Children of the Blood (6 page)

The slave house handled its merchandise carefully. After all of the ten had been bathed and cleaned, they were led to another room, one with pallets and blankets. Not one among them resented being ordered to sleep; they lay down on the rough mats, curled blankets over their naked bodies, and knew no more.

“Mommy, that one. I want that one!”

“Be good, Cyllia, and we shall see.”

“I want that one!”

“Why don’t we look at them all, daughter? You must learn to make no decision in haste.”

This was the worst thing of all. Stories had come down from the few refugees that had made it to Dagothrin’s shelter or to Culverne, but none had prepared Darin for this. He watched from behind a rope as the thirty slaves that had journeyed this far with him were inspected.

He had once seen horses bought, and it was little different than this, save that horses were not so scantily dressed or so finely chained.

The noble lady, bearing a crest upon the left shoulder of her robe that Darin guessed proclaimed her house, took her daughter’s hand. The child pouted, a very pretty, very spoiled pout, and allowed herself to be led away from Ansen, a boy nearer to Darin’s age than the child.

She was, perhaps, four seasons, maybe five, but certainly not older. He had imagined that any who would own slaves would be old, ugly, fat—and dressed in expensive jewelry, velvet, and silk.

Neither of these two lived up to the image.

The child was pretty; her skin was fine porcelain, her hair gold ringlets. She had a winsome smile, and a sparkle about the blue of her eyes that fit her rounded face exactly.

Her mother’s face was longer, but still had much of youth about it, and was in many ways more lovely. She wore a single strand of gold about her long, perfect neck, and her gown, a deep blue, was both simple and modestly cut. She touched the smooth cheek of her daughter and smiled affectionately.

Yet she looked at the thirty as if they were expensive animals to be bought, like a kitten, for the amusement of a child.

He shivered, wishing they didn’t look so normal.

“I still want that one. Mommy, please, please can’t we get that one?” She smiled up at her mother, yanking at a slender finger. “He’s the prettiest, Mommy. Please?”

“Hush, Cyllia.”

But worse than this twisting of the everyday and the normal was the fact that Darin quietly prayed that the child would get her wish.

In the end, all thirty were sold.

Darin watched as each was led to the block—the large, marble platform, with its engraved lines and gilt edges. He watched as the spectators—and there were many—began alternately to raise their hands or shout out numbers as each slave was brought forward and his or her virtues were extolled loudly.

Sometimes he cringed as a slave was led away. Sometimes he breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The nine who stood with him, Kerren included, did likewise, although not always at the same time.

And not one among them did not wish that they were on the other side of the ropes, or on the block itself; they knew that it was the high priest of the Dark Heart that had claimed their service, and they had little doubt about how easy that service would be.

 

They remained in Verdann for one week. The high priest had matters to attend to that would not wait, and besides, it gave the Swords a full seven days to begin the training of the newly acquired.

Nor was the training as hard as the transport had been; now that the numbers were set, Vellen had no wish to lose more—not yet, and not without his specific command. The odd bruise or two might grace the face or sides of any individual, but there were no severe beatings.

There was no reason given for any.

Darin did as he was ordered almost before the command had left the lips of the Swords. He did not shy away from them—this was “bad bearing”—but he did not meet their eyes on the rare occasion that there was an opportunity. He saw more of his feet in these weeks than he had in the rest of his life.

The tunic and breeches that he wore were not that much different from those that he’d worn in Culveme—but they were blue and black, the colors of House Damion. He was given two sets, but no nightclothing, and these he carried with him on the long march.

The Swords also dispensed with the chains and allowed the slaves to walk two abreast between the large wagons that rolled out of the forbidding city gates. None of them tried to run.

Only at night, behind the padlocked doors of dormitories in the various inns that they sheltered at, did Darin ever relax. He would speak to Kerren in quiet whispers as they shared their hopes and fears. Sometimes he would daydream, but the laughing
face of the thieving prince eluded him in the greater shadow of the Empire. He would stop, half afraid that the Swords could read his mind and find there a reason to take him.

He did not speak of escape.

But sometimes he prayed for it, using the old language of the lines, with its delicate resonances and gentle pauses; he tried to touch the Bright Heart both in the waking world and in dream. Only darkness ever answered him.

 

The sun had browned his skin, and already the scar on his arm was beginning its long fade into whiteness. He was stronger, in some ways, than he had been at the beginning of the journey; the muscles in both legs and arms had hardened in response to the tasks demanded of them by the Swords and their master.

Master? Yes, Vellen of Damion was that, and more. If the shadow of the Empire had a face, it was the high priest’s—and if it had once seemed strange to Darin that his master’s face was pale and wintry, as the First’s had been, it did not seem strange now. The winter sky of the cold northern province was warm compared to those eyes, and the blackest of cloudy nights no less dark. He felt the high priest’s gaze at the back of his neck even when the man himself was nowhere in sight, and he tried as hard as he could to please him; it motivated his waking hours.

And it seemed, perhaps, that his efforts might be rewarded, for as they approached the capital, the high priest became almost jovial. Darin could almost understand why.

From some miles away, spires reached up toward the sky, catching the glint of afternoon light and spinning it back like a magical loom into a picture of grandeur and power.

Dagothrin had never seen such majesty.

“It is Malakar,” a low voice said, and Darin started guiltily, although he’d been allotted no tasks or duties this day. He straightened the anxiety out of his face and turned in the man’s direction. His feet missed a step as he saw who it was.

The high priest was dressed in his formal attire. Darin had seen it only once, but that once he would never forget. Robes of soft, fine red, trimmed in a black that seemed to glitter, made of an armor more invulnerable than solid steel. A simple gold circlet, deeper in color than his hair, cut the line of his brow, supporting a single, large ruby.

Darin felt a kick at his ankle, and suddenly came to his senses. With an audible gasp he fell to his knees. Out of the corner of one eye, he saw that Kerren had already done so.

Thanks
,
Kerren,
he thought, as a tremble started in his throat. But the high priest was in a good mood today; he even smiled indulgently as Darin raised his shaking face from the ground to receive his orders.

“You may rise. All of you.”

“How may I serve you, lord?” Darin asked. No one else spoke.

“You were staring at the city, were you not?”

Darin nodded.

There was a swirl of red and Vellen gestured. The lump in Darin’s throat tightened, but he showed no hesitance as he followed the priest’s directions and came to stand beside him.

“Look well at it, boy. It will be your home.” His long, large fingers pointed at the spires that still shone in the daylight. Black silk touched the edge of Darin’s jaw like the tail of a cat. “We call it Malakar. It is not grand?”

Darin nodded again.

“There are no walls to guard or hide it. It is the heart of the world; it needs none.”

Vellen’s lips lifted at the corners as if all of Darin’s thoughts were laid bare.

“There is no Twinned Heart, not any longer.” His voice was a warm whisper. “And Malakar will stand as evidence of that. It was builk” he said, his voice growing distant, “in mere decades. The power of God Himself created those spires and towers. The poverty of your mortal eyes cannot contain the full glory of their sight.” His hands snaked out suddenly, to grip Darin’s shoulders. “And that will be your home; you will have the privilege of serving it.” He released Darin abruptly, as if only becoming aware that he addressed a mere slave. “As will all.” His smile grew grim, and therefore more familiar. “In one way or another.”

 

There was a gate house on the main road into the city. It was small, but not plain; its walls were stained almost black, its edges trimmed by copper with runes along it that Darin couldn’t understand.

But the guards, although well dressed, were not Swords. They, too, bowed, as the slaves did, when the presence of the high priest was announced, their knees touching the cobbled stone precisely, their foreheads shadowing the ground. Nor did they move until Vellen had given them leave, and he exercised his
power here as if it were a luxury too long denied, staring down at the chained shirts that covered bent backs for minutes before he allowed them to rise.

Are they slaves?
Darin thought, as he began to follow the wagons once again. Then he shook himself. The looks the guards gave them, half of pity and half of contempt, answered the question for him.

They had no trouble traversing the streets, although the crowds here were, if possible, larger and more oppressive than those in Verdann. Merchants with their wagons, nobles in their palanquins and litters, or drawn carriages—all managed to find the space and time to move aside for the crest of House Damion. The nobility did not bow, but they nodded their acknowledgment; all others did as the guards at the gatehouse had done. And if they grudged the bowing and scraping, they were wise enough not to let it show.

Here, however, Vellen was more inclined to be gracious; he allowed the bows proffered to be perfunctory and merely waved the citizens on.

Word spread up the street as they moved, and Darin felt the chill of
victory
wrap about him like a shroud. Of all the people on the streets now, that word had meaning to perhaps forty, and thirty of those were as he: slaves. He tried to ignore it as its dark edge burned into his heart. Defeat.

An hour passed, judging by the sun, before they at last found a place where the roads were wide and near empty. Walking here was hard. Darin kept looking from side to side at the expanse of walkways that suddenly stretched away from the street to end in manses such as he had never seen. Many were as large as the royal palace had been, but they looked newer, cleaner, and somehow more lofty. No two were alike; some boasted small towers, built with chunks of rough, gray stone; some were almost square and forbidding in their simplicity. On one or two, there were gargoyles caught in frozen relief as they watched their master’s lands.

And color; there was color here to catch and mesmerize the eye. Flowers lined the walks, flowers in late bloom, but still quite beautiful. The reds of roses mingled with pinks and pale whites; the blue of some flower he had never seen looked askance as they passed. Each house bore large twin flags; one of red and black, and the other changing as he walked. Later he would come to know these as the house crests—the banners of the nobility of Veriloth.

Twice they passed guard patrols; the red and the black of their surcoated armor marked them as Swords. They saluted the high priest as he passed, but no more, and the high priest in turn nodded.

And then, finally, they turned to the left and began to walk up perhaps the largest of the drives that Darin had yet seen. His heart flipped high and landed squarely in his throat, and his breath became short and shallow.