Blood's Pride (Shattered Kingdoms) (47 page)

‘How can you say that? I—’

‘Don’t!’ she cried out, holding up her hands.

‘Meiran, I—’

‘Don’t,’ she said again, and her shoulders flinched as if he’d struck her. ‘Don’t lie about it. Don’t make it worse.’

‘Worse!’ He kicked the wall and bits of stone toppled down around him. ‘
Worse?
We’ve nearly killed each other tonight: how could it possibly be any worse?’ On a mad impulse he pulled out his knife, seized her hand and slapped the hilt into her palm. ‘There: if you want revenge, then take it. We’re the ones who made you sick: the Nomas, not the Shadari or the Norlanders. We offered you up to both of our gods and they’ve been pulling you apart ever since. So here,’ he thumped his chest with his clenched fist, ‘go ahead, kill Shof’s son – make him hate you. Then maybe you’ll be free and all of this can finally be over.’

She stared at the knife, lying like a dead thing across her palm, and the instant her eyes looked up into his, he finally understood.

‘You knew,’ he whispered slowly. He felt the blood drain from his face. ‘You knew all along.’

Her eyes lost focus; their angry flashing gave way to that weary, wounded look that had haunted him all these years. ‘Of course I knew.’

‘Meiran …’

The knife still lay in her hand, dividing them, pushing them apart. She spoke haltingly, and her normally flat voice took on a peculiar, far-away cadence, like surf breaking on a moonless night. ‘At first I thought, if I just waited … I knew why you didn’t want me to know.’ She looked down at the knife. ‘I knew what you were afraid of.’

‘I had a duty to my people—’ he started, but she stopped him.

‘I know. I know what I am, and what I’ve done.’ She closed her hand around the leather hilt, turned the knife this way and that, catching the dull light on the blade, making it gleam. Finally she looked up at him again. ‘I thought you might think better of me, that’s all.’

Some scorching mix of remorse and hope flooded through him, and he reached out and gripped her shoulders with both hands, holding on to her, feeling as if he were drowning and he needed her to stay afloat. Her arms went slack; the knife dropped into the dirt. ‘Tell me now,’ he urged her huskily. ‘Tell me what you want with Harotha – I swear I’ll trust you. I will believe anything you say. Anything!’

Her eyes searched his face, but this time she did not pull away. She hesitated, finding the words with difficulty, until she finally held up her scarred forearm and said, ‘I’ve already held him. They give him to me – they
beg
me to take him.’ Her face took on a strange expression, softer than he had ever seen, but aglow with a possessive, almost frantic exhilaration. ‘He’s mine, Jachi: he’s really mine, and I won’t let anything happen to him. I won’t let anyone take him away from me.’

He caught his breath. ‘You mean the baby.’

She nodded. ‘I felt something. I don’t know what to call it. It felt like – like a
reason
to be alive.’

He was still holding on to her shoulders; now he gripped them even harder. He had promised to believe her, unconditionally, but still he asked, ‘Why would Harotha and Eofar give you their baby? Their own child?’

‘They don’t want him.’ She leaned in so close that he could see the hectic pulsing of the veins beneath her skin. ‘They don’t, but I do – Jachi, I’ve seen it all – he needs me. You swore that if I told you, you’d believe me. You
must
believe me—’

They heard a soft cry and turned to see Harotha, trying to stand, holding on to the wall for support. Jachad rushed over and grasped her arm. The coldness of her skin shocked him, as did the frightening bluish tint of her lips, and the way her eyes were darting about as if they couldn’t focus.

‘You said you had a midwife for her?’ he called out to Meiran.

‘The house – it’s not far. Your mother and the others, they’re waiting.’ She circled around to support Harotha on the other side.

Meiran led them through the deserted streets, the two of them half-carrying Harotha. She pointed out a house with a homely light flickering behind its curtained doorway and a few fragrant wisps of smoke spiralling up from the chimney, but before they could reach it, Harotha inhaled sharply and her eyelids fluttered.

‘Something’s wrong,’ she muttered.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Jachad asked her, stopping.

‘Keep going!’ Meiran commanded.

‘Something’s wrong. I can feel it.’ She was slurring her words together strangely – then she gasped again.

‘Hurry,’ Meiran pleaded, propelling them on even faster. They were practically dragging Harotha now, and her laboured breaths had degenerated into rhythmic moans.

Suddenly the Shadari dug her heels into the ground and seized the front of Jachad’s robe with both hands. ‘Promise
me!’ she demanded. Her eyes were stretched wide open, but they were vague, unfocused, like a sleepwalker’s.

‘Promise you what?’ he cried.

‘Promise you’ll save the baby – if you have to choose. You choose the baby. Promise me!’

‘Harotha,’ he pleaded, ‘don’t talk like that. Everything’s going to be—’

She reached out to Meiran. ‘You’ll promise me, won’t you? You— Oh!’ She stopped speaking suddenly and the focus came back into her eyes. She stared into Meiran’s face as if she was seeing it for the first time. Her head fell to one side and the faintest of smiles crossed her lips. In an odd, soothing voice, she said, ‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’ She reached out, as if she wanted to touch Meiran’s face, but she was too weak to lift her arm. ‘I know why you’re here. I know—’ Then she fainted into Jachad’s arms.

‘Shof help us!’ he cried. Between them they lifted her up and staggered towards the house. Now they could hear small, urgent sounds from within: pots rattling gently, a fire snapping, voices speaking in serious undertones.

Meiran rustled the curtain over the narrow doorway and two Nomas woman darted briskly out and whisked Harotha inside without a word. Jachad was beginning to follow when he realised that Meiran wasn’t behind him. He turned around and found her backing slowly out into the empty street with a ghastly look on her face.

‘What is it?’ he asked, running over to her. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Everything – it’s all wrong,’ she murmured. ‘It’s just like the visions, but it’s wrong.’

He seized her arm. ‘What do you mean?’

Her voice ached with dismay. ‘I remember it all, every detail. Nisha brings me the baby. She says, “Eofar can’t bear the sight of him. You can’t blame him, can you? Harotha wants you to take him away from here. Take him away, and never come back to the Shadar.”’

In the long silence that followed, Jachad heard the blood roaring in his ears. ‘And you thought it meant they didn’t want him,’ he groaned.

‘But they don’t – they
don’t
want him,’ she insisted, clutching his torn sleeve. ‘They don’t want him. He’s a mongrel. He’s like
me
.’

‘Meiran, you made a mistake. I know how you feel, but it doesn’t matter now. We have to—’ But before he could finish, she ran off down the street. He stared after her with a feeling like he’d been kicked in the stomach. Then he walked slowly back up to the house, each step heavier with apprehension than the last. He was just about to push past the curtain when a Nomas woman stepped out to block his path, wiping her hands on a piece of cloth.

‘Now, now, where do you think you’re going?’

He stared back at her stupidly for a moment. She was an old friend, someone he’d known since childhood, but somehow he couldn’t remember her name. ‘Inside.’

‘Oh, no, you’re not. No place for a man in there. It’s going to be a difficult one. I can always tell.’ She flipped the cloth onto one shoulder and her clear, dark green eyes searched his face; when she spoke again, a hint of compassion warmed her crisp voice. ‘Best stay out of the way. You understand.’

‘Oh— Of course,’ he answered. He still didn’t move from the doorway.

‘Jachi,’ the woman said, more gently still, and the sound of his pet name roused him a little. ‘We’ll do the best we can for her. Lucky thing our Meiran had us prepared. Here.’ She took him by the elbow and led him over to a little bench set against the wall of the house. ‘You sit here and the first chance I get, I’ll bring you out a nice hot cup of tea. How’s that?’

He looked up at her sun-kissed face. The morning breeze blew by and shook the scent of the sea from her hair. With depthless gratitude, he replied, ‘A cup of tea would be lovely, Mairi. Thank you.’

Rho sat on a rock, looking out to sea. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, listening to the soporific pulse of the waves. He remembered that the sky had still been dark when he’d landed his exhausted triffon on the beach and tumbled out of the saddle. Now the eastern horizon had lightened by degrees from black to a deep blue, and the white tops of the waves appeared and disappeared, pale as wraiths. He liked looking at the water. He liked pretending that he was floating on those calm ripples, without any concern for what might be lurking in the deep water underneath.

The thump and snap of wings sounded behind him, but he didn’t turn around. He’d been hearing the wings on and off the whole night. There was never anyone there.

he told his ghosts, not unkindly, but firmly.

Now that dawn was approaching, he could see the shape of the huge ship more clearly, the tips of her tall masts pointing up to the cobalt sky. Very slowly they had succeeded in turning her back out to sea, but they hadn’t got very far yet – the tide must have been against them. They hadn’t lowered the boats,
or tried to send anyone ashore. He supposed they had been close enough to see that the temple had been destroyed and decided to turn back. Not that it made any difference to him; it was just something to look at, part of the scenery.

He heard the sound of someone running across the packed sand behind him, and then a hand seized him and pulled him from the rock. The owner of the hand threw herself into his arms, saying,

Rho dutifully brought his arms up around Isa, but he could only return the mechanics of her embrace, not the spirit. he reassured her, but he had a vague, guilty feeling that he was lying. He had been alive, once. It had felt different to this.

She drew back from him. she asked, her eyes scanning his body, presumably for wounds.

He noticed that her face was very dirty – soot, maybe. There had been fires. Behind her he could see Daryan walking towards them over the sand, looking ten years older than he had that afternoon. He found himself wondering what his own face must look like by now. He marvelled that Isa still recognised him.

She glanced over at Daryan and switched to Shadari, ‘we thought you were dead. When the temple— Daem and the others, where are they?’

He looked back at her, surprised by her question. ‘They’re all dead.’

‘But you got out. Maybe they—’

‘They’re all dead,’ he told her calmly. He was very calm, like
the ripples on the water. ‘They were all in the temple. They’re dead. I heard them screaming.’

Isa stepped back from him.

He had upset her – he hadn’t wanted to upset her, but the calmness – it didn’t allow him to be anything but brutally frank.

Daryan touched the tips of his fingers to her back. ‘We can’t stay here. If Frea’s still alive she’s going to make her move right now. She has no other choice. We have to get to Faroth. If he’s got Dramash out in the open we have to do something. If Harotha is there, maybe the two of us, together – I know it’s not much of a plan, but what else can we do?’

‘But now we have Rho. He can help us.’

Rho returned to his seat on the rock. ‘I can’t help you.’

Isa told him.

‘Eofar can’t do anything more – he’s still alive, thank the gods, but Frea nearly killed him. We found him and took him to the Nomas,’ said Daryan, talking over Isa without realising it. ‘Only a dozen of the Dead Ones – the Norlanders – on your side are left, and fewer dereshadi. They’ve taken shelter in that cave Harotha found.’

‘We know Frea still wants Dramash – but now you’re here, and Dramash trusts you. Maybe you can—’

‘I can’t help you,’ he repeated as he looked back out over the water.

Isa stood in front of him. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘It took me a little time to work it out.’ Out beyond the harbour, the white sails of the ship rocked, back and forth. ‘It was the coin – you remember the coin, Isa? Faroth must have waited for me to go to the temple, then he told Dramash that his mother was dead and that I’m the one who murdered her.’

There was a pause. Then Daryan, standing a little apart, asked in a low voice, ‘Why would he tell him that?’

The sound of the surf rolled in his ears. ‘Because I did murder her.’

He felt Isa recoil, but just as quickly she pushed her horror away, as he had known she would. ‘But what happened? You must have—’

‘Because Frea asked me to. That’s why I did it.’ He cut off any justification she might have produced, and then went even further, correcting himself, ‘No, I’ve been telling myself that, but it’s not true. Frea only wanted me to keep her quiet; it was my idea to cut her throat.’ More of an impulse than an idea; but no matter. ‘Dramash was already in the air, waving to her. I held her up while she died so he wouldn’t notice. She bled on me. You remember, Isa? You spoke to me just after that, in the temple. Her blood was still on me then.’ It was easy to talk about it now that he no longer had anything to hide. He could have gone on, but when she drew back from him he knew he had said enough. He greeted her disgust and disappointment with relief. ‘So, now you see,’ he told them again, ‘I can’t help you.’

Daryan had not moved throughout Rho’s recitation, but his face had gone very red. ‘So that’s it?’ he asked tightly. ‘Now you’re just going to sit here and do nothing? You’re not even going to help us save Dramash from the White Wolf?’