The Black Prince: Part I (16 page)

“No.”

“Hm.” Curse that man and his
hm
. “In case you’re wondering, you’re still intact. Although I wouldn’t attempt to prove that, at least not for a week or so or you might find yourself fucking your own intestines. You took a sword thrust right to the gut.” That must have been the icy feeling that Hart remembered. “That it missed anything vital is a miracle.”

Hart worked himself up to speak again. “How?”

Callas, once again, knew what his friend was asking. “When I realized we’d been betrayed—and should have earlier; I’ve cursed myself for that many times, believe me—I took those men I could call to me and headed into the hills. The traitors ignored us, after that. Thought we were like them.” Men always did. They, themselves had turned coat; they’d expect to see that in others. Which Callas had clearly used to his advantage.

“We tracked around the village widdershins and came down through the rear.”

Where the village backed up into the sloping foothills, Callas meant. The town’s natural defense. No one, Callas went on to explain, had been set to guard them from that direction as what would have been the point? Callas, Hart, and their men were coming up from below. And should have, had the traitors planned their ambush just a little bit better, been trapped within the village grounds. These men hadn’t been disciplined fighters. Not on the balance. But what they’d lost in finesse they’d more than made up for in numbers. Five traitors for every one of the Duke’s soldiers. That they
had
been the Duke’s soldiers was what, in the end, had saved them.

“We found you,” Callas said, “under Bjorn’s body.” Bjorn, it seemed, had risen up at the last minute and struck about him like a whirlwind. Calling upon the superhuman strength of the hopeless. Bjorn had known, from the minute he’d opened that door, that he was going to die. As had Hart.

Yet why was Hart still here?

“He called me a werewolf.”

Hart turned his head and stared into the gloom. He couldn’t have articulated his feelings to Callas at that moment if he’d tried. Couldn’t even make sense of them, himself. Some werewolf he’d been. He’d only been saved by a freak accident. Not his own heroism. Bjorn had a family. Who would tell them? Who would care for them?

Bjorn was the better man. The man more deserving of life. He knew that if he voiced that thought aloud, he’d get a speech about making Bjorn’s sacrifice an honor. Carrying on Bjorn’s legacy through choosing those paths, which he would have walked. But Hart didn’t even want to make the trek overland, to Bjorn’s home. To give the news of his passing in person. Let another man do it, a traitorous little voice whispered. A man who was less important.

Hart knew, on some level, that he wasn’t being entirely selfish. He
did
have more important things to do. The good of the kingdom was more vital to everyone, including Bjorn’s family, than a sentimental gesture. He
had
to get back home. To tell Tristan of what he knew.

If only he could leave this cursed bed.

He tried to sit up and Callas pushed him back down as easily as if he’d been a kitten. Hart drew in a deep breath, and coughed. Even that small effort had exhausted him.

“A few more days won’t make a difference.” His friend’s tone was resigned.

In the fireplace, a log popped.

Somewhere outside, on the other side of the wall, a deep voice cursed.

The wind had picked up. Hart could hear it howling in the chimney. He wondered if there would be more snow. He wondered, too, how Isla was faring. Less vexing was the question of Rowena, and whether she, too, had survived the winter. Survived to marry Rudolph, the wretch. That man’s predicament was precisely why Hart was never getting married.

If any woman would have him, which she wouldn’t. Hart knew full well that he’d made himself unfit for human consumption. Oh, women still bedded him, as they had before. But not, now, he suspected, because they found him charming. Women were scared of him. Men, too. And fear was, in and of itself, an aphrodisiac. At least for some. They wanted, not Hart, but to attach themselves to power.

Somewhere deep inside, something twisted.

Maybe he should just bed Callas. He thought again of Bjorn’s laugh, Bjorn of the eleven children and three wives. Eleven children, seven of them masculine children. Would they come to avenge his death? Would this war ever end? Did he even want it to?

When he thought of Bjorn’s children, part of him longed for peace. A small, fading part of him. But the greater part, the greater and growing part, was terrified of the concept. A quiet kingdom held no place for one such as he. What would he do, pray for the Dark Lord’s help in farming?

“His calling you a werewolf was a compliment.”

Hart said nothing.

“Among the clans, those called brother to the wolf are considered the finest of fighting men. They fight for Bragi, the chieftain among their gods. The wolf is Bragi’s special creature.” Callas paused again. “Bjorn…would have been pleased, I believe, that you survived.”

Bjorn had been an adult man, Hart tried to tell himself. He’d understood the risk he was taking. Except…. “Why did Silverbeard betray us?”

“I don’t know.”

Hearing the admission from Callas was startling and did more to cool Hart’s blood than all the wind and snow combined. Callas, owing to his position with Tristan, knew a great deal that Hart did not. Hart hadn’t realized, perhaps up until that exact moment, how much he relied on Callas. Not simply to know but to
be
.

“Perhaps he thought we couldn’t win. Perhaps he was offered a fatter purse.” He turns his head sharply, his eyes meeting Hart’s. They glittered in the gloom. “We will find out, brother. From his own lips. And then….”

“P
repare yourself.”

They’d found the villagers.

Hart had forced himself to rise, before he should have. Before Callas thought he should have. But he’d spent nearly a week lolling about doing nothing and he had—
had
—to get home. Messengers had gone on ahead, of course; two of those few able-bodied enough to ride had been hand picked by Callas the night of the battle and dispatched, in darkness, while Hart still lingered in the twilight between worlds. But their muddled descriptions could not replace Hart’s. And they couldn’t protect Isla.

Or….

Another pair of eyes gazed back at him now, when he stared into the fire.

“When?”

“Only this morning.”

It was now afternoon. A fresh coat of snow hid the worst of the evidence. Now the village merely looked abandoned. Not like the site of a massacre.

They’d burned their own dead, also that first night. Bjorn had gone to his fathers and Hart hadn’t been there to see it. A fact that made him feel like he’d killed Bjorn, himself, every time he recognized it. He tried to argue with himself—that Bjorn had been an adult man, that Bjorn hadn’t needed a nursemaid—but got nowhere. Bjorn
had been
an adult man. One who no longer needed anything. And what of the other men who’d died?

Hart had been outside, currying Cedric. The air still smelled faintly of smoke, but also of pine sap and good things. Cedric, when he stepped back, favored him with a baleful eye.

“Are your innards in your boots yet?”

Callas sounded entirely too interested. Hart tossed the brush to one of the other men. So few remaining, now. “Take me.”

He did.

They moved near silently in the snow. The world around them was silent, too; so quickly did nature reclaim her own. A quarter mile from the camp and there might not have been one. He couldn’t bring himself to call it
village
, even in his own mind. It wasn’t. Not now. For some time, there had been speculation on how the traitors had disguised their presence. There had been no sign of substantially more in the village than usual. And during those conversations, there had been a growing fear. A shadow, especially in Hart’s mind. That they all, deep within, knew full well how the deed had been accomplished.

Callas stopped. And then, again, “prepare yourself.”

But there could be no preparation.

He took a deep breath in, and then exhaled. He forced himself to stare. The pit was a good twelve spans deep, and as many across in each direction. No attempt had been made to cover its contents. Spring might be spreading its slow fingers through the lowlands, but mountain winters lasted long. There was no far-reaching stench to attract visitors and even those animals whose sense of smell was much keener had given the place a wide berth. The only reason this place had been discovered at all was because they’d been looking for it. The unforgiving terrain was enough to discourage casual visitors.

The men, women and children of Molag were in that pit. Some lying prone, others frozen solid in their final moments of terror. They’d gone in alive, hands reaching to the sky as others were piled on top. Some bore obvious wounds. A man whose eyes were half-closed had a gaping axe wound in his forehead. An infant lay face down on its mother, one tiny hand clutching at her breast.

He closed his eyes briefly. The image remained. The adults he could handle but the worst…the worst was the children. So many children. So many of whom had died with their eyes open, sobbing for help that never came. How many had tried to waken dead parents? How many had tried to leave the pit?

How many others, like that infant, had simply been left to die of exposure?

Northmen were guilty of much that would be considered sociopathic in the South, Hart knew this. Their world was a different one. But only a rabid wolf attacked its own young, or the young of its kind. No Northman would do such a thing, however crazed. His friends would kill him before he had the chance. And these were
Southrons
.

They’d killed children for—for
principle
. To prove that theirs was the better leader. The nobler. The divine right of kings his foot. These people had been Morvish, too.

He swayed a little, and steadied himself. He hadn’t been conscious of the fact until this moment, but he was in bad shape. His wounds were like lash marks, tongues of white-hot fire licking up and down his side. He’d pushed himself too hard, climbing to this place, but the need to see, to
know
had kept him going. Now….

Without realizing what he was doing, he turned and stumbled toward the woods.

A white expanse spread before him, pristine and untouched. There was no sound, save the pounding of blood in his own ears. Around him rose a ring of firs, pointing toward the sky. They seemed black in the bright light. The glare stung his eyes.

He squeezed them shut and, when he opened them, there was a steer.

It froze, one leg lifted, its eyes on his.

Hart’s breath caught. The moment seemed to stretch, as silent and still as the snow. As perfect. He didn’t move. Couldn’t.

And then, jackknifing forward, he vomited until there was nothing left.

“B
urn it.” Hart swung up into the saddle. “Burn it to the ground.”

Digging his heel cruelly into Cedric’s side, he brought the beast around and headed toward the path. Let his men deal with the aftermath. Those who were still living. His hands on the reins, black gloved, were white knuckled under the supple leather. All of Hart’s wardrobe was black, save that which bore the Duke’s green stripe.

Obsidian raiment for an obsidian heart.

Callas fell in beside him. The same wilderness that had seemed so forbidding on their journey north now seemed as prosaic as the words of his fellow soldiers. The promises of vengeance. Pointless promises. When would vengeance come, and how? No amount of killing could bring back the dead.

He wished for a drink.

By the Gods, just one good swallow.

“The Lord of the Flies will have vengeance upon their souls.”

Callas sounded certain. Hart wished that he could be so certain. He said nothing.

“The killing of children is the worst crime.”

Because children had not yet reached the age of decision, and could not thus be accountable for their actions.
When walking under the light, harm no one. If someone harms you, ask him to stop. If he refuses to stop, destroy him
. That was their creed. Or one of their creeds, at least. The killing of children was the one act considered a crime by the outside world that was also considered a crime by the Chosen.