Rythe Awakes (The Rythe Trilogy)

by Craig Saunders

  “Don’t move,” he said to himself.

  He seemed to remember how to do this. He wondered where the knowledge came from.

  Ten minutes later Renir tied off the knot on Shorn’s leg and covered the wounds with the torn sleeves from his jerkin. The leather, while supple, was not ideal, but it would have to serve.

  He realized he was in a cold sweat. The sweet smell of Shorn’s burnt flesh stuck to the roof of his mouth, so he took some snow and sucked on it. Then he washed out the sleeves, rubbing them in the snow and then against the bark of the tree. He hung them on a couple of branches by the fire, away from his breakfast, which was spitting fat. He looked at Shorn again. Well, at least the bleeding had stopped.

  Now for some food.

  *

  Chapter Eighteen

  They kept to the edges of the woods where they could avoid the eyes that mattered. The Protectorate did not have eyes among the woodland creatures. Not yet.

  Tirielle had wanted to torch the mission, to cleanse it. Roth said it would be a waste. Gurt agreed, and she knew they were right. Loathing built in her, atop the already considerable pile of hatred. She could not burn the last remaining symbol of human charity on Rythe. The Sister’s house would stand with them in it. Perhaps one day there would be enough charity to fill it again.

  Roth said something and Tirielle turned her mind to the matter in hand. “That proves it. They are not travelling the back roads. The tracks go right past the tower.”

  Tirielle agreed. “They are brazen. We should back off the roads and skirt the tower. They may already be searching for me.”

  “I think that is a safe assumption,” replied Roth, as six protocrats in darkest robes stepped from behind the trees.

  Wey bucked underneath Tirielle, turning to one side.

  “Damn!” she hissed, seeing them. “How did they find us so soon?”

  “Fear not, Lady, I am sure we will be able to take them. Follow my lead.” Roth’s voice was confident and deep. Tirielle slowed her breath for the coming confrontation and shook her sleeves loose.

  The leader of the group put himself forward and called, “Tirielle A'm Dralorn, you are charged with unlawful murder and will come with us for inquisition.”

  “And on what evidence do you base this ludicrous accusation, Protectorate lackey?”

  The man laughed. “Lackey? That is most amusing.” He made a show of drawing a letter from inside his robe as he stepped from the cover of the trees. He unfolded it, slowly, watching Tirielle’s reaction. She could not help herself. She gasped as she saw it.

  “Ah. I see you recognise this? We found it in one of your servant’s chambers. Shall I read it to you?”

  He did not wait for the reply.

  Dearest Haraman,

  I must leave tonight. Please destroy this note. I leave in secret, but would not leave you alone of all my servants with the uncertainty of my fate. You have been loyal through all my trials and tribulations. I have left instructions for you to oversee my estate in my absence. I hope that one day I will return to thank you personally.

  In friendship,

  Tirielle A’m Dralorn

  He watched her with hawkish eyes. “Going somewhere, Lady A’m Dralorn?”

  “I do not believe that is any of your business. And if that is what you call proof…”

  “A sentinel followed your assassin – really, Lady A’m Dralorn. An assassin? Have you no shame?”

  “Which division are you with, fool? You admit to using a sentinel? I believe the Council will be most displeased with Protectorate interference with one of its senior members.”

  The man laughed without opening his mouth and stepped forward. “No, the sentinel will be Fridel’s, the sin entirely yours. Haraman told us you had left. He was most informative and following you here was easy. Your kind are so predictable.” The speaker was tall and robed like the others, his high cheekbones like scars on his pale face in the darkness. The shadows from the trees ran through his silver grey hair as it swirled about his head.

  All six protocrats ignored Roth.

  “He won’t be there to mind your estate in your absence. Unfortunately, his constitution proved too weak for the questioning.”

  Tirielle’s eyes burned with fury as the man added, “Still, a small price to pay for the assassination of Lord Fridel, is it not? One of the Speculate? You must be proud.” He laughed at her this time, his laugh piercing enough to rouse birds from their nightly roosts. Flapping wings punctuated the laugh as it continued overly long.

  Tirielle crossed her arms. Her hands sank into her sleeves.

  “Forgive me, Lady,” he made a show of bowing, “my sense of humour is so unappreciated. Shall we? There is no need to make this a chore. Come quietly and rest assured the inquisition will be short. If only your childhood friends, the sisters, had cooperated.” The wizard shrugged. “Their questioning would have been so much smoother. Come.” He beckoned her like a child.

  “I don’t think so.” She replied and let loose a spinning, glittering dagger.

  The knife flew from Tirielle’s hand as her arms uncrossed. Another appeared and followed the first with the ‘crack!’ of Tirielle’s long sleeve snapping. Roth sprang forward and ran alongside the first dagger, his clawed feet spraying earth. Wey bucked to one side.

  A few short words from the wizard and the knife bent in an unnatural arc, to thud harmlessly into a tree. The next went up into the air as it hit the protective chant. It, too, fell bloodless.

  As Roth neared five of the six began a heavier chant, each taking up the chant at different times, so as not to break the spell for breath. The words came slow as Roth neared the Incantors, then sped and spread like a web.

  Roth thudded limp to the ground.

  Tirielle stood dumb, third knife in hand, looking at the Protectorate fiend before her.

  “You see? Rahkens are not invincible, Lady Dralorn. You were foolish to rest all your hopes in this one.”

  Tirielle spat. “The council will hear of this.”

  “No, Lady. No one will ever hear of you or this again.” The Protocrat wizard produced shackles. “Shall we? Arram is beautiful this time of year. Oh, and this is my scout, Turror. Good work following the tracks.”

  A bearded protocrat stepped from the brush, a rusted trelith strapped to one leg. He wore skins and the dead animal’s feral anguish must have infected him too. Bright, crazed eyes looked out from bushy eyebrows. He grinned at his master’s praise, showing a mouthful of mashed and rotten black teeth.

  “Watch this one, she’s armed.”

  Tirielle wanted to scream inside. She looked to Roth, still, unblinking.

  “Turror?”

  “Yes, master?”

  “I feel a reward is in order. You may search her.” The Protectorate Incantor tapped a finger on his teeth as if considering something. “I don’t think there is any need to be gentle.”

  Turror licked his lips.

  *

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Sard rode north, giving their horse little rest as they covered mile after mile, through the barren lands at Lianthre’s heart, then heading west toward the coast, avoiding the coastal towns with their questions and gawping. They passed Urlain and the wasteland surrounding it unmolested. Only then did they allow themselves to camp for two hours a day; once at midnight when the temperature dropped to its coldest, and once at midday when the suns seared.

  The horses sped through dust, mud and sand, barely breathing as they slid across the endless miles. Repetition breeds some magic and these mounts were something more, something less, than a horse. They could cover hundreds of miles in a day. This was how the Sard’s magic worked. Repetition and the blessing of a god.

  The moons rose and fell, sometimes in union but more often out of synchronisation, leaving their erratic trails of light across the sky for slower eyes than theirs to see.

  One week had passed since leaving Sybremreyen when Quintal, the leader of the Order
of Sard, slowed his horse to a trot and entered the southern fields of Tirielle’s estate. The servants were tending fat-leafed plants, clearing narrow channels in the dirt before the rainfall – the thunder pealed in the hills to the north; the Tir would soon gush past Lianthre and feed its fields. Gradually the fields led to the estate itself. In months they would be bare as high summer reached its peak, but the plants still had their winter green.

  Quintal nodded acknowledgment to those staring at the nine men on fantastic beasts, their armour creating a shimmering haze of reflected sunlight, giving them an air of brilliance. Their scabbards were plain polished leather, thick with sword. Ordinary steel handles were covered in hide grips. All looked worn.

  A portly woman approached, putting down a basket laden with the smooth leaves, turning grey in the sun. “My Lords.” She bowed low, raising her hands to her head, never taking her eyes from the curious horsemen.

  “We are here for Tirielle A’m Dralorn.”

  If the woman thought him abrupt she would not have said so. “My Lord, Lady A’m Dralorn is away on business.”

  “What else?”

  “My Lord?”

  “I know there is more, I can see it in your eyes.” His eight companions were all looking at her. They looked at her almost like the men she saw last week. The men who had come to take Haraman away. Piercing.

  But something was different here. She felt no fear.

  “What did you hear?” Quintal leaned forward in the saddle.

  “I heard them say they would take her south. For questioning…I, we, fear the worst.”

  “Who said this?”

  “One of the hierarchs who came to the estate. He claimed they had come to arrest Lady A’m Dralorn for murder.” The woman sniffed. “Nonsense, she has a kind heart.”

  “South?” The woman nodded, grateful her mouth had not run on further. “Thank you.” Quintal turned and guided his horse to the south, trotting at first but a blur before it has reached the end of the grove. The sleek horse ran. Seven of the others nodded to her and rode after him, but one approached with a golden smile and said, “Thank you.”

  After they had left, the other servants asked her for details; what the dashing knights looked like – were they handsome? Were their eyes the cold, hard eyes of war? It took her a while to realise, but she couldn’t say.

  The sun had been in her eyes the whole time.

  *

  Chapter Twenty

  Drun wearily fell onto his back on the floor of the boat. He no longer had the strength or the ability to talk to his order, so he knew not how they fared. He would have to trust the fate of Tirielle to them. The fate of Shorn was more than enough for him to deal with at present.

  He struggled to think straight, having drunk little and being delirious from a week in the sun with little to eat but dry sea air. It made him think of another time he was delirious from the sun. He had been alone then, too.

  Since leaving the wooden platform, his home for more years than he could remember, Drun had thought he would never long for solitude again. He had changed his mind. Now all he wanted to be left alone to the luxury of thought. Preferably his own. The shock of so much contact after the years of quiet introspection and vicarious living had tried him, the pressures of constant contact with people – inside his head – more invasive than a horde of unwanted visitors. So long spent waiting. When duty had finally come to call, Drun had found the visitor less welcome than Death himself.

  At least Death was kind enough to bring a gift.

  He had been teaching Shorn, trying to instil into him some remembrance of decency, for a week. The mercenary had not taken kindly to the invasion at first, his soul rebelling against Drun’s teachings, crying and railing against the stern new master, like a child that knew itself to be in the wrong. While inside Shorn’s head Drun had found some surprising hints that some other teacher had been there before. A man of uncanny mind. Many of the thoughts that festered inside Shorn’s unconscious self were blatantly alien. Smart thoughts, true, but somehow warped. Wrong. Undoing the entrenched teaching had tested Drun to the limit.

  The week of nursing had tired him, too. Renir had helped, Drun speaking to Renir’s sleeping mind during the day, passing on ways to help ease Shorn’s suffering while he was held in a fevered limbo. Renir already had a little medical knowledge, it seemed, and so proved easy to instruct. Nonetheless, Drun had dared not return to his own body until he had no choice. Not while Shorn lay with purple tendrils of deadly poison ravaging his blood and slowly killing his heart.

  But now, he could do no more. His strength was spent. Drun was at the mercy of the sea and sun.

  A week outside his body and Drun was faint with hunger and dehydration. Rain would not come and the seas themselves taunted him with their forbidden bounties of water. It had been worth the price, Drun thought, a soft, careful laugh escaping cracked lips. While coaxing Shorn back from his internal war, his soul escaping the carnage to his body, had been hard, he had made great progress.

  Perhaps Shorn could be brought back from the precipice after all.

  The waves lapped at the boat and rocked him. The boat would reach the shore soon but waiting, with Renir and Shorn leaving on such a harebrained scheme, was far worse than being busy.

  Off to get Shorn’s sword from some mercenary’s camp, indeed! The fool could hardly walk, and one arm would be effectively useless for another month. He would not listen, though. There was only so much Drun could do to change a man already made.

  I’ll be there soon, he consoled himself. After all, how much trouble could they get into in the space of a few days?

  With idiots or not, the forced repatriation with human life had been the best thing for Drun, although he did not realise it at the time. While Drun now had sores on his knees and back, not yet festering but ample enough to give him pause whenever he shifted, he was in himself. His body, however, had sat uninhabited and pushed on the waves by magic and tide. Sores covering his neglected body were crying out for attention, a cry unheeded. Later, he would dip himself in the salty ocean. He could forgive the pain for its healing qualities.

  The lonely traveller examined himself as only a true physician can, to the core. To his soul. He thought he could make it. Drun, although emaciated and pitifully weak, had remained reasonable healthy on the platform (fresh fruit the only problem; the seabird’s bounties from distant shores were never enough). He knew not which shores they came from and some of the birds he called out to were not native to Lianthre or Sturma.

  The birds that came were a wonder, for he had never asked.

  So many wonders in the world taken for granted, like life, and so many people so close to it they could not see. Like Shorn. And Tirielle.

  Renir? No, not Renir. He seemed to appreciate life more than most. Not once had he complained of his lot or asked to return home. Not once had he asked ‘Why me?’

  Drun thought he might prove useful. He certainly had so far.

  At night, instead of sleeping, Drun had worked the seas. He tried to make as much haste as possible. He realised Shorn would not wait for his arrival. The man was already on the move. He would not give up on that damn sword. Shorn might be wasting time, but Drun was not.

  Talking to the fish (just a matter of concentration really) calmed Drun.

  He also used them to push the boat.

  They did not seem to mind overly whenever he ate one of them, either. They were fish after all, and Drun had yet to find one capable of coherent thought. He did not really ‘talk’ to fish. It was more a matter of showing them pictures, translating, if you will, a human concept into one fish might understand. It was the same for lower animals – some Drun could not figure out how to talk to, and the only images he received back were so jumbled it made his head hurt.

  Animals had made his head hurt once before. Back in his distant youth, when he had tried to talk to a marsh grout. Wily creatures that hunted in packs and ran down beasts five times their size
by working with others as a team, they used surprisingly versatile tactics to disable their prey. Drun had thought it would be an interesting study. It was.

  Two weeks through treacherous marsh, feet permanently soaked, the younger Sard had travelled alone and weaponless, wandering further into swampland. The other members of his order (three were different now) had called him insane. While the others were content to train for the battles ahead, training their bodies, Drun had trained his mind. This was why the mantle of Watcher had been passed to him. All the paladin’s souls – warrior souls – were good. Only Drun's was truly gentle.

  The inquisitive scholar had come upon a group of the beasts lounging brazenly in the open. Predatory eyes watched him watching them for two whole days. Some left to hunt. When they returned they never returned with meat, but others went out later. Not once had they invited him to talk, but had just sat watching him, seemingly taking turns.

  Eventually (although he tended to find the practice rude) Drun had decided to try to introduce himself.

  He had concentrated, formed a picture similar to the scene before him, and put himself in the picture, seated on the floor before the beasts, passing food to one another. It had been like talking to himself, or to a tree, or a flower. There were no other beasts in the area, just the mites and slugs that lived in the pools between the land, or in the trees that grew from the pools. His picture had faltered, and he had become unsure of himself, his talents yet untested. Even as a young man, he knew the folly of projecting his own preconceptions onto beasts – how could you talk to a beast if you could not listen to their own language, too – it tended to stilt conversation if everything you heard got stuck in the muslin of your own mind. He had sat for an interminable age, as if holding a conversation with a door. Then, without warning (perhaps the warning had been too alien?) one of the creatures spoke back. It looked at its companions, all lounging with seemingly no interest in Drun, as if for approval. Perhaps a mere anthropomorphication, perhaps a trick of imagination, but he thought them sentient. In that moment, looking into their eyes and feeling the complexity of thought passing to and fro, he had foolishly let his own fear enter the thought.