The Blood Curse (22 page)

“How did you become friends with Petrus?”

“Oh...” The furrow vanished. “I met him the first day. My parents tutored me, you see. I knew all of the basic theory—ethics of magic, and human anatomy, and animal anatomy, and, oh, lots of things—and the instructors weren’t sure whether to put me in a class with students my own age or not, and in the end they decided to try me in an older class.”

“Petrus’s class.”

She nodded. “The master introduced me, and they were all so much bigger and older than me, and I felt so... so overwhelmed and intimidated, and all I wanted to do was run away, and then Petrus winked at me.” She glanced at him. “It sounds stupid, I know. But he winked, and made space at his bench, and after that everything was all right.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid.” Harkeld tried to imagine what it had been like for her. A long way from home. Feeling lost and alone, afraid, shy, homesick, grieving. And then, Petrus had winked.

He felt a deep surge of gratitude towards the shapeshifter.

“Petrus became my brother. I followed at his heels like a puppy all that first year. It must have annoyed him sometimes, but he never showed it. He was just so nice and so kind and he made me laugh and... and I love Petrus more than anybody.”

She glanced up again. Their eyes met.

Innis’s cheeks colored and she looked down at her lap. She unfolded the pleats, smoothed the hem of her cloak.

The subject of the dreams loomed between them. Harkeld remembered what it felt like to kiss her, hold her, make love to her.

If what she said about the dreams was true—if they truly could sense each other’s emotions—then she loved him. Differently from how she loved Petrus, but as deeply.

The wagon swung to the left, halted.

Alarm spiked in Harkeld’s chest. “Is something wrong?” More Fithians? He scrambled to the tailboard, pushed back the covering, and looked out, his hand on his sword hilt.

He saw riders dismounting, a stubbly paddock, a creek, a crumbling stone fence climbing a hillside towards a smoky gray sky streaked with orange.

“Stopping for the night.”

H
ARKELD HELPED DIG
the graves for Hedín and Nellis and Signy. The ground was hard, dry, stony. A cold wind flavored with smoke blew incessantly. They laid the dead mages in the graves and covered them. Rand spoke the words to the All-Mother.

Fifteen dead because of me
.

And then he remembered what Petrus had said.
It’s not about you. We’re trying to save the Seven Kingdoms. You’re just the tool
.

He tried to believe it, but those three mounds of dirt and stones felt personal. Nellis and Hedín and Signy had died instead of him.

Harkeld turned away from the graves. He walked across to the two fire mages, Bode and Gretel.

“Um... Cora was teaching me how to use my magic.” He felt awkward, diffident, emotions he’d rarely experienced when he was a prince in his father’s marble and gold palace. “I’m all right with my right hand, but I’ve no control with my left. I was wondering if... if one or other of you would be prepared to help me learn?”

Bode and Gretel exchanged a glance.

He’d made no effort to be friends with either of them. Would they refuse?

Gretel shrugged. “We can both help. What do you need from us?”

“I need help practicing,” Harkeld said, absurdly relieved. “Cora threw sticks in the air and had me burn them. And then arrows. Then throwing stars. And then I learned to burn clothes off a scarecrow.”

Gretel shrugged again. “Let’s start with the sticks, then.”

H
ARKELD PRACTICED FOR
an hour, holding his right hand behind his back, throwing fire with his left. It was frustratingly difficult at first, but gradually his aim improved, his speed and precision. By the end of the hour, he was able to burn sticks from the sky faster than Bode and Gretel could throw them, incinerating each one with a tiny, economical burst of flame.

He was sweating, exhausted, almost shaking from the effort of concentrating so hard. “Can we try with arrows tomorrow?”

Gretel nodded. “If you want to.”

He did. If they encountered Fithians again, he needed to be able to fight with both hands.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

“G
ATE GUARD SAYS
they passed through three to four hours ago,” Solveig said. “Heading east.”

Karel nodded.

“He also said... the piebald’s rider had a bruised face.”

Karel nodded again. It wasn’t new information—but every time he heard it, it made him want to kill someone. He kept his face impassive. “Good work.”

He looked around the market square, counted ten armsmen plus one prince, and swung up into his saddle.

They left the village at a canter. Prince Tomas brought his horse up alongside Karel. “Can’t we ride faster?”

Karel glanced at him, saw his impatience. The prince wanted to push ahead at a gallop.

“Two more days, sire, and we’ll be breathing down their necks. And the men and horses won’t be too tired.”

Prince Tomas made a sound of frustration and set his mount prancing in a tight circle, kicking up its hooves. Then, he came up alongside Karel again. “This is why Father put you in charge,” he said. “Knows me too well. Bull at a gate. Don’t like waiting for things to happen.”

Karel didn’t like waiting either. Someone had hurt the princess. There was rage in his blood, a compulsion to gallop. He held it sternly in check.

T
HEY PUSHED ON
until dusk. Once the horses had been tended to, Karel set the men to wrestling one another. He tossed aside his cloak, stripped off his jerkin and shirt, unlaced his boots.
Don’t go too hard
, he told himself. The mood he was in, he could easily injure one of the men.

He had a bout with each armsman. Gunvald pressed him hard, tossed him several times, and Karel was able to relax some of his self-control and push hard back.

After Gunvald, he fought with Ture, and tall Lief, and Prince Tomas last of all. The prince was red-faced and sweating.

They came together, arms locked, forehead to forehead, circling, each trying to tip the other. Karel dipped a hip and threw the prince, but Tomas rolled and leapt to his feet, came at him in a rush. Karel let the prince’s weight propel them both backwards, and twisted, bringing Tomas down. They rolled, struggling for dominance. He got a knee in the prince’s stomach—

Tomas tore free and sprang to his feet. “Almost,” he said, grinning, panting. “But not quite.”

They circled again, grappled again, broke off again. Karel saw the prince inhale, saw his muscles tense. He dropped to one knee as Tomas charged, drove his shoulder up into the prince’s midriff, heaved him over his shoulder.

Tomas hit the dirt hard. “Oof.”

Karel pressed one knee between the prince’s shoulder blades and hooked an arm around his throat. Tomas was wheezing, half-winded. “Yield?”

“Yield,” the prince croaked.

Karel released him.

Prince Tomas rolled over slowly, caught his breath, pushed up to sit. “You’re not even sweating!”

“I am,” Karel said. “Gunvald nearly got me.”

Prince Tomas snorted. “Nearly means nothing.” He wiped his face with one hand, squinted around the circle of armsmen, found Gunvald, pinned him with a fierce stare. “You beat this whoreson and I’ll pay you the weight of my sword in gold. That’s a promise.”

Gunvald’s lean face broke into a grin. “Yes, sire.”

Prince Tomas levered himself slowly to his feet.

“It’s the charge,” Karel told him. “You do it every time. I can see it coming.”

“Bull at a gate,” the prince said, still wheezing. “Didn’t I tell you?” He groaned, and hobbled towards the campfire, hamming it up, making the armsmen laugh.

“H
AVE
I
TOLD
you the one about the chastity belt?” Dag said, after they’d eaten. He glanced around the campfire, saw the headshakes.

“So there’s this king, see? Osgaardan. The one who conquered Lomaly. Who was that, sir?”

“Hildur the third,” Karel said.

“So Hildur the third wants to do some more pillaging in Lomaly, get himself some more plunder, but there’s one problem. He’ll be gone for a while and he’s worried about leaving his beautiful young queen home alone.” Dag glanced around, grinning.

Karel didn’t grin. After Lomaly, Osgaard had gone on to conquer Esfaban.

“Hildur orders ten of his best armsmen to stay behind to guard her, but he’s more worried about her virtue than her safety. You see, she’s a war prize, a Lomalian princess, and he’s pretty sure she’ll jump at the chance to cuckold him. And while his armsmen may be able to resist her for a while, he doubts they can hold off for very long.” Dag outlined a buxom figure with his hands. “Just looking at her makes a man want to bed her.”

Karel looked away. This wasn’t the sort of joke he wanted to hear. Hildur’s queen had been as helpless as a bondservant, forced to marry a man she hated, forced to share his bed, forced to bear his children.

“So, the king goes to his blacksmith and the blacksmith makes him a chastity belt out of steel, but with a large hole exactly where it shouldn’t be.

“‘Blacksmith,’ Hildur the third says. ‘Thy device cannot protect my queen’s virtue!’

“The blacksmith picks up a wooden stave, pushes it into the hole and—
snick
—a steel blade cuts the stave in two.” Dag sliced the air with his hands. “Hildur’s delighted with the blacksmith’s device and sails off to Lomaly knowing that any armsman his queen seduces will be in for an unpleasant surprise.”

Hildur should have used the chastity belt on himself
, Karel thought sourly. There’d have been no King Vallus, then. No invasion of Esfaban.

“Hildur returns home several months later with two score of ships laden with gold and jewels and slaves. He’s well-pleased with himself—until he notices that most of the ten armsmen he left behind are walking... oddly.”

The armsmen were grinning, firelight glinting off their teeth.

“Hildur assembles the ten men in the courtyard and orders them to strip. And he discovers that all but one of them have, uh...
swords
that are cut off at the hilt.”

Solveig barked a laugh.

Karel grimaced. Queen Aramis hadn’t seduced her armsmen while Hildur had been absent; she’d planned her own death.

“Hildur does have one consolation, though. A fine-looking young armsman called...” Dag’s gaze flicked from face to face before settling on one. “Called Gunvald has a
sword
that is entirely unharmed.”

A chuckle of amusement went around the circle of armsmen.

“Hildur is overjoyed that one of his men managed to restrain himself, and he offers Gunvald a reward. All Gunvald has to do is say what he wants, and if it’s within Hildur’s power, he’ll grant it.”

Dag paused, glanced around the armsmen again, grinned. “But despite Hildur’s urging, Gunvald can’t answer. You see, for some reason, Gunvald is missing his tongue...”

A shout of laughter went up. Lief thumped Gunvald on the back. “That’s why you don’t talk much, huh? Tongue too tired?”

“
And
why you’re so popular with the ladies!” Bjarne said, grinning.

Karel glanced sideways, and found Prince Tomas watching him.

The prince leaned closer. “It’s just a joke,” he said quietly in Karel’s ear.

“I know.”
But once you see a woman being raped, you never forget it
.

The prince gripped Karel’s arm—Sympathy? Friendship?—and stood. “Right you mangy lot, who’s taking first guard shift tonight?”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

M
ORE BROTHERS ARRIVED
an hour after dusk. The bell clanged loudly at the gate and Ifrem went to see who it was. He didn’t return. Instead there was a bustle in the yard, a clatter of hooves, the sound of men’s voices. Bennick put down the map he’d been studying. “That’ll be Vught.” He rose to his feet.

Jaumé followed him. A lantern hung at the door, and another by the stables, casting light. Bennick stepped out into the yard; Jaumé stayed in the doorway, watching.