Blood's Pride (Shattered Kingdoms) (17 page)

‘The Mongrel is helping him!’ Sami called out. ‘She’s betrayed us!’

‘Faroth!’ Elthion shrieked, scooping a sharp rock up from the ground.

She heard the piercing whistle again. ‘Faroth, listen to me – don’t—!’

‘Come on!’ Elthion shouted, ignoring Faroth’s barked command to stop. As he halved the distance between the dune and the cave he hurled the stone with all of his might. The throw was true: the stone flew through the air, well-aimed, dangerous.

Elthion’s comrades cheered and charged forward, washing past Harotha, who remained where she was, paralysed with dread and her own helplessness.

Suddenly her hair was blown back from her face and the air before her shuddered. She heard her brother calling her name, screaming at her to get down, but she stood rigidly straight as the dereshadi flew towards her. It swooped overhead, near enough for her to touch its bristling grey belly. She could feel its breath on her face. The men around her scrambled backwards, clawing at each other in a panic as the curtain of sand kicked up by the strokes of Aeda’s wings blinded them.

She turned to watch the creature as it swung past and slid to a stop next to Eofar. The Mongrel swiftly pushed him into the saddle; then she vaulted up behind him and the dereshadi leapt back into the sky. They flew higher and higher into the
greying sky until they blended into the dark walls of the temple and disappeared.

‘You’re pathetic.’ Faroth stalked among his bedraggled followers, pulling them back to their feet even as he berated them. ‘Look at yourselves! This is why they were able to overcome us at the mines: discipline. I expected as much from Elthion, but the rest of you should know better.’

Harotha weighed the hilt of the Nomas knife in her hand and looked back at the cave. She didn’t see where Jachad had gone, but he hadn’t left on the dereshadi. She knew he and Eofar were friends, of a sort – but Elthion had said the Nomas king was working for the Mongrel …

‘Faroth,’ Sami began, ‘if the Mongrel’s betrayed us—’

‘Shut up.’ Faroth’s stormy eyes fixed on Harotha. He limped towards her, winding a rag around the blade of his sword before tucking it under his sash. ‘The Mongrel said we’d find you here. I didn’t believe her, but here you are.’

‘Here I am.’ Harotha swallowed, and tried a wry smile. Both she and Faroth had always hated sentimentality, so she hadn’t expected him to weep and catch her up in his arms, but this felt wrong. ‘Did you miss me?’

‘We
mourned
you. Saria and me – and Dramash,’ Faroth said. His voice was hard, angry, but she could see the pain in his eyes, still raw after all this time. ‘Five months ago: that’s when they told us you were dead. Not that I ever expected you to come back from the temple, dead or alive.’

‘I had no way to get word to you.’ The other Shadari were coalescing around them. She curled her arm across her belly, feeling their stares. Faroth’s eyes roamed dispassionately over
her body, almost as if she were a jug priced too cheaply and he was looking for the telltale flaw.

‘The daimon, hm? Did we hear that right?’

She nodded as the others murmured to each other. ‘Once I knew about the baby, I had to do something before the Dead Ones found out. You know the rules for temple slaves – no marriages, no babies. I wasn’t going to let them kill Daryan’s child.’

‘Go on,’ Faroth urged, when she paused.

‘Eofar had made it plain that he was … well, interested. It was an obvious choice.’

‘And so you talked him into thinking he was the father?’ asked her brother.

‘I did what I had to do.’ She let some of her discomfort show through. ‘It wasn’t easy, but I convinced him that I was in love with him.’

‘You must have done a good job. Convincing him.’ Faroth shifted his weight from his good leg to his bad and then back again, and spat on the ground.

She looked steadily into his eyes. ‘I couldn’t afford to be squeamish. I had to protect the baby.’

‘And you’re sure that Daryan is the real father?’

‘I should know, shouldn’t I?’ she retorted.

He rubbed the stubble on his chin with the heel of his hand. ‘So, then. Where have you been for the last five months?’

‘Up there.’ She shuddered. ‘I thought Eofar would help me escape once I started to show; instead he locked me up where no one would see me. Until tonight.’ She dropped her head. ‘Five months. You can’t imagine— I finally told him the baby
was going to be born any day now; that someone would hear it cry – that’s when he finally agreed to take me away.’

This was a dangerous lie, but she couldn’t think of any other way to explain why she’d been in the Shadar for five months without telling anyone. Now it was imperative she find Saria and get their stories straightened out before Faroth found out the truth.

‘It’s lucky we were here, then,’ said her brother, ‘or you might not have escaped from him so easily.’

‘I would have found a way.’

‘And what about your great plan to defeat the Dead Ones?’ His voice lifted in mockery and his dark eyes shone as hard as glass. He’d been nurturing this anger a long time. ‘Did Shairav ordain you and teach you the magic? Did he tell you why our parents and the other ashas committed suicide just when they were needed? Did he show you the way into the temple? Give you anything useful? Anything at all?’

Harotha’s mouth stiffened. ‘Shairav was uncooperative.’

‘I told you not to go,’ he reminded her bitterly, as if she could possibly have forgotten that terrible argument. ‘Three years –
three years
, wasted.’

Harotha crossed her arms across her belly again, conscious of the proximity between her unborn child and the naked Nomas blade in her hand. ‘Not wasted.’

Faroth came closer to her. ‘All right. Maybe you’re not such a fool after all,’ he told her softly. ‘To most of these people, the daimon still means something. But you and I both know that ever since Shairav stole him from his mother, Daryan has
been nothing more than the old man’s lackey. If you think I’m going to—’

He was interrupted by the sound of a faint shout coming from the south, and everyone turned. In the distance dereshadi were still circling over the mining camp, no doubt preparing to return to the temple with the dawn, but much closer at hand, a group of six or seven Shadari were advancing towards the rebels, juggling a large, awkward burden. Harotha saw the leader raise a hand to his mouth and a moment later heard his cry again.

‘Faroth? Faroth with you?’

He checked the area around them cautiously, then he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted back. ‘Here!’

She saw the leader turn for a moment to speak to his companions. Then they came on at a faster pace. A tense restlessness had fallen over the waiting company. Their failed attack on Eofar had left them somewhat sheepish, but not enough to quell their curiosity about Harotha, and she was conscious of the surreptitious glances and the murmured discussions she couldn’t quite make out.

Faroth suddenly reached back and gripped her shoulder, hard.

‘Ow! That hurts! What did you do that for?’ she asked, hurriedly moving out of his grasp.

‘Harotha – you go— Go and see,’ Faroth urged her. He had gone pale, and a shiver of fear raced up her spine.

‘All right,’ she told her brother, laying a hand on his arm before she walked forward to meet the approaching party. The sun had just crested the horizon and she had to shield her
eyes from the glare as she made her way towards them. When they were only about twenty paces apart, the men paused briefly to reposition their burden, and as they lowered it for a moment, she saw a mass of long, dark hair tumble down and sweep the sand.

She drew in a long, painful gasp, but still she watched silently as the bearers came forward and lowered Saria’s body to the ground. Her sister-in-law’s lush hair was matted with blood. Her skin was the ghastly yellowish-grey of an old bruise. The cause of her death was all too clear: a great gash split her throat, partially hidden by her collar and the mess of dried blood caking her skin.

A sob too large to release wedged itself in Harotha’s chest and swelled there, threatening to burst like an angry blister. Her head spun dizzily and she fell to her knees in the sand.

‘We chased Dramash to the mines after he ran out of the tavern,’ she heard Sami say gruffly. ‘Saria must have gone there after him. It was the White Wolf— She— She took your boy. One of her men killed Saria when she tried to stop them.’ He looked down at the ground and added awkwardly, ‘I’m so sorry.’

Faroth screamed in fury, and the cry ripped Harotha open like a jagged blade. She became headily aware of the hard wooden hilt of the Nomas knife still clutched in her palm, smooth as a bone, as she rose up from her knees on legs shaking with rage. The Dead Ones had been doing this all of her life: destroying, killing, taking away any chance that the Shadari might have at happiness. The rotten Norland Empire teetered on a foundation built from pain and fear, and she wouldn’t let it stand a moment longer.

‘Look! It’s Jachad!’ someone shouted, pointing to the robed figure hurrying over from the mountain.

Faroth shook off the friends trying to comfort him and rushed at the Nomas, with Harotha bolting after him.

‘You! You’ve betrayed us – you and that
monster
!’ Faroth’s voice was hoarse with fury and grief. ‘You’re working with the Dead Ones – you always have been! Why did the White Wolf take my son?’ He reached out for Jachad’s throat, crying, ‘Why did she kill my wife?’

‘I’m sorry – believe me, I’m truly sorry, but I don’t know!’ protested Jachad, holding his hands up both in supplication and in warning: yellow flames snapped between his fingers.

Faroth’s friends restrained him and Harotha felt hands on her own arms, pulling her back as well. ‘The Mongrel has not betrayed you, that much I swear. You’ve got your sister back, haven’t you, just like she promised?’ He turned his blue eyes on Harotha, and she could see both the compassion and the quick look he cast at the knife in her hand.

‘Is the Mongrel on our side, or isn’t she?’ Elthion shoved his way forward through the crowd. ‘Why did she leave with the Dead One?’

‘It’s all part of the plan—’ Jachad tried to explain.

‘Why should we believe anything you say?’ Faroth demanded. He lunged forward again, but this time Harotha grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

‘Wait, Faroth,’ she advised, wishing that her hands weren’t trembling so violently. ‘Listen to what the Nomas has to say. If the Mongrel is going to betray you, there’s nothing you can do about it now. But I don’t think this one,’ she nodded
at Jachad, ‘would have come over here if that were true.’

‘That’s right. Thank you,’ Jachad said to her. He spoke calmly, but she could see the angry flush on his cheeks behind his freckles. ‘Now, please listen: the Mongrel has gone back to the temple to distract the Dead Ones—’

‘Distract them from what?’ Elthion asked impatiently.

Jachad fixed him with a withering look. ‘If I could finish? The dereshadi being ridden by the two guards Faroth killed in the tavern—’

‘Faroth, you killed two guards?’ asked Harotha.

‘—are still tied up near the old palace,’ Jachad continued patiently. ‘The Mongrel wants you to fly them back to the temple, find Shairav and Daryan and bring them down here to the city.’

Outcries of dismay burst from the little company.

‘That’s suicide,’ Binit wailed. ‘We don’t know how to fly the dereshadi!’

‘You don’t have to do much more than get on and strap yourself in,’ Jachad reassured them. ‘They don’t like the sunlight any more than their masters. They’ll be happy to get back to the stables. The Mongrel will make sure that no Dead Ones are around when you land.’

‘I wouldn’t trade a one-legged dog for Shairav or the daimon,’ Faroth growled. ‘If that’s where Dramash is, I’m going to get him and bring him home. The others can rot up there for all I care.’

‘Think, Faroth,’ Harotha advised him, digging her fingers into his arm. ‘We need more men for this uprising – the more the better. If Shairav and the daimon are with us, every Shadari
will see our cause as the will of the gods. We’ll have an army. The Mongrel is right – it’s a good plan.’

Jachad turned to her with a searching look in his blue eyes, then he nodded. ‘Yes, that’s it exactly.’

‘We don’t want Daryan here, trying to take over, not after we’ve taken all the risks!’ Elthion cried.

‘That won’t happen – Daryan isn’t like that,’ she assured them.

‘She’s just thinking of herself, Faroth,’ Elthion insisted. He jabbed an accusing finger at her belly. ‘Do you think she’s forgotten for one second about that baby’s father?’

‘Harotha? Are you all right?’ The light had dimmed and Faroth’s voice came from a long way away. Harotha realised she was fainting. She felt Faroth’s hands, supporting her. ‘Harotha, what is it?’

‘I’m all right,’ she finally managed to say. ‘Just a little dizzy.’ She forced herself to take a deep breath and reached up to massage the back of her neck. Faroth handed her the waterskin from his belt and she gulped down a tepid mouthful. ‘I’m all right,’ she told her brother, handing the skin back to him. ‘I’m all right. And I’m going with you.’

‘You can’t go back up there!’ Sami interjected, backed up by a chorus of incredulous shouts.

‘The temple is a maze,’ she insisted, raising her voice above the clamour. ‘You’ll never find your way around without help. I can lead you straight to Shairav and Daryan. They can help us get Dramash away from the White Wolf.’

‘And Eofar?’ Faroth asked darkly. ‘If he finds you again?’

She looked him in the eye. ‘I’ll deal with it.’

Faroth’s face puckered into a scowl. ‘I’m going to get my son,’ he proclaimed ominously. ‘Elthion, Binit, and Sami. You’re coming with me.’ Then he turned back to Harotha. ‘You’re staying here.’

Harotha began to protest, but Faroth cut her off.

‘Don’t argue with me. I’ll bring back Shairav and Daryan,’ he assured her grimly. Then he added, ‘Elthion is right: without the daimon, that’s just another Shadari bastard in your belly.’

Harotha could feel herself breathing hard, but this time she kept her mouth shut. She could see the naked suspicion on the faces of the other Shadari: this was no longer the courageous band of freedom fighters she had carefully gathered from the downtrodden citizenry; this was a gang, and it was Faroth’s gang, not hers.