Blood Lies (Dark Brothers of the Light #9) (7 page)

Jingen still had the hellblade, which
Stygean had stolen. Back when Jingen had still been able to egg him
into trouble, Stygean had stolen two of them. The months of 'you
and me against the world' had been intense. They were going to
avenge their fathers and themselves on Anksha and Isranon. Anksha
had slain Jingen's father outright and taken Stygean's father as a
blood-slave. Blood-slaves withered and died. Stygean had
surrendered his blade to Randilyn after learning that Isranon's
power was what had kept his father alive for so many weeks.

Pausing to wrap his scarf around his neck
and pull the hood of his cloak up, Stygean climbed through a rose
arbor, the thorny old growth wall catching at his clothing. His
thoughts kept circling around the blade. He had refused to betray
Jingen's role in all the trouble they had caused or that it had
been Jingen who killed that little girl last autumn. Only a fool or
a coward betrayed a fellow sa'necari to the other races. Although
there was now bad blood between them, Stygean would not break the
code of honor he had been reared to. His troubles with Jingen were
a private matter; and it would remain so, even should it come to
violence in time.

He stood for a time, crunching the snow in a
circle around himself. Stygean was warm enough except for his nose.
He had never encountered snow before riding north with Isranon's
company. He hated the cold, but loved the way you could pack the
snow into odd forms.

A strange noise drew him toward a thicket of
pine trees. He stole to the edge and peered inside. Embarrassment
set his cheeks to burning. Nevin had his lover, Gordain, pressed
against the leafless bole of an oak tree. The two were kissing
passionately. Gordain had his hand on Nevin's crotch, squeezing it.
Canine noises of pleasure rumbled from their throats. The lycan had
seemed a grim, taciturn mon until Gordain entered his life; now
Stygean had actually heard him laugh on several occasions.

The boy tried to back away before they
noticed him. A pile of pine needles crunched beneath his foot. He
glanced up, gulped and spun about to run as Nevin and Gordain broke
their clench, lunging for him.

"I wasn't sneaking." Stygean's voice
wobbled. "I swear I wasn't."

Nevin reached him first and grabbed his arm.
Then Gordain had him by the other.

"Let me go!" Stygean flailed about with his
legs. "I heard a noise and looked to see what it was. That's
all."

They hoisted him up, swinging him back and
forth laughing.

"Sharp ears and noisy feet, lad. Thought we
trained that out of you." Gordain balanced his stance, grabbed
Stygean's leg and made as if to toss him into a snow drift. "Shall
we, Nevin?"

"I'm game."

The lycans built up some momentum and
released him with a heave.

Stygean hit the drift and came up shivering.
He scrambled around to see if they were coming after him or if they
were satisfied with the indignity of tossing him in the drift. His
eyes widened as he saw them making snow balls, and he dove back in
with a yelp. Digging his way through to the other side, Stygean
crouched down and produced his own small pile of ammunition.

The two myn came closer when they failed to
see him emerge. Stygean moved his snow balls to the base of a
denuded oak tree among the pines and watched for his chance. He
straightened and pelted both of them. One splatted in Nevin's
face.

Following the sounds of the laughter, Iyan
Helyt arrived. "Not fair! Two of you on Stygean."

Gordain paused with a snowball in his hand.
"Then do something about it."

Iyan scooped a snowball and proved why he
was one of the best slingers in the army despite his youth. The
scruffy, dark-haired boy smacked Gordain in the face with his first
throw.

Army boys drifted into the garden, saw what
was going on and joined in. More lycan scouts arrived. A snowball
war soon formed up between the lycans, all of them adults, and the
boys – all humans except for Stygean.

Jingen stood in the shadow of a pine tree,
watching. He drifted nearer, his steps uncertain. He could not
understand how, after all the things that Stygean had done, the boy
had friends. Stooping, he made a snowball and threw it at the
nearest boy, who turned out to be Iyan.

The slinger spun about ready to throw. His
eyes met Jingen's and he lowered his hand. "Oh, it's you." Contempt
shone in Iyan's eyes. He turned, walked away, and was soon caught
up in the fun again.

The rejection stung and Jingen made no
further attempts to join the play. The tables had been turned on
him. It used to be Stygean they were all rejecting and Jingen who
was accepted. Although Jingen wracked his memories for when it had
all gone wrong for him, he could not come up with it – unless it
was something that happened between Stygean and Isranon that day in
the tent where Stygean was supposed to ambush the renunciate.

"Damn you all. I hate every single one of
you."

Veranoctem 8, 1077

Isranon had spent most of the hours since
their arrival sleeping. Anksha would prod him awake to eat, take
his medicine and deal with whatever matters could not be put off –
such as his conversation yesterday with Nevin. He had not realized
the full extent of his exhaustion until the welcome feast, when it
seemed to all catch up with him. The strain of getting his people
safely to Ildyrsetts had taken a heavy toll.

Anksha curled up next to him on the bed
naked. He ran his hand over the ivory fur that covered her from
wrists to ankles and ended at her collar bones. The tip of Anksha's
tightly curled tail twitched. Isranon watched it a moment and then
slapped his hand down on it, grinning at her.

She gave him a reproving look. He was the
only one allowed to touch her tail. Whenever she offered to allow
someone else to touch it, it was a prelude to her unleashing her
pheromonal magic and taking them as a blood-slave. Isranon trailed
his fingers across the little demon-eater's swollen belly. The
indigenous species, which the god Ishla the Tinkerer had used to
create the demon-eaters, had evolved from lions. They were believed
extinct, as were the demon-eaters except for Anksha.

Anksha freed her tail and then twitched it
under Isranon's chin. "You are feeling better, My Isranon?"

"Yes." He kissed her.

A knock came at the door. Anksha's eyes
rounded with affront. "Companies?"

"Just a moment." Isranon called out as he
nudged Anksha. "Get a robe on, Pet."

Anksha scampered across the room and wrapped
herself up. No longer forced to hide her tail to pass for human,
all of her garments now had small slits in the back. She wiggled
until her tail emerged. Isranon pulled on his trousers and threw a
tunic over them before opening the door. Anksha darted through
ahead of him, her nostrils flaring at the scent of the two myn
standing in the parlor.

Koejelus, the master earthmage, stood beside
the table as if waiting for permission to sit. The mage's racial
heritage showed in his modest height, blocky muscular body and
pointed ears. He was a mongrel mix of dwarf, Valdren and human. As
trade brought the various nations and peoples into closer contact,
more interracial mixes had appeared. A thread of tension slithered
through Isranon, recalling the words of Dane Jayce, the ancient
vampire who was the last survivor of Louistrana.

He still could not quite place his finger
upon why Dane's information bothered him. Dane had told him that
the majority of races on Daverana had once been human. A genetic
arms race, which contributed to the destruction of Louistrana, had
created everything from the dwarves to the trolls and many
creatures in between. Dane had even claimed that Louistrana had
built cities on the moon and that the lights in the night skies
were other worlds.

Koejelus’ slender, copper-skinned assistant
waited patiently beside him. Isranon's attention was drawn to the
mon who could have been either Waejontori or Doronarian, since both
descended from the same original tribes who had settled in the
north. Studying the assistant's features a moment more, Isranon
decided that the delicate planes of his cheek bones suggested the
blood of a high caste sa'necari somewhere in his ancestry; however,
he was clearly not sa'necari to Isranon's arcane senses.

Koejelus gave them a polite dip of his
shoulders. "Lady Anksha. Lord Isranon."

Anksha preened at being called 'lady,'
poofing her thick black hair in a gesture that Isranon had never
seen her use before.

Isranon indicated they should seat
themselves, while Anksha chose to curl up on the sofa.

"You will be getting visits from each of the
masters over the next few days." Koejelus adjusted his robes,
settling in the chair better. "Nans has insisted upon postponing
all major meetings until you are more rested. By the luck of the
draw, I am first." Koejelus' languid manner and slow enunciation
could not mask the sharp intelligence in his eyes as he assessed
Isranon.

"I expected it."

"No interrogating my Isranon." Anksha
bristled, baring her tearing, feline fangs at him.

Isranon gestured her to silence and she
settled into a sulk. "Ask whatever you wish."

"I will ask your forgiveness ahead of time.
Some of my questions will probably appear quite impertinent;
however, I feel driven to ask them." Koejelus' eyes slewed sidewise
at his silent companion, who sat wincing at the sight of Anksha's
fangs.

"Ask," Isranon repeated.

"Then I shall. I have never spoken to a
sa'necari before, except for a brief exchange of insults before I
killed him."

"Killing?" Anksha's hair haloed with energy.
"Not my Isranon!"

Koejelus raised his hand to reassure her. "I
would never harm one of Lord Edvarde's guests. This is neutral
ground."

Anksha glanced at Isranon, received a nod
from him, and smoothed her hair down. The bittersweet scent of her
powers lingered in the air, despite the fact that she had not made
the strike with her pheromones. She focused on Koejelus' companion
instead. "Who are you?"

He swallowed nervously and glanced at
Koejelus.

"Forgive me for not introducing my friend,
Merick. He's a Reader and Mender with an interesting side talent.
He's a truthsayer."

"You think my Isranon lies?" Anksha's lips
curled back, making her fangs seem all the larger.

Merick started shaking, his eyes as wide as
saucers. "The Beast! Ware, Koejelus! She's the Beast of
Brandrahoon."

"Is she?" Koejelus' mouth pursed into an
impish smile. "So, you stole Hoon's demon-eater. Impressive."

Isranon nodded. "Anksha is the Beast. So
long as you offer me no harm, you are safe from her." He added in
Waejontori, "
Right, Pet
?
Don't bite the nice
mage?"

"If he's nasty, can I bite him?"

"No."

Anksha flounced on the edge of the sofa,
which was becoming harder to do as her belly was now swelling at an
incredible rate. Demon-eater pregnancies were only two trimesters,
according to what Dane Jayce had told Isranon; and he could easily
believe it.
"If he's a bad mon..."

"He's not. Aren't you supposed to be having
your knitting lesson about now?"

Anksha's eyes lit up. She slid off the sofa
and grabbed a canvas bag from the floor by the legs. Reaching
inside, she produced a piece of knitting and brandished it at them.
It was supposed to be square, but one side sloped steeply. "My
knitting."

Then she spun about, nearly losing her
balance, and waddled from the room.

Merick chuckled. "She only bites bad
myn?"

"You understood what I said?" Isranon eyed
Merick suspiciously.

"I'm Waejontori. My cousin Luciano runs a
mage shop in Skullbones."

Isranon's expression brightened. "I think
I've met him. The Scarlet Angel?"

Koejelus folded his hands together, steepled
his forefingers and sat tapping them against his lips with a
bemused look, listening to them.

"That's the one."

"How is he?"

A pensive cast crept into Merick's eyes.
"Last letter I got from him, he had closed the shop and fled to Red
Wolf."

"Why?"

"You've heard about the Rebellion, haven't
you?"

Isranon's brow furrowed. "What
rebellion?"

"There's a new queen on the throne of
Waejontor: Tomyrilen the Bastard. Prince Shintar got her on a
Sharani banewitch during the Great War."

"The throne belongs to Mephistis' sons,
Wolff and Fauxx."

"No one knows where they are. Tomyrilen sent
assassins after them, but the boys escaped. They vanished along
with a shopkeeper named Amberlin. Where she's taken them is
anyone's guess."

"I hope they're safe." Isranon struggled to
process everything that Merick told him.

"So do a lot of folks."

Isranon's eyes narrowed. "Koejelus brought
you as much because you're Waejontori as for your talents."

"I must plead guilty to that." Koejelus'
smile lost its amusement. "Merick is a valuable source of
information to me, but even so, sa'necari do not share their
secrets with the common folk. No offense meant, but our only
knowledge of the sa'necari has been how to kill them. Until
now."

Isranon lowered his head, reflecting for a
moment. "The Dark Brothers of the Light renounced the ways of their
sa'necari heritage, but they could not escape what they were born.
Both the people of the light and those of the darkness murdered
them. The only ones to offer them refuge were the lycan clans and
chiefdoms. My family and people were massacred by the sa'necari
when I was twelve. I escaped with my sister. Two years later, the
sa'necari killed her and I was left alone."

"They must not have fought back well."