She studied his angular features, the line of his hair on his temples and the vein bulging there. In a flash, she envisioned the sneer of lust on the priest’s face and the laughter of the sea as she had driven her knife into his heart. In her flight from the scene, she hadn’t considered how she managed to kill him after he took her amulet. Some other force had come to bear. “And here I was thinking I’d brought him down with a good move, some honest rage and a well-trained resistance to pain,” she said with an exaggerated sigh.
Dore snorted. “Wulfgar treats you as if you’re special. He’ll be the cause of your death, in the end, for giving you false confidence.”
Rhinne regarded him with a deadpan gaze.
He spat. “You are a witch and whore. Such are your weapons.”
She nodded slowly. “Those words come easy, don’t they? You and your lot accuse me as you would a filthy mirror, stirring your cauldrons and spreading your arse cheeks to Father’s twisted ambitions.”
He struck her, then. She took the blow, thinking, When all else fails... Her mind separated from a venomous cataclysm that threw her head aside and scattered her. She spat blood as her balance returned accompanied by a deep, sinuous force that felt like the northern sea.
Dore put the light out. Then he hauled her to her feet and shoved her into the corridor. He drew a blade. “As much as I’d like to kill you,” he rasped behind her, moving her forward with his other hand, “I’m not at liberty. Yet.”
A hare after all, she thought, her head screaming like an animal in pain. “So you’re going to let me go?” she threw over her shoulder.
In response, the darkness at her back leapt up and gulped her down.
*
Waves lapped restlessly against the shore. Tall and shining, the gold-haired warrior faced north, his cloak flying on the wind like the wings of a beautiful bird. For a moment, his presence and that of the northern seas merged into the same being.
“You might want to awake now,” he said.
Rhinne pushed herself from the cold, gravelly sand and glowered at him. “You aren’t real,” she accused. “This is just another dream. Go away.”
He turned with the patience of an eon, his gray eyes dark. “I think not. I told you to find the book and leave the isle, not get into trouble.”
Rhinne put her face in her hands. “I am going mad. You are not real—and neither is that damned book!”
She shrieked as he grasped her arms in a grip as strong as oak and pulled her to her feet. “Real or not, you’ll be wishing for me soon enough if you don’t wake up and move.” He touched her on the forehead and added, “Trust the water.”
Rhinne’s eyes snapped open. Her head hung down, and hurt badly enough to explode. Fabric covered her eyes, and something held her firmly over the rump. In a moment, she realized she had been wrapped in a grain sack and slung over a man’s shoulder. He walked briskly, jostling her bruised belly against his shoulder with cruel indifference. He smelled like a cesspool.
Trust the water. What water?
She could tell by the air that she was still underground. All around her sounded shouts, running feet, and slamming doors, as if the place had come under attack.
“Where’re we taking her?” said a man at her side. She recognized his accent as Waleis, the island where her mother was born. He kept his voice low. For some moments, no one replied. The noise around them faded as they passed into a quieter place. A roaring, hissing sound rumbled nearby, like water flowing in a cavern. The air smelled of the sea.
“To the king,” replied the man carrying her. “Eldest said to put her in his chambers.”
Rhinne quickly contemplated her situation. She was not tied, and the sack had been thrown over her in a hurry. It was not like Dore to be so careless, though he had taken her weapons and her amulet. He must have knocked her out with magic and not expected her to awake.
“Poor goose,” breathed the first man. “Who is she?”
“Who knows? He goes through one a month. Throws them in the river. Fishermen are always finding their bodies on the beach.”
River. That explained the sound. They were near the Lower Draumar, a subterranean river that flowed into the ground on the southern fork of the Draumar, beneath the rocky plains east of Tromblast, and finally under the South Tower and into the sea. It rose and fell with the tides.
“She must be special, for the Eldest to’ve brought her.”
Or not, Rhinne thought. These men were not warlocks. While not all of the oborom were, she wondered why Dore had handed her over to someone without the power to subdue her. Strange. Given the tumult she heard, perhaps he had been called away. This could work in her favor.
After a calculated pause, she erupted into a squirming, clawing thing, all knees and elbows and fists, causing the soldier to grunt in surprise and drop her. She rolled over in a tangle, then got to her feet and tore the sack off her body with a gasp, breathing heavily, flinging her hair from her face and backing up to the wall.
For a moment, the two men just stared. One of them, a tall, thin man with stringy yellow hair and a patchy beard, mouthed, North Born. The other, a big bear of a man with hairy arms, lunged for her. She leapt out of the way like a cat, and bolted for the nearest corridor with the soldiers hard on her heels.
She was too weak and hurt to escape them. The roar of the river grew closer; mist touched her face. Ahead, a great, empty arch spilled off into nowhere. When she reached it, Rhinne stopped and caught her breath. Far below, in a flume with slick, jagged walls, the river flowed restlessly, swollen and leaping along like a black, swirling beast. Rhinne whirled around, trapped.
“You’d best come with us,” said the burly soldier. They hung back, as if they were afraid of spooking her. “No way out, there.”
Trust the water. Rhinne turned and leaned over the edge with a gulp. Surely, the warrior hadn’t been talking about this water.
“Back away from the edge,” the big soldier said. “We won’t hurt you.”
She cast a look over her shoulder. “Idgit. You think I don’t know where you were taking me?”
The thin one held out his hand. “We can make an arrangement. Just come away from there.”
Her laughter rang out around them. “Aye, otherwise it’ll be your bodies the fishermen find on the beach, won’t it.” Her smile faded as she stared into the water, churning in circles and snakes below. She wouldn’t fall for the empty promises of frightened men this time.
Unhappily, her only other option was to believe advice she had heard in a dream, told to her by something that didn’t exist.
“Princess,” the thin soldier pleaded. “We won’t take you to him. On our word.”
“Ah,” she mused sarcastically. “The word of the oborom, now that’s worth something.” She turned around. “All you know is fear. Fear of Ragnvald, fear of change, fear of witchcraft, fear of your own shadows. Fear drives you now, of what Dore will do to you if you lose me. You’ll say anything, until fear drives you to betray me again.” She crooked her thumb back in the direction of the river. “I’d have better luck in there.”
“Say we call your bluff on that, then,” said the hairy man. He took a heavy step towards her in an obvious attempt to intimidate her into changing her mind.
But Rhinne had seen enough fear for one day, one lifetime. Trust the water. That advice was probably delusional, but her smoldering intolerance of this sort of nonsense was not.
She took a deep breath and leapt into the mist.
The Lower Draumar
Wulfgar inhaled with a gasp as wind rushed over him, pinning him to the floor and nearly tearing the flesh from his bones. It blew like wind from the sun, hot and beautifully radiant. From a vast distance, he heard shouts.
“Wulfgar!” a voice whispered urgently. Someone shook him. “Get up!”
Awed, he beheld the sun on the sea, sparkling and sweet as lovemaking.
Someone struck him across the face. “Wulfgar!” And again. He move
d his hand and caught a wrist, held it in an unmoving grip. When he opened his eyes and saw black, he swung out with a punch that would have shattered a board. His captor easily eluded it.
“Wulf,” said a familiar voice. “It’s me, Aelfric. Let go of my arm.”
Wulfgar sat up as he realized his friend had donned an oborom cloak. “What are you doing?”
Aelfric reached for a second cloak and threw it into his lap, then handed him his sword. “Nothing as bad as what you just did.” He paced back and forth. Wulfgar looked around, disoriented. Bodies surrounded him; the priest was slumped dead against the wall. Wulfgar rose to his feet, stretched his back and sheathed his blade. Aelfric continued, “That priest called down something deadly. What happened to your amulet?”
Wulfgar rubbed his eyes. He felt as if he had drunk too much the night before and awoke with a woman he had never seen. He reached into his hidden pocket and yanked out a plain iron disc, which he threw to the ground. “I think Sael lifted it.”
Aelfric stopped pacing. He removed his own amulet and pressed it into Wulfgar’s chest, forcing him to hold it. “You’re still fucking her? I told you she’s an oborom spy.” Wulfgar had no good response to that. “That spell should’ve killed you. I thought it had.”
Wulfgar held the amulet out. “I want you to keep this.”
Aelfric shook his head. “With respect, you’re a Sentinel.”
The two warriors locked gazes. Aelfric rarely used Wulfgar’s titles, and he never treated him with false respect; his resolve was above challenge. For that love, however, Wulfgar was not about to leave him exposed. He lifted the warrior’s hand and put the amulet into it. “By my order, Aelfric. I just survived once without it. I’ll get one from my mother when next I see her.”
Aelfric lowered his head, released a breath, and slipped the cord over his head.
“What happened?” Wulfgar asked.
“That priest was so hard focused on you that I was able to break from his spell for a moment. I was about to silence him when you opened your mouth and cried out a word that put fear on his face I never imagined possible.”
The last thing Wulfgar remembered was Asa, weeping in his arms. “What did I say?”
“‘Ascarion.’ What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” Another cold wave of grief washed over him.
“Aye, well it stirred up something. The priest cried out something about going to arms. Before I knew it, all of the oborom had gone below like cockroaches with the dawn. I think you declared war.”
Wulfgar’s heart started to pound. Ascarion. War. “I must warn my mother.” He turned to leave. “We have to—”
“Wait. A lad came in here just earlier as I was trying to wake you. I sent him to find a rider with a message to the queen. She’ll know what to do. I also sent word to Gareth to prepare for war. But for now you have to come with me. We have to find Rhinne.”
Wulfgar glanced down at the black cloak in his hands and then tossed it aside in distaste. “At this hour she should still be in bed. So should you. What were you doing down here being hauled off by an oborom priest?”
Aelfric leveled a finger at the cloak on the floor. “You’re going to need that. Rhinne is in the caves. We have to go after her.” The red-haired warrior moved past him, but Wulfgar grabbed his arm.
“What?”
Aelfric shook off his arm and yanked up the cloak, shoved it into his hands. “Hurry.” He strode down the hall. “I’d have gone unnoticed down here if Rhinne hadn’t shown up.” Wulfgar ran up to his side throwing the cloak over his shoulders. “She came in through the under-rim. Trapped the guard in there.”
“What was she doing down there? I have the North Tower under guard.”
“I’ve no idea. But she’d been in a skirmish. Her face was bruised and her clothes were torn. There was blood on her sleeve. From what I saw, the under-rim guard didn’t do it. My only comfort was that she still had her amulet.”
“That’s not comforting,” Wulfgar said. “She rarely wears that. Something made her put it on.”
“The Circle amulets offer no protection from fools. We caught her at the under-rim door, and before I could maneuver something that would allow her to escape, oborom took the smithy. The under-rim guard must have gone around and put out the alarm. Sencin had the idea of hiding her in the caves. There was no time to argue with him. I tried to stall the oborom, but they knew she’d been there. Sencin snuck down to the cave entrance to hide. He got her into the caves and barred the door behind her. I didn’t find out until we were all on our knees being questioned.”
Wulfgar’s heart flared out with wrath. “That traitorous son of a—”
“They killed him. Cobin, too. I must have been either a good liar, or a bad one, because Dore decided I was worth taking below.”
“They called him down?”
As they stopped in front of smithy door, Aelfric turned to him with a desolate expression. “They were already after her,” he said in a low voice. “I think she did something right bad.”
Briefly, Wulfgar wondered how much of his advice Rhinne had followed and how much she had ignored—such as entering the under-rim, for a start. What had driven her to do that at this hour? Even in the most reckless mood possible, she wouldn’t have risked the south entrance unless she had needed to find him, and quickly.
Aelfric placed his hand on the door. “They probably left a watch down here.” He looked Wulfgar up and down. “You make a lousy warlock. Act like you’ve a reason to be here.”
Wulfgar ground his teeth. He had plenty of reasons to be here. He pulled the hood over his face and drew his sword. “Let’s be about it.”
Dressed in black, the two warriors crept down the stairs. They saw no one until they entered the main chamber. Two men stood in the shadows beyond the forge. Not fooled by the newcomers’ disguises, one of them hissed a command and jumped into action.
It was over quickly. Wulfgar wiped the blood from his blade, and then searched the adjoining rooms as Aelfric went into the armory. The spy returned in a long stride. “There’s no one by the under-rim door,” he said. “He might have gone through to report us.”
“We’ll find more trouble below.”
Aelfric stepped over a body and grabbed a torch from an iron sconce on the wall. “I learned some things working down here. The oborom trust in fear. The caves aren’t guarded except by the priests’ spells. The amulets make the spells easy to detect and evade.” He strode past the forge and approached the small arched opening of a stairwell. “They leave this door unbarred so they can get in. No one else dares use it.”
“I take it you have.”
His companion flashed a dark smile and descended into the darkness.
Wulfgar followed him. “Tell me Dore didn’t send a priest down after her.”
“Wish I could. He went down himself.”
Wulfgar slowed beneath a hammer of dread. “You might have mentioned that.” He studied the dark-cloaked spy like a map. “Anything else I need to know?”
Aelfric stopped and turned around. “Now that you ask, just one thing. A more serious problem.”
“More serious than my little sister at the mercy of Ragnvald’s most powerful warlock?”
“Possibly, and most likely related.” His voice was as soft as flames licking around pitch. “On my watch, I saw the Riven God.”
For a moment, Wulfgar stared, not understanding. Then incredulity gripped him, fueled by fear. “That’s a myth. One of my mother’s daft fishwife tales.”
Aelfric shook his head. “Wulfgar, I saw him. Just as the queen described, a story come to life before my eyes. A perfect man, shining with light. He had very pale hair and eyes. He walked out of the numbing sea as if he were stepping out of a bath. I was so frightened I got behind a rock and stayed there, paralyzed, until the cold made me move. As if my will had been drained away.”
Wulfgar leaned against the wall as he tried to recall everything his mother had t
old him about this. He had only half listened to her. Indeed, he’d begun to think her mad, operating in the shadows, spinning yarns and hiding truths in riddles and myths even as she secretly put guards over old women who saw beyond the king’s commands.
Beware the sea!
“Wulf?” Aelfric said.
Wulfgar gazed at the torchlit stone. He had wanted to think that Asa had referred to how dangerous the seas had become. But he didn’t sense that, not anymore. Considering the terror and gravity of her state, weeping like a child in his arms, this made more sense. “She saw it. Asa saw what you did. In a vision.”
“She told you that?”
“Not exactly. That word you heard me utter in the hall, she said that to me. She told me to beware the sea, and then broke down into a fit of madness and died in my arms.”
Emotion bled over Aelfric’s face. “When did this happen?”
“Just before dawn. I was looking for you when one of my mother’s men, whom she had posted to protect Asa, came to me for help.”
Aelfric rubbed his face. “I decided to lay low and wait until daylight before reporting what I saw. If I hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t have known Rhinne was on the run. Sencin and Cobin would have turned her in. So there’s still hope, albeit small.” He continued down the stairs.
Wulfgar took a deep breath and followed. “Do you think he saw you?” He couldn’t bring himself to say Riven God, the legendary destroyer of balance in the world. That couldn’t be true. He didn’t even know what it meant.
“Who knows? I doubt it would matter.” A pause, then: “Could ‘Ascarion’ be his name?”
“I didn’t get that. More like she was addressing me.”
“Strange.”
Wulfgar started to say something, then Aelfric stopped as a sound echoed in the stairwell. They were near the door, and it was not barred.
Someone was coming through.
“Quick!” Wulfgar hissed. He took the torch and tossed it farther up into the stairwell as a distraction, and leapt down the steps, positioning himself on one side of the door. Aelfric took the other. They drew their swords. Wulfgar’s heart began to pound as he prepared to deal with another priest or worse, Dore returning from his black errand.
The Riven God Page 5
