Dark of the Moon

by P. C. Hodgell

  "He'll find some way to make you pay for this," Burr said in an undertone as a servant led their horses down the corner ramp to the subterranean stables.

  "He can try," said Torisen placidly. "Even if he succeeds, it was worth it."

  Behind them, the guards struggled against the blast to close the hall's massive oak doors. One of them, glancing up as lightning struck the mountain side, thought he saw something large and white soaring down the wind toward the keep. Then the darkness closed in again with a shout of thunder, and it was gone.

  Torisen and Burr went up to the quarters on the second floor of the old keep that were kept in permanent readiness for the Highlord's infrequent visits. A fire blazing in the grate and open ducts to the fire timber hall three levels below heated the three-room suite. Torisen put his saddlebag on the huge bed and crossed over to the fireplace. Perhaps for the first time since coming north, he would actually get warm. Burr's movements caught his attention.

  "What have you got there?"

  The Kendar had been unpacking a bag. Now he carefully unfolded something dark and lustrous, with flashes of silver at the throat and wrists.

  "You brought one of my court coats on a hunting trip?"

  "Well, you never know, do you?" said Burr with a touch of guilty belligerence. "And it has come in handy, hasn't it?"

  The Highborn smiled at him. "Poor Burr. Caineron caught you on the raw with his talk of leather-shirt troopers, didn't he? Very well. You can dress me to the teeth tonight, and we'll see if I can dazzle him."

  Burr held the velvet coat so that his lord could slip into it. "It would be easier if you didn't always wear black and go armed." He transferred Torisen's two throwing knives to their sheaths in the collar of the dress coat.

  There was a scratch on the door. A Knorth cadet entered.

  "My lord Caineron's compliments," he said, nearly squeaking with nervousness but gamely corning out with his message. "Since he has learned that only his people and yours are still at Tentir, he has arranged for everyone to eat in his hall, as—as his guests."

  Burr glowered at the boy, putting the seal on his confusion.

  "That man . . . as if he were master here!"

  "Never mind. It's just his revenge . . . and I still say it was worth it. Ready?"

  Burr eyed him critically, then nodded in grudging approval. They left the room.

  * * *

  HIGH ABOVE THE KEEP, something balanced awkwardly on the wind on pale skin stretched taut between its body and extenuated limbs. It was naked except for a gray, undulating mass wrapped around its neck. Above that was a face very nearly human, though pinched by the cold and concentration. The creature hovered unsteadily, white hair whipping in the wind, then swooped down toward an open second-story window in Tentir's north wing. At the last moment, a violent down draft caught it. It veered wildly, first toward stone, then into and through the closed shutters of a lower window. A cot broke its fall; likewise, it broke the cot, and ended up tangled in blankets, thrashing about and swearing on the dormitory floor. Suddenly it stopped struggling, one web-fingered hand leaping to its bare throat.

  "Beauty?" It called in a husky, distorted voice. "Where are you?"

  From under a nearby cot crawled a gray, segmented wyrm, about as thick around as a man's upper arm. Its antennae felt delicately ahead of it, while behind it left a trail of slime. The changer picked it up and stroked it.

  "Are you all right, girl? Well, I'm not. I can't . . . change . . . back . . ."

  He began to shake with the effort. The webbed skin of one hand subsided into wrinkles like an overstretched glove, but that was all. The changer stopped, panting and sweating.

  "It's no use, girl. I need blood, lots of blood . . ."

  Out in the hallway, there was the sound of approaching voices.

  * * *

  TORISEN AND BURR followed their young guide down to the first floor and into the new section of Tentir. Barracks and training halls had been built onto the ancient keep, forming a large, hollow square around an inner ward, which cadets claimed was always solid mud. Although the young Kendar men and women trained together, they slept and ate with others from their home keeps. Caineron's hall was in the north wing. Walking down the long corridor toward it, Torisen heard the heavy floor planks groan as the wind struck the outer wall. The air in the hallway shifted, making their guide's torch flare uncertainly and shadows leap ahead of them.

  "So everyone else has gone home," he said.

  "Yes, lord, as soon as your message arrived. Lord, will we be fighting soon?"

  Torisen smiled at the boy's eagerness. "I'm afraid so. There must be about fifty Knorth cadets here now. How many has Lord Caineron?"

  "One hundred and thirty-five, lord."

  Torisen was momentarily startled, but then remembered that while his fifty were sworn to him personally, many of Caineron's must in fact belong to his seven established sons.

  "And Harn? Will he be joining us?"

  "No, lord. Old Grip-Hard . . . I beg your pardon, sir! Keep Commandant Harn never dines in public."

  Burr and Torisen exchanged glances. "Doesn't he, by God!" murmured the latter. "That's something new." He stopped suddenly. "I thought you said everyone was gone. Who's that, then, breaking up furniture?"

  The cadet stopped too, listening. "These are the Coman's dormitories, lord. No one should be here. I think it's coming from that one down the hall."

  By the time they reached the room, all was quiet inside. The cadet threw open the door.

  "There," he said, holding up his torch. "The wind must have slammed open that shutter and broken it." He went over to secure what was left of the window's covering.

  "Did the wind break that cot, too?" muttered Burr. He drew his short sword, relieved the surprised boy of his torch, and began a methodical search of the room, poking into corners, peering under beds.

  Torisen stood in the doorway. He too felt a touch of whatever-it-was that had made Burr instinctively bristle, but he couldn't identify it. The Kendar finished his search.

  "Nothing," he said, sounding faintly puzzled.

  The Highlord shook himself. They were acting like a pair of Shanir, starting at shadows. "Come along, then," he said, waving the other two out of the room and firmly closing the door after them.

  As their footsteps receded down the hall, the changer dropped from the ceiling with the wyrm clinging to his neck.

  "Two too many for us, Beauty, but did you see who the third was, there, by the door? We're close, very close . . ."

  He slipped out of the room and scuttled silently after the three Kencyr, an avid light in his pale, half-mad eyes.

  * * *

  TORISEN, BURR, and their escort came at last to Caineron's hall, only to find the door firmly shut against them.

  "Full formalities, I see," said Torisen, amused. "This is known as 'Putting the upstart in his place.' You had better announce me."

  Burr pushed the cadet aside and struck the door three measured blows that made its panels shake.

  "Who knocks?" demanded a voice inside.

  "Torisen, Lord Knorth, Highlord of the Kencyrath," roared Burr at the closed door. It swung open.

  "Welcome, my lord, to my lord Caineron's hall," said the seneschal, bowing and stepping aside.

  The cadets and their few remaining instructors came smoothly to their feet. Caldane at the high table rose in a more leisurely fashion, the torchlight striking sparks of gold and scarlet off his ornate court coat.

  "All gates and hands are open to you," he said in formal Kens.

  Torisen, in the doorway, gave a half bow. "Honor be to you and to your hall."

  Standing there with candlelight on the fine bones of his face and hands, he looked as austere and elegant as heirloom steel in a velvet sheath. Caineron, in contrast, suddenly appeared both overdressed and overweight.

  Torisen went up to the high table. Nusair was also there, as well as the two Kendar scrollsmen and Kindrie. The Highlord faltered
a second when he saw the Shanir, then steadied and mounted the dais. He and Caineron exchanged another ironic half bow and sat down simultaneously. The cadets resumed their seats. Bowls of thick soup were passed around to the lower tables while Torisen's nine boys waited on the Highborn and their two Kendar guests.

  Dust floated down into one cadet's soup. She looked up and thought for a moment that she saw something white move among the high rafters. When it didn't reappear, she shrugged and began to eat, keeping a surreptitious watch, like everyone else in the room, on the high table.

  "A pity our host couldn't join us," said Caineron. "I gather he's become something of a recluse, but then considering the circumstances under which he left the Southern Host a year ago, that's hardly surprising. An . . . impetuous man, our Harn, but remarkably good at training randons. He used to be a friend of yours, I believe."

  Torisen sipped his wine. So that was how it was going to be. "Harn was second-in-command when I led the Southern Host," he said levelly. "Years before that, he was my immediate superior, when I was a one-hundred captain at the battle of Urakarn. Your eldest son Genjar was in charge then, I believe."

  Nusair bristled. He had apparently been drinking since his arrival at Tentir. "What about Genjar, my lord?"

  "Oh, nothing. It's—ah—unfortunate, though, that the only time a Caineron ever led the Southern Host, his commission ended with the decimation of his forces. The Karnides are religious fanatics, you know. Those of us they captured, they tried to convert by torture—as if our own damned god had given us any choice in matters of faith."

  "Is that what happened to you, my lord?" asked the historian.

  Torisen looked down at his hands cupping the wine goblet, at the filigree of fine white scars crisscrossing them, and thought of other scars less visible. "It was a long time ago," he said, suddenly weary. "Perhaps the whole thing is best forgotten."

  "As you say, my lord," said Caineron smoothly, overriding his son. "Instead, why don't you tell us about the cause of this remarkable general muster? All I've heard is that the Horde is on the move, although why that should concern us I can't imagine. After all, it's nearly two thousand miles away."

  "But apt to get a great deal closer. The Horde isn't striking out at random; our spies report that it's headed straight for the Silver, and that, eventually, will put it on our doorstep here in the Riverland unless we stop it."

  "But why should it come after us specifically?" asked the historian, "There are no historical accounts that I know of, or songs," he added, with a nod to his colleague, "that record any previous contact with these folk. Why should they be after our blood now?"

  "Perhaps because theirs demands it. Remember, because their endless line of march lies partly beyond the Southern Barrier, everyone of these people has spent part of his life in Perimal Darkling. Many of them must be at least half-blood Darklings by now. Then too, consider that the Horde is really a mixture of tribes, most of whom are blood enemies. Yet now something apparently has united them, causing them, or at least their vanguard, to break out of a pattern centuries old. What could that be but a Darkling influence; and given that, where could they be going but after us, the Shadows' greatest enemy on Rathillien?"

  "That makes a certain amount of sense—superficially," said Caineron, playing with his cup. "But can you prove any of this?" Torisen shook his head, frustrated. How could he explain his desperate sense of urgency to someone who had never even seen the Horde? Instinct, not logic, would tell anyone who had ever served with the Southern Host where the danger lay, but not this arrogantly ignorant Riverland lord.

  "You see, my boy, it's not enough to cry 'Darkling' and expect people to jump," said Caineron in a patronizing tone. "We aren't even really sure anymore what the term means, what with the historic and poetic records getting so jumbled during the flight to this world. The more enlightened of us now believe that much we once accepted as fact—changers and so forth—is actually some ancient singer's rather—shall we say— fanciful invention. Wouldn't you scholars agree?"

  The young historian looked embarrassed, but the singer, a former randon named Ashe, raised her grizzled head with the light of battle in her eyes. "My lord, it's true that we don't know if some of the old records are history or song, but only a fool underestimates Perimal Darkling."

  Caineron gave her a long look. Then he turned back to Torisen exactly as if the woman had never spoken.

  "It isn't as if we had had any recent contact with anything from beyond the Barrier, you know. We've been left virtually undisturbed since we came to Rathillien over three thousand years ago. No, my lord, it's going to take more than fanciful supposition to convince me that we're about to be attacked now, and you do remember, I hope, that this time a single vote will be enough to keep the Host from marching."

  "You're going to look a proper fool," said Nusair, and snickered drunkenly.

  Torisen gave him a cold stare. "You know, Nusair, it really is time things were settled between us. Genjar bought his honor back after Urakarn by using a White Knife." He drew a coin from his pocket, deliberately choosing a valuable gold one, and tossed it across the table. "Buy whatever you need and meet me openly. I'm tired of looking for you behind every door."

  Nusair picked up the coin. For a moment, he stared at it blankly, and then rising anger drove the wine-flush from his face.

  "Why, you . . . you imposter, you changeling! Showing up here without ring or sword and maligning a real lord like my brother . . ."

  "Gently, gently," said Torisen. "You're frightening the children."

  Nusair gasped, as if the wind had been knocked out of him. Then he felt the weight of eyes and turned to find all the cadets staring at him. He made a choking noise and hastily left the hall.

  Torisen sipped his wine. "That boy should be trained or put on a leash. Changeling, eh?"

  "That 'boy' is older than you are," said Caineron more stiffly than usual. "You'll have to excuse him, though. He was very fond of his brother. So was I."

  The meal ended soon after that, to everyone's relief.

  Burr had eaten at one of the lower tables. By the time he reached the head of the room, moving against the flow of dismissed cadets, Torisen had disappeared. The Kendar felt a sharp stab of alarm. He thought he knew where his lord was bound; but even so, this was no night for anyone to be wandering around alone. Despite that empty dormitory, Burr felt instinctively that something unnatural was loose in Tentir. He would follow Torisen and . . . what?

  Poor Burr, after all those years of spying on me and now no one to accept your report . . .

  Burr flinched at the remembered tone. No, he would not follow. Torisen had a right to some privacy and was usually quite capable of looking after himself.

  "Burr." Kindrie suddenly appeared at his elbow. "Please light me to my lord's chambers."

  "Yes, Highborn."

  Why ask him rather than one of Caineron's people, Burr wondered as they walked in silence back toward Old Tentir. He glanced curiously at the young Highborn. Kindrie had Torisen's slight build, but not the Highlord's nervous strength or grace. Stripped, he must be more bone than flesh and nearly as fragile as an old man, an expression heightened by his fine white hair.

  "Burr," he said abruptly as they neared Caineron's quarters, "why does Torisen hate the Shanir so much?"

  Burr gave him a sharp look. Caineron was quite capable of sending a Highborn to ferret information out of a Kendar, but was it like Kindrie to play such a game, even under orders? Somehow, he didn't think so.

  "Sir, I think it's less a hatred than a . . . an involuntary repulsion. He tries to control it."

  Not with much success. Burr remembered Torisen once saying bitterly that it was his only legacy from his father—that, and nightmares.

  Kindrie walked on in silence for a moment. "Knorth was a great Shanir house once," he said, almost to himself. "Many of us still have a touch of Knorth blood. I do myself and . . . and I would like to come home. You might tell him that,
Burr, if he ever seems inclined to listen."

  He turned down the hall without another word and entered Caineron's quarters.

  * * *

  AS THE CADETS DISPERSED to their dormitories, Torisen slipped out of the hall by a side door into the arcade that skirted the muddy ward. Rain mixed with hail thundered on the roof, sweeping in under it in gusts whenever the wind veered. Thoroughly damp and chilled, he reached the east end of the arcade and gratefully entered the relative warmth of the old keep's main hall. Three cadet guards huddled around a small blaze in the enormous fireplace. Unnoticed, Torisen slipped by them and up the stairs, past his own rooms, and up again. He remembered Tentir fairly well from his last visit nearly two years ago, but how difficult its halls seemed now, darkened and echoing, stripped of life. More than once, he thought he heard footsteps behind him, but saw no one. Then, ahead, there was a blazing wall torch beside the door to the northeast tower. Under it stood a cadet on guard. She swung nervously around as Torisen emerged from the shadows and found herself holding the Highlord of the Kencyrath at spear-point.