Besieged Read online

  No, the curse of tainted royal blood had killed her, along with Nitzel’s conniving to elevate his daughter as the next queen. Oskane found himself wishing that Charald’s marriage to Nitzel’s daughter would bring him no sons, bring him nothing but tainted half-bloods.

  ‘Sleepy now,’ Sorna said, her voice the merest whisper.

  Oskane took her hand and held on until he felt the strength leave her fingers.

  Then he stood, and said the words to release her soul. At a council of the Seven, the church scholars had decreed that Malaunje and T’En did not have souls. There had been a debate over the souls of women, and it had been decided that seven of their souls equated to one man’s soul. Preposterous.

  Obviously the quality of the soul depended on the individual. Some women’s souls were particularly pure. Sorna’s, for instance. She truly believed, while he...

  Oskane was glad he was leaving. Hopefully, in his self-imposed isolation, he would recover his faith. Right now, he felt its lack like an open wound.

  ‘Is it over?’ Charald asked.

  Oskane turned to face the king and nodded.

  ‘It was her fault,’ Charald said. ‘All she had to do was produce a healthy True-man son. Was that too much to ask?’

  Oskane bit his tongue.

  The king returned to Nitzel and Etri, and they put their heads together, speaking in low voices. Feeling his fate hanging in the balance, Oskane moved towards the door.

  ‘Oska,’ Charald said.

  He froze.

  The king gestured to the babe. ‘Cover it. If anyone asks, you carry a stillborn.’

  Dizzy with relief, Oskane went through the door.

  A gaggle of concerned women waited at the end of the corridor. As he strode towards them, they ran to meet him, greeting him with the proper deference and asking after the queen and the baby.

  ‘...for we heard such shouting,’ the stout matron said.

  ‘The babe was stillborn.’

  They moaned and wrung their hands.

  ‘Poor King Charald.’

  Oskane nodded, even though it choked him. ‘And, alas, the queen is dead. Please go and see to laying her out. Be...’ – his voice broke – ‘be kind.’

  They rushed past him, carried on cries of dismay.

  Mind racing, Oskane left the palace. He wanted to be out of Port Mirror-on-Sea before nightfall.

  The Seven had churches in all the major towns, and abbeys throughout the countryside, run by priests and staffed by penitents who wanted to win favour with the gods. The penitents did most of the hard labour on the farms, wineries and mines. He already had a place in mind, a religious retreat, high in the eastern mountains and far to the south. Restoration Retreat was about as far away as he could get from the palace and still be in Chalcedonia.

  It had been a copper mine. Over twenty years ago, when he had been the assistant to the last high priest, something had gone very wrong down in the bowels of the mine.

  According to the report, the first the priests knew of it had been when three penitents had disappeared, and the only survivor had run screaming from the mine. A perfectly normal man had gone down that morning. He’d come back a lackwit.

  Their digging had revealed an unclean site.

  The priests declared the mine tainted and everyone fled. The retreat had been closed that very day, and no one had ventured back. Oskane did the sums. He’d been high priest for fifteen years and it had happened nine years before he rose to this position. So, twenty-four years. The old priests who ran the mine were long dead, and the penitents scattered, if they still lived. Nearly twenty-five years... he doubted if anyone other than him even remembered the retreat’s existence.

  Good. He didn’t want Charald deciding to remove him and the lad once Nitzel undermined his belief in their usefulness.

  Restoration Retreat was perfect. There had been no reports of more incidents in the area so it was probably a single event site. At any rate, he would have the mine sealed.

  In fifteen years – no; he was forgetting, the boy was a half-blood. For all that they grew bigger, they took longer to mature. In seventeen or eighteen years, the boy would be old enough to avenge his mother’s murder and help restore the family that his birth had undermined.

  And, who knew, he might even prove useful against the T’En, but Oskane had few illusions. The Malaunje he had captured to question had proven fanatically loyal to their masters.

  Seventeen years...

  Oskane looked forward to the day. He only hoped he lived long enough to see it. By then, he would be sixty-four. Few True-men lived past fifty.

  But then, few True-men had the motivation he had.

  Chapter Three

  THE SCREAMS SUBSIDED.

  Irian looked up. All-father Rohaayel came to his feet, eyes fixed on the hastily erected tent where his devotee laboured to birth his son.

  In the clearing behind the dunes, the surf drummed on the beach and a seagull called. An afternoon breeze whispered through the pines. The gull called again. Irian winced at its harsh cry and wondered if this was a portent.

  Some believed seagulls were messengers of the gods, but his kind didn’t believe in gods. The T’En associated seagulls with opportunity. Seagulls were good at making their own luck.

  Not that this journey had been lucky.

  They’d been delayed, by one thing after another. And then, when they’d finally made their way up the coast, before turning inland for the Celestial City, a fox had startled the horses. The usually placid mare carrying Rohaayel’s devotee bolted, charging off into the undergrowth.

  And there was not a thing Irian could do to prevent it.

  They’d found the devotee only moments later. She had been thrown by her mount, her waters had broken and she’d gone into early labour. Irian looked up through the trees at the late autumn sun. Only mid-morning. The labour could go on all day.

  The screaming started again.

  Shoulders slumped, Rohaayel sank onto a rock, long silver hair bound in a practical travel-plait. The brotherhood’s all-father was absolutely haggard, as if he laboured along with Mariska. Rohaayel never did anything by halves. The ability to ease pain by sharing it was part of the devotee link. The bond between a T’En and his devotee was sacred.

  And she had been hurt while under Irian’s care. That it had been beyond his control did not matter. In the eyes of the brotherhood, he had failed All-father Rohaayel.

  They did not know if Mariska would live, let alone the child. What was worse, the pregnancy had gone past the seven small moons for a Malaunje babe, which meant the child would be born pure T’En. T’En daughters were rare, even rarer if the father was a T’En, so it would be a son.

  Irian looked around the clearing. All-father Rohaayel had sunk his head in his hands. No one met Irian’s eyes. They all felt his shame.

  Their party consisted of two T’En other than himself – All-father Rohaayel and the brotherhood’s voice-of-reason, Ardeyne. Then there were the Malaunje, Devotee Mariska and fourteen others, warriors and servants. The only female warrior was in the tent with Rohaayel’s devotee, doing her best to help with the birth, but she was trained to kill, not deliver babies.

  The screams rose to a desperate, panicked peak.

  Irian flinched. The cries carried and the breeze was blowing inland. Their party’s impromptu camp was exposed, and he hated it.

  The screaming stopped again.

  If only the child would be born whole and healthy.

  And then what? They’d have to hand him over to one of the sisterhoods to rear. Irian had never fathered a living T’En son. Two boys and a girl, all half-bloods. It was hard enough declaring his newborns fatherless and handing them over to the Malaunje of his own brotherhood. At least half-blood children stayed with their birth-mother. He could not imagine how it felt to give your son to the powerful T’En women, knowing you would not see the child until he turned seventeen.

  Unable to sit still, Voice-of-reason A
rdeyne sprang to his feet. He paced, his boots sinking into the sandy soil, crushing fallen pine needles; their tangy scent filled the clearing, mingling with the fresh smell of the sea. The power of the gift also filled the clearing. After the accident, the three T’En were on edge, their gifts ready to spring to their defence. The Malaunje warriors responded to this, tension in their every movement.

  Rohaayel could have called on his brotherhood link to Irian and Ardeyne to help him shoulder Mariska’s pain, but he hadn’t. Irian suspected the all-father felt guilty; he should have left his devotee safe in the brotherhood’s palace back in the city.

  But, if Rohaayel had one fault, it was that he loved too well. Not that Irian would ever say this to him. It was the reason they loved their all-father. Custom decreed it was their duty to die for him but, for Rohaayel, they’d die for love. Few of the brotherhood all-fathers could honestly say the same.

  And that was why Irian’s failure bit so deep.

  The screaming started again. It had been growing hoarser as the morning progressed.

  His gift nagged at him, irritating him, until finally he focused and analysed the sensation. The T’En gift was innate and, to a large extent, unconscious, which meant much of their training consisted of learning how to control their reactions. Now he sensed... ‘Strangers. Mieren.’

  Everyone reached for their weapons.

  ‘True-men, here?’ Torekar, the youngest Malaunje warrior, grimaced and spat in contempt. The youth had been hidden at birth and raised by his Mieren parents until the age of eleven. Then, without warning, the villagers turned on his parents, murdering them in their bed. The half-blood boy would have died, but he’d leapt out the attic window and run all the way to the city to claim sanctuary.

  ‘Mieren, mere men,’ Netaric corrected. He was the most experienced of the Malaunje warriors, and had taken Torekar under his wing. ‘To call them True-men belittles Malaunje and T’En alike.’

  Torekar flushed and would have apologised, but one of the servants drew Irian’s attention. The man had climbed onto the cart and picked up the reins, and now looked for orders.

  Irian shook his head. If the Mieren were on horseback they’d have to ditch the cart. What was he thinking? They could not abandon the devotee.

  How many Mieren were out there?

  Lowering his shields, Irian allowed his gift to search their surroundings. He sensed two minds, their psychic scents very different from his own kind. They were between his party and the beach.

  He beckoned to Torekar and Netaric. Picking his way through the pines, he reached a spot where the trees thinned out and were replaced by chest-high undergrowth. A quick glance told him the two Malaunje warriors were in place, and he signalled them to move forward.

  With the devotee so vulnerable, every instinct urged Irian to kill the interlopers. His gift rose, but he banked it and felt for the hilt of his long-knife.

  Muffled sounds reached him as the interlopers registered the danger and tried to run.

  He forged through the undergrowth. Torekar and Netaric moved ahead, flanking the enemy, closing in on them. Parting chest-high leaves, Irian spotted two Mieren.

  Children – a boy and girl, aged five and seven, he guessed, then revised it up to eight and ten. Mieren tended to be smaller on average than his kind. Both had white-blond hair like T’En children, but their eyes were a shallow blue instead of deep mulberry and they did not have the six fingers and toes of his kind.

  Those pale blue eyes stared up at him, terrified. While they were distracted, Torekar and Netaric came up behind them and hauled them to their feet, lifting them both off the ground like kittens.

  Irian could slit their throats and bury the bodies, and no one would ever know, but it went against his principles to kill children. He was the hand-of-force because of his need to protect and, to his surprise, he found that extended to the young of a race who hated his kind.

  He took the boy from Netaric. ‘Go back. Tell Ardeyne I need him.’

  Both children twisted and kicked, succeeding only in making themselves red-faced and short of breath.

  ‘Let us go,’ the girl pleaded in Chalcedonian. ‘We heard cries. We came to see if we could help.’

  ‘But you stayed when you saw who it was,’ Ardeyne said as he joined them.

  The girl had no answer to that. She hung her head.

  ‘They’ve seen us. We can’t let them go. They’ll go home and tell their family there’s Wyrds camped nearby. Before we know it, the local Mieren will band together and come after us to move us along, or worse. I don’t want to have to...’ Although Irian spoke T’En and the children would not understand, he could not bring himself to speak of killing them. ‘Can you work your gift on their minds?’

  Ardeyne hesitated. His gift was a rare manifestation for a noet. Most noets were mind manipulators, who could create illusions in receptive minds, but Ardeyne could do much more, like seeking out specific memories and erasing them.

  As the voice-of-reason considered, Irian realised what he was asking. Under the treaty with King Charald the Peace-maker it was forbidden for T’En to use their gifts on unwilling Mieren.

  Too bad. This was an emergency. And it was better than death.

  ‘They’re young, their minds are impressionable,’ Ardeyne said. ‘As long as neither of them have innate defences, I should be able to erase the memory. Or at least make them think it was a dream.’

  ‘What if they have defences?’ T’En had defences against the gift, even the weakest of Malaunje did, and they spent their childhoods learning to enforce those walls as a matter of self preservation.

  ‘I’ll have to break into their minds. I... I don’t know if they’ll recover.’ Ardeyne met Irian’s eyes, troubled. ‘They could become lackwits.’

  The devotee’s screams resumed.

  ‘Do what you have to,’ Irian ordered.

  Ardeyne nodded and raised his hands, and Irian could feel him gathering his gift; his own gift rose in response. He pushed it down. One of them needed to remain alert to danger on this plane.

  The voice-of-reason reached for the girl first, cupping her face in his hands – skin-on-skin contact was the most efficient way to conduct power – but she shook her head, trying to dislodge him. Torekar had to hold her firm, pressing her head against his chest.

  Meanwhile, the boy writhed and kicked, desperate to go to her aid. Irian had to admire the lad’s spirit. He covered his mouth to keep him quiet, and the boy promptly bit him.

  This distraction meant he missed observing Ardeyne use his gift. Irian wanted to know how memories could be erased. Not that he would ever be able to do it himself. His gift was basic illusion. He had to be in contact with the recipient, skin-on-skin, and while he worked his power he was vulnerable. It was not much of a weapon. It was just as well he was big for a T’En, and a good tactician, or he would never have risen as high as he had.

  In spite of the distraction of the child’s bite, he did feel the sudden flare of power as Ardeyne overcame the girl’s resistance; the voice-of-reason was sweating despite the sea breeze, and his eyes were closed in fierce concentration.

  The boy had stopped wriggling and now wept in frustration, hot tears spilling over the hand Irian had clamped across his mouth.

  When Ardeyne finally stepped back, the girl hung limp in Torekar’s arms. The voice-of-reason rubbed the back of his neck and took a shaky breath. ‘Hopefully, she’ll recover. I was as gentle as I could be.’

  ‘Now the boy.’ Irian shifted his hand, holding the lad’s chin to keep him still.

  ‘You’ve killed her.’ The boy wept tears of fury. ‘I’ll–’

  He broke off in mid-tirade as the voice-of-reason cupped his face. This was Irian’s chance to observe Ardeyne’s gift. With his hand holding the boy’s chin, he would feel the flow of power. Trusting to the strength of his will, Irian lowered his shields, but it was like listening to someone speak a foreign language. No matter how hard he tried, he could not make se
nse of what Ardeyne was doing. When the voice-of-reason stepped back, leaving the boy limp in Irian’s arms, he was none the wiser.

  The voice-of-reason was exhausted. Shadows lined his thin face, aging him. Ardeyne’s power would take time to recover.

  ‘Take both children to the beach,’ Irian told the Malaunje warriors. ‘Find a safe spot above high tide and leave them there. When they wake, they’ll think they slept the day away.’

  Ardeyne looked grim. ‘If the girl wakes as a lackwit, our people will be blamed.’

  ‘They blame us for every bit of bad luck that comes their way. For once, we’ll deserve it.’ He swung his arm under the boy’s legs, sweeping him up. So light. So vulnerable. ‘Here.’ He passed the child to one of the warriors.

  Torekar staggered as he turned to go, and it was only the old warrior’s quick reactions that saved the girl. Netaric adjusted her weight, while one of his companions lowered Torekar to the sandy soil. The old warrior glanced to Ardeyne, then cursed softly.

  Confused, Ardeyne met Irian’s eyes.

  The realisation hit them both at the same time. Torekar had been holding the girl when Ardeyne’s gift flared, overcoming her innate defences. Torekar had trained to reinforce his shields, but only since he’d joined the brotherhood.

  The voice-of-reason had imprinted his gift on Torekar.

  Ardeyne shook his head, stunned. ‘I didn’t mean –’

  ‘Take the children,’ Irian told the remaining warriors. Rohaayel, Ardeyne and he had been brotherhood leaders less than a year, and they were still making it up as they went along. But one thing was certain – a T’En never revealed weakness. ‘We’ll see to Torekar.’

  Netaric nodded and led the others off.

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ Ardeyne whispered. ‘I would never force...’

  As Irian knelt next to the unconscious youth, he heard his old gift-tutor’s voice in his head. This is what comes of not maintaining the proper distance between T’En and half-bloods. With no power of their own and a sensitivity to the gifts, the Malaunje are vulnerable. If you don’t keep your power strictly under control, you’ll overcome their shields and imprint your gift on one of them. Then they’ll be addicted to your power for life, enslaved against their will.