Forge of Darkness (Kharkanas Trilogy 1) (15 page)

She remembered her first time as a hostage; she remembered her time in the Citadel, the breathless excitement of all those people moving through countless sumptuous rooms, the tall highborn warriors who never seemed to mind the tiny girl underfoot. She remembered the wealth – so much wealth – and she had come to believe that this was her world, the one to which she had been born.

She had been given a room, up a winding flight of stairs; there she would often sit waiting, flushed and excited, for the high bell announcing meals, when she’d rush down, round and round those ever-turning steps, to lunge into the dining room – and they would laugh in delight upon seeing her.

For most of that first year it seemed that she had been the centre of attention in the entire Citadel, feted like a young queen, and always nearby were the three warrior sons of Lord Nimander, to take her hand whenever she reached up, whenever she needed to feel safe. She remembered her fascination with Silchas Ruin’s white hair, the glint of red in his eyes, and his long fingers; and the warmth of Andarist’s smile – Andarist, whom she dreamed she would one day marry. Yet the one she truly worshipped was Anomander. He seemed solid as stone, sun-warmed and smoothed by winds and rain. She felt him like a vast wing, protective, curled round her, and she saw how the others deferred to him, even his brothers. Anomander: most beloved by Mother Dark, and most beloved by the child hostage in the Citadel.

The wars stole them away from her, father and sons all, and when Lord Nimander returned early on, crippled and broken, Sandalath had huddled in her room, frozen with terror at the thought of any of her guardians dying on some distant field of battle. They had become the walls of her own house, her own palace, and she was their queen, for ever and always. How could such things ever end?

Outside the carriage window the single-storey buildings of the village rolled past, and before them fleeting figures moved here and there, many stopping to stare. She heard a few muted calls flung up to the driver, heard a muffled bark of laughter, a drunken shout. Breath catching suddenly, Sandalath leaned back to keep her face from the dust-streaked window. She waited for her heart to slow. The carriage bounced across deep ruts, pitching her from side to side. She folded her hands together, gripping hard, watching the blood leave her knuckles until she could see the bones.

Her imagination was fraught. This was a difficult day.

Abara had been a settlement known for its growth, its wealth, before the wars took all the young men and women; in the time when House Drukorlas was on the verge of becoming a Greater House. When Sandalath had finally been sent back, like a gift that had lost its beauty, its purpose, she had been shocked by the poverty of her home – the village, the grand family house and its tired, tattered grounds.

Her father had just died, before her return, a wound brought back from the war gone suddenly septic – striking him down before any healer could attend; a tragic, shocking death, and for her, a new emptiness to replace an old emptiness. Her mother had always kept her husband – Sandalath’s father – for herself. She spoke of her selfishness as her reason for sending her daughter from the room, or keeping closed a door. There was talk of another child, but no child had come, and then her father was gone. Sandalath remembered him as a tall, faceless figure, and most of her memories of him were the sound of his
boots
on the wooden floor in the chamber above her bedroom, pacing through the night.

Now her mother never spoke of him. She was a widow and this title seemed to carry with it all the wealth it would ever hold, but it was the solitary kind; it embraced no one but Nerys herself. Meanwhile, poverty gnawed inward on all sides, like undercut riverbanks in a spring flood.

The young warrior who came to Abara, one-armed and soft-eyed, had changed her world, in ways she only now understood. It was not simply the child he gave her, or the nights and afternoons out under the sky, in meadows and glens on the estate, when he taught her to open herself up and draw him inside. He had been a messenger from another world, an outside world. Not the Citadel, not the house where dwelt her mother, for ever awaiting her husband. Galdan’s world was a hard place of violence, of adventure, where every detail glowed as if painted in gold and silver, where even the stones underfoot were one and all gems, cut by a god’s hand. She understood it now as a world of romance, where the brave stood firm in the face of villainy, and honour held vigilance over tender hearts. And there was love in the fields, in a riot of flowers and hot, bright summer days.

This was the world she whispered about to her son, when she told him old tales, to show him who his father was, and where he had lived, the great man he had been, before she snuffed out the candle and left Orfantal to sleep and dreams.

She was forbidden from speaking the truth, the ignominy of the discoveries about Galdan’s real past, or the fact that Nerys had sent the young man away, exiled into the lands of the Jaghut, and that word had come back that he had died, the circumstances unknown. No, such truths were not for her son, not for his image of his father – Sandalath would not be so cruel, could not. The boy needed his heroes. Everyone did. And for Orfantal, his father would be a man impervious to infamy, unsullied by visible flaws, the obvious weaknesses that every child eventually saw in their living parents.

In her creations, as she spoke at her son’s bedside, she remade Galdan, building him from pieces of Andarist, Silchas Ruin, and, of course, Anomander. Mostly Anomander, in fact. Down to his very features, his way of standing, the warmth of his hand closing upon that of a child – and when Orfantal awoke in the night, when all was dark and quiet and he might become frightened, why, he need only imagine that hand, closing firm about his own.

Her son asked her, where had he gone? What had happened to his father?

A great battle against the Soletaken Jheleck, an old feud with a man he’d once thought his friend. A betrayal, even as Galdan gave his life
defending
his wounded lord. His betrayer? Dead as well, stalked by his treachery – they said he took his own life, in fact – but no one ever speaks the tale, not a word of it. All the Tiste grieved over the sad events, and then vowed that they would speak of it no more, to mark their honour, their grief.

There were things a child needed to believe, sewn like clothes, or even armour; that he could then wear until the end of his days. So believed Sandalath, and if Galdan had stolen her own clothes, with his sweet lies, only to leave her shivering and alone … no, Orfantal would not suffer the same. Would
never
suffer the same.

The carriage was a cauldron. She felt fevered with the heat, wondering who would tell her son stories at night. There was no one. But he could reach out in the darkness, couldn’t he, to take his father’s hand. She need not worry any more on that matter – she had done what she could, and her mother’s rage – Nerys’s bitter accusation that Sandalath was too young to raise a child – well, she had proved otherwise, had she not? The heat was suffocating her. She felt ill. She thought she had seen Galdan, in the village – she thought she had seen him, stumbling as if to chase down the carriage, and then he’d fallen, and there had been more laughter.

Her imagination was unfettered, the heat driving it wild, and the world outside her window had transformed into something blinding white, the sky itself on fire. She coughed in the dust of that destruction, and horse hoofs were pounding now on all sides, voices raised, hoofs stuttering like drums.

The carriage rocked to a halt, edged down into a ditch, tilting her to one side so that she slipped down from the seat.

The sweat was gone from her face. It felt dry and cool.

Someone was calling to her, but she could not reach the shout-box, not from down here.

The latch rattled, and then the door swung open, and the fire outside poured in, engulfing her.

* * *

‘Vitr’s blood!’ Ivis swore, clambering into the carriage to take the unconscious woman in his arms. ‘It’s hot as a forge in here! Sillen! Raise a tarp – she needs shade, cooling down. Corporal Yalad, stop gawking! Help me with her, damn you!’

Panic thundered through the master-at-arms. The hostage was as white as Ruin himself, clammy to the touch and limp as a trampled doll. She seemed to be wearing almost all her clothes, layer upon layer. Bewildered as he laid her out on the ground beneath the tarp Sillen was now stretching out from the carriage side, he began unbuttoning the clasps. ‘Corporal Yalad, a wet cloth for her brow, quickly!’

If she died – if she died, there would be repercussions. Not just for himself, but for Lord Draconus. The Drukorlas family was old, venerated. There had been only the one child, this one here, and if cousins existed elsewhere they remained lost in obscurity. His lord’s enemies would be eager to see blood on Draconus’s hands for this tragic end, when instead his lord had been seeking to make a gesture, taking into his care the last child of this faded bloodline. A recognition of tradition, an honouring of the old families – the Consort had no desire to isolate himself in a mad grasp for power.

He stripped off yet more clothes, rich brocades heavy as leather armour, quilted linens, hessian and wool, and then paused, swearing again. ‘Sillen, take down that strongbox – see what’s in that damned thing. This must be her entire wardrobe!’

The coachman had climbed from the carriage and stood looking down on the unconscious woman. Ivis scowled. ‘We were about to leave the road anyway, driver – this one can ride, surely?’

‘Don’t look like it at the moment, sir.’

‘Once she’s recovered, you fool. Can she ride?’

The man shrugged. ‘Can’t say, sir. I ain’t a regular on the house-staff, right?’

‘You’re not?’

‘They let go most of the staff, sir, must be two years ago now. It’s all the fallow land, y’see, with nobody left to work it. People just died off, or wandered off, or wandered off and died.’ He rubbed at his neck. ‘There was talk of turning it to pasture, but that don’t take many people to work, does it? Mostly,’ he concluded, still staring down at the woman, ‘people just gave up.’

Sillen and two others had got the strongbox down, straining and cursing at its weight. ‘Locked, captain.’

‘Key’s right here,’ Ivis replied, lifting free an ornate key looped through a thong of leather round the young woman’s flushed neck. He tossed it over, then glared up at the coachman. ‘Take a walk – back to the village.’

‘What? I got to return the carriage! And the horse!’

‘One of my men will do that. Go, get out of here. Wait!’ Ivis plucked a small leather pouch from his belt and tossed it over to the coachman. ‘You didn’t see any of this – not her passing out, nothing at all. Am I clear?’

Wide-eyed, the man nodded.

‘If word reaches me,’ Ivis continued, ‘that what’s happened here has gone through Abara, I will hunt you down and silence your flapping tongue once and for all.’

The coachman backed up a step. ‘No need to threaten me, sir. I heard you. I understand what you’re saying.’

Hearing the lock on the strongbox click, Ivis waved the coachman back on to the road. The man hurried off, his head bent over as he peered into the leather pouch. The glance he threw back at the captain was a surprised one, and he quickly picked up his pace.

Ivis turned to Sillen. ‘Open it.’

The lid creaked, and then Sillen frowned. Reaching in, he lifted clear a well-wrapped clay jar, the kind used to hold cider. When he shook it even Ivis could hear the strange rustling sound the contents made.
Not cider
. Meeting Sillen’s questioning eyes, the captain nodded.

The soldier worked free the heavy stopper, peered in. ‘Stones, captain. Polished stones.’ He nodded towards the strongbox. ‘It’s full of these jars.’

‘From the shores of Dorssan Ryl,’ Ivis muttered, nodding to himself. He took from Corporal Yalad the wet cloth and leaned over to brush Sandalath’s forehead. Stones of avowed love – they all carried a few, mostly from family and mates.
But whole jars filled with them? An entire damned strongbox of stones?

‘More than a few suitors, I guess,’ Sillen said, returning the stopper and slapping it tight with one palm.

Ivis stared across at the soldier. ‘If that was meant as a jest, Sillen, I’ll—’

‘No sir!’ Sillen said quickly, looking back down as he replaced the jar and closed the lid. ‘Begging your pardon, sir. What do I know of pretty daughters from noble houses?’

‘Not much, it seems,’ Ivis allowed. ‘Lock it up, damn you. And give me back that key.’

‘She’s coming round, sir,’ said Corporal Yalad.

‘Mother’s blessing,’ Ivis whispered in relief, watching her eyelids fluttering open.

She stared up at him without comprehension. He waited for some recognition as she studied him, but it did not seem forthcoming.

‘Hostage Sandalath Drukorlat, I am Captain Ivis. I am leading your escort to House Dracons.’

‘The – the carriage …’

‘We have to leave the road now, mistress – the track before us is good only for riding. Can you sit a horse?’

Frowning, she slowly nodded.

‘We’ll stay here for a while longer,’ Ivis said, helping her to sit up. Seeing her notice her half-undressed state, Ivis took up her outer cloak and draped it about her. ‘You were overheating in that carriage,’ he explained. ‘You fainted. Mistress, we could well have lost you – you’ve given us all a serious fright.’