Shadow of the Ghost Bear (The Tale of Azaran Book 2)

by Arbela, Zackery

  "Couldn't be helped. We had a pair of newcomers enter our lands. It was an unusual situation."

  "Eburreans?"

  "One of them. A Rhennari, fleeing the King..."

  "A Rhennari? Are you sure? He could be an impostor, I would not put it past the Ghelenai."

  "No, the Ancestor vouched for him. He invoked the old pacts and that would not have worked if he was false."

  "A Rhennari." The man sounded thoughtful. "Who escaped Brannegaia and her witches. Where has he been for the last ten years?"

  "He did not say. I will ask him in the morning. His companion is strange. Not Eburrean, or any other human known to us. He acts as a bodyguard to the Rhennari."

  "An outlander and a Rhennari..." The man sounded thoughtful. "I have heard something about this...yes, word came in just before I left our camp. Ganascorec is looking for two men like this. Orders have been sent to all clans to place them in chains if found."

  "They came here from the Colamnac lands."

  "I wouldn't want to be in Belandec's shoes when the Ghelenai learn about that."

  "Perhaps," said Eralai, "we should send word to Ganascorec."

  Azaran's ears perked at that. He slid back down, back behind the tree. He reached to his side for his sword, then remembered it was lying next to his bedroll back in the town. His bare hands would have to do...

  "Your Ancestor granted them sanctuary," said the man.

  "Yes," came Eralai's reply. "But my duty is to the living. The rift with Ganascorec causes hardship among our people. Handing them over might win us come goodwill...and turn eyes from your lot."

  "If Ganacorec wants them dead," said the main, "then leaving them alive is the better choice. Better to pour piss into his cup than wine."

  "I will never understand you Eburreans."

  "There's only one thing you need to understand at the moment." An edge entered the man's voice. "I'm finished talking."

  There was some rustling, which Azaran could not make sense of. Then he heard Eralai let out a strangled cry. He moved about, looking back into the clearing.

  The man had Eralai pinned up against a tree, lifted up from the ground. She was squirming about, while his face was pressed against her neck, as if he was biting her flesh. It looked like he was killing her, albeit in a strange way. Why bite her neck? Why not just strangle her? More efficient and less noise...

  He frowned. The man's trousers hung noticeably looser about his waist. Eralai's skirt was pushed up about her waist...her legs rose up and wrapped about his waist, his hips thrusting in hard...

  This wasn't a murder. Quite opposite. Azaran slipped back, the scene disappearing from eyeshot. The sounds of lovemaking, growing more ardent by the moment, drifted through the woods.

  Not a betrayal. An assignation. The Queen of the Iturai, slipping into the woods for a tryst with some Eburrean. Azaran had little experience with royalty of any sort, but he was fairly certain this sort of thing would be frowned on.

  Azaran wondered if he should leave. The suspicion was giving way to embarrassment. He had no business being here, listening...though the pair were now making such a racket that every animal within a mile likely heard what was going on. But he wasn't an animal. He was a man. And a man had to have standards, some sort of code, or he may as well live among the beasts. He moved away, intent on returning to the town.

  Stay. The silent passenger halted him in his tracks.

  "Why?" Azaran muttered.

  It will be to your benefit.

  Azaran considered telling the voice in his head where it could take itself...but he stopped, now very reluctant to move. "Have it your way," he growled, settled back against a tree to wait.

  The grunts and moans continued, culminating in something that sounded a cross between a gasp and a shriek, followed by silence. Azaran waited a moment, then stared to rise.

  "Again!" cried Eralai. He didn't catch what the man said, but apparently he was willing to oblige. The racket started up a second time.

  So he waited, bemused at the strangeness of intimate relations. It seemed so...chaotic. Yet it held such a place in the minds of everyone he'd met since they pulled him from the sea. It was a gift between husband and wife, a threat masters used against their slaves, a weapon for conquerors against their defeated enemies. Something so inconsequential, yet it held such power over how people lived. For a few moments of pleasure, men would risk their lives. It was a profoundly strange aspect of human existence...and apparently the same for kuyei.

  Azaran reflected on the fact that on several occasions over the last few months, he'd had the opportunity to lay with one wench or another. In those mad days after Otossa fell, there were a number of women in the town looking at him in a way he found strange, complimenting him, bringing him drink and food without asking, then suggesting they retire somewhere private... The first few times he'd been genuinely puzzled by this and refused. After a while the women stopped, word got around apparently. Azaran felt no regret about this.

  He leaned back against the tree and wondered if it was different in his former life. Maybe he was a stallion, rutting with every female who came his way. Maybe he had a long list of sexual conquests to put any victories on the battlefield to shame. Maybe...but Azaran doubted it, likely he had the same view of it, befuddlement and incomprehension. He wondered if he had ever lain with a woman, and decided that the balance of the evidence suggested not. He looked inward, to see if this bothered him, as it might another man. It did not.

  Which did bother him, the fact that he wasn't bothered by it...

  He perked up. The noise had stopped. He heard them speaking.

  "When will I see you again?" asked the man.

  "I do not know. I will send word north."

  "I could return south with my men."

  "You know that cannot happen. Too many eyes watch already. I cannot risk discovery...and neither can you."

  "Hmm." The man sounded sad. "So be it. I will return north. The memory of this night will have to serve."

  A pause, while they kissed or so it sounded. Azaran slid into the shadows, lying still as a stone. Eralai climbed out of the hollow and headed south through the forest, back the way she came and passing by Azaran without so much as glance in his direction. A moment later the young man climbed up as well watching her leave. He then turned around and went back into the hollow.

  Azaran moved back up the slope, quickly and quickly. He reached the top and looked down. The place was empty. No sign of the man, the only sign of their recent activities a few scratches on the bark of the tree. He looked about, but saw no sign of passage, no tracks or broken twigs. The man had vanished like smoke on the wind.

  "Strange," he muttered. Eralai, the Iturai born and raised in the forest, made enough noise for a blind beggar to follow. The Eburrean disappeared into the trees like a fox.

  He turned towards the south, headed back the town. It was something to think on. He took a few steps, then paused. A shift in the air, a rustling of twigs and leaves...eyes watching him in the night.

  "Right," he said out loud. "I have no weapons. Do me the courtesy of not stabbing me in the back."

  "Turn around."

  Azaran complied. The man stood before him, perhaps ten feet away, hand on his sword hilt. "You move like a cat," Azaran said, by way of compliment. "I almost missed your approach."

  The man didn't smile. "Who are you? And why did you follow Eralai?"

  "I just came into the wood for a piss."

  "All the way out here?" The man gestured about the woods. "A good two miles from the town? You don't lie very well. I ask again, why did you follow Eralai? Are you the sort of degenerate who likes to watch?"

  The grip tightened on his sword. A inch of sharpened steel rose from the scabbard.

  "Not a night for a murder," Azaran observed.

  "It's not murder," the man retorted, "if the one being killed has it coming."

  Azaran sighed. The man was well trained, no doubt about it. He mo
ved like a ghost, his stance was balanced. That sword would be free of the scabbard before Azaran took two steps. He was good...but Azaran knew he was better. That strange sense of detachment began to descend. He could already see two separate ways to kill this man no matter what he did with his sword.

  But this was not a time for killing. It will be to your benefit...

  Azaran raised his hands, palms out. "I have no quarrel with you," he said.

  "I'll be the judge of that," said Eralai's lover. "What is your name?"

  "I am called Azaran. And you?

  "I," said the man, "am Gwindec."

  Chapter Six

  "Are you going to pull that thing?" Azaran pointed at Gwindec's sword.

  "I don't know," Gwindec answered. "Perhaps I should."

  "It's somewhere on the far side of midnight. I don't know about you, but finding what few hours of sleep are left is looking like a reasonable choice."

  Gwindec snorted. "Time enough for sleep in the grave. I heard of a man called Azaran. They say..."

  "Who is 'they?'"

  "In this case, the man who told the story." Gwindec recovered his stride admirably. "They - or he - says a man called Azaran is wanted by Ganascorec. That he travels with a fugitive Rhennari, who the Ghelenai want very much to gut. That whoever they bring those men before the king will be rewarded with his weight in silver."

  "What else do they say?"

  "That a man the King wants that badly must have done something spectacular to warrant such a reward."

  "Not the King," said Azaran. "I've never met the man."

  "Ah. Brannegaia then. Makes sense, she has one hand around his cock and the other around his throat..."

  "Never met the lady, though I hear her hospitality isn't something to be sought." He paused a moment. "Gwindec is a name that has crossed mine ears."

  "And what have you headed?"

  "A rebel, or outlaw. You wouldn't be hiding in these woods if it were otherwise." Azaran glanced at the sword. "So...what now?"

  "I have a sword. You do not. That makes the decision mine...and I haven't decided."

  Azaran shifted into a combat stance. "I don't need a sword," he said.

  Gwindec tensed. For a long moment the air filled with the promise of violence. Then he pulled his hand away from the hilt, letting the blade drop back into the scabbard. "Why did you follow Eralai?" he asked.

  "I thought she might betray us. It's happened before." Azaran briefly described what had happened during the stay with the Colamnacs. "Caution was warranted," he said at the end.

  He saw the frown Gwindec's face. The young man looked away for a second, clearly angered by the news. "Belandec has damned himself in the eyes of gods and men," he said. "May his seed rot in it's furrow. But as you saw..."

  "Eralai meant no harm. I apologize for thinking otherwise...though to be fair I had no idea who you might be. Eburreans haven't proven themselves to be the most trustworthy in the last few days."

  "Apologies on behalf of my countrymen. I am Gwindec, son of Buranac, Prince of the Aranac clan."

  "Aranac." Azaran frowned. "That is the same clan as the King."

  "Ganascorec is my uncle."

  Azaran gestured around at the trees. "Since you are here, I take you had a falling out with him?"

  "Something like that."

  "I see why Eralai felt the need for secrecy. I don't know much about royalty, but something like this might cause problems..."

  "Not in the way you think. Eralai is free to lay with who she wishes, as is any Iturai, man or woman.. They have a different perspective about such things...so long as it's among her own kind. Laying with a human is another matter."

  "It is forbidden?"

  Gwindec nodded. "Among her folk...and mine. Humans and Iturai may look similar, but no children will ever come of their unions. For this reason, such liaisons are forbidden. You will not tell anyone about it."

  "I wasn't going to say anything. But if I found out, so will others. She was not silent walking through the forest."

  At that, Gwindec laughed. "That's assuming I live long enough for her kinfolk to come after me. You look upon a dead man walking, Azaran the Outlander. My uncle placed the death mark on me a year ago. Since then I've assumed every day will be my last. I wake every morning expecting to ending it in a grave. Soon enough it will be true. There is a price on my head almost as large as yours. I can only pray that when my times comes, I will go down with a sword in my hand and take as many of the bastards with me as I can."

  The grim fatalism in his voice belied his bravado. It was something Azaran could appreciate. "Well, it won't be at my hands," he said. "Where are you camped?"

  Gwindec pointed to the north. "That way. Maybe a mile."

  "I'll walk with you."

  Gwindec shrugged. "As you prefer."

  They headed northward, following a narrow game trail. "Why are you outlawed?" Azaran asked.

  "Why are you?" Gwindec shot back.

  Azaran tried to think of an answer that made would make sense. "There are some men who want me dead. They...are friends with the King."

  "Not because you travel with the Rhennari?"

  "No, though I watch his back. It's a long story, best told another time."

  Gwindec nodded. "I was barely free of my mother's teat when my Uncle became chieftain of the Aranac clan. They say I was there the day he was hailed as King, though in truth I do not remember it. But growing up, I worshiped the man, believed in his dream. Eburrea must be united, or it will fall. Clan against clan, we make ourselves weak. But clan standing with clan, under one leader...there is no force in the world that can stop us. I wanted nothing more than to bring that dream into reality."

  "What changed?" Azaran asked.

  "I saw the price of that dream." Gwindec's face hardened. "The day I turned fifteen, my father placed a sword in my hand. He'd been wounded in battle and was dying. 'This is real,' he told me. 'Words are air. Dreams disappear with the morning. But with the sword, you know where you stand.' I saw the truth of that a month later. One of lesser clans sworn to the Aranacs were found hiding a fugitive Rhennari. I was sent as part of a war band to bring him back to Bellovac. But word of our coming went ahead and by the time we arrived the man was gone. The chieftain was most defiant. He said that if Ganascorec wanted a guest under his roof, he could bloody well come and ask in person. At the time I was rather angered by thus....but if I'd been in his shoes, I'd have said the same and much more besides. Unhappily for the chieftain, and his clan, there was a contingent of Ghelenai with him."

  "I know of the blood they spill."

  "Back then the killing was not as common. But on that day they pulled out their black knives..."

  "As I said, I know what they do."

  Gwindec nodded. "I did nothing to stop it," he said, a haunted look on his face. "I was a boy, could barely keep from pissing myself. When they commanded to bring men for the killing, I did not resist. I still see their faces in my sleep. When I got back to Bellovac, I confronted my Uncle. This is not right, I said. They are not holy women, they are butchers. And we disgrace ourselves by aiding them.

  "My uncle listened. When I was done he said nothing, just continued to sit there, like a statue. Then his wife appeared...Brannegaia. I never liked her, there was always something off about the woman. She is older than my mother, but she looks not a day past twenty-five...and she looked no different that day. She called me a foolish boy and slapped me across the face. Now, I may have been a boy, but I would not take that from anyone, man or woman. I cursed her. She looked to my uncle. For a moment, I could feel the hair on the back of my neck rise, like during a thunderstorm. My uncle rose up, drew his sword and before I cold take a step put the edge against my neck. The Ghelenai are my allies and friends, he said. Their enemies are my enemies. I will sooner kill you and ten thousand other like you, than let one of their number prick her thumb.

  "He told me to kneel. I did. He told me to bow down like some Hadara
ji slave and beg the queen for her mercy. I refused. He said if I did not, my mother, my friends and their family would know the black knives. I would apologize and kiss the feet of Brannegaia. I...obeyed."

  The shame of that moment still burned in his voice. Azaran felt a rare moment of sympathy. No man should kneel except by his own will. It may have been the silent passenger that said that, or his own. "But you lived to fight another day," he said.

  "Yes, that's how I justified it in my mind," Gwindec replied. "But after that my uncle did not trust me...or to be accurate, his wife did not trust me. She pulls his strings, in ways eldritch and impure. When he speaks, it's her words that come out of his mouth. The decisions he makes come from her mind. And those decisions are bloody ones. Before, all Eburreans could speak their mind, even to the chief. Any man who bears arms, any woman who births a child is reckoned an equal voice in the matters of a clan, no matter if they be rich or poor, noble born or common. Men of blood and lineage may lead, but only if the common men behind them say it is so. But now any dissent is punished. Any who speak the mildest criticism of the King risks his life. The Ghelenai descend on the mildest pretexts and in all cases they have royal assent for their murders. In the time of my grandmother they were not like this...they were like the Rhennari, wise in the ways of the gods and receiving gifts from them, powers of healing and protection they used for the good of all. But now all they do is kill. I think they gain power from it, which does not come from any god."

  Azaran could see where this was headed. "So when did you rebel?"

  Gwindec halted for a moment. "Two years ago," he said in a tight voice. "Ganascorec was on campaign against Aulercam. By now there were many within the Aranac clan itself who were heartily sick of his rule. Brannegaia went with him, as did most of the senior Ghelenai. As soon as they were gone, we rose up We killed the few Ghelenai still in Bellovac and those who would not surrender. I sent word to the other clans, asking for aid. Some sent help, but most held back, waiting to see what would happen. Looking back, they were the smart ones. A month went by, and then Ganascore was back, along with his army. He'd taken casualties in battle, and we met him on near equal terms. But there was no fight. Instead he walked towards us alone. He began to speak, telling us to put down our weapons. The words were...hard to resist. Within minutes the field was littered with discarded swords and most of my men went to the other side. Their eyes were...strange, almost like they were drugged. I was not affected, along with a few others. We fled. The King chased us across Eburrea, until we reached the forest. I was able to gain sanctuary with the Iturai. The King is not yet ready to face them, not with the rest of Aelen's Folk to crush. But it's only a matter time before he comes this way. And here we are."