Besieged (75 page)

‘How could you? How could you go to him?’ He gestured to the Wyrd. They had him up against the wall, a dozen spear points pressed to his throat, chest and groin. His eyes were wild and he gasped for breath. ‘How could you let him touch you?

Valendia sprang to her feet. ‘Don’t hurt him.’

‘Hurt him?’ Zabier wanted to shake her. ‘How could you do this to me? I’ve risked everything to keep you safe.’

His secret was out now. He would have to make these burly priests his supporters, buy their silence with prestige.

With this in mind, he confronted the Wyrd and gestured to the priests. ‘These are my holy-warriors, an elite force who serve the Father’s-voice. They will not hesitate to gut you on my signal.’ He beckoned his assistant. ‘Give me the sleeping draught.’ A flask slid into his hand. He held it out to the Wyrd. ‘Drink this. Drink it now, and drink it all, or...’ He saw the way the silverhead was trying not to look at Valendia as Utzen helped her to her feet. ‘Or I hand her over to my holy-warriors.’ He was feeling so angry with her, he just might.

The Wyrd nodded and Zabier tossed him the flask.

As he drank, Zabier whispered to Utzen. ‘I want you to take her away. Take her to Restoration Retreat.’

‘It’s a long way.’

‘Take people you trust. Take whatever you need. She can have her music, but nothing else.’ He turned. ‘Did you hear that, Dia? You’re going–’

Valendia was reaching to the Wyrd.

He cursed. ‘Stop her.’

The holy-warriors went to grab her, but not before the silverhead gathered her in his arms.

‘Don’t just stand there!’ Frustration made Zabier’s voice harsh. The holy-warriors plunged in and pried them apart. It was sickening how they reached for each other.

Utzen had two of the burly priests drag her away.

With the holy-warriors pinning the silverhead, Zabier stepped in and swung at him, putting all his frustration into the punch. It slammed into the Wyrd’s head and he dropped.

Hand throbbing, Zabier stepped back. ‘Get him into the wagon.’

A little later, he met his assistant in a private courtyard, filled with busy priests and penitents.

‘They saw me load her into my cart. But I kept her under a hooded cloak and no one knows who she is,’ Utzen assured him.

Zabier pulled the flap back. Valendia was surrounded by provisions, and her arms were chained to the back-board. She glared at him through tangled hair. Her top lip had split and blood ran down her chin. Serve her right for betraying him, after all he’d done to keep her safe.

He let the flap drop. ‘I’ll go first.’

As he passed the other wagon, he pulled the canvas aside, to find his men chaining the unconscious Wyrd to the floor ring. He’d keep the silverhead drugged until the night of the ceremony.

A second cart followed, piled high with supplies for the supposed tourney. His holy-warriors had commandeered the seats and any perches on the cart. He mounted up. ‘Open the gates.’

The gathered priests and penitents gave a tentative cheer, then a louder one. It warmed him. He hadn’t expected it.

The gates trundled open to reveal a crowd gathered in the street outside.

He stood in the stirrup and shouted. ‘Make way in the king’s name.’

‘Make way for the High Priest Zabier, the Father’s-voice,’ one of his holy-warriors yelled.

‘Is it true the king leads a holy war?’ someone shouted from the crowd. ‘Is it true you take a Wyrd to be sacrificed?’

Zabier glanced to the wagon. Considering the logistics, it was inevitable the news would get out.

‘Filthy Wyrd!’ Something hit the barred wagon. Someone yelled abuse, several more took up the call. He could see people hurrying up the street, some swinging cudgels, some calling to others. At this rate, they’d never get out.

Men jeered, women screeched insults.

‘Good people, good people.’ Zabier tried to get their attention. ‘I go on the king’s business. Don’t attack us when there are Wyrds right here in port–’

He got no further. The mob turned and took off towards the docks. He heard shouting and running feet, smashing windows.

About two blocks from the port’s eastern gate, someone on horseback rode past them. He wore a hood and kept his head down.

‘Wyrd!’ someone yelled.

Several people dragged the half-blood from his horse and beat him; others swung a rope over shop sign. Zabier concentrated on getting his two charges out the gate alive.

S
ATISFIED THAT HE
had fulfilled his promise to Imoshen, Sorne returned with a lamp and supplies. He had kept to back streets, so it had taken him a while to return to the old section of the church. Scaling the wall was easy. He had thought he might have trouble finding the crypt entrance, but the symbol for the dead was etched into a time-worn portico. He went down the steps and forced the doors.

Once inside, he lit his lamp and began a systematic search. Under the new section of the church, there were tunnels that were clearly used for storage and regularly visited. He avoided them.

There were wall niches piled with bodies, chambers with ornate coffins and walls of skulls. He kept a note of the turns and paces. He found tunnels thick with dust and others with a narrow path of footprints.

He found no sign of Valendia.

Half the night had gone when he discovered an empty tunnel, four levels down, that reeked of the gift. There were two bolts embedded in the wall, both a little loose, and a burned-out candle stub in a wall niche. But it was the residue of gift power that made his heart race.

The power was male and reminded him of Graelen. But the gift-warrior was the only T’En man he had ever been near; perhaps all male T’En power felt like this.

All he knew for certain was that a T’En man had performed some powerful gift-working here.

What had he been doing beneath the Father’s church, and where had they taken him?

But his concern was for Valendia now. He searched the passages linking to the crypts of the other churches. He found the caverns where ancient people had painted images of themselves and their animals, and remembered Zabier talking about it.

The thought of Valendia, alone and frightened in this maze of tunnels, kept him searching until the oil in his lamp ran low. Frustrated, he returned to the surface.

Low clouds hung over the city as he emerged, and the sky was an odd colour. He smelled burning. Out on the streets, he heard the occasional shout, a scream and splintering wood.

Rather than leave the safety of the church, he scaled the nearest building and made his way to a rooftop where he could look down on the port city.

Sorne had witnessed cities under siege before, but he had never seen anything quite like this. Angry crowds surged through the streets. At least four pillars of smoke added to the pall over the port. He saw a mob smashing shop windows and surging inside to steal goods. They were sharing out the loot when another mob came along, and battle ensued over bolts of cloth and barrels of oil.

A madness had seized the city.

It was easily two days since he had last eaten, and hunger gnawed at him. He broke into the apartment where Hiruna and Valendia had lived. There he used the bathing chamber, before curling up to sleep on the floor of the main room. He could not help thinking of them living here, year after year, waiting for him to come, and now Hiruna was dead and Valendia was missing...

What a fool he had been to spend so much time chasing power and prestige. What had it gotten him, but the envy and resentment of other ambitious men?

In the middle of the night, he woke in a cold sweat.

What if the sisterhood messenger hadn’t gotten out of the city? What if Imoshen hadn’t called an all-council to warn the leaders of the brotherhoods and sisterhoods?

Climbing out onto the rooftop, Sorne saw that the clouds had cleared and the large, lazy moon had not yet set. To the east, a faint glow told him it was not long until dawn. At this time of day, only bakers and carters would be about. He decided to go to the west gate and wait for it to open.

Dropping down to the street, he found the mobs were not on the loose, but neither were the bakers and carters. Businesses were either shuttered, or their shutters had been ripped off and they’d been looted.

When he rounded a corner and found the sisterhood messenger hanging from a shop sign, he knew he wouldn’t get out the port gate alive. He backed away in horror, and made his way down to the docks.

He felt like a coward for avoiding the Wyrd warehouses, but he knew what he would find. He thought of Graelen and wondered if he had made it out of the city. And he thought of Lysania, the Malaunje woman Graelen had used to lure him into the wine cellar. He hoped she had escaped with her little girl.

He searched the wharfs until he found a little dinghy with the oars still in it, and he did not hesitate to steal it and make his way across the bay.

Chapter Sixty

D
RIVEN BY THE
need to warn Imoshen, Sorne left the boat and stole a horse. He alternated between walking and riding to pace the horse. It was three days’ fast ride west from the port to the Wyrd city, but he had to avoid the main road. Both the moons were nearly full; it would soon be winter’s cusp.

The farm folk went about their business, preparing for the winter. Herds had to be culled, the best saved for breeding next year. Fields lay fallow or had been harvested, leaving them bristled like a man with a two-day beard. No one looked too closely at Sorne as he passed, and he got the impression they did not want to know why a lone rider was pushing his horse through their land.

Sorne came to a fork in the road. If he went north, he would come to a place called the Old Stones. If he went south, he would run across Baron Aingeru’s estate and the king’s tourney. If he went west, he could warn the city.

But he hesitated, because he knew the king would want a vision.

Riding had given Sorne time to think. The words overheard through the kitchen window of the Father’s church preyed on his mind. He remembered Graelen trying to confirm rumours of Malaunje sacrifice, and he knew a T’En had been held captive in the father’s crypts. He suspected that the silverhead was being taken to the Old Stones to be sacrificed.

If he went west, he would be able to warn the city. But that meant a T’En man would die, and he would be responsible for that death. It was he who had planted the idea that unclean places were holy sites.

The clouds hung low and dark. A storm was coming.

As he sat astride his horse in a copse of pine trees, debating his course of action, Sorne saw a closed wagon, drawn by four oxen, come trundling down the road. Three men in priestly robes sat on the seat, and another five or six rode behind. One of them reminded him of Zabier from a distance.

As the wagon turned north, the wind blew the canvas against the side of the wagon, and he saw the impression of bars. The captive T’En man would be in that wagon, and this was the Father’s-voice going to meet the king to conduct the ceremony.

There was time to prevent the sacrifice and still warn the city. His decision made, Sorne followed the cart at a safe distance.

Lightning flickered within the lowering clouds and he hoped the storm would hold off until evening. Meanwhile, the wagon made its ponderous way through undulating hills occasionally broken by limestone crags. Sheep grazed, lifting their heads to watch them pass by.

At last he crested a rise and saw the Old Stones.

He led the horse back and left it tied to a tree, then climbed up to the crest of the hill and lay in the grass.

The standing stones had been erected on the highest hill as far as the eye could see. He’d expected them to be made of the local white stone he’d seen used in houses and fences, but they were tall and dark against the blue-black clouds.

To the left of the stones was a flat field, and it was here the king had set up camp. Sorne counted twelve banners, aside from the king’s. Each baron would bring a man or two. With so many True-men, Sorne would need luck, the storm, and stealth to free the T’En and escape. More than luck, if they had the captive chained, rather than bound by ropes.

The setting sun’s rays broke through the clouds, making the dark stones shine like black glass.

Sorne’s stomach dropped as he relived the pinnacle offering that had gone so horribly wrong all those years ago. The memory of the night his holy-swords turned on him was burned so deeply, he flinched in pain.

But he was not turning back now.

The wagon had just arrived on the knoll beside the Old Stones. Between him and the camp was nothing but grass, cropped short by sheep.

No cover. He didn’t like it.

The sun went behind the clouds, and the intensity of the colours faded. Now, it was a grey evening, under heavy storm clouds.

He would have to wait for night. As he waited, lightning flickered and the clouds seemed to come lower still. Rain would help hide him. But no rain fell.

Finally, he could delay no longer. He headed down the slope. The wind chose that moment to pick up, tearing at the cloud cover, revealing the rising moons. Lightning flashed, turning night into day, every detail clear. Thunder rumbled, growing louder as the storm drew closer. This would please Charald. The Warrior was said to throw lightning bolts.

Sorne hid from the camp, approaching from behind the bulk of the wagon. The wind rose in sudden gusts. It lashed the grass, driving the clouds faster across the sky.

No one sounded the alarm. He reached the wagon, and lifted the canvas to peer inside. In the darkness, he sensed male gift. It felt familiar.

A flash of lightning revealed the empty cage.

Heart pounding with disappointment, he crept to the far end of the wagon. Another flash illuminated the rise beyond the tents and the Old Stones on the hill top. A crowd of True-men made their way up the slope, forming a circle around their captive.

He’d left it too late.

Lightning struck the Old Stones, sending up a shower of sparks. The True-men shouted and cheered.