Chains of Light Page 5

  "Wake him up!" she shrilled.

  The answering voice was low, male, and Delan thought it might have been Jyase. "I've been trying!"

  "He needs to suffer more. He needs to break before dawn!"

  "I know!" It was definitely Jyase, and he sounded annoyed.

  Delan winced as the clear sound of a slap rang through the clearing.

  "Do not dare take that tone with me ever!" the woman snapped. "Who do you think you are? Do you think just because we put a sword in your hand, that you're important? That you're equal to even the least of the Sisters?"

  "I brought you the pretender god!" Jyase protested. "Does that mean nothing?"

  "It means you're an exceptionally useful male, but you are still just a male," the woman said, her voice thick with contempt. "You are chattel, like a stallion or a bull, good only for the strength of your back and the potency of your seed. And perhaps not even for that. I think perhaps this has given you an elevated sense of your own worth. Perhaps when this is all over with and the Light reigns supreme, it will be time to temper you."

  Delan shuddered, hearing Jyase moan and start to beg. "No, Serenity! Please, I... I’ll remember my place. Please... it was the moment, and frustration that... that I could not fulfill your wishes. Please, forgive me. I will make amends."

  "You will. On your knees, dog, and show me how contrite you are. You will not rise from that position save at my command."

  "Yes, Serenity."

  The sounds that followed were clear, the sound of a woman taking her pleasure. As the Priestess' moaned and cried her climax to the night, Delan turned away and saw Brina arch an eyebrow at him. He leaned toward her, pressing his head against hers.

  "What did she mean?" Brina whispered. "Temper?"

  "She means to geld him," Delan answered.

  Brina nodded, then gestured away from the tent. Delan followed her back into the undergrowth, until they were far enough away from the clearing that he felt safe taking his scarf from his face.

  "That's a high ranking Priestess, or I'll eat my armor," Brina said as she sat down facing him. "Possibly the High Priestess herself, the bitch. I can't see her entrusting this to any of her subordinates. One of them might get airs and try to overthrow her."

  Delan looked back the way they'd come. "No one's noticed the missing sentry. Isn't that odd?"

  "The males have all been idiots. I'm not surprised—" Brina started to say, but stopped, cocked her head to the side, her expression thoughtful. "The men have all been idiots," she repeated.

  "I thought so, too," Delan agreed. "One of the ones I took down was smoking dreamweed and had built a fire."

  "It's as if they didn't know what was expected of them," Brina continued slowly.

  "Perhaps they didn't?" Delan suggested. "Conscripts from surrounding farms, forced into arms."

  "I'd say maybe, but there are strong penalties for smoking dreamweed in the villages around here. This trash came from further afield."

  The answer hit all at once. "Delinquents," Delan said. "There are delinquency camps for incorrigible males, or so my grandmother claimed. She used to threaten to send me to one at least once every moon. From what I've heard, they do whatever they have to do so that they can break a male and remake him into something properly submissive."

  "I've heard of them," Brina said softly. "And dream heads would be sent there, wouldn't they? So they're using delinquents? Addicts, bandits, thieves, those sort of men."

  "It makes sense," Delan agreed. "Why some of them seem to know what they're doing, and why none of them seem to care what happens to the others. Why no one has come looking for the missing. I wonder how many have run off already?"

  "Enough that she doesn't seem to think it worth looking for the one who left the camp and never came back. Or perhaps that's just because he's simply a male. Warrior, I'll never understand how they can think so little of you."

  Delan didn’t answer. It didn’t seem to warrant an answer when he had never understood it either. "It will make it easier to run the rest of them off, though. If they feel no loyalty to the Light, then they won't stay around when we attack."

  "Do you have a plan?" Brina asked.

  Delan leaned back against a tree thinking furiously. The man he'd killed came to mind, crouched over his tiny fire, smoking the deadly weed.

  "Yes. I have an idea."

  THE DROUGHT AND THE drying frost made the entire wood a potential tinderbox, and the challenge became not starting the fire, but burning too much and having the flames rage out of control.

  "We want this to burn itself out, not take the whole area," Delan said as he and Brina worked to stack the deadfall just so.

  "You've done this before," Brina accused.

  "Once. To flush out a group of raiders. Just..." He frowned, looking at the bonfire-to-be. "We had a mage with us. She made it look like a lightning strike, to hide our position. It was useful, being able to start the fire from someplace else."

  Brina heard the question he wasn't asking, and answered it, "I don't have that kind of power. That's why I'm a warrior. My magic is very basic."

  "Do I have that kind of power?" Delan asked. "You said Holy Mother saw the signs on me, and I'm a Lyan priest now. If I'm the High Priest to the god of male magic, that means I should have some kind of magic myself. Doesn't it? So is that something I can use?"

  Brina looked stunned. "I... don't know!" she stammered. "This... this is virgin ground for me, Delan. I've never worked with a male mage before."

  "Well, forget I have a cock and imagine me with tits then," Delan suggested. "How do I start?"

  The last thing he expected was Brina to start giggling, then whooping with laughter, muffling the sound with her hands and her scarf until she managed to get herself under control. Once she had, she wiped her eyes and shook her head.

  "I'm sorry," she murmured. "But you'd make a damned homely woman, Delan."

  "Can we get on with this?" Delan snapped.

  Brina snorted, taking a long breath and stepped forward.

  "Right. May I touch you?" she asked.

  Delan nodded, and Brina lay cold hands on either side of his face, closing her eyes. It was something that the Holy Mother had done the day Delan had come to the Temple, something he hadn't questioned at the time. Now, though...

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "Hush. Let me see. Oh. Oh, yes. You do have potential. Can you feel me? Feel what I'm doing?"

  "No... wait. Yes, I think so." Delan closed his eyes and frowned, feeling something. Heat? Pressure? He wasn't sure, but there was definitely something inside his head. Just to see, he pushed back, and heard Brina snort once more.

  "Good. Very good," she murmured. "Most of the time beginners can't even do that much. All right. Watch what I do."

  Delan wasn't certain what she meant, until the presence in his mind moved. He followed it, amazed, until he found himself standing at the edge of something.

  "What is this?" he asked

  "Where you end and everything else begins," Brina answered. "This is where you set your ground. Think of it as your foundation. Once this is set and ready, we'll go further."

  Delan nodded, following Brina's directions. He growled in frustration as she easily knocked aside his first attempts. "Do we have time for this?" he demanded.

  "It's been less time than you think," Brina answered, sounding amused. "Listen."

  Delan did as he was bid, and heard a long, deep thump, as if someone had sounded a sustained note on a drum. There was a long pause, then he heard it again. "What is that?" he asked.

  "Your heartbeat. Working like this only seems to take a long time. Now rebuild that ground!"

  Finally, Delan had built something Brina could not knock over, and she pronounced passable. "Now, you're ready to tap into the lifestream."

  "The lifestream?" Delan repeated. "Ah... is that where the magic comes from?"

  "Yes. And I'm not sure if this is going to work. Or how to show you h
ow to do this. The lifestream is a very female thing." Brina hesitated, then asked, "Tell me what you see?"

  Delan looked around, confused. "I don't see anything."

  "There's no river? I see a river, just over the edges of my awareness. That's the lifestream."

  Delan moved back to the edge, looking down into what Brina had said was the beginning of everything. "I don't see anything. Why a river?"

  "Because women's magic and women's cycles are tidal," Brina answered. "Oh... I see. Or rather, I don't. There's nothing here for you to tap in to."

  Delan opened his eyes and found himself back in the winter woods. "Because Lyas hasn't returned. No men's magic. So we're stuck. I have magic, but I can't use it. Not until we know what I'm supposed to be doing."

  "And we won't know that until we save Lyander," Brina finished, shaking her head slightly as she reached into her belt-pouch and brought out her tinderbox. "Well, then. We start the fire the usual way."

  "Give it to me," Delan said, holding his hand out.

  "I can start a fire, Delan."

  "I've no doubt, considering you remembered to bring a tinderbox and I didn't. How are you at setting a fire so that it burns slowly?"

  Brina looked at him, then handed him the tinderbox. Delan went awkwardly to one knee and set the tiny fire, hiding it behind part of the deadfall. He examined his work for a moment, picked up a larger piece of wood and sniffed it, then set it into place. He got slowly to his feet. "We should have enough time to get back to that cover we had before."

  "Good. What then?"

  "We'll see."

  Chapter 6

  Freed

  By the time they'd reached the cover closest to the ruins and the tent, they could hear the torture had started once more. Delan flinched at the unmistakable sound of a whip cut through the air, followed by muffled cries of pain.

  "They've gagged him," Brina murmured. "Oh, Mother, what has he ever done to deserve this? The poor innocent."

  "We'll get him out," Delan whispered. "We'll bring him home. We'll help him—"

  The rest of his thought was cut off by a distant popping sound. Delan turned and saw a red-gold glow and billowing smoke.

  "Must have been pitch pockets in the wood," he said softly as he drew one of the remaining arrows from his quiver and set it to the string of his bow. "Hopefully, not too much. I don't want the whole forest to go up in flames, but with it this dry, it just might."

  "What was that?" the Priestess inside the tent demanded. "Maris, go and see."

  A young woman appeared, and Delan was close enough to see the front of her white robes were liberally decorated with blood. He glanced at Brina, who nodded.

  The arrow took the priestess in the back of the neck, and she fell without a cry, but the sound of her body hitting the ground was enough to draw the attention of one of the guards. This time, Delan's aim wasn't as good, and the guard screamed as he fell.

  "Shit!" Delan swore as he pulled another arrow free. He drew and released in a single smooth motion, and a second guard fell. He heard crashing from behind them, heard Brina engage. More noise coming toward him fast, and he turned and used the bow to barely block a blow from a club that would have crushed his skull. It did shatter the bow, and Delan threw the broken pieces at his attacker as he rolled away and drew his sword, expecting to have his brains bashed in at any moment. But the attack didn't come. The man stopped with his club raised, then looked over Delan's head and went pale.

  "Fire!" he shouted. He glanced at Delan, cursed, turned, and ran.

  "That was easy," Brina muttered, breathing heavily.

  Delan got to his feet and looked at her, there was blood on her sword and more on her sleeve. She dismissed it with a shake of her head. "Not mine. That was the last guard, wasn't it?"

  "Unless I counted wrong," Delan answered. "Now it's just Jyase and the Priestess. Which do you want?"

  "Oh, give me the Light bitch." Brina almost growled.

  "She's yours. Let's get done and get out of here before that fire catches us." Delan said as he moved out of the bushes and toward the tent, stopping when Jyase appeared. The other man looked at him, clearly surprised.

  "Well, if it isn't the little caretaker," Jyase said. "Thought we killed you."

  "I don't die easily," Delan replied.

  "We'll see." Jyase laughed and drew his own sword.

  Delan tuned out the sounds of the fire, popping and crackling in the distance, and the much closer sound of the Priestess shouting in alarm for her guard. Now, there was only Jyase.

  Jyase smirked, then lowered his head, starting to circle to his right. "No attacks?"

  "You first," Delan answered, his movement mirroring Jyase's, his sword coming up to guard. Watch the eyes. Watch the eyes, not the blade. Watch the shoulders. He saw Jyase's arms tense and was ready, blocking the blow easily, even though the strength behind it made him stagger back a step. He was still ready for the next blow, though. And the next, and with that third blow, Delan recognized the pattern, and realized Jyase knew nothing at all about real sword fighting.

  "They taught you by the numbers, didn't they?" Delan called, feeling the smile starting as Jyase went pale. "You poor bastard. They gave you just enough slack in the leash that you thought you were free."

  "Are we fighting or talking?"

  "Do you want to be free?" Delan asked. "Put your sword up. Help me bring him home. You cared for him once—"

  "I lied," Jyase snapped. "I lied to him and to all of them. And the idiots believed me."

  "Then run," Delan said. "Because I’ll kill you if you stay."

  "Really? A cripple like you?" Jyase attacked again, a thrust Delan knew was the next attack in the number sequence. He parried easily and attacked in earnest, the unconventional fighting style that Arthemia had pushed him to learn. Delan saw the panic in Jyase's eyes as the man struggled to defend himself. Panic that only grew as Delan got through his guard time and time again, until his sleeves and trousers were sliced to ribbons and streaked with blood, and his breathing was ragged and filled with pain.

  Delan stopped, meeting Jyase's eyes. "Yield, and I'll let you live."

  "She'll kill me. If I let you live, she'll worse than kill me." Jyase gasped. "Better to die."

  Delan sighed. "All right." He attacked again. This time to his shock, Jyase didn't even try to defend himself. Delan's sword struck at the juncture of his shoulder and neck, slicing clean through his throat. Jyase fell backward, made a horrific gurgling noise, then fell still.

  Delan stood for a moment over Jyase's body, panting hard. "You poor bastard," he muttered, then looked around. "Brina!"

  No answer. He couldn't hear anything, which left him with no idea where Brina was, or the Priestess. He didn't care, either. Right now, he needed to get Lyander. He turned and stumbled into the tent, gagging at the thick smell of blood and incense.

  The first thing he saw was the altar; a rough structure of wood and stone that looked as if it had been cobbled together from debris found in the ruin. There were tools on the surface; a whip, a knife, other things that Delan couldn't even put names to. The blade of the knife was still wet with blood. Lyander’s chains were there, too, the shackles broken. Beyond the altar was a brazier, and beyond the brazier...

  "Lyander!" Delan rushed around the altar and past the brazier. They'd hung Lyander by the wrists from the ridgepole, and he dangled there, his feet barely brushing the ground, seemingly unconscious, so badly beaten Delan couldn't even begin to catalog his injuries. He gingerly touched Lyander's arm, and was startled when Lyander moaned.

  "Lyander. Lyander, it's me. It's Delan," he whispered softly. "I'm going to get you down. This... this is going to hurt." He wrapped one arm around Lyander's waist and tried not to hear Lyander's muffled scream at the touch. He stretched and used his sword to slice through the ropes, then let his sword drop to the ground as he gently lowered Lyander to lay across his legs. And finally, for the first time, saw Lyander's face. His breath ca
ught and he closed his eyes for a moment before fumbling for the scarf around his throat. Slowly, he wound the cloth around Lyander's head, covering the bloody ruins that had once been his eyes.

  "It’s all right, Lyander," Delan whispered as he cut away the cloth they'd used for a gag. "It’s all right. I've got you now. You're safe. I'm going to take you home. It's going to hurt, and I'm sorry, but we're going home, and Mags will make everything right." As he spoke, he examined Lyander quickly, taking stock of his injuries. He'd been whipped, more than once. His hands were blackened and charred, and the fingers looked as if they'd been broken before they'd been burnt. And his legs... Delan's own leg ached in sympathy. Even if Mags was the healer she claimed to be, there was no way that Lyander would ever walk again without pain. Delan licked his lips and turned away, back to Lyander. "Mags will make everything right," he repeated. "And we'll fix the Thraya up again, make it like nothing ever happened. And... and I'll stay there with you. I'll get Brina to make it so I can stay with you. Live with you. You and I, we're never going to be apart again." Gently, he touched Lyander's cheek. "I love you, Lyander."

  "Delan?" The word was a bare whisper.

  "Yes, Lyander. It's me. I've got you."

  Lyander shifted, gasping as he raised his still bound wrists. "Free... free me?"

  Delan nodded, then cursed silently. Lyander couldn't see him. Would never see him again. "Of course," he answered, his knife already sawing at the ropes. He heard the tent flap open. "Brina, he's hurt. We're going to need to rig a litter—"

  "Drop the knife."

  Delan jerked and looked up to see the Priestess standing on the other side of the altar.

  "Drop the knife," she repeated. "Then be a good boy and put that on the altar."

  "Fuck you," Delan spat. He jerked the knife, and the ropes parted. Lyander's hands fell limply to his chest. Delan ignored the Priestess' indignant squawking, touching Lyander's cheek once more.

  "Lyander? You're free."

  To his surprise, his words drew a weak laugh from Lyander. "Free," he repeated. "Delan?"