Darkness Rising: Disciples of the Horned One Volume One (Soul Force Saga Book 1) (33 page)

D
amien stuffed
his last tunic in his rucksack and slung his sword over his shoulder. Drawers opened and closed on Lane’s side. It didn’t surprise him that he finished first; Lane had three times as much stuff as him.

Someone knocked on his door. Damien was surprised to find Baroness Trasker on the other side. She’d washed up and found some clean clothes. She wasn’t a beautiful woman. The lines of her face, the way she carried herself, everything was too harsh.

Damien bowed. “Ma’am?”

“Before you leave I wanted to thank you once more for what you did, both on my own behalf and for the others. Are you certain there’s nothing we can do to reward you for your heroic actions?”

“There is one thing, Baroness. You and the other ladies can keep an eye on your husbands. Be their conscience, keep them on the proper path as good kingdom men. I don’t want the king to have to send me back here looking for traitors. Your husbands love you. I could see it in their reactions when you got back safe. Keep them on the right path and I’ll consider that reward enough.”

The baroness pursed her lips. “You don’t trust them?”

“The border’s a long ways from the capital. They don’t have anyone keeping an eye on them, though that may change after this incident. The temptation to cheat will always be there. Look at Marris. It won’t end any better for the others if they make a similar decision.”

“Rest assured all the ladies watch over their husbands, though Baroness Kannon mainly watches to make sure he doesn’t pester the female servants too much. There’s nothing else?”

“I am curious about something. I saw no sign of Marris’s family.”

“They’re dead. The pig actually bragged about it. He liked to say if we didn’t behave we’d join them soon enough.” The baroness nodded and glided away down the hall, a slight limp the only sign of injury from her time in captivity.

Damien shut the hall door and frowned, trying to remember exactly what Marris had said when they spoke in his room. The baron had never actually said his family was alive. He’d said in one piece and like the inexperienced fool he was Damien assumed the rest. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Lane opened the door connecting their rooms, three stuffed bags sitting on the floor behind her. “I thought I heard voices.”

“Baroness Trasker stopped by to offer me one more bribe. I don’t know what she hopes to accomplish beyond getting her hooks into me.”

“Maybe she’s genuinely grateful.”

Damien raised an eyebrow at that. Nobles were seldom genuine and even less often grateful.

Lane shrugged and smiled. “I’m sure she had a good reason.”

“On that, at least, we’re in agreement.” Damien conjured a box around her luggage and they set out for the courtyard. They passed a pair of servants who both curtsied. The barons and their families made no appearance which was fine with Damien. He’d probably offended them with his little speech to Kannon.

“Not much of a send off,” Lane said.

“Disappointed?”

“Not especially. How will we be traveling?”

“Do you have a preference? I remember you mentioning a gold dragon.”

She blushed a little at that. “I was being sarcastic. Perhaps something a little less ostentations.”

Damien conjured a black horse with a double saddle. “How’s this?”

“Much better.”

Damien climbed up into the front saddle and reached back to help Lane up behind him. Remembering his first flight with Master Shen, Damien conjured a belt around Lane’s waist to hold her in place. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

The horse galloped into the air, Lane’s luggage box right behind. She yelped and grabbed Damien around his chest. Damien grinned, but kept his face turned away so she wouldn’t see.

They flew for a minute or two before she finally let go. Behind him Lane gasped.

“It’s amazing. I’ve never seen the world from this high before.”

Surprised, Damien asked, “Didn’t you ever fly with your mother?”

“She offered to take me, but I wouldn’t go. I was angry, a lot, when I was younger.”

“So you naturally became a diplomat.”

“The position got me away from sorcerers and the capital which helped with the anger. When we get back I need to talk to Mom, tell her I’m sorry for being so difficult.”

Damien reached back and patted her knee. “I don’t know your mother very well yet, but she was adamant that I keep you safe. Difficult or not I think she loves you very much.”

Behind him Lane sniffed and a moment later her head pressed against his back. Damien suspected when they reached the capital many hugs and tears would be shared. He envied Lane the chance to get closer to her mother. He wished he had a similar chance with his father. Maybe if he tried harder to talk to Dad they could find some way to set aside the anger of the past few years.

A twenty-minute flight brought them to Allentown. Damien brought the conjured mount down a little ways out of town and transformed the box carrying their luggage into a mule. Now if anyone saw them they’d look like regular travelers, more or less.

“What now?” Lane asked.

Damien guided the construct toward the town gates. “Now I deal with the Lord Mayor, we head over to the Golden Stag for twelve hours’ sleep, and in the morning we fly home.”

D
amien and Lane
walked through the afternoon shadows up the long path to the front door of the Lord Mayor’s residence. He’d suggested Lane remain at the inn while he handled the mayor, but she insisted on joining him. Just to be safe he wrapped her in an invisible shield. Damien didn’t expect any real trouble, but after everything they’d been through these last eleven weeks he’d hate for anything to happen to her now that they’d almost reached the end.

A pair of guards holding spears stood beside the pale wood doors. They looked young, older than Damien, but still young. They probably received the assignment straight out of training. They crossed their spears to bar his way. “The Lord Mayor isn’t seeing anyone else today,” the older guard said. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

“I’m here to remove the mayor from office.” Damien drew on his soul force and caused his shield to crackle. “I know his crimes. Stand aside or be judged with him.”

“Please, sir, we have sisters. If we let you through we lose his protection. They may be taken. The Lord Mayor is a man of great appetites.”

Damien crossed his arms and scowled. “So you serve this pig to protect your own families while others less fortunate have their daughters kidnapped and given over to his tender mercies. You dare call yourselves men of the kingdom? I should kill you both for your cowardice. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind.”

Spears clattered to the ground and the guards fled back down the path. How had they even made it through training? Damien didn’t know what sort of training the regular army required of its cadets, but if those two were representative they needed to improve their standards.

“Would you have killed them if they didn’t run?” Lane asked.

“Of course not. They were only doing what they believed necessary to protect their families. Still, if they’d had the courage to run a spear through the mayor’s guts when he came out this door some morning it would have saved a lot of people a great deal of trouble. I guess that’s why the crown keeps people like me around.”

Damien yanked the heavy iron door handle. It was barred from the inside. A golden blade made short work of that. The bar clattered to the floor and the doors swung open. Inside waited a grand foyer. Paintings, all of them erotic and explicit, decorated the walls and a pair of nude statues stood beside a sweeping staircase leading to the second floor. No guards waited inside the door. Either the mayor trusted the two outside combined with the bar to ensure his privacy or the guards were stationed elsewhere.

Damien glanced at Lane who was gaping at the artwork. “If you were a pig with grotesque appetites where would you be late in the afternoon?”

At the same moment they both said, “Bedroom.”

Damien didn’t know the layout of the place, but he figured the bedroom would be above. They went upstairs. The halls were lined with red carpet and more paintings like the ones below decorated the walls. If anything the ones on the second floor were more explicit and violent than the ones downstairs.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” Lane stared at a painting of two little girls tied up, naked, getting spanked by masked men.

“Try not to look at them.”

At the end of the hall a muffled thump sounded above them followed by a soft sob. Damien pointed at the ceiling and a cutting beam shot out. He sliced a disk out of the ceiling and let it fall to the floor. Staring down at them, his mouth partway open, was a fat, naked man with a scruff of gray hair around the base of his skull. He held a small, thin knife in his hand

Damien and Lane flew up into a bedroom-cum-torture chamber. One girl, she looked about Karrie’s age, was tied to some sort of restraining device, her back covered in fresh welts, Damien guessed from the cat o’ nine tails on the floor beside her. A second girl, younger yet, lay bound on the bed. She bled from three shallow cuts on her bare stomach.

“Guards!” the naked man bellowed.

The door burst open and four men with drawn swords rushed through. Fifty golden lances pierced the guards from every conceivable direction. Lane went to the bleeding girl and tore strips out of the bedding to make bandages.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the fat man asked. “Do you know who I am?”

“You are a dead man,” Damien said. “The only question I have is: are you the Lord Mayor?”

“I am.” The fat man drew himself up to his less-than-impressive height. “Baron Kannon is my cousin and when he hears of this outrage he’ll have your head.”

“I’ve already informed him of your removal and advised him to find a replacement who’s less corrupt.”

The mayor lunged at Damien, striking him with the little knife. The blade bent in half when it struck Damien’s shield. The mayor whimpered and held up the ruined weapon. “Please. I have gold, jewels. Please, take anything, everything, just let me go.”

A golden band formed around the mayor’s neck and Damien squeezed, choking off his pleas. Damien drew power, maybe a little too much power, and blasted the wall. It exploded out, reduced to little more than splinters. Damien hurled the mayor out the hole with way more force than necessary. His body exploded when it hit the ground.

Damien turned away from the hole and found Lane had bound the girl’s wounds and dressed her in a thin shift. “Is she okay?”

“Physically she’ll be fine. The cuts weren’t deep.” Lane stroked the trembling girl’s hair. “Mentally I have no idea.”

Damien went over to the second girl and cut her down. She latched on to him and cried. Damien held her and looked over her head for something he could dress her in. He spotted a dirty shift lying discarded in the corner. A tendril of soul force brought it to him and he got enough space between him and the girl to slip it over her head.

“Is he dead?” the girl asked.

“Yes. You’re safe now.”

“I want to see.”

Damien winced when he thought of the mess he’d made out of the mayor. “It isn’t pretty.”

“Nothing about him was pretty. I want to see.”

Damien guided her over to the hole in the wall. The girl stared for a long minute then spit on him. Damien couldn’t help smiling. She had spirit. “Are there any others?”

“I’ll show you.”

In the next room three more girls, all of an age with the first two, sat huddled in an iron cage. None of them wore more than a stained shift. The girl spoke to them while Damien opened the cage. Once they had all the girls free he and Lane took them home. Long after dark they returned to the inn.

He walked with Lane to her room. They paused outside. “I never imagined it would have been that bad,” Lane said.

“Me neither, but you know, this might be the best day I’ve had in my short career. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything as satisfying as helping those girls. I hope they’re okay.”

“I think they will be, thanks to you.” She kissed him. “Good night.”

Damien touched his lips and stared at the closed door. What was that about?

K
arrie stalked
towards the royal quarters. Servants hastened to move out of her way. Damien had been gone for almost two months and she’d considered and rejected half a dozen plans to convince him to agree to marry her. The problem she kept running into was none of them would work if he didn’t fall in love with her and Damien had made it clear that while he did like her that was as far as it went.

Daddy should be done with court by now and back in their rooms for his noon meal. Her only hope was to convince him to force Damien to marry her. She knew he thought Damien would be a good match for her so it shouldn’t be too hard to convince him.

Karrie pushed the door open and found her father seated at the dining room table, a plate of pasta in white sauce in front of him. He smiled when she entered.

“Hello, sweetheart. Will you join me?”

She’d get fat if she ate like her father, but she did sit beside him. “I need to talk to you.”

“Of course. What’s on your mind?”

She couldn’t think of any way to say it other than to just say it. “I want you to order Damien to marry me.”

He sucked in a breath along with his sip of wine. When the coughing subsided he asked, “What?”

“I know you think he’d be a good match for me. I spoke to him about it before he left on his mission, but he didn’t seem interested. You could order him to do it, for the good of the kingdom.”

“I don’t think you’ve thought this through, Karrie. I have considerable power, but I can’t command men’s hearts. I think too much of Damien to force him into something like this, not to mention commanding someone to marry against their will is the sort of thing that could lead to a conclave.”

Karrie shook her head. “I hardly think the generals and high sorcerers care enough about the fate of one man to consider removing you from the throne.”

“No.” Her father ran his hand through his hair. “But it is the sort of capricious use of power that they watch for. If I do it once I might do it again, for something bigger. Since our ancestors went from being imperial governors of a colony to kings of an independent country we’ve had a responsibility to rule for the good of all the people and not use the powers we’ve been given irresponsibly. The conclave system was set up to prevent any king from becoming a tyrant.”

Karrie sighed. She’d learned all that from her tutors. “What’s the point of being king if you can’t do what you want?”

He smiled. “The point is to be a good steward and see that you leave the kingdom stronger, safer, and happier than your predecessor. Maybe you should forget about Damien and find another boy.”

Karrie ground her teeth. She didn’t want another boy, she wanted Damien. If her father couldn’t help her maybe her mother could. She kissed his cheek. “Thanks, Daddy. Do you know where Mom is?”

“In her sewing room, I think. Oh, I forgot to tell you. I spoke to the archmage this morning. Damien should be home today, any time now in fact.”

She brightened. If Damien was home she could start working on him again. She forgot about talking to her mother and jogged out to watch the front gate.

Karrie found an unused guest bedroom overlooking the courtyard, dragged a chair beside the window and settled in to watch. She had a bit of good luck. Less than an hour after she sat down a black horse flew over the wall and landed in the courtyard. Damien sat in the front saddle and Lane sat behind him, her arms around his chest in a way Karrie didn’t like at all.

Damien swung down and reached back to help Lane dismount. They walked toward the castle together. Damien put his hand on her back in a far-too-familiar way. Daddy never should have sent him on a mission with Lane. The woman was too pretty and even if she didn’t like sorcerers in general she seemed to like Damien well enough.

Karrie’s lip curled into a snarl and she slammed her fist on the arm of her chair. If Lane had her hooks in him, how could Karrie dig them out? Mom would know. She rushed back to their quarters. Daddy had finished his meal and returned to his duties. Karrie hurried to the back of the suite and into her mother’s sewing room.

Her mother sat in the sun, a delicate bit of needlework in her lap. “Karrie?”

“Damien’s back. I think he’s fallen for Lane Thorn. They looked way too friendly walking together.”

“Hmm. That’s a surprise. Everyone knows Lane hates sorcerers. Well, Damien is a handsome boy, so I can see where she might make an exception.”

“Mom!”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I suppose you’re planning to go to war with her?”

“I’m not going to let Lane have Damien. He’s mine. What do we do?”

“You need to make him think he’s going to lose you. Jealousy can be a powerful motivator for men. It’s how I convinced your father.”

“I’m not sure Damien would feel jealous if I went with someone else.”

“It would have to be the right person. I made some quiet inquiries at The Tower. There are two people that might have the desired effect on Damien. His best friend John Kord and Sigurd Iceborn whom he fought a duel with his first day.”

“Sig’s an ass, but John is handsome enough. It might not be so bad spending time with him.”

“Good choice. Nothing like seeing your best friend getting the attention of a girl you thought was interested in you. John is stationed with his father in the north. Perhaps we could arrange for him to come south. We could say you need a personal healer. That would give you a perfect excuse to spend time with him.”

Karrie rubbed her hands together. She’d make Damien so jealous his head would spin. “How soon can he arrive?”