Days Of Light And Shadow (13 page)

Chapter Eighteen.

“Yes.” Y’aris yelled at the door as someone knocked on it, on edge because he knew he needed something to give the high lord, and before the morning. And he also knew that the utra couldn’t provide it. He was a filthy savage guilty of surely a great many crimes, but not this one. Still he needed something for the morning.

The door swung open and one of his watchmen stepped inside, standing tall before him in his black armour. A true elf. The sight filled him with pride as it always did. These were the people he was fighting for.

“You have word?”

The watchman nodded respectfully, but there was something in the strange cast of his face that told Y’aris the word wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

“And?”

“The envoy said nothing. The inquisitor spent hours with him, whipping him until he could hold the whip no longer, and the utra just hung there in his chains, laughing at him.”

“Laughing?” For a moment Y’aris thought he’d misheard. Because the watchman couldn’t really have said that. But he had said it and he looked completely serious. Y’aris didn’t understand it. At all. Who could laugh while being flayed alive? What sort of man could not only endure such pain but laugh at it? Certainly not that soft spoken fop. It didn’t make sense. Especially when his inquisitors were so well trained in the art of torture. His master had taught them well. Y’aris hadn’t expected a full confession when he was actually innocent, but this? Laughing in his watchmen’s faces? It could not be.

“And making the most terrible accusations High Commander. Accusations about the inquisitor and about you. Accusations that the entire prison heard. The men are upset.” By which Y’aris understood that they were starting to doubt, and that could not be allowed. Not for a heartbeat. Doubt was the one thing that would undo the power of the cursed water. And if that power was undone, he would be exposed. That could never be permitted.

“Bring them to me so that we can share the sacrament together again.” He hated doing it again so soon, but he had to. A second drink of the cursed water in so short a time would have effects on their bodies as well as their thoughts. It would allow his master to start eating away at their souls and their flesh a little early. But if they doubted him, then they weren’t his soldiers any longer. That would be even worse than them sickening. And he could always find new watchmen before the sickening became too noticeable. Besides his master would appreciate the extra food, and his priests could use their bodies as they raised their armies.

“Yes High Commander.” The watchman actually seemed happy at the idea, but then why wouldn’t he? The soldiers had no idea that the water was cursed, that it bent their thoughts to his will, that it was poison. They thought it was a great honour.

And after they had drunk of the water and their thoughts were once more his, he had another task for them to perform. Before the dawn. He had put it off for a few hours, needing for messages to be sent from the mission to Tendarin, and hoping to have some sort of confession first, but that wasn’t to be, and the high lord wasn’t to be denied. Not in this.

Burn the mission, kill the staff, and then make up some tale about what the envoy had confessed. There was a lot of work to do before he visited with the high lord in the morning to tell him the good news.

Chapter Nineteen.

It was very late when the soldiers returned, closer to the cock’s crow than the sunset, and none of them had expected them.

Pita was sitting in the main room with the rest of the mission staff, all of them still reacting to what had happened. Still trying to believe that it actually had. No one was sleeping. No one was likely to.

The mood was grim. It seemed as if the reaper himself was sitting with them, keeping them company, and though he didn’t share it, Pita was certain that if the high lord was willing to go as far as he had, he would likely be willing to kill as well. The pigeons had been sent, three, just to make certain that the messages got through, and in a couple of days the king would know what had befallen his envoy. What he would do about it, Pita didn’t know. But when the elves were already attacking the realm, when they were killing innocents in their thousands and burning the border towns, it would likely be harsh. Finell would come to rue the day he had launched this terrible war.

It still puzzled him that the high lord denied it was happening. It had puzzled Iros too when he brought him his daily reports. When they had reports from the survivors, pigeons bringing them news every day of the Royal Watch’s latest attacks, it seemed that the facts were not in dispute. Yet every day that Pita had come to the high lord to demand that he end his incursion, he had called him a liar.

Could he somehow not know what his own soldiers were doing? And could he also not know that his army had suffered a crushing defeat? They had received the news only that very evening. Surely he should have heard it before them. But that was a matter for the daylight, and for the moment Pita knew, they had to work out what to do about Iros.

There were friends to contact, nobles to beseech, and at some point in the morning he knew that he would have to go before the high lord himself, and beseech him to let Iros go. But the worry gnawing away in the pit of Pita’s stomach was that he would not. He had gone this far, he would not back down. And it was likely that Iros would be killed in the prison. He might already be dead.

And Saris would never understand. From time to time Pita stared at the forlorn figure of Iros’ jackal hound as she sat at the door, waiting for him to return. She didn’t understand what had happened, but she knew that her master was in trouble. He could see it in the way that she guarded the door, her round ears pricked up, listening for the sound of his footsteps.

She was an unusual pet. He had heard that many people had told Iros when he’d found her as a motherless pup that she should be killed cleanly. But they would have been wrong. She might not be quite a dog, but perhaps even more than any of those, she was faithful. Completely faithful. If she didn’t see her master again he suspected, she would die of a broken heart.

And as to what Iros’ family would do when they heard the news, Pita couldn’t even begin to imagine. The Drakes were a close family. Too close some said. They valued family above advancement. And they ruled their people the same way. So how would they survive the news that their only son had been arrested on a pretence, dragged off to a dungeon where the Divines only knew what was being done to him, and would quite likely be killed? It would destroy them. The same dark thoughts were running through all their minds.

And so he and the rest of the mission staff sat there in the oversized arm chairs set aside for guests, waiting patiently for the dawn, and the hope that it might bring, but still living in the darkness.

Unexpectedly Saris yipped a little, and then growled under her breath, jolting Pita out of whatever strange land his thoughts had been journeying, and for a brief moment the sound filled him with hope. Maybe she had heard something. Maybe the high lord had finally seen sense and let Iros go.

“Girl.” Danni went to the hound, beating them all by a few heartbeats. “Do you hear something?” But of course the hound couldn’t answer her. Her growls though didn’t sound happy.

Pita went to the window, the door was blocked by a hound, pulled the drapes open and looked out into the darkness, hoping to see something. But there was nothing to see save the twinkling lights of the city.

“I don’t see -.” There was a sound of glass breaking and then a sudden thump and a terrible pain in his shoulder, and for a moment he didn’t quite know what had happened. But then when he looked down to see the head of an arrow unexpectedly protruding from his shoulder he understood.

“Get down!” He screamed it even as he took his own advice and fell to the floor, but he wasn’t quite quick enough. Even as he lay there shouting he saw Danni stand up to try to come to his aid. A noble thought in the young cleaning girl, but a foolish one. Another arrow came through the glass and pierced her throat.

Time seemed to stop then, heartbeats seemed to last for hours, as he watched her standing there in front of him. Her mouth was open as she tried to scream though no sound came out. Her eyes were wide open in disbelief and horror, and as she reached out her hands to her throat, not understanding what had happened, he knew she was going to die. There was already so much blood.

Three more arrows found her as she stood there, striking her body in ways too horrible to imagine in a young and innocent girl, until finally she did the only thing she could, and collapsed.

After that things became a little crazy. The women were screaming in terror, Saris was growling her head off, not understanding what was happening but determined to kill someone anyway, and arrows were flying in all directions. In heartbeats surely fifty of them were lodged in the walls, maybe a hundred and fifty, and he could hear the sound of laughter coming from outside. The maniacal laughter of mad men. It was then that Pita finally understood. This was the high lord’s doing. Imprisoning Iros wasn’t enough. He wanted to kill them all. He had sent his soldiers like assassins in the night to murder them.

But understanding didn’t help them. Not when he could see Danni still lying on the floor in front of him, bleeding lakes of blood as she gasped her last, trying to breath. Not when he could hear Saris growling as loudly as she could, hysterical and with an arrow in her side. Not when he could see Taniya lying on the ground on the far side of the room, half a dozen arrows sticking out of her body as well. She was trying to crawl to him, her hands outstretched, her face filled with horror, but it was a journey that he knew she would never complete. There were just too many wounds. Too much blood.

Valeria had died more quickly, an arrow through her heart and another through her eye. But seeing her draped over the side of the chair, that understanding did not make it any better. Who would care for the pigeons now? Who would tend to the gardens? Who would tell her family?

And where was Briana? Their cleric of Silene. He looked all around, terrified that she too would be dead, but couldn’t find her anywhere. Not near the chair where she’d been sitting, not anywhere else. He called her name, and heard nothing back from her. And then he called again, and got the same answer. Wherever she was, alive or dead, the cleric would have to look after herself. For the moment they simply had to get to safety, and there was only one safe place he knew.

“The cellar!” For some reason he could still speak clearly, and he could even shout, and at least one other heard him. Mya called out. She had arrows in both legs, but she was still moving, crawling along the floor as she made for the back door. But when he yelled she changed direction, heading for the cellar. Pita did the same, pausing only long enough to grab one very angry jackal hound to him, and start dragging her along with him.

It was lucky that they had a cellar. Iros’ predecessor had had it dug out maybe ten years before as a place to store meats and things that needed to be kept cold on a summer’s day, and he could only hope that Finell didn’t know about it. And that it was air tight. When the next volley of arrows streaking through the remnants of their windows were covered with flames, and he saw the fire taking hold, he knew that would be important.

Mya reached the hatch before him, but then she’d been closer and hadn’t had a hound to drag with her. She lifted up the thick woven rugs covering it, tossed them aside and then pulled at the handle. Normally they’d use a long stick that was kept in the kitchen to open the cellar cover, but these were not normal times and she had all the strength she needed even without it.

Then, though it was surely madness as the flames were starting to leap up the walls, she called to him, even waited for him as he dragged himself and Saris along the floor. Luckily it wasn’t long before they were both with her, and she could slide down the wooden staircase to the cool embrace of the earth below. With arrows in her legs it was the best that she could do.

Pita slid Saris down the stairs after her, something the hound was unhappy about from the sound of her yelps and growls, and then carefully started lowering himself after them.

“Briana!” Half way down, one hand on the hatch, he called for her again, hoping against hope that the young cleric was still alive, and still heard nothing back. He couldn’t hear much though, not over the roar of the flames as they took hold, or the laughter of the soldiers outside.

It was time. He knew that. It was time to close the hatch and pray that they would be safe in the cellar while the mission burnt above them.

Pita took one final look around at the mission house and the dead bodies of his friends, and he knew he could never return. The mission was ended and the time for peace had passed. It was now the time for war, and those with the moon silver tongues as the elves called them, had failed. They had failed terribly.

All they could do now he knew as he closed the hatch above him, slid the bolt into place and stepped down the last few rungs to the soft earth, was try to survive. Try to get both of them out of Leafshade alive. Two humans in an elven city, and a jackal hound that the entire city would recognise.

“Master Pita?”

Mya was frightened and he knew that she had every reason to be. But there was hope. He could see the path ahead unfolding in front of him as clearly as he had ever seen anything. All those lessons with Lord Drake had been of use after all.

First the arrows. They had to be pulled and their wounds treated. But they could do that. They kept strong spirits down in the cellar and bandages too. It was a storeroom as much as anything else. And while the fire burnt above and the soldiers laughed, no one would hear them cry out. Then clothing, long robes to disguise them, and again they were lucky in that they kept a couple of large working men’s robes down there as well, just so that Iros could walk around the markets unnoticed some days as he spoke with the traders.

In a couple of hours, when the soldiers had left, and assuming they were still breathing, they could escape through the back tunnel. It only lead to the small garden at the back of the mission, and had never been intended as an escape route. It was simply a way that the envoy and his messengers could come and go without being seen. But it would do. Even during the day no one would notice them.

Then they had to find friends. They were both wounded, and the markets were empty of humans. There was no one there who could carry them to safety, especially when they also had little coin. But there was one place that they could go. One place where even the high lord’s reach did not extend. And one man he was sure they could trust.

And if he cared for neither of them Elder Yossirion would still save the hound at all costs.