by Angus Wells
It seemed to him impossible that Bracht should not awake: Ahrd had saved his life and surely would not now condemn him to a living death. The strange slumber was, he told himself, some part of the healing process, some necessary thing, that Bracht should fully mend, in spirit no less than in body. He shuddered at the memory of the nails entering the Kern’s palms, and told himself no man could swiftly recover from such ordeal, that this unduly long sleep was equally part of Ahrd’s blessing. Too, he felt a strange embarrassment at remaining in the wagon, the soft conversation of the previous night, Katya’s unhidden concern now, prompting a feeling that he intruded on their privacy, like some voyeur, spying. It was irrational, and Katya gave him no reason for such emotion, but still he felt it, and left her alone with Bracht, promising to return once the feast was done.
Outside, the moon hung full over the strath, attended by a sweeping panoply of courtier stars. Fires burned, painting the night with red-gold light and coruscating sparks, the air warm and filled with the odors of roasting meat, so strong they overcame the scents of horse flesh and leather. The largest fire was close by the stream and he found the drachomannii there, and other faces he recognized now, belonging to those who had attended the crucifixion and the subsequent duel. They turned toward him as he approached, unreadable until a ghost-talker smiled a welcome and motioned for him to take a place to one side of the shamans. He bowed his thanks, as yet a trifle apprehensive, knowing some among them for kin to the warriors he had helped kill, but it seemed no grudges were held, those canceled by the payment of werecoin, and he settled on the grass, his hand soon filled with a brimming mug, a platter set before him, listening intently to the conversation, the arguments, ranging back and forth around the circle.
These, he soon realized, were the most prominent of the clan, the decision makers, men and women speaking as equals to determine the path the ni Larrhyn should take. None seemed to much mourn Jehenne’s demise, and he guessed she had not been overly popular. Neither did any speak for pursuing her dream of clan alliance, for her intended invasion of Lysse. In that at least, he thought, some setback was given Rhythamun’s design, that shedding of sacrificial blood denied the mage and the insane god he worshipped. Jehenne’s body, he learned, would be taken far from the camp on the morrow and left for the wild dogs to devour, in dishonor: her blasphemous rejection of Ahrd’s judgment denied her the customary practice of tree burial, the body laid in ceremony on the branches of an oak. Of greater interest was the ghost-talkers’ repeated promise that word would go out to all the shamans of the Lykard, and from them to the ghost-talkers of the other clans, that Daven Tyras spoke for none save himself, and was a shape-shifter and a patricide, against whom all should join. In this debate, Calandryll took part, for the ghost-talkers urged him to tell all he knew of the warlock, elaborating on what Katya and Bracht had already said.
He spoke then of the quest, seeing no reason to prevaricate, and told them of Varent den Tarl’s coming to Secca, and the long journey across Kandahar and into Gessyth; of finding the Arcanum in Tezin-dar, and how Rhythamun had snatched it from them; of their return to Lysse and their pursuit into Cuan na’For.
When he was done, he saw all their eyes studying him gravely, with admiration, as though he were some mythic hero, woven from the fabric of a bard’s imagination, and experienced a further flush of embarrassment that he sought to hide behind his mug. That was never allowed to go empty, wineskins circulating constantly, carried by women and young men who eyed him with awe, and as the night grew older and the clan folk fell to discussing who should now lead them, he feared drunkenness.
He sipped then, not wishing to lose his wits, fleetingly amused by the memory that it had been that state that had first introduced him to Bracht, then concerned again for the Kern, seeking opportunity to question the ghost-talkers. Fruitlessly, it transpired, for all they could tell him was what they had said before—that ere now, a man crucified had hung on the tree until he died, and none been saved—and offer reassurance that they were confident Bracht would awake when Ahrd willed it; though when that might be, they could not say.
Dawn was close before the feast ended, and Calandryll longed for sleep himself. He had succeeded in remaining—unlike most there—sober, but his head swum from the babble, and his belly felt overly full; he was thankful when finally a leader, Dachan, was elected and the gathering began to disperse. A trifle unsteady, he rose to his feet, climbing the ladder into the wagon to find the lamps pinched out, Bracht and Katya dim shapes in the farther chamber, the Kern’s head pillowed on the warrior woman’s outthrust arm. He shrugged off his tunic, pulled off his boots, and sank gratefully onto the cushions. It seemed he slept on the instant.
And woke as soon, gaping at Bracht’s puzzled face.
He opened his mouth to speak, but a callused hand clamped down to silence him and Bracht pointed warningly to the sleeping chamber, where Katya lay, touching a finger to his own lips as he beckoned Calandryll to follow him.
Amazed for all he had felt—or convinced himself he felt—confident of Bracht’s recovery, Calandryll snatched up his tunic and his boots, going after the Kern into the pearly-grey stillness of the false dawn. After the excitement of the night, the camp slept yet, the fires burned down to embers, the air chill. Calandryll’s own exhaustion was evaporated by the delight of finding his comrade awake, and he beamed hugely as they crouched by the ashes of the central bonfire, studying Bracht’s face, shaking his head and chuckling, unable to resist clutching the Kern’s hands to peer wonderingly at the unblemished palms.
“What happened?” Bracht’s voice was hushed, his blue eyes narrowed, perplexed. “I remember the nails . . . the pain . . .” His mouth tightened at that memory. “But no more than that.”
“Ahrd saved you,” Calandryll said, and told him everything.
As he spoke, Bracht examined his hands, turning them this way and that, rubbing curiously at the palms and the backs, as if not quite able to believe the evidence of his own eyes, the evidence of his survival. When Calandryll was done with the telling, he sat silent for a while, digesting all he had heard. Then, as though relegating the wondrous to some hinder part of his mind, said, “So Katya slew Jehenne, eh? And now the ghost-talkers send out word to slay Daven Tyras?”
“Aye,” Calandryll confirmed. “But Katya—and I think her likely right in this—remains uncertain they’ll succeed.”
Bracht nodded and said, “I, too. The drachomannii of Cuan na’For have many skills, but they are not sorcerers of Rhythamun’s standing. Save they act in concert, I doubt they have the strength to hold him.”
“Will they not,” asked Calandryll, “act in concert?”
“How?” Bracht shrugged, gesturing at the slumbering camp. “This is as large a gathering as any, and there are but two of them here. In ones and twos, I think Rhythamun must find them weakling foes.”
Calandryll saw the slender hope their quest might find its ending in Cuan na’For dissolve, and sighed.
“You thought to find our work done for us?” Bracht laughed, slapping a hearty hand to Calandryll’s shoulder. “Not so easily, my friend. But simpler—we’ve free passage now, no further need to hide from the Lykard; and likely news of Daven Tyras along the way. Even are the ghost-talkers unable to slay him, they’ll at least pass word from camp to camp and thus make the finding of him easier.”
“Save he shifts his shape again.” His optimism dampened somewhat, Calandryll grew once more practical. “Save he takes another’s body.”
“Even then,” declared Bracht. “For does he assume a new identity, he must leave behind the old. With word passed, should the body of Daven Tyras be found, then the new vessel will be known—some warrior will be missing, and we may learn his description.”
“Still he’s ahead of us,” Calandryll said.
“Aye, but the ghost-talkers—all the clans now—are valuable allies.” Bracht’s cheerfulness remained un-dimmed, as though his survival, perhaps the oak sap that
mingled with his blood, imbued him with a dauntless vitality. “And so we must hold to our design—go north from here to the Cuan na’Dru and seek passage through the forest; perhaps emerge before him.”
There was, in his confident statement, none of the doubt he had previously evinced at the prospect of entering the great central woodland, and when Calandryll looked, in some surprise, at his face, there was none visible there, only a smile.
“That tune is changed,” Calandryll murmured.
Bracht frowned then, as if himself surprised at his confidence, and ducked his head in thoughtful agreement. “It is,” he said, and paused. “I know not why, save perhaps . . .”
He held up his hands, staring at the palms. Calandryll waited. Then, slowly: “Ahrd gave me my life; the ghost-talkers say the holy sap runs in my veins. Surely, then, Ahrd will grant us passage.”
“And the Gruagach?” asked Calandryll.
“They are the guardians.” Bracht shrugged, some slight shadow of his old trepidation crossing his face. “But still they serve Ahrd, so perhaps they’ll not deny us. And we’ve but the one way to find out, eh?”
His good humor returned in full measure and he rose to his feet, stretching, staring about as if surveying a world newfound, or one he had thought to have quit, its regaining rendering it the sweeter. Certainly, his smile was wide, and he drank the air, savoring its mingled scents of woodsmoke and horses and leather.
“I think,” he said at last, “that we had best depart as soon we may. Katya’s wounds are not severe, you say?”
“Cuts,” Calandryll assured. “None serious, and all tended by the ghost-talkers.”
“They’ve great skill at healing.” Bracht nodded. “And your shoulder? That mends?”
“Apace.” Calandryll flexed the hurt joint, forgotten until now. “Your own skills are considerable.”
“Let’s hope they’re not needed again.” Bracht grinned, sketching a bow, and rubbed his belly. “Now—I’d eat. There’s food in the wagon?”
Calandryll nodded and rose to join the Kern as Bracht set foot on the ladder.
The false dawn had given way now to the first true brightening of the sky, and birds were singing, while from the corrals came the snorting and shuffling of waking horses. A band of fiery red stretched across the eastern horizon, lanced with brilliant gold as the sun edged upward, the radiance striking in through the parted curtain, brightening the wagon’s interior even when the leather was dropped closed behind them. Katya stirred, turning beneath the bed furs, a hand blindly searching to her side. She mumbled something in her sleep and then, abruptly, her eyes snapped open and she sat up, the searching hand reaching instinctively for her sheathed sword.
“All’s well,” Bracht said. “Save I’m mightily hungry.”
His voice burned sleep’s fog from her eyes and she flung back the furs, springing from the bed in a tumult of flaxen hair, legs and arms bare and tan under the shirt that was all she wore. Her saber was flung aside, and in a rush she fell upon the Kern, enfolding him in her arms, her momentum such that they tumbled together onto the cushions. Calandryll could only stare as her lips pressed firm to Bracht’s, his reaction threatening to rescind those earlier, honorable promises. Then Katya pulled away, pushing tousled hair from her face, her eyes alive with delight and wonder. She knelt beside him, taking both his hands, staring at the palms.
“Why did you not wake me?” she demanded, the accusation in her voice belied by her smile, radiant as the rising sun.
“You slept so sound.” Bracht reached out, brushing a flaxen strand from her cheek. “And earned your rest, I hear.”
Her smile waned a little at that reminder, but then she nodded and said solemnly, “Like you, I keep my vows.”
“To Jehenne’s cost.” Bracht grinned, far less concerned than she with the moral niceties of life-taking. “And these?”
He touched the cuts—already healing, Calandryll saw—on her arm and thigh. Katya shrugged. “Nothing,” she said. “They were no more than scratches, and the ghost-talkers applied salves and chanted words. But you . . . I feared you’d sleep forever.”
“I feel greatly rested.” Bracht chuckled. “And very hungry.”
Katya glanced round, at the compartments and cupboards lining the walls, reaching to open the closest, the movement shifting the hem of her shirt to expose a length of smooth, brown thigh. Embarrassed afresh, Calandryll looked away; Bracht stared appreciatively, and as she caught his eye, Katya seemed to become aware for the first time of how little she wore. She blushed prettily, still smiling, and tugged the shirt down.
“You likely know where food might be better than I,” she murmured, suddenly demure. “Do you look, while I dress.”
“Happily,” Bracht announced, deliberately misinterpreting; answered with a flung cushion as Katya returned to the sleeping chamber, firmly drawing the curtain behind her.
Grinning, Bracht rummaged through the cupboards, finding wine, hard biscuits, a little cheese and some smoked meat. All this he set on the table, and though none was particularly fresh, he consumed it all with gusto as Calandryll, preferring to await the rising of the camp and the more appetizing breakfast that promised, watched. Katya emerged dressed, settling on the cushions as Bracht ate. She smiled still, her eyes soft as she studied the hungry Kern, but had regained her usual composure.
“When do we leave?”
Bracht washed down a mouthful of biscuit with a long swallow of wine and said, “Likely they’ll insist on feasting us when they find me risen, and to refuse that would be an insult . . . Tomorrow, then?”
“Each day sets leagues between us and Rhythamun,” Katya returned, “and I doubt the ghost-talkers can stop him.”
“Calandryll spoke of this, and I agree.” Bracht nodded. “But still, to go now would be a slur on Lykard honor. And a day may be enough that the ghost-talkers locate him.”
“How?” asked Calandryll, intrigued.
“They speak, one with another, over many leagues.” Bracht shrugged, as if this were a thing so commonplace it begged no questioning. “How, I know not; only that they do.”
“So they may advise us where he is,” murmured Katya. “But not halt him or slay him, you think.”
“They may try,” said Bracht, “but I do not think they’ll have much success.”
“And think you we shall?” Calandryll wondered.
Bracht chuckled, shrugging. “It seems we are chosen for that task,” he said, “and we’ve come too far to let doubt assail us now. We go on—and what comes, comes.”
“Aye.” Calandryll smiled back: the Kern’s enthusiasm was infectious.
BRACHT’S surmise that his awakening would be greeted with a celebratory feast proved correct. The sun was not much higher above the horizon before the camp began to rise and the ghost-talkers came to inquire as to his condition. Finding him awake, healed, and in excellent spirits, they sang Ahrd’s praises and declared a banquet must be held later that day. So awestruck were they, it was an afterthought to examine Katya’s wounds, and only Bracht’s earnest intervention—weighted by his newfound status—reminded them of the need to send on word concerning Daven Tyras. That, they promised to do, but more immediately they insisted Bracht present himself to all the gathered ni Larrhyn.
A shaman to either side, Katya and Calandryll in attendance behind, he was brought to the warrior elected in Jehenne’s place. Dachan ni Larrhyn hailed him as an illustrious guest, embracing him and promising whatever aid he might require before summoning an honor guard that paraded him ceremoniously through the camp. Warriors—male and female—who short days before would have slain him on sight came out to greet him; mothers brought children for him to touch, as though that contact would somehow confer, in surrogate, Ahrd’s blessing; folk with wounds long past all hope of healing asked that he touch their disfigurements. Bracht played his part well, beaming hugely at the crowd, as if they had never been enemies, clasping hands, holding giggling children aloft, and Calandryl
l found himself reminded of those victory parades about which he had read, long ago, in Secca, when some conquering general paraded the streets, a servant in the chariot at his back, whispering the reminder that the victor was mortal, lest pride overtake him.
Such reminder was not necessary in Bracht’s case, for when his parading was finally done and he was allowed to return to the wagon, he flung himself down, declaring gruffly that such pomp left him weary and he needed wine and quiet, adding the promise that they should depart on the morrow, before their quest was mired in clan hospitality.
First, though, there was the feast, and before that, news from the ghost-talkers.
They came almost humbly, as the afternoon lengthened toward evening and the cookfires filled the air with the odors of roasting meat. Bracht sat with Katya and Calandryll on the steps of the wagon, trying hard to ignore the awe-filled stares of the children who watched them from a distance, not quite daring to draw close to so prestigious a figure, but intent on observing him—and, he pointed out, with great amusement, to Katya, the soon-legendary warrior woman from the north who had defeated Jehenne ni Larrhyn in single combat.
The ghost-talkers—Morrach and Nevyn were their names, the three had learned—bowed, waiting at the ladder’s foot. Bracht welcomed them courteously and beckoned them inside, offering them wine, which they took with murmured thanks, gradually relaxing as the Kern evinced no signs of abnormality or pride, but only those of a human warrior eager for the news they brought.
“The warlock who calls himself Daven Tyras skirts the Cuan na’Dru,” Morrach said.
“Likely afraid to chance Ahrd’s wrath,” added Nevyn, prompting Calandryll to wonder if they always spoke in unison, the one completing the other’s sentence as though mind and voice were shared between them.
