“I don’t want any rations,” she said. “I want my freedom.”
“That’s beyond our ability to give, Sovrena,” said the second guard.
Still stinging from her insult, the first guard said, “We’ll leave you with your own company. And the dark. And the rats.” He huffed. “You can think about me in your dreams.”
The second guard looked at her with scorn. “I liked it better when you were a statue in the ruling tower. It’s what you deserved.” He looked down at the broken tray and crockery. “No more rations for you. We’ll save the food for the good people of Ildakar.”
With a grunt of effort, the guards pulled the door shut. Keys turned in the lock, and the deadbolt slid into place again. They rammed the crossbar onto its rests.
The men departed, extinguishing the torches behind them. She sat on the stone bench in darkness again, extended her hand, and called forth the magical fire, playing with the flame as it bobbed and danced in her palm.
CHAPTER 19
From behind the safety of the high walls, Bannon watched. He wanted to fight, wanted to do something, but how could even the entire city stand against such an enormous enemy?
His greatest hurt, though, came from the night of the revolt and the terrible circumstances that had built up to so much violence. His thoughts turned to the treacherous young men who had claimed to be his friends. False friends. His heart was torn by what had been done to him. Amos, Jed, and Brock had set him up and done nothing to save him, hadn’t even bothered to tell Nicci or Nathan what happened when he was captured and dragged down into the training pits. Yes, he had survived the ordeal—scarred, and maybe even stronger for it—but how could friends do that to him?
The answer was obvious: they had never been friends at all.
When Lila recently sparred with him, she had urged him to put aside his grudges. In order for Ildakar to endure this crisis, the city could not tear itself apart. The besieging army was dangerous enough to force them to set aside their differences.
Jed and Brock, though … their actions were malicious. Led by Amos, they had taken the young and naive outsider under their wing to show him their city, but they had done it only to trick him, to mock him. But Bannon was not just some gullible fool.
Now he strapped on his sword and shored up his courage, knowing he couldn’t avoid this any longer. It was time he confronted the two surviving young men and made them understand what they had done.
His fingers clenched around Sturdy’s leather-wrapped grip, his forearm bunched, and he could feel the ripple of hard muscles—muscles that had grown strong from hand-to-hand fighting and wrestling, from swinging weapons. Bannon was strong in his heart and mind, too.
He left the grand villa and made his way to the headquarters of the skinners’ guild and Lord Oron, the newest member of the duma, who was Brock’s father. The young man paid no attention to the tightly packed grapevines on narrow terraces along the steep hillsides or the clustered orchards of dwarf fruit trees. A few workers were out picking grapes, harvesting apples, plucking green olives from the trees. Much of the work had simply been abandoned after the uprising. The freed slaves were indignant and many refused their responsibilities. “Let the nobles get blisters picking crops for a change.”
Others, though, understood that if the city were to survive this siege, they would need all the food Ildakar could produce. Former slaves would starve just as quickly as nobles did. Those who went back to work did so by their own choice, out of responsibility rather than oppression. Their families, at least, would have something to eat.
Bannon wore simple clothes, feeling uncomfortable in a fur-lined cape or billowing pantaloons, which were the height of Ildakaran fashion. Despite his many adventures, in his heart he still thought of himself as a farm boy from Chiriya Island. He would never lose that core.
Amos, Jed, and Brock had considered him to be beneath them, but they nevertheless dragged him to the silk yaxen dachas, trying to get him to partake of the pleasure women along with them. At first he was sure they were teasing him, or maybe the three really wanted to make Bannon just like them. Silk yaxen were women created and trained to be nothing more than beautiful bodies to serve the pleasure of their customers. They supposedly couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, but Bannon had always felt sorry for them.
Amos had treated the silk yaxen Melody the worst. On the night of the revolt, he had raped her, slapped her, bruised her, and she finally responded, using a shard of broken glass to slash his throat. That same night, seven other silk yaxen had killed their abusive customers. Afterward, they reverted to their meek and pliable state, not denying their crimes, but passively accepting them. With all the other turmoil going on in Ildakar, Bannon wasn’t sure the women would ever be called to account for their crimes. Justice had indeed been served in its own way. He couldn’t help but think of how his own mother had been beaten and murdered by his father.
But Jed and Brock had never faced what they had done to him, never admitted their own responsibility. Did they feel sorry at all?
He approached Oron’s mansion, which was connected to a long outbuilding where the skinners’ guild conducted their operations. He drew on all the strength he had developed since leaving Chiriya, since joining Nicci and Nathan on their long journey. Though Bannon didn’t know what he expected from Jed and Brock, he needed to do this for himself.
No one answered when he rang the small brass gong outside the mansion’s entry. Hearing activity inside, he tentatively pushed open the door and was surprised to see several servants lounging in comfortable chairs and sprawled on a divan. “Excuse me. Didn’t you hear me knock?”
The servants sneered at Bannon. A middle-aged man propped himself up on an elbow on the divan. He wore a slave shirt of drab rough-spun cloth, but he had piled silken sheets, fur-lined cloaks, and scavenged jewels around himself. “Keeper’s crotch! Lord Oron can answer his own damned door. Why should we do anything to help you?”
Bannon was unsettled by their attitude. “Because I fought beside you during the revolt. I escaped from the combat pits and helped stop the great bloodletting at the pyramid.”
“Then, what do you need with Oron?” one man grumbled.
“Are you here to kill him?” said another slave, sounding hopeful. “If so, maybe we will help.”
“No, I’m not here to kill him. He is a powerful wizard,” Bannon said in disbelief. “Ildakar will need his gift to fight General Utros.” He frowned at them. “And we’ll need your help, too. Every fighter, to defend the city.”
“We’ve given enough to Ildakar,” said the man on the divan, resting his feet on the fine fabric. “Now, it’s time the city gave back to us.”
Exasperated, Bannon didn’t want to continue the argument. “I’m just here to speak to Oron’s son, Brock.”
The slave on the divan gestured toward the rear of the mansion. “Out back. They’re in the animal buildings. Since many of the slaves refuse to do skinning anymore, Oron has to do it himself.”
The slave in the chair chuckled. “It’s about time he got his hands bloody in a real way. He’s making Brock and that other boy Jed pitch in. Beware if you go there, since he might press you into service, too. Those pelts won’t take care of themselves, and a lot of skinning needs to be done or else the animals will collapse under their own fur.”
“I … I’ll keep that in mind.” He swallowed hard. Sweet Sea Mother!
As he headed toward the kitchens in the rear of the mansion, one of the slaves called, “If you’re hungry, there’s plenty of food in the pantries. Eat it before some gifted noble does.”
“I’m not hungry,” He hurried through the kitchens, where the ovens were cold and the cabinets were open, ransacked for food. Spilled flour and half-eaten fruit lay discarded on the floor and the counters. One matronly woman had curled up in a corner, snoring loudly in the company of two empty bottles of bloodwine.
Bannon passed through a breezeway outside, following a path of c
rushed sparkling stone that led to a large low structure with shallowly sloped roofs and propped-open windows. Sounds wafted out, stirring, rattling, grunting, along with bone-chilling wails of animal pain. He paused, having second thoughts; then he remembered how Amos and his friends had laughed at him when the Norukai captains beat him senseless at the yaxen slaughterhouse. Bruised and broken, he had barely survived that attack, and then he’d been given over to Adessa so she could train him to die in the arena. His supposed friends had promised they would help him. They never did, and he would have died.
Pushing open the door, Bannon entered a giant outbuilding crowded with penned animals, the source of all the fine furs worn by the gifted nobles. The stench hit him first, coppery blood, pungent feces, the foul musk of terror exuded by dying animals. Two aisles of cages ran the length of the building, with more cages along the outer walls. Long, flat worktables had shallow gutters that led to drains in the floor. Eight harried, blood-spattered workers toiled at the skinning tables.
Oron was there, his face and his chest flecked with red. He wore a blood-smeared apron over a silken shirt that was now ruined. His long faded-yellow hair was matted, tied back and smeared with gore. He barked orders at the workers, whom Bannon realized were minor nobles. “If we don’t skin these animals now, the fur will stop growing. Our guild depends on this! If the lazy slaves won’t do their duty, we nobles have to pick up the slack … as always.” He sounded weary and disgusted.
Oron walked down the line of tables and cages. “Now that I am a duma member, my obligations have increased tenfold. I need to count on other guild members.” He turned to a queasy-looking young man. “And you too, son. Your life has been far too easy. It’s time to get your hands bloody.”