In Legend Born (47 page)

If he lived for all eternity, he would never forget the sound of his bloodfather's voice as he said, "
Tansen?
" 

He had heard it in a thousand nightmares since then and, if he lived long enough, he would hear it in a thousand more. 

Having learned well from Armian, Tansen took advantage of the moment of shocked surprise, his opponent's brief hesitation, and struck him in the face with another blow of the
yahr
. The
shir
fell from Armian's hand with Tansen's third blow. By the fifth, he was dead.

"I pushed the body off the cliff, so it landed on the shore of the cove where the Moorlanders were to meet him."

"So they'd find it there... and consider their proposal refused," Josarian deduced.

"Well, everyone knows what a violent, irrational, quarrelsome people we are." Tansen's voice was bitter.

"And also how dangerous, secretive, and unpredictable the Society is." Josarian paused before asking, "What did Elelar do?"

"Ah, Elelar..."

The young
torena
's screams added to the horror as Tansen stared down at Armian's corpse. At first, the terror and shock of the sudden murder numbed her wits, and she could do little but scream and weep. Then they fought bitterly, shouting at each other on that windy cliff. She thought he had lost his mind and destroyed their entire future.

"Then we saw the Moorlander ship enter the cove," Tansen said. "She became determined to go down and try to speak with them herself, to see if she could somehow salvage the proposed alliance, despite what they would find down there."

"Did you stop her?"

His mouth quirked, "Yes, and she hates me for that most of all."

He tore off the pretty scarf covering her hair in the damp, windy night, bore her to the ground, planted his knee in her back, and used the silken cloth to bind her wrists together. Then he carried her away from the site of the meeting, hauling her on his shoulders like a sack of grain. He didn't release her until dawn, when he knew there'd be no chance of her contacting the Moorlander ship.

"I planned to escort her back to Shaljir." He laughed briefly and without humor. "I had just murdered my own bloodfather, but I didn't think it right to let a
torena
travel alone." He shrugged. "She had other plans, however."

"She decided to go straight to Kiloran and tell him what you'd done, so that he wouldn't withdraw from the Alliance."

"Exactly. She felt she had to... prove the Alliance's loyalty to him and their mutual cause by condemning me." He gazed up at the indifferent stars. "She said that Kiloran would swear a bloodvow against me and that she would celebrate on the day she learned of my death."

"So at fifteen, with no home, no family, no clan, and with powerful enemies who would soon be searching every crevice in the mountains for you, you decided to leave Sileria."

"Despite what I had done, I still wanted to live," Tansen admitted. "So I boarded a ship bound for Kashala and worked for my passage."

"And now you are a man and a great warrior. Now you have friends and a brother who will not abandon you."

"I've killed a bloodpact relative, Josarian. You should—"

"Fortunately, it's up to Dar, and not me, to judge you for that. Especially if he really was the Firebringer."

"Do
you
believe in the Firebringer?"

"I believe men must solve their own problems, rather than dreaming of someone who will come do that for them."

Tansen drew a fast, sharp breath.

"What's wrong?"

"That's what
he
said to me once."

"I imagine he was not altogether bad," Josarian conceded.

"No. I wish he had been. Then it would be easier to bear what I've done."

"Tansen, even the Outlookers I've killed were not, I believe, altogether bad men. Each one of them must have... I don't know—loved a woman well, or been kind to children, or treated his mother with respect, or even just died bravely...

"You're a
shatai
. You've said that you're different from an assassin, that your teacher wanted you to use good judgment when you fight and before you kill. Yet you must know that you could never kill if you required that an opponent prove his complete unworthiness to live. How many men could oblige you, after all? Very few, I think."

"But I killed one who trusted me, one with whom I'd sworn a bloodpact."

"Yes." Josarian nodded. "It's a terrible burden to carry, and I see that you will suffer beneath it forever. Who knows? Perhaps Dar may even decide that's punishment enough."

"Kiloran won't."

"I doubt Kiloran believes in remorse," Josarian pointed out. "But you told Elelar you will return the
shir
to him."

"The one he made. The one I picked up off the ground after throwing Armian's body off the cliff."

"You kept the woman's scarf after you untied her..."

"Yes."

"You returned it to her in Shaljir, and she no longer wishes for your death." Josarian put a hand on Tansen's shoulder and squeezed. "Perhaps once he has the
shir
, Kiloran's hatred will be quenched, too."

Chapter Nineteen

Some men were controlled by admittance to a woman's bed; others were best controlled by their desire to get there.

Kiloran's son Srijan was a difficult man: ruthless, arrogant, violent, and selfish. Fortunately, he wasn't as intelligent as his father, and he was still young enough to be ruled by his passions—particularly his sexual ones. That was why the Alliance had chosen Elelar as his chief contact with their organization in Shaljir. She knew that several of her associates within the Alliance assumed that she slept with Srijan. However, she was a better judge of men than they were.

As a child, Elelar had loved almond milk. Then one year, at the start of the season, she had gorged herself on it until she got sick. After that, even the smell of it revolted her—and still did to this very day.

Srijan had only been a boy of twelve when Elelar first met him nine years ago. Even then, she had observed his tendency to indulge in a surfeit of whatever pleased him, then quickly grow to hate it for not satisfying the deep well of his endless, nameless hunger. Elelar secretly suspected it was, in fact, a soul that he lacked; and no amount of sensual indulgence or personal power could satisfy the craving caused by such a void.

Kiloran had officially made Srijan an assassin several years ago and now granted him the power and duties of a high-ranking Society member. When Elelar became Srijan's contact with the Alliance in Shaljir, he was blunt about his intention of using her as he pleased. She refused his sexual advances just as bluntly, punctuating her refusal with a well-aimed knee to his groin. She thereafter ensured that he never again found an opportunity to be alone with her; even Srijan wouldn't assault her in front of her own servants.

Quite apart from the extreme distaste she felt for his language and behavior, she knew that he was a man who, after sating himself with a woman for a while, developed an irrational revulsion for that same woman. He had ruined many a
shallah
girl this way. Elelar had hired two of Srijan's hapless ex-mistresses to work as servants at one of her country estates, far from their homes and the rumors of their ruination. She had no doubt that if she made the mistake of sleeping with Srijan, he'd soon grow tired of her, too. And that would make him useless to her thereafter.

However,
wanting
Elelar seemed to give Srijan enormous satisfaction, as if he fed on his own hungers. The unspoken (and thoroughly insincere) promise she dangled before him season after season, that she would give him her body if he worked hard enough for it, had inspired his cooperation with most of her plans, proposals, and requests. It was a delicate balance, but worth the risk.

Srijan remembered Tansen, bloodson of Armian, and he wasn't receptive to Elelar's insistence that Tansen must be taken to Kiloran. Not even when she explained that if he fulfilled this request, then Josarian shah Emeldari and all of his followers would join the Alliance.

They held their meeting in a private room of the inn at Zilar. The finest wine, freshest almond milk, sweetest fruit, richest cheeses, best vegetables, freshest bread, and most delicately seasoned oils had been laid out for Srijan's pleasure. He sat on the best cushions in the room, neglecting to offer one to the
torena
. Nor did he so much as acknowledge the servant who did everything but hang upside down to ensure his comfort. Since Srijan's presence always destroyed Elelar's appetite, she simply watched him gorge himself on food and drink while he considered her request.

By Dar, there were times when she wished she were a man! Though she was generally contemptuous of the entire sex and was baffled by what long-ago mistake had put them in charge of her world, there were nonetheless times when she wished for the size and strength to resort to mindless physical force as they so often did. Oh, for the pleasure of beating Srijan until he
begged
for the privilege of cooperating with her plans!

Suppressing her impatience and anger, she smiled warmly and leaned forward, feeling her skin crawl as Srijan's gaze went straight to her cleavage. She inhaled slowly, glad for the presence of her two manservants and Faradar, though they stood at a discreet distance from the low-voiced conversation. It was time, she realized, to stop talking about the Alliance and to convince Srijan that he would benefit personally from granting her request.

"Kiloran's assassins have sought Tansen for nine years," she pointed out. "Now the
shallah
has returned and killed two of them."

"I know," said Srijan.

He gulped down some wine, then stuffed more cheese into his mouth. He should be fat. Any woman who ate like that would be bigger than Darshon. But, being a man, he was only a bit stocky as a result of his gluttony.

She murmured, "Kiloran wants him very badly."

"And he wants Kiloran," Srijan replied. "He's already killed Armian and two assassins. Do you really think I'm going to lead him straight to my father?"

Men are beaten by their own pride
, she reminded herself,
and ruled by their conceit
. "Why not?" She blinked and gasped. "Surely you don't think..."

He stared at her. "What?"

She smiled as if to cover a foolish mistake and shook her head. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize."

"What?" he snapped.

"That Kiloran was afraid of him."

He was offended enough to stop eating for a moment. "Kiloran afraid of that filthy little
sriliah
? You've lost your wits, woman!"

"Oh? Perhaps I misunderstood, then. You are afraid for him. I see."

He flung aside a piece of bread and pointed at her with his knife. "My father is the greatest waterlord in Sileria! The greatest waterlord who has ever lived! He fears no one."

"Then he's not afraid Tansen can kill him?"

"No!" He scowled and added, "And neither am I."

"Are you afraid Kiloran can't kill Tansen, then?"

"Kiloran can kill anyone."

What a thing to boast about
, she thought. "Then why not lead Tansen to his own slaughter?" she suggested sweetly. "Surely Kiloran will revere the son who brings him the prize no other has been able to secure."

Srijan's eyes glittered. His face smoothed out. He shrugged and said something dismissive, then resumed eating. It would take a little more coaxing and flattery, she saw, but she had him.

The victory tasted sour, though. Although she, the Alliance, and Sileria had paid bitterly for what Tansen had done nine years ago, she realized that he had, too. After all these years, she didn't relish being the one to lead him straight to his death now.

She would never agree with what he had done. The chance of freedom from the Valdani had been too precious to throw away. But she also knew that the plan had been flawed and might well have failed. Sileria might have fought a war merely to trade one conqueror for another.

For one thousand years, this land had toiled under the yoke of foreign conquerors: Moorlanders, Kints, Valdani—all strangers who did not belong in Elelar's native land. She had dedicated her life to a dream that the rest of the world mocked and that even most Silerians considered impossibly foolish. She was no fool, though; someday, somehow, Sileria would be free again. She believed it with the fierce, passionate intensity of a visionary. She longed to see it happen in her lifetime, to pledge her loyalty to a Silerian ruler, to watch her people lift their heads from the dust and walk proudly away from the centuries of humiliation they had endured.

She dreamed of destroying Valdani rule in Sileria, of defeating that race of land-eating, luxury-loving barbarians who thought that stealing culture from the Kints and wealth from the Moorlanders made them a great people. How she longed to see the gaudy Imperial Sign of the Three smashed and turned to rubble in the middle of Santorell Square. How she longed to see the gray-clad Outlookers and goat-slaughtering priests of the Empire board mainland-bound ships by the thousands and leave Sileria forever. She yearned to see her husband's family dispossessed of the houses, land, and wealth they had stolen from her own kind!