Queen of Fire (Raven's Shadow 3)

The question is pointless, she knows. He will not speak to her. She is an unworthy enemy, bereft of consideration, deserving of no more respect than the tiger that eats the unwary traveller.

Instead, he chooses to surprise her. “It was not a proposal,” he says, face still composed and voice free of any quaver. “It was an order, conveyed by the creature you call the Messenger.”

She stares at him for a moment then laughs. Was it reward or enticement? she wonders. “I ordered your wife and most recently spawned brats be killed quickly,” she says. “I felt I owed you that much.”

He says nothing, his composure still fully in place. She toys with the idea of letting him stand there for a full day, curious to see how long it will take before his legs buckle, but yet again finds her appetite for indulgence diminished this night. “Take him to the vault,” she tells the swordsman standing at his back.

Arklev casts an appalled gaze at her then lurches forward, trying to launch himself from the parapet, but his guard is too swift, catching him by the legs and dragging him back. “Kill me!” Arklev rages at her. “Kill me you pestilent bitch!”

“You have too much yet to do, Arklev,” she replies with an apologetic smile. He continues to rage as his guard drags him to the stairs, his cries echoing all the way down.

She lingers for a while, watching the fires, wondering how many living in the city below had any notion of what they portended, of the different world that would greet them on the dawn, a now-familiar fugue of confusion settling over her mind.

The fires are smaller when she comes back to herself, the confusion fading. How long has she stood here? She turns to one of the swordsmen, the one who had killed the greyhead, finding him viewing her with open admiration, his eyes lingering where the slit in her gown reveals a length of thigh. “Do you know what you are?” she asks him.

“Arisai,” he replies, meeting her gaze with a grin. “A servant of the Ally.”

“No.” She turns back to the city. “You are a slave. In the morning I will be an empress, but also a slave. For we are all slaves now.”

She is moving to the stairs when it strikes her, the sensation of his return falling like a hammerblow. She staggers, falling to her knees. Beloved! Her song swells in welcome and foreboding, the same notes it has always sung in his presence. He is close, she can feel it, the ocean no longer between them. Beloved, do you come to me?

The song shifts as it touches his hatred, his sweet hatred, a vision coming to her mind, foggy but clear enough to discern a stretch of coastline, tall waves breaking on a rocky shore, a single word in his voice, his wonderful hate-filled voice: Eskethia.

• • •

“Reminds me of southern Cumbrael,” Draker said, shielding his eyes from the sun as he surveyed the landscape. “Did some smuggling there in my youth.”

Eskethia did indeed bear some resemblance to the Realm’s driest region, and seemed similarly rich in vineyards, rows of neatly ordered vines stretching away across the rolling hills, interspersed with an occasional villa or farm building. Frentis glanced back at the Sea Sabre, wallowing in the morning tide. Belorath had been obliged to land them when the shore was clear of waves to avoid smashing them onto the rocks, resting the hull on the sands before they disembarked. “I’ll ask the gods to favour your mission,” the captain had called down to Frentis from the stern, casting a wary eye at the shore, his final words a barely heard mutter, “though I doubt even they could preserve you here.”

“I put us fifty miles south of New Kethia,” Thirty-Four advised, examining an unfurled map. “If the captain’s reckoning is to be trusted.”

“Good navigation is about the only thing I’d trust a Meldenean with.” Frentis’s gaze tracked to the nearest villa, perhaps a quarter mile off with outbuildings large enough to be stables.

“It’ll be home to a black-clad,” Thirty-Four said, following his gaze. “Too grand for anything else. They are likely to have guards; house Varitai. An estate this large will keep perhaps a dozen.”

“All to the good.” Frentis gave the sign for the company to adopt the loose skirmish formation he had taught them in the Urlish. “We need to start somewhere.”

They managed to take a Varitai alive, a guard posted on the villa’s western side, roped and beaten down by Draker with Thirty-Four’s assistance. His comrades were not so fortunate, running to confront them with weapons drawn when a panicked slave gave the alarm, screaming shrilly of bandits as she fled back to the house. Frentis had ordered no chances taken and the fight was short, half the Varitai cut down by their arrows and Illian’s crossbow before the company closed in with drawn swords to finish the others.

How much they have learned, Frentis thought, finding a grim satisfaction at the efficiency with which his people dealt with the Varitai, lanky Dallin ducking under a short sword to jab his own into a slave soldier’s eyes then moving behind him to finish it with Draker’s trick. Beyond them Illian deflected an overhead slash and delivered a deadly counter-thrust, finding a gap in the Varitai’s armour just above the breastbone. It was over in a few moments, the company kneeling beside fresh corpses to claim weapons and trinkets, a ritual born in the forest.

“Leave that,” Frentis barked. “Search the villa. If he hasn’t fled, the owner will be in the upper rooms. Draker, take Thirty-Four and gather the slaves.”

“Redbrother.” Lekran stood at the arched entrance to the villa’s courtyard, wiping blood from his axe, his expression dark. “Something you should see.”

The man had been strong, the muscle on his arms and back clearly revealed as he hung from two posts, dried blood streaking his wrists where the shackles held him upright. His head hung forward, still and lifeless, the length of his broad back striped with two-day-old whip strokes. Frentis noted his left foot was stunted, the front half having been hacked off at some point, the standard punishment for slaves who run from their masters, death being the fate of any who run twice.

Opposite the dead man a young woman had been chained to another post, arms drawn back and legs tied in place so she couldn’t turn, a leather gag secured about her mouth. She was partially naked, breasts and shoulders showing the signs of repeated beatings. She collapsed in Illian’s arms as Lekran smashed the chains with his axe and the sister cut away her bonds. She choked on the water from Illian’s canteen, an expression of utter confusion on her face fading slowly as she took in the sight of Frentis, her eyes tracking over his garb, the blue cloak and the sword on his back. “Brother?” she asked in Realm Tongue, her accent unmistakably Asraelin.

“Yes, Brother Frentis.” He knelt at her side. “This is Sister Illian.”

The woman’s head lolled, her gaze losing focus. “Then I am finally dead,” she said with a shrill laugh.

“No.” Illian took her hand, squeezing it gently. “No. We are here. Come to save you at our queen’s orders.”

The woman stared at her, apparently unable to comprehend the reality of her survival. “Jerrin,” she said after a moment, raising herself up, gazing around with a wild animation. “Jerrin. Did you save him too?” She stopped as her gaze found the man hanging from the posts. She sagged in Illian’s arms and voicing a despairing wail. “I told him we shouldn’t run,” she whispered. “But he couldn’t stand the thought of him touching me again.”

Frentis turned at the sound of a fearful whimper. A plump little man in loose robes of black silk stood trembling beside the ornate fountain in the centre of the courtyard, his chins bulging somewhat as Master Rensial pressed his sword blade harder, forcing him to stand on tiptoe. “Where are the horses?” he demanded.

The plump man raised a shaking hand, pointing to an arched doorway off to the left. Rensial raised a questioning eyebrow at Frentis. He turned back to the woman they had freed, seeing the depth of hatred in the stare with which she fixed the plump black-clad. “Not just yet, Master,” Frentis told him. “If you don’t mind.”

• • •

They found another six Realm folk among the slaves, none more than forty years in age, all possessing skills of some kind. “Jerrin was a wheelwright,” his wife explained. Her name was Lissel, a chandler from Rhansmill come to live in Varinshold at her husband’s insistence. “Money grew tight after the desert war. Varinshold would be our fortune, he said.” She began to voice another of her shrill laughs but mastered the impulse with a visible effort, her gaze moving to the villa’s owner, now stripped naked and chained to the posts where her husband had died. Thirty-Four had questioned him for a short time, his skills unnecessary as the black-clad had been all too eager to cooperate.

“He tells of a larger estate twelve miles to the east,” Thirty-Four reported. “The master there is a renowned breeder of horses and has also purchased many slaves from the recent influx.”

“The nearest garrison?” Frentis enquired.

“Ten miles north of here, a single battalion of Varitai, though fewer in number than they should be. It seems the Council has been concentrating forces on the capital recently.”