The Book of Words

by J. V. Jones

  Everything stopped as Tyren emerged from the tent. Men running came to a halt, weapons wielded came to rest, cries of pain and anger dried upon the lips. All eyes looked upon Tyren and all gazes dropped to his throat. The dagger caught dawn’s first light and sent it glinting into the faces of all who were there.

  Tawl pressed the blade-tip into Tyren’s flesh. A tear’s worth of blood ran red upon the skin. “Stay back!” he called to Tyren’s knights. “Stay back, or Borc so help me I will kill him.”

  Tawl had one hand on the ties that bound Tyren’s wrists, and he pushed against them now, driving Tyren forward, clearing the flap of the tent. With one quick glance he took in the scene. On either side of the entrance, bodies lay in piles. Those who didn’t have arrows jutting from their chest or backs had great bloody gashes on their arms and their legs. Gervhay and the two swordsmen had fought well. Murris was lying motionless in a pool of his own blood, and Sevri was standing directly ahead of Tawl, his broadsword caked with flesh and hair, his body striped with cuts. Gervhay was nowhere to be seen.

  Knights were everywhere. Caught unawares, some were wearing armor over their bedclothes, others wearing no armor at all. They all had swords, though. Some had shields.

  Beyond the tents, at the boundaries of the camp, the raid was still in progress. The Highwall troops were matching metal with those knights who had managed to mount their horses. Tawl scanned the lines: Mafrey and Corvis had made it look as if the entire camp was surrounded.

  “Let Tyren go or I will shoot you in the back.”

  Tawl didn’t bother to turn around to see who was shouting. “Do it, then,” he cried to the half circle of knights in front of him. “But I warn you, I’m wearing mail, and unless you aim your bow with the grace of Valdis himself, my injury will allow me time enough to slit Tyren’s throat.”

  A moment of silence followed. The archer at the back did not risk a shot.

  “What do you want?” demanded one of the knights stepping forward. Tawl didn’t recognize him, but the paleness of the three circles on his sword arm marked him as an elder.

  “He wants power for himself,” said Tyren. “He wants to take my place.”

  It was close enough to the truth to make Tawl flinch. He felt blood rushing in his ears and heard the dry flapping of his demon’s wings. How much of this was for his family? And how much was to fulfill his lifelong craving for glory? Hearing Tyren’s smooth and convincing voice, he suddenly wasn’t sure.

  Dimly, Tawl was aware of Baird and Keffin shifting their positions to guard his back.

  Tawl looked around the camp: the knights looked back at him, their eyes bright with fierce emotions. Did he want to take Tyren’s place? He couldn’t say no—part of him still wanted to see those old dreams come true. But there were new dreams competing with the old ones now, dreams that held power all of their own. Tawl’s thoughts turned to Melli, and as his mind conjured up an image of her pale and lovely face, he heard Megan’s voice sounding in his ears: “It’s love, not achievement, that will rid you of your demons.” Tawl felt a tightening around his heart. Would he leave everything behind to keep Melli and the baby safe? Yes. After today, yes.

  He knew then that this was no longer about ambition. He didn’t want Tyren’s place. He didn’t want Tyren’s glory. He just wanted to believe there was goodness at the heart of it all. Pushing the dagger blade close to Tyren’s throat, he said, “I want the knighthood to return to what it once was. I want to see men fighting for honor, not gold.”

  “Honor?” Tyren’s voice was scathing. “How can a man who’s shamed his circles by cold-blooded murder talk of honor? Do not presume to preach to me, Tawl, for your sermons are as flawed as your soul.”

  The knights greeted Tyren’s words with a rally of calls and encouragement. Slowly they began to edge closer, claiming the ground around the tent.

  “He murdered no one.”

  Everyone turned to look as a man rode into their midst. He was coming in from the east with the light behind him, so his features were hard to make out. Tawl recognized his voice at once: it was Andris. He pulled on the reins of his horse, then dismounted. “Tawl is a man of honor,” he said, moving into the half circle, “I will swear that on my life.”

  A ripple of excitement passed through the gathered crowd.

  “And how would you know?” It was the elder knight. He spoke harshly to quiet the whispers.

  “I know because I’ve been with him for many weeks. I’ve seen him fight hard and fair and always bravely. And I now count him my friend.”

  Tawl locked gazes with Andris and then looked away. The knight had taken a grave risk riding through the lines. If things went wrong, then everyone in the camp—Murris, Sevri, Baird, Keffin, Gervhay, Tawl himself, and now Andris—would end up dead. The knights could close the circle and hack them to pieces before the troops broke through.

  Tyren broke the silence. “Andris, he has fooled you. He is not a true knight; he denounced his circles before the entire city of Bren. Come forward and take the knife from his hand—he will give it to you.”

  Andris didn’t hesitate. “Tawl didn’t sanction the killing of women and children in Helch. He didn’t make bargains with Kylock for gold.” Wheeling around, he turned to face the knights. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “With my own eyes I have seen what Kylock’s army is capable of. Riding north from Camlee, we came upon one of their campsites. The bodies of thirty women were mutilated and thrown into a ditch to rot.”

  “That is not our concern,” said the elder.

  “It is when there are knights in the party.” Tawl’s voice carried far in the cold air of dawn. An uneasy murmur rose up from the camp. The crowd had grown large now. Men were putting down their weapons and making for the tent.

  “Andris,” said Tyren sharply, “this man is a liar. Take the knife from him now, or be expelled from the knighthood for life.”

  No one moved. Andris looked down at the ground. The scar on his cheek looked almost white in the oblique morning light. Tawl released the pressure on the blade. He was ready to give it up to Andris: he didn’t want to make the knight’s decision any more difficult than it was.

  Tawl knew all about hard choices.

  All the fighting had stopped now, and the only sound was the soft and ragged hisses of three hundred breaths.

  Andris moved forward. He raised his head and looked straight at Tyren. “Would a liar survive the Faldara Falls?”

  A shocked murmur rose from the crowd.

  “He’s lying, too,” cried Tyren to the camp. “Both of them are liars. No cheap villain can survive the falls.”

  “I saw him take them,” said Mafrey, coming through the crowd.

  “As I did,” said Corvis, one step behind him.

  “And I.” The last voice belonged to Gervhay. The young marksman was standing on the far edge of the circle. Tawl felt pure joy at seeing him: he had thought Gervhay might be dead.

  “Are we all liars, then, Tyren?” asked Andris.

  The knights shifted nervously. Everyone looked to Tyren.

  The muscles in Tyren’s shoulder and back contracted minutely. “These men are a disgrace to the knighthood,” he said, appealing to the crowd. “Look at how they came here—under the cover of the dawn, catching us unawares, unwilling to fight honorably and openly on the field. And look at who leads them”—Tyren’s lip curled in a dismissive snarl—“a man who sneaked into my tent like a burglar. Who fought me to my face and then sent henchmen round my back. A man who talks glibly of honor when he has none of his own.”

  Tyren’s low and powerful voice was building to a crescendo. “Ask this man, ask proud and glory-hungry Tawl of the Lowlands, what he did to his family. Ask him why he left three young children helpless without an older brother to care for them. Ask him what happened to them while he was strutting like a peacock at Valdis. Ask him who was responsible for their deaths. And then and only then, ask him about his honor—”

  Tawl snapp
ed. A cold, dense rage came upon him. Tyren’s words stung like salt in an open wound. He had to stop them coming. Tears blurred his vision as he dropped the knife to Tyren’s chest. He felt Tyren pull against him, but Tawl had hold of his hands and wouldn’t let him go. Knights in the crowd were ghosts on the periphery—they didn’t matter. All Tawl knew was pain, and all he wanted was for the feeling to end. He tilted the edge of his blade to an angle for cutting and pressed it into Tyren’s flesh.

  Just as he sliced the knife across his chest, Tyren jerked backward. Tawl, mad with fury, hardly aware of what he was doing, pushed against the man’s bindings, sending Tyren staggering forward onto the blade. Tyren’s own body weight carried the knife far deeper than Tawl intended. The blade had been wielded to cause a flesh wound—nothing more—but Tyren fell upon it, and the blade-tip slipped through his ribs and into his heart.

  Stunned gasps escaped from the lips of every knight.

  Tawl stepped back. He released his hold on Tyren’s hands, and the leader of the knights stumbled forward, falling on his side. Blood gushed from the wound. A trickle ran down his neck. His chest heaved quickly as he struggled for air, and his entire body convulsed in sudden spasms.

  Looking up at Tawl, Tyren’s mouth formed a slow grin. “You are just as worthless as your father.”

  Shaking, disorientated, reeling in the wake of strong emotions, it took Tawl a moment to comprehend Tyren’s words. His father? How could Tyren possibly know his father? It didn’t make any sense. “What do you know of my father?” he said.

  “I know he can be bought for fifty pieces of gold.”

  No, mouthed Tawl. NO!

  He felt himself shift out of his body. The world began to whiten and turn. A sickness, like a fever, took his mind upward then backward to the past. He remembered the sun on his back the day he met Tyren. The questions on Tyren’s lips: “What about your father? Is he dead, too?”

  “No. We don’t see him very often. He spends his days drinking in Lanholt.”

  Tawl saw the scene as clearly as if he were there, as vivid as a morning after rain. And this time he saw things he’d never noticed before: the quick, darting look in Tyren’s eyes, his lips moving twice as he repeated the word Lanholt back to himself.

  The image blasted into shards of whiteness, revealing yet another scene beneath. The cottage by the marsh four days later; the fire burning low, Anna, Sara, and the baby crowding around the figure of their father, squealing with excitement as gifts emerged from a sack.

  “Gambling, carding, call it what you will. Luck kissed me, then made me her lover. I won a small fortune. And I’ll be putting it to good use.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve come home to stay. There’s no need for you to do everything anymore, Tawl. I’ll be head of the family from now on.”

  The action played itself out one beat slower than real time. Tawl was both observer and player in one. Details caught his eye like flashing jewels: his father refusing to meet his gaze, the time—midmorning, when his father never rose before noon—and gold. Gold in his father’s hands. The gaming tables in Lanholt never allowed stakes any higher than silver.

  Just as quickly as the scene emerged, it shifted sideways and a third snapped into place. The Bulrush at Greyving. An hour past midnight, Tyren woken by the innkeeper to greet an unexpected guest. Tawl watched him descend the stairs. His face showed no surprise.

  “I’m free to come with you to Valdis,” said Tawl. “My obligation has been taken away.”

  Tyren smiled and nodded, ordered food and drink, but he never once asked why.

  Tawl felt as if his past had been wiped out and been replaced by something new and monstrous. Nothing was as it seemed. The shock was so great it brought him to his knees. Physically sick, a wave of nausea flared up from his gut, contaminating his body with its rancid acid-burn. He bit on his tongue to keep it down.

  Anna and Sara and the baby. All dead, but no longer resting the same. Their deaths—his private torment, the thorns in his heart and the demons on his back—had been turned inside out. Everything had been tainted. Right from the start, right from the very moment he’d met Tyren on the south road, there had been one foul lie at the center of his life.

  Tyren had made him a monster.

  Hardly aware of what he was doing, drunk with sickness and tormented by pain, Tawl took the dying man in his arms and shook him. “You paid my father to look after my sisters. You knew I would never have gone with you to Valdis unless my sisters were taken care of, so you paid him to take my place.”

  Tyren was weak, his chest barely moving, his eyes slow to focus. A lazy smile graced lips red with blood. “Didn’t do such a good job, did he?”

  The air was filled with the sound of flapping wings. Each whip of leathered scales drove Tawl closer to madness. The demons were on his back. Bringing up his knife, he began to stab Tyren. Over and over again, the knife came down, thrust through ribs, collarbone, heart, and lungs. Tawl couldn’t stop. It was the only way to save himself. The only way to shut out the terrible, searing pain.

  Then, as Tyren’s torso became a bloody pulp, Tawl felt something pass through him. A thin exhalation of breath flitted through his body like air through gauze. It didn’t pass through Tyren. It gathered about him, whirling and solidifying, and changing his bloody features into a mask.

  Tawl dropped the knife.

  The demon was no longer on his back; it had merged with Tyren’s corpse. Tyren was the demon, and had always been the demon, and that was what the green waters of Lake Ormon had tried to show him.

  Tawl looked up. The eyes of three hundred men were upon him. No one spoke.

  He felt so tired. Empty of every emotion except the grief of losing his sisters. It was as if they had died again—here, today, by Tyren’s hand. As he raised himself to one knee and began to clean his blade on his tunic, a cry came up from the crowd:

  “Tawl for leader!” It was Andris. He called a second time and Gervhay, Mafrey, and Corvis joined in.

  Tawl shook his head. He couldn’t speak. Not now.

  “Tawl for leader!” More took up the cry the third time, and the voices doubled on the fourth.

  Tawl couldn’t bear it. All he wanted was to be left alone to grieve. Still shaking his head, he stood up. Weak from head to foot, his knees almost buckled beneath him. Baird came forward and loaned him a hand, and Tawl was glad to take it. Without a word passing between the two, Baird guided him toward Tyren’s tent.

  “Tawl for leader!” A full third of the knights had now joined in the chant.

  Baird lifted the tent flap open, and Tawl stepped into the shaded warmth. Almost at once, his legs gave way beneath him. He fell onto Tyren’s pallet, closing his eyes as he brought his head to rest.

  “Tawl for leader.”

  He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to think about it. In his mind he saw only his sisters: Sara, golden hair bouncing as she followed him down to the waterhole; Anna, grinning her wicked grin as she tried to goad him into a fight; and the baby, lips quivering, cheeks flaming, as it worked itself into a tantrum over being left too long in the cot. Tawl smiled. It seemed just like yesterday.

  Jack opened his eyes. He was enveloped by a white cocoon. It stretched out in every direction, brushing softly against his lashes and his nose. Jack thought he might have been in heaven if it hadn’t been for the smell. Somehow, he’d never imagined the afterlife as smelling of musty linen. Could be wrong, though. Trying a quick upward movement with his hand, the whiteness grew taut across his face. The coarse nap of cheap linen brushed against his lips. Sticking out his tongue, he ran the tip along the surface. Lye and old mold. No, this was no afterlife, this was a poorly laundered sheet.

  Grabbing the fabric in his fists, he yanked it away from his face. Cool air, dim light, and the strong smell of woodsmoke met his senses. Noises, too. A grating metal noise, like a shovel on stone, and the crackle and sputter of a well-stoked fire. Strange how he’d never heard them
before.

  The ceiling was oddly familiar: low and barreled with elaborately carved braces. He was sure he’d seen it recently.

  A movement to the far left caught his eye. A dark figure moved across the glowing orange light source. Jack lifted his head to see it better. The movement took a lot more effort than he’d planned; surely his head wasn’t normally this heavy? His senses had a minor blackout for a moment—a sort of dark, spiraling sensation like being spun around in a blindfold—and by the time his eyesight had returned to normal, the figure had moved to the side of the light.

  Jack caught his breath. He could clearly see the man’s profile: tall, bulky, shoulders slouched, chin drooping close to the chest—it was Crope!

  Swinging his feet to the side, Jack attempted to rise from whatever surface he’d been laid on. He was ready for the blackout this time, clenching his teeth and pressing knuckles into wood. He lost the seconds from his feet hanging in midair to his feet touching stone.

  Gathering his strength about him, he tilted his weight onto his feet. Just like his head, his body seemed heavier than he remembered. With his hand holding the table, he tried a step. Not bad really, all things considered. He took another one and then let go of the table.

  Crope had his back to him and did not see him approach. The distance between them was longer than Jack had first thought, and the walk gave him a chance to take in his surroundings. He now knew he was somewhere beneath the palace. The low ceilings, the distant drip of water, and the mushroomy smell of mold and excrement gave it all away. How long had passed since he was here last? One night? One day? Many days? There was no way of knowing. He could remember nothing after lifting the curtain and coming face-to-face with Baralis.

  Still, he was alive, and that meant Tawl and Melli could be alive as well.

  “Mhmp.”

  Jack’s thoughts bounded back to Crope. Close now, he could see the huge servant’s shoulders shaking.