It couldn't be his skill; it had to be the material itself. If only he could get his hands on a woman of real substance, breeding, true quality. A woman like Winterhart....
Thatone he had yet to touch, although he had watched her hungrily for ten years. Now there was a creature fit for an artist! Not wood at all, she was the finest marble, a real challenge to carve and mold. But he could do it. He was more than a match for her, just as he was more than a match for any of them. What sculptor was ever afraid of his stone? What genius was ever afraid of his toys? The challenge would be to unmake and then remake her, but to do it so cleverly that she askedfor every change he made to her.
What a dream....
But a dream was all it ever would be. She would never come to him, not while she was mated to the oh-so-perfect Amberdrake. And not when the whole city knew how disgustingly contented she was with her mate. It was all too honey-sweet for words, just as sickeningly, cloyingly sweet as that sugar-white gryphon, Skandranon, and hismate.
It was just a good thing for him that not everyone in this little Utopia was as contented with life as those four were.
He would certainly enjoy giving all of them a bitter taste of reality when the time was right. Especially Winterhart. Get under that cool surface and see what seethed beneath it. Find out what she feared.
Not the ordinary fears of his six creations, he was certain of that. No, Winterhart must surely fear something fascinating, something he would have to work hard to discover. What could he cut free from inside her? Now there was an interesting image; a hollow woman, emptied out slice by slice, with only a walking shell left for everyone else to see. How could it be done? And how thin could he carve those walls before the sculpture collapsed in on itself? Well. If the wood was good enough, he could scoop out quite enough to satisfy his needs.
These thoughts were on his mind as he lowered his knife down between Telica's thighs. That, and his craving for her to make some noise for him.
The blade touched the birch-white skin of one thigh.
At that moment, a shadow moved across Telica's still skin. The lighting in the room shifted as someone—no, several someones—came into the room uninvited. Now thiswas an outrage! Hadanelith whirled, knife in hand, to confront these presumptuous invaders. Before he could utter more than a snarl, a boot to his face made things quite different than a minute before, when hewas the one in control.
Amberdrake's trepidation had hardened into a dull, tight pain in his gut. It certainly wasn't because he hadn't seen horror in his life, or felt himself grow ill from feeling others' suffering. It wasn't precisely because he feared a violent confrontation, or the cleaning up that was always needed after such a thing happened. The sensation he had, as the group arrived at Hadanelith's home—or perhaps it should be called a lair—was dread for its own sake. Amberdrake had the feeling that nothing good was going to come of this arrest. Morally it was the right thing to do, by Law it was the right thing to do, yet still there was that gnawing in his gut that told him they were doing more harm than good.
Aubri, the Eternally Battered, apparently felt it also, although it might have just been a bad breakfast that caused his disgruntled expression. He was a gryphon who never had any good luck, if you believed what he said.
"It's too quiet in there, Drake," he wheezed, as they held themselves poised just outside Hadanelith's door. "We know he's got someone in there, so why isn't there any sound?"
"I don't know," Amberdrake replied, in an anxious whisper. "I don't like it, either. Judeth?"
"I've got a bad feeling about this," she said shortly. "Let's get in there—now."
With a wave of her hand, she led her group of ex-fighters through the door in a rush. Amberdrake trailed behind, warrant still held in his clenched hand, dreading what they would find.
So he didn't actually seeJudeth kick Hadanelith in the jaw and send him sprawling to the floor, but once he saw what had prompted that action, he also saw no need to protest what might be considered an act of brutality.
The young woman was bound only by thread, in one of the most excruciatingly uncomfortable positions Amberdrake had ever seen. Her skin was sheened with sweat, and her muscles trembled with the effort of holding herself in place. There were faint scars in many places on her pale skin. With Hadanelith's carving knife lying on the floor where Judeth had just kicked it, there wasn't much doubt in Amberdrake's mind where those scars had come from.
But most horrible of all—she acted as if she were completely unaware of their presence.
No. She's not acting. Sheis unaware of our presence. She will not acknowledge that we are here because he has not told her to.
That was what held him frozen, and what made Judeth's eyes blaze with black rage; that one presumably human person had done thisto another.
The scars are only the least of what he has done to her. This will take months to undo. This is a case for the Healers; my people can't possibly make this right.
With trembling hands, Amberdrake unrolled the arrest warrant and read it out loud. Hadanelith did not move from the place where he lay sprawled across his own floor, not even to finger the growing bruise on his jaw.
He only glared up at Amberdrake in impotent fury as the kestra'chern read out the charges and the sentence.
"You've heard the charges. We've seen the evidence before our eyes. You've been caught, Hadanelith," Judeth said fiercely, biting off each word as if she bitterly regretted having to say anything to him at all. "Have you got anything to say in your defense?"
In answer, Hadanelith spat at her. Since he was lying on the ground and she was standing over him, it didn't get very far. The glob of spittle hit the top of her boot and ran down the side. One of the human Silvers snarled and pulled back a fist; Judeth caught his arm.
"No point in soiling your hands, Tylar," she said coldly. She looked around, picked up a piece of expensive silk that Hadanelith was using for a couch drape, and deliberately wiped her boot with it, dropping it at her feet in a crumpled heap. Only then did she turn to look at her prisoner.
"There are a lot of things I would liketo do to you, scum," she said, her voice flat and devoid of all emotion. "However, we've got one Law to deal with people like you. Hadanelith, by reason of being caught in the acts described, you will be taken as you are to the plateau above White Gryphon in chains. You will be taken to the edge of the lands we have claimed and cultivated. There you will be freed of your chains, and you will be given from now until darkness falls to take yourself outside our border marker. If, by tomorrow at dawn, you are still inside them, whoever finds you is permitted to take any steps he deems necessary to get rid of you."
Hadanelith's rage showed clearly in his eyes, but his voice was as cold as Judeth's. "As I am? What, no weapons, no food, no—"
"You are a mad dog, scum. We don't supply a mad dog with food and weapons." Her lips thinned, and her eyes glinted as she looked down at him. "You think that you're so clever—I suggest you start using that cleverness to figure out how to survive in the forest with only what you're wearing." She jerked her head at the rest of the Silvers. "Chain him up, and get him out of here before he makes me sicker than I already am."