Elvenbane (2 page)

“So, you have a spirit with fire.” Lord Dyran chuckled, his thin lips forming a smile. “I like that. Do you wear my colors thinking to flatter me, my swan?”

“Is that not my purpose, my lord?” she replied immediately. “Is not all I think and do for one purpose only, and that to serve your pleasure?”

“Would you truly serve my pleasure?” He did not wait for a reply, but seized her wrist and pulled her toward him, bringing his mouth down demandingly on hers.

But Serina had planned for this moment from the very instant she entered the harem. Rowenie would have shrunk away with artificial shyness; Rowenie would struggle a little, feigning modesty. Serina did nothing of the kind. She molded her body against his, running her hands over his body in the ways she had been taught, returning the demands of his kiss with demands of her own. She had no idea how
he
felt, but
she
was on fire with need, her loins burning, when he broke away from her and put her at arm’s length.

He looked as cool and calculating as before; he shook back his long, white-gold hair over his shoulder as he released her, and smiled a little as he rubbed his square chin with a long, graceful hand. “My -Lord Ethanor admired Rowenie at dinner last night,” he said, after a long moment. “I gave her to him.”

It took Serina a few heartbeats for his words to sink in. When the meaning of them penetrated, she stared at him, not daring to speak, but afire with wild surmise.

“Such diligence as yours in my service should be rewarded,” he continued, when he saw that she understood him. Then he held out his hand. “Come, my swan. I would like you to see your new quarters. Then—after a suitable interval—we shall reveal your new status to the rest of the flock. Hmm?”

She shivered with excitement and anticipation. And a little dread. Lord Dyran’s tastes were said to be somewhat exotic…

But she was trained for that, and a life of luxury and power awaited in return for what he demanded. He would not damage anything so valuable as the concubine who alleviated his boredom.

And he was waiting for her reply. “After a suitable interval,” she said, placing her hand in his. “Of course, my lord.”

For one short moment, she relived her triumph; then she was back, her body still placing one foot in front of the other, like a mind-controlled slave.

Every bit of exposed skin burned with a torment that had passed beyond pain long ago. It was so hard to think… So hard to remember who and what she was, and why she should keep fighting to stay alive.

I
am Serina Daeth, daughter of—daughter of—Jared Daeth. Trainer of gladiators to Lord Dyran
—

Little Serina perched on the edge of a bench high above the arena, up in the shadows where the lesser elves sat when the Lord entertained. The arena itself was not very large; it probably didn’t seat more than four or five hundred, and the floor, covered with soft sand, could not hold a combat involving more than four men. This was strictly a dueling arena, meant for challenge-combat and not much else. It was a sign of Lord Dyran’s wealth that he maintained his own arena. It was also a sign of the number of challenges he played host to; either his own, or those arranged for others. Like the other rooms of the manor, it was lit by day by a large, frosted-glass skylight. The seats immediately surrounding the combat area were covered in leather padding; those up here were simple wooden benches. Nevertheless, humans never took these seats when there was a real combat underway.

But the combat in the arena today was strictly for practice, though it was performed at full speed, and with real, edged weapons. Good weapons, too, straight from the Lord’s forges.

Jared had taken his daughter to see the forges today, as a part of her education in the reality of being bound to Lord Dyran, and she had been suitably impressed with the fires, the heat, the smoke, and the huge, brawny men and women who worked there. Most valuable of all of Lord Dyran’s slaves, the forge-workers received attention and reward even above a successful duelist.

“We have a good lord,” Jared had said in his stolid way. “Good work is rewarded. The Lord could ignore us, or treat us like cattle; many lords do. Just you remember that, girl. All benefit and all reward come from Lord Dyran.”

The iron from which steel blades were made had to be pure; it was smelted ten times to remove any contaminants before it underwent the final process of smelting with charcoal and air to make it into true steel. Then, when it had undergone that transmutation, the smiths took it and made it into the weapons for which Lord Dyran was famed. No few of the elven lords came to Lord Dyran for their weapons, or so Jared told his daughter.

For the fighters of the elven lords’ armies, they made fine swords, spear- and axe-heads, and tiny, razor-sharp arrowheads that could not be pulled from a wound, only cut out. For the duelists, however, the gladiators and other fighters, the weaponry was far different—weapons meant to wound rather than kill. Chain-flails, maces, short, broad knives, metal-barbed whips, tridents—all meant to prolong combat, all requiring great skill in the handling.

The two fighters in the arena now, practicing under her father’s careful eye, were armed with gladiatorial weapons. One had a trident, the other, a chain-flail; both were also armed with knives.

The exchange seemed to be an even one; the red-haired giant with the chain-flail managed to stay out of reach of the trident points, while the swarthy man with the trident avoided having his pole fouled by the chains of the flail. Serina watched them with wide eyes, remembering that she had seen one of the breeder women taken from the red-haired man’s cubicle this morning, her face a mass of bruises.

And she knew already that
she
was destined to serve these men, or others like them—unless she managed to save herself from that fate.

“Your fate is in your own hands,” Jared had said. “Always remember that, girl. Make it your first concern to please your Lord, because no one else can make any difference to you.”

The slave-master had already remarked to Ambra, her mother, just how fast she was growing, and how she was going to have to go into training soon. Serina knew what that training was for; Jared had explained it to her with blunt words; explained the difference between a concubine and a breeder. And he had hammered home the lesson that any change in her fate lay only in Lord Dyran’s hands and her own diligence.

She had seen already how true his words were. Only last year they had taken her older brother Tamar away, sold or given him to another elven lord who had admired his fragile grace. Her younger brother Kaeth was being trained now in the assassins’ school, taken there two weeks ago, when his agility had been uncovered during a foray on the Lord’s fruit trees.

She had cried when Kaeth left in the hands of his trainers, and her mother had taken her aside, into her own room, and sat her down on the edge of the bed; told her sternly to dry her tears. “The lords rule everything,” Ambra had said, without pity, but with tears shining in her eyes, tears that Serina sensed she dared not shed. “We are fortunate in having a lord such as Lord Dyran to rule us. He rewards us well for good service; there are lords who reward no one and nothing, and punish as their whim leads them. If Kaeth does well, he will be rewarded. He
deserved
to be punished for stealing fruit, and instead he is being given a wonderful chance. He
could
have been killed out of hand. That is the difference between our Lord and others.”

“But
why?
she had cried. “
Why
do they rule us? Who said they could? It isn’t fair!”

Another parent might have cuffed her; might have said: “Because that’s the way it is.” But not Ambra.

“They rule us because they are strong, and powerful, and they have magic,” she said, and Serina sensed a resigned sadness in her words. “We are weak, and the gods gave us no magic at all. The lords live forever, and our lives are short. If we are to prosper, we
must
please the lords, for the gods love them, and despise us.”

“But
why
? Serina had wailed.

Ambra only shook her head. “I do not know. There are those who say that the lords are the children of the gods; there are those who say the lords are demons, sent by the gods to punish or test us. I only know that those who please them live and are rewarded, and those who do not, die. It is up to Tamar and Kaeth now, to please their lords. As you must please Lord Dyran, and those he sets over you. Nothing else matters, and neither I, nor your father, nor your kin or friends can help you. They can only hinder you. If you would rise, you must do so alone.”

Serina remembered that, and remembered the glimpse she’d had of Lord Dyran this afternoon, when he had come to see how the training of his fighters was progressing. She’d watched as her proud, stern father bent until his forehead touched the ground; how the other fighters had knelt in obeisance. And how Lord Dyran had seemed a creature out of a tale; tall, haughty, clothed from head to toe in cream-and-gold satin, and cream-colored leather, so supple and soft-looking that Serina had longed to touch it. How he seemed to shine, taking in the light of the sun and sending it back out redoubled. He was so beautiful he made her breath catch, and she had thought,
He must be a child of the gods
… And the woman with him, like a jewel herself, made Serina ache with envy. The woman was clothed in the softest silks Serina had ever seen, and laden with a fortune in gold chains. Gold chains formed the cap that crowned her golden hair, gold chains depended from the cap and flowed down her back, gold chains circled her neck and arms, and held her cream-colored dress closely to her body at the waist. She was magnificent, nearly as beautiful as the elven lord beside her, and Serina wanted to be wearing that dress, standing in her place.

She recalled how Lord Dyran had taken an imperfectly made sword that her father had brought to him in complaint, and bent it double, then bent the doubled blade back on itself a second time. That strength took her breath away once more, and sent little chills over her. What would it be like to have that strength—or be the one for whom it was gentled?

Then he had the smith who made the blade brought to him. All he had done was stare at the man for a moment, then make a little flicking motion of his hand—but the man had bent over double and had dropped screaming to the ground, and had to be carried out. No one protested or lifted a hand to help him. She had heard later that the Lord had cast elf-shot at him; and that should he ever again pass an imperfect blade, the tiny sliver of elf-stone lodged in his chest would lash him again with the same agonies.

Serina wondered; if her father sent out a fighter judged to be “imperfectly trained,” would the same thing happen to him?

She shivered as she realized that the answer was “yes” and that no excuses would be accepted.

“
If you would rise, do so alone
,” she heard in her mind, and recalled the gold-bedecked woman at Lord Dyran’s side, watching the smith writhe in agony at her feet, her face impassive.

The lesson was there, and easy to read.

Rise alone and fall alone. If he had cared half as much for me as he did for the purity of his blades
—
but I was less than a blade, and he had a replacement standing ready
.

As she took each step, each breath in agony, there was a hotter fire burning in her mind. Once Lord Dyran had grown tired of her, she was of less use than one of his pensioners. And he no longer cared what happened to her.

The pensioners—once she had scorned them; the weak in power, or elven “lords” fallen on hard times, who had lost too much in the ever-renewing duels. The duels were
fought
by their trained gladiators, but they represented very real feuds, and the losses incurred when their fighters lost were equally real…

Twice as pathetic were the sad cases whose magic was too weak to accomplish more than self-protection. Though these “pensioners” could not be collared, they could be coerced in other, more subtle ways. They often served as overseers, as chief traders, and in other positions of trust. They were neither wholly of the world of the High Lords, nor pampered as luxuriously as the treasured slaves, such as concubines and entertainers. Serina had pitied them, once.

No. Better to fall, she thought, than eke out a miserable, scrabbling existence like theirs…

Better to have reigned at least for a little while; to have stood at Lord Dyran’s side, and answered to no one but her master… to have feared only purely mortal trickery. Unlike the pensioners, whose every action was a move in a game they did not understand.

“So,” Dyran said, regarding the top of the trembling overseer’s head, as the elven subordinate knelt before him. “It would seem the quota cannot be met.” He was all in black today, and the milky light from the skylight overhead made his hair gleam like silver on his shoulders. He had a look about him that Serina knew well, a look that told her his mood was a cruel one, and she hoped he would appease it on the person of his overseer.

“No, my lord,” the elven overseer replied, his voice quavering. There was nothing in his appearance—other than his clothing—to tell a human of the vast social gulf between himself and Dyran. His hair, tied back in a neat tail, was just as long and silky, just as pale a gold. His eyes were just as green, his stature equal to Dyran’s. Both had the sharply pointed ear-tips of their race, and both appeared to be fighting men in the prime of life. The overseer wore riding leathers; Dyran fine velvet. But there were differences between them not visible to the human senses; differences that made Dyran master. “There have been too many injuries, my lord, to—”

“Due to your neglect,” Dyran reminded him silkily. Serina saw that his goblet of wine had warmed, and replaced it with a chilled one. He ignored her, all his attention bent on his victim.

The overseer blanched. “But my lord, I
told
you that the forge chains needed—”

“Due to
your
neglect,” Dyran repeated, and settled back into his ornately carved wooden chair, steepling his long, slender hands before his chin. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to teach you a lesson about caring for your tools, Goris. I believe you have a daughter?”