P. Hodgell - Bound in Blood

Vant fumbled at the rim, blue eyes glaring out of a charring face, then sank out of sight.

“He would have pulled you in, lord,” said Brier, finally releasing him.

“What are you doing here? I thought Old Tentir was forbidden territory for the duration of the war.”

“It is,” said Rue, with a shuddering glance toward the contents of the pit, from which a pillar of greasy smoke now arose, “except for public spaces like this. We’re looking for your sister, lord. She went off to hide our flag, and no one has seen her since. That is, someone thought they saw her passing through the great hall, so we followed.”

“Instead, it was me. Damn. As soon as possible, I have got to grow a beard. Listen: has either one of you seen Ran Harn?”

“He’s missing too?”

“Dangerously so. He’s got to be found, Winter War be damned.”

The cadets exchanged glances. Calling off the war would not be a popular option or even, perhaps, possible at this late date.

“Play has already begun, lord,” said Rue cautiously, “and our team is in chaos without your lordan to lead it. Maybe, if you could take over, just until we find her . . . ”

“You would have three houses searching for Ran Harn,” added Brier.

Rue gave the Southron a curious, sidelong look. As senior and experienced as Brier was, she apparently didn’t want to miss this rite of Tentir either, not that her plan didn’t have merit.

The Highlord thought so too.

“All right,” he said. “We hunt for multiple targets. But understand me: Harn has been poisoned. I don’t know what memories are tormenting him now, but they could lead to his death.”

“And your sister?”

He gave a sudden bark of laughter. “I defy the past or anything else to get the better of Jame. Ancestors help who or whatever blunders into her way.”

He paused, looking down into the pit. “Mistakes and all, Vant, I will remember you.”

With that, he strode out of the fire timber hall.

“What do we do about Vant?” asked Rue.

Brier answered out of the bleak pit of her experience which, in its time, had seen far worse. “He chose his pyre. Let him burn on it.”

“Huh. A nice thought, next washing day.”

Hidden in the shadows, Damson watched them go. Just for fun, she gave Rue a mental nudge that made the cadet stumble. She might be clumsy herself, but at least she could let others know how it felt. This time, it had been particularly satisfying. She paused for one last glance at the pit where her tormentor lay wrapped in flames, then followed the others out.

Jame sighed. It was cold and boring, sitting here on the floor in Greshan’s quarters, her back to the chest containing Beauty’s cocoon. Was she really going to be stuck here all day? How long had it been so far? Probably only an hour, but it felt like forever.

“Have I ever sat still this long before in my life?” she asked Jorin.

Jorin was curled up on the purring chest with his chin on her shoulder. He batted an ear as if to say, What’s the problem? Catnap whenever you can .

Jame reflected that she was more likely to go for days on end at a dead run, and be damned if that wasn’t less tiring than this enforced inactivity.

“If this goes on much longer,” she told the ounce. “I have got to learn how to knit.”

Since they were supposed to be in full view, the two flags were spread out on the floor. After their initial placement, unlike in a game of Gen, they could move, but always in plain sight. Of course, that wasn’t quite true now with the door as shut as it was going to get. Surely by now Timmon had discovered his loss. If he guessed that his banner was here, however, it was in a near perfect hiding place. No one would look for it in another house’s barracks, and he could collect both it and hers before the end of play.

There was, of course, the small matter that he had cheated by jumping her prematurely.

Jame hadn’t been able to figure out how strict the rules were. The randon insisted on them, of course, but there was a definite sense among the cadets that if they could get away with something uncaught, they would. After all, things didn’t necessarily go according to plan in a real battle. The monitors were going to have a busy time riding herd on that mob.

At a whisper of sound, Jorin’s head jerked up, ears pricked. The rumbling coming from him now was not a purr but a growl.

“Well, well, well. Sitting this one out?”

Jame’s heart skipped a beat. She knew that loathed drawl. Scrambling to her feet, she lurched a bit on legs that had gone to sleep. Greshan stood behind her half in shadow. Bars of light cast through cracks in the shutters slanted across the roiling colors of the Lordan’s Coat. Vermillion and azure stitches inched away from the glare like disturbed whipworms. The discolored shirt beneath seethed.

“Graykin.” Her voice emerged as a croak. “I know you’re in there somewhere. Come out. Please.”

“Oh no. Your precious sneak has crept back to me to hide and I hold him close. No one else ever has.”

“I would have, but . . . ”

“It was inconvenient. And his neediness annoyed you, after all he has suffered in your service.”

That was only too true. She remembered Graykin dangling by hot wires threaded through his skin, made to dance to Caldane’s tune for changing his alliance to her. A winter’s agony . . .

“You speak fine words to others about responsibility and honor,” crooned that hateful voice, “but how well do you live up to them yourself?”

“I try.”

“You fail, and you know it.”

“Whereas, Uncle, you never tried at all.”

“I didn’t need to. What is honor if not that which is born in the blood? Therefore how can honor betray itself? So my father taught me when he gave me the freedom to do whatever I wanted. So I believed, then and now. I had so much. I deserved so much more. Now all I have is hunger.”

His hand—Graykin’s thin hand, with grubby nails—groped at his rustling shirtfront. Out of it he drew a fistful of squirming maggots and munched on them as he spoke indistinctly through their mangled remains.

“Always hungry. Never had enough. Always wanted more. Ah.” He swallowed. “They took it all away from me, your precious randon, all but my hunger. Now see what I’ve become.”

“I see, but I don’t understand. You supposedly died in a hunting accident and your body was given to the pyre at Gothregor. No death banner hangs there for you now, not even a token one.”

“Ha!” His laugh sprayed maggot fragments. Some he apparently inhaled because he began to cough and grabbed a chairback to support himself.

Graykin’s face, suffused and gasping, lifted toward her. “Mistress, help me!”

She took a step toward him, but already Greshan had slid his mask back over those wraith-thin, wretched features.

“Help?” he wheezed, then hawked and spat. “What, will you wear the Lordan’s Coat at last and submit yourself to my will? Foolish child, do you expect never to bow to anyone?”

“Did you?”

He straightened and wiped his mouth, withdrawing again into the shadows. “Only to death, and that most unwillingly. But you aren’t me. No, not by half, and a weak, mewling hypocrite to boot. So much for your responsibility and your precious honor! No, little girl, such a one as you will never keep me from my revenge.”

“Against whom?” she asked, confused. “Hallick Hard-hand is long since dead, if it was he who struck you down. I never did quite believe in the story of an accident.”

He laughed, a harsh, jeering sound, almost a sob. “Clever, clever, clever, but still so ignorant. Oh, what a bloody-handed house we are. Do you suppose that even your dear brother’s hands are clean?”