“I can do this all day,” said Topknot. “How you feeling?”
Tired already. The sword was too heavy for him. He wasn’t as fit as he used to be. Not as young or strong. Years of living in Faerie, in a hut, and then at court had made him soft and, if not pampered, unused to such exertion. He’d never been in a sword fight before.
Topknot took a swing and Tom flinched away, swinging his scimitar back at the bandit. The blades clashed with a ring. Topknot grinned and Tom got the feeling that it had been a test. A test he’d failed.
Another swing. Another. Now it was Tom edging away and Topknot pursued. Each time the bandit swung Tom planned to be brave, to be clever, to step inside the swing, or parry and follow with a swing or attack of his own. But his fear got the better of him. He flailed his sword and he wondered if he really was blocking the blows or if he was being toyed with.
His arms were getting tired.
“Not much fight in you,” said Topknot. “Not much sport.”
“Maybe I’ll surprise you.”
Topknot grunted, then threw the axe. Tom raised the scimitar. The axe clattered against his blade and ripped it from his hands. And both weapons landed three steps away. But even as Tom looked at the fallen weapons, he knew he’d fallen for the trick. He turned in time to see Topknot rushing towards him with a knife, small and bright. He thrust his hands into the crook of Topknot’s elbow, stopping the blade just short of his belly. The other man pushed, grabbed Tom by the shoulder and tried to pull him into the knife. They began to dance and pivot around the blade between them.
He had to get out. Had to get away. He pictured the cold, hard metal slicing through his skin, cutting his flesh. He felt tears well behind his eyes for a moment. No. But he wasn’t strong enough. He could feel the man winning, the point edging closer, snagging on his clothes. But what could he do? He looked up from the knife and into the other’s eyes. Topknot. A horseman from the Marches.
“Fleoye!” he shouted. Topknot blinked and there was a chorus of whinnies. And Topknot turned to see his horse galloping away.
Tom headbutted him. Pain exploded across Tom’s forehead and knocked almost every thought from his mind. But the mercenary’s strength ebbed for a moment, long enough for Tom to let go of his arm and punch him in the throat. He gagged and staggered back and Tom was free. Free and with the scimitar two steps away. He grabbed at it, fumbled, then had it in his hand. Topknot had enough time to look up before Tom plunged the scimitar into his guts. Tom waited for him to fall.
But Topknot stabbed at him with the knife. It was a strong thrust but Tom stopped it easily. Sweat broke out on Topknot’s face and he went pale. And Tom could feel the strength in his arm fading. The knife fell from cold fingers. The morning air grew sharp with the metallic tang of blood, soaking through the man’s filthy shirt and running down the curved blade.
“You,” Topknot spat, blood flecking Tom’s face. It dribbled out of his mouth and then his head sank forward as if his neck had deflated. Then his legs gave way. Tom didn’t have the sense to let go of the sword so it pulled him down too. The other man fell onto his back, coughed and spluttered, his breathing a wet, desperate, gurgling sound. Then he was still. His eyes were cold glass. He was dead.
He was dead and Tom was alive. Tom reached out to close the eyes, to hide that awful dead stare. But he couldn’t bring himself to touch the man. How could he?
“Tom!”
The cry brought him back to the present and he sat up. Katharine was trying to fend off Oily. He staggered to his feet and tried to pull the scimitar from the body but his bloody hands slipped from the hilt. He was tired, all over, exhausted and cold. But he drew Oily’s attention. That was enough for Katharine to bat aside his sword and put a knife to his throat.
“Yield.”
Oily dropped his sword. It was that easy. Why hadn’t Tom done that? Ask Topknot to yield. So simple.
Six had Bearded disarmed too. It was only Tom who had murdered.
The pair of men were placed on their fronts, with a knife to the back of their heads. “Find some rope,” Katharine said to Six. “Tom, are you okay?”
He couldn’t say yes. But silence didn’t seem like an option. “No,” he said.
“Stay with me.”
“Where would I go?” he asked. His hands were covered in blood. It disgusted him. He had to get it off. He wiped it on his tunic, smearing it everywhere. “I need to get this off.”
“Wait,” she said. But he didn’t. The ground rose a little to the east. He tried to climb above the stench of blood. But it was on him, wasn’t it? There was no getting away from it. He thought of Topknot, lying with a sword planted in his chest like a violent flag pole. He felt his mouth water and his hands shake and he vomited. He felt sorry for the poppies.
He wiped his mouth and his eyes and staggered to his feet, shaky. He wanted to lie down. He wanted to get this blood off. He crested the hill. A river. Wending its way out of the Whispering Woods. Ordinarily he wouldn’t go near it; the risk of magic was too great. But that didn’t matter. He waded into the water and stripped off his clothes, every stitch, and scrubbed at himself. The water turned pink around him and he couldn’t see any blood on his hands. But he could feel it. It was like it had soaked into his skin, underneath, part of him somehow. So he rubbed and scrubbed.
“It’s okay.” Katharine stood at the water’s edge. Her tone was soft and soothing. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“I killed him,” he said. “I killed him and he died and now he’s dead.” He knew he was babbling but he couldn’t stop himself. He felt tears on his face, hot and alive.
“He would have killed you,” Katharine was stripping, removing everything except her undergarments before she stepped into the water too. “You did what you had to do.”
“I’m a murderer now.”
“No.” Her voice was firm.
“But I can’t lie. If I can say it then it must be true.”
“You are not a murderer,” she said, voice firm.
“I killed him.”
“You defended yourself.”
“I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have come with you.” He should have stayed in that little hut, forgotten and safe from everyone.
She reached him, pulled him into her arms. She shushed him, putting dry hands in his wet hair. He could feel her cotton undergarments leeching the water from his skin. He cried. She held him as he did, saying nothing. And then they were kissing. He needed to. He needed her. Nothing else mattered in that moment. Not the fay or Maev or love. He carried her to the water’s edge and laid her down amongst the reeds. And he lost himself in her.
They lay in silence when it was over. Silence had become safe again. Silence meant he didn’t have to explain himself. Silence meant he didn’t have to tell her he didn’t love her. Silence meant he could hide his shame. So he lay there, not saying anything, and she lay on top of him, not saying anything. He wondered what she was thinking. He wondered if he’d ruined everything. He wondered if the fay had seen them.
The day wasn’t warm enough. A cool breeze blew from the south and they began to shiver.
“We should go back.”
She was right. They climbed to their feet. Tom didn’t know where to look. She seemed unembarrassed, happy for him to look as she dressed. He fished out of the river what clothing hadn’t drifted away. The cloth was stained red. He wrung it out as best he could.
“Throw it away,” she told him. “It’s no good anymore.”
Could he do that? No, he decided. This was all that was left of that man, a bloody stain on an old tunic. He rolled it up but put it by his feet whilst he pulled on his soaking wet hose. His boots were wet too, so he went barefoot amongst the poppies. Katharine held his hand and Tom let her.
The Easterners were up, their prayers finished. The two men were bound and under Six’s watch. Draig and Brega were filling a hole and Topknot was gone. Neirin and Siomi were talking as if nothing had happened.<
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“Ah, Tom. Are you well?” Neirin asked.
Tom said nothing. He watched Draig and Brega work, watched the soil falling into the hole and imagined it falling onto Topknot, getting in his nose, his mouth. Had they buried him right? He noticed the hole was aligned east to west. The Eastern way. Had they put him in the right position, sat in the ground holding his legs to his chest? Too late now.
“They don’t know anything,” Neirin said. “Of no use, I’m afraid.”
Of no use. But still men. Still of worth, even if they were greedy. Or desperate. His thoughts must have shown on his face, because Siomi said, “Break your fast, Master Rymour.” He allowed her to sit him down and he took the bread she gave him. He didn’t eat it until she told him to, and only because it was easier than arguing.
“Are you injured, Master Rymour?” Neirin seemed confused.
“Tom has never taken a man’s life, my lord,” Katharine said. “You must remember how you felt the first time.”
Neirin nodded. “It is an easy thing to do and a difficult thing to live with.” He was right. It had been easy. Tom looked up and met the elf’s eye. Perhaps he wasn’t as bad as Tom had thought. But then he said, “But you gave him a good death, Tom. Be pleased with that.”
“Pleased?” Tom snapped. “Dead is dead, Lord Neirin. Do you think that man is pleased?”
“He died with a blade in his hand, Master Rymour.” Siomi’s soothing voice did nothing to soothe him. “It is an honourable way to pass to the Isles of the Dead. Angau would be pleased.”
“You don’t know anything about Emyr,” he said. “You think Emyr enjoyed death? You think he worshipped it as you do?” Tom shook his head. “You don’t know anything about him.”
“And you do?” Neirin shot back.
“I do.”
“How?”
He shouldn’t have said anything. Emyr had asked him not to. But he was angry. The idea of these elfs draping their warped ideas of death over Emyr was abhorrent. Emyr shouldn’t be remembered like that.
“Precisely.” Neirin looked smug. Tom wanted to wipe the smile off his face. “You think of Angau as a merciful king, leader of a golden age. But we elfs have longer memories, Master Rymour. We remember the truth. He swept across the face of Tir like a scythe across the field. He conquered every inch of it. He was glorious and terrible. You would do well to remember that.”
Katharine held up her hands. “Now isn’t the time to discuss philosophies.”
But it wasn’t philosophy. It was lies, stories being twisted around a good man. A conqueror, yes. But a good man. He held his tongue and sulked.
“Ours is the true faith,” Neirin began, but Katharine cut him off.
“I’m sure you think that,” she said. “But we all have to live and travel together. Does it really matter what we believe in?”
It did matter. It mattered a lot.
Before they left Tom stood over the grave of the man he’d killed. He scooped up a few handfuls of the fresh dirt and placed a coin in the hole. The stylised sunrise on its face stared up at him until he covered it up again.
“Take this offering,” he intoned. “Take it with you to the Isles of the Dead and let it buy your passing into that place, where the sun never sets and it is always summer.” Then he placed a heel of bread onto the grave. It should have been placed on Topknot’s chest but it was too late now. He picked it up again and ate it. “You have done wrong in this life, as have we all. I take your wrongs and bear them on my shoulders now, so that you may enter the West in innocence and goodness. Go in peace.”
As he swallowed the bread, he imagined swallowing Topknot’s wrongs and crimes. They were his now, to add to his own. He stood. Then he added Emyr’s prayer, the one the old king used to say to himself before he slept. “The father and the prayers, and fasting and charities, and calmness of the soul until death.”
The day was cold and it tried to rain, managing only the odd spatter now and then. Tom had changed into dry clothes but they were of the same cut and dye as the blood-soaked ones he’d stowed in his saddlebags. Katharine had promised they would get him some new clothes in Cairnalyr. Tom couldn’t wait.
Cairnacei was small in comparison with the Whispering Woods but it still took a day to traverse it. Their new prisoners were bound together and rode on one of their horses under Brega’s supervision. Six had appropriated the spare horse and, while he rode unbound, he was under the close eye of Draig. Six either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He rode as if it were a fine day, wearing a smile and giving anyone who would meet his eye a nod and a wink. Tom wondered if he would make a break for it. ‘You must keep Six close,’ the old man had said. Will have said.
The ground rolled gently, the poppies broken up only by the odd tree or bush. It was the middle of the afternoon when they were broken up by a cluster of rocks, old and covered in lichen, a great circle in their path.
“Cei’s Teeth,” Katharine called them.
“I thought Cei’s Teeth were in the Lannad Sea?” Siomi asked.
“There are some islands with that name. But these are called Cei’s Teeth too.” Katharine had stopped her horse and was looking up at the rocks with a smile. She enjoyed knowing these things about Tir, and she enjoyed sharing that knowledge. She’d once called knowledge a gift. “As I understand it, these bore the name first. Those islands were given the name later on.”
Neirin grunted. Tom stood and stared at the Teeth. They were rough and ugly, lacking the shine or craftsmanship of normal monuments. But the circle they stood in, though irregular, was also too uniform for these to be naturally occurring. Someone had put these here. They just hadn’t taken much care in it.
“What’s it for?” Brega asked.
Katharine shrugged. “It’s not for anything. It just is.”
“People don’t put stones in the ground for no reason,” Six said.
“As far as I know it’s a monument to Cei,” Katharine said.
“A monument to the murderer of Amyr?” Neirin snorted. “Only in the duchies.”
“Cei was a great knight, Lord Neirin,” Tom said. “He may have done many wrongs, but he was still a man.” He could feel the bread rolling in his stomach.
“He destroyed Emyr’s legacy.”
“No.” Tom shook his head and rode up to the stones. He placed a hand on them. Weathered, beaten, overgrown in places. He empathised. “We did that.”
The place was old. In fact, now he was closer, there was magic here. “Six, can you feel that?” he asked.
Six rode closer. “Feel what?”
“Magic.”
The elf sniffed and shook his head. Tom dismounted. “What are you thinking?” Six asked.
“There are entrances to Faerie dotted all over Tir,” he said. “They’re called Circles. Doorways between our realm and theirs.”
“You think this might be one of them?”
Tom nodded. It seemed too much a coincidence, stones laid in a circle that felt like magic.
Six sniffed again. “I don’t feel anything.”
Tom stepped into the circle. The magic was stronger here, as if the stones were containing it. It wasn’t like the Woods, the air didn’t hum and he didn’t feel giddy. But he could feel it nonetheless. Still, he felt a little silly as he said, with everyone watching, “Maev? My queen?”
There was silence. He tried not to feel disappointed. He failed.
“Guess not,” said Six.
“Guess not.” He stepped out of the circle and remounted.
“Never mind,” Six said as they rode away. “It would have been no fun if it had been that easy, right?”
Fun. There was nothing fun about killing that man. He’d been thinking about asking those men for Topknot’s name all day. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It would make it too real, and it was real enough already.
“I meant to congratulate you,” Six said. “It was good thinking shouting a Withed command.”
Tom shrugged. “
It was all I could think of,” he said. “I was no match for him. I needed a distraction.”
“How did you know his horse was Withed stock? The others weren’t.”
“I didn’t. But his clothes and hair suggested he was from the Marches.”
“Wonder where it is now?”
“I don’t know,” said Tom. “I hope it’s alright. It saved my life.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
It probably was. It would be found and fed. Tom just hoped it would be looked after. That it would share a better fate than its master.
The poppies faded and instead he saw tall grass on a cold night. He could hear people following him, two, maybe three others. But he wasn’t concerned. They were friends. He was concerned about what was ahead. The grass was so tall it towered over his head and he pushed through it carefully, slowly, a sword in his hand. There was little light, just what the stars offered. Then the darkness coalesced into shadows with swords of their own.
They fought in silence. But Tom fought with apparent skill. He watched his arms move with strength and ease, blocking his enemy’s jab, countering with a slash of his own. He was good. He was no expert swordsman. But he could feel his muscles moving with practiced ease. He parried a thrust and threw a punch to the jaw that brought a cry from his opponent.
The foresight faded and he came back to the present. He’d been training. Or rather, he would have been training by that time. It made sense. There were no guarantees of safety on this journey. Regent hunted them. Idris too. And Tir was full of bandits and soldiers who might hand them over in return for coin. He couldn’t rely on the others to protect him like a suckling babe. He had to be able to look after himself. Right now, he wasn’t.
“I was lucky,” he said.
“Half of anything is luck,” Six said.
But the other half was skill. He tugged the reins and allowed his horse to fall back and into step with Draig’s.
“Master Rymour.” Draig was hunched in his saddle and wearing an extra cloak. “Cold today.”
The Realm Rift Saga Box Set Page 13
