The Wild Road Read online

  DAW TITLES BY

  JENNIFER ROBERSON

  THE SWORD-DANCER SAGA

  SWORD-DANCER

  SWORD-BORN

  SWORD-SINGER

  SWORD-SWORN

  SWORD-MAKER

  SWORD-BOUND*

  SWORD-BREAKER

  SWORD-BEARER*

  (THE SWORD-DANCER SAGA is also available in the

  NOVELS OF TIGER AND DEL omnibus editions)

  CHRONICLES OF THE CHEYSULI

  SHAPECHANGERS

  A PRIDE OF PRINCES

  THE SONG OF HOMANA

  DAUGHTER OF THE LION

  LEGACY OF THE SWORD

  FLIGHT OF THE RAVEN

  TRACK OF THE WHITE WOLF

  A TAPESTRY OF LIONS

  CHEYSULI OMNIBUS EDITIONS

  SHAPECHANGER’S SONG

  (Books One and Two)

  LEGACY OF THE WOLF

  (Books Three and Four)

  CHILDREN OF THE LION

  (Books Five and Six)

  THE LION THRONE

  (Books Seven and Eight)

  THE KARAVANS UNIVERSE

  KARAVANS

  THE WILD ROAD

  DEEPWOOD

  DRAGON MOON*

  THE GOLDEN KEY

  (with Melanie Rawn and Kate Elliott)

  ANTHOLOGIES

  (as editor)

  RETURN TO AVALON

  HIGHWAYMEN: ROBBERS AND ROGUES

  *Coming soon from DAW Books

  Copyright © 2012 by Jennifer Roberson.

  All Rights Reserved.

  DAW Books Collector’s No. 1595.

  DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  All charactersand events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-59752-1

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  For Brian Gross and Frances Robertson Gross,

  Tom Watson and Linda Watson,

  For help above and beyond at just the right time!

  Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Prologue

  FOR BRODHI, WAITING was well-nigh impossible in such circumstances as these.

  He paced because he must. His hands were bound before him, but that did not interfere with his pacing. His body would not resort to stillness even when he wished it. Nor would his mind. It was afire with thoughts, sparking with anger, and altogether unwilling to wait a single moment. But he was trained to anticipate tests, to comprehend that at no time was he completely free of evaluation. And here it was far worse than in the human world. This was his own world. Alisanos ran in his blood. Alisanos wreathed his bones. It was, all at once, enemy, parent, lover.

  It was even his savior—or possibly his death, depending on the tests.

  Brodhi swore viciously. Ruined, all of it. So many human years spent in the human world, accepting the journey, enduring the tests, and yet he was back in Alisanos well before time. He had transgressed. The primaries had the right to declare his journey ended, all the tests failed, and to pronounce sentence upon him. Death was possible but not likely. Worse, yes; worse than death was entirely possible.

  He might be castrated.

  Declared a neuter.

  Karadath’s son.

  Nausea threatened. To deflect it, Brodhi looked around the large chamber, purposely marking details that ordinarily meant nothing to him. It was starkly beautiful, abloom with candlelight. Woven carpets beneath his booted feet were thick and comfortable. Spiraling iron candleracks pleased the eye with their grace and elegance. The massive candles were hand-etched with care and bore gilt geometric designs echoing those chiseled into friezes at floor and ceiling.

  The hide curtain, should he touch it, would warm silkily to his hand, answering his blood. Pieced together from hides of glossy bronze and deep, rich russet, it was otherwise plain; its adornment lay in the splendid network of scales, running with gold, ruddy with light, as if the curtain were wet.

  Everything in the Kiba, the large round pit at the center of Alisanos, was made or maintained by neuters.

  Rage rose up within him. It heated his skin, deepened its hue; dropped the ruddy scrim over his eyes. Hair tingled on the back of his neck, on his forearms, at his genitals. He would not be made into a neuter. It was not in him to serve. He was dioscuri, and he would be served. He would one day be a primary, and thus a god.

  A rich, musky scent permeated the room. There were no chairs, no stools, no benches. He was not to sit. He was, merely, to wait.

  Brodhi spun around as he heard the steps at the chamber doorway. His anger burned so that he could not keep silent though he had sworn to himself to do so. Rhuan affected him that way much of the time. But these circumstances were significantly more provocative than any before. “This is your doing. This—”

  He would have said more, but he broke off as Karadath stepped through the entryway behind Rhuan. Brodhi had had no time to reacquaint himself with his sire’s personal power, the sense of incandescent presence that lived in every primary. But in the years of Brodhi’s absence, Karadath had grown in power and Brodhi scented it. He tasted it, as a beast might. Within himself he fought to maintain the pride and arrogance that shaped him, as it shaped all primaries and dioscuris. Before his sire, whom he had not seen in four human years, it was difficult to do so. He felt himself a flicker of flame before a roaring conflagration.

  Rhuan, not privy to those thoughts, laughed and shook back unbraided hair. “Is it truly my doing? Did I force you to enter Alisanos?”

  But Brodhi ignored Rhuan now. He stared at his sire, realizing just how small, how young, he himself was. That he would one day kill Karadath to assume his place seemed impossible, a figment of undisciplined dreams.

  He wrenched his thoughts away from that. “Rhuan’s sire is plotting against you.”

  Karadath’s expression didn’t change. “Alario is consistent, if nothing else.”

  “That is why I came,” Brodhi continued. “To warn you. Not to end my journey precipitously.�
� He cast a venomous glance at Rhuan, who sat down casually upon the floor and rested his back against a wall with bound hands balanced atop updrawn knees. Ends of loose hair touched the floor. It crossed Brodhi’s mind to wonder how that hair had come to be unbraided, but his attention returned to Karadath. “Punish me as you will . . . I have broken my vow not to return before time. But there is reason for it. Valid reason: to warn you of Alario’s plans.”

  Karadath said, “What leads you to believe I am in need of such a warning? Alario and I have battled since we were younglings in the creche.”

  It was meant to shake Brodhi. He refused to allow it. He was Karadath’s son, Karadath’s dioscuri. He had his own measure of certainty, of entitlement, and employed both to shade his tone. “That may be,” he allowed, “but there is more.” Hands bound, he gestured instead with a jerk of his head, indicating Rhuan. “This weak one poisons us all. Even Alario realizes it. He has decided to take another human woman, to make a dioscuri who is strong, who honors his heritage.” The startled look on Rhuan’s face pleased Brodhi. “Yes, Rhuan, he intends to replace you. That leaves you with a choice: kill the child or challenge the sire.” He bared his teeth briefly in something that was not quite a grin. “But we know you are capable of neither.”

  “And you?” It was Ylarra, Karadath’s current mate, stepping through the doorway. Braid ornaments glinted in candlelight. “Of what are you capable, Brodhi?”

  “Anything,” he answered promptly, conviction paramount. “Anything at all.”

  “Even if it means you return to the human world for another five of their years?” She glanced at Karadath. “It’s the only way, of course. He can’t remain here or his journey will truly end. That is a result neither of us desires.”

  Brodhi was stunned. “You can’t do that. Send me back to the humans? For another five years? I refuse!”

  “You,” Karadath said, “have no say in the matter.” He met Ylarra’s eyes; something passed between them. Complicity and agreement. “It is a solution.”

  “It keeps him intact. It buys him time. And us.”

  Karadath’s abrupt grin was unnerving in someone who rarely showed emotion. “So it does.”

  Brodhi felt his flesh warm as the membrane dropped over his eyes. Pure, unreasoning instinct took hold of his body. The impulse to challenge was so strong he bit deeply into his bottom lip to dampen the response that fought for release.

  Not yet. Not yet.

  He looked away from his sire, stared hard at the floor, fixed his gaze upon a pattern in the rug and followed it from one end to the other, fighting for self-control.

  Karadath’s tone was amused. “You may challenge, if you wish. We can settle your future here and now.”

  Rhuan laughed. “I would enjoy watching that.”

  Brodhi, lowering his head, forced the words past clamped teeth. “I make no challenge.”

  His sire stepped very close to him. They were nearly of a height, but Karadath was a mature male in his prime, and his body reflected that. He exuded strength, power, and a terrible grace. “Look at me.”

  Brodhi did not.

  “See me.”

  Brodhi steadfastly stared at the ground, face averted.

  Karadath moved again, pressing closer yet. “Challenge me, dioscuri.”

  Brodhi’s breath ran ragged. “I make no challenge.”

  Karadath closed a hand over Brodhi’s jaw and forced his head up. “See me.”

  Brodhi closed his eyes.

  Rhuan laughed. “Oh, do try, Brodhi! Then Karadath will kill you, and he, too, must look to sire another dioscuri.”

  Brodhi held his tongue and did not meet his sire’s eyes. After a moment Karadath released his jaw and turned away.

  “Get up, Rhuan,” Ylarra said. “Get up from there. You have disgraced yourself quite enough.”

  Brodhi held his silence as Rhuan contemplated refusing. He saw it in the eyes so like his own. But Rhuan rose in silence, and Brodhi realized his own moment of rebellion was ended. His skin cooled, the membrane withdrew. He could meet Karadath’s eyes now, though he did so only briefly.

  Ylarra drew her knife and sliced Rhuan’s hands free. “It was given to Karadath and me to determine the punishment. It is decided. Resume your journey, both of you. Five additional human years, living among the humans.” She cut the thong at Brodhi’s wrists. “You are not ready,” she told him quietly, “as you have seen. He would kill you in an instant. But when the journey is completed—” a smile flickered briefly “—perhaps you will be strong enough to bring down your sire and ascend to his place.” Now she looked at Karadath. “Perhaps.”

  Brodhi heard in her tone a delicate disbelief. Ylarra favored him, he knew; Ferize had told him so. But in the meantime Ylarra bedded Karadath; could he trust her in anything? Was her suggestion that he return to the human world truly intended to keep him intact? Or was she playing a game with both sire and son?

  For a moment, a moment only, he allowed himself the vision: Karadath defeated, himself ascending.

  It was sweet, that vision. But also fleeting, banished by the truth. Were he to challenge his sire before his journey was ended, Karadath would indeed kill him in an instant.

  Not yet. Not yet. I am not ready.

  One day, he would be. And challenge would be made.

  RHUAN, HAIR LOOSE, wrists tied, had walked with as much pride and dignity as he could dredge up, climbing the shallow steps out of the round, high-sided Kiba pit, prisoner among his own kind. Karadath, who followed him, forbore to touch him now, having tied Rhuan’s wrists before him; the kin-in-kind who humans would name “uncle” wanted no physical contact, as if he believed he might be contaminated.

  A corner of Rhuan’s mouth jerked briefly; well, if he were to be sentenced to castration and to become a neuter, Karadath would be contaminated by his nephew’s touch.

  The human woman, Audrun, had protested such rude removal before all the primaries, shouting that Rhuan had more honor in him than any primary. She had courage of the kind most primaries had never seen in humans. But then most humans, in Alisanos, were rendered mindless by the physical alterations beginning in their bodies, by the challenges of remaining alive in a world both alien and dangerous; even, Rhuan believed, by the shock of meeting a primary, if they survived long enough to do so. Audrun was fearful, he knew; but that was yet another element that made her so different. She was afraid, but she confronted the nine hundred and ninety-nine gods who gathered in the Kiba, seated upon carved stone blocks. She confronted, challenged, and demanded of them things they would not do, knowing they would not do them.

  Return her children, she asked. Five of them, missing, scattered throughout the deepwood. One taken by demon.

  Walking steadily, aware of Karadath close behind upon the stone-paved pathway, Rhuan broke into a smile. It stretched into a grin. The primaries had refused Audrun her demand. But Brodhi—Brodhi—had brought four of the missing children to the Kiba and to their mother.

  Karadath’s son. Karadath’s last dioscuri. Equally guilty of reentering Alisanos well before time.

  Rhuan laughed aloud.

  Oh, it was rich, that knowledge. He knew full well that he himself was considered weak by most of the primaries, if not by all. Alario had made no secret of his disappointment in his last dioscuri. It was ironic, Rhuan felt, that in the human world he had an undeserved and inaccurate reputation for killing and yet, among the primaries, Rhuan was believed to be too human to challenge Alario’s other dioscuri. In fact, he had killed none of them; they had managed, instead, to kill themselves. None remained but himself.

  Karadath, on the other hand, was arrogant with the awareness that Brodhi was markedly promising. Brodhi had, before setting out on his journey, killed two of his dioscuri brothers. Brodhi would one day challenge his sire; and if he defeated Karadath
, he would ascend to his father’s place. It was expected that one day Brodhi would do so.

  But Brodhi, like Rhuan, had come home too soon. And he, like Rhuan, would be punished for it.

  THE ANGER THAT had bolstered Audrun’s courage and provided the words with which to challenge the primaries in their own Kiba, drained from her body as she climbed the steps. Now there was joy; joy and intense relief and other emotions too tangled upon themselves to name. The Shoia courier had brought her children to her.

  All save one. The baby stolen by a demon.

  That child, for now, was mourned more quietly than otherwise, because the children she knew best, the children she had raised, were alive, and present.

  The courier had been sent away before she could thank him, even as she took Megritte from him into her arms. Darmuth, one of the karavan guides—but seemingly at home in the deepwood, which made her suspicious—also departed after murmuring something about the children being damaged but “safe for the time being.” Megritte in her arms, Audrun told the other children—Gillan, Ellica, and Torvic—to stay close as they all followed a man whose features, height, and coloring marked him kin to the primaries. The difference was a certain softness to his face, as if his skin didn’t fit as tightly as it should. He was braidless, this man, his dark coppery hair cut short at the nape of his neck. It was without the ornamentation that wove through the multiple braids worn by the courier, by all of the folk called primaries, and by Rhuan. No—that had been worn by Rhuan, before she undid them and married herself to him. Without speaking, this braidless man led them away from the Kiba along a paved footpath to a huge, spreading tree beside the towering cliffs. A massive stone bench had been placed under the leafy canopy; Audrun had already marked that everything in this place was of a larger scale than in her own world. But then, she had discovered in the Kiba that the primaries themselves were of a larger scale.

  Gillan, she had already noted, limped badly. Ellica clutched against her breasts a small sapling wrapped in homespun skirts. Audrun wanted badly to know what had happened to them while they were lost in the deepwood, but there would be time to ask them later. For now, the only thing that mattered was that all of them were safe.