After that, Rhan was swallowed up in the accolades of the crowd. Someone slapped his empty scabbard into his hand. The Greatsword of Impiltur lay where it had fallen. All present knew that to touch it meant death at Rhan’s hands. He stopped long enough to retrieve the sword and slide it home into his scabbard, then he walked away.
The effects of the gunhin were boiling in him, and he waded through the crowd, searching for the comeliest female to take back to his cave. Never in his life had he come so close to dying. Perhaps it was time to take a mate after all.
Kaad saw to the disposition of Hweilan’s body. He was far too frail to carry her, but Buureg called Hratt over to help. It was a long walk to the high place, and Hratt had to stop and rest twice. Once, Kaad heard him muttering something about losing gold, but he looked away. A slave knew his place.
Hratt laid Hweilan’s body next to the other one-after two days, the crows still would not touch it-and stood for a moment looking down on Hweilan. Kaad heard him mutter, “Damn it all,” shake his head, then walk away. The roar of the crowd could still be heard in the distance. It did not take much to give the Razor Heart reason to revel, and Kaad suspected they would be at it long into the night. With all the fights sure to break out, some of which would eventually draw steel as the strong spirits flowed, Kaad knew he would be kept busy most of the day.
He looked down at Hweilan’s body. The combination of the tattoos and the bruise from Rhan’s fist had turned the entire left half of Hweilan’s face black. Her lip had split and poured blood across one cheek. But not much. Her heart had stopped quickly. Her eyes were closed, which Kaad found strange. A blow like that, and one might expect her eyes to roll up in her head, certainly. But they were relaxed.
Kaad was about to turn away and follow Hratt back to the center of the fortress when he saw it. Her eyelid twitched, like a dreamer in deep sleep.
He stopped, wide-eyed and staring. It didn’t happen again, but he knew what he’d seen.
Kaad looked around to make sure Hratt was well and truly gone. Then he kneeled and placed his rough, calloused hand against Hweilan’s throat. No beat of her heart. Nothing. He looked at her chest. Not the slightest rise and fall of breath. Her skin was cool to the touch-but not cold. No. Despite the early spring chill, her body wasn’t cold.
There! Just as Kaad was about to remove his hand, he felt it. A pulse. Just once. But it was strong.
He looked down at her again. All the crowd had heard bone break when Rhan struck Hweilan’s back. Looking at her face, he suspected the last blow had cracked her skull as well. The old healer reached inside his robes, removed a vial made from goat horn, and placed it in Hweilan’s palm.
Then he chuckled the whole way back down into the fortress. He suspected it would be quite a night indeed.
The revelry went on all that morning, quieted some during midday meal time, then came back with a vengeance as the sun sank beneath the peaks. Dark came quickly, even as winter loosened its grip on the mountains, and fires sparked to life both inside and outside the fortress.
Years ago, this never would have happened. The knights out of Highwatch sometimes patrolled after dark, and the slightest fire would have revealed the location of the Razor Heart’s fortress. But the knights and their flying terrors were no more. Truth be told, the new horrors in Highwatch worried Maaqua far more, but they already knew where the fortress lay, and should they come again, it was better to have fire close at hand.
So, despite the drain it put on their winter stores, Maaqua encouraged the festivities to rouse the blood of the clan. She would need that for the days of struggle ahead of them. It had been a long time since the clan had reason to celebrate. Joy spread through the fortress like fresh flame on oil.
Except for two places.
The three Damarans lay in their hole, the iron bars firmly locked over their heads so that no warriors need be kept from the celebrations to guard them. Valsun sat, staring at the few stars far overhead. He was quite sure that once the feast was over-probably when the first warriors woke after their night of hard drinking-Maaqua would simply have one of the brutes pull the lever, drown the three of them, and be done with it. It was not the way he had hoped to leave this life, but he supposed it could be worse. Jaden, however, was quite sure they’d be tortured in the cruelest possible ways. He’d heard that fear sweetens the meat, and he was sure the hobgoblins would find every conceivable way to kill them with fire and sharp things. But when he shared this with his companions, they made no reply. And what Darric thought, he would not say.
The other place free of any celebration was on the northern edge of the fortress, within sight of the last guard post. There, a block of stone thrust up from the mountainside. One had to brave a steep trail to reach its height, occasionally clinging to iron-hard roots that broke through the mountain’s jagged hide. The stone itself had been shaped by eons of wind and rain into the vague shape of a hand. But the hobgoblins had improved upon it with hammer and chisel so that the stone now had the distinct shape of grasping fingers and the suggestion of a coin in the palm. This was the Stone of Hoar, Lord of Doom and Watcher of the Revenged.
It had taken four Razor Heart warriors to bring the naked Damaran up the hill. His hands and elbows were bound behind his back and cinched to his waist with the finest leather rope. A small length of cord bound him at knees and ankles to keep him from running or kicking. And they’d even muzzled him, just in case he became riled enough to try his teeth. Kaad’s ministrations from the previous night had seemed to revive him, and he remembered every hurt. He’d growled and cursed the whole way up the height, and the warriors had dragged and beaten him. Finally, at the most treacherous parts of the trail, they’d clubbed him senseless and lifted him by the leash tied round his arms.
Once they reached the stone, two of the warriors stood with spears only inches from the Damaran’s throat while their two companions bound him to the stone. Leather ropes bound his wrists to two of the stone’s middle fingers. They sat his rump in the palm, then bound one thigh to the thumb and the other to the smallest finger, spreading both legs. Since the Damaran had killed Duur, Ruuket’s mate, when she came for her vengeance, it was very likely that his manhood would be the first thing to go.
Then they locked a shackle around each ankle, from each of which dangled less than a foot of chain bound to a three-stone weight of iron. A big one like this might be able to lift his lower legs, but he wouldn’t be able to kick. Satisfied that he was well and truly secure, the warriors slapped him-once each, just hard enough to dribble blood from his lip-then tromped back to the celebration.
While the rest of the Razor Heart reveled, Ruuket climbed to the Stone of Hoar. Her face was bloody from the grief gouges she had raked into both cheeks with her own hands.
That Mandan could have faced with warrior’s pride. But she also brought her children with her. The oldest was only a year or two away from his warrior’s growth. Two others walked beside her, and she carried a babe in the cloth sling on her back. They stood before the bloodied Damaran.
He looked up at them and said, “Do your worst.”
The oldest child stepped forward, the knife in his hand already coming up.
But his mother’s hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. He bared his teeth in a growl, but he obeyed his mother.
“I am Ruuket,” she said in hesitant Damaran. “You killed Duur. My mate. These are his children.”