Runestone of Eresu

by Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

  Then the veil would lift, and visions would come sharply. He would imagine that Seer and a great band of wolves fighting by his side, defeating the street Seers of Pelli. Was that Seer heir to Ramad, who had lived at the time of the Hape? Surely he must carry the wolf bell that had belonged to Ramad, for how else could he wield power over the great wolves? Hermeth scowled, puzzling. He thought of his father and the story of his victory over the dark twins. A mysterious warrior had fought by Macmen’s side. A warrior commanding wolves and believed by many in Zandour to have been Ramad of wolves come mysteriously across Time. Macmen’s own stories, when Hermeth was small—before Macmen died in Hermeth’s sixth year—had named that warrior Ramad. But mustn’t he in truth have been the grandson of Ramad, also named Ramad? The stories were garbled and unclear. The original Ramad had battled NilokEm nine years after the battle of the Castle of Hape, nearly ninety years gone in Ere’s past.

  Hermeth felt overwhelmed with questions. It would make no sense for a vision to come to him of the original Ramad, long dead. Not when he envisioned so clearly that Seer fighting beside him. Could the redheaded Seer of his visions be the son of the second Ramad, son of the Ramad who had fought by Macmen’s side? Was this young man drawn to him now by the ties that their two sires had known on the battlefield?

  *

  When she had the drawbridge down, Skeelie found that an arrow was of little use in trying to undo the great iron lock on the door. Only the tip of the blade would go in, and the hasp was long and well set into the wood. It was hard to work by moonlight. She fiddled with the hinges, found one somewhat loose where the wood was softer. The panic of the closely approaching rider made her nervy, and she was fearful of the large band of riders farther off. Carefully, but with trembling hands, she began to dig out the hinge.

  She hacked at the wood, dug, carved at it until at last she was able to work her arrow tip under and pry the hinge loose. When it came free, she began working on the lower one, which seemed solid indeed. She listened with growing tension for the galloping messenger, tried to plan what to do, swore at the lower hinge, which was set into the wood as if it had grown there.

  She heard him before she had made even a dent in the wood. Exasperated, fearful, she drew back into the shadow of the door, her arrow taut in the bow.

  He drew up his horse at the far bank and sat staring across, filled with apprehension, gazing into the shadows of the tower searching for the intruders who had lowered the drawbridge. Could he see her? The angle of the moons left only deep shadow where she stood, but some light came from the star-washed sky. She hardly breathed.

  At last, with drawn sword, he urged his horse onto the bridge, approaching slowly and deliberately. The horse’s hooves struck hollow echoes. Skeelie knew the horse smelled her, could feel it tensed to shy. She soothed its mind until it calmed and came on quietly. Then when it was nearly on top of her she leaped out, shouting and waving her arms. The good animal screamed in terror and spun, nearly went over backward in its panic, dumped its rider and stepped on his arm as it lost its footing and fought to avoid the lake. It righted itself, then hammered away across the bridge and disappeared into the wood.

  The rider half rose, groaning; crouched facing Skeelie, her drawn arrow inches from his face.

  “Get up, soldier.”

  He rose, staring at her with fury.

  “Unlock the door. Hurry.”

  He fumbled with the key, pushed it into the lock with shaking hands, got the door open at last, pushed it to. The cell room was dimly lit where moonlight crept through small cell windows. Barred cells rose all around, tier upon tier, with a winding stairway like a great snake leading up.

  “Go in ahead of me. Stand in the center of the room. Where is the food?”

  He stood in the moonlight facing her, dropped a leather pouch at his feet.

  “Unsling your bow and your arrows and drop them. Your knife. Then step away from them, over by that cell.”

  The man stared at the cell, then glanced at his knife still in the scabbard. She raised her arrow a quarter inch and drew her bow tauter. He removed the knife and dropped it.

  “Now take your leathers off. Take your boots off. Toss them here. And the key.”

  He stared at her with fury. At last he began to peel off his fighting leathers. She heard the key clink at her feet. When he was stripped to graying undergarments, she nodded toward the cell and he, docile now in his near nakedness, went into it. She gestured, and he pushed the door closed. “You would not leave me, miss. Not to starve, not to die of thirst here. . . .”

  “There are riders coming. They will set you free. If they find you.” Skeelie saw Telien then on the narrow stair that led to the top of the tower. “There is a horse, Telien, go catch it; you are good with horses. Take—take his knife and bow.” She thought Telien would be afraid, would refuse. But the thin girl did as she was bid quickly, taking up the weapons and slipping out the door and across the wooden bridge soundlessly in her bare feet. Skeelie fitted the key to the cell door. “Miss, don’t lock me in here. I was only—I didn’t hurt her, I was only bringing her food.”

  Skeelie locked the door and rattled it, gave the messenger a cold look, pulled on his leathers, all too big for her, rolled up the pants, the sleeves. She put on the boots, but they were impossible. She took them off again and tossed them into a locked cell halfway up the hall. She could see white bones in some of the cells.

  She left the tower, locked the door behind her, pocketed the key, and ran noiselessly across the drawbridge. Her heart had begun to pound again, in a panic with the closeness of the riders. She found the rope, pulled the drawbridge up, straining with its weight. Then she stood silent, reaching out to Telien. Yes, there—she ran, her heart like a hammer, toward where Telien held the big Herebian mount on short rein among the black trees. Good girl! She was mounted, gave Skeelie a hand up, and they were off at a gallop across the soft carpet of leaves. “West,” Skeelie whispered. “They come, NilokEm comes at us from the north.” The moons were dropping down, would be behind the hills soon. Already in the east the sky above the trees was growing gray.

  *

  Hermeth’s soldiers pinned one cadre of the rabble invaders against a cliff and slaughtered them, but the main army melted away into the hills, and there hid waiting for dusk. Hermeth sent a rider fast across the hills to bring additional troops from out the sheep fields and farms, to raise a new wave of attack. Then he climbed alone up the high hill beside which his armies were camped, stood staring down across the green valley, cast in shadow now as the sun fell. Far out on the meadows the night patrol circled in silence. Behind him, on the far side of the hill, two sentries stood shielded among boulders watching the darkening plains, and below, his men were building supper fires, tending the wounded, caring for the mounts. An army resting after battle, a scene so often repeated it sickened him. He was sick of fighting, wanted it over with, wanted to see his men marching home freed at last from the Pellian menace, from the Pellian greed for land and riches, freed to live in peace as men were meant to live. His hatred of the rabble Seers burned inside him, a festering hatred of men who could think of nothing but attack and theft and killing. Now, only Farr lay between his troops and Pelli itself. Farr where half the country held allegiance to the dark street rabble. Though the other half would stand with Zandour, if need be.

  And there might be need. If he could destroy this army he followed, he could break the back of the Pellian rabble. He felt the sense of the rabble Seers leading them. Only a handful, but strong in their skills; and they wanted the runestone above all else; they lusted for it harder than they lusted to rape and burn and kill.

  Alone on the hilltop as evening fell, he tried to reach out across space, across elements he little understood. He needed that other Seer’s power to help him now, that Seer who commanded such skill with the wolf bell and would surely wield the power of the runestone better than ever he could himself. He felt sometimes, with the stone he carried, l
ike a child trying to learn speech, and no one to teach him the words. He needed power now against the rabble leaders, for if they were not destroyed soon, perhaps they would grow so strong that Zandour would never be free of them. One handful of greedy street waifs risen to such strength. One handful drawing to them every lusting Herebian raider they could muster and holding them with promises of power.

  He slipped the runestone from his tunic, held it so it caught the last light of the vanished sun. This runestone, which their common ancestor had commanded: NilokEm, from whose seed both Hermeth, himself, and the dark street rabble had sprung. He wondered fleetingly who that unnamed woman, his great-grandmother, had been who had borne their common grandfather then disappeared so mysteriously.

  He watched night fall around him, watched the supper fires die at the base of the hill and his men roll into their blankets, to sleep exhausted. The guards circled in the thickening dark; then he felt the darkness shift and felt unfamiliar shadows move upon the hill, felt the sense of expectancy that foreshadowed the appearance of a vision, stood staring eagerly into the darkness, clutching the runestone, and felt rather than saw the shadow standing tall with the great wolf beside him. But then the figures were gone again as if they had never been, and the hills curved empty in the deepening night.

  At long last Hermeth went down to his men, heavy with disappointment.

  *

  Ram sensed the other’s presence, then felt a lulling emptiness as if that other Seer had turned and gone away into shifting shadows. He stood beside Torc, with his hand on her shoulder, where she had risen at the first sense of the vision. They waited, he, tense and expectant, and at last the shadows came strong again, the familiar shifting of earth and sky, and he and Torc stood suddenly upon a hill watching a figure descend to where campfires flickered in the night, where men slept with weapons by their sides, exhausted from battle. He stood looking down the hill, filled with the sense of a meeting imminent, of a power between himself and that receding figure. Why? Did that Seer carry a shard of the runestone? The sense of such power was strong. He saw in his mind the young man’s face, the turn of his cheek so like Telien. Pale brows, sandy lashes like Telien’s. But was there another resemblance, too? Or did he only imagine the likeness to Macmen?

  Macmen had stood quietly after defeating his twin brothers, holding with reverence the runestone that he had won from them. Macmen—the square face, the square cut to his chin very like this young man. Though Macmen’s coloring was darker.

  In what time was this hill on which he now stood? In what time did this young man live? Ram sensed a pattern intricate and all powerful, a pattern that seemed woven of the powers of mind and earth, equally awing him. Macmen’s son had been born in the year Ram fought beside Macmen. Macmen’s son . . .

  The sense of that pattern vanished, leaving him taut with desire for the hidden answers it held. He stood watching the redheaded figure moving now among the troops. Torc pressed close to his side. That is what I felt, Ramad, that sense of a linking, of creatures and powers touching. But wait—there are others with us. Ram could feel Torc’s pleasure, then felt other bodies against his legs, and the great wolves were pushing all around him in wild confusion. He nearly shouted with delight, knelt to embrace them, their wild reality leaping into crazy joy. He hugged Fawdref, felt the great wolf take his hand between killer’s teeth, pressing gently. Rhymannie nuzzled him, the wolves pushed at him, nearly toppling him in their delight. He was drowning in a sea of wolves, delirious; huge shaggy bodies pressing and licking with wolfish humor as they bit and pushed and nuzzled.

  When he rose at last and glanced down the hill, he saw the figure standing below staring up at them, felt the young Seer’s wonder. Then the man climbed quickly, and stood before him at last, caught in silence. The moonlight touched his red hair, his sandy brows and pale lashes, the light, clear depths of his eyes. “I do not know your name. But who else would walk with wolves except the son of the second Ramad?”

  “There was only one Ramad. And I am not his son.”

  “Who, then?”

  “I am Ramad.”

  “You cannot be Ramad; perhaps Ramad’s son fought beside my father twenty-three years past, in the summer that I was born. But you cannot be he and surely not Ramad of the wolves.”

  “I am Ramad. You must take my word. And you are the son of Macmen. You are Hermeth. I remember you as a babe,” Ram said, grinning.

  Hermeth stared and could not believe. They were of an age, surely. He studied Ram; the smooth cheek, the dark eyes beneath thick red hair. He saw the wolf bell Ram took from his tunic. He felt the sense of Ram’s truth. At last he held out his open hand, where the shard of the runestone gleamed. Trusting beyond question, he dropped it into Ram’s hand. It lay like a dark slash across Ram’s palm, and a drumming of power like thunder shook them. Hermeth’s green eyes looked into Ram’s dark eyes and laughed. Time grew huge around them. The wolves raised their voices in a wail that chilled the blood and panicked the horses tied in the valley below and woke four battalions of sleeping soldiers, who leaped up drawing weapons, before Hermeth spoke down to them.

  At last the soldiers rolled back into their blankets and slept. The sense of the power of the stone calmed. Ram and Hermeth stood staring at one another, both filled with questions, Ram with perhaps even more curiosity than burdened the young ruler of Zandour. This meeting with Hermeth, so long foreshadowed, seemed to open his mind to every puzzling thought he had pushed aside. He felt it as a turning place, though he did not know why or how. Questions came that touched on the core of his being, on the nature of his own power and of the power of the runestone. On the nature of the compromise he must find within himself between his search for Telien and his search for the shards of the runestone.

  He looked at Hermeth and felt for an instant he was seeing the shadow of Telien. What was this likeness to Telien that made him think such thoughts. What was he trying to unravel, to imagine? He had a sense of Time curving in on itself, touching itself at its own beginnings, and this confused and upset him.

  Then he put such thoughts aside, smiled at Hermeth, and they descended the hill thinking of a hot brew. Ram did not notice until later that Torc was no longer with them, no longer among the wolves that crowded around him down the hill; did not sense the pattern of unseen forces, and the will of Torc herself, that twisted her away into another time, far distant.

  SEVEN

  By morning, fresh Zandourian soldiers had arrived, and two heavily armed battalions of Aybilian soldiers as well, joining Hermeth on good horses, as eager to destroy the rabble raiders as was the Zandourian band. Ram, mounted on a fast Zandourian stallion, carried the runestone now. He felt out into the hills of Aybil with strengthened senses and spotted five bands hidden. Hermeth sent silent riders, with wolves among them like shadows to track the hidden killers, while his main army moved on through Aybil’s valleys, toward Farr. The river Owdneet would be on their left soon, for they were headed toward a point just south of the Farrian city of Dal. There were scattered groups of raiders in Farr, and Hermeth meant to destroy them all before he rode on Pelli.

  For three days they fought skirmishes down across Aybil, the wolves and scouts routing out raiders’ camps, killing so many that the rabble fought back with waning spirit, fought fearfully, then at last turned tail and fled before Hermeth’s raging troops. Hermeth’s men grinned with bloodstained faces, tired and hungry and not caring, preferring to fight, for victory lay close at hand.

  But if men can forget rest in the rising tide of winning, horses cannot. At last, as Hermeth’s troops crossed into Farr somewhat south of Dal, Hermeth knew they must halt, at least by midday, and rest the mounts and care for them.

  There lay close ahead a thick wood that would give them cover. Hermeth headed for it, but Ram stopped him, uneasy. He sat his tired horse, trying to sort out the unease he felt, then at last chose scouts among the wolves and called a dozen troops to ride with them.

  But all
returned from the wood, after a thorough search, with nothing to report. It is quiet there, Ramad, said the gray wolf who had led them. There is nothing to fear. And yet . . .

  “And yet, Gartthed? What is it?”

  I don’t know. Perhaps nothing. It is peaceful there— perhaps too peaceful. There is a tower there, a dark, ruined tower ages old. It is too peaceful around that tower, too quiet. But perhaps—perhaps I imagine things. There is nothing to alarm, nothing one can sense or see. It smells only of moss and painon bark and woods things. An old, old wood it is, the trees huge and bent.

  *

  In the wood, the whore-bred Seers stood huddled together in a circle beneath those huge trees, hands joined and fingers linked in a ritual of Pellian cunning as they conjured a mindfog, a false peace and emptiness that hid them all and hid their mounted warriors from Hermeth’s Seer-scouts and from the accursed wolves. They had not planned on wolves. Where in Urdd had wolves come from? Near them among the trees, their Farrian and Pellian troops mounted on heavy horses stood silent and invisible by the power of that mind-twisting, heavily armed troops waiting for Hermeth’s army. And if the whore-bred Seers felt a power other than their own there, a power in the wood that they could not sort out, they did not pause to question it. Nothing could be so strong as they. The smiled coldly and brought a stronger force yet of unawareness onto Hermeth’s approaching army, a mood of simple trust so that Ramad and Hermeth and their men entered into shadow thinking only of rest and a hot meal and a tip of the wineskin to ease the pain of wounds.

  *

  Skeelie and Telien kept the horse to a walk, in order to move as silently as they could through the sparse wood. Dawn had begun to filter between the slim young trees. They rode over soft, damp leaves that muffled sound; but muffled the sound of riders behind them, too. And those riders knew they were there, followed them not by sound but by Seer’s skills. “It is growing light, Skeelie. They will be able to see us now.”