Free Sword of Hemlock (Lords of Syon Saga Book 1) by Jordan MacLean Page A

against
his throat.
    “Mercy, I pray you, Brannagh.”  His voice sounded tight and
fearful.  “I yield.”
    “Tell me who hired you to steal my niece,” asked Renda
quietly, tightening her grip at his resistance.
    “And then you will release me?”
    “No,” she replied coldly.  “My blade split the verinara
leaf, Bernold.  I serve Rjeinar by this act, and you will die by my hand.”  Her
eyes glowed dark gold in the night.  “But speak and clear your conscience ere
you die.”
    “Rjeinar…”  He sagged against her, away from the blade, a
motion that was meant to throw her off balance, but instead of struggling to
hold him up, she turned away and let him fall at her feet, at once setting the
point of her blade in the center of his throat and her foot on his chest.  He
stared in obvious horror at the thick green resin along the blade where it
glinted in the meager light of the alleyway.
    “Again, I ask, before I take my revenge upon you and send
your soul into the stars, who hired you to take the sheriff’s granddaughter?”
    He moved to shake his head, his eyes wide at the pinch of
her blade against his skin.  “No, no.  It was not that we should take the
sheriff’s granddaughter.  He wanted a virgin, any virgin, and he said nothing
about why.  But her purity was of the utmost importance to him.”
    “And you sold a seven years child into his lecherous
grasp?”  She pushed the blade against his throat.  “Without a care to what evil
he had in mind for her?”
    “I knew right well what he might want of her.  I simply did
not care.  Nay, one thing more I will make clear, though it provoke you to kill
me on the spot.  Knowing his purpose, as it seemed to me, it was my own idea
that we should take the child from Brannagh.”  A sneer crossed his lips again. 
“I’ve naught but contempt for the House of Brannagh, not since the war.”
    “Animal.”  She hissed the word, but she held the blade
steady.
    “If you’ve such contempt for Renda, why’d you not take your
revenge on her and leave the little child be?”  Gikka asked from the shadows.
    “He wanted a virgin.”  He shrugged, as if that explained it
all, then smiled wickedly.  “Besides, taking the child from beneath your very
eyes would hurt ever the more and to the end of your days.”
    Renda drew a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment,
steadying her nerves.  “Who bought her from you?”
    “You’ll not hear it from these lips.”
    Renda’s pressed her blade deeper.  “For the last time. 
Speak.”
    “And once I am dead, what then?”  He ventured a soft laugh,
conscious of the blade against his windpipe.  “You’ll still not know her
killer’s name.  What then of your revenge, Brannagh?  What then of your
precious dead niece?”
    Gikka’s hand touched Renda’s shoulder, and the Bremondine
woman whispered to her, something unspeakable.
    She wanted to say no, to stay true to B’radik’s doctrines of
truth and light as a Knight of Brannagh should, but as she looked at the
verinara stain on her blade, she only sighed. “A rite of Cuvien…Is there no
other way?”
    At the name of the Bremondine goddess of torture, Bernold’s
eyes widened.
    Gikka shrugged.  “He’d die with the name just to vex you, an
he speaks true.”  She shook her head solemnly.  “No, I find with them who say
they don’t fear dying and know that’s what is coming, a taste of pain works
best,” she said evenly, drawing some sinister looking barbs and hooks from
Zinion’s saddlebag.  Then she looked down at Sir Bernold’s terrified expression
and smiled.  “Ain’t that right, lad?”
     
     

Four
    Castle Brannagh
    A landro’s
neighed salute had carried through the stable with an enthusiasm born of sheer
will.  He had tossed his head twice, and Renda could tell that he was pleased
that she had come to gather him for the day’s journey, but before she could
make her way to him, his huge head had bowed, and