Leoht (BloodRunes: Book 3) (21 page)

Ranis remained silent.

“That’s what I thought. You’ve been using the
lower ranks to control the breeding programs, hoping that someday
you’ll produce one that will grow strong enough to attract the
Bloodstone’s attention once again and pick that person as a host.
Meanwhile, the inner circle worked to find a way to harness that
power. So that when that person appeared, you would be ready for
them. Following that poor young Edward around, enveloping him in so
many control spells that he could hardly breathe without your
consent. And then killing him when you found out he was of no use
to you.”

She tried a new tactic, “Much like the
control your mother had on you? And on the Baron? How else do you
think a gypsy woman without a drop of noble blood in her got to
where she did. How many times did that demented woman take you to
her bed? Her own son. And the torture she put you through…”

Nathair’s face hardened. “It made me into the
strong man that I am now. And if you know all that about me, you’ll
also know that I killed her. She no longer has any sort of control
over me. No one does.”

“Only Nuko.” She taunted, bargaining that his
anger over his mother’s perversions might make him stop and think
about what the god was doing inside of him right now.

Nathair was silent a moment. “What was your
plan once you gained access and control over the Bloodstone’s
power? Hmm? Was it ever to actually wake him, by reuniting him with
his body and freeing him from his prison?”

She realized she had lost him, and he knew
far more than they had realized. They had only just discovered that
the source of the Bloodstone’s power was an actual god whose body
was trapped on their world. Nuko’s hold was strong. She stammered,
“You don’t understand how powerful he is, he will overtake you…”
she grasped at anything that might sway his mind, remembering the
rite she had just read about she said hastily, “whatever he’s told
you, he’s using you. He only needs you until he gets you to bring
him to his body. Do you know what will happen to the host
then?”

Something flickered in Nathair’s eyes.

“Did you think that because you were able to
withstand his taking over your body completely that it meant the
two of you would also share his?”

She felt something sharp and cold slide
between her ribs and she gasped in pain. The surprised look on
Nathair’s face told her that it had been Nuko that had controlled
the motion. Unfortunately for her, it didn’t matter…

She collapsed to the ground in a heap. All
their hard work and planning. It would amount to nothing if this
ignorant man allowed Nuko to regain access to his own faculties. In
her dying breath she looked him in the eye and told him, “He’s
going to drain every last drop of blood from you to perform the
absorption ritual.” She saw his body twitch and knew that the two
of them were fighting for control, Nuko wanting to silence her and
Nathair wanting to hear it. Good, perhaps her death wouldn’t be for
nothing. “His essence is part of you now, only by reabsorbing your
body’s life-force, your blood, into his own will he be truly whole
once again. And don’t let him fool you into thinking that any part
of you has any chance of surviving that…” she trailed off, the last
of her energy spent on the tirade.

Nathair’s brows had drawn together and as
Ranis faded, a tiny flicker of hope rekindled; perhaps all their
hard work wouldn’t amount to nothing after all…

*

The woman’s eyes faded to a deathly glaze,
and she slumped sideways on the floor. Nathair waited for Nuko to
say something. -
Is it true?-
he thought when no denial was
forthcoming.

-
Of course not. She was just
trying to scare you away from the power she knows she’ll never
have. She’s just jealous. If the Order can’t have it, nobody
can
.
-

Nathair wanted to believe that, but the death
blow that he had delivered to the woman had not been of his own
volition. Had Nuko been trying to silence her before she could warn
him?

She’s just trying to frighten you,
the
voice in the back of his head said,
you’ve withstood him this
far, he can’t force you to do anything you don’t want to.
He
glanced down at the knife sticking out of the woman’s abdomen.
At least not when you’re prepared. Don’t let your guard
drop.
And that was it really, his mother
had
tortured
him to the point of breaking time and time again when he was
younger, and demented or not, it had shaped him into something
unstoppable. He had been able to withstand the essence of a GOD
after all. He would be wary of his will asserting itself, and as
long as he was vigilant he would remain in control.

Shaken not only from the momentary lapse of
free will, but also the memories that the conversation had dredged
up, Nathair needed an escape. He had been patrolling the troops
before the ripples in the power had called him here. Perhaps it was
time to set off those slaves within the enemy’s encampment. The
resulting show would boost his mood.

He transported within range and transformed,
flying low over the treetops. He evaded the arrows from the
sentries and adrenaline flowed through him as the alarm was raised.
He swooped over the tents where the captives were being held and
sent out an all-encompassing command.

Fight
.

Soldiers starting swarming out of tents like
angry bees out of a disturbed hive and they pointed to him in the
air.
That’s right, look at your master
. They started
grabbing weapons and armor and Nathair watched with giddy
excitement, ready for the mayhem to begin.

But then they did something totally
unexpected. They started releasing a volley of arrows towards
him
. One hit him in the delicate membrane of his wings and
he screamed in pain. He took a deep breath and inhaled his fiery
rage onto the troops below him. Healing his wounded wing with a
thought, he made a second pass, grabbing talonfuls and mouthfuls of
soldiers as he maneuvered expertly only feet off the ground. He
spared a tendril of deliberation to search for the spells on their
bracers, why weren’t they responding? To his horror, he discovered
that not only did these men no longer wear the bracers, but the
bracers themselves were currently in a pile in one of the officer’s
tents, probably being analyzed this very moment for their
secrets.

He screamed his fury again and plunged back
into the fray, burning and tearing and ripping everything in his
path. He headed straight for the tent that held his precious
bracers. All of the planning that had gone into their use, simply
wasted. How had they figured out how to remove them? It was a
carefully guarded secret even among the Order’s most trusted
associates. And he had killed most of the ones he’d been able to
find to silence them after stealing the secret himself…

He opened his massive jaws and inhaled enough
air that the flaps of the tent threatened to be sucked completely
off their frame and down into his lungs. The officer stepped out to
see what the commotion was and stopped dead at the sight of
Nathair.

Nathair reversed his breath and the blast of
fire that hit the man straight-on incinerated him in seconds,
leaving nothing but ashes blowing off in the wind. The tent behind
him burst into a wild fireball of flame and was gone. But his
flames didn’t stop coming. If he couldn’t use the bracers against
them, he certainly wasn’t going to leave them here for the enemy to
pick apart. The metals twisted and melted, finally leaving behind a
horrible tangled mass of metal and gems, molded together in a
macabre lump.

A sword was thrust against his side, though
it couldn’t pierce through his thick shielding of scales, and
Nathair whipped his head around, burning the soldier who dared
attack him and continuing the flame around him. Men were fleeing
into the forest and Nathair lit that on fire as well, chomping any
close enough to grab and throwing spells out at random.

When his fury was diminished he looked around
him with grim satisfaction. It may not have been the slaves who had
caused the destruction, but the result was the same. And really,
the fight had been quite exhilarating.

A spell hit him in the rear leg, temporarily
immobilizing him, and he spun his neck around. A group of several
mages was working together to fling their paltry spells at him. He
broke the paralyzation with ease, but leapt into the air and out of
range of the mages anyway. With enough of them working together
they could stall him for long enough for one of the soldiers to get
in a real attack on him. The thought was invigorating. It had been
a long time since he had come up against a real foe. These humans
might be fun to lord over after all.

As he flew away from the carnage, the
adrenalin surge wore off and his thinking became clearer. Obviously
someone had leaked the secret to removing the collars to the enemy.
Worse than that, when he had melted the lot of them, he’d realized
that they were no longer even tuned to his command. So whose
command were they under? It was a shame he’d killed that woman, the
most likely answer would be another one of the Order’s inner
circle.

He needed to find out who was running that
part of the show…

CHAPTER 14

Layna and Gryffon had to dismount to lead Axe
through the crowded city streets of Naoham and Layna reluctantly
let go of Gryffon. She had been enjoying the forced close-quarters
from their lack of another horse.

Gryffon had been teaching her how to use the
sword as he had promised and Layna felt that their relationship was
slowly being repaired. It would never be what she wanted it to be,
but she would take his friendship over nothing.

They entered through the city’s side entrance
to avoid the bulk of the guards and stabled Axe on the outskirts.
Though they hadn’t been absent that long, Naoham seemed like a
foreign place. Either that, or Layna no longer identified with the
girl who had lived here. She had grown in many ways in the last few
months that faced with the environment of her past, it seemed
completely changed. But perhaps it was only her perspective that
had.

They watched the faces around them warily,
waiting for someone to recognize them, but no one seemed to even
want to meet their eyes. Those who did gave them odd looks and
Layna wondered if it was obvious that they didn’t belong here
anymore. As she continued to observe those around her, however, she
suddenly realized what was strange about them.

“Do you notice there are no young men
around?” she whispered to Gryffon.

He glanced around and nodded, “I was just
thinking that myself. I have a bad feeling about this.” The words
had no sooner left his mouth than hands suddenly grabbed them from
behind, and something covered Layna’s mouth, muffling her
scream.

“Shh,” said a voice and Layna’s scream turned
to a happy gasp of surprise.

“Katrina?” she asked, turning as the arms
released her. She gathered the woman back into an embrace and was
surprised by a bump on the woman’s belly. It wasn’t very
pronounced, but noticeable. She held the woman’s shoulders and
moved her to arm’s length, gazing down at her stomach. Katrina put
a protective hand over the burgeoning bump and smiled.

“Aaron and I got married, and our first child
is already on the way.”

“Oh sweetie, congratulations!” Layna pulled
her in for another fierce hug, careful not to squish her tummy.
“Where is Aaron?”

A male voice that was not Aaron’s cut their
reunion short. “We can’t linger here, let’s go.” Gryffon and Layna
exchanged confused glances, but followed the trio deeper into the
alleyway. They knocked on a door at the end, and after the peephole
opened and a pair of eyes looked out at them, it slammed back shut
and the door opened. Katrina slipped inside and the two men
indicated that she and Gryffon should follow. They obliged. The
door shut behind them and Layna hurried to keep up with Katrina’s
form as it made its way down twisting and turning hallways before
coming to a stop in front of another door.

She turned back to them and opened the door,
to reveal a closet. Layna frowned. What was this? Katrina withdrew
several items and handed what looked like a dead animal and a cloak
to Gryffon and a shawl to her. “Come on,” she waved her hand in a
beckoning motion and shut the closet, continuing on down the hall.
She opened another door and stepped aside. Layna peeked past her
and saw that it was a bathing room. “You’ll have to shave your
face,” Katrina told Gryffon.

“You want to tell us what’s going on here?”
Gryffon asked, not moving into the room. Layna was feeling a little
sad to see his sexy stubble go, but she was sure that wasn’t the
reason he was resisting.

“I’ll explain everything shortly, but it’s
not safe to linger here longer than necessary. Long story short,
it’s dangerous to be a young man walking around the streets right
now. We need to disguise you.”

“Alright,” Gryffon apparently decided that
was good enough for the moment and he went into the bathroom,
picking up the blade ready for him and lathering up his face.

“What’s going on?” Layna asked as Gryffon
worked.

“There’ve been a lot of changes since you two
left, not the least of which is that all of the young men were
called to be in the army.”

“Aaron?” Layna asked, trepidation in her
voice.

“He got out,” Katrina assured and Layna let
out her breath in relief, “He was one of the first. We’ve been
helping the men to escape the city and they’ve been hiding in
several areas we’ve set up for them.”

“Has the King lost that much support that men
are refusing to fight?”

“Scared to fight is more like it. The first
round of volunteers went willingly, even though even to those who
really believe the King is a god he’s not making a good impression
by eating people. But when reports of bloodbeasts getting loose
that were supposed to be fighting for the army and decimating whole
units and the men just standing there letting it happen because
they’re suddenly acting like zombies put a damper on the whole
rushing-off-to-defend-your-country sentiment.”