Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga) Read online

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BLAINE’S SLEEP WAS TROUBLED. DESPITE A FEW cups of whiskey, sleep had proven elusive and his dreams were dark.

  Velant’s walls loomed high. To the work team headed for the ruby mines, the stockade might as well have touched the sky. Guards patrolled along the walkway near the top of the fence. Torches lit the large open area too well for anyone to hide in the shadows. Many dreamed of escape, but few if any had ever succeeded.

  Blaine shivered. His homespun woolen top and trews would be plenty warm deep inside the mine, but aboveground, they were inadequate protection for Edgeland’s bitter winds. Shackled between Piran and another prisoner, Blaine shuffled toward the mine under the eye of the guards. Their steps made a rhythmic clink-crunch as they made their way through the crusted snow.

  A year had passed since Blaine’s ship dropped anchor at Velant. When he had walked off the ship in chains, Donderath and his former life ceased to exist. Commander Prokief welcomed the new prisoners with a mock funeral, assuring them that here at the edge of the world, they were dead to everyone they had left behind. But Prokief had plans for his “dead” men. And for the last year, Blaine had toiled in the mines. Dark, wet, bone-chillingly cold, the back-breaking work was not nearly as hard to bear as the torments of their guards, men for whom Blaine knew Velant was also a prison.

  “You can move faster than this.” The guard lunged toward the shuffling prisoners, laying into one of the convicts with his whip. Manacled at the wrists and shackled to the others at the ankles, the convict could do little to avoid the bite of the flail. Blood spattered the snow and droplets sprayed the other prisoners. The whip fell again and again, slicing through the prisoner’s meager clothing, biting into flesh.

  The beaten prisoner stumbled, pulling the others with him. Enraged, the guard caught Blaine and Piran with his whip as the tangle of prisoners struggled to regain their footing. The lash caught Blaine across one cheek, opening a cut. Warm blood poured down his face, instantly freezing to his beard in the cold. The second stroke of the whip slashed across his shoulder and chest. The return stroke of the whip cracked down across Piran. Blaine and Piran exchanged glances. Exhausted, hungry, cold, and hopeless, it was the final straw.

  Together, they lashed out with their feet, tripping the guard and bringing him down hard to the snow. Using their combined weight, Blaine and Piran heaved themselves on top of the guard, dragging the other men with them. Blaine wrested the flail from the guard’s hand and slammed the solid base of it into the guard’s skull. Piran pinned the guard’s hands and Blaine swung both fists together, striking the guard’s face on one side and then the other.

  Just yesterday, Blaine had seen four guards beat two of his fellow prisoners to death in the courtyard while the other guards looked on. The battered bodies had been left lying where they fell. They froze rapidly, unprotected from the wind, becoming a ghoulish monument. Today’s whipping was one torment too many.

  Boots thudded across the snow. Rough hands dragged Blaine and Piran away from the guard. Shouts echoed across the stockade. Two guards helped their comrade struggle to his feet. The guard’s face was bloodied and one eye was swelling shut, but he was still alive. As the moment’s rage faded, Blaine realized that he was quite likely to end up with the frozen corpses in the parade yard.

  “These two—take them to the mages,” the captain of the guards snapped, striding across the bloodied snow. Keys clinked in the guard’s hands as he unfastened Blaine and Piran from the other prisoners. Before either could take a step, the guard sent a right hook to Blaine’s jaw as the captain did the same to Piran, dropping them in their tracks. The beating continued after they fell to the ground, fists and boots flying as the guards returned double what had been inflicted. Finally, as Blaine struggled to remain conscious, the blows stopped.

  “Take them away,” the captain said. Two guards grabbed him roughly, one under each arm, and began to drag him across the snow-covered yard. Behind him, he heard Piran groan as two more guards hauled him from the ground.

  Blaine had stopped fearing death when he had reached Velant. Yet he knew that death was the least of the punishments Prokief and his warden-mages could inflict. He should feel fear, perhaps terror; yet he felt nothing except a numbness that chilled him more than the Edgeland cold. Death would be a mercy, and the torment that might lead to death could not last as long as a life sentence on this godsforsaken slab of ice.

  The guards dragged Blaine into the large prison building. He hung like dead weight between the two guards who hauled him along, toes trailing behind him. They stopped in front of two massive doors, which creaked open onto a large open courtyard with a tiled floor and a balcony gallery.

  The two guards threw him into the room. Still bound at the wrists, Blaine fell badly and felt his nose break, sending blood streaming down his face. Piran collapsed into a heap beside him. The guards retreated as doors on the other side of the room opened, and for the first time, Blaine felt a stab of fear break through his indifference.

  “Sit him up.” Commander Prokief’s voice was like a rumble of thunder. Black boots stopped just short of where Blaine lay facedown on the tile floor. Guards stepped forward to drag Blaine up and force him to kneel. One grabbed Blaine by the hair, jerking his head up so that he could see the large uniformed man standing over him.

  Commander Prokief was a bear of a man, a tall, hulking brawler who had earned his rank through battlefield ruthlessness and then proved too feral to remain in civilized society. Long before his banishment, Blaine remembered hearing whispers that Prokief’s connections at court with men like Vedran Pollard made it inconvenient for Merrill to have him killed, and so Prokief was “awarded” the post of commander at Velant.

  Blaine glanced at Piran. Piran was supported by the guards, and did not appear conscious. Several deep gashes in his scalp and bruises on his face showed that Piran had not escaped the worst of the beating.

  “McFadden and Rowse. Again.” Prokief nodded for the guard to tip Piran’s face up. Piran’s head lolled as the guard jerked his hair.

  “Take him to the Hole,” Prokief said with a jerk of his head toward Piran. “Three days. If he’s alive afterward, put him back in the mines. If not, throw his body outside the stockade for the foxes.”

  The guards dragged Piran out of the room, leaving Blaine kneeling between his two captors.

  “I’m tired of you, McFadden,” Prokief said. He stepped closer and brought the back of his gloved hand hard across Blaine’s face, snapping his head to the side. Before Blaine could react, the toe of Prokief’s boot caught him hard in the gut. Blaine gasped and retched. The guards held him in his place.

  “Somehow, you’re always at the center of it when there’s a problem. The others know their place. Why don’t you?”

  Blaine glowered, but remained silent.

  Prokief struck again, snapping Blaine’s head in the other direction. “I forgot,” he mocked. “You’ve got noble blood. Lord McFadden.” He spat on the ground. “You’re the only one with a note next to his entry in the logbook forbidding me from killing you. So, much as I’d like to do Lord Pollard a favor, I can’t execute you—more’s the pity. On the other hand, if you die of natural causes”—he shrugged—“well, things like that happen all the time.”

  Prokief glanced at the guards. “Stretch him out.”

  One of the guards grabbed the chain between Blaine’s wrists and dragged him over to the center of the tile floor. Four iron rings were embedded into the tile. The guard unlocked the manacles from Blaine’s wrists and another guard put a boot in the center of Blaine’s back and sent him sprawling. Rough hemp ropes bit into his wrists and ankles, stretching him spread eagle. One of the guards jerked hard on his shirt, splitting it down the middle and baring his back.

  “Twenty lashes,” Prokief said dispassionately. Blaine steeled himself. Prokief himself took the whip from the guard, and the knotted leather tendril sang through the air, laying open a welt from should
er to hip. Blaine grunted and bit into his lip. The lash fell again and again, each time striking in a new spot. He lost count, slipping in and out of consciousness.

  Blaine gritted his teeth. His silence enraged Prokief, who brought the lash down harder as the guard counted. “Sixteen… Seventeen… Eighteen… Nineteen… Twenty.”

  When the last lash fell, Blaine lay still, lost in pain and shock.

  “Douse him with salt water,” Prokief commanded.

  A guard went to grab a bucket from near the wall. The weight of the water hurt as much as the salt that stung in the fresh, raw wounds, and Blaine barely bit back a cry.

  “Take him to the Hole. No food or water. Three days.” He paused. “Ejnar, come here.”

  Dimly, Blaine heard the swish of the warden-mage’s gray robes as the man’s soft boots stepped around the rivulets of blood on the tile floor. “Commander?”

  “Use your magic to keep him from dying. I want him alive when he leaves here, even if he’s barely breathing.”

  “Done, Commander.”

  Blaine could hear the satisfaction in Prokief’s tone. “Give him something to remember me by while he’s down there. Fever and cramps, eh? It would be pleasant to hear him beg for death.”

  “As you wish, Commander.”

  Ejnar had no sooner spoken than Blaine felt a wave of fire building inside his body. A moment earlier, soaked to the skin and spread-eagled on the ice-cold tile, Blaine shivered uncontrollably. Now, he felt sweat breaking out on his temples, only to subside a moment later with shuddering chills. His gut clenched, and the pain would have doubled him over had the ropes not kept him flat against the floor. Blaine’s breath came in shallow gasps as the pain hit again. He writhed, twisting against the ropes that held him until the skin at his wrists and ankles were raw. Every movement stretched the savaged skin on his back, yet it was impossible not to move. After only a few moments, the scream Prokief coveted tore from Blaine’s lips.

  “Make sure he remains conscious.” Prokief turned from Ejnar to the guards. “When his time’s up, drag him out when the prisoners are in the yard. Let them see the price of insolence.”

  Blaine sat up with a start, eyes wide and heart pounding. It took him a moment to get his bearings. Despite the room’s shutters, the arctic daylight streamed in around the edges, giving him enough to recognize that he was at the Crooked House. He had dozed in a chair near the banked fire, and the tattered blanket Ifrem had given him was dangerously close to the hearth, knocked askew as he had fought against the dream.

  “Back in the Hole, huh?” Verran’s voice helped anchor him to the present. Blaine closed his eyes and swallowed hard, trying to slow his rapid breathing. His heart thudded so hard against his ribs that he imagined the inn shook with the pounding.

  “Drink this.” Blaine opened his eyes to find Verran standing in front of him, a tin cup of whiskey in his hand. Gratefully, Blaine accepted it, taking a gulp of the raw liquor. The remembered pain was fading, though Blaine would always carry the scars, both on his back and in the dreams that woke him, sweating and trembling, more nights than he cared to admit.

  “Let me tell you,” Verran went on, resting a boot on the chair next to Blaine and leaning forward. “Sharing a room with you and Piran is a bit like a front-row seat at the madhouse.”

  Blaine took another sip of the whiskey and willed himself to relax. “Entertaining, are we?”

  Verran shrugged. “ ‘Entertaining’ isn’t the word I’d have picked. More like watching a corpse in a gibbet—you don’t want to look, but you can’t stop.” Verran came around to sit on the front of his chair and leaned toward the fire. He poked at the embers, bringing them up to a glow, and threw a small log onto the grate, guessing that Blaine would not go back to sleep tonight. “I was there when they fished the two of you out of the Hole. You looked like the wrath of the gods.”

  “I don’t really remember.”

  Verran snorted. “I don’t think either of you were conscious. I figured Piran would make it. He’s a soldier. But I have to say, I wouldn’t have bet money on you, even if the mines did put muscle on your bone.”

  “I couldn’t let Prokief win,” Blaine said quietly. What little he remembered of his time in the Hole was focused on the rage he had directed at Prokief, rage that was really meant for his father, for the king, for everything about this accursed place. Blaine finished his whiskey, letting it burn down his throat, wishing it would blur the memories and knowing it would not.

  “Yeah, and if I knew you’d keep getting dreams about it, I don’t know whether I’d have agreed to share the bunk room with you at the homestead,” Verran said, attempting a lighter tone. “Gods! Piran’s always waking up with his fist ready to strike and you wake up like this more nights than I care to count. At least Dawe’s a sound sleeper, or I’d never get any peace.”

  “Where is Piran?” Blaine looked around the darkened room.

  “No idea.”

  Outside the inn, the sea had grown wild, and the rain was gray with ash from the volcano’s explosion. Dark rivulets of water streamed down the walls of the buildings, leaving dirty streaks behind.

  “As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, I wonder what the blast will do to the fishing,” Blaine mused.

  “We’ve got bigger problems, boys,” Ifrem said. From where he stood in the doorway, he pointed toward the seawall. “There are all kinds of wardings on the town: wards against fire and spells against mice, and a little witching to keep weevils out of the bread and make the meat keep longer.” He nodded toward the raging sea. “If the magic’s unsteady, then so are the spells to hold the seawall.”

  Ifrem turned to the crowd that pressed up against the window. “If you want to stay dry, I’ll need some men to latch the storm shutters.” A few of the men grumbled and then shouldered into their oilcloth cloaks, some heading out the front door to secure the ground-floor windows, while others tramped up the steps to do the same for the second floor.

  “Where’s Piran?” Blaine asked once again.

  Ifrem shrugged. “Out in it, I guess. He came through here a bit ago, but he was mum when I asked him where he was going.”

  “Do you think he got caught breaking curfew?” Verran asked, casting a nervous glance toward the rain-soaked streets.

  Blaine shook his head. “I don’t think Prokief’s guards are loyal enough to patrol in this kind of weather. If I know him, he’s spending the night with a lady friend.”

  Blaine had never gotten completely used to nights that never grew dark, nor days where the sun never rose. The candlemarks passed and the bell tower rang out above the sound of the storm. Ifrem’s weary guests pitched in, using rags to stop up places where the storm sent rivulets of water beneath the door or around the windows. By third bells, most of those who had jammed into the common room were soundly asleep wherever they could find a seat.

  Blaine did not care to attempt sleeping again, though Verran managed to doze. A foreboding that had nothing to do with magic hovered in the back of his mind, and the more time passed without Piran’s return, the more worried he became. The storm had ended by fifth bells and Ifrem’s guests began to stagger to the door once curfew was over.

  Ifrem brought Blaine a cup of fet, a strong, licorice-flavored drink brewed from the roots of one of Edgeland’s trees, prized for its stimulant properties and cursed for its bitter flavor. “Some night,” Ifrem said, grimacing as he sipped his fet.

  “Yeah, some night.”

  Ifrem cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t waste your time worrying about the likes of Piran Rowse. He’s out wenching, or emptying the purses of some poor marks who don’t know better than to play him at cards.”

  Just then, the door burst open. Piran stood in the doorway, rumpled and soaked. “Mick, we’ve got to get out of here. Where’s Verran?”

  “Upstairs. What’s going on? Where did you go?”

  Piran shook his head. “Out with a lady friend. That’s not important. We need to get out of the
Bay.”

  Blaine frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “Some fighting started over in the marketplace. The guards can’t contain it.”

  “I’ve got no desire to be here when Prokief sends reinforcements,” Blaine said, starting to his feet.

  “He won’t,” Piran said. “Velant’s on fire.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  BLAINE AND VERRAN DONNED THEIR CLOAKS and joined Piran in the street. Debris from the storm littered the roadways. What were once small boats lay in broken heaps, dashed against buildings that had lost shutters, windows, and signage to the storm. The whole town was streaked with ash, and black puddles splashed an inky mixture as crowds moved in the narrow streets.

  Despite the looming dark cloud of Estendall’s ash, more people milled about in the streets than Blaine could remember seeing at one time. A nervous energy crackled through the crowd.

  “Look there!” Piran pointed toward Velant. Elevated on a cliff above the sea, Velant burned like a torch on a hill.

  “The whole bloody thing’s up in flames,” Verran muttered.

  “And Dawe’s in there somewhere,” Piran said grimly.

  Blaine shook his head in amazement. “I thought you meant a building, but—”

  “Death to Prokief!” The cry came from somewhere in the mob around them and quickly became a chant. The crowd jostled shoulder to shoulder and the chant seemed to come from all directions, building in intensity.

  “Disperse! Leave now!” Over the shoulders of the men in front of him, Blaine glimpsed a grim-faced line of soldiers blocking the end of the main street. One row of soldiers were on horseback and two more rows were on foot, perhaps fifty men in all. The soldiers were wearing helmets and light armor and were armed with crossbows that were aimed at the crowd.

  “Get out of our way! We’ve got a score to settle.” A large man burst from the front of the mob, waving a broken board. Before he had taken more than a half-dozen steps, a quarrel twanged from the bow of one of the foot soldiers, catching the man full in the chest.