Valley of Silence (5 page)

“Hold!” She shouted it with all her strength. “I command you, hold! Guards, bring that man to the great hall. People of Geall! You see that even on this day, even when the sun shines on us, this darkness seeks to destroy us. And it fails.” She gripped Cian's hand, lifted it high with her own. “It fails because there are champions in this world who would risk their lives for another.”

She laid a hand on Cian's side, felt his wince. Then held up her bloody hand. “He bleeds for us. And by this blood he shed for me, for all of you, I raise him to be Sir Cian, Lord of Oiche.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” Cian muttered.

“Be quiet.” Moira said it softly, with steel, and her eyes on the crowd.

“H
alf-vamp,” Blair announced as she strode back
into the parlor. “Multiple bite scars. Crowd did a number on him,” she added. “A regular human would be toast after the beating he took. And he's not feeling so well himself.”

“He can be treated after I've spoken to him. Cian requires care first.”

Blair looked over Moira's shoulder to where Glenna was bandaging Cian's side. “How's he doing?”

“He's angry and uncooperative, so I would say he's doing well enough.”

“We can all be grateful for his reflexes. You handled it,” Blair added, looking back at Moira. “Kept your cool, kept control. Tough first day on the job, nearly getting assassinated and all that, but you did good.”

“Not good enough to have anticipated a daylight attack. To remember that not all Lilith's dogs require an invitation to come within these walls.” She thought of how Cian's blood had run against her hand—warm and red. “I won't make that mistake again.”

“None of us will. What we need is to get information out of this asshole Lilith sent. But there's a problem. He either can't or won't speak English. Or Gaelic.”

“He's mute?”

“No, no. He talks, it's just none of us can understand him. Sounds Eastern European. Maybe Czech.”

“I see.” Moira glanced back at Cian. He was stripped to the waist, with only the bandage against his skin. Annoyance more than pain darkened his face as he sipped from a goblet she assumed held blood. Though he didn't look to be in the best of moods, she knew she was about to ask another favor.

“Give me a moment,” she murmured to Blair. She approached Cian, ordering herself not to shrink under his hot blue stare. “Is there something more that can be done for you, to make you more comfortable?”

“Peace, quiet, privacy.”

Though each of his words had the lash of a whip, she kept her own calm and pleasant. “I'm sorry, but those items are in short supply right at the moment. I'll order them up for you as soon as I can.”

“Smart-ass,” he mumbled.

“Indeed. The man whose arrow you intercepted speaks in a foreign tongue. Your brother told me once that you knew many languages.”

He took a long, deep drink, with his eyes deliberately on hers. “It's not enough that I
intercepted
the arrow? Now you want me to interrogate your assassin?”

“I would be grateful if you would try, or at least interpret. If indeed, his tongue is one you know. There are likely a few things in the world you don't know, so you may be of no use to me at all.”

Amusement flickered briefly in his eyes. “Now you're being nasty.”

“Tit for tat.”

“All right, all right. Glenna, my beauty, stop hovering.”

“You lost considerable blood,” she began, but he only lifted the goblet.

“Replacing, even as we speak.” With a slight grimace, he got to his feet. “I need a goddamn shirt.”

“Blair,” Moira said in even tones, “would you fetch Cian a goddamn shirt?”

“On that.”

“You've made a habit of saving my life,” Moira said to Cian.

“Apparently. I'm thinking of giving that up.”

“I could hardly blame you.”

“Here you go, champ.” Blair offered Cian a fresh white shirt. “I think the guy's Czech, or possibly Bulgarian. Can you handle either of those?”

“As it happens.”

They went into the great hall where the assassin sat, bruised, bleeding and chained, under heavy guard. That guard included both Larkin and Hoyt. When Cian entered, Hoyt stepped away from his post.

“Well enough?” he asked Cian.

“I'll do. And it cheers me considerably that he looks a hell of a lot worse than I do. Pull your guards back,” he said to Moira. “He won't be going anywhere.”

“Stand down. Sir Cian will be in charge here.”

“Sir Cian, my ass.” But he only muttered it as he approached the prisoner.

Cian circled him, gauging ground. The man was slight of build and dressed in what would be the rough clothes of a farmer or shepherd. One eye was swollen shut, the other going black and blue. He'd lost a couple of teeth.

Cian snapped out a command in Czech. The man jolted, his single working eye rolling up in surprise.

But he didn't speak.

“You understood that,” Cian continued in the same language. “I asked if there are others with you. I won't ask again.”

When he was met with silence, Cian struck out with enough force to have the prisoner slamming back against the wall, along with the chair he was chained to.

“For every thirty seconds of silence, I'll give you pain.”

“I'm not afraid of pain.”

“Oh, you will be.” Cian jerked the chair and the man upright, kept his face close. “Do you know what I am?”

“I know what you are.” The man used his bloodied mouth to sneer. “Traitor.”

“That's one viewpoint. But the important thing to remember is that I can give you pain beyond what even such as you can stand. I can keep you alive for days, weeks, come to that. And in constant agony.” He lowered his voice to a hiss. “I'd enjoy it. So let's begin again.”

He didn't bother to ask the question, as he'd warned he wouldn't repeat it.

“Could use a spoon,” he said conversationally. “That left eye looks painful. If I had a spoon handy, I could scoop it right out of its socket for you. Of course, I could use my fingers,” he continued when that eye wheeled wildly. “But then I'd have a mess on my hands, wouldn't I?”

“Do your worst,” the man spat out—but he'd begun to tremble a little. “I'll never betray my queen.”

“Bollocks.” The shudders and sweat told him this one would be easily and quickly broken. “You'll not only betray her before I'm done with you, you'll do it dancing the hornpipe if I tell you to. But let's just be quick and direct as we've all better things to do.”

The man's head jerked back as Cian moved. But instead of going for the face as his quarry anticipated, Cian reached down, gripped the man's cock. And squeezed until there was nothing but screams.

“There's no one else! I'm alone, I'm alone!”

“Be sure.” Cian only increased the pressure. “If you lie, I'll find out. And then I'll begin to cut this piece of you off, one inch at a time.”

“She sent only me.” He was weeping now, tears and snot running down his face. “Only me.”

Cian eased the pressure a few fractions. “Why?”

The only answer was raw, rough gasps, and Cian tightened the vise of his fingers again. “Why?”

“One could slip through easily, unnoticed. Un…unremarked.”

“The logic of that has spared you, at least for the moment, from becoming a eunuch.” Cian strolled over, got himself a chair. After placing it in front of the prisoner, he straddled it. And spoke in conversational tones even as the man whimpered. “Now, this is better, isn't it? Civilized. When we're done here, we'll see to those injuries.”

“I want water.”

“I'm sure you do. We'll get you some—after. So for now, let's talk a bit about Lilith.”

It took thirty minutes—and two more sessions of pain—before he was satisfied he knew all the man could tell him. Cian got to his feet again.

The would-be assassin was weeping uncontrollably now. Perhaps from the pain, Cian thought. Perhaps from the belief it was ended.

“What were you before she took you?”

“A teacher.”

“Did you have a wife, a family?”

“They were no use but food. I was poor and weak, but the queen saw more in me. She gave me strength and purpose. And when she slaughters you, and these…ants who crawl with you, I'll be rewarded. I'll have a fine house, and women of my choosing, wealth and power.”

“Promised you all that, did she?”

“That and more. You said I could have water.”

“Yes, I did. Let me explain something to you about Lilith.” He moved behind the man, whose name he'd never asked, and spoke quietly in his ear. “She lies. And so do I.”

He clamped his hands on the man's head and in one fast move, broke his neck.

“What have you done?” Shocked to the pit of her belly, Moira rushed forward. “What have you done?”

“What needed doing. She sent only one—this time. If it upsets your sensibilities, you might want to have your guards take that out of here before I brief you.”

“You had no right. No right.” Her belly wanted to revolt as it had constantly since he'd begun the torturous interrogation. “You murdered him. What makes you any different from him that you would kill him without trial, without sentence?”

“The difference?” Coolly, Cian lifted his brows. “He was still mostly human.”

“Is it so little to you? Life? Is it so little?”

“On the contrary.”

“Moira. He's right.” Blair moved between them. “He did what had to be done.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because I'd have done the same. He was Lilith's dog, and if he'd escaped, he'd have tried again. If he couldn't get to you, he'd kill whoever he could.”

“A prisoner of war—” Moira began.

“There are no prisoners in this,” Blair interrupted. “On either side. If you'd locked him up, you'd take men out of training, off patrol, to guard him. He was an assassin, a spy sent behind lines during wartime. And mostly human is generous,” she added with a glance at Cian. “He'd never be human again. If it had been a vampire in that chair, you'd have staked him without thought or hesitation. This isn't any different.”

A vampire didn't leave its body broken on the floor, Moira thought, still chained to a chair.

Moira turned to one of the guards. “Tynan, remove the prisoner's body. See that it's buried.”

“Majesty.”

She saw Tynan's quick glance at Cian—and recognized the steely approval in the look.

“We'll go back to the parlor,” she continued. “No one has eaten. You can…brief us while we do.”

 

“L
one gunman,” Cian said, and wished almost
wistfully for coffee.

“Makes sense.” Blair helped herself to eggs and a thick slice of fried ham.

“Why?” Moira addressed the question to Blair.

“Okay, they've got some half-vamps trained for combat.” She nodded at Larkin. “Like the ones Larkin and I dealt with that day at the caves, but it takes time and effort. And it takes a lot of work and will to keep one in thrall.”

“And if the thrall is broken?”

“Insanity,” Blair said briefly. “Total breakdown. I've heard stories of half-vamps gnawing off their own hand to get free and back to their maker.”

“He was doomed before he came here,” Moira murmured.

“From the minute Lilith got her hands on him, yeah. My take on this was it was supposed to be a quick hit, suicide mission. Why waste more than one? Things go right, you only need one.”

“Yes, one man, one arrow.” Moira considered it. “If he's skilled enough and fortunate enough, the circle is broken, Geall is without a ruler only moments, really, after it regains one. It would have been a good and efficient strike.”

“There you go.”

“But why did he wait until we were back? Why not try for me at the stone?”

“He didn't get there in time,” Cian said simply. “He misjudged the distance he had to travel, and arrived after it was done. You were closed in by people on your way back, and he wasn't able to get a clear shot. So he joined the parade, so to speak, and bided his time.”

“Eat something.” Hoyt dished food onto Moira's plate himself. “So Lilith knew that Moira would go to the stone today.”

“She has her ear to the ground,” Cian confirmed. “Whether or not she'd planned to send someone to try to disrupt the ritual, and the result before Blair tangled with Lora is debatable. She was pissed,” he said. “Wild, according to our late, unlamented archer. As I've said before, her relationship with Lora is strange and complicated, but very deep, very sincere. She ordered an archer chosen for this while she was still half-crazed. Sent him on horseback for speed—and they have only a limited number of horses.”

“And how is the little French pastry?” Blair wondered.

“Scarred and screaming when the man left, and being tended to by Lilith personally.”

“More important,” Hoyt broke in, “where is Lora, and where are the rest of them?”

“Our informant, while handy with a bow, wasn't particularly observant or astute. The best I could get puts Lilith's main base a few miles from the battlefield. He described what seems to be a small settlement, overlooked by a good-sized farm with several cottages and a large stone manor house, where I'd say the gentry who owned the land lived. She's in the manor house.”

“Ballycloon.” Larkin looked at Moira, saw her face was very pale, her eyes very dark. “It must be Ballycloon, and the O Neills's land. The family we helped the day Blair and I were checking the traps, the day Lora ambushed her, they were coming from near Drombeg, and that's just a bit west of Ballycloon. We would have gone farther east, to check the last trap, but…”

“I was hurt,” Blair finished. “We went as far as we could. And lucky for us. If she'd already made her base when we dropped in, we'd have been seriously outnumbered.”

“And seriously dead,” Cian added. “They moved in the night before your altercation with Lora.”

“There would have been people there still, or on the road.” It knotted Larkin's stomach to think of it. “And the O Neills themselves. I don't know if they've reached safety. How can we know how many…”

“We can't,” Blair said flatly.

“You, you and Cian, you thought we should move everyone out, force them out if necessary, from all the villages and farms around the battleground. Burn the houses and cottages behind them so Lilith and her army would have no shelter. I thought it was cold and cruel of her. Heartless. And now…