by Tad Williams
The child’s cries died away to hiccoughing sobs. She pointed again at the horizon, then turned away to huddle in Gutrun’s lap, face hidden.
“It’s just a bad dream, that’s all,” the duchess soothed- “There now, little one, just a bad dream…”
Josua was suddenly standing before them, Naidel unsheathed in his hand. The prince wore nothing but his breeches; his slender frame gleamed pallidly in the dawn light. “What is it?” he demanded.
Deornoth pointed to the darkened horizon. “The child saw something there that made her cry.”
Josua stared grimly. “We who saw Naglimund’s last days would do well to pay attention. That is an ugly knot of stormclouds.” He looked around at the wet grasslands. “We are all tired,” he said, “but we must make a faster pace. I do not like the look of that storm any more than did the child. I doubt we will find any shelter on these open plains until we reach Geloë’s Stone of Farewell.” He turned and shouted to Isorn and the others, who were just waking up. “Saddle up. We will break our fast as we travel. Come, there is no longer such a thing as a simple storm. If I can help it, we will not be caught by this one.”
The river valley continued to deepen. The vegetation began to grow thicker and more lush, the sparse meadowland now broken by freestanding groves of birches and alders, as well as thickets of strange trees with silvery leaves and slim trunks deep-furred in moss.
The prince’s party had little time to admire this new greenery. They rode at a fierce pace all day, stopping only for a brief rest in afternoon, then continuing on until long after the sun had dropped behind the horizon and twilight had sapped the brightest colors from the land. The threatening stormclouds now obscured much of the northern sky.
As the rest made a circle of scones and built a healthy blaze—firewood was now in broad supply—Deornoth and Isorn took the horses down to the river.
“At least we are no longer on foot,” Isorn said, unhitching the buckle on a set of saddlebags, which slid to the grass with a soft thump “That is something worth thanking Aedon’s goodness for.”
“True.” Deornoth patted Vildalix The drops of perspiration on the horse’s neck had already chilled in the evening breeze. Deornoth rubbed him dry with a saddle blanket before moving on to Josua’s horse Vinyafod. “We have precious little else to be thankful for.”
“We are alive,” Isorn said reprovingly, his wide face serious. “My wife and children are alive and safe with Tonnrud in Skoggey, and I am here to protect my mother.” He pointedly avoided mentioning his father Isgrimnur, from whom there had been no word since the duke had left Naglimund.
Deornoth said nothing, understanding the worry Isorn must feel. He knew well the love his Rimmersman friend felt for the duke. In a way, he envied Isorn, and wished his feelings for his own father could be so admirable. Deornoth was unable to fulfill God’s command for sons to honor their sires. Despite his knightly ideals, he had never been able to feel anything but the most grudging respect and no love whatsoever for the pinch-souled old tyrant who had made Deornoth’s boyhood a misery.
“Isorn,” he said at last, considering, “someday, when things are as they were before—before all this happened—and we are telling our grandchildren about it, what will we say?” The breeze blew harder, making the willow branches slap together.
His friend did not respond. After a moment, Deornoth stood up and looked across Vinyafod’s back to where Isorn stood a few ells away, holding the horses’ reins as they drank from the river. The Rimmersman was only a faint silhouette against the purple-gray evening sky. “Isorn?”
“Look to the south, Deornoth.” he said, his voice strained. “There are torches.”
Away across the grasslands, back down the Stefflod in the direction from which they had come, a swarm of tiny lights moved across the land.
“Merciful Aedon.” Deornoth groaned, “it is Fengbald and his men. They have caught us up after all.” He turned and gave Vinyafod a light slap on the flanks, causing the charger to take a few prancing steps forward. “No rest for you yet, fellow.” He and Isorn sprinted up the bank toward the wind-whipped flames that marked their camp.
“…And they are less than a league away,” Isorn finished breathlessly. “Down by the river we could see the lights clearly.”
Josua’s face was composed, but noticeably pale in the firelight. “God has given us a hard test, to let us get so far and then pull the trap shut. “He sighed. The eyes of all watched him in fearful fascination. “Well, at least we must kick out the fire and ride on. Perhaps if we can find a thick enough copse of trees to hide in, and if they have no hounds, they may pass us by. Then we can think of what other plan might suffice.”
As they clambered into their saddles once more, Josua turned to Deornoth. “We brought two bows as part of our booty from Fikolmij’s camp, did we not?”
Deornoth nodded
“Good. You and Isorn take them.” The prince laughed grimly, brandishing the stump of his right wrist. “I am not much of a bowman, but I think we will have need of a little arrow-play.”
Deornoth nodded again, wearily.
They rode swiftly, though all the party sensed that they could not do so for long. The Thrithings horses ran gamely, but it had already been a long day’s trek before the company had stopped. Vinyafod and Vildalix seemed as though they had several hours left in them, but some of the other mounts were clearly winded, their riders were scarcely stronger. As his horse moved beneath him and the moonlit grasslands rolled past, Deornoth could almost feel his will to resist ebbing away, draining like sand through the neck of an hourglass.
We have come ten times as far as anyone would have dreamed possible, he thought, clinging tightly to the reins as Vildalix topped one of the meadowdowns and plunged down the opposite slope like a boat breasting a wave. There is no dishonor in failing now. What more can God expect than that we give our all? He looked back. The rest of the party was beginning to fall behind. Deornoth pulled up on the reins, slowing his charger until he was in the midst of the company once more. God might be ready to reward them with a hero’s place in Heaven, but he could not give up the struggle while innocents like the duchess and the child were at risk.
Isorn was beside him now, clutching Leleth on the saddle before him. The young Rimmersman’s face was a gray blur in the moonlight, but Deornoth did not need to see his friend to know the anger and determination written on his broad features.
He looked back once more. For all their haste, the rippling torches had gained ground on them, closing the distance in the last two hours until they trailed the prince’s folk by less than a dozen furlongs.
“Slow up!” Josua cried behind him in the darkness. “If we run farther, we will have no strength left to fight. There is a grove of trees atop the rise there. That is where we will make a stand.”
They followed the prince up the slope. The cold wind had risen and the trees bent and thrashed, branches scraping together. In the darkness the pale, swaying trunks seemed white-robed spirits lamenting some terrible circumstance.
“Here.” The prince ushered them past the outermost circle of trees. “Where are those bows, Sir Deornoth?” His voice was flat.
“At my saddle. Prince Josua.” Deornoth heard the awful formality echoed in his own tones, as though they all participated in some ritual. He loosed the two bows and flung one to Isorn, who had handed Leleth over to his mother to free his hands. As Deornoth and the young Rimmersman strung the supple ashwood, Father Strangyeard accepted an extra dagger from Sangfugol. He held it unhappily, as chough he pinched a serpent’s tail. “What will Usires think?” he said mournfully. “What will my God think of me?”
“He will know you fought to save the lives of women and children,” Isorn said shortly, nocking one of their few arrows.
“Now we wait,” Joshua hissed. “We stay close together, in case I see a chance for us to run once more, and we wait.”
The minutes stretched as taut as the bowstring beneath
Deornoth’s fingers. The nightbirds had gone silent in the trees overhead, but for one whose eerie, whispering call echoed over and over until Deornoth wished he could put an arrow through its feathered throat. A sound as of distant and continuous drumming began to separate itself from the droning murmur of the Stefflod, growing ever louder. Deornoth thought he could feel the ground beginning to shudder beneath his feet. He suddenly wondered if blood had ever been shed in this seemingly uninhabited land before. Had the roots of these pale trees ever drunk of things other than water? The great oaks around the battlefield at the Knock were said to have gorged on blood until their pith was rosy pink.
The thunder of hoofbeats rose until it was louder than Deornoth’s own heart drumming in his ears. He lifted his bow but did not bend it, saving his strength for the moment it would be needed. A swirl of flickering lights appeared on the meadow below them. The headlong flight of the horsemen slowed, as though they somehow sensed the prince’s folk hiding in the grove above them. As they reined up, the flames of their streaming torches bobbed upright once more, blooming like orange flowers.
“They are nearly two dozen,” Isorn said unhappily.
“I will take the first,” Deornoth whispered. “You take the second.”
“Hold,” said Josua quietly. “Not until I say.”
The leader got down from his horse, bending to the ground so that he disappeared out of the glow of torchlight. When he stood his pale, hooded face turned to look up the slope, so that it almost seemed to Deornoth he had sighted them in the fastness of the shadows. Deornoth lowered his arrowhead until it pointed at the cloaked chest beneath the faint moon of face.
“Steady now,” Josua murmured, “a moment more…” There was a rush and clatter in the branches overhead. A dark shape battered at Deornoth’s head, startling him so that the arrow flew free, high above its intended mark. Deornoth shouted in alarm and staggered back, raising his hands to protect his eyes, but whatever had struck him was gone.
“Stop!” a voice cried from the trees above, a creaking, whistlingly inhuman voice. “Stop!”
Isorn. who had stared in stupefaction as Deornoth swatted at nothing, turned grimly and lowered his own arrow to the target. “Demons!” he growled, pulling his bowstring back to his ear.
“Josua?” somebody called from the meadow below. “Prince Josua? Are you there?”
There was a moment of silence. “Aedon be praised,” Josua breathed. He pushed his way through the crackling undergrowth and strode out into the full light of the moon, his cloak billowing like a sail in the fierce wind. “I am here!” he shouted.
“What is he doing?” Isorn hissed frantically. Vorzheva let out a small cry of anguish, but Deornoth, too, had recognized the voice.
“Josua?” the leader of the horsemen cried. “It is Hotvig of the Stallion Clan.” He pushed back his hood to show his beard and wind-tossed yellow hair. “We have followed you for days!”
“Hotvig!” Vorzheva shouted anxiously. “Is my father with you?”
The Thrithings-man laughed harshly. “Not him, Lady Vorzheva. The March-thane is no happier with me than he is with you or your husband!”
As the randwarder and Josua clasped hands, the rest of the prince’s party emerged from the copse of trees, tight-strung muscles trembling, babbling among themselves with relief.
“There is much to tell, Josua,” Hotvig said as his fellow riders came up the slope to join them. “First, though, we must make a fire. We have been riding fast as the Grass Thunderer himself. We are cold and very tired.”
“Indeed,” Josua smiled. “A fire.”
Deornoth stepped forward and took Hotvig’s hand in his. “Praise Usires’ mercy,” he said. “We thought you were Fengbald, the High King’s man. I was a moment from loosing an arrow into your heart, but something struck my hand in the darkness.”
“You may praise Usires,” a dry voice said, “but I had something to do with it, too.”
Geloë came out of the trees behind them, marching down the slope and into the circle of torchlight. The witch woman, Deornoth realized with as tart, wore a cloak and breeches that came from his own saddlebag. Her feet were unshod.
“Valada Geloë!” Josua said in wonderment. “You come unlooked for.”
“You may not have looked for me, Prince Josua, but I looked for you. And a good thing that I did, else this night might have ended in bloodshed.”
“It was you that struck me before I could let my arrow fly?” Deornoth said slowly. “But how…?”
“Time enough for stories later,” Geloë said, then kneeled as Leleth pulled free of Gutrun’s clutch to run into the wise woman’s arms with a wordless cry of pleasure. As she embraced the child, Geloë’s huge yellow eyes held Deornoth’s gaze; he felt a shiver travel down his backbone. “Time enough for stories later,” she repeated. “Now it is time to make a fire. The moon is far along in her journey. If you are on your horses by dawn tomorrow, you will reach the Stone of Farewell before dark.” She looked up at the northern sky. “And perhaps before the storm, as well.”
The sky was tar-black with angry clouds. The rain was turning into sleet. Rachel the Dragon, chilled and storm-battered, stepped into the lee of a building on Ironmonger’s Street for a moment’s rest. The byways of Erchester were empty but for flurrying hailstones and a solitary figure carrying a large bundle on its back as it trudged away through the mud toward Main Row.
Probably leaving for the countryside, carrying all his worldly goods, she thought bitterly. Another one gone, and who could blame him? It’s like the plague has run through this city.
Shivering, she set out once more.
Despite the vicious weather, many of the doors along Ironmonger’s Street swung back and forth unlatched, opening to giving a glimpse of empty blackness beyond, banging closed with a sound like breaking bones. It was indeed much as if some pestilence had devastated Erchester, but it was a scourge of fear rather than disease that was driving out the city’s denizens. This, in turn, had forced the Mistress of Chambermaids to walk the entire length of the ironmongery district before she could find someone to sell her what she needed. She carried her new purchase under her cloak and against her bosom, hidden from the sight of passersby—of which there were obviously few—and perhaps, she hoped, somehow also hidden from the eyes of a disapproving God. The irony was that there had been no necessity to walk through the savage winds and deserted streets: any of several hundred implements in the Hayholt’s kitchen would have admirably suited her bill of particulars.
But this was her own plan and her own decision. To take what she needed from Judith’s cupboards might put the fat Mistress of Kitchens in jeopardy. and Judith was one of the few castle folk for whom Rachel felt respect. More importantly, it truly was Rachel’s own plan, and in a way it had been necessary for her to walk one more time through Erchester’s haunted alleyways: it was helping her work up the courage to do what must be done.
Spring cleaning, she reminded herself grimly. A shrill, un-Rachel-like laugh escaped her lips. Spring cleaning in midsummer, with snow on the way. She shook her head, feeling a momentary urge to sit down in the muddy street and cry. That’s enough, old woman, she told herself, as she often did. There’s work to be done, and no rest this side of Heaven.
If there had been any doubts that the Day of Weighing-Out was almost at hand, just as foretold in the holy Book of the Aedon, Rachel had only to think back to the comet that had appeared in the sky during the spring of Elias’ regnal year. At the time, with the optimism of those days not long past, many had thought it a sign of a new age and a new beginning for Osten Ard. Now it was clear as well water that it had instead prophesied the last days of Trial and Doom. And what-else, she upbraided herself, could such a hellish red slash in the sky mean? It was only blind foolishness that could have made anyone think otherwise.
Welladay, she thought, peering from beneath her hood at the desolate shops of Main Row, we have all made our bed of pain: now God will make us
lie in it. In His anger and wisdom He’s given us plague and drought, and now unnatural storms. And who could ask for a plainer sign than the poor old lector dying so horribly?
The shocking news had swept through the castle and city below like flame. Folk had spoken of little else for the last week: Lector Ranessin was dead, murdered in his bed by some terrible pagans called Fire Dancers. These godless monsters had also set part of the Sancellan Aedonitis ablaze. Rachel had seen the lector when he came for John’s funeral, a fine and holy man. Now, in this dreadful year of years, he, too, had been stuck down.
Lord save our souls. The holy lector murdered, and demons and spirits walking the night, even in the Hayholt itself. She shuddered, thinking of the sight she had seen from the window of the servant’s quarters one night not long ago. Lured to the window, not by any sound or sight, but rather by some undefinable feeling, she had silently left her sleeping charges and clambered up onto a stool, leaning on the window casement to look out on the Hedge Garden below. There, amid the shadowy shapes of the hedge-animals, had stood a circle of silent, black-robed figures. Almost breath-less with terror, Rachel had rubbed at her old and treacherous eyes, but the figures were no dream or illusion. Even as she stared, one of the hooded shapes had turned to look up at her, its eyes black holes in a corpse-white face. She had run back and leaped into her hard bed, pulling the blanket up over her face to lie in sweaty, sleepless fear until dawn.
Before this year of derangement, Rachel had trusted her own judgment with the same iron faith she extended to her God, her king, and the sanctity of tidiness. After the comet came, and particularly since Simon’s cruel death, that faith had been badly shaken. The two days following her midnight vision she wandered through the castle in a daze, mind only half on her chores, wondering if she had turned into the kind of daft old woman she had vowed to die before becoming.
But as she quickly discovered, if the Mistress of Chambermaids was mad, it was a contagious madness. Many others had also seen such pallid-faced specters. The diminished marketplace along Erchester’s Main Row was full of whispered talk about the things that walked by night in both countryside and city. Some said that they were ghosts of Elias’ victims, unable to sleep while their heads were spiked above the Nearulagh Gate. Others said that Pryrates and the king had struck a deal with the Devil himself, that these undead hell-wights had thrown down Naglimund on Elias’ behalf and now waited upon his bidding for further unholy tasks.
