Exile's Challenge

by Angus Wells

  But he was committed now and could not turn back: his path was chosen, for honor’s sake, and friendship—he rode toward the gates.

  Jorge Kerik was again on guard, and recognized Var.

  “Major!” He saluted. “I’d not thought anyone would go out so late.”

  “The Inquisitor’s business, Captain.” Var returned the salute. “We’re to scout the environs, for fear of demons.”

  Mention of those dread entities was enough. Kerik shouted that the gates be opened, Var and Jaymes rode through, followed by Kerik’s shout: “God be with you both.”

  “Amen to that,” Jaymes chuckled. And then: “Tidily done, Major.”

  All Var said was “Ride, damn you,” as he dug his heels against his horse’s flanks and lifted the bay to a gallop.

  He wanted to get as far from Grostheim as he could before Talle realized what had happened and sent chasers after them. He wanted to ride wide and far, knowing that all his past was given up now, all his career and loyalties; knowing that the Autarchy must now deem him outlaw and he be no different to any branded man running from his master. He felt lost and afraid, alone, with all the width of Salvation spread before him—and likely, he thought, nowhere to hide.

  31

  The Fire, Far Away

  Morrhyn woke sweat-sticky and shuddering, the dream still so vivid in his mind that it was awhile before he could control his limbs and stumble from the bed to splash welcome water on his heated face, and even then he must kneel and brace himself before he might rise to face the awful truth of revelation.

  The Breakers came again! Or would, did all their filthy plans come to fulfillment—the which depended on … He shook his head, denying the horror of that knowledge. It was too gross, too far beyond the comprehension of any caring man. It was, to him, unthinkable … but to the Breakers, to Chakthi?

  He tugged on shirt and breeches. His hands shook as he laced his boots, and when he pushed through the flap of his lodge it seemed the sun burned accusing on his face, the breeze that ruffled his hair a lash of condemnation for his lack of foresight.

  They name me the Prophet, eh? What poor prophet that I failed to foresee this.

  He paused only long enough to make brief obeisance to the Maker, raising his hands and face to the four corners of the world and the mountains beyond, praying the while that the dream did not come too late, and went at a run to where the Lakanti tents were pitched.

  Lhyn called to him as he passed, asking if he’d take breakfast with her, but he did not hear her in his urgency, or even smell the biscuits and meat savory in the pan. Arrhyna and Flysse watched him go by and saw his face and turned to Lhyn for reassurance of what they saw there, for his expression frightened them.

  “Wait,” Lhyn urged when they’d go after him, to know what drove the wakanisha so swiftly—so urgently—on his way. “Has he dreamed of your husbands, he’ll tell us in time. We can only wait.”

  Morrhyn found Kahteney’s lodge and slapped his hand against the entry flap.

  “Are you awake, brother? I’d speak with you.”

  The curtain was thrust aside on the instant, Kahteney beckoning Morrhyn inside, the lodge filled with the sweet smell of brewing tea. Kahteney’s face was pale, his eyes stretched wide as any owl’s.

  “I’d have come to you. I dreamed …”

  “Tell me,” Morrhyn urged.

  Their dreams coincided: a fire sweeping over the land, consuming everything; the Breakers come again, their resurgence dependent on the terrible sacrifice neither Dreamer cared much to discuss.

  “If it happens,” Morrhyn said, “then I think we are lost. It shall deliver them all the knowledge they need, and they shall find Ket-Ta-Thanne and Salvation, and destroy the People and the Grannach and those folk who live beyond the mountains. It shall give them dominion over this world and all the others.”

  Kahteney nodded, his angular face planed deeper by the horror as he asked, “What shall we do? What can we do?”

  “All we may,” Morrhyn said, “but it shall not be easy. Listen …”

  Davyd woke struggling against the hand that clamped against his face. He tried to shout and could not for the pressure there, so he reached up to grasp the strangling wrist and force his attacker away. He reached for his knife, thinking to plant the blade between his assailant’s ribs.…

  Then heard Arcole say, “In God’s name, be quiet! Would you bring all Chakthi’s Tachyn down on us?”

  Davyd’s eyes opened and he saw Arcole straddling him, gagging him.

  Arcole saw the awareness there and released his grip; Davyd let go the knife.

  “God, I thought you’d kill me!” Arcole glanced at his shirt. A pinprick of blood showed on the dirty material. “You dreamed?”

  Davyd nodded. His mouth was very dry and he gestured at the waterskin, waiting until Arcole passed it to him and he had swallowed sufficient to loosen his tongue before speaking.

  “Where’s Rannach?”

  “On guard,” Arcole said.

  “Bring him. He must hear this.”

  There was such immediacy in his voice Arcole did not hesitate, but rose and went to where Rannach stood his early-morning watch.

  When they returned to the banked fire it was to find Davyd crouched over the embers, his blanket drawn tight about his trembling shoulders, his face haunted.

  He stared aghast at Rannach, who gasped, “Debo? He’s dead?”

  “Not yet.” Davyd shook his head, weary and urgent at the same time. “But …” He paused, shaking. “Listen …”

  Taza had not expected such a welcome. He had thought that the deliverance of Chakthi’s grandson must bring him acclaim, a position of honor amongst the Tachyn, but it was as if he were no more than a messenger, a mere carrier, and he sulked as Debo was given to Chakthi and the Tachyn akaman raised the child high above his head.

  “My grandson!” Chakthi shouted. “Vachyr’s child is given back to me!”

  Debo screamed, demanding that this strange man set him down. Chakthi ignored the boy’s wailing, holding him aloft as he paraded the camp.

  “You shall be praised in time.” Taza felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find Hadduth smiling at him. “Let Chakthi have his pleasure for now, and later he’ll reward you.”

  Taza nodded sulkily. “It was not easy,” he said, “bringing him here. I risked much.”

  “I know.” Hadduth’s hand grasped firmer. “But you were aided, no?”

  “You?” Taza looked askance at the Tachyn Dreamer. “That was you?”

  “Not alone.” Hadduth’s smile was enigmatic. “There are … others … who aided your dreaming.”

  “The golden warrior?” Taza looked about the camp and saw no sign of that strange figure. “He’s here?”

  Hadduth said, “Not yet. But now you’ve brought us Debo …”

  “I thought …” Taza said, and shrugged.

  “Thought what?” Hadduth asked pleasantly.

  Taza shrugged again and said, “That Chakthi should welcome his grandson’s savior.”

  “He does,” Hadduth said. “He will—but for now he’s only delighted that Vachyr’s child is delivered him.”

  Taza said, “Shall I be adopted into the Tachyn, then? Shall you teach me to be a wakanisha?”

  “Yes,” Hadduth answered. “And more; far more.”

  Owan Thirsk knew he was close to death, and welcomed that promise of oblivion. He was drained in ways he could not previously have imagined, as if the pahé Hadduth fed him leached out all his spirit, so that he no longer cared to live but only looked forward to the ultimate calm of his life’s ending.

  Hadduth had used him badly. The wakanisha had got language from him—Evander’s tongue—and knowledge of Salvation, of its geography and social structure and all Thirsk knew of Grostheim and the forts, of the soldiers and the people, both branded and free. And as the Tachyn sucked out his dreaming knowledge, there had come into Thirsk’s mind a terrible figure—a dread warrior ar
mored in gold, whose horse clattered with bleached skulls—and Thirsk had known that he was forced to commune with true devils. That the laughing figure whose eyes glowed red as furnace fires was, truly, the embodiment of all evil, of destruction rampant and unthinking, uncaring—save for annihilation. And Thirsk, the owh’jika, had aided that creature in its plans, and that likely Salvation should fall because of his aid.

  He longed for death. It should, he hoped, be an atonement before God.

  The ragged man tethered like some captive animal to the ground could barely open his eyes as he felt Hadduth’s kick.

  “This is the owh’jika,” Hadduth said. “He taught me the language of this land, and how to enter the minds of its people so that I can send them dreams that drive them mad and set them to killing one another.” The Tachyn Dreamer chuckled. “It is most satisfying to set them to slaying one another.”

  “You are a great wakanisha,” Taza said, staring at the skeletal figure. It was a sorry sight: gaunt and filthy; near, he thought, to dying. “Morrhyn would not do that. He would not even give me pahé, or accept me as pupil.”

  “Morrhyn,” Hadduth said, “is a fool. He fails to recognize the true source of power.”

  “Which is?” Taza asked.

  Hadduth laughed. “Morrhyn believes the Maker is divine—and perhaps He is—but He is surely not alone. There is another source … that you’ve seen.”

  Taza said, “The golden warrior? The one who brought me through the Grannach caverns?”

  “Akratil,” Hadduth said approvingly, “who is powerful as the Maker.”

  “Surely he must be.” Taza nodded. “Is he like the Gray Wolf, and the Maker like the Brown Doe?”

  “Old stories from an old world.” Hadduth set an arm around Taza’s shoulders. “Ket-Ta-Witko is far away, and this is a new land, with new masters—new gods.”

  “Shall you teach me to understand them?” Taza asked eagerly. “Shall you teach me to dream and become a true wakanisha?”

  Hadduth said, “Yes, I shall. But first you must prove yourself.”

  “Have I not already?” Taza protested, gesturing at the celebrating camp where Chakthi still paraded the screaming child. “I stole Debo, no? I brought him here, did I not? How else shall I prove myself?”

  “Kill him.” Hadduth kicked the owh’jika hard in the ribs.

  “I slew a man already,” Taza said. “I put my knife into Tekah when he tried to stop me taking Debo.”

  “Then it should be easy now,” Hadduth said. “Prove yourself to Akratil.”

  Taza thought a moment, and then decided that he had come too far to turn back. Did Hadduth demand a sacrifice, then he should have it: what matter another life now? He drew his blade and knelt down and thrust it hard into the owh’jika’s throat, twisting the good Grannach steel until he felt the point grate on bone.

  He could not understand what Thirsk said to him as the blood fountained and the owh’jika died: “Thank you.” But Hadduth was approving, and that pleased Taza.

  “Now,” Hadduth said, “you are one of us.”

  Debo screamed his protest as Chakthi carried him about the camp. He hated the dank forest and the sad lodges and the smell of the man who held him aloft. There was an odor of blood and sweat about the man that Debo had never known when Rannach carried him: an odor of decay the child could not define but only incognitively recognize and protest against. But he had no choice—Chakthi paraded him like a trophy, and his friend, Taza, only stood watching and smiling as if all his dreams were come true and the Green Grass Woman had touched him.

  Debo wished he had never gone with Taza. It had seemed a great adventure at first, but now it became a terrifying thing and he longed for the comfort of his mother’s arms, his father’s presence. He beat his small hands against Chakthi’s head and voiced what few curses he knew in condemnation of his traitorous friend. But Taza paid him no attention, and he knew he was lost.

  And in Ket-Ta-Witko, in the blood-strewn valley of the old Meeting Ground, Akratil sat before a fire on which a man’s body was spitted and knew that soon his dreams must become reality, and he lead the Horde onward in service of his dread master. Onward to the land his prey had fled to, where he should destroy them, and all the others, so that nothing remained save destruction. They would not, he vowed, escape. He was unaccustomed to defeat—it sullied his honor. More, he served a dark force that knew nothing of sympathy, and should he fail …

  He shook his head, dismissing the thought. He would not fail! He looked to where Bemnida waited, a knife poised in her hand, ready to carve.

  “I am hungry.”

  Instantly, the woman set to slicing the choicest cuts from the body, layering them on a silver platter that she carried to Akratil, kneeling as she served him.

  He said, “My thanks,” and stroked her hair, at which she smiled and made a sound akin to the purring of some great cat.

  “Shall it be soon?” she ventured as Akratil selected a piece of bloody meat.

  “Yes,” he answered, pleased with her loyalty. “Soon, my pretty.”

  Bemnida stared at him with eyes filled with adoration.

  The pahé filled Morrhyn with its comforting languor. The wa’tenhya seemed to shift and shimmer before his eyes, Kahteney becoming a blurred shape stretched out indistinct beyond the fire. The flames were far more interesting, for in their writhing he began to see the shape of futures possible and futures that might be, and even—he prayed as he felt his eyes droop shut—what he need do to deny the threatened terror.…

  He woke thickheaded. The fire was gone down into embers, Kahteney slept on, and he could not tell what hour it was, night or day—only know the terrible urgency of the dreamt answers. He found the waterskin and drank deep, then crawled to where Kahteney lay and shook the Lakanti wakanisha awake.

  Kahteney groaned, rubbing at his red-rimmed eyes, and said anxiously, “Must it be so?”

  “I think,” Morrhyn said, “that there is no other way.”

  “We might well lose Ket-Ta-Thanne,” Kahteney moaned.

  “Do we fail the Maker,” Morrhyn returned him, “we shall surely lose Ket-Ta-Thanne. And more, besides.”

  Kahteney said, “Yes,” in a tone that suggested he’d sooner reject the awful certitude of their shared dreaming.

  “Then do we go tell them?” Morrhyn asked.

  Kahteney gave him back, “Shall they listen? Even to the Prophet?”

  Morrhyn shrugged. “Those who’ll listen shall come with me. I only pray there be enough.”

  Kahteney swallowed water, spilled more over his face and naked chest, and said, “We’ve no other choice, eh?”

  Morrhyn said, “No.”

  “Then do we go speak with Yazte and the others.” Kahteney sat up, reaching for his shirt. “Ach, Morrhyn my brother, is there any end to this?”

  “Perhaps.” Morrhyn smiled wanly. “Perhaps, do we defeat them now. Can we defeat them now …”

  Kahteney nodded and followed the Prophet from the dream lodge.

  Lhyn felt her breath clog in her throat as she watched Morrhyn emerge, Kahteney on his heels. Both Dreamers wore the expressions of men who had seen more and worse than either would envisage, and at the same time seemed determined. She recognized that look: Morrhyn had worn it when he announced his intention of going to the Maker’s Mountain, nor less when he returned with his awful news. She watched them hurry to Yazte’s lodge, seeking to conceal her own fear as she felt Arrhyna’s eyes on her, and Flysse’s.

  “Wait,” she said. “They’d speak with Yazte, and when that’s done doubtless we shall be told.”

  “What?” Yazte stared aghast at the Dreamers. “Do you know what you ask of the People?”

  Morrhyn nodded. “Much.” His eyes fixed the Lakanti akaman with a pale blue stare that forbade denial. “But do we not attempt it, then Ket-Ta-Thanne and all the worlds shall be lost. Would you see that happen?”

  Yazte shook his head like a bear woken from hibernation and res
entful of the disturbance, but he said, “No; how can I?” He sighed and studied the wakanishas each in turn. “Best call a Council, eh?”

  Davyd shivered, unsure whether it was the knowledge of his dreaming or the effects of his wounds that set his body to trembling. The Maker knew, but the dreams were bad. And did worse come to worst … He pushed the thought aside: there was no path left save onward in hope, even could he scarce dare own that precious commodity. He pushed clear of his blankets and rose to squat beside the fire. Spring came late to Salvation, and the early-morning air was chill. He wished forlornly that he were back safe in Ket-Ta-Thanne—save Ket-Ta-Thanne was no longer safe. Nor was safety anywhere did Chakthi and Hadduth succeed in their horrid design.

  Rannach stirred and was instantly awake.

  “Debo?”

  “Tonight,” Davyd said. “They shall attempt it tonight.”

  “Then we’d best find them,” Rannach said.

  Davyd nodded. “I know the way now. It shall take us the better part of the day, but the Maker willing, we’ll be in time.”

  Taza had thought only to earn Chakthi’s approval by bringing the Tachyn his grandson, that the akaman should welcome the return of his dead son’s child. He had believed it must earn him his dearest wish—to become a true Dreamer—and that was now promised him. Hadduth had given his word that Taza should become his named pupil, that he be given the pahé and taught the dreaming ways. He had thought that Debo would be raised as a Tachyn, likely to be named akaman after Chakthi.

  He had never thought on such plans as the outcasts held for the little boy, and for all his hatred of Davyd, his resentment of Morrhyn, he found what was planned abhorrent.

  “It’s the only way,” Hadduth explained, casual as if they discussed the slaughtering of a deer. “Akratil and his Breakers are trapped in Ket-Ta-Witko. When Morrhyn opened the Gate, it closed behind us and left the Breakers there—save we open a fresh pathway, they must remain.”