Hold The Dark: A Markhat story (22 page)

“What in the names of all the Gods do you think you’re doing?” the woman dropped to her hands and knees, heedless of the dirt, gathering the little bottles together tenderly and slipping them back into specially designed compartments in her bag. “First that blur of a child races by, nearly knocking my feet from under me, and then you come along to complete the job!”

“She stole my purse!”

“And gold is more important to you than life and limb, I suppose. I should have expected as much in this godless southern cesspit. Oh Lady Liath,” she said, a little of her anger punctured with disappointment. One of the packets had burst open and the dried leaves it held disintegrated in the damp street even as she tried to save them. “I can’t replace these, not here, not for any price. At least none of the bottles broke. But I’ll have to clean and boil all my instruments, everything…” Her voice cracked with a sob.

Unexpected shame rushed to fill Malachy’s gut. The unaccustomed feeling seemed to be harassing him today. He sank to his knees to help the northerner gather up her things. She snatched each one he offered her, discarding only those items beyond redemption. Each she reluctantly laid aside elicited another sob or word of dismay. Finally, Malachy took her trembling hands and helped her to her feet, surprised by the curious sensation of her touch. Her skin felt even softer than Halia’s, and his sister spent a small fortune on fragrant oils and creams. Her nails were short, but immaculately kept. He had no doubt that, but for the recent scramble in the dirt of Klathport, she scrubbed them clean several times each day. And from her skin, he could smell lemons.

She pulled away from him and he noticed her youth for the first time, a girl barely out of her teens. She didn’t look old enough to be outside the family home without an escort. He glanced around for an irate brother or a cousin, but he saw no one. They were alone in the laneway leading to Liath’s temple, a largely neglected place dedicated to the earlier incarnation of the Goddess so revered by the northern realm.

“Thank you,” she said guardedly. Neither of them made to leave. The moment stretched into awkwardness.

“Are you all right?” Malachy asked. “I didn’t hurt you?”

She gave a sharp laugh, shot with a degree of cynicism belied by her appearance. “The least of my worries. But at least you stopped to find out.”

A smile drew at his lips. “You haven’t been in Klathport very long, have you?”

“Just a few days. I’m…I’m meant to meet some friends.”

“Well, your
friends
shouldn’t let you out by yourself around here. The Lady alone knows what could have happened to you.”

He expected a smile, but instead, she eyed him suspiciously. “You swear by Lady Liath?” Hope kindled in the depths of her gaze.

“Liath?” He glanced inadvertently at the temple door topped with the crescent of the Goddess. “Were you in there?”

“I found it empty. No temple should be empty in the middle of the day. There should be a priestess, attendants…”

He shrugged. Religion didn’t really bother him. “Maybe you can find what you’re looking for towards the Selima Oasis or…”

She shook her head, her expression distracted, and clutched the bag close to her chest. Suddenly, she looked afraid. “But they’re meant to be here,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.

Malachy didn’t know why he did it. Some vestige of decency that life in this city hadn’t beaten out of him perhaps? Or maybe she just reminded him of Elly and the look of fear in her face when he’d tried to help her. With Trask in prison, what had become of poor Elly now? He wished her safe somewhere, and not lost to the streets once more.

He held out his hand to the northern girl, keeping his body language open and honest. His very stance asked her to trust him.

“Why don’t I take you back to where you’re staying? You’ll be safer there.”

“No, thank you. I’ve-I’ve got to go to Aleron’s Mount.”

“That’s on the other side of the city. It will take you hours to walk it but it’ll be for nothing. The temple there will be the same as this one.”

“I have to try. Thank you for your help…”

“You’re welcome.” Belatedly he remembered his own manners. “I never asked your name.”

“Cerys of Longleith. Thank you for your help.” As he made to leave, her voice followed after him. “I never asked your name either.”

“Malachy Grey,” he called back with a grin. He didn’t glance over his shoulder until he reached the end of the other side of the square. Cerys stood at the end of the laneway, staring after him, a small and very out-of-place figure seen through the riot of the Cheapside market.

He headed home, his meeting with Cerys soon dismissed. He had almost reached his front door when he noticed something amiss. The door stood ajar, but he had locked it. He pushed it and it swung open awkwardly. Inside, the wooden frame hung splintered and ragged. The bolt had been ripped from the wall where someone had burst their way through.

His shopping slipped from his suddenly numb hands. Someone had broken into
his
house? Stumbling over the fruit and vegetables, he pulled the knife from his boot. He didn’t normally use a knife. In his experience, knives made you a target. And swords were worse. But in this case…

The blade glinted in the shafts of light coming through the still drawn curtains. Halia hadn’t been awake when he’d left so he hadn’t bothered…

Halia!

Malachy pushed his back to the wall, listening for any sounds, anything at all. When nothing greeted him, he crept forward on cat’s feet. The parlour had been turned over thoroughly, a professional-looking job, designed to search, destroy and intimidate all in one go. And in the kitchen…

A figure sprawled on the floor, but he only recognised his sister by the ragged remains of her clothes. They had taken their time about beating her, as professional a job as that in the parlour. But then they had found their creativity. The carving knife jutted obscenely from her shoulder, just above the swell of her right breast. It pinned her to the floor like meat on a skewer. Remarkably little blood splattered around her.

Halia gave a small, sharp gasp for breath, and her entire body convulsed. But her face looked so pale he thought he had imagined the movement. She gasped again, a choked and desperate sound, and he saw why.

Whoever had attacked her had ripped off her anklet and shoved it into her mouth.

Malachy gave a strangled cry as he dropped to his knees beside his sister. Her eyes flickered towards him through the slits of her swollen eyelids. He pulled the bells from her lips, wincing as they rang. Halia took another piercing breath.

“Who did this?” Malachy whispered. But she couldn’t find enough air to answer. The little she could capture kept her alive. He touched her face gingerly and she sobbed with the pain. The rage balled up inside him punched its way out. “Who did this?” he screamed.

A footfall behind him sent him spinning around, crouched protectively over his sister, his knife swinging before him like a scythe.

Cerys clutched her bag in front of her. “Oh, sweet Liath,” she said as she took in the scene. The name of her foreign Goddess echoed hollowly around the still room.

“Who did this?” he asked her, knowing she had no more answers than he did, but unable to form any other words. He sucked in a breath and tasted bile in the back of his throat.

Carefully, she reached out to put her bag down, kneeling before him so as not to alarm. She kept her eyes locked on his the whole time.

“Malachy.” Her voice sounded calm and measured now, her gaze unswerving. “Malachy Grey, I can help her, but you have to put the knife down.”

He hesitated. Without the knife he would be helpless. Without the knife he couldn’t get whoever had done this. He gripped it tighter, his pulse thundering inside his head.

“Now, Malachy, before it’s too late.”

Halia struggled to breathe, and he glanced down to see her eyes dimming, growing distant as if no longer looking at the ceiling but beyond it.

Malachy flinched, lowered the knife and stepped back. “Please.” His voice grated along his throat. “Please save her.”

He destroyed a continent. Dethroned a god. Now her love will destroy him…

Ilfayne’s Bane

© 2009 Julia Knight

Oathcursed, Book 1

Hilde is shunned for her strange looks and ability to dream the future, both unwelcome gifts of the half-kyrbodan blood that flows in her veins. One of those dreams summons the legendary mage, Ilfayne. Beneath his cynicism and penchant for melting eyeballs, she discovers a tortured man driven by demons as cruel as her own. And the only man who doesn’t recoil from her.

Condemned to four thousand years of loneliness and regret, Ilfayne finds a rare thing in Hilde: a friend. For that, he will do anything to keep her safe. Just as he gathers the courage to reveal the tender feelings he thought he’d lost, her kyrbodan blood forces her to bond with a man of her own race. To deny the bond means she could die. Either way, she is lost to him.

Now llfayne’s oldest enemy has resurfaced, a sorcerer who will stop at nothing to destroy him. Including targeting their greatest vulnerabilities—Ilfayne’s hidden love for Hilde, and Hilde’s guilt-wracked conscience.

When the sorcerer makes his move, Hilde holds the lives of two men in her hands—and faces a terrible and deadly choice. Loyalty…or love.

Warning: This book contains a jaded hero, sarcasm, violence, and magic spells involving aggressive turnips.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Ilfayne’s Bane:

Hilde woke to cool moonlight and a sense of foreboding. The shadows seemed darker and full of menace as she waited for her hands to stop trembling. She fumbled to put the pendant over her head and stood.

Something was here, something that held nothing but evil intent. A shiver worked its way up her spine. She swore silently and pressed her back to the tree. The horse shied, pulled itself free with a scream of fear and plunged into the darkness. Dread settled on Hilde’s shoulders like a blanket. She pulled her knife from its scabbard. Her free hand grasped at the rough bark of the tree behind her. The feel of it reassured her she was awake, but that comfort was slim. She could wake from a dream.

Something white gleamed in the dark, like moonlight on teeth. The shadows shifted. The form of a man stood with her, except this was like no man she had ever seen, more like some malign animal that had worked out how to stand upright. Its skin was a glossy midnight blue, its fangs as long as her knife. Claws tipped its fingers, and a long tail whipped about behind it. It lifted its snout in her direction and scented her while its long tongue ran up and down its fangs.

Blood drained from her face and her lips felt numb. How little use her knife would be against this beast that towered over her by a head and more, but there was nowhere to run even if she had the strength for it. Someone moaned close behind her and she whipped her head round, but there was only darkness. She turned back to the beast.

It spoke and the guttural words sounded like someone being sick. In the midst of it, there came a word she knew. “Hilde.”

Her heart ran to a stop in her chest and then the thing came for her, its claws outstretched to take her by the throat. Her heart started again, to hammer at her ribs like a frantic bird.

She twisted out of the way to put the tree between them but with a snarl it was on her. A clawed hand grabbed her left arm with what felt like enough force to snap it. The feel of its skin on hers drew a scream from her and she slashed at it. The blade skittered over its skin.

Its smell threatened to bring up the meagre contents of her stomach, but she bit, kicked and hacked at the beast with all her failing strength. It hissed in pain at a lucky stab that managed to just pierce the skin, and its grip relaxed for an instant. Long enough for her to wrench herself free. Her quiver and bow bounced as she tried to put as much distance between them as she could. It ripped at her, close enough that the breeze washed over her skin as she ran for her life.

Something crashed amongst the trees, and she shied away until a voice bellowed curses. “You stupid bugger, what have you done this time? Where in the gods’ names…”

A man, and he spoke the language she knew. She ran towards him. Even vicious nomads would do right now. The beast’s hand dragged at her shoulder and claws dug into her skin to spin her round. A second hand grabbed for her throat to cut off her scream. The claws clenched without mercy, stopped her breath and the blood to her brain.