‘I’m sorry. You just don’t understand,’ he told Daryan.

Isa walked back towards them – he thought she was coming to join them, but instead she kept walking right by them, making for Aeda, who was dozing in the sand.

‘Isa!’ Daryan called out, ‘aren’t you going to say anything?’

She kept her eyes straight ahead. ‘No.’

‘But he’s your friend!’ Daryan protested, jogging after her.

She paused with her foot in the stirrup. ‘That’s not my friend. That’s not Rho,’ she said clearly. She turned to look at him over her shoulder. Then she spoke in Norlander, but not with the hatred that he’d wanted and expected, but with love and concern that came stabbing at him with the sharpness of a dagger. will
be again. And when he is, I don’t think he’ll be able to live with himself.>

A moment later, they were gone.

And a moment after that, Rho was in the saddle of his own triffon, buckling himself in with hands that trembled with urgency.

There was enough light for him to keep Aeda in sight, but by the time he landed next to her, on a street lined with the blackened lumps that had once been people’s homes, the two of them had already gone. He poked around until he found a charred blanket stinking of smoke, took off his sword and threw the blanket over his head and shoulders, concealing both his features and the weapon in his hands. He hurried down the grey street and soon found himself caught up in a steady stream of people heading in the same direction. As they passed through the broken walls of the old Shadari royal palace, he hunched his shoulders and rearranged his makeshift cowl. He avoided the press of bodies as best he could, not trusting the blanket to disguise his Norlander chill. The crowd was hushed enough for him to hear voices: Daryan was already there, speaking to Faroth.

‘Dramash has done enough, hasn’t he? You’ve got to get him to some place safe. We have to decide what we’re going to do about the White Wolf.’

‘The White Wolf is dead – and you don’t give the orders here,’ Faroth growled. Rho’s breath had turned the air under the blanket moist and stifling. Sweat dripped down from his forehead and into his eyes. ‘Did you think we’d forgotten all those years you spent in the temple, Daryan, getting fat with Shairav? You stood up to the Dead Ones now because you had no other choice. That doesn’t give you any right—’

‘I never said I was fit to be daimon,’ Daryan conceded diplomatically, ‘but are you? What do you plan to do – rule over the Shadar using Dramash to threaten anyone who disagrees with you?’

‘He’s
my
son and I’ll use him as I see fit.’

Warm bodies jostled against Rho as more and more people tried to get close enough to hear what was happening. He edged his way forward.

‘As you see fit? As you saw fit to destroy the temple?’ Daryan’s voice rose wrathfully. ‘What about the Shadari who were still trapped in there, and the others who were buried alive when it fell?’ he thundered. ‘And the Dead Ones you killed – most of them were our allies!’

Suddenly someone tugged at the blanket over Rho’s head and he yanked Fortune’s Blight a few inches from his scabbard – but he checked the impulse, just in time. He had not been recognised; he was just being pushed to one side to make way for an even dirtier and bloodier group of Shadari men forcing their way through the crowd. From beneath his cowl he saw a heavy rock-hammer swinging in the hand of the man who’d pushed him.

Anticipating disaster, he stepped out behind the man and
followed in his wake, keeping his head bowed and his eyes to the ground until he saw an empty patch of ground in front of him that signalled he had come to the front of the crowd. He ventured a glance and recognised the tall Shadari, Omir, stepping into the wide circle that already contained Daryan, Faroth and Dramash. He couldn’t see either Isa or Harotha.

‘Omir!’ Daryan cried joyfully.

‘Stay back, Daimon. We came as soon as we heard you were still alive. Faroth has no right to lead us – he’s a murderer. He’s killed hundreds of Shadari tonight by destroying the temple. He’ll kill you too, before the sun is up.’

‘Omir, for the gods’ sake, put your weapon down!’ Daryan cautioned. ‘This isn’t the time!’

Faroth thrust out his arm towards Daryan; his other hand brandished the curved sword that Rho knew so well. ‘Daryan has betrayed us!’ he shouted, and the crowd murmured loudly in response, but not necessarily in agreement. The bodies around Rho shifted as the spectators turned to each other, but he continued watching Omir and his men. They had Faroth encircled, and were slowly drawing the loop tight.

‘Stop, stop,’ Daryan called out to Omir, waving his arms over his head. ‘Don’t come any closer—’

‘They’re all traitors,’ Faroth shouted to the crowd, then he bent down to Dramash and whispered something in his ear. The boy looked sharply up at his father, and then at Daryan. Omir saw the look, and with an inarticulate cry charged forward towards the father and son.

‘Dramash –
do it!
’ Faroth shouted, grabbing the boy and shaking his arm, but nothing happened. He yanked the child
around in front of him. ‘You’re not going to get my son!’ Faroth roared at Omir. He drew his sword and held it in front of the boy’s neck. ‘I’ll kill him myself before I’ll let any of you take him!’

‘Stop!’ Daryan repeated as he ran forward to block Omir’s path. ‘Just wait! This isn’t the way—’

Rho looked at the blade in Faroth’s hand and felt the steel ripping into his gut all over again. Wincing at the sudden pain, he looked up into Dramash’s face. To his amazement, he found Dramash looking not at Omir or Daryan but straight back at him. It was Frea’s bedchamber all over again, only now Rho was the one looking on and Dramash was the one with Faroth’s sword pressed up against his flesh. And as surely as if Dramash had been a Norlander, Rho knew that the boy was having exactly the same thought, and was remembering what Faroth had done the last time.

And he knew exactly what Dramash was going to do.

‘Rho, no – wait!’ Daryan called out as he threw off the blanket and plunged forward.

Dramash was only a few steps away, but to Rho it felt like he was running under water. The ten strides he needed to reach the boy and his father stretched ahead of him like leagues. On the second step he saw Dramash pull away from Faroth. On the third he saw Faroth reach out for the boy and on the fifth, like a bird swallowing a worm, the sand opened up under Faroth’s feet and sucked him down. On the sixth step he heard the crowd screaming, and on the eighth he saw them turn and flee from the child, now standing alone in front of the little mound of sand that had closed over his father’s head.
And on the ninth step, Rho fell to his knees, dropped his sword, and began paddling frantically in the dirt under Dramash’s steady gaze, but there was nothing left of Faroth. He was gone.

Dramash’s smooth, little-boy features were inscrutable. ‘It’s wrong to hurt people,’ he said.

Rho sat back on his heels and looked up at the child. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly, feeling the word burning in his throat. ‘It
is
wrong.’

Dramash didn’t respond. Rho dug his fingers into the dirt. The flat ground mocked him with its semblance of solidity. He was waiting for the first sign of a shift, the first lurch of the pull. He had been judged and sentenced, and now his punishment was finally at hand.

‘You’re bleeding,’ Dramash told him, pointing a stubby finger at his stomach. He looked down. His wound had reopened and fresh blood had already soaked through his shirt and stained his cloak. With the sight of the wound came the pain, and with the pain came the dizziness. He crashed to one side, falling onto his elbow.

The wings again: he saw them through the purple splotches in front of his eyes. There were triffons in the air – too many triffons: all of Rho’s ghosts, coming to watch the ground drag him below. One of the triffons pounced just behind Dramash, and the ground under his legs bounced. And there was Frea, on Trakkar’s back, in her white cape and gleaming silver helmet, immaculate as a goddess amid the blood and the smoke.

Other triffons took up positions around the square, not fully alighting, but keeping their claws just off the ground, the
concussive flapping of their wings stirring up the sand and soot, their roar drowning out even the terrified screams of the Shadari as they tried to push and shove their way out of the palace hall.

Ingeld, Rho’s former barracks-mate, snatched Dramash from before his very eyes, tossed a sack over his head and threw him up onto Frea’s saddle.

Frea said to Rho as her gloved hands deftly fastened the straps around Dramash. The boy sat still, apparently too stunned or too frightened to struggle or fight back.

On her signal, the triffons rose into the air and turned towards the sea. He saw Daryan running after them, shrieking something in Shadari and shaking his fist at the sky. Rho crawled painfully to his feet. The crowd had gone, except for the victims of the terrified stampede lying hurt or insensate on the ground.

A lone triffon flapped out of the grey sky and dropped to the ground in front of Rho, and he looked into Aeda’s black, shining eyes.

Isa told him miserably.

He walked around beside Aeda, steeled himself against the pain and pulled himself up.

As he strapped himself in she asked, She tried to get a closer look at him over her shoulder, but his cape concealed the worst of the mess.

he promised her.

She turned back around. she asked. Her words had a cold crispness around the edges, like frost.

She bunched the reins up in her solo hand. He expected her to take Aeda into the air, but instead she said,

He looked at the loose strands of her soft white hair, moving in the breeze. Her cowl was down and he could see the smooth sweep of her neck.

she told him. She paused, and he could almost see the air around her shimmering, and the crystalline Norland snow falling down around her shoulders.

He realised that he had never loved anything as much as he loved Isa at that moment. He leaned forward and lifted her cowl up over her head for her, making sure the folds covered her vulnerable skin. Then she whistled to Aeda and launched them into the air.