Tested by the Night (18 page)

Talon took a deep breath. “It has been a few years, hasn’t it, Uncle Holbrook? Too long I suppose.”

Mia took a deep breath, too, and held it in as Talon continued.

“As you probably already know, for quite some time now, I’ve been first lieutenant to Zander Hammerstrike heir to the throne of Alaria. He’s since married a human female and abdicated that same throne.”

Talon held up a hand as grumbling broke out. “For the moment, I’m bodyguard to his sister, Princess Mia, who is the new heir.” He rose, bringing her to rise with him. “She can explain why we’re here better than I, for her reasons are her own. But understand this, it is at her side I stand, and her bidding I am here to do.”

Mia gulped as she made a point of making eye contact with every man, woman, and child seated around the fire. “It’s true, I am heir to the throne of Alaria. And it is also true I’ve come to Bane for a very specific reason.”

A young, handsome barbarian chuckled. “If it’s a husband you be seeking, Princess, I volunteer.”

Mia smiled, she couldn’t help herself. The handsome young man, who couldn’t be more than eighteen years, if he were a day, looked so eager.

Talon didn’t smile, however. A growl rumbled from deep within his chest as he headed across the room with Pearl close on his heels. “You’ll not be speaking to the princess in that manner, Jaxson Silentwater. Cousin or no.”

Mia rushed after him and grabbed his arm. She called forth her best peace-keeping mystic abilities. The last thing she needed or wanted on the night before her quest was to truly begin was for Talon to cause havoc, especially with someone related to him.

“I’m not seeking a husband, but thank you for the offer. I’m here on a quest. I’ve decided to do Queen Adrina’s Challenge so that I may rule when the time comes. For me, the first of the three quests begins here. I’m to procure a live Bane bear cub and return to The Academy with it, and I’m to do it within a week’s time.”

All VoT broke out.

“Can’t be done.” One man yelled. “The buggers will rip you apart limb by limb if you even manage to get close to their young. Which you won’t.”

Another laughed. “Don’t ya think we’d capture their babies and sell them to the highest bidder if it were possible? Do you have any idea how many full grown, oxen strong barbarians have died trying to do that?”

Talon’s uncle raised his hand for silence. “Have a care. It’s your future queen you’re speaking to. We need to stop telling her how capturing a Bane bear cub can’t be done and come up with a way it can.”

The room fell into silence.

The young man who had offered marriage suddenly stood. “I have an idea.”

Talon growled. “Sit down, Jaxson. No matter what you say, she’s not marring you. Not today, not ever.”

Mia chuckled. She couldn’t help herself.

The young man, however, stood his ground. “You don’t have the right to tell me what to do cousin. Not that it’s any of your business, but I was teasing about the marriage…kind of, anyway. I do have an idea, though. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. There are a series of crevasses to the east of the ice caves the bears call home. If we could somehow herd them in that direction, we might be able to trap a cub or two inside one of the more shallow crevasses.”

Talon scoffed. “And who’s going to be doing the herding, you?”

Jaxson looked directly at Talon. “Unlike you, cousin, when it comes to hunting bear, I don’t make mistakes.”

The two men glared at each other.

“It won’t work,” Alistair said. “She can’t use force, and she can’t receive direct help from anyone. What she does, she must do alone. Anything else is against the rules.”

Talon shrugged. “Well, as long as she’s the one to get the cub out of the crevasse, wouldn’t she be doing it alone? No matter who drove it there?”

Alistair nodded. “I suppose she would at that.”

Pierced chuckled. “That settles it then. Let’s have us another round of that mighty fine ale.” He pointed toward Bruno. “My friend here is mighty thirsty. We can worry about the intricacies of bear hunting come morning.”

To a man, every cup in the lodge house was lifted.

****

It was just after midnight when Talon jumped up from the sleeping mat he’d been sharing with Mia and headed for the doorway. He needed to get out of this lodge-house, and he needed to get out now. He couldn’t breathe. The walls were closing in around him, as they had every night he’d remained in Bane after his parents died and before he’d been sent to The Madra Conservatory for Exceptional Young Men.

With the once more familiar stench of peat smoke permeating his flesh and combining with the aftertaste of bear meat, mixed with more of Uncle Holbrook’s ale than he should have consumed, his stomach threatened to empty itself upon the pristine white furs beneath his feet.

That was something he very much didn’t wish to do.

Not to mention, his head pounded unmercifully, and his mouth was dry as the ice desert outside. On top of that, the grating sound of a whole passel of snorers warred with the strange harmony of a hundred different men, women, and children breathing in and out and in and out as they lay upon their mats in different stages of sleep. The cacophony of the situation was driving him insane.

He took a step toward the doorway, and a sense of panic washed over him, every muscle, every bone, screaming for him to move faster, to flee, to run away, to hide from the ache, to escape the memories. Oh, my God Draka, the memories. Thousands of them, each one more vivid, more hurtful than the last. Memories he had no chance of evading or burying as they raced through his mind.

That last hunt, the one where he’d made his infamous mistake and the huge male bear they’d been stalking all day had somehow gotten past him and attacked his father. Ripping the man he respected more than any other in the entire world to shreds before Talon could sink even one spear into the beast’s flesh. And then the look on his mother’s face when he’d led the procession that carried his father’s lifeless body home and tried his best to explain what happened. Though she hadn’t spoken a single word out loud, the look of anger, of hurt, of betrayal in her eyes had said it all. And then, within the space of a single season, she was gone, too.

Silently, he slipped on his boots and headed for the fur covered doorway.

“Going somewhere, cousin? Running away again? After all, it’s what you do best, isn’t it?”

Talon sighed and faced Jaxson. “I didn’t run anywhere. I was sent away, remember? Go back to sleep. I’ll be back in less time than it takes a handful of grains of sand to sift through the hourglass. I need a breath of fresh air”

The young barbarian who still had the same blond curls, the same blue eyes, and the same stubborn chin he’d possessed as a child of six when Talon had last seen him glared. “Ran, sent, what’s the difference? You left. You left all of us, and you never came back. Not once. Not even after you crossed your heart and promised you would.”

Talon motioned toward the fur covered doorway and started in that direction once again. “Lower your voice or you’re going to wake the entire lodge. If you feel the need to discuss this, come outside. Like I said, I need air.”

Jaxson followed. Talon could feel the young man’s presence behind him, right on his heels, his cousin’s eyes boring into his back, his breathing loud in Talon’s ears. The weight of the young barbarian’s frustrations and anger radiated around him like a protective cloak. A sense of betrayal, heavy and oppressive hung over the entire lodge.

Talon sighed again. How was he going to explain something he himself wasn’t sure he understood? Especially to an almost grown man who’d been just a lad when last he’d laid eyes on him? A broken-hearted lad who’d clung to him crying and begging him not to leave?

The moment he lifted the fur and stepped out into the frigid night air Jaxson shoved him hard, and Talon almost lost his balance. He righted himself before turning. When he did, he was met with open animosity.

“Would you have ever come back if it hadn’t been for your stupid little princess and her quest?” Jaxson hissed.

Talon took a deep breath of the cold calming air. “She’s not stupid, and she’s your princess, too. I’ve been busy. This is the first opportunity I’ve had to return. What’s really bothering you, Jaxson?”

Tears misted the young man’s eyes, and he quickly swiped them away. “You told me you’d come back for me. You promised. Do you have any idea what my life has been like? To be stuck here year after never ending year, waiting? To beg complete strangers for even the tiniest scrap of information about you? Oh, and they’d gladly tell me stories, if I had enough platt to pay them with, don’t think they didn’t. Juicy tidbits like, how you fought this battle or that one? Or how you bedded a thousand women and slew a thousand and one men?”

Jaxson ran his fingers through his hair. “For the love of God Draka, Talon, the regular traders won’t even talk to me anymore, even when I offer to pay them. They’re sick to death of my inquiries of you.”

Talon shook his head. “You probably won’t believe it, but you were much better off here with Uncle. He’s a good man, and he loves you. I was an angry little child when I made that stupid promise. I couldn’t have taken care of you. VoT, I can hardly take care of myself some days. And as I’ve already said, I really have been very busy.”

Jaxson poked him in the chest, hard. “And just what do you think I’ve been doing while you’ve been busy making your mark on Albrath and romancing every lass from here to Vile? I’ve been wasting away in this frozen version of VoT, that’s what I’ve been doing. I hate it here, Talon, and I hate you for going away and not coming back.” He shuddered and hung his head. “Don’t mind me. It’s been a very long winter. Go back to your academy and your royal friends where you belong. I’m not six anymore. I no longer need you. That’s really all I wanted to say. I don’t need anyone.”

Talon reached out, drew the young barbarian into his arms, and held on tight even though Jaxson struggled. “I’m sorry. I was so wrong about so many things back then, and you’re right. I should’ve come home sooner. But I was only fourteen when I made that promise, and so very angry with Uncle. I blamed him for having me sent away and wanted to get back at him through you. By the time I came to realize the error of my ways, I was almost grown and figured you’d probably forgotten all about me. After all, you were a small lad when I left. I never meant to hurt you.”

The young barbarian stared him straight in the eye without blinking. “Well, you did. When you never returned, you did hurt me, cousin, badly.”

Talon nodded. “I see that now, and I’m sorry. What can I do to make it up to you?”

A flicker of light filled Jaxson’s eyes. “Take me with you when you leave. Share some of those thousands of women you’re famous for bedding and teach me how to best an adversary in the arena. Bane is as cold, lonely, and boring as death. I long for adventure.”

Talon wanted to smile. He still remembered what it was like to be eighteen and primed for whatever came his way, be it a roll in the hay with a sexy little strumpet or a fracas with a sword wielding combatant. But he also remembered being homesick and heartsick and waking more mornings than he liked to remember in strange beds and stranger lands with more than a few strange wounds, of which he had no clear recollection.

Jaxson was much too much like he himself had been. And though he’d survived his ordeal to grow into a stronger, wiser man, for the most part anyway, his education had come at a steep price. He had more scars on his body and his soul than he’d ever wish to see inflicted upon his young cousin.

Still, Jaxson stood before him anxiously awaiting an answer and certainly deserving one. Talon cleared his throat. “I’ll tell you what, cousin. Let’s see how things go in the morning. Let’s see how well your plan concerning the bears works, and then we’ll speak more about the future. Deal?”

Jaxson Silentwater smiled and held out his hand. “Deal.”

Talon shook it.

****

Mia took a deep breath of cold morning air, shivered, and slowly blew out a steady stream of thick, white fog. She hopped back and forth from foot to foot and rubbed her mittened hands together for warmth while she waited. Cold was one thing. Cold she was used to. Cold she could handle. But it wasn’t just cold out in the wide open, wind-ravished, expanses of the Bane ice desert. It was mind-numbing, limbs-tingling, frigging ass-chilling cold, and it was either keep moving, or face the likelihood of freezing to death right where she stood.

Not that her constant movement was doing anything worthwhile toward her quest, for it wasn’t. That was unless she wanted to count simply staying alive while others did all the hard work for her worthwhile. Because that was the only thing Mia had been allowed up to this point. Not that she truly wanted any other part of the activity the men were engaged in at this moment anyway.

She shuddered.

Surprisingly, even Alistair and Pierced had joined Talon and the barbarian hunters in their strange endeavor. But then, what male in his right mind, especially, this passel of overgrown boys, wouldn’t want to play what looked like Tag-Your-It with an entire den of angry bears?

She sighed and continued watching.

The hunt was actually going better than she’d dared hope. Even now, two large Bane bears and three smaller ones had broken away from the pack and were scrambling toward the shallow crevasse off to the right of their main cave. The closer they came to the gaping hole, the faster her heart raced.

Mia held her breath, no longer sure which she rooted for, the hunters or the bears. Her mystic abilities screamed in her head, tingling down her spine and along her arms to the very tips of her fingers. This was wrong. The bears were terrified, so very terrified. She could feel it. Especially the smallest one. He cried out, his immature roar high pitched and squeaky.

Tears misted her eyes, and quickly she swiped them away before they could freeze. Poor baby, he was as frightened as any other child would be, and the hunters were nothing but a big bunch of bullies.

Her heart ached and anger filled her. She had to stop this, but how? She wanted to run after them. She wanted to wrap her arms around the neck of the white bear cub and hold him close. She wanted to comfort him, to stand before his enemies and protect him from those who meant to do him harm.