Blood Of Gods (Book 3) (6 page)

“Saying how
close
you and my maidservant Penetta were while you lived beneath my roof. How very close . . . and how Penetta knows things about you that I dare say only a lover should know.” She smiled as she plunged her fingers into her bodice and removed the first of the two rolled-up bits of parchment. “Each letter is addressed to Rachida Gemcroft.”

The sword dropped, clanking on the floor. Moira grew even paler than normal as she took the offered bit of paper, unrolled it, and read the words. The woman seemed to deflate. Her eyes were bloodshot when she tore them away from the letter’s contents.

“Every one . . . ”

“Yes,” said Catherine. “I wonder, just how would the love of your life react to hearing of such infidelity?”

The silver-haired woman said nothing as she backed up a few steps and plopped back down on the featherbed. The letter fluttered from her hand to the floor. Her face was drawn out and dejected, her shoulders slumped. Catherine felt her confidence rise, confidence that left her once she gazed at the window on the other side of the room. She had to finish this business quickly if she was to make her next meeting, the most important one, in time.

Taking out the second parchment, already sealed with wax, she stepped forward and placed it in Moira’s limp hand.

“I know you hate me, but I do what I must to protect myself and my family. Don’t blame me for your own failures. Besides, you won’t have to look at my face any longer. Tomorrow you leave Port Lancaster.”

“Where will I go?” asked Moira without looking up.

“You are to take five sellswords of your choice and head for Omnmount. The letter I handed you is for Cornwall Lawrence, and it is for his eyes only. Make sure he reads; make sure he
understands
. Afterward, make your way to the docks outside the settlement and sabotage as many barges and skiffs as you can. Even if they are my own, destroy them. We will build more. If Karak wishes for food and supplies while he’s traipsing about Paradise, he can raise them with his own godly hands. Once that is done, consider yourself free from my service. So long as you don’t act against me, you will have nothing to fear.”

“How do I know you’ll keep your word?” asked Moira softly.

Catherine swept toward the door.

“You don’t,” she said. “Good travels, Moira Elren. I hope I never see you again.”

Once in the hall, she exhaled deeply. It was a shame to send the woman away. Moira was more capable than anyone, better than even Bren and the sellswords at keeping her safe in a dangerous, unpredictable world. Yet Moira’s fear of what Catherine held over her head meant she was the only one she could trust to complete the tasks she had given. Had she assigned one of her sellswords, he might abandon her and sell his services to a different bidder.

“Sacrifices are necessary,” Catherine whispered. Just as her
sacrificing
Matthew had united the women of Port Lancaster to her cause.

She lifted her skirts and hastened down the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time on her way to the estate’s front entrance. Her excitement grew each time her slippered foot touched ground, and soon all her worries—Matthew’s legacy, Karak, the dead girls, Moira—dropped away. They were replaced by a face, one of exquisite, exotic beauty, covered with skin of the deepest brown.

A plain covered wagon awaited her outside the estate. She climbed in and ordered the driver, a girl of no more than twelve, to take her to the docks. Catherine dropped the curtains on either side of her as the horses began to clomp along Port Lancaster’s cobbled streets. Her breath caught in her throat, her heart pounded in her chest. She nervously fiddled with the bottom of her skirts, fraying the hem along the way. She didn’t care.

The ride seemed to take forever, and by the time the wagon stopped moving, she was so overcome with anticipation that she felt close to vomiting. She pressed her lips shut, lifted the curtain, and stepped out of the carriage. The dockhouse and the pier loomed before her, a long, sleek skiff tethered to the dock, gently rocking in the undulating waters of the Thulon Ocean. It was the only ship in the harbor.
His boat.
The young cart driver turned in her seat, facing away from her as she’d been told to do. Catherine took a deep breath, placed a hand over her breast, and slowly made her way toward the dockhouse.

The gravel street gave way to the dock’s slatted struts. The soft slippers on Catherine’s feet
swooshed
against the wood, kicking up bits of dust. The dockhouse itself was a sturdy but harsh-looking square construction of wood gone gray from the constant assault of sea salt. The door was propped open, and she stepped through, breathless.

“Hello?” she said.

“My love?” replied a strong, soulful voice.

Catherine followed the voice down the dockhouse’s long hallway and around the corner into the main storeroom. He was there, sitting at a small table in the middle of the room, eating a blood-red orange. Fish netting, anchors, spare timber, spears, harpoons, and oaken lockboxes surrounded him. He looked up at her, his complexion nearly black in the sparse lighting the dockhouse offered, just as handsome as the first time she’d seen him. When he smiled at her, his teeth shone like polished pearls.

“Catherine,” the man said, bowing slightly.

Her hands moved to her belly, rubbing it, feeling the gentle rise four months in the making. She smiled in return and took a step into the storeroom. “Reginald,” she purred. “It has been too long.”

“It has. It truly has. But please, my dear, call me by my
true name.”

Catherine smiled coyly. “Very well, Ki-Nan.”

He stood from his seat and approached her, dressed in a pair of short leather breeches and a sienna vest with no tunic beneath, revealing the black hairs on his chest. She nearly ran at him, colliding with his strong body and wrapping her arms around his back. Their lips met, their tongues probing. Catherine savored the salty taste of his mouth, thrusting her pelvis against him each time their tongues intertwined. Their lips then parted, and Ki-Nan made his way down her neck, planting tiny kisses, before stopping at the swell of breast above her bodice, taking in a mouthful of flesh and sucking. Catherine felt like she would explode.

“Do you wish for me to stop?” asked Ki-Nan, breathless.

Instead of answering, Catherine leaned back, grinned, and grabbed his crotch.

“We haven’t much time,” he gasped. “I must be on the open water before dusk.”

“I know. I don’t care.”

They made love, first atop the table after swiping the basket of oranges aside, then in a pile of netting, then beside a rack of fishing poles, her breasts pressed against the wall while he took her from behind. Ki-Nan was rough yet measured, never thrusting so hard as to actually hurt her, his brown skin slick with sweat. Catherine’s insides were on fire, her nipples sore from being bitten, and goose pimples covered her every inch. She had to grind her teeth into her bottom lip to keep from screaming, lest anyone who might be lingering outside the dockhouse hear.

Finally, the dark-skinned man spilled his seed inside her, letting out a low, animalistic groan. They both collapsed on a pile of musty tarpaulins. They nuzzled and squirmed for a long while afterward, cherishing the wantonness they both felt. It had been much the same the six other times they’d been together. It seemed neither wanted the feeling to end nor looked forward to the coming weeks upon weeks they always spent apart.

Ki-Nan Renald was a fisherman by birth, a trader in training. He had first visited Port Lancaster nearly seven years ago, at the behest of his employers, the brothers Connington. He had
happened
upon her in secret one night while Matthew was away in Veldaren,
coming
to ask if the lord of freight would be interested in forming a truce in regard to the disagreements between the two houses.
Catherine
knew she should have been distrustful, but
Ki-Nan
disarmed her with his direct way of speaking and his exotic beauty. He’d said he was from Ker, the unofficial southern
province
of Ashhur’s Paradise. How a man from Paradise had come to be in the employ of merchants from Neldar was lost on her, and it was a subject Ki-Nan never broached, even when she asked.

That was fine by her, for though his voice was deep and soothing, what Catherine wanted from him had little to do with talking. They had made love that very first night, and every time they’d seen each other since. Catherine had stopped taking crim oil in the aftermath of his visits long ago, and the results of that decision now slept peacefully in the estate and showed in the puffiness of her abdomen. No one in Port Lancaster save her trustworthy maids Lori, Penetta, and Ursula, who had helped her keep the affair a secret, knew it. She had even kept Bren in the dark.

Ki-Nan’s hand went to her belly. “I can feel it,” he said.

She playfully slapped his cheek and nibbled his chin. “You can? So tell me . . . is it a boy or a girl?”

“I am not clairvoyant, love,” he said. “But I feel much.”

“Yes, you do.”

Ki-Nan rolled onto his back, staring at the dockhouse ceiling while fiddling with his chest hair. “And how is my son?” he asked, frowning slightly.

“He’s fine. Perfect.” She leaned up on her elbow and stared at him gravely. “But Ki-Nan, you must promise that those words are not spoken by you in any company but my own. Should anyone find out that Matthew’s only heir is not of his own blood . . . ”

“No need to explain that to me, love. But my son is two years old, and I have never laid eyes on him.”

“You will. Please believe me, you will. If everything falls into place, and I can convince the other houses to join my cause, I will no longer be simply a regent. I will be the lady of the house, in station as well as name.”

“You rely too much on things beyond your control,” he said, shaking his head. “And what of the war in the west? If Karak should return home, all your careful planning will be for naught.”

She patted him on the shoulder. “That is what
you
are here for, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” he sighed. He looked to the window on the western side of the room, set high on the wall, and Catherine followed his gaze. The sun shone in the cloudy glass. It must have been two hours at least since she’d entered the dockhouse. It was amazing how time seemed to have little meaning when they were together. “It is late. Is the new cargo in my skiff as I asked?” he inquired.

She nodded. “It is. Sixty extra swords, lifted off Karak’s own dead soldiers. Bren nearly pitched a fit when I told him we needed to give them up, but I convinced him they served a greater purpose. Speaking of which, you
do
have the three crates my late husband gave you, correct?”

“I do. They are well hidden, and guarded by those I have pulled to my side.”

“Good.”

“And now seriously, my love, I must be going.”

Catherine groaned as Ki-Nan gave her one last kiss on the lips, then stood up, retrieved his leather breeches, and slid them on.

“Promise me you’ll come back,” she said.
“Promise.”

“That I cannot do.”

“If you promise, then I will promise to take you for my
husband
.”

His lips spread into a wide, toothy grin.

“With such reward, how could I not? I promise with all my heart.
Now if you will excuse me, Lady Catherine, my ship awaits. Shower my son with kisses for me. War waits for no man . . .
especially
when that man is a giant twelve feet tall.”

C
HAPTER

5

R
achida Gemcroft watched waves crash against the jagged black rocks, lapping and withdrawing, leaving behind a coat of shimmering water. Sea spray accosted her cheeks, soaking her. She shivered and pulled her fussing babe closer to her breast, making sure his head of soft red fuzz was covered by his woolen blanket. The waves crashed yet again, the seawater coming within inches of engulfing her sandaled feet. Lifting her eyes to the horizon, she saw the three dark shadows approaching through the day’s stormy gloom.

“What’s out there?” asked Gertrude Shrine, the only practitioner of the healing arts on the Isles of Gold.

Rachida turned to the older woman and felt her cheeks run pale.

“Ships,” she said.

“
Friendly
ships?”

“I doubt it.”

“Why not? Perhaps Master Brennan has sent reinforcements to assist us.”

Rachida shook her head. “Matthew
has
no ships, Gertrude. All but ours were conscripted by Karak’s Army.” She pointed toward the three rapidly approaching vessels. “Besides, those boats are
large
, far larger than any built in Paradise. What approaches is either an envoy from the Conningtons or . . . ”

“Or Karak?”

She nodded.

Gertrude frowned, the lines of age around the corners of her mouth deepening. “What do we do, then?” she asked.

“
I
must go speak with my husband. You, Gertrude, are to take Patrick for me and find his wet nurse. He seems to be hungry.”

“Of course, my Lady.”

Rachida handed the swaddled babe over. The older woman held the child with easy familiarity, pulling him close and gently rocking him as she strolled across the rocks. Though Gertrude was obviously frightened about the coming ships, her gait showed none of it. She walked confidently, smoothly, a natural mother as she made her way up the incline toward the collection of hovels carefully hidden by a wall of glimmering volcanic stone. Rachida couldn’t help but feel a tinge of resentment, for she had often found herself struggling with motherhood of late.

She began walking in the opposite direction, heading for the cliffs that bordered the island’s eastern shore. Everything around her was drab; the land beneath and above were varying shades of black and brown, and even the ocean seemed more gray than blue. There were many times when Rachida wondered if the name “Isles of Gold” was given just to mock those who came to live there, as she had for the last three months.

Then again, the islands weren’t named for what sat atop it.

Peytr had come across the islands during one of his many ventures around Dezrel, and discovered great veins of gold hiding inside the caverns beneath the archipelago’s many cliffs and crags,
waiting to
be mined; hence the name he gave it. Yet despite its treasures, the Isles were a dank and dreary place. The only landmass that was hospitable was the large central isle that Peytr had dubbed “
Provincia
.” The others were harsh and barren, the waters shallow and filled with lurking dangers to both man and ship. Each day Rachida found herself pining after Moira, the love of her life, whom she’d left behind in Port Lancaster. If not for her son, magically born from Patrick DuTaureau’s seed, she might have gone insane . . . or slit her own wrists.

The cliffs blotted out the day’s light when she passed beneath their overhangs. The way was treacherous here, the stones underfoot slick, but Rachida was nothing if not agile. Corton Ender, the old sellsword who had taught her to dance with blades back in Haven, had said that she and Moira were the most physically gifted students he’d ever taught.
Of course we were,
she thought. Both she and her love were the direct offspring of Karak’s First Families, the purest blood in all of Dezrel. It would have been disappointing if they
weren’t
immensely capable.

The darkness deepened as the outcroppings lowered. She moved along, at a slower pace, until a soft glow appeared to her right, marking the opening to Provincia’s mine. Rachida entered the tunnel, lined with flickering torches, their light dancing off uneven, damp walls. Each time her boots touched ground, the sound of her footfall echoed throughout the narrow passage, combining with the muted
clink
and
clank
of metal on rock from down below. The torches made the atmosphere muggy, and she began to sweat through her heavy woolen cloak. She disrobed as she walked, heading ever deeper beneath the cliff.

The passage finally ended at a wide, artificially constructed cavern. The expanse had been turned into Peytr’s study of sorts, complete with a desk, inglenook, dresser, and even a mound of blankets that served as a large bedroll. Remnants of smoke stifled the air. A second tunnel leading to the mine was cut into the opposite wall. Numerous candles of thick tallow were scattered throughout, adding their light to that of the torches and creating an oddly ominous atmosphere. The cave ceiling was high, and the light never reached there. Sometimes, when she stood in the middle of the space, it looked to Rachida as if the empty void beneath Afram was coming to swallow her. This was not a place she enjoyed visiting.

Peytr was in there, Rachida’s husband in name only. His black hair, peppered with gray, was tousled as he sat atop his desk, the sounds of the workers’ tools echoing around him. His lover, Bryce, was with him, twenty years Peytr’s junior. Bryce was a lithe man, almost womanly in appearance, with long silvery-blond hair. Rachida was grateful for his presence. Peytr could be quite distant from her at times, but Bryce had a way of putting the man at ease. The two of them had been lovers for almost as long as she and Moira; in fact, it was their mutual affairs, and their need to hide them from those who might not understand and react harshly, that precipitated their marriage.

The couple was leaning on the desk in the center of the cave, Bryce placing kisses on Peytr’s pale, powdered cheeks, when Rachida cleared her throat. They both started, their heads whipping around. When they saw her standing there, Bryce smiled sweetly while Peytr frowned.

“Darling,” her husband said. “I was not expecting you.”

“I feel there is quite a bit you weren’t expecting,” she answered.

His frown deepened. “Such as?”

“Ships, O husband of mine. Three of them.”

“Oh, is that all? I thought it was something important.” He grabbed Bryce by the cheeks and brought his face back to his neck.

“I would not be so glib if I were you,” said Rachida sternly. “You know this is trouble.”

Unexpectedly, Peytr grinned. “Well, I would assume it is representatives from our beloved god come to visit. We should greet them accordingly.” He turned to Bryce, who was hastily sliding his arms into his red velvet jerkin. “My love, please go into the mine and inform our brothers that company has arrived. You should gather the . . . appropriate gifts. Our guests are early, and we must prepare for them.” He then tied his breeches and strode forward, his brown eyes twinkling with excitement as his lover disappeared into the darkness.

Rachida felt awash in confusion. She began to open her mouth and ask about his apparent lack of angst, but he silenced her when he lightly brushed her cheek.

“Fear not, most beautiful wife of mine. I have expected this.”

Two hours later, nearly the entire populace had gathered on the edge of their concealed township to watch as three great ships steered into the crescent bay. Only Bryce was missing. Rachida shrugged off his absence and gazed out at the gray water. She recognized the boats; they had been galleys in the Brennan fleet,
sister
ships to the
Free Catherine
, which was docked alongside a pair of clippers—more gifts from Matthew—on the other side of the island. These boats had not been fitted for war like the
Free
Catherine
; the only thing threatening about them, other than their size, were the banners of Karak, thirty red lions roaring high above the waves. And the soldiers, of course. She thought it foolish that the
Free
Catherine
was not moored closer to the mouth of the crescent. The nine
spitfires
on her deck would have come in handy.

The galleys quit rowing a half-mile into the deep bay, and their oars, forty apiece per ship, lifted. The stone anchors dropped. Rachida squinted, watching tiny armor-clad men scurry about the decks as large dinghies lowered into the water. Soldiers climbed down ropes and boarded the crafts before the rowers began paddling. There were fifteen of the smaller boats, each filled with at least twenty soldiers. Rachida shivered and glanced behind her, at the nearly four hundred men, women, and children who now called this depressing island chain home. They were all filthy, lean, and sore from the daunting task of creating a small township on this desolate black rock, where any food other than fish was hard to come by. Though some of the men among them had fought the forces of Karak when the god stormed into Haven to demolish the Temple of the Flesh, they now appeared sickly and feeble.

We do not stand a chance.

“Gertrude,” she whispered, and the healer appeared beside her, along with the girl Trish, who acted as little Patrick’s wet nurse. Rachida peered over, saw her child busily sucking on the frightened girl’s breast, and felt an ill-timed tinge of jealousy; Rachida’s milk had dried up only two weeks after giving birth to her precious son. It seemed a magical conception was not without drawbacks.

“Yes, my Lady?” asked Gertrude, her voice shaky.

“I’ve changed my mind. Bring the girl and Patrick back home. Close and bar the doors, and try not to make a sound.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“I told you I wanted everyone here,” Peytr said from the other side of her as Gertrude and Trish scampered away. “All our people need to be on hand.”

Rachida gave her husband a dour look. “I will take my precautions as I see fit, Peytr,” she snapped at him. “I do not know what game you’re playing here, but my son will be safe.”

“
Our
son, darling,” he said. “Patrick might not be of my loins, but he is my heir. I wish for him to be safe just as much as you do.”

“Then why this farce? Why stand out here and allow us to be slaughtered?”

“That’s not . . . ” he began, but then he snapped his mouth
shut. His
eyes went back to the approaching dinghies. No
matter
Rachida’s pestering, he refused to broach the subject further.
Eventually
, she stopped trying.

“Nester, bring me the Twins,” she called out. A moment later a scruffy man hustled toward her, two scabbards clutched in his hands. Rachida snatched the shortswords by their hilts and yanked them free, the slender blades hissing. She held them out before her, admiring the handiwork, the polished gleam of the steel, the woven silver and bronze of the hilts. Just looking at them caused a knot of guilt to form in her stomach.

The swords had been fired in Haven’s very first smithy, only they weren’t twins when they were forged, but quadruplets. Two had been for her, and two for Moira; blades Corton Ender had designed especially for them. Individually, they were half the weight of normal shortswords, which allowed Rachida and Moira to utilize their superior quickness while masking their lack of strength. There had been many a day when she and her love would spar with these very swords out in the soggy fields by the Temple of the Flesh, working up a sweat before they stripped down and bathed in the stream behind Moira’s quaint little cottage. And yet over the past twelve months, they had been together a scant two days. She missed Moira dearly, which brought about hateful feelings for her husband. If Bryce had been the one so adept at swordplay, would Peytr have willingly parted with him? She thought not.

Speaking of Bryce, where in the underworld is he?

A hand roughly grabbed her arm, and she flinched, almost driving the blade in her free hand into Peytr’s gut. Her husband stared at her, lips puffed out in impatience.

“You don’t need those,” he whispered, gesturing to the Twins. “Put them away.”

She jerked out of his grip. “No. Not unless you tell me what is going on here.”

For a moment Peytr appeared as if he might try to disarm her himself, but he obviously thought better of the idea and yielded.

“You’ll see,” he said. “But please, just promise me you won’t do anything rash.”

Rachida scowled. Peytr turned his attention back to the sea.

The first of the dinghies ran aground on Provincia’s rocky coast, followed by a second, then a third. Rachida gulped down her growing fear. Their township was well hidden, positioned below sea level, in a crater surrounded by black crags. The crags acted as natural walls that could be defended with arrow and pike; yet the position the survivors from Haven watched from was the mile-wide clearing five hundred feet away from their home. The ground beneath her was cracked and uneven, with occasional tufts of sea grass sprouting in the fissures. She cursed Peytr’s stupidity. They were out in the open here, vulnerable. If her husband had wanted to negotiate, he should have stowed all the people in their homes, where they stood a fighting chance should the worst happen.

Myriad soldiers stepped out of the dinghies, gathering into formation on the rocks. The captains, distinguishable with their great helms and oversized, spiked pauldrons, shouted orders. The men did not seem all that disciplined, which struck Rachida as queer. She had been there in Haven when Karak’s Army descended on the Temple of the Flesh, had seen how organized her former god’s forces were. Had it not been for Moira, Corton, Patrick DuTaureau, and ultimately Ashhur, all would have been lost. She wished they were all here with her now. Perhaps one look at Patrick’s massive sword would convince the soldiers to climb back aboard their boats and leave them alone. The natural father of her beloved child was indeed a fearsome warrior, and frightening when provoked.

When all the dinghies were emptied and ranks were formed, the twelve captains urged the soldiers onward. Six hundred booted feet clomped over the shoreline’s slippery rocks in uneven lines.