6. Rorax
“Is it too late for you to un-mate with her?” Rorax asked Jia, eyeing Volla as her friend loudly slurped her soup. Volla kicked Rorax’s chair, making Rorax tamp down a smile after Jia and Rorax shared a feigned look of disgust.
Jia had grown up in the palaces of Koppar, with endless etiquette lessons and high expectations. Once Jia’s mother, General Frostguard, picked up on Jia’s preferences as a young teen, Jia’s mother had started setting her up on dates with the finest bred women in the Realms, hoping for a political alliance. Rorax was looking forward to the day when the general found out her daughter had married a mannerless heathen.
“No. I’m stuck with her, unfortunately,” Jia sighed, fighting a smile as Volla reached over and ruffled her long purple ponytail.
Volla grunted and wiped her mouth with all the decorum and grace of a piglet. “What’s the plan for tomorrow, Sahana?”
“We leave here before sunup, and start making our way west,” Sahana shrugged. “Oba will have details ready at the next stop.”
“Do we have to travel with this lot?” Volla gestured a thumb to the handful of men stationed outside their hut they hadn’t bothered to go out and meet yet. “They’re going to slow us down.”
“Or they might keep us alive,” Jia said.
“They will bring us more attention,” Volla countered.
“If they have opened the Pits, and it’s still unconfirmed that they have, some of the monsters they’ve dragged out of the Pits will take more than a four-person unit to fell,” Jia protested.
“We are not just any unit, Jia Torvik.”
“They are offering us protection.”
Rorax watched them go back and forth, a little headache starting to bloom in the back of her head as she watched them.
“If I was a hungry mountain troll, I would pick the largest target to eat. Wouldn’t you?”
“Volla,” Sahana admonished. “They’re coming with us, at least until we are almost at the junction of the Pike River where we’ll meet Oba—as a sign of solidarity to the Lyondrean rebels if nothing else. If that doesn”t work, we’ll change the strategy. We have to be inconspicuous enough not to bring the whole country’s army down on our heads, but the added protection won’t hurt us.”
“Fine.” Volla’s mouth twisted with displeasure, but she wiped her face clean and turned her body in her chair to face Rorax. “Rorax, what was on the note Oba gave you? About Darras?”
Rorax swallowed another mouthful of soup as she fished around in her pocket for the tiny scroll before handing it over to Volla. “It’s an address in the capital. My search won’t begin for Darras until we arrive in the capital city.”
Volla nodded, reading the address before she handed the scroll over to Jia, who handed it to Sahana.
“If you were to fall, Grumpy, we’ll find him. I promise,” Volla said, the determination in her voice warming something deep in Rorax’s chest.
Another small headache bloomed in the back of Rorax’s head, but she pushed it away as she clapped Volla on the shoulder. “Thank you.”
They ate in silence until a small pain thrummed in the back of Rorax’s skull again. Her instincts prickled and she stood up to peek through the broken blinds, watching the soldiers outside. They were still lounging around, some of them smoking, some of them eating. They showed no signs that anything was amiss.
Rorax’s head throbbed, and this time the magick of her knife grew taught, straining her mind like it was tightening against an outside force.
Or an inside force.
She wrenched her hand away from the blinds and whipped around.
“Stop eating,” Rorax snapped at them, smacking a spoonful of soup halfway to Volla’s open mouth so hard the spoon and soup splattered all over the floor. “Stop.”
Volla blinked up at her but leapt to her feet, her hands already on her blades. “What the fuck is going on, Ror?”
“The food. It has a blocking herb in it,” Rorax hissed. “I can feel it affecting my connection to Glimr.”
A tasteless blocker, used to cut off anyone from any part of their magick.
The Heilstorms were trained to be able to taste poisons and blockers in their food. Only one—one of the most effective, rarest blockers on the market—had absolutely no taste. Waterlily Rine. It would have been extremely difficult, and obscenely expensive, to obtain enough Rine to block one person, let alone four.
Sahana and Jia drew their weapons and were on their feet less than a second later. Almost as if summoned, there was a heavy knock on the door.
“Heilstorms?”
They looked at each other in horror for a split second before the door erupted, splintering inward under the force of a massive impact. Twenty men rushed into the room before a thick block of Jia’s ice closed it shut again. There was banging on it from the other side, and before Jia iced over the windows, too, Rorax saw that all the soldiers who’d been outside were no longer lounging around.
They were armed and ready.
The soldiers started to assault the barrier of ice leading to the inside as the soldiers already inside swarmed the Heilstorms. Rorax wasted no time and threw Glimr at an oncoming soldier. She decapitated one and then the next, dodging and rolling under blows, hacking men apart with her sword in a blind bloodlust.
“STOP!”
Rorax didn’t recognize the woman’s voice at first, so she didn’t stop. She cut down another man, until the voice thundered again, “I said STOP.”
Rorax swung her sword, cutting through a man’s neck, and only then did she flick her eyes up to the soldier giving them commands. She went utterly still.
Captain Crax, from House of Weather, stood with a knife pressed to Jia’s throat.
Rorax froze, and from the corner of her eye she could see both Sahana and Volla stop fighting as well.
“Drop your weapons and raise your hands, or she dies,” Crax hissed as blood dribbled from her split lip into her mouth.
Rorax and Volla looked at Sahana, who gave them both a short nod. Sahana and Rorax dropped their swords to the ground and Rorax summoned Glimr back to her scabbard. Volla’s jaw went tight, and she gave Crax a look that promised death before she grudgingly dropped her own sword.
“If you touch her, I will filet you alive,” Volla promised, her voice cold and unforgiving.
“Hello, ladies. I’ve missed you,” Crax said over the sound of soldiers from the outside trying to beat through the ice that blocked the door. Crax pushed a lock of short blonde hair out of her eyes then looked between the four of them with a crazed smile. “Seems like just yesterday we were in that shitty fortress together. But Lyondrea offered me something I couldn’t refuse, and now I fight for them. A pity, I always liked you. You’re just as vicious as me.”
Rorax snarled, and Crax smirked as she stepped closer to her, shuffling Jia along with her. “Queen Arkyn of Lyondrea wants to offer you a deal, Greywood. Fight for her, swear allegiance to her, and she will give you your brother. Alive, and unbound.”
Rorax forgot how to breathe, her heart seized in her chest. “My brother?”
“Darras Greywood is your brother, is he not?”
Rorax’s insides went cold. “Where is he?”
I have to find him.
Crax shook her head. “I don’t know. His location is only known by a very select few. He is very important to Lyondrea. But that location will be given to you when you swear fealty to the queen.”
“I can’t. I’ve sworn a Blood Oath to Sahana Thorash and the Heilstorms.” The words felt numb on Rorax’s lips.
“Oh yes . . . well. There is that.”
Crax pushed Jia into the arms of a nearby soldier and bent to pick up Sahana’s knives where she had dropped them on the floor.
Sahana jerked against her own captors, but kept her mouth shut as Crax prowled up to her. “I must admit, I’m disappointed in you.”
Crax tsk’d her tongue. “Letting your unit fraternize with each other, letting them slack off in their training—” Crax gestured her knife over to Volla, before reaching out with her free hand to push a long lock of black hair behind Sahana’s ear. “I expected more.”
Volla screamed in warning, but it was too late.
The guard holding Sahana reached back and shoved his blade through Sahana’s chest.
Rorax barely flinched as Sahana’s body crumpled, her blood quickly seeping all over the floor. Rorax couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, she just stared. Her commander. Her mentor. Her superior. Her friend for fifty years lay on the floor with lifeless eyes, staring up at the ceiling. Rorax felt a slight buzzing, and then the Blood Oath that kept her tethered to the Heilstorms, and to Sahana and her unit, snapped.
“Move the body into the other room,” Crax griped, as a pool of Sahana’s lifeblood continued to seep over the floorboards. “The blood makes my workspace slippery.”
Free. For the first time in nearly fifty years, Rorax was free from the Blood Oath she had sworn to Sahana. She was free to go and do as she pleased.
But at what price?
Darras. Darras. Darras.
Jia screamed, and Volla tried to struggle desperately against the men holding her back.
Crax stepped over the body, breaking Rorax’s eye contact with Sahana. “Now that there is no Blood Oath holding you here, what do you decide, Greywood?”
I have to find him.
Rorax’s lips and tongue felt heavy and numb and nearly impossible to move. “You have a deal,” she croaked.
The soldiers from outside finally smashed through the ice, and they streamed in, carrying in a tall torture device between them that made Rorax’s stomach roll. They set it down in front of Crax who motioned for the soldiers subduing Jia to place her limbs in the holds that would keep her outstretched arms pinned above her head.
A single tear leaked down Jia’s cheek as she jerked her body around to no avail. She tried to struggle, icing her captors and headbutting them desperately, but it was no use as her magick started to fail her.
“Leave us,” Crax said to the men. They left the room as Crax gave Jia a chilling smile.
Not one single soldier made a move for Rorax. Why would they? They knew she would never put her mission of finding her brother in jeopardy. Not even for Jia and Volla.
Rorax had to grip the back of her chair to stay upright.
The sounds in the room were muffled as if they were underwater, and the floor seemed to tilt toward her.
I have to find him. Darras. I have to find him. My brother. My family.
Rorax didn’t move as the men around her brushed up against her to bend and pick up Sahana’s body. Her eyes followed them as they carried her lifeless corpse into the adjacent room, and unceremoniously dumped her body on the bed.
Crax stepped up to Volla, and Rorax finally looked away from her commander to stare as Crax laughed so close to Volla’s stricken face, Rorax could see her breath push against the strands of Volla’s hair. “You will just have to wait to die. I want you to watch this.”
Crax stepped away from Volla and looked over at Rorax.
“Wait outside. When I’m done here, I will lead you to my queen.”
Rorax nodded numbly and took a few steps back towards the door.
“Rorax, you fucking cunt!” Volla shrieked, trying to wrestle away from the soldiers holding her.
Crax smiled wickedly at Volla and turned to Jia. “I am going to have fun with this,” she crooned.
Crax pulled out a long, rusted, wicked knife, and the breath in Rorax’s lungs hitched.
I have to find him, I have to find him, I have to find him . . .
Volla tried to lunge forward, probably trying to rip her way out of the Waterlily Rine’s grasp and away from the soldiers holding her arms and waist, but even if she could, Volla was too far away. She would never make it.
By the time Volla got to Jia it would be over and Jia would be nothing. Nothing but a tortured corpse and a ghost to haunt them all.
Rorax swallowed down the lump in her throat. It doesn’t matter what happens, I have to find him. I have to find him. I . . .
Jia screamed and that sound . . . the five words Rorax had spent the last hundred and sixty years clinging to, the mantra she had used to push her through everything, went quiet in her head.
A part of her pleaded desperately for the words to come back, to keep her on the path that would lead her right to her brother’s doorstep but . . .
Slowly, more words found their place in her soul and locked into place.
I will find another way.
Crax ran the knife along the skin of Jia’s cheek bone until it raised a thin line of blood.
“NO! PLEASE, STOP!” Volla screamed, her voice hoarse with agony and panic.
The sound cracked through her, and before she knew what she was doing Rorax pulled Glimr from her back and threw it.
Her knife embedded itself into the back of Crax’s neck, all the way to the hilt.
The tip burst out of the front of Crax’s throat, splattering blood across Jia’s face an instant before Crax’s body collapsed to the floor at Jia’s feet.
One of the soldiers holding Volla gasped. “What the fuck do you think you just—”
“THE DOOR JIA!” Rorax yelled as she swept her hand in the air from Crax’s body to the guard. Her knife jerked out of Crax’s throat, and in a white flash it ran clean through one of the guards holding Volla back.
The other guard let Volla go and reached out to grab Rorax, but she ducked under his arms and lunged over the table, sliding across the smooth wooden surface. Rorax grabbed a butter knife on her way over and when she was on two steady feet again, she threw it as hard as she could towards the soldier by the door.
Jia raised a palm, and the door was again covered in a thick block of ice.
Rorax bent down and plucked the knife from Crax’s dead fingers.
Volla cracked the neck of the soldier that had been holding her hostage at the same time Rorax cut through the restraints holding Jia to the torture device. Jia stumbled free before vomiting all over Crax’s dead body.
Volla rushed for Jia as Rorax sent her knife clean through the last soldier in the room.
Soldiers rushed the building, pounding on the exterior and looking for weaknesses. A soldier outside punched through an iced-over windowpane next to the door, and Rorax used Crax”s blade to chop off his hand. The soldier screamed in agony and wisely removed his arm from the window as Jia patched the hole in the window with more ice.
Rorax turned to watch as Volla cupped Jia’s face with trembling palms, but her voice was steady. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Jia whimpered out another sob as tears streamed down her face but nodded her head. “I’m okay.”
Warm relief settled like stones in the bottom of Rorax’s stomach.
The opposite window shattered in a flurry of ice and glass, and this time Rorax sent Glimr spinning into the man.
Rorax pulled it back and sent Glimr through the neck of another soldier, summoning it back yet again as big black spots bloomed in her vision. Her chest was getting tight and the ache in the back of her skull started to burn in pure agony as the magick she held in her body for Glimr went rigid.
Volla gave Rorax a wide, bewildered stare. “Why?”
Rorax’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why?”
“You said . . .” She was cut off as four soldiers battle-rammed their way in through the door again. Rorax took her knife, leaned back under an incoming sword, jabbed Glimr manually up into the first soldier”s neck, then sent it flying through two of the other soldiers’ throats, spraying blood everywhere.
“You said you would do anything for Darras,” Volla finished.
When the knife was back in its sheath, Rorax felt a wave of unnatural, overwhelming exhaustion settle over her shoulders.
“Move, Ror,” Volla commanded, and Ror moved to the side as Jia stood and covered the door again.
Rorax could no longer stand, and slowly she sank to her knees.
The wooden floorboards were cool and welcoming, though the blood that was pooled underneath her was hot and sticky. She couldn’t convince her muscles to move out of it though.
Rorax heard Volla say something to her, but Volla’s voice sounded like she was six miles away. She could feel the Waterlily Rine settle into her system like an anchor on her consciousness, dragging her down into the depths of a numb darkness.
“Rorax?”
Every drop of power was as precious as gold as the Waterlily Rine gripped her even harder. She took in a shuddering breath through cold lips.
There was another yell and more broken glass, and she raised her head to see another soldier trying to come in through the window. With one lazy flick of her arm, Rorax used her knife to sever his head, and the decapitated flesh fell heavily to the floor.
Rorax summoned Glimr back to her hand just as her head started spinning uncontrollably and her vision started to dim. She took in a ragged breath and pressed her forehead into the blood and the cool wooden planks of the floor below her.
Volla said something to her again, but Rorax couldn’t hear her.
“You better get us out of this gods-forsaken country, Volla Torvik,” Rorax muttered before falling into darkness.