Sorcha's Revolt
PROLOGUE

"Are you sure you want to go in there dressed like that?"

Sorcha considered DeSilva's question, glancing at her brief harem skirts and then to the unforgiving walls of Silveneir rising ahead of them along the highway. From where they stood on the brow of a hill overlooking the road, the city of Silveneir stood out against the twilight in the gleams of a thousand streetlamps and warm hearths.

"It's somewhere to go," she said. "Do you have any money?"

"Quite a lot, actually," DeSilva said, brightly, only to add with a darker note, "Your relatives were too goddess-fearing and honest to go through my gear when they left me out to die with the enemy wounded."

Sorcha put her hand on his arm, and he managed a wry smile.

"It was bloody traumatic, I'll tell you that, waking up in a mass grave."

"It's all over now, Monte."

DeSilva had in fact exacted a terrible revenge on the Clan Kavnor, Sorcha's family, who had enjoined his aid against the invading Kraag barbarians, only to consign his wounded body to the charnel pit with the enemy dead. Loth Kavnor was a ruin now; in payment, DeSilva had done alone what a marauding army of Kraag had failed to achieve.

That Sorcha did not hold the massacre of half her clan against DeSilva was partly down to him having immediately gone on to rescue her from the remote nunnery where her family had sent her to be tortured. "How much money do you have?" Sorcha asked.

"I don't know exactly, it's not in coin." DeSilva dumped his pack on the ground and rifled through it, depositing spare clothes and camping equipment on the roadside. Eventually, he came up with two small sacks, followed by two more and a small box. Sorcha waited to be impressed, only to draw breath in disbelief; the sacks all contained gold dust, the box was full of gemstones. Sorcha had to touch the glittering assortment of rubies, diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds before she could quite believe it.

"You've got a king's ransom here!"

DeSilva grinned. "This is nothing; I thought it better not to weigh myself down with more."

"Where did you get this?!"

"Oh, there was an island and some ancient ruins," DeSilva said, airily.

Sorcha punched his arm. "Don't give me that epic adventure rubbish! I've done my own heroic journey too, thank you very much."

"Yeah, but you just came back with a load of tattoos and some broadened horizons." DeSilva drew her to him for a kiss. "I set out the son of the world's greatest swordsman and return a wizard laden with cash."

"Even got a beautiful woman," Sorcha added, sarcastically. "I see how it is, now. I see..."

DeSilva kissed her again, still grinning, then stooped to repack his bag, saving one bag of gold dust and a handful of gems that he put in his pocket.

"We've more than enough for a room at an inn. It's not Sabbath, so the gates should be open; we can reach the city tonight..." he glanced down at Sorcha's outfit, then up at her face. "...we might have to settle for an inn in the Foreign Quarter."

Sorcha was dressed in Kellion harem clothes, the only alternative that had been available to the rough nun's habit she had been wearing when DeSilva found her at the nunnery. The revealing silks she now wore were the very nadir of fashion in prudish Silveneir.

DeSilva, with his Kellion looks and Kraagish fangs implanted in his upper jaw, could only be taken for an outlander in his native city, while Sorcha's silks and extensive tattoos likewise marked her; only in the more cosmopolitan Foreign Quarter could they expect any welcome.

Fashion in Silveneir was austere: military uniform and all concealing robes. Silvan women even wore silver masks to hide their faces both in public and private life. Sorcha had been raised to the mask but had rejected the tradition during her long journey by land, sea, and air.

The night sky above Silveneir was without a cloud; the moon shone brightly, and on the leaves and branches of the trees, on the highway and the distant hills, the silver gleam cast a spell that made the countryside seem truly sylvan. "Oh, Monte, look at the moon."

He glanced up, his attention more preoccupied with the distance still before them and their possible reception.

"You've got no romance in your soul," Sorcha complained.

DeSilva groaned. "I rescued you from a nunnery, how romantic do you want?"

"Oh, I don't know," Sorcha said sarcastically, "a horse would have been nice. You didn't think of nicking one on your way up to abbey?"

Sorcha shivered in her scanty outfit and hugged herself until DeSilva put his cloak around her and they walked on side by side sharing its warmth. "Better?"

"Marginally more romantic," Sorcha said, snuggling close as they walked. Her touch set DeSilva thinking that they should stop for the night and go on to Silveneir in the morning. He said as much, but Sorcha only looked at him slyly. "I know what you're thinking, and the answer's no, not when a little bit further will have us indoors and in a real bed."

"We could just stop for a bit," DeSilva suggested, and then thought his hopes had been answered when he saw a light through the trees at once side of the road. "Here, do you think that's an inn? We could stop for the night." "Or just steal a horse and ride on to the city," Sorcha said, but followed him when he picked up the pace and hastened towards the presumed inn. A little closer and they saw it was not an inn but a two-storey ramparted tower like a squat ziggurat, double the width at its base as it was at the top. The lower floor and its battlements buttressed the upper part of the tower, which rose like a watchtower from the centre of the building. Up against the small tower were a number of lean-to buildings, creating a ragged third step around the low ziggurat. There were lights in the tower windows and a sentry on the wall; from the lean-to buildings came the smell of horses.

"It's an outpost," DeSilva said, crouching down in the undergrowth beside the road with Sorcha beside him and peering through the trees. "I didn't know there were any on the back roads." "Are you sure you know where we are?"

"Yes, I know exactly where we are," DeSilva said tetchily. "We came halfway along the Baltu Road and then down into the vale; the highway runs west to east from Naril Na Silva to Silveneir via Loth Kavnor, and it's lined with fortifications; it looks nothing like this. The only other highway is the coast road to Daricia, and that runs north to south; we're going northeast, so this has to be a back road joining one of those two ways to the city. I'm just surprised to see a guard post out here; I was heading roughly this way when I first left Silveneir, I didn't see any outposts."

"So, what are going to do now? We can't go and knock on the door, not looking like this." "You wanted to wear the harem outfit," he reminded her. "You said it was comfortable." "And it is," Sorcha said, "it's like being naked."

"And you like that?"

"I'm just as surprised as you are, let me assure you. But it's not just me, it's you; word of the Kraag attack must have reached the city by now."

DeSilva rubbed his thumb on one Kraag fang ruefully. "Well, I'm not about to pull 'em out. You don't know what I went through to get them. I had to kill an Ur-Wulf."

"Those are Ur-Wulf teeth?" Sabra reached to touch the long fangs protruding from DeSilva's top lip but hesitated and looked back to the nearby Silvan outpost. "Whatever the story behind them, we can't go telling it there; they'll not listen." "We'll just have to steal a horse then," DeSilva said, and stood up to advance through the undergrowth and approach the tower from off the road.

"Monte, be careful!" Sorcha hissed, but he only waved for her to stay back before raising his hand before the forbidding ramparts.

"Stantine Fenn," he said, and light blossomed in his upraised hand.

Sorcha looked away a split second too late; the corona of fire that rose around DeSilva momentarily dazzled her. When she looked again, the pillar of flame had stepped out from him, becoming the blazing, armoured figure of the demonic knight Stantine Fenn.

DeSilva had told her that the demon resided in the magic ring he wore on his left hand, but lately Sorcha had detected a change in the way he spoke of and to the demon.

The sentry on the Silvan tower saw Fenn's light at once and raised the alarm, but there was no time for any response. The heat emanating from Stantine Fenn redoubled, bringing with it a horrible itching sensation on the skin and nausea that twisted Sorcha's gut. Exhaustion pressed down on her, Fenn's presence leeching all strength from her limbs.

The sentry on tower staggered and collapsed. Sorcha folded slowly to her knees and only awoke when DeSilva scooped her up in his arms.