Bertrice Small - Lara

Durga looked stunned. It was his brother who now spoke.

“Your grandmother?”

“Maeve was my grandmother, although until recently I did not know it,” Lara said.

Durga began to moan. “We had Maeve’s own kin beneath us in our beds, and yet we could get no child on her, brother.” Then his small eyes turned on Lara. “Come back with us, and we will make you a queen,” he pleaded, all thoughts of violence against her gone from his head. “Give us sons to free us from your grandmother’s curse, faerie girl!”

“Even if I were willing, and I am not, it could not be. Maeve said it before her fading. The curse can never be lifted. Your purity is gone, my lords. Your father was but half Forester, and your blood is thinned by a quarter more. You live a lie, and no faerie will ever help you, could not help you. And it is all your own fault. If your grandfather had but punished those who killed the faerie woman, Nixa, if he had returned her torque willingly thereby preventing his own pregnant wife’s death, Maeve would have forgiven the sin, angry as she was. But your grandfather’s pride was overwhelming. He is responsible for the destruction of your race.”

Durga, whose head had fallen to his chest with her first words, now looked up. His eyes had become enflamed with his desperation and madness. “You will return with us, faerie girl. And you will give us the children we need to restore our race,” he snarled, reaching out for her. “You will come back!”

A deep feral sound arose from Og’s throat. He would have moved forward but that Lara stayed him with her hand.

“The girl is ours,” Enda said, attempting to sound reasonable. “Surely you can understand that, my lord prince. We have the magistrate’s order. And the Shadow Princes are men who respect the law, and keep order themselves among the Desert folk.”

“You bribed the magistrate, I have not a doubt,” Kaliq replied in amused tones. “What did you promise him in return? Lara, when you had finished with her? Your brother would not allow Lara to live, or do you not understand that, my lord Enda?”

At that Durga leapt forward, his big clumsy hands stretching out for Lara. The girl stepped back but a pace, her arm reaching up to draw her broadsword from the scabbard on her back. She found herself filled to bursting with a ferocious anger. This beast of a man would not have her. She would never again be victimized by the Head Forester Durga, or any of his clan. Then, to even her own surprise, she jumped forward and with a single stroke decapitated the Head Forester as the sword sang loudly.

I am Andraste. I sing of Victory and I drink the blood of the unjust!

Durga’s head rolled across the marble floor, his eyes wide, his mouth open in complete and utter shock. Crimson blood spurted from his severed neck and flowed over the marble floors. The head settled at Enda’s booted feet. He looked down, and then up again. His eyes were filled with fear as he stared at Lara. A hesitant hand went to his own weapon, but Kaliq quickly spoke.

“Lara tells me you paid thirty thousand pieces of gold for her. I will give it to you, and ten thousand more in blood money for your brother’s death. Under the law Lara was legally free of you several days ago. You have attempted to regain her by fraudulent means. We both know it, my lord Enda. Take the gold, and leave Shunnar. If I must bring this unfortunate matter to the attention of the High Council, how do you think they would rule? Lara’s destiny is not with you. Nor is it even with me, I regret to say. And it occurs to me that if your brother had no son, then it is you who are now the Head Forester. Did Durga have a son?” A small smile played about the prince’s mouth.

“No. Just daughters.” Enda had now found his voice again, and lied easily to the Shadow Prince. The bitch Truda had whelped a boy, but he was weak, and had been sickly since his birth. His brother had beaten Truda badly for it, as he blamed the woman. No one would consider it odd if the boy died suddenly. And no one would be sorry to have Truda gone from their midst. She had been a troublemaker from the very beginning. Durga was dead of his own stupidity. Enda would tell no one how his brother died. He would say Durga had a fit when he could not regain Lara. Of course there was the matter of his brother’s head and body being separated.

“Then we shall consider this matter settled between us? And between Lara, and your family?” the prince purred. “If you would like we will bury your brother. His body would decay too badly if you attempted to take it with you back to your Forest realm.”

Enda nodded. Had the prince read his mind, he wondered uncomfortably? “When I have the gold in my possession,” he said, and then his eyes went to Lara. If only he could have gotten a son on her, he thought regretfully, but he had understood her words.

“Let me kill him, too, my lord Kaliq,” Lara said, and was pleased to see the Forester grow pale beneath his sunburnt skin.

Kaliq laughed. “So, my love, the warrior’s blood now sings in your veins. But nay. We will not start a war over you, as flattering as I am certain you would find it. Hetar must remain at peace for now. Soon enough the clouds will gather.”

“Very well,” Lara agreed. She smiled at Enda. “I will not kill you, though it is tempting, my lord Enda, and your neck is not quite as thick as your brother’s was.”

To her surprise he answered her, “I am sorry you could not love me, Lara. Even though I understand what you have said is the truth. The purity of the Forester’s blood is a thing gone, yet I would have liked to have had a son by you.”

“Go home, my lord,” she told him. “Be thankful that my lord Kaliq has stayed my hand. Never again will anyone use me for their own advantage.” She bent, picking up Durga’s head by its hair. She stared into his face briefly, saying as she handed it to Enda, “And take this with you.”

He recoiled, forcing back the bile that rose in his throat as he was forced to stare into his brother’s dead face. His legs felt weak, and he slipped on the bloody floor.

“Lara, my love, do put the head down. We will dispose of it. You really are frightening the new Head Forester. My lord Enda-” he now directed his speech to the Forester “-Zaki will lead you back to the village where you will find the gold already waiting for you. Use the lemax your brother rode to carry it. You will depart this evening. Our moon is now full, and you will find traveling at night is more comfortable in the Desert. I bid you a safe journey.”

Enda nodded, bowed, and turned about to follow the headman. His last glimpse of Lara caused an icy shiver to ripple down his spine. She was industriously cleaning his brother’s blood from her sword. Once he wanted nothing more than to possess her totally. Now he prayed to the Celestial Actuary that he never had to see her again.

“I CANNOT BELIEVE that I killed him,” Lara said afterward as they ate their evening meal in the private garden that separated their individual quarters. “I don’t know what happened, but I was suddenly filled with an anger such as I have never known, my lord.”

“Blood lust,” he said dryly. “And now perhaps you are beginning to understand, Lara. In your life you have been a good daughter. Then you were to be a Pleasure Woman, but that is not the destiny fate meant for you to follow. It is not written that your beauty be used just for the gratification of others. You are meant to be strong. To lead.”

“But women are subservient, my lord. It has always been that way,” she replied.

“Not everywhere,” he told her. “Only in the provinces.”

She looked puzzled, and he further explained.

“In the provinces, women have been kept obeisant for a reason. It is believed women cause disorder, for they are known to question, protest and dispute if permitted. Men, however, accept what is told them, if it is told to them by someone they respect and trust. The High Council wants no difficulties. They want peace. They want industry and trade to continue as they always have. They want profit, and profit does not necessarily come with social change. The High Council wants everyone to keep their place, and those who are allowed up the social ladder come only in the prescribed way, as did your father. But change is coming, Lara. It must come if Hetar is to survive. The old ways are coming to an end, and you are to be part of that change.”

“I hear your words, my lord, but they make no sense to me. I don’t even know where I will go when I leave Shunnar, but I know I must go,” Lara said. “I sense my time with you is coming to an end, Kaliq. Part of me is saddened by that knowledge, yet part of me looks forward to leaving this peaceful haven you have provided me these past months. I cannot hide away from the world forever. I find to my surprise that I am curious to see all the wonders in all the lands Master Bashkar has described. I feel I am changing once again. It is both a little frightening, and yet very exciting.”

She was very confused by everything that had happened today. She had taken a life, and yet she felt absolutely no guilt over Durga’s death. Indeed she felt a strange pride in her skills at removing his head in a single swift stroke. “I wish Lothair had been there,” Lara said aloud.

Kaliq laughed, knowing what she had been thinking. “Yes,” he acknowledged, “he would have been very proud of you, and of himself, too, I think. He has been your instructor, but your skills, he tells me, come to you naturally. He says he has but refined them. Durga’s death was a far more merciful one than he deserved.”

“You say change is coming to Hetar. Tell me, I beg of you!” Lara pleaded.

He shook his head. “You have a destiny to live out, my love. You must follow your own path, not one that is set out for you. You will make errors, Lara, for that is part of the learning process, but you will survive. That much I will tell you. And you will triumph.”