Exile's Children

by Angus Wells

  Away from the demons—and that was enough for Danyael Corm. He stretched along the beast’s neck and let it run, wanting only to be gone.

  34 A Grim Future

  Rannach stared at the empty valley with eyes bleak as the land itself. When he turned them to Morrhyn they grew no warmer, save with the cold fire of accusation.

  “Where are they?” His voice was hoarse and harsh. “Have we come so far for nothing?”

  Morrhyn, in his turn, stared at the Wintering Ground. Snow lay deep along all its length, the stream that spilled from one wall frozen in a bright downward-curving arc, the pool it formed iced thick, the runoff only an indentation in the pure white blanket. There were no tracks: the snow lay pristine. Where lodges should have stood there was emptiness; the sky hung blue and chill above, not at all sullied by the smoke that should have risen from the lodgefires. Silence reigned, as if even the wind held its breath. He shook his head helplessly, blinking against the tears that threatened to cloud his eyes and freeze upon his cheeks. He thought that in this awful moment of utter disappointment he could easily give up his life. Simply drop from the paint mare and crawl away into the snow to die; to close his eyes and willingly enter the cold’s embrace. It was too much: he had endured too much, come too far, to find his goal deserted and empty as lost hope.

  “Well?” Rannach’s angry voice cut through his misery, sharp as a knife. “You’re the Dreamer: where are they?”

  So low he must repeat himself at Rannach’s irritated request, Morrhyn said, “I don’t know.”

  “Ach!” Rannach sawed his rein, prompting the stallion to curvet, snorting its irritation. “Was it all for nothing, then? Did I leave Arrhyna for this?” He gestured at the empty landscape. “What do we do now?”

  Morrhyn slumped even lower in his saddle. It seemed his hope seeped out like blood from a wound. Was it all presumption, his daring hope that he might save the People? Did the Maker punish him for such ambition, such vanity? Was all his quest only a mockery?

  He wiped a glove across his mouth and stared silently at the sky as Rannach waited impatiently for answers. The sun westered, and soon it would be dark. He had no ready answers: he had, now, no answers at all.

  He sighed and said, “Do we make camp here this night? Perhaps I’ll dream.”

  “You’d best,” Rannach said curtly. “Else we shall likely die.”

  “So you dream again,” Chakthi said, and filled Hadduth’s cup with tiswin, “that’s good. But do you dream true?”

  “I dream of the Tachyn,” Hadduth answered, then corrected himself: “I dream of you conquering your enemies. That is only just, so surely it must also be true.”

  “Yes.” Chakthi nodded, old ashes falling from his lank hair. “What is just must surely be true. But tell me again.”

  Hadduth told him, and the akaman thought on it, then smiled, the curving of his lips no more than a baring of teeth, like a wolverine’s snarl. “I must play Racharran at his own game, no?”

  “Yes,” Hadduth told him, “if you—if we—are to have our just revenge.”

  “And that I’d surely have. So I must play the diplomat, eh?” Chakthi’s mouth spread wider. Hadduth could not tell whether he smiled or grimaced. “That shall not be easy.”

  “But you can do it,” Hadduth said.

  “Oh, yes! I can do it,” Chakthi agreed. “To see Racharran and his whoreson child destroyed, I’d pledge my soul.”

  Hadduth saw no reason to tell him that he likely did; his own, he thought, was perhaps already bought. But by what power! The Maker was as nothing to the masters of his newfound dreams. The Maker sent him none; he turned his face away from his People and gave them over to the strong. Surely that must mean his new masters outreached the Maker, and who stood early with them must surely be vaunted and enlarged over all others; and it gave him the means to please Chakthi.

  “It shall not be easy,” he said. “Racharran can bear us Tachyn little love after this year.”

  “But can it be done?” said Chakthi. “Tell me it can be done.”

  “It can,” Hadduth promised. “So long as we are careful, and play the role of penitents.”

  “Promise me what I want,” Chakthi said, “and I’ll take any part you say.”

  Hadduth nodded. “Then best,” he said, “that you wash your hair and bind up your braids; take off the mourning clay.”

  “Vachyr’s not yet avenged. I swore a vow …”

  “Which to honor requires that you play your part. Or …”

  “I’ll do it.” Chakthi ran fingers through his filthy hair. “Vachyr would understand, no?”

  “He would,” promised Hadduth. “Shall I help you?”

  Chakthi nodded, and the wakanisha set water to heating on the fire, that his akaman might cleanse his hair and take the clay from his face, and deliver the Commacht to his masters.

  “Well?” Rannach asked again. “Where do we go? What have you dreamed? Or do we sit here and wait for death?”

  Morrhyn leant closer to the fire. It seemed not to warm him. He sat swathed in furs, a blanket around him, food—albeit only the last of the dried meat the Grannach had provided—in his belly, but still felt the cold pervade his bones—and no less his soul. He felt alone, bereft as that other, awful time when he had recognized that his dreams were taken. He wondered if that was come again, and the Breakers’ dark wind blew so strong over Ket-Ta-Witko that it held off the Maker’s benefit.

  But how? he wondered. He had dreamed all down the long road from the Grannach’s valley. The dreams had been strong, enough that they had evaded the Breakers’ scouts, come safe to where the clan should be. But now …

  This last night he had not dreamed at all, but found only sleep—dreamless and sound—under the shelter Rannach had constructed. And he had woken to chagrin and Rannach’s accusatory eyes.

  For a moment he thought of lying to his companion, then dismissed the thought: Rannach deserved better than that. He had risked his life to bring Morrhyn to the clan, to the People. He had left his wife behind, where he might have remained safe, and had given himself wholeheartedly to the quest, to the hope Morrhyn had promised.

  No, Morrhyn thought, I cannot lie to him. I owe him better. Even if all of this has been futile.

  “I did not dream,” he said. And before Rannach had a chance to voice the anger that flashed in his eyes: “I know not why, only that I did not. Perhaps the Breakers command magicks that defeat even the Maker.”

  Rannach’s eyes grew wide at that, and he closed his mouth on his accusations and anger and only said, in a hushed voice, “Can that be?”

  “Perhaps.” Morrhyn shrugged his thin shoulders. “They are surely powerful.”

  “But they die,” Rannach said, the statement reaching for hope. “I slew one.”

  “Yes,” Morrhyn said. “And bravely as any warrior of the Commacht. Racharran would be proud of you.”

  And found in that a straw at which he might clutch.

  “Listen! You’re your father’s son—had Racharran his way, you’d be the next akaman of the Commacht …”

  Rannach’s bitter laughter echoed off the valley’s snow-clad walls.

  Morrhyn ignored it, motioning the younger man to silence. “Heed me, eh? Can I not dream, then we must rely upon other senses. Were you akaman of the Commacht and had fought all year against an enemy whose anger ignores the Ahsa-tye-Patiko—and would likely seek you out even in winter, even to your Wintering Ground, which he’d know of—where would you go?”

  Rannach’s frown deepened. “You speak of Chakthi and his Tachyn, no?” he said. “So did I wish to hide the clan, I’d not come here. Morrhyn!” His face brightened. “That’s why, eh? That’s why the clan’s not here! My father took them to some safer place, where Chakthi should not find them.”

  “I think it must be so,” Morrhyn said. “But where?”

  The frown came back. Rannach tugged awhile on a braid, the movement setting the brooch Arrhyna had given him to spa
rkling as it caught the early morning sun. Morrhyn thought of Arrhyna and felt sorrow for all that he forced on her and her husband, save there were far greater issues at stake than only their happiness. But still, even so, he could not help that pang of guilt.

  “There’s a canyon,” Rannach said, and paused.

  “Think!” Morrhyn urged him.

  “South of here,” Rannach said. “Sometimes buffalo winter there. There’s a river—shallow—across the mouth. But that would slow raiders; and there’s timber. My father showed it me once, and said it might be a good Wintering Ground—did we not already own the finest.”

  Morrhyn sighed again, this time with relief, or expectation of hope—it was all he had now. “Let’s go there,” he said.

  “It’s only a memory,” Rannach said.

  “Even so.”

  “And if they’re not there?”

  “Then we look elsewhere,” Morrhyn said. “No?”

  Rannach said, “Yes,” and smiled, and set to piling snow over the fire, all bustling optimism again. “And if they’re not, then we can go ask Yazte and his Lakanti. They’ll surely know, eh?” He chuckled. “I doubt Yazte shall order my execution.”

  Morrhyn shook his head and wished he felt as much cheered; but darkness and doubt tugged like claws on his mind, holding him back from such effervescent optimism. He could not forget his dreamless sleep, or his wonder that the Breakers owned far worse magicks than he feared. He told himself there was an answer, there was still promise of salvation for the People. But when he looked out onto the empty valley, he could not still the doubt that filled him, chill as the cold that numbed his bones.

  The Frozen Grass Moon saw Motsos home, unyielding as the snow under his horse’s weary hooves. He leaned along the animal’s neck as the crusting ice that spanned the river before the canyon broke, and dark water trammeled around the creature’s fetlocks. Warriors watched him with nocked bows so that he must lift up and shout his name before they slew him.

  That should be ironic—to be slain by his own brothers as he brought them warning. He laughed at the thought, then leaned down again along the horse’s neck. The Maker knew it was warm, and he was so very tired.

  But he was still a warrior of the Commacht, so he rubbed his eyes and forced himself upright as the watchers helped him from the saddle and promised his horse be groomed and fed, then led him, all tottery as a child, to Racharran’s lodge, where the akaman stood ready to meet him, alerted by the scouts along the river.

  He squatted on warm furs, leaning toward the fire as Lhyn set a cup of warm tiswin in his hand, and smiled as Racharran himself draped a blanket around his shoulders and asked what news.

  “There were twenty of them,” he said. “Scouts, Bylas supposed; and I agree with him. I’d have stayed to fight, but he told me to bring word. I’d the fastest horse.”

  “Yes.” Racharran nodded. “That horse of yours can outrun the wind. My favorite is slow, beside.”

  Motsos beamed at such praise, then frowned. “I’d have fought them,” he said, “had Bylas not asked that I come back.”

  “It’s for the best,” Racharran said, “that we know where the enemy is. So—tell me what you saw.”

  “A column of twenty,” Motsos said. “All on those things they ride, those … creatures. We could smell their stink and hear their howling, coming arrow-true across the plains. I think their horde cannot be far behind.”

  “No,” Racharran agreed. “But where?”

  “You know that river where the breaks are?” Motsos said. “All flat before, and then a wood? And then the jumbles?”

  Racharran nodded.

  “They chased us to the gulleys.” Motsos drank the hot tiswin as if it were some elixir. “I left them there. That’s only three days’ ride in good weather, but those beasts they ride.” He sipped more tiswin, his homely features thoughtful. “I think they’d travel faster than any horse.”

  Racharran nodded, his face grim. “And were they the outriders of the horde …”

  He left the sentence unfinished. Motsos said, “Our scouts ride five days ahead, even seven.”

  “Yes. Our scouts.” Racharran smiled darkly. “But these people are not like us.”

  “Even so.” Motsos shrugged. “That great horde we saw—surely it cannot travel so fast.”

  “Perhaps.” Racharran found a twig and broke it. The snapping rang loud in the silence. “Say they travel faster than we can, say those you saw could reach this canyon in three days. Say they ride—what?—five days before the rest. Then it might take them no more than eleven days to take word back.” He paused, calculating; when he spoke again, his voice was low and grim. “Their entire force could be on us as the Rain Moon rises.”

  Motsos raised his cup to his lips and found it empty. Lhyn reached to fill it and he downed the liquor in a single gulp, so alarmed he forgot to even thank her. When he remembered and murmured the words, she shook her head. Her eyes were fixed firm on her husband, and in them Motsos thought he saw a fear that must surely mirror his own. He stared at Racharran, waiting.

  The twig Racharran held was in splinters now. He threw the pieces into the fire. “We must prepare to fight,” he decided.

  “Perhaps they’ll not find us.” Lhyn’s voice was soft, as if she feared to say it aloud lest she betray them.

  “The Maker willing, no,” Racharran said. “But I think we’d best prepare. Surely they look for us. Likely they look for all the clans.”

  “Can they fight all the People?” Lhyn’s eyes were large with wondering horror.

  “Were there enough of them.” His mouth curved in parody of a smile. “Eh, Motsos?”

  Motsos nodded, wishing he might find argument; knowing he could not.

  “Could we not move on? Flee them?” Lhyn asked.

  Racharran barked laughter like an angry dog. “And go where? Here, we’ve at least the canyon’s walls at our back. I’d sooner not fight, but we may have no choice; and I’d sooner not wait to find out but be ready. So …” He threw back his head a moment, as if he shook off doubt, and when he looked again at Lhyn and Motsos, his face was all stern purpose. “We prepare to fight. Meanwhile, I’d see how Bylas fares. And”—this softer—“how close these invaders are.”

  “I’ll take you back,” Motsos said.

  “There’s no need.” Racharran shook his head. “I can find the place you decribed.”

  Motsos said, “I’d also know how Bylas fares.”

  Racharran smiled more warmly then and ducked his head. “So be it. But rest this night, eh? We’ll go out at dawn.”

  Perico wished he were not charged with Juh’s message: it was an honor he could easily have done without.

  The Frozen Grass Moon was no time for traveling, and worse in this unusually harsh winter. He had sooner spend his time warm in his lodge with his young wife than out on the open snow with the air so cold that each breath struck his lungs like a lance and dusted his horse’s mane with ice; so cold it was a danger to touch metal for fear he leave skin behind.

  And worse for all he saw along the way.

  He scarce dared build a fire for the fear it betray his position, and had it not been a surety that he freeze in the night, he would have slept without. But that was surely death, and so he sought out hidden places, where trees or rocks should hide the light and smoke, and even then slept restless, waking through the nights in fear of invaders.

  He had seen them.

  Oh, by the Maker, he had seen them! And they filled him with such dread as stirred his bowels and urged him go back save that should earn him Juh’s punishment and mark him a coward. So he went on, frightened, and by day and night prayed to the Maker that he come safe through to the Commacht, and that they send him back with an escort. Preferably a hundred or so warriors, for he doubted he could face those creatures with less.

  They were such things as nightmare spawned, and he wished Juh had listened earlier to Racharran and heeded the Commacht akaman who was, he decid
ed, a wise and foresighted man.

  Had Juh only listened, then he would not be here alone, hiding from creatures that surely blasphemed the Maker with their very existence.

  “You’re sure Juh said that?”

  Kanseah nodded, concealing the affront he felt. Surely it was hard enough that Tahdase sent him out in such foul weather without the Naiche akaman questioning the word he brought back. He let his eyes wander sidelong to Isten’s face, and found it set in a frown that matched Tahdase’s.

  “He told me—himself!—that he sends a rider to the Commacht to ask what Racharran does.”

  “And?” Tahdase asked.

  “That was all,” Kanseah said. “He sends a rider. I think …”

  He hesitated, not wishing to put words in the mouth of an akaman.

  “What do you think?” Isten asked, his voice soft so that Kanseah felt a little mollified. “I’d hear what you think Juh will do.”

  “I think,” Kanseah said, “that Juh will listen to Racharran’s words and likely heed them.” Almost, he added, “This time,” but he held that thought back and said only, “That was my feeling.”

  Isten looked at Tahdase and said, “I think the time has come to do the same.”

  Tahdase studied the fire awhile, then ducked his head. “Yes. We shall send a rider to the Commacht.”

  Silently, Kanseah asked the Maker fervently that it not be he.

  “They slew one, at least.”

  Racharran angled his lance in the direction of the horrid body sprawled frozen in the snow. It was pin-pricked with arrows and its blood was a shadow over the white. A broken lance protruded from the chest. Not far beyond lay an invader, arrows in the bright armor and the marks of hatchet blows on the helm. Farther down the break lay a Commacht, his left arm near sundered from the shoulder, his furs divided by a sword’s cut. Farther still lay his horse, dead from its wounds.

  Motsos said, “Bylas took them away from the Wintering Ground, as he said he would.”