Dawnbringer

Chapter Fifteen

JADAREN HOLD

1600 DR-THE YEAR OF UNSEEN ENEMIES

Get behind me, Kestrel,” said Lakini. She pulled her dagger from her belt. At this distance she had a chance of bringing Lusk down with a knife throw before he raised his bow.

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “I’m going to give you one more chance to understand.”

“Try,” she responded.

“Listen, Lakini.” He lowered his bow and removed the arrow from the string.

“Before I met you, during the time when you were Lakini and I was Lusk, I found a family, a family of my own. They took me in, thinking I was merely a beggar. Not a warrior, not a celestial. A dirty, smelly beggar from the road, looking, as they thought, for a meal. It did not occur to them they would benefit from taking me in. They weren’t filled with stories of disguised princes rewarding those who succored them. It was because they were that improbable thing-good people. Farmers, very simple folk. I left them with a blessing, and then when I passed that way again, I had an urge to see them. And they welcomed me in, as before. I never stayed long, and never frequently. But I knew they would always be there. If I had stayed with them longer, I could’ve kept them safe. But no-it’s my nature to wander. You know.”

Lakini, despite her horror, winced at the self-hatred in her fellow deva’s voice. She felt Kestrel shifting in the leaves behind her.

Don’t let him see you, she thought at the woman, although she knew she couldn’t hear. He’ll see the wires beneath your skin and know.

“You can’t know what it was like, Lakini,” continued Lusk, “to know that whatever the time of year, no matter the hour, if it was midwinter or washing day or harvest season, there was always a place for you, a seat at the table. A cup kept especially for you on the shelf. A child, seeing you across the fields, who ran to greet you. In those years, I knew what it was to have a family. My own folk.

“But one spring-it had been a hard winter on the country folk, that one, with frozen crops and flooded fields-I came to them again. I had gifts for the children in my pack, gifts I’d brought from toymakers in the East. Magic things, exotic, unheard of there.”

He was looking past her, not at Kestrel but at the pattern of vines at the mouth of the tunnel, his voice almost dreamy, as if he saw what he narrated.

“I didn’t understand what I saw, at first. The house, half-gone, the rest like a broken eggshell, made of burned timbers. They were still smoking. There was another smell, too-burned meat. I found them all inside the house, what remained of them. The woman was clutching one of the children to her. I couldn’t tell which one. I found the others, the man, the rest of the children. All save one. I found, later, from the neighbors that a band of halfling thieves had been plaguing the district. So far they’d just robbed houses and crofts in the owners’ absence-a quick raid to steal cattle, or supplies, or the coin under the bed. Nothing like this.”

His face hardened, and his voice seemed to come from a long way away. “Those bandits gave me a great gift. They taught me that the gods care nothing for us. In return, I give halflings, when I can find them, another gift-the gift of oblivion. And each time, I rid the rotten world of another maggot that burrows in its flesh.”

He looked back at her.

“That time, when the messenger came, and I was gone two seasons.”

“Yes.” Her throat was dry as sand. “I remember.”

“He brought word of Darla. She was the littlest, a girl no more than eight, the one I couldn’t find. When I found their spoor, I thought, perhaps, they’d taken one away, a child they could sell. I followed them, but the trail went cold. But I left word with folk I knew-folk who owed me their lives-that I wanted any word of her.

“The messenger brought me word that it was four years since a halfling gang took a few children to be sold at market not a hundred leagues from the slaughter. It sounded too alike to be a coincidence. It took a long time, and many false trails, but I found a man who had bought a little girl, just like Darla, as a maid for his wife. The child died a year later from the bloody flux. I also found the name of the slaver who bought Darla from the thieves and sold her to the merchant.”

He spat out the word: “Jadaren.”

“No,” Kestrel whispered behind her. “None of us has ever dealt in slavery.”

Lusk ignored her. His faraway eyes focused on Lakini, and his voice became steely.

“So you tell me, Lakini. Where is your good in any of this?”

They looked deep into each other’s eyes for a long moment before he nocked the arrow back to the bow, lifted it, and loosed it straight at her heart.

She was expecting it and had already begun to fling herself to one side, pulling Kestrel with her. The arrow missed, whispering into the leaves at the mouth of the tunnel.

She had to decide, lightning-quick, whether to throw the dagger or charge with the sword before he got another arrow to the bow. Clasping dagger and sword together, two-handedly, she ran up the hillock. He dropped the bow and drew his own sword, parrying her aside as she struck.

She was still healing. But so was he. She ignored the pain in her shoulder as she bore down, two-handedly, again and again against his one-handed defense. Once he managed to push her off balance and struck with the dagger in his left hand. She dodged aside and, ducking, hit him with the hilt of her sword in the back of the leg.

Lusk staggered and went down on one knee. She forbore to press her attack, and he took advantage of that, striking at her sword from beneath and knocking it out of her hand.

She drew her dagger and crouched. There was no time to retrieve the sword. Lusk launched himself at her, chopping at her left side. She met the blow with the dagger, letting it slide down the length of his sword. With a familiar twirl of her weapon, she circled the hilt and slashed the tip into his wrist, opening the artery.

He dropped the sword and gasped, gripping his damaged wrist. His mad eyes glittered at her. “I can’t believe I fell for that trick,” he said.

He drew his own knife with his left hand and leaped on her, letting his useless right hand dangle. She sliced her weapon up and felt it meet resistance, and then as she thrust with all her strength, it penetrated. At the same time he bore down on her, and the pain in her injured shoulder returned with a vengeance. She could do nothing but push the weapon deeper and deeper into him. Her left side felt numb.

For a moment they were locked together, breast to breast, hip to hip, as they had been when they fell in the cold flame from the Hold. As the last of their strength faded, they relaxed and staggered apart. He stared at her, and the glitter went out of his eyes. She saw the hilt of her blade protruding from beneath his sternum. The tip had pierced his heart.

He blinked, as if puzzled, as if he didn’t understand what had just happened. He opened his mouth as if to speak, and a great black bubble welled between his lips and burst, sending a red trickle down his chin.

Unbending, like a tree, he fell. He did not move again.

Lakini crouched by his side. His eyes stared, unseeing at the forest canopy above.

“Ashonithi, Cserhelm,” she whispered as she closed them.

“That’s one of you gone, anyway,” spoke a beautiful voice from behind her. Startled, Lakini turned.

A woman with the waxy face of a vampire and a scar twisting her mouth out of true stood at the mouth of the tunnel. Her hand tangled in the girl’s hair, she held Brioni tightly against her, pulling her head to one side so her neck was exposed.

Kestrel stood before them, her arms extended in mute appeal.

The vampire ignored her and spoke over her head to Lakini.

“Ironic that one of you killed the other, isn’t it? Very piratical. Ping would have approved. Oh, that’s jogged your memory, has it? Probably wasn’t much to you, just a ship at sea with a dead crew.”

Lakini did remember, and she heard again the sound of Lusk’s arrows finding their targets.

“Don’t hurt her,” said Kestrel. “You can have anything you want. Just don’t hurt her.”

The vampire ran a pale finger over Brioni’s neck, just over the jugular, speaking to the Kestrel now. “But this, my dear, is what I do want. You don’t know this, but your ancestor did me a very bad turn some two hundred years ago. And I don’t forget easily.”

She grinned, showing her fangs. “The delicious irony is this-his friend, his very dear friend, his bosom friend-he also did me a very bad turn at just about the same time. And while your great-grandsire was a Beguine, this one’s great-great-so many greats-grandsire was his good friend. A Jadaren.

“Yes,” she said, grinning at Kestrel’s wide eyes. “They were friends, until I gave them a reason to hate each other. And they were both, you will be delighted to know, pirates. And”-she sighed-“not very good pirates.”

“So this is what I am going to do. I’m going to kill this little chit in front of you, and then I’m going to drain you. But first, I think I’ll take your shatter-faced friend’s sword.”

Still keeping her grip on Brioni, the vampire maneuvered over to where Lakini’s sword lay. As she passed Kestrel, two long, thin cords leaped from the back of the woman’s wrists. They looped themselves around the vampire’s legs and pulled hard. With a shriek, she stumbled and fell, releasing Brioni as she did.

In a single movement, Lakini scooped up her sword and cut off the vampire’s head.

Kestrel clasped Brioni tightly to her, and the girl’s arms were locked around her mother’s waist. As Lakini watched, Kestrel stroked her daughter’s hair and took her by the shoulders.

“You followed us,” she said gently.

Brioni nodded and hiccupped. “I knew about the tunnel. When I came back and found your empty cell, I didn’t want to call the guards. I thought they’d kill you.”

“They’ll always want to, said Kestrel, her voice dark and bitter. “And I don’t blame them.”

NONTHAL, TURMISH

1600 DR-THE YEAR OF UNSEEN ENEMIES

At the entrance to House Beguine, Lakini asked for an audience with Vorsha Beguine. The doorkeeper was very polite, very ingratiating, and said the mistress was busy with the kitchen, or with her husband, or in her private chambers. Could the fairlady come back another time?

Lakini bent close to the doorkeeper’s ear and informed him that if he didn’t tell Sanwar Beguine, immediately, that a deva late of Shadrun was here to tell him of the Key, she would not be responsible for the state of his guts. The man paled and hurried away.

Sanwar received Lakini in the library of House Beguine, with the sun shining through the domed glass overhead. Since she’d seen him at Shadrun a few months ago, he’d gained a little weight and had more white in his hair, but he was still a good-looking man.

He frowned, obviously not expecting her.

She knew she had to act quickly, before his caution overcame his greed.

“You’re not whom I expected,” said Sanwar.

“The other sent me,” she said smoothly, still walking toward him. She was almost to him before his eyes widened and he raised his hand and a smell like lightning on a hot day filled the room. Before he could manifest the spell, she smashed him to the floor.

He groaned and tried to roll away, still gesturing with his fingers. She already had a thin rope in hand. Kicking his hands apart, she seized him by the wrists and bound them together. She reached for his feet and he kicked at her.

“Do that again and I break them,” she growled, and he subsided.

There was a gasp, and Lakini looked up to see a servant in the doorway, mouth open as she looked as her master trussed like poultry on the floor.

“Bring Vorsha Beguine here, now,” Lakini told her.

The woman hesitated, obviously unsure whether to obey or raise the alarm.

“Now!” Lakini growled.

The woman scuttled away.

Something plucked at her throat. She turned to see Sanwar muttering a spell. She kneeled next to him and clamped her hand across his mouth.

“Unless you want to be gagged,” she said, “you won’t try that again.”

“Sanwar-? What are you doing?” said a voice. Vorsha Beguine stood there, looking bewildered. Lakini could see some of Kestrel’s features in her mother’s pretty, now-worried face.

“I’ve come to see you. Your husband can wait there for now,” Lakini said, nudging him with her toe.

Open-mouthed, the woman looked from Sanwar to the deva. “But … you can’t just-”

“But I can, and I did.”

“I’ll fetch the guards.” Vorsha turned to the door.

It opened and Kestrel stood there.

“Kestrel! I thought-! I had heard-”

Vorsha flung herself at her daughter. Hesitantly Kestrel’s arms went around her mother. Lakini saw thin wires vibrating beneath her skin.

“So it’s not true?” said Vorsha.

“I’m sorry, Mother. It is.”

Vorsha drew back and cradled her daughter’s ravaged face with the palm of her hand. “Then Arna?”

“Is dead. And Geb. And Shev. And little Bron.”

With each name Vorsha flinched as if she’d been struck.

“And the worst thing, Mother, is that I killed them.”

Vorsha looked at Kestrel as if she were mad. At her feet, Lakini felt Sanwar stir, and she put a cautionary foot to his throat.

“How is that possible?”

“Like this.”

Kestrel held out her hand. On her palm was a lump of melted glass. With trembling fingers Vorsha took it.

“Look inside,” said Lakini.

The woman blinked at five strands of brown hair that twisted inside the ruined charm. Lakini saw she didn’t have to explain. Three of the hairs fused inside, Vorsha had plucked herself from her daughter’s hairbrush. The other belonged to Sanwar.

Vorsha’s lips pressed together, tight and white, and her eyes were enormous. She turned her unblinking gaze on Sanwar.

“What did you do?” she said, her voice cold.

“He made Kestrel a weapon, against her will and inclination, to strike against the Jadarens from inside,” said Lakini.

Vorsha clutched the ruined charm so tightly that part of the glass cracked apart and sliced her palm. She ignored it.

She kneeled by Sanwar. “It’s not true. Tell me it’s not true.”

“It isn’t true,” said her husband.

But Vorsha saw the truth in his face.

She seized his hair, yanking it back fiercely. A terrible expression distorted her placid face.

“I’m a wicked woman, Sanwar, but I love my children. I never loved Nicol, and I was unfaithful, but I thought if I married you, if I was a better wife to you and a faithful mistress of the House, I might do honor to a good man’s legacy. And now I find that I desired a monster, and opened my legs to the worst kind of traitor.”

She spat in his face. “I would’ve done better to sell myself at the yuan-ti market. Whore’s business is more honest than this.”

She rose and moved away from him. There was a bloody handprint on her silk shirt.

“Kestrel,” she said. “Will you stay? You’ll be safe here.”

Her daughter shook her head. “I killed your grandchildren. I can’t face you, my sister, our friends, our servants. I know you would be kind, Mother. But I can’t.”

“I can take her somewhere,” said Lakini. “Somewhere she can heal.”

Vorsha nodded, tears streaking down her face.

“I came to give him over to the goddess for punishment,” said Lakini. “But perhaps you will say he doesn’t deserve that kind of mercy.”

The small woman prodded Sanwar with the toe of her elaborately embroidered slipper. Casually, she turned and strode over to the row of weapons displayed on the wall. She ignored the greatswords and the thick-hafted spears that would be an effort for a half-orc to wield, passing her hand over the long knives and the daggers. She let her fingers finally touch a blade small enough to slip in one’s sleeve, an assassin’s weapon with a wickedly sharp, thin blade the length of her palm.

She pried it from its mount and turned back to Lakini. Sanwar saw the weapon and grunted at her feet.

Her face was wet with tears, but her back was as straight as a birch tree. She was Vorsha Beguine, mistress of the House now.

“I think you can leave any matter of mercy to me, deva,” she said. It was a dismissal. Lakini only inclined her head in response. It seemed that Ciari Beguine was in some ways very much her mother’s daughter.

Vorsha watched as Lakini and Kestrel left the room.

“Do you want to see your sister?” asked Lakini.

Kestrel shook her head. “No. She would try to be kind, if she knew, but she would still hate me.”

When they reached the dusty street outside the compound, Lakini thought she heard a cry from inside the dwelling. She saw Kestrel’s back stiffen, but neither of them mentioned it.

“Is there really somewhere you can take me?” asked Kestrel.

“More like to someone,” said Lakini.