The White Road n-5

by Lynn Flewelling

  “How are things here?”

  “Not good. Some Retha’noi are massing on the heights. I don’t know how many, but more than we have, I’d say. They don’t want us here and we won’t get through without a fight. Kalien and the rest are on guard duty in the woods. That man Rhal has gone back for his men, and Alec. I hope I did right, letting him go?”

  “You did. They only came to make certain of their friends’ safety, which I have sworn to.”

  “Did you find the book?”

  “We did, thanks to Seregil and Alec. Seregil, show them.”

  Seregil pulled his share of the halved, salt-warped volumes from his pack.

  “You have already tried to destroy them,” Turmay said with evident approval.

  “Not quite. We’re splitting them,” Seregil replied. “No one will have a complete book. We take half and the Ebrados take half and they’ll never come together again.”

  “No, they must be burned!”

  “They won’t burn, thanks to the alchemist’s magic. It’s better this way,” Seregil explained.

  “Then cast them into some deep, dark place!”

  “That’s for our khirnari to say, Turmay. You know that,” Rieser said.

  “But the small tayan’gil? You will destroy it?” asked Turmay.

  “No! That was never our intent. You know we honor tayan’gils.”

  “This is not like the others. You know what it can do. It’s already killed one of your people.”

  “We’re taking him back with us, to protect him, like the books,” Rieser said firmly. “You’ve guided us well so far, but you have no say in this.” He gestured at the heights where watch fires were burning. “What is the meaning of all this?”

  “They don’t like outsiders,” Turmay replied, but Seregil caught the hint of untruth in his words, and the way he glanced around at the surrounding forest as he spoke.

  “You’ve agreed to give up Sebrahn?” Nowen asked Seregil, evidently not noticing.

  “It was Alec’s decision,” said Seregil. “It won’t be easy for him, when the time comes, but Sebrahn will be yours.”

  “I see.” Turmay was frowning now.

  “There’s one more thing, though,” Seregil said, turning to Rieser. “You have the tayan’gil and the books, or parts of them anyway. In return, I need your word, on your honor, that Alec will be free to go.”

  Rieser hesitated, then nodded. “You have my word.”

  “Those were not our orders!” Nowen said.

  “I am taking responsibility for that. I’d never have found the books without them. And they saved my life twice over. No, Alec will go his way in peace, and we will not hunt him again.”

  “What will you tell the khirnari?”

  “Just what I have told you. It’s a debt of honor and I take full responsibility. I have seen what these men are capable of. Alec will not be caught and used again.”

  Seregil looked around at the others, watching the different emotions play out there: doubt, anger, acceptance.

  Meanwhile, Hâzadriën had made a few more flowers for Rieser’s shoulder. Rieser waited until he was finished, then reached out and stroked Sebrahn’s hair. “And this little one will be treated with honor and kindness.”

  “He’s unnatural,” said Turmay.

  “Aura’s white road runs in his veins, however mixed. He’s not an abomination.”

  “That’s for the khirnari to decide,” Sorengil warned.

  “No, it has been decided!” cried a voice above them.

  The witch Naba stood above the waterfall with several other Retha’noi men, all with oo’lus poised to play. Behind him Retha’noi archers were taking aim, and two other witch men were there with their horns.

  “This can’t be good,” muttered Micum.

  “If any of you move, the archers will find you,” Turmay warned. “Rieser í Stellen, you were sent to find this tayan’gil, and to destroy the ya’shel. I was sent to destroy both, and the Mother has given me the means and brought me to my brothers of the south.”

  “This is treachery!”

  “Please, Rieser, you must listen to me,” Turmay pleaded. “I have no desire to see Hâzad blood spilled.”

  “Then you have chosen the wrong friends!” Rieser growled.

  At that moment the witches on the heights began to play. First Rane, and then Relian slumped to the ground, dead or unconscious; it was impossible to tell.

  Micum fell to his knees. Seregil could feel the effects creeping over him as he knelt in front of Sebrahn and shouted, “Sing, damn it! Sing!”

  And Sebrahn did.

  Seregil carefully refrained from touching Sebrahn, but he still felt the rush of power strike through him, banishing the effects of the horns. A swirling wind blew up from nowhere at the center of the clearing, scattering gear and blowing the fire to pieces. Neither the Ebrados nor the Retha’noi fell, and Seregil guessed that the wind must be Sebrahn’s magic colliding with that of the hill folk. He’d never seen anything like it, but the Retha’noi were still on their feet. Ducking a flying branch, he crawled over to Micum and felt for a pulse. He was alive, and woke when Seregil shook him.

  The Retha’noi fell silent first, then Sebrahn. Seregil heard shouting on the heights, and a sudden scream from the trees behind them.

  “They’re flanking us,” said Nowen.

  “Aura’s Light, that sounded like Kalien!” Morai exclaimed even as she took aim and let fly.

  Nowen and several of the others who were still on their feet pushed the cart onto its side to shield them as the Retha’noi shouted what were probably war cries—he hoped to hell they weren’t some new magic—and the Retha’noi archers shot back. Arrows thudded into the bottom of the cart and embedded themselves in the trees behind them.

  “Will you be able to fight, if it comes to that?” Seregil asked Rieser.

  The man shrugged. “I will do what I can.”

  Some of the Ebrados scrambled for their bows while Nowen and Sorengil chanced death to drag Rane and Relian to safety. They were nearly there when Relian was struck in the neck. Seregil and Micum ducked out and helped bring them in. Rieser quickly inspected Relian’s wound and shook his head. Blood was pulsing out around the shaft and he was wheezing bloody foam. Sebrahn was with him in an instant, but there was no water for him to use.

  Seregil pulled him away. “Leave him. There’s nothing you can do for him right now.”

  “I wish Alec was here with his bow,” said Micum, crouched beside Hâzadriën and Rieser, sword drawn.

  “So do I,” said Seregil.

  Taegil burst from the woods at their back and ran for cover. “They’re in the trees! I think they killed Kalien!”

  “How many?” Rieser demanded.

  “I don’t know. At least a dozen.” Taegil fell to his knees, gasping for breath. “We heard that awful noise, then suddenly they were there. We both ran but—”

  “You have a bow,” Rieser snapped. “Use it!”

  Seregil looked up at the darkening sky. “Alec won’t wait much longer.”

  It was only then that he realized that Sebrahn was gone.

  Looking around frantically, he saw that the rhekaro had left the shelter of the cart and was making for the pool with the bowl Hâzadriën had dropped. Sebrahn filled it, but as he turned to come back, an arrow struck him in the side. He staggered, but kept going. Another struck him in the leg and this time he fell.

  Seregil dashed out and grabbed him, pulling the rhekaro to safety. Ignoring his own wounds, Sebrahn immediately reached for the bowl and looked up at Seregil, the message plain. Seregil filled it from a fallen waterskin and helped him over to Relian. Sebrahn didn’t have to cut a finger; using the white blood from his own wounds, he made a dark flower and pressed it to the wound in the dying man’s neck.

  “It’s no use,” Seregil told him, but Sebrahn made another, and another. His wounds were still bleeding, and Seregil saw that the rhekaro was taking on a shrunken look; his already t
hin arms were noticeably smaller.

  He pulled Sebrahn away, and over to Rieser. “Sebrahn needs strong blood!”

  The Hâzad cut his finger and stuck it in Sebrahn’s mouth. The rhekaro latched on to his hand and sucked desperately.

  Then the sound of the oo’lus began again. Dropping Rieser’s hand, Sebrahn jumped to his feet and began to sing again.

  “It’s been too long,” Alec said, watching as the sun sank toward the peaks in front of them.

  “I don’t like it, either,” said Skywake. “We haven’t heard a damn thing. I say we go find them.”

  Alec hobbled Patch and took up his bow. “Come on.”

  “Wait, I hear a horseman,” said Skywake.

  A moment later Rhal burst from the trees, an arrow bobbing from his horse’s shoulder.

  “The camp’s under attack,” he shouted. “I was on my way back for you all and suddenly someone was shooting at me!”

  Just then they heard a distant droning.

  “What is that?” Skywake exclaimed.

  “Oo’lus. Lots of them,” Alec began, then another piercing, unmistakable sound joined it. “And that’s Sebrahn. Come on!”

  “Don’t run off alone,” Rhal called after him. “Your man will never forgive me if I let you get yourself killed.”

  “Then you better hurry up!” Alec called back, sword in his right hand and his bow in the left.

  Running in the lead, Alec was the first to see the body of a dark-haired man lying facedown in the road, two arrows in his back. The clothing wasn’t Seregil’s, but Alec still had to stop and roll him over, just to be certain. It was Kalien.

  “We’re deer in a meadow here,” he told the others as they caught up. “Get into the trees. Rhal, you take that side of the road, I’ll go left.”

  Five of the sailors followed Alec as he plunged through the shadowy wood. In a matter of minutes a small dark form leapt out at him with a long knife. Alec struck him down before he was in reach, and the one right behind him. There were more and suddenly he and his men were in the middle of a melee. From the shouts and ringing of steel nearby, Rhal had met with the same welcome.

  They dispatched the men with knives, only to find themselves targeted by unseen archers. One of the sailors—it was too dark under the trees to be certain which one—was struck in the arm, and another fell.

  “Keep going!” Alec shouted. They could hear more shouting from the direction of the waterfall, and now he could smell wood smoke.

  Illior must have been still pleased with him; Alec reached the edge of the clearing without losing anyone else. A few trees on the far edge of the clearing were in flames, making it easier to see in the gathering gloom.

  The droning started again, and Sebrahn’s answering song rose to mingle with it. Alec gritted his teeth against the sound, watching a violent wind whip up near the waterfall.

  Rieser and some of the Ebrados were just in front of him, hunkered down behind the overturned cart. A few others were in the woods, shooting at the enemy on the high ground above the falls. Micum and Seregil were in the act of chasing after Sebrahn, who stood in the open, singing.

  There were a lot of men up there, and some of them had oo’lus, but they had gone silent when Sebrahn began to sing. “We’re here!” Alec shouted to Seregil, then sheathed his bloody sword and raised his bow, aiming for the witches.

  He struck two of the five in quick succession before the others ducked from sight, then turned his attention to the armed men streaming down through the trees in their direction.

  “Over here!” Alec called over to the others as he took aim at the Retha’noi.

  “How many?” asked Micum.

  “Two score or more, but that’s what I see.”

  There were short arrows scattered everywhere, and the cart looked like a tailor’s pin pillow, but the archers had stopped. They were probably among those coming down after them.

  Then the remaining witches began to play again and Sebrahn answered them with a new, even more earsplitting note.

  Alec staggered toward him, then fell to his knees as the combined sound of Sebrahn and the horns threatened to overwhelm his senses.

  They are going to kill us all, thought Alec. His head felt like it was going to explode and his vision went red. The mingled sounds of the oo’lus and Sebrahn’s song were unbearable, and a sudden wind knocked him flat on his back, making it impossible to get to Sebrahn, who was exposed now, standing beside the cart, pale hair whipping wildly around his head.

  Just when he thought he would die or go mad, the air was suddenly filled with the sound of wings. Looking up, he saw owls—hundreds of them—some swirling overhead while others dove toward the Retha’noi.

  Sebrahn is calling them! His “owl dragons.” Illior’s sign. If only there were real dragons in this part of the world!

  But the huge flock descending on the men on the heights might equal a dragon; the oo’lu song faltered and stopped and there were cries of pain and dismay from the forest to their left, some dangerously close.

  Sebrahn stopped singing and fell to his hands and knees, his hair dull now, and dragging in the dirt. Alec crawled the short distance to him, aware that Seregil was shouting for him to get to cover. He grabbed up the rhekaro and staggered behind the cart with the others.

  Sebrahn clung to Alec, croaking his name. Here in the shadow of the cart, Alec couldn’t see Sebrahn well enough to be sure of any injuries, but he could feel how depleted that little body was. Cutting his finger on the edge of his sword, he fed him and was relieved when Sebrahn sucked eagerly.

  The owls were still diving and clawing at the Retha’noi, looking like avenging demons in the glare of the spreading forest fire. But that didn’t stop more armed men from bursting from the trees and falling on Seregil and the others. Entrusting Sebrahn to Hâzadriën, Alec waded into the fight.

  The Retha’noi outnumbered them, but certainly couldn’t outfight them. They were all small like Turmay, and were armed with nothing but knives or short spears. Alec cut down four of them, and then lost count. It was horrible, like fighting children, and all the while the owls swooped and tore at their scalps and faces. He could see Seregil and Micum a few yards away, and they both wore similar expressions of dismay.

  But the Retha’noi kept coming.

  The sound of oo’lus behind him startled Alec. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw Turmay there, with Naba, and another witch he didn’t know. They were all looking at him as they played.

  An icy hand gripped Alec’s heart and froze the blood in his veins. The sword fell from his numb hand and he staggered, vision going dim as Sebrahn began a song that Alec had heard only once before.

  Seregil saw Alec crumpled on the ground and Micum kneeling beside him, pressing a hand to Alec’s chest. Stanching a wound or feeling for a heartbeat? Just beyond, Turmay and Naba stood with another witch, but Sebrahn was there in front of them, singing.

  Dropping his bloody sword, Seregil ran to them and fell to his knees beside Alec, hardly noticing when both songs ceased. He took Alec’s face between his hands and felt blood seeping from the younger man’s ears. More ran like tears from beneath Alec’s closed eyelids.

  “Alec! Alec, open your eyes, talí!”

  After a long terrible moment, Alec’s eyelids fluttered.

  “Alec, can you hear me? Say something!” Seregil pleaded.

  “Stop—yelling—at me,” he mumbled.

  Micum laughed in relief, and so did Seregil, but there were tears on his cheeks.

  Alec reached up and brushed them away with one grimy, bloody thumb. “I’m all right.”

  “I told you no more dying, damn it!”

  “I didn’t, this time,” Alec gasped, then pushed himself up on one arm. “Sebrahn—Where’s Sebrahn?”

  Retha’noi and some of the Ebrados lay scattered like forgotten rag dolls all over the clearing and at the edge of the forest. Hâzadriën knelt in the midst of them, tending Morai. There were bodies floating in
the pool below the waterfall and—

  And Sebrahn lay in a heap near the bodies of Turmay and Naba and some other witch Seregil hadn’t seen.

  Struggling to his feet, Alec staggered over to the rhekaro.

  The luster was gone from Sebrahn’s pale hair, and when Alec turned him over and gathered him in his arms, Seregil saw that the color of those open, unseeing eyes was as dull as old lead.

  Seregil drew his poniard and held it out. Alec drove the tip of his forefinger against the point, piercing it nearly to the bone, then put it between Sebrahn’s slack lips. The rhekaro’s whole small body was withered like a pumpkin vine after a frost.

  “Drink, Sebrahn,” Alec urged, squeezing droplets onto Sebrahn’s tongue. “Please drink.”

  “Can’t Hâzadriën do something, Rieser?” asked Seregil.

  Rieser shook his head sadly. “Tayan’gils can’t heal themselves or each other. Only—”

  “Hâzadriëlfaie blood,” Alec finished for him, pressing his thumb against his forefinger to make the blood come faster.

  Seregil put an arm around him, saying nothing.

  “Please don’t die, Sebrahn.”

  Seregil was about to pull him away when Sebrahn’s lips twitched around Alec’s finger and his dull eyes slowly closed. Alec stabbed his left forefinger and squeezed out fresh blood for him. Sebrahn was sucking weakly now; blood ran in a thin trickle from the corner of his mouth.

  Rieser knelt down beside him. “Thank Aura. I didn’t think it was possible.”

  “Maybe you should feed him, too,” said Alec. “Your blood is pure.”

  Rieser nodded and cut his finger, then fed Sebrahn as Alec held him.

  Alec leaned against Seregil, not taking his eyes from Rieser and Sebrahn. “He saved us all.”

  “Not all,” said Nowen, limping over to them, her sword arm bloody to the elbow.

  “How many of us are left?” asked Rieser.

  “Rane survived whatever those witches did with their cursed horns, but he’s weak. Taegil has an arrow through his thigh. Relian is weak but alive, thanks to Sebrahn, though he can’t talk. Allia and Morai are dead and Kalien is still missing.”

  “So many!” Rieser murmured grimly.