by Greg Keyes
They started from the ledge at middagh, and it was almost vespers when Aspar finally half fell onto the jumble of soil and rocks, his muscles twitching and his breath like lungfuls of sand. He lay looking up from the deep shadow of the gorge at the black bats fluttering against a river of red sky, listening to the rising chorus of the frogs and the ghostly churring of nightjars. For a moment, it almost felt normal, as if he could rest.
It sounded right. It looked right. But he could smell the disease all around him. It was all poisoned, all dying.
The King’s Forest probably was already dead without the Briar King to protect it.
He should have understood earlier. He should have been helping the horned one all along. Now it was too late, and every breath he drew felt like wasted time.
But there had to be something he could do, something he could kill, that would set things right.
And there was Winna, yah?
He pushed himself up and began to limp his way down to the next broad ledge at the bottom of the slope, where he could see Leshya already searching for a protected campsite.
In the fading light, from the corner of his eye, he saw something else. It was coming down the way they had, but quickly, like a four-legged spider.
“Sceat,” he breathed, and drew his dirk, because he’d bundled his bow and arrows and dropped them down before the most arduous part of the climb. They were still ten yards down the slope.
He relaxed his grip and shoulders, waiting.
The utin changed course suddenly, leaping from the rock face into the tops of some small poplars, bending them in a nightmare imitation of Aspar’s earlier stunt. As the trees snapped back up, he saw it land effortlessly on the slope downgrade of him.
He let his breath out. It hadn’t seen him.
But his hackles went back up when he saw that its next leap was going to take it right to Leshya.
“Leshya!” he howled, coming out of his crouch and starting to run downhill. He saw her look up as the beast sprang forward. Then his leg jerked in a violent cramp and his knee went down, sending him into a tumble. Cursing, he tried to find his feet again, but the world stirred all about him, and he reckoned that at least he was going in the right direction.
He shocked against a half-rotted tree trunk and, wheezing, came dizzily to his feet, hoping he hadn’t broken anything new. He heard Leshya screaming something, and when he managed to focus on her, he saw her below him, backed against a tree, grimly stringing her bow. He didn’t see the utin until he followed the Sefry’s desperate gaze.
The tree-corpse that had stopped him was part of a jumble clogging a water cut in the slope. He was on top of a natural dam.
The utin was two kingsyards below him. Something seemed odd about the way it was moving.
Aspar got his footing and leaped.
It was really more of a fall.
The utin was on all fours, and Aspar landed squarely on its back. It was very fast, twisting even as the holter locked his left arm around its neck and wrapped his legs around the hard barrel of its torso. He plunged his dirk at the thing’s neck, but the weapon turned. That didn’t stop him; he kept stabbing away. He saw something bright standing in the utin’s chest, something familiar that he couldn’t place at the moment. He also noticed that the monster was missing a hind foot. Then the night was rushing around him at great speed. He leaned back to avoid the creature’s armored head slamming into his face and felt his weapon drive into something. The ear hole, maybe. The beast gave a satisfying shriek, and they were suddenly in the air.
Then they hit the ground hard, but Aspar had already blown out the breath in his lungs. He tightened his grip and kept thrusting.
Then they were falling again for what seemed like a long time, until the utin caught something, arresting their descent so hard that Aspar actually did loosen his grip around its windpipe. He expected to be flung off, but suddenly they were plummeting again. He managed to throw both arms around its neck.
It fetched against something else, howled, and fell again, twisting in the holter’s grip like some giant snake. Aspar’s arms were numb now, and he lost his clench again. This time he didn’t find it before something astonishingly cold hit him hard.
“Holter.”
Aspar opened his eyes, but there wasn’t much to see. He hadn’t lost his senses in the fall, but it had been hard keeping hold of them since. He’d been lucky in hitting the river where it was deep and relatively slow. From the rushing he heard up-and downstream, that easily could have not been the case.
Once he had dragged himself out, his abused body had finally given out. The warm air soon had taken the water’s chill, and the forest had worked to soothe him to sleep. He’d fought it but had drifted into and out of dream, and he wasn’t sure where he was when the voice spoke.
“Holter,” it croaked again.
He sat up. He’d heard an utin speak before, and this was just what it sounded like. But he couldn’t tell how far away it was. It could be one kingsyard or ten. Either way it was too close.
“Mother sends regards, Mannish.”
Aspar kept quiet. He’d lost the dirk and was unarmed. However badly the utin was hurt, if it could move at all, he doubted very much he could fight it with his bare hands. His best chance was to stay still and hope it was bleeding to death. Failing that, morning might give him a better chance.
He heard something sliding through the undergrowth and wondered if the monster could see in the dark. He hoped not, but that seemed like a thing monsters ought to be able to do.
“Mother,” the voice sighed again.
Something tickled the back of Aspar’s neck, something with a lot of legs. He stayed frozen as it explored around his ear, across his lips, and finally down his chin and across his jerkin.
It was quiet save for the gentle shush of the river, and after a time the sky above began to gray. Aspar turned his head slowly, trying to piece together his surroundings as the light came up. He made out the river first and then the reeds he’d crawled through into the shelter of the trees. The cliff across the water came into focus, and the boles nearest him emerged from darkness.
Something big fell behind him, brushing limbs and breaking sticks. He whipped his head around and saw something bright, glittering.
It was the thing in the utin’s chest. The creature itself lay collapsed only a kingsyard away. It had been right above him.
The thing in its chest, he saw now, was a knife, and he suddenly remembered, months before, a battle in an oak grove in Dunmrogh where a knight had wielded a sword that shone like this, a sword that could cut through almost anything.
The utin wasn’t moving. Carefully, Aspar leaned forward, soundlessly shifting his weight until his fingers touched the hilt. He felt an odd, tingling warmth, then took hold of it and pulled it out.
Blood spurted in a stream. The utin’s eyes snapped open, and it gave a horrible gurgling scream, starting toward Aspar but stopping when it saw the weapon.
“Unholy thing,” it said.
“You’re one to talk.”
It started an odd gulp and hiss that might have been a laugh.
“Your mother,” Aspar said. “The Sarnwood witch. Did she send you?”
“No, no. Mother not sending us, eh?”
“But you work for Fend?”
“The Blood Knight calls us. We come.”
“Why?”
“How we are,” the utin said. “How we are, it’s all.”
“But what does he want?”
The utin had shoved its fist into the knife hole. It wasn’t helping much.
“Not the same as Mother, I think,” it said. “Not at end of things. But doesn’t matter. Today he wanting you. Today, you.” It looked up suddenly and released a deafening, ululating shriek. Howling himself, Aspar drove forward, slicing through the exposed throat so deeply that the head flopped backward like the hood of a cloak. Blood jetted from the stump of its neck, pulsed another few times, and stopped.
Aspar tried
to still his own panting and reckon whether he’d been wounded by the thing. He didn’t want to take his eyes off it, so he was watching when its mouth started moving again.
“Holter.”
Aspar flinched and raised the knife back up. The voice was the same, but the timbre of it was somehow different.
“Another of my children dead by you.”
“Sarnwood witch,” he breathed.
“Each one is part of me,” she said.
He remembered her forest, how he’d felt her in every limb and leaf, how she’d laid her invisible weight on him so that he couldn’t move.
“He tried to kill me,” he pointed out.
“More coming,” she said. “They may kill you. But if they don’t, you have a promise to keep.”
Aspar felt an even deeper chill settle in. Months earlier, to save the lives of his friends, he had made a bargain.
“I won’t ask for the life of anyone you love. I won’t ask you to spare one of my children.”
“That’s what we agreed,” Aspar said. “I remember.”
She’ll ask for my life, he suddenly thought. But no, it wasn’t going to be that simple.
“Here is your geos,” she said. “The next human being you meet, you’ll take under your protection. And you will take that person to the valley where you found the Briar King sleeping.”
“Why?”
“That’s not in the bargain, holter. I honored my part; now it’s time for you to honor yours.”
He sighed, trying to think what the witch could mean. Leshya was right; he’d been thinking about going back there anyway. But what could the Sarnwood witch be up to?
But he’d given his word, and she had kept hers.
“Yah,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
“Yes, you will,” she replied. The utin seemed to sag further, and a long soft exhalation escaped its lips. “If you live…”
Already Aspar could hear something else coming through the trees. He pushed himself up, every part of him shaking, and held the knife before him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE TOWN BETWEEN
HIS BLOOD soaks this ground. But his soul is with the Draugs.
Muriele stared at the sungilt waves and wondered what to feel. William had been a good man, a fair king. As husband he hadn’t been mean or abusive, but he often hadn’t much been there, either. Maintaining several mistresses tended to be draining. Against the grain she had loved him, and she mourned for him. She could remember the scent on his clothes even now.
Alis took her hand. It felt good, the young, honest warmth of it. She looked at the girl, a pretty brown-haired creature of twenty.
“Robert came one night,” Muriele said. “When I was alone. When he thought you dead. He was drunk and even more cruel than usual, and he told me how William died.”
“He might have lied,” Alis said.
“He might have,” Muriele agreed. “But the details make me think he was telling the truth.” She took a step so that they stood at the edge of the cliff. She looked at the waves breaking far below.
“It was an ambush, and William had fallen wounded from his horse. Robert dragged him here and meant to gloat and kick him over the edge. But William managed to enrage him with taunts, tricked him into stooping down, and then Wil struck him in the heart with his echein doif. That was how Robert learned he could not die.” She squeezed her friend’s hand. “Why would Robert tell a lie so unflattering to himself?”
“Robert does not like himself very well,” Alis said. Her voice sounded odd, and when Muriele looked up, she saw tears in the younger woman’s eyes.
“You loved my poor husband,” she said.
“I don’t know,” Alis admitted. “But I miss him.”
“Well, at least he has Gramme to keep him company,” Muriele said, feeling suddenly mordant.
“Muriele…”
“Hush. It’s past. To tell the truth, if I could have him back, I wouldn’t mind if you were his mistress. At least not so much as I did before.”
“I hope your next husband feels the same,” Alis said lightly.
Muriele gave her a hug, then turned back to the sea.
“Good-bye, William,” she called.
Together they walked back to where the others waited.
Neil watched the two women stride toward the party, remembering his own recent ghosts: Fastia, Muriele’s eldest daughter, who had died in his arms; Erren, the coven-trained assassin who had protected the queen when he first had met her. He had loved the first and respected the second, and both had been lost to the lands of fate the same day King William was slain.
Erren and Muriele had been together so long when he met them that they had seemed sisters to Neil. Alis was something different. She had been one of William’s mistresses, for one thing. And now, suddenly, she was Muriele’s maid, bodyguard, best friend. Aside from Muriele, he was the only one in the party who knew the girl claimed coven training. But what coven? Who was her mestra? She wouldn’t say.
“Thank you, Aradal, for that detour,” Muriele said to the archgreft.
“It hardly took us out of our way,” the Hansan replied. He gestured north and east. “The old Nean Road is just over that hill, and that will bring us to the Vitellian Way in a few bells.”
“Thank you just the same.”
“William was a good man,” Aradal said. “An opponent, usually, but I liked him. I am sorry for his loss, Muriele.”
She smiled a thin smile Neil had come to understand was her alternative to screaming.
“Thank you,” she said. “And now, by all means, let us go. I would not have us miss the feast you describe that awaits us at the inn at Bitaenstath.”
“I would not have you miss your first taste of Hansan hospitality,” the duke replied.
Muriele’s smile tightened, and this time she did not reply.
And so they went on, the road taking them through fields of spelt and wheat that rose high enough to hide an army of murderers. Neil saw a malend high on a hill, its four great sails turning rather quickly in the breeze from the sea. It was the first he had seen since leaving Newland, where they were used to keep water out of the poelen. But what was this one doing? Why was it here?
As promised, within a few bells they met the Vitellian Way, the longest road in the world. It had been built by the Hegemony a thousand years before, and it stretched more than a hundred leagues from z’Irbina in Vitellio to Kaithbaurg in the north.
Neil had traveled the southern portion of the road and had found it well kept, stoutly embanked, and wide enough for two carriages to pass.
Here it was hardly more than a pair of deep wain ruts. The old Vitellian bed of the road seemed barely there.
The women stayed in saddle for a bell or so and then retired to the carriage that the Hansans had brought along with their twenty horses.
Why only twenty?
He became aware of another rider at his flank.
“Sir Neil,” the young man said. “I don’t know if you remember me.”
“I know the name of every man in this party, Sir Edhmon,” Neil assured him. “When I saw that you had joined the Craftsmen, I picked you for this duty.”
“But you hardly know me, Sir Neil.”
“You fought on my left flank at the battle of the waerd,” Neil replied. “I do not need long walks in the gardens with you to know what I need to know.”
The young man blushed. “It was my first battle,” he said. “You inspired me to something I never dreamed myself capable of.”
“Whatever you are, it was in you before you met me,” Neil replied.
“I don’t know about that,” Edhmon said, shaking his head.
“Well,” Neil said, searching for a reply.
They rode on in silence.
They reached the looming fortress of Northwatch while the sun was settling into a bed of high western clouds. The sky was still blue, but the slanting light was copper and brass, and the white walls of the cast
le, the verdance of the fields, and the still-blue sky made such a pretty picture that war seemed very far away.
And yet Northwatch, despite its sunset patina, had been built for nothing but war. Its walls were thick and from the top it would appear as a six-pointed star, so that the outside of each section of wall was defensible from the inside of another. It was a new design, and Neil reckoned the ramparts were no more than ten years old.
The keep was a different story. Its weathered and vine-etched stone formed four walls with a squat tower at each corner. Clearly a fancy new fortification had been thrown up around a very old castle.
Six riders met them, four of them in lord’s plate. As they approached, they doffed their helmets, and the oldest-looking one let his horse step forward.
The carriage door swung open, and Muriele stepped out. The riders dismounted and knelt.
“It’s good to see you, Marhgreft Geoffrysen,” Muriele said. “Please rise; let me embrace you.”
The marhgreft looked to be sixty-five at least. His iron-gray hair was cropped to his skull, and his eyes were that blue that always startled.
“Highness,” he said, rising. Muriele crossed to him and gave him a perfunctory embrace. Then the marhgreft bowed again, this time to Aradal, with a good deal less enthusiasm.
“My lord,” Aradal acknowledged.
“I rather expected to see you riding in from the other direction,” Geoffrysen said.
“Well, if one comes, one must go back,” Aradal replied.
“Not necessarily,” Geoffrysen said with a wicked little smile.
“But today,” Aradal replied, wagging a finger.
“Today,” the marhgreft agreed. “And I’d be pleased if you would take the hospitality of my house.”
“We’ve accommodations arranged in town,” Muriele told him. “But your offer is more than kind.”
Geoffrysen looked surprised. “In town? Not in Suthschild?”
“It will be too dark before we reach Suthschild and past the dinner hour,” Aradal said. “No, we shall be at the Wexrohzen.”
“On the Hansan side.”
“I suppose it is. But can you think of a better accommodation?”
