Firebrand

HILLANDER EYES

Immerez did not envy Terrik, who had received the “honor” of explaining to Grandmother, upon her return from Birch’s camp, just how two captives had escaped in the night, and about the unrest among her slaves. The three of them walked together toward the curtain wall of the keep.

“What did you say?” Grandmother asked, halting. “Flying cats?”

“Two of my men swear they saw it,” Terrik said, looking a little red around his ears. “But it was dark. Some of our sentries, though, looked like they’d been mauled by a catamount.”

“But flying?” Grandmother persisted.

No, Immerez did not envy Terrik.

“As for the captives,” she said, “Green Riders can touch etherea. The one could have used it to escape.”

“No,” Immerez replied. “I saw her. She was in no condition. Nyssa had already worked on her. They had to have had outside help.”

Grandmother raised her eyebrow at him. “Flying cats?”

He shrugged, and they resumed their slow walk toward the wall’s gate. Many more guards were on duty after the previous night’s excitement. When it had all happened, he’d been with Nyssa in her chambers. He smiled, thinking of his time with her. Torturer she may be, but when it came to the bed chamber, she preferred to play a submissive role, an arrangement he found more than tolerable.

A gaggle of children came to mob Grandmother and tug on her skirt. They laughed and talked in high-pitched voices, vying for her attention. She patted them on their heads and urged them to go play. They ran off in a pack as though they had not a care in the world.

“About the Greenie,” Immerez said as they passed through the gate and into the keep’s courtyard, “you met her once in Teligmar. She was the one who deceived us by taking Lady Estora’s place. Name’s G’ladheon.”

“Yes, I recall. She was brave or foolish, that one. She also went on to steal the Silverwood book from us, for all the good it did her king.”

It had, Immerez reflected, kept it out of Grandmother’s hands, preventing her from doing whatever it was she had intended. “There is something more you should know about the Greenie.” They paused in the sunny courtyard, and he told her about the girl’s strange mirror eye. It made him shudder to think of it, it was so inhuman, and it did not help that Grandmother looked disturbed.

“Are you sure it was not a false eye of some sort?”

“I don’t know what to think,” he replied. “I could almost swear images started to form in it. It startled me so much I stopped looking and figured you’d know what it was.”

Grandmother gave Terrik a sidelong look. “And we won’t find out now, will we.”

“We have teams out searching,” Terrik said. “They can’t have gotten far.”

“I hope not for your sake, Captain,” Grandmother replied. “There is no telling what that Green Rider saw of our position here, and she’ll take it back to her king. Now, about the uprising of my slaves . . .”

They walked in a leisurely way around the exterior of the keep, scattering chickens. People called out greetings to Grandmother. She was much loved by them, and feared. They should fear her, Immerez thought. She would not think twice about sacrificing any one of them, not even the children, if it meant furthering Second Empire’s goals.

Terrik told her about the fight that had broken out during Smurn’s weekly sermon. “The Greenie started it, really,” he said. “She resisted the guards, and it inspired the slaves to rise.”

On the backside of the keep, they came to the broken part of the curtain wall and stepped through. Terrik explained how the worst perpetrators had been dealt with, and the rest put back to work.

“It was later,” he said, “when one just went absolutely berserk.”

They continued on to the dig, where the slaves filed in and out of the underground passage, lugging their baskets. They looked like sleepwalkers to Immerez, uncaring of the world around them, their only goal to simply make it through another day. One had been singled out to stand by the rock pile, burdened with a heavy log borne on his shoulders, his wrists shackled to it. He shifted to keep his balance, his teeth gritted and whole body trembling. His battered face gleamed with sweat.

“If he falls or drops the log before time is up,” Terrik told Grandmother, “we’ll pull one of the others out of the passage to beat on. He’d been helping some of the weaker ones. Now he’ll see where that got him, and teach the others a lesson, too.”

“Why didn’t you just give him to Nyssa?”

Terrik shrugged. “He’s one of the best workers. He wouldn’t be of much use after a session with Nyssa. Plus, this way he is a very visible example.”

“I approve.” She stepped closer to the man. The entirety of his focus appeared to be on staying upright. “He is beat up, Captain, but he looks familiar.”

“The guards had to subdue him after he went berserk. No cause that we could figure out, but he sure has some good training.”

Immerez looked sharply at Terrik. “What do you mean he has training?”

“He’s not just a brawler like we thought, but has some real warrior training. He put three of my men totally out of commission and wounded a pack of others. I can only imagine what he’s like on the battlefield.”

Immerez gazed more intently at the man. Shaggy hair, a full beard, and bruises and welts on his face partially obscured his features.