Peter Brett – The Core (страница 26)

‘Who, then?’ Jardir demanded.

‘The factions of your surface stock are meaningless to me. They provided fresh minds for my larder on my last visit.’

Jardir clenched a fist but did not take the bait. ‘Is the path guarded?’

‘Magic flows to the surface strongly from a vent that size. Drones are drawn to the area, but they do not truly understand what they protect.’

‘How far to demon town once we find this cave?’ the Par’chin asked.

‘Weeks even for a mimic drone,’ Shanjat said. ‘Whole cycles for the slow and clumsy limbs of humans.’

‘There food on the way?’ the Par’chin asked. ‘Clear water?’

‘So much power, and not the slightest idea how to use it. The energies of the Core can sustain you without need for feeding.’

‘You don’t need to eat?’ Renna asked. ‘Then why keep a larder? Why raid the surface?’

Shanjat smiled. ‘Why do your kind drink fermented fruit and grain? Why do you sing and dance?’

The Par’chin shook his head. ‘More than that. Can’t make something from nothing. Might not need food often, but you need it. Queens most of all.’

Shanjat nodded. ‘My brethren can exist without, but none of us does so willingly. Queens at laying must feed – and our hatchlings. Those most of all. Soon hives will fill your lands, each springing forth thousands of hungry hatchling drones to pick the surface clean.’

Renna gritted her teeth. ‘That a long way o’ sayin’ we don’t need supplies?’

‘We will bring them, regardless,’ Jardir said. ‘I do not trust the demon’s words.’

‘Why not?’ Shanjat asked. ‘Have you not spent your life a pawn to the dice your females carve from our bones?’

It surprised Jardir how deeply the words cut. ‘They speak with the voice of Everam.’

Shanjat laughed. ‘They are a Jongleur’s trick! A primitive glimpse at a minuscule fraction of infinite possibility.’

‘Those primitive glimpses have led us to victory after victory against your kind,’ Jardir noted.

‘Perhaps,’ Shanjat said. ‘Or perhaps we play a larger game, and even in your minor “victories” you are only pawns.’

‘Pawns that caught you with your pants down,’ the Par’chin said. ‘Pawns that got you locked up sweatin’ the sun. Pawns that could kill you on a whim. Tellin’ me that’s all part of your game?’

‘In every game there is risk,’ Shanjat said. ‘Play is far from over.’

‘It is for tonight,’ Jardir said. He raised the Spear of Kaji and drew a ward in the air, sending power into the tattoos on the demon’s knobbed flesh. It gave a howl, falling back from Shanjat and thrashing on the floor. The others advanced on it while Shanvah crossed the wards to collect her father.

‘Corespawned thing wasn’t lying.’ Arlen knelt in front of Renna’s belly, studying her aura. ‘Barely a spark, but it’s there.’

‘So much for pullin’ out,’ Renna said.

Arlen stood, meeting her eyes. ‘Creator knows we wern’t perfect about it.’ He shook his head. ‘Should’ve been more careful.’

‘Why?’ Renna asked. ‘I’m your wife. Supposed to carry our babes. Creator knows you ent able. Sayin’ you don’t want it?’

‘Course not,’ Arlen said. ‘Ent a thing in the world I want more. Just mean timin’s bad.’

‘Timin’ ent ever gonna be good, long as demons come out at night,’ Renna said. ‘Don’t mean we stop livin’ our lives.’

‘Know that,’ Arlen said. ‘But you can’t go down to the Core carryin’ our baby.’

‘Can’t?’ Renna crossed her arms. ‘You think, Arlen Bales. Ever have a talk you started with can’t go well for you? Can and will.’

‘Night, Ren!’ Arlen shouted. ‘How am I supposed to keep my mind on this job I got to do if I’m spending the whole time worrying over you?’

‘What, you’re the only one with feelin’s? You’ll do it the same rippin’ way I do every time you run off and do somethin’ dangerous.’

‘Ay, but now I’m worrying for two,’ Arlen said.

‘So. Am. I!’ After months of eating demon meat, Renna was nearly as quick as Arlen, and he didn’t see the slap coming. The blow knocked him back a step, echoing off the stone walls of the tower.

Arlen pressed a hand to his cheek, looking at her in shock.

Renna levelled a finger at him. ‘You’re not the one carryin’ this babe, Arlen Bales. Part of me. Say again I ent lookin’ to its best interest and that slap’ll seem like a kiss.’

‘Then how can you mean to take it to the heart of demon town?’ Arlen asked. ‘You seen what just one of the minds can do. What chance we got inside the rippin’ hive?’

Renna shrugged. ‘What chance we got if I stay up here and have our baby with new hives poppin’ up all over Thesa?’

‘Don’t know that for sure,’ Arlen said. ‘Demon could be lyin’, playing us to let him go.’

‘Already gambling the world that it ent, if we go through with this.’

‘How’s it supposed to work?’ Arlen said. ‘We gonna take a Herb Gatherer with us?’

Renna bared her teeth. ‘You even say her name …’

‘Why not?’ Arlen asked. ‘She’s carryin’, too. You can set up a nursery in the Core.’

‘Don’t need a Gatherer,’ Renna said. ‘Got two Deliverers with me.’

‘Ent funny, Ren.’

‘Said yourself the babe’s little more’n a notion right now,’ Renna said. ‘Ent gonna slow me for months. By then either we’ll have won, or it won’t matter.’

‘What if you get morning sick?’

‘Can’t be worse’n chokin’ down demon meat,’ Renna said. ‘I’ll manage. You need me.’

‘I …’ Arlen began.

‘Don’t deny it,’ Renna cut in. ‘Jardir means well, but he’s got a different way of lookin’ at the world. Threw you in a demon pit once. Don’t think he won’t do it again if he thinks it’s the Creator’s will.’

Arlen blew out a breath. ‘Don’t think I forgot that.’

‘Shanjat’s an empty shell,’ Renna said. ‘He may still be breathin’, but he ent coming back, and I wouldn’t trust it if he did.’

‘Honest word,’ Arlen said.

‘Shanvah’s as good as any can get in a fight, but she can’t dissipate, and she ent as strong as the rest of us,’ Renna went on. ‘You want any chance of making this work, you need me. World needs me. Gotta put that first, just like we asked her to with her da.’

Jardir watched Shanvah, marvelling at what his niece had become. It seemed just days ago he saw her newborn and squalling in his sister’s arms. In Krasian fashion, he had seen little of her in the ensuing years, and nothing since she went into the Dama’ting Palace as a child.

Now she was a woman grown, carrying a weight of honour that could break the strongest Sharum. Shanjat was not capable of shame, so she carried it for them both, locked inside an iron will.

‘Come and sit with me, niece.’ Jardir disdained the Northern chairs, sweeping his robe back to sit cross-legged on the bare floor. While he did, he concentrated, activating one of the powers of the Crown of Kaji. As Shanvah took a spot facing him on the floor, he put a bubble of silence around them, keeping their words from Shanjat’s ears.

Shanvah knelt before him, bending to put her hands on the floor. ‘Raise your eyes,’ Jardir commanded. ‘I am Shar’Dama Ka, but I am your uncle, as well. With your father … absent, I would speak to you as both, while we walk the path to the abyss.’

Shanvah sat back on her heels. ‘You honour me beyond my worth, Deliverer.’

Jardir shook his head. ‘No, child. This is but a fraction of the honour you are due for service given, and nothing in the face of what I must ask of you.’

‘I understand, Uncle,’ Shanvah said. ‘Alagai Ka cannot guide us to Nie’s abyss without my father’s voice.’

Jardir nodded. ‘Nor can we allow the demon free movement. He must be chained.’

Shanvah closed her eyes, breathing. ‘Alagai Ka said he would make a mount of my father.’

‘Indeed, I think it must be so. Imagine the damage Alagai Ka could do if it took over my mind, or that of one of the chin? We cannot risk touching it in anything but battle.’

‘Nor can you allow it to control my father without constant guard,’ Shanvah said.