Bloodfire Quest (23 page)

“I’m all right,” he whispered back.

“This hasn’t been pleasant. I’m so sorry I brought you into it.”

“Don’t worry about me. Have they hurt you any more?”

She shook her head. “And you?”

“The same.”

“I saw this keep in Aphenglow’s memories of the Elfstones’ vision. It’s called Kraal Reach. Grianne Ohmsford was imprisoned here …” She trailed off, exhaling sharply. “We’re going to get out of this, Redden.”

“I don’t see how.”

“There is always a way.”

“There wasn’t for some of us. All the others are all dead, aren’t they? All the ones who came in with us? And maybe even the ones who didn’t. Maybe even Railing?”

She reached up and gripped his shoulders hard. “Listen to me. I’ve been in a lot of hopeless situations through the years. In the time of the Druid rebellion against Grianne Ohmsford, things were so bleak that there were times when I wanted to give up and just let go. But I didn’t, and I survived. I will do so here, too. And so will you. Will you believe me?”

She was so fierce that he found himself nodding his agreement. “I will.”

“Have you tried using your magic?”

“It didn’t work. It just triggered the collar, and the pain dropped me like a stone. We have to find another way.”

She turned abruptly and moved away as the lock snicked and the door began to open.
Patience,
she mouthed silently as she placed herself against the wall several feet away from him.

Tarwick stepped inside the room, looked them over, his gimlet eyes bright, and beckoned them to follow. Without a word or a look to each other, they did so.

A handful of Goblins surrounded them once they were outside, providing an escort. Right away, Redden started to worry. For a week now, guards had seemed a formality. Now, all at once, there was a reason for them. An urge to bolt swept over him, irrational and impossible, and he had to fight not to break away and run.

They followed a corridor that circled left around the tower until they reached a pair of huge iron doors that stood open.

Inside, the Straken Lord sat slouched on a bench atop a dais, robed in black and drinking from a metal cup that steamed and spit as if its contents were boiling. Tarwick led them forward until they were less than six feet away and then dropped to his knees and bowed until his forehead was touching the floor. Unbidden, Redden and Khyber Elessedil did the same.

“Address me properly,” said the Straken Lord.

“Yes, Master,” Khyber said at once.

“Master,” Redden echoed quickly.

“Rise,” he said, and they did. His impassive face turned away from them, and his gaze shifted to an open window. He was quiet for a long time. “What should I do about you?” he asked finally.

That he spoke their language was a puzzle Redden had not been able to solve, but he assumed it had something to do with the collars, even though he could provide no good reason for thinking this and it was at best an educated guess. In any case, hearing this creature speak words he could understand was not as jarring to him now as it had been during their first encounter, when everything had revolved around domination and pain.

The Lord of the Jarka Ruus looked back at them, straightening on the bench and leaning forward slowly. “Where is the Straken Queen? Where is Grianne Ohmsford? Wait!” He held up his hand abruptly. “This will be the second time we have had this discussion. There will be no third time. Think carefully before you answer. Be truthful. I will know if you are lying. Tell me where she is.”

He pointed at Khyber. “You.”

Khyber nodded, looking weary and defeated. “She is in the Four Lands, outside the Forbidding, Master. But she is no longer Ard Rhys. She left years ago and lives alone now in the mountains.”

Tael Riverine studied her. “You have succeeded her as Ard Rhys?”

“I have, Master.”

“I wish her back. I wish her to be my Queen. How can I make this happen?”

Redden felt his heart stop. Grianne Ohmsford had been gone for over a century, and even if she were still alive she would be very old. But this was not what the Straken Lord wanted to hear. It was not what they could tell him.

“She will not come back to you, Master,” Khyber answered. “She ran from you. She was afraid of you.”

“She is meant to be my Queen and bear my offspring, and I will have it so.” He talked as if he hadn’t heard her, as if nothing she said mattered. “Will she return if it means your lives?”

Khyber shook her head. “No, Master. She will not come back for us. She will let us die first.”

Tael Riverine seemed to think this over for a moment, his strange flat features revealing nothing. Then casually he gestured, and Khyber Elessedil jerked as excruciating pain exploded through her body, causing her to scream and drop to the floor of the tower, twisting and writhing in shock. He left her that way for long seconds, watching her suffer with studied indifference. Then he motioned toward her again, and she collapsed sobbing.

“I told you not to lie to me,” he said softly.

Khyber hauled herself to knees, gasping and choking. “I didn’t lie. I told you the truth!”

“I did not sense that. You lied.”

“No, she didn’t!,” Redden cut in abruptly. He cringed as the Straken Lord wheeled on him. “Master,” he added quickly. “She speaks the truth!”

He waited for the inevitable gesture, but Tael Riverine only stared at him for what seemed an endless amount of time before leaning back again on the bench and looking away.

“You lie as well. But I expect nothing less.” He looked back at his prisoners. “The walls of our prison are collapsing. Soon we will return to our old world, the one from which we were driven. I will lead the Jarka Ruus back through the shattered walls and reclaim what is ours. There is nothing anyone can do to stop this.”

He paused. “Anyone except Grianne Ohmsford. She can prevent this from happening. If she returns to me and if she mates with me and bears my children, the Jarka Ruus will remain within their own lands and forsake yours. You have my word on this.”

He would abandon his plans for invasion of the Four Lands if Grianne became his? Redden almost laughed out loud. Now who was lying? Granted, Tael Riverine was clearly obsessed with the former Ard Rhys and would apparently do anything to get her back, but giving up the chance to seize control of the Four Lands and its people when there was no reason to do so felt patently false.

Khyber remained on his knees, still shaking from the attack. “You cannot promise this for all of the Jarka Ruus! The Drachas, for instance, are not yours to command. And there are others equally rebellious. Some will break through and do as they choose.”

Tael Riverine nodded. “Some is still better than all. Those beholden to me will not transgress against me. You will keep your world and your lives. But Grianne Ohmsford must accept my offer.”

That would never happen, Redden thought. Besides, even if it could, as he had already decided there was no reason to think the Straken Lord’s word was worth anything.

But Khyber Elessedil was struggling to her feet, saying to Tael Riverine, “We would have to find her first. We would have to explain your offer. We would have to persuade her to accept it and then bring her here. That won’t be easy. But we can do it.”

His eyes fixed on her. “Address me properly, woman.”

“Master,” she said at once, and bowed deeply.

He shifted his gaze to Redden. “What do you say to this?”

“She is family to him, Master,” Khyber said quickly, clearly afraid for Redden’s safety if this creature thought him useless. “He is an Ohmsford, too. He will be effective in persuading her.”

The strange blue eyes flickered with something dark and unexpected, and Redden was suddenly certain that Khyber had made a mistake in telling him this.

“You are blood kin?” the Straken Lord demanded of the boy.

There was nothing he could do about it now, so Redden nodded.

“Would that matter to her?”

“I don’t know, Master. She’s never seen me. She doesn’t know me.”

Tael Riverine looked back at Khyber. “But she knows you. You are her chosen successor. She named you so. Did you not say this?”

Khyber stared, unable to answer. Finally, she nodded. Redden felt the floor drop away, and he was overcome by a sinking feeling that they had signed away their lives.

The Straken Lord rose suddenly, towering over them. “I have decided your fate. Your usefulness is limited. You are weak and unreliable, you are not to be trusted, but you may still serve a purpose. Bow to me. Address me properly.”

Redden and the Ard Rhys both went down on their knees and bowed low to the floor and to Tael Riverine. “Master,” they said to him.

“Now rise and stand before.”

Redden climbed back to his feet and with Khyber next to him stood in front of Tael Riverine, his head lowered deferentially, burning with rage and humiliation. If there had been a way to get at the Straken Lord in that moment, a way that would have provided him with a real chance of killing the demon, he would have taken it in spite of the likely consequences.

The Straken Lord looked at Khyber Elessedil. “You will face me in the arena tomorrow at midday. You will provide entertainment and an object lesson. If you kill me, you will be sent home unharmed along with this boy. If not, the boy’s fate is mine to decide. Tarwick!”

At once they were surrounded by Goblins who fastened them anew with chains and fitted gags to their mouths. Neither made any attempt to resist. Redden was stunned and disbelieving, still trying to comprehend what he had just heard, as if perhaps it wasn’t true and in a moment he would hear it all rescinded.

A moment later they were hauled from the room and back down the tower stairways and through its corridors. Just before they were separated, Redden got a quick final glimpse of Khyber Elessedil’s face.

He had never seen such ferocious determination.

Afterward, returned to his cell and his solitude, Redden Ohmsford sat alone in the silence and tried to keep from falling apart.

It took him a long time to recover himself sufficiently that he could consider rationally what had just happened. He felt overwhelmed by how unexpectedly the meeting with the Straken Lord had ended. Devastated, shocked, and adrift in the knowledge that he was helpless to do anything, he just sat on his bed with his hands clasped and his head bent, staring at the floor.

He did not for a moment believe that Tael Riverine would let Khyber Elessedil leave Kraal Reach alive. He didn’t care what the Straken Lord had promised or the conditions he had set; the outcome of the battle was a foregone conclusion. No matter how hard Khyber fought for her life, no matter how clever or strong or brave she proved, she was doomed. The Straken Lord would not allow any other outcome. In sentencing her to trial by combat, he had sentenced her to death.

How he would accomplish this, Redden wasn’t sure. But there was no other purpose in arranging this. A spectacle, perhaps, for the benefit of his minions—or perhaps simply for his own gratification. But it would be a spectacle nonetheless, not a true opportunity for the Ard Rhys.

Which would leave him as the final surviving member of the expedition that had come into the Forbidding, the last loose thread in a tangled web of destruction and murder. He didn’t think for a moment that Tael Riverine could resist pulling out or cutting off that loose thread and putting an end to the entire business.

Yet the Straken Lord seemed determined on recapturing Grianne Ohmsford even after all these years obsessed with the idea that she should be made to bear his children. He appeared to have no clear idea of the passage of time in the world outside the Forbidding if he believed Grianne still of child-bearing age; or else living things aged much more slowly here. Perhaps he was refusing to acknowledge the reality of things solely for the purpose of getting revenge. Perhaps he wanted her to suffer for escaping him and foiling his intentions decades earlier.

Whatever the reason, this might be the chink in the Straken Lord’s armor.

Perhaps.

But none of this helped either Redden or the Ard Rhys escape their present circumstances. They needed help from outside, and the chances of that were slim.

Redden hugged himself and rocked back and forth as anguish threatened to engulf him. He would not cry, he told himself. He would not give in to what he was feeling. He would be as fierce and strong-willed as Khyber Elessedil had been when they parted. He would be her equal in courage, though what faced him was so vast and inexorable that there was no reasonable chance of finding a way through it. Tears were spilling from his eyes, but he remained silent and stoic even so.

Eventually, his despair passed and he regained control of himself, and he was able to master his sense of hopelessness sufficiently to consider what he might do to help himself.

Khyber Elessedil seemed to think there was hope. He had seen it in her face. She was facing hand-to-hand combat with a creature twice her size and infinitely stronger, and very likely more experienced in battle. She had not been told the rules of the fight or the choice of weapons she would be offered or anything substantive of what was to take place. Yet still she was evincing confidence in her chances.

He must do something to help her and himself. He must search for a way to throw off the conjure collar and summon his magic. The wishsong’s power was considerable, after all, evolved through generations of Ohmsfords and tested personally by both Railing and himself. He knew what it could do. If he were given even one chance to use it against Tael Riverine, there would be no more Straken Lord.

But the day drifted away without any further idea about how to make that happen. His jailers brought him food and a jug of water and left him for the night. He slept poorly, plagued by dreams of conflict and darkness, of battles fought between good and evil, between combatants who were faceless and nameless and yet somehow managed to make the struggle feel personal. The air cooled and the gray mix of clouds and haze swallowed everything until he could see only pinpricks of light cast by torches burning through the gloom.

When he woke, he was no more enlightened as to how to free himself or aid the Ard Rhys than he had been when he went to sleep. The day was iron-hard and dry, and the cloud ceiling had lifted to allow a sharp, clear view of the bleak countryside from mountain ranges to hardpan flats and barren hills to fields of broken rocks. He stared through the bars of his tiny window at this grim tableau and felt the weight of his desperate circumstances return.

Breakfast was accompanied by something that resembled ale, but of which he was suspicious and so ignored. No one spoke to him. He ate in silence and alone and waited for something to happen.

Sometime toward midday, they came for him.

He was waiting when the door opened and his jailers appeared. He was escorted from his cell and down countless halls and stairways until he was brought outside into a vast courtyard. Creatures and animals of all shapes and sizes—horned and tusked, scaled and spiked, big and small—milled about. The terrible wolves that had prowled the perimeter of his rolling cage on his journey to Kraal Reach roamed freely.

He was taken to another of those wheeled cages and placed inside. The denizens of Kraal Reach and minions of the Straken Lord crowded close to examine him. Twisted, dark faces pressed in, and parted jaws revealed teeth made for tearing flesh. He was oddly calm in the face of this—perhaps because he kept telling himself that nothing was meant to happen to him on this day, at least. Even when he felt their fetid breath and smelled their rank bodies, he did not cringe away or show fear. Even when they growled and hissed and spat at him, he simply looked away.

I will not give in to this.

He spoke the words in the silence of his mind. But he knew they were a fragile shield, and in the end would not be enough to save him.

A roar from the crowd of creatures heralded the arrival of Khyber Elessedil. Surrounded by Goblins, she was marched through the crowd, her head held high in the face of their fury and hunger, her gaze directed straight ahead. She was wearing what appeared to be a form of flexible body armor, and she had weapons strapped everywhere—everything from long knives and daggers to short swords and throwing stars. She looked surprisingly fit and strong and ready for what was coming. She saw him as she approached and gave him a small nod and a slight smile. As if to reassure him that everything was all right, that she had matters under control.

They brought her to the cage, opened the door, and waited for her to climb inside. Without a glance at any of them, she did what was expected of her.

She sat down next to Redden, close enough that he could see she no longer looked either haggard or beaten. If anything, she looked better than he had ever seen her.

“I know. I don’t look the same, do I?” She leaned close. “This morning they gave me something to drink that they said would make me stronger. I was weak from fear and lack of sleep and saw no reason to refuse it. How much worse could things be for me, even if I were being poisoned? But they were telling the truth; it was an elixir meant to strengthen my body and sharpen my instincts. I could feel it working on me right away. All of my despair and weariness disappeared. I felt better immediately.”

Redden shook his head. “Why would they do that for you?”

“Because the Straken Lord wants this to be a fight, not an execution. His pride and his manhood demand it. This is supposed to be a battle, so he must have an opponent who will provide a sufficient challenge. Make no mistake about this. I am to be killed—but not too easily. I am to provide entertainment and a few thrills first.”

“They’ve given you enough weapons for it.”

She glanced down at her assortment of blades and smiled. “After giving me the elixir, they took me to an armory and let me choose what I wanted. I took this armor and the blades and throwing weapons. They will provide me with a lance or spear of some sort once we arrive at the arena.”

She paused. “They said they will remove the conjure collar, as well.”

He stared at her in disbelief. “They will?”

“So they say. A mistake, I think, if they do so. But this is part of the spectacle. If I can be rendered immobile with a gesture, there is no point in the fight. If I can be subdued at any point, there is no suspense or even purpose to the battle. What this is meant to be is a demonstration of the Straken Lord’s power. He keeps his creatures in thrall by never allowing them to think for even a moment that he isn’t the equal of them all. Fear binds them to him. But fear must be instilled anew on a regular basis. I am to be the next best example of what could happen should they transgress.”

“But you believe your magic will give you the edge you need?”

“I think it might.”

She looked so confident and ready in that moment that Redden’s spirits were lifted. “Then we might escape this, after all.”

“We might. He may have overreached himself by giving me this opportunity. He thinks women are weak—all but Grianne Ohmsford, whom he worships. I learned this from the creature Tarwick. Tael Riverine has never forgotten her, his Straken Witch—the only female sufficiently strong enough to bear his children and extend his line. He is fixated on having this happen. He plans to dispose of me and then send you back to tell everyone what happened and what to expect. He assembles his army to march into the Four Lands and will do so as soon as the last of the Forbidding falls.”

A whip cracked and the rolling cage jolted forward, departing the courtyard. The crowd trailed after it, throngs of creatures and animals pressing close, pushing and shoving to gain a better position. Goblins, kobolds, Gormies, Harpies, and others Redden could not put names to. The demon-wolves roamed among them, growling and snapping at one another and anyone who got close. Every so often they would converge on an unfortunate creature that had caught their attention and drag it down, thrashing and screaming. None of the other creatures paid any heed to this. Those who were close just moved out of the way, avoiding the carnage and doing their best not to draw attention to themselves. The rest didn’t bother doing that much.

Dust rose from the rutted road onto which the procession had turned after passing through the fortress. The air grew thick with it—heavy clouds that rose dozens of feet into the grayness and blanketed everything. Buried in the haze were the grunts and snorts of the beasts hauling the rolling cage, and the shouts and cries of the creatures keeping pace, all of it a surreal, frenzied mix.

“Listen to me, Redden,” Khyber instructed, her voice suddenly urgent. She bent so close to him that their heads were almost touching. “I will try to find a way to defeat the Straken Lord, one that will give us a chance to escape. When that happens, I will come for you. Be ready. If we can persuade Tael Riverine to remove the conjure collar earlier or if you can manage to do so by yourself, that would help. But whatever happens, I will come for you.”

He nodded. “I’ll come to you first, if I can.”

“Then we have our plan.” She paused, and her expression changed. “But if our plan fails and I am killed, do not despair. Remember what I told you. He will release you anyway. He will send you back into the Four Lands as his messenger. That is his intent. I will try to disappoint him, but you will be freed if I fail.”

“You won’t fail,” he said quickly. “You will be stronger than he is and you will succeed.”

She sat back, nodding slowly. But she did not speak again.

They continued traveling through the scrub-covered landscape, through terrain blistered and raw and empty of visible life. Their journey took longer than Redden had expected—a long slow downward angling into a cluster of valleys—and it was only much later that the boy finally looked back to find Kraal Reach receding into a screen of dust and gloom, looking oddly tiny and insignificant.

The cage rolled on, its retinue of beasts and creatures trudging and slouching along in its wake, their collective gaze fastened on the prisoners. But at last the wagon crested a rise and started down toward a broad circular embankment thick with Jarka Ruus that must have arrived earlier. Tall gates opened into the embankment’s interior, and the cage was pulled through. Within, the arena stretched away a hundred yards, its uneven, cracked surface littered with broken rock and bones that gleamed bare and white against the dark earth. Howls and screams of expectation rose from those gathered—a primal roar infused with rage and bloodlust.