Blood Storm by Rhiannon Hart

Author:Rhiannon Hart [Hart, Rhiannon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781742754796
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 2012-02-06T13:00:00+00:00

When I had washed with a wet rag and changed into my travelling clothes I felt like a new person. I boosted myself into the saddle when Rodden handed me the reins. Having a firm purpose refreshed me. Kill Servilock and defeat the Lharmellins. Nothing mattered beyond that. Nothing after that, a voice whispered, would hold any pleasure for me.

We were the last riders to mount, and let our horses set their own pace as they followed the train out of camp.

‘What happened after?’

‘After what?’ Rodden asked. ‘Oh. I was very ill. Glutted. Servilock left me with . . . the bodies.’ He took a deep breath, and then went on briskly. ‘I was eaten up by remorse. Servilock hadn’t expected that. I didn’t turn out like other harmings, just as you didn’t. On the eve of our departure to Lharmell for the Turning, I ran away. I went to the port and bought passage on the first ship I saw. It was then that I discovered my seasickness and I nearly died making the crossing.’

‘You seem to be making a habit of it.’

‘Quite. We docked at Jefsgord and I was turfed from the ship. I had nowhere to go, no money. But I didn’t need it. I had all the blood I needed from the city’s rats. When I found harmings I killed them. It was so easy. They never thought to fear one of their own.’ He took a deep breath. ‘But I was careless about it. Soon I was arrested for murder by the king’s guard and brought before Captain Helmsrid. He saw immediately that I was a harming myself and was fascinated to know why I had been killing my own. His own guards could never seem to get close enough to the scourge that riddled his city. Not long after that my arrest papers went missing and I found myself in paid employment for the King of Pergamia. Chief harming hunter. I refused to join the guard – life in the barracks as a harming would have been intolerable – but Helmsrid didn’t mind in the least when he saw the zeal with which I led squads of his troops on extermination forays.’

I was amazed by how easily he was talking, after months and months of silence. I bit the inside of my cheek, loath to interrupt him.

‘I began to try to atone for the things I had done,’ he went on. ‘I’m still trying. I will probably be trying till I die.’

‘It wasn’t –’

‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘I told you, I don’t want that from you.’

Your fault, I was going to say. I glared out into the desert. Ashes. Let it all be ashes.

‘Why must Pergamians insist on so much secrecy about the Lharmellins?’ I finally choked out.

He shrugged. ‘Because that is the way it has always been. Pergamia has been riddled with harmings since time immemorial and the rulers have always kept the citizens in the dark. This means even the soldiers don’t know exactly what they’re hunting.

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