Blood Arcane
CHAPTER ONE
CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED
Stygean stood in the training yard of the royal guest mansion, running his finger beneath the heavy iron collar around his thin twelve-year-old neck. With his other hand he gave a moment's expression to nervousness by pulling at the tail of his long, curly black hair. Then he forced his hands down to his sides, squared his shoulders, and tried to look like the son of a soldier that he was. They had broken his father, but slave or not, they would not break him. Once more his hand stole up to the collar on his neck and his thumb passed over the inscription: Stygean Loosestrife, property of Anksha.
He slewed his eyes around to glance at the other children from their corners, not wanting to give himself away. Stygean had wondered how many of the other children had been captured, how many might have escaped, but he feared that any playmates missing from the group gathered here were dead. He counted twenty-seven; less than half the children who had been on his father's estate alone.
An acrid odor laced with something like pork drifted across the yard, making his stomach clench. The victors were still burning bodies on the north side. His father had always told him that the price of being discovered as sa'necari was death; their enemies always burned their bodies. They did not want them rising undead on the third day.
Stygean pulled at his tunic, which was stiff and starched. If he could have refused to put it on, he would have done so; he would have worn the clothes reduced to dirty rags from two weeks spent in the dungeons as a way of spitting in his captors' faces. But he had not wanted the beating it would have earned him. He and the other children were all dressed up to be presented to their owner, Anksha the Beast.
She arrived with two forest-green clad rangers at either side of her. The Beast was a legend used for centuries to frighten children. She was no more than three inches taller than Stygean - around four foot and nine inches tall - and at first glance there was nothing terrifying about her. Yet Stygean sweated beneath her gaze. He had seen her black hair halo around her head when her power rose, the flashing of her powerful fangs in the torchlight of the dungeons, and stared at her claws when she unsheathed them in front of his face as she informed him that she had taken his parents.
He saw his closest friend and age mate, Jingen Scathwick, trembling as she approached. The Beast had slain and eaten Jingen's father in front of his mother. To say that the two boys hated her was too mild a word. Jingen began to tug at a length of his dull umber hair and looked like his knees were going to buckle.
"I am the troll-tamer and demon-eater," Anksha began her usual cant, bouncing on the balls of her feet in front of the children. "Had your parents not attacked my mate, I would not have destroyed them."
Stygean swallowed, wishing this would get over and she would simply tell them why they were gathered. The littlest child, a girl of six, had already started to cry. Stygean wished that he could go to her.
"You are my slaves. You will work for your bread. You will be taught a different path in life," Anksha said.
Stygean's hands tightened into fists. I don't want your path. I don't want it.
"Your parents — those who survive — are my blood-slaves, my food. Once bitten only death frees a blood-slave from my dominance-link."
Stygean wanted to ball up and scream; yet he had to set an example as the oldest of the captive children; he had to be brave for their sakes as much as his own. So he stood straight.
"One by one, I will take you to see your parents. You will watch me feed upon them."
More children began to cry. Stygean knew what she was doing then; she was going to force them all to witness their parents' helplessness in order to destroy their sense of security. Well it wouldn't work with him. He would be strong.
She had already forced Stygean to watch her drink his father Liuthan to the 'edge' before allowing him to revive with the blood of a nibari. This was nothing more than another of her lectures. He would weather it. Stygean's fangs came down from their sheaths, and he forced them back up, keeping his mouth closed around them; to show his fangs in her presence would earn him a beating.
"Consider this," Anksha said. "If it hurts you to watch this, it will hurt others to watch the sa'necari you will grow into hurt their loved ones. Unless you take another path. Lord Dawnreturning's path."
Dawnreturning. The sa'necari renunciate who led the Rowdies, the freeranger company that had destroyed their parents' estates in the city of Ocealay, and seized everything they owned that could be carried off. Stygean's father had been one of the Five Captains who ruled the city-state of Ocealay, and governed all the kandoyarin — mercenary — companies that operated on the western half of the continent. But his father had become Anksha's blood-slave, and the other four captains were electing someone else to serve in his place.
When Anksha had left, Stygean spat where she had been standing. His friend Jingen came and put his arm around Stygean's shoulders. "I hate her."
"I feel the same," Jingen said.
"I'd like to stake her out and stick her," Stygean snarled.
Jingen's voice softened. "Too dangerous to contemplate."
Stygean stared at the ground, his eyes flicking back and forth to make certain no one had come near enough to hear them. "I want her to suffer."
Jingen stepped back from Stygean and shrugged. "She drained four sa'necari for trying to rite the renunciate."
"So?"
"So stick the renunciate. The sight of his dead body would break her heart to kindling."
"That's an idea."
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