Wrath of Lions (11 page)

Ahaesarus drew back, astonished, and lost his balance. He collapsed on his side, striking his elbow hard on the packed dirt. He hardly felt the pain.

“What did you say?” he whispered.

“I said it’s not your fault.”

“You’re speaking without screaming. Geris, how do you feel? Do you see the creatures that haunt you?”

“What creatures?”

“The shadow lion, the demon, the witch, the imposter—you have ranted about all of these. Are you saying you no longer see them?”

“No…I don’t think so.” He looked sane but confused, the yellowish tint of the torchlight attesting to his innocence.

“Please, tell me, boy, what do you remember?”

“I remember everything,” he said, his eyes wide as a doe’s. “I remember slicing Ben’s throat.…I remember screaming and
being placed in this well, then a pain in my head, and after that…It was horrible, sir.…I saw…”

He said something Ahaesarus couldn’t hear.

“What was that? What did you say?”

“I saw myself, screaming, falling down a dark hole.”

“What hole? What were you screaming at?”

Tears rolled down the boy’s cheeks. “I don’t know, sir,” he said, almost pleading.
“Dreams are portentious.”

Ahaesarus took a chance and inched forward until he was close enough for Geris to lean into him, sobbing against his chest. He held the boy’s head, his greasy hair slipping between his fingers. This was the most cogent he had ever seen Geris, and it gave him hope. Perhaps the boy could be saved after all.

They held that position for quite some time, until Geris’s breathing slowed down and his cries ceased. At last the Warden pulled back, gazing on the youthful face with its watery eyes and quivering lips.

“Sir?” the boy asked.

“Yes, Geris?”

“I want to go home.”

“I know, son. I know.”

“Please, sir. Please let me out. You can accompany me on the journey back, and you can keep me tied up if you wish. But I want to see my family again. I want to be
home
.” He looked like me might start crying again.

Ahaesarus slid backward, clenching and unclenching his hands.

“I cannot,” he said.

“But
why
?”

He thought of Isabel’s decree, of how stern she had been. He then tilted his head, showing the boy his ear.

“You see this wound, Geris? You nearly bit my ear clean off. And I am not the only one you have attacked in your madness. We cannot let you out until we are certain you no longer pose a threat to yourself or anyone else, and only Ashhur can decide that.”

“But sir, no! Please! I’ll do anything! I’m better, I promise!”

“I am truly sorry, but…but…I cannot.”

Ahaesarus slowly grabbed the torch off the ground, stood as much as he could in the cramped space, and returned the torch back to its resting spot. Geris continued his protests in between gnawing on the heavy rope binding his wrists to the wall. Ahaesarus gazed at his student, and guilt ripped through his insides once again.

“I am sorry, I truly am,” he told the crying boy, “but our god will be here soon.”

“I know,” said a small voice. “Thank you sir. I…I love you.”

Ahaesarus bit back his tears and walked up the steps and out of the chamber. Once outside, he replaced the covering over the stairwell, sealing Geris in darkness once more. Less than twenty paces down the road, he leaned against the side of one of the carelessly constructed barns to catch his breath. This time he could not stop the tears from coming. He couldn’t help doubting whether he’d made the correct choice, and when he closed his eyes, he saw Geris’s innocent stare, the loving gaze of the child who cherished and respected him. Ahaesarus swore to himself that he would be strong for the boy, for Paradise, for his god. If Geris were indeed cured, he would be released, but only after Ashhur made that determination. In the meantime, he would work better, harder, and longer. The world might have gone insane, but he hadn’t, and it was past time for him to put aside his uncertainty and help set things right.

C
HAPTER

5

“G
ood-bye, my love, you will be missed,” said Rachida Gemcroft, the most beautiful woman that Matthew Brennan, the richest man in Port Lancaster, had ever laid eyes on.

“As will you,” Moira, the exiled daughter of House Crestwell, said softly. “I will carry you in my heart always.”

The very pregnant Rachida eased aside a stray filament of Moira’s silver hair and then leaned forward. The women’s lips met and lingered for a long moment. Their arms were wrapped around each other’s waists, locking them in a lover’s embrace. When their lips finally did part, Moira was crying. Matthew stared at them dumbly, aroused by the display.

The night was cool as they stood atop the bobbing pier in Port Lancaster. Beside them was the dinghy set to carry Rachida and her husband to Matthew’s galley, the
Free Catherine
, which waited out in the harbor, her sails withdrawn, her forty oars raised. Peytr Gemcroft stood by on the dinghy, tapping his foot impatiently while the women said their good-byes.

“Let’s go, Rachida,” said Peytr. “It’s getting cold, and I don’t wish to linger.”

Rachida glared at her husband, her lips drawn down in a frown, and then brought her eyes back to Moira.

“Take care of yourself,” she said.

Moira touched the pregnant woman’s stomach. “I will. Don’t worry about me. Our child will not grow up without his second mother.”

“Enough,” said Peytr. “The galley awaits.”

Rachida placed one final kiss on Moira’s forehead, paused to give Matthew a curtsey, and then Peytr helped her climb down from the pier and into the awaiting boat. Her back was to them as the high merchant rowed out into the gradually undulating water of Port Lancaster’s inlet.

Matthew stepped to the edge of the pier, and Moira sidled in close as the dinghy became small and then smaller in the distance.

“Will they be all right?” she asked, her voice quiet, the question asked as if no answer were truly wanted.

“They’ll be fine,” said Matthew. “So far as I know—and I know much—the
Free Catherine
is the only fighting ship in all Dezrel. The deck is equipped with nine spitfires, and I assigned twenty of my most loyal men to the crew. They’re all experts with a sword as well. Should they find trouble once they make landfall on the Isles of Gold, your friends will be in good hands.”

“It’s not trouble on land that worries me.…”

“Pshaw,” said Matthew, throwing out his arm as if presenting the sea to her as a gift. “I
own
these waters. The
Free Catherine
is the finest ship you’ll ever lay eyes on. My father laid waste to any brigands who looted our clippers, and I’ve carried on that legacy. If there’s a sailor on this sea who’s worth his salt, it’s because I trained him. Karak has no army on these waters. Rachida and Peytr will be safe, I promise you. Only the Quellan elves possess ships that come close to ours, and the pointy-ears have no horse in this race.”

Moira stared after the fading ship, a frown on her face.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

Matthew laughed.

“By Karak, you are pessimistic.”

She passed him a spiteful glance.

“Fuck Karak,” she said.

Mist rolled in over the water, swallowing dinghy and galley alike. Moonlight turned the mist into a solid wall of glowing white.

“Well, show’s over,” Matthew said, ignoring Moira’s blasphemous words as he steered her away from the ocean and led her down the pier to join his entourage. Six hard men escorted them through the quayside and into the heart of Port Lancaster proper.

Port Lancaster was the third-oldest settlement in all of Neldar, founded in the fourteenth year of man by Matthew’s great-grandfather, Lancaster Brennan. It had begun as a quaint township, a mere thirty men and women Lancaster’s age who had scoffed at the authority of the Wardens and struck out on their own. Leaving Erznia, they had settled far south along the shores of the Thulon Ocean. It was said that Lancaster had only felt comfortable when he could hear the crash of waves or feel the sting of the salty breeze on his cheeks.

Though the settlement had humble beginnings, a short eighty years later, it had become a bustling city, the most advanced in all of Neldar. Matthew; his father, Elbert; his grandfather Ansel—and, of course, Lancaster before him—had used the great wealth and resources they’d collected over the decades to create a shipping empire. The ocean and rivers of Neldar were Matthew’s domain, and no consignment could be sent across the waters without using his ships. He was the highest of merchants, and the king came to beg favors of
him
, not the other way around.

He glanced sidelong at Moira as they strolled along the streets of the city, the soles of their boots clicking on the slate that lined the walk. Superb buildings crafted of stone, clay, and wood rose
up around them—shops, lodges, and warehouses that reflected the light of the moon and cast a pale bluish glow over her features. Though not as exquisite as Rachida, Moira was still quite beautiful in the statuesque Crestwell way, her flowing silver-white hair complementing the soft tone of her flesh. She was more than half a century old, but she looked only slightly older than Matthew, a byproduct of the First Families blood that ran in her veins. Feminine and thin, yet exuding quiet strength, she was strangely resplendent in her mannish tight black leather blouse and leggings. Her crystalline blue gaze was intoxicating. The only blemish on her otherwise perfect skin was a thin scar that ran behind her right ear and circled around the back of her head. She told him the injury had been given to her by her sister Avila, without explaining the particulars.

Not that Matthew required the details. He knew of her exile from her family, knew she’d taken up residence in Haven prior to its destruction at the hand of Karak. It was his business to know these things, especially as it had been Matthew’s boats that had ferried Karak’s weapons from the stoves of Felwood to the Omnmount staging grounds.

That fact had made for an uncomfortable irony when the surviving citizens of Haven came to him for help. They’d arrived by sea, on rafts and ferries owned by Peytr Gemcroft. The quest had been Peytr’s idea, the merchant being one of the few residents of Haven who had left Neldar by his own choice, seeking to mine the valuable jewels and minerals that hid beneath the delta’s marshy soil. The two merchants had grown close over the last decade, and Matthew respected much about the other man, his eccentricities and sexual appetites notwithstanding. So when Peytr had shown up at his doorstep, pleading to use the walls surrounding Port Lancaster to hide his reviled, exhausted people, Matthew had surprised himself by agreeing.

He’d sheltered them for as long as he could, until the tides of war began to flow too close to his doorstep. Then it was time to send
the survivors west to the Isles of Gold aboard his clippers
Twilight
and
Karak’s Wind
, while Peytr and Rachida had taken their closest confidants aboard the
Free Catherine
. The Isles was an uninhabited archipelago off the coast of Ashhur’s Paradise that he’d discovered during his teen years. Ashhur’s children had not claimed the various islands, which hopefully meant that Karak would not think to search there when he stormed through the west.

They approached his estate, a four-story mansion that was the tallest building in Port Lancaster, with a turret that climbed high enough to overlook the wall surrounding the city. His six escorts ushered him up the front walk and into the foyer, where his maids, Ursula, Penetta, and Lori, awaited. The young women gestured for Moira to join them. One held a bottle of saffron and a wineskin; another, a small crate filled with squid dyes.

“Your transformation begins now,” Matthew told Moira. She nodded her head to him and accompanied his maids down the corridor, heading for the opposite end of the estate.

“What’re they doing, boss?” asked Bren, the head of his household guard. Bren was a rough and fiercely loyal man, his huge biceps and skill with a sword more than making up for what he lacked upstairs. He leaned against the foyer’s bookcase, tapping his fingers on the wood.

“Making her look like anything but a Crestwell,” he said.

“Why go through the trouble? Why not send her off with the queer and his wife?”

Matthew grinned. “Collateral.”

Bren tilted his head, confused.

“Peytr’s well has run dry,” Matthew continued. “He could not offer me payment, so he gave me her instead. When all of this is over, and Peytr makes good on the land he promised, she’ll be sent back to them.”

“You took
her
as collateral? You got a wife; you got whores. Why’s that tiny tart worth risking so much? Karak finds out you
harbored them, and he’ll rub you out. He might rub the whole
city
out.”

“You worry too much,” said Matthew, shaking his head and slapping Bren’s shoulder. “Karak won’t know. We transport our Divinity’s goods up and down the Rigon at the expense of our other trade. He has no reason to doubt us.” He displayed his most confident grin. “And trust me, sooner or later you will find out just how much Moira is worth.”

“Like at the meeting tonight?”

Matthew nodded.

“If you say so, boss.”

“I do.”

Bren accepted his words, just as he always did. It was a good thing the man had no talent for reading body language, because Matthew was unable to stop the nervous clenching and unclenching of his fists. It wasn’t that he was being untruthful. He truly believed that Karak would never discover his role in helping the Haven survivors flee to safety. His heart was hammering in his chest for a different reason. What worried him was the meeting Bren had referenced, which was to take place later that evening, after the taverns had emptied and the city slept.

He bade his men goodnight and slipped up the stairwell, stopping to peer into his bedchambers on the third story. His wife, Catherine, was fast asleep in their giant bed, a single torch filling the room with faint light. His five children slept with her, sprawled out on the feather mattress, pictures of innocence in their slumber. His eyes lingered for a long moment on Ryan, his youngest and only male child. The two-year-old was tucked into his mother’s arms, lips puckered just below Catherine’s exposed nipple. The boy was his crowning achievement, the eventual heir to his fortune. Satisfied, Matthew shut the door and proceeded to his solarium on the top floor.