Thorns in Shadow

by Sanan Kolva

  “I should believe he simply accepted your refusal?” Cailean demanded. Aikan opened his mouth, but Cailean didn’t give him a chance to respond. “While I struggled in the trap laid by his mage, you courted Ewart’s promises of riches and rewards! And what about this?” He stabbed Solstice into the parchment at Aikan’s feet. “What does it say? ‘I will not forget your service to me, nor will I fail to fulfill my promise to you. For all you have done, your reward will be all the greater.’ Are those words written to someone who refused Ewart’s offer?”

  Aikan started to say something, but bit back those words and chose others. “I found the missive in my bag after we fled the keep, my lord. I… I meant to show it to you, to tell you…”

  “You did? When? When you could stand gloating over me to reveal how you’d betrayed me to Murdo?”

  Aikan blanched. “No, my lord! There was no time when we were pursued, and then in Eilidh Wood…” Aikan’s voice trailed off and he bowed his head.

  “So I should believe you? After you went to such lengths to hide these things, I should believe you now?” Cailean snapped.

  Aikan didn’t answer. He flinched when Cailean slammed Solstice into the ground next to him.

  Cailean’s eyes raked over the group. “All right, I’ll accept this tale you’ve spun if you’ve managed to convince one, just one, person here of your innocence.” He glared at his men, letting the silence stretch. “Well? Dalrian? Torqual? What about you, Shiolto?”

  The Tathrens shifted uncomfortably, looking anywhere but at Aikan or Cailean.

  “No one?” Cailean scoffed. “You couldn’t convince a single person, Aikan? No one will speak for you?”

  “I will.”

  Aikan’s head jerked up, mouth falling open as his eyes, like all others in the camp, turned to Lyan with disbelief.

  “You, Lyan?” Cailean demanded. “You believe him?”

  “I believe Aikan’s loyalty to you, Cailean, and I believe he isn’t a follower of Murdo.” Even as he spoke, Lyan asked himself why he raised his voice in defense of the Tathren who’d made himself a constant thorn in Lyan’s foot through the entire journey.

  “Based on what?” Cailean gestured at the kneeling Aikan. “This story he would have us accept?”

  “Based on his actions and reactions. Based on the outrage he felt that a bear, sacred to your god Ahebban, who hates elves, healed me. Based on Solstice allowing Aikan to pick up the Spear when you, unconscious, dropped it after the ambush on our way to Toirni’s shrine.” Lyan found the thinnest of smiles. “Based on the offense he takes every time I don’t call you by your title. I don’t believe Aikan intentionally betrayed you, Cailean.”

  “So he unintentionally kept my enemy’s gold and unintentionally refused to tell me, or to reject Ewart’s offer?” Cailean’s eyes narrowed, angry. He jerked Solstice from the earth.

  The forgotten stew bubbled and hissed as it boiled out of the pot and into the fire. Lyan heard it, but didn’t move to rescue the food. Cailean’s furious gaze moved from Lyan back to Aikan. “I trusted you, Aikan. I believed you when you swore you would never even think of following Ewart. You must have congratulated yourself on what a fool I have been.”

  “That’s not true, Lord Cailean,” Aikan said softly.

  “Get out of my sight,” Cailean hissed. His entire body shook with rage.

  “My lord…,” Aikan pleaded.

  “Leave my camp!” Cailean roared, making everyone jump. “Go—before I strike you down where you stand.”

  Head bowed, Aikan climbed to his feet with slow, stiff movements. His cloak slid from his shoulders to the ground, and he didn’t pick it up.

  Lyan tried to find his voice. This isn’t right.

  No one spoke or moved as Aikan slunk to the the camp’s edge. The older man took nothing—not even gear or horse. He hesitated and looked back to Cailean. “My lord…”

  “You have no right to call me that,” Cailean said coldly.

  Aikan’s shoulders slumped and his head hung. With no more words, he walked from the camp, crushed and defeated, unable to bear the burden. Lyan watched until the night swallowed the steward.

  No one spoke, and no one moved until finally Shiolto rescued the pot from the fire and attempted to salvage the stew. Cailean speared the letter left crumpled on the ground. He stared at the parchment with angry eyes, then fed it to the fire. Lyan moved to his bedroll and sat.

  I’ve spent so long suspecting Aikan. Yet, when the accusation came, I defended him. Was I wrong before, or wrong now? He looked into the darkness, though Aikan was gone from sight. Were you the traitor among us, Aikan? Or did Cailean just banish a loyal man?

  Chapter Ten

  When darkness falls,

  Then shadows prey.

  When darkness falls,

  Then wise men pray.

  Lyan woke from restless sleep before dawn, but he wasn’t the first. Cailean paced around the camp, sometimes sitting by the fire pit to stir the coals, but never still for long. At a loss for what to do, he soon wandered again. Aikan’s gear sat in a neat stack near the horses, and Cailean alternated between staring at it and avoiding it.

  Lyan pulled a blanket around his shoulders against the brisk early morning air—the only time of day when it felt cool. He stood, wincing as his ankle protested, and walked to Cailean.

  “He didn’t take anything with him.” Cailean looked once again to Aikan’s bags.

  Lyan didn’t say anything.

  “Lyan, I… have a request for you. If you decline, I’ll understand.”

  “What is it, Cailean?” Lyan asked.

  Cailean looked to the ground as he spoke in a whisper. “Would you and Kithr find Aikan?”

  “Cailean?”

  Guilt lined Cailean’s face. “I shouldn’t have said what I did. If he told the truth… I heard him, but I didn’t listen. If he wasn’t lying. If he didn’t betray me. If Ewart made sure that last message reached Aikan just so he could create division…” He trailed off. “Aikan has been part of my family’s house since before my birth. He’s always been there. He doesn’t deserve… Please, Lyan, will you try to find him?”

  Lyan hesitated a moment. Then he remembered the slumped, defeated man who had obeyed his lord’s final command, walking away, broken. “We will, Cailean.”

  “Thank you,” Cailean whispered.

  “How will we find you again, when we do?” Lyan asked.

  “I’ll tell Kithr where to meet us. I suspect he knows this area well enough.”

  “All right.”

  Cailean resumed his restless pacing, but he seemed a little more at ease, some small weight lifted from him. Lyan laced his shirt and rolled his bedding.

  “I heard my name,” Kithr said in Elven. “What does your Tathren lord want now?”

  “He asked if we would find Aikan,” Lyan answered in the same. He expected argument, or at least sarcasm from his friend.

  Kithr, however, just nodded. “You agreed?”

  “I did.”

  “Then we’ll leave after we eat. The old man’s on foot. He could only go so far. But food first. Last night’s dinner was wretched.”

  The stew had been barely edible, burned and overcooked. “Dinner would have sat poorly even if it hadn’t been,” Lyan responded.

  Kithr nodded. “True. So, my name came up?”

  “Cailean can tell you where we should regroup once we find Aikan.”

  “Ah.” Kithr headed to Cailean. The Tathren lord looked surprised, but Kithr spoke in a low voice, and Cailean nodded, then retrieved a map.

  The air in camp was uncomfortable, Aikan’s absence a hole no one wanted to mention, but none could ignore. Few words were exchanged during the morning tasks. Breakfast was edible, though it sat like a lump in Lyan’s stomach.

  When they broke camp, Cailean packed Aikan’s bags onto the older man’s horse. The mare looked around as the group mounted, searching for her rider. She tossed her head, but followed when Cailean tied her
reins to his saddle.

  Cailean nodded to Lyan and Kithr. “I’ll see you in the place I told Kithr.”

  Kithr nodded silently.

  “What?” Shiolto asked, startled. “Lord Cailean? Lyan and Kithr aren’t coming with us?”

  “I asked them to take care of something for me,” Cailean replied. “They’ll meet us later.”

  “Oh. Be careful, Lyan,” Shiolto said.

  Lyan smiled, as if their task was a minor matter. “We will.” He climbed into the saddle and nodded to Kithr.

  Without further farewell, Kithr turned his horse and rode south, while Cailean and his men headed north. Lyan looked after Cailean a moment as Shadowstar followed Kithr.

  “Do you think they’ll be all right?” Lyan asked.

  “The Tathrens know their own land,” Kithr said. “Better than I do now. There isn’t much we can do to help them, Lyan.”

  Lyan nodded, walking Shadowstar up beside Kithr’s horse. The land appeared uninhabited, but both elves checked that their heads were covered and their distinctive ears hidden. Kithr gradually adjusted their course, circling back to the camp they’d left once certain Cailean’s group had gone. Kithr studied the tracks and turned his horse northward.

  “The old man didn’t try to hide,” Kithr commented. “I don’t even have to dismount to trail him.”

  “Kithr?” Lyan started to ask.

  “I don’t know, Lyan.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re going to ask if I think the old man’s a traitor or not, and if you were right to defend him last night. I don’t know. But I know you’re the only one who could have done so.”

  Lyan frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Cailean put his men in a bad spot when he asked if anyone believed the old man. Obviously, he didn’t want an answer favoring Aikan. They’re all Cailean’s men—he told them to choose between him or a story they might or might not believe. None of them were going to speak up. Keeping their mouths shut was the only sensible thing to do. That left you or me. I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t sure if you would, but you acted like an elf of Eilidh Wood ought to, despite not liking the old man. Whether you were right or wrong about him, I don’t know.”

  Lyan heard the shift in Kithr’s tone when he spoke of how an elf should act. “Kithr, you’re an elf of Eilidh Wood as well.” Even seeing no one near them, he shifted, nervous, saying those words in Tather.

  “I’m not Lost like Nylas and his minions, but I used to be, Lyan.” Kithr’s eyes stayed fixed on whatever trail he followed. “I’m not going to speak for a Tathren who obviously hates me.”

  Lyan didn’t want to hear anything more Kithr might say on the subject of the Lost. “If Aikan isn’t the traitor, and there is one in the group, who would you suspect?”

  “You think one of Cailean’s men is a traitor, Lyan?”

  Lyan nodded.

  “Intuition?”

  “Something the pooka said,” Lyan answered. “I know, it could have been lying, but there have been other things as well, though I don’t know who was responsible.”

  “Hmm.” Kithr considered. “The timing of events feels wrong for the mercenary. So, if I’m not going to suspect Yion for the moment, I would say the horse-tender’s brother. Dalrian.”

  Lyan started. “Dalrian? Why?”

  “He knows paths in and out of his keep and no one would think twice about him going out. His attitude and reactions to certain things raise my suspicion.”

  “But why would he? And what about Shiolto? You suspect him too?” A chill of fear ran down Lyan’s spine. He began to regret having asked.

  Kithr shook his head. “No. I think the horse-tender’s loyalty is genuine. But he is the reason I suspect his brother. Dalrian is the sort of man who’ll do whatever he thinks he must to protect his brother. I believe they would betray their lord in exchange for a promise of safety.”

  “Shiolto said neither of them knows how to read. How could Dalrian be responsible for messages?” Lyan argued.

  “Knowing how to read when everyone thinks you can’t offers many opportunities to a spy,” Kithr countered. “But he wouldn’t have to know how to read or write if he simply carried messages.”

  “How would the letter have gotten from Aikan’s bag into Shiolto’s?” Lyan didn’t like how much sense he found in Kithr’s suspicion.

  “I heard mention of bags being moved from horses?” Kithr asked.

  “Oh. After we’d escaped with Nylas and his men, Cailean ordered the gear taken from the horses so the elves who couldn’t walk could ride,” Lyan said.

  “At which point someone who knew what to look for could have taken something from one bag and put it in another. And if not then, they would have had another opportunity when packing the horses again in Nylas’s camp. An ideal time to switch things around. If Dalrian stole the parchment from Aikan then, would you think twice if sometime later, he found an excuse to open his brother’s bag?”

  “Why plant it on Shiolto, though?” Lyan asked. “Why not ‘find’ it himself?”

  “Some suspicion naturally falls on the person who finds damning evidence so conveniently,” Kithr said. “So, Shiolto made the best person. First, he’s predictable. Give him something he can’t read, and he’ll naturally assume it belongs to his lord. Second, he has the air of a genuine, honest, loyal man, and everyone likes him. Suspicion sticks to him about as well as water to oiled leather. Put the evidence in the hands of the person who everyone trusts and let him innocently deliver it where you need it to go. Then, when the accusations begin, simply say nothing. Let your plan unfold, and a man who isn’t entirely innocent, but might not be a traitor, takes the blame.”

  “And you really think Dalrian could betray Cailean?” Lyan asked.

  “He seems more likely than my other suspicion,” Kithr answered.

  “I hesitate to ask. Who’s your other suspect?”

  “The Tathren lord himself.”

  Lyan sat up straight. “What?” he burst in disbelief. “Cailean?”

  Kithr nodded. “An elaborate trap, in which the one person who appears to have been the most wronged and have the most to lose is, in fact, the enemy.”

  “No. Cailean is not serving the Mad God,” Lyan said sharply.

  “You have proof?” Kithr countered.

  “Equinox.”

  Kithr frowned, not understanding.

  “Equinox trusts Cailean, and above anyone else, I believe the Spears would recognize if a Spearbearer followed the Mad God. Solstice could recognize Equinox would think me a suitable Spearbearer before I had any thought of taking the Elven Spear.”

  Kithr nodded slowly. “All right. Based on the judgment of a Spear of the Stars, I withdraw my suspicions of the Tathren lord.” He frowned at the ground.

  “What’s wrong?” Lyan asked.

  “The old man must have walked all night. I’d expect to see some sign of him stopping to sleep by now. Well, he’s turned north, so I’d guess he’s heading toward familiar territory.

  “Are we catching up?” Lyan asked.

  “We are, but we might not find him today. If he keeps this up, we’ll find him passed out from exhaustion. Might simplify things if that happens.”

  Shadowstar stepped over something, and Lyan looked down to see rotting wooden handles attached to a rusted harrow. He looked around in surprise, but saw no other indications that this area had once been inhabited except perhaps for the stalks of grain growing wild amid the grass.

  “Was this a farm?” he asked.

  “Probably,” Kithr answered. “Likely abandoned during the war, and so far unclaimed because of the distance from any defenses. A farm out here would be easy prey to marauders, Tathren or elven.”

  “Do you think elves other than Nylas and his band remain in Tather?” Lyan asked.

  “If you can still call them elves. If they remained in Tather, they are Lost. Some are probably little better than animals.”

  Kithr didn’t say
more, but Lyan could hear the words he didn’t speak. Rabid animals, fit only to be put down. Lyan shivered.

  When the afternoon grew late, Kithr turned from the tracking and found shelter for a camp. Lyan didn’t like stopping so early, but he didn’t argue.

  Kithr saw Lyan’s expression and restless pacing. “We don’t want to camp in the open in this land. These might be the only trees for half a day’s ride. We’ll stop here for the night, then catch up with the old man tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Lyan said.

  “You didn’t have to,” Kithr replied, tying his horse to a study branch. “No fire tonight.” He wiped sweat from his neck. “Not that we need one. Days are too hot and nights are too stuffy.”

  “It’s the clouds,” Lyan said. “Night can’t cool off.”

  “All the more reason to kill the Tathren responsible,” Kithr said. “What’s his name? Ewart?”

  “Ewart is cousin to Cailean’s father, and the ostensible leader of the attack. The mage… priest is named Porephyn, and I think he drove Ewart to attack and try to take Solstice.”

  “And both suspected followers of the Mad God.” Kithr sat and leaned back. “Gods only know, Lyan, when you decide to find something more interesting than quiet life in our village, you don’t hold back.”

  “Kithr…” Lyan sat facing his friend.

  Kithr waved a hand. “I know. I know, it wasn’t your plan when you left the village. It wasn’t my plan to do anything but knock sense into you and drag you back home. Shows what we know about the gods’ plans for us, doesn’t it?” He sighed. “I certainly didn’t think I’d be back here.”

  “I’m sorry for bringing you back into Tather, Kithr,” Lyan said. “But we’re here, and once we’re done, we can go back home again and let things return to…” He almost said “normal”. Then he looked at the Spear he carried. “Let things quiet down again,” he finished instead.