"But, sir, will the Council really take Caineron's word against the Highlord's?" Burr asked.
Torisen gave a bitter laugh. "Most of them will probably be delighted to. When they acknowledged my claim three years ago, they said they wanted a leader, an impartial judge, but every one of them—yes, even Ardeth—thought that justice meant having things his own way. Now Caineron will promise them everything, or seem to. What's the alternative? A mad lord from a mad line who has only kept the peace and satisfied no one."
"So what do we do?"
"If Caineron tells his story first, with me shut up here unable to refute it, my power will be broken forever. Caineron knows that. So I've got to reach Gothregor before he does."
"Ride? Tonight? Are you strong enough?"
Torisen stood up, slowly, carefully, fighting down a fresh surge of dizziness. His face was bleak, as if stripped to the iron core of his will.
"I can do anything I have to."
The randon gave him a hard look, then nodded. "Yes. You always could."
Burr brought his lord's riding coat and the saddlebag full of bones. At the back of the apartment was a counterweighted stone wall through which Harn had squeezed with great difficulty. It was still open only a crack. Torisen stopped short, his hand on it. Somewhere in the passageways beyond the guarded door, a voice had cried out in pain.
"Who . . . ?"
"Kindrie, I think," said the randon. His expression hardened. "Caineron said something in the fire-timber hall about giving him his back pay tonight."
"He pays a Highborn wages?" said Burr, blankly.
"For Kithorn, yes."
The cry came again, wilder, bitten off in midnote.
Burr took an involuntary step toward the door, but Harn caught his arm. "We can't help him now. Besides, he's buying us time, and I think he knows it."
Old Tentir was riddled with secret passageways. Caineron's spies had apparently never discovered this, but Harn had made himself master of their hidden ways within weeks of his arrival. The stone stairway plunged down between dank walls in steps so narrow that they barely offered a foothold. Harn went first, a torch in his hand, his bulk nearly filling the passageway. Some thirty feet down, he put his shoulder to the wall, forced open another concealed panel, and squeezed through. The other two followed him out into the subterranean stable.
Feet rustled on straw, and seven of Caineron's retainers surrounded them, steel drawn.
"We're sorry, my lord," the eldest of them said apologetically, "but our lord insists that you stay."
The shadows moved behind him. Something clipped the man on the side of the head. He dropped without a sound. The others turned, startled, and another one of them went down with a grunt before the singer's iron-shod staff.
"Ashe!" exclaimed Harn, and sprang forward to help.
He nearly collided with a cadet vaulting over one of the wooden partitions. Four more followed, all Knorths, all survivors of the timber hall fight. Torisen sat down on a bale of hay to watch. Let someone else do the fighting for a change, especially since he was in no shape to help.
"Don't let me hinder you," he said politely to Burr.
The Kendar only grunted. Clearly, the cadets didn't need the help of the veteran randon. Harn had indeed trained them well. The battle was over before any of Caineron's people had even thought to give the alarm.
"I'm glad to see you finally remember who I am," said the singer to Harn as they bound and gagged the fallen Kendar. "After that blank stare you gave me in the fire-timber hall, I thought your wits had finally gone missing."
"No, just on a long hike. Ashe and I were cadets and one-hundred captains together with the Southern Host long before you were born," he said to Torisen. "She gave up her commission after an axe blow nearly took off her leg, although I still say a good healer could have lessened the damage. The fool would never see one."
The Highlord rose and gave the scrollswoman a full, ceremonial bow. "Fool or not, singer, I'm still in your debt. How may I repay you?"
"My lord, I don't know what's going on, but there must be a song in it somewhere. I'll ride with you, if you're willing."
"May we too, my lord?" asked a cadet eagerly.
Torisen glanced at the bound Kendar. "After this, you had better."
"Right," said Harn briskly. "Saddle up, then, and two of you go see if you can get the main gate open before we run into it nose first."
"You never answered the question I asked you in the tower," Torisen reminded him.
"Eh? Oh." Harn went down clumsily on one knee in the straw. "I will serve you, my lord, in any way that you require. Now and forever." He looked up under bristling bows. "Besides, any fool who takes on a changer single-handed needs all the friends he can get."
"I reconfirm our bond and seal it with blood," said Torisen formally, repeating the ancient formula. He gave the randon his hands. In the days long before Rathillien, when the Highlord had often been not only a Shanir but a blood-binder, his palms would have been cut across for the full blood rite, which would have bound his liegeman to him body and soul until death, and possibly beyond. "Now, be a good chap and do something really useful, like saddling my horse for me."
Within minutes, they were all ready, with two mounts to spare for the cadets who had gone ahead. Torisen pulled himself up onto Storm.
"Ready? Then come on!"
Storm thundered up the ramp. As he burst into the main hall, Torisen saw first the main gate, still firmly closed, and then a dozen of Caineron's guards running toward him. At least half of them were cadets.
Torisen reined in abruptly, the other horses crashing into him from behind. I can't fight these children, he thought in dismay . . . but can they fight me?
He spurred Storm, giving the rathorn war-cry as the stallion sprang forward. The scream echoed deafeningly off the stone walls. Cadets and veteran retainers alike faltered. Their primary allegiance was to Caineron, but through him they were also bound to his overlord, Torisen. The war-cry reminded them. Their hesitation only lasted a moment, but in that time the horses had swept past them.
Shadows moved by the main gate. The two Knorth cadets darted out of hiding to lift the cross bar and shoulder open the door. The wind whirled wet, dead leaves in around their knees. Then Torisen was past them, plunging out into the night, into the blinding rain.
Chapter 5
Under Green Leaves
The Anarchies: 8th-11th of Winter
THE TRADE ROAD from Peshtar wound westward down through the mountains, following a boisterous stream called the Ever-quick. During the caravan season, this route was well traveled, but now Jame, Marc, and Jorin had it to themselves. Wilderness surrounded them. To the north, the Ebonbane merged with the even higher Snowthorns, which also flanked the Riverland. Some seventy leagues ahead, where the road dipped southward to meet the Silver, lay the Oseen Hills. To the south, across the Ever-quick, was the fringe of the Anarchies.
On that first day, there was no sign of pursuit, unless one counted the shadow. It swept over the travelers not long after they left Peshtar, and looking up, they saw something large and pale high in the sky, gliding in a southwesterly direction toward the Oseen Hills.
"What in Perimal's name was that?" Jame asked.
"Trinity knows." Marc watched it vanish into the distance. "A snow eagle, maybe, but the shape didn't seem right. It looked more like some huge albino bat with short wings. Anyway, it's nothing to do with us—I hope."
They went on, forcing the pace as much as their somewhat recalcitrant pack pony would allow. By dusk of the first day, Marc estimated that they were a good forty miles and, he hoped, eight hours ahead of Bortis's brigands, who would only now be rallying at Peshtar. When it became too dark to travel, the two Kencyr pitched camp under a stand of pine trees beside the stream. While Marc built a small fire, Jame unloaded a pannier and found that, again, the Peshtan innkeeper had been more than generous.
"As far as I'm concerned," said Marc, lying back co
ntentedly when they had finished eating, "the honor of Peshtar has been more than restored."
Jame was staring into the darkness across the Ever-quick. The land beyond, invisible as it now was, drew her thoughts as it had off and on all day.
"Marc, tell me about the Anarchies."
The Big Kendar gave her a look of mild surprise. "Well now, there's not much I can say. The hill tribes call them 'The Place Where No Man Rules,' which translates rather inaccurately as the Anarchies. I've never been in them nor has anyone I know, but there are rumors. As I said before, the old priest at Kithorn claimed that they were the 'thickest' area in Rathillien—that is, the most truly native, with the greatest natural resistance to Perimal Darkling. They've had a reputation for strangeness as far back as anyone can remember, and only the rathorns move freely there, to mate and to die."
"Once in Tai-tastigon I saw a cuirass made of rathorn ivory. It was beautiful, and worth any two districts in the city. Surely, if rathorns go into the Anarchies to die, men follow them."
"Oh yes. As you say, but those few hunters who do manage to penetrate the Anarchies tend never to come out again. The land itself is said to be treacherous, and then too, most rathorns are man-eaters, given the chance. Also, they're 'beasts of madness,' or so our old priest used to say. I've heard of seasoned war horses running themselves to death out of sheer terror after simply catching a rathorn's scent."
"Trinity. Imagine riding one into battle."
Marc chuckled. "Oh, the effect would be devastating, I should think, for all concerned. I wonder if that was in Glendar's mind when he adopted the beast as the Knorth emblem to replace the Master's dishonored black horse crest. Some say that it was an unlucky choice, since about at that time madness first entered the Knorth bloodline."
"But the present Lord Knorth, this Torisen Black Lord," said Jame rather sharply. "Surely he's sane enough."
"Why, yes, as far as I know. At any rate, he should be glad to get that ring and sword you've got in your knapsack. They should easily earn you a place in his service, if you want it."
She almost told him then that in Torisen she hoped to find, not a lord, but a brother, but the words wouldn't come. A silence fell between them. After a bit, Marc rose to build up the fire for the night, and they lay down on opposite sides of it to sleep.
Rolled up in her blanket with Jorin snuggled against her, Jame listened to the crackle of burning pine needles and the gregarious voice of the stream. She felt suspended between two worlds. Behind her lay Tai-tastigon, where she had made a life for herself—an odd one perhaps by Kencyr standards, but very much her own. Ahead lay the Riverland and a brother whom she no longer knew, but under whose shadow she was about to come. She had never really thought about what Torisen would do with her, or she with him. At any rate, she would see that Marc was rewarded properly. Tori would owe her that much at least.
At daybreak they went on. Across the river, beyond a narrow meadow sprinkled with white flowers, the forest of the Anarchies stood veiled in mist. Rain-colored birds rose, circled above the trees, and plunged silently back into them.
The north bank began with a fringe of trees, but on the other side of the trade road the land sloped up to the lower reaches of the Snowthorns in a series of bare hills. This was tribal territory. A dozen clans vied for hunting space here, marking their boundaries with malirs, the skull of their totem animal mounted on a pole with its bones hanging below from a cross piece. Sometimes the headless and not very fresh corpse of a trespasser was lashed to the pole. When the wind blew, the clatter of bones filled every hollow.
"I begin to see why westward bound caravans don't disband at Peshtar," said Jame, "This is not what I would call hospitable country."
"Just be glad that at this season most of the tribesmen are off hunting deer and each other on the lower slopes of the Snowthorns. Every year the game gets scarcer and the clans more savage. Before long, they'll be reduced to cannibalism, like the Horde."
"But if the hunting is so bad here, why don't any of the tribes claim lands across the Ever-quick? Those woods must be seething with game."
"All the clans consider the south bank to be sacred ground. As I understand it, some three thousand years ago, not long before our kind came to Rathillien, someone or something suddenly barred them from the Anarchies. Before that, they believed that their dead crossed the river to a new life, and that the soul of the tribe itself had its roots on the far bank. Their shamen still take turns crossing the Ever-quick to perform secret rites on the far side, which they hope will eventually get them back into the Anarchies. They can have them too, for all I care."
"Oh, I don't know," said Jame, looking across the river. "The place might be worth a visit, and those rites could be very interesting indeed."
Marc gave her a worried, sidelong glance. He knew how intrigued Jame was by other people's religions, but he had never before heard quite that note in her voice, as if she were imagining with some relish ceremonies of a particularly gruesome nature. In fact, he had been uneasy about Jame since Peshtar, where she had so casually slashed that brigand's throat. Like most Kendar, Marc was not particularly bothered by the Shanir, perhaps because one had to have at least a touch of Highborn blood in order to be one. He had always assumed that Jame was at most a quarter Highborn because not even a half-blood would have been allowed to run as wild all her life as Jame obviously had. He had known about her claws almost from the start, and they too had never disturbed him in themselves. He also knew, however, how reluctant Jame ordinarily was to use them. Had something changed? He didn't know and didn't like to ask.
That second day and the third they made slower time because of the pony, which apparently had gone lame. Jame suspected it of malingering and proved her point by setting Jorin on it. After its initial fright, however, it limped as badly as before and was harder to scare. Marc kept a wary eye on the hills. He had by no means told Jame all that he knew about the hill tribes' less endearing customs.
The third night, they camped in a stand of poplars on a cliff above the river. In the morning, Jame shook down her long black hair and ran her fingers through it.
"Filthy," she said with a grimace, and went down to the river with Jorin trotting beside her.
Again, the Kendar said nothing, despite his misgivings. If he had stopped to think about it, he might have wondered why in spite of his seven decades' seniority he had never felt easy giving Jame orders. Now Marc tried to forget his uneasiness and set about preparing their breakfast. He had just rekindled the fire and was reaching for the food pouch when a foot came down on it. A hillman stood beside him. Marc reached for his axe, but froze as steel pricked his broad back. Two more men had silently come up behind him, armed with hunting spears.
"Who are you?" he demanded loudly, hoping that Jame would hear and take warning. "What do you want?"
Ignoring him, the first man began to rifle through Jame's knapsack. He pulled out the sword, but threw it aside when he saw that it was broken. Next he found Ganth's ring, still on the Gray Lord's withered finger. He threw the finger into the flames and put on the ring. The man had just burrowed down to the Book Bound in Pale Leather when one of his comrades gave a startled exclamation and pointed.
Jame stood in the shade of the poplars. Slender and still with sunlight dappling her bare limbs, she looked like some spirit of the grove in human form. There are still such wild things in the wild corners of the earth. Even Marc, seeing her, felt a touch of near primordial dread.
The first hillman rose and backed toward the Kendar, his eyes still on Jame. Then, almost experimentally, as if to see how this strange apparition would react, he turned and struck Marc a heavy blow on the head with his fist. The Kendar swayed, half stunned. He thought for one numb moment that he had gone blind, but then realized that it was only blood, running down from a forehead cut made by Ganth's ring.
As his vision cleared, he saw the silver sheen in Jame's eyes and her slow, chilling smile. Jorin cowered away from her
. Now she was gliding, almost dancing, through the woods toward them, and the morning light seemed to darken around her. Marc had seen Jame dance as the B'tyrr back in Tai-tastigon, and had been disturbed by it. Now he sensed that this was the true dance of the Dream-Weaver, of which the B'tyrr's had been only the shadow.
The hillmen were staring open-mouthed, caught in the dark web of the dance. Jamethiel glided up to the one who had struck Marc. With deft touches, she brought his soul trembling to the edge of his being, ripe for reaping. Then she put her arms around him. Marc saw her draw the backs of her unsheathed nails slowly, sensuously, along the sides of his neck across the pulsing arteries. They poised for the forward sweep.
"No!" he cried.
Jame blinked. What the hell . . . ?
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