Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) (2 page)
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Authors: Sharon Shinn
BOOK: Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses)
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Ace hardcover edition / October 2006
Ace mass-market edition / October 2007
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For Joe
Because you, too, have had to fight so hard,
and because you love the books
Because you, too, have had to fight so hard,
and because you love the books
GILLENGARIA
CHAPTER 1
THE woman lay facedown on the floor of the hut, her long brown hair spread in bloody tangles across the dirt. She had stopped moving, so it was possible she was dead. She had never cried out, never begged for mercy—never said a single word, not for the entire two hours they had had her. Kelti had found that almost as unnerving as the torture, the fact that she did not answer, did not speak.
This was his first time to go hunting mystics, and he was afraid he would disgrace himself by being sick.
Rostiff toed the lifeless woman with one hard boot. “Is she still breathing? Someone feel for a pulse.” None of the other three men moved, so Rostiff jerked his head in Kelti’s direction. “You do it.”
Kelti knelt beside the battered body and gingerly pushed through the dark hair to find the back of her neck, then slid his fingers around the bruised column of her throat. There— a steady, sluggish rhythm that seemed more obstinate than anything.
I am harder to kill than you think.
Kelti shivered a little. For her sake, he wished the woman had chosen to be a little less stubborn. The sooner she died, the sooner she would be out of her misery. There was no chance she would be spared.
I am harder to kill than you think.
Kelti shivered a little. For her sake, he wished the woman had chosen to be a little less stubborn. The sooner she died, the sooner she would be out of her misery. There was no chance she would be spared.
“She’s alive, Captain,” he said, and pushed himself to his feet.
“Then let’s wake her up again,” Rostiff said.
From over in the corner came the sound of a strangled sob. Everyone else ignored it, but Kelti glanced over. Huddled on the ground, wrapped in a tight a ball of misery, was the woman who had led them to the mystic. Poor woman living on a small plot of land, didn’t appear to have a husband or son or any kinfolk to help her manage, and it was clear she was barely able to scrape together enough food to sustain her body. Always a reward for turning a mystic over to the Lestra’s men, so she’d eagerly made arrangements with them yesterday morning when she spotted them in the village. But, like Kelti, she had probably had very little experience with inquisitions. She had not expected the interrogation to be so brutal or last so long.
One of the other men came forward with a bucket of water and dumped it on the mystic’s head. She stirred and coughed, then lay still again. But Kelti, watching closely, could see the movement of her ribs. Still breathing.
The stupid fool.
Rostiff sank to a crouch beside her and rolled her over. Even by candlelight, it was easy to see that her face was a mesh of cuts and bruises and that blood stained the entire front of her plain gown. Her hands were tied before her with a thin silver chain set with moonstones. It wasn’t a binding that would hold an ordinary person—the chain was so delicate that even a woman could snap it in two—but the moonstones burned the skin of mystics and muted their power. Made them helpless. Stole their magic.
Stole their lives.
“Let’s try this again,” Rostiff said, putting his face down next to the young woman’s. He was a big man and hard in every way. His face was severe and bony, his bunched muscles were tough, and his personality was absolutely unyielding. Until this evening, Kelti had viewed him with an awe so great it bordered on worship. Had wanted to earn his respect. Now he was ashamed of himself for being so horrified at Rostiff’s actions. Wasn’t this the job of the men who served the Pale Mother? Hadn’t they been chosen by the Lestra to seek out and destroy mystics wherever they might be found? Was this not a holy calling, blessed by the moon goddess herself?
Then why did it feel so terrible to watch this young woman being slowly murdered?
“All I want from you is two names,” Rostiff said in a reasonable voice. He had pulled his dagger out again and held it just under the mystic’s left eye. With no effort at all, he could open the flesh on her cheek—or blind her on one side.
Tell him what he wants to know,
Kelti thought miserably. “Two names of two of your sorcerous friends, and where they might be found. That’s it. Two names, two locations. Then I’ll let you go.”
Tell him what he wants to know,
Kelti thought miserably. “Two names of two of your sorcerous friends, and where they might be found. That’s it. Two names, two locations. Then I’ll let you go.”
The mystic had had her eyes closed, but now she opened them. They were a muddy green, unremarkable in color, and pain had dulled whatever brilliance they might normally possess. At the moment, she didn’t even seem to be able to focus, for she did not look at Rostiff, looming over her so menacingly. Instead, her gaze wandered to the others in the room— to the two veteran soldiers standing behind Rostiff, looking impassive and even bored with the whole evening. To a younger soldier standing to the right of Kelti, his face eager, his body tense, a man excited by his first taste of blood. To Kelti. He held his breath as she held his gaze. Almost he thought she might say something—whisper a message to him, beg him to intercede on her behalf. He came a step closer. She blinked and looked away.
Rostiff leaned closer. “One name,” he said in an intense whisper. “One name, one location, and your death will be quick.”
At that exact moment, the door to the hut blew open and a rush of darkness swirled in. Astonished, Kelti fell back. He sensed the other men in his party drawing their blades and dropping into fighting stances.
Two men had burst inside and now crouched just inside the doorway, armed for battle.
“I’m Cammon, and I’m right here,” said one, shaking back his ragged hair. “That’s one mystic’s name. Good enough?”
With a shout, Rostiff lunged across the room, driving his sword straight for the intruder’s heart. Kelti was frozen in place, but the other three soldiers launched themselves right behind Rostiff, blades winking in the insufficient candlelight.
Two more bodies to lie on the floor this night,
Kelti thought, and watched to see how quickly the mystic was cut down.
Two more bodies to lie on the floor this night,
Kelti thought, and watched to see how quickly the mystic was cut down.
But the man who called himself Cammon danced away from Rostiff’s sword. And danced away again as Rostiff sliced and hewed the air. Kelti stared, amazed. No one could outlast Rostiff for more than a few rounds, even the fiercest soldiers in the Lestra’s brigade. But this young man—almost a boy, Kelti’s age, perhaps, and slim as a girl—parried and ducked away and evaded every single blow Rostiff tried to land.
His companion, meanwhile, had made short work of the eager young soldier so entranced at the sight of mystic blood, and was now engaged in a furious duel with the two veteran fighters of the Lestra’s staff. Kelti took a step forward, certain he should go to his companions’ aid, far from certain where he could enter the battle. Blades were flying so swiftly, so mercilessly! One of the older men took a sword to the heart and dropped to the dirt with a choked cry. The other one loosed an oath and redoubled his attack, striking so hard and so often that Kelti was dazzled at the swordplay. But the stranger was simply too good. More thrusts and grunts and oaths, then a single fluid dart of silver, and the third soldier fell.
The swordsman pivoted quickly, taking in the scene with a single glance. He was burlier than his companion, maybe five or six years older, fair-haired, clean-shaven, and alight with righteousness. His gaze came to rest on Kelti—assessed him as being of no immediate threat—and then went on to take in the motionless mystic on the floor, the weeping woman in the corner, and the heated but inconclusive battle still under way between Cammon and Rostiff. He charged forward, bloody sword upraised, and entered the fray at Cammon’s side. Kelti held his breath, afraid to watch, afraid to hope for one outcome or another. Rostiff snarled out a string of taunts and curses, but the fair-haired swordsman did not answer. Cammon fell back as the other men wove their swords together in a complicated pattern of threat and rescue, keeping his own weapon ready but not as if he thought he’d need it.
Indeed, he did not. A rush—a clash—a great cry of anguish—and Rostiff crumpled to the ground on top of one of the other corpses.
Kelti could not move or speak.
Four bodies on the floor. And the mystic still lives.
Four bodies on the floor. And the mystic still lives.
The ferocious young soldier spun around one more time, as if looking for new adversaries, but his companion shook his head. “That’s all of them,” Cammon said. “There aren’t any reserve soldiers on the road, either.”
The other man pointed the red tip of his sword in Kelti’s direction. “What about him? Will he be a problem?”
Cammon gave him one long, considering gaze, and Kelti found himself shivering, waiting for a terrible judgment. He had failed everyone tonight. Failed Rostiff, whom he should have been defending; failed the Pale Mother, whom he had sworn to serve; failed the Lestra, who had believed in him.
Failed this wretched mystic girl, who had not deserved such a dreadful fate at anybody’s hands.
“He’s harmless,” Cammon said.
His friend snorted. “Not wearing the Pale Mother’s colors, he’s not.”
A strange, flickering sort of smile came to Cammon’s face. He was still watching Kelti. “I don’t believe he understood until this night exactly what it meant to be a soldier in the service of the moon goddess. I don’t think he has the stomach for too many nights like this one.”
Another grunt from the swordsman, and he dropped to his knees next to the mystic on the floor. “What about the woman? Can you tell? Is she alive? Will she survive?”
Cammon knelt beside him. “She’s alive, but she—Justin, untie her hands. I can’t touch the moonstones.”
Kelti shivered again. A mystic, of course, this peculiar boy. Possibly the kind they referred to as a reader—the kind who could pick up the thoughts in a man’s head, tell what he was thinking, what he was feeling. How had these two happened upon this hut, in the back of an untraveled wood, in the middle of the night? What had led them in this direction at such a critical moment? Could this young man have felt the woman’s pain—even through its silence and over an appreciable distance? Was such a thing remotely possible?
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