Demontech: Onslaught (20 page)

He followed the Golden Girl through the curtains, sat on the cushions next to her and gathered her gently into his arms. He tried to comfort her by putting protective hands on her back and shoulders but was so aware of the soft, warm flesh he touched, her magically silken skin, that without volition his thoughts started wandering from protecting to taking. Desperately he looked around for something to cover her with, any barrier to put between his hands and her skin. The only thing he saw was the thin gown she’d discarded, and it was out of reach. He grabbed one of the curtains hanging from the ceiling and yanked it free. It was as diaphanous as the gown she no longer wore, but he draped it over her anyway. He could still see her through it, could still feel all the warmth of her body, but it was nevertheless a barrier to the touch of her skin on his hands, flimsy as it was. It was enough to allow him to keep his mind on comforting and protecting.

“There there,” he said awkwardly. He clumsily patted her shoulder, tried to convey that everything would be all right, suspected he was failing abjectly.

Sobs wracked her. After a few moments they began to subside. A few moments more and they ceased altogether. She pushed away from him and sat up. She smiled wanly and could only glance at him for another moment or so. Then she held her head up, firmed her expression, used a corner of the curtain to wipe tears and running mascara from her face.

“Thank you for wanting to free me,” she said, as though it was of no consequence. “I thank you for your consideration. But there is nothing you can do. So,” she cast aside the curtain he’d covered her with and lay back on the cushions, arms held open to him, “come and take what you paid for. I grant it less unwillingly now.”

For a long moment Spinner was torn between two of the imperatives of a young man: to take the object of his lust; or to right a vile wrong. He decided that lust could wait to be satisfied another time. He covered her again with the curtain, even though he recognized how futile a covering the curtain was.

“Get up. We will go now. You’re free.” He made to stand up, but before he could rise to his feet, the Golden Girl lifted her foot and sharply kicked his shoulder with her heel.

She threw off the curtain and plunked her ankle onto his shoulder. “Do you know what that is?” she demanded.

He looked at her in confusion.

“On my ankle.”

He looked cross-eyed at her ankle. “It’s a bracelet for your ankle.”

She snorted. “Do you know what kind?”

He shrugged one-shouldered, so as not to dislodge her foot from his shoulder—he liked the physical contact. “No.”

“It is a summoner. It calls an azren.”

He shook his head. “An azren?”

“A death-demon. There is an azren in the forest beyond the inn. Every night the anklets summon it to us in our sleep and we dream of it.” She shuddered. “The dreams are always of it killing us.”

“That’s horrible.” He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, protect her, but couldn’t without dislodging her ankle from his shoulder.

“
Pfagh!
That’s not horrible. What is horrible is what happens if one of us tries to leave.” She glared at him, but moisture that glistened in the corner of her eyes gave lie to her anger. “The azren doesn’t hurt us when it comes in our dreams. But if we go beyond the inn yard, the anklet summons the azren and it kills whoever has gone forth.

“I saw it happen to a serving maid who’d only been here a day or two. She said she wouldn’t be a whore at the slavemaster’s whim. She said she didn’t believe in demons. She ran for the forest. I couldn’t see the azren, I only saw the way it cut her to bits. She screamed in agony until it had cut her so much she could no longer scream. It was horrible.” She slid her foot from Spinner’s shoulder and rolled onto her side into a tight ball. Her voice was muffled as she said, “That is not going to happen to me.”

Spinner was shocked at the Golden Girl’s tale. He’d never heard of an azren. How could anyone go through this valley? He asked the question as soon as he thought it.

“The azren feeds on our dreams,” the Golden Girl said. “And the slavemaster sometimes sends it an ‘offering.’ If a slave here displeases him, or a new slave is injured or ill, he sends that one out to the azren.”

That almost made Spinner disgorge his evening’s food and drink. He bent over the Golden Girl’s feet to examine the anklet more closely. It was, as he’d noted, thick and wide. What he earlier thought was a larger section of it did seem to be a locking mechanism. In the center was a small opening that could be a keyhole. On the opposite side from the wide place he found what looked like a hinge.

“Where is the key?” he asked.

The Golden Girl shuddered but didn’t answer.

Spinner picked up the curtain from where she tossed it when she showed him the anklet, and again draped it over her nakedness. He tucked her in, then lay down with his chest against her back and curled his legs under hers and wrapped his arms around her. She was shivering; he was sure it wasn’t from cold—the room was too warm. She gripped the curtain’s hem with her fingers and pulled it snug under her chin. He stroked her hair and murmured little nothings into her ear, little nothings that he hoped were soothing.

They must have been because shortly afterward she stopped shivering and twisted around in his arms to snuggle up facing him. He had to straighten his legs to allow her to. Her hands were loosely balled in front of her face. She opened one and caressed his cheek.

“You cannot get the key,” she said, half wistfully. “He will not give it up. But it’s sweet of you to think of it.” She brushed her lips against his and wiggled in closer; somehow the curtain became dislodged and he felt her naked body against him, and his clothing felt more coarse than it ever had before. The Golden Girl must have thought so also. “Your clothes are rough, they scratch me,” she said. She slid her hand from his cheek to the bottom of his jerkin and started to pull it up.

He put his hand on hers and pushed it and the jerkin back down. “No,” he said, thick-voiced. “We can do that later. When you are no longer a slave, when I come to you because you want me to.” Saying that, he realized he wasn’t being like Haft. Haft would not say no under the same circumstances; Haft would help her undress him. “I said I would free you and I will. Where does Master Yoel keep the key?”

She pulled her head back to look into his eyes and laughed at him. “Master Yoel? He doesn’t have the key. He’s not the slavemaster.”

“Then who is? I’ll take it from him and free you.”

She smiled a sad smile. “Master
Gro
uel is the slavemaster. You can’t get the key from him.”

“I can get it from anyone.” He thought about the name she gave. “Grouel? That’s a name I haven’t heard.”

“He’s Jokapcul. It is said he’s a master swordsman as well as a slavemaster. I think he is. I’ve seen him spar with men who others have called master swordsmen. He always wins.”

Spinner swallowed. A Jokapcul here? As a slavemaster? He remembered that afternoon, when the innkeeper claimed he knew nothing about the Jokapcul, had said he’d never even seen one. And they hadn’t seen any Jokapcul since the fight at the border—certainly he hadn’t seen any at The Burnt Man. And the slavemaster was a swordmaster, or so Alyline said. Jokapcul swordsmen were supposed to be among the best in the world—and their swordmasters were supposed to be the very best. The only Jokapcul swordsman he ever faced had been the officer at the border, and he had been very good. Perhaps their swordmasters weren’t all that much better than their average. If they weren’t, he could stand a chance against one of them—if he couldn’t find a way to avoid a fight. And he had been weak and wounded when he’d beaten the Jokapcul officer.

“Every swordsman loses sooner or later,” he said. “Besides, I don’t have to duel him to get the key.”

“How else would you get it?”

“I’ll find a way.”

She looked into his eyes but didn’t ask how.

“You said you saw a serving maid killed by the azren?” She nodded. “I saw anklets on all the serving maids. Are they all slaves?”

“Yes. The innkeeper gets to keep all the most beautiful women who come through here—until they are no longer so beautiful.”

“Who keeps the keys to the locks on the doors down here?”

She laughed, a harsh cough. “These doors aren’t locked, except when a man is with a woman he has paid for. The slavemaster isn’t afraid that any of us will run away. How would we escape the demon?”

“Are there any men who are slaves?”

“Everyone who works here is a slave except for the innkeeper, his wife, the stableman, the chief cook, and the traveling entertainers.” Her voice was bitter. “I’m the only entertainer who is a slave. The slavemaster has a few men-at-arms who aren’t slaves.”

“How many men-at-arms does he have?”

She shook her head. “A dozen. Maybe half that many. Maybe more. I don’t know.”

“Where do the men slaves sleep? Are they down here too?”

“No. I think they are kept in rooms above the stable.”

“What about all the men in the common room? Who are they?”

“Some are local herdsmen and farmers. Others are travelers. Most of them are slave traders, or handlers or teamsters for them, or their guards. Why are you asking all these questions?”

“So I’ll know what I’m up against.”

“Up against? With only two of you?” She pounded a fist on his chest. “Don’t be so stupid. There is nothing you can do.”

But there was something he could do. He didn’t yet know what, but he was sure he could find it. He had to. There was one more thing he wanted to know. “Master Yoel said something when he was leading me here—he said the doors to the rooms are thick, so I didn’t have to worry about being disturbed by noise anyone made. What did he mean? Why are the doors so thick?”

The Golden Girl’s body shook with fury inside his arms. “The serving maids are slaves—some men think that means they are property, not people. If a man wants to, and pays enough, the slavemaster lets him hurt the girls. Sometimes a serving maid spends the night with a man and is never seen again. I don’t know whether they are killed or merely maimed and sent on somewhere else.”

Trying to contain his anger, Spinner held her tightly. The wrong being committed there was even worse than slavery. When he righted the wrong, someone was going to pay dearly. “This will all end tomorrow, I promise you,” he said softly. “In the meantime, sleep. I will protect you tonight. When you are free, we can do more than simply me protect you.”

She looked at him oddly, and he chose to interpret it as gratitude. In reality she was thinking him a fool to turn down the chance to be with the most skilled lover he would ever meet, in favor of something intangible he might receive after accomplishing the impossible.

She turned her back to him, curled up, and went to sleep, secure in the knowledge that the fool wouldn’t ravage or otherwise harm her during what was left of the night.

When the Golden Girl woke him, Spinner felt like he’d barely closed his eyes. Faint light came from a few guttering candles.

“It is dawn,” she said. “A man waits outside the door to lead you to your room.”

“But—”

She crossed his lips with a finger. “No buts. It is the rule.” She helped him to stand and to straighten his clothes. She softly took his hand in hers and led him to the door. When she opened the door for him, she stood behind it so the man outside wouldn’t see her naked body. She gave Spinner a sad smile. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Spinner smiled and nodded at her. He thought she meant to thank him for the rescue he was going to effect. He watched the door close, then turned to follow the man to the stairs. He thought he recognized him as one of the handymen he’d seen the day before.

“What’s the matter, didn’t you get any sleep last night?” Haft asked when they were seated in the common room waiting for their breakfast. He laughed raucously at his own joke—he knew
he
wouldn’t have slept if it had been him spending the night with the Golden Girl. “Or did she kick you out of bed?”

Spinner smiled wanly. “Actually, we did get a little sleep near the end,” he said, and tried to look happier and more energetic. He had to look more like someone who’d had a memorable time. “If you’d just spent a night with someone like her and you were leaving, knowing you would never see her again, you’d probably be bawling.” He laughed, and hoped the laugh didn’t sound as hollow as it felt.

“Right,” Haft said dryly. He patted the pile of their belongings and the sack of food they’d bought to eat on their journey that sat on a spare chair at their table. “We have to get on the road.” He leaned back and looked wistful. “But it was nice last night. A hot meal, a hot bath, cold beer, a proper mattress . . . though somehow I don’t think my mattress was as comfortable as yours.” He laughed even more loudly than before.

Spinner’s answering grin was weak and he could only manage a chuckle.

Their food came and they were silent as they ate. They had a different serving maid; Doli wasn’t in evidence in the common room this morning. Neither of them asked where she was. Spinner could make a few guesses, but wasn’t sure. The only guess he didn’t dislike was that she had the day off, but he suspected the serving maids weren’t given days off. If what he suspected had happened was true, that would be one more man who would regret—no matter how briefly—what he’d done at The Burnt Man.

Other tables were occupied, but not many. Two merchants sat together talking in low voices over their meals. Men in homespun occupied three more tables. None of them seemed in any hurry to eat and move on. Spinner thought the merchants must be slave traders, the other men in their employ. He tried not to show the hatred he felt for them.

Master Yoel appeared at their table just as they finished eating. With a flourish, he presented the bill to Spinner. Spinner quickly looked it over, decided it was more or less accurate; no item seemed unduly high. He held out his hand. The innkeeper hesitated, then dropped three copper coins into his palm.