a few words.’
‘What they did to my girls, Lucian –’ Harker said and Lucian heard the break in the man’s voice. ‘My Florenza’s face bruised and swollen, and Jorja’s hand crushed.’
Harker led them to the path that would take them to the highest cave.
‘Stay with Kasabian,’ Lucian said to Jory. ‘You know what to do if I don’t return.’
With only Harker’s lantern to light the path, they began the climb. Each cave they passed brought with it the sound of whispering. Higher up, they could hear sobbing and cursing.
‘Ginny, the traitor,’ Harker said. ‘She’s hysterical and under guard.’
‘And Rafuel?’ Lucian asked quietly. ‘Were you able to find out anything?’
‘He’s a dead man walking, Lucian. A dead man walking.’
It was a strange sort of grief Lucian felt for Rafuel. He wondered when these people had begun to feel like kin. When their fate had become his responsibility?
They continued climbing, using their hands to steady themselves, reaching a rock ledge where Lucian made out the shadow of one man, then two. But he knew they had a way to go if Phaedra and the women were placed in the highest cave. Worse still, he was certain there was little chance of getting past the camp leaders on so narrow and dark a path without incident. But Lucian felt desperate to see Phaedra and he kept on walking.
‘Don’t come any further, Mont,’ he heard Donashe say. ‘This is Charynite business, not yours.’
‘You have my wife,’ Lucian said as Donashe stepped out onto the ledge, an oil lamp in his hand. ‘That’s my business, not Charyn’s.’
‘Your wife is under arrest for hiding a king killer.’
‘Why so concerned about a king killer, Donashe?’ Lucian said. ‘The way I hear it, you managed to finish off the rest of the King’s family in the Citavita. So what does that make you?’
Lucian saw the fervour in the man’s eyes, but also the desperation. With Quintana in his camp, the Charynite was never so close to the prize. But from what Lucian knew, Donashe had been betrayed by his men before and he would be desperate not to take chances.
‘I’m going to give you a warning, Mont,’ Donashe said. ‘In days to come, Bestiano of Nebia and the entire Nebian army will be arriving in this valley. Don’t let me have to tell them that the Lumaterans were hiding the king killer for all these months, because, unlike me, they’ll cross that stream and they won’t stop at your mountain. They’ll follow the path to your palace.’
‘I want to see my wife,’ Lucian said, keeping his voice even. ‘And if I don’t see my wife tonight, I’m going to give you a warning. In the hours to come, I can have the whole Mont army in this valley. Don’t let me have to tell them that you just made a threat to their cousin the Queen, her consort and their child, because, unlike me, they’ll tear you to pieces.’
Donashe allowed the threat to register.
‘The white witch and her girl is with them. Haven’t I allowed enough, friend?’ he asked.
‘I’m not leaving until I see my wife,’ Lucian said.
Donashe turned to his companion. Lucian heard the whispering and watched the man leave with Donashe’s oil lamp, the light bobbing all the way to the top. It was nothing less than a prison and there would be no easy way of getting the women off this rock. No hope for their escape.
‘Phaedra?’ He leapt up the steps, but Donashe was there to stop him.
‘You speak to her from here.’
‘I can’t see her!’ Lucian said, through gritted teeth.
‘Lucian,’ he heard Tesadora call out. ‘Don’t bring danger to the mountain. For now, do as they say.’
‘Are you free to come and go, Tesadora?’
‘Yes, but Phaedra and the women aren’t.’
‘Phaedra,’ he called out again, cursing the stars and the moon for being on a tyrant’s side tonight. He just wanted to see her face.
‘Yes, Luc-ien.’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No, just frightened. I’m very frightened. We all are.’
There was a tremble in Phaedra’s voice and it shattered something inside of Lucian to hear it.
‘I’ll come again tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I promise.’
Donashe gripped his arm.
‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Mont.’
Lucian pulled free.
‘I never make promises I can’t keep, Donashe. And I promise you this: if you so much as lay another hand on these women, I will kill you. It will happen when you least expect it. It will be an arrow to your heart and its precision will remind you that if my father hadn’t been killed at the hands of a Charynite, I would not be leading his people. I would be an assassin in the Queen’s Guard because I don’t miss a mark.’
And with those words he began his descent down the rock with Harker, taking each step slowly for fear of tumbling into the darkness.
‘I hate to be grateful for other people’s misfortune, Lucian,’ Harker said quietly, ‘but our greatest consolation may have been the death of your father. I can’t imagine what would have happened to my people if you weren’t leading the Monts.’
Lucian stared down at the steep stone steps all the way to the bottom, and his throat tightened with emotion. The valley dwellers stood on each side of the path, either holding a lantern or candle, and lighting Harker and Lucian’s way.
‘My father would never have forsaken a neighbour,’ Lucian said. ‘Never.’
‘Then he taught his son well, lad. He taught his son well.’
Chapter 37
Froi couldn’t hear.
At first he thought the rage of battle was eating the voices, but then he knew it was inside of him. A chilling silence. It made the horror surrounding him all the worse.
He had ridden with Dorcas and Fekra, desperate to reach the battle between the two hills. To put a stop to Charynites killing Charynites. It was under a waning light that the three entered the field of carnage. Once the sun set, it would be next to impossible to put an end to it all, and they were fighting for time. It was his voice that had done it. ‘
And then all he could see was Fekra’s mouth moving, but nothing coming out. He watched Dorcas and Fekra pull off their cloak and tunics and it was how the two rode into that valley: with white undershirts on their swords.
White flags of surrender.
But it didn’t stop arrows hitting their marks and men falling to their knees, and it didn’t stop axes wedging themselves into the sinews of men’s throats, or swords slicing an arm clear off a body. Froi dismounted to stand amidst battle rage that had men in a frenzy, their senses attuned to nothing but killing and surviving. Not surrendering. In battle rage no one was searching for a way to end fighting. It was pure instinct and the instinct here was to kill. And leading Dorcas and Fekra, Froi knew he had to find a way, and perhaps he spoke the question out loud, because he saw Fekra’s mouth holler and he read the instruction on his lips.
So Froi made his way through the mute scene, not knowing who he was looking for. And he saw familiar faces sprawled across this blood-drenched piece of land. He was a farmer and he could tell it was fertile land. It was a place for growing, not dying. And he found Joyner, whose gods’ blessed hands had toiled at the etchings on Froi’s body, and beside Joyner lay the Turlan lad who had won the tournament against the Lasconians. And on and
