Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 08 (23 page)

           
"Teague!" Kellin shouted.

           
"My lord—" But the
answering shout was cut off.

           
Kellin thrust himself upward. Arms
closed around his chest, trapping his own arms in a deadly hug.

           
His spine was pressed against the
massive belt buckle; his head beneath Luce's chin. The Homanan's strength was
immense.

           
A sharp, firm squeeze instantly
expelled what little breath was left in Kellin's lungs. The human vice around
his chest denied him another. Speck-les crept into the comers of his eyes, then
spread to threaten his vision.

           
Kellin writhed in Luce's grasp. He
kicked but struck air, and the big man laughed. "Boy," Luce said,
"your gods can't hear you now."

           
He had not petitioned the gods. Now
he did, just in case, even as he snapped his head backward in a futile attempt
to smash Luce's face. He struck nothing but muscled neck. Luce's grip
tightened.

           
Frenziedly, Kellin fought. His
breath was gone, and his strength, but desperation drove him. He would not give
up. A Cheysuli warrior never gave up.

           
Luce, laughing, shook him. A rib
protested. "Little prince," he baited, "where is your liege man
now?"

           
Blais would not permit this— Kellin
arched his body in a final attempt at escape, then went limp.

           
Blood dripped from the corner of his
mouth. He hung slackly in thick arms.

           
Luce squeezed him a final time,
threw him down. "I'll have that knife now."

           
Kellin's breath came back in a rush.
He heard himself gasping and whooping as his lungs filled slowly, then understood
what Luce intended to do.

           
"No knife—mine-—" And it
was there, kicked beneath shattered wood; Kellin clawed for it, touched it
closed trembling fingers upon it even as Luce saw his intent. But before the
big man could react, Kellin's hand closed over the hilt.

           
He came up from the floor in one
awkward lunge, still gasping for breath, still doubled up from the pain of his
bruised ribs. But to hesitate or protect himself guaranteed death; Kellin
slashed out repeatedly, carving himself a clearing. He saw the glint of a swordblade—no,
two—and realized the watchdogs were present at last. Teague had reached the
door, or else they had heard the commotion.

           
Luce?

           
The man was there, armed as well.
The knife he held was not so elaborate as Kellin's but its blade was equally
deadly. Near-black eyes were fastened on Kellin's face. "I'll have that
long-knife yet."

           
Blood trickled into Kellin's right
eye as he sucked at air. He scrubbed a forearm across his brow, shook back damp
hair, then grinned at the big man. Without the breath to answer, Kellin beckoned
Luce on with the waggle of one hand.

           
By now most of the fighting had been
stopped, or stopped of its own accord. It had come down to Kellin and Luce. The
silence in the tavern was heavy with expectation.

           
Luce still watched him, judging his
condition.

           
Kellin knew it well enough: he was
half-sick on usca and the blow from Luce's knee, as well as bruised about the
ribs. He was stippled by half a dozen nicks and slices, and a cut across his
brow bled sluggishly, threatening his vision.

           
Kellin forced a ragged laugh.
"Are you truly the king of the Midden? Do you think yourself fit to rule?
Then show me, little man. Prove to a Cheysuli you are fit to hold his
knife."

           
Luce came on, as expected. Kellin
stood his ground, watching the man's posture and the subtle movements of his
body; when Luce's momentum was fully engaged, his intent divulged, Kellin
slipped aside and thrust out a boot. Luce stumbled, cursed, then fell against a
table. His hands thrust out to brace himself.

           
With a single definitive blow of Blais'
knife, Kellin chopped down and severed the thief's remaining thumb.
"There," he said, "the debt now is paid."

           
Luce screamed. He clutched his
bleeding hand against his chest. "Shapechanger sorcery!"

           
Kellin shook his head. still trying
to regain his breath. "Just a knife in the hand of a man. But enough for
you, it seems."

           
The conquest of Luce ended the fight
entirely.

           
Kellin saw bloodied faces and gaping
mouths, torn clothing and gore-splattered hair. The crimson tunics of the
watchdogs glowed like pristine beacons in the smoky shadows of the tavern.

           
He ached. His profaned manhood
throbbed. He wanted no more than to lie down in the slushy snow and cool the
heat of pain, to drive away the sickness, to regain in the bite of winter the
self-control he had forfeited to a despised desperation.

           
Kellin wanted no one, thief or
guardsman, to see how much he hurt. Without a word, without an order, he turned
and walked through the crowd and pushed open the cracked door, taking himself
from the tavern into the cold clarity of the alley.

           
The stench was no better there, but
the familiar glitter of stars was an infinite improvement over the opaque
malignancy of Luce's enraged stare.

           
Kellin looked at the horses and very
nearly flinched. He could not bear the idea of riding.

           
"My lord?" It was Teague,
exiting the tavern.

           
He was bloodied and bruised and very
taut around the mouth. "We should get you to Homana-Mujhar,"

           
The response was automatic. "If
I choose to go."

           
Teague neither flinched nor colored.
His tone was pitched to neutrality. "Are you done for the evening, my
lord?"

           
Kellin gifted him with a scowl as
the other guardsmen filed out of the tavern. "Is there something else you
wished to do?"

           
Teague shrugged. "I thought
perhaps you might desire to find another game." He paused. "My
lord."

           
As he collected breath and wits,
Kellin considered any number of retorts. Most of them were couched in anger or
derision. But after what Teague had done, he thought the guardsman deserved
better.

           
He blew out a frosted breath, then
drew another into a sore chest. He wanted to lie down, or bend over, or lean
against the wall, but he would do none of those things or risk divulging
discomfort.

           
Instead, he asked a question.
"Was the die improperly weighted?"

  
         
Teague grinned. "As to that, I
could not swear. But when Luce spread his hand down across the pile and
challenged you to the final throw, I saw one die replaced with another. It
seemed logical to assume it was weighted to favor Luce."

           
Kellin grunted agreement. "But
it was not replaced before."

           
"No, my lord."

           
"You are certain?"

           
"My lord—" With effort,
Teague suppressed a smile and did not look at his companions. "I am moved
to say your luck was bad tonight."

           
"And, no doubt, my tavern selection."
Kellin sighed and pressed a hand against sore ribs. "I am going home. You
may come, or go, as you wish. It is nothing to me."

           
Teague considered it. "I think
I will come, my lord." The faintest glint brightened his eyes. "I
would like to hear what the Mujhar has to say when you arrive on his front
step."

           
It was momentarily diverting.
"To me, or to you?"

           
"To you, my lord. I have done
my duty."

           
Kellin scowled. "It is not the
Mujhar who concerns me."

           
"Who, then?"

           
It was an impertinence, but Kellin
was too tired and sore to remind Teague of that. "The queen," he
muttered. "She is Erinnish, remember? And possessed of a facile
tongue." He sighed. "My ears will be burning tonight, as she can no
longer redden my rump."

           
Teague surrendered his dignity to a
shout of laughter. Then he recalled whom it was he served—the royal temper,
Kellin knew, was notorious—and quietly gathered up the reins of his own mount
and Kellin's. "I will walk with you, my lord."

           
The assumption stung. "And if I
mean to ride?"

           
"Then I will ride also."
Teague lowered his eyes and stared inoffensively at the ground. "But I
daresay my journey will be more comfortable than yours."

           
Kelin's face burned. "I
daresay."

           
The Prince of Homana walked all the
way home as his faithful watchdogs followed.

           
The Queen of Homana pressed a
wine-soaked cloth against the wound in her grandson's scalp. "Sit still,
Kellin! Tis a deep cut."

           
He could not help himself; he lapsed
into an Erinnish lilt in echo of her own. "You'll be making it deeper,
with this! D'ye mean to go into my brain?"

           
" 'Twould keep you from further
idiocy, now, wouldn't it?" The pressure was firm as she worked to stanch
the dribbling blood.

           
"That I doubt," Brennan
said. "Kellin courts idiocy."

           
" 'Twould seem so," Aileen
agreed equably. Then, when Kellin meant to protest, "Sit still."

           
Between them, they will slice me
into little pieces.

           
Kellin sat bolt upright in a stool
in his chambers, bare to the waist. He was not in the slightest disposed to
remain still as she pressed liquor into his scalp, because he could not. It
stung fiercely. The right side of his chest was beginning to purple from Luce's
affectionate hug, but Kellin was not certain Aileen's ministrations—or her
words—would be gentler.

           
"You could bind his ribs,"
she suggested crisply to Brennan, "instead of standing there glowering
like an old wolf."

           
"No," Kellin answered,
knowing the Mujhar's hands would be far less gentle than hers. "You do it,
granddame."

           
"Then stop twitching."

           
"It hurts."

           
Aileen sighed as she peeled back the
cloth and inspected the oozing cut beneath. "For a Cheysuli warrior, my
braw boyo, you're not so very good at hiding your pain."

           
"The Erinnish in me," he
muttered pointedly.

           
"Besides, how many Cheysuli
warriors must suffer a woman to pour liquid fire into their skulls?"

           
Aileen pressed closed the cut.
"How many require it?"

           
Kellin hissed. He slanted a sidelong
glance at his grandfather. "I am not the first to rebel against the
constraints of his rank."

           
The gibe did not disturb the Mujhar
in the least.

           
He stood quietly before his battered
grandson with gold-weighted arms folded, observing his queen's ministrations.
"Nor will you be the last," Brennan remarked. "But as that
comment was aimed specifically at me, let me answer you in like fashion: dying
before you inherit somewhat diminishes the opportunity to break free of my
authority." He arched a brow. "Does it not?"

           
Kellin gritted his teeth. "I'm
not looking to die, grandsire—"

           
"You give every indication of
it."

           
"—merely looking for
entertainment, something to fill my days, something to quench my taste—"

           
"—for rebellion." Brennan
smiled a little. "Nothing you tell me now cannot be countered, Kellin. For
that matter, you may as well save your breath, which is likely at this moment
difficult to draw through bruised ribs—" the Mujhar cast him an ironic
glance, "—because I know very well what you will say. I even know what I
will say; it was said to me and to my rujholli several decades ago."

           
Kellin scowled. "I am not you,
or Hart, or Corin—"

           
"—or even Keely," Aileen
finished, "and I've heard this before, myself." Her green eyes were
bright. "Now both of you be silent while I wrap up your ribs."

           
Kellin subsided into glum silence,
punctuated only by an occasional hissed inhalation. He did not look again at
his grandsire, but stared fixedly beyond him so he would not provoke a comment
in the midst of intense discomfort.

           
He had told them little of the
altercation in the tavern, saying merely that a game had gone bad and the fight
was the result. No deaths, he pointed out; the Mujhar, oddly, asked about fire,
to which Kellin answered in puzzlement that there was no fire, only a little
blood. It had satisfied Brennan in some indefinable way; he had said little
after that save for a few caustic comments.

           
Kellin sat very still as Aiieen
worked, shutting his teeth against the pain—he would not permit her to believe
he was less able than anyone else to hold his tongue—and said nothing. But he
was aware of an odd sensation that had little to do with pain.

           
"—still," she murmured, as
a brief tremor claimed his body.

           
Kellin frowned as she snugged the
linen around his ribs. What is—? And then again the tremor, and Aileen's
muttered comment, and his own unintended reaction; every inch of flesh burned
so intensely he sweated with it.

           
Brennan frowned. "Perhaps I
should call a surgeon."

           
"No!" Kellin blurted.

           
"If there is that much
pain—"

           
"—isn't pain," Kellin
gritted. "Except—for that—"

           
He sucked in a hissing breath as Aileen
pulled linen taut against sore flesh. "Call no one. Grandsire."

           
He held himself still with effort.
It wasn't pain, but something else entirely, something he could not ignore,
that burned through flesh into bone with a will of its own, teasing at
self-control. Fingers and toes tingled. It spread to groin and belly, then
crept upward to his heart.

           
"Kellin?" Aileen's hands
stilled. "Kellin—"

           
He heard her only dimly, as if water
filled his ears. His entire being was focused on a single sensation. It was
very like the slow build toward the physical release of man into woman, he
thought, but with a distinct difference he could not voice.

           
He could not find the words. He knew
only there was a vast and abiding thing demanding his attention, demanding his
body and soul.

           
"Ihlini?" he murmured.
"Lochiel?"

           
He need only put out his hand,
Corwyth had said, and Kellin would be in it.

           
His ribs were strapped and tied. He
could not breathe.

           
—could not breathe—

           
"Kellin!" Aileen's hands closed
on his naked shoulders. "Can you hear me?"

           
He could. Clearly. The stuffy
distance was gone.

           
The burning subsided, as did the
tremors. He felt it all go, leaching him of strength. He sat weak and trembling
upon the stool, sweat running down his face. Damp hair stuck to his brow.

           
Gods— But he cut it off. He would
not beg aid or explanation from those he could not honor.

           
Kellin clenched his teeth within an
aching jaw.

           
For a moment the room wavered around
him, running together until all the colors were gone.

           
Everything was a fleshy gray,
lacking depth or substance.

           
"Kellin?" The Mujhar.

           
He could make no answer. He blinked,
tried to focus, and vision eventually steadied. His hearing now was acute, so
incredibly acute he heard the soughing of the folds of Aileen's skirts as she
turned to Brennan. He could smell her, smell himself: the bitter tang of his
own fear, the acrid bite of rebelling flesh.

           
"Brighter—" he blurted,
and then the desolation swept in, and emptiness, and a despair so powerful he
wanted to cry out. He was a shell, not a man; a hollow, empty shell. Shadow,
not warrior, a man lacking in heart or substance, and therefore worthless among
his clan.

           
In defiance of pain, Kellin lurched
up from the stool. He shuddered. Tremors began again. He felt the protest of
his ribs, but they did not matter. He took a step forward, then caught himself.
For a moment he lingered, trapped upon the cusp, then somehow found the
chamberpot so he could spew his excesses into pottery instead of onto the
floor.

           
Even as Aileen murmured sympathy,
Brennan cut her off. "He deserves it. The gods know Hart and Corin did,
and Keely, when they followed such foolish whims."

           
"And what of your whims?"
she retorted. "You did not drink overmuch, but you found Rhiannon
instead."

           
Kellin stood over over the
chamberpot, one arm cradling his chest. It hurt to bend over, hurt to expell
all the usca, hurt worse to draw a breath.

           
He straightened slowly, irritated by
his grandparents' inconsequential conversation, but mostly humilated by the
dictates of his body. He felt no better for purging his belly. Sickness yet
lurked within, waiting for the moment he least expected its return.

           
Brennan's tone was
uncharacteristically curt, but also defensive as he answered his cheysula.
"Rhiannon has nothing to do with this."

           
"She was your downfall as much
as gambling was Hart's and I was Corin's!" Aileen snapped.

           
"Don't be forgetting it,
Brennan. We all of us do things better left undone. Why should Kellin be
different?"

           
He shivered once more, and then his
body stilled. In quiescence was relief, carefully Kellin sought and found a
cloth to wipe his mouth. It hurt too much to move; he leaned against the wall.
Brickwork was cool against overheated flesh.

           
Distracted by his movement, Aileen
turned from her husband. "Are you well?"

           
"How can he be well?"
Brennan asked. "He has drunk himself insensible and now suffers for it, as
well as for a fight that nearly stove in his chest."

           
His mouth hooked down in derision.
"But he is young, for all of that; he will begin again tomorrow."

           
"No," Kellin managed.
"Not tomorrow." The room wavered again. He caught at brickwork to
keep from falling.

           
"Kellin-" The derision was
banished from Brennan’s tone. "Sit down."

           
The floor moved beneath Kellin's
feet. Or was he moving?

           
"He's ill!" Aileen cried.
"Brennan—catch—"

           
But the command came too late.
Kellin was aware of a brief detached moment of disorientation, then found
himself sprawled across the floor with his head in the Mujhar's arms.

           
He was cold, so cold—and a wail of
utter despair rose from the depths of his spirit. "—empty—" he
mouthed. "—lost—"

           
Brennan sat him upright and held him
steady, examining his eyes. "Look at me."

           
Kellin looked. Then vision slid out
of focus and the wail came back again. A sob tore loose in his chest.
"Grandsire—"

           
"Be still. Look at me."
Brennan cradled Kellin's head in his hands, holding it very still.

           
"Are you wanting a
surgeon?" Aileen asked crisply.

           
"No."

           
"Earth magic, then."

           
"No."

           
"Then—"

           
"Shansu," Brennan told
her. "This is something else, meijhana. Something far beyond the
discontent caused by too much usca."

           
It was indeed. If not for the
Mujhar’s hands holding him in place, Kellin believed he might fall through the
floor and beyond. "—too hard—" he whispered. "Too—"

           
"—empty," Brennan
finished, "and cold, and alone, torn apart from the world and everything
in it."

           
'—lost—"

           
"And angry and terribly
frightened, and very small and worthless."

           
Kellin managed to nod. The anguish
and desolation threatened to overwhelm him. "How can—how can you
know?"