think?”
Gawn shrugged. “I thought you’d be pleased.”
“Pleased? To watch you hack an old man to death?”
“He’s not just an old man, Loclon. I thought you knew. Lord Draco is Tarja Tenragan’s father.”
Before that startling news had time to register, one of the priests cried out from a room up the hall. They hurried to the door and pushed their way through.
Across the threshold lay the body of a statuesque middle-aged woman, blood pooling beneath the knife wound in her chest. Her dark hair partially covered her face, but could not hide the startled look in her dead eyes. Loclon stepped over the body and stared, open-mouthed at the sight before him.
They had found the First Sister.
She was sitting on the floor, dressed in a simple grey tunic, her long, grey streaked hair undone and hanging limply over her shoulders. In her hands was a tattered rag doll with one eye missing. She was rocking back and forth, humming tunelessly.
Joyhinia Tenragan, the most ruthless First Sister in living memory, the woman who had ordered a Purge that had killed thousands of Medalonians, looked up as they crowded in her room and smiled at them.
“Do you want to play with dolly?” she said.
Chapter 44
Since befriending Dace, Mikel rarely spent a full day among the horses. Whenever Dace appeared, Sergeant Monthay would suddenly turn to Mikel and dismiss him, along with the warning that he did not expect to see him again until dinnertime. Mikel had no idea why Dace had that effect on the Medalonian and finally decided to stop questioning his good fortune. Perhaps it was the Overlord’s way of sparing him a life of forced labour.
Sometimes, Kali would join her brother on their daily jaunts. Every time he saw the barefooted little girl, she would stare at him closely and demand, “Do you love me?”
Mikel thought it the strangest question, and it seemed to annoy Dace too, but he had begun answering yes, simply because Kali would sulk if he answered any other way. An answer in the affirmative left her beaming for the rest of the day. She would hold his hand, and smile at him a lot, and not say blasphemous things about the Overlord, which Mikel found something of a relief.
Dace pouted a lot when Kali was with them, and he argued with her all the time. But he seemed incapable of refusing her anything. If Kali had been
When Dace and Mikel were alone, they spent hours exploring the Medalonian camp. They were never challenged by the Defenders, never asked what they were doing, never in trouble. The followers’ camp was even more interesting. Dace had a knack for smiling at people so charmingly that they never thought to question his right to be there. Mikel had no success trying to emulate his companion’s winning smile. The one time he had tried it on a Defender, hoping to sneak into the Keep to find out how the princess was faring, the Defenders on guard had sent him packing with a blistering reprimand.
Of course, one had to be on their guard around Dace. He was always trying to coax Mikel into stealing things. He did not seem to care what Mikel stole, just that he stole
Today however, Dace had finally suggested they steal something that even Mikel could not resist.
There was, according to Dace, a blue swallow’s nest in the tower of the old keep. The mother swallow must have gotten her seasons mixed up because it was almost winter, and the chicks would die if they hatched at this time of year. Dace’s noble plan was to steal the eggs from the nest and take them somewhere warmer, where they could incubate safely. Once hatched, they could dig up worms for the chicks and nurse them through the bitter weather. By spring, they would be ready to make it on their own and the boys could release them.
Try as he might, Mikel could find no fault with Dace’s plan. Saving the chicks from a freezing death was a good deed, and brave too, when one considered where the nest was located. Although Dace insisted on calling their rescue mission “stealing” he joined in the escapade willingly. His enthusiasm pleased the young thief enormously. He acted almost as happy as his sister Kali, the first time that he had agreed he really did love her.
Strange people, these Medalonians.
“How are we going to get into the Keep?” Mikel demanded as he hurried alongside Dace toward the old fort. Dace had been disturbingly vague on that point. The ground was slushy underfoot from a light snowfall the night before which had turned to mud almost as soon as the sun touched it. Mikel hated this Medalonian weather. He fervently wished it would snow properly, like it did in Yarnarrow or Kirkland, not this half-hearted mucky stuff that fell from the skies every few days with no other purpose than to make everything muddy and damp.
“They change the guard just before sundown,” Dace explained. “We’ll sneak in then.”
Mikel had not been inside Treason Keep since the day he had been interrogated by Tarja and Lord Wolfblade. He tried hard not to think of that day. The memories still hurt too much for him to be able to recall them willingly. Even the Keep’s unofficial name seemed to taunt him.
“But aren’t there guards on the tower?”
“Lord Jenga says it’s too dangerous up there and not worth repairing. The guards stay on the wall-walk. Once we get inside, we’ll be fine.” Mikel could hardly question such a confident assurance, so he trudged alongside the thief and prayed to the Overlord that Dace was right. “Besides,” Dace added cheerily, “It’s Founder’s Day. Lord Jenga declared a holiday. There won’t be many guards on duty.”
“What’s Founder’s Day?”
“It’s when the Medalonians celebrate the day they stole Medalon from the Harshini.” Dace suddenly stopped walking and grinned at Mikel. “Now that was an interesting time, let me tell you! The others were steaming mad. Of course, a theft on that scale made me stronger than Zegarnald for a time, but then the Sisterhood launched their purge and the fighting started and I went back to being just plain old me. It was fun for a while, though.”
“Dace, what are you talking about?”
The thief shrugged. “Nothing. Come on, we’d better hurry. It’s almost sundown and we won’t be able see the nest in the dark.”
Shaking his head, Mikel hurried after Dace. The boy had a habit of wandering off like that. It was very disconcerting.
As Dace predicted, they were not challenged as they passed through the gate into the Keep. The Defenders barely even glanced at them. Mikel followed as he walked boldly across the muddy yard to the dangerously crumbling steps that led to the tower. As they carefully climbed the broken stairs, Mikel understood why Lord Jenga had condemned the tower. The masonry wobbled under even his slight weight.
The sun appeared to be resting on the steep peaks of the Sanctuary Mountains as they reached the top of the tower. It was a blocky, square structure but the merlons had crumbled and in one corner there was nothing but a pile of fallen rubble, almost as tall as Mikel. It was to the pile that Dace led him, squeezing in through the narrow opening between the rubble and the wall. It smelled musty in the tiny cave formed by the ruined masonry, but the mother swallow had picked her location well. The nest was protected from the wind and from the eye of any roving hawk looking for an easy meal.
“See! Five eggs!” Dace declared.
“I can’t see a thing!” he complained. It was so dark inside the little cavern he could only make out Dace from his glittering eyes.
“Look, it’s over...”
“Sshhh!” Mikel froze as the sound of footsteps reached him. He turned slightly, so he could see outside.
It was Princess Adrina. He bit back a cry of surprise as a man joined her on the tower. The Hythrun
