by Phil Tucker
“His Grace gave me his banner to honor my service to him.” Asho’s voice felt hoarse. “I fought beside his Virtues and saved his life. He knighted me in gratitude.”
Kethe was staring wide-eyed at him, and even Brocuff looked taken aback. Nobody moved. The Everflame lay in Lady Kyferin’s hands like a tongue of silver fire.
“My Lady,” said Asho, stepping forward to kneel once more. “I ask that you let me serve you as your knight. I know your Lord regretted bringing my sister and me out of Bythos, and had no intention of letting me ever have the honor. But I’m a knight now, regardless, and I swear to dedicate my every breath and thought to guarding your family and your honor. I may be a Bythian, but I swear that I shall do my utmost to protect you. If you will have me, I will be your knight.”
“Sweetly said,” murmured Menczel, and the notes he strummed on his lute were soft and reverential.
Lady Kyferin glanced down at the Everflame, and then extended it back to Asho. A spike of panic arose within him. Was she turning him down?
“I accept your most gracious offer, Ser Knight. The Everflame is a testament to your valor. Keep it, and know that I am honored to have your service.”
Asho’s panic evaporated along with his exhaustion. In that moment he felt as if he could leap walls, fight down a hundred men, and march for a month if it would earn Lady Kyferin’s favor. He rose and took the Everflame, and then bowed low. “Thank you, my Lady.”
“Fine,” said Bertchold. “We have one knight. But as soon as word gets out as to how weak we are, we can expect to be tested. We can’t release the men.”
Silence. Everyone watched Lady Kyferin, who was studying Brocuff. “How long could we withstand a determined siege with sixty men, Constable?”
“Well, that’s a hard question to answer. With so small a force, I’d advise pulling back to the barbican and the keep. We’ve enough food and water stocked to last a good six months. Though if the enemy were large enough, we’d be hard-pressed to withstand simultaneous assaults. With a force that small, I honestly can’t say.”
“We’d sacrifice the bailey and the curtain wall,” murmured Lady Kyferin.
Brocuff nodded, looking uncomfortable. “Yes, my Lady.”
“Bertchold, send out messengers to the homes of the former Black Wolves. Extend our condolences, and thank them for their service. Tell them that our need is now greater than ever. If they can send us a fully armored relative to serve as a new Black Wolf, along with as many men as they can spare, we shall abey taxes for the entirety of the next year.”
Bertchold spluttered, “A whole year?”
Lady Kyferin continued firmly, “Any soldiers who receive requests to return home after these messages are delivered are to be granted permission to do so.”
Brocuff nodded, and Asho saw approval in his features. “As you command, my Lady.”
Bertchold coughed and then puffed out his chest. “My Lady, I served your Lord husband for over twenty years. I have some small measure of experience in the practice of governance and administration. We cannot cut taxes for a year. We cannot let our soldiers return home. I understand that you are traumatized by your loss, but please, listen to my advice. Now is the time to show strength. Make demands. Tighten your fist!”
Lady Kyferin didn’t answer at first. She simply sat, relaxed, until Bertchold wilted before her gaze. “I thank you for your advice, Master Bertchold. However, one thing is clear. Our only hope of weathering the coming storm lies with my Lord husband’s family. Which is why we shall reach out to Lords Laur and Lenherd, and invite them to come honor the passage of their brother.”
Father Simeon nodded. “Most wise, most wise.”
Asho blinked. He felt lightheaded. Menczel was saying something, but he couldn’t quite catch the words.
“If you’ll be excusing us,” said Brocuff, closing a hand around Asho’s arm. “I’d best be seeing to my guards. Ser Asho, will you join me? With your permission, my Lady?”
Asho tried to straighten. He should bow. Say something. He couldn’t quite focus on Lady Kyferin, but he heard her voice as she said something.
“Here we go,” said Brocuff, voice low as he turned Asho around and ushered him out of the Lord’s Hall.
“I’m fine,” said Asho, voice thick.
“You were bleeding on Her Ladyship’s floor,” said Brocuff. “She hates it when people do that.”
“Oh,” said Asho. The door came swaying at him as if looking to avoid his approach, and then they were through it and standing in the darkness. “I didn’t mean to.”
“No, I’m sure you didn’t,” said Brocuff. “Easy, easy. Here. Put your arm over my shoulders. Hell, you don’t weigh more than a feather. Come on. I’ll get you down to the kitchen at the very least.”
“The kitchen would be nice,” said Asho. Everything was going away. “Hot soup. Dumplings.”
Brocuff chuckled, but it sounded like he was disappearing up a chimney. Asho tried to follow him, but he couldn’t get his feet to work. Everything was growing faint and distant. Darkness came swirling down into his eyes, and Asho finally fell into the nothingness.
CHAPTER FIVE
The mountain kragh stumbled but did not fall. His roughshod boot slipped off the ice-wrapped river rock and plunged into the black water, forcing him to lunge forward and palm the next stone as he fought for balance. For a precarious moment he swayed, thick tendons standing out on his forearm. The great muscles of his legs had ceased burning and were now numb with fatigue; it was only through sheer will that he was able to wrest his foot free and place it heavily on the treacherous rock.
With a grunt he straightened and turned to sight down the curve of the mountain river. Fresh snow blanketed everything six inches deep and smothered the trees that covered the gorge’s steep black slopes. There was no movement, no sign of pursuit, but the kragh could sense that they were close. With a growl that resonated deep in his chest he turned and clambered heavily across the few remaining large rocks and gained the far side of the river.
There was no chance for survival. There were a dozen of the lowland kragh, and they were compensating for their lack of tracking skills with a score of great hounds. Tharok knew that if he were to simply remain where he stood, knee-deep in the snow, he could meet his pursuers here by the river, could fight them before the sun dipped behind the tallest peaks and most likely kill a third of them before he fell face-down in the snow. His blood would run down into the black water and flow into the valleys far below. It would not be a bad death, but neither would it be a glorious one.
Turning, he considered the path he was pursuing. The river curved out of sight ahead, a shoulder of the gorge reaching down to block the eye, but he knew its path. It would rise, following the raw mountain slopes, leaving the tree line behind as it became a series of waterfalls garlanded in ice. From there it would ascend higher and farther until he reached the holy lake known as the Dragon’s Tear. That was as far as he’d ever climbed. He knew none who had gone farther. For there began the Dragon’s Breath, the great ice road that threaded its way down from the very peaks of the mountains, down from the Valley of the Dead and the home of the gods.
Tharok took a deep breath, inhaling the painfully cold air, and shook his head to clear his thoughts. His great tribe was shattered. His brothers and uncles had either been murdered alongside his father or were being hunted down like him. Their Women’s Council would have been broken, the women taken away and forced to join other tribes.
He’d been running for three days now. The time was drawing close for a confrontation. Time for blood, his or theirs, but for that he would need the best ground.
Through the frigid air came the distant call of a hound. They had picked up his scent again. These were to be his final hours. Well, he would show the Tragon scum who were following him what it meant to hunt a highland kragh in his home.
He began to run, adopting the long-limbed lope of the wolf, one hand steadying his great horn bow wher
e it was strapped to his back. He moved up the side of the gorge until he gained the trees and then ran parallel to the river, the snow thinner beneath the canopy. There were three hours of daylight left, three hours till the air grew cold enough to shatter trees. He would gain the Dragon’s Tear before nightfall, would run around its shore so as to set foot on the Dragon’s Breath beneath the light of the moon, and if he was lucky, if he was sure of foot and strong, he would gain that ground before they fell upon him. Legend was that one could only safely reach the Dragon’s Breath by the moon’s double-horned light. Never had he thought to test the tale himself, but tonight, tonight he would see.
He ran, cresting the occasional bank of snow. A flock of stone-gray doves exploded from the trees as he passed beneath, and he cursed, his presence marked by their flight, but perhaps the lowland kragh would fail to understand their import. The river twisted and grew increasing rock-choked and narrow until the throat of the gorge closed at last and Tharok came upon the first waterfall, a plume of white water that cascaded some seventy yards down as it roared its delight to the world.
He was halfway up the face of the cliff when the first arrow struck to his left. He let out a snarl of rage and looked down over his shoulder to see the lowland kragh arrayed beside the waterfall’s bowl, their dogs leaping and tugging at their leashes, their barks drowned by the roar of the waterfall. They were bending their shortbows and sighting up at him, and he almost let go so as to fall on them and crush them from this great height. Then reason asserted itself and he turned and latched on to the next handhold. If they hit him, they hit him. There was no point in worrying.
An arrow whistled past him and bounced off an elbow of rock, spinning back out into the void. Another clattered across the rocks below his feet. Tharok forced himself higher. The massive slabs of muscle across his back were on fire now, and his hands were numb, the cold having penetrated even through his thick calluses, but on he climbed. A few more arrows were essayed, but he had passed beyond the reach of the lowlanders’ meager bows.
The final third of the ascent was easy. Deep fissures in the cliff face presented him with plenty of room to scramble up within them without difficulty. He gained the top and turned to look back down. The Tragon kragh had begun their own ascent, hounds hoisted up on slings, their small, bright green faces staring up at him as he considered tossing down rocks or stringing his bow. But the idea of doing so rankled; that was no way to defeat an opponent. Tharok snorted savagely and resumed following the course of the river.
So it went as the evening grew colder and the shadows longer, the layer of ice over the snow thickening beneath the calks of his boots. Sweat ran easily over his thick hide and he ran with his mouth open, breath visible as it rasped past the large tusks of his lower jaw. Another waterfall, a second and third. Now only fir trees crowded the gorge, growing in clumps and swathes about him, black and dense and releasing exhalations of cold from their centers as he shouldered past their branches. He was growing reluctantly impressed with the tenacity of the Tragon. Few highland kragh ventured this high, braved these harsh slopes, yet on they came, lowland kragh, plump herders, soft degenerates, keeping apace with him. He wondered if they knew into what land he was leading them, into the dangers posed by the wyverns. Did any of them yet remember the old legends from the time before they had descended to the valleys, the old tales that spoke of the heart of the mountains and the home of the spirits? Would they even care if they did? Did they yet hold to any part of the old ways? He thought not. They’d have turned back long ago in terror if they had.
The gorge was a knife wound between two mountain slopes, the fir trees that grew on either side standing so close that they seemed to form a continuous forest despite the sharp canyon between them. The sun had almost set. Tharok ran in near darkness, moving more by instinct and intuition than sight or smell, avoiding boulders, finding handholds, stepping where the rock and shale was stable. Up he went, and the urge to sing his death song began to grow strong, swelling his chest and seeking to escape and reverberate from the great mountain walls, a dirge to quell the joy that the kragh behind him were taking from the hunt.
He heard a scrape from behind and turned to see a dark-furred shape hurtling across the rocks toward him. Finally. Time for blood. He drew his curved hunting blade and fell into a crouch, shifting his feet for better footing as the hound bounded up the side of the gorge, a lithe bolt of baying brown muscle and fangs. It gained a boulder above him and then leaped to fall upon his upturned face. Tharok reached out and closed his fingers about the hound’s neck as he fell back, driving his knife deep into its gut. The hound’s howl turned guttural and wounded, golden eyes flashing in the gloom as it sought to lock its maw upon him, to sink its fangs deep into his face.
But the hound wasn’t the only one with fangs. With a roar Tharok bit into the hound’s neck even as it whipped its muscular, lithe body from side to side, claws scoring deep tracks in his chest. Tharok bit down, the massive tusks of his lower jaw puncturing hide and muscle to sink deep into the dog’s windpipe and arteries. Hot, fresh blood filled Tharok’s mouth, and the hound let loose a terrible whine. It whiplashed and thrashed in its attempt to get away, but the highland kragh held on. Only death would cause him to open his jaws now. Tharok’s head was wrenched from side to side, but he continued to dig his dagger over and over into the hound’s gut until the dog let loose one final cry and went limp.
Tharok opened his mouth and cast the dog to the ground, turned his head and spat its blood upon the white-covered rocks. Crimson flowers bloomed all about him. Wiping his forearm across his mouth, Tharok turned and stared down the gorge,. Other shapes were racing toward him. If more than two hounds came at him at once, he was finished. Desperate, he turned and ran, cursing the fate that had him fleeing dogs. He stopped cursing when he gained the final cliff face and picked a route up through the boulders and rocks, using fir trunks to haul himself up quicker until he tumbled over the edge and out onto the shallow valley that held the Dragon’s Tear.
The moon was rising. The world was cast in melancholy blues and silver, and the snow gleamed with the unearthly beauty that made the mountains his only possible home. The rock was so dark and black where it emerged through the mantle of the snow that it appeared to be holes into Hell. The Dragon’s Tear dominated the valley floor. Its black waters stood so still that they appeared frozen into the most perfect sheet of ice, yet no reflection of the Five Peaks showed on its surface.
Tharok had been here once before in his brief life. His sister had been brought here to be consecrated as a shaman. Her eyes had been put out after a torturous ceremony, and she’d been left to spend two weeks in vigil by the water’s edge, left to survive two weeks alone amidst the ghosts and spirits that thronged the edges of the Tear. When Tharok and the others had returned two weeks later, there had been no sign of Loruka. She’d been deemed lost, consumed by the night and the ice and the hungry ghosts, and their father had raged for days at the insult to his honor.
Rising now, Tharok gazed once more upon the Dragon’s Tear. It was said to be bottomless, was famous for never freezing. Nothing lived in its icy fastness. The spirits of fallen kragh who could not ascend to the Valley of the Dead were said to dance along its edge for eternity, broken and gibbering and hating the living. This was no place for the living. Nobody ventured here without the shamans to guide them, and even they hesitated before coming to the Tear.
Tharok took a deep breath and strode forward. He was in no mood for piety.
He scrabbled down the great rocks that hemmed in the lake’s broad waters and began to follow its shore, running with fierce determination. The ghosts could go hang. He’d gain the far tapering point before the hounds caught up with him, and there take his stand. He came to the broad fan of rocks upon which the ceremony had been performed, then loped past the great obsidian rock on whose surface his sister had been bound and blinded. Old history of a now-dead tribe. Anger curdled in his gut. He ran on.
The sound of yelps and strangled cries came from behind him. Tharok slowed and looked back. The hounds had stopped their pursuit. They paced back and forth as if behind an invisible wall, midway along the length of the lake, whined and chuffed and came no closer. Then they began to dance back, tails between their legs, as if invisible whips were lashing them. Tharok grinned. Human-raised hounds had no place at the Tear. Let the ghosts scourge the hides from their bodies.
Tharok narrowed his eyes and saw lowland kragh at last. Slender, bald, and as green as untried mountain kragh children, they were coming fast on their bandy legs along the shoreline. Let them figure it out, he thought, and with a deep breath forced himself to begin running once more. His legs were trembling, his strength spent, but he staggered on, the lake growing ever narrower, the cliffs drawing closer, till he finally reached the Tear’s far point. He stopped beside a massive, jagged boulder that had been spat out by the Dragon’s Breath. It was twice his height, but he growled and climbed it through sheer force of will. When he reached the top he inhaled deeply, massive chest expanding as if he’d breathe in the world, then let his breath out in a deep, rumbling groan and turned to face his pursuers.
He unshouldered his grandfather’s horn longbow, dug one end into a cleft in the rock and strung the other end with a massive bunching of the muscles of his arm. He tied it off smoothly, his taloned fingers moving with a calmness that belied the tension that coursed like fire through his veins. The band of hunters was closing around the far sweep of the lake, dark shadows that ran, short swords and bows in hand, coming in to seal his doom.
