“You know who I am. Or have you traveled all this way not knowing with whom it was you were sent to plead your case?”
“Elvardo?” Alasdair lifted both brows.
The young man who should not have been young, inclined his head.
“A son?” the lady ventured, hopeful.
138
Elvardo laughed, a ruthless sound that echoed in the strange hall. “I’m sure I have many, but none of them will inherit this place, as I inherited it from none but the desperation of a struggling king.”
“You’re a jokester, then, to pretend otherwise,” Alasdair snapped in offense.
Lord Elvardo shrugged, not offering explanation or apology. Alasdair didn’t sense it. Didn’t feel the echoing essence of power that Yhalen did. Perhaps the lady did, though Yhalen had the strangest certainty that she didn’t. The knight, no doubt, made excuses in his own mind, explaining away the youth he saw before him when there should have been age. A normal man would have to, to retain his wit in such a situation. A normal man couldn’t believe such things with ease and sleep at night.
Yhalen wished he wasn’t aware, now that he’d caught the scent of it, of the earth-deep stirring of vast power that coiled behind the lazy eyes of the creature lounging on the thorny throne before them.
Ancient and musty, like the scent of an old, old forest. Like decaying mulch and detritus, or bones in a grotto so gnarled and twisted with age and lack of proper sunlight that nothing but shadow loving fungus and moss thrived. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant fragrance. It was...nature. It was like the feel of the great forest, when the elders gathered in their sacred circles to give praise to the Goddess....
He blinked, realization coming with all the abruptness of a slap in the face. It was exactly like that.
Exactly like the feel of the oldest of the old Ydregi magicks...and yet different. More. Incomprehensible layers of
more.
Not today, little cousin....
The words, the thought whispered through Yhalen’s mind the briefest moment before something large, dark and suffocating swept down upon him, obliterating all his senses. His legs crumpled and he ceased to sense anything at all.
139
This place made Bloodraven uneasy. It wasn’t so much the walls of stone that men made to enclose themselves, for other than being chained in moldy cellars, he’d found no such discomfort under the ceilings of the other two keeps he’d found himself within. He found he rather liked the imposing strength of a castle in which to ward oneself, over the caves that his people bored out of the earth. He liked the regularity of the walls, the clever planning it took to meld all those smaller pieces of stone together to make a cohesive whole. He appreciated the practicality of walls where warriors might stand to ward off invaders, confident with the advantage of height and the protection of stone.
This keep was different. It was solid enough, and imposing in its structure, but not nearly so honest and plain as those other castles. Demons peered down from ceilings and adorned walls like flies on a corpse. Twisted decoration lingered everywhere, as if some mad artisan had been unleashed in this place to do his will.
The dull stone eyes peering out of shadows made Bloodraven’s skin twitch. The lord of this keep did, the fabled dark prince of
Fah’nak Gol
, with his beautiful face and his deceptive youth. No matter the smoothness of his skin, his eyes were ancient, full of ancient curiosity and ancient machinations.
Bloodraven would have willingly quit this place, taking Yhalen with him, if not for the honest bounty of the valley below this dark keep. If not for the promise of—the least hope of—a place that his brethren, his true brethren, might call their own. For that dream, he’d endure torture and pain and ridicule. Stone demons leering down at him seemed little enough price.
The chambers he occupied now were somewhat more tolerable, the carvings that wound across the ceiling resembling more forest foliage than demonic gatherings. One of the sloe-eyed girls had led the way, after Yhalen’s collapse. The dark prince had tilted his head with false concern, even as the knight and the witch had crowded close to see. Bloodraven might have endured the knight, the man having proven himself honest and able, but the woman he wouldn’t have within arm’s length of himself, much less Yhalen, who lay as limp as a child’s rag doll against his arm.
His baring of teeth had kept her back—that and the knight’s arm blocking her path when he sensed the animosity. He’d looked into Bloodraven’s eyes, gauging, and Bloodraven had been too unnerved by the place and the sudden biting concern for what was most patently
his,
to gather the human words to express that it was the witch he had issue with and not the knight.
The dark prince intervened with a sibilant whisper of words, casting the woman’s attention back to the throne, and causing the knight’s to waver.
“Is he unwell? Such a long journey you’ve had. Perhaps what all of you need is a decent rest. I’d be remiss in my duties as host if I didn’t see you situated comfortably and refreshed before I allowed talk of a more political nature to ensue.”
And at that the dark prince’s mouth curved in a smile that Bloodraven found more predatory than pleasant.
The three women melted out of the shadows like mythical creatures themselves. “There are rooms for all of you, and barracks for your men if you fear to have them separated, oh brave knight.”
At which the knight narrowed his eyes and cast the dark prince a dangerous look.
“Brunhilla is somewhat skilled with medicine,” he said as he waved a beckoning finger. The dark-haired girl moved towards them as he continued, “I’d have her see to your young friend.”
“No,” Bloodraven growled, lifting Yhalen up, cradling him close and daring any one of them to come near enough to touch. They didn’t.
The dark prince shrugged.
“I would talk of this now,” the knight said, his jaw set stubbornly.
“I would not.” The dark prince swung the leg dangling over the arm of his chair. Though his pose was lazy, there was absolute steel in his voice. “Take your rest. Tomorrow will be soon enough to debate your king’s fancy.”
The knight glowered at that, but the witch put her hand on his arm, at which he frowned, but made
no argument. The dark prince’s women beckoned.
“Come. I’ll show you to a place you may take him,” the dark-haired one whispered to Bloodraven.
“A safe place,” she promised when he hesitated.
He refused to feel threat from her, from a small, soft female, even if she were a denizen of this uneasy place. He wouldn’t trust her to touch Yhalen, but he’d trust her to lead him through the maze.
The knight, with the lady at his side, followed reluctantly, his authority over this situation shattered by the dark prince’s easy power.
All of which brought Bloodraven to these chambers, with ceilings tall enough that he could barely touch them with his fingers, and a bed long enough and wide enough to sleep an ogre full-blooded.
Yhalen seemed small and fragile in the middle of such a broad bed. Smaller still against the heavy wooden carvings of the headboard and the great posts that rose at each corner, all of them adorned with twining vines and artfully placed leaves and budding blossoms. A wooden bird poked out here and there, and also the occasional coiling bodies of serpents. Bloodraven disliked it, preferring simpler lines. But it wasn’t overly disturbing. He could sleep beneath it.
He thought they had placed the knight in rooms nearby, and very likely brought men of his to this floor as well, if the sounds of footsteps in the hall meant anything other than ghosts wandering at will in this place.
Bloodraven chose not to dwell on that. There was a bolt on the door and he pushed it, less out of fear for what might rush in upon him, than the simple desire to relax at long last. If attack was eminent, at least it’d have to pound its way past a barred door of no small thickness, giving him ample time to prepare himself to meet it. But in the meanwhile, he might settle in the sturdy, padded chair by the hearth, or on the decadent comfort of the bed.
He chose the bed, because it was closer to Yhalen, whose skin was cool to the touch and whose breathing was even and unlabored. The breathing of a man deep in the throes of sleep and nothing more grave. There was certainly no wound to suggest otherwise, though Bloodraven was certainly uneasy over the suddenness of the collapse.
Silly to feel such concern over a slave, Icehand his old teacher would have said. But Icehand was a ogre full-blooded and though fairer of mind and more honorable than most full-blooded ogres were wont to be, he was still what he was. An ogre who viewed those vastly weaker than himself as tools be used, not worthy of equality among the warrior clans. Icehand had only come to value Bloodraven himself because of the cunning viciousness he’d shown in carving a place out for himself among the youth around the females’ fires. If he’d been like the other half-bloods, weak and beaten to timidity by his larger cousins, he’d have remained under the hand of the females, no better than a servant seeing to the care of the home hearth, scurrying at the least command of his more fearsome brethren.
If he’d survived at all. So many didn’t and yet the females continued to dally with their human slaves, fascinated by pale skin and fragile limbs. Much, Bloodraven thought with no small bit of bitter self-loathing, as he was with this creature that wore his brand and fired his loins and dominated his thoughts.
He supposed, wryly, that if he wished for a true alliance with the humans, the keeping of human slaves didn’t give him great advantage in his cause. Though none of the human lords had so far condemned him for his insistence at keeping Yhalen, he rather thought they would take issue with the practice if it were actively continued. He doubted, though, that the ogr’rons he’d lead down from the northern reaches—treated much like slaves themselves—would have much desire to keep slaves of their own. He wouldn’t have himself, if there had not been appearances to keep up.
He idly fingered locks of loose hair that escaped from beneath Yhalen’s shoulder. Newly washed, it was silken and bright, the paler strands more visible without the grime of several days travel to darken it. He brushed his thumb across the skin of one elegant cheek. Fragile and defenseless he seemed.
Slender and smaller than the knight and his warriors, but not, Bloodraven thought with a wry curving of his lips, so easy to overcome. Not so defenseless as his appearance might lead a body to believe. His little slave had managed to score a wound on him. Had managed to elude his efforts and Deathclaw’s to hunt him down. Had managed to do to Deathclaw what Bloodraven had dared not, even if it had been by the use of magicks Bloodraven was in no wise comfortable dwelling on.
A formidable little human, his slave.
Yhalen’s lashes fluttered, his breath catching with a start. He lifted a hand in reflexive defense and came up against Bloodraven’s arm. Forest-hued eyes snapped open, widening in panic. He rolled
away, eyes darting about the room and Bloodraven let him, content for the moment to observe.
“What—what happened?” Yhalen peered around him, assessing the shadows of the room as if he expected something lurking in the dark corners.
“You fell down.”
“I—fell down?”
Yhalen turned those brilliant eyes to him, blinking stupidly, face a mask of confusion. He looked up at the canopy of fine cloth above their heads, fingers clutching the bed coverings.
“I fell down,” he said again and the lashes came down, thick and long, hiding his expression from easy view.
“You were right,” Bloodraven said, after Yhalen had fallen into a contemplative silence, just beyond arm’s reach, on the other side of the bed. “About the lord of this place.”
“I know,” Yhalen whispered, toneless and far away.
Bloodraven lifted a brow. There had been arcane goings on, he was sure. Between the witch and the sly creature who ruled this place, and Yhalen. He didn’t wish to know the whys and wherefores. He truly didn’t. But superstition aside, it was only prudent to know if he were taking his rest in a place aswirl with dark and dangerous magic only waiting for the right moment to spring.
“Is there magic cast upon us now?”
He disliked having to ask it of Yhalen. Felt most uncomfortable having that reliance upon him.
Yhalen cocked his head, eyes regaining their focus, taking another, more clinical look about the room.
“I don’t think—no,” he said finally, with a sharp little nod as if to convince himself of that declaration.
Bloodraven breathed a sigh of relief, finally letting the tension drain from his shoulders as he lay back upon a bed softer than any he’d ever laid upon and stared up into the shadowed folds of a velvet canopy. The comforts that humans convinced themselves they needed were astonishing. He’d been more at ease in the simple huts of the poor men his raiding party had sacked, than here in the clutches of decadent luxury. It seemed such a waste of time and effort, all of the rich adornment. And yet...the artistry, the sheer creativity of humankind enthralled him. Drew his curiosity like a moth to bright flame, making the caves and burrows of his mother’s folk deplorable.
He imagined something between the two. A simple, honest hall made of wood and stone, with tall ceilings and broad windows that might be shuttered in the cold of winter and thrown wide to welcome spring and summer warmth. At the high end of the valley would be the place for it. Around it, smaller stone and wooden huts, ogr’ron-sized homes that would let his folk live above the ground instead of below it like vermin. And in the valley below, neat fields, rich with crops suited for this temperate range. The hunting would be good in the forests surrounding the vale. He’d seen ample sign of game in the journey here. It would be a fine place, a safe place to bring them—if a bargain could be struck with the dark prince who ruled this keep.