Tanys Defiant Read online

  “What of the bear men?” Otnar asked, his swollen lip slurring his words.

  “Maimed or dead,” she replied coldly.

  “How?” Klas asked.

  “I made a new friend,” she said, “another half-breed.”

  Chapter 2

  Tanys’ body ached when she awoke the following morning. Jorva was poking her in the arm with one of his clawlike fingernails as he knelt beside her where she had slept on a bed of thin blankets. As she rubbed her eyes and sat up to face him, he offered her a drink from his jug. The troll wine chased away the cold and sharpened her senses as she rose to her feet. She was already becoming used to the syrupy brew and its effects no longer dulled her mind. Jorva was grinning and pointing up to a hole in the roof from which a rope harness now lowered towards them.

  “You go up there!” Jorva said excitedly, “Jorva go too!”

  Tanys glanced worriedly up at the descending rope and collected her clubs, wondering what the trolls wanted with her and how she might fight her way out.

  Jorva reached out and took the clubs from her hands. His movement was gentle, but the strength of his grip pulled the weapons easily from her grasp. “Trolls just take sticks,” he said, “Use what trolls can’t take.” He emphasized his point with a broad grin of his filed teeth.

  “Jorva” she said, “I need these clubs to fight them.”

  Jorva made a rude noise as he reached for the rope harness and looped it around Tanys’ waist. “You learn fight like Jorva! Jorva teach you how.”

  “Why are they taking us, Jorva?” she asked, as the massive trolls above pulled the rope tight, lifting her off her feet.

  “Jorva go fight!” the tattooed dwarf exclaimed, hopping excitedly from foot to foot, “Maybe you go fight too!”

  ****

  Tanys watched through the bars of her cage as Jorva fought in the high-walled muddy pit that served as an arena for the amusement of the gathered throngs of trolls. The little man fought alone and unarmed against a group of three large slaves armed with daggers, one of them the man whose face Jorva had mangled the previous night. She watched in admiration of his skill as Jorva easily dispatched the first, shaking the resolve of the other two men. By the time the second fell, the man with the torn face was gibbering in fear and running around the edge of the gladiator’s pit trying to find a way out. The troll spectators howled with laughter and bloodlust, cheering the dwarf on. Tanys looked away as Jorva moved in for the kill.

  Tanys stood alone in a wooden cage guarded by two trolls carrying barbed spears. They had stripped her to the waist, leaving only her thin leather pants and fur-lined boots. She crossed her arms protectively over her breasts and tried to prepare herself for whatever was to come. Feeling eyes upon her, she looked up to where the fat troll chieftain sat on a balcony overlooking the spectacle of death below. The obese troll’s attention was riveted on the death throes of the man Jorva was killing, but beside him stood a tall gaunt man. The man was watching her.

  The man was unnervingly pale. His skin was devoid of all color, glistening white in the gray light of morning. The long straight hair, which hung to his narrow shoulders, gleamed almost silver in hue. His large dark eyes lingered on Tanys’ body, his angular face expressionless and unreadable. She felt her skin flush hotly, feeling completely naked before his scrutiny.

  It was hard to hold the man’s unsettling gaze, but Tanys could not bear for him to see her look away. She closed her trembling hands into fists and forced them down to her sides, raising her head and arching her back proudly as she met his burning gaze with equal resolve. His eyes settled upon her breasts, full and defiant, russet nipples hard in the cold air. A smile played on his pallid lips, and, at last, he looked away.

  So this was the reason the trolls were so organized. They were in league with the ghasts, the fabled folk of the rumored ice caverns far to the north. They were the maggot folk who lived by dark magic in a land without sunlight. If the ghasts controlled the trolls now, Tanys’ people were doomed.

  The door to Tanys’ cage swung wide, and a barbed spear tip pressed hard into her backside. Walking proudly from the wooden cage, she moved at the prompting of her guards to the edge of the arena pit. She knelt and retrieved a piece of twine from the ground to tie back her hair into a long ponytail. Then, raising both hands in an obscene gesture towards the yammering crowd, she jumped down into the pit.

  Nearby, Jorva cheered wildly for her as the trolls hoisted him from the pit by a rope harness. She took heart from his childlike enthusiasm, determined now that she would fight bravely, even if this fight was to be her last.

  “See,” Jorva shouted gleefully as they dragged him back towards the slave pits, “you fight now too, just like Jorva!”

  She smiled back at him and waited until he was out of sight before she knelt and retrieved two daggers from the bodies of the men Jorva had killed. Tanys strode proudly around the outer circle of the pit. She wasn’t looking for an escape; she knew there was none. She was working the stiffness from her muscles and working up the nerve to do what she would have to do to survive. She casually flicked aside the bits of trash and stones that rained down on her from the angry spectators above, testing the weight of the scavenged blades. At last she walked back to the center of the ring. She turned to face the chieftain’s balcony and made a gesture of drawing one her blades across her bared throat and then pointed the knife at the fat troll. The chieftain howled with rage and hurled his wine cup into the pit, landing it far short of the raven-haired girl. The tall, pale ghast beside him simply smiled again and nodded his approval behind the chieftain’s back.

  Tanys winked at him and turned her back with a flippant toss of her long black ponytail. Raising her knives to the sky, she howled with primal rage. The piercing war-shriek of the Raven Tribe split the frigid air of the arena, stunning the assembled trolls into momentary silence. Tanys dropped into a defensive stance and began to circle the arena once more, this time shifting her weight from foot to foot in the deadly blade-dance her father had taught her in happier times.

  Again a shriek filled the air, this time utterly inhuman. Tanys’ blood ran cold at the sound of it. As a seasoned huntress, she knew the sound all too well. Another wooden cage had been rolled to the edge of the pit. This cage, low and thick-barred, now tipped forward over the edge, and a troll guard sprang the catch. A monstrous mass of bristly hair, deadly spines, and ripping tusks tumbled to the floor of the arena, landing hard with a painful squeal. The thrashback boar was the largest Tanys had ever seen. His scarred snout sported four eight inch tusks, splintered by many battles but still very lethal. What worried Tanys most was the thick mane of yard-long black spines that sprouted from the monster’s back. Their poison robbed even the strongest hunter of all strength, and many luckless men had been devoured alive by such beasts once the poison had done its work on them. It was said the boars knew the effects of their poison and took their time in feeding once their meals had ceased to struggle.

  She silently mouthed a curse and crouched, low and still, to avoid attracting the near-sighted beast’s attention. At first it seemed to work. The boar ambled over to the remains of the torn-faced man and nuzzled the body hungrily. The animal was soon driven back by trolls who pelted it with rocks, driving it across the arena towards the human girl. He sniffed the air heavily and turned to face her. Tanys knew that the time to fight or die had come at last.

  Squealing in rage, the thrashback closed the distance to Tanys with terrifying speed. She dove out of the way, only dimly aware of the distant roar of the troll spectators. Tanys’ world narrowed, shrinking down to only the ravenous boar that circled even now to charge again, the blades in her hands, and her body that moved like rain, swept aside by the storm of the monster’s advance.

  She soon realized that the beast was driving her, cutting off the arena to her, and herding her against the wall where he first entered the pit. This beast was a veteran of the arena, well accustomed to the desperate dance of i
ts prey. This was how the trolls fed the beast, and she was his next meal. Too late she realized her mistake as the beast’s next charge forced her too close to the edge of the pit. She spun, flattening herself against the wall, yelping in pain as the bristly flank of the animal brushed roughly against her in passing. The touch of his back spines left only raking red welts on her bare stomach as he rushed by, but a thick spine from his shoulder ripped open the thin leather of her pants, drawing bright blood from her thigh.

  Tanys staggered back toward the center of the ring, casting a hateful glance at the hooting throngs of trolls above. Already the toxin was at work in her wound. The flesh of her thigh throbbed and grew pale around the long gash left by the single spine. She knew that, within moments, her leg would cease to work, and then the beast would come for her.

  She watched him as he circled her. The boar knew that she had been stung, and he was waiting now. He would feast upon her only after his poison had rendered the girl helpless. Tanys’ leg gave way beneath her, and she fell to her hands and knees in the cold mud of the arena. All around, the trolls began to chant, “Thru-Sha, Thru-Sha, Thru-Sha!” This was the name of the beast-god to whom she had been given in sacrifice. The boar crept nearer now, sensing her failing strength. Long strings of drool dripped from his yellow tusks as he anticipated her taste.

  Summoning her dying strength, Tanys rose upon her knees and hurled a dagger across the arena with a howl of rage. The knife buried itself deep in the shoulder of the beast, driving him suddenly insane with pain. The boar lunged forward in full charge, and Tanys spread her arms as though to embrace her death. Her remaining knife flashed once as, with her last measure of strength, she flung herself clear of the killing tusks and collapsed onto her back in the well-churned mud of the arena floor.

  Six long spines lay embedded in her side from hip to ribs. Her arms lay useless beside her. Tanys’ back arched once as she tried to draw her knees up protectively, but the only movement that followed was the gentle rise and fall of her mud-streaked breasts as she fought for breath against the crushing weight of the thrashback’s poison. With great effort, Tanys turned her head to watch the boar as he circled again, drawing closer to her. She tried to scream, but only a raspy whisper escaped her softly parted lips.

  Ever closer the boar approached, his breathing now labored and rasping as well. At last she could feel his hot breath upon her face and smell the stench of blood and death in it. The wet snout drifted down, savoring the scent of her body as he nuzzled her. She couldn’t even close her eyes, yet every sense seemed completely alive. The burning of the spines in her side, the hot wetness of the boar’s saliva pooling in her navel, the cold mud of the arena floor on her naked back, she felt it all. It would not be an easy death. Tanys steeled her will against the first touch of the beast’s teeth in her flesh.

  There was no bite to follow. Instead, the animal backed away, wheezing, and glassy-eyed. Thru-Sha turned a slow circle and lay down in the mud, revealing the pommel of Tanys’ dagger protruding from the side of his neck. The arena watched in stunned silence as the beast-god of the devilkin coughed up a gout of black blood and died.

  Suddenly shrieks of outrage erupted from the walls of the arena, but inside, Tanys was laughing, wishing that Jorva had been able to see her kill the boar or that she’d been able to tell him of her victory before she died. Perhaps he would learn of it anyway. It was important to her that he knew. Somewhere beyond the trolls’ howls of rage, she became aware of someone politely clapping his hands in appreciation of her success. Her eyes moved again to the chieftain’s balcony where the pale ghast smiled and watched her with his dark eyes. Then a troll warlock stood astride her, angrily shouting out a spell, and consciousness left her.

  Chapter 3

  Tanys awoke to the scent of perfumed incense and the damp warmth of a cloth pressed against her side. Opening her eyes, she found an olive-skinned human girl kneeling beside the silken cot where Tanys lay. The girl’s hands moved deftly, tending Tanys’ wounds with gentle skill. Strangely, there was no pain. She smiled at Tanys, seeing her awake. The girl’s almond-shaped eyes were almost violet in hue, and her short reddish hair was pulled back with tiny golden chains into a tight bun, leaving only a few wisps of hair curling down to frame her face. The girl’s face seemed almost fragile, so delicate were her features, but her dark lips were full, and a hint of pearly white teeth flashed in her smile before she lowered her head again, tending to her patient. Tanys would have assumed the girl to be a healer, but she was not dressed like any of the fur-clad shamans who festooned themselves with ropes of bone fetishes while they plied their trade among the northern tribes. Instead the girl wore only a gossamer dress of thinnest green silk, covering her body, but hiding nothing. Pale silk stretched tightly over the girl’s small breasts as she leaned across to dip the washcloth again into a basin of warm water, the dark shadows of her budding nipples showing through. Woven into the silk were tiny red gems that sparkled like fresh blood in the flickering candlelight of the dark, but richly furnished room where Tanys’ bed lay. A thin golden chain served as a belt for the girl’s dress, gathering up the folds of transparent silk around her narrow waist, allowing them to cascade down into the shadowy pool of the girl’s lap.

  Tanys looked politely away, flushing slightly, as it was not the custom of the women of the Raven Tribe to go about so lightly attired, realizing only then that she herself was wearing nothing at all. Tanys lay in bed with only a blanket of the softest fur covering her body. The other girl had pulled the blanket down to Tanys’ waist, treating the wounds from the boar quills which now seemed almost completely healed over, leaving only small whitish bumps where they had penetrated her skin. Tanys wondered how long she’d been asleep. Finishing with Tanys’ chest, the girl’s hand slipped down to the blanket at Tanys’ waist, starting to pull it down further. Tanys shot out a hand, clasping the girl’s wrist to prevent her from doing so.

  The girl looked startled at first, but then smiled and spoke for the first time. “My name is Misha,” she whispered softly, “and I have been assigned to supervise your recovery with my humble skills of healing. I mean you no harm at all.” The girl lowered her violet eyes beneath thick dark lashes and made no further move to pull the blanket away, but neither did she withdraw her delicate hand from the furs at Tanys’ hip.

  “Who… ‘assigned’ you to this task, Misha,” Tanys asked.

  “My lord Carathan,” she replied, “He saw you at the arena and was most impressed by your bravery.”

  “The ghast?” Tanys hissed.

  Misha flinched and answered again, a touch of anger in her voice, “That is what men have called my lord’s people, but it is a spiteful and ugly term for them. I would beg you not to use it in my lord’s presence.”

  Tanys considered for a long moment. As far as her people were concerned, the ghasts were monsters of ancient legends. She had never personally seen a ghast or known anyone who had. Though the legends spoke of them as fearful sorcerers and servants of the darkest powers, Tanys had never been directly harmed or threatened by a ghast. Indeed it seemed that she had now been helped at the request of one. There was an old saying among her people that even the greatest of enemies would climb into bed together, if the night got cold enough. There was no place colder than the lifeless wastes beyond the Nedorran Pass.

  “I’m sorry,” Tanys said, releasing Misha’s hand. The girl smiled again and pulled back the blanket, revealing the thin white scar that arced across Tanys’ leg, curving from the outer thigh, almost all the way up to the soft triangle of raven-dark hair. Tanys watched in fascination as the girl dipped her finger into an ivory jar of creamy balm. As her oiled fingers traced along the path of the old wound, the scar seemed to fade even further from Tanys’ flesh.

  “Is this magic?” Tanys asked in amazement.

  “Only of the weakest sort,” Misha laughed, “I am no sorceress.”

  “And lord Carathan?” Tanys asked.

  Misha st
udied her for a long moment before answering. “All of the Gerridaan, my Master’s people, are sorcerers of sort. Even the basest of them knows a little magic. It is their very nature.”

  “And how much magic does this Carathan know?” Tanys asked.

  Misha smiled slyly in return. “He is the most powerful sorcerer I’ve ever known.”

  “And what of you?” Tanys asked, covering herself again with the blanket as the girl began to put away her healing balms, “You’re not one of the gha… Gerridaan.”

  “No,” she replied, “I come from the land of A-Let, far to the south. I was taken from there as a girl by Atarcian slavers and passed from master to master. It was in the court of a depraved blood-mage that lord Carathan found me and purchased my freedom.”

  “You are not a slave then?” Tanys asked.

  “I am free to leave him at any time,” Misha said softly, “but I no longer wish to.”

  “You love him?”

  Misha’s cheeks flashed hotly in the dim light, and she frowned as she collected her things and stood. “We had better get you bathed and dressed. Lord Carathan wished to see you when you awoke.”

  Tanys smiled knowingly and wrapped the blanket around herself as she sat up. Placing her bare feet on the cool planks of the polished wood floor, she slowly stood up. She felt a bit dizzy, and her legs were still weak. She thought at first that she only imagined the floor was moving beneath her, and then she realized that the entire bedroom was bouncing slightly up and down.