The Silent Tempest (Book 2) (14 page)

He froze then, looking deeply into her
eyes. He seemed confused. “Who are you?” he asked suddenly, using the first human
words to enter his mind.

She took the opportunity presented by his
hesitation to disentangle herself. Gazing back at him, she studied his
features. They seemed to present genuine puzzlement, but there were thoughts
passing behind his eyes now. Whatever his transformation had been, it had
apparently scrambled his mind just as it had altered his body.

He appeared to be fully physical, but
there was something different.

His ear!

The lower half of his right ear was no
longer missing. It perfectly matched the left one, with no visible sign of the
wound that had once removed most of it. His eyes were locked onto hers now.

“Kate?” he said, questioning his own
recognition even as he remembered her.

She moved farther away.
Is that even
him—or is it something else, just pretending?

Brigid still stood beside the wagon, her
body locked into some sort of rictus. Her mouth was wide, as though she were
screaming, but no sound came out. Tyrion became aware of her odd condition and
climbed out of the wagon, walking over to stand next to her.

His thoughts felt strange, but they were
clearer. The girl had come into her power, but the stress and newness of the
situation had made her exert herself in a way she was not prepared for. She
was killing herself, straining against something that was no longer there.
Tendrils of aythar extended in every direction, winding and tangling themselves
through the fallen trees above them. Brigid’s lips were tinged blue.

He slapped her with enough force to send
her tumbling from her feet.

Brigid stared up at him in shock, and then
her chest heaved, drawing air in a desperate choking gasp. She had forgotten
to breath.

The structure above their heads shifted.
Without the young woman’s power to hold it together, the trees were no longer
stable. A massive oak slid sideways and then broke free, dropping rapidly
toward the wagon. Other trees moved in its wake, falling in an avalanche
toward the people beneath them.

Tyrion lifted his hand, swiping at the air
as if brushing away a fly, his aythar followed suit, knocking the heavy trunks
and limbs away so that they fell outward, rather than inward. He looked down
at Gabriel Evans, who was unconscious at his feet. The feedback when his
shield had given way was the most likely cause for his senseless condition.

“Put them in the wagon,” Tyrion ordered,
directing his words to the other teens who huddled beside and under the sides
of the heavy cart.

Two of the boys, Jack and David, lifted
Gabriel and carried him. Brigid didn’t need to be carried, but Emma Philips
helped her find her way since she still seemed dazed.

Through all of this, Kate watched Tyrion.
What happened to his injuries?

***

Gwaeri led the young girl back toward the
wooden cell that housed her. He was in a quandary. He had been ordered to
whip her. Ordinarily that would have been a pleasant task, but his neck still
burned in the place where Tyrion had placed his tattoo.

Will a simple whipping trigger
it?
he wondered.

He had never felt so impotent as he did
then. Tyrion’s abuse, and the mark he had left on Gwaeri, had wounded his
pride, and pride was one of the few things the old warden prized. He had
fought, brawled, and beaten his way to the top of Sabortrea’s slave hierarchy over
a period of decades. Now he was supposed to bow to the whims of one tender
girl?

He stopped, motioning her to walk ahead of
him, so that he could study her with his eyes as well as his magesight. The
first thing that stood out was her skin, smooth and unbroken. She looked as
though she had never been in a fight. A few freckles, a tiny scar or two, but
nothing else.

Her hips were round too, swelling with the
promise of her youth. Gwaeri’s heart sped up a bit as he watched her walk, a
reaction that surprised him. He was no celibate, but at his age he was not as
commonly bothered by such urges as he had once been. The collar at his throat
prevented him from engaging in any action that might lead to pregnancy, but
there were many other ways to find pleasure.

He refocused his thoughts, pulling them
back from that path. He was very sure that Tyrion’s warning would include
sexual coercion as well as physical abuse. That thought made him even angrier.

They stopped when they reached her hut,
and Haley looked up at him, fear in her eyes. She had already been whipped a
few times, but only briefly. She wasn’t sure what the old warden would do now.

Gwaeri frowned and then made his choice.
He would rather die than live like one of the nameless. His thoughts moved, and
a glowing red whip appeared, stretching like a living thing between his hands.

“Remember what my father told you!” said
Haley in a voice that was even higher pitched than normal. Her heart was
leaping, causing her nerves to vibrate with its staccato beat.

“Fuck him,” swore the warden. “I’d rather
die. We’ll see how far I can go before his damned mark kills me.”

Panic drove Haley to flight, but before
she had gone two paces the red whip swept out, coiling around her left leg and
sending a sensation like fire racing along her nerves, from her thigh to her
spine. She collapsed with a shriek that ended in a croak as the ground knocked
the wind from her lungs.

The pain vanished, and her vision
cleared. Gwaeri stood above her now, looking down thoughtfully. “Looks like
one stroke isn’t enough to trigger this thing,” he said, fingering the sore
place at his throat before smiling. “Let’s try again.” The red whip leapt
out, curling around her throat and trailing down her spine.

Haley knew she was screaming, but the
agony was so great she couldn’t hear herself. She writhed for what seemed an
eternity, until at last the whip withdrew again, leaving her shaking on the
hard packed earth. Gwaeri was licking his lips now, one hand on his groin,
massaging himself through his trousers.

Not again,
thought Haley, remembering what had happened before Tyrion had
arrived. She felt sick thinking about it, and then relieved when she thought
of the whip. That chain of thoughts led to an even greater sense of disgust
and self-loathing.

The warden opened the door to her wooden
prison. “You’re learning,” he said, reading the expressions that were passing
across her face. “There’s nothing as bad as the pain.” The whip undulated in
his hands, moving like a snake. “You should be grateful I’m offering you a
lesser punishment. It’s not something I do much these days.”

She darted inside, hating herself for
giving in to her fear so quickly, but the sight of the whip robbed her of all
reason or thought of resistance. Gwaeri followed her in, closing the door
behind himself before opening the front of his trousers. “Get on your knees,
girl.”

She knelt as he drew closer, displaying
himself proudly. The dark musky smell made her want to gag before he had even
touched her. For a second she forgot the whip, and anger took the place of her
fear. She had teeth, and she would make him pay—in blood.

Gwaeri saw the defiance in her eyes even
as she opened her mouth, and he responded to her pretense at submission with a
heavy fist.

Haley found herself on the floor, blinking
away tears and unable to feel her cheek. There was pain, but the blow had left
her stunned. Before she could recover her wits, he had her by the arm,
dragging her up and twisting it behind her painfully before shoving her face
down toward the raised pallet that served as her sleeping place.

“Obviously you need to be broken before
you can be properly trained, girl,” said the old man gleefully. “Now,
straighten your legs and hold still, or I’ll break this arm.”

She did as she was told, closing her eyes
as she felt his hands groping at her. Focusing on her magesight, she
considered raising a shield. He hadn’t used the whip and her mental balance
was returning. She searched along his neck, trying to resolve the symbols
beneath his collar, the strange pattern that Tyrion had tattooed onto the vile
old man’s skin.

In her mind she remembered the strange
symbol that Tyrion had scratched into the dirt floor, a triangle enclosing an
odd wavy line.
“This is the final line of the enchantment I put on him.
The tattoo is designed to be activated only when complete. You have to
visualize this symbol before pushing a small part of your energy into the
tattoo itself. The enchantment will take care of the rest after that.”
He
had drawn the rest of it out then, showing her where the imagined symbol should
connect to the ones he had inked on Gwaeri.

He was pressing against her now, pushing.

No!
Haley’s mind latched onto the tattoo, and in a moment of vivid
clarity she completed the pattern, firing it with her aythar. A tiny blade of
force surged outward from it, severing the collar around her tormentor’s neck.

Gwaeri stepped back, his eyes bulging, and
then quickly folded into himself. He twitched on the ground as the blood
within his body bubbled and boiled. He lost consciousness almost instantly,
and death followed after no more than a minute.

Two men dead in the space of a
few hours,
she thought.
And I don’t
feel sorry for either one.

That wasn’t entirely true. Killing the
one in the arena had been awful, although she knew he was merely a younger,
cruder version of the old man who lay at her feet now. She hadn’t wanted to
kill him, but now she thought perhaps she had done him a favor.

“If this is the sort of man you would have
become, you’re better off dead,” she told herself, completing the thought.

The pain, terror, and adrenaline began to
fade, replaced by a coldness, an empty relief. She was alive. In spite of her
resolve to die rather than kill, she couldn’t bring herself to regret what she
had done. She had failed, but she was certain that when Dalleth discovered her
murder, he would give her the death she wanted.

“I will not live like this,” she said to
the empty room, “but neither will I let them abuse me.”

The forest that had been around them was
gone. Some of it remained, of course, broken and toppled trunks along with
scattered limbs and heavy roots. All of it was horizontal, though, and much of
it looked to be missing completely, carried away by the monstrous winds.

Everything had been flattened for nearly a
mile in every direction. The gigantic god trees still stood in the distance,
but a few of those at the edge were tilted at odd angles. Kate and the others stared
out in awe at the destruction. One of the boys, David Brown, looked back at
Tyrion, “How?”

“It was a freak storm,” said Tyrion. “We
got lucky.”

The sky was clear, and sunshine beat down
on them now that there was no tree cover, making them warm despite the chill
winter breeze. Kate said nothing, although she knew very well that Tyrion was
lying.

Ashley Morris spoke then, “Weren’t you
injured?”

“It was worse than it looked,” responded
Tyrion. “It was mostly fatigue. The nap has me feeling like a new man.”

“But there was blood and…” she began.

He gave her a menacing look, “I was
tired. Remember that when they question you.”

Tyrion used his magic to clear the ground
ahead of the wagon, moving tree trunks and other heavy debris so the horses
could pick their way through. Another hour and they had reached the edge of
the god-trees, the border of the Illeniel Grove. A large party waited to greet
them there.

Party might have been a poor description,
however, several hundred of the strangest looking She’Har that Tyrion had ever
seen were standing, crawling, and climbing just within the edge of the tree
line.
Krytek,
he noted.

The krytek were the warriors of the
She’Har, soldiers produced by the father-trees. They were born with all the
knowledge the She’Har possessed about fighting, giving them battle-wisdom far
beyond their short lives. The krytek were sterile, unable to grow into trees,
and they lived only a few months. In his fifteen years among the She’Har,
Tyrion had seen them only rarely, most notably when he had been forced to fight
one in the arena.

Someone’s worried.

“Halt,” said one of them, riding out to
meet the small group of humans before they had approached within fifty yards of
the trees. On closer inspection he saw that it wasn’t riding, this krytek had
a quadrupedal body connected to a humanoid torso and arms above it. It spoke
in Erollith, the language of the She’Har. “You will come no closer until the
baratti have been secured.”

“Where is Lyralliantha?” asked Tyrion.

“Listrius is in command here,” said the
krytek. “He will collar them.”

“Lyralliantha is my owner,” stated
Tyrion. “No one will approach us until I have spoken with her.” He didn’t
bother with threats, regular She’Har were largely unemotional, but the krytek
took that trait to an entirely new level. Most of them were inhuman in their
‘design’, and their short lifespans insured they had little fear of dying.

“My orders are to keep the grove safe and
to secure the baratti whom you have with you. Listrius approaches now to
collar them,” said the krytek.

Tyrion could see a silver haired man
approaching and recognized Listrius, one of the She’Har lore-wardens. The
Illeniel She’Har was still thirty yards distant, so Tyrion raised his voice to
make certain both he and the krytek could hear his answer, “The baratti I have
brought with me are valuable. Any one of the five groves would be pleased to
have them, and I will gladly surrender them to you, but
not
until I have
spoken with Lyralliantha.”

“You will submit to my authority,”
insisted the soldier.

Tyrion sighed, one misstep and everything
would be over, but he refused to give up. If a conflict started now, he and
his children would wind up dead—or worse, but he would take that possibility
over the alternative. “I will gladly submit, once Lyralliantha is here. You
will endanger the well-being of the grove if you are impatient.”

He hoped that couching the refusal in
neutral language while calling upon the soldier’s greater duty would accomplish
what an outright threat could not.

The soldier looked back, and Listrius
nodded at him.

“Very well, your mistress will be brought
here. Until she arrives you are to remain still,” ordered the She’Har warrior.

Tyrion bowed his head in acquiescence, but
otherwise remained motionless. “As you command.”

Lyralliantha appeared in somewhat less
than half an hour, walking across the ripped and torn ground with grace and
serenity. The long dress she wore hid her legs, but it never seemed to snag on
the many limbs and roots that stood up from the ground. It made her movement
look as though she were gliding, weightless, across the damaged earth.

That was quick,
thought Tyrion.

The silver haired woman looked at him with
a placid face that might have been cut from stone. Her gaze drifted across the
children in and around the wagon, pausing only a moment longer when it reached
Catherine Tolburn. She had seen that face often enough, in the visions that
Tyrion had shared with her.

“You have been busy, my pet,” she said
quietly. “It was unwise of you to resist the authority of Listrius, however.”

“I apologize mistress,” responded Tyrion,
filling his voice with the closest approximation of honest contrition that he
could manage. “I only sought to please you.”

“The krytek were called to defend the
Grove,” she added. “It seemed that we were under attack.” Her eyes held a silent
warning.

“A freak storm, mistress,” lied Tyrion.
“I had nothing to do with it, although the timing was fortunate. The Centyr
were waiting at the border to claim your prizes.”

“I am glad you and your offspring weren’t
damaged,” responded Lyralliantha. “Now you must submit and allow them to be
collared, or your efforts will have been for naught.”

Tyrion leaned closer, pitching his voice
so low it was almost inaudible, “Only you may collar them.”

She gave him a startled glance, but the
look in his eyes warned her. Reacting with her usual mental agility, she
responded without hesitation, “Stand aside that I may inspect what you have
brought me.” She moved to examine the first of his children, and without
waiting immediately began the spellweave that would produce a collar.

Without looking back he raised his voice,
speaking now in Barion, the human tongue, “When she comes to you, accept the
necklace that she offers you. Keep your thoughts submissive, and if you can
feel the magic, do not resist it.”

The spellweaving that produced a slave
collar was peculiar in that it required the initial acceptance of whomever it
was placed upon. In individual cases if the human tried to resist, it was
futile, the red whips would rapidly assure submission, but today, with a small
army staring at them, any defiance could result in a disaster.

Listrius called out from where he stood,
some thirty yards distant, “Lyralliantha, what are you doing?”

“Claiming what is mine,” she replied
without stopping. She had completed three collars already and was now moving
to place a fourth around Abigail Moore’s neck.

“The elders ordered
me
to secure
them,” insisted the lore-warden.

Lyralliantha ignored his protest, moving
to collar Brigid next. When that was done she replied, “We are both children
of the same grove, Listrius, the end result is the same, but it was
my
servant
who brought us this prize, and I will be the one to claim it.” Then she
whispered in Brigid’s ear before moving to the next of the teens from Colne,
“Wake the boy, I cannot put the collar on him unless he is conscious.”

Brigid was still unsteady from her recent
ordeal, but she knew that shouting or shaking wouldn’t be sufficient to rouse
Gabriel. She went to the water barrel at the front of the wagon and drew a
ladle full of the icy liquid. The shock of the cold water on his face brought
Gabriel to a semblance of being awake. His eyes rolled in his head while his
eyelids fluttered.

Lyralliantha finished the collar for Ryan
Carter and then went to Gabriel. Working quickly she produced another
spellweave, but the semi-conscious boy resisted when she tried to join the
ends. She sighed in frustration.

Gabriel was groaning, his eyes not quite able
to focus. Brigid spoke directly into his ear, “Say ‘yes’. When you feel it
again, just say yes, with your mind. Please, Gabriel… there’s no time.”

Lyralliantha tried again, and this time
the spellweave fused properly. Gabriel’s eyes closed almost immediately as his
awareness faded. Brigid lowered his head to the wagon bed, then sat down. She
was finding it hard to remain awake too. Nausea threatened to overwhelm her,
and the world was pulsing with new energies and new visions. She could barely
understand what her mind was sensing now.

Kate looked down on her half-sister, “Just
relax, Brigid. He said it was normal to feel sick after your power comes.
You’ve done enough.”

Tyrion kept his attention firmly on the
krytek and the She’Har lore-warden standing yards behind him. Listrius was
positively anxious, pacing back and forth as Lyralliantha worked to collar the
human children. The She’Har knew he had been outmaneuvered, but he couldn’t
see a better option.

The last to accept the collar was Kate.
The alien seeming silver-haired woman who approached her was a stranger, but
she knew, with the deeper intuition that women often have, that this was
the
woman. The one who had stolen her Daniel away. The one who had chained
him, the one who loved him in some bizarre fashion. She was her enemy and her
ally, the woman who had taken him and yet who had also kept him alive.

Kate’s blazing green eyes met
Lyralliantha’s icy blue, and the two stared at one another, communicating on
some level that lay beneath consciousness, or even magic. Neither blinked for
a moment, and then without warning the She’Har woman leaned forward and softly
brushed her lips across Kate’s cheek.

Straightening Lyralliantha began to
produce the spellweave that would create a new slave collar.

“What was that for?” asked Kate.

“I am not sure,” responded the Illeniel
She’Har. “I think it is because you are a part of him.”

“Ordinarily that creates a different
feeling between women,” said Kate.

Lyralliantha spread her hands apart and
stretched the necklace’s ends wide while Kate ducked her head forward. She
said a few words in Erollith, and Kate felt a straining within herself, a
tension.
Yes,
she told herself mentally, and the strain eased. The two
ends of the collar clicked into place, and it was done.

On sudden impulse Kate spoke up, “Thank
you.”

Lyralliantha raised one brow before
answering in perfect Barion, “What for?”

“For keeping him alive.”

“Do not thank me too soon,” said the
She’Har. “He may have pushed things too far this time. I cannot shield him
from the elders.”

“The elders?”

Lyralliantha turned, raising her arm in a
sweeping gesture to indicate the massive trees that stood some fifty yards
distant. The god trees at the edge were torn, limbs damaged and trunks canted
slightly. They had been on the edge of the storm, but some of them had come
close to being uprooted.

“That wasn’t him,” insisted Kate.

“Let us hope they believe that.”

Listrius stepped forward, gesturing behind
him. The krytek along the forest edge moved as one, encircling the group of
humans. Two moved to either side of Tyrion. “Chain him,” commanded the
lore-warden.

“The collar isn’t enough?” asked Tyrion
with a wry smile.

“Not any longer,” said Listrius. The two
krytek began spellweaving, creating long vine-like extrusions of magic that
wrapped themselves around their captive’s arms, legs and torso. When they had
finished, Tyrion could no longer move, his limbs were bound, physically and at
a deeper level. His body had become rigid, locked into a straight stance; he
might have fallen but the magic lifted him above the ground as well,
maintaining his position.

The spellweave reached into the heart of
his being as well, caging the source of his aythar, the font of consciousness,
and for a mage, power. It was an effort to speak, even though that freedom had
been explicitly left to him.

“Take the humans to Ellentrea,” ordered
Listrius.

“No!” argued Tyrion. “They don’t belong
to the Prathions.”

“It is not your decision, baratt. Do not
test my patience, or I will have you punished,” said the lore-warden.

Lyralliantha stepped forward, “It is my
right to decide on their housing.”

Listrius gave her a hard glare. “You are to
be brought before the elders as well. They will decide your fate. Until then
Thillmarius has offered to handle the humans for us.”