The Fall of Neskaya

  “That monster has him—he’s only three!”

  “If we force his hand, he might hurt the boy.” Coryn used his laran to underscore his words.

  She drew back, hands hugging her sides, but recovering visibly. “What—what must we do? We can’t just leave him in there!” Underneath, he felt her resilience. She was a decent woman, strong but not unbreakable. Whole and in command of her resources, she would do more for Eddard than a score of physicians.

  Coryn turned from her and approached the armory door. “You in there! Lotrell—Deslucido’s man! This is Coryn Leynier.”

  “I don’t know you. What do you want?”

  “Put down the child. I want to parley. We can come to an agreement and end this stalemate.”

  “That’s easy!” A laugh like a bark. “Give me your fastest horse, food and water, and two hours’ lead. The kid comes with me. I’ll let him go once I’m well away. You can pick him up—if you can find him.”

  “The child stays here. I give you my word that if he is unharmed, so will you be.”

  “Ha! What kind of fool do you think I am, to trust any man’s word?” The voice escalated in pitch, still crafty but now edging toward madness. The boy’s wailing subsided into hiccoughing sobs. “This mewling brat is my guarantee.”

  “Be reasonable. If you kill him—” the child’s mother smothered a shriek, “—there will be nothing to stop us from rushing you. Your own life won’t be worth a pile of stable sweepings then. Think, Lotrell. The castle is ours again.” Or will be shortly. “The only way out is through us. No man can hold out against so many forever. You have no choice.”

  “If I have no choice, then neither do you. This babe is Eddard’s only son. If you’ve taken back the castle, you’ve seen the father. Do you think he can sire others? No, my fancy talker. I hold Verdanta’s heir and right now he’s a hair away from being spitted like a chervine kid at Midwinter feast.”

  Margarida stirred, shifting from one foot to the other. Her eyes had gone dark, like slate. In a low voice that would not carry within, she said, “This talk is useless. You might as well argue with one of the dogs in the kennel. With every word, he becomes more fixed in his position. Let me bargain with him.”

  “You?” Eddard’s wife said, “what can you, a woman, do?”

  Margarida gave no notice she’d heard. Coryn could not read her intentions through her laran barriers. Before he could reply, she called out.

  “Lotrell! This is Margarida! Do you remember me? I’m still alive! Since you must have a hostage, take me instead of the boy!”

  “Mar—”

  She hushed Coryn with a look so fierce that not for the world would he have been in Lotrell’s boots. “Get the horse,” she said, loud enough for Lotrell to hear. “Give him what he asked for.” Two of the castle servants ran off, a man to the stables and the old woman with the broom to the kitchens.

  There was no immediate answer from the armory, only the continued soft whimpering of the boy. Tension gathered, a palpable weight. Eddard’s wife had pressed both hands over her mouth. Tears streamed over her fingers, but she had command of herself.

  Without conscious intention, Coryn deepened his laran contact with the man inside the armory. His own vision went blank as he sank into Lotrell’s mind. He slipped below the surface emotions. Darkness lapped at him. His senses shifted; he caught the tang of urine where the boy had wet himself, mingled smells of metal oil and leather, trembling muscles in shoulder and arm from the boy’s weight, cold sweat trickling down the sides of his neck, dull squeezing just behind his breastbone.

  Threadlike tendrils, tangled and pulsing ugly red, wound through Lotrell’s chest, down his belly. He clamped down on his lower lip with his teeth, feeling the gap where his left eyetooth had been until it was pulled last winter.

  The pain will pass . . .

  The man’s thoughts sounded like the clanging of distant, discordant gongs. Coryn assessed the unhealthy congestion of the life forces, heard the laboring of the heart, felt the pain of starving cells. The body around him wavered. The man’s free hand groped for his chest, kneading the muscles.

  Pass, damn you, pass! I can’t afford to be weak now!

  All it would take was a nudge. As a monitor, he’d learned to clear both physical and laran channels. With a single movement of his mind, he could ease the heart-pain . . . or tip the man into a fatal seizure. This Lotrell had a diseased heart which would have given out anyway. Who could say the seizure wasn’t natural, wouldn’t have happened in the next few moments?

  It would be so easy . . .

  The boy, Eddard’s son, Verdanta’s heir, would be saved, as would his mother and Margarida. No one would know . . .

  But he, Coryn, would know. He would live the rest of his life knowing that he had broken the most solemn vows of a laranzu, that he had committed the one unforgivable crime of the Towers, the forceful violation of another man’s mind. He would be forever unfit to be a Keeper.

  In a shiver, half-remembered memory swept over him, leaving nausea in its wake. He knew he had never done this, and yet the vision of it seemed hideously familiar. Loathing rose up in him. The next moment, he found himself back in his own body, hands tearing at the shirt over his abdomen.

  Not more than a heartbeat or two had passed. Margarida still stood, legs braced, one hand resting on the hilt of the knife she’d thrust under her belt. Her head cocked slightly to one side, as if listening. Coryn took a deep breath and the muscles of his belly unlocked.

  The door to the armory swung open a crack. There were sounds of a scuffle and more childish sobbing. A man slipped through the door, one arm pinning a red-faced toddler tight against his chest, the other hand gripping a dagger. The child’s struggles threatened to dig the tip into the side of his own neck.

  “Put the boy down,” Margarida said in a low voice. “I’ll go willingly.”

  “Get rid of that knife.”

  Margarida lowered the blade to the ground and pushed it away with one foot. She held her hands away from her body, slowly approaching Lotrell. When Margarida was within a pace of him, he lowered the child, grabbed her arm, and spun her around, holding her with the dagger at her throat. The child scuttled away. His mother darted forward and scooped him up in her arms. Without a backward glance, she sprinted for the castle. No one else moved.

  Although Margarida had made no effort to resist, Lotrell held her awkwardly. He shifted his grasp on her, drawing blood. The archer beside the armory moved to draw his bow, but Coryn waved him back.

  “Where’s that horse?” Lotrell growled.

  The servant trotted up a saddled horse from the stables. Coryn didn’t recognize the animal. It wasn’t nearly as good as his father’s stallion or the black Armida mare he’d been given, but it looked fit enough. Lotrell had the horse placed beside the mounting block the coridom had made for Tessa so many years ago. He ordered Margarida on the horse’s back. He settled himself behind her. His face had gone gray, his lips dark. The hand holding the dagger shook visibly.

  A man came running from the kitchen with two sacks, tied together to fit behind the saddle. It was one of the assassin brothers, taking the chance Lotrell would not recognize he did not belong to the castle. To Coryn’s eyes, his shambling gait could not hide the taut control, the fighter’s balance.

  Snarling, Lotrell hauled on the reins, wheeling the horse. “Treachery! Stop where you are, or she dies!”

  Blood flowed in a dark red thread down the side of Margarida’s neck. She betrayed no trace of either pain or fear, simply waiting.

  Waiting . . .

  At Lotrell’s command, Rafael’s man handed the sacks to one of the women. Timidly she approached the horse, which was lashing its tail in discomfort, mouthing the heavy bit. Lotrell shifted in the saddle, reaching down for the sacks. The horse danced beneath him and the woman shied away, then sidled nearer, holding her burden to keep the most distance between her and the nervous, prancing animal.

  Co
ryn read the surge of exultation even through Margarida’s tight laran barriers.

  In a single movement, she twisted in Lotrell’s grasp. She threw the power of her shoulders against his grasp, opening a space between her flesh and the dagger point. At the same time, her weight unbalanced him. Even before they hit the ground, her fingers closed around the hilt.

  Two entangled bodies slammed into the bare earth. Lotrell was on top for an instant before they rolled, clutching and grappling. Coryn and the assassin brother dashed in.

  The fight stopped abruptly. Lotrell lay across Margarida’s body. For an awful moment, neither moved. Blood, bright and pungent, pooled beneath the bodies. The woman who’d carried the sacks of food screamed. Then Lotrell slid to the side and lay sprawled half on his side.

  Red-faced and gasping with effort, Margarida pulled herself out from under him. She refused the proffered hands, getting to her feet under her own power. Her shirt was drenched in blood, but Coryn knew that very little of it was hers. As she limped past him, he met her eyes once and could not read what he saw there. Her barriers were once more in place.

  Chiya, what has happened to you?

  As if in answer to his question, she paused, shoulders sagging. “It is finished,” she murmured. “Now I can be free.”

  He watched her go with an ache in his heart for the sister he had found and lost again.

  32

  They had struck just after dawn and by the time the Bloody Sun stood straight overhead, Verdanta Castle was theirs. What was left of the Ambervale guard had thrown down their arms, their situation hopeless. There would be much work to do, sweeping the borders and smallholds for others who had escaped or been stationed afield.

  Everyone who could hear the summons of the alarms gathered in the courtyard. Eddard stood on the threshold, with Margarida at one elbow and Petro at the other. Coryn watched them, acutely aware of the vast gulf which had grown between himself and his family. With Verdanta free, he could no longer justify lingering here, no matter how much he might desire it. His mission for King Rafael had come to an end.

  Eddard’s face flushed with effort, but his back was straight. Despite his thinness, he radiated energy. As he began to speak, even the toddler in Tessa’s arms grew quiet, for his voice, although unwavering, was far from powerful. Coryn imagined him repeating these very words of triumph to himself, hour after hour in the dark, drawing courage and hope from them.

  “Verdanta is ours, and we are free. We will never permit her to be taken from us again. Every man who has fought in this cause will be venerated for the rest of his days, and the family of every man who has died will be cared for with that same honor. Let all who would strive against us know our vengeance, and all who would lay down their weapons and swear peace between us depart unmolested. If any man who was once our enemy would stay and pledge fealty to this house of Leynier . . . if he submits to our judgment, he may have a new life with us. And this we say to our brothers of Storn and Hawksflight and all the other lands which groan under the Ambervale yoke: Join with us! Lend your strength to ours! Seize back our own kingdoms and drive the tyrant from the face of the earth!”

  Before he had finished, the men who had been sitting in the dust, exhausted and confused, had risen to their feet. Ambervale prisoner and Verdantan alike clapped and cheered so that whatever more Eddard had to say was lost in the revelry.

  Petro grinned, a flash of his old merriment, and looked as if he would have hugged Eddard, if not for the solemnity of the occasion. One of his men grabbed Margarida around the waist and spun her, laughing. Tessa ran to where the little knot of men in Ambervale colors stood, under guard, and reached out her hand to one of them.

  One of King Rafael’s men drew Coryn aside and said, “We cannot linger here, no matter how useful we might be to these people. They will have to fight their own battles in restoring order. We were never intended as an occupation force. You must make arrangements for the men who are to come with us.”

  That night, there was feasting in the great hall. Coryn did not recognize half the people seated around the great table. Eddard sat in their father’s place, flanked by Petro and his wife. The boy, exhausted but uninjured, would not leave his mother, so she held him on her lap, feeding him bits from her own plate until he fell asleep. Margarida had gone down with Rafael’s men, a little apart, but listening intently to their talk.

  Tessa came forward with her own toddler in her arms. Coryn scarcely recognized her. Lines bracketed her mouth and eyes, but motherhood had softened the curves of her body. She’d been prepared, she said, to plead for the life of her husband or else accept exile with him, explaining that although the marriage had not been of her choosing, it was as good as any other and with one child, a lusty son, born and another on the way, she would stay with what she had. Eddard promised to hear her husband’s case the next morning and added that he hoped the man knew what was good for him.

  Singers performed their new ballads of the liberation of Verdanta, and exhausted, half-drunken men staggered off to sleep. As the wine flowed freely, the brothers exchanged stories. Petro and Margarida had both had mild cases of the lungrot and had escaped through the kitchen cellars. They’d hidden in the forest by day and traveled by night, seeking shelter in the caves they’d explored as children and living like outlaws. Once, they became separated and it had been days before he’d found her, too badly beaten to talk. Eventually, the hunt for them had died down enough for them to gather others.

  “It was Margarida who insisted we stay and fight,” Petro said, his eyes flickering in her direction. “Me, I would have kept running from here to Shainsa.”

  Look at her now, his thought echoed in Coryn’s mind. What has she done? What has she become?

  Coryn shifted uneasily. He turned to Eddard and asked for his story.

  “Deslucido’s estimation of my weakness was somewhat exaggerated,” Eddard said with a flicker of a smile. “At first, perhaps, I could do little. The lungrot left me blind and barely alive. I was told he took my family as hostages. Orders went out under my name. From time to time, men came, dressed me up, sat me in that big chair Father hated so much, and made speeches in my name. When I realized what they were saying, I spoke up. Oh, that was a mighty scene. I’d scrambled to my feet, screaming to whoever could hear that I did not countenance the things they said, that all true Verdanta men must resist the Ambervale rule. They beat me senseless and when I recovered, they told me they had killed my eldest son.”

  Coryn could think of nothing to say. Petro laid down his knife and listened, eyes dark and mouth set. They waited while Eddard regained his composure.

  “They had not,” Eddard went on. “Although he had died of some childhood fever. I did not learn that until later when they allowed my wife and second son to join me here. By then, they believed me broken . . . and I suppose for a time that was true. They brought her, she said, because they feared I was willing myself to die and they still needed me as a figurehead. . . .”

  Eddard’s voice trailed off; his sightless eyes reflected nothing. His wife, who had been rocking their young son, fast asleep in her arms, reached out to gently touch his hand. He came immediately to himself.

  “I lay there with darkness filling my heart,” he said in a voice resonant with passion, “and all I could see was fire. I thought of that big one—you know, Coryn, the one when Dom Rumail arrived and summoned the fliers from Tramontana. The one which began all these troubles. I told myself I wouldn’t let that fire win, so many years afterward. Over and over I told myself that.”

  Coryn nodded. He could well see Eddard’s anger simmering over the months, keeping him alive.

  “After that,” Eddard said with a wry twist to his mouth, “I recovered somewhat more quickly than I allowed them to see. Somehow, I knew the time would come when I might have another chance to act.” He fumbled for Petro’s hand, clasped it. “I never dreamed my baby brothers would come riding to the rescue!” His head swung in Coryn’s direction
. “You will stay and help us rebuild, won’t you, Coryn? Verdanta needs all her sons now.”

  “I cannot stay, Eddard,” Coryn said quietly. “My greater duty is to the Tower I serve and the King who commands us.”

  “You would leave your own family to go fight Rafael’s war?” Eddard said, gray-white brows drawing together.

  Petro tightened his grasp on Eddard’s hand, drawing his attention. “It is Rafael’s war that brought us this victory, my brother. Until now, my men and I could do no more than harass and delay. We had not the means or the skill to strike directly until Coryn and these men arrived.”

  Eddard’s stormy expression softened. “Then I suppose you must go where duty commands. Remember the old proverb, Bare is the brotherless back. We will always be here if you need us.”

  As much as he loved his country, Neskaya was his home now. His father had been right, so many years ago, when he said that Coryn might not want to return after seeing the wide world. It was not a matter of wishes, but where he truly belonged, what he had become, who he was now. For today, it would be enough to see Verdanta free and his family safe.

  “We may defeat Deslucido, but that will hardly put an end to men’s lust for power or their abuse of it,” Petro said with a spark of his old cynicism. “As long as we are small and weak, there will be others to prey upon us. Verdanta has never been able to support much of an army, not compared to what Ambervale can raise, or the lowland kingdoms. We stayed free for a long time simply because we had nothing they wanted.” His dark eyes met Coryn’s defiantly.

  “We cannot rely on our continued insignificance,” Eddard said. “Sooner or later, someone else will come along who wants what we have, even if we’re just a step to some place else.” He shifted his head in Coryn’s direction, as if to say, You are a Tower-trained laranzu. Can’t you protect your own family?

  What? Coryn thought with a flare of heat, by arming you with clingfire?

  And yet that was exactly what Liane had urged when her own homeland was under attack by their shared enemy.