The Gates of Tagmeth (Chronicles of the Kencyrath Book 8)

by P. C. Hodgell

  My keep, she thought. My . . . home?

  It seemed as if every adventure had the latter as its goal. How often she had said to Marc, or Brier, or herself, “We are going home,” but so far she had never arrived. Always the outsider, always the misfit. Was this how the Kendar felt? But then, they felt at rest wherever their lord was. Her link to Tori, both as Highlord and Lord Knorth, didn’t seem to work that way. It had drawn her back to the Kencyrath, but not to an actual roof or to a place to set down roots. Perhaps Tagmeth would become that. In the meantime, it was at least her responsibility, and she the ultimate authority over it.

  The thought gave her a twinge of apprehension.

  Yesterday she had been up on the guardhouse roof with the thatchers, doing what she could to help, mostly getting in the way. She remembered the moment when a bundle of reeds had disintegrated under her weight and she had shot down the steep slope, scrabbling for a handhold. Claws weren’t much good on loose straw, which also tended to jam sharp ends under them. However, they did catch on the top of the wall as she went over its edge. The jolt had wrenched her newly healed shoulder, which still ached. If someone hadn’t grabbed her wrist, she might have fallen two stories to the outer ward.

  The accident wasn’t much in itself, but it stirred a deep-seated unease: was it possible for someone aligned with That-Which-Destroys to create something new, if one looked at the restoration of Tagmeth that way? True, she had participated in acts of creation and preservation before—take, for example, the resurrection of Gorgo the Lugubrious in Tai-tastigon and helping to save the Res aB’tyrr, the inn that had become her adopted home. Someone (who?) had suggested that potential Tyr-ridan would attract all three aspects of the Three-faced God until they settled into their personal avatar. No doubt about it, though: over the past three years she had manifested more destructive tendencies than anything else.

  “The Riverland reduced to rubble,” she muttered, “and me sitting in the midst of it, looking apologetic.”

  Enough of that.

  Rising, she dressed in the workaday clothes that Rue had left out for her—a coarse shirt, a sturdy jacket, pants, and boots. The gloves made her pause. Everyone knew by now about the retractile claws which she had kept hidden for so long as a guilty secret. Their acceptance of this Shanir trait still amazed her. True, the Kendar minded less than the Highborn, perhaps because none of the former were similarly cursed. Except for Bear. But that was because, like his brother Sheth, he also had a touch of Highborn blood. She wondered where her former teacher was now and if that hideous cleft in his skull had continued to close. No one had reported seeing him since he had fled Tentir for the wilderness, with his brother’s blessing and against Lord Caineron’s orders. Sheth was no doubt in trouble for that too.

  “Huh,” she said, and put the gloves aside.

  Feeling oddly naked, she descended to the courtyard, taking care to avoid various rotten steps. The yard was paved, its cracks recently cleared of weeds. Like most Riverland keeps, Tagmeth was built around ancient hill fort ruins. In this case, they were actually embedded in the inner wall of the shell keep, a circle of white arches bricked up with various colors of stone. All had traces of runes carved above them, but so weathered as to be unreadable. Jame reckoned that her people were the fourth to occupy this site—first, the Merikits’ ancestors; then the Bashti (or was it the Hathir? Tagmeth, after all, was set in the middle of a river); then Gorbel’s great granduncle; and now the Knorth.

  Brier approached as she was washing her face in cold water drawn up from the well set in the middle of the yard.

  “I took a closer look at the thatching that came loose yesterday,” the Southron said without preamble. “The birch twigs weren’t knotted properly.”

  Jame wiped her dripping face on her sleeve. On one hand, she was glad that it hadn’t, after all, been her fault. On the other, she remembered the various “accidents” that had plagued her ten-command back at Gothregor. She had never been entirely sure if they were deliberate or not.

  “I hope we haven’t brought a practical joker with us,” she said, “or, worse, a saboteur. Still, not everyone on that roof was an expert.”

  “Some of the twigs were also notched.”

  “Oh dear. Well, we shan’t say any more about it for now. Perhaps nothing else will happen.”

  Brier gave her a hard look. “D’you really believe that?”

  Jame sighed. “No. How could I, given my history? What else can we do, though, except walk wary? Now, what are our tasks for today?”

  Brier told her. It was a long list.

  Besides roofing, the masons were out in search of stones to mend the walls, which had been damaged sometime recently by earthquakes. They had hoped to scavenge the remains of whatever keep had opposed Tagmeth, those in the Riverland always coming in pairs, but there were none. Probably the Caineron had used them up in their own restorations.

  Explorers had discovered Tagmeth’s cellars by falling into them.

  “A fire-timber hall?” Jame asked hopefully.

  “No. There are two levels. The upper can be adapted into a subterranean stable for winter. The lower is at the same depth as the riverbed and partly flooded.”

  Loggers working under Farmer Fen were in the upslope forest cutting timber to replace rotten woodwork and to build a smokehouse adjacent to the kitchen, in hopes that their hunters would merit it.

  As her new steward, Marc was organizing the larder, helped by Rue. Jame suspected that Jorin was with them, no doubt begging for his breakfast.

  Meanwhile, Kells was out walking the hills to supplement his collection of herbs. Yesterday he had reported back that he had found some unfamiliar to him, leaving the garrison devoutly to hope that he wouldn’t experiment on them.

  Tiens and Cheva had led the hounds and horses out before dawn.

  “These hills are rich with game,” said Brier, “but it has the knack of slipping away when the dogs try to close with it. This place has been wild too long.”

  Jame had been afraid of that. It would take time to master the intricacies of this strange new land, perhaps more than her garrison had. Of course, all the unoccupied regions between the Riverland keeps were peculiar, but Tagmeth felt more so in its isolation, almost like a border fort. Things might come at it out of the wilds that even the nearest keep, Restormir, would never see. Already there had been reports of huge pug marks beside a nearby stream, like those of some gigantic cat, which had baked and shattered the clay upon which they trod. That suggested the presence of the blind Arrin-ken known as the Dark Judge. It would be just her luck if she had landed in the heart of his territory, given that he was set on judging all Shanir bound to That-Which-Destroys and that he was also quite insane.

  About the lay of the land, though, she might ask the Merikit for help, if they would give it about something so important, even sacred, to them. Or maybe she was just looking for an excuse to visit their village to see her friends and unlikely family there. But she didn’t dare leave her people again so soon after abandoning them, as many saw it, in the wilderness on the night of the yackcarn.

  “And Char wants to talk to you,” Brier was saying, as if in echo of her thoughts.

  “I suppose, then, that I’d better start with him. No one else particularly wants to see me . . . do they?”

  Brier didn’t answer. She simply stared down with hard green eyes at this eccentric Highborn to whom she had so unexpectedly become bound.

  Jame threw up her hands, startled for a moment to find them naked. “All right, all right. I’m going.”

  Now that the Kendar were settled, doing work that they understood, those regulars who didn’t know Jame tended either to patronize or dismiss her, and some didn’t trust her at all. No doubt they had all enjoyed many a good gossip about their peculiar lordan. After all, they weren’t randon, who should know better—those, at least, whom Jame hadn’t left completely bemused. Then too, since childhood she had been used to looking up into their blun
t, good-natured faces. To them, however, she must seem as small as one of their own children, and nowhere near as sturdy. Tori had had a similar problem. He still did, as far as Jame knew.

  Oh well. Either she would earn their respect or not. In the meantime, she would observe, and learn, and try not to trip anyone.

  Tagmeth in effect had three gatehouses: one set in the shell wall between the courtyard and the outer ward where the chickens now lived, one between the ward and the lower meadow, and one at the head of the bridge connecting the island to the east shore.

  Not being directly linked to the west bank was a nuisance, but valuable, Jame supposed, in case of an attack. So it had certainly proved when Sheth had had to bring his troops into the east bottleneck at the foot of the bridge. For all she knew, he had had to ford the river as far south as Restormir.

  Bel called inquiringly to her as she passed, but she waved the Whinno-hir back to grazing among the other horses, which she had adopted as her herd.

  The debris from the avalanche had been cleared away. Stripped of soil, the cliff face now rose sheer and rocky above the River Road.

  To the north, the Silver frothed down the steps of the cataract within the throat of its gorge.

  Jame paused on the bridge that spanned the river at the base of the falls. Spray had turned its stones slick with dappled moss. The air shook with thunder. Underneath, water swirled in a devil’s cauldron before dashing downstream to where the end of the island cleaved it like a ship’s prow.

  On the other side of the bridge was the New Road wending southward. Above it, a steep meadow stretched up to the dark margins of a forest. Black cattle dotted this lush expanse, horned heads bowed to graze. The cows looked up as Jame approached. She slowed, wondering if they would charge her, but here came Char, stepping confidently among them, slapping this sable haunch or that heavily muscled shoulder.

  “They seem to like you,” she said.

  “I know them, and they know me. You should avoid them on your own, though.”

  From upslope, back in the forest, came the sound of rending wood and then a mighty crash.

  “My ten are up there,” said Char, “helping Farmer Fen. Yesterday, my Five—what’s-his-name, Killy—notched a tree on the wrong side, then barely dodged its fall.”

  Char’s command was unique at Tagmeth. The other nine independent officers had no ten-teams permanently assigned to them, but Jame hadn’t removed Char’s when she put him in charge of all livestock. His Five, Killy, somewhat haplessly carried on as his surrogate as his ten rotated under various de facto master tens, who had learned to dread its advent.

  “I keep forgetting that Killy was yours, once,” said Char.

  “He still is. So are you. Brier says that you wanted to talk to me. What about?”

  One of the cows ambled up and butted him. Avoiding her three-foot span of horns, he scratched the hairy thatch between her eyes.

  “A good third of them are pregnant,” he said.

  “Really? Well done, bull!”

  “Er . . . yes. I think you were right, though, that this one is too old to compete with the younger males. Normally, they mate and leave. Our boy may be lost and lonely. I’ve heard him huffing through the woods at night, maybe waiting for a chance to service the rest of the herd, which is no longer in season. If he tries prematurely, they will kick him to death. He also keeps trying to chase that rathorn of yours away.”

  Death’s-head had never preyed on the local livestock, chickens excepted, and even then he preferred them roasted. Moreover, Jame couldn’t imagine him letting himself be driven away from anywhere he preferred to be, and said so.

  “I think it’s more of a game for them both. He came prancing through a clearing yesterday evening, all glimmering ivory and flowing tail, with that scruffy yackcarn panting after him. Then back they came going the opposite way, this time with the stallion chasing the bull.”

  Jame wondered if Death’s-head was also lonely, now that Bel was spending most of her time with the remount herd and she, Jame, was so busy in the keep. If so, she was glad that he had found a friend, however unlikely.

  Horns sounded to the south—the sentries, announcing unexpected visitors.

  Below on the island, Kendar ran out of the keep and down to the meadow where they caught horses and swung up onto them, most without bothering about tack. As they galloped over the bridge and up toward the falls, some nine or ten men and women appeared around the curve of the New Road to the south, running. One of them carried a bundle that might have been a child. A ten-command of Caineron charged after them.

  “Damn,” said Jame. “That’s Fash.”

  She was off down the slope before Char could stop her.

  The lead horseman leveled a boar-spear on a lagging runner and thrust it into his back up to its wings. The man cried out, threw up his hands, and fell. With a whoop, the rider wrenched free his weapon as he passed and spurred after the other refugees.

  Jame plunged down onto the road between the pursued and the pursuers.

  “Not on my land, you don’t,” she said through her teeth.

  Fash leveled his spear at her. She slipped past its point with a wind-blowing move, caught the shaft, and swung up in a high fire-leaping kick that knocked the Caineron cadet out of his saddle. She was on him before he could recover, her hands around his throat.

  “Well, Fash,” she panted. “Have you run out of Merikit to hunt?”

  The other riders swirled around them. Lances came down, clashing, in a steel-tipped ring.

  “Easy . . .” said Char behind her.

  Only then did Jame realize that her claws were out, needle points resting on the throb of the cadet’s carotid arteries, thumbnails poised over the jugular. Beads of blood gathered where she had pierced his skin. He was holding very still, trying not to gulp.

  “Move,” she said to him. “I dare you.”

  With a rush, other horses surrounded the intruders. There was Brier on her tall chestnut gelding without saddle or bridle, and Corvine, and Marc huffing up on foot at the head of another unmounted contingent. Horns tossed behind them. The herd had come down to see what all the excitement was about.

  Jame stood up, dizzy, feeling her heart hammer in her chest. She hadn’t been so close to a berserker flare in a long time. When Fash tried to rise, she kicked his legs out from under him almost absentmindedly.

  “These are escaped Caineron yondri,” he said, glaring up at her. “You’re interfering with a legitimate hunt.”

  “First, this land belongs to Tagmeth, not to Restormir. Second, yondri are threshold-dwellers with no legal status. If you don’t acknowledge them, how can you claim them?”

  “No one leaves Restormir without the permission of its lord.”

  “Brier did.” Jame glanced up at her master-ten. As usual, the Southron was expressionless, but she tapped a knotty bough that she had snatched up as a club against her boot.

  Fash jeered. “Oh yes. Brier Iron-thorn. And how did your brother like it when you snatched her away from him? I can tell you, the other lords didn’t like it at all. You over-reached yourself there, girl, and now your precious Highlord will pay for it.”

  He tried to rise again. This time, Char knocked him down. “Watch what you call our lady, boy.”

  Jame touched Char’s shoulder to restrain him. “Let him be. You”—this, to Fash—“leave, and don’t come back.”

  Fash stood up warily, mounted, and wheeled back to the south, followed by his sullen ten-command. At the bend in the road he turned and shouted, “You’ll see, you scrawny bint. You’ll see!”

  Brier led riders after them to make sure they kept going. Marc went to collect the fallen Kendar. The cows dispersed. Jame turned to Char.

  “‘Our lady,’ eh?”

  He kicked a pebble, not looking at her. “Should we accept Caineron insults?”

  “Apparently not. All right, then. Let’s go see what Caldane had dumped on our plate this time.”

  Th
e fugitive Kendar waited for them farther up the road. Most sat on the ground, wan with exhaustion, but all rose as Jame approached. Muffled to the eyes, the slight figure they had carried now drew back as if to hide behind them. Shy? Afraid? Guilty? Jame thought that she had never before seen such a mix of hope and fear as appeared in these Kendars’ expressions. One stepped forward, a young woman with a thin face and large, desperate eyes.

  “Lady,” she said in a husky voice, then coughed and remembered to offer a shaky salute. “We have come to join your household.”

  II

  “THEY CAN’T, OF COURSE,” said Brier, taking the mug of cider that Rue offered her. “What were they thinking of, to try?”

  “Escape. And a chance to belong. You of all people know how bad life under Lord Caldane can be, especially for those with no rights. Also, since I bound you, a former Caineron, why not them?”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  Jame sighed. “Of course I do. Tori would be furious. Well, more furious. He would also probably recall all of us and dismiss me as his lordan. Then the rest of the High Council would laugh at him and say, ‘We told you so.’ He’s got trouble enough as it is without that.”

  Bits of that first night at Gothregor came back to her, but she pushed them away. She was still angry at Tori for saddling her with so much responsibility and so little support. These days, she didn’t even seek him in dreams.

  It was dusk. Brier and Marc had joined Jame in her tower apartment for the evening meal—the ubiquitous bread, cheese, and bowl of stew, served by Rue. The garrison were also at dinner, no doubt discussing the same topic that they were. Their guests had camped in the island’s outer ward, among the chickens, between two gatehouses, both of which were closed. Marc had supplied them with tents and food. After all, he had said, they couldn’t be left to starve—or, others had muttered, to deplete the poultry. No one trusted them within the shell keep itself. Caldane was devious. He might have sent them with secret orders, although Jame doubted it.