Something in the man’s tone made Rint look over at his friend.
But it was Ville who grunted and said, ‘Galak decided he didn’t trust the old man. Saw no reason for it myself.’
‘Something in his eyes,’ Galak said, shrugging. ‘Something not right.’
They reached the base of the hill.
‘I see his horse,’ Feren said. ‘Did he go back to sleep?’
Rint shook his head. The witch had wounded the poor man and a night of mead did not heal. It just offered the peace of oblivion. Nothing lasted, of course. The spirit struggled back to the surface, gasping the pain of living.
The four of them cantered up the hillside, crested its summit.
He saw Raskan, lying curled up – but something was wrong. The air stank of spilled blood. Reining in, Rint made to dismount, and then fell still.
The Borderswords were silent – their horses halted and the beasts jerking their heads, nostrils flaring.
Feren slipped down and walked over to where the headless body was lying. Rint saw her studying Raskan, and then the ground around the corpse. All at once she lifted her head towards one of the trees. Her sword scraped free.
Rint’s mouth was suddenly dry as dust. Eyes narrowing, he sought to see what Feren was staring at, but the snarl of lichen cloaking all the branches revealed nothing. Dismounting, one hand on his knife, he drew closer to his sister.
‘Feren?’
‘She’s there,’ Feren whispered.
‘What? I see nothing—’
‘She’s there!’
Rint looked down at the body. The severed end of Raskan’s neck looked pinched, and the cut was ragged. He did not think it came from an edged weapon. But then, what? A wave of cold swept through him and he shivered. He turned as Galak and Ville came up behind them. Both men had drawn their weapons, and they looked to all sides, their faces desperate, seeking an enemy though there was none to be found.
‘I just left him,’ Rint said. ‘There was no one about – he was alone up here. I swear it.’
‘She’s there!’ Feren cried, pointing with her sword. ‘I see her!’
‘There is nothing there,’ Ville said in a growl. ‘No woman, at least. Feren—’
‘Azathanai! Witch, come down and meet my sword! You so liked my blood – give me some of yours!’ Feren marched up to the tree and swung her sword at the tree’s gnarled bole. The edge rebounded with a metallic shout and the blade was a flash of dull silver flying out from Feren’s hand. The weapon spun past Rint and then landed, burying its point in the earth – where Raskan’s head would have been had it remained. Feren staggered back as if she had been the one struck, and Rint moved to take her in his arms.
She thrashed in his grip, glaring up at the tree. ‘Murderer! Olar Ethil, hear me! I curse you! In the name of an innocent man, I curse you! By the blood you took from me, I curse you!’
Rint dragged her back. He shot a glare at Ville and Galak. ‘Wrap up the body and throw it on the horse! We need to leave!’
The woman in his arms fought savagely, her nails raking deep gashes across his forearms. All at once he remembered a child, thrashing in blind fury, and how he had to hold her until her rage was spent in exhaustion. She’d clawed him. She’d bitten him. She’d been terrible in righteousness. A cry broke from his throat, filled with anguish at all that was lost, and for all that never changed.
His cry stilled her sudden as a breath, and then she was twisting round in his arms and embracing him, and now it was her strength that he felt, and his weakness that he gave in return.
‘But where’s the head?’ Ville shouted, half panicked.
‘It’s gone!’ Feren snapped.
Brother and sister held each other tight, and all at once Rint knew that they were doomed, that their lives were now wrapped round this moment, this wretched hill and these haunted trees – the headless body of an innocent man. Awaiting them he saw only blood and murder, cascading down like rain. He saw fires and could taste the bite of smoke in his throat.
He heard Ville and Galak carrying the body to the horse, and then Ville cursed when he saw that the mount had yet to be saddled. ‘Set him down! Set him down, Galak!’
Feren pulled herself free. Rint stood, arms hanging as if life had been torn from his embrace, and now only empty death remained, watching dully as his sister stumbled over to her sword. She tugged it free and sheathed it, every motion febrile, moving like a woman who knew eyes were fixed upon her – but in chilling hunger, not admiration. His chest ached to see her this way again.
When she had found her husband – his body and his useless, pathetic escape from the hardships of grief – when that man had simply left her alone and with staring eyes and open mouth shouted out his cowardice in a voice that never came and would never come again – she had moved as she did now, busying herself with tasks, with necessities.
He felt tears filling the beard on his cheeks.
Something sailed down from the tree’s black canopy and thumped on the ground almost at Rint’s feet. He looked down to see a clay figurine, slick with fresh blood. And from the impenetrable tangle overhead he heard a soft laugh.
Rint straightened. Ville and Galak had saddled the mount and were heaving the corpse over it. They took up leather strings to tie Raskan’s hands to his feet, one man to either side of the animal as they passed the string ends under the horse’s belly. They tied the strings to the laces from the moccasins – Lord Draconus’s own – and cinched tight the knots.
Rint stared at the heels, at how the thick hide was unevenly worn. Just like his boots.
‘Feren,’ he said, ‘lead them down the hill.’
‘Rint?’
‘Take them, sister. I won’t be long.’
But she drew close, her eyes wide with fear. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Something meaningless.’
Whatever she saw in his face seemed to answer her needs and after a moment she turned away, hurrying back to her horse.
Rint went to his own horse and rummaged in the saddle bags. As his friends mounted up and rode away, Ville leading Raskan’s horse with its lifeless burden, Rint drew out a flask of oil. They would have dry whetstones for the rest of this journey and would have to be mindful of rust and dulled edges, but there was nothing to be done about it.
He walked up to the tree, collecting wood, grasses and dried leaves along the way.
‘I know,’ he said as he built up the tinder round the base of the tree. ‘I know I but send you back into the flames. And in fire there is doubtless no pain for one such as you.’ He splashed oil against the bole of the tree, emptied the flask. ‘Unless … the desire behind the fire has power. I think it does. I think that is why a raider’s firing a house is a crime, an affront. Burning to death – malicious hands touching the flame to life – I think this has meaning. I think it stains the fire itself.’
He drew out his tinder box and found the embers he had this very morning collected from the cookfire. ‘I do this wanting to hurt you, Olar Ethil. And I want that to matter.’
He set the embers down beneath a thick twisted bundle of grasses, watched as the smoke rose, and then, as flames licked to life, Rint stepped back.
The fire spread, and then found the oil. Like serpents the flames climbed the trunk of the tree. The lowest branches, with their nests of black lichen, burst alight.
Rint backed away from the heat. He watched as the flames surged from branch to branch, climbing ever higher. He watched as branches from the trees to either side caught, and the sound was a building roar.
When he heard her begin screaming, he walked back to his horse, climbed into the saddle, and rode away.
Her shrieks followed him down the hill.
* * *
Feren stared up at the burning trees. She could hear the witch’s frantic screams and they made her smile.
When Rint re-joined them they turned as one and made their way back through the village.
Thi
s time Azathanai were emerging from their homes, to stare up at the wall of flames commanding the hilltop, and the grey smoke rising from them. Then they turned to watch the Borderswords riding past, and said nothing.
Feren held her smile, and offered it to every face turned her way.
* * *
Father and son rode side by side through the morning, saying little. Shortly after noon Draconus reined in suddenly and twisted in the saddle. He peered eastward, in the direction they had come. Arathan did the same, but could see nothing untoward.
‘Father?’
Draconus seemed to hunch slightly. ‘Raskan is dead.’
Arathan said nothing. He did not want to believe his father’s words, but he did not doubt the truth of them.
‘She saw it as mercy,’ Draconus continued after a moment. ‘Does that make a difference?’
The witch killed him? He thought of the clay figurine in his saddle bag. He had not wanted to take it from his father’s hands. He wished now that he had refused him. When your love is too much to bear. For the fire, boy, for the fire.
‘They found the body,’ Draconus said. ‘It is their rage that I now feel. I was careless. Unmindful, my thoughts elsewhere. But I made plain my protection. Olar Ethil mocks me. Too often we strike at one another. From the ashes of our past, Arathan, you will find sparks that refuse to die. Be careful what memories you stir.’ He drew a deep breath then, and let it out in something like a shudder. ‘I admire them,’ he said.
‘Who?’ Arathan asked.
‘The Borderswords. I admire them deeply. They have struck back at her, not in my name, but because it was right to do so. Olar Ethil will be scarred by this. Terribly scarred. Arathan,’ he added, taking up the reins once more, ‘she who bears your child is a remarkable woman. You are right to love her.’
Arathan shook his head. ‘I do not love her, Father. I no longer believe in love.’
Draconus looked across at him.
‘But,’ Arathan allowed, ‘she will be a good mother.’
They resumed riding. He wanted to think about Raskan but could not. He was leaving a world behind, and the faces that he saw in that world remained alive in his mind. It seemed to be enough. The day ahead stretched before Arathan, as if it would never end.
TWELVE
‘DO YOU KNOW who I am?’
The young woman stood on the roadside, looking up at him.
She was old enough to have had her first night of blood, and there was a looseness about her that invited lust. At his question she nodded and said, ‘You are Lord Urusander’s son.’
By any measure, her respect was less than satisfying, verging on insult. Osserc felt his face reddening, a trait of his that he despised. ‘I am riding to my father,’ he said. ‘I deliver words of great import. From this day,’ he continued, ‘you will see changes come to the world. And you will remember this chance meeting on this morning. Tell me your name.’
‘Renarr.’
‘My father awaits me with impatience,’ Osserc said, ‘but for you I will make him wait.’
‘Not too long, I should think,’ she replied.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Only, milord, that I am sure the world is eager to change.’
He stood in the stirrups and scanned their surroundings. He had just crossed the ford of the nameless stream that half encircled Neret Sorr, although from here the settlement remained hidden behind the low hills directly ahead. Scrub flanked the stream’s basin, growing over the stumps of cut trees. The bushes seemed filled with birds, chattering in a thousand voices.
By the wet upon her leggings Osserc surmised that she too had been down at the stream, although she carried no skins or buckets. But he saw that she held something in one closed fist, and could guess at what it was. That alone made him feel ugly inside. ‘Are you from the village, then? I’ve not seen you.’
‘I don’t spend my evenings in the taverns, milord.’
‘Of course you don’t. But it seems that you know that I do.’
‘It’s known.’
‘Women fight to sit in my lap.’
‘I am happy for you, milord.’
‘What you are is insolent.’
Her expression faltered slightly and she looked down. ‘I am sorry that you think so, milord. Forgive me.’
‘It’s not your forgiveness that I want.’
And he saw then how his words frightened her, and that was the last thing he desired. ‘What do you hide in your hand?’
‘I – I do not hide it, milord. But it is personal.’
‘A stone from the stream.’
Eyes still downcast, she nodded.
‘A boy in the village?’
‘He is past being a boy, milord.’
‘Of course he is, to have earned your affection.’ Osserc drew up his spare horse. ‘You can ride? I will escort you back to the village. The day is hot and the road dusty, and I see that you wear no shoes.’
‘That is a warhorse, milord—’
‘Oh, Kyril is gentle enough, and most protective.’
She eyed the roan beast. ‘I did not know you gelded warhorses.’
‘Kyril would fight with my father’s horse, and that could not be permitted, as it endangered both of us – me and my father, that is – and distracted the other mounts. Besides,’ he added, ‘I grew tired of fighting him.’ After a moment, she still had made no move, and Osserc dismounted. ‘I was, of course, intending for you to ride Neth, since, as you say, it’s safer.’
She nodded. ‘You will be most impressive, milord, riding Kyril into the village. All will see that the son of Lord Urusander has returned, pursuing important matters of state. They will see the dust upon you and wonder what lands you have travelled.’
Osserc smiled and offered her the reins.
‘Thank you, milord,’ she said, pausing to sweep back her golden hair and deftly knot it behind her head; then she accepted Neth’s reins and drew close to the horse.
She waited for Osserc to swing into Kyril’s robust saddle before lithely leaping astride Neth’s back.
‘Ride at my side,’ Osserc said, guiding his mount alongside her.
‘I must not, milord. My beloved—’
Osserc felt his smile tightening and there was pleasure when he hardened his tone. ‘But I insist, Renarr. You will humour me in this small gesture, I am sure.’
‘Milord, if he sees—’
‘And if he does? Will he imagine that we dallied by the stream?’
‘You may wish him to think so – him and others, milord. And so make sport of him. And me.’
Osserc decided he disliked this young woman, but this made her only more attractive. ‘Am I to be challenged on my father’s own lands? By some farm boy? Will he think so little of you to imagine you unable to resist my charms?’
‘Milord, you are Lord Urusander’s son.’
‘And I am far from starved of the pleasures of women, as he must well know!’
‘Also known to him, milord, is your insatiability, and your prowess.’
Osserc grunted, feeling his smile return, but now that smile was relaxed. ‘It seems I have a reputation, then.’
‘One of admiration, milord. And perhaps, for young men, some envy.’
‘We shall ride side by side, Renarr, and should your beloved appear I will speak to put him at ease. After all, we have done nothing untoward, have we?’
‘You have been most gracious, milord.’
‘And you need never fear otherwise. As proof of that, I insist that you call me Osserc. I am my father’s son and we are humble before what modest privileges our family possesses. Indeed,’ he continued as they trotted up the road, ‘we take most seriously our responsibilities, which seems to be too rare a virtue among the highborn. But then, we are not highborn, are we? We are soldiers. That and nothing more.’
To this she said nothing, but he found her silence pleasing, since it told him that she was listening to his every word.
When he glanced across at her he saw that she was studying him intently. She quickly looked away. ‘Milord, there are some in the village – sour old women, mostly – who do not approve of your nightly visits with – to the taverns, I mean.’
‘Indeed?’
‘But by your words I see that you must find what pleasures you can, and I will speak against their harsh judgement, on your behalf. A life of sacrifice awaits you, milord.’
He laughed. ‘Then once again I am forgiven in your eyes?’
‘Please excuse my presumption, milord. A village is like a tree filled with birds all talking at once. All manner of things are said.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’
They approached the slope of the last hill before the settlement. Off to the right, forty or so paces from the road and at the end of a rutted track, was an old stone house that had been abandoned generations past, its roof long since collapsed. Osserc slowed his mount and eyed the climb of the road. ‘You may not believe this,’ he said, ‘but I value your forgiveness, Renarr. In my mind, these are my last days of freedom, and with the news I bring, that claim feels starker than ever before. But I tell you,’ and he looked across at her, ‘I do yearn for a tender touch that I have not paid for.’
She met his eyes, and then turned her mount on to the rutted track. The glance she cast back at him was veiled. ‘I think your father and the world can wait a while longer, milord?’
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
‘When you want a woman to give freely of herself, Osserc, let her know that the privilege is yours, not hers. Be tender in your touch, and afterwards, make no boasts to anyone. There are many kinds of love. Some are small and brief, like a flower, while others last much longer. Value each one, for too few are the gifts of this world. Are you listening, boy?’
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