“No!” Evan cried. “You know not whom you threaten!”
Harbin ignored him, staring fixedly at Donal. Then his lips stretched wide over strong yellowed teeth as his eyes took in the lir-bands, belt and circlet; the earring shining in black hair. “You be, for all, a wealthy demon.” He jerked his head. “Strip him of his gold!”
Donal struggled briefly, was contained, and had to stand stiffly as hands grabbed for belt and knife and circlet. But when they sought to pull the lir-gold from his arms and ears, it was Evan who shouted to them.
“Look at him! He is the Prince of Homana!”
Harbin’s head snapped around on his neck. “What folly you be speakin’ at me, stranger?”
“He is Carillon’s heir—” Evan grimaced as an arm nearly shut off his voice. “He is your prince, you fool—he is Donal of Homana—”
Harbin looked back at Donal sharply. He motioned the others away, save for the men that held him captive.
“Is it true?” a voice asked in belated discovery.
“Hold yon tongue!” Harbin snapped. He moved closer to Donal. His broad, stubbled face wore a scowl of consideration. “Is’t true? Be claimin’ yersel our prince, you be? Carillon’s own heir? You wear enow gold for it!” He laughed suddenly, harshly. “Donal o’ Homana, is’t? Us’n caught us a prize worth the burnin’!”
“If he is the prince—” one man began.
“Hush’ee!” Harbin shouted. “He be a shapechanger. See that beast-gold on his arms and in his ear? The mark of demons on him.” Harbin’s breath came quickly and noisily. “Must be burned for it. Must be sacrificed.”
“We can’t burn him here—” another protested weakly.
The dalesman’s piglet eyes narrowed as he picked at his yellowed teeth. “No. But he can still be cut here, and the body taken away for proper offerin’.” He nodded. “Aye, aye—no one be takin’ notice of a drunken man carried out of a tavern in the middle of the night.” He spun around suddenly and faced Evan. “You be fearin’ for your own life, stranger? Nay. We be not evil men. We be burnin’ only demons.”
Evan’s mobile face was darkening with bruises. His mouth twisted as he sought to speak clearly. “He is your prince—”
“There bein’ the greater offerin’.” Harbin turned back, indicating a long wooden table still upright in the center of the common room. “Lay him there, and pin him down. On his back, barin’ his throat to the gods. We be makin’ this sacrifice as our old’uns did.”
Donal felt fingers dig into his arms, broken and grimy nails scoring bare, vulnerable flesh. He bared his teeth at the closest man and saw him fall back in terror. But the others bore him to the table.
Fingers hooked into the heavy bands on either arm. He felt the nails cut as they twisted into his flesh. The lir-gold was forcibly dragged from his arms until he was naked without either band. But when a man set hand to the earring, Donal tried to jerk away.
“Lay him down!” Harbin shouted. “Pin him to the wood!”
They threw him down and stretched him flat on his back. His shoulders smashed against the table as they pinned him with countless hands, forcing his head back so that it hung off the end of the tabletop.
His senses reeled. He heard Evan shouting. Frenziedly he lashed out with a booted foot, smashing at any flesh and bone he could reach, but they caught and held him, jerking his legs apart until he was spread-eagled and utterly helpless. Hands grasped at his hair and yanked down his head, baring his throat to the blackened roof beams.
Donal cried out hoarsely, unconsciously reverting to the Old Tongue of his race. He writhed on the table, straining to break free, but he was held too firmly.
Lir! he screamed. Why did I leave you behind? Blood welled into his mouth as he bit the inside of his cheek. By the gods…I have slain myself—
Harbin drew a shearing knife from his belt and approached, eyes fixed on the bared column of Donal’s throat. Viewing the dalesman upside down, Donal saw only a face twisted by madness and the rising of the blade.
Gods…I should have stayed with Aislinn—
He opened his mouth to cry out a denial—
—a wailing howl curled around the corners of the common room and echoed within the timbers of the roof.
Then another came, closer still, and no man dared move.
The horn window smashed as the ruddy wolf leaped through and drove straight at Harbin, taking him in the throat. The knife fell as Harbin fell and the gurgling cry breaking out of his throat was the last sound he ever made.
A second man screamed as a striking bird of prey streaked in through the broken window and stooped, slicing with upraised talons at wide-open, staring eyes.
Rigid hands released rigid flesh. Donal, freed, came up from the table in a writhing twist. He stood atop the wood, balanced above them all, breath hissing between his tight-locked teeth. He felt a terrific upsurge of rage and the tremendous backlash of fear. He loosed himself, summoning up the magic, and blurred before them all.
Men ran screaming from the tavern, stumbling over others as they fought to escape the nightmare. Some did not make it, for Evan had caught up a fallen sword and cut off several fleeing men, driving them into a corner where he held them.
Lorn, blood-spattered and ablaze with fury, released his third kill. He turned, seeking other prey. Taj, having raked the eyes from one man and sliced open the face of another, screamed from the rafters.
“Hold!” Evan shouted. “Donal—it is done!”
Donal, locked in wolf-shape, heard the shout as a blur of sound, meaningless to him. He was caught up in the sheer lust for blood, snarling in ferocious joy as he stalked a man already bloodied from the encounter. Nails scratched against stained wood. Tail bristled. Hackles raised. Ears went flat against the sleek, savage, silver head.
“Donal,” Evan gasped breathlessly. “There is no more need to fight. Look around you!”
The wolf moved away from the man who huddled pitifully against an overturned bench, crying and shaking. For a moment the wolf stared fixedly at the Ellasian, yellow man-eyes eerie and half-mad. But then he seemed to understand. The animal shape slid out of focus, blurring to leave a void in the air. Then Donal stood in its place. Blood ran from his mouth and painted his naked arms, but he was whole, and wholly human.
Four men had escaped. Evan held three against the wall. Five lay dead and two more badly wounded. Donal, standing in the middle of the tavern, shuddered once, and was still.
“Were I a vindictive man—” he said hoarsely, “—were I a man such as Harbin, I would order my lir to slay you all.”
Evan stared at him. “Donal—don’t. Do not besmirch your race and name.”
Donal pushed a forearm across his sweat-damp brow, shoving sticky hair aside. He left behind a smear of blood. “Should I not? Should I let them go?” For a moment, he shut his burning eyes. “Gods—what has happened here?” He opened his eyes again and looked around the tavern blankly. “What madness infects Homana?”
“Donal,” Evan said.
He shook his head. “No. I will not slay them. I will not besmirch my race and name.” Again, he pushed dampened hair from his battered face. “But I will let them see what it is to be Cheysuli.” He moved toward the three men Evan held in the corner. “Step away from them, Ellasian. This does not concern you.”
Evan, dropping the sword in a gesture of distaste, did as he was ordered. He moved to the broken window and watched as Donal paced slowly closer to the men. He held them with only his eyes, pinning them to the wall.
“We claim three gifts,” he told them clearly. “One is the gift of lir-shape, which you call the shapechange. A second is that of healing, which you refuse to believe, believing instead we are demon-spawn and evil. And the third, the final gift, is truly terrible.” Donal drew in an unsteady breath. “It gives us the power to force a man’s will, to replace it with our own. It is the gift of compulsion.” His voice was a whiplash of sound. “Look at me.”
They
looked. They could do nothing else.
Donal held them all. “Take your wounded and care for them. Tell your women and children what you have done this night, and what you meant to do, and what both things have earned you. And know that you will never again lay hands upon a Cheysuli with ill intent.” He stared at their blank, slack faces; their empty eyes. He had taken will and initiative from them, putting his own in the places left empty by his magic. The surge of anger within him was so powerful he wanted only to break them all, destroying their minds with a single, savage thought, but he did not. “Go from here,” he said thickly, and turned away to lean against the table that had nearly been his bier.
The men gathered up their dead, their wounded, one by one, and carried them from the tavern. When they were done, leaving Donal alone with Evan and the lir, he set a hand to his aching head. “Now—you have seen what it is to be Cheysuli.”
Evan, slowly sitting down on a righted stool, nodded. “I have seen it.”
“And do Lachlan’s lays exaggerate?”
“No.” Evan smiled faintly. “I think even Lachlan cannot capture what it is to see a man shift his shape into that of an animal. But I think also the magic exacts a price from the men who know it fully.”
Donal bent down. He gathered up the fallen lir-bands. In his hands, the gold seemed to recapture its luster. “It—exacts a price,” Donal agreed. Carefully he slid both bands over his hands and up his forearms, until they rested in place above his elbows. “I walked too close to the edge of madness.” Again he bent. He scooped up his belt, his knife, the golden circlet of his rank. And then, too weary to rise again, he sat down and leaned against the table.
Lorn came to him at once, pressing his muzzle against Donal’s chest. Donal hung one bruised arm around the wolf’s neck and hugged him briefly, putting his bloodied face against Lorn’s ruddy head. Taj fluttered down from the rafter and settled on the table, pipping at Donal quietly.
“What do they say?” Evan asked.
“They wish me well,” Donal told him. “They wish I might have kept myself from the encounter. They wish I had not seen fit to go out with an Ellasian princeling when I might have remained at Homana-Mujhar instead, and safe from such violence.” He smiled. “They wish me nothing I do not already wish for myself.”
“I could not have said the evening would end like this!” Evan was clearly affronted. “In Ellas, we do not have madmen out to sacrifice others for their blood.”
Donal draped the filigreed belt across one forearm as he propped the elbow across his knee. The rubies glowed dully in the torch-lit room. Like blood. Like all the blood on his arms. Absently, he smeared it across his flesh and dulled the gold as well.
“In Homana,” he said, “we have two races vying for a single throne. A Cheysuli throne, once—we gave it up to the Homanans four hundred years ago. For peace. Because they feared our magic. And now, because of Shaine, they fear us again, and seek to usurp us.”
“You will be the king of Homana.”
Donal looked at the Ellasian. “One day. One day, when Carillon is dead…and if I am still alive.”
“There will always be fools in the world, and madmen.” Evan indicated Harbin’s body. “You will have to cull them, Donal. Before they cull you.”
Donal rubbed the heel of his hand across his gritty eyes. “Evan,” he said. “Gods—I am weary unto death. What I have done this night is not lightly undertaken. I will pay the price for such sorcery.” He stared blearily at the Ellasian. “Will you see to it I am brought safely home?”
“Of course,” Evan agreed, surprised. “But why do you ask?”
Donal managed a final, sickly smile. Then he toppled sideways to the floor.
* * *
On the first day, he built a shelter out of saplings. He wove them together with vines. He took stones from the ground and made a firecairn in the center of the shelter. He lighted a fire and put herbs into the flames, until smoke rose up to fill the tiny shelter.
He stripped out of his leathers and folded them into a pile outside the shelter. He took off armbands and earrings, setting them on top of the piled clothing. Naked, lirless, alone, he entered and sat down, cross-legged, and allowed the smoke to cloak his body.
It grew warm within the shelter. Too warm. What flesh had first shrunk from the twilight chill now exuded sweat that formed in droplets and ran down sun-bronzed flesh to the earth. Breathing grew labored, and husky.
He did not close his eyes. Smoke entered them. Burned; burning, his eyes began to water. Tears coursed down his face to drip against his chest, where it joined the sheen of sweat that bathed his flesh.
He sat. He waited. When the herbs and wood burned away and the rocks of the cairn grew cool, still he waited. He did not eat. He did not sleep. He did not move at all.
* * *
On the second day, he stalked and slew a silver wolf. He drained the blood from the body, and then he smeared it onto his flesh from head to toe. It dried. Itched. Flaked. But he ignored it.
He ate raw the wolf’s warm heart.
The taste was vile.
But he disregarded it.
* * *
On the third day, he bathed in a glass-black pool. He scraped blood and grime and smoke-stench from his flesh with heavy sand. Blood speckled up where he scraped too hard; his blood; that which was now cleansed as the flesh was cleansed, as the spirit was cleansed; that which made him Cheysuli.
He had sweated out the impurities from within.
He had slain his other self; devoured that which had nearly devoured him; renewed the self he had slain in the bloody christening ritual.
He was cleansed.
I’toshaa-ni.
* * *
“Five days,” Rowan said. “You might have told the Mujhar.”
Donal, holding Ian in his arms as he stood before his pavilion, met Rowan’s eyes levelly. “There was a thing I had to do.”
A muscle ticked in Rowan’s jaw. “You might have told the Mujhar,” he repeated implacably. “The Ellasian prince came back telling a tale of near-murder and violence…and yet you see fit to leave the city without a word to anyone.”
“I saw fit.” As Ian squirmed, Donal set him down. The boy steadied himself against his father’s leather-clad leg, then ran off to chase a new-fledged hawk as it tried to ride the wind.
Rowan held the reins of two horses. One of them was Donal’s chestnut stallion. “You have no choice,” he said.
“There is ever a choice, for me.” Donal did not smile. “I did not flee, general. I did not run from Carillon’s wrath. I came home to my Keep because there was a thing I had to do. A form of expiation.” His face still bore traces of the tavern beating, though most of the soreness had passed. “I’toshaa-ni, Rowan…or do your Homanan ways preclude you from comprehension?”
Dull color darkened Rowan’s taut brown skin. For the briefest of moments Donal saw the general’s tight-shut white teeth when his lips peeled back as if he would speak. But he did not. He merely pressed his lips together again tensely and held out the reins to the chestnut horse.
“I might prefer lir-shape,” Donal said quietly.
“Do you challenge me?” Rowan’s voice gained emotion. There was anger in it, raw, rising anger. “Do you challenge me?” He cut off the beginnings of Donal’s answer with a sharp gesture. A Cheysuli gesture, quite rude, demanding the silence of another. “Aye, I know what you do, my lord. You look down from your Cheysuli pride and arrogance and count me an ignorant man. Unblessed, am I?—a man without a lir? Do you think I do not know? Do you think I do not feel your opinion of me?” Rowan stared at Donal with a predator’s challenge; with the unwavering stare of a dominant wolf facing a younger cub wishing to fight for the rule of the pack. “Lirless I may be, Donal, but—by the gods!—I am Carillon’s man! What I do, I do for Homana. You would be better to think of me as someone who means you well, rather than your keeper.”
Resentment rose up in Donal’s belly. But also gui
lt, and a tinge of honest regret. Mutely, he took the reins from Rowan’s hands. “I was in need of cleansing,” he said in low voice. “Rowan—I needed i’toshaa-ni.”
“No doubt you will need it twice or thrice before this war is done.” Rowan swung up on his horse, pulling his crimson cloak into place across the glossy rump of his tall white stallion. He looked down upon Donal, and his face was very grim. “Carillon has no more time for the follies of youth in his heir. And neither, I think, do I.”
“You!” Donal mounted and spun his horse to face Rowan squarely. “You are not of my clan—my kin—you are not even a proper warrior. Aye, I look down on you from Cheysuli arrogance—how can I not? You are a lirless man, and yet you live. You live, while the lir you might have had is dead all these long, long years.”
“Would you rather have me dead?” Rowan’s hand caught the reins of Donal’s horse. “By the gods, boy, you may be Duncan’s son, but you have none of his sensitivity. I hear more of Finn in you—too quick to judge another man by what feelings are in yourself.” Still he held the fretting stallion. Dust rose into the air. “Do you think I feel nothing? Do you consider me little more than Carillon’s puppet, titled out of courtesy?” Rowan’s lips drew back. “Ku’reshtin!—you should know better. I earned what rank I hold, which is more than you can claim. No—” Again, the sharp gesture cut Donal off. “I was born, as you were, to the clan. But Shaine’s qu’mahlin raged, and my life was endangered the moment I drew breath. My kin, in running, were slain, and I was left to the Ellasians who found me. Am I less a man for that? Am I less a man because I claim no lir?” His eyes held Donal’s without flinching. “Less a warrior, aye, as you would count a warrior—but not less a man than you. I am what I have made myself. And I am content with that.” For a moment, his hand tightened on the reins of Donal’s horse. “Homanan puppet, some men call me. But what will they call you? You claim the Homanan blood…while I am all Cheysuli.”
Legacy of the Sword Page 22
