The River of Shadows cv-3

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “What happens then?” asked Pazel.

  “They all die,” said Bolutu, “and the plain burns down to stubble-only those great oaks can live through the blaze. Then there are no more crickets until their eggs hatch underground the next summer. It is the way of things. They flourish, they perish, they return.”

  The company rode on, and the little shocks were many before they left the chuun-grass behind. An hour later they reached Garal Crossing, where the Coast Road bisected their own. The surface of the Coast Road was heavily rutted and dusty, as though some great host had passed over it, but on their own road the signs of passage were few. By the time they reached the Ragwood the horses were winded, and the sicunas lifted their paws and licked at them unhappily. Pazel saw Jalantri dismount quickly and hurry to Neda’s horse before she could do the same. “Your blisters,” he said, reaching for her boot.

  “They are nothing,” said Neda quickly, drawing her foot away.

  “Not so. I saw them when you dressed. Come, I’ll treat them before you-”

  “Jalantri,” said Vispek softly, “your sister will ask for aid when she requires it.”

  Jalantri looked at the ground, abashed. Then he noticed Pazel watching and swept past him, tugging his horse by the bit.

  “These animals need water,” said Vadu to Hercol. “We will take them down to the Mai and let them wade. Come, my Masalyndar.”

  The dlomic soldiers went eagerly with Vadu. Cayer Vispek watched them carefully, then turned to Hercol. “They think much of him,” he said. “He must have had some merit as a commander, once. But I fear they may scheme in private.”

  Hercol nodded slowly. “That is likely, Cayer. But not, I think, if you go with them.”

  Vispek looked rather amused. “Come, Jalantri,” he said at last. The two men rose and started down to the river’s edge.

  “Are we to warm no food before nightfall?” asked Ibjen.

  “My lad,” said Hercol, smiling in turn, “we may warm no food before we reach the shores of Ilvaspar. Go with the sfvantskors, Ibjen-that will make their errand less obvious to Vadu.”

  A short distance away, Neda sat and pulled off her boots. She gestured at the departing dlomu. “He is just boy,” she said. “Not fighter, no good for anything. Why he coming?”

  “Because Prince Olik wants him to,” said Thasha, bending low to comb the dust from her hair, “and Ibjen’s sworn to do whatever the prince asks, to regain his trust. Everything short of fighting, I mean. Anyway, Ibjen’s not useless. He’s an excellent swimmer.”

  Neda looked at her wryly. “Good. Swimming on mountain-top. Very helpful.”

  “There’s a lake up there,” said Thasha, “and another river beyond it.”

  Neda said nothing. Pazel sat down close to her. So familiar, and so strange: Neda rubbing her sore feet. Huge, hard feet, but still hers, still his sister’s. In their native tongue, Pazel said, “Olik trusts him. That’s the real reason he’s along.”

  Neda answered in Mzithrini. “More than he trusts the soldiers, you mean? Well, that is something. If they desert us, we’ll still need a dlomu to talk to the villagers.”

  “Tell me something,” said Pazel. “Why did you join this hunt? The three of you, I mean?”

  “That should be obvious,” said Neda. “The prince gave us our liberty, and we didn’t want to lose it again. We thought of staying in the Masalym, but it is no place for human beings. And we still could not take the Chathrand.”

  “Is that the only reason? Your only reason?”

  Neda looked at him, and he knew she would admit to nothing more.

  “Why won’t you talk to me in Ormali?” he said.

  Neda’s face was clouded. “The language of Ormael is Arquali, now,” she said. “You know what happens when the Empire takes a prize. It’s been almost six years since the invasion. Give it twelve, and everything will be in Arquali. Laws, trade, school-books. Children will be whipped by their teachers if they speak the old tongue.”

  “It won’t go that far,” said Pazel.

  “Says the boy from the Arquali ship, with the Arquali friends, the Arquali girl he worships, even though her father-” Neda broke off, her eyes blazing at him. “I don’t live in the past,” she said.

  The Ragwood was long and somewhat empty, the underbrush thinned out by grazing animals. They passed through it swiftly, grateful for the shade and the cover. They saw a few dlomu cutting lumber in a clearing, a herd of milk-white buffalo wallowing in a pond. Then Big Skip gave a start that nearly toppled him from his horse. He pointed: naked figures, human figures, were running crouched through the trees. The dogs raced toward them, baying. Wild with terror, the figures made for the deeper woods. A few of the soldiers laughed, but fell silent when they glanced at Vadu.

  “Yes,” said the counselor, “there are still tol-chenni in our Inner Dominion. They raid crops, steal chickens. But they are dying fast.”

  “Your dogs look mighty used to chasing ’em,” said Big Skip.

  Vadu shrugged. “A dog will chase any animal that runs.”

  They did not stop again in the Ragwood, but the sun was setting nonetheless before they reached its far end. Just beyond the last trees a smaller river poured into the Mai, cutting straight across their path. It was spanned by a battered wooden bridge. A stone fortress rose on the near side, and as they drew close, soldiers with torches began to emerge. They were known to their comrades and greeted with some affection. But like all dlomu they could not help but stare at the humans.

  “His Highness sent a scout ahead of you,” said their commanding officer. “We know you ride in haste. We have no sicunas here, but you’re to leave any horse that’s lagging and take one of ours in its stead.”

  “My own suffers,” said Vadu. “I had ground to make up, and rode him hard. But I count nearly twenty of you-why so many, Captain, here at the Maibranch? Half should be guarding Thistle Chase.”

  “Counselor, where have you been?” said the other. “Thistle was abandoned before Midwinter’s Day. The farmers had had enough of raids.”

  “Tol-chenni raids?” asked Ibjen.

  The soldiers laughed uneasily. “Tol-chenni!” said their captain. “You think our countrymen would take fright at them? No, boy, I’m speaking of hrathmog warriors. Barrel-chested, long-limbed brutes, sleek-furred, teeth like knives. They’re getting bold, Counselor Vadu. They’ve been seen walking right out in the open, on this plain. They’ve slaughtered animals, poisoned wells. And they killed old Standru and burned his house and holdings, away there across the Mai. His kin had moved closer to Masalym already; they’d heard the night drums and the caterwauling. But Standru wouldn’t go. He said his land was part of the Dominion and he’d been born there, and wouldn’t leave it to hrathmogs.”

  “They put his head on a stake,” said another soldier. “And when they saw it, the last families south of the Maibranch locked up their homes and fled.”

  Vadu looked from one soldier to the next. “Do you mean that Masalym’s Dominion… ends here?”

  “Unless the city can spare enough men to hold the Chase,” said the officer, “but even then I doubt the farmers would return.”

  “Captain,” said Hercol, “did no other riders-other human beings-pass over this bridge?”

  The officer looked doubtfully at Hercol.

  “Answer him!” snapped Vadu. “He is a natural being like yourself.”

  “No one has passed this way,” said the captain. “No one crosses the bridge anymore, save the brave few who still ride out hunting, and they do not go far. I do not think the hrathmogs will challenge a group of your size, but you must post watches all the same.”

  They brought Vadu a fresh horse, and the company continued. Vadu was clearly shaken by the news. Pazel wondered if it was the cursed Blade or the countless problems in Masalym itself that had kept him from knowing what had befallen his city’s territories.

  Ensyl, who was riding for a spell with the tarboys, looked up at the mountain ahe
ad. “If they didn’t use the road, how did they get up there?” she asked. “But of course, we don’t even know who is there. If Arunis somehow learned what Ildraquin can do-”

  “Then he’ll have sent Fulbreech alone,” said Pazel, “and we’ll have played right into his hands, and probably won’t ever catch him. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening. If Arunis wanted us to chase after Fulbreech, he wouldn’t have sent him that far away.”

  “Why not?” said Neeps.

  “Because we might not have believed he could have traveled so far,” said Pazel. “Olik himself said it couldn’t be done. No, if Arunis wanted us to chase after Fulbreech, he’d have sent the rotter just far enough away to entice us, and given him a fast horse so he could stay ahead.”

  “Then why in Pitfire are they just sitting up there?” Neeps asked.

  “If luck’s with us?” said Pazel. “Because Arunis thinks he’s safe, and has crept into some shack or cave to keep up his experiments with the Nilstone.”

  Ensyl laughed grimly. “If luck is with us,” she said.

  They rode on. Ensyl wanted to know about their time in the Conservatory, and the tarboys related a version of the tale, interrupting and correcting each other, and succeeded in becoming irritable again. But as they grumbled to a conclusion, a thought struck Pazel with an electric jolt.

  “Pitfire,” he said, “I’ve got it, I understand. Neeps, what’s wrong with us?” He spurred the horse faster, catching up with Thasha and Hercol. “The idiot,” he said. “Arunis’ tol-chenni, the one he took from the lab. He’s going to use the idiot to control the Stone.”

  They all looked at him, startled. “Why do you say so?” asked Myett, who was riding on Hercol’s shoulder.

  “The birdwatchers-the physicians in the asylum-they were upset when he took that particular tol-chenni. They said he was special-”

  “By the Night Gods!” Hercol exploded. “I am the fool in question! I should wear motley in a circus tent! The technicians said he was blind to danger. That he would swallow nails, walk off a cliff or into a fireplace.”

  Thasha raised a hand to her cheek. “Aya Rin. He’s fearless. Unnaturally fearless.”

  “And the Nilstone kills through fear,” said Pazel, “but it won’t kill that tol-chenni, will it? Arunis doesn’t have to control the Nilstone anymore. He’s found a puppet to do it for him. That’s what he was trying to do all along, with those men he drove to suicide. Once he gets control of the idiot’s mind-”

  “He’s won,” said Ensyl.

  Hercol’s face darkened. “He will have won only when all those who oppose him lie dead and cold.”

  And Pazel thought: Arunis would agree with you there.

  On they went into the darkness-slowly, with no lamps lit. Then the moon began to shine over the eastern hills, and by its light they quickened their pace. They moved through smaller woods, crossed other streams, passed the wreckage of country homes looted and abandoned. The night remained warm and hazy at first, but some three hours beyond the Ragwood they climbed the first foothill onto a plateau of leathery grass and small wizened conifers, and here a chill wind was blowing. They broke out heavier coats. Off to their left the Mai rumbled softly in its gorge.

  “There’s shelter ahead, Stanapeth,” said Alyash, drawing up beside Hercol. He was pointing to a spot a few miles above them: a bluff where three buildings shone in the moonlight. Two were ruined, but the third, a barn maybe, appeared intact.

  Hercol nodded. “If they are empty, we might sleep there,” he said. “Let us go and find out.”

  Up they climbed, the horses stumbling over the ruts and stones. The buildings were all that was left of yet another farm: the buildings, and many acres of hacked-off stumps the remains of an orchard or a woodlot. The soldiers fanned cautiously through the farmyard, stalked through the ruined home and storehouse with halberds leveled. They met with no worse than bats and a pair of foxes, but they posted watches at the perimeter all the same.

  The floor of the barn was dry, and its doors were still on their hinges. It was an ample structure, and the beams were solid enough to serve as hitching-posts for the animals. The horses applied themselves to their feed-bags, but the sicunas were turned out into the night and slinked away noiselessly, looking more like giant cats than ever.

  “It’s cold already,” said Big Skip. “Let’s sweep a spot clear in the barn and have a fire. In that old shell the smoke won’t bother us. And some hot food would see us quicker up that mountain tomorrow.”

  Hercol looked uneasy. “A small fire, then,” he said at last, “but well inside, away from the doors and windows.”

  There was plenty to burn scattered about the farmyard, and soon a cheerful blaze was crackling on the earthen floor. They cooked yams and onions and salted beef, a hasty stew. The dlomu wanted to add dried pori fish to the pot but Vadu forbade it. “You men know as well as I that the smell of pori, fresh or dried, can carry twenty miles,” he said sternly. “And hrathmogs have sharp noses, and sharper teeth.”

  Pazel found himself caught between hunger and exhaustion. Hunger prevailed, barely, but he was nodding over his bowl before he could empty it. Thasha put a finger under his chin and lifted.

  “When we find Fulbreech,” she said, “don’t attack him. Don’t do anything.”

  “I can’t promise that,” mumbled Pazel.

  “You mean you won’t,” she said. “For Rin’s sake, he was Ott’s man, and Ott doesn’t use anyone who isn’t trained. Fulbreech could cut you wide open, and you’d never see the knife. He let you hit him on the quarterdeck because he thought a black eye would make me take his side against you.” She put her hand on his ankle. “Promise me you won’t be a fool.”

  When Pazel shrugged, her hand squeezed like a tourniquet. “I’m not joking,” she said.

  “What about you?” he said, pretending his foot wasn’t going numb. “What will you do when you see him?”

  Thasha looked at him steadily. “I don’t care about Fulbreech anymore. But when we find Arunis, I’m going to be the one.”

  “The one?”

  “To kill him. Don’t try to stop me.”

  “I’m blary fortunate,” he said, “that you’re around to keep me from being a fool.”

  Thasha’s eyes were wild in the firelight, and her face grew hard and angry. Pazel met her gaze, hoping his own face looked merely bemused. Then all at once Thasha laughed and relaxed her grip. “You’re insufferable,” she said.

  But they both knew he’d won again. Not the argument, but the struggle to keep her from vanishing into that transformed state, that furious intensity where her visions came and he ceased to know her. Late in the night he woke to find her snuggled against him, feet icy, lips warm, the blanket that had felt too small for him alone somehow stretched to encompass them both.

  It felt like mere minutes later when someone began prodding his stomach. “Get up, get up now, we’re leaving.”

  Pazel started; Thasha was still in his arms. “Leaving?” he said. “It’s pitch dark.”

  Thasha groaned and clung to him. Then an oil lamp sputtered to life, and he snapped fully awake.

  “Sorry, turtle doves,” said Neda, turning her back.

  Pazel and Thasha sat up, blinking. From across the barn Pazel caught Jalantri staring at them with a strange look of outrage. Then he and Neda moved out of the barn.

  Pazel and Thasha followed, and found the others already outside. At the edge of the yard some commotion was under way. Pazel heard a soft clink-clink. Moving closer, he saw that everyone was looking at one of the sicunas, twenty feet away beside a mound of dry brush, eating something. When Neda took a step in the creature’s direction, it growled.

  Then Vadu took the lamp and approached the sicuna, whispering to it softly. When the light reached it Pazel’s stomach lurched. The sicuna was devouring a man-like creature. It was fur-covered and enormously muscled; its face was broad and flat like a bulldog’s, and a shield still hung from one limp arm.
The sicuna had clearly caught it by the neck, which was torn wide open. The sound Pazel had heard was the creature’s shirt of mail, lifting as the sicuna ate.

  “Hrathmog,” said Vadu. “That fire was a mistake, and we must leave at once. Sicunas kill in silence, but the creature will be missed by the rest of its band, and then they will come in force.”

  “Even without this danger I should have been obliged to wake you,” said Hercol. “Ildraquin has just spoken to me: Fulbreech is moving. Indeed he is rushing away, more quickly than we can climb the mountain, at least until dawn.”

  They packed swiftly, fumbling with bags and bridles. No one talked, everyone was cold, dawn was still far off. All the while Pazel’s ears strained for the first sound of attackers swarming out of the night.

  The next hours were miserable. Summer might be at her peak in the city they had left behind but here frost slicked the trail, and the cold wind gnawed at them. The horses were skittish but could move no faster than a walk. The sicunas fared better, gliding on their broad, soft feet, growling low as their great cat eyes probed the darkness. Jackals, or wild dogs perhaps, bayed in the north, and from somewhere on the black ridges Pazel caught the echo of drums.

  The narrowed Mai gushed close at hand, invisibly. At one switchback they had to pass very near a waterfall, and the horse Pazel and Neeps rode lost its footing, dashing both boys into the frigid spray. They shed their wet coats for dry blankets, but Pazel’s teeth chattered for the rest of the night.

  With the first glimmer of morning, Neeps suddenly whispered, “Ouch! Credek, Pazel, I keep meaning to ask you: what’s that thing in your pocket? Every time we hit a bump it whacks me like a piece of lead.”

  “Oh, that,” said Pazel, “it is lead. Sorry, mate.” He reached back with one hand and pulled out a two-inch metal disc, sewn into a soft tube of buckskin leather. Carefully he passed it to Neeps.

  “Fiffengurt’s blackjack,” said Neeps, amazed.

  “He gave it to me while you and Marila were off getting married,” said Pazel. “ ‘Saved my life a dozen times, that wicked thing,’ he told me. ‘Clip a man smartly with it, and you can bring him down no matter what sort of brute he is. And you can hide it better than any knife. Never let it out of your reach, Pathkendle. It’s worth the headache, you’ll see.’ And do you know what he did, to be sure I obeyed? He sat down and stitched, by Rin. An extra pocket, just this size, in my two best breeches. How do you like that?”