But it was not the cult’s bloodlust the clansmen despised, it was the subterfuge its members practiced. The stealth in the dark night, the garrote in the throat, the subtle poisons, and furtive killings were incomprehensible to a clansman. No one knew when an Oathbreaker would strike. There was never warning.
And now they wanted to join the council.
Lord Branth pushed his way forward and stared down at Seth. “How dare you return here.”
Seth’s cold eyes shriveled Branth’s brashness to dust. “Medb dared us,” he said in a voice sharpened with malice.
Branth fell back a step, and the other chiefs looked upset. Medb’s involvement with the Cult of the Lash was something they had not considered. The tension built like a storm.
“You have my word that my brother and his men will not disrupt the council. They are here under my protection,” Savaric said soothingly.
Malech’s mouth tightened. “They must leave their weapons outside and may only speak on the matter that brought them here.”
Seth agreed, and the four men piled their whips by the entrance, knowing no man would dare touch them. The chiefs and their men filed into the council tent.
Nara nudged Gabria. Remember.
The girl nodded and moved numbly after Savaric. Inside, Medb was waiting for her. Her determination burned whiter; her fingers itched for the feel of a sword. She tried not to crowd Savaric through the entrance, but craned over his shoulder for her first glimpse of the Wylfling lord. Gabria had never seen’ him before, and her imagination had created many faces and forms for the man she knew only by reputation.
As the men sorted themselves and found their places, Gabria stared wildly about, trying to spot the murderer. He had to be there! Yet there was no one that fit her perception of an evil sorcerer. The only Wylfling she saw were sitting together near the head of the tent, and one she noticed with surprise, was seated on a litter with a brown blanket wrapped around his legs. She sat down by Athlone, her heart hammering. Maybe Medb was waiting to make an appearance. She clenched her hands and tried to still her trembling.
Lord Malech stood, his broad face sweating profusely, and held up his hand to quiet the talking. “Lord Medb, we have several strangers who have requested to join the council.”
Gabria froze. Her eyes raked the assembled Wylfling to find the chief who responded. On the litter, the man with the brown blanket idly waved away a fly and inclined his head.
“So I heard.” He turned to Gabria. “On behalf of the council, may I express our delight and relief in the survival of a son of Dathlar. Your father’s death was a blow to us all.”
Gabria’s mouth dropped open. She stared and stared until her head swam and the fury began to boil in her stomach. She had been cheated! The days of humiliation and grief and sweat had gone for nothing! She wanted to shriek at the injustice of it. The last, bitter, blood-soaked laugh had gone to Medb, for now her clan’s honor would have to be sacrificed to a cripple. She started to stand, not knowing what she would do, but Athlone slammed her down and gripped her arm like a vise.
“Don’t move,” he hissed. “Don’t say a word,”
Gabria could not have spoken if she wanted to. Her breath seemed to be strangling her.
The chieftains looked at her curiously, expecting a response. When she said nothing, Malech cleared his throat nervously and said, “The Corin massacre is a subject we have been avoiding . . . to our shame. Now we discover a Corin has survived. We cannot sidestep this hideous crime any longer. Boy, will you tell us what happened at your treld?” Malech averted his eyes from Medb and waved at Gabria to stand.
Athlone released the girl’s arm with a warning squeeze, and she slowly climbed to her feet. Over the heads of the men, she could see Medb clearly, and her hatred fumed. No one had told her the truth. They had let her run wildly into a trap where the only escape was to retreat. She could not duel with a crippled man in any way; there was no other avenue of revenge that would satisfy her weir-geld. She could hire the Oathbreakers to assassinate him, if they would, or she could attack him herself one dark night, but both thoughts were repugnant and would not honorably settle the debt of vengeance.
Gabria could think of nothing else to do. Perhaps, if she convinced the council that Medb was responsible for the heinous crime, they would discipline him. Unfortunately, she doubted the chieftains would do much. It was obvious, even in the first few minutes she had been with them, that the chiefs were afraid.
The realization startled her. As Gabria looked about her and saw the men’s grim mouths and tense postures, a small feeling of pride began to grow in her mind. These men who boasted so loudly around the fires at night quailed before a single chief, a man of their own standing, while she, a woman, was a rider of a great Hunnuli and had survived the worst doom a clansman could inflict on another. If she could survive that, she could endure this hideous disappointment.
Keeping her voice low and level, Gabria told the council everything she had told the Khulinin, as well as her vision of the massacre. She disregarded the growing agitation of the men and kept her eyes pinned on Lord Medb as she talked. Her gaze did not waver when she detailed her evidence of his guilt.
The Wylfling chief sat motionless through the telling, returning her silent challenge with his gray eyes narrowed like a wolf’s. Still, Gabria could see the angry glints in the gray of Medb’s eyes and a tic in the muscles of his rigid neck.
Despite his shattered legs, Medb was still a powerful, vibrant man. His energy pulsed in every muscle and made him look younger than his forty winters. He was very different from anything Gabria had imagined and, in other circumstances, she would have thought him handsome. His features were chiseled on a broad face and were framed by a short beard and curly brown hair. It was a face meant to be open and friendly, not twisted into a mask that hid malice and unconscionable deceit.
When Gabria finished speaking, an uproar erupted from the council. The men shouted and gestured angrily. Several leaped to their feet. In the deafening outbursts, it was difficult to understand their arguments. Lord Malech tried to quiet them, but his efforts were wasted in the chaos.
Savaric stood up. “Silence!” he bellowed, and the racket died down. “The Corin have been dead for four months. Why do you show your outrage only now?”
The men slowly quieted.
“Why do you just now bring forth this survivor?” Lord Branth asked, adding a sneer of disbelief to his last word.
“To guard against his untimely demise. He is, after all, the last of the Corin. Now that we all are witness to his existence, we cannot ignore the reasons for the annihilation of his entire clan.”
“The evidence I have heard condemns the greed and bloodlust in a few exiles who unlawfully banded together to harry our clans,” Branth retorted.
Shouts of agreement met Branth’s statement, and Lord Caurus of the Reidhar slammed a horn cup on the ground.
“Ten of my best mares were stolen by that pack of jackals and thirty sheep were slaughtered and left to rot.”
Lord Ferron of Clan Amnok said immediately, “This has never happened in the memory of our clans. We must deal with these marauders swiftly before they massacre another clan.”
“The Corin were not massacred for simple greed,” Savaric said.