The Queen of Thieves: The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Three (15 page)

Chapter
Fifty-Two

Her eyes were completely red -
even her pupils and iris, once a beautiful blue, were red. When Asram pulled
her eyes open, desperately trying to wake her, she did not make a murmur. She
could have been dead but from the shallow fluttering of her breath.

            'Asram?'

            Shawford Crale was
there, suddenly, and Asram hadn't even heard the man approach.

            'Something's wrong,'
he said. 'Seriously wrong.'

            'What?' Crale's voice
was light, but Asram didn't have time to bandy with Crale. Standing, he pointed
at Rena. 'She won't wake. Look at her eyes...'

            Shawford did. All the
while the baby was crying.

            Shawford leapt back
when he saw her eyes, a look of horror on his face that Asram hadn't thought
the cool man capable of. Such a look made Asram's heart go cold, too. He had
been worried for Rena. Now he was frightened for her, too. Something was
obviously worse than wrong.

            'It cannot be...' said
Crale, backing away from Rena.

            'What, man? You know
what this is?'

            Shawford nodded after
a second, and the man's face paled even lighter than his normal pallor. He
seemed almost perfectly white in the snow.

            'It is a disease...'

            'What kind?'

            'One that is safe for
you. For me...' Shawford Crale shuddered and stepped back. 'I haven't seen this
in...'

            But the man didn't
finish his sentence.

            'What can we do?' said
Asram impatiently. Crale was quiet. 'Damn, Crale, what can we do?'

            'I don't know. I know
of no cure.'

            The baby was crying
lustily now. Asram whispered and shushed the child, rocking him on his
shoulder.

            'There must be
something. We can't just leave her like...this.'

            Shawford paced back
and forth around the camp. The snow settled on his hair as he walked.

            'I know of one...a
witch...'

            'Then let's go,' said
Asram.

            'I cannot. I'll stay
here. Watch the child and Rena. You go.'

            'I'll carry her,'
said Asram.

            'No. Don't move her.'

            'Why?'

            'She may be...'
Shawford flapped his hands, as though he did not wish to give further details.

            'Crale,' said Asram,
'Come on. I need to know what we're dealing with.'

            Crale shook his head.
'Go. Go to Hullford, just to the north-east. Hurry. Bring back the old mother.
Ask for directions in town.'

            Asram did not want to
leave Rena and the babe with Crale, but he had little choice.             'Go,
go quickly, Asram. Perhaps it is not too late...'

            Asram gave Crale a
last look.
Too late?
Too late for what?

            But he felt Crale's
urgency urging him on. Questions for later. Time, perhaps, was short. He turned
his back on the three of them and set out at a run for the village, his feet
kicking up snowfall as he ran through the growing dark.

*

Chapter
Fifty-Three

Asram ran all the way to
Hullford. He was a fit man, but he was a big man. He wasn't built for running.
His heart pounded and his breath puffed hard into the heavy air. 

            Whenever he wanted to
know a thing, he went to a tavern. People talked in taverns, and they were open
at all hours. As it was, Asram found The Wild Man. He felt like the wild man himself,
painted on the wooden walls of the tavern. It could just as easily have been a
painting of Asram. Except the hunter was far redder in the face.

            He pushed the door
open wide, without fear, knowing that he was no easy mark for cutpurses or
brigands, should the inn prove to be a place for men of low character. But it
was just a village inn, with an old man behind the bar and one young girl,
maybe no more than 16, serving a few patrons. There was no rowdy air about the
place. The wood was darkened and some patrons sat before smoke wheels rather
than ales and wines.

            Asram went straight
to the barman, ignoring the stares and muttering that always accompanied a
stranger in a village inn.

            'Drink? Smoke?' The
barman leaned on the bar. Asram figured the man for an old soldier, from the
way he held himself, his scarred knuckles and face and hard eyes. But there
were crinkles about those eyes - a man who knew how to smile, too.

            'Neither, but thank
you. My travelling companion sickens some way down the road. I wonder if you've
a wise woman who tends the village?'

            'Aye, we have. You
can find her out on the edge of the woods. Is your friend coming here?'

            'I don't know.
Perhaps.'

            'We have rooms made
ready, should you need them. Need help?'

            Asram was pleasantly
surprised by the offer. He did think about it, but decided against it unless it
became necessary. Crale was frightened by the malady that Rena suffered. It
would not do to put more men in danger than he had to.

            But then it was
snowing out, and Rena sickened. Maybe it would be better to move her, get her
into the warm. He had to weigh the import of these strangers against his duty
to Rena and the child, and yes, at a remove, Roskel Farinder and Selana, too.

            'Please,' he said,
realising in that moment just how much he had come to value Rena and baby
Tarn's lives. 'If the wise woman cannot help, we may need a room. But I must go
now.'

            The barkeep gave
Asram directions, and refused the warrior's offer of coin for the information.
Asram left and set off at as hard a run as he could manage through the
snowfall, crusted in the moonlight. He ran, panting, his lungs burning, in the
direction that the old man had told him.

            The snowfall became
heavier while he ran, all the while worrying over Rena. He knew far too little
of this illness that beset her, and had not had time to ask Crale for more
detail. He wished, now, that he had. Fear for Rena made his limbs weaker than
they should have been. That, battling the snow, and the fierce cold, made the
going tough.

            After a time, Asram,
tired from running through snow and watching his feet in the dark night, he
found an old hut. In good repair, with seasoned wood stacked under one low eave
and a fire burning within.

            The witch, or 'wise
woman' in certain parts where witching was frowned upon, waited with the door
open as he approached. It was fire and candle-lit behind her, and an inviting
space.

            The old woman - very
old, from what he could tell, silhouetted as she was in the light behind her,
barked a harsh laugh. 'Fool man,' she said. 'Now you're just going to have to
run all the way out and bring her back again.'

            'You knew I was
coming, old mother?' said Asram.

            'I did. I've the
sight,' she nodded.

            The woman
was
old. Extremely old. She did not shake from the cold, but from age and weakness.
But her eyes were shrewd enough, and though her eyes were almost purely white,
Asram knew that she was not blind.

            'I'd come with, but I
can't travel far these days. Bring her to the hut. I'll tend her.'

            Asram didn't ask the
price. There was always a price for dealing with a witch. It didn't matter. He
would pay it. He was sworn to protect Rena and the child. He would do so with
his life if it came to it.

           
For more than
duty?
he wondered.

            'Go on, then,' said
the witch as Asram dallied.

            He nodded in return
and set off again at a run, panting, sweating within his furs, and the crisp
snow breaking underfoot.

*

Chapter
Fifty-Four

Selana stepped forward from the
deepest shadows in the old witch's hut without a sound. One moment she wasn't
there. The next, she was.

            The old witch Beatrain
turned to the Queen of Thieves and the head of the Witches' Covenant with a
grim expression on her wrinkled face.

            'I should have told him
to run faster,' she said.

            'Her company will
protect her,' said Selana. 'Trust in me, Beatrain. The vampire will not harm
her, or it will mean his end. He knows this.'

            'You trust a blood
drinker?'

            The Queen laughed.
'No. I do not. I am not fool, as you well know. But you have seen the girl
coming here. You know he will not harm her or the child. I will watch over her,
and she will come here. None, not even I, have the skill of healing as you
have, Beatrain. She will come, and you will make her hale.'

            'I wish I had your
surety,' said Beatrain.

            'I place much stock
in careful planning, Beatrain...but sometimes you just have to have faith. Now,
they can't find me here - I must go.'

            And the moment
Beatrain looked away, the Queen was no longer there.

            She thought about
swearing, but the thing was, no one could ever be entirely sure that Selana
had, in fact, gone. Beatrain prodded at the shadows with a gnarled old finger.
She found nothing but a couple of old cobwebs for her trouble.

*

Chapter Fifty-Five

Snow fell thick and fast as the
night wore on. Shawford sat on crossed legs in the snow, watching the babe
nursing from his unconscious mother's breast. He was repulsed at the sight of
the sickly whitish, yellowish fluid leaking out around the child's mouth. But
he still considered drinking their blood.

            Crale was not cold.
He didn't even hunger - he'd fed well in a village down the road on a man deep
in his cups walking to his home. Walking through the snow like that...the man
probably would have died anyway.

            Probably. Anyway and
either way, no one would miss the old sot.

            Shawford could not
have cared one way or the other. Just like he did not care if Rena or Tarn
died. The only thing stopping him from drinking his fill was his
mistress...mistress to all his kind.

            Selana.

            Few people could put
an end of Crale's life, but she was among the number. Maybe a handful of
people, and she was top of the list. So the snow fell and Crale sat in the snow
like a good boy, the flakes making his black hair white and settling on his
shoulders. The snow was kept from the sleeping woman and her babe with a rude
tent he'd erected around her. He felt her pulse, from time to time...a sweet
temptation. Her pulse remained strong, and her skin was warm enough. But she
would not wake.

            The Queen had said he
had to protect the woman. He didn't recall anything about the child.

            He licked his lips
and stroked the child's cheek while the fat babe fed. The child gurgled,
sleepily, and nestled into his mother.

            Snow fell on, and
Shawford watched the small tick of blood coursing through the child's neck. He
watched, and the hunger grew.

            'Crale, Gods, man!
You must be freezing.'

            Shawford's teeth grew
longer, just for a moment, in his anger. Asram Fell. The bastard had some sixth
sense when it came to timing. So intent had Crale been on the child's pulse
that he hadn't even heard the hunter's approach.

            He smiled though,
ever the country gentleman as far as his travelling companions were concerned.

            'What kept you?' he
said, and pushed himself to his feet, shaking the snow from his hair and
shoulders.

            Moments later, he was
covered in snow again.

           
I could kill them
al,
he thought.
Then just...walk away.
 

            But how far would he
get? Where on Rythe could Selana's power not reach? And did he, Shawford Crale,
married, with a darling daughter, live a life on the run?

            He was sorely
tempted, looking at Fell's idiot face.

            'What did the old
mother say?' he asked instead of tearing the man's head from his shoulders.

            'To bring her,' said
Fell.

            It figured, thought Crale.
It just about made his night perfect. But he just nodded.

            He hated witches even
more than Asram Fell.

*