Exile's Challenge

by Angus Wells

  He prayed it not be: Yazte put it in blunt words. “Do the Breakers come again, we shall be ready and fight them as we did before.”

  Morrhyn said, knowing they all waited on his word, “Yes; but pray it shall not be.”

  And wondered at his own doubt.

  Rannach carried a bow slung in a quiver of goose-fletched arrows, and a hatchet and a long knife. Davyd and Arcole had a pistol and a musket each—bags of powder and others of what shot they had left on their belts—and knives.

  Vitran brought them to an opening of the secret Grannach ways and bade them farewell.

  “I am sorry,” he said, looking up into Rannach’s angry downcast eyes, “that I could not find Taza sooner; but …”

  “He’s guided,” Rannach said, glancing at Davyd. “He’s the Breakers to show him the way.”

  “It might,” Vitran said, “be wiser that you wait. Let Colun come back and we’ll send warriors out with you.”

  “No!” Rannach shook his head, echoed by Davyd and Arcole. “We go now, and find my son.”

  Vitran shrugged, which was like a rock shaking its shoulders, and said, “I cannot send men with you, not without the creddan’s word.”

  Rannach said, “I’d not expect it. Only show us the way.”

  “So be it,” Vitran said, and moved his hands over the blank stone that stood before them, so that it shimmered and shifted and became an opening that shone out on a wide landscape of tumbling rock and wind-twisted pine that ran down the rock like old sad dreams to meet some unforeseen conclusion.

  Rannach stepped out first, his bow slung and an arrow nocked. Arcole came after, his musket cocked ready to fire. Then Davyd, slower, knowing no danger threatened—yet.

  He breathed in the pine-scented air and turned to wave farewell to Vitran.

  “Tell Colun, eh?”

  Vitran nodded solemnly as if bidding his goodbyes to men condemned to die. Davyd smiled, watching the opening in the rock close, wondering if he should come back from this venture, or die a branded man, condemned by fate or the scar burned forever into his cheek.

  “So,” he said, “do we go find Debo and bring him back?”

  They started down the slope.

  25

  Dangerous Journey

  Debo considered it all a great adventure—far more exciting even than the grandeur of Matakwa, which he did not properly understand save that it was an occasion important to his father and mother. But Matakwa seemed not so different to daily life, whereas with Taza he had embarked on a wild ride up into the hills and then gone underhill, which he knew vaguely was something not even his brave father had done. He had not seen the ethereal figure that guided Taza—that vision belonged to the traitor alone—and so could only marvel at his friend’s wondrous powers: that Taza could go where none of the People went, into strange unknown places. It was, indeed, a marvelous adventure, and Debo thought that when they returned he would have so much to tell Rannach and Arrhyna. It did not occur to him, as Taza lifted him down from a shelf onto the rock below, that he might not return to Ket-Ta-Thanne. Taza was his friend and Debo trusted him.

  “Where are we going now?” he asked.

  Taza stabbed a finger downslope, in the direction of the great green timber-sea. “There. Down into the forest, to meet your grandfather.”

  “My grandfather is dead.” Debo halted, frowning. “He was killed fighting the Breakers. My other grandfather is in camp.”

  “You are luckier than other children,” Taza answered with a sigh. “You have another grandfather, who lives in these forests and will be very glad to see you.”

  “How can I?” Debo demanded. “No one has more than two grandfathers.”

  “You do.” Taza bit back his irritation as Debo went on frowning, contemplating the impossible likelihood of having three grandfathers, and again demanded, “How can I?”

  Taza shrugged, squinting into the sunlight that poured over the trees to bathe the slopes in golden light. “You are very lucky,” he said. “Most boys have only two, but you have three because you are very special.”

  “How many do you have?” Debo asked.

  “None,” Taza answered with ill-concealed impatience. “All my people were killed in the fighting.”

  Debo nodded solemnly and said, “I’m sorry. Are you lonely?”

  “No.” Taza forced a smile. “I’m going to meet friends. And you’re my friend, no?”

  “Yes.” Debo smiled back. “Tell me about my other grandfather.”

  “As we walk,” Taza suggested. “He is an akaman—like your father—and he leads a clan that lives on this side of the mountains.”

  “I thought only the bad people lived here,” Debo said, hesitating.

  Taza said, “That’s not true. Listen—walk with me and I’ll tell you all about them.”

  Debo said, “All right,” and went willingly with his kidnapper down the slope toward the timber.

  “They are coming.” Hadduth blinked and rubbed at his tired eyes: so much pahé, so much dreaming, took a toll. Perhaps there was a greater toll exacted for what he did, who he dealt with, but he elected not to think on that. “They are through the mountains now.”

  Chakthi smiled. “I’ll send men to find them. And the others?”

  “I think Rannach follows.” Hadduth shrugged. “I cannot be sure, but …” He broke off as Chakthi’s smile became a snarl.

  “You cannot be sure? Do you not have … their … help?”

  Owan Thirsk, the owh’jika, stirred nervously on his filthy blanket, crawling to the limit of his tether that he be as far as possible from Chakthi. The Tachyn akaman wore a familiar expression: such as came on him with anger. Chakthi noticed his movement and sneered, throwing the bone he gnawed at the sorry, nameless creature. Owan Thirsk winced as the bone struck his face and then snatched it up and began to tear at what little meat was left.

  “I do,” Hadduth said, struggling to ignore his throbbing head. He had sooner found his lodge and crawled beneath his furs than chance his akaman’s intemperate rage, but Chakthi allowed him no choice—save to suffer that fury, which might well, Hadduth knew, end in his death. So he spoke swiftly, and with far more confidence than he truly felt. “They have guided me through all of this. They led me to the boy, Taza, and let me into his dreams. They showed me how I might bring Taza into Colun’s head, to learn the way through the mountains. They …”

  “Yes!” Chakthi chopped a hand, dismissive. “I know all this. But what of Rannach? I’d see his head hung in my lodge.”

  “And shall,” Hadduth promised. “His head, and—when we go back across the mountains—Morrhyn’s and any others’ who oppose you.”

  “That shall be good.” Chakthi’s smile grew a fraction warmer; then froze and became a snarl again. “But when?”

  Hadduth gulped tea. His throat and mouth were dry and his head ached abominably. He sensed he trod a knife’s edge: not only with Chakthi, but with powers he scarcely understood. He had found the leader of the Breakers in his dreams—and wondered if Akratil sought him out. A compact of some kind had, after all, been made in Ket-Ta-Witko, and Hadduth recognized that now his lot lay with the Breakers rather than the Maker. He doubted even the Maker would forgive him what he’d done; but neither could he entirely trust Akratil. He scarcely understood that weirdling creature, whose purposes and motivations seemed so alien, save they be entirely directed toward destruction. But no matter: he had cast his dice and the way was chosen now beyond changing. He only hoped he lived to see his plans reach fruition, and even then wondered if Akratil not renege on his promises and bring down the Tachyn with all the others.

  But that was not what Chakthi wanted to hear, and Chakthi sat before him, fingers toying with the hilt of his knife. So Hadduth said: “Soon. I cannot say exactly when—they’ve not vouchsafed me that knowledge—but it shall be. Such is their promise.”

  “And Rannach?” Chakthi snapped.

  Were he honest, Hadduth would have told his a
kaman that he did not know, had no idea at all—his dreams extended only so far as Akratil’s influence allowed, which was so far as men’s corruption ran. But honesty was not always a sound ploy around Chakthi, and so he said, “Rannach’s son is taken—shall he not come seeking the child?”

  “Shall he?” Chakthi asked. “You promise me that?”

  “Send men to find Taza and the boy,” Hadduth replied, “and others to scour the forests for Rannach—he’ll not be far behind.”

  It was what Chakthi wanted to hear and so he nodded and shouted orders that sent warriors running into the woodlands, then turned again to his wakanisha.

  “And when I’ve Vachyr’s child and Rannach’s head? What then?”

  Hadduth had hoped the interrogation was over; surely he had done enough for now? “They will tell me,” he said. And quickly, as Chakthi’s face darkened, “With the knowledge Taza brings, we can find a way through the mountains into Ket-Ta-Thanne. And do we go with the Breakers …”

  “There’s this land first!” Chakthi gestured angrily. “I’d have this land first!”

  “You shall,” Hadduth promised, wondering if he spoke true or false; knowing it too late now to go back. “Akratil has said as much.”

  Chakthi nodded sullenly. “I’d speak with this Akratil myself.”

  “Save you’ve the talent for dreaming,” Hadduth answered carefully, “you cannot. As yet he and all his folk remain in Ket-Ta-Witko, and until we open the way.…”

  “He cannot fulfill his promises,” Chakthi said.

  “Does he not already?” asked Hadduth. “Does he not send dreams against the strangers here? Taza brings you the boy, and Rannach after him, no? The rest shall come—my word on it.”

  “Your life on it,” Chakthi said.

  The day was warm, but still Hadduth felt a chill run down his spine as if some malign crawling thing investigated his backbone. He no longer doubted but that his akaman was mad, nor that he had any other choice save do what Chakthi ordered. “It shall be as you wish,” he promised. “Only wait, and it shall all come to you.”

  “Best it does,” Chakthi said. “On your life. I’d know Akratil’s plans, and when he’d implement them. Dream me that, eh? And tell him in your dreams that I’d speak with him myself, chieftain to chieftain.”

  “I shall do my best,” Hadduth agreed, thinking: You are not so great a chieftain, my akaman. I doubt you truly understand the power Akratil wields. But I think also that you shall learn it—and that frightens me.

  Chakthi said, “Good; and soon, eh?”

  Hadduth nodded and walked away.

  “They came this way.” Rannach knelt, staring intently at the faint tracks left in the shale. “Two sets of footprints going into the trees.”

  Arcole stared at the shattered stone, trying hard to discern the marks the Commacht indicated. He could not, but he trusted Rannach and so said, “Then we follow, no?”

  Rannach nodded, rising, and glanced at Davyd, a question on his handsome face.

  It was strange to find Rannach waiting on the youth, as if Davyd were truly a wakanisha like Morrhyn. But Davyd only turned away from the intent eyes and looked down the slope and said slowly, “I have not dreamed of danger yet.”

  Rannach said, “That’s enough for me. Come!” He started down the shale.

  Davyd hesitated and Arcole waited with him, studying that scarred face. Davyd was no longer the boy who had escaped indenture in Grostheim, nor the young man who studied with Morrhyn: he was become something other. It was as if, Arcole thought, his sojourn in the oak wood, his fight with the wolverine, had changed him forever. Surely he was changed physically—the Maker knew, but he came to resemble Morrhyn now, with that snow-white hair and the oddly distant look in his eyes, as if he gazed on sights unknown to ordinary mortals—but there was more. He seemed both more confident and more afraid. He seemed, Arcole supposed, committed, as if he had perceived a dangerous path he had sooner avoided, but took anyway, for fear of some greater loss than his life.

  Arcole touched his shoulder, said, “Do we go?”

  “Why not?” Davyd shrugged and essayed a smile lacking in humor.

  Arcole stared a moment at the brand on his cheek, pale against the tan, paler than the long scar, and stroked absently at his own. “All well,” he said, unsure whether he sought to reassure Davyd or himself, “we shall catch up with Taza, and not come close to any Evanderans.”

  Davyd paused an instant in his negotiation of the shale and smiled wanly at his comrade. “Yes, all well.”

  His tone suggested he could not believe all should be well, and Arcole would have spoken again save a foot slipped on the treacherous ground and he must fight to hold his balance, and when he was recovered Davyd was already downslope, closing on the hurrying Rannach.

  They went on across the shale to where it washed up against naked rock that jutted like the fangs of some vast buried dragon drowned by the stone. Beyond that more stone stretched out, smooth and slick, to the beginnings of the upper timberline. The trees were sparse here, but past that first thin line, the hills dropped away and became all tree-clad, dense with pine and maple. Gullies and ravines cut through, white water tumbling in iridescent sprays over tumbled boulders, streams disappearing into the forest. Hawks wheeled overhead, and flights of raucous crows; behind them, bighorn sheep watched from ledges as if marveling at the audacity of the trio, and once as they continued downward, a mountain lion snarled protestingly from the shelter of a branch.

  Rannach did not hesitate. It was as if he read the land easily as Arcole might read a book. Arcole had learned somewhat of the tracker’s art in his time with the People—and had hunted in the Levan—but the signs Rannach spotted were invisible to him. Here was a stone disturbed by a small foot, another disturbed by a larger; here a minuscule thread recognized instantly as coming from Debo’s breeches; here a twig broken by hurried passage. It was as if the Commacht saw a world beyond Arcole’s ken, just as he believed Davyd did, and Arcole felt almost inadequate—as if he were a mere passenger on this dangerous journey.

  “We’re catching up.” Rannach examined the ashes of a hastily buried fire. “They’re a day ahead; perhaps less. Taza will have to halt to sleep—surely Debo will need to.”

  “Save he carries the boy,” Arcole said. “And does he need sleep?”

  He flinched as Rannach turned eyes both angry and filled with pain on him.

  “I only …” He shrugged helplessly. “Forgive me, brother.”

  Rannach nodded and looked to Davyd.

  “Do we go on, until sunset at least? Can you trail them in the dark?”

  Reluctantly, Rannach shook his head.

  “Then best we make camp,” Davyd said. “There might be Tachyn scouting the forest—and can I sleep, perhaps I’ll dream.”

  Rannach’s expression suggested he had sooner go on through the night, but he nodded agreement and went on through the trees.

  The sun was close on the western mountains now, bathing the peaks in red-gold radiance that outlined the flights of roostward-winging birds like markers against the darkening sky. In the east, the New Grass Moon shone indifferent. Squirrels chattered overhead and a wolf howled, answered by others. Under the pines the light faded fast, the great forest ceiling closing down on the three lonely men. Soon all was darkness, and they elected to make their camp.

  They found a place where the hills folded, narrowing down into a gulch where a stream ran noisy, the walls close enough that their fire should not be seen. Even so, they deemed it wise to mount a guard—this was, after all, Chakthi’s domain, and were Davyd’s fears correct, warriors might well be out seeking them.

  “We’ll split the watch,” Rannach said, looking at Arcole, “that Davyd be able to sleep.”

  Davyd said, “I’ll take my turn,” and both older men answered him back: “No; sleep.”

  “Best that,” Arcole said. “That you be able to dream. Besides …” He gestured at Davyd’s body, the wounds.
“You need to rest.”

  He saw that Davyd would have protested—surely the old Davyd would, filled with pride—but now he only shrugged and ducked his head in acquiescence. Arcole watched as he opened his pack and measured out portions of the herbs Morrhyn had given him.

  “I’ll take the first turn.” Rannach glanced at the moon, now close overhead. “Perhaps I can find …”

  Arcole nodded, understanding. “If not tonight, brother, then tomorrow, eh?”

  Rannach smiled like a man tortured and took his bow and faded into the night. Arcole settled himself beside Davyd, watching as the younger man spilled herbs into a cup and drank deep.

  “Are you in much pain?”

  “I hurt somewhat.” Davyd’s eyes belied his smile. “Not much; and a night’s sleep …”

  “Shall not help much,” Arcole declared. “God, Davyd, are you truly fit enough for this?”

  Davyd’s smile grew genuine. “Does that matter, my friend? We do what we must do, no?”

  “Not,” Arcole said, “if it shall kill you.”

  Davyd swallowed the last of the herbs. “It might kill us all,” he said. “And what else can we do? Shall we leave Rannach here alone; shall I go back? Who’d dream for you then?”

  “Listen,” Arcole said earnestly. “I’d not see you die of those wounds—can you not go on, then say so. Honestly, eh? And I’ll bring you home to Ket-Ta-Thanne, no matter what Rannach wants.”

  Davyd said, using the language of the People, “Thank you, brother, but I’ve things to do here; things I must, else there be no Ket-Ta-Thanne. I cannot explain it—only know!—so do not talk to me of going back, eh? We go on!”

  Arcole nodded silently, thinking that he no longer knew Davyd at all.

  Taza crouched within the shadow of a wide-branched pine, studying the slope ahead. The timber grew so thick here the light of the waning moon was filtered in tricksy patterns that denied clear definition of the ground. He had thought something moved in the shadows and tugged Debo into the first hiding place available, not wishing to stumble on some hunting bear or other predator. He motioned the child to silence and Debo, thinking this all a great game, complied. Taza cocked his head, listening intently.