Read The Silent Tempest (Book 2) Online

Authors: Michael G. Manning

Tags: #fantasy, #magic, #wizard, #mage, #sorcery

The Silent Tempest (Book 2) (3 page)

BOOK: The Silent Tempest (Book 2)
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Lyralliantha’s hand was on his arm. “Remember, this
is not our place. I cannot shield you if you make a mistake here.”

His eyes were stony, staring ahead as he responded.
“I know.”

Dalleth watched him, a faint smile on his lips. At his
touch, the living wood of the doorway drew apart. “You may enter.”

Tyrion stepped inside without hesitation, although he
could sense Lyralliantha’s hand behind him. She had tried to catch his arm
again, to urge caution. Within, his eyes saw what his other senses had already
shown him. A man in brown leathers stood over the girl, the red whip so often
used by the wardens in his hand.

The girl at his feet was young, her body still soft
and her features still rounded with the fat that gradually disappears in
adulthood. She was naked, like all slaves of the She’Har, and her skin was
marked with dirt and bruises. Dried blood stained her thigh.

His eyes took these things in instantly, with a
clarity wrought from adrenaline. The red whip was descending toward her, and
he reached out, catching it with his left hand, feeling the old, familiar agony
as it wrapped itself around his wrist.

A shield would have saved him from the pain, but to
raise one in the presence of the She’Har was a declaration of hostility.
Instead, he caught it without protection, gritting his teeth while the magic of
the whip sent fire through his nerves and tore at his sanity.

It was something he would never have dreamed of
before. His first year among the She’Har had instilled a fear of the red whips
that went so deep as to be engraved in his soul, but that was the fear of
another man. He wasn’t Daniel Tennick anymore. He was Tyrion, and his anger,
like a silent tempest, had scoured his soul clean of its old frailties.

“We need to step outside,” he told the warden, his
lips twitching involuntarily as he spoke.

The warden’s eyes widened as he stared at the man
holding the other end of his whip. The pain should have sent him to the
ground, screaming and twitching, but rather than collapsing, Tyrion continued
to hold it, a grimace on his face and sweat forming on his brow.

“Tyrion no!” barked Lyralliantha. She knew him well
enough to see that he was almost beyond reason now.

The warden’s eyes flicked to the doorway, noting the
presence of the three She’Har, including his own master, Dalleth. They
returned to Tyrion’s face, and then he released his will, letting the red whip
vanish. “My lord,” he said, dipping his head in deference to the She’Har.

“Outside,” repeated Tyrion slowly.

The girl watched them in confusion, not knowing any of
them. She hadn’t seen Tyrion since she was a small child, and it was highly
unlikely she would recognize him. She scrambled back from them across the dirt
floor, pressing her back against the far wall.

“If he damages my property, there will be
consequences,” said Dalleth coolly, speaking to Thillmarius and Lyralliantha.

Tyrion glanced at Lyralliantha, noting the fear in her
eyes. It was not something he had ever seen before.
She’s afraid of losing
me.
He knew his next actions would likely result in a swift demise, but he
no longer cared.

“Actually,” said Thillmarius, his voice sudden and
unexpected, “I have an idea. Would you consider selling me a couple of your
wardens, Dalleth? I promise you’ll find it entertaining.”

Chapter
3

The evening air was cool as he stepped into the
arena. He felt it more acutely now, since he had been forced to remove his
clothing and leathers. It had been many years since the last time he had
crossed into such a space.

“What are those strange markings?” asked Dalleth from
behind him. The question, naturally enough, was addressed toward Lyralliantha
rather than her slave. The Mordan She’Har was puzzled by the tattoos that
covered Tyrion’s body. Most of them had been added in the years since he had
been released from the arena.

“A new magic, but I doubt we will get to see it,” she
answered smoothly.

“Why is that?” said Dalleth.

“This fight won’t require it.” She glanced down at
the girl standing in front of her. The young human was trembling, which was
understandable considering the cold air, but Lyralliantha could also sense her
fear. In the human tongue she added, “Relax child, no further harm will come
to you today.”

Dalleth coughed, then commented to her in Erollith,
“Child? The rumors must be true.”

Lyralliantha raised a brow in an unspoken question.

“That you’ve gone soft on the baratti,” he stated.

Thillmarius broke in, “The Illeniels have never been
in favor of keeping the baratti as slaves.”

“Yet she keeps one,” noted Dalleth. “He is more of a
pet to you, though, isn’t he? Or do you have more perverse ‘emotional’ ties?”

She ignored the question. “They are about to begin.”
Touching the girl’s shoulder she added in Barion, “Pay attention, child, you may
learn something that will help you survive.”

Tyrion was staring across the field, watching the two
men who had just entered from the other side. One was the warden he had just
met, the other was new to him. As far as he knew they were both Mordan, meaning
they would be able to teleport. It was a troublesome talent, and one that made
it hard to predict where they would be from moment to moment.

In the past he had dealt with that problem by turning
large regions of the arena into an uninhabitable hell, either with wind or
fire. It was a brute force approach that would end the match too soon,
however. Now that he was in the arena once more, he found himself not wanting
to end it too quickly.

The two wardens across from him stepped apart from
each other, exchanging a few quiet words. Then, the first one raised his
voice, “No shield, Tyrion?” The Mordan vanished after his first words,
reappearing twenty feet closer before vanishing again. He was advancing toward
Tyrion by teleporting unpredictably, always closer but never following a
straight line. The second warden remained where he had entered the arena.

“It wouldn’t be interesting if you didn’t have a
chance,” answered Tyrion. As soon as he spoke, the second warden vanished.

It was an old tactic. The one who was advancing was
meant to hold his attention, while the second would appear behind him at the
moment he seemed most distracted.

The second warden appeared and then flew backward,
struck by a wave of pure force so powerful that his shield collapsed. The
man’s body hit the outer barrier that surrounded the arena with lethal speed.
He was dead before he finished falling to the ground.

Tyrion hadn’t even turned. Still watching the first
warden he cursed, “Damn. I had hoped this would last a little longer.”
Focusing his will on his hand, he batted aside the deadly lance that the first
warden had sent surging toward his midsection. His return attack blasted the
warden’s shield with a powerful strike calculated to almost overwhelm his foe’s
defense, without actually doing so.

The other man staggered and then teleported to avoid
the second attack. He knew he wouldn’t survive a second strike. He began
teleporting at random, hoping time would offer him a chance, but the warden
already knew it was hopeless.

Tyrion began to raise a fog, one that went beyond the
merely physical; a strange mixture of aythar and water vapor that rendered the
area within it difficult to sense. He had long ago named it ‘mind fog’. Its
practical result was that it obscured magesight just as effectively as it
blocked eyesight. It had originally been one of his solutions for dealing with
the invisibility of Prathion mages, but it had interesting applications in many
other situations.

In this case it prompted the warden to panic. Unable
to sense his surroundings, the Mordan mage would be teleporting blind. Sooner
or later he would make a fatal mistake.

The one unbending rule of combat was movement.
Everyone who had survived more than a few matches knew that. If you stayed in
one place for too long, you were dead. The warden knew that Tyrion’s first
action after raising the fog would have been to move. The wildling could be
almost anywhere by now. The only place he
wouldn’t
be was the spot he
started. It was also the one place he wouldn’t expect the warden to teleport
to.

The rule of movement went hand in hand with another
important rule of survival. Be unpredictable. The warden teleported to the
position where he had last seen Tyrion standing before he had raised the fog.
He would wait there, conserving his aythar and preparing a powerful
counterstrike. When the wildling wandered close enough for him to sense, he
would be ready.

Unfortunately for him, Tyrion was still standing
there.

Aythar flared at the speed of thought as the tattoos
on Tyrion’s arm lit with sudden power, sheathing his arm in a razor sharp blade
of magical energy. The warden’s shield utterly failed to stop it and the blade
took his right arm off at the elbow before continuing to cut a deep gash
through his belly. He stared at Tyrion in horror before slowly dropping to his
knees.

Tyrion sealed the stump of the warden’s arm before
blood loss could rob the man of consciousness.

“Why?” asked the warden weakly, looking up at the man who
had slain him.

“Do you know how many Mordan mages I have killed?”
asked Tyrion.

“No,” whispered the warden.

“Neither do I,” responded Tyrion, “but you will answer
my questions before you join them.” The fog continued to swirl through the
arena, blocking the view of any spectators.

“I will answer nothing,” said the warden, looking down
at his ruined midsection. “I am already dead.”

Tyrion smiled, “I can keep you alive for quite some
time. The manner of your death could be painless, or…” He reached down to
push his hand through the gash in the man’s stomach, wrenching the wound wider,
and starting to pull out his entrails. “…it could be very unpleasant.”

***

A long scream pierced the fog before being replaced by
empty silence. Dalleth stood beside the other two She’Har and waited in
frustration. The fog had spoiled his enjoyment of the match.

“You should have forbidden him to do this,” complained
the Mordan She’Har. “We can’t tell what’s happening in there.”

Lyralliantha’s lips quirked into a half-smile for a
moment, “It won’t last too long.”

In contradiction to her words, the silence, as well as
the fog, lasted for several interminable minutes, before finally dissipating.
When the air cleared they could see Tyrion kneeling over the warden he had
encountered in the hut. It appeared to be over, except for the final blow.

Tyrion’s arm lit up with focused power once more as he
stared down at his fallen opponent. “My final gift to you…” he said, in a
voice just loud enough to be heard. “…freedom.” His arm moved, and the blade
touched the warden’s throat in a motion that was almost delicate. The spellwoven
slave collar there vanished, disintegrating at the touch of the blade.

The She’Har slave collars were linked to their slaves
in such a way that their proper owners could order their death at any time.
They were also designed to kill the wearer if they were destroyed. The warden
lost consciousness almost instantly, even though Tyrion’s blade barely nicked
the skin of his throat. He was dead within seconds.

Tyrion watched the entire process with intense focus,
waiting until the warden was completely gone before standing up and walking
back toward Lyralliantha and the other She’Har.

The girl, his daughter, watched his approach with
barely suppressed fear.

Dalleth wasn’t paying attention. The moment the
collar had been destroyed he had turned to Lyralliantha, “How did he do that?
I had heard rumors, but…”

“That information was not part of our agreement,” she
responded lightly. “Perhaps we can discuss it when I return to collect Tyrion
tomorrow.”

***

The girl huddled at the far end of the room. She was
still cold, still naked, and most definitely still afraid. It didn’t help much
that the man who had, until just recently, been torturing her was now replaced
by a different man, one who had killed her previous tormentor. She knew
nothing of his motivations, but the events of the past few days had made her
wary of trusting anyone.

He watched her with cold eyes, studying her intently,
but he said nothing.

Eventually she could stand it no longer, and anxiety
overcame her fear. “What do you want?” she asked.

“Who was your mother?” asked the stranger.

That was the last question she expected, but she answered
quickly. Her captors had been quick to punish any hesitation. “Emily Banks.”

The man sighed, “Then you are Haley, correct?”

She nodded, wondering how he had known. Until now, no
one had seemed to care what her name was. Looking at the man’s intense gaze,
she became even more aware of her nakedness. Hunching forward she hugged
herself with her arms, hiding her chest.

“Stop that,” he ordered.

Haley flinched, but ignored his command. A sinking
feeling came over her. She knew what he must want. Her previous tormentor,
the one he had slain, had already violated her once, though he had used only
his fingers.

“You’re broadcasting your vulnerability. Keep your head
up and your shoulders back,” said the stranger. “Forget about being naked,
that means nothing here. Showing strength, or weakness, that is all that
matters.”

She glanced at him in surprise. The man hadn’t come
any closer.
Who is he? Why does he look familiar?
“I’m cold,” she
replied. “It’s hard not to cover myself.”

“I brought a blanket, but after I’m done you won’t
need it. Let me show you how to warm yourself first.”

She gave him a puzzled look.

“Close your eyes. It will help you focus. Then
imagine yourself with a thin layer of warm air around you. You will need to
visualize it carefully before you put your will into it. Go slowly or you
might burn yourself. I frequently put a shield around the air, to make it
easier to maintain, but if you do that around the She’Har, they’ll take
exception to it,” he explained.

“Shield? She’Har?” she responded. The words confused
her almost as much as the strange descriptions.

He waved her questions away. “Forget those things,
I’ll explain them afterward. For now, focus on creating a layer of warm air
around yourself.”

She tried, and the room began to heat up.

“No. Stop,” he commanded. “Your effort is unfocused.
While it may be nice to heat the entire room, it’s a waste of energy. It will
also be far too inefficient when you go outside. Watch me.”

She opened her eyes to stare at him intently.

“Not like that. Close your eyes. Use your magesight
to watch what I do. Your eyes will only distract you,” he told her.

Magesight?
She
guessed he was referring to the strange new visions she had recently been
afflicted with. Rather than ask, she did as he said, watching him only with
her mind. After a minute, she understood what he had intended, although her
own effort at replicating it was much sloppier and diffuse.

“I think you’re getting the hang of it,” he noted.

Haley nodded, “I thought I’d never be warm again.
They took my clothes several days ago.”

He was staring at her again, studying her face
carefully. “You have your mother’s hair, but your eyes…”

She looked down, hooking her hair up over one ear
self-consciously. “People always say that.”

He seemed curious, “What do they say, Haley?”

The stranger’s continuing use of her name was
disconcerting, but she couldn’t help the feeling that he wasn’t really a
stranger. He knew too much about her home, though she wasn’t sure how. “They
say I have my mother’s looks, but the demon’s eyes.”

She looked up again, and her blue eyes locked on his.

He smiled, “That’s a sad way of putting it. I would
have said you have your grandparent’s eyes; both Alan and Helen have blue eyes
like yours.”

Haley was certain then. The stranger’s eyes were so
much like her own, and now he had given the names of her grandparents—the
people who had raised her. He might be—no he had to be her father, Daniel
Tennick, the gods-cursed man who had raped her mother and driven her to suicide.
The monster who had fathered over a dozen children before being chased from
Colne by the forest gods themselves, but not before he had set fire to the town
itself.

BOOK: The Silent Tempest (Book 2)
4.66Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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