Empire of Ashes

Chapter VII - Secrets

The scrape of two swords being drawn echoed through the tent, although Temris remained unarmed. Fendur sounded as angry with himself as with me when he said, "Damnation, Lyra. Put it down. You know we can't let you hurt him."

My strategy had worked. A reluctant enemy was a hundred times better than a hateful one. Even Bevan wasn't in a hurry to charge me.

"Stand down, both of you," Temris ordered. He stood a few paces from me, his weight on his heels so I wouldn't feel trapped and do anything rash. I had often used the same tactic on spooked horses.

"Tem, you can't expect us to -"

"I said stand down," he snapped again. He didn't want anyone's help dealing with me. No, this rivalry had been going on for far too long for external intervention. An entire afternoon. Fendur fell silent, but I could feel his eyes on me, watching and waiting.

The warlord took a careful step forward. My axe flashed out and bit empty air. Again and again, I swung at him and every time he moved out of the way with unnatural ease. When my swings inevitably began to slow, his hand snapped up to catch the axe just below the blade.

Shit. I wrenched backwards, but Temris was completely unyielding. He used the axe to pull me closer, then shoved me backwards with his free hand. It didn't escape my notice that he waited until the bed was behind me. I fell onto a soft mattress, sinking down into the blankets. He twisted the axe from my grip, threw it out of reach and seized my belt to hold me in place.

I didn't stop thrashing when Temris pinned my legs down with a knee and retrieved the chain from his belt. Cold metal clamped down around one ankle and then the other. One of my desperate punches caught him where he had been injured earlier, and I winced in sympathy. Temris drew in a sharp breath, but that was the only sign that I might have hurt him.

If his ribs were indeed broken, that careless blow could have punctured a lung. The seriousness of that set in, and I found my will to resist diminishing. Killing him wasn't quite fair - not after everything he had done for me and everything he could still do if he turned against the king. So I let Temris chain me, even as I plotted ways to free myself of this new restraint.

When the chain was fastened, he stood up, leaving me to fling curses at his retreating back. I couldn't provoke any sort of reaction, so instead I sat up and examined the chain. It was far longer than I had expected - five handspans, perhaps. "These aren't going to stop me running. You know that, don't you?"

Temris sat back in his chair and took a swig from a flask which probably contained ale. "Oh, I know. I don't care how far or how fast you can run. Nightmare will be able to run twice as far and twice as fast. No, the chain is meant to stop you riding. Hard to escape on a horse side-saddle."

And that would work, in theory, but he wasn't nearly as clever as he thought he was. I was getting an idea. It would have to wait until darkness fell, when I would doubtless be thoroughly exhausted. A few hours more and I would be able to get the hell out of here. That forced me to ask myself the question I had been dreading - did I even want to run?

I came out of the bedroom slowly. Bevan had returned to the bench, sword safely sheathed, but he wasn't meeting my eye. Fendur, however, swept into a low bow and gestured to the second fold-up chair. "I think putting up that sort of fight earns you the right to your own seat."

"Thank you," I replied, claiming it. "What are you going to do? Sit on his lap?"

Fendur broke into a sniggering fit. "No. Tempting as that sounds, I think I'll stand."

In the silence that followed, I made sure to glower at Temris as much as possible while pointedly fiddling with my chains. There wasn't much else to do. I didn't want to pick at the scabs on my wrists, some of which had cracked in the struggle and now throbbed at every touch.