by K V Johansen
“Leave her alone, so long as she’s quiet,” a woman said. She spoke Praitannec, and her voice slurred.
“She’s not quiet. She’s snivelling.” But the man who had done the hitting went to sit by the fire again, taking something from another—a jar, drinking. He held one arm, the one he hadn’t been hitting people with, tight to his chest.
“Let her snivel, then,” said the woman.
“You should have left her alone in the first place. She’s a bard.” That was another man, reaching for the jar. Ghu was close enough now to guess at four men and a woman. By the voices he’d heard so far, too loud, too careful, they were all drunk.
“She’d have gone to the chieftain’s hall and told them she’d seen us.” That was the whining man, who had hit the bard. Ahjvar’s bard? Ghu thought so, without any more reason for it but that he felt something like the shape of her, the scent of her. His dog-sense, Ahj called it.
“If you hadn’t dragged her off her horse, she’d have said ‘Good day,’ and passed on, never thought twice about us.”
“With all the countryside raised against us now, and all the chieftain’s spears out after us? She was following us. And her damned dog attacked me.”
“What did you expect, when you grabbed her like that? You’re lucky it wasn’t your throat.”
“At least I did for it,” the whiner said, with satisfaction. Ghu growled softly to himself, just a breath.
“She was going the same direction as us, not following. It’s not the same thing, and you’re a fool,” said the woman.
“What are we going to do with her?” one of the men asked, an irritated complaint.
“I can think of lots of things to do with her.”
This time the woman hit the whiner. He shrieked. Maybe she had hit his wounded arm. Good, as Ahjvar would say.
“Kill her and get out of here, head south?” she suggested.
“My brother will ransom me,” the bard said. Her voice shook. Terror, certainly, but fury beneath it, and grief. She was Lady Deyandara; he had been right. “I’m worth a lot more to you, alive and unharmed.”
They ignored her.
“Sell her, if we’re going south.”
“They don’t have slaves in the Five Cities, idiot.”
“Hah, everyone knows there’s ship-captains sailing for the empire who do a bit of that trade on the side. People go missing in the Five Cities. ’Specially pretty boys and girls.”
“We can’t let her go,” said the woman. “Not with the hunt up against us as it is, thanks to you. And we can’t cross however many miles it is between here and the coast with her making trouble all the way. We have to kill her. You should have done it then and left her with the dog.”
“She’s a bard. If she gave her word not to tell . . .” one of the men suggested. An older voice, which hadn’t spoken before.
“You want these kingless tribesmen to take your head? Because that’s what’s waiting if they find us. You killed that young swineherd, you clumsy bastard, not us, but we’ll all pay for him. And one murder, two, it doesn’t make a difference. It’s death. Hers or ours. She’d tell where she’d last seen us, no matter what she swore.”
“You’re Praitans. So am I,” Deyandara said. “Listen, the high king will pay a ransom to have me back unharmed. But if you kill me, not all Praitan and the Five Cities will be big enough to hide in.”
“Shut up, or I’ll cut your throat like your brute’s, here and now.”
“We’re not quite that stupid.” The woman again. “One of the high king’s bards, way out here in the west singing in the Tributary Lands—right.”
“How do you think he gets news of other folk and other lands but through his bards? Who carries word between the kingdoms? Fools yourselves. He’s my brother. If you kill me, even running as far as Nabban won’t save you.”
The whiner flung himself staggering around the fire and hit her again.
“We can’t kill her,” said the one who had wanted to let her go. “Catairanach save us, not the princess of the Duina Andara—every god and king of the seven kingdoms would be against us.”
“You don’t believe her?”
“But there was a lady of Andara at Dinaz Catairna last winter. Didn’t you hear?”
“Great Gods, why did you give me a fool and a drunkard for a brother? If there was, she’s dead with the rest of the lords who didn’t have the sense to run from the Marakanders. And if she escaped and it’s true, what she’s saying, more reason to be rid of her now and quickly, because she’s right, they won’t give up till they find her, and slipping off over the border won’t be enough to lose the hunters this time. If you won’t do it, Dann will. Or Jecca, since he’s so keen to do something with her.”
“Do it yourself,” the whiner said, though he’d been eager enough before. “I say we take her to the cities. And maybe she can show herself grateful for being spared, on the way.”
“You weren’t that squeamish about the dog. Just use the axe and get it over with.”
“Gods, leave it till morning, at least,” said the old-voiced man, “when we can see what we’re doing. We’re safe enough here for now. No one will be out in this weather, and I don’t want to spend the night sleeping by a corpse.”
Ghu felt around in the grass, until he found a pebble down in the roots. If he had his sling . . . but it was long-lost and he hadn’t made another. He raised himself up on one arm and shied the stone, striking one of the brigands. There was a sharp cry. Ghu squirmed backwards till he was over the hillcrest and then ran, bending low. Some of them followed. Two? Three. Good. So long as the remaining two didn’t decide to kill the lady then and there.
He took care to break some branches, let others spring back with loud swishings and snappings. Grabbed the sheathed sword from where he had leaned it against the saddles and baggage, leapt on the white mare, turned her with his knee and sent her plunging up through the willow tangle, more than enough noise, the horse gleaming as lightning broke over the hills. The other two raced with him, good beasts. And if it pleased Mother Nabban to hold her hand over him, none of the brigands would have thought to snatch a bow.
He was well ahead, and had probably lost them, but—the important thing—they were between Ahjvar and the lady.
Thunder sent the yellow horse shying off, vanishing into night. Rising wind drove the rain in waves, flattening the grass. He’d left Ahjvar—where? Lightning. The white mare reared as a darkness rose up out of the grass at her feet. Ghu slid sideways and grabbed Ahj around the shoulders as he passed, ending up on top of him. Still bound, but the man thrashed over, trying to drive him into the ground. Ghu elbowed him in the chin and rolled away to his feet.
“Ahj!” he shouted. “Ahjvar!” He smelt smoke. Sullen firelight seemed to hover on the edges of his vision, not an afterglow of the lightning. It looked like Ahjvar, it moved like Ahjvar, coming up onto its bound knees and then rocking to its feet, but that dog-sense that said the hunched sixth figure had been Lady Deyandara said this was not Ahjvar. “Catairlau . . . ?”
That didn’t work either. Worse. It did not like that name. It hissed. There was a horrible emptiness about it, a soul in abeyance, a ghost-ridden shell. And killing fed it and kept it from waking. He had never seen this, Ahj had made sure he didn’t, and now that he did, he wished he hadn’t. Worse than seeing someone you loved come to mindless, drooling dotage. This thing was all mad hatred. He couldn’t talk to it, and he could talk to almost anything. The eyes were on the sword, and he thought they saw it through fire. He dropped the belt, caught the white mare again by her mane and turned her.
“There are men,” he said. “Wicked men, brigands. They murdered a boy, they said. Four men and a woman. Do you remember the bard? Can you hear me, Ahjvar? You didn’t like her, but it wasn’t her fault. Remember that. She’s afraid. The wicked men have her prisoner. They’re going to kill her. You can find them first, if I let you go. But you can’t kill me.” Was this monster like a lit
tle child? Could it understand better if he made the words easy? He thought so. It had become a thing of simple thoughts, twisted, evil thoughts, but simple ones. “Ahjvar thinks the bard is heir to the Duina Catairna. You don’t want to kill her, do you? Ahjvar wants to kill her.” Except he thought Ahj didn’t, not really. “You don’t. Not your own last heir.”
Probably a lie. Probably it knew it for a lie. It gave him no words. Maybe it could not speak, maybe the cursing and obscenities before had been the last of Ahjvar as the darkness took him. But it made no move towards him. Good.
“Good,” he said aloud. “And you don’t want to kill me, because then Ahjvar will be in his right mind again, and—and he will be so, so angry with you. He might kill the lady then, your heir, out of hate for you. So you can’t make him angry. You can’t kill me. All right?”
It stood very, very still. Maybe that was too complicated. Maybe it was going to spring, bound though it was.
The mare was dancing and jerking her head, as if even she smelt the ghost of a bed turned funeral pyre. Ghu wound her long mane about his wrist, a good way to break it, maybe, or pull his shoulder out. “Come with me,” he told the horse, speaking Nabbani, which the ghost probably did not. “Good girl, my pearl, my queen of mares, quiet now. We’ll get him back, we will. Come.”
He had his own belt-knife in his hand, a thin, sharp blade. His heavy brush-cutting knife was back with the harness. He moved slowly, keeping the horse tight at his side. The thing that was not Ahjvar watched the place where the sword had fallen, hungrily, like a dog eyeing dropped bread.
“I’m going to cut the ropes,” he said. “Don’t move.”
It swayed towards him as if it would use even its teeth, if it could.
“I’m probably going to cut you, Ahj,” he added. “Sorry.”
It hissed again, jerked as the blade touched it, but stood. Hot—even soaked with cold rain it was radiating heat he could feel. Quivering, fighting its own urge to kill, to devour whatever element it was that it took of the departing life. Enough intelligence left in it to fear the threat of the bard’s death? To care? Or just enough to know it couldn’t kill him easily with its arms behind its back.
Probably that.
He trailed the knife down, caught what he hoped was rope, and slashed it. Dropped the knife and vaulted up as the mare took off running at the scream the thing gave, a hand’s edge striking for his throat.
But he was out of reach. He brought the mare to a reluctant, sidling halt, turned enough to see the shape that was and was not Ahjvar already free of its remaining bonds and running, knife in its hand in the glare of another lightning bolt. “Sword, Ahj!” he shouted. “Before they kill her.”
Then he gave the horse his heel and got out of reach again, heading back the way he had come, a wary eye out for the brigands, or the piebald, which he had also lost in the lightning with no idea where it had run. Trusting to Father Nabban to spare him marmot holes, as he had in the first wild ride.
“I see him! Dann—!”
“Tell him where we are, why don’t you?” The voices ceased, but he heard their panting, even over the beating of the rain on the earth.
Ghu circled widely enough that the white mare’s shimmer would disappear; he came down on the fire from the opposite direction. They hadn’t tried to put it out. The pony raised its head and whickered, giving him away, and at first he didn’t see the bard, only the two nervously on their feet, one with a bow. That one shouted, but Ghu slid down and slapped the mare’s flank, ordering, “Away, find the others,” as the man loosed an arrow. It hissed overhead as he crawled in towards the light. He found the lady with his hand, flat in the grass, before he saw her. His heart jolted in fear even as her muffled gasp told him she lived. Her hands had been tied before her; she was crawling like a lizard, flat, on her elbows, escaping while she could. White light burned the air and the thunder crashed almost on top of it.
“Come,” he ordered in Praitannec. He tugged at her shoulder, and after a moment, she followed, farther from the fire, where two alert brigands crouched, listening for their fellows. No knife now. He sat hidden in darkness with the bard, worked at the knot with his fingers, wriggling it loose, and finally pulled the cord free. The lady clutched him close, muffling a fit of sobbing on his chest. She was pleasantly soft.
A scream away in the night. He sighed and found the lady’s hand, squeezed it. A death. They would be all right now. It was Ahjvar, not the monster, who would come for the two at the fire.
Of course, Ahj might not know anything of the brigands. He would think he had found some innocent tribesman benighted in the storm . . .
“Ghu!” The bellow made the archer shoot another arrow, blind in the dark.
Ghu cupped his hands, rose up on his knees to call, “Outlaws, Ahj, five of them.” Small chance they spoke good Nabbani. “Two here, three out looking for me. I have the lady safe beside me.”
“Shut up!” Lady Deyandara wrenched her hand from him and tried to cover his mouth. “Andara help me, you’re—what’s your name, the Leopard’s Nabbani servant?” She tried the pidgin of the Eastern Road. “Be quiet. They’ll find us.” She spoke too loudly, making each word stand alone, as if he were deaf as well as simple.
She was right, of course, about the danger of shouting, but he had meant to crawl quickly away afterwards. Wrestling Lady Deyandara’s hands off his face delayed that moment too long. Lightning betrayed them.
An axe wavered at him out of the night, moving in a stench of sour beer.
“Is it the girl, Jecca?” the woman called, safely behind. “Don’t let her get away.”
Ghu kicked the man’s feet out from under him, rolled over, dragging the lady, pulled her up and ran, while the man groped around for his lost weapon.
“They’re all around!” someone wailed in the distance. “Dann, is that you?” A shout that ended in a breathless cough. It hadn’t been.
Pounding hooves, a shriek. That was three. The man and the woman found the axe at the same moment and tussled for it. The man won. The woman yelled, “Damn you!” and grabbed one of the sticks of meat. Ghu wished he had a stick himself. Hands and feet weren’t much defence against an axe. He dragged the lady over to the tree, put her behind him with her back to it. The woman knocked the makeshift tent of blankets flat and began turning in small circles, watching all ways, afraid to leave the firelight, as if that were somehow safety. The man, in the stupidity of drink, seemed to have one thought only, to make sure the bard didn’t escape. A beer-muddled belief that her death now would save them from being found.
“Help!” the bard yelled suddenly, catching a sound. “Over here!”
The piebald loomed into sight, and the long sword, red in the firelight, swept the brigand-woman’s head from her shoulders, spraying the white-mottled withers black with blood. The horse turned, and the last of the outlaws, raising the axe, screamed high-pitched like a wounded animal, for the brief moment he still had a voice to scream with. Ahj ran him through the ribs and carried on around the tree, dragging his sword free, the body, ripped and spilling, tumbling to a heap almost at their feet.
The lady whimpered and tried to press herself into the trunk, as if it might open up and hide her. Ghu couldn’t say he blamed her. Ahjvar looked more a brigand than the outlaws had, barefoot, hands and feet blood-glistening on the blood-spattered horse, without saddle or bridle, and his face deathly grey, a skull-mask with the deep shadows of his eyes. He came sliding down the piebald gelding’s shoulder and didn’t quite pitch forward onto his face, ending up on his knees, a hand braced against the earth, never losing his grip on the sword.
Ghu caught him. He was cold and wet and shuddering and couldn’t seem to speak.
“It’s all right, it’s all right now. They were going to kill the lady.”
Ahjvar shook his head.
“Yes, it is all right,” Ghu insisted. “Whatever chief governs this land has his household warriors hunting them, they said themselves, for
murder and brigandage. You would have fought them anyhow, because they had the lady; they were going to kill her.” And he thought that though he did not believe it was yet his time to decide on the life and death of men, he had. Turning Ahjvar loose in his madness was as much a choice as slashing a man’s throat with his forage-knife. He sighed. Father Nabban, was it right, ever, to kill a man? But it was a worse wrong to stand by while a bound prisoner was hacked to death with an axe.
“It’s all right,” he repeated, and Ahj finally found his tongue.
“My head aches,” he muttered, and pushed away from Ghu, standing up. “What have you done with the rest of my horses?”
“I’ll find them. You look after the lady.” But maybe that was not a good idea, just now. It was Ahjvar who needed looking after. Lady Deyandara with her red hair and turned-up nose was not the one to do it. “Just . . .” He couldn’t expect them to stay here. The storm seemed to be passing; the wind had dropped and the rain dwindled to a light drizzle, almost a mist. Ghu pulled a burning brand from the dying fire. “Take this. Stay together. Go down into the valley. Make a fire. I’ll find you.” He didn’t wait to see if Ahjvar obeyed, but clucked to the piebald and walked off, with it following like a dog.
Pearl was easy enough, a soggy white shape under a skyline tree, fool beast, but the lightning had passed. She whinnied when she smelt the piebald, followed. No sign of Ahjvar’s favourite. He found a body, headless, and the piebald came on the head and shied away. He whistled it back and hesitated. Different folks had different customs or even laws about the violently dead. In the empire, to send on the soul of a slain man before the emperor’s wizards could question it about its murderer was a crime itself, even if you had nothing to do with the slaying. Among others, it was a cruelty not to give a body a little earth at once, to free the soul to the Old Great Gods. Well, the dead did not easily lie; the man would have to speak the truth about his deeds. He did not want there to be any mistake, to have Ahjvar taken up for murder.
