Blood in the Valley Read online

  They had been at their sadistic game since the column halted, far back from the front, though the columns of smoke that must assuredly mark the fighting around Eredynn blew back over them to color the evening in hazy crimson. They were nominally her guards but had apparently decided their role also included the duty of torture.

  A hobgoblin sidled around to the far side and approached her, dragging the steel of its knife along the bars with a rattle as its eyes gleamed and its fangs gnashed. Its compatriots giggled and urged it on with grunts. It drew near and reached the weapon through to shake its point at her.

  The hobgoblin with the bone reached in from the other side, sneering in butchered Thyrrian standard, “We take it easy on you, pretty. Don’t fret.”

  Illah rolled away from the hobgoblin with the knife and as she came to lay on her back in the center of the cart, shot her free foot at the bone-wielding brute. The heel of her boot struck its wrist with a snap of bone. The hobgoblin shrieked and fell back, its implement dropping to the floor of her prison. Its comrades guffawed at its misfortune and it lunged back to the bars, foam from its lips speckling the air as it bawled, “You die for that, elf bitch!”

  The pair of hobgoblins on the other side stopped laughing, their gazes going to something in the shadows behind their companion. Steel sang from a sheath. The broken-armed creature saw the looks on their faces and turned slowly.

  A mounted figure silhouetted black by the light of campfires behind it waited, a drawn blade shining silver. The hobgoblins backed away from the cart and the figure got down from its steed and advanced to it, sheathing its weapon as they scurried away.

  Illah’s stomach soured and the knot on her skull throbbed. She retreated into the corner of the cart again, wishing with all that she was that she had only hobgoblins to deal with.

  Lonadiel looked in on her with a jovial smile, as if they had just come out of one of the many scrapes they had survived, ranging the Valley, together. “I apologize for the state of your lodgings,” he said pleasantly.

  The nausea spiking within her, Illah lurched forward and spat into his face. “Save the platitudes for your ‘mistress’, demon worshipper!”

  Lonadiel wiped the spittle and blood from her split lips away. “I see you’ve regained some of your old spark.”

  “Let me out of here and you’ll see a spark!”

  “Maybe,” Lonadiel said with a chuckle. “But not just yet.”

  “What do you want?” Illah turned away from him. “Did you come to taunt me?”

  “No.”

  “What then, traitor?”

  “I came to give you what you have desired, all along: an explanation.”

  Illah glanced over her shoulder. Lonadiel’s face held none of the horrid, hell-driven exaltation she had seen in Satayebeb’s tent, just the wearied grin she’d seen so often on the trail. She could almost fool herself into believing it really was him. “Don’t waste your breath on me,” she growled, “because I already understand.”

  “Oh, you do?” he said with an arching of his brows. “Well, then, wise one; please explain.”

  “You wanted power. You always did.” Illah shook her head. “I should have seen it. The Masters feared you because they knew how you hungered for it. When you found all paths to personal glory shut amongst them, you sought it elsewhere.”

  “Truly inspired deduction, Illah,” Lonadiel said with mocking that turned her stomach further. “All of these things are correct.”

  “This demon seduced you into its schemes. The barbarian uprising was all part of it, wasn’t it?”

  “It was.”

  “And you played your part in it well, didn’t you?” Tasting blood again, Illah spat, speckling Lonadiel, though he didn’t seem to notice. “You’re still playing it.”

  “I am.”

  “You have everything you sought, then.”

  “Not everything.” Lonadiel’s voice softened though his eyes drilled into hers.

  Illah forced herself to look away, could not bear to be in those eyes, seeing herself, remembered times together, lying side-by-side through long nights under the moon, happy and thrilled in the risk of what they were doing. “Don’t say it, Lonadiel,” she pleaded, voice failing her and coming out a tremulous whisper.

  “I love you.”

  “You lie,” she said through gritting teeth.

  “I’m not,” he replied. “What I really wanted was you.”

  “You’re lying!” she shrieked and spun to face him, bound hands clenching the bar. “The only thing you love is yourself! The gods help me, I couldn’t see before—”

  “Because you loved me.”

  “Because I was blind!” Tears rushed out but Illah ignored them, ignored the building fury of her headache and the drain of exposure and lack of sleep or food. “The Yntuil were to be a stepping stone for you, the back country elf with no noble connections, no honor. You never cared for our mission, our ways. And I—gods!—I saw the world your way, corrupted by the rot of your ambitions. I was your Sa’atel, a holy trust! But I was still just part of your game!”

  Lonadiel stared at her for a long time with a hint of what might have been hurt flickering behind his eyes. He turned away finally. A commotion was rippling through the camps. A shrill, triumphant call to the night tore the air, and a bat-winged shadow—the wyvern Illah had seen skimming over the column through the day—heaved into the sky, parting the smoldering haze before disappearing with another, drawn out shriek.

  “Your mistress leaves without you?” Illah said, letting her tone go mocking. “It must grow lonely, pledged to such things.”

  Lonadiel sighed and shook his head. “You have it wrong, Illah. Yes, I wanted power. But it was the power to be free, to be what I wanted—to be what we wanted.”

  “More lies!” Illah flung herself back onto the floor of the cart, covering her face in cupped hands. “By Zaiden, just go away and poison my ears no more!”

  Silence dragged, tickled at the back of Illah’s mind, taunting her into meeting his gaze again. Staring into the darkness of her palms, she began to wonder if he was still there.

  “I will go,” Lonadiel’s voice said, “if you can make me believe that you don’t still love me.”

  Illah clenched her hands tight against her face then released it to turn slowly and look him in the eye. Still, he grinned at her, that elfin approximation of roguishness glimmered in the corners of his face. The words, when they came to her, felt like flakes of her soul peeled away.

  “I don’t love you.”

  Lonadiel shook his head. “Now who’s the liar?”

  “It’s been so long since you knew truth,” Illah snarled, “that I doubt you’d know the difference!”

  “Truth...lies.” Lonadiel sighed. “Black and white: the Yntuil way. But that’s not the way the world works, Illah. Not really.”

  “Of course, it isn’t,” Illah spat back at him. “You think I didn’t know that? But it was the ideal that defined us—defined the Order. Living as close to that ideal as possible set an example for others.”

  Lonadiel’s grin lost some of its forced intensity behind a ripple of bitterness. “Living as close to it as possible ate us alive.”

  “I’m still here,” Illah replied with a proud upwards jut of her chin.

  “Yes, you are—” Lonadiel flicked his eyebrows “—with me.”

  Illah had to fight down a chuckle of grim amusement; whatever else had gone so wrong in Lonadiel, his biting wit remained intact. “I came here to destroy the evil you have given yourself to,” she said.

  “But not to destroy me?” His tone changed, took on a hint of hopefulness.

  “If you stand in my way, I will.” Illah narrowed her eyes, sought for that glimmer of vulnerability she thought she’d glimpsed.

  Lonadiel let his gaze wander off into the hazy dark, thoughtful. “What if I didn’t?”

  Illah’s breath drew in. Instantly, she cursed herself for the flash of weakness. He would not
ice, know that he had her at the edge of his trap, but something snared her, that cloying hope that what she saw before her—the flashes of the old Lonadiel—was not just illusion. She curled her lip, forced rage back to the surface. “You’re playing your games with me, again.”

  “No, I’m not.” He met her gaze again, eyes flashing with sudden energy. “Slay Satayebeb. End her hellish reign before it begins.”

  “Do it yourself.”

  “I am too close to her,” he replied. “I would fail.”

  Illah snorted. “How convenient for you.”

  “Listen to me,” Lonadiel pressed on, the energy in his eyes flaring to a near tangible glow in his pupils. “I have seen her plans, her delusions. Goddess or not, even if she wins here, she cannot hope to triumph. And the Valley will be in ruins, a political vacuum into which any power could move in and dominate.” He paused, drew in a breath that rattled against a quivering heart, and smiled.

  “You and I could be that power, Illah.”

  Illah didn’t recall coming to her feet, nor did she remember being drawn across the cart to the bars, only inches from Lonadiel’s face. But suddenly, his hands were reaching through the cage, were pressing upon her shoulders, drawing her into the growing light blazing crimson in his eyes. She felt his breath upon her, husky and hot on her skin, settling there with an oiliness like spilt blood.

  She recoiled from his grasp, her senses hers again. “And who would save the world from us?” she retorted hoarsely, repulsed by herself, her vulnerability to him still.

  Lonadiel let the hands he held out to her through bars sag, his voice hardening with an edge of angry impatience. “That’s where the Yntuil had it wrong, Illah; the world doesn’t want to be saved! It wants to be dominated, left without worry, without doubt, all the decisions that plague it taken away.”

  “You’re wrong,” Illah replied and turned away from him. “And I don’t know you anymore.”

  “You’re fooling yourself,” Lonadiel said, his tone easing, an obvious regrouping going on in his demeanor. “I remember the old days. You didn’t just show yourself to anyone, Illah. You were always hard like that, a sharp piece of flint. But the right hand could hold you. You showed yourself to me, gave yourself to me, loved me.”

  “I loved a lie.”

  “No,” he insisted, his voice shifting to a mournful note, “you loved the truth of me. You loved me for the shadow as well as the light—”

  “Well, now that there’s nothing left but the shadow, there is nothing!”

  “You loved the shadow in yourself, as well.” Lonadiel’s tenor took on a note of desperation now. “And we loved each other, came together, taking comfort in the shadow.”

  Illah glanced over her shoulder at him. The anguish in his face looked real—the conflict in his eyes felt real. But...

  “I’ll not join you there again, Lonadiel.”

  Lonadiel’s visage quivered. “Yes, you will,” he said. “You already have.”

  VOHL STOOD WITH MUDDLE, Dodso, and a throng of Eredynn City Watch commanders before Vennitius’ desk in the Imperial Palace, occupied now by quivering, wild-eyed Kodror Aigann. Vohl, still spattered with blood from the brief but hard fight down by the docks, worked his right shoulder absently as the others debated, massaged cramps from the muscles of his sword arm.

  “It’s not my fault!” Aigann wailed. Firelight from the still-smoldering shanty town outside the city filtered through a nearby window to color his gaunt face red and pick out deep shadows. “Vennitius was to have intercepted the goblins far south of here. The fight was never to have reached the city!”

  “Do we have any word of the Strategos?” Dodso asked.

  Aigann’s eyes quivered before a momentary clenching of the lids allowed him control again. “We...a few stragglers have gotten through with stories of an ambush.”

  Dodso glanced at Vohl. “And the rest of the Legion?”

  “It cannot be true...what they said...”

  “What did they tell you?” Dodso’s voice hardened.

  “They said...” Aigann’s gaze went to the window, eyes glazing.

  “Procurator—”

  “They said the Legion was destroyed,” Aigann replied in a small, childish voice.

  Vohl winced and exchanged a glance with Muddle. Men of the City Watch began babbling at once. Ulomo, who’d followed them to the meeting in chilly formality, paled and glanced once Vohl’s way.

  Dodso’s head fell, his arms drooping at his sides. He turned to Vohl and said, “Then our worst fears are realized.”

  “The stories cannot be true!” Aigann insisted. “Vennitius could not have been defeated so easily.”

  “Why would the survivors lie?” Vohl asked, not really expecting an answer. In his rapidly darkening mood, the scene took on the ludicrousness of black comedy.

  “They wouldn’t have,” Ulomo agreed.

  “They have to be mistaken,” one of the City Watch commanders said. “Perhaps they were stragglers, looking to excuse their desertion.”

  “Are you serious?” Fatigue took the patience from Vohl’s voice, brought to it a hard irony. “Did you see the force arrayed out there? There are thousands of goblins, certainly enough to overwhelm the Legion if they caught them unawares.”

  “No!” Aigann barked. “And talk like that borders on treason, Mister Rhenn! I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me why you or your pet are present here!”

  Vohl smiled menacingly at the Procurator, his nerves quivering on the edge of murderous rage. “I am a member of the Merchant’s Guild and of the City Watch, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  Aigann snorted. “Owning a roadhouse qualifies you as a leading citizen now, does it, now?”

  “This is accomplishing nothing!” Dodso said, raising his voice over the others while casting Vohl a warning look. He turned again to Aigann. “Let us assume Vennitius is merely...cut off. He will still have to force his way through the siege lines to get to us. We need to plan accordingly. We need to assume we’re on our own.”

  The words seem to bring calm to Aigann. “All right. What of it?”

  “We need to know what force we have still within the city walls,” Dodso said.

  “I know what we have, gnome!” Aigann snarled, the calm slipping just as quickly as it had asserted itself.

  “I wasn’t suggesting you didn’t, Procurator,” Dodso replied cautiously. “But we need to know what we have to work with, don’t you think?”

  “Yes...yes...” Aigann blinked and his voice resumed an almost businesslike tenor. “We...ah...we have the Veteran Cohort and elements of the Engineering Cohort. We have the City Watch and the Palace Guard.”

  “And we have the Eredynn, Andenburgh, Edonite, and Arhem centaur contingents of the Expeditionary Force,” Dodso added. “As well as Captain Ulomo’s cohort.”

  “I know that!” Aigann snapped. He leaned back in his chair, eyeing the gathering for signs of challenge. Apparently deciding he was in control again, he continued. “That gives us several hundred, yes? Maybe a thousand?”

  “It does.” Dodso glanced at the City Watch commanders. “All of you know the districts that fall under your respective responsibilities. What are the conditions of the walls?”

  One of the Watch men, an overweight fop in the finery of a silk merchant, shrugged. “The wall is in disrepair in several points. The worst is to the northeast, opposite the plains, where Imperial Decree permitted us some...ah...latitude to quarry for capital improvements.”

  “Built yourself a nice addition to your mansion, did you Severs?” one of the other Watch officers sneered. Speaking over the flushed merchant’s protests, the man added, “The southeast is little better. There is one notable breach, at least, that the goblin-scum could exploit.”

  “The main gate is in the best order,” Vohl spoke up, some his earlier anger fading behind resignation. “And I’ve seen some of the points you gentlemen speak of; they could be strengthened to offer good resistance,
if we mobilize the general population immediately.”

  “Agreed,” Dodso said, nodding. “We organize work parties under the Engineers to build up palisades and reinforce the weak points with elements of the Veteran Cohort and the Palace Guard.”

  “The Palace Guard must defend the Palace!” Aigann stated, sounding shocked that anything else would be suggested.

  “Procurator Aigann—”

  “And from where do you derive the authority to issue orders in my stead, gnome?”

  Dodso began to respond but held his tongue, took a deep breath instead. The City Watch commanders glanced amongst one another, clearly unwilling to be the first to back him and incur the unstable Aigann’s wrath. Dodso stepped forward and put his hands on the edge of the desk, for the world looking like an aged child pleading before a parent whose judgment had clearly slipped. “Procurator, no one is issuing any orders. We’re discussing. Issue the orders, if you like. But we must decide on a unified course.”

  “Oh, and now the glorious hero of the barbarian uprising decides to lecture me on strategy, is that it?” Aigann giggled, his face slackened and eyes gone glassy. “I am in command, here. Me! The Strategos decreed that it be so!”

  “And we are yours to command, of course,” Dodso said with a bow Vohl knew must have hurt more than being smacked in the face.

  “And let me say one more thing,” Aigann continued with manic energy building behind his trembling voice like an avalanche. “I want to know just where in the Hells you have been, Master Dodso, with the balance of this city’s fighting men?”

  Dodso stiffened and Vohl could see crimson mottling his face behind quivering whiskers. He shot Ulomo a look that the Legionnaire visibly avoided. “I was waiting on the other side of the lake for orders to return—” he glared into Aigann’s face “—as you, yourself, know.”

  “Orders you have apparently ignored,” Aigann said with a dangerous flicker of a grin. “Which brings me to my next point—guards!”

  The doors to the office swung open to admit six men in the purple and red-lined livery of the Palace Guard, all armed. Muddle tensed at Vohl’s side and sweat prickled across the back of Vohl’s neck at the realization that none had been admitted into Aigann’s presence with weapons on them. Son of a bitch...