Prisoner of the Iron Tower (38 page)

Iovan, left arm tied up in a blood-soaked scarf, was still directing operations. By now his voice was hoarse and cracked as he gave his orders. He said nothing to Gavril, but he cast him a suspicious, sidelong glance.

They met up with RaÏsa at the gates into Anisieli. Her forehead was bound in a makeshift, bloodstained bandage, but she still managed to smile as she came toward them, flinging an arm around each of their shoulders.

“My brave boys,” she said, hugging them. She was crying, but she didn’t seem to care. Pavel kissed her on each cheek, then full on the mouth.

Gavril breathed in the delicious scent emanating from her body.

Blood. Fresh, warm, innocent blood.

Dizzy with hunger, he pulled away.

The river ran through the center of Anisieli, cold and fresh from the gorge. The tavern owner had set tables out on the cobbled riverside and lit lanterns to welcome them. The mayor of Anisieli appeared and made a long-winded but heartfelt speech, thanking them for defeating the Tielen invaders and offering free food and lodgings for the night.

A doctor was found to attend to the wounded. Tavern girls came out with bottles of the rich, red local wine and baskets of fresh-baked cornbread. There would be lamb stewed with green plums and tarragon, to follow, they promised.

Gavril was not hungry. The smell of the lamb stew wafting from the tavern kitchen only made his stomach gripe. He sat at the mayor’s table opposite Pavel and RaÏsa, wondering how long he could stay in their company before the inevitable aftereffects of using his powers set in.

The rich wine soon loosened the tongues of the rebels and the noisy recounting of the afternoon’s ambush made Gavril’s head ache.

“One moment the Tielens had us surrounded—mortar fire everywhere, and clouds of that evil smoke they use to confuse the enemy.” RaÏsa was describing the battle, with wild and vivid hand gestures. The wine had brought color back to her pale cheeks. “And then the sky went dark—and their mortar battery exploded. Boom! My ears are still ringing. When we went to check—and God, that was a gruesome sight—there was little left. They’d blown themselves up.”

“Not quite accurate,” Pavel said. “It was Gavril’s work.”

Gavril set down his wine and stared hard at Pavel.

Don’t betray my secret if you value your life, Velemir.

“Your work, Gavril? But how?” RaÏsa asked.

“It’s not the first time I’ve done this,” he said as obscurely as he could. “It was just a case of igniting their explosives.”

“Rusta says he saw something in the sky. Dark, winged, flying down from the mountains.”

“Rusta must have suffered a bad blow to the head,” Gavril said with a dry smile.

“He’s not been so well since he was caught in the blast. Says he breathed in some of the smoke after the explosion. But then, we all did.”

They had all breathed in the smoke from his virulent burst of Drakhaon’s Fire, and none of them were protected. If they were not to fall sick and die, he must act to save them.

He stared down at the crimson wine in his mug. Stallion’s Blood, they called it in these parts, fermented from a robust dark grape grown on the southern slopes beyond the gorge. The taste was strong enough to mask what he was about to add to it.

He left the table and went around the side of the tavern, carrying his mug with him. There, beside a stinking privy, he gritted his teeth and made a quick slash in his wrist, letting the daemon-purple blood sizzle, drop by drop, into his wine.

“What are you doing?”
the Drakhaoul hissed.
“You have barely enough blood to sustain you. You can’t afford to lose anymore.”

“This,” Gavril said, wincing as he pressed his sleeve cuff to the raw edges of the cut, “is necessary.”

It was dark now, and from somewhere high in the wooded slopes of the gorge beyond, he heard the distant call of an owl floating down on the warm night air. As he had hoped, the tavern girls were refilling the wine jugs from a big oak barrel near the kitchen. It was just a matter of slipping some of the wine from his blood-tainted mug into each jug.

He stood, leaning against the tavern doorframe, watching the girls take the healing wine to the rebels, watching until all had refilled their glasses and drunk.

Suddenly it seemed as if the air around him was sucked dry. A wave of intolerable heat rippled through his whole body. Gasping, he buckled, grasping at the wall for support. Glitters of light flashed before his eyes, tiny darts of amethyst and sapphire that pierced his aching head like needles.

“Drakhaoul,” he whispered. “What’s . . . happening to me?”

“Our . . . synthesis . . . is failing. . . .”

“Failing?” Another wave of heat surged through his body, leaving his head pounding, his stomach seized with burning cramps.

One of the tavern girls came out, carrying a big pot of lamb stew. The greasy smell of the meat made him feel even more ill.

“Are you all right, sir?”

He heard her set down the pot and come closer, one tentative step at a time. And through the surging nausea, he caught a new, enticing scent—fresh and sweet—that, as she knelt beside him, he knew issued from her.

“You look really poorly.” He felt cool fingers brush his cheek. “You’re burning hot! Shall I send for a doctor?”

“Water . . .” Though even as he said the word, he knew it was not water that he needed.

“I’ll go get some.”

“No. Wait.” He reached out and caught hold of her hand. “Stay with me.”

“B-but—”

He raised his head to look at her. Through the swirls of smoke that hazed his vision, he saw a black-haired young girl with skin the ripe brown sheen of hazelnuts. “You’re very pretty. What’s your name?”

“My name’s Gulvardi.” A blush darkened her cheeks. “I’m new here at the tavern.” Even her warm breath smelled deliciously sweet.

A sudden flurry of lascivious images whirled through his mind. Desire burned through his whole body, enflamed his brain. He wanted her.

“Then take her.”

“No,” Gavril whispered.

“You fought the Tielens today, didn’t you? That was so brave.” Her eyes, dark as sloes, gazed at him, brimming with admiration.

Gavril doubled up again, clutching his arms about himself, trying to hold the pain in. And then the pain and the desire merged. He would lure her away from watching eyes, to some dark and lonely place where no one would hear her cries for help.

“Maybe—a breath of fresh air—will restore me.” He tried to straighten up. Who was speaking now, Gavril or the Drakhaoul? He no longer knew. He had lost control. “Help me, Gulvardi.”

“Here. Take my arm.”

He leaned against her as she guided him down the steps toward the sound of the rushing river. Every hesitant step they took away from the tavern led him closer to the achievement of his desire.

Ahead loomed the dark trunks of pines on the gorge edge. There would be hollows between the gnarled roots, soft with dry pine needles.

“Do you feel better out here?” Gulvardi said.

“A little.”

The desire was almost unbearable, the cramping hunger a torment—the last desperate need of a man dying of famine. But he must not make his move. Not yet, not until he was sure they were well out of sight of the tavern.

The rising moon, a slender paring, touched the rushing river water far below with flickers of silver.

“Look,” she said. “The moonlight’s so beautiful.”

“But not as beautiful as you.” Gavril heard the trite words issue from his mouth as he reached for her, crushing her to him. “Kiss me, Gulvardi.”

His lips touched hers.

“No.” She resisted a little, twisting away. “Someone will see—”

He could feel the softness of her nut-brown breasts beneath the blouse—poor-quality linen that ripped open so easily beneath his questing fingers.

He pulled her closer, forcing his mouth against hers. He heard her give a little cry—and tasted blood on her lips.

The taste—warm, salt-sweet—sent him into a frenzy. He nuzzled his face against her throat, her breasts, licking, biting, sucking . . .

“No!”
Gulvardi fought him, squirming and kicking, all sharp knees and elbows. She was screaming at him now, but all he could hear was the pulsing of the warm blood in her veins. All he knew was his own need to take in as much of that red, salty sweetness as he could to soothe the burning agony inside.

“Gulvardi?” Someone was calling her name.

The dark smoke-haze melted away and his sight cleared. A thin taper of moonlight illumined the scene.

He was kneeling in the soft carpet of pine needles and sandy soil. In front of him crouched a bloodstained girl, half-naked, her clothes torn, her moonlit eyes wide and terrified.

“Are you—are you all right?” he asked dazedly.

She began to edge away, shuffling backward, one arm outstretched to keep him from her. “M-monster!” she whispered. “Keep away!”

She turned and began to run, stumbling through the trees.

“Wait!”

The river shimmered far below.

“Keep away from me, monster!”

“The river—be careful—”

His warning cry came too late. In her headlong dash to escape him, she tripped—and fell from sight over the edge onto the jagged rocks far below.

“Oh no. No.” He leaned out over the rushing river, trying in vain to see where she had fallen, but seeing only the silvered water, fast-flowing over its stony bed.

“Let her go. She’s served her purpose.”

“Gulvardi!” he shouted, his voice echoing around the rocky walls of the gorge.

There was no reply. How could she have survived a fall from such a height?

And then he began to cry, tears of grief and shame for the girl he had just destroyed; useless tears for himself, damned as he was now to perdition. She had called him a monster. And she was right. From the darkest shadows of his mind, a creature had been loosed: a ravening beast whose obscene hunger would not be denied.

CHAPTER
28

Shifting patterns of dappled light filtered through breeze-stirred leaves, moving across Gavril’s face as he opened his eyes. He lay staring up at the tree branches above him, hearing the faint rustle of the wind and the distant splash of fast-flowing water.

Where am I?

He sat up and found he had been lying on a bed of dried fallen leaves, moss, and twigs; his clothes were covered in grime. From the position of the sun overhead it must be nearly midday.

The sound of rushing water told him there was a stream or river nearby. He got to his feet, brushing the woodland debris from his clothes and hair. When he moved, he found his back and legs were stiff from sleeping on roots and hard earth.

What am I doing out here?

He went toward the sound of the water, out of the dappled shade, and found himself on the banks of a mountain river. Up above him, on either side, towered the steep walls of a gorge, overhung with bushes and glossy ivies. The water rushed past, tumbling over massive boulders and eddying around smaller stones.

And as he leaned over the rushing river, he suddenly saw the image of a bloodstained girl, half-naked, her clothes torn, her moonlit eyes wide and terrified.

“Gulvardi.” He remembered her name, and dear God, now he began to remember the terrible things he had done to her.

He sank to his knees, overwhelmed with self-loathing. All he could see was the terror distorting her face as she ran from him. All he could hear was her voice, screaming out to him to stop.

“I
am
a monster.” He covered his face with his shaking hands. “I attacked her. I—I did worse—”

“You were dying,”
whispered the Drakhaoul.
“You took what you needed to survive.”

Only once before had he been driven to drink innocent blood—and then it had been willingly offered. Kiukiu’s self-sacrifice had saved his life. But this time the Drakhaoul had driven him to attack a helpless stranger.

“How can I live with myself, knowing what I’ve done?” He looked down at his clothes, seeing now that what he had taken for earth stains was dried blood. Gulvardi’s blood. “And now she’s fallen to her death, and all because I hadn’t the self-control to, to—”

“Her blood healed you.”

Gavril heard at last what the daemon was telling him and knew it to be true. He had not felt so well in many months. His sight was clear, there was no throbbing in his skull, and no constant pain cramping his stomach. But that was little consolation for the shame and guilt that burned to the core of his soul.

“But how can I go back and pretend that nothing happened, knowing what I have done?”

“You will go back. And you will live with that knowledge. Because you must.”

“First my fleet. My
Rogned
sunk. Now Froding and his brave men seared to ashes—” Eugene could hardly contain his fury. He looked up from the latest communication from Smarna and saw Gustave watching him warily. He had even retreated a step or two, as if fearful of his master’s temper.

“Is this Gavril Nagarian’s revenge?” Eugene dropped his voice. He felt as if New Rossiya were a castle of sand crumbling under the assault of a fast-flooding tide. A tide that could rapidly sweep him and all he had fought for away.

“The council is awaiting you, highness.”

“He’s gone. Vanished.” RaÏsa came back down the mountain path, arms open wide in a gesture of bewilderment. “We’ve searched everywhere.” She seemed utterly desolate at the thought.

Flown away,
Pavel thought, unable to refrain from grinning.

“Pavel, you don’t think he’s lying hurt somewhere, do you?” She caught hold of him, her eyes wide with worry. “That head wound of his wasn’t properly healed. . . .”

Ironic that she was touching him, her hand on his arm, yet all her thoughts were about Gavril Andar. Don’t waste your affections on him, RaÏsa, he wanted to tell her. A man like Gavril Andar could break your heart.

“And your wound?” he said tenderly.

“Just a scratch. Almost healed.” But she was pale beneath the golden sheen the sun had burned into her skin.

Iovan came swaggering up to them. He looked pleased with himself.

“No sign of Tielens. No sign of Muscobites either. We’ve been talking to a couple of shepherds in the high pastures up beyond Anisieli. They said they saw soldiers making for the border.”

“A strategic retreat? Or just regrouping, waiting for reinforcements?”

“We must send word to Colchise,” RaÏsa said.

Gavril climbed a winding path that led up through twisted tree roots and humid, fly-infested forest to the top of the gorge. After an hour’s walking he found himself on a high, scrubland plain with a clear view to the north of the hazy outline of Mount Diktra. A buzzard skimmed overhead, letting out a desolate cry. There was no sign of the rebels up here, or the Tielens.

If he was to find them, there was no alternative but to take to the air, like the buzzard.

Eugene glowered at the assembled ministers of the Rossiyan council. He did not like what they had come to tell him. And they had chosen Chancellor Maltheus to deliver their ultimatum.

“We judge the situation in Smarna to be critical, imperial highness. It is the council’s opinion that we cannot afford to lose any more men. I fear we have no alternative but to withdraw and discuss terms.”

“Withdraw?” Eugene thundered. “You mean capitulate?”

“My terminology was perhaps a little vague—”

“Lose Smarna?” Had they never studied history? “If we give in, all we have gained will be lost. Azhkendir will rise up. Then Khitari.”

“But the men are becoming demoralized, highness.”

“
My
men, demoralized?” Eugene could hardly believe what he was hearing. “I will travel to Smarna and lead them myself. I’ve been out of the field for too long.”

“Is that advisable in the current situation? Now that you are Emperor, there are other considerations—”

“Could we not at least offer to talk terms with the Smarnan council?” ventured the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

“I will not be dictated to by a rabble of students and anarchists!”

“A rabble who possess a secret weapon vastly superior to anything the Magus has been able to devise,” said Chancellor Maltheus, gazing levelly at Eugene.

“The Magus and Captain Lindgren are working even now on a new type of powder,” Eugene said, not rising to Maltheus’s challenge.

“Time and money, highness; it all comes down to time and money. Money to support widows and fatherless children; the time it will take to develop and produce this new gunpowder. I advocate a strategic withdrawal—”

“And is it strategic for Tielen, Chancellor, to leave the Smarnan waters unprotected?” Eugene, both hands on the table, leaned toward Maltheus.

“We have nothing to fear at present from other nations,” said Maltheus, not even blinking under Eugene’s fierce gaze.

“Can we be so sure of that? What about this Francian ‘naval regatta’? Since when did Enguerrand take such a passionate interest in his fleet? Do we have any new intelligence?”

“Let me see . . .” Maltheus shuffled through the pile of dispatches on the table in front of him. “Enguerrand embarking on pilgrimage to the holy sites in Djihan-Djihar, accompanied by members of the Francian Commanderie.”

“ ‘A pilgrimage’?” Eugene fell silent, his mind working on the information. Djihan-Djihar lay to the far south of Smarna. “And how many ships has he taken for this pilgrimage?”

“We have no further details yet.”

“Enguerrand is by all accounts a very devout man,” put in the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Eugene did not respond. He could sense all his ministers watching him warily, bracing themselves to withstand his next outburst.

You’ve bested me and my men again, Gavril Nagarian.

“A withdrawal it is, then,” he said. “But only to regroup.”

“We haven’t much left on the Smarnan borders to regroup, highness.”

Eugene left the council chamber, silent with fury. There was no other course of action left to him. He sent a message containing a single word to Linnaius:
Tonight.

The Drakhaon flew over the gorge on long, slow wing-beats, drifting on the currents. Now that he was airborne again, he felt the guilt and shame melt away. Up here, floating so high above Smarna, he felt detached, free of the cares that obsessed him. He could be one with the sunlit blue of the sky.

When he finally caught sight of the rebel column, marching away from Anisieli, their tattered standard fluttering in the afternoon breeze, he shadowed them a while, trying to guess where they would make camp for the night.

The column was considerably shorter than when they had set out from the citadel. It looked, from the air, as if they had lost almost a third of their number in the Tielen ambush.

He spied RaÏsa, her head still bandaged, riding beside Pavel; Capriole was on a leading rein behind Luciole. And at the sight of her, even so far below, he felt the stirring again of that dark flame of hunger.

Now I can never allow myself to be alone with her. Now I can never trust myself with any woman again.

“Don’t you remember, Gavril Nagarian? You are Drakhaon. You can do as you please.”

“What am I doing here?” Kiukiu rubbed her sleep-crusted eyes; she felt as if she had slept in too long and was not yet wholly awake. She gazed around her, suddenly suspicious. This didn’t look like a prison. She was lying on a comfortable feather mattress covered in sheets of the finest linen. She felt the linen between finger and thumb, remembering the countless sheets she had laundered and ironed at Kastel Drakhaon. She sniffed it, scenting the faintest sharp hint of lavender. She was certain they did not give prisoners lavender-scented sheets.

Unless the Magus has housed me in the prison governor’s house?

She pushed back the sheets and left the bed to gaze out of the wide-paned window.

“What is this place?” she whispered. She saw tall buildings all around, beautiful buildings of the palest honeyed stone, decorated with elegant carvings. And beyond the buildings she could see green lawns and formal gardens with bobble-headed trees stretching to the horizon, where fountains sprayed great jets of sparkling water high into the air.

“It’s so . . . grand. It can’t be Arnskammar.”

As she watched, mouth open, she saw guards marching in a neat column to a steady drumbeat across the courtyard below, carbines on their shoulders. Their uniforms, grey and purple, were similar to those of the regiment stationed at Kastel Drakhaon. They seemed to be performing some changing of the guard ceremony involving much saluting.

“Arnskammar is by the sea. I don’t see any sea. So where—”

She went to the door and tried the handle. It was locked. She knocked, she called, but no one answered.

“It seems that I’m the prisoner.” A fluttery, panicky feeling had begun in her chest. “Now, Kiukiu, don’t get all flustered.” She sat down on the bed again and forced herself to breathe more slowly. “There has to be a reason I’m here, locked up. For my own safety, maybe?”

But in the back of her mind she kept hearing Malusha’s voice warning her of the Magus’s trickery.

The room was simply furnished, the paneling painted in a delicate shade of ivory outlined in duck-egg blue. The window and bed hangings were of a cream brocade, fringed with gold and blue. The soft tapestry rug beneath her feet and the china ewer bore the same design of two gilded swans, beak to beak, making a heart with the curve of their necks.

Now she noticed that a tray had been placed on the other side of the bed; she lifted the silver cover and saw a plate of fruit, cheese, and little sugared almond cakes.

Her stomach was empty. She must have been asleep for some time, for, judging by the sun, it was approaching noon. Her hand crept out; she nibbled at an almond cake. It was delicious. She ate another, and another. Just as she was eating the last cake, she heard soft footsteps outside. Guiltily wiping the crumbs and sugar from her lips, she jumped up as the locked door opened.

“You’re awake, Kiukirilya. Good.” Pale eyes gleamed in the Magus’s lined face.

“Kaspar Linnaius,” she gasped, recovering. “I should have known this was your doing. Where am I? And why am I here?”

“This is the Emperor’s palace. It’s called Swanholm.”

“I’m in a palace?”

“If there was one wish I could grant for you, what would it be?”

Kiukiu heard the question and found herself drowning in a wave of longing for what could not be.

“There is only one thing I want,” she said quietly, “and that is beyond your powers to give me.”

“Think carefully. I cannot bring him back to life, true. But is there nothing else? A comfortable house with land for your grandmother? A friend on whose behalf I could petition the Emperor?”

He was tempting her. Why?

“Think of Kastel Drakhaon, Kiukirilya.”

She could not help but fall under the suggestive spell of his words; she saw Semyon limping along in chains, horribly thin, his ribs showing like a skeleton’s beneath his skin. She saw the half-healed scars of the overseer’s whip scoring Gorian’s back. And she knew what Lord Gavril would have wanted her to ask.