All was oddly silent for a moment. Breath knocked out of both of us, the mare and me. Then I got up, lash of pride stung me up, for I would not have Kor helping me again, and I knew he would be at my side in a moment—and in fact he was by me as I stood. I said nothing, but went to the mare and took the loose end of the leather rope down her forehead, through her mouth and around the soft part of her nose. She was starting to stir.
“Talu,” I told her, “up.” And she scrambled to her feet. I felt a secret relief that she did not seem to be hurt. She squealed and slashed at me, and I pulled the rope tight around her nose. Narrowing her eyes with pain, she stood still. The fray was over.
For the first time I became aware that there were people everywhere, watching from the lodges, from the mountain cliffs, from the safety of the trees. Korridun’s people. For the first time also I became aware that the day was more than half spent. The sun was slipping toward the ocean, westward—or rather, the white spot in the haze that should have been the sun. I blinked to clear my eyes of weariness.
“I have sent someone back for a blanket for her,” Korridun said.
“What?” I mumbled, trying to jest. “You sent? You did not run after it yourself?”
“I will put it on her myself,” he said, “if you will hold her. Can you?”
I nodded groggily, hardly realizing at the time that he was risking his life for the sake of my private battle, thinking only, Folk of the Fanged Horse tribe do not blanket their horses, they think of them no more than they do of their slaves, but we of the Red Hart do not so lightly let our ponies die.
I said, “Take the water out of her pen also, or she will kill herself with drinking.”
It was in a heavy wooden trough, and he heaved it over himself. Then Birc brought the blanket. Kor took it and laid it over the mare’s back, tying the comers of it in front of her chest. I came to my senses enough to watch her narrowly. “Talu,” I warned her, “don’t move.” She stood with her ears flattened to her neck and her teeth bared, but she stood still. Then I led her into the pen, borrowed Kor’s knife, and cut the line, leaving the headstall on her with a short end dangling. I backed away from her, holding my whip at the ready, but she was intent on working the loop loose from around her mouth and nose, and she did not attack me.
Kor set his men to work closing off the entry. They were doing a makeshift job of it, I noticed, but I was too tired to care. The mare was in no condition to break down the bars, I hoped.
“She’s had exercise enough to calm her, I think,” Kor said dryly, echoing my thoughts. He had got my cloak from somewhere, and he put it around my sweaty shoulders, and his arm over it, half leading me down the headland toward Seal Hold. “We must tend those wounds of yours.”
I shook my head in vexation, throwing off his guiding hand. “Scratches!” And I went at once to my chamber, too weary to eat. He dressed the wounds anyway, blast him, but I did not know it at the time. I was deeply asleep, and I slept the day and the night away.
The next morning when I came to the room with the hearth, Istas spat at me. The others avoided me, though they did not flee. I scowled and told myself that I cared only for the food. Indeed I was ravenous, and I ate heartily.
Kor walked in with his willow basket, back from giving Talu her fish. “Is the mare lame this morning?” I asked him.
“No whit. She is in fine fettle, and far quieter than before.” He sat beside me. “And you? Are you stiff?”
I only shrugged by way of answer, for we of the Red Hart were not much in the custom of cosseting ourselves. I had been stiff and sore, more or less, since I had come to him, from the smoky weather, the chill and dampness, and—though I would not think it—from whatever had happened—before, days I could not remember.
“Will you try the mare again today?”
“Later.”
We talked for a while about Talu. Then he went off somewhere and I wandered outside. It was a fine morning, less wet than most. Tide was high. Half-grown children were fishing with dip nets made of nettle fiber. Korridun’s twelve, his personal retinue of warriors, was assembling on the flat of the rock for some weaponswork. I had watched them during the days of my vigil, and I sat to watch them again. They were only nine instead of the traditional twelve, and they were all youths and men instead of being half women as was the Red Hart custom. But they fought well.
Stone knives drawn, they paired off for mock combat, leaving one standing by himself. Without much thinking about it, rather as if by instinct, I got up and went over to join them.
“I will stand the odd one a bout,” I offered.
All came to a sudden standstill, though what I had said was not so extraordinary. They crouched and stared at me, silent and very taut, though not as if in fear, or not entirely, for they did not shrink away from me.
“Bout?” I proposed, speaking more slowly and simply, thinking that perhaps they had not understood me. “Your rules,” I added. Indeed, if they were at all afraid there was no reason for it. Such practice was only for agility and skill, and no one needed to be hurt. I did not see much fear in them. Their faces were like masks. Though I thought I saw a trace of something I had not expected: contempt.
We stood tense and silent for too long a time. I could not think what to do. They were not going to meet me or even reply to me, and I could not with much honor walk away.
“I will stand you a bout, if you like,” came a quiet voice from behind me.
I turned, knowing already who it was. Kor, of course. There he stood, straight-faced, swinging a bag coarsely woven of sea grass. Then he set it down and pulled out of it a couple of small leather shields, offering one to me.
I put it on without a word. It galled me to once again accept his help, but I had no choice. To refuse his friendly challenge would have been discourtesy.
“Do you use a skullcap?”
“No.”
“No more do I.” He reached into the bag again. “I have your weapon here.”
A hubbub went up from the men standing by. I glanced round at them in surprise, and when I looked back to Korridun he faced me with an immense, shining knife laid across his open palms.
Shock like a spearhead went through me, and a peculiar pain.… No one had ever seen such a knife. Hilt and blade, the weapon was made of something that was neither flint nor blackstone, wood nor horn nor shell—my small hairs prickle yet at the memory of that moment and that blade. Very smooth, very sharp, nearly as long as my arm, thrice as long as any knife of flint or obsidian could ever be! And shining the color of the sun. Wondrous, like a weapon in a dream. In the pommel glimmered a stone, a round stone as darkly yellow as upland poppies, more polished than any river pebble could ever be, with depths that seemed to glow.… It was not the strange stone that frightened me, but the blade, the long and shining blade, frightened me so that I staggered at the sight of it. I was terribly afraid of it, more frightened than made sense, and, what was worse, something in it called to me as if it knew me. A dark call, that, an eerie recognition. Yet I had no mindful memory of the weapon.
“My king, you have gone mad!” one of the men blurted. It was Birc.
“I think not.” Korridun came a step closer, offering me the great knife, and his eyes were intense, deep as the glowing stone. I felt my senses reeling, spinning away into blackness, and I blinked and shook my head to clear it.
“It is yours,” Kor said, taking my gesture for refusal.
“I—how can that be? I have never seen—”
“It is yours, or at least you brought it here with you. Take it.”
There was a hint of command in his voice, at once delighting and vexing me. I wished to defy him—but I needed worse to defy my own fear. I reached out, annoyed that my hand shook, and took the thing by its strange, smooth hilt. It would make a heavy, unwieldy weapon, I thought—and then I hefted it, and found to my terror that the balance was soaring, superb, the blade only aided by its own weight. I stood with the uncanny thing lifted t
oward the sky, and Korridun brought out of his bag a sham knife of similar length, a copy rudely hacked out of wood. So that was how he had spent some of his time, the days past.
“My king, you cannot!” It was Birc again, pleading, and other voices joined with his.
“Nonsense. I am in no danger. The rules of the match protect me.”
He knew better, of course, but that was his courage.
Kor squared off against me, touching his sham blade lightly to mine, which was sharp and real.
We fought. I fought at first as if he were made of eggshell, terrified of hurting him, feinting and parrying lightly with the great knife, feeling its deadly agility. Kor was hesitant at first with his wooden weapon, unaccustomed to the length of it. Then, with a glint of daring in his eyes, he deftly worked his way through my defenses and pricked me in the gut.
I struck his blade away angrily. Slighter than I though he was—and he was as strong as most men, and as tall—he was lithe, balanced, and controlled in a way that I never could be. His quick grace made me feel like an oaf. My only advantage lay in height, weight, and main strength, and almost in spite of myself I moved to use them, letting my blows be swift and heavy.
We were well matched. We circled, panting, seeking openings, parrying strokes, neither one able to force the other back. Around us the guardsmen, the twelve, formed the limits of an arena, and in a vague, questioning way I noticed how strained their faces were, how pale—
Korridun struck a skillful blow, sending me half a step backward. My curse on him, the king had the advantage of me—
The king.
Black, black, it was all black and drowning deep, and my enemy waited to kill me, and I surfaced gasping and shrieking with an eerie weapon in my hand, it broke his off at the hilt, he was helpless, mine to slay, sever his head, no, spill his innards, one slashing blow would fell him—
My—my enemy whom I loved—
I think I screamed, but I do not truly know, for I was out of my mind. Screams surged up inside me, for certain, and I faintly heard Kor shouting “Archer!” as if calling to me from a great distance, and then I came to myself somewhat, my face pressed against the rocky ground, gasping. Crumpled there, crouching like some hunted creature, and there was noise, clamor of voices, and Kor had his arm around my shoulders, trying to comfort or protect me—
“Archer, are you all right?”
I raised my head enough to look at him, to see—blood on his neck.
And I came up on my knees, hands to my head, and screamed—roared, rather, a cry that felt as if it would tear my throat out, and my heart with it. From a small distance came an answering shriek and the sound of splintering wood. Then the babbling crowd scattered as Talu came to get me.
Kor tried to hold me. But I flung him off, staggered to my feet and grasped the mare by the mane. I vaulted onto her back. A sickly trembling had overtaken me so that I scarcely had strength to ride. But ride I did, and at a dead run she took me up to the forest, through the dense spruce and along the mountain’s flank, away from the headland.
Chapter Five
At some distance from the village of the Seal Kindred, Talu took me down a steep, shelving rock face to an expanse of sandy beach. She chose the path, not I. Ravaged by my own strange passions as I was, I had not even reached for the single rein of braided seal gut trailing from her headstall. The blanket that still covered the mare had wadded up underneath me, giving me a ride far more comfortable than the one the day before, but even if it had been otherwise I think I would not have noticed. I wanted only to run, hide, flee from—something I could only feel, not remember. Talu took me at an easy lope along the strand, running head up and nose thrust forward through the spray and shallow seawater that washed at the wet sand. I dare say it was beautiful, but an easy lope to cover the distance was not enough for me then. I wanted her wild, crazed gallop again. I kicked her in the ribs.
She threw me.
Limp oaf that I was that day, she threw me with a single hard buck. I fell off seaward, landed on my butt in salt water and wet sand, amazed to find myself looking up at her instead of on her. She gave a snort of scorn, spun on her hocks, and left me there.
Getting up, I set off down the strand again, stumbling even on the hard-packed sand, I was so distraught. I had no thought as to where I was going, or why. I could only walk. After a while I came to more rocks. High islets of gray-green stone towered out of the sea, some with grotesque twisted spruces clinging to them, weirdly beautiful. Greenstones, I later learned they were called, or sea stacks. One mighty stone had an arch cut in it by the sea. Landward loomed more masses of rock, and as I came around the knees of them, picking my way along the narrow margin of the sea, I came upon many seals, seals by the tens, seals spotted like winter apples with bubble-patterns of white, gray and brown, males as large as I, bewhiskered mothers, big-eyed half-grown pups. They lumbered away from me and splashed into the water, but I could have overtaken them easily, even at the walk. Carved by the sea under the lee of the rock was a tunnel or cave. More seals looked out of it, talking among themselves in yelps and squeaks of consternation because I stood between them and the water. Something about them, their ample flesh, their softly rounded furry faces, looked immensely comforting. I did not care if they turned on me to slash at me with their teeth—I walked right up to them and sank down among them. Nor did I mind their smell as of a hundred wet dogs, for I had slept in the same tent with hunting hounds all my winters. We are not reared to be squeamish, we of the Red Hart.… And smelling that reek, remembering a yellow-headed child tussling with the tan deer-hound puppies on the dirt floor, I remembered something more, and my face pulled taut with pain.
Like the infant Sakeema suckled by a cow seal I lay against the warmth of the seals’ dense fur, craving comfort, burrowing ever deeper into the darkness of the seaside cave, and they accepted me.
I do not know how long I lay there, an animal gone off to lick its wounds in a dark, still place. I know I grew somewhat calmer. My panting quieted, and I passed into a merciful sort of numbness. Even when I heard footsteps I did not look up.
“Archer.”
It was Kor. He had trailed me there. “Go away,” I mumbled.
Instead he came in. The seals stolidly made way for him, and he sat cross-legged near my head. I looked up. He was only a featureless shape against the light of the entry at first, but then I saw the cut I had given him, the dark line of dried blood along his neck, the streaks where it had run down. I winced and closed my eyes, full of shame that I had hurt him, not knowing how much more I had hurt him ten days before.
“I’ve taken far worse,” Kor said dryly, as if sensing my thoughts. “You dropped the great knife even before it touched me. Only the weight of the blade itself struck my neck, not the strength of your arm.”
“So I am only half a madman,” I muttered.
“Archer, listen. I want—”
“Dannoc,” I told him.
“What?”
“My name is Dannoc.” It meant “the arrow” in the language of my people, and arrow-sharp pain went through me for remembering even that much—and I did not know why.
“Dannoc.” Korridun said the name softly, as if testing it, and he nodded. “Do you remember any more than that?”
“No.”
“Dannoc, listen, please. I want to tell you something.”
I laid my head against the soft flank of a gray cow seal and let him speak.
“Kela was my mother’s name, as you have said, and my father’s, Pavaton. I am their only living child—others died in the birthing, brothers and sisters I have never known. I am Kela’s heir, for she was daughter of Kebek and king of the Seal Kindred, and my father was her consort. He was of the Otter River Clan.
“At the start of my tenth winter I was stung by an asp, up on the mountain slope, in the scree, where the whistling rockchucks live. My own stupidity—I thrust my hand right into the nest. By the time I walked back to the village, the poi
son was all through me. I became mortally ill, and I died.”
Startled, quite startled, I looked up at him. He was gazing off toward the ocean, somber.
“I remember leaving my body. I saw myself lying on the sealskins, a small boy, far too thin. I saw my mother weeping and my father trying to comfort her, though he was weeping as well. I wanted to say Sakeema’s blessing to them, but they could not hear me.
“Then I was out over the ocean—I was a sort of flying thing, part of the air. I struggled back to the land, for I did not wish to leave it, even though something seemed to tug me toward the ocean, and I circled the headland, saw my folk putting my body in the snow, for what reason I could not imagine. I did not like to see it there, in the cold, and I hovered near for what must have been many days—I had lost sense of time—and my folk also kept watch. But my mother was not there. And the pull was still on me to go to the sea, so that I surged back and forth like the tides, and finally I left my body and the land.
“Swimming in the salt water, flying in the air, it was all one to me. Soon I was in the greendeep. Mahela, the great devourer, glutton goddess, she holds her court at the far abyss of that ocean.”
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