Sorcha's Revolt
CHAPTER SEVEN - SUICIDE MISSION

Sorcha slept late, taking advantage of the warm bed and the fleeting peace. She awoke alone, but did not mind DeSilva's absence for the chance to lie in. She dozed off to sleep again, and was awoken an unknown time later by Vashta, DeKellia's concubine, bringing in a tray laden with breakfast. "Thank you," Sorcha said, accepting the tray. Then; "Is Fethne here?"

"No." Vashta turned on her tall heels and left again without another word.

Sorcha considered while she picked at her breakfast. Fethne had been Odacon's favourite, the head of his harem during Sorcha's time there. She had learned within the first morning to hate and fear Fethne, who had grown up in the harem and supplanted her mother as Odacon's consort. The girl had been blinded at Narillion; her care had been Vashta's chief concern since DeKellia had rescued them both from the razing of the city. It was inconceivable that Vashta should abandon her daughter, blind and knowing only the life of a harem girl, to the war-torn anarchy that had swept through both Kellia and Silveneir.

Sorcha could not quite find it in her heart to feel sorry for Fethne, wherever she might be; the girl had evinced an automatic and inexplicable dislike for her on first sight and administered Sorcha's first whipping in the harem. Sorcha had also been given to Fethne for a night as a punishment for attempting to escape, and the memory of the mad girl's pleasures still regularly woke her trembling.

She felt pity for Vashta, however. They had never been close, but Sorcha had seen the living care that Vashta lavished on her daughter. Vashta had been a Silvan Diva, a sword-mistress; Sorcha believed utterly that the woman had submitted to slavery only to protect her daughter. But long years in the harem had taken their toll, and since her release Vashta had proved incapable of drawing a sword even in defence of her life.

Sorcha understood; she too had lost the capacity to fight, but she suspected for very different reasons to Vashta. It had been very easy to submit, and despite the guilt and confusion from her Silvan upbringing, she had found that she very much enjoyed sex. But she had been raised a Silvan soldier, and never thought to be anything else until her first taste of battle, which she had found more traumatising than any of her experiences in the harem. Every time she had witnessed battle since, it was more frightening, more distressing.

None of this answered what had become of Fethne. Sorcha kicked off the bedsheets and got dressed, retrieving her harem silks from the floor. They had seen too many days wear, but she had nothing else. Far more pressing than learning the fate of Fethne, whom she had never liked anyway, Sorcha decided that she needed clean clothes. It had to be possible, even in the strait conditions of the besieged Foreign Quarter. The person to talk to, Sorcha supposed, would be Vashta. Pausing only to check her appearance in the mirror, a distinctly un-Silvan habit, and drag a brush through her hair, Sorcha quit the room and made her way downstairs.

In the main bar she found DeKellia at a table, talking to a Silvan woman dressed in the mask and uniform of the Sinistral Guard, the Warmistress' personal bodyguard. The sight stopped Sorcha in her tracks, and she only belatedly spotted Sabra and Taban leaning against the bar, drinking and watching the conversation, which was too soft to overhear.

"What's going on?" Sorcha asked. "How does a Sinistral officer wander in here without getting shot?" "That's what we were wondering," Taban said, the first words he had spoken to Sorcha.

Sabra scowled and elbowed him in the ribs. Taban smiled apologetically at Sorcha and said no more.

She noticed now that the Sinistral was drunk; the woman lolled in her chair and swigged often from a whiskey bottle in front of her. DeKellia too was drinking, but from a glass, listening intently to his guest and occasionally asking her questions. Seeming to reach some agreement with her, he looked up and beckoned Sabra and Taban over.

Sorcha remained where she was, suddenly very afraid. After a few minutes' whispered talk, the Sinistral stood up and took her whiskey with her to the door. Sabra and Taban followed her. As the three of them stepped outside, DeKellia called out, "Oh, and try not to get killed, y'hear?"

Then he affected to notice Sorcha for the first time. "Did you get your breakfast?"

"Yes, thank you." Sorcha went over to him, her usual uncertainty in his presence rising to heights of dread that set her heart thundering.

DeKellia was so much like DeSilva in many ways; the family resemblance was clear, but DeKellia lacked the Kraagish fangs sported by DeSilva and other members of the family. Nevertheless, the father had a wolfish mien, lean and dangerous, that his son lacked. Even the fresh suit of black Kellion clothes and the shine on his boots could not disguise DeKellia's wildness. When he smiled at Sorcha, she saw the half-feral light behind the human warmth in his eyes.

She recalled, an unwelcome chord of memory, that his name was an alias. Heir to Noth Dansac, a great lord of Kellia, DeKellia had chosen instead to be known as wandering duellist, a vagabond called Mad Wolf in his native language. Closer, the smell of the wilderness that hung about him reached Sorcha; horses, forest, sweat and blood. The only hints of civilisation were the reek of cordite on his hands and the liquor on his breath.

As she approached him, Sorcha prayed fervently to a goddess she no longer believed in that DeSilva would not in time come to resemble the deadly predator that sat before her in the guise of a man. "Where's Monte?" She asked.

"Which one?" DeKellia grinned, and Sorcha was reminded that father and son bore the same first name.

"There's Monte Taban, too," DeKellia said, with a nod towards the door. "Sabra's paramour. Montesinos Taban. Long history between the Taban family and mine." His eyes darkened, his attention momentarily turning inward. His smiled faded and he finished his drink at a gulp before looking up at Sorcha again.

"I haven't seen my son this morning. I assumed you had."

"No, he was gone when I woke up."

DeKellia chuckled. "Typical, anyone would think I raised him."

"Where did you send Sabra?"

"She volunteered. She's off on a mission with Scipia, that's the Sinistral Captain there, and the rest of the Women's Regiment."

"A mission?" Sorcha's balance wavered and she had to pull up a chair, though she was loath to sit down with DeKellia. She felt a sudden revulsion of the man, nausea born of fear. Her eyes strayed to his gunbelts, a complex leather rig around his torso that held no less than a dozen pistols. They were small, finely made things far lighter and flatter than ordinary Kellion handguns, horribly beautiful in their craftsmanship.

DeKellia wore no sword, but Sorcha knew that the walking stick propped at his side was in truth a sword-cane concealing an expertly forged blade. She looked away from his weapons but looking at his face was worse. The attention of the human wolf was on her, outwardly concerned but inwardly studying her as a hunting beast studied its prey.

Sorcha's harem training awoke, and she could barely restrain a whimper at the compulsive urge to kneel at his feet, the inculcated reaction of a harem-girl to fear. Fighting it off, she felt the first shivers of panic grip her, memories of the training where obedience had been drilled into her.

"Please..." the first word she had spoken to her trainer aboard the Naril harem-ship. Her voice failed her and her hands began to shake.

DeKellia leaned forward, his brows beetling in concern. "Are you alright?"

"Yes. No. No, you're frightening me."

"Am I?"

"I'm afraid of whatever you've sent Sabra to do."

"Oh." He refilled his glass from the remaining bottle on the table, then packed and lit his pipe. As he lighted up, he said, "She's gone to disable the temple bells at the Silvanni ziggurat."

"What?" Sorcha was stunned. "But, but... you mean the whole Women's Regiment, how many of them, do even half of them know how to fight? The temple's full of soldiers, every cleric is a sword-dancer, it's suicidal..." "The whole Women's Regiment," DeKellia said, interjecting between Sorcha's stammering. "There are about five of them, I think."

"Five?!"

"Recruiting has been poor. Scipia thinks she can whistle up a few more from her side, but I very much doubt it."

"You sent Sabra and Taban with an enemy officer on a mission to attack the temple?!" Sorcha reiterated, all fear of DeKellia washed away on a rising tide of outraged horror.

DeKellia nodded and reached for his drink. Sorcha slapped the glass out of his hand.

"You madman! They'll all be killed, it's probably a trap anyway, that officer might just hand Sabra over to the police!"

"Your sister's very capable, I'm sure she'll be fine," DeKellia said, gazing forlornly at the whiskey spilt across the table and the broken glass on the floor. "You should probably take it up with Kam Daishen; it's all his idea." Sorcha whirled from the table and fled up the stairs in a clatter of high heels.

The first person she accosted was DeSilva, babbling at him a semi-coherent version of her discussion with DeKellia. When he understood, DeSilva grabbed her by the shoulders in alarm.

"He's done what? Where is he? I'll talk to him."

"He's downstairs, but it's too late, they've already gone..."

"Hell with that, wait here."

DeSilva was gone before Sorcha could say another one, hurrying downstairs to remonstrate with his father. Sorcha had wanted comfort from him, not action; feeling very alone, she went in search of the next familiar person she could think of. Knocking on the door of DeKellia's room, she was relieved when Vashta answered.

Seeing the state Sorcha was in, Vashta mutely beckoned her in and shut the door behind her. Sorcha immediately took to pacing the room, blind to Vashta seating herself by the window or the silent form of Hnasi still curled up in the four- poster bed. The Hrin woman had not left DeKellia's room in the whole time Sorcha had been there; she assumed that Hnasi disliked the city, being born to the jungle island of Far Hrinor in the deepest south.

The sight of Hnasi made Sorcha momentarily forget the reason she had come, as always both intrigued and disturbed by the feline Hrin. Asleep, Hnasi resembled a giant cat, golden furred all over, her tail wrapped around and draped over her nose and her head resting on her clawed hands.

Recalling that this strange feline woman was DeKellia's lover reminded Sorcha why she had come, and she blurted out to the walls all her grievances against DeKellia.

"He's insane, he's evil! He's managed to recruit a handful of dumb bitches, my sister among them, and he's sent them all off to die! And he's trying to make the other men just as bad as him, Monte included! What in hell's name am I supposed to do?!"

Vashta waited, only interjecting when Sorcha's rant began to run out of breath.

"It is nothing compared to what he plans."

"He's sending women out to their deaths, what could be worse, strapping live babies on for armour?!"

Vashta smiled with cold sympathy. "You think too small. You still think of DeKellia as a normal man." "There's nothing normal about him, he's a lunatic! The man's name even means 'Mad Wolf'!"

"I mean you still think of him as mortal."

Sorcha froze mid-stride and turned to face Vashta, gaping.

"I know DeSilva's secret," the older woman said. "Like his father, he is a sorcerer."

"DeKellia's a wizard?" Sorcha reiterated.

"They are both merely projections of he that walks between the walls of time," Vashta answered. For the first time Sorcha marked the light of madness in Vashta's eyes. She had recognised the same look in the woman's daughter, Fethne, and known the same master they had served.

"Vashta," she said, gently, "Odacon was a sorcerer. Whatever else he is, DeKellia's just a man."

Vashta laughed hollowly, shaking her head. Rising to her feet, she took Sorcha's hands and stood close to her, staring straight into her eyes.

"No. I told you I know DeSilva's secret. How should you doubt me when I tell you it is a secret shared by both father and son? When all else fails, DeKellia will call upon his power. His allies await only his summons to fall upon the city. He has already ensured his victory, and all he does now is prevaricate upon the final solution he will ultimately invoke."

Sorcha pulled her hands free of Vashta's grasp and retreated to the door.

"Stop it. I didn't come to hear this, I just needed someone to talk to. My sister's out there and I don't want my last memory to be of her calling me a whore! Don't you understand? I don't want to know about wizards and demons, not right now!"

Half blinded by tears, she blundered from the room. In the hall, she heard raised voices from downstairs; DeKellia and DeSilva.

Vashta's words and her own ideas about DeKellia suddenly converged in a single imperative terror and she bolted for the stairs. On the landing she froze, looking down into the main bar to where DeSilva confronted his father.

They were both on their feet, fists bunched at their sides and shoulders square, jaws set and eyes blazing. Few could meet DeKellia's stare for more than a few seconds; DeSilva glared at him unflinching, the same grim fury in his grey eyes and smouldered in his father's midnight stare.

"I'll catch her up and drag her back," DeSilva snarled.

"If I wanted you to go, I'd have sent you with her in the first place," DeKellia growled back.

"You can't stop me."

DeKellia chuckled mirthlessly, the black scar on his cheek creasing with his sneer. DeSilva turned abruptly for the door, and in the instant that he broke eye contact, DeKellia set on him.

Sorcha barely even saw DeKellia move; one moment father and son were glaring eye-to-eye, the next DeSilva turned, took a single step, and was flung backwards to the floor by a whiplash blow to his upper lip.

He hit the floor and tried to roll backwards to his feet, agile despite his surprise, but DeKellia pounced on him immediately. Seizing his son by the collar, DeKellia slammed him bodily against the floorboards, only to haul him upright and bounce him hard off the nearest wall.

Stunned and off balance, still DeSilva put his fists on guard and threw a punch. DeKellia flowed around the blow, slammed a fist into DeSilva's gut and kicked his feet from under him, driving an uppercut to his jaw as he crumpled. Sorcha stood frozen for the moments of the fight; she managed to gain the foot of the stairs before she was rooted to the spot again, her hands clasping in sick horror to see DeSilva haul himself to his feet. DeKellia had turned to walk away, but he stopped presciently the moment that his son stood up again behind him.

"Not done?" DeKellia asked, without looking around.

"Not even started," DeSilva replied, and drew a pistol.

Fast as he drew and fired, DeKellia was faster. The bullet whipped an inch past him, tearing only his jacket. As he spun, he snatched up a plate from a table at his side and flung it like a discus. DeSilva ducked and threw up one hand instinctively; in that instant, his father kicked him in the skull.

DeKellia planted a second kick, this time in DeSilva's side, then stood back to glare down at him. "Enough?" He asked.

DeSilva shook his head and clenched his fist on the magic ring. Ruby fire blossomed in his hand, and he lurched upright. Sorcha braced herself against the anticipated conjuration of the demon Stantine Fenn, but the wash of heat and exhaustion never came; before DeSilva could deploy his powers, his father seized his wrist, struck him once hard in the shoulder and backhanded him in the jaw, stomping down on his knee and wrenching his arm around in the same instant. DeSilva went down hard, with no attempt to roll this time. Before he could move at all, DeKellia kicked him between the legs and stomped down on his ring-wielding hand.

"Don't even start that," DeKellia said, then stooped down to haul his son upright by his shirt and dump him in a waiting chair. "Someone get him a damp cloth, he's bleeding." Sorcha grabbed a towel from the bar and ran to DeSilva.

DeKellia barely gave her a glance as he stalked to the bar and ordered a drink. Gradually, the handful of other revolutionary patrons returned to their conversations.

DeSilva accepted the cloth from Sorcha and pressed it to his head, glaring balefully at his father's back.

"I've had lessons off him before," DeSilva said. "That's the first time he's actually beaten me up." He took the cloth off his head and studied the blood staining it. "First time anyone's beaten me up."

"Monte..."

"Oh, I've been wounded." DeSilva glanced up at Sorcha, replacing the cloth on his cut scalp. "I've even lost fights. But no one's literally wiped the floor with me like that before. I couldn't even touch him." His anger had faded; he was simply staring now at his father's back. "How the hell did he do that?!"

Messerach Veen had watched the fight from among the gathered revolutionaries; now he detached himself from his comrades and came over, laying a hand heavily on DeSilva's arm and speaking close in his ear. "Lucky you didn't draw steel on him, boy."

"Luck nothing, I'm not nearly stupid enough to cross swords with him."

"Am I right to assume that your inimitable father was not the man who taught you to fight?" Veen enquired, and DeSilva nodded.

"No, I learned from people who'd fought beside him."

"Ah. I ask only because it seem apropos to mention at this juncture that the young lady you are so distressed about in fact did learn to fight from Montesinos DeKellia. For your information, I have opened a book on whether the young lady returns; I am offering odds of three to one, which I consider rather generous."

Back in their room, Sorcha immediately tried to examine DeSilva's extensive bruises. He put off her ministrations and seized her arms, hauling her roughly to him for a kiss. She hung gasping in his grip while he clawed the straps of her harem top off her shoulders and lowered his lips to her breasts. Spinning her about, her clasped her to him and let his hands explore her body, her head lolling back on his shoulder while he savaged her throat with his kiss.

Sorcha barely noticed when he slammed the door behind them, then seized her hair at the nape of her neck and propelled her to the bed. Overwhelmed by his ferocity, she could only lie gasping for breath while he stripped off his clothes. She rolled over prone as he approached the bed, rising on all fours to meet him. He seized her hips and plunged into her. Sorcha screamed and dropped onto her elbows, cushioning her head on her arms while DeSilva took her roughly. Her distress and his anger mingled and neutralized in violent release, and they collapsed together on the bed.

As they lay there, soaked in sweat and breathing hard, Sorcha heard in the distance the bells of Iaran's temple, clamouring in discord at the wrong time of the day.

It was after midnight when Sabra returned. The main bar was full, revolutionary leaders and their confidants crowding the tables, conspiring in small groups that occasionally split and merged. Sorcha was waiting with DeSilva at a booth in the corner, her eyes always on the door, drinking steadily to calm her nerves. She did not drink often, but tonight the wine seemed to have no effect at all.

When the door opened, a smell came in first, the reek of sewage and rotting offal. Then two figures staggered inside, both filthy from head to foot and leaning on each other in exhaustion. At first Sorcha thought the man with Sabra was Taban. Then he wiped the gunk from his eyes, cut a broken-toothed smiled, and called for a drink in a voice that Sorcha recognised as belonging to Timoth Kale. "One quick shot," Kale grinned, "and then we'll both hit the bath. Separately, I hasten to add; the young lady needs her bed, and not in a happy sense." Sorcha was on her feet but could not touch her sister while the muck of a sewer was plastered all over her.

Sabra and Kale were hustled, without any physical contact, upstairs and out of sight and smell. It was over an hour later that Sabra emerged, thoroughly scrubbed and dressed in clean clothes, her once buoyant red hair now shorn close to her scalp. The bar had been cleared, the majority of the revolutionaries dispersing either to rest or enact whatever plans they had concocted that night. Sorcha and DeSilva were still waiting at their table, while DeKellia, Veen and Kam Daishen were at another on the far side of the room.

Sabra ignored her sister completely, marching over to DeKellia's table to begin her report.

Veen stopped her almost at once. "Get some sleep, girl. Kale can tell me everything."

"He wasn't there," Sabra said. "Scipia's dead, so are the rest. I'm the only one who made it out alive. But destroyed the bells." She swayed on her feet and all but fell into the chair that Veen swiftly position behind her. "Mission accomplished." "Where's Taban?" DeKellia asked, passing Sabra a drink.

"He's dead." Her voice was utterly flat, expressionless. "I'm the only one who got away. I dodged the police and the soldiers and managed to get to Kale's shop. And I knew the shop should have been empty, it was the only place to go." DeKellia nodded. "That was the hope; glad I didn't overestimate your intelligence."

Sorcha dragged DeSilva over and would have cut into the conversation, but Veen spoke first, angrily, still standing behind Sabra's chair.

"Five went in, DeKellia, and one came out. That Sinistral Captain could have been far more valuable a dozen other ways, and you spent her like that." He snapped his fingers to emphasise the point.

"I conceived the mission," Kam said, darkly. "Scipia volunteered, as did the rest."

"Did you tell them it was suicide? Of course not." Veen pulled up another chair and sat down again, glaring at the Daishen in undisguised contempt. "Kellia's First Knight... no wonder we're stuck here in this foreign shit hole having to fight for our basic human rights."

Sabra was slumped in her chair, overcome either by dejection or exhaustion, perhaps both. Sorcha had a thousand things to yell at DeKellia and Kam but found herself silenced by Veen's surprise anger on the subject.

"I hope you're glad this girl came back alive, DeKellia; I can only imagine you were in the dark as to the phenomenal danger she went out to face. And what have you achieved, besides incensing the enemy?"

"And what are you so angry about?" DeKellia asked, at which Veen stood up and stalked over to the window.

"Oh, it's just typical of you, Montesinos; Haroum alone knows what motives drive you, it's as if normal thinking makes no sense to you! Should it not trouble me that you sent this girl potentially to die?" "I can look after myself," Sabra said, but Veen only shook his head, his eyes fastened on her.

"That is beside the point."

"Because I'm a woman?"

"Yes, among other reasons. Girl, if we were in Kellia I would clap you in irons just for your own protection; I swear it is as if you had a death wish."

"We are not in Kellia," said Kam Daishen. "And that is enough."

Veen stood up with a growl and stalked away. DeKellia stood up too and beckoned Sabra.

"Come on, time for bed. I'm amazed that you're not hurt..."

"I'll take her," Sorcha said. "If she'll let me. Sabra, are you alright? When they told me where you'd gone, I just started screaming at people..."

"It's true," DeKellia said, "I was very impressed, even Kam got a mouthful."

"Alright?" Sabra echoed, hollowly. "Taban's dead."

"Oh, Sabra..."

"Get off me." Sabra pulled away from her sister's touch. "Leave me alone."

She started towards the stairs, only to sway halfway there. DeSilva caught her before she fell, but she shoved away from him at once. Despite her exhaustion, there was murder in her eyes and voice.

"Don't ever speak to me."

DeSilva stepped back without a word, and Sabra hauled herself upstairs. Sorcha hesitated, then ran upstairs after her and knocked on Sabra's door. There was no answer at first, but eventually Sorcha heard the bolt withdrawn before the door opened.

Sabra glared at her for a long moment. She was pale and drawn, the bitter fire in her green eyes emphasised by the austerely short cut of her hair.

"What do you want?"

"Are you alright?"

"Well that's a stupid question."

"I know, but what else can I say? Do you want me to come in?"

"No." Sabra went back to her bed leaving the door open. Sorcha hesitated and then slunk across the threshold. Sabra ran her eyes over Sorcha, taking in the brief harem skirts and her sister's tattooed skin. The disgust in her gaze to palpable that it set Sorcha's flesh crawling. Then Sabra turned her eyes to window and stared out into the night.

"Can't you even look at me?" Sorcha asked.

"Not yet. But I'm listening, if you have something to say."

Sorcha perched on the end of the bed, taking care to stay a good two feet from Sabra.

"What is there to say about it? Things have happened that we can't change. Does it matter that I'm truly sorry? He told me you were dead, what was I supposed to believe?"

"You were planning it."

Sorcha stared, her mouth agape with horror, but Sabra still refused to meet her gaze.

"Did Monte tell you that?"

"He didn't have to. I know you, Sorcha, better than anyone else."

"How could I imagine it would turn out like this? I never wished you dead, or did anything meant to try and hurt you. Sabra..."

"How can you defend yourself?!" Sabra locked eyes with Sorcha at last. "We shouldn't even be talking like this; it's so clear what's happened that I ought to call you out for a duel!"

"Please don't do that."

"Because you know I'd win?"

"Yes."

"All those fencing lessons that I never had were wasted on you, were they?"

"Yes." The second admission was a sob. "Sabra, you're so angry with me already and you haven't even heard the half of it."

"Then don't tell me, I've got more than enough to chew on."

"And you're right. I didn't come here for your forgiveness; I don't deserve that." The sight of her sister's trauma burst the emotional dam inside Sorcha; all her feelings came out in a rush, some of them unacknowledged even by herself until now. "I came because if anyone has a right to punish me, it's you. So I'm here. Tell me how much I've hurt you; scream it at me. Slap my face again and call me a whore if you want to. There's nothing I can say, just get it over with."

"No." Sabra shook her head and looked again out the window. "No, because that's the same as forgiving you. No, Sorcha, you don't get to know what you've done to me. How it happened doesn't matter; you're going to carry on with DeSilva whether I'm alive or dead. So you're dead to me, do you understand?"

"Yes." Sorcha bowed her head and added softly, "I hope that you can too."

"Get out."