“Don’t tell me what to do!”
“Why not? That’s what you’ve been asking me. You want me to tell you what you should do, so that if it doesn’t work out you won’t have to blame yourself. Well, thanks, R’shiel, but I have enough of my own burdens to lug around without taking on yours as well.”
He watched the anger flare in her violet eyes with relief. Her spirit was still there, underneath the shock from the glamour and the effects of her time spent in the smothering peace of Sanctuary. It was rare that he agreed with the War God, but in this case, Zegarnald was right. R’shiel would wither if she stayed here much longer. This girl had faced down three hundred angry rebels, she had been raped, imprisoned, and mortally wounded by the woman she grew up thinking was her mother. None of it had been able to break her. But much longer within Sanctuary’s calming walls and the human shell that had protected her inner strength would be dissolved.
Pushing the demon from her lap, she scrambled to her feet and brushed down the leathers before turning on him. “I don’t need you to tell me what I want to do. I’ll go where I want, when I want, and you can go to the lowest of the Seven Hells, for all I care!”
She stormed off down the path, the little demon tumbling in her wake. Brak watched her go with a faint smile.
“Deftly handled, Lord Brakandaran.”
Brak turned towards the deep voice, unsurprised to find the old demon Dranymire behind him. “I thought you’d be around somewhere. You could have helped, you know.”
The little demon sat down beside Brak with a smug expression. “If she had fallen off this cliff, I would have been there in an instant. But some things are best left to one’s own kind.”
“It’s not my responsibility to protect her. That’s supposed to be your job.”
Dranymire nodded sagely. “And protect her I will, Brakandaran,” he said. “But I can only save her from outside danger. I cannot save her from herself.”
Chapter 19
Mikel of Kirkland found it hard to be brave in the Defender Camp. Among the Hythrun it had been easy. There he had Jaymes to support him. Jaymes was always brave. Jaymes hadn’t blabbed about the Fardohnyan alliance trying to make himself sound important. Jaymes had been quiet and sullen and strong.
The Hythrun were quick to anger and easy to provoke, and Mikel felt it was his solemn duty to do what he could to sabotage their war effort. He had honoured the Overlord countless times in the weeks he spent among them, cursing the soldiers, spitting in their stew whenever he got the chance, and making a general nuisance of himself. It had been easier once the Warlord left. The big blonde Hythrun had frightened the boy more than he was willing to admit, but once he was gone, Mikel found his courage increased. The fight with the blacksmith’s apprentice had been the last in a long line of skirmishes with his captors.
The Defenders were different, however. They did not listen to his insults or his curses, or if they heard them, they simply laughed indulgently at him. Even more humiliating was the fact that the captain who had saved him from the apprentice and taken him to the other camp had placed him in the care of a woman! Her name was Mahina and he was supposed to call her Sister, even though she wasn’t a nun and didn’t deserve the title. Worse, when the little old lady, who reminded him of his own Nana, had gotten hold of him, she took one whiff of his ragged tunic and ordered him to bathe. She then stood over him while the deed was done, to ensure he was properly clean. Everybody knew that taking off all your clothes was a sin against the Overlord and it was a well-known fact that total immersion in water was bad for you and gave rise to unhealthy vapours. But she had stood there like a slave-master on a Fardohnyan galley and made him wash every part of his body. She then added insult to injury by trimming his hair and making him wear a pair of cast-off Defender’s trousers and a pleated linen shirt several sizes too big for him. His tunic and hose she rather ceremoniously burned on the hearth, holding her nose as she did so.
As praying to the Overlord had always evoked a reaction from the Hythrun, he was startled when his prayers drew nothing from Mahina and the Defenders but bored looks and, in some cases, stifled yawns. The Defenders did not seem offended by his prayers. They just didn’t care! His devotions meant nothing to them. They were atheists who considered worshipping the gods a quaint and rather laughable custom. That hurt almost as much as the thought that his misbehaviour might cost Jaymes a finger.
The Defenders were frighteningly well disciplined, a fact which surprised the boy. They were under the command of a tall, hard-looking man called Lord Jenga, but it was the captain who had brought him here who scared him most. His name was Tarja Tenragan, and every night, when Mikel said his prayers to the Overlord, he prayed his god would strike the man down.
Mikel burned with hatred for the tall Medalonian who had so calmly ordered Jaymes dismembered if Mikel misbehaved. Although he was only a captain, everybody seemed to listen to him, even Lord Jenga, and he had faced down the Hythrun Raiders without blinking. Mikel was sure there was nothing on this world that could scare him – and that scared Mikel, because he knew that in battle, the Medalonians would not run in the face of the first concerted charge, as he had often heard Duke Laetho boast.
In fact, much of what Mikel had heard in the Karien camp was proving to be incorrect. The Hythrun did not eat human babies for breakfast and the red-coated Defenders weren’t weaklings dressed up in fancy uniforms and playing at being soldiers. They were hard men and well trained. Much better trained than the Kariens, Mikel suspected. Where the Karien camp spent time boasting of past victories on the jousting field or anticipating future glories, these soldiers were on the training field in Medalon.
They were much better supplied too, Mikel discovered. Unlike the Kariens, the Medalonians and their Hythrun allies had a constant supply line from the Glass River, and they lived like kings compared to his own people. He had eaten more since being a captive than he had since arriving on the front as Lord Laetho’s page some four months ago. He began to wonder if it was a sin to eat so well, but when he refused to eat, Mahina had threatened to have him force fed. When that threat had not worked, Mahina called Tarja in. The captain had looked at him coldly and simply asked one question.
“Left hand or right hand?”
Mikel had not missed a meal since and never again brought up the topic of sinning by eating too well.
Mahina had set him to performing chores around the camp, which in truth did not vary much from what had been asked of him as Lord Laetho’s page. He waited tables and filled wine jugs and ran errands for the old woman, all the while keeping his eyes and ears open. Mikel was certain he would eventually be rescued. If not, there was always a chance he could escape – except that if he did, Tarja was likely to kill Jaymes, so he tried not to think about it too much. But if the chance ever arose, he wanted to take back as much intelligence as possible to Lord Laetho. Perhaps even Prince Cratyn or King Jasnoff would want to hear his information. Mikel managed to spend a good deal of time in idle dreams of his triumphant return to the Karien camp, bearing the one vital piece of information that would ensure a Karien victory.
In the meantime, he performed his chores doggedly, determined to give Tarja no reason to harm his older brother. Mahina was often distracted, but she was not unkind and it was hard to hate her. In fact, it was hard to hate many of the Medalonians, although his loathing of Tarja Tenragan never wavered. Most of them treated him well, if not out of kindness, exactly. Mikel suspected it was because they did not consider him a threat. He had grandiose, if rather vague plans to disabuse them of that notion some day and he prayed to the Overlord every night before he slept that his god would show him the way.