Rebel's Cage (Book 4) (2 page)

*

For Robert, the time of waiting came to an end one frosty winter evening, not long after Caslemas in 1370.

Excerpt from
The Secret History of Lusara
– Ruel

Alone, he crashed through the forest, his horse stumbling in the deep snow, losing purchase, almost falling, but gaining balance again, sweating, panicking at the chase, the noise, the scent of blood in the air, the cry of the soldiers pursuing him, and his horse stumbling again, grunting, tiring. It was too much to ask. Far too much.

The night was absolute, a yawning cavern of inkiness into which he plunged headlong, escaping fate, escaping punishment and due retribution. Icy air stole his breath away, pinescented and raw, drawing him further and further in, where safety was nothing more than a promise, but where peace was assured for a time.

The horse went down and he tumbled over its shoulder, slipping and rolling down the slope, his path unchecked, gathering snow, sliding, suffocating, disappearing.

He came to a halt, buried in darkness too deep to touch.

*

Silence surrounded him: thick, cloying silence sinking into his bones like treacle, holding him in place like a stake through the heart. No bones broken. No fatal cuts. Nothing that would not heal, given enough time. Only the older wounds still plagued him, those that refused to stay closed.

He listened to the silence, wanting to believe it. The snap and rustle of snow flakes around him sank into the background as he searched for harsher, more immediate noises. The soldiers were gone now, chasing some other figure in the night, losing him in the snow. He tried to reach out with his Senses, but again his injuries cut him short, blinding him to everything he had once taken for granted, making him mercilessly, terrifyingly normal again.

He sighed, patted the snow around his face to pack clear a breathing hole, then settled down, comfortable in his hiding place, resting in the darkness, his natural home.

*

The cold winter night gave him a cold winter dream. His body floated, insubstantial, torn from his control, lost in the maze. He was surrounded. Hurting. Lifted from the elements to feel shapes around him not part of this world. He knew what this was; knew the place, the time, the weapons. Knew what he had to do. He’d already been here a hundred times before.

He ran, plunging through a forest now bare of snow, shifting seasons and years as though time passed in the blink of a lazy eye. He chased the dream Nash, dodging blasts, inflicting his own, wishing he knew Shan Moss better, praying his wounds would not strike him down before he could destroy his enemy, this creature of unspeakable evil. But Nash stayed just ahead of him, too close to ignore, too far away to kill. Even when they emerged onto the battlefield, armies either side of them terrified, shifting back, but not leaving, not deserting him. He didn’t deserve such loyalty. But it wasn’t
his
loyalty – it belonged to Lusara, to the country he would defend if fate would let him. So the armies could only stand by and watch this battle rage between him and Nash as they threw blasts of heavy power at one another, as Robert danced and feinted, deflected and returned, as his blood seeped out of a dozen deep wounds, as Nash’s powers drained too slowly. Until the moment finally came.

He gathered together all the demon had bred in him, all the anger and fury, frustration, hatred, fear and self-loathing. He pulled it all together inside him, knowing what it would do – and knowing made it worthwhile. Stirring within the depths he felt the Word of Destruction grow inside, pushing up to be spoken aloud, where he could destroy Nash – and himself as well, defying his terrible destiny, even as he fulfilled it. The Word rose in him, perched upon his lips, a heartbeat away from being spoken—

And the ground beneath his feet split open, shuddering and rattling the balance from him, throwing him down, opening a
cavern between him and his enemy. Cut loose, the demon soared through him, unfettered and unchallenged, denying every breath of sense and hope. He staggered to his feet. He turned and faced
her,
knowing what she’d done, knowing she’d betrayed him, knowing he should have known it would happen.

His fist rose to strike, to let the demon loose upon her, letting the pain free to destroy the love that he still felt for her—

He froze. The air of this dreamworld rippled around him, making even the ground under his feet insubstantial. She stood before him, her face expressionless, nothing of meaning in her deep blue eyes.

He would have destroyed her. Just as the Prophecy had said. He would have destroyed her. Even though he loved her.

The voice that came to him was not his own. Nor hers. This was a man he’d left behind too many years ago.

‘You are strong, Robert Douglas. Very strong. Your will is unbroken. But you are also weak. You hesitate. You will never win unless you can learn to be ruthless.’

Before him stood David Maclean, old, white-haired, looking too much like his son, Micah – the man Robert had once considered his closest friend. The father now shook his head, disparaging as always, determined to prove that Robert had always been a traitor to his people.

‘You are weak, Douglas. See, even now you hesitate. The power sits within you. Strike her down now and rid this country of her evil. He has said you must give her up to beat him. Fulfil your destiny as it is written in your heart and destroy her now.’

He felt a trickle of something warm flow over his eye, then saw the red blood as it trailed from a wound on his forehead. He could barely see her now, even as she stood close to him, her hand upon his arm, concern in her gaze.

‘I never loved you, Robert. How could you think otherwise? How could I love a man with such darkness inside him?’

‘Strike her down now, Douglas, while you can!’

And voices rose along with this chant, loud, surrounding
him, coming from the armies in the field, their swords raised and glinting in the cold grey sky. The heavens wept, as he wished he could.

The chant became deafening as his knees gave way beneath him, his sword falling from fingers already dying. He’d wanted this to end, and now it was ending. Only the chanting didn’t stop. Instead, it changed pitch, quieted, became a plea. A cry. A call for—

‘Help! Help me!’

Robert wrenched himself from sleep, scrambling out of his snow shelter, eyes blinking back the bright morning light. For a moment, he recognised nothing, then the cry came again and he stumbled forward, the old wound in his side screaming protest. He staggered and slipped down the hill, reaching out for any hand-hold, keeping track of the faint voice, tiny, desperate and young.

He tripped and rolled, coming to a stop on flat ground. A horse, choked and panting, eyed him warily, reins dangling against cracked ice. Before him, stretched out into the distance, was a lake bound in winter, an ice-hole black on its surface out of which thrashed limbs even now losing their last strength.

Robert moved, so swiftly, the horse had no time to react. He wrapped the reins around his ankle, then knelt on the ice, stretching out on his stomach to reach the ice hole. He called out, urging, reassuring, calming. He could hear the ice creak and groan beneath him, feel it shifting, cracking further. If he didn’t get the child to safety soon, they’d both be dead.

He pushed further, until his hands reached water, grasping hold of an arm mid-flail. The cold sent shock waves through him and the arms slipped from his grip. He came forward another inch and the ice cracked open beneath his chest. But it was enough to get hold of the boy with both hands, grab his clothing and pull. Chunks of ice splashed up into his face, the water blinded him and the stabbing pain in his side sucked the breath from his body, but he didn’t let go. He dragged the boy clear of the water, soaking himself in the process, using his legs to inch them back towards the bank, calling out to the horse to back up, to help pull them both to safety.

The boy was still and silent now as Robert hurried the last few feet off the ice. Even as he dragged the frozen body towards the trees, he was already rubbing limbs, stripping off sodden clothing, pulling his own cloak free to wrap around the boy. He set him down carefully, then immediately set to work, kicking snow aside to find damp scrappy wood he could use for a fire. He didn’t care what it looked like, it just needed to be warm. He used his powers to set it alight, turning it into a blaze that would burn quickly, warming air frozen from months of winter. Only when he was sure the boy was no longer in danger of freezing to death did he turn and eye the horse.

It watched him warily, as though able to read his thoughts. He chose to ignore it, clearing more snow from the ground to give the animal somewhere to forage. Give it time to calm down, that was the thing. Give them both time.

He gathered more wood, stoked up the fire, making sure he kept himself warm, since he’d lost his cloak. The pain in his side sank to a dull heavy throb. Two years and still the wound hadn’t healed. He doubted it ever would now, though the doctors insisted it was just a matter of time. But he didn’t have time. None of them did.

The boy hadn’t moved, he just lay wrapped in Robert’s cloak, white face, blue lips, dark hair. Small and slight, a pale shadow about seven or eight years old. Out here alone. On a horse bearing a fine-quality saddle which …

Robert fell to his knees beside the boy, tugging the cloth back from his face to reveal young features that were far too familiar for him to ignore.

‘Andrew?’ Robert whispered. ‘But what in the name of the gods are you doing …’ He stopped, looked up across the lake, putting together last night, and the night before, the directions, the raid, the chase, the route to escape. In the dark, it had been impossible to tell how far he’d gone, exactly where his horse had finally thrown him.

‘Serin’s blood! I have to get you home before …’ No, he didn’t think how this boy’s mother was the woman he’d once loved, the woman who’d betrayed him. He had learned long before that such thoughts were anathema. Instead, he kept
everything centred on warming the still body, on gaining the horse’s trust, on putting the fire out and getting Andrew up onto the saddle in front of him. Then, before it could start snowing again, he urged the horse to move and followed the trail back. He could only hope it would take them towards Maitland.

Mist rose between the trees as the sun hit last night’s snow. Their passage was hidden by grey, lit by golden rays too weak to warm. But the movement did that, and the horse beneath them. Robert held onto Andrew, keeping as much of his body covered as possible, feeling, eventually, some twitches, and then shivers begin to rattle through the slight frame.

How in Mineah’s name had he got so far out here alone? Why hadn’t anybody missed him yet? Had he been running from some trouble?

Was his mother nearby?

Such a question almost froze him on his journey, but Andrew began to cough and Robert kicked the horse into greater movement. Soon he no longer needed to follow the tracks, he recognised the landscape.

He paused while still under cover and some small distance from the cottage to Seek for possible trouble, to find out if there was more than one person behind those walls.

All was well, as quiet as it appeared. Carefully, Robert brought the horse to the edge of the trees, where a clearing opened out to face the house. To one side was a tiny stable, large enough perhaps for two horses and a bale of hay. Keeping hold of Andrew, Robert slid from his horse to the ground and made his way around the building to duck into the stable unseen from the house. There he laid Andrew down where he would be safe. The child was shivering violently. Soon his muscles would start to ache and the pain would be enough to wake him up. Robert would have to be gone before then.

He had a moment, no longer, a moment in which to feel a thread of excitement run through him. He had an idea, no more, probably foolish, probably doomed to failure.

He reached out, brushed the hair from Andrew’s pale forehead and pressed two fingers there. ‘Know me,’ he
whispered, exerting the power needed to enforce the command. ‘Always know my aura. I will not forget yours. Listen and learn.’

He could hear movement from within the house. He had to go or he would be discovered. ‘Know me, Andrew. I
will
come back.’

Seconds later, he was back within the darkness of the trees, hiding again, the reins between his fingers, waiting, watching the door, hope rising in him again.

The door opened and a man stepped outside, a frown on his face, a face Robert knew better than his own. Dark red curls shook as Micah turned this way and that, as though he’d heard something and had come out into the cold to investigate. Some other instinct sent his gaze to the ground, to where Robert’s footprints gathered before the stable door. In a flash Micah was inside. A moment later, he emerged, the boy in his arms and words of fear and concern echoed across the clearing before Micah took Andrew to safety inside.

Safety and warmth. Maitland Manor was a ten minute ride away, where Andrew’s aunt and uncle lived, where Andrew lived. The boy was well-loved, cherished and kept close.

But still that thread of excitement ran through Robert, touching something inside him he’d never encountered before. So he was still standing there, in the shadows, when Micah opened the door once more. But he didn’t go far. He simply stood there, staring hard into the trees before nodding once.