Runestone of Eresu

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  He wanted to whisper to her, to hold her.

  “You can’t dig out, Ram. The posts are buried a long way and the ground is like rock.”

  He touched her hand, her cheek—that face he had seen in dreams for half his life. Why didn’t she remember? He wanted to speak of Tala-charen and could not.

  “I can steal a knife, though. If you . . .”

  He searched her eyes. So direct, so concerned for him. “A knife, yes. If I could get AgWurt to enter this cursed pen . . .” Should he speak of this? AgWurt was, after all, her father.

  “If you could do that, you could kill him and take the key. I want to kill him. I am—I am afraid. I have tried. He—he wakes in his sleep. It is the—the only way I know to do it, in his sleep, and I can’t even do that.”

  “He will die,” Ram promised. “He needs to die. Is this . . . Telien, is this why you help me? Only so I will kill AgWurt?”

  She looked shocked, drew back. “I—I suppose it is, in part. But . . .” She came close again. “But there is more to it than that, Ramad. I don’t understand. I would help you anyway, you are a Seer of Carriol. But . . .” She was so close to him. “There is something more that I do not understand.” She searched his face, trying to make sense of it. “We are together. In a way I do not understand.” Was there a glint of fear on her cheek? He seemed unable to tell her how he felt. They stood on the brink of wonder beyond any he had ever known, and he could not speak. The moment on Tala-charen was a part of it, he could almost feel again Time warping, space warping beyond comprehension to form new patterns—and then suddenly terror gripped him. Terror for Telien swept him as he Saw her sucked through the barrier of time, in a vision so abrupt, so lucid, a vision of Telien’s fate. . . . Gone. Lost in Time, perhaps for eternity.

  It could not be! He would not let it be! He felt her stir and found he was gripping her hard, hurting her. He loosed her. She touched his clenched fist. For an instant she thought his pain was from the wound and then, watching him, she knew it was not; she saw his fear and her eyes were huge with it.

  When he did not move or speak, did not draw himself from the vision that held him, she dug anxious fingers into his arm and reached to turn his face to her. “What is it, Seer? What vision holds you?”

  His fear for her and his sudden rending pain for himself because of it, his pain for the two of them, shook him utterly. He could not touch the edges of the vision, nor grasp the causes of the chasm of time through which he saw her fall. He could only taste his own fear and then his terrible, unbearable aloneness.

  She watched him with sudden growing understanding—at least of what he felt, of what she herself felt. Of what she had felt last night, this strangeness, this sense of having known him always. She was amazed and shaken by it. There had been men; this was not like that. This was as if a part of her had suddenly, irrevocably, come home. As if her very soul had come to her suddenly out of unimaginable space.

  She bent forward so her cheek was pressed against the bars and drew him to her. He held her fiercely in a grip he could not quell, kissed her, was unaware of the bars pressing into his side and shoulder; they clung together wounded by the bars of his cage, clung with a terrible sudden knowledge; and a sudden awesome fear that would never again quite fade.

  For long after Telien left him, he paced, could not settle to sleep. Long after the warriors’ voices died and lanterns were extinguished so the compound lay dark, he walked the perimeter of his pen, examining again and again his feelings for Telien.

  Had they always been linked in some crevice of fate that had swept them incredibly to this place at this time? Had they always been one by some turn of their very spirits that neither one understood?

  And why, then, did Telien not remember?

  *

  He woke. Something was screaming, he thought it was a woman, then knew it was not: Terrifying animal screams, nearly human, a scream more of rage than of pain. He flung up, trying to locate the direction while still half-asleep. The night was clear, the stars uncovered, the moons brighter. There was wild stirring in the winged mare’s corral. She screamed again, Ram saw her rear up, saw the broad figure of a man pulling at her rope. She reared again as he spun in a dance around her trying to throw a saddle on her back. Ram could smell honeyrot, watched AgWurt’s clumsy movements with fury. The man was dead drunk, meant to saddle a mare of Eresu and ride her. Ram tore at his bars uselessly, calling AgWurt every filth he could name, but the Herebian leader paid no attention. He had the mare snubbed now against the fence, had the saddle on in spite of her fighting, and was reaching to pull the girth under her belly when she kicked him so hard she sent him sprawling in the mud. But he was up again, animal-like in his rage. He set on her, beating her with the bridle. Ram tried with all his skill to weaken the man, tried and could do nothing, was sweating with effort, calling the powers of the wolf bell; yet could not touch AgWurt. The man had succeeded in getting the saddle girthed as the mare fought uselessly against the tight snub. He was trying to mount her and so drunk he fell twice. She struck at him, screaming. Ram could sense soldiers in the darkness watching, routed from sleep, sniggering. The mare’s poor wings flailed uselessly, pitifully.

  Ram felt the wind, heard the rush of wings, looked up to see the stars blotted away as dark wings swept overhead, heard the stallion’s screams challenge AgWurt, saw the great horse descend in rushing flight.

  The stallion dropped straight for her pen like a hunting falcon, then startled suddenly, leaped skyward again, great wings pulling as he sensed the pen too small and that he would be trapped there, his wings entangled. He hovered in confusion, wanting to get at AgWurt, then dropped down outside her pen striking at the fence in a frenzy, thrusting himself against the rails, his need to free her terrible, his need to kill AgWurt terrible. He would tear himself to pieces. Lights flared as running men struck flints, lamps caught. The great horse spun to face the shouting soldiers, pawed as they surrounded him. The soldiers fell back, their lanterns swinging wild arcs. Ram saw AgWurt slip out of the mare’s pen, stealthy, rope held low, could feel AgWurt’s lust as he leaped for the stallion’s head.

  He tried for the stallion’s head and the horse struck him, he was down under its hooves, rolled free beneath the fence as the stallion lunged at him screaming with fury. Ram gasped as AgWurt drew his steel blade and came out under the bars crouched, stalking the winged horse of Eresu, meaning to kill; and then Telien was there snatching away a soldier’s lantern, facing AgWurt. The man swung around, his raised blade close to her, and she flung the lantern, splashing oil across him. Fire caught at once. AgWurt screamed, aflame. Soldiers threw him to the ground, stifling flame with their own bodies.

  AgWurt rose at last, limping, white with fury. He advanced on Telien coldly, slowly. She stood her ground, staring at him, Ram could not tell whether in rage or in terror. Ram’s hands were bleeding from fighting the walls of his pen. AgWurt would kill her. He clutched the wolf bell in a desperate bid for power; but the dark Seers held him immobile, emasculated of all Seer’s power. It was then the winged stallion spun, struck AgWurt full in the face, struck again, felling AgWurt, towered over his fallen body pounding with hooves like steel, tearing him, screaming, his rage like the sky breaking open.

  The soldiers had fallen back. One raised a bow. The stallion spun again and sent him sprawling. Several men dropped their swords and ran. AgWurt lay crushed beneath the stallion’s hooves, and the great horse loomed over him still, challenging soldiers, and then reared over Telien; and the soldier who held her loosed her and fled.

  Now the stallion stood quietly beside Telien. She leaned for a moment against his shoulder, trembling. Then she turned to where her father lay.

  AgWurt’s arm was bent beneath him, his body bloody and crushed. Telien knelt, her face twisted. Would she weep for her father now? Ram watched her steadily.

  Slowly she turned AgWurt’s bloody body and pulled his arm from beneath him. She glanced up at Ram, removed the iron brace
let from the bleeding wrist, and let Agwurt’s hand drop.

  She saw the lump under his tunic then, paused, then drew out the small leather pouch and pulled it open, spilling starfires into her palm, catching her breath. She looked up at Ram, this time with wonder, tipped the starfires back into the bag, and dropped the bag into her pocket. Then she rose without another glance at AgWurt.

  She unlocked Ram’s pen first, then the mare’s. When she had removed the saddle, the mare nudged her gently, then broke away at once in a lame gallop up through the camp and out toward the dark mountains. The stallion remained facing the soldiers with flaring nostrils, his ears flat to his head. No man dared move before him. As Ram and Telien started toward the pens of the captives, one soldier tried to draw bow, and the stallion struck him down. He did not move again.

  They released the prisoners. Men flocked to catch and saddle horses, to pack the food stores, to take up weapons. Telien found herbs and bandages for those who must be tended. Children too small to ride by themselves would ride before their elders; the sick and the injured would have the one wagon. A dozen men guarded AgWurt’s soldiers. The stallion had gone now, leaping into the sky to follow his mare and guard her, she who went helplessly earthbound through the night mountains heavy with foal and unable to fly to safety; for though the great wolves were her friends, the common wolves of the mountains were not, the common wolves would take pleasure in her flesh.

  When Ram turned to looking for Anchorstar, he was gone. No one had seen him. The dun stallion was gone, Anchorstar’s saddle, every sign of him. Telien could not remember when she had last seen that white head among the prisoners, seen the dun stallion. When she reached into her pocket to draw out the little pouch of starfires, it too was gone; one stone gleamed with eerie light in her palm. She raised her eyes to Ram. “How could that be? How—who is he, Ram?”

  “I don’t know. Nor do I know from where he came except—except I’m beginning to imagine he came from a distance farther than any place we know.”

  “Then will we not see him again? He—I trusted him, Ram. He was—I thought he was very special.”

  “Special? Yes, very special. With talents I have not mastered, Telien. But, see him again? I don’t know.” He looked down at her and a shiver touched him, of cold terrible wonder. If either of them were to see Anchorstar again, where would they see him? In what time would they see him? If Telien were to see him—he touched her hair and felt again that heart-rending fear for her.

  When at last the prisoners were mounted, Telien kept herself apart from them, pulled her pony aside and held back to Ram. He touched her pack, tied behind the saddle. “You carry food, Telien. But there is food in plenty in the wagon. And this pony . . .”

  “He is a sturdy pony for the mountains, Ram. I do not follow the rest.”

  His heart lifted. “Do you mean you ride with me, then, into the valley of Eresu?”

  “No, Ramad. You go where you are needed, and I must do the same. The mare will need me. She will need salves until her wings are healed, care the stallion cannot give her. She will need, very soon now, tending while she bear her foal, which no stallion, no matter how wise, can give her. I will follow Meheegan into the mountains.”

  He took her hand, held the lantern up. “Still you do not remember the thunder, the shaking earth.”

  “I remember nothing such as that. How can I remember something that has not happened to me?” Her eyes were huge, very green. “I’ll tell you this, Ramad of wolves. If that memory has to do with you, if it is something we should remember together, then I promise you I would never forget it.”

  Ram reached to touch her cheek, said without understanding his own words until after he had spoken them, “If you do not remember, Telien, then—then that which I remember has . . . not yet happened to you.”

  They stared at each other perplexed, and Ram went cold with the knowledge of what he had said. Time, for Telien, was yet to warp. The sense of her being swept away from him in Time was yet to happen. Yes, all of it, waiting for her somewhere in Time itself, as a crouching animal waits. What would happen to her after those few moments in Tala-charen? What would the warping of Time do to her then? He could not let her go, could not part from her now, knowing not when she would be swept away; when or if he would see her again.

  She saw his fear for her and could not ask, saw that he would have her stay. She leaned and kissed him. “I—I will be in the mountains when—when you come to me.” There were tears on her cheeks. She swung her horse around suddenly and broke it into a gallop up through the muddy camp in the direction the mare had gone.

  He turned, grabbed the reins of a saddled horse, had his foot in the stirrup when he stopped himself, stood staring after her with a new feeling, a feeling he would not have for another.

  He had no right to stop her because of his fear for her, because of his own need for her. She must do what was necessary. But part of him was with her, would always be with her. He tied the horse, turned away desolate, turned to getting the captives started on their journey home.

  He chose three men to ride south to intercept Jerthon. The rest of the band set out at once straight for Blackcob. Ere’s two moons had lifted free of cloud at last, to hang like slim scythes. With their light, the band would make good time. Two men remained in Kubal to meet the small band from the north and to dish out gruel to the penned prisoners, the soldiers of AgWurt. Once the two had left, releasing the prisoners, not a horse would remain in Kubal, not a weapon save one or two for hunting meat.

  At last Ram headed out north, up toward the source of the river Urobb, for there, so the old tales told, so inscriptions in the caves of the gods told, he would find Eresu.

  *

  Alone in the night, Telien was stricken with a terrible longing for Ram. She tried with difficulty to keep her thoughts to guessing which way the mare might have gone. With AgWurt dead, Meheegan might well return to the cloistered, grass-rich valley in spite of her memory of the snare. Telien headed north through the land that AgWurt had taken from murdered settlers. Now that he was dead, could his men hold this land? AgWurt, dead—because of his own cruelty and blood lust. And for the first time since her mother had died when she was very small, Telien felt the sudden light, free sense of wholeness that comes with the absence of fear.

  Nothing she could face in these mountains, nothing in the night or in all of Ere itself could make her afraid in the way she had feared AgWurt. She was suddenly made of light; she lay her reins on her mount’s neck and stretched her arms upward into the cold night, stretched her body up and felt the last harness of fear slip away as if she lifted herself into a world she had forgotten existed.

  And she thought of Ram, now, with joy. No matter the future, her life was remade with Ram’s. How could you know someone so short a time yet feel you had belonged together forever? She spoke his name into the night like a litany, “Ram. Ramad of wolves.” An immensity of space seemed to surround Ram, the very air around him to break into fragments that revealed a world beyond, revealed wonders and freedom she could hardly imagine. The freedom of Carriol was a part of it, but more than that: a freedom of spirit such as she had never known. There would be no lies with Ram. If there was pain and danger, they would know these things together. She would accept pain gladly now, so that Ram should not bear it alone.

  *

  In the hills south of Kubal, most of Jerthon’s battalion slept soundly, their heads couched on saddles, their bows and swords close beside them—colder companions than women but sometimes steadier. Jerthon, riding guard, saw the signal fire first. It flared three times, then twice, then three. Ram’s signal. Jerthon and the other three who rode guard woke the battalion to saddle up, then all sat their fidgeting horses waiting to see what would come down out of the hills. Maybe Ram. Maybe something else. The journey through Folkstone had been strange, with dark, unsettling winds and a heavy blackness sweeping the stars above them, then gone; and something unseen running through the woods jib
bering so the horses were strung tight with fear.

  They waited in silence, the horses restive. The night wind had stilled and the cold increased. At last they could make out a rider moving down toward them, then another, finally could see three riders. And then Emern’s voice came suddenly, Emern who had been captive of the Kubalese; Emern’s voice light and questioning on the cold night air. “Captain? Is it Jerthon?”

  “Yes! Great Eresu, man, where have you come from? Who rides with you?”

  “Cald and Lorden, Captain!”

  They rode down fast, their horses sliding and blowing. The three men leaped from their saddles to be embraced by their fellows and by Jerthon. “Shadows of Urdd!” Jerthon bellowed, “How did you get free? Where are the rest?”

  He had the story quickly and with confusion from the three of them, how Ram had come captive into Kubal, how the stallion of Eresu had killed AgWurt. Ram had then ridden off into the mountains and the rest of the captives headed straight for Blackcob. The elation among Jerthon’s troops was as wild as if foxes danced, and a jug was passed, then soon enough the battalion was heading for home double-time across the night hills; and all of them knowing they would meet their comrades and brothers and wives safe in Carriol. They rode hard and forded the Urobb near dawn to come onto Carriol land, the narrow valley that marked her western border.

  Strange that no herd animals could be seen, for the herds grazed heavily here. At the first farmhouse they found all the animals crowded into barn and sheds, gates locked. They approached the house, saw it was shuttered and bolted.

  Jerthon dismounted and approached the door, bow drawn. A tiny opening in the door was bared, a face looked out, and then the door was thrown open and Jerthon could see the farmer’s family inside blinking in the sudden light like a bunch of owls; and they had nine young colts in there with them corralled between cots and table. He stood staring in, wondering if the whole tribe had gone mad. Old Midden Herm, the patriarch, said gruffly, “Something came here, Captain. Something dark and wild is come down out of the sky.”