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

by P. C. Hodgell

  “But why kill him for that?”

  “We think . . . we think she wants no witnesses to her compulsion, to her . . . her weakness, as she would see it. Why does she knock? We don’t know. Wilden lives in terror of the night. Then, the next morning, her men came back. Our master was a traitor, they said, so we must all be too. His family chose the White Knife rather than exile. So did many others. The rest of us fled. On the road, we met Caineron fleeing north. They said they hoped to find refuge here with the Knorth at a new, cadet keep, so we came with them. Please, lordan . . .”

  He stopped short as Jame raised a hand.

  “Enough. I won’t drive you out of the undercroft, at least not here and now. As for the future . . . well, good night.”

  She fled up the stairs to the stable, shut the door behind her, and leaned against it. Her head and heart pounded.

  Nothing had been resolved. Instead, her problem with the refugees had tripled. And what if more came? God’s claws, what was going on at Wilden and Restormir? Was the entire Riverland falling apart? What would Tori do? What was he doing right now?

  Autumn’s Eve. The death-banner hall at Gothregor with so many faces crumbling between warp and weft, so many names lost in time. Would he remember them all? In his place, she wouldn’t, but then she had never been formally introduced to most of the Knorth dead.

  The randon wanted her to learn leadership. Obviously, so far she hadn’t, or she would know what to do with these unwelcome guests. Again, what would Tori do? She had no idea. She was no leader. Perhaps she never would be.

  Footsteps sounded on the stable ceiling, under the mess-hall. They would all be there, more people whom she was failing. Nonetheless, she ought to get some dinner, even though she had lost her appetite. With that thought in mind, reluctantly, she mounted the stairs through drifting snow into Tagmeth’s courtyard.

  III

  JAME PAUSED outside the mess-hall. With the exception of the guards, her entire one-hundred command sat within, their platters piled high with roast pork, baked apples, and buttered yams. What conversation reached her was muffled and subdued, this usually being a somber feast. She had wondered if she should cancel it altogether in the face of the potential famine to come, but had refrained, sensing that these people needed familiar rituals to feel that they were part of a community.

  Niall’s ten-command sat at the table nearest to the door, so on her way in Jame stopped to ask him about his day’s work. A nervous boy who had seen too much at the Cataracts and tended toward nightmares, he had nonetheless settled down considerably since coming to Tagmeth. Jame suspected that he was grateful for the new duties that kept him preoccupied. Assigning him solid, patient Erim as a five-commander also seemed to have been a good idea. Since the other eight had stopped eating to listen, she spoke briefly to each of them in turn, pleased to find that she remembered their names.

  Corvine’s table came next.

  “I wish Quirl were here,” Jame said to the big Kendar.

  Corvine looked momentarily confused, but as if with minds of their own her fingertips traced the name carved into her forearm and she gave a heavy sigh.

  “I did have a son, didn’t I? A randon cadet, too. Until that witch bitch took away his name and he died. That was at Tentir?”

  “Yes.”

  It was frightening how much harm Rawneth could do, through names, shadows, and soul-images, even if Quirl had actually died at the teeth of a direhound after his unsuccessful assassination attempt on the Randir Heir. If she had truly run mad—Why? nagged that tiny voice at the back of her mind—it bloody well served her right.

  “But the flesh remembers,” she said, touching Corvine’s self-inflicted scars.

  Their interchange had disturbed the ten-command, who clearly knew nothing about the unfortunate Quirl. Consequently, it seemed even more appropriate than before to address them individually, by name.

  Three more tables. Thirty more names. Berry’s ten-command, dour Talbet’s, absent Jerr’s, who were on guard duty with his squad of second year cadets. The game was getting harder. Jame had a good memory, as did most Kencyr in a society that traditionally depended more on recall than on writing, but here there was an element of strain, a growing fear that she would forget someone.

  What should that matter, though? These people weren’t bound to her, except for Brier, nor would remembering their names make them so. Unlike Torisen, she wasn’t responsible for their souls. That required a true leader.

  But, somehow, this was still important. She had already considered that, so far from home, they needed rituals, a sense of belonging, or Tagmeth would fail. Now she began to draw on the memory of Kindrie’s chart that listed all the Knorth Kendar and their relationships to each other. Many of the dead were listed there as well as the living, and she named them where she could. The hall had become more and more quiet. Everyone was listening. Marc had come to the kitchen door to watch.

  “Go on,” he mouthed.

  Jame came up behind Damson. Short, stocky, and unprepossessing as the Shanir cadet was, the more sensible of her command regarded her with wary respect not unmixed with fear. Perhaps they sensed how different she was, how potentially dangerous. From the foot of the table her Five Quill gave Jame a quick, rueful smile. Seeing it, Damson turned to scowl at her.

  “I wanted to talk to you earlier,” she said, as ever brusque, “but you were off somewhere.”

  “Was there a problem?”

  “So you might say.” She pointed her knife, a chunk of meat impaled on it, at two second year cadets, a boy and a girl, sitting on opposite sides of the table, ignoring each other. “Wort and Dens. They’ve been quarreling over a particularly fine horse ever since Gothregor. I told them that the remount herd belongs to our lord, not to us, but they wouldn’t shut up.”

  Jame regarded the cadets, who refused to meet her eyes. In the normal course of events, they would be at Kothifir now, training with their peers, instead of here, thrust into what amounted to a third-year field assignment but without the benefit of rank. The regular Kendar tended to indulge them as if they were children which, actually, they were. How strange to think that at the start of the previous year her own ten had been much the same. She didn’t include herself in that estimate. Her childhood had passed in the Master’s House, under the shadows of Perimal Darkling, and she was glad to have forgotten most of it.

  “So,” continued Damson, “I couldn’t find you. Then Quill told me an old story and that gave me an idea.”

  Jame glanced down the table at Quill, so named because his parents had wanted him to become a scrollsman. While his ambitions had taken him elsewhere, he still loved a good story, the older the better.

  “Which one?” she asked, already feeling qualms.

  “The Judgment of Sully.”

  “Let me guess. You said that you would split the horse between them.”

  Damson gave her a suspicious look. “That’s right. Head or tail. Their choice.”

  “And one of them said, ‘Oh no, not that. Give it to him.’ So instead you gave it to her. Or vice versa.”

  The girl Wort regarded her plate with a slight smirk. Jame realized that she also knew the story and had guessed that by appearing to value the horse’s life over its possession, she would win it.

  Damson had thought she was being clever. So had Wort. On the other hand, Damson may have meant exactly what she had said. Head or tail.

  “In future, Quill, be careful what stories you tell your poor ten-commander. She tends to be quite literal minded.”

  Damson glowered. “What does that mean?”

  “Quill will explain it to you. And you, Wort, no more games.”

  The other cadet looked up, confused. “What?”

  “The rest of you—” and here Jame named each one—“take heed.”

  Dar and Mint had shoved their tables together, a sign, Jame guessed, that their relationship was still strong.

  “Playing mother and father?” she asked.


  Dar grinned. Mint blushed. Their joint commands laughed indulgently. It was easy to remember all of their names.

  “How did you escape Beneficent?” she asked Char at the next to last table.

  “Gave her an extra helping of feed. Ran away while she was eating it.”

  His ten-command had settled in to care for Tagmeth’s assorted livestock. There were more attractive jobs, certainly, but this one was important, too, and Jame hoped that they had learned to take an interest in it. As her eyes swept around the table, they met only one sulky stare, and her heart sank. She knew that face. The cadet was one of her original ten, for Trinity’s sake, and now Char’s five-commander. But she couldn’t remember his name.

  This is ridiculous, she thought as she stumbled through the others. I know him perfectly well, better than most in this room. Why can’t I remember?

  All that came to mind was Mullen, whose name her brother had forgotten. The poor Kendar had virtually flayed himself alive to reclaim Torisen’s attention. Not another Mullen. No. Never.

  Some of her strain communicated itself to the rest of the hall, which bit by bit grew quiet again. The unnamed cadet lost his truculent air and began to look frightened as he realized that, so far, he had been passed over.

  Jame dug her claws into her palms. With pain came sudden enlightenment.

  “Killy,” she said. “Dodged any falling trees lately?”

  Everyone laughed at this feeble joke—except for Killy, who still looked shaken—and the babble of conversation resumed.

  “Well done, lass,” said Marc as she joined him at what passed for the high table. “Master Rackny, come out here and be thanked for this splendid feast.”

  With a jolt, Jame remembered the little Southron cook, whom she had previously remembered only by his title.

  Rackny bustled out of the kitchen, beaming, followed by Buckle and her ten-command who were currently serving as the cook’s helpers. He introduced them to Jame and they good-naturedly received her praise for a meal that she had not yet tasted. When they had trooped back to their work, shooed by a grinning Buckle, Marc pulled out a chair for her.

  “Sit. Eat. You look a little pale.”

  Jame managed a half-smile. “I’m not really hungry, and my head hurts, a bit. I think I’ll just go to bed. Marc, Brier, Rue, Kells . . . er . . . Swar, Tiens, Cheva, thank you.”

  IV

  SOME TIME LATER she awoke in her apartment, in a tangle of blankets, still fully clothed. Jorin sprawled on top of her, snoring in her ear. Otherwise, except for the eternal roar of the falls, the keep was silent. She had dreamed . . . what? Something confused and distressing, something to do with Torisen.

  Not another Mullen. No. Never.

  Between the play of torchlight and shadow in the death-banner hall, had her brother had trouble remembering the names of their ancestors? Something occluded his soul-image, to the extent that even thinking about it choked her breath. There was a shut door there, or perhaps more than one, and the muffled sound of fists beating on it.

  Let me out, let me in.

  What did that mean?

  She sensed, however, that he had called on brute memory to recall every face, albeit without the connection to them he should have had both as Lord Knorth and as the Highlord of the Kencyrath. Something distracted him.

  Oh, Tori, what’s gone wrong with you? How can you lead our people without full access to your own soul?

  Rue had left a tray of bread and honey beside her pallet, also a mug of milk, but Jorin had already dealt with that. Jame’s stomach growled. She ate, then lay back, cuddling the ounce, to stare out the window at the midnight sky. It had stopped snowing. The last crust of the moon had long since fallen. There might have been stars, but her view was to the north, toward the darkness that towered beyond the Barrier like a cliff about to fall across an entire world.

  Near dawn her eyelids at last drooped and she slept, without dreams, until daybreak.

  Chapter IX

  A Lather of Yackcarn

  Autumn 1—36

  I

  THE SNOW SOON MELTED and warmer weather returned in one last glorious burst of summer. The hillsides blazed as if splashed with sunset fire. Host trees cast their leaves up, veins flashing, to begin their southward migration. Above them honking gray geese and black swans spread their wings. Leaves already fallen rustled underfoot. Blades of cooler air slid through the moist, rich atmosphere, a promise of things to come.

  Early on the morning of the autumnal equinox, Jame went out in search of Char. As she had expected, he was on the long slope opposite the keep, surrounded by cows, with Bene grazing nearby.

  “Just look at them!” he said as she gingerly maneuvered through their ranks, around horns and haunches, between redolent cow-pies abuzz with flies. “I’ve seen stock about to calve who were smaller.”

  A third of the herd did indeed look uncomfortably swollen, including Bene.

  “I suppose it’s too late to ask Kells for an abortifacient,” said Jame.

  “I should have thought of that earlier,” muttered Char, “but then I didn’t know what to expect until that blasted Merikit told us. Where is he, anyhow?”

  “With Chingetai, who knows.”

  Around them, one after another of the cows raised her head and stared toward the gorge above Tagmeth. Something huge was lumbering down the stairs that constituted the River Road at that level. It emerged from the mist as the foot of the cascades and paused to shake itself. Matted cords of black hair flew in a spray of diamond droplets.

  “HUH,” it said, brandishing a four-foot span of horns and gnashing upper tusks against lower ones, all four as long as scimitars.

  Then it trotted on, grunting with every stride.

  The cows swung to follow the brute’s progress.

  Someone on the other side of the keep gave a startled yelp, followed by a splash.

  The cows swung back as another monster emerged from the spray. Trinity, it must be at least nine feet high at the shoulder. This one crossed the bridge to the New Road and lumbered down it.

  “Squeee . . . huh!”

  The yackcarn bull bolted out of the forest and galloped down toward the road, tail up, scrotum swinging so that he nearly tripped over it. He collided with the much larger newcomer, who knocked him down and plodded over him without missing a step.

  “Poor bully,” said Jame. “They aren’t in season either.”

  “What in Perimal’s name are those things?”

  “Yackcarn cows. The fall migration must have started, late again. Quick. Run back to the keep and rouse our hunters, also horses, dogs, spears, bows . . .”

  “Why?”

  “More are probably coming. With luck—a lot of it—that’s our winter larder on the hoof.”

  They both ran, Char turning right on the other side of the bridge, Jame left. Luckily, she didn’t encounter another yackcarn on the stair. It was odd, she thought, bounding up the slick steps, that the herd had made it so far south without scattering into the hills. Usually that happened between Kithorn and Tagmeth, so that most Riverland keeps weren’t even aware of it.

  At the head of the ravine she stopped, panting, peering into the cliff top grove of trees. Morning light glinted through golden leaves, some still part of a lacy canopy, others drifting down in slow arabesques. Below, the undergrowth glowed red, orange, and russet with a lingering touch here and there of green. So calm, so beautiful . . .

  From behind her came the hollow roar of the falls in the throat of the gorge. The Silver rushed past, now risen in its bed nearly to the top of its banks. A faint breeze swirled leaves in her face and rustled them underfoot.

  If I’m wrong, she thought, I’m going to look pretty foolish when the entire keep arrives at my summons, armed for battle.

  Then she felt a slight tremor through the soles of her boots and, kneeling, pressed her palms flat on the ground. Yes. Something was coming. Darkness moved through the falling leaves, shouldering them
aside. A rank smell breathed in her face, growing stronger by the second.

  She rose, nervously wiping mold off her hands. It occurred to her that unconsciously she had been expecting Death’s-head to swoop down to her rescue as he had so often before, but a belated touch of her sixth sense told her that the rathorn was far afield, hunting. Now here she stood, alone, in the face of an impending yackcarn charge. Foolish indeed.

  Voices sounded behind her. Horses, riders, bowmen and dogs boiled up from the smoking ravine. Sunlight glittered on spear points and armor, on bows and helmets and swords. Even with so little time to prepare, they had done a thorough job of it. Even the direhounds and the Molocar wore quilted coats with spiked collars.

  Cheva drew up next to Jame on an agile courser and stood in the stirrups to survey the oncoming tide.

  “Yes,” she said, as if checking off items on a mental list. “Char said that they were tusked like boars and horned like bulls. He didn’t quite manage to convey their size, though. So those are yackcarn cows.”

  “Such is the mystery and grandeur of the female.”

  The towering black shapes were close enough now to show the white glimmers of horn and oversized tooth. Corded hair swung from shaggy shoulders. Cloven hooves tore up the forest floor. There were too many of them to count, with more coming.

  The Kencyr horses watched their approach with bright eyes and pricked ears; the direhounds strained whining at their leashes; the keep’s matched pair of Molocar leaned forward. However, other dogs already bounded through the forest, snapping at those hirsute heels.

  At first Jame didn’t recognize them. The canines she had last seen ambling happily about the Merikit village had looked half-asleep. Now, however, they were working.

  So were the unkempt ponies who darted after them, bearing riders, both men and women, so big that their feet nearly tangled in the undergrowth.

  A hound leaped, caught a yackcarn by the ear, and brought it crashing down. The ponies swarmed amid flailing hooves, flying dirt, and bellows of rage.

  One rider gave a gleeful whoop: “It goes, it goes!” That, surely, was Gran Cyd, a moment later unmistakable with her long red hair flowing in tangled braids and her strong, white arm upraised, brandishing a bloody spear.