Colbey’s bandaged hand crept to his opposite hilt. “The Western Renshai.” The malice in his voice deepened.
Shadimar stepped from the forest, interrupting without apology. “Why do the Northmen call him Bolboda? Doesn’t that mean Bringer of Evil?”
Tannin seemed glad for the distraction. He glanced from Rache to Garn, then met the Wizard’s question. “Yes, it means what you said. I don’t know why they call him that. Until I started looking for Gullindjemprins, I had never seen the North or a real Northman. In fact, if I hadn’t watched my great-grandfather practice when I was a child, I might not have recognized that maneuver of Mitrian’s in the tavern as Renshai.” He kept his attention fixed on Shadimar, apparently more comfortable with the tall, ancient Wizard.
“Sjare or Menglir?” Shadimar asked.
Tannin’s eyes widened. “My great-grandfather was called Menglir. Did you know him?”
“Only by the name in my references.” Shadimar spoke in a conversational manner that took the violence from the confrontation. “I knew Sjare and Menglir led those Renshai who chose to stay in the West when the rest of the tribe returned to the North at the end of their hundred year exile. You said your father was the tribal leader. I guessed he might have inherited the position.”
His mood spoiled, Colbey sheathed his sword. He plucked Tannin’s blade from the ground, examining it methodically. Garn and Rache remained in position.
Shadimar said nothing more. Tannin seemed about to speak. Then his gaze fell to the sword in Colbey’s hands, and he returned the initiative to the elder.
Mitrian read anger in Colbey’s features. “Sjare and Menglir were traitors with no right to call themselves or their descendants Renshai. While we were struggling to regain our homeland, they chose to mongrelize the race instead.” He made a looping cut that stopped close enough to Tannin to return the fear to his eyes. “Had I been more than a child and in command, I would have slain them. Our leader was kinder, but he was wise enough to have them take a vow.” He glared. “Have you kept it?”
Tannin did not hesitate. “I swear by my lord, Modi. None of my people have learned the Renshai sword maneuvers.” His tone combined fear, hope, and disappointment.
Colbey frowned, testing the balance of Tannin’s sword.
In the ensuing silence, Tannin pleaded his case. “My ancestors took that vow because they had an obligation to the West. Someday, the North might come against the West, and none of us ever wanted to face one another on opposite sides of a war. But that can’t happen anymore. When my people heard about the Renshai massacre, they were grief-stricken. Then word reached us of the Great War and the Golden Prince of Demons.”
“Why weren’t you there?” Colbey’s question cut through Tannin’s explanation.
“What?”
“A warrior tribe should have attended the Great War. It should have been impossible to hold them back.” Colbey glared. “Why weren’t you there?”
“Undoubtedly, some of us were.” Tannin was shouting now, regardless of his nearly helpless position and the sword in Colbey’s hands. “As Pudarians, Western farmers, maybe even among Santagithi’s troop.” He glanced briefly at Mitrian. “Without the sword training to hold us together as a tribe, many left for the larger cities. Others went to the homes of Western wives or husbands. A few, like my father, have clung to the tribal unity. I’m three quarters Renshai, as is my sister. For as long as I can remember, my father always had a dream of returning to the North and the Renshai, but the Renshai were destroyed before my birth so I could never share his dream.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Colbey remained relentless, though Tannin’s story had convinced Mitrian. “Why weren’t your father and his followers at the Great War?”
“Because the place where we live, the Fields of Wrath, is officially a part of the country of Erythane. Béarn and Erythane have always been closely linked, but never so completely as when King Morhane ruled. He forbade Erythane and Béarn to take part in the War.” A flush crossed Tannin’s face, from the bangs that fringed his forehead to the sparse tufts of his growing beard. “I’ll never forget the battle of conscience my father fought, between his loyalty to his country’s laws and his loyalty to the tenets and principles of the West. It was not a decision made lightly or easily.”
Mitrian considered, the choice seeming obvious. Obedience to the law always had to come before personal morality, yet she did not envy Randil’s position. Had the Eastlands triumphed, the Béarnides would not have been spared from the Easterners’ butchery, torture, and slavery. Their lands would have become as barren as the overtilled fields of the Eastlands.
Grudgingly, Colbey lowered Tannin’s sword. “So what do you want from me?”
“When my father discovered a Renshai still lived, he sent me to find you. I’ve been to Pudar. I’ve been to the Northern Weathered Mountains to find the cave of the Western Wizard. I visited the Town of Santagithi, only to find it devastated.”
A jab of sorrow made Mitrian cringe.
Tannin continued. “I was on my way home when I happened to come upon Mitrian. At first, I doubted my eyes. Why would some Western woman know the maneuvers of the Renshai? Then I overheard the whispered conversations of the one she called Kirin, and knew that she traveled with Bolboda. I had run into Northmen near Santagithi’s Town. From them, I knew Bolboda was Colbey Calistinsson. I remembered hearing stories that the last Renshai could choose to whom he taught the Renshai maneuvers.” Tannin paused, apparently realizing that he had again dodged Colbey’s actual question. “My father hoped you would forgive the crime of our forefathers. We could offer protection, companionship, hope, and the most eager students you ever knew. The knowledge you could give us is priceless.”
Colbey’s face twisted into a scowl of consideration. Clearly, only he could answer Tannin’s request, so Mitrian and the others remained silent.
Reading Colbey’s expression as hostile, Tannin stomped his foot. “If you won’t forgive the feud, at least give me back my sword and let me die with honor.”
Mitrian saw a slight softening of Colbey’s expression, though she doubted Tannin knew the face well enough to notice. She could not keep herself from smiling. Tannin could have said nothing that would have pleased Colbey more.
Colbey motioned to Rache and Garn. “Free him.”
Rache stepped aside. Garn smirked, releasing Tannin with an exaggerated flourish. It had taken volumes of self-control for him to stand so long in silence. “At your bidding, death-seeking, evil-bringing, golden demon prince, your highness.”
Colbey ignored Garn’s sarcasm. He tossed the sword to Tannin.
The young man caught the weapon by the hilt. He looked wildly uncertain.
Colbey let Tannin off the hook. “No, we don’t need to fight to the death. I just want to see how much work I have ahead of me. Show me what you can do.”
Still Tannin hesitated.
Colbey made a wide gesture toward himself with both hands, urging Tannin to attack. “Come on, you coward. Have at me.”
Eagerly, Tannin squared off with his elder. He charged, sweeping his blade into an upstroke. Colbey drew and parried, trapping Tannin’s sword beneath his own. “Thank you. I’ve seen all I need to see.”
Tannin reeled as if struck. “All you need to see?” He shook his yellow braids, annoyed. “I swung once.”
Colbey wore a blank expression that always infuriated Mitrian. “That was enough.”
“Enough?” In his rage, Tannin was parroting Colbey’s statements into questions. “No man could judge another’s competence by a single stroke taken at night. Not even the master of swordsmen.”
Colbey’s half-shadowed face betrayed no emotion. “How old are you, Tannin Randilsson?”
“Twenty-four.”
Colbey’s reply lanced through the thickening night. “I’ve trained Renshai for longer than two and half of your lifetimes. You would tell me what a sword master can or can’t judge?”
&
nbsp; Amused, Mitrian went to Garn’s side. Clearly, Colbey had no plans to immediately slaughter Tannin. Though the elder seemed enraged, Mitrian knew that Tannin’s spiritedness would please her teacher, even if his sword skill did not.
Tannin was shouting again. “You only needed to see one stroke because you decided you wouldn’t like my abilities before we started. You had no intention of giving me a chance to show you. And you dare call yourself a sword master?”
“Fine!” Colbey screamed back, and his call brought Korgar. The barbarian crouched in the shadows, growling like an animal.
“It’s all right, Korgar.” Colbey addressed the barbarian without taking his gaze from Tannin. “It’s spar.”
Korgar seemed to understand. He fell silent, though he remained hunched and wary.
Tannin sprang for Colbey, and the battle began in earnest. Tannin fought admirably, clearly his finest performance, but Colbey still landed three strokes to each of his. After a time, the flat of Colbey’s sword crashed against the youngster’s knee. Tannin dropped with a howl of pain.
Colbey sheathed his sword. “If you bested Valr Kirin, then you got lucky. Bloodline has little to do with being Renshai.” Colbey hesitated a moment, as if to consider his own words. “When you wield a blade as well as Mitrian or Rache or even Garn, then you can call yourself a swordsman.”
Mitrian wrapped her arms around her husband, warmed by Colbey’s compliment. Though she had understood her torke’s obsession with Episte and the Renshai line, she could not help feeling rejected. Now that Colbey had verbalized his pleasure over the mother and son who were Renshai without the heredity, she once again felt like a full member of her adopted family. Strangely, the change in Colbey’s position allowed Mitrian to become less defensive herself. She considered her own ties, and she found them at least as strong. Thoughts resurfaced, of her envy for Episte’s natural skill, along with her suppressed wish that the agility belonged to Rache. She remembered how Episte’s death had driven her to cling to her only child, the flash of relief that she had not lost Rache instead of Episte, and the horror at her own thoughts that had tainted her solace.
What’s wrong with Colbey wishing the Renshai could keep at least some of their bloodline? Mitrian clutched Garn tighter, finding reassurance in his answering squeeze. With her father dead, she also had a driving need to keep his line, and her own, alive. Yet Mitrian had had no more luck in creating a family than her parents: one child, deeply loved, but alone. For now, and perhaps forever, that would have to be enough.
Mitrian glanced at Tannin. Humiliated, he turned away from Colbey, his head low. But his eyes gleamed with excitement. Though he would start his Renshai training older than anyone before him, at least he knew the basics of swordsmanship. Mitrian guessed he would prove an eager and competitive student, a good match as a partner for Rache despite a decade of difference in age.
Mitrian turned her attention to Colbey. He stood in a stony silence that revealed nothing, but his eyes betrayed him. Joy danced in the glaring, blue-gray orbs for the first time since Santagithi’s death. Clearly, he had never considered the Western Renshai before. Apparently, he believed that they had married and interbred themselves into oblivion, leaving only splashes of Renshai blood in men and women otherwise wholly Westerners. She recalled how Colbey had once addressed Arduwyn’s hatred for Renshai by telling the flame-haired Erythanian archer that Western redheads came from the Erythanian women’s obsession with the red-haired Renshai who befriended Béarn, instead of the more common blonds. Mitrian wondered if Colbey had meant the Western Renshai at that time.
Mitrian released Garn, knowing that none of these thoughts mattered. Colbey had found a way to recreate the Renshai before he died. And it pleased her every bit as much as him. She watched him walk away and turn his back to work on something he did not want the others to see. Yet, the loops of bandage that tumbled to the ground gave away his mission. As the end fluttered to the dirt, she saw him stiffen. For some time, he stared at the hand mangled by a demon’s claw, the wound that had nearly driven him to take his life, that Shadimar’s magics had either healed or, by delaying his suicide, damned him for eternity.
Mitrian waited, breath held. She felt air-starved and dizzied before Colbey’s grim stillness broke, and he let out a cry of pure elation. Both swords spun from their sheaths so fast she never saw him draw them. He lashed into a kata then, a capering, lethal devil-dance that required him to invent maneuvers more magnificent than Mitrian believed she could ever perform, even in her dreams. He hacked and slashed for Sif, moonlight reflecting from his blades and filling the trees with glorious, shifting highlights. He displayed his thanks and reverence in a wild flicker of single combat that few would consider prayer. Yet Mitrian knew. She never doubted that it was Sif who brought Tannin and his kin to Colbey nor that Sif had worked her divinity on his injured hand.
Somehow, Mitrian felt certain that Sif appreciated Colbey’s exultation. And the goddess heard him.
CHAPTER 22
Renshai Swords
Despite the small pack of rations that Tannin had shared, hunger hounded Colbey and his companions as they traveled through the forest on a path they could not have found without the Western Renshai’s guidance. Colbey took the advance scout, weaving between the brush and trunks to either side of the path, seeking hidden Northmen. He found nothing to indicate an organized ambush, though occasionally he heard a rustle or snap that indicated another presence in the Western woodlands. Colbey would have attributed the sounds to Korgar; the barbarian twined through trees and copses like an animal, appearing then melting into the forest despite Colbey’s familiarity with his technique. But the barbarian made less noise than any animal, and Colbey realized that Korgar could not possibly be the source of the sounds he heard.
For a time, Colbey kept his guard high, doubling and looping to find the intruder. His maneuvers gained him only a distant glimpse of movement. Finally, the sounds disappeared and did not recur. He had little choice but to assume he had tracked a curious deer or wolf. He could not conceive of a Northman so near to a lone Renshai not attacking. Bold, brash, and obsessed with honor, a Northman would have rushed the Golden Prince of Demons at the first opportunity. Yet Colbey could not forget the headless corpse; the brutality inflicted on that body was also not something he could have imagined any Northman doing, no matter how hated the enemy. A Northman not behaving like a Northman. Colbey tried to think like the one who had killed Episte, but he found the process so alien and impossible it had no basis in logic. Surely, Episte’s slayer was a madman. How do I anticipate a man without sanity or principle?
Colbey wrestled with the puzzle, saddened by memories of Episte’s death but intrigued by life and its challenges for the first time in months. For the twentieth time in an hour, he looked at his hand. It was paler than he remembered, but flushed a healthy pink. Ugly scars marred the back, four lines that traced the tendons to each finger. Though swollen, the skin had closed over them, warm and dry to the touch. His palm still sported the calluses that he had known for as long as he could remember having hands. The soft, smooth grips of noblemen and the women of most cultures seemed like defects of birth, as abnormal as a face without features. His fingers obeyed his slightest command, clumsy only from disuse. Soon, even that would disappear.
Suddenly, Mitrian’s scream shattered the silence behind Colbey. The ground trembled. Instinctively, Colbey caught a trunk to steady himself. As the ground again became stable beneath him, he charged toward his companions. Garn’s howl of pained frustration nearly deafened Colbey. The Renshai skidded up beside a deadfall that now spanned the trail, though it had not been there when he had passed this section of pathway moments earlier. Mitrian sprawled on the ground beneath it. She had fallen flat to the ground. Luckily, the tree’s branches braced it at a crooked angle that had spared her back. Though shocked, she was alive, and Colbey saw no blood.
Concerned that the branches might shatter beneath the weight of a trunk natu
re had never made them to support, Colbey mobilized the rest. “Tannin, Garn, Korgar!” He included the barbarian, though he did not see Korgar. “Get your hands beneath that tree and lift. Rache, pull her free. But be careful.” The others sprang to obey.
Before the men could find their positions, Mitrian wriggled free on her own. She rose with a slowness that seemed more cautious and dazed than pained. Clearly, she had taken no serious injuries.
Colbey left Mitrian’s solace to the others, finding the timing of the tree’s falling too convenient for coincidence. He dropped to his knees, searching. At length, he found the slim, dark wire that had triggered the trap and the notched sticks that had held it until Mitrian tripped it. “Camp,” Colbey snarled. He glanced in Tannin’s direction, his eyes narrowing. Tannin had chosen the route, and the self-proclaimed “Western Renshai” would have answers if Colbey had to rip them from his head. With a sigh of grim annoyance, Colbey went to tend Mitrian’s bruises.
* * *
That night, Colbey left Rache’s earliest session of training to Garn, while the old Renshai sought out Tannin. The shuffle of boots on leaves and twigs wafted clearly to him, interspersed with the swish of a blade cutting air. He followed the familiar music of a svergelse, brushing through a line of pine to the edge of a nearby clearing. There, Tannin practiced, his sword slashing and jabbing the night air, his face crunched in concentration.
Colbey folded his arms over his chest and watched. He saw a bold commitment that would have pleased him and a simplicity of pattern that would have bothered him, if either of those things mattered now. Colbey knew that he would probably have to kill his newest student, and it enraged him. He had accepted so much ugliness in the Renshai’s history and so many changes over the course of his lifetime. But Colbey believed he had finally found one force he might never learn to handle, though it had come gradually. In his youth, a man’s word was law. The idea of breaking a promise did not just seem wrong, it had no precedent for consideration. Colbey wondered whether he could ever adjust to judging every man he met, every statement, and every promise. The survival of all Renshai depended on it.
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