Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert) (37 page)

The first place Wian led them to, a noisome tavern near the docks named The Grey Wind, was empty.
Completely
empty, doors locked, abandoned; Deiq smashed the door aside with a single kick and went in anyway.

Three paces into the taproom he could smell her. And blood. And human death.

He followed the scent trail like an asp-jacau on a hunt, bashing aside doors with a complete lack of regard for irreparable damages, through hallways and down a set of hidden stairs to a cellar that
reeked
. Four dead bodies had been piled carelessly near the foot of the stairs, a rough tarp thrown over them the only concession to human dignity.

Deiq lifted the tarp away and looked at their faces, making sure Alyea wasn’t there; the stench overwhelmed his ability to tell without sight. All men.

“Alyea killed them,” Eredion murmured, coming up beside him, his own face grey in the dim light filtering into the room from the street-level windows high above their heads.

Deiq dropped the tarp without responding and prowled into the other rooms of the cellar, studying blotches on the floor and listening to the past-echoes of violence still raging through the air. Against the background of recent death and the horrific smell in the dank room, he had to concentrate harder than usual to hear anything useful.

“Yes,” he said finally, returning to the central room, where Eredion waited. “She killed one, then three, then . . . I think there was a third fight. I think she killed a few more, there. But in the end, they took her down again and moved her. And there’s something. . . .” He tilted his head, eyes almost shut, trying to place the elusive aroma.

Eredion inhaled through his nose, and scowled. “Damn. No question left on who has her now, or what kind of trouble she’s in; I know that smell. It was one of Rosin’s favorite tricks when dealing with desert lords: stibik oil mixed with ether. It would have dropped her like a rock. And she’ll be helpless when she wakes up.”

Deiq let out a low growl and spun on the desert lord. “How do so many damn people suddenly have access to something that the ketarches were
ordered
to destroy?”

Eredion licked his lips and backed up a cautious step, then three more. “You’d have to ask the ketarches,” he said. “I was only told they found it wise to keep a limited supply active.”

Deiq snarled again and stomped up the steps without answering. Wian, hovering just outside the tavern with a sick look on her face, ventured a question as he emerged; he shot her a glare that silenced her instantly and snapped, “Where next?
Hurry
, damn it!”

Trembling, she took them to two more places, both also deserted; they contained no trace of Alyea’s presence, stibik, or dasta. Wian didn’t know any other places Pieas’s friends might have taken her. She sobbed on the ground in a heap, utterly miserable.

Deiq leaned against the outer wall of the third place, staring up at the sun, which was descending through the sky. A corrosive, bleak despair gnawed through his veins. He’d failed his responsibility again. He should have stayed with her; but he’d let emotion get in the way, as weak as any human could have been.

And then, when the ransom note came, he hadn’t even considered that anyone truly dangerous might have laid hands on her. He’d thought it best for her to learn her own strength without his interference. He’d thought it would be a good lesson, gods help him.

He’d been a
fool
.

The people passing by steered a wide circle around the three standing outside the broken door to a disreputable home. Deiq ignored the suspicious stares he was receiving.

“What’s going on here?” a voice with authority behind it demanded.

Deiq looked up into the hard stares of a King’s Guard patrol, all with their clubs held ready as they took in the smashed remnants of the door. Oruen had cleared out the sadists who had almost taken over the Guard under previous rulers; the shift to more honorable recruits had made it both safer for the city and more dangerous for true criminals to operate. These guards had to have an answer, and a good one, and fast; but Deiq didn’t feel up to offering courtesy, let alone clarity, right now.

Eredion roused himself from his weary slouch and stepped forward. Deiq let him handle the situation, closed his eyes, and took a moment to search for Alyea’s mind, even knowing it was useless.

“Her cousin,” Wian said suddenly, sitting up and staring wildly at the men around her, as if she’d only just noticed the patrol arguing with Eredion. “Kam. He’d know. He’s one of them.”

Agonized hope flaring, Deiq reached down and pulled the girl roughly to her feet. “Where is he? Where would he be right now?”

“Wait a moment—” the patrol leader objected. “What’s this about?”

Deiq glanced at him, then focused more intently. The patrol leader was one of the men who had been at the southern gates on their way in from the Horn. Memory supplied a faint blush crossing the man’s face in response to Idisio’s strange code-phrase, and that he’d let them pass after hearing it. Deiq’s temper rose swiftly, broke past restraint.

“
You tharr bastard
—”

Eredion hollered, “Deiq,
wait!
”

Three of the guards made the mistake of trying to lay hands on Deiq; they quickly went sprawling into each other and across the ground. The leader of the patrol froze like a frightened rabbit as Deiq lunged at him.

Eredion’s voice came from somewhere behind a red haze: “Deiq,
don’t
—”

“Bless
this
, you
tharr ta-karne ii-shaa
—”

Bones snapped; the patrol leader howled.

“
Deiq, godsdamnit, stop!
”

The patrol leader landed atop his men, both arms broken in multiple places; his screaming, sobbing curses drowning out all other nearby sounds.

“Come
on
,” Deiq snarled, slapping Eredion’s shoulder hard enough to rock the visibly appalled Sessin lord back a step.

“Damn it, you godsdamned
idiot
, you can’t just—hey,
wait—damn it
—”

The shouts and curses faded into the distance as Deiq sprinted to catch up with Wian, who’d taken advantage of the distraction to get a head start; and he heard Eredion galloping, still cursing, to catch up.

But two blocks later, Eredion skidded to a halt, shouting, “No! Not that way! I know where they are! Gods, I’m an idiot—this way!”

Wian was still visible ahead; for a human, she possessed a remarkable turn of speed. Deiq went after Eredion without hesitation.

“Where?” he said once he caught up to Eredion.

“Something Pieas said once just came back to me,” Eredion panted, already winded from their sprint. “He was close to Kam, and to Kippin. And he said something about meeting at Kippin’s aunt’s house. But Kippin doesn’t
have
an aunt; his father was an only child.”

“You study northern family trees now?”

“When a Sessin is involved with a northern maniac, yes,” Eredion snapped, and directed them over to a side street and back out to a larger one. “Kippin’s
father
had an aunt. Lady Arnil. Her estate is on the far western edge of town, and I just heard a day or two ago that she’d died. Kippin’s the only family survivor at this point; it would have gone to him. It’s the logical place for him to take Alyea; too far away from anything else for anything unusual to be noticed.”

Deiq slapped the desert lord’s shoulder, a fierce grin stretching his lips. “What are we walking for?” he said, and heard Eredion groan.

Many people died very quickly after Eredion and Deiq ripped through Lady Arnil’s front doors. Eredion had never seen a ha’ra’ha truly let loose before; he hoped never to see it again. Under the extreme stress, Deiq’s lineage came through more clearly than Eredion would have believed possible.

A fine pattern of silvery scales, glowing as though lit from within, caught and refracted the torchlight. His eyes turned a disturbingly solid dark shade, no white visible at all; and when he roared during a charge, more than one opponent simply wet himself and knelt tamely down to die.

Eredion soon decided it was wisest to stay back and let Deiq clear the way; the ha’ra’ha seemed beyond the ability to distinguish friend from foe. Every so often, Eredion paused, with absolutely no remorse, to finish off someone still twitching.

He could
hear
Alyea screaming, on a level beyond words; he was fairly sure her voice had given out some time ago. He knew Deiq could hear it too, far more clearly; the non-sound seemed to be driving the ha’ra’ha completely berserk.

Eredion ducked as another limp body hurtled past to crash into the far wall. He didn’t bother telling Deiq to watch his aim. The rebuke would have fallen on deaf ears.

The slaughter didn’t take very long at all. While Kippin had clearly wasted no time setting up his great-aunt’s mansion as his new base, only about two dozen men and women had so far moved in, and of those only the men fought. The women, clearly, had been used for other purposes; they mostly cringed, hid under tables and behind couches, and screamed a lot.

One woman, her dark eyes flashing with brilliant fury, grabbed a knife from one of the fallen men and began stabbing the corpse with it, over and over. Silently. Her eyes remained dry and bright with hatred.

Eredion left her alone.

They found Alyea in a ground-floor room that faced west. The setting sun gilded the walls and a restless breeze wandered through the open window. The blood in this room all came from Alyea; she lolled, witless, as though hastily thrown on the bed and abandoned.

Eredion looked around the room to spare himself the sight and found nothing more pleasant in view; heavy leather straps, slick with blood, lay in an untidy heap on the floor. Whip-thin chains of iron, with handles fastened to one end; a hood; short, braided leather whips; and long, thin knives.

All damp with fresh blood.

Eredion shut his tearing eyes, wishing the sight didn’t feel so damned familiar; but as he had told Deiq, Rosin had enjoyed hurting people—often—and on more than one occasion had forced Eredion to attend a “questioning”.

But this was worse. From the look of it, these men had crammed into a day what Rosin had drawn out over ten; clearly Alyea had fought, over and over, even when she had no wits left to understand what was happening. And they’d just as clearly moved from trying to break her spirit into enjoying the torture itself.

I knew I should have killed Kippin a long damn time ago. And I should have killed Pieas myself. This is my damn fault. Mine.

The nauseating aromas of stibik, dasta tea, urine, feces, and sex brought a heavy lurch to his stomach. He couldn’t imagine what agony Deiq’s more sensitive nose must be in.

Deiq spared the room a brief, bleak glare, then scooped Alyea’s limp body from the bloodstained bed.

Eredion didn’t say anything as he followed the ha’ra’ha outside; he was busy thinking how to explain all this to the guards he knew would be fast approaching at this point.

In the end, they brought Alyea back to Peysimun Mansion. If she died, it would be best at her family home, not the palace; and if she lived, she’d need family around her during her recovery.

Her mother went into shrill hysterics at the arrival of the two blood-soaked men carrying her battered child; dissolved even further into wild shrieking when she was told, very flatly, that Deiq
would
be staying with Alyea, and caring for her himself.

Wian, who’d gotten all the way to the Peysimun estate before realizing the men weren’t following her any longer, steered the crazed woman away with surprising strength.

Eredion stayed, acting as intermediary, buffer, explainer, and a relatively sane voice amid the chaos. After several hours, he persuaded Deiq to bathe and eat; spoke with Alyea’s mother long enough to settle her down somewhat; persuaded the guards to wait for a resolution, swearing on his own Family honor that none of them would flee the city; and sent word to the king absolutely forbidding him from coming anywhere near Alyea until she’d either died or recovered.

Right now, Oruen and Deiq in the same room would spark off mortal combat. Eredion didn’t particularly want to hunt up another candidate for the throne on such short notice.

Lady Peysimun calmed once Eredion convinced Deiq to allow her to sit with him by Alyea’s bedside. It was a mark of the ha’ra’ha’s intense distress that Eredion even had to explain why that was important.

“She’s Alyea’s
mother
, Deiq,” he said with strained patience. “This is her house.
Please
. Be reasonable. She has the right.”

Deiq shrugged, shot the woman a dark, suspicious glare, and ignored her after that. Alyea’s mother returned the favor, speaking only to Eredion, acting as if the ha’ra’ha simply didn’t exist. Eredion suspected Deiq was mucking with the woman’s perceptions, but let the uneasy compromise rest without comment.

Much later in the evening, after settling the most pressing issues, Eredion managed a light doze, too worn out to stay alert another moment. He’d only slept a short time when a messenger came to announce a wild-eyed mercenary on a lathered horse at the Seventeen Gates, demanding access.

“Says he’s got a message for Lord Alyea and Deiq,” the messenger said, his face and tone skeptical. “From someone called Idisio.”

Eredion roused himself fully and with a few sharp words sent the boy off at a run. After brushing his hair back into order and grasping control of his tattered emotions, he went out to the front steps of the Mansion and waited. It didn’t take long for an exhausted horse to clatter up to the gates and into the courtyard.

The messenger, riding behind the ragged, filthy mercenary, slid to the ground with the wiry bounce of youth and took the reins, pointing up the steps towards Eredion; the mercenary dismounted more slowly and stumbled forward. There was something familiar about the young man, but Eredion couldn’t quite place his face; he let it go as unimportant to the moment.

“My lord,” the mercenary said, “Lif—Idisio sent me.”

Eredion’s breath caught in his chest.
Lifty
had been Idisio’s street name; what did it mean that it was the first name to this mercenary’s lips? He squinted, trying to figure out why the boy looked so damned familiar.

“Idisio,” the mercenary repeated, then blinked as though trying to remember what he’d been about to say. “He’s in Sandsplit. With his mother.”

Eredion felt a dizzying calm come over him, and had no idea how to respond to the news. All he could think was
At least Idisio’s still alive
.

The young man’s hair was red; something about that should be important, but he couldn’t figure out why.
Gods, I’m tired. .
. .

The mercenary’s words came more easily now, tumbling out like the water splashing in the fountain behind him. “His mother, she’s . . . Idisio needs help, my lord. I think she ripped someone apart in Obein. Two people. I don’t think he knows about it. And I don’t think he believes she could hurt him, but I do.”

He stopped babbling, pulled himself upright, and swayed like a drunk.

“She’s going to hurt him,” he said starkly. “I know she is. He said he needs help. He says to hurry. I couldn’t help. I stopped her when she came at me but I wouldn’t be able to do it again, and he wouldn’t let me stay in any case—”

His words blurred; he stopped talking, his eyes unfocused.

This mercenary had stopped the tath-shinn from attacking him? Eredion regarded the young man with growing respect—and unease. He wanted a long talk, once they both got some proper rest. He knew this boy from somewhere, damnit, but his weary brain simply wouldn’t connect the pieces.

“Thank you,” Eredion said, careful to hide his startled interest. “Come in and rest.”

“He needs
help
,” the mercenary repeated, squinting up at Eredion with an aggrieved expression.

“I understand. We’ve got something of a crisis here ourselves,
s’e
. Come rest. You’re about to fall over.”

“But—” A moment later, the mercenary’s legs simply gave way, and he sprawled, unconscious, on the cobbles of the courtyard.

Envying the boy his loss of stamina, Eredion directed servants to carry the mercenary to a spare guest room, then walked out to a small garden courtyard and sat staring up at the stars for a while, too exhausted to make plans. Names trickled through his mind, only vaguely connected to faces and events: Idisio and his mother. Alyea and Deiq. Scratha. The teyanain. The Horn. The ha’reye . . . and the ha’ra’hain.

The desert held too many damn convoluted plots. Too many secrets. Too many lives had been put at stake, too many dreams and ambitions.

But that was reality: never neat, always messy. You did what you could with what you had, and you didn’t waste time whining over what ought to be.

He sighed and went to find a servant to run some messages.