Tejohn said, “The graveyard menagerie in the Palace of Song and Morning had an alligaunt skeleton; I’ve never seen a live one, but I know they are not small.”
Reglis grasped his spear in both hands. “Are they so dangerous?”
“Each is stronger than a man,” she answered. “They prefer to ambush their prey near water, dragging them under and drowning them. It’s a nasty death, and they often hunt in a pack so that if someone rushes into the shallows to save a victim, they are taken down and torn apart, too.”
A grim silence settled over the group. Tejohn, knowing they were well above the hunting range of the creature, nonetheless scanned the area around them with extra scrutiny.
“On the other hand,” Arla added, “their tails are delicious.”
Lar laughed at that, and Reglis joined in. Tejohn was too hungry to laugh, but he wasn’t going to be the one to call for a rest.
Reglis pointed to a small cluster of twisted trees. “We should pause here for a quick meal.” He spoke with the casual confidence of a young man with nothing to prove. “We’re marching at a fair clip and should pace ourselves.”
Everyone seemed glad when they sat in the shelter of the trees. There were gray storm clouds overhead, but the wind kept them moving and they did not release any rain. Wimnel caught up to the group by the time they had opened their packs and taken out their food. He gently eased himself onto the ground, ate half a loaf of meatbread, and fell fast asleep.
Tejohn did not like the way Lar was looking at the injured driver. “My king,” he said quickly. “We can not lose more time, not for him. Tonight, we will let him sleep without taking a watch. It will help him to heal, but we must press on.”
Lar nodded and looked at the ground without speaking.
Arla said, “There are small mining camps all along this part of the Sweeps. I expect we’ll find one before our third day is out. We might be able to hire an okshim cart there; as you might expect, the beasts are less expensive on this side of the barrier.”
Tejohn nodded. Arla had assumed leadership of the group in all but name, and that was fine with him. It pleased him to have an experienced guide. “Is there anything else we should know?”
She glanced to the northeast with a worried expression, then looked at the ground. “I think not, my tyr.”
“Don’t keep secrets from me, soldier. If there’s a danger to the northeast we should know about, I want to hear it.”
“It’s nothing, my tyr.” Arla licked her lips. “Nothing but old folk tales.”
Lar spoke up. “Bless us with your folk wisdom.”
“I... My king, I am at your service. This... The Chin-Chinro do not often speak of the Qorr Valley. It’s thought to be bad luck. I myself have not thought about it for ten years or more. But last night, after the ruhgrit attacked, it came to mind again.
“There is a valley on the far side of the Northern Barrier. Legend says it is open on one side only, if cliff faces battered by crashing waves and great chunks of ice the size of the commander’s tower can be called ‘open.’ It is secluded, blocked by high cliffs all around, but within...”
She didn’t seem to know what to say next. Tejohn prompted her. “Here be monsters.”
“Yes,” she said with some finality. “Some say the alligaunts came from there, swimming around the rim of the Northern Barrier before the sea giants or water eyes arrived. The gigantic spiders that invaded Shadow Hall most certainly came from there. Those creatures devastated the herder clans before they made their way through the southern passes. My grandfather used to talk about the times of his grandfather’s grandfather, when feathered toads that poisoned anything they touched flew over those peaks.”
Her implication was clear. “And you think the ruhgrit have also come over those mountains. That they are the latest monster spawned in your monster valley.”
“Oh, no, my Tyr.” Arla seemed genuinely upset by Tejohn’s words. “It is not my valley. No human can even visit it, much less claim it as their own. There were passes once, but the ancient creatures destroyed them.”
“If that’s true,” Reglis said, “we should see less of the ruhgrit as we move farther west, out of their range.”
“They’re big birds,” Tejohn answered. “Their hunting range is probably larger than we’d like. We will have to watch the skies above and the shrubs at our feet for a while yet.”
Lar filled everyone’s canteen. That was servant work, but there was no one else to do it.
When their meal was over, Reglis woke Wimnel and helped him down the trail. Arla led the way, but Tejohn deliberately delayed Lar. “My king, I would like to see your shoulder.”
“That is not blessed,” Lar answered with a dismissive wave. He tried to push past Tejohn toward the trail.
“No, my king.” How could Tejohn keep this behavior a secret from the others? “You appointed me your shield bearer and counsel, and I can not fulfill my duties if you lie to me or keep secrets. Let me see the shoulder where you were injured. I must insist.”
After a brief staring contest, Lar shifted his cuirass and pulled up his padded sleeve. The tufts of blue hair had spread, becoming a patch of bristling fur.
“This gets worse with every spell you cast, doesn’t it?”
The king shook his head. “Each spell I bless slows the change but strengthens it, too. It’s like when you have to hold back blessings in temple. The more you restrain yourself, the more blessed it becomes.”
Tejohn’s heart sank as Lar spoke. “My king, I do not understand you.”
The young man became irritated. “It’s like holding back a blessing. Have you never laughed, my tyr?”
“Thank you, my king. I am not a clever man.” Tejohn had a odd idea. He reached into his pocket and took out the enchanted stone he’d gotten from Cazia Freewell. “What else are you experiencing, my king?”
“Blessing,” Lar answered. “My stomach feels empty all the bless, even after we eat.”
Fire and Fury. Tejohn had hoped the spell would change the king’s words back to what he intended. Unless that’s what he did intend to say. “My king, I must ask you this: Do you know that you are substituting the words bless, blessing, blessed for other words, every time you speak?”
Lar Italga did not respond immediately. He stared downward, mustering his concentration. With great deliberation, he said, “The creature I am becoming is saying its name. The Blessing.”
“That’s what they call themselves?” Tejohn asked. Lar nodded. “Fire and Fury, but I will not call them that. Never.”
Arla made her way back to them. Her blunt face and wide eyes were puzzled. “My king? My tyr? Is anything wrong?”
“No,” Tejohn said. He had no intention of telling them that Lar was transforming. It would have been all too easy for the others to abandon them in the Sweeps or turn their spear points against them while they slept. Lar’s curse would have to remain a secret for now.
The path was easier as they went farther down the mountainside. There were fewer switchbacks and less loose stone to slip on. Late in the day, Arla spotted a mountain lion skulking among the rocks above them. Tejohn and Reglis immediately readied their spears while Arla strung her bow. Lar turned and hurried back along the path toward Wimnel, who had fallen far behind. The king took the driver’s good arm, steadying him across some of the looser stones. Tejohn and the others would not slow their pace for the driver, but they certainly waited for the king.
“I’m sorry, my king. I will try to do better.” To his credit, Wimnel did not whine. He might have been a coward, but he could endure hardship. Lar only nodded and stayed with him, helping him over the rougher parts of the hill. The group as a whole moved somewhat more slowly, but the driver moved faster and kept pace with them. The mountain lion, for its part, decided to search for easier prey and disappeared into the rocks uphill.
The sun was nearing the western rim of the valley when Tejohn called for Arla. “Are we down in the Sweeps yet?” he a
sked.
“Yes and no, my Tyr, depending on how you measure such things. Some would say we’d entered the Sweeps when we stepped onto the scree this morning. Some when we leave the mountain side. Some when we step into our first mudhole. The land is steep to the south and less steep as you go—”
Tejohn held up his hand to stop her. “I understand. Let me ask this instead: this land has been claimed by the empire, hasn’t it? Disputed, but claimed, and storm houses have been built here for our subjects.”
She glanced at Wimnel, showing that she understood immediately. Before the empire spread, storm houses were places of shelter. In recent times, they were more likely to have a pair of sleepstones in them. Old King Ghrund, a murderous bastard if there ever was one, had put out sleepstones for his subjects in the Sweeps to care for their ill and injured...and he took them away if they rebelled. The tyrs had mocked the plan at first, but no one could deny that it had created peace.
But Arla explained that there were no storm houses this far south. Some of the more productive mining camps might have one, but she couldn’t say where one could be found.
“What about that?” Reglis said, scowling upslope. It was a building made of pink scholar-created stone like the palace or Fort Samsit, but partly obscured by a knot of trees.
They scrambled up the hill and discovered that it was not a storm house at all. Worse, the southern wall was gone.
“What happened here?” Reglis said as he wandered through the single room. The pink stones of the southern wall lay scattered up hill as though flung by a giant.
“It’s a scholar’s hut,” Arla said, “abandoned about a year, by the looks of it, and picked clean.”
Tejohn glanced at Lar, who looked away. Just the day before, the king had told him that some scholars lived in seclusion, studying spells, sometimes with disastrous results. Now they had found just such a place.
Still, it was good to stand behind a wall out of the wind. “Night will be on us soon.”
Lar led Wimnel to the most comfortable spot behind the wall, saw that he had water and food, then silently encouraged him to sleep. In the meantime, Arla and Reglis had gathered firewood and prepared a fire, which Lar lit for them.
Reglis and Arla took flutes from their packs, but they ate their dismal provisions in silence. “My king...” Reglis said. “My king, I have already sworn my life, my spear, and my duty to you, but... I’ve never seen... That man, a servant to the throne, was injured and you, his king, gave him your support.”
Arla interrupted. “I, too, am astonished.”
Tejohn shifted slightly, letting his hand fall on his sword. The captain and the guide had laid their weapons behind them, just within reach, but they still had knives. If they were about to declare him unfit, Tejohn would hear both of their death-rattles.
“My king,” Reglis continued, his deep-set eyes so shadowed that Tejohn could not see them at all. “I will be your most loyal servant, not just in oath but in thought and deed.”
“Reglis speaks for me as well,” Arla said, her wide eyes still and calm. “although I had not expected him to.”
“And me,” Wimnel said from his dark corner. “Although my service is worth little.”
Lar did not answer right away. Instead, he looked down at the fire, concentrating hard on what he had to say.
“My king?” Reglis asked.
“Tell. Them.” Lar finally said.
“My king—” Tejohn began to protest, but Lar’s expression silenced him. Tejohn sighed. The king understood his people better than Tejohn ever had, and it was time to trust him, a little.
He addressed Reglis and Arla directly. Wimnel was no soldier, and was not a concern. “The grunt that bit the king before we left was once a man. In fact, it was Colchua Freewell.”
“Freewell!’ Arla spat.
“Once, I would have agreed with you,” Tejohn said. “I have no love for the Freewells. But Colchua was bitten while defending his king. What no one realized at the time was that the bite cursed him. It transformed him into a grunt.”
There was an appalled silence. Reglis and Arla both glanced nervously at the king.
“Yes,” Tejohn said. “The king has also been cursed.”
“When did you know?” Wimnel said from the corner.
Tejohn wanted to strike him for asking a question, but he remembered Lar and the substitute swordmaster. He was the king’s counsel now and would have to act with the king’s wisdom. “Last night,” he said, his voice more snappish than he’d planned.
“When will the transformation complete?” Reglis asked stonily.
Lar shook his head. “Not. Tonight.”
Arla turned to Tejohn, her expression grim. “That’s why you hoped to find a sleepstone,” she said. “Not for the driver, but for the king.”
Lar shook his head again. “Wouldn’t.” There was a long pause before he managed to say “Work.”
“Nonetheless,” Tejohn said. “We three will keep watch tonight, in shifts. King Lar must sleep--no, do not protest. You are as exhausted as the driver. The king does not expect to--change tonight, but we must watch him while we watch over him.”
“If I change,” Lar said, forcing the words to come out, “bless me. Kill. Me. Bless, blessing blessed bless.”
The king bit the back of his hand to stop the words coming. No one spoke for a while, until Tejohn broke the silence. “Yes, my king.”
In the morning, they ate again. The king was ravenous but finally forced himself to stop after a double portion. Tejohn, Arla, and Reglis loaded their packs in silence. The king stood a bit apart from the others as they filed out of the building; Tejohn could see Reglis and Arla were uneasy.
Then Wimnel offered the king a bundle wrapped in black cloth. “I saved half of my rations for you, my king.”
Lar took them gratefully and, after a moment’s hesitation, put them in his pocket. Then he took Wimnel’s good arm and helped him navigate a dry streambed back down the trail.
They made better progress than the previous day, if only because the way was less steep. At Tejohn’s command, Arla scouted well ahead. By midmorning, she’d returned with troubling news.
Tejohn followed her along the path, jogging lightly to keep up. The king and Wimnel were in no condition to hurry, so Reglis stayed behind with them.
“There,” Arla said as she crawled to the crest of a hill. “Do you see?”
“I can not see far,” Tejohn said, “but it looks like a small village down there. I can see a stripe of pink that must be a scholar-created wall.”
“Not a village,” she responded. “A mining camp. They are flying a Finstel banner.”
The Finstels were loyal to the Italga family. Tejohn had been born and raised on Finstel lands, and he’d been a Finstel subject. Splashtown was the Finstel city, in fact. They had risked much for King Ellifer, and been handsomely rewarded with the service of the king’s scholars. “Do you think they will have a sleepstone down there?”
“A camp that size? I would expect so.” Tejohn’s heart leaped. Lar Italga might not think a sleepstone would fight his curse, but Tejohn intended to try. Who else did they have who could learn Ghoron Italga’s spell and lead Peradaini troops against the grunts?
He started to scramble to his feet, but the guide grabbed his arm and pulled him flat beside her. “My Tyr, before you rush down there, can you see the loaded cart out in the yard? Near the gate?”
“No.” Tejohn did not care about a loaded cart. They had little time to save the king, and he didn’t want to waste any of it.
“It’s small,” she said as though reassuring him. “That cart is a Durdric design, my Tyr. Little more than a wheelbarrow. I think the camp, and its sleepstone, are in enemy hands.”
Chapter 14
They kept going until sunrise. Cazia wanted to stop well before, but she did not say anything, and Vilavivianna insisted, urging her on. Cazia convinced herself that Peraday was somewhere out here, holed up in a lookout’
s blind. Or something. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask where the guard could be found later, and now she was angry with herself about it.
I killed Colchua.
They heard no howls from grunts and saw no carts pass overhead. The sky turned bright blue without any sign of the sun. The two girls made good progress by the reflected light. Cazia thought she should say something to the little princess walking ahead of her, but she knew the first word that came out of her mouth would result in a flood of tears. Her brother was dead and it was her fault.
She’d felt such pride after she’d done it. I am not an archer. I’m a scholar. Fire take her for an arrogant fool.
But of course, Col had been attacking Lar, and her brother would never have chosen to do that on his own. The beast had taken over. The curse. Probably, her brother would have wanted to be killed rather than attack his best friend and king, but no, no, no, she couldn’t think that way. She couldn’t even approach that thought. She had killed Colchua—had swept him from The Way as though she herself were Fire—and she wasn’t going to pretend it had been a favor.
They walked along quietly. Eventually, tears did flow down Cazia’s face, but the princess didn’t look back, and she probably didn’t know what they might mean, anyway.
It wasn’t enough. She owed her brother more than a few silent tears--he deserved more--but she didn’t have it in her. She was too exhausted and frightened to fall to the ground and wail; it would have been a performance. Who would have been her audience? This little foreign princess wouldn’t care.
Those same thoughts churned all morning until they reached the crest of the pass, where the land began to slope down to the Sweeps, when Vilavivianna asked to stop.
They clambered uphill out of the path, taking shelter behind an outcropping of rock. As she unslung her pack, Cazia was startled to see an arrow sticking out of it. She broke the shaft and threw it away, then hunted for the arrow head among her things.
The copper point had struck her canteen, passing completely through the wood and skin and protruding into her blanket. Luckily, she hadn’t filled it yet, or all her things would be wet.
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