earned for Ikemmu,” she said, with pride in her voice. “The beasts we train will either defend the city, or we’ll sell them to the other races, which brings us coin. There is honor in both. There are also these.” She bared her left arm for Ashok. From shoulder to wrist, the beasts of the Shadowfell stared back at Ashok in tattoos. Shadow hounds and ravens, nightmares and serpents-one picture blended into the next.
“Are these the creatures you’ve broken?” Ashok asked.
Olra nodded. “They’re all a part of me. I own them, and they own me,” she said, indicating her scars.
Ashok nodded. He could think of nothing to say.
“You’d better go on, get your shoulder looked at,” Olra said. She walked away from him along the fence, her hand trailing against the bars. The nightmare measured her progress, but he didn’t attack the fence again.
“Aren’t you afraid of him?” Ashok called after her. “Afraid of fading?”
Olra stopped and turned to look at him. “Of course,” she said. “I had a predecessor, head of the Camborrs, just like I am now. How do you suppose he died?”
Behind the fence, the nightmare breathed and stamped the ground black.
Ashok went to the temple to accept Tempus’s healing, but he couldn’t shake the image of the nightmare from his thoughts. Maybe he’d been doomed from the moment he heard the beast’s scream, for when he’d been healed, Ashok found himself walking back to the Camborr pen. He spent time watching all the creatures as they were brought out: the shadow hounds, the jaguars, the serpents-any beast the caravan could capture.
But the nightmare was a creature apart from them all.
Ashok stood at the fence while Olra put the horse-it wasn’t right to call him that, Ashok thought, the name was demeaning-through his paces from a distance with a long whip. She never actually struck the creature; she couldn’t, unless her whip was iron-tipped. The flimsy leather end would burn to cinders if it got too near the nightmare’s flaring mane.
“It’s not going well,” Olra said when she saw Ashok. “No one’s going to be able to ride him. He sets fire to the ground whenever anyone comes near him, so we peck at him from behind the fence. It’s all we can do.”
The nightmare reared, biting at the whip that snapped near his face. Olra tried to jerk it free, but the nightmare yanked it out of her hands. Cursing, Olra backed away as the beast came at the fence and banged against the bars.
Olra dusted off her hands and went to stand beside Ashok. “He enjoys it,” she said, “knowing he’s the one in control. It’s all sport for him.”
Ashok shook his head. “It only makes the imprisonment bearable,” he said.
Olra blew out a sigh. “Well, whatever it is, it’s going to get him killed,” she said.
“What?” Ashok said. It came out sharper than he’d intended.
“What else would I do?” Olra said disgustedly. “The shadar-kai can’t use him, because of the nightmares. His screams would throw them off balance in a battle. I told you he was too wild, even for his kind. That’s what I’ll tell Uwan too.”
“Sell him,” Ashok said. “He must be valuable in coin.”
“Oh, he is,” Olra said. “Trained, he’d bring in a heap of coin. But wild as he is now, it would take just the right mix of wealth and crazy in a buyer to take him on, and I can’t wager on that person striding up out of thin air. Meanwhile I’m losing time trying to wrangle the beast, time that could be spent training the shadow hounds or the panthers. Them I can work.”
“Set him free, then,” Ashok said. He clenched the fence bars in agitation. “Take him up to the plain and release him. It’s a waste to kill him.”
Olra shook her head. “I can’t risk any of the Camborrs on that kind of mission. If something went wrong, I’d never be able to justify the loss of life to Uwan.”
“Yes, because Uwan protects his people,” Ashok said bitterly. “Except those he enslaves for no reason.”
He pressed his forehead against the iron bars. When would he outlive his novelty to the shadar-kai leader? Ashok wondered.
He stared at the nightmare for a long time, then he turned to Olra. “Let me break him,” he said.
Olra scoffed. “You’re out of your head,” she said. “Warriors in training don’t come inside my fence. You’ll be eaten alive.”
“And you’ll have lost nothing,” Ashok said. “You said yourself I’m not a Camborr, so my death wouldn’t matter to your work. But if I did make progress with the beast, then you’d be able to sell him for a great profit. Ikemmu would benefit from that coin-isn’t that what you want?”
“It’s not that easy,” Olra said. “You may be an outsider, but Uwan values you. I can’t do anything without speaking to him first.”
“Then speak to him,” Ashok said. “I’ll train your beast.”
CHAPTER NINE
Ashok’s first tenday in Ikemmu passed quickly, filled with hours of endless training and sparring, first with his own weapons and then others of Jamet’s choosing. At the end of any given day Ashok’s muscles were so thoroughly worked he could barely lift his arms. He fell into his bed, but he’d hardly closed his eyes when it seemed they were open again at the tolling of the Monril bell, and the whole process began anew. The teacher was tireless with his students, and the recruits were eager to learn.
His second tenday passed more slowly, as Ashok found himself with a bit more time to himself. He spent much of that in his abandoned building in the trade district, copying to parchment as much as he could remember about the city’s defenses and any weaknesses he noticed during his training sessions. By the end of the second tenday, he knew the names of many of the Guardians and their functions.
Some of them were teachers, like Jamet, but there were others he never saw in the training yard. They kept close counsel with Uwan, on the rare occasions Ashok saw the leader outside Tower Athanon. Once, he asked Skagi about it.
“They’re planning the next raid,” Skagi explained, as if it were obvious.
“I thought a caravan just left the city,” Ashok said. “Is there more than one that goes into the Shadowfell?”
Skagi shook his head. “This party’s going in the opposite direction, into the Underdark maybe-the details are kept quiet. The wealthiest traders coin the expeditions, and in return they profit from whatever goods are brought back and sold. But every raid is done with military support, a mix of sellswords and Tempus’s warriors.”
“The Underdark?” Ashok said. That was not a place in the Shadowfell, but in the mirror world. Still a place of caverns and tunnels deep underground, but not one that followed the ways of this plane.
Ashok stared at Skagi, and the shadar-kai laughed. “It’s true we haven’t trusted you with all our secrets,” he said. “In fact, you’ve only seen about half of them.” For some reason, that struck Skagi as intensely amusing. He was still chuckling when Ashok walked away in disgust, having been unable to pry any further information from him.
By the end of a month, Ashok had recorded as much information as he was going to get without arousing suspicions with his questions, though in truth he wondered if such a thing was possible. Cree, Skagi, and Chanoch, any shadar-kai he came in contact with was more than willing to share what they knew about life in Ikemmu. They accepted him without question, because they trusted Uwan. If their leader decreed it, there must be a purpose for Ashok’s presence in the city.
Ashok had yet to find out what that purpose was, and the mystery was driving him mad. He hadn’t spoken to Uwan since the day he’d attempted to escape. And every day since, though he’d thought of various ways to distract his captors, to use their trust to his advantage, Ashok found a reason not to try to escape the city. He told himself at first that it was because he hadn’t collected enough intelligence. His father would demand nothing less than a complete report on the city and its defenses.
When he’d exhausted all possible sources of information, Ashok decided it would be best to take as much training as Uwan offered. He’d been strong before, but he could feel himself changing every day he spent in the city.
