"Dark Haven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Gail Z)

CHAPTER THREE

Deep in the forest, the hunter stalked his prey. The trail was clear. The smell of fear and sweat was heavy in the cold night air. Broken branches and fresh footprints left a path easy to follow. This night's quarry had given him a good run. The prey had been resourceful, at first. Now, panic overtook reason. The hunter smiled. His kill was near.

Malesh did not need to signal the other two uayash moru who hunted with him. This was their sport, and they were masters of the craft. Gradually, the circle would tighten. The prey would realize he was being herded. Malesh smiled. Soon, very soon, it would be over.

He could hear their prey stumbling ahead of him. The man sounded like a wounded bull. Malesh had watched this one for some time. Big and overconfident, stupid and cruel, no one would miss the man. There were already rumors in his village that he had something to do with the children that had disappeared, that he'd been responsible for his wife's bruises and black eyes. Malesh ran his tongue across his lips in anticipation.

Malesh spotted his fellow hunters in the forest shadows. The end was near. Even from a distance, Malesh could sense the big man's disorientation. The fear would make his blood all the sweeter. The truce with mortals had always given vayash moru free reign to kill human criminals of the worst sort. Some villages staked their murderers and their child-stealers beyond the outskirts as an offering to the vayash moru. But the Blood 'Council's truce mandated that the kill be quick, painless. Tasteless. Malesh's tongue flicked over his sharp eye teeth. Terror brought an edge to the blood that was lacking in a quick kill. Exertion gave the blood a headiness like champagne. Bullies and sadists were the sweetest. Perhaps they knew that they deserved no mercy, having granted none to their victims. Or perhaps their true fear was of the Crone or the Formless One, to whom their sullied souls would certainly go for judgment. Whatever the reason, by the time Malesh was done with' them, their victims would have been avenged a hundredfold. Though vengeance was hardly Malesh's goal.

The three vayash moru closed their circle, and their prey caught sight of them. At first, he brandished his weapon, but the vayash moru to Malesh's right disarmed the man, breaking his wrist in the process.

"Whatever you want, take it!" the man cried, falling to his knees.

"We will," Malesh replied. Even in the cold air, the man's hair was wet with sweat. None of the vayash moru showed any sign of exertion.

"Mercy, please!" the man begged.

Berenn, one of Malesh's fledglings, reached down and lifted the pudgy man by his doughy throat. "What would you know of mercy?" the young man asked coldly. Held in his unbreakable grip, the man gasped for air, his feet dangling inches off the ground. "Did you show mercy to any of the children you've buried in the woods? Any mercy to that wretch of a wife you beat?"

"I'll change, I swear it. I can do better."

Berenn's smile was remorseless. "You don't seem to understand. There are no second chances." He threw the man across the clearing, and Malesh heard bones snap with the force of the man's fall. The man tried to scramble to his feet, but his shoes slipped on the wet leaves and he fell flat on his face. He gasped and mewled, and the scent of urine made it clear he had soiled himself.

Senan, the other vayash moru, lifted the man by the scruff of his neck, laughing as their victim once again clawed at the air and struggled to get free. "I have gold hidden under the stone hearth. Take it—take all of it!"

Senan let the man fall into the wet loam and kicked him hard, turning him over. "We don't need your gold. There's only one thing of yours we want. Your blood." Senan drew his lips back and the pudgy man let out a whimper, shrinking back against the ground.

By agreement, the three let Senan draw first i blood. Senan reached down, moving slowly to heighten the terror in the. doomed man's eyes. "The Crone is waiting for you," Senan whispered as he drew the big man close to him. "Please, no: No, no—" Senan's teeth pierced the man's fleshy neck just to the left of his throat. The man stiffened but made no noise. After a moment, Senan drew back and threw the still living man to Berenn, who made a fresh puncture to the right of the man's throat and drank deeply.

The last draughts, the sweetest, the ones filled with mortal dread, were reserved for Malesh. The doughy man was quite pale when Berenn handed his limp body to Malesh, but Malesh could still sense the pounding heartbeat and the shallow breath. Malesh seized the man roughly, who groaned as his spine snapped, sending a last jolt of sweetness into the blood. Malesh went for the spot just below the man's ear, where the blood would run its final course before breath stopped, snapping the man's neck in the process. The broken body twitched in Malesh's grip as he gulped down the blood, letting the man's final terror fill him with intoxicating headiness. When there was nothing left but a bloodless husk, Malesh dropped the body. Not one speck of blood marred his frilled white shirt.

"Good hunt." Senan reached down and picked up the corpse by its collar and dragged it over to a large tree. "How shall we leave him?"

"He's had a hard run," said Berenn. "Let him catch a few winks."

Senan posed the corpse beneath the tree, its head down on its breast, while Berenn retrieved the dead man's hat from the clearing and put it on his head, pushing down the brim to shade his eyes. Senan clasped the man's hands over his ample belly and put one foot sole down, knee raised, while the other leg extended straight. They stood back to examine their handiwork. Unless someone looked closely under the dead man's collar, he might appear to be sleeping, taking a nap in the forest shade.

"One of your better pieces, if I do say so!" Malesh complimented Senan. He slapped him on the back, and the three began their trek back to Uri's manor.

Scothnaran Manor was big, rambling, and vulgar. Just like its owner, Malesh thought, feeling his mood sour. Scothnaran lacked both pedigree and history, two more things it had in common with Uri. No one who saw the huge, garish structure would doubt that it was built to impress any who saw it with the owner's wealth and position. Pity that Uri never did figure out real wealth had no need for show. Malesh had lost his life, his blood, and his freedom to Uri a hundred years before in a duel over a card game that had gone badly. And Malesh, whose bloodlines could be traced to Principality's ruling nobility, had been made courtier to a fool and bumbler, a two-skrivven card sharp whose greatest break came when he was brought across as punishment for a bad debt.

Scothnaran was filled with guests when Malesh and his fledglings entered. Uri enjoyed the company of mortals, as if his status in the Dark Gift together with his new wealth actually accorded him the position he had long desired. But tonight, Malesh saw no mortals in the room—none of the rapacious young men hoping to win at cards, and none of the slatterns Uri called 'ladies.'

The great hall of Scothnaran was as pretentious as its owner. Chandeliers dripped with crystals and pearls. Noorish inlay decorated so many of the furnishings that the pieces seemed to vie with each other for attention, warring with the profusion of color in the tufted carpets that covered the highly polished marble floor. Portraits covered the walls, oils done of Uri and of others whom Uri claimed to be his ancestors. Malesh knew the portraits were fabrications, the social climbing of a gutter snipe.

The room was filled with Uri's fledges. Uri held court in the middle, a goblet of goat's blood in his hand. The stale smell was noxious to Malesh after- the sweetness of the recent feast, and from the looks on their faces, Senan and Berenn felt the same.

"Did you really call him a 'fight slave' to his face?" Tanai leaned forward, hanging on Uri's every word.

"I did," Uri boasted. His face was flush with new blood, and the candlelight sparkled in his rings. "I remain connected with...business associates...in Nargi. They maintain my relationship with the Nargi army—through the necessary intermediaries. General Kathrian's troops held the Nu River border ten years ago, during the golden days of the betting slaves. There was none better than Jonmarc Vahanian. Never lost a fight in two years. Made a bit of gold on him, I did. To see him dressed up like a noble and having Gabriel passing him off as the new Lord of Dark Haven was more than I could stand. Nothing but common trash!"

"Not like there's anyone else who fits that description here," Malesh said in a barely audible aside to Senan, who smiled. Senan and Berenn were of families as noble as his own. Malesh had chosen them, and the others in his inner circle, to help make Uri's casual vulgarity bearable.

"And is it true that you drew blood?"

Uri smiled, showing his yellowed eye teeth. "Do you think I'd let Gabriel keep me from making my point? If that's all Vahanian has to show for fighting skill, he's lucky to have slipped Darrath's grip. I had my teeth on his neck before he even knew I was coming. But then, I heard Darrath got the best of him the last time Vahanian was fool enough to go to Nargi. Needed a mage to rescue him—that's rich. All over a woman." Uri drained his glass and snapped his fingers. A servant appeared at his side and refilled the goblet.

"Still, I heard he held his own for a good fight—and took the lash without crying out. By the Whore! It might be amusing to go a round with him—for old times' sake."

"So the truce, is it ended?" It was Tresa who spoke, one of Uri's most senior fledges. While Malesh and his friends stayed near the back, watching from afar, Tresa sat at Uri's right hand.

Sit at his feet like the lapdog you are, Malesh thought with annoyance. It was an open secret that Tresa coveted Malesh's position at the Council as Uri's second, a position it had taken no end of calculated obsequiousness to obtain.

"Ah, Malesh. There you are. They've been asking about the Council meeting. You were there."

Malesh stepped forward, more to spite Tresa than out of any real interest in retelling the story. "It's as Uri says. A room full of vayash moru, fawning over a mortal. Gabriel's the worst of the lot, although Riqua isn't much better. I noticed Rafe and Astasia stayed out of it. If Vahanian is to be Lord of Dark Haven, let him prove himself strong enough to take it."

There were murmured assents all around, and Uri's eyes glinted with approval. Malesh could tell from the way Uri's lids drooped that the blood he drank was laced with absinthe and dreamweed. "I've heard my share of stories about the great fighter Vahanian, hero of Chauvrenne," Malesh said with unconcealed contempt. "But when Uri went for his throat, I saw fear in Vahanian's eyes. Lord of Dark Haven indeed!"

"My thoughts exactly," Uri said in a voice that, if not exactly slurred, lacked the clarity it sometimes had on the rare occasions when Uri was free of the absinthe. "Mark my words: the Council's days are numbered. It's going to be a brand new game soon, our game. The truce is on its deathbed."

With a slight gesture, Malesh signaled to Senan and Berenn to follow him. They slipped from the back of the room without Uri noticing as he launched into another tale that kept his hangers-on enthralled. Malesh wound his way down to the rooms on the lowest level of Scothnaran where he knew his own coterie would be waiting.

Compared to the opulence of the great hall, Malesh's salon was stark. The pieces, while fewer in number than those in the entrance-way, had been in Malesh's family for generations, commissioned by ancestors who were even more well known than the craftsmen who made their treasures. The miniature oil paintings were of Malesh's real ancestors, men and women who had served the kings of Principality long before Uri was brought across. A half dozen of his fledges were already waiting for him. More would come, Malesh knew, when Uri was sated with drink and less likely to notice their absence from his circle of admirers.

"Can you believe the utter garbage Uri is spewing?" Senan dropped into his seat.

"That's Uri.". Sioma, a beautiful red-haired vayasb moru replied, her ennui evident in her voice. Sioma was Malesh's current companion of choice, and she caught his eye, promising him with her half-smile that there would be pleasures for him before dawn sent them to their rest.

"As usual, he says much and tells little," Malesh added. He waved away a goblet of blood, not wishing to taint the sweet aftertaste of the hunt that still lingered in his throat. Between Sioma and the hunt, Malesh remembered the best of what it was to be mortal— unfettered passion and the thrill of power. The Dark Gift enhanced all of those feelings, adding to them the headiness of unending youth and true immortality. "So what of the truce and the Council?"

Berenn asked, finding a seat.Malesh rested his boot on the edge of the table. His slim, tightly muscled frame coiled like a stawar about to lunge. "Uri wants the attention he gets by walking out. He loves to be coaxed back. What do you think? He's upstairs, drinking polluted blood and lapping up the attention of his pets. What does he gain from leaving the Council? They'll just appoint another to take his place and he knows it."

"And the truce?"

Malesh pushed away and began to pace. "Uri's been content to feed off the blood of drunks and dreamweed whores for three hundred years. What does he benefit from breaking the truce? He has all the tainted blood he can drink from the sots in the gutter."

"What of Vahanian?"

Malesh leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms. The exquisite lace at his cuffs spilled down over his fine-boned hands with more contrast now that he had recently fed. "Vahanian is neither as soft as Uri wants to believe, nor as undefeatable as Gabriel hopes. I did see fear in his eyes for a moment, but in the next he was struggling with Kolin to join the fight. Fear alone won't stop him. And as for Darrath nearly killing Vahanian—that much is true. But it was after he'd bested three of Dar-rath's prize soldiers and taken both a beating and a full scourging. The mage that came for him was none other than Martris Drayke. Vahanian is every bit as good a fighter as the stories say—maybe even able to hold his own against one of us."

"One." Senan smirked. "We are more than one."

"You're missing the point." Malesh began to pace once more. "Killing the Lord of Dark Haven doesn't accomplish the goal. The truce and the Council must die with him. We have an opening. Gabriel won permission from the Council to allow the vciyash moru of Margolan to fight against Jared the Usurper. Uri, the fool, voted against it, but I knew immediately that this was our chance.

"Martris Drayke has won the throne but not the peace. Lord Curane is in full rebellion, and King Martris will have no choice but to take an army south. There are smaller pockets of resistance and groups of Jared's loyalists scattered throughout Margolan. The vayash moru of Margolan are so taken by their Summoner-king that they haven't stopped fighting for him. The longer the fight, the weaker the truce becomes."

"So?" Sioma stretched, showing off her sinewy body. The form-fitting sheath of copper-colored silk set off her sleek curves and auburn hair. Malesh smiled. Immortality heightened both thirst arid passion. Having drunk deeply to quench the first, he fully intended to sate the second. Later.

"So...there is no need for a mortal Lord of Dark Haven without the truce."

Senan looked skeptical. "The Sisterhood won't permit that."

Malesh laughed. "The Sisterhood doesn't have the power to do anything about it. They didn't take on Arontala because they knew they weren't strong enough to win. They're a shadow of what they once were. Their mages are defying them, remaining as battle wizards with Martris Drayke's troops just as they defied the Sisterhood to train him. Arontala gave us a gift when he stole the orb from beneath Dark Haven. The Flow has never mended, and as it fractures, the Sisterhood weakens."

"You think the mortal kings will just sit back and let the truce be broken?" Berenn asked.

"The mortal kings will be at war," Malesh replied, smiling. "Curane knows what King Martris doesn't—that the Flow favors blood magic at the expense of the light. With the Flow out of balance and the Margolan army barely on its feet, Curane merely has to draw them into a siege and then pound away at them while the shattering of the Flow drains their Summoner-king dry. Kill Martris Drayke, and Jared's bastard takes the throne. Nargi and Trevath will ally against the other kingdoms, and there'll be more blood than we can drink for years to come."

"Who wins?" Senan asked skeptically.

Malesh's smile broadened. "We do. When the mortal kings have beggared their treasuries and spent their armies and the Sisterhood is dissolved, it'll be time for us to seize what's always been rightfully ours."

"So you're just going to leave Vahanian in Dark Haven?"

Malesh shook his head. "No. We must break Dark Haven the way we'll break the Council and shatter the truce. Vahanian's too well protected to strike. He won't be. moved by threats. He cares little for his own safety. But about the peasants on his lands, he's come to care a great deal. They're one weakness." Malesh's eyes glittered. "I understand he plans to return from Margolan with a bride. That will be our opening. We'll strike at the heart of Dark Haven and bleed it dry."

"You're not pushiinG me hard enough." Jon-marc Vahanian wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. Laisren, his vayasb moru trainer, looked annoyed. "You're mortal. What do you expect?" "I expect to be able to defend myself, the way I've always been able to fight."

"You're one of the finest fighters in the Winter Kingdoms—perhaps the best in a generation. Against mortals."

Jonmarc shook his head. His long dark hair was matted with sweat, and he was breathing hard. "Not good enough. You saw what happened at the Council. I'll never win the respect of the vayash moru if I have to have bodyguards trailing me. I have to be able to hold my own in a fight—I need to have a chance of winning."

Laisren frowned. "I trained Martris Drayke at the citadel in Principality because he was going to fight Foor Arontala. Tell me exactly why I'm training the Lord of Dark Haven— protector of Those Who Walk the Night—to kill vayasb moru?"

"Because the truce isn't worth the price of the paper it was written on," Jonmarc shot back, "and you know it. A storm's coming—I can feel it. Too many things are changing. Bargaining from a position of weakness is a lousy way to deal with someone like Uri. Even if he's bluffing, I have the feeling that his second—"

"Malesh."

"—isn't. I can't protect Carina or the mortals who are also part of Dark Haven if I'm dead."

Laisren shook his head. "We've been sparring for two candlemarks. You've held your own."

Jonmarc glared. "You've been pulling your punches. You're not moving at full speed. You're taking it easy on me, dammit."

"Carina won't be happy if I break anything she's just healed. You'll be sore enough—and bruised—from the last couple of throws, even if I didn't go as hard on you as I could have."

"Yeah, but I barely touched you." Jonmarc was bleeding from a score of cuts and scrapes, some from Laisren's blade and some from the rough rock of the walls and floor. But only a handful of his own strikes had connected, slicing through Laisren's tunic and opening a gash on his arm that had already healed. "Most mortals couldn't get close." "I can do better." Laisren looked skeptical. "How?" Jonmarc shook his head. "When I fight, when I'm in the middle of. a battle, it's like everything slows down. Time changes. I just know where the other guy is going before he moves. That's what's always kept_ me alive— even in the betting games in Nargi. In my head, time works differently for me. If I can just nudge that a little, I think I can handle a vayash moru in a real fight." "You're taking Uri seriously." Jonmarc shook his head and dipped himself a drink of cool water from a nearby bucket. "Not Uri. Malesh. Yestin's right. The old ways are coming apart. The war in Margolan, when it comes, could draw in all of the Winter Kingdoms. If that happens—and I hope for Tris's sake it doesn't—every petty thief and cutthroat is going to try to knock off his boss and take his place. I'll lay my bets that's what Malesh is waiting for. He doesn't want Uri's seat on the Council and he doesn't want Dark Haven. He wants vayash moru to rule the Winter Kingdoms."

Laisren frowned. "It can't last. Every time a vayash moru has tried to rule over mortals it's nearly been our destruction. We can't make fledglings as fast as mortals breed. We can't move about by day. By day, all but the very oldest of our kind are vulnerable. Eventually, the burnings start."

Jonmarc nodded. "How many mortals and vayash moru have to die before we end up right back where we started? And while the Winter Kingdoms are consuming themselves, what's to keep the Southlands from driving their armies north and taking it all? Or the war lords of the Western lands from burning their way across Isencroft?" He shook his head. "My kind, your kind—we all lose if Malesh tips the balance. In every barroom brawl, the best way to avoid a fight is to look like the nastiest son of the Bitch fighter in the room." He met Laisren's eyes. "So what about it?"

Laisren smiled. "I heal a lot faster than you do."

"I'll deal with it. Let's get started."

"Fine by me. Just don't complain if you're limping at the royal wedding."