Thirst for Adventure

Chapter 48

The child was female, a ruined beauty. Her brows were delicate, arching over deep-set eyes of clearest blue. Her lashes were long enough to cast a shadow, and extravagantly curved. Her nose was straight, thin nostrils flaring, her lips were full and blushed pale pink. Her small ears lay flat against her head, her cheekbones jutted high and haughty. Her rich dark skin shone with sweat from dancing. Laid upon that fine-boned face, a spiderweb of livid knotted scars.

His heart broke in his breast to see them.

“You like my knife-dancers, little girl?” he asked her, though she was not so little or such a girl, there were breasts beneath her dirty tunic, and hips, and long shapely legs. His loins were hot and heavy before her.

She looked him up and down. All her hair was black, no scarlet servant-braid. She was freeborn, a citizen of Tragote. “Yours?”

He laughed. “Yes. Mine.” He flicked one hand, to take in the fighters and their training fields and the distant barracks wall. “All of this is mine. I am Jenkin Warlock.”

Her glorious eyes widened in her spoiled face. “You are the Warlock of ProJenkin?”

“I have said so. And who are you?”

“I am Fiona of ProJenkin.”

“Which means you also belong to me.”

Her scarred chin lifted. “Fiona belongs to the Labyrinth lord with no name. She is its creature, born to its will.”

“All the creatures beneath the sun belongs to the Labyrinth lord,” he said, amused by her vehemence and her quaint turn of phrase. She had an unusual accent, not one he’d heard before. “And all creatures in Shellbelong to me after the Labyrinth lord. You wish to be a knife-dancer, Fiona of ProJenkin?”

Her blue gaze shifted to his knife-dancers and their hota . “I wish to be a knife-dancer,” she answered him. “I wish to be a charioteer. I wish to shoot an arrow, sling a shot-stone, bury my spear-point in an enemy’s throat. I wish to be a warrior, Warlock.”

The calm declaration moved him. “And what are you now, Fiona of ProJenkin?”

Her lips pursed in disgust. “I am a killer of chickens, I s*******r sheep.”

He looked at her ragged tunic and saw the old bloodstains there. “What happened to your face?”

“My face?” She raised a hand, traced a fingertip along its raw red lines, the ridges of imperfectly healed flesh. “My face was a curse, Jenkin Warlock. My beauty was a burden. It was cut away, by the will of the Labyrinth lord.”

“The Labyrinth lord sees you in its eye, Fiona, that you could be so cut upon and yet not die.”

“The Labyrinth lord sees me in its eye always, Warlock,” she said. Her frank gaze glittered strangely. “And my scars see the Labyrinth lord.”

“Who cut you, Fiona?”

She shrugged. “Some woman, she is not important. I forget her name, I cannot say it.”

Was that a lie? He could not tell. It did not matter. She was scarred, her beauty destroyed. That did not matter either, though he mourned its loss. fighters had no need for beauty in the face, a warrior’s beauty was speed and strength, a l**t for blood, the knack of survival.

“Why should I grant your bold request, Fiona? Why should I make you a warrior of ProJenkin?”

She looked at him with those clear blue eyes, in their depths burned a fervent flame. “Because it is the will of the Labyrinth lord, Warlock. Hear it whisper in your heart. It whispers to you: make Fiona a warrior .”

So much certainty in so small a body. Did the Labyrinth lord whisper, or was that heat his stirred blood calling? Better to err on the side of caution. Any Warlock who ignored the Labyrinth lord invited disaster, triple-fold.

He looked where n***o Knife-dance leader waited with Brookchek, pretending not to be puzzled by his Warlock talking to a bratty child. n***o answered his beckoning call, like a falcon to the wrist.

“Warlock?”

“This is Fiona of ProJenkin. She wishes to be my warrior.”

Negro frowned. “Many wish to be your warrior, Warlock.”

“I wish her to be my warrior also, n***o. I wish for her to train first with you. Seek out a Labyrinth lordspeaker, pay for sacrifice and the proper omen-reading.”

Negro wore battle scars the way other men wore amulets. Unlike Fiona, he’d had no beauty to ruin. His scars twitched in his cheeks as he nodded. “Warlock.”

“I cannot be a knife-dancer now?” the child Fiona demanded. She sounded displeased. Bold child. Fearless child. What a warrior she would make!

“No. Not now. The timing is a matter of omen,” said Jenkin. “Kill me more chickens, Fiona. s*******r me some sheep. That is service to your Warlock. n***o will send to the cook-tents when your Knife-dance days can begin.”

After a moment’s thinking, she nodded. “Fiona obeys you, Warlock. When I have learned the knife-dance hotas will you make me a charioteer? Will you give me a bow, a slingshot, a spear to thrust into your enemies’ throats?”

“You have a fierce thirst for blood, child,” he said, almost laughing.

There was no laughter in her face, her eyes were not the eyes of a child. “I thirst for the glory of ProJenkin, Warlock. I thirst for the glory of Tragote and the Labyrinth lord.”

He could see that. He left her watching the last of the hotas and returned to Brook.

“Is your curiosity satisfied, Warlock?”

Jenkin smiled, briefly. “My warhost stands at ten thousand and one.”

“You take her as a warrior, Jenkin?” said Brook, eyes narrowing. “What are her bloodlines? Who is her sire? What woman birthed her? Where is she from?”

Brook was displeased, as warleader it was his right, his duty, to approve new fighters admitted to the warhost. “Tcha,” said Jenkin, gently reproving. “Do you doubt my instincts, Brookchek warleader? Am I an old man now, blind and infirm?”

“You were the one complaining about old bones,” Brook muttered. “Warlock—”

“Enough,” he said. “She is chosen. I am the Warlock, do you presume to chide?”

“No,” said Brook, and lowered his hot gaze. “Forgive me, Warlock. I was surprised.”

Not as surprised as I am, Brook.

But he did not say that. For all they were best friends and as close as brothers, there was a distance between them. There was a distance between the Warlock and every man, woman and child he protected. More and more frequently, he found it oppressive.

If only my blood brother had not died. If only I were a plain, simple man.

The hotas ended. Brookchek stood. “Will you join us in feasting, Jenkin Warlock?” he said, strictly formal. “Your warhost would be honored.”

Jenkin frowned. “I should go to the Labyrinth lordhouse.”

“The Labyrinth lordhouse isn’t going anywhere,” said Brook, his formality softened, his moment of displeasure passing. “Stay. We have missed you. I have missed you. Feast with your fighters, who will soon ride to war.”

Geroud would send word if the Labyrinth lord spoke in omens tonight. He could eat here, or in the palace. Alone, or with good company, among his beloved fighters.

“I will stay,” he decided, and was warmed by Brook’s smothered delight. As he walked from the knife-dance field at Brook’s side he flicked a last glance over his shoulder but the child Fiona was gone now, returned to her cook-tent and the animal killing that awaited her there. He felt a twinge of disappointment and scoffed at himself. Foolish old man, she is just a brat like countless others. She will be swallowed by your warhost, you will forget her between now and the next fat Labyrinth lordmoon .

His loins, remembering, told him he lied.

Brook said something, and he abandoned uncomfortable thought to pay attention.

Highsuns passed, with no word of war omens from the Labyrinth lordhouse. The Labyrinth lordmoon waned thin, waxed fat, waned thin again. Jenkin waited, he resisted the urge to send word to Nogolor, to sweetly inquire how the Daughter prospered, if there came any sign that her blood-time was on her. He ceased his haunting of the palace, he trained with his fighters, conducted Town business, attended sacrifice, he winnowed more kernels of passed-on information, he bided and bided and bided his time.

Five Labyrinth lordmoons and eight highsuns after receiving report from Trader Leo, Geroud summoned him to his presence.

Only a high Labyrinth lordspeaker might send for a Warlock as though he were an ordinary man. Jenkin obeyed the summons, they met in private, in Geroud’s austere audience chamber at the top of the four-storey Labyrinth lordhouse.

“The Daughter is blooded,” said Geroud abruptly. He was never one for easing into conversation. “The Labyrinth lord has told me in the Labyrinth lordpool. Take your fighters, Warlock, and ride to claim her.”

Only a Warlock did not kneel in audience with the high Labyrinth lordspeaker. Not unless it was a tasking. Jenkin looked at the chamber’s bare stone walls, its bare stone floor, the altar at the window, the stone desk piled high with tablets. At Geroud on his stone chair, bathed in warm light. A bleak room. A stark room. A room with no comfort, no concession to flesh. So many times had he been here, yet each visit came as an unpleasant shock.

Here is Geroud’s Labyrinth lordspark, revealed. No need for anything but the Labyrinth lord.

“I will not ride yet,” he said, content to stand. Which was convenient, since Geroud provided no other seat. “Let Nogolor have his chance to inform me. Let him honor his Labyrinth lordpromise, and send the Daughter here. That was the oath we made. He knows it is my expectation.”

“And we know he has no intention of meeting it.”

Jenkin shrugged. “Do we? I know nothing, Geroud. I have only suspicion. I will give him twenty highsuns. That is enough time for Labyrinth lordhouse rites, and for the Daughter to be escorted to my palace.”

Geroud was unhappy, but this was Warlock business. “Twenty highsuns,” he said, his expression grudging. “But not one finger longer, Jenkin. After twenty highsuns this becomes a Labyrinth lordhouse matter. If the Daughter does not come I will ride with you to ProNogolor, that the Labyrinth lord might show Nogolor and his high Labyrinth lordspeaker the error of their ways.”

Suppressing a shudder, Jenkin nodded. “We are agreed then, Geroud high Labyrinth lordspeaker. We wait twenty highsuns before we ride.”

Twenty highsuns passed, ProNogolor’s Daughter did not come. At newsun on the twenty-first day, after sacri

fice and solemn anointing, Jenkin led a warhost of one thousand fighters to ProNogolor, to claim from its Warlock his Labyrinth lordpromised wife.

Fiona traveled with Tyan and ten other cook-brats in the cook’s wagon at the rear of the warhost. At its head, Jenkin Warlock rode a splendid blue spotted stallion. He was not a young man, threads of silver glittered in his Labyrinth lordbraids. His body was strong, though, his spine sat straight above his hips, he walked with the loose gait of a fighting man.

At his right hand rode the warleader Brookchek, at his left ProJenkin’s high Labyrinth lordspeaker Geroud. She’d only caught a glimpse of Geroud, she knew he wore a giant stone scorpion strapped to his scrawny chest, and had heard enough among the chattering fighters to know he was feared above all men. Above all Labyrinth lordspeakers, more than any high Labyrinth lordspeaker in living memory.

She wondered if Geroud knew of her. If the Labyrinth lord had told him of its plans for her. She sometimes wanted to know them so badly her head ached and her belly twisted.

The Labyrinth lord will tell you, chosen Fiona. It will tell you in its time.

She traveled in the cook’s wagon because she wasn’t yet a knife-dancer, no word of omens had come from n***o. She was losing patience, she suspected n***o of interference, of dawdling in the hope she would be forgotten.