Bard's Oath (Dragonlord)

by Joanne Bertin

  Remembering Linden’s words regarding the foolhardiness of annoying a bard, Raven ground his teeth but waited.

  Leet walked a few steps to a fallen log and sat on it. With a swiftness born of long practice, he undid the lacing of the stiff leather case. A moment later he cradled the small harp in his arms. The fingers of one hand caressed a design on the harp’s shoulder.

  From the brief glimpse Raven had of the harp as it came out of its case, all looked well; he said, “Looks like no harm done, my lord bard. I wonder what you heard.” And would you now pack up that thing again and let us be off?

  As if in answer, Leet smiled—an odd little smile that made the skin on the back of Raven’s neck prickle—and said, “Are you so certain? Look closer. Listen.”

  For courtesy’s sake, Raven dropped the reins and moved forward despite a faint sense of uneasiness at both smile and words. Leet ran his fingers along the strings. A shimmering curtain of sound filled the air like the chiming of tiny bells.

  It was one of the prettiest things he’d ever heard. Captivated by the sweet notes, he went even closer, forgetting his earlier apprehension as the bard’s fingers danced along the strings once more, expertly damping each note a bare heartbeat after it sounded. Raven recognized one of the exercises that Otter used to warm up his fingers. Somewhere off in the woods a bird sang as if in answer to the lilting melody.

  Then Leet’s fingers swept over the strings a third time. A tune emerged, a pretty song, though in an odd, minor key. The song filled Raven’s mind. He stumbled back, shaking his head, as the music reached for him, twining itself deeper and deeper within his mind. The horse behind him snorted uneasily.

  For a moment he thought he’d broken its hold. Then Leet began singing—nonsense syllables, or in some unknown language—and Raven was caught once more. His blood coursed like fire along his veins, each beat of his heart sending fresh agony through him. Raven went to his knees and wrapped his arms around himself as if he could ward off the pain.

  Leet’s voice changed and now Raven could almost make out words. He looked up at the other man, trying to say, Stop! Stop singing!

  But the bard’s lips were still.

  Raven’s stomach lurched as he realized what was happening. It was the harp that sang, and now he understood the words. They were horrible, filled with a sickening lust made yet more terrible by the beauty of the pure, belling tones.

  Blood. Sweet, sweet blood. Give me blood, over and over again.

  Raven told himself that this couldn’t be real, he was dreaming, if he tried hard enough, he could wake himself from this nightmare. This was even more frightening than being captured by soldiers when he was in Jehanglan; he could understand spears and swords. What happened now was beyond all sanity. He raked the nails of one hand along his forearm in the hope that even “dream pain” would deliver him.

  It didn’t. Instead he fell to the ground, kicking feebly. He thought he heard the voice laughing in his head, demanding, Feed me.…

  Raven tumbled into the well of darkness that opened in his mind.

  Forty-two

  “There you are!”

  Recognizing Maurynna’s voice, Raven stopped and looked around. He spotted her standing with a woman who wore a deep green dress over a brown undergown. Behind him the patient roan limped to a halt. Maurynna bade the other woman farewell, then strode toward him, her forehead creased in a worried frown.

  “Something amiss, Beanpole?” he asked.

  “Not ‘something,’ you idiot—‘someone.’ You. You were a-miss-ing. Where on earth have you been?”

  Raven shook his head in confusion. “What do you mean? I’ve been walking this horse back for—”

  She slashed a hand through the air, cutting him off. “For Trevorn, Lady Deverith’s rider,” she snapped. “And that was Lady Deverith. She wanted to thank you for helping him.

  “Bard Leet said he saw you soaking the horse’s leg in a stream as he was returning. So we expected you to be a bit late. It’s been so busy I didn’t realize you still weren’t back until Lady Deverith said something just now. Leet got back ages ago—did you get lost somehow?”

  “I—I don’t think so,” Raven said. For the first time he was aware of a muddled feeling, as if his brain were wrapped in cobwebs. A memory drifted into his mind; he’d felt much the same way waking up from a dose of syrup of poppy after breaking his arm as a boy: distant and fuzzy.

  Something told him he should be alarmed, this wasn’t right, but it was too much trouble to sort it out. Easier by far to sink back into the cobwebs.… He rubbed his forehead with his free hand.

  “Good gods—what happened to your arm?”

  Raven followed Maurynna’s shocked stare to look at his left forearm. His tunic sleeve had fallen back to reveal four long, angry red furrows running from inner elbow to wrist. Dried blood caked the end of one furrow.

  Had he fallen into a thicket of brambles? No, the scratches didn’t look right. “I’ve no idea,” he said, examining his wounded forearm with detached interest.

  “Raven, what is wrong with you? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were drunk. Did you fall and hit your head?” Maurynna asked. She peered into his face. “Your eyes look distant and unfocused.” Maurynna’s own gaze turned distant for a moment. Then, “I’m taking you to see Healer Tasha this instant. You’re lucky—she arrived here this morning.”

  “But I’ve got to get this horse to a Beast—”

  He broke off as Maurynna grabbed his clan braid and tugged.

  “No, you’re not. Linden or Shima will see to it—I’ve just mindcalled them both,” Maurynna said. “You’re coming with me. Now.” She gave his clan braid a final tug before dropping it and setting off.

  Not willing to risk her temper—he knew well from past experience that worry made her snappish—Raven dropped the reins and followed Maurynna. Besides, it was just too much trouble to argue.…

  He shook his head. Since when had he backed down from an argument with Rynna because it was “too much trouble”? She was right; something was awry. He must have fallen and hit his head.

  He gingerly ran his hands through his hair. So why didn’t he have a lump, or even a sore spot?

  * * *

  Barely a quarter of a candlemark later, Healer Tasha’s words echoed his own thoughts.

  “I can’t find anything wrong,” the ginger-haired Healer admitted. “Nothing hurts when I press?”

  She suited action to words, running her fingers through his hair, pressing with firm but gentle pressure along his skull.

  “No,” Raven answered. He was feeling more alert now—well, somewhat more alert, he thought as he yawned. “Pardon,” he said when it was over. He tried not to grin as Healer and Rynna fought off yawns of their own, Maurynna unsuccessfully.

  Tasha persisted, “And no headache, but you’re sleepy, as if you could lie down right now and nap?”

  “No, no headache, and not so much sleepy as feeling as if I just woke up from a dose of poppy juice. All logy and sluggish and with a tune I don’t recognize stuck in my head.”

  “Ah!” said Maurynna. “Aunt Maleid calls those ‘ear leeches.’ She always said the worst ones were the songs you hated that got stuck there anyway.”

  Tasha said something that sounded like “H’rmph!” and stood glaring down at him as he sat on the low stool in her tent. Maurynna sat on the ground to one side, nibbling on a sprig of bee balm. Nearby a decoction simmered gently in a small pot on the brazier; the sweet scent of licorice root teased his nose. From outside came the faint sounds of the nearby camp: murmurs of conversation, the bright chatter of servants going everywhere at once, and the laughter of children. Weaving through the voices like a thread of gold in a tapestry came the hushed melody of a recorder playing somewhere nearby.

  But above all else he heard the sound of horses. Horses stamping, horses calling to each other in challenge or recognition, the steady tramp of iron-shod feet on the hard-packed ground, the creaki
ng of leather, and the jingle of harness. Raven let his mind drift with scents and sounds, coming more awake every instant.

  At last the Healer threw her hands up into the air and turned away. “I can’t find anything wrong with your head, young man.”

  An evil grin lit Maurynna’s face, but to Raven’s relief, she refrained from making a rude remark. Instead she said, “But there is something wrong with his arm.”

  “Oh? Let me see.” At last! her eager expression said. Something tangible!

  It was on the tip of his tongue to refuse; then Raven slowly pushed his tunic sleeve up. He was a little surprised at his reluctance to display his mysterious wounds.

  Perhaps if he knew how he’d gotten them …

  Healer Tasha winced when she saw the scratches. “Ouch! I can’t do anything about ‘ear leeches’—but I can certainly do something about those scratches, young man.”

  * * *

  Linden unbelted his tunic as Maurynna settled herself on the side of the bed in their tent. “So what was this all about, anyway?” he asked. “Why couldn’t Raven take that horse to the Beast Healer himself?”

  He listened to Maurynna’s description of Raven’s arrival in camp—“Looked like his mind was a thousand miles away and he was half-drunk to boot”—and of their visit to the royal Healer.

  Linden carefully pulled off his tunic and tossed it to one side. Sounded like a possible head injury, he thought, but nothing that Tasha couldn’t put right with a Healing and an infusion. He rooted through the chest of clothes at the foot of the bed.

  “How’s the horse?” she asked.

  “Fine now. Slobbered all over me while a Beast Healer cared for him. Thank the gods I was wearing an old tunic. Have you seen my green one?”

  “I was wondering what that mess was all down your front. And your green tunic was at the bottom of the chest the last time I saw it.”

  “No it isn’t. I just looked.”

  Hopping up, Maurynna came around to the foot of the bed. She nudged him aside, thrust her hand deep into the chest, and came up with the errant tunic. “Men,” she said, rolling her eyes as she handed it to him.

  “Hunh,” he said as he pulled it on, “and who found your favorite sash when you’d lost it? The one Shima’s younger sister made for you?”

  “Not the same thing,” Maurynna retorted as she settled back onto the bed. “Someone had tossed that across the room, he was in such a hurry one day. Not my fault I didn’t see where it landed behind that chair.”

  Hmm—she had a point. He raised his hands in surrender. “I was talking to Lady Derwith’s head groom while the Beast Healer worked on that gelding. The man was fretting that the delay might hurt the horse’s chances for a full Healing. He was cursing Raven something wonderful for being so late. Before I could say anything, Leet, who was watching, said that he’d passed Raven soaking the gelding’s foot in a stream as he rode back to camp. He wondered if Raven had slipped on wet moss or leaves and fell and hit his head on a rock.

  “That shut the groom up right quick. He knew as well as the rest of us that if that’s what happened, Raven’s lucky he didn’t land facedown in the stream. He’d’ve drowned.” He glanced over at her as he wove the end of his belt through the two heavy metal rings of the buckle.

  Maurynna was shaking her head. “Hmm—let me think. When Raven first came into camp, I grabbed his clan braid. It was dry. So was his tunic.”

  She screwed her eyes shut; Linden knew she was recalling the image of Raven’s arrival. He waited, not moving, lest he disturb her chain of thought.

  Her eyes opened again. “His breeches were dry as well, save for the very bottoms where they might well get damp from wading. Therefore he didn’t slip while in the stream as Leet thought, thank the gods.”

  “How bad was the bump on Raven’s head, anyway, love?” Linden asked.

  To his surprise, she smacked her fists into the mattress on either side of her. “That’s what is so odd about all this. There was no bump or lump that Tasha could find. Not even a sore spot. That surprised her—that, and the fact that Raven didn’t have a headache. All that was wrong was that kind of daze he was in—oh, and those scratches on his arm.”

  Linden wondered what other stray facts would pop up. “What scratches?” he asked a little testily.

  Maurynna made a motion of raking fingernails. “Like that—at least, that’s what Tasha said they looked like.”

  This was getting stranger by the moment. “A fight?” he asked, even as he knew it wouldn’t be so simple. Nothing ever was, it seemed.

  “No one else has said anything about one.”

  And a fight would be news all over camp. “So what happened? Did Raven fall after all?” Linden asked, thinking aloud. He rubbed his chin. None of this was adding up. “Or—”

  May the gods grant that Raven isn’t seriously ill, he thought suddenly, remembering Maurynna’s description of Raven’s dazed state. Fear washed over him like a wave in a storm-driven sea. Despite a rocky beginning, Raven had become a good friend. It would hurt to lose him.

  And for Maurynna it would be like losing a brother.

  “You’re wondering if it’s something serious, too, aren’t you?” she said darkly. “So is Tasha. I could see it in the set of her mouth when she turned away from Raven at one point.” Fear—the same fear that chilled him—lurked in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, love,” said Linden gently. He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, then stroked her head as she threw her arms around his waist and buried her face against him.

  He knew what she feared. She would have to face Raven’s death eventually—his, and that of every other truehuman she now knew. But though this was a thing she knew, she didn’t truly understand it yet, Linden thought. He hadn’t—not until he’d buried the last person he’d known before his First Change. He’d heard his niece Moss Willow’s birth cries and held her hand when death claimed her almost eighty years later.

  He hoped it would be long indeed before Maurynna faced that pain.

  * * *

  The night was still. From somewhere far off in the distance, Leet heard the mournful hoot of an owl. He sat in the deep embrasure of the opened window to his room, arms around his knees, staring out at the stars. Comfortable—even luxurious—as his tent had been, give him four walls to sleep within any day.

  Besides, if he’d been asked to play that damned song one more time, he likely would have broken a chair over someone’s head. Curse the fool who’d realized that most of the players of “Dragon and Phoenix” were in the camp. Luckily he’d thought to plead an imaginary case of the rheumatics brought on by sleeping in the tent; it gave him both an excuse to stop playing and to return to the castle.

  Gull was safer from a chance discovery here; it had been a risk bringing him to the camp, but one that had paid off handsomely. Leet smiled smugly at the memory, savoring it like a fine wine.

  A star streaked across the night sky, its fiery tail cutting across the Badger forever chasing the North Star. The sight brought him out of his reverie. It was, he thought, time. Surely he’d waited long enough; surely Raven was asleep by now.…

  With a grunt, Leet unfolded his now-stiff body and swung down from the windowsill. His knees protested at being suddenly made to work again and he squatted a few times to wake them up. When he could move without hobbling, he slipped the red silk cover from the harp on the little table by his bed and carried it back to his seat in the window. His joints protesting, he settled himself once more, Gull cradled in his arms.

  He sat, thinking, as he absently traced a finger along the image burned into the harp’s shoulder. It worried him a little that he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Gull hidden away in its case in his room. If he tried to, it preyed on his mind; sometimes it seemed hard to breathe and for a moment or two he’d even fancy that it was himself shut up in the case.

  And now that he’d given it that tiny taste of Raven’s blood—so kind of the boy to scratch hims
elf like that!—the harp felt more … alive … than ever.

  Leet shook his head. Bah! All those creepy tales from the old practice room had made a deeper impression upon his young mind than he’d thought. But he had no time for such ’prentice foolishness and moonshine now.

  Now was life … and death. Leet began to play.

  * * *

  He didn’t know when it began. He was riding Stormwind across the Jehangli plains as clouds like dragons—or dragons like clouds, he couldn’t tell which—sped across the turquoise-blue sky above him. Then, faint as the whisper of an owl’s wing, came a breath of music.

  At first Raven didn’t even notice, but then something familiar about it caught his attention. He turned his head to listen, and, in the way of dreams, he was suddenly standing alone on the vast green plain. As the music grew louder the cloud-dragons fled and the great blue bowl of the sky turned a leaden grey.

  The skin along his spine crawled. He knew this music. He’d heard it before—and it had scared the living daylights out of him. If he could only remember where …

  He struggled to remember, then realized it didn’t matter. He could think about it later; right now he had to get away from the demonic tune. Fighting his rising panic, Raven whistled for Stormwind, but there was no response.

  And all the while the music grew louder …

  He ran. He had no idea where he was going; he only hoped that he could outrun whatever would follow the music. For he knew something was coming, something was going to happen. And he knew full well that that something was vile beyond belief.

  But he had no idea what, and that was the most frightening thing of all. So he ran and ran as one can only in dreams, not tiring, with no noisy pounding of feet or gasping for breath. Above him the sky grew darker.

  For one blessed moment he thought he’d succeeded in escaping his nightmare; with the strange logic of dreams, he knew that if he could just crest the next rise, he’d find Stormwind again and then he’d be safe.

  But with a heart-stopping roar the ground erupted in front of him and Raven found himself facing an enormous cliff. Panicking in earnest now, he threw himself at it and managed to climb a good few ells high in his desperation. Then the next handhold crumbled under his clutching fingers and he fell from the cliff face like a stone cast from a tower.