Blood's Pride (Shattered Kingdoms) (28 page)

‘It’s not safe here,’ Daryan said, following her eyes. ‘I know you people heal fast, but how long will it be before she can be moved?’

‘Not long – an hour, maybe less,’ said Lahlil.

Eofar laid her on the tomb again, only now the sun had moved off. She could see the skylight up above her, but it looked very, very far away, and the sky itself looked flat, like a splash of paint on the ceiling.

‘We’ll have to leave the temple – we can’t do that until sunset,’ said Eofar.

Isa called to her brother. She felt the touch of his
cool fingers on her cheek.

He wanted to hide his sorrow from her, but he could not. She entwined herself in it, trying to reach him, to comfort him. She knew now why Eofar had never told her about the letter, and she could forgive him. It didn’t have anything to do with her or Frea, or Norland; their mother’s abandonment had cut him so deeply, made him feel so utterly worthless, that he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else knowing about it.

Isa let her eyes fall closed. She’d done all she could for now. It was up to the others to work out the rest.

‘Getting out through the stables is going to be hard,’ Daryan was saying. ‘We’ll have to distract—’

‘Not you,’ said Lahlil. ‘You’re going with Faroth.’

‘I’m not leaving Isa.’

‘The Shadari want their daimon: they’re killing and being killed in your name. Is that what you want?’

There was a pause. ‘I never wanted that.’ Another pause. ‘All right, I’ll talk to Faroth. But I’m not leaving here until I know that Isa’s safe.’ Then more sharply, ‘She’s unconscious again. Is that bad?’

From the other side, Eofar said, ‘Would you rather have her awake for this?’

But I am awake
, Isa thought worriedly. She was too far away for them to hear her. She heard the sound of metal, the crackling of a torch.

‘No. Use this one.’ Lahlil’s voice again. ‘She told me its name.’ Had she? She didn’t remember. ‘She’s called it Truth’s Might.’

Yes. Yes, that was the name she had chosen for her mother’s sword – her sword, now.
Truth’s Might
.

‘Do it in one stroke,’ Daryan advised. ‘And then seal the wound, or she’ll bleed to death. You can’t hesitate.’

Wait
, Isa tried to cry out to them.
Wait, I’m awake. I’m not ready – don’t—

There was the sharp strike of metal against stone, then a hiss and the bright smell of smoke. And that was all. This time Isa ran from the pain and before it could catch her, she plunged into the darkness.

Daryan paused by the window on his way to meet Faroth at the stables and stared at the broken slats lying on the ground. All of the windows he had passed had been uncovered; it looked as if someone had run through the corridors, giddily denuding the windows as they went. The sight of the bright sunshine piercing through the temple’s gloom brought home the fact that nothing in his life would ever be the same again. He tried to breathe deeply, waiting for the tightness in his chest to ease.

Then he passed through the archway to the stables and a Shadari sentinel turned around and hissed, ‘Here he is!’

There were no Dead Ones in the stables – Frea would never have left them unguarded, so the soldiers had either been lured away, or otherwise dispatched by Faroth’s gang. Two saddled and skittish dereshadi were being held by half a dozen slaves, while scores of others watched over the many entrances. Omir stood out among them, and Daryan recognised Binit too. His uncle was standing between the two dereshadi, stroking their bristly snouts, trying to soothe them.

One of the Shadari took a few limping steps towards Daryan and he stared in astonishment. He’d always known that
Harotha and her brother were twins, but he had never imagined the resemblance between them would be so striking.

Without preamble, Faroth asked, ‘You’re Daryan?’

‘Yes.’

He saw Faroth cock his arm and he knew he was about to be hit, but it happened too fast for him even to flinch, let alone defend himself. He stumbled backwards under the weight of the punch, but he didn’t fall. Through watering eyes he saw Omir charging over.

‘That was for letting that Dead One touch my sister,’ Faroth informed him, and then spat on the ground.

‘Stop!’ he called out hoarsely to Omir, who was about to grab Faroth. His face hurt and he could taste blood on his lip, but his mind was too busy with the problem of keeping on the right side of Harotha’s tangle of lies to worry about the pain. ‘You’re her brother. I’d expect you to do that,’ he said slowly, wiping the blood from his mouth. ‘But you know her. And you know that once she’s made up her mind to do something, there isn’t anything anyone can do to stop her.’

Faroth eyed Daryan suspiciously, but he didn’t seem inclined towards further violence. ‘I was sent here to take you back to the Shadar,’ said Faroth. ‘You can go if you want to, but I’m not leaving without my son.’

Shairav left the dereshadi. ‘Daryan, we must go at once,’ he said. His shoulders were straight, his grim mouth and heavy brows were set in their usual uncompromising lines, but to Daryan the old man looked like a shadow of his former self.
His eyes had a strange bulging look to them, as if something were pressing on them from behind, and his skin still had that unhealthy waxy sheen.

‘I’m not leaving either,’ Daryan told all of them at once. ‘That’s what I came here to tell you.’

‘It’s not safe here,’ Omir advised. ‘You should go with them. It might be your only chance.’

‘No one’s safe anywhere,’ he replied dismissively, ‘and I’m not going to hide any more. The White Wolf is planning something – we have to find out what she’s going to do, and if she’s threatening the Shadar, we have to stop her. There aren’t many of us, but we have a better chance of stopping her here than down in the city.’

‘Fine,’ Faroth agreed grimly, ‘we all stay then. That suits me.’

‘Sorry, but you’re going back – you and the others you came with, and my uncle.’

Faroth’s eyes widened incredulously. ‘Are you giving me orders?’

‘Yes, I am,’ said Daryan calmly.

‘You wouldn’t dare without Omir here to protect you,’ Faroth said.

‘But I am here,’ Omir reminded him.

‘All right, stop it,’ he told them both angrily. ‘Look, Faroth, you have an organisation down in the city – Harotha told me all about it. You can get the people in the Shadar ready to fight back, if it comes to that. They need you there to defend the city – you’re the only one who can.’ He glanced back towards the door. Who knew how much time they had before more guards arrived? ‘We’ll get your son away from the White Wolf;
that I swear to you. But you’ll never get to him now, and we’re running out of time.’

‘You can’t stay,’ Shairav told Daryan. His usual stentorian voice sounded gruff, its force blunted. ‘You must come with me, to the Shadar. You must—’

‘I know what you’re going to say, Uncle, but I’m not that important to the Shadari, not really. They don’t need me; it’s you they need. You’re the last of the ashas.’ Daryan emphasised the last few words, well aware of their mocking cruelty. He was enjoying being able to remind Shairav of his perfidy in front of the others, even if no one else understood. They would, soon enough. ‘You’re the most important person in the Shadar; I’m nothing compared to you. It’s vital that you survive.’

‘Yes, yes. I must survive,’ agreed the old man vaguely. His eyes had taken on a vacant look during Daryan’s verbal onslaught, and now he turned and walked, a little unsteadily, back to the dereshadi.

‘Daryan is right,’ said Omir quietly, in his deep voice. ‘You’re needed in the city, Faroth, and we need Shairav alive. You must go now, while there’s still time.’

‘You swear to me that you’ll stop at nothing to get Dramash back from the White Wolf?’ Faroth demanded. Daryan knew that he had won the argument. He wondered which of his appeals had worked: those aimed at Faroth’s sense of duty to his people, or those to his vanity.

‘We’ll get him,’ he promised, ‘I—’

Binit called Faroth’s name, but he ordered him to wait and turned back to Daryan and Omir. ‘You could be trapped here.
There’s no way out except the dereshadi. We should make Shairav show us the ashas’ secret entrance before we take him.’

Daryan was startled, but he quickly realised that as angry as he was at Shairav, he didn’t want Faroth finding out the truth; not yet, anyway. ‘There really isn’t time,’ he started, ‘not when the guards could come back any moment.’

‘All right; he can do it from the Shadar, then,’ Faroth amended, waving off another summons from Binit. ‘The ashas could come and go when they pleased, so there must be a way up from the beach. I—’

Binit appeared by Faroth’s side, looking white-faced. ‘Faroth,’ Binit said, swallowing nervously, ‘we need you. Right now.’

‘What is it?’ he growled, frowning, but he followed Binit over to the others.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Omir said, ‘There’s something you’re not telling him.’

Daryan looked up quickly into Omir’s grave, intelligent eyes. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ he admitted. Harotha’s first rule for telling a successful lie: stay as close to the truth as possible. ‘It’s Eofar and Isa – if they’re still alive, I want to help them escape. I want them to join with us against the White Wolf.’

Omir was surprised, but not shocked; Daryan, watching his face closely, saw it take him only a moment to grasp the sense of this plan. ‘You don’t believe that all of the soldiers are loyal to Lady Frea.’

‘I do not,’ he agreed firmly. ‘The Dead Ones take their honour and traditions very seriously. What Frea’s done – turning on Eofar, the eldest son, the heir – goes against both. They’ll follow her if they’ve no other choice, but if Eofar steps forward and
asserts himself as the rightful governor, I bet more than a few Dead Ones will be happy to switch sides.’

‘But we don’t even know where he is. He’s disappeared.’

‘I know where he is,’ Daryan assured him. He thought of the plan he and Eofar had made, sitting next to Isa but not looking at her, listening to her laboured breathing, while Eofar pretended not to notice that Daryan was trying not to be sick, and Daryan pretended not to notice that Eofar was sitting on his hands to stop them from shaking. They were still in the funeral chamber – they had considered Lahlil’s old room, but Frea knew about that, too – waiting until the sun was low enough for them to fly safely. Lahlil had assured them that Isa would be awake by then. She had some plan to clear the way for them to escape, but she hadn’t given them any details; all he knew was that Eofar would take Isa to the cave he and Harotha had discovered after the earthquake, and Daryan would find Harotha and bring her there after his own escape. He hadn’t told Eofar that he had no intention of leaving the temple until he knew that Isa was already safely away.

‘You know Lord Eofar better than I do,’ said Omir. ‘If you think we should help him, that’s good enough for me.’

‘I think I have an idea about how to keep the White Wolf here in the temple, too. We should get out of here as soon as Shairav and Faroth are gone and find some place safe to talk about it.’

‘I have a few friends who—’

But Daryan was growing worried. ‘Maybe we’d better see what’s going on over there,’ he suggested as he noticed the other Shadari converging on Faroth and Binit. Omir fell into
step by his side, but their steps slowed as he saw the looks on the faces of those who turned aside to make way for them.

Shairav was lying on the ground, his eyes closed and creased with pain, and one hand lay over his chest, fingers curled.

‘He’s dead,’ Faroth told him unnecessarily.

Omir’s heavy hand gripped his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Daimon. I’m truly sorry.’

‘Yes,’ he replied slowly. ‘So am I.’

‘Is she still asleep?’

‘Shhhhh!’

‘Do you think we should do it now?’

‘We have to do it before Faroth gets back.’

Harotha heard the curtain rings rattle softly against the rod. She kept her eyes closed and her breathing regular, not sure whether they could see her in the darkness. Pretending she needed sleep had got her away from the excited prying of the Shadari women Alkar had handed her on to, but despite the hours she’d spent anxiously ruminating in the dark, she was no closer to knowing what was happening in the temple. The separate lies she had told Faroth, Eofar and Daryan were going to collide up there, and nothing in her power could prevent it.

More whispering sounded from the other side of the curtain, and then someone sang out, ‘Okay, we’re ready!’

The curtain rings rattled again and she heard the same faintly familiar jingling sound she’d been hearing from time to time all morning. She yawned and said sleepily, ‘Is someone there?’

The jingling came closer, and in the dim light she could see
a slim Shadari woman creeping towards her. ‘Who’s there?’ she called out, struggling up out of the cushions.

‘Now don’t spoil it!’ the intruder cried out, clapping a scented hand over Harotha’s eyes and urging her towards the doorway. She felt the rough fabric of the curtain, then saw the glow of daylight around her captor’s fingers.

‘Surprise!’ a voice yelled in her ear, the hands fell away and the room exploded with sound. She stood blinking in the bright light with a shrill chorus of congratulations ringing in her ears. Faroth’s house was jammed full of women, all watching her with eager, shining faces. A huge pot of tea simmered over the hearth in the centre of the room. Next to it was a well-worn cradle, surrounded by a jumble of baskets overflowing with linens and other, less instantly recognisable implements.

‘Did we surprise you?’ asked an eager voice at her elbow and she turned to see a very young woman, not much more than a girl, looking up at her with keen excitement. Both of her forearms were covered up to the elbow with wedding bracelets; that was the jingling sound that Harotha had recognised but couldn’t place. ‘We figured, coming from the temple and all, that you wouldn’t have anything for the little daimon.’ She giggled.

The rest of the women in the room had fallen silent and now they all turned to her expectantly.