Khyber remained on his knees, still shaking from the attack. “You cannot promise this for all of the Jarka Ruus! The Drachas, for instance, are not yours to command. And there are others equally rebellious. Some will break through and do as they choose.”
Tael Riverine nodded. “Some is still better than all. Those beholden to me will not transgress against me. You will keep your world and your lives. But Grianne Ohmsford must accept my offer.”
That would never happen, Redden thought. Besides, even if it could, as he had already decided there was no reason to think the Straken Lord’s word was worth anything.
But Khyber Elessedil was struggling to her feet, saying to Tael Riverine, “We would have to find her first. We would have to explain your offer. We would have to persuade her to accept it and then bring her here. That won’t be easy. But we can do it.”
His eyes fixed on her. “Address me properly, woman.”
“Master,” she said at once, and bowed deeply.
He shifted his gaze to Redden. “What do you say to this?”
“She is family to him, Master,” Khyber said quickly, clearly afraid for Redden’s safety if this creature thought him useless. “He is an Ohmsford, too. He will be effective in persuading her.”
The strange blue eyes flickered with something dark and unexpected, and Redden was suddenly certain that Khyber had made a mistake in telling him this.
“You are blood kin?” the Straken Lord demanded of the boy.
There was nothing he could do about it now, so Redden nodded.
“Would that matter to her?”
“I don’t know, Master. She’s never seen me. She doesn’t know me.”
Tael Riverine looked back at Khyber. “But she knows you. You are her chosen successor. She named you so. Did you not say this?”
Khyber stared, unable to answer. Finally, she nodded. Redden felt the floor drop away, and he was overcome by a sinking feeling that they had signed away their lives.
The Straken Lord rose suddenly, towering over them. “I have decided your fate. Your usefulness is limited. You are weak and unreliable, you are not to be trusted, but you may still serve a purpose. Bow to me. Address me properly.”
Redden and the Ard Rhys both went down on their knees and bowed low to the floor and to Tael Riverine. “Master,” they said to him.
“Now rise and stand before.”
Redden climbed back to his feet and with Khyber next to him stood in front of Tael Riverine, his head lowered deferentially, burning with rage and humiliation. If there had been a way to get at the Straken Lord in that moment, a way that would have provided him with a real chance of killing the demon, he would have taken it in spite of the likely consequences.
The Straken Lord looked at Khyber Elessedil. “You will face me in the arena tomorrow at midday. You will provide entertainment and an object lesson. If you kill me, you will be sent home unharmed along with this boy. If not, the boy’s fate is mine to decide. Tarwick!”
At once they were surrounded by Goblins who fastened them anew with chains and fitted gags to their mouths. Neither made any attempt to resist. Redden was stunned and disbelieving, still trying to comprehend what he had just heard, as if perhaps it wasn’t true and in a moment he would hear it all rescinded.
A moment later they were hauled from the room and back down the tower stairways and through its corridors. Just before they were separated, Redden got a quick final glimpse of Khyber Elessedil’s face.
He had never seen such ferocious determination.
21
Afterward, returned to his cell and his solitude, Redden Ohmsford sat alone in the silence and tried to keep from falling apart.
It took him a long time to recover himself sufficiently that he could consider rationally what had just happened. He felt overwhelmed by how unexpectedly the meeting with the Straken Lord had ended. Devastated, shocked, and adrift in the knowledge that he was helpless to do anything, he just sat on his bed with his hands clasped and his head bent, staring at the floor.
He did not for a moment believe that Tael Riverine would let Khyber Elessedil leave Kraal Reach alive. He didn’t care what the Straken Lord had promised or the conditions he had set; the outcome of the battle was a foregone conclusion. No matter how hard Khyber fought for her life, no matter how clever or strong or brave she proved, she was doomed. The Straken Lord would not allow any other outcome. In sentencing her to trial by combat, he had sentenced her to death.
How he would accomplish this, Redden wasn’t sure. But there was no other purpose in arranging this. A spectacle, perhaps, for the benefit of his minions—or perhaps simply for his own gratification. But it would be a spectacle nonetheless, not a true opportunity for the Ard Rhys.
Which would leave him as the final surviving member of the expedition that had come into the Forbidding, the last loose thread in a tangled web of destruction and murder. He didn’t think for a moment that Tael Riverine could resist pulling out or cutting off that loose thread and putting an end to the entire business.
Yet the Straken Lord seemed determined on recapturing Grianne Ohmsford even after all these years obsessed with the idea that she should be made to bear his children. He appeared to have no clear idea of the passage of time in the world outside the Forbidding if he believed Grianne still of child-bearing age; or else living things aged much more slowly here. Perhaps he was refusing to acknowledge the reality of things solely for the purpose of getting revenge. Perhaps he wanted her to suffer for escaping him and foiling his intentions decades earlier.
Whatever the reason, this might be the chink in the Straken Lord’s armor.
Perhaps.
But none of this helped either Redden or the Ard Rhys escape their present circumstances. They needed help from outside, and the chances of that were slim.
Redden hugged himself and rocked back and forth as anguish threatened to engulf him. He would not cry, he told himself. He would not give in to what he was feeling. He would be as fierce and strong-willed as Khyber Elessedil had been when they parted. He would be her equal in courage, though what faced him was so vast and inexorable that there was no reasonable chance of finding a way through it. Tears were spilling from his eyes, but he remained silent and stoic even so.
Eventually, his despair passed and he regained control of himself, and he was able to master his sense of hopelessness sufficiently to consider what he might do to help himself.
Khyber Elessedil seemed to think there was hope. He had seen it in her face. She was facing hand-to-hand combat with a creature twice her size and infinitely stronger, and very likely more experienced in battle. She had not been told the rules of the fight or the choice of weapons she would be offered or anything substantive of what was to take place. Yet still she was evincing confidence in her chances.
He must do something to help her and himself. He must search for a way to throw off the conjure collar and summon his magic. The wishsong’s power was considerable, after all, evolved through generations of Ohmsfords and tested personally by both Railing and himself. He knew what it could do. If he were given even one chance to use it against Tael Riverine, there would be no more Straken Lord.
But the day drifted away without any further idea about how to make that happen. His jailers brought him food and a jug of water and left him for the night. He slept poorly, plagued by dreams of conflict and darkness, of battles fought between good and evil, between combatants who were faceless and nameless and yet somehow managed to make the struggle feel personal. The air cooled and the gray mix of clouds and haze swallowed everything until he could see only pinpricks of light cast by torches burning through the gloom.
When he woke, he was no more enlightened as to how to free himself or aid the Ard Rhys than he had been when he went to sleep. The day was iron-hard and dry, and the cloud ceiling had lifted to allow a sharp, clear view of the bleak countryside from mountain ranges to hardpan flats and barren hills to fields of broken rocks. He stared through the bars of his tiny window at this grim tableau and felt the weight of his desperate circumstances return.