Dark Lightning by Janet Woods Page A

dominated by a solid manor built on the apex of a hill. Around it, four layers of high walls descended in rings. They were fully occupied. The top layer next to the manor was the house gardens. Only the front was decorative. The remainder, tended by poor villagers, was given over to growing fruit and vegetables.
    Beneath were the training yards where Cynan and his troops practiced the craft of war. The layer below was given over to the grazing of meat, and beyond that a market allowed free access to the public, to buy and sell goods.
    At the very bottom, the landscape supported the fine homes of dignitaries and merchants, then changed into smaller solid dwellings before deteriorating into a jumble of poorer dwellings and down again into hovels that crowded haphazardly along the narrow public ways, then fanned outwards along the routes in and out of the city. It was all about business, the labor of the peasants supporting the families of wealth and privilege.
    The whole area was protected from the worst excesses of the weather by an almost endless forest teaming with games A stream meandered lazily along its course, to pick up volume from various water springs, lakes and spouts, through to the harbor, then on to the sea.
    Only the trimarines were allowed to come and go by water without a permit.
    It was said that the manor was impregnable. It was certainly well guarded, with only two visible entrances to the manor itself, and the shoulder-high castellated wall patrolled by foot troopers in pairs. Beneath the citadel was an escape tunnel known only to a few. It terminated behind the stone wall of a storage shed covered in ivy.
    * * * *
    Hal and Orish had taken a room in the poorer quarters of town. Uffo had been left in a stable outside the city for a small recompense. He’d been happy to be left with similar of his kind, and they’d whuffled greetings and nudged against each other.
    ‘We’ll only be a few days so make the most of it,’ Orish had told him, ‘And no gossiping, mind.’
    Something that seemed to be exactly what they were doing when another flight put its mouth against Uffo’s ear and gently snickered, Hal thought, giving the animal a smile and a final pat. He turned to the stableman and held out a hand. ‘You will look after him, won’t you?’
    ‘He’s a fine boy with a good pedigree.’ The man gently ran his over the ridges of the animal’s wings, and Uffo gave a little trill of pleasure, arched his neck and shook his mane. The man met Hal’s eyes squarely. ‘Don’t you fret, I’ll care for him like he was one of my own.’
    When Hal pressed his thumb against the stableman’s hand a blue glow appeared. The man fell to his knee and bore Hal’s hand to his forehead. ‘My pardon, Sire.’
    Hal hauled him to his feet. ‘Get up man, what are you about? Someone might be watching?’
    ‘For a moment you reminded me of Lord Sabarin of Karshal.’
     ‘A name that must never be mentioned on pain of death,’ Orish reminded the stableman sharply.
    ‘Yet it is being uttered abroad. If you listen to the evening wind you can hear it whispered in the air, and discussed amongst the throngs in the market place. They say the son of Sabarin is coming to take his revenge on the death of his family.’
    ‘The princes perished in the massacre and their bones were picked clean by the bats. Only the daughter was left alive and she married Cynan.’
    ‘She had no choice, and thank goodness she did for she has made our lives endurable.’
    There was a sense of pride in the stableman at the remark and Hal couldn’t help but ask, ‘What is her name?’
    ‘Azarine.’
    The world slammed into him, taking his wind, and then dimmed around him. Hal heard the voice of a young woman ... barely a whisper. ‘Grow with honor of your father and mother. We will know each other when we meet again.’
    He spun round to catch a glimpse of her, dark-haired, her blue eyes awash with tears. The smell of blood was in his