Harshini

“I don't believe in destiny.”

“I know. That's why the Primal Gods are so worried.”

That thought actually cheered her a little. “The Primal Gods are worried?”

“They're worried,” he agreed.

“Good,” she declared petulantly. “They damned well should be.”

CHAPTER 3

R'shiel escaped the mess tent and the wedding feast as soon as she could slip away without being rude. She had arranged this wedding and felt that the least she could do was make some attempt to be sociable, although Brak's warning about Xaphista worried her more than she cared to admit. She had found herself studying faces in the candlelight, wondering who the Overlord would suborn. Which familiar face was really her enemy? Whose eyes hid treachery and whose were genuine in their friendship? She escaped the tent with relief, glad finally to be alone. Brak seemed to sense what bothered her and made no attempt to follow.

She paced the large Defender camp, too restless to seek her bed. Since returning from Sanctuary, R'shiel found she didn't need sleep the way she once had. While a useful trait at times, in the darkest hours of the night, when the human spirit was at its lowest ebb, she felt the burden of her destiny keenly. With Brak's caution about potential enemies ringing in her ears, tonight it seemed harder than usual.

But she was not unhappy. In fact, it was frightening to discover how much she was enjoying herself. She had told Brak she did not believe in destiny, but Joyhinia had unwittingly raised her for this. Every lesson she learnt at Joyhinia's knee was aimed at educating her in the art of survival in the cutthroat politics of the Sisters of the Blade.

R'shiel had rebelled against it as a child. Now she found it not only useful, but almost exhilarating. She frequently told Brak that she hated being the demon child, but there were times when it was intoxicating to have princes and princesses deferring to her. Even the Defenders, who had never treated her as much more than the annoying little sister of one of their officers, now treated her with cautious awe.

For the first time in her life she understood the attraction of power, but was still idealistic enough to hope that it would not corrupt her. R'shiel had not yet reached the point where she was willing to sacrifice anything to achieve her goals. But she was prepared to do a great deal. As Brak had said, she had chosen which side she would be on. All that remained now was for her to do what the Primal Gods had created her for - a destiny she had absolutely no idea how she was going to fulfil.

Her thoughts turned to Hythria, and the reason she had agreed to accompany Damin and Adrina south. Originally, she agreed to go with them to aid Damin's cause and to avert potential trouble now that he was married to the daughter of Hythria's most despised enemy. But in the past few days R'shiel had realised she had to go south because that was where the Sorcerers' Collective was located. If anybody left alive in this world had the knowledge of how to kill a god, the last human practitioners of magic would. R'shiel had already tasted Xaphista's lure and although she would never admit it to Brak, she doubted she could hold out against him a second time. She needed knowledge that even the Harshini did not possess. They had no idea how to kill a god. They couldn't even squash a flea.

Several turns around the large camp in the chilly starlight did nothing to ease her turmoil, so she decided to sit with Tarja for a time. In the darkness of the infirmary tent, the smell of lye soap sharp in her nose, she cooled his fevered forehead with a damp rag as he literally fought the demons that possessed him. Tarja drifted in and out of consciousness, but he never displayed even a hint of recognition. He would lie quietly at times, and then jerk against the bonds that restrained him so hard R'shiel wondered that the pallet did not break under the pressure. There was nothing she could do for him but hope. She did not have enough faith in the gods to waste her time praying.

As she watched him, she wondered if Xaphista would choose Tarja as the instrument of her destruction. It would be the cruellest jest he could play on her. She loved him; had loved him since she was a child. But Kalianah, the Goddess of Love, had imposed Tarja's love for her on him. Xaphista had told her that and she had no reason to doubt him. Tarja loved her because the gods willed it. He had been given no say in the matter, nor was he aware that the choice had not been his.

If Tarja ever learns of the geas, Xaphista will have no need to seduce him, R'shiel thought unhappily. Tarja's wrath would be enough. She knew that, as surely as she knew nothing she could do, nothing she could say would lessen his fury, should he ever discover what had been done to him.

As dawn slowly lightened the sky over the camp, R'shiel abandoned her depressing line of thought. No closer to finding a solution to the troubles that plagued her, she left the tent to find some breakfast and clean up before her meeting with Denjon and the other captains.

* * *

“We have a problem,” Denjon announced by way of greeting when she entered the mess tent. It had, by default, become their meeting place over the past two weeks. Brak and Captain Dorak were already there, sitting at one of the long tables nursing steaming mugs. The tables had been cleared from last night's party and the tent was empty other than for Brak and the Defenders. Captain Linst was sitting at the end of the table, the remains of his breakfast in front of him. None of the men rose as she entered. She had finally cured them of that, at least.

“Only one problem? When did things improve?”

Denjon treated her to a weary smile. He was a tall, rangy man, who had been a classmate of Tarja's when they were cadets. He had dark hair and the competent manner R'shiel associated with the Defenders. His proficiency was a credit to Jenga rather than a positive reflection on the Sisters of the Blade who commanded the Defenders.

“Perhaps I should re-phrase that. We have an urgent problem. The rest can wait an hour or two.”

“Where's Damin?”

“Still enjoying his wedding night, I suppose,” Dorak suggested with a grin.

“We can't wait for him,” Denjon shrugged. “We need to decide what we're going to do with the Karien prisoners. We've sat here far too long and the scouts have just brought news of another troop of Kariens coming in from the north, no doubt looking for their Prince.”

“We have to move out,” Linst added. “We can't take the Karien prisoners with us and we can hardly leave them here to announce what we're up to when the search party finds them.”

The problem of what to do with the Karien knights who had accompanied Prince Cratyn on his quest to find Adrina was one R'shiel had been hoping she would not have to face. When Denjon calmly announced he could “take care of a couple of hundred Kariens”, she had callously hoped they would simply die in battle, saving her the problem of what to do with them afterwards. The Defenders, however, were far too efficient to indulge in such needless bloodshed. They had rounded up the Kariens and taken them prisoner with only a handful of Karien casualties and none at all from their own ranks.

The prisoners had done nothing but drain their resources since that day. The young knight in command, Drendyn, the Earl of Tyler's Pass, was a noisy, inexperienced fellow who seemed stunned and heartbroken when he learnt that Adrina was also in the camp and obviously allied with his captors. For a fleeting moment, R'shiel wished she could do what Joyhinia had tried to do to the rebels. Simply put them to the sword and be done with them.

She had no more chance of getting the Defenders to follow that order than Joyhinia had in Testra.

“What do you suggest, Denjon?”

“I was hoping you'd have a suggestion,” he told her with a shrug. “You seem to have an answer for everything else these days.”

R'shiel frowned. “You think I can just wave my arm and solve all your problems for you?”

“That's what the Harshini do, isn't it?”

“That is your prejudice speaking, Captain,” Brak warned. “It does not help your cause to let it get in the