Last King of Osten Ard 02 - Empire of Grass

by Tad Williams

  “What . . . ?” He barely finished the word before he saw white shapes running at them from all directions, bursting out of the forest and from behind ruined walls, moving with the terrifying, silent speed of phantoms. He began to struggle, but the vines were thick and heavy.

  “Morgan, do not fight!” Tanahaya said sharply. There was a tone of uncertainty in her voice as well as something he hadn’t heard before, and it scared him badly. “We cannot escape. Do not tempt them to kill us.”

  * * *

  Vaqana was off hunting, and Sisqi’s ram was cropping sedge at the edge of the clearing. Binabik had taken off his jacket and thin shirt to enjoy the warm night, and now patted his bulging stomach fondly. “We have had many hardships on this journey,” he said, “but at least you must admit that the birds of this part of the forest are toothsome in the extreme. That grouse—wonderful!”

  Sisqi would not smile. “They seem a little dry to me—none of the lovely oil of a ptarmigan. Perhaps because you have spent more time in these southern lands you have developed a fondness for them.”

  He laughed. “You are a terrible liar, my beloved. I know how much you look forward each year to Blue Mud Lake and the birds and other delicacies there. ‘Lovely oil’, indeed. Do I not remember you saying that ptarmigan tasted like an old snowshoe?”

  She poked at the fire. “Perhaps. Once, long ago. But do not think you will so easily cheer me out of my worry for our daughter.”

  His face grew more serious. “That was not my intent. I fear for them too. But our Qina is the cleverest young person I know, and even Snenneq—though he has a few awkward qualities—is a resourceful young man. They are on their nuptial walk, after all—it is only fitting that they do some of it on their own.”

  “Nowhere in the words of the ancestors is it said that a nuptial walk should be taken in a place where enemies will try to murder you.” She poked the fire harder, so that the flames sprang up and for a moment bathed the ceiling of trees with yellow light.

  “I did not mean that,” he said. “And there are few places any of the Yiqanuc can go, in our own mountains or here in these lands, where someone or something will not try to harm us.”

  “I know, husband.”

  “It is so warm,” he said after a while. “Why do you not take off your jacket so that you can be more comfortable? Summer is gone. Soon the cold will come again, and you have been complaining of the heat since we left Rimmersgard.”

  “I do not like the warmth of these southern lands,” she admitted. “And I do not like sweltering in these heavy clothes. But I like the bites of midges even less. They are worse here than at Blue Mud Lake, I swear! Why do you think I keep poking the fire? The smoke helps to keep them away. At least a little bit.”

  Binabik nodded. “Then perhaps a distraction is in order. Come, lie with me and we will rub faces. After that, we can see what happens.”

  Sisqi gave him a look. “With me full of worry about my only child, and these bloodthirsty creatures hovering all around us? No, my husband, we will not be shaking the tent tonight.”

  “May I point out that we have no tent?” He patted the blanket. “Only the trees and sky for a roof. Our children are not here. We are alone.”

  “You know what I meant,” she said. “I am not in the mood for lovemaking, in any case. Perhaps later, if we find a place where the swarms of midges are not thicker than the smoke of our fire.”

  Binabik swatted at something on his chest, lifted it on his finger to examine it, and seemed about to comment on its size and fierceness before reconsidering. “Ah, well,” he said instead. “If you are certain, my dear one. I have had to travel without you enough that I have learned to live with loneliness.”

  She gave him another look, this one even more sour than the first. “Such foolishness did not work on me even when I was young, Binbinaqegabenik of Mintahoq.”

  “It must have worked a little,” he said. “Because we married and made a child.”

  She almost smiled. “Here is something to consider,” she said after a moment. “Instead of sitting on our blanket, let us roll ourselves in it as protection from these biting things. Then, when we are forced into such close proximity—well, perhaps we will see what happens, as you said.”

  “An excellent idea,” he said, grinning. “Poke that fire again. Fill the woods with smoke until the midges all flee. Then we will begin this plan of yours.”

  “You do love to talk, my husband,” she said as she rose and shook out the bearskin blanket. “Most of it is foolish, but at least you make me laugh.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Morning found them climbing a series of hills. Binabik was not riding Vaqana because he was looking closely for signs of other travelers, but he kept the wolf close by. Twice since they had left the younger Qanuc and turned southward they had almost stumbled into Norn soldiers. Only Vaqana’s sense of smell had warned them early enough for them to hide.

  “It concerns me,” Binabik said now, breaking a long silence. “It makes no sense to me. Why would the Norns come so far from their home—and for what? Do they seek to destroy the Sithi? But after such a terrible defeat in the Storm King’s War, how could they be strong enough?”

  “Perhaps as you said before, they are on their way somewhere else.” Sisqi guided her ram Ooki around a cluster of low-hanging branches. Her mount was almost tireless, but did not always pay attention to the rider’s well-being.

  “That was when I thought there were but a few of them,” he said. Vaqana paused, shaggy white head erect, and Binabik stopped too. Sisqi pulled back on her ram’s harness and together they waited silently until Vaqana trotted forward once more. “Now I wonder,” Binabik said, but more quietly than before, “whether something else is not underway, some grand design of the Norn Queen’s—especially this Witchwood Crown, which we still do not understand. Is it a thing, a weapon, a treasure? Is it a plan?”

  They were nearing the crest of the hill. “I smell water,” Sisqi said.

  “Yes, I do too. That means we are close to Geloë’s lake now.”

  Sisqi made an unhappy face. “Lakes mean midges. And flies. And only the ancestors know what other kind of biting thing.”

  “As long as there are no Norns, I will be content, my beloved. Besides, if her hut still stands perhaps we can shelter in it tonight. That will be an answer to those midges.”

  Once upon the hilltop they made their way through a crowning stand of birches and emerged at last where they could finally see for a distance in front of them. They stood atop one of a ring of tree-blanketed hills that surrounded a dark green bowl of a valley with a mirror-flat lake at its bottom. A bittern lifted its honking call, then the valley fell silent once more.

  “Geloë’s house was there,” Binabik said, pointing. “There along the water’s edge.”

  “I don’t see any house.”

  “We cannot see it from here. It is behind those trees. But we will reach it long before the sun sets.” He stood, listening. “Quiet—this was always a quiet place. But the Norns are a very quiet race, especially when they make war, so let us stay vigilant.”

  Sisqi nodded. “No fear that I will be anything else. I have never much trusted these lands, and the White Foxes terrify me.”

  They followed a dry streambed down the hill, then Binabik led them crosswise along the slope into a thick grove of alders. When the trees finally fell away it was because they had stepped out onto the edge of a muddy shore. The trunks of other trees, long dead, loomed from the water like crippled beggars washing their limbs in a holy fountain.

  “I fear I have made a mistake,” said Binabik, looking around. “I would have wagered my best knucklebones that this was the spot where Geloë’s hut stood, but look! Not a board, not a stick. I do not understand. Wait for me.” Despite Sisqi’s protests, he took off his boots and waded out into the lake u
ntil it almost reached his waist, then moved along the shore until he had disappeared from her view behind a drooping line of silvery willows. A little while later he emerged again and sloshed his way back to shore.

  “It can be nowhere else. This was the spot, but everything is gone. How could that be? Even after all this time there would be some sign, surely, but look—nothing.”

  “I am sorry we will have no door to shut against the insects,” said Sisqi, “but I do not know why you were so anxious to find it, anyway. Geloë herself has been dead for a very long time. What could be so interesting about her empty hut?”

  “Likely nothing after all the years it would have been deserted. But she was uncommonly wise, and I had hoped—only a little, it is true—that there might be some of her books left, anything that might help to explain the Witchwood Crown, or at least shed some light on what the queen of the Norns might be planning.” He frowned and poked at the ground with his walking stick. Somewhere nearby Vaqana was crashing through the undergrowth in pursuit of some small, unhappy animal.

  “A long throw, it seems to me,” she said. “Did you really think there would be anything of use left after all this time?”

  “I should have come years ago,” Binabik conceded. “Geloë was never like anyone else. Part Tinukeda’ya, some claimed. I do not know if that is true, but she had rare gifts and I hoped for a stroke of fortune.” He sighed. “I suppose we should make camp. I do not like to make a fire so close to the edge of the lake, where anyone on the other side could see us—”

  “What is that?” asked Sisqi. “Out there in the middle of the lake?”

  Binabik squinted. “I do not have such sharp eyes as you, my beloved. What is it?”

  “There, look—do you really not see it? I thought at first it was a log, but it has a more regular shape, like the roof of a cabin or hut—just the angled top, sticking up above the surface of the lake. Could that be Geloë’s hut, all the way out there? Could it have fallen into the lake and drifted out there?”

  Binabik looked out across the dark waters for no little time. “I think I see it. You may be right.”

  “But I have never heard of such a thing,” Sisqi said. “How could her hut have ended in the middle of the lake? What could have swept it there without destroying it?”

  “It is another puzzle.” It seemed for a moment like he might say more, and Sisqi watched him closely. “Much that has to do with Valada Geloë we will likely never know,” he told her at last. “But I confess it makes me uneasy, although I could not easily say why. Let us find a more sheltered place to make our fire, then tomorrow we will leave this place and its mysteries behind. After all, our destination is still far, far away and the days rush on toward winter.”

  * * *

  In the first moment, as the net fell on them, Tanahaya thought they had been caught by the Hikeda’ya and a cold fear seized her. But as she struggled without success to loose herself, she recognized the weave of the vines and a different kind of fear took its place.

  Who could have guessed so many of the Pure are still here, she thought. “Brothers and sisters,” she cried. “What are you doing? I am one of your kin!”

  But the white-clad figures did not respond. The net was pulled around her and the mortal prince and more coils of rope were looped over it and then yanked tight. Something struck at her legs, not hard enough to cripple her, but hard enough to sting, until she understood what was wanted and struggled back to her feet.

  “Get up, Morgan,” she said in Westerling. “Do not resist them. Let me do what I must.”

  “Who are they? What’s going on?”

  Something struck him. She could not see, but she heard the blow and then heard him groan.

  “Leave him be,” she said loudly in her native tongue. “He is no enemy. Punish me if you must—I brought him here.” Her captors still did not respond; when the boy had clambered awkwardly to his feet they were both forced to march across the Place of Voices. Each stumble by Morgan was rewarded with a retaliatory strike from one of the long, flexible rods the Pure carried, rune-scribed branches of hardened willow. Tanahaya protested each time they struck him, but many of their captors also carried swords, so she did not fight back.

  The prisoners were goaded down a long, crumbling flight of stairs into darkness, their captors poking and prodding so that even Tanahaya found it hard to keep her balance. She kept one hand tightly clutching Morgan’s shirt, helping him stay on his feet. She was stunned by the savagery she was being shown by her own people.

  At last she and Morgan, still wrapped in the net, were led out into a wider space, polished stone beneath their feet and lights sparkling here and there, dim as the last stars at dawn. They were forced to the ground, then in a matter of a few heartbeats the ropes were loosened and the net roughly pulled away.

  What had been the open peak of the circular room’s wide ceiling was covered with a densely woven mat of sticks and branches so that very little light could enter, but she knew the place now, and the empty plinth at the center left her with no doubt. They were in Da’ai Chikiza’s Dawnstone Chamber, surrounded by armed, white-clad figures. Most wore horizontal stripes of gray paint or ash across their faces, but their golden skin and eyes proved they were all Zida’ya like herself. Beside the plinth stood a tall female Sitha with the ageless, weathered features of someone who had lived a very long time.

  “Mistress Vinyedu,” she said to the imposing figure. “I am Tanahaya of Shisae’ron.”

  “I know who you are.” Vinyedu stared at her with obvious distaste. “You are Himano’s acolyte and thus at least as much of a fool as he is. What I do not know is what you are doing here, or what madness has seized you that you should bring a mortal to Da’ai Chikiza, of all places.”

  “The mortal is innocent. I brought him—”

  “No mortals are innocent,” said Vinyedu with cold certainty. “Mortals killed Nenais’u, the Nightingale’s daughter. Mortals killed Amerasu Ship-Born. Saying that you brought this one here does not excuse the mortal—it only makes you his accomplice.”

  40

  The Blood of Her Enemies

  Nezeru had heard tales of Oldheart all her short life. She had often wondered if one day she might see the Mother of Forests for herself, but she had never imagined that she would first encounter it as a fugitive, pursued by her own people. Still, even knowing that Sacrifice soldiers must be less than a day behind her, she could not help reining up when she first entered under the eaves of the great wood.

  So many kinds of trees! The forests she knew around the great mountain Nakkiga were composed almost entirely of pines, firs, and a few hardy birches. They reminded her of the Hikeda’ya themselves, slender, pale survivors that thrived where others would perish. Here on the northern edge of the great forest there were also evergreens, but they were far from alone: oaks, beeches, hornbeams, lindens, and countless others she could not recognize crowded as thickly as slaves in a barn, and a thousand other green things grew beneath them. Birds sang everywhere, fluting, whistling, chirping, so different than the forests of her home, in which the only birdcall to be heard was the harsh rasping of crows. She found the scented air equally overwhelming, perfumed by so many kinds of bark, by the sweet rot of fallen limbs turning slowly into earth, the tang of moss and fungus, even the warm fragrance of the earth itself as it digested all that fell and renewed it—soil so alive and so full of change that it made her light-headed.

  As Nezeru rode her pilfered horse deeper into the trees, with the first moonlight striking through the tangled branches like long, silver spears, it was hard to keep her mind on the enemies that followed her. She wondered if the magnificence of the forest would catch them too. Surely even the most hardened Sacrifice would slow in stunned amazement as she had when faced by this onslaught of life.

  But Nezeru could not count on that. Many of her pursuers were not crippled as she was b
y mortal blood. They had not lived for half a year in the confusion she had experienced, where all that she thought right seemed suspect, where those that should have been her dire enemies spared her life when they could easily have taken it.

  She cursed silently to herself and ducked her head. Thinking of Jarnulf again, she had almost run into a low hanging branch. Why could she not shed herself of that treacherous creature even in the privacy of her own thought?

  She discovered that her hand had drifted down to Cold Root’s hilt, as if Jarnulf had appeared before her in the forest. If the Garden was good to her, she promised herself, one day she would have a reckoning with the so-called Queen’s Huntsman. And before he died she would make him tell her why he had cursed her this way, wring an explanation from him before relishing his dying breath. She would not be haunted forever by the madness of one mortal.

  * * *

  • • •

  As she rode deeper into the wood Nezeru could see the spoor of many different animals, deer, foxes, even the broad, deep hoofprints of something bigger than her horse, perhaps a bison. But either the animals were avoiding her or something else had come through this part of the forest recently and frightened them off. The reason mattered little, though. What mattered was her hunger. She had finished off the last of her food four days earlier, and had gone nearly twice that many days without sleep or even rest, which made it harder to ignore hunger’s ache. It would do her no good to race on ahead of her pursuers only to fall from her saddle in a swoon of starvation.

  She had been taught to feed herself from the land around her, and these fertile green halls carpeted in fallen leaves and branches should have made it easy; her failure to catch even a squirrel made her wonder whether she had lost more than simply her place in the Order of Sacrifice. It almost seemed she had lost her Hikeda’ya skill and strength as well, that she could only wander the forest like one of the hapless mortals who could not live without a roof above them and a fire to warm them, who had to live off food they had gathered and put away during the warm months. The thought infuriated her, but by the end of her first full day in Aldheorte it had become as impossible to ignore as her bitter hatred of Jarnulf.