Blood Storm: The Second Book of Lharmell (16 page)

‘The Great One will visit such agonies upon your body,’ the harming growled, spittle flying from its lips.

I elbowed him in the nose, hard. There was a crack and blood spurted over both of us. He howled in pain and I took the chance to buck his body off mine. Knife firmly in my grasp, I sank both my knees onto the harming’s shoulders, pinning his arms. I pressed the tip of the blade against his throat and watched the skin sizzle. He glared up at me through the blood on his face.

‘Who is the Great One?’ I demanded, pressing the point harder.

‘Torrents of poison rain will strip the flesh from your bones,’ he said, somewhat hoarse from the pressure on his windpipe. ‘Your accomplice will have his body torn asunder by the power of the tors and we will drink his corpse dry.’

‘
Who is it?
’

The harming began to laugh.

I flipped the knife in my grasp and smashed the hilt into his broken nose. He howled. ‘You will show me who it is and where they are.’

The harming still laughed, his mirth punctuated with grimaces and hisses of pain.

He was not going to reveal anything, no matter how hard I beat him. I remembered the way the harming in Ercan had plundered my mind, searching for information. I could do the same, I realised.
Or I could at least try.

I shot thoughts like arrows into his mind. They were deflected easily. I called to mind shooting the harmings in the pass at Lharmell as Rodden summoned the brant from its nest, and I flung that memory at the harming.

He stopped laughing. Rage parted the walls of his mind and images tumbled through. I was ready for them. Pictures of Lharmell. The forest and the tors. Then places I hadn’t seen before. A vast, underground cavern. Hundreds of harmings, their faces upturned in admiration for a figure I couldn’t make out. I had to know who it was, who had taken over and was making the harmings smarter since last winter.

The harming heaved his body under me and the images stopped.

‘Show me who it is,’ I demanded, and punched him with my fist, splitting the knuckles of my glove on his teeth. My hand stung.

I bombarded him with memories of killing his kind, but he was ready this time and his mind stayed tight as a vice.

Anger flared. I would do this for Rodden. Rage made me strong. I punched him again.

He laughed, spat blood, and laughed some
more.

I stood and pushed the sweat and blood and hair back from my face. ‘Tell me!’ I screamed. ‘If you don’t I will kill you.’

The harming giggled at my feet despite the oozing blood and his burned flesh.

I tightened my grip on the yelbar knife. ‘This is for Rodden,’ I said. My arm rose, and plunged.

Hands caught my wrist. I struggled against them. I was blinded by blood and sweat but could still tell enemy from friend.

‘No! Rodden, let me go.’

‘Give me the dagger.’

‘I want to kill this one. Let me at least kill this one.’

He wrested the knife from my grasp and threw it far from my reach. Grabbing a fistful of the harming’s cloak, Rodden dragged him a few yards from me and dispatched him with his own bloodied dagger. Then he threw the knife aside.

Silence fell, broken only by the scratching of talons on mud and the brants’ weakened cries.

Rodden knelt beside me. ‘Give me your hands.’ He stripped off my gloves and cradled my bleeding hands in his lap.

‘I wanted to kill one for you,’ I said.

He smoothed the hair back from my face and wiped away some of the blood. His own face was splattered with gore. Looking into my eyes, he smiled. ‘Thank you. What is it they say? “It’s the thought that counts”?’

My shoulders shook with mirth and tears.

The Jarbin receded, leaving us alone on the blood-soaked plain with the blackened bodies of our enemies.

TWELVE

E
ventually, Leap and Oilif approached. Leap’s eyes were large with worry. Rodden was bandaging my knuckles while I sniffled my way back to composure.

‘Look at you,’ Oilif tutted, surveying us.

We were both covered in blood. Well, I was spattered. Rodden was soaked.

Leap sniffed at my sticky hands and had a tentative lick. ‘Yuck,’ I said, holding them out of his reach. ‘One of us doing that is quite enough,’ I whispered to him.

Rodden got to his feet. ‘I must talk to Uwin.’

‘It can wait, surely,’ said Oilif. ‘We’ll get cleaned up and see to these birds –’

Rodden cut her off. ‘Zeraphina and I must leave, and by nightfall there must be no trace of what
happened here. There will be more harmings on brant-back sent to relieve the ones we killed, and if they realise the Jarbin had anything to do with their disappearance, and ours, it will be the worse for you. Yelbar weapons or no.’

Oilif paled, and nodded.

‘Will you go with Zeraphina and help her get our things ready? We’ll need warm travelling clothes, if you can spare them.’

Ignoring both Rodden and Oilif’s offered hands, I struggled to my feet. Rodden held his knife and I realised what he meant to do. I looked at the brants, which were struggling against their bonds. They were magnificent creatures and had never done us any harm of their own volition.

‘Must you kill them?’ I asked. They reminded me of Griffin.

Rodden pressed his lips into a grim line. ‘Not all of them.’

Oilif began to lead me away, but I stopped. ‘Wait. I must tell you something, Rodden.’

When Oilif had receded out of earshot I said, ‘I saw something in that harming’s mind. A Turning, I think. But it was underground, and it wasn’t a Lharmellin that was leading it. In fact, there weren’t any Lharmellins that I could see.’

Rodden considered this. ‘A harming.’ He frowned. ‘The taking of destitutes, and sailors from ships. These are new things. Innovations. Lharmellins aren’t much good at innovation.’

‘It’s the Lharmellins that have control of the weather, though. The real control, not like my wind-calling. If Amentia has thawed, but the harmings are still active, do you think it could mean the harmings have taken over?’

Rodden looked alarmed. ‘But that’s unheard of. Why would they do that?’

‘Maybe they’re impatient. Maybe they’re sick of waiting for the Lharmellins to turn things in their favour.’

He nodded. ‘It makes sense. You know,’ he said ruefully, ‘this could be our doing. Killing the Lharmellin leader – it might have been the catalyst for the harmings to take charge.’

‘You mean we might have done more harm than good,’ I said grimly.

‘Possibly.’

‘The enclaves that are being set up. They could be springing up all over Brivora. What if it’s those we need to put a stop to, and not go back to Lharmell at all?’

He shook his head. ‘You saw whoever it was in
Lharmell. The harming who is leading is directing things from there. They’ll still need the Turning ceremony to create more of their number. They won’t have done away with the Lharmellins entirely. The caves you saw, I’ve heard about them. They’re underneath the tors. My guess is the Turnings have been moved there.’

‘Is this going to make things harder for us?’

He squeezed my arm. ‘You know, it might actually mean the opposite.’

By the time I’d bathed and changed, the shadows were lengthening on the ground and the beginnings of a large pit were being dug in the soft ground beneath a copse of trees. Beside it were piled the harming corpses and three dead brants. On the floodplain, children were scattering dirt over the evidence of our skirmish.

Alone, I carried an armful of clean clothing towards Rodden, who was washing at the edge of the oasis. His shirt was damp and streaked with red, but his face and neck were clean.

‘Here.’ I passed him a towel, and in turn he gave me a flask of blood. I knew what blood in the evenings meant: we weren’t sleeping that night.
I sniffed the contents and recognised the musky odour. Brant blood. It was richer than the small-animal blood we’d existed on for weeks. I drank half and felt like I could run to the moon.

‘All of it,’ Rodden said as I tried to pass it back. ‘I’ve got my own, and more for later.’

I drank the rest and wondered when I could expect to sleep again. ‘Did you kill all five of the harmings?’ I asked, turning away while he dressed.

‘Yes.’

‘How did it feel?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Rot. You just don’t want to tell me.’

He was silent. I heard the whisper of cloth against skin and the sound of his belt being buckled.

‘I swore I would kill one. Ever since you told me about Servilock and your family I’ve wanted to.’

‘You’ve killed harmings before. Doubtless you will again.’

‘I want to do it with my hands, using a knife. A bow isn’t the same. You said so yourself.’

‘Zeraphina –’

‘And don’t tell me girls shouldn’t say such things, or it’s not my place because I’m a princess. I’m a harming, the same as you, and it’s my right if I want to.’ My voice grew shrill. I was drained from the fight,
but pepped from all the blood, a strange combination that was making my heart race, fast and light.

‘You can turn around now.’

I turned. He stood, hands on hips. ‘What do you want me to say? “I’m sorry for not letting you kill the harming”?’

‘Yes.’

‘Too bad. I won’t. If I’d been busy fighting and you’d killed that harming, then so be it. But what sort of person would I be if I’d stood by while you killed the harming when it was already at your mercy, knowing how I have been tormented by memories of doing just that?’

It irked that he felt he had the right to
let
me do things or not.

‘I can see you’re annoyed,’ he went on. ‘It’s not because you’re a girl, or a princess. I swear. I would do the same for anyone who wasn’t used to killing.’

‘Are you mad? I
am
used to killing. I do it all the time.’

‘Not with a knife.’ Rodden set his teeth. ‘I am touchy about knives, all right?’

‘Oh.’ His family. Ilona. How he’d murdered them. ‘I’m sorry. Of course you are.’

His eyes dropped to the ground. I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around
his neck. I pressed my cheek against the dampness there. He smelled of sunlight and rough soap.

After a moment, he clasped me back. Where our chests touched I felt a low vibration spread through me, right to my fingertips and down to my toes. I never wanted to let him go.

Finally, I had to, but he seemed reluctant to pull away also. My hands trailed down his sleeves and over his fingertips, and then the contact was broken.

Rodden’s eyes met mine, and his face looked warm beneath his tan. ‘Now,’ he said, voice husky, ‘let’s go and say thank you to the Jarbin for saving our sorry skins.’

At the edge of the pit, which was now heaped with corpses and rapidly filling with dirt, we said our goodbyes. When it came time for me to farewell Oilif, I flung my arms around her neck.

‘I wish I’d had time to ask you what your right reasons were for running away,’ I whispered.

‘It’s my story. Very different from yours.’

‘You could write to me. At the palace at Xallentaria. Or Amentia. I’d get your letters eventually. And I’d write back.’

‘I will.’ She released me.

‘I don’t have many friends, you see.’

Oilif smiled. ‘I promise I’ll write. Perhaps you could come and visit me one day.’

‘I would like that very much.’ I thought of us returning, free from both Lharmell and our duties to Pergamia and Amentia. Just as we were. Runaways who had found a new home. Sadness crested inside me as I realised that the obstacles between now and that future were too numerous to count.

Uwin gathered me up in a big bear hug. I murmured ‘
preibek
’ a few times and he beamed.

And then it was just Rodden, Leap, Griffin and I again, a few hundred yards from the village, facing two tethered and furious brants. They shrieked when they saw us, and Leap flattened himself to the ground. Magnificent they were, but cranky also. We sent calming thought-patterns to them and they quieted somewhat, but they still had a vicious glint in their eyes.

‘Easy,’ I murmured as I approached one. I sent the feeling with my mind as well. It was used to mental orders, and when I asked it to it crouched low to the ground and allowed me to mount. Leap jumped up before me, curling against my belly, and Griffin flew to my gauntleted wrist.

Rodden mounted and gathered his cloak about him. ‘It’s going to be cold up there at night,’ he warned. ‘Are you ready?’

I nodded.

‘All right then. To Amentia.’

‘Lucky, lucky me,’ I muttered, as the brants beat their wings and we lurched into the sky. We flew south-east, with the setting sun behind us and the pain of the tors between our shoulderblades.

Amentia wasn’t quite our next stop. We rested the brants for several hours just outside Rilla before we attempted the ocean crossing. In the midnight darkness we stood on the outskirts of the city and we shared a flask of blood. My hands were stiff from my knuckle wounds and holding onto the brant in the cold upper air.

‘We’ll rest in Varlint for a day,’ Rodden murmured in the darkness. ‘These birds won’t make it all the way to Amentia without a proper rest.’

‘Varlint has plenty of unpopulated forest,’ I said, remembering from my trip there with Lilith and Renata to meet my sister’s first betrothed. ‘We’ve got supplies so we won’t need to approach a town.’

We clambered back aboard our mounts. Between Rilla and Varlint the Osseran was narrow, but I still felt sick with apprehension. The sea was no longer my friend. It was a deadly, unforgiving force. We wouldn’t be so lucky this time if we were plunged into its briny depths.

When dawn came, I saw the blue-black waters far beneath us and broke out in a cold sweat. My stomach lurched. There was no land as far as the eye could see. My brant was tiring. The muscle ache of its wings was becoming my own. I twisted in the saddle and saw Rodden a score of yards behind me and slightly to my right, rigid on his mount. Our eyes met briefly. I saw the white of his knuckles where he clasped the reins. We’d held the thread between us like a life-line all the long night so as not to lose each other in the darkness. As the sky lightened I felt his mind gradually retreat.