Chapter Forty-Four Ruhlin
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Ruhlin
He healed quickly but Fernhyld, despite suffering no physical injury, did not. Her wounds, he knew, went far deeper than any cut.
“She was never made for this,” Ohtera said during one of the rare intervals when she left Fernhyld’s side. She lay in their shared cell, eating little and sleeping less. When she did, she invariably woke screaming from the horrors that assailed her dreams.
“If I could have spared her—” Ruhlin began.
“I know,” Ohtera cut in. “She saved you and you saved her. Don’t blame yourself for this. Blame the Vortigurn, as I do.”
They spoke on the walkway leading to the upper tier of cells.
The hour was late and all were sleeping save the Ventra and the guards.
In recent days Ruhlin had begun to notice a definite agitation in their gaolers.
They would often cluster for whispered discussions and their increasing tension was evident in hardened expressions and shortness of temper.
Silvahk, despite his vaunted position, was no exception.
Ruhlin could see him now, cloistered with a young woman in the shadow cast by a buttress, their heads dipped in quiet but urgent conversation.
“Can you hear them?” he asked Ohtera.
“Of course. They’ve all been muttering their fears to each other for days now.”
“And what fears do they mutter about?”
Ohtera cocked her head. “The rebellion we heard the Vortigurn and Moyirn speak of grows closer. An army was dispatched to crush the rebel horde but hasn’t been heard of for over a week.
Rumours fly of a great and terrible battle.
They speak of a Tielvik general, once a slave.
A cunning brute possessed of great strength and an unbreakable sword. ”
“Guthnyr.” Ruhlin smiled. “He’s no brute, but he does have his share of cunning.”
“And the sword?”
“Also true. Forged of iron hewn from the mountains of the Morvek domain and rendered into a thing of wonder by the hand of the woman I love.”
Ohtera gave him a narrow, sideways glance. “What an interesting life you must have led beyond these walls.”
“That it most assuredly was.”
They lapsed into silence as Ohtera continued to eavesdrop on the two Ventra.
“The woman speaks of her lover,” she related.
“A youth with the power to summon a storm, so she claims. It seems the Vortigurn saw fit to put him in charge of his doomed army, a collection of unwilling beggars and sundry miscreants scraped from the Citadel’s streets. Little wonder they lost.”
Ruhlin watched Silvahk place a comforting hand on the woman’s arm, only for her to shake it off and retreat into the gloomy recesses of the Kelvengyr.
As she moved into a shaft of moonlight, he made out the rich redness of her hair and the trembling of her shoulders as she wept.
“They’re beginning to understand,” he said.
“Understand what?”
“That the Vortigurn cares nothing for their lives. His grand scheme, whatever it is, has no place for them. They serve an indifferent master.”
Silvahk emerged from the shadow, coming to a halt when he noticed their scrutiny.
It would have been prudent to lower their heads and retreat to their cells.
But Ruhlin chose to remain where he was, meeting the Ventra’s glare with a steady eye while fully expecting a punishing flare from the stagna.
Instead, Silvahk confined his admonition to an impotent snarl and stalked away, swiftly disappearing from sight.
“Either the Vortigurn has ordered no further pain be inflicted upon me,” Ruhlin mused. “Or our chief gaoler’s heart may have suffered a change.”
“It hasn’t,” Ohtera assured him. “I’ve known him since we were children.
He surrendered himself, body and spirit, to the Vortigurn and will never sway from the path of loyalty.
I’m not sure he knows how.” She leaned a little closer, dropping her voice.
“I know I’ll have to kill him to escape, yet don’t relish it. Isn’t that strange?”
Lowering his own voice, Ruhlin leaned closer still. “The passage. Have you made your way back there?”
“I couldn’t. The Ventra and the guards patrol with more care now.
” She paused, glancing back at the cell where Fernhyld slept, her slumber for once seemingly free of nightmares.
“It’s not just the Ventra’s fears I can sense.
The wind carries the stench of it over the walls.
This new rebellion. The Vortigurn’s war.
It all comes to a head, and those outside can feel it.
We have to get out of here. I will risk no further harm to Fernhyld. If you have a plan, now is the time.”
Ruhlin felt a guilty temptation to lie, tell her he did indeed have a clever and flawless stratagem to see them clear of this dreadful place.
But he couldn’t. His hopes the nebulous alliance with Moyirn might produce some avenue of escape had come to nothing.
After their one shared dream, and witnessing the ancient wretch’s work in the passage, Ruhlin had kept the silver knot at a distance when he slept.
An untrustworthy ally was no ally at all.
Still, there remained one last option, desperate though it was.
“The Vortigurn needs me to fulfil his scheme,” he told Ohtera.
“Whatever vileness he has concocted with Moyirn’s help requires me to work.
So, sooner or later, I will be brought into the Vortigurn’s presence again.
When that happens…” Ruhlin looked down at his right arm, the one he had used to throw the maul that saved Fernhyld’s life.
A throw the stagna should have prevented.
“I’ll kill him,” he finished. “Thanks in part to your lessons, I now possess the means to do so.”
“You’ll die,” Ohtera stated. “The moment you attempt to do him the slightest harm, Silvahk will fire your stagna with enough pain to stop your heart.”
“He can’t be quicker than what lives within me, for nothing is.
” Seeing the doubt on her face, he offered a grim smile of reassurance.
“The Vortigurn rules without counsel and kills all those who dare even the slightest disobedience. He has made himself the black beating heart of this realm. The moment he dies, everything he has built will crumble, including the walls that surround us. When they come for me, wait, watch, and don’t hesitate to seize your chance. ”
“You’ll still die,” Ohtera said. “There will be no escape for you.”
“Perhaps. But it’s a price I’ll pay if it spares my friends the cost of taking this city. Besides, I’ve survived much that should have killed me.”
From the cell behind came a low, distressed moan. Fernhyld’s nightmares had returned. “Go,” Ruhlin told Ohtera. “Be with her.”
She nodded, then paused. “We won’t flee,” she said. “When these walls crumble, we will come and find you.”
She disappeared into the cell before he could argue, Ruhlin hearing the soft, soothing words she whispered to Fernhyld in the dark.
Did you ever have such friends? he asked the monster, not expecting an answer for it was often fickle when it came to his questions.
This time, it consented to reply, and Ruhlin found the welling of emotions a complex brew that mixed sombre regret with an aching yen for something lost.
“Well,” Ruhlin sighed, raising his gaze to the indifferent stars above. “At least now you have me. Though I know not for how much longer.”
He was playing dice with Tremyn when Silvahk came for him.
The stadium had been silent during the two weeks since Ruhlin and Fernhyld had survived the wuhltra.
The Great Meidvang was over and the Ventra no longer felt the need to subject their charges to continual training.
For the most part, those set to watch over the Vortigurn’s cherished Kelven did so with a tense disregard.
They still punished defiance or those who strayed too close to the walls of the garden, but with a perfunctory viciousness and impatience.
Ruhlin had formed the impression that both guards and Ventra would very much prefer to be elsewhere.
In the absence of training, there wasn’t much for the Kelvengyr’s inmates to do, so various games had become their principal amusement.
Ruhlin’s knowledge of cards came from what Ihrkyn had taught him, and none of it pertained to the games played by Nihlvarians.
Dice, however, was more easily learned and, for want of other distractions, he joined in.
They wagered with straws cut to various lengths, entitling the winner to large or small shares of the more choice items at mealtimes.
They had taken loose stone and fashioned a circle in the centre of the practice arena, scraping the sand away to reveal the hard tiles beneath.
“Three crowns again,” Ruhlin sighed when Tremyn’s throw sent the five cubes of carved bone clattering across the tiles.
“It’s all in the wrist.” Tremyn grinned as he gathered up the straws.
Over the weeks, his grief for Hulyk had waned, allowing his previous good humour to return.
But a shadow remained in his gaze and the deference he had once shown to the Ventra was now entirely absent.
He no longer spoke in fervent expectation of one day joining their ranks and, when not diverted by dice or cards, was prone to staring at their captors with baleful intent.
Consequently, fearing his reaction would get him killed, Ruhlin had resisted telling Tremyn the truth of his brother’s fate.
Tremyn’s humour faded quickly at the sight of Silvahk approaching, flanked by two Ventra with a dozen-strong contingent of guards at their backs. “Amundyr,” Silvahk said. “The Vortigurn commands your presence.”
“Feck off, Silvahk,” Tremyn instructed. “We haven’t finished our game.”