Age of Swords

by Michael J. Sullivan

  “I don’t believe in revenge,” Arion said in a wet whisper as she clutched at Suri’s waist.

  “Then I suspect you’re the only one.”

  Suri held her, feeling Arion quiver, then pause, sniffle, and quiver again. She had never held anyone before, except Minna, and it felt strange. Not bad, really, just odd because she didn’t know exactly what to do. Maybe it didn’t matter. She only had to be there.

  “Suri,” Arion said, “I’m scared.”

  “Of what?”

  Arion didn’t answer, and the two went on hugging each other among the swaying flowers under the afternoon’s summer sun.

  —

  After the meal was over, Roan found Brin. The girl sat on her knees, a wad of rumpled cloth on her lap. Before her parents’ death, Brin had been cheerful, an eternal spring of happiness. She had been a warm fire on a cold night; cool water to parched lips; her beaming smile just as important as the lodge’s eternal flame. But neither had been seen since the giant’s attack. Roan wanted to say something, do something, but she didn’t know what. If an axle broke, Roan could fix it, but she hadn’t been able to help Gifford’s leg, and she knew she couldn’t fix Brin. There always seemed to be a better way, except when it came to people. Once broken, people couldn’t be repaired.

  “Have you eaten?” Roan asked.

  “Not hungry.”

  Roan sat down beside her.

  The camp was breaking up. People hoisted the belongings they carried in baskets and moved up the slope. The dirt that had been dug for the fire pit was now used to smother the flames. Men armed with staffs set off with dogs to gather the sheep and pigs. Parents found children and started walking down the road to give tiny feet a head start. Gifford had left before anyone since he was slower than most of the children, slower even than Padera. Only Brin, Roan, and Malcolm remained. The ex-slave sat across from the women, searching the inside of his shoe for something.

  “What’s this?” Roan asked Brin, pointing at the strips of cloth.

  “It’s…it’s…” Brin took a deep breath and pushed the strips away. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m too stupid.” She began to cry.

  Roan watched her. Malcolm looked up as well. Unlike Gifford, Brin didn’t seem to mind them watching her cry. She didn’t seem to notice. Roan didn’t know what to do, so she did what she could and began picking up the mess. The strips of cloth had deliberate markings on them, little pictures placed one after another all along their lengths.

  Brin was calming down but still crying. She waved dismissively and shook her head. “Bandages…those are the ones that were around Arion’s head. I thought…” Brin sucked on her lips as she wiped her tortured eyes. “I don’t know. I was thinking that those markings are like the pictures I used to paint on my walls.”

  Roan nodded. One did look a bit like a mountain and another sort of like a person with missing arms.

  “Well, I thought…I sorta thought that a picture showed a moment or an idea, but a series of pictures could tell a story. Look.” Brin raked her heels over the ground, scrubbing clear a patch of dirt. Then she drew a circle with a line under it with her finger. “Let’s say that’s Persephone. I know it doesn’t look like her, but just listen a second.” Brin drew a vertical line. “That divides the that time from this time.” She added a bigger circle and put a head on it with eyes. “That’s the big brown bear.” Lastly, Brin drew the same circle and line as before.

  “Persephone again,” Roan said excitedly.

  Brin looked up. “Yes! Exactly!” Then the girl drew another dividing line, and in the last space available before the grass started again, she drew another Persephone and another bear, but the bear’s eyes were little lines instead of circles, and another line came out of its center.

  Roan stared at this image for a long time. While she did, Brin didn’t speak or move.

  “Persephone again…” Roan muttered, trying to work it out. “The bear again…but different, and this line…” She pointed.

  “Yes?” Brin asked, her voice tense.

  “It almost looks…”

  “Yes?” Brin inched closer.

  “I mean, it’s sort of like…”

  “Like what? Like what?” Brin was bouncing on folded knees.

  “Almost like a spear is in its side and the bear…the eyes look closed, so the bear looks dead.”

  “Yes!” Brin exploded.

  Roan studied the pictures. She pointed to them in order and said, “Persephone. Then the bear. Then Persephone meets the bear, and the bear dies.”

  She looked up and saw Brin smiling. “You understood it!”

  “But Persephone didn’t kill the bear with a spear.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It represents an idea, not a real thing. Do you understand?”

  Roan didn’t, not entirely, but sort of. What she did understand was that Brin was smiling.

  “It would be too hard to draw a picture of everything, but”—Brin picked up the bandages with the runes—“if I could turn the ideas into markings like this, then I would put down stories on cloth the way Suri painted these symbols. So much was lost when Maeve died. She never had the chance to tell me everything. I’ve tried to pick up the pieces from others, but I hear different accounts from various people. And this…I mean look at it.” Brin took the bandages, crushed them in her hands, pulled at them, as if she hated the strips, and threw them down. “See? You can’t hurt it. The markings are still there. If I get this right, I could put down all the stories that Maeve taught me, and whenever anyone wanted to know something, they could just look at it, even after I’m gone.”

  Roan stared back at the dirt and the drawings there. The idea fascinated her. When Roan looked back at Brin, she was holding the rags once more.

  “No one would ever forget them,” Brin said, and wiped her eyes. “My mom and dad, our home, our lives together, everything. If I could do that, they’d never be forgotten. And maybe in some small way, they’ll never truly die. I suppose that sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”

  “No, not at all. I think it’s wonderful,” Roan said. “Better than the saws made by the little men. Better than my cart or barrels. It might just be the most amazing idea I’ve ever heard.”

  Roan continued to look at the rags in wonder as Brin gathered them up and set off down the road.

  “I think…” Malcolm said, punching his foot back into his shoe, then standing up. “I think we’ve just witnessed the world shift, and I doubt it’ll ever be the same again.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Ride of the Stone God

  No one can tell me Mari is not the greatest of the gods. I saw her charge forth and single-handedly fight for us, and then she sat down and generously shared food and drink with the conquered.

  —THE BOOK OF BRIN

  The first thing Persephone noticed were the seagulls. The white birds circled in flocks, squawking in a chorus of lonesome cries. The dahl’s survivors were a full five days from Rhen. Five days! She could hardly believe it, and had begun to wonder if Tirre, along with the Blue Sea, had been moved farther away. The trip had never taken so long. On the few occasions when she and Reglan had traveled there, it had only taken two days. Of course, they hadn’t traveled with a host of hundreds that included scores and scores of children and the elderly. Persephone didn’t have the heart to drive the column harder. This wasn’t a vacation to visit and trade with neighbors. They were broken families grieving for loved ones, children without parents and parents without children. They walked into an unknown world, and on their backs they carried their whole lives. Letting them sleep, giving them time to prepare hot meals, and providing rest were the least she could do, even if it prolonged her own torment.

  Today we’ll discover how strong the bonds are among the clans.

  Tirre knew she was coming. Persephone had sent runners to all the dahls the day after the giants’ attack, explaining what had happened. She’d had the messengers draw sticks to see who would go to the
Gula clans in the north, the people who had been their enemies for centuries. Aberdeen, Montlake, and Morgan were the unlucky ones, all three farmers. Two of the men had families who’d survived the attack, but both had nodded grimly and set out without complaint on the perilous road north. All of them knew it might be suicide, but they went anyway. They left Persephone to care for their families—and cultivate a tremendous feeling of guilt.

  I should have gone instead of one of them. I gave the order, and I should live, or die, with the consequences. But I didn’t even draw a stick.

  Dahl Tirre was larger than Dahl Rhen had been, more elaborate, too. While Rhen had the forest with its wood, berries, and animals, Tirre had the sea. The water was more than just a source of fish and salt. Across its aqua waves lay Belgreig, the land of the Dherg, and from there came riches. The Dherg influence was impossible to miss. Dahl Tirre was built of stone. Although some buildings were fashioned from clay bricks, the wall that surrounded the dahl was constructed of neatly stacked slabs, as was the lodge. Unlike Dahl Rhen, some of the village had grown up outside the fortification.

  The most abundant wealth of Dahl Tirre existed in the settlement around the docks. Hundreds of brick buildings were stacked upon one another as they climbed the steep slope from the water’s edge. The people of Tirre called this dock-village Vernes, which she’d been told was the Dherg word for “pier.”

  As Persephone’s parade rounded the bend that sloped down to the rocky coast, they could see the whole of the dahl, the village, and the sea stretching into the horizon. The dahl could see them, too. Hard to miss a column of several hundred people marching toward their gate, which at the moment was still wide open.

  “You all right?” Raithe asked.

  He walked beside her as he had every day of the trip. She hadn’t asked him to. She almost never asked anything of Raithe. She didn’t feel she could. Persephone was the chieftain of Clan Rhen, but Raithe was Dureyan, and he certainly wasn’t anyone’s servant. Raithe was the God Killer, a valuable asset to a clan chieftain about to go to war with the Fhrey. Still, he was more than that—she felt comfortable with him. Except for the Fhrey, who still frightened her, it felt as though everyone else depended on her for something. Raithe didn’t need anyone. At times, when things grew bleak, she shamefully indulged in his fantasy of running away together. She imagined slipping off the shackles of responsibility and living with Raithe in his carefree world, but it was only an illusion. The real world didn’t work that way.

  “No, I’m not all right,” Persephone replied, and she could tell it wasn’t the response he had expected. “I’m waiting to see who has more power: Mari or Eraphus.”

  “Eraphus?”

  “Clan Tirre’s god.”

  The gate remained open as they began their descent. Just as Persephone started believing everything would work out, at least for the next few days, she heard the horn.

  This is the moment, the hinge our future swings on. What has Tirre decided?

  As the first horn’s wail faded, Persephone held her breath. Her heart sank as a second blew and then a third—no mistaking what that signal meant. One horn indicated a greeting, two horns indicated potential danger, but three horns…three horns warned of a threat, calling all the residents to arms.

  Remarkably, the gates didn’t close—not at first. The initial movement came from people just outside the wall. Wherever they had been going, and whatever they had been doing, became unimportant as they rushed inside, shoving one another in their haste to reach the protective walls before the gates closed.

  What she had feared the most had come to pass: Tirre wouldn’t welcome them.

  Lipit, the dahl’s chieftain, had never impressed her as a courageous man. Pompous and arrogant, made so by his dahl’s wealth, he’d faced few real threats. Rich men—especially those who came to their wealth through no effort of their own—didn’t like risk, and challenging the Fhrey was as risky as it got. As far as Tirre was concerned, Clan Rhen carried a plague, and they didn’t want it spreading to their shores.

  Just when she imagined things couldn’t possibly get worse, Persephone heard a scream.

  Behind her, the lead cart crested the hill and began to descend. Most of the men driving it had been behind, pushing. Only Malcolm and Cobb pulled. The trip to Tirre had, until that point, been across reasonably level ground. So it came as a surprise to everyone when the cart began to roll downhill under its own power. Malcolm leapt aside, but Cobb had been too slow. The cart lurched as its front left wheel rolled over him. The following wheel ended Cobb’s screaming. Yet the cries weren’t over. Everyone ahead of the cart panicked, because Cobb’s death hadn’t stopped or even slowed the rampaging cart. If anything, it rolled faster.

  Roan’s creation rumbled down the hill on that horribly smooth road, picking up speed until it ran faster than a rabbit. Mari bounced in the back, trapped amid barrels of water, wheat, and beer. The god looked furious as she rattled by. The wobbly wheels shimmied badly, but Roan’s invention held together, and the cart gained astounding speed.

  Everyone who could, scrambled out of its way, diving to one side or the other. Some were too slow. Raithe pulled Persephone aside, but a man and his wife were struck. The cart finally raced clear of the column of people, rolling hard and fast down the remainder of the road, wobbling and whistling as it headed straight toward the gates of Dahl Tirre.

  The great gates were still admitting latecomers. Seeing the cart, they cried out and scattered. Even the guards ran for their lives when seeing a god rattling straight toward them. The cart appeared as a living thing, a wobbly beast, angry and charging in rage. Striking sacks and uneven paving stones, the cart leapt and crashed, rocked and shook, but it never faltered, never slowed.

  Then it struck the gate.

  The crash was loud, a crack like thunder. One wheel was sheared off in a burst of splinters as the gate’s two wooden doors were slapped aside. With the impact, the rear of the cart came up, and the whole thing flipped, throwing barrels of grain and beer, along with rakes, hoes, winnowing forks, mattocks, and the god Mari. What remained of the cart, and its chaos, passed within the wall and beyond Persephone’s view. Shrieks were followed by another crash. Then everything went quiet.

  —

  The stillness that followed was worse than the screams. Overhead, seagulls cried, and they weren’t alone. Clan Rhen wept, some for the loss of those who had been killed by the runaway cart, and others because they couldn’t do anything else. The silence came from inside the dahl, where Persephone couldn’t see. She was blind and deaf to whatever terrible conclusion had occurred, and as she walked the remaining steps down the road, she couldn’t even begin to imagine what she might find inside.

  Persephone ordered all the other carts stopped. They, and the rest of Clan Rhen, were to wait while she, Raithe, and Malcolm went to the dahl. Looking back, she spotted Roan, who stood clutching herself, glaring wide-eyed at the body of Cobb. Persephone wanted to talk to her, needed to explain that it hadn’t been her fault, but Persephone had a bigger crisis to deal with. She had to talk with Lipit, Clan Tirre’s chieftain, and salvage what she could.

  One of the big doors of Dahl Tirre’s gate had been nearly torn off. It hung at a twisted angle. Passing inside, Persephone searched for blood but found none. No one lay on the ground. No one looked hurt. The cart had mostly destroyed itself when it hit the gate. What was left had crashed and rolled. The empty cart lay on its side. Mounds of wheat and barley lay among shards of broken barrels. Tools were scattered. Miraculously, the four barrels of beer rested on their sides, undamaged. Several bushels of peas and berries had spilled out of baskets. In the center of it all, in the middle of the courtyard of Dahl Tirre, stood the stone figure of Mari, upright and unharmed.

  The people of Clan Tirre gathered in a circle around the god. Many were on their knees, heads bowed until Persephone and her escorts entered. They looked up then, fearful. On the stone steps of the lodge, Chieftain Lipit knelt alo
ng with his wife, Iffen, and his three sons. All of them wore soft white linen, typical of the Tirre people. Around Lipit’s neck was a stunning gold torc, while a silver one circled Iffen’s throat.

  Persephone said nothing as she waded through the grain until she stood beside Mari. She considered how best to apologize for the disaster, but couldn’t find the words. How could she begin to explain, and how could she ask for safe haven after such a catastrophe?

  “Forgive us.” Lipit spoke first, lifting his face to look at her.

  Persephone glanced at Raithe and then Malcolm, uncertain whether she had heard correctly. Both raised an eyebrow in response.

  “We were misinformed,” Lipit said, and took a moment to glare viciously at a man who knelt in the dirt at the bottom of the steps. “Calab said Eraphus was greater than Mari, that Clan Rhen was weak, and that you came as beggars to spoil our lands.” He spat on the prostrate man, who quivered and moaned, his face still pressed to the ground.

  Lipit looked back at Mari, rising out of the sea of grain. “Your god is great and generous.” He looked up at the broken gate. “She is fierce and powerful. I can see why you believe Rhunes can fight the Fhrey. Your god is a warrior god. Forgive us. We didn’t know.”

  Persephone nodded thoughtfully. “And what about my messenger?”

  “He’s here and safe. He said you called for a Council of Clans to choose a keenig to lead us in a war against the gods of the north.”

  “And what are your thoughts on this matter?”

  Lipit once again stared harshly at the prostrate man.

  “We thought it was ill advised.” The chieftain cringed slightly while shifting his gaze to Mari, who did nothing.

  “And what do you think now?” Persephone asked.

  “We think we were rash.”

  Persephone nodded with a sympathetic face and hoped that only she knew it wasn’t genuine. “Chieftain Lipit, Lady Iffen, allow me to introduce Malcolm, who lived nearly his whole life in the famed outpost of Alon Rhist, and Raithe of Dureya, also known as the God Killer.”