Black River

by Peter Fugazzotto

  "He will come and we will know his anger."

  "The sky is blue."

  "We will suffer."

  "Can you not feel the warmth of the sun on your skin? I can see far into the distances. I didn't realize how trapped we were within his mists."

  She could not finish her thoughts. A hand clamped around her mouth and another around her waist and she was being dragged back through the swamp, her heels digging furrows into the mud. Dirty water rushed in to fill the space.

  Her nails scraped blue woad and blood beneath them. Then they were in the mists, surrounded, shivering in the cold, the sun suggested only by where the mists thinned but its shape was lost.

  After a while she gave up struggling and let herself be dragged. She pried at his hand, but he would not release his grip from across her mouth. His breath was ragged, almost mournful.

  Then she was on the icy stone floor of the tower.

  Fennewyn, scraggly-bearded, bald head shiny, draped in sodden furs, sat wide-legged on a bench. A bowl of steaming soup sat in both his hands, just below his chin.

  "Gyrn, we will be alone now."

  Birgid let her head droop. She was exhausted from the effort it had taken to call forth the words and from her futile struggle with a man so much stronger than herself. She had been defeated, her plans thwarted, her chance of escape slipping away like sand through her fingers and it was this defeat that drained her more than anything else.

  "I want to return to Eliode," she said.

  "We have work still undone. Empire has had a taste and now like an enraged animal will come to us. It will not take long to do what we need to do. I think three legions will be enough for them to give up the North, to retreat well back away from the Black River. We have much work to do to save the North. We need to rest."

  "I don't want to do this anymore. I want to go home, Fennewyn. What we are doing is wrong."

  "And what they did to Fionn was some how right, something that is acceptable, something that does not need to be accounted for?"

  She remembered coming to the campsite, days late, when word trickled back to Lake's End. She rode wildly without stopping for a night and a day arriving an hour or so before the sun was to set. So many Northmen. She had staggered among the corpses and crows, tears filling her eyes. Where was her son? His body had been dragged down to the mud of the river, his armor and sword stripped from his body. As she stood over it in the stench of decay and death, she recalled when she washed him as a baby, his soft pink skin in the hot water, the smell of him, innocent and at the beginning of life, still a part of her, never not a part of her. His head she found on a stake high on a hill. He had no eyes. That night, as the flames surged around his remains, as the wood crackled and sent smoke billowing up to the stars, she swore that she would get revenge on Dhurma. She swore that Fionn would not have died in vain.

  But now, with Fennewyn, she wavered.

  The souls of those who she had held back from the underworld lingered, like a foul taste in her mouth, a filmy sourness that she could not clear.

  She needed to escape.

  PARENTS

  VINCIUS WISHED THAT he rode with different men but he knew that he had little choice and that he would simply have to make the best of what fate had dealt him.

  It was a motley bunch to say the least: the commander who had led his men into an ambush and then barely escaped being killed by an angry village; a Northern gang leader who was as ready to trample upon his own people as any others; a scraggly sergeant who had already failed in battle; and a dirty boy who was a hostage.

  This was not the elite force that Vincius imagined he would be riding with to storm the tower of the warlock, defeat whatever troops might be there, and then fight through the dark magic. He still fumed at the desertion of Shield and the few remaining Hounds, because he knew they were men who had defeated dark magic. He needed their experience.

  All this, and a growing soreness from hours on an uncomfortable saddle, made Vincius short tempered.

  "Now would be a proper time for us to rest our horses and cook ourselves a meal," said Vincius.

  "We keep riding," said Urbidis.

  "That is what you said more than an hour ago. And that is unacceptable."

  "What I say is the final word."

  Vincius pulled his horse to a stop, one hand immediately stretching out for the mane so he would not tumble from the horse as he had already done twice during the day. The horse's ears pinned and it shook its head slowly from side to side, its hooves digging hard into ground. He could not fall again. The others, even the boy, would look at him with more contempt.

  The terrain had changed over the day. They had left the craggy hills and steep ravines to enter a thick forest. Led by Spear, they followed a narrow trail. It was overgrown and the way was difficult but it was their only option. To skirt around the forest would mean another two days lost.

  Early on Spear had shown them signs of the passage of a small band of Northern riders. Vincius knew they were on the trail of the warlock. He just wondered how close. He hoped to catch them before they reached the keep but right now Vincius just wanted to rest.

  "I am not under your command, Urbidis. I am a man of the Grand Collegium and I answer to none but the Master Chronicler in the mission that I have set out to achieve. I will rest right here."

  "A man?" snickered Spear.

  "I'm ready to get off this beast as well," said Pullo. The sergeant scratched at the growth on his jowls.

  "Enough. I give in," said Urbidis. "We'll find a spot off the trail."

  "We won't be hidden," said Spear. "They'll be able to read our tracks."

  "I'm not looking to hide us, just to move us so we won't be surprised."

  "We will never get to the tower at this pace," said Spear.

  "If we fall off our horses, we won't make it either," said Vincius.

  "Is your saddlebag brimming with food? If we run out of food, we die. We need to keep pushing."

  "You could shoot a deer or a squirrel out a tree."

  The Northman laughed. "Do you know how much time it takes to hunt game or gather mushrooms?"

  "While we rest, you can hunt."

  "You're an idiot, boy. An idiot. Go ahead, rest, take your time, eat as much as you want. But just remember when we are clear of the forest and deep in the swamps and you haven't eaten for days, don't be looking at me to hunt you down a deer."

  Urbidis pointed up the side of the trail. "We'll settle at the top of this knoll. Spear, you go ahead some on the trail, make sure no one is doubling back. See if you can find some sign of the warlock."

  The Northman shook his head and then rode until he was lost among the black trunks.

  "We need to watch him," said Vincius. "I don't trust him."

  "Not sure that he trusts you either," said the commander.

  Vincius and the others plodded up to the knoll, tying their horses near a patch of tall forest grasses. The boy set to work quickly getting a small fire going and they put a bird that Spear had captured earlier to a spit.

  The Apprentice Chronicler took the water skins and filled them in a creek on the other side of the knoll. The forest was dark and of unimaginable depth. He could not help but feel that creatures hidden in the shadows watched him with hungry eyes.

  When he came back, Pullo was breaking hard tack out from his bags and passing it around.

  "Last of it. Forest always has been a strange place to me," said Pullo. "Much more at home on the sea."

  "The sea?" asked the village boy.

  "I come from an island, boy. None of this endless tramping around on horses. Sure, we've got some donkeys and carts to get loads of fish or vegetables up along the sides of the volcanoes, but mostly we move around by boat or on foot."

  "Volcanoes?"

  Pullo laughed. "You'd think we came from entirely different worlds."

  "Well, we do," said Vincius. "This land is a bitter cold hell."

  "Oh, come now, country man,
there is much in common. Women, drink, the Vas Dhurman Empire."

  "Soldier..." said Urbidis.

  "One thing is the same here though. The dark magic."

  "What is there in Xichil?" asked Urbidis. "I've heard little of warlocks and witches from there."

  "Vincius here can tell you as well as I can," said Pullo. "We've got our witches and warlocks all right. They just aren't the same as your witches and warlocks and not like these hermits up here in the North. That much I can say. You tell him, Vincius. You're much more learned."

  "I'd rather not. Just tell your tale."

  "Oh, come now. You're the one with more experience with warlocks and witches. You tell them."

  Vincius leapt to his feet, fists clenched. "What are you saying? You dare question my loyalty to Vas Dhurma."

  Pullo raised his palms and leaned back. "Whoa, whoa, little brother. What'd I say?"

  The Apprentice Chronicler's face heated from the eyes on him. Did they know? Had word some how gotten out about his past? "Despite what they were, I am faithful to Vas Dhurma and the Grand Collegium."

  "Who, boy, who are you talking about?"

  "My parents, you fools. They were priests of the Temple."

  "Your parents priests?" asked Pullo.

  "Of dark magic?" asked Urbidis.

  "I was a child of the Temple. Raised within the walls of one of the minor temples on the southern side of the volcano. My parents tended to the people, their words healing coughs, mending broken legs, returning water to wells. At first they did nothing wrong.

  "At a certain point, everything changed. I remember the other priests coming, the meetings deep within the temple, the talk of Vas Dhurma and the threat. They said that the Emperor's troops had crossed the straits, that they occupied the cities and that he was coming for them. The temples were being burned.

  "I did not know what it meant. I was a child. But soon after that, everything changed.

  "An old Dhurman showed up one blistering morning at our village. He was a long beard, held up by a withered staff. Word spread through the village that he was a Chronicler come to clean the world. He was asking for the warlocks and witches to surrender to Dhurma, to ask for the forgiveness of the compassionate Emperor. My parents argued about him, their voices echoing in the halls of the temple, my father's words loudest of all. 'A price must be paid in blood,' he had said.

  "My mother lured the Dhurman into the temple. He was old, bones beneath robes. I saw what they did. She led him close to the well and then my father hit him over the head with a stone block and together they dropped him into the well. An innocent man. I saw them covered in blood, the blood of an innocent.

  "After that, my parents fled the temple and, dressed as merchants, we moved to the port town of Messia. We moved into a small house in the crowded streets and I was told to never mention to anyone the time we had spent in the temple. I was told that great evil had come to Xichil, but I had begun to see that it already existed.

  "If my parents would have let go of their dark magic, everything might have been different. But they did not. They secretly saw people to heal their illnesses, to bless their seed, to talk of the old ways and of the need to stand up to Dhurma. More than once I heard the whispers of poisoned blades, plague in the food of the soldiers, how my father has raised a man of mud and killed another Chronicler.

  "Dhurma had a firm foothold in Messia by then. I was ordered, as all children in Messia were, to Dhurman teachers and from them I learned about the world and what dark magic brought. I heard about the great plagues brought by the warlocks, the mud men formed by the songs of witches, and how magicians tried to wither the leg of the Emperor. I learned about an evil that I had already seen. I heard the dream of a new world, of where all the people were united under one flag, of where the old bonds that held people down would be shattered."

  "Ha, I remember all those stories, too," said Pullo. "The Dhurman teachers were clever, weren't they?"

  "No. They were right," said Vincius. "In order for the new to come about, the old has to be destroyed."

  "Old wasn't so bad. The Temple did all right by us. I saw my cousin's leg healed. She would have lost that leg. The priests handed out grains when the crops withered. They looked after us."

  "No, they lorded over us. Who controlled all the trade in fish? Did not everything have to go through their markets? Who lived in a temple of gold? They acted as if they helped the people but they crushed them. Were we ever a free people under the Temple?"

  "You really bought that line from the Dhurmans, didn't you?"

  "It was the truth. How can a man and woman kill another in cold blood?" Vincius wiped the sweat from his brow. He sucked at a water skin. His mouth was parched with the tumble of words pouring from his mouth. "They called for us to expose the witches and warlocks. They promised us that those who turned from their ways would be saved. I begged my parents to turn themselves in. This was a chance for them to be saved for all the evil that they had committed."

  "You didn't turn them in, did you?" Pullo was shaking his head. "You didn't do that to your parents?"

  "When I told my parents that either they would have to turn themselves in or I would do it, my father beat me to where I could barely see or breathe. So close to death. They locked me in my room giving me no food or water for days on end. So close. They said that I had betrayed our people. I heard their voices through the thin walls.

  "One morning, I heard the voice of my Dhurman teacher. He was at the door downstairs, wondering where I was. My mother cried. She said I had died. I had caught a plague and passed in the night. And after my teacher had left, I overheard them saying that I was to be sent back to the southern side of the island, to be dealt with there. My father said that I was as good as dead to him, that I was no better than the Chroniclers.

  "That night they drank too much wine, mourning, celebrating. I don't know which, but I managed to escape the room in which they had locked me. I saw them in their bed, limbs dangling towards the floor, these two that I had loved and who now sought to kill me. So I tied their door shut, went to the bottom floor and shoveled the hot embers from the fire against the walls of the building."

  "You killed them?" Pullo's face whitened, his lower lip trembling.

  "They were the first warlock and witch that I rid from this world."

  Pullo and Urbidis simply stared. They had nothing to say. No words came to them.

  A rider broke through the brush at the bottom of the knoll. It was Spear. A fine coating of mist glistened like diamonds on his furs.

  "An encampment ahead. More than a hundred Northmen. Scattered clans. The warlock might be there. Might have also passed through. We'll need to find out."

  Vincius wanted to say something, to commend the Northman for his scouting, to lay out a plan of action but the words were caught in his throat, caught like thorns.

  ELIODE

  HARAD FELT THE eyes on him.

  "Like riding into the den of an enemy," said Patch.

  "They just don't recognize us yet," said Harad, keeping his horse steady beneath him. It sensed his nervousness as they rode into Lake's End.

  Women stood close to their roundhouses, baskets on hips, children tangled in their skirts. Men clumped together, spears and shields in hand.

  Lake's End had grown in the time since the Hounds had left. The willow fence consumed more of the great field, and the roundhouses crowded each other, as if the inhabitants were penned in.

  "How can they not welcome us home?" asked Harad.

  Then the whispers started.

  "They're cursing us," said Patch.

  Harad turned to his companion, expecting to see his fist around his sword, but instead the man looked wilted upon his horse, a few tears pulsing in a stream down his cheek from his good eye.

  "We will set things straight," said Harad. "They will know of our bravery. The Hounds will not be forgotten."

  "I don't think we are forgotten. I think we're remembered and h
ated."

  The spite in the eyes of the villagers was apparent and Harad was suddenly light-headed, overwhelmed with the feeling that the crowd was going to surge, sweep over the riders like a torrent of water. But that did not happen. The people, his clan, stared at the Hounds as if they were unwelcome strangers.

  An old crone, bent beneath the weight of greasy furs, broke from the wall of villagers. She shuffled forward, propelling herself along with a bent staff of cedar. Her hair was wet and stringy, her eyes rheumy, the skin liquid from her bones.

  Harad knew her. She was Sword's mother. Or she had been. Now she was a dead woman walking, as if all life had been drained out of her. She was not that old. She was a generation above Harad himself. She should have been gray and wrinkled, but not as much as she was. Time had taken her apart.

  She swiped at Shield's horse with her stick, missing wildly and pitching to her hands and knees. Villagers rushed to her side and helped her to stand, but before they could drag her away, she spit on Shield. "I curse you, Shield Scyldmund. I curse you for what you did to my son."

  Shield laughed loud. "Too late for that. I wear curses like armor. And your son, he was a bastard and a bully who raped daughters of the North. I'd kill him again."

  The old crone collapsed to the ground and the Hounds rode on.

  "Did you have to say that?" asked Patch. "Bad enough as it is."

  "Should we fill them with only the lies that they want to hear?"

  The young warriors stopped in front of one of the roundhouses and signaled to the entrance. "Eliode is in there."

  Harad stared at the human skulls hanging around the door frame. Bitter herbs brewed inside. Smoke rose from a hole in the thatched roof. It was the den of a witch. This far north the clans did not hide the witches.

  The Hounds dismounted, handed their reins to the other riders and then ducked into the small roundhouse.