The Providence of Fire (33 page)

“You're claiming that the whores of Ciena taught you ‘just a few words' of the Csestriim tongue in case … what? In case a creature everyone else in the world believes was destroyed thousands of years ago wanders in hankering for a
fuck
?” He laughed a long mirthless laugh at the absurdity of the notion. “Manderseen,” he said at last, gesturing toward the smirking guard, “hold the lamp here while I take this young lady's hand.”

The Ishien guard stepped forward, smirk broadening into a grin. Matol took Triste's wrist almost gently in his larger, scarred hard, then pulled it toward the flame. The girl let out a low wail as the fire lapped at her skin, her fingers scrabbling like the legs of some tormented creature. “Please,” she moaned, body convulsing, legs thrashing, as though the movement could carry her hand from the fire.
“Please!”
Her voice rose and rose into a high, horrible keening.

Observe,
Kaden told himself, forcing his hands to his side. There was nothing he could do, and besides, he'd burned himself more severely on several occasions working in the kitchens back at Ashk'lan. Of course, this was only the beginning.

Matol released her hand finally. Two of the fingers were red and blistered, the kind of burn that would only heal after a night in an ice bucket and a week in wrappings. Triste tried to pull it to her chest, but the shackle would not permit her. Her eyes were still open, but she wasn't focused on anything beyond the looming horror of her own pain.

“It looks like real fright,” Kaden murmured to Tan. “She's not faking it.”

To his surprise, the monk actually seemed to consider his words, then shook his head. “Keep watching.”

“How did you use the
kenta
?” Matol asked, passing his own hand back and forth through the flame idly, quickly enough to avoid a burn.

“I don't know,” she panted. “I'd never seen a
kenta
.” There was something strange about the way she said the word, and Kaden filed it away for further consideration. “I'd never even
heard
of one before a couple of days ago. I just … I fell and I came out the other side.”

“You see,” Matol said, turning to the other two Ishien. “The girl is perfectly innocent. She simply fell.”

The one named Manderseen chuckled. “Maybe we should let her go.”

“Maybe,” Matol replied, pretending to consider the notion. Then he shook his head. “Nah. Let's hurt her some more.”

What happened next took place too quickly to comprehend. Kaden was focused on the scene as Matol reached for her wrist, his mind sketching the
saama'an
. It wasn't until later, however, when he had a chance to fully scrutinize the vision, that he really
saw
what had happened. Even then it didn't make sense.

Triste, practically gibbering with terror a moment before, twisted as Matol reached for her. The manacle didn't afford much freedom, but as his hand started to close, she lashed out and caught
his
wrist instead. The movement was precise, almost too quick to see, like a serpent darting from a bush. Matol didn't have a chance to register surprise before she pulled, a savage tug somehow strong enough to yank the man off his balance, tumbling him half on top of her, forcing Manderseen to drop the lantern with a curse and fall backward. Triste leaned close to the Ishien commander, her lips by his ear.

“A time will come,” she hissed in a voice every bit as cold and dark as the surrounding stone, a voice utterly devoid of fear, “when the pain you visit on me here will seem a dream of pleasure, when blades and fire seem tender ministrations to you. I will, then, watch you beg, but stoppered to your cries will be my ears, and dried to dust the wide lake of my mercy.”

She was twisting, Kaden realized, her slender fingers twisting Matol's broad hand with a savage strength until something snapped, the man's face contorted, and, his balance regained at last, he lurched toward the wall, cradling the broken hand and cursing.

The whole thing lasted several breaths, but Rampuri Tan made no move to intervene, neither to stop Triste nor to help Manderseen or Matol. His eyes remained on the girl the entire time, measuring, parsing.

“Did you see?” he murmured when it was done.

Kaden nodded dumbly. He could only stare. For a moment Triste locked eyes with him, and her gaze was … what? He groped for the word. Feral? Regal? Language failed. Then, like water slipping through a sieve, the look drained away.

“Kaden?” she whispered, voice small and shattered, filled with fear once more. “Kaden,
please
. Please help me.”

For a moment, no one moved. Shock had scrubbed the smirk from Manderseen's face, and he stared at Triste, baffled. Tan also watched the girl, though with none of the Ishien's confusion, as did Kiel, his eyes still as pools, tied arms relaxed before him, supported by the frozen guards at his side. Triste looked from one face to the next, evidently reading the confusion and slow-gathering fury scribbled through the expressions of the Ishien.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No.”

The words seemed to jar Matol from a waking dream. He raised his broken hand, staring at it a moment as though it were some small creature broken in a trap, then turned his gaze on Triste.

“Oh yes,” he said, stepping toward her once again. The pain from his mangled hand must have been excruciating, but he ignored it, gesturing instead to Manderseen. “Oh yes, indeed. Bring me something hot, or hard, or sharp,” he barked. “Better yet, all three. I'm through lavishing this bitch in gentle caresses. It's time to cut her deep, to see what's really inside.”

“No,” Kaden said, surprised to hear the syllable slip from his own throat. It was madness to intervene, suicide, especially now, especially with Matol caught in the grip of this new, cold rage. And yet, he found himself stepping forward. “This isn't working,” he said. “Your whole approach isn't working.”

“Stand aside, Kaden,” Tan said. His voice was quiet, but the syllables were built of stone.

Kaden shook his head. “I've stood aside for days. Longer.” He could feel the blood racing in his veins, started to slow it, then let it run. He could kill the emotion, but he needed it now, needed his own anger if he was going to hold his ground against Matol and the rest, if he was going to do anything for Triste.

“I understand that she's not what she seems,” he said. “I see it now. I understand that she may even be Csestriim, but this”—he gestured to the hard, bloody tools—“is not the way. It is not
working
.”

Matol turned from Triste to stare at him. When he spoke, his voice was barely more than a whisper. “You come here, to
my
fortress, into
my
Heart, you bring this inhuman
whore
into this sanctuary, and then you defend her? Hmm?”

“I'm not defending her—” Kaden began.

Matol cut him off. “You think you're going to tell me, tell
me
how to fight this fight when your own family just up and quit? Is that it?”

“Enough,” Tan said.

“Oh, I quite agree,” Matol replied, still quiet, still sharp. “It
is
enough. It is well
past
enough.”

“Take him,” he said, gesturing to Kaden. “Find him a cell down below along with the other one.” A finger flicked at Kiel. “Something with a heavy door.”

Manderseen stepped forward, but Kaden twisted away, unsure whether he wanted to put himself between Triste and the Ishien or use the chair to which she was shackled as a shield. She was watching him with huge, frightened eyes. Kiel, too, was watching him, silent and impassive from across the room.

“Tan,” Kaden said, trying to find the words.

“Get over here,” Manderseen spat.

Slowly, slowly, Rampuri Tan shook his head. “This was your choice. Not mine.”

Kaden seized a knife from the table at Triste's side, brandishing it before him. He had no idea how to fight, but he had watched Valyn and the others back in the mountains, had carved the images on his brain for future use, and as the Ishien guard came on he tried to approximate the pose.

Manderseen paused, then unlimbered the sword at his side, the grin coming back to his face. “Kill him?”

Matol didn't answer. Kaden risked a glance behind him just as a fist took him across the face, knocking him clean into the wall. The attack jarred the knife from his hand, and Manderseen was on him in a moment, all steel and strength, shoving Kaden's body against the stone.

“Kill him?” he asked again.

Kaden struggled to turn, to see Matol, but Manderseen had his head shoved over at a brutal angle. The only person he could see was Kiel. The Csestriim had made no move to struggle or intervene, but as Kaden watched, his lips moved silently, mouthing the shape of words. Everyone else was staring at Kaden. Only Kaden was watching Kiel, even as he strained to breathe.

He's talking to me,
he realized. That the man expected him to follow, to be able to unfold the shape of the words, seemed unbelievable. Kaden himself was bleeding from the head, blood slick on his face, and the Ishien sword was at his throat. Kiel ignored all of it. If he really
had
known Kaden's father, then he knew something of the monks, and if he knew the monks, knew about the training and discipline, then he knew about the Carved Mind. He knew Kaden would remember the scene later. Remember it perfectly.

“I would not kill him.” Tan's voice this time. Distant. Indifferent. “He is the Emperor, and may prove useful still.”

“I could take out an eye,” Manderseen suggested with a chuckle, shifting a hand to press against Kaden's eyeball. “Maybe crush one of his nuts. What were you saying about cocks?” He groped between Kaden's legs. “We could see how loyal he is to this bitch after we rip his cock off.…”

Silence loud as a scream.

“Take him below,” Matol snarled finally. “Lock him up with the Csestriim. He may know more than he's told us. We'll take a look at his blood after we get through with hers.”

 

16

“Kill them,” Annick said, gesturing to the Urghul. “We can't bring them, and we can't leave them.”

Valyn had gathered his Wing a hundred paces off from the camp, leaving Pyrre to guard the tied and kneeling prisoners. In the three days since they sent Suant'ra south, there had been little to do but wait, rest, and worry. To Valyn's great relief, Gwenna had come to by the end of the first day, but she was clearly in no shape to travel; she could barely walk a circuit of the camp without feeling dizzy and nauseated. Talal's leg was healing, healing faster than Valyn would have expected, and Valyn's own wound was already knitted closed.
The slarn eggs,
the leach suggested.
It's possible they made us stronger, more resilient
. Valyn had mulled that possibility with a mixture of hope and unease. Talal was right. A deep puncture wound to the shoulder should have taken at least a week to knit up properly, not days.

On the other hand, they were hardly invincible. Talal still limped, Gwenna still slept more than half the hours of the day, and truth be told, Valyn wasn't sure he was ready for a forced ride across a thousand miles of steppe either. Pain lanced through his shoulder whenever he raised his elbow, which meant fighting with a single blade and forget about the bow.

So, they waited, rested, and worried.

On the second day, another Kettral Wing passed overhead. Valyn hunched down into his bison cloak, shaded his face with his hand, and tried to look Urghul while the bird circled once, then headed south. He let out a long, uneasy breath, feeling like one of the marmots that foraged for food on the grasslands. They, too, kept looking up at the sky, not that it did them much good. Valyn had seen three taken by eagles in a single afternoon.

By the third day, Gwenna was insisting she was ready to ride, and Valyn himself was itching to get moving, pain or no. They were already going to miss the meeting with Kaden back in Annur, miss it by weeks, but that was no reason to sit any longer than necessary. Valyn insisted on one more night of rest, and on the morning of the fourth day he gave the order to set out.

It was easy enough to break down what they wanted from the camp, to put the horses on long lines, and pack a week's worth of extra food, compliments of the Urghul. Then they needed to decide what to do with the Urghul themselves. That was proving a more difficult proposition.

“I don't like it,” Laith said, shaking his head. He'd lost his habitual good humor when 'Ra left, and the question of the prisoners had done nothing to lighten his mood. “In fact, I fucking hate it. Three of them are kids, and the rest…” He gestured at the kneeling figures. “It's not like we're killing them in a fight.” He blew out a long breath. “But we have to do it. We have to kill them.”

“We don't have to do anything,” Gwenna growled.

Valyn nodded slowly. “Gwenna's right. Whatever Hendran said on the matter, they are
our
prisoners, our responsibility. It's our decision.”

“Fine,” Laith said, “then I've
decided
that we need to kill them. Is that enough responsibility for you?”

“No,” Valyn replied, reining in his own anger, keeping his voice level. “It's not. You said it already. Three of them are kids, Laith. Children.”

“Doesn't matter,” Annick said. “Taking them with us is too risky, and if we leave them, they could follow.”

“On
what
?” Valyn demanded. “We're taking the 'Kent-kissing horses. I don't care how fit these sons of bitches are, by the end of the morning we'll be
gone
.”

“And what if they talk?” Laith demanded. “What if another batch of Urghul finds them and asks what happened to their horses?”