Godbond

by Nancy Springer

  “The thunder cones blazed for him,” I said to Kor, “and I feared it was for you. I went nearly mad with grief and shame, and now my shame is the more. Ai, Tyee.…”

  “Shame?” Kor asked gently.

  “Or regret … that I had ever gone on my fool’s journey.”

  “But how could you have helped Tyee?”

  “It is not that. I had no thought for him, Kor.” I had been so taken up with fear for my bond brother that I had spared none for my brother in blood, my mother’s son, Tyee.… Grief, heavy in me.

  Some of my people had come into the chamber while Kor was speaking with me, the young yellow-braided Red Hart warriors, man and maiden, looking taut and drained with much fighting. One of them, Karu, touched me on the shoulder. She sat beside me, the others sat close by me on the stone floor, clustering around me.

  “That is how we also felt,” one of them said. “Shamed.”

  “We had often scoffed at him,” admitted another.

  “And muttered,” said Karu, “and wished you had stayed to be our king, Dannoc.” She was looking levelly at me. That was like Karu, her courage, to face these things. “But how we missed Tyee when he was gone. We attended his body with greatest honor.”

  “And honored his word also,” said Kor quietly, “and came here to fight for me.”

  My people spoke further, remembering the fires in the east, the sunrise like no other sunrise they had ever seen, as the thunder cones had shot forth blood-red flame and burning rock, fearsome even at the distance, and the rising sun had turned the smoke, spreading so that it seemed to cover the earth, the colors of blood and fire. They had shivered, watching, keeping vigil by their slain king, knowing for the first time that he had been great. They had gifted him with their ornaments, even the feathers from their braids, and raised a cairn over him, and kept watch for a day before traveling on in haste to Seal Hold.

  “Mahela has erred, taking Tyee,” said Korridun softly, with a keen-eyed, perilous softness. “His death has sent me warriors willing to die. It sent my bond brother on his way back to me many days before battle was joined.”

  Silently I scanned the faces of the Red Hart warriors. I did not know them as well as I once had.

  “Who among you is a bold, swift rider,” I asked, “and loyal, and courageous, to do as King Korridun may bid?”

  “There are few enough of the curly-haired ponies left,” Kor put in, catching my drift, “and they are footsore from the long journey, and many of them wounded. But there are some fanged mares we have captured.”

  “Better yet. The fanged mares are fierce and swift. But the rider must be as fierce, to master one.”

  Everything depended, so I thought, on this rider who would go to Tassida and give her his mount so that she could come to us. It should have been me, if I was “the seeker.” But I could not leave Kor.… I heard what my people of the Red Hart had to say and looked long into their eyes before I chose my messenger. Karu, I thought at first, but Karu might be jealous of Tass in her heart. I chose a youth. Then in haste Kor and I told him his errand, and I saw him onto a fanged mare and off into the nightfall. Darkness would guard him from the enemies camped on the beach below.

  I went in and stayed with Kor, and changed his bandaging, and saw to it that he passed water. Even in his agony mindful of his folk within earshot, he would not cry out, but afterward he lay the night in a stupor. I lay by him, wakeful with despair.

  My grief colored my thinking, I told myself, grief and the shadow of Mahela’s cloud, that all seemed so dark. But I had seen well enough how my people, mine and Kor’s, were worn down with fighting, their numbers too few, many of them fighting despite wounds. I knew well enough what I should do. A bold attack, a raid on the enemy’s camp at dawn or midnight, a sword to Pajlat’s heart.… But I did nothing. Despair told me that such attempts could not succeed, but only send us down faster to death. Perhaps despair was right.

  The next day dawned in brume so thick that warriors could not see the comrades within bow-reach of them. Voices rang like the speaking of spirits out of the fog. We of the Hold stood tense guard all day in the murk, but Pajlat did not risk the cliffside paths to attack. Perhaps Mahela took no pleasure in the combat when Korridun was not taking part, that she sent such weather. Or perhaps she had gone off to shadow Tassida again, and wanted the war to wait for her return. Or she had gone on some yet darker errand.… Afterwit tells me it was so, she had gone to keep Tassida from us by whatever means, for my soul knew she was absent, I felt the gloom lighten, my heart lighten somewhat during the respite of that day.

  Just before nightfall the fog cleared away. There would be fighting the next day.

  That night Kor was well enough to pester me to eat. And when, before dawn of the next day, I cursed Pajlat and got up out of my bed, Korridun rose to stand unsteadily at my side.

  “You can’t fight!” I exclaimed. For unless I guessed wrongly, there would be hard battle that day.

  He snapped, “We’ll see whether I can or not.”

  “I am not daring you! Kor—”

  “I am the king!” he flared. “What, am I to lie abed when my warriors go to combat wounded?”

  He was at least well enough to be mettlesome. My heart lightened, and something teasing in me rose to meet his peevishness. “Let me at least get some fresh bandaging on you,” I said, and I started to reach for it. He struck my hand away. I smiled, for the blow was stronger than I could have hoped.

  “I’ll tend to my own hind end, thank you. Get out of here.”

  “Make sure you pass water,” I instructed.

  “Out!” Kor shouted, and I went. But to annoy him further, I readied Sora for him rather than letting him do it himself. With ill grace, and out of necessity, he let me help him mount. Then he rode out to see to the placement of his warriors—I stayed within the Hold, catching a mouse-colored fanged mare for myself, until I heard the cheer go up as our people saluted him. Then I joined him, and he and I rode to the headland’s point to watch the enemy’s preparations.

  The Fanged Horse encampment straggled along the beach as far as I could see, and the raiders in their hundreds were preparing their mounts for war by tying on the tassels made of human hair and blowing into the mares’ nostrils the powder made of dried fungus that was reputed to make the horses swift and fierce. On the fringes of the beach, under the twisted spruces clinging to the storm scarp, Otter River warriors tested the edges of their knives. The twelve of Cragsmen sat lumpishly, like boulders, widely spaced, as if they might fight with each other if they came closer together.

  It would be a sharp battle, for though we on the headland held the higher ground, the attackers were far greater in number. Kor’s folk had been few since Mahela had vented her wrath on them the winter before. The Red Hart were few since my father had wasted many of their lives.

  “I hate this,” Kor said softly to me, all spleen gone from his voice. “It breaks my heart. It is so senseless.” His eyes were on his meager war host, and on the enemy below.

  I nodded.

  “Have you taken note, Mahela has not lifted hand against us, to take us to her realm? There has been no need for her to bestir herself. We are doing her work for her.”

  The realm of death, he meant. Mahela’s work, the taking of souls.

  “The world going down into the old hag’s maw,” Korridun said more harshly, “and we of the tribes, killing each other. It is horrible.”

  Pajlat and his raiders had mounted their fanged mares. Kor sighed. “Line of battle,” he shouted, and he and I took our places at the center of it. He sat steady on his mount, his face grim.

  Pajlat led the enemy charge, the hooves of the fanged horses thundering, their chests roaring, loud as the black storm that still coiled overhead. At the horses’ heels swarmed Otter clansfolk on the foot, and the Cragsmen lumbered along with them. As for me, I loosed my bolt along with the other Red Hart archers, and most of us felled our targets, for we of the hunting tribe seld
om waste an arrow. And half a twelve of feathered shafts thudded into the thick bisonhide shield Pajlat held tight to his chest. I tried the mercy shot to his neck, though not with any thought of mercy—I badly wanted to kill him. But my bolt missed, parting his hair rather than lodging in his throat.

  “Ill luck!” shouted Karu from her curly-haired mount by my side. There was no time for a second shot. My Red Hart comrades were changing their bows for spears and knives, and I found Alar in my hand, and with a shout we kicked our ponies forward to meet the charge.

  Host met host with a shock like that of sea turned against itself, like clashing breakers, sending spray of blood into the air.

  It was a long, bloody day with no rest.

  Alar wanted to kill the Cragsmen. It was well thought of, for there were few among Kor’s followers who were fit to face those great hulks with their vicious blackthorn clubs, but I would not heed Alar. I felt I must stay by Kor. He was not yet well in strength, his face was pale, his eyes narrowed in pain. And everything seemed hard that day, as if ill luck squatted in the air, as Karu had said—she had her mount killed under her, though the thick, curly fur was often proof against fangs and knives, and she buried her stone blade to the hilt, then, in a Cragsman’s leg before he howled and struck her senseless. I saw my former lover, Winewa, bring down another in the same way, and a small mob of Seal hacked the lout dead. I saw other Seal, with that inborn liquid grace of theirs, slipping into gaps in the enemy lines as lithely as seawater, spearing horsemen from the side, sending Otter scuttling back. But there seemed always to be more horsemen, more Otter, and I could not reach Pajlat to slay him, and Kor’s breath came in tight, rasping gasps—I could hear him next to me.

  Another wound?

  Cuts, nothing worse. Yet I seem—so weak—

  Bleeding? Have you torn yourself open?

  Curse it to Mahela, yes.

  Overhead, a chilling laugh, sounding even through the clamor of battle, and out of the bruise-black cloud swooped a devourer with a rider on its back. Mahela, in her human form, with her retinue of fell servants swirling around her. Thunder cracked and rain poured down, so dense that the world turned black and green, as if we were under the sea. We battled on, our feet and our horses slipping on wet moss and wet rock and mud. And my people of the Red Hart were afraid, I could see it in their cringing shoulders. Despite themselves, they flinched every time a devourer swirled overhead, flying low.

  Mahela looked on, amused, diverted, delighted, dressed as if for a festival—her shimmering green gown floated and eddied about her as she flew on her demon steed, the skirt of it flowing down over her feet. And oddly, she looked beautiful, eerily beautiful, with the waves and torrents of her black hair and her fair white face, comely and daunting, nearly like that of—no, I had to be mad, thinking it. Battle bends the mind.

  Kor—

  His sword, Zaneb, fended off his enemies, but he was gazing up at Mahela with a peculiar look, at once intent and aloof. And mindspeaking him, I felt for a moment the surge of his feelings, and they were—as white and black as Mahela, and far more mad than my thoughts. Blood-hot. Moon-mad.

  I wrenched myself away. No time, I told myself, there were enemies to tend to. Enemies pressing hard.

  “Kor! ’Ware the foes that tread on earth!”

  He lowered his glance to me. “Mahela has meddled, somehow,” he said. “I feel it in her. We amuse her.”

  “I know it,” I said sourly. I knew Mahela of old, and I did not trust her smile. I knew she would strike in her own sweet poisoned time.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Only because darkness fell early under cloud and rain, forcing the attackers back to their camp, did we outlast the battle. And when Kor got down from Sora, with my help, he looked as pale as the wounded who were being taken, senseless, into Seal Hold—or the dead, who were being sent away, with blessing and apology, into the sea.

  Kor! Are you bleeding still?

  Does it matter?

  Hush. I helped him to his bed—he could walk, though barely—and looked at the wound, and saw thankfully that it no longer bled. He had worn much swaddling, and it had stanched the flow. I saw to fresh bandaging, and he let me, tamely.

  When I had finished he said to me aloud but privately, for my ear only, “Dan, we cannot hold them off for another day.”

  “I know,” I told him. Kor was not one to cry despair. He spoke but what was true. We would not last.

  Yet we had to. Unless we held them off until Tassida came.… The others Pajlat and his minions might enslave, but Kor and I would be killed, surely and none too gently. And then there would be no hope for anyone, no hope for the dying world, for he and I and Tassida never would be three.…

  Should she come to us. I knew what the meddling was that made Mahela smile. I knew her dark hand lay heavy on Tass.

  My brother, Kor thought to me. He also knew, he also remembered the larger battle, and all that he could not say in any other way was in those silent words.

  “We must attack,” I said.

  We worked out the plan over food. Our aim had to be to take Pajlat by surprise, perhaps sleeping, and kill him—it went against our natures to think like brigands, but the thing had to be done. The Fanged Horse raiders would fight on after their king was killed, they would as soon fight as breathe, but their Otter allies might lose heart.

  “And if there is one person whom I do not mind killing by stealth, it is Pajlat,” I said. “Unless it might be Mahela.”

  Kor looked at me, and said nothing, for he was spent. He ate little, and afterward lapsed at once into a sleep that was more like a stupor. It fell to me to choose our warriors and speak to them. I took a turn at guard, then went and lay by Kor’s side, wakeful, but glad that he slept.

  Wanhope that I was, by the time I arose, in the dense darkness before dawn, I was telling myself that we would be able to hold our own at least one more day. But Kor was right. We did not.

  The dawn attack let us manage it, bloodily, until three-quarterday, but otherwise did us little good. The enemy had seemed almost to be expecting us, as if some ill-wishing bird had told them we were coming. By the time the sun passed its height, we had been forced back up the cliffs we had braved in the dark, and Pajlat, curse him, still rampaged, nearly untouched. But I had wrenched away his long reach, his bisonhide whip, so that he fought on only with knife and maul. Kor had killed a Cragsman, dodging under the cudgel and driving for the throat, taking a glancing blow on his ribs and back as he did so, but no worse harm. I felt senselessly hopeful, so much so that when I saw the rider I felt at first an unreasoning leap of heart, as if I had seen Sakeema—

  Bursting like a dayspring from between the mountainside trees, leaping his horse into the battle, as I had done two days before, and the horse was a fanged mare, I knew the one, the sand-colored fanged mare Kor and I had chosen for our messenger to Tass. The rider, a tall and comely yellow-braided youth, but not the one we had sent for Tass—and my thoughts of god, king, savior, fell to ashes.

  It was Ytan.

  What curse rode on my back, that when I looked for Sakeema, I had to find Ytan? Sheer evil luck, worst of ill luck, the same perverse luck that kept my blade away from Pajlat’s throat? Or was it Mahela’s hand, heavy on me?

  With that mad-dog, death’s-head grin of his, and with thick bandaging still wrapped around the wounds Talu had given him, Ytan joined the nearest Cragsman and began with glee to fight. And though he would fight a Fanged Horse warrior if one were foolish enough to attack him, for the most part he turned his knife on his own tribe-fellows. He, Ytan, the one enemy I could not bring myself to kill. And the other Red Harts were as badly shaken as I was to see him raising weapon against them. Perhaps worse, for they had not encountered him since he had left the tribe. They faltered in their line of battle, and the Otter River people cheered, and Pajlat’s horsemen roared like their fanged mares and pressed forward.

  By nightfall, our enemies owned a foothold on the headland.
On the day to follow, almost certainly, they would take the Hold. For Kor, an unpleasant death would follow. For the others, slavery at the best. Torture or death, perhaps. For women, the shameful torture called rape.

  And soon after, world’s end.

  That night Kor and I walked out into the darkness, not willing to waste in sleep what might be our last hours together, even though Kor could not walk far. We spoke to those who stood guard on the portion of the headland that was left to us, and then we walked to the point and sat on the chill rocks, looking out over the greenly shimmering midnight sea far below.

  It seemed to me that there was nothing of hope or solace to say, so I did not speak. But Kor said to me, “I feel so much regret in you, Dan, and I cannot understand why.”

  I sputtered as if ocean had slapped me and given me a faceful of seawater. I had left him and gone off on a fool’s quest—“I left you just when you needed me most,” I complained, “and to no purpose, and you cannot understand why I regret it?”

  He smiled slightly at my tone—though I could not see him in the night and the murk of Mahela’s making, I felt the smile in his mind. “Indeed I do not,” he said. “Nor can I comprehend why you bewail the quest. It has gained us both much.”

  I snorted in disbelief. “I know how little it has gained me,” I retorted, “and how can it have gained you anything?”

  “But it did. More than you know.”

  This was a new tale to me. I hearkened, and when he spoke on his voice was very gentle, almost tender.

  “It was not as bad for me as you believe, Dan, after you left. Small wonder that you think so, for you remember those times just before you went away, and they were the worst of my life. I was sunk in a pit of my own making. But when I saw you truly had to leave me, I made up my mind to be strong.” He spoke but merest truth, as always. His words were clean of any plea for pity or praise. “I had to be strong. And I managed it better day by day.”