Sorcha's Revenge

Sorcha drifted in uncomfortable darkness, the vague awareness of the horse beneath her and the man she rode with denying the comfort of oblivion. She was exhausted and far from home, snuggled beneath the cloak of her riding partner, his body and the horse the only warmth against the cold of northern Kellia. Sorcha had crossed half the world, from her home in Silveneir to the southern desert of Heimjaro and back again. On her journey she had been kidnapped, enslaved, escaped, caught up in battles and war, and learned things utterly alien to the strict religious culture of her native Silveneir. A large portion of her journey had been spent in the travelling harem of a Darian warlord. Months had passed since then, but her experiences had changed her from the fiery Silvan soldier she had once been. In the harem, she had been trained and conditioned, her personality reformed in ways that she had yet to entirely assimilate. Westward lay the cold wasteland of the Kellion Moruna, lost to sight in the gathering dusk. On the southern horizon, the city of Narillion burned, destroyed in a three-way battle between the barbarian Kraag, the invading Darian army and the city's inhabitants. Sorcha had been there and was lucky to have escaped with her life. To the east lay her homeland, Silvenenir, across the river Kessel, close compared to the great distances she had travelled, but still many weeks from where she now rode. Ahead, to the north, the silver spires and crystal dome of the Winter Palace gleamed in the fading daylight. Sorcha did not know when she slept; consciousness faded entirely, and she awoke with a hard thump on the cold ground. As she came to, she felt strong arms around her and blinked dazedly up at her riding partner, Montesinos DeSilva. For a few seconds, half dreaming, she fancied herself back in the harem, her awareness jaded by sensuality. “Are you alright?” DeSilva asked. On his travels, he had been inducted into the warrior cult of the barbarian Kraag, and so sported implanted fangs in his upper jaw, but his grey eyes were gentle with concern. Sorcha blinked and looked around. Her surroundings had changed. They were now in a dark, sheltered hall of dressed black stone. Horses stood gathered around, the rest of their companions halting while DeSilva dismounted to check that Sorcha was unhurt. DeSilva's father Montesinos DeKellia, his uncles Kam Daishen and Noth Kalidor, the old man Tendath Drake, all looked down at Sorcha with varying degrees of concern. The women in the party had less sympathy; Vashta, nominally DeKellia's concubine, had attention only for her daughter Fethne. Sorcha knew Fethne far better than she wanted to; they had been held in the same harem. Blinded at the razing of Narillion and quite mad in any case, Fethne paid little heed to anything around her. DeKellia's other concubine, Hnasi, was one of the feline Hrin, regarding everything with catlike distance. Last of their party, the grim sword-Diva Meridian Charn glared through the eye slits of her steel mask, cold and tired and with no sympathy to spare for anyone but herself. Of them all, Charn was the only one not related by blood or close personal history. “You fainted,” DeSilva told Sorcha. “We're at the Winter Palace.” Sorcha could still hear the roar of the wind somewhere near; behind the horses, the outer palace gates stood wide. They had been beneath the gatehouse, approaching the inner doors, when she fell off the horse. “Is she alright to stand?” DeKellia asked, and DeSilva helped Sorcha to her feet. She was too unsteady to remount, but they had reached their destination; DeSilva led the horse on foot and supported Sorcha with his free arm as they started again across the threshold of the Winter Palace. The inner gatehouse doors opened before them to reveal a phalanx of Kellion men in black livery. Every one of them wore a sword at his hip, but the travellers had been seen from the walls long before they reached the Palace gate, and their welcome was warm. The oldest of the retainers approached Kam Daishen; in his blood-red armour and full-face helm, the First Knight of Kellia was an unmistakeable figure. “My Lord Daishen,” the retainer said with a bow. “Your arrival is most welcome. The Lady Orcini wishes to speak with you at once.” “She'll want to speak to us all,” DeKellia said, dismounting and passing his horse's reins to a waiting retainer. The senior man frowned slightly before he recognized the men accompanying Kam Daishen. “Lord Dansac,” he said, bowing again to DeKellia and the group at large, “and Master Kalidor; forgive me, it has been many years since...” “I know that,” DeKellia drawled, brushing past the man to enter the Palace halls. “And no one calls me Lord-anything.” Half the retainers took the horses to the stables while the rest accompanied the guests into the Palace. DeKellia and Kam Daishen led the way, Vashta leading Fethne by the hand at his back and Hnasi sauntering in his footsteps. Charn slouched off to one side of the group, visibly keeping herself separate. Sorcha dogged DeSilva's heels, envying him his self-assurance; they were in his homeland, surrounded by his kin, in an old ancestral home of his bloodline. Sorcha's only familiar grounding points were Fethne, whom she hated with a passion, and Charn, who had made it abundantly clear that she had nothing but contempt for any woman who permitted herself to be captured and used as a sex-slave by an enemy. Then there was DeSilva. Her sister's fiancée and the reason for it all. But her sister was dead, lost in the tides of war that had now thrown Sorcha and DeSilva together again. The retainers brought them to a large drawing room, well-appointed in archaic Kellion style. Patio windows looked out on snowy lawns and the ice-bound Kessel River. Like the palace in general, the drawing room had seen better days; cobwebs hung in the highest recesses of the room and the décor, once pastel shades of blue and violet, had faded to grey. The grand fireplace was stoked and burned brightly; a small, incongruous cauldron sat in the blaze as if on a kitchen stove, heating mulled wine. As the door opened to admit the travellers, the mistress of the Winter Palace rose to greet her guests. She was like no Kellion woman that Sorcha had ever seen. Vashta and Fethne, though Silvan-born, were typical of women raised in Kellion harems. Meridian Charn meanwhile epitomized the highest ideals of Silvan warrior culture. Lady Vari Orcini, mistress of the Winter Palace and sister to DeKellia, Kalidor and Kam Daishen, was the fusion of both influences in harmony. Queenlike in her poise, her eyes the colour of midnight and a few streaks of grey lighting the black of her swept-back hair. In high-heeled Kellion shoes, she stood taller than any of the men around her. Despite her billowing skirts, she wore a rapier at her hip. Vari looked first on Kam Daishen, greeting him with a nod before her eyes found DeKellia. “Vari..." DeKellia stepped forward and took his sister's hand, turning to introduce her to his companions. "Like a galleon under full sail..." Drake whispered in appreciation. The old man drew himself up as Vari Orcini turned towards him, but he seemed frail and timid compared to her regal composure. Drake was surprised when Vari took his hand and curtsied, very low and graceful. "You were an old friend of my father," she said, "and you have served him well even since his death. My house has not treated you in kind, Tendath Drake. Forgive me." Drake was momentarily lost for words, but rallied himself and cleared his throat, stooping to kiss Vari's hand. "It's nice to be appreciated at last," he said, as he straightened up. "You might have chosen a better time to come to me," Vari said to the group in general. "I have more need of help than I am able to offer assistance." "It must be bad," DeKellia remarked, wandering towards the drinks cabinet, "if you even have to mention it." "My dear brother, you can only be aware that the Palace is surrounded by siege-lines on every side. It is simply not credible that you could arrive here without riding through an armed blockade. We are most glad of your coming, but how, pray tell, did you get here at all?” “I recall something involving an outlaw chief, a disgraced knight and a bunch of tents some way south of here,” DeKellia said, feigning puzzlement. “Siege? I'm sure we'd have noticed that. Or heard about it months ago and come rushing to your rescue at once. We did, here we are. Sorry we took so long, I was literally halfway across the world. I did see an army encamped at your door, but we didn't really notice it; we've just come from the razing of Narillion.” “The whole city's ablaze in the middle of a blizzard,” DeSilva confirmed. "I'm sure you're both very proud,” Vari said, archly. “Honestly, Monte, they're still talking about your last party." "Vast hordes keep showing up," DeKellia said, scraping back his fringe with one hand. "I certainly don't invite them. Quality over quantity, I say, every time." "Quantity has a quality all its own," Vari replied, "especially where armies are concerned. Currently, I have barely fifty men at arms; twenty times that number have the Palace encircled. Whatever might be happening at Narillion, those men are here solely for me.” "Where are you getting your supplies?" DeKellia asked. Sorcha had to restrain a laugh; she was exhausted and confused, and the quixotic mix of urgency and languor in the manners of both DeKellia and their hostess threatened to tip her into hysterics. Vari brought her brothers DeKellia and Kam Daishen to the fireside, where a retainer poured drinks and the discussion went to supply lines, defence tactics, and military minutiae over schnapps. Hnasi arrayed herself on the rug before the fireplace, entirely oblivious to human conventions. Vashta brought Fethne to a couch and sat her down, but then hovered between DeKellia and her daughter, torn between conflicting needs. Drake and Charn joined the discussion of tactics, warming themselves by the fire. Sorcha was left with DeSilva, uncertain of her expected role. In Silveneir, women were brash and assertive. At parties, she had been known to throw tantrums and drinks at men, and compete with other girls even to picking physical fights. In Kellia, women knelt at men's feet and demurely poured drinks until commanded to bed. It was the natural assumption, even in this rare Kellion home run by a woman, that female guests came attached to a man. Sorcha could feel the unseen structures of Kellion culture steering her into accepting the presumed role as DeSilva's concubine. She had quite lost track of the conversation at the fireplace, only belatedly aware that DeSilva still hovered at her side, apparently waiting for something. “Are you going to sit down?” he asked at last, softly. Sorcha shook herself as if coming out of a trance, only belatedly recalling that DeSilva himself had been raised in Silveneir and was naturally displaying the manners of his upbringing. That it was also her upbringing came as an unexpected shock; all Silvan behaviours had been rigorously drummed out of her in the harem. At last, DeSilva took Sorcha's hand and guided her to a vacant couch, where he sat down beside her and raised his eyebrows to signal the retainer at the drinks cabinet. "...We still have access to the river," Vari said was saying. "If they cut that off..." DeKellia and Drake had both produced long Kellion pipes and were smoking while they talked. Sorcha tried to follow the conversation, but the journey from Narillion to the Winter Palace had been so traumatic and terrifying that she recalled it only as a nightmare of danger and winter darkness. That they were all speaking in Kellion, a language she was hardly fluent in, did not help matters at all. An outsider, she suddenly noticed what had gone unremarked by anyone else in the room; DeKellia's brother, DeSilva's uncle Noth Kalidor, had disappeared. Sorcha glanced the question at DeSilva, but he just cut a dry smile and leant close enough to speak in her ear softly, using Silvan for her benefit, “Vari has two suitors laying siege to the palace. It's a very polite siege; Vari has sworn to kill herself if either of her suitors crosses the threshold in arms, and they've each sworn to kill the other should that occur. So they've been here awhile.” “But where is the Palace getting its supplies? If they're under siege...” “That's what my father asked her about five minutes ago. The answer is the river, but with Narillion burning merrily on the Kessel's banks...” “There won't be any more boats from Narillion,” Sorcha finished. “At least, none with fresh supplies.” “Quite the opposite,” DeSilva agreed. “The refugees from Narillion are only a few days behind us, the status-quo here won't survive a few thousand starving people arriving on the scene.” Sorcha nodded, listening with one ear to the Kellion discussion and to DeSilva's explanation in Silvan with the other. Her attention was elsewhere though. DeSilva's eyes caught the firelight, flashing alternately bright as the sun on Kellia's icefields, then dark as midnight like the gaze of his father. The Kraagish fangs in his upper jaw leant him a bestial aspect, bringing out the familial capacity for violence belied by his easy charm. The men who had held Sorcha in the harem had been Darians, southern warriors hulking with muscle. DeSilva had the lean build of a dancer, lithe and strong, graceful as a cat. Sorcha glanced at Hnasi, marking the similarity of her poise to the way that DeSilva's father moved, utterly self-possessed, exuding complete confidence in any situation. Sorcha found herself wondering what either of them would be like in bed; the father or the son, both equally unafraid to exert control. DeSilva was still talking. “...So Vari's problems may have been solved by our mere arrival; Narillion's refugees were only a few miles behind us, making the siege a moot point. My aunt's decided to throw a party tomorrow, since there's no point hoarding supplies with so many hungry people about to arrive.” Sorcha blinked, brought back to the present and only belatedly realising that she had been daydreaming about sex. She had lost track of how long it had been since she had lain with a man. The last time had been in Uria, an encounter with a Darian warrior. Weeks or months, she could not tell; too much had happened in the meantime. Before Uria there had been another, a Goro warrior, recalled with sadness now for the love he had offered that she could not return. And then, before her Goro champion, there had been the Warlord of Naril, the master of the harem, Odacon Karmensis himself. He had used Sorcha only occasionally, her time in the harem more often spent with one or other of his warriors. Sorcha stole a glance at Fethne, though she could have openly stared without the blind girl noticing. Fethne and her mother had been Odacon's favourites. Sorcha shuddered, recalling Fethne's kiss, the girl's expert caress, the way her eyes had gazed always on Odacon even while she pleasured another woman for his amusement. Sorcha searched inside for the shame her Silvan upbringing demanded but felt nothing of the kind. She had lost herself again, memories of a warrior's arms around her, his strong kiss at her throat, at her breasts... “Sorcha?” DeSilva's touch on her wrist snapped her back to the warm parlour. She tried to suppress a flush of guilt, glancing at Charn for fear that the terrifying Diva had somehow seen or heard Sorcha's illicit thoughts that affronted upright Silvan morals. Lady Vari was speaking again, the Kellion words resolving into meaning as Sorcha's mind reverted to the present moment. "...The last banquet I attended was at Pen Kellion; the Masquerade, Monte, do you remember?" "How did you know that was me?" DeKellia demanded, "I wasn't even invited, I was in disguise... Don't joke with me, Vari; someone must have told you afterwards." “Oh, I knew it was you. Who else would have the nerve to gatecrash the Northlord's party? Anyway, the occasion seems very apt. A banquet it shall be; I will invite the leaders of my enemies outside to dine with us." "Is that wise?" Charn asked. She spoke in Silvan, but her meaning was clear and Vari replied in Kellion without missing a beat: "We are a civilised people. If I invite him, Lord Karvallion will behave in a civilised fashion; we have dined together before. It would be unreasonable to put myself in his power and then expect him to release me; he must come here and behave himself while his army waits without the walls.” "What about your other suitor, this Darian Major Kern?" DeKellia enquired. “Well, I rather hoped you'd kill him for me, Monte,” Vari replied, theatrically irritated. “Surely you don't expect me to do it myself? I suppose I must invite him too; if I favoured one of my suitors unevenly, the other would launch an immediate assault. I must invite them both and suffer their company; both men are equally foul in their own way. I had been tempted to poison them at one table, but Kern is a Darian and I have no bane for his kind. And while either of these men lives, I require the other to hold his rival at bay." "It's a stalemate," DeKellia said. "You've just been sitting here, having dinner with both these warlords for how long now?" "Roughly ten years," Vari said. "Kern's outlaws are nominally in Karvallion's employ, but it is a paper-thin alliance; they've poured out the blood of legions this decade past in fighting each other. I am become the prize between two armies, dear brother." "How gratifying," DeKellia said, "although you might resolve the issue by marrying Kern. I take it the Darian would win if the two of them duelled?" "Without a doubt," Vari said. "Except that even together I doubt they could overcome the captain of my guards.” Almost on cue, the chamber doors opened, and the subject of discussion entered. Vari's chief bodyguard was Hrin, one of the same feline people as DeKellia's lover Hnasi. He was dressed in Kellion style, with polished riding boots, jodhpurs, black jacket, and a bandolier that took the place of his sword belt, bearing long knives and a brace of duelling pistols. But his face was bestial, black furred and whiskered over numerous scars. His eyes were green and his teeth very sharp. "Khyle Tarn", Vari introduced her bodyguard. "He's quite competent." "Kittenthief," Hnasi hissed, brindling at the mere sight of the newcomer. "I know him.” Hrinor was a small island, and very few Hrin ever left; on the rare occasions that they met in the wider world, it was almost certain that they should know one another. The Hrinori warrior drew himself up, haughty as any Kellion lord. His whiskers twitched and he growled long and low in the back of his throat. His green eyes flashed at Hnasi, and he purred, "In Kellia it is the custom for women to use less insolence." "In my country, it is also traditional that a man defend his lady's honour," DeKellia said, in the same lazily formal manner, studiedly casual as he rose to his feet. "Call them off," Drake said hastily, "before there's bloodshed." Vari clearly knew her bodyguard well enough to pre-empt trouble. "Khyle," she said, "if you must fight, do so with foils; I would hate to see another casualty." "Another?" Charn asked, still insisting on speaking Silvan despite the main discussion being conducted in Kellion. "How many has he fought?" "Khyle tries hard to be civilised," Vari said, playing Charn's game by responding in Kellion still, "but he can't help himself. To date he has fought every one of my retainers and challenged the enemy outside to countless duels. We've just weaned him off taking trophies; when he first arrived, he proudly brought me the severed hand of every man he fought with." Khyle bowed slightly at the compliment. "Her ladyship appraised me of her difficulties, and I was pleased to assist. I understood that men sought her hand... I was somewhat confused." "Somehow I'd expect a Hrin to do that," DeKellia said. "I'll fight your man if he wants, Vari, but I offer no assurances." "Do not presume too much," Vari said. "I know your fame, brother, but in Khyle you may have met your match." "Are you trying to start a fight between them?" Drake asked in the tone of a gruff uncle. "Kalidor and Kam will be lining up to join in; I hope your man Khyle has good seconds." "He needs none," Vari said, "but your point is taken, Master Drake, and before there are any more adventures, duels or assassinations, every one of you will have a bath, a meal and a night in a proper bed." She raised an eyebrow at Sorcha and added, “I suspect that some new clothes would be appreciated, as well.” Sorcha had been too relieved at escaping the cold to care about the state of her clothes. She had crossed Heimjaro and Uria in harem silks, obtaining a change of clothes at Narillion only to be swept up in the rioting. Her outfit now, black Kellion silks more decently cut than those of the harem but still scandalously brief by any Silvan standard, was ragged with travel, reeking of smoke and wilderness. Vari rose and curtsied to her guests before signing her attendants to take charge. "For Master Drake, the bed in my father's study. Monte, Kam, your old rooms were given over to the guest wing when Uncle Orcini died. I will have them prepared, but your old things were put into storage, not that either of you left much here... where is our dear brother Kalidor?” DeKellia groaned and covered his face with one hand. “Bloody Dacoit, always wandering off... I'm sure he can handle whatever he's happened to.” “Indeed,” Vari said, briskly. “In the meantime, you must all be very tired. My servants will show you to the guest wing, there is plenty of room. You have missed dinner, but I am sure something can be arranged."