by Richard Nell
By contrast, the Arbman seemed to float on a cloud of horseflesh. He hardly touched the reins, looking at the sky in boredom as much as the horizon, sometimes almost reclining, as if entirely capable of sleeping as he rode.
They moved through the edge of the mountainous ground into milder hills with more grass and life. They let the horses feed and rest for a time while Medek cursed and made a fuss, then at last reached flatter ground, and the Spiral.
“Finally.” The Arbman rolled his shoulders and sprang to life as his mount’s hooves crunched the graveled stone. “There is waystation ahead. A hard ride and we make it, then swap horses and ride hard again, and we see Husavik by night time. Yes?”
Birmun swallowed down his horror, then nodded. Medek clicked his tongue and his mount snorted and moved to a run. Birmun and Dag’s horses pulled forward instinctively.
The wind blew his face and hair and for a moment Birmun forgot his discomfort. But Medek was a steppe tribesman, all but born on a horse. No doubt he’d spent most of his life taking messages like this one around the world, and he would ride Birmun and Dag until they crumbled and broke apart and no doubt could ride long after.
Birmun did his best. As promised, they rode hard all afternoon and swapped at the Order’s waystation, taking a short rest to eat dried rations and stretch their legs before re-mounting on new animals. Then they were off again, though every muscle in Birmun’s body screamed to stop.
He had faced such moments before. As a nightman he had swung a shovel until his hands bled; he had stood hip-deep in filth from sundown to sunrise, getting human waste on his face, in his hair, even once in his mouth, all the while surrounded and choked by it until he thought the scent would burn in his nostrils. But after the long night of riding the Spiral for the second time, he’d have still chosen the waste.
“How much further?”
By the time he asked, he existed only in some mixture of numbness and nightmare, eyes blinking and staring at nothing as if reality were only a painful dream. He could force the man to stop at any time, he knew, but didn’t. Gods curse my stupid pride.
“Nearly there, Chief. Very close now.”
To Birmun the man’s voice sounded as if it came through water. He closed his eyes promising himself for just a moment, and when he next opened them he saw smoke and a ring of houses. Dag whistled and pointed ahead, and the Arbman guided his horse through a wheat field, small raider-bow strung and slipped over his neck. Apparently he’d been off ahead scouting.
“We miss them. Tracks go North. Twenty, thirty, men, maybe more.”
Birmun could see—even after two hard rides and in moonlight—the tribesman meant to carry on.
“We make camp,” he said, admitting temporary defeat in his heart. “We’ll follow in the morning.”
Medek spit a glob of orange spittle that caught the moonlight. “Is bandit town, Chief. No good for camping.” He ran a finger across his throat like a knife.
Dag grunted and pointed at a small valley dark with shrubs and bushes. “Chief’s not asking, scout. There should do.”
For a moment Medek stared, and though he was too exhausted to worry much, Birmun wondered if the man would just leave them here and go back North.
Instead the little tribesman shrugged and turned his horse with his knees. He shook his head when Dag stooped to gather kindling for a fire, sliding another finger across his neck. Then he finally dismounted as if it was no great hardship, lay a pack beneath his head, and starting snoring moments later.
“Guess we’re taking first watch.” Dag had to drag Birmun from his horse.
“I’m alright.” He groaned, and pain flared from the bone and muscle in his hips, but he fought the pain. He limped as he untied his animal’s bags and saddle, then slumped to the earth.
Soon he was dreaming of Dala tucked in his arms, a memory rather than a fantasy. Since the day he’d become the man responsible for killing Bukayag, they had been together again, very carefully. Two years now nearly of bliss and lovemaking in the dark, perfect were it not for all the drudgery and toil of the world between them.
Well. Not quite perfect. They had no children.
He’d voiced his quiet fear that perhaps they could never have children, despite this being a mixed blessing for now since Dala was a High Priestess. She’d only laughed without concern.
“We’ve lain together hundreds of times, Dala. You should be pregnant by now. Something is wrong.”
She’d smiled and stroked his hair.
“Not now, my love. There is no time, so the goddess prevents it. When this is over, perhaps, and my work is done. Maybe then we’ll find time for children.”
As ever she’d said it with such confidence he’d at once felt calm. She’d seemed so sure. That night he’d lain down relieved, finding peace and sleep in her arms. But with the light and morning and solitude, his fear returned.
“Wake, wake. Sun is soon.”
Birmun drew a seax before he remembered where he was. He glanced at the almost amused, ugly flat face of the Arbman, then nearly tripped from the pain in his lower body as he rose. He looked at his horse grazing and just the sight made him ache from stem to root.
Dag yawned and blinked red eyes, and all three men saddled their horses and broke camp in silence—the Arbman in half the time—then mounted and rode in single file.
The raw, tender flesh of Birmun’s thighs flared with pain as they rubbed again on the hard leather. He tried and failed to shift, to find some position that would spare him, eventually settling into the misery as he’d done the day before.
“If I never ride again,” he complained after the sun crept up, “it will be too soon.”
The Arbman laughed and coughed as he maybe choked on his root. “Imagine how feel horse. You are like bear.”
Following ‘Bukayag’ and his outlaws proved simple tracking, but difficult riding. Were it not for watching Medek do it first, Birmun wouldn’t even have dared take his mount down such steep slopes and rises as they found in the valley.
In turns they’d coax the animals up or down the sides of gullies and natural trenches, often dismounted. Streams often criss-crossed the bottoms, their beds filled with slippery, moss-covered rocks. After a dozen such careful crossings the Arbman cursed.
“We never catch,” he said, gesturing ahead. “Follow. This way.”
With an uneasy glance at each other, Birmun and Dag followed their guide further East—out of the dried up riverland near Husavik to higher ground.
Birmun was a creature of the city and had lived in Orhus most of his life. He knew little of the world, or this part of it, and if he were abandoned here it would be all he could do to find the Spiral and home.
After several steep climbs the ground turned to hard clay and rock with hardly even any grass. Grey, lifeless, and curved, Birmun felt as if they walked on the edge of some giant skull. But beyond it a huge patch of trees climbed mountains to the East, and a red and orange sky filled the horizon.
“Ha.” Medek urged his horse forward and ducked the wind as he raced across the hard, flat ground. “Come along, farmers, daylight burns us.”
Birmun and Dag sighed, but did their best to follow.
All morning and afternoon they raced across the strip of hard earth between forest and valley. Bleary eyed agony dogged each clap of his animal’s hooves, and several times he panicked as he nearly fell from his horse. But still, Birmun had to admit, the place was beautiful.
Cool wind refreshed him even as it stung his eyes. He found himself staring at the endless Eastern horizon of mountain peaks, so jagged and numerous they seemed like a huge trap laid for some divine and monstrous bear. He realized after some time it was the Eastern mountain range, and knew beyond it lay the sea and the edge of the world.
I am a fortunate man, he thought, smiling. In his short life and limited travel, still he had seen three of the world’s edges. He had known love and revenge, brotherhood and family, and even if he died now he woul
d die a chief.
Still, the thought of death frightened him. He had done things—terrible things. He had butchered unarmed men and boys in Orhus, he and his nightmen with Dala’s knives. And I killed a girl, and women, and their infants. Nevermind that I tried not to look and make myself forget. I killed them while they screamed.
For his crimes, no matter what Dala told him, he knew he would not see paradise. He would go to the mountain and burn in Noss’s flame, and perhaps one day be re-born.
“We rest and cross here, Chief.” At last the Arbman slowed. He pointed down a ridge that would help ease their descent into the valley. “We find their trail again, yes? Should be close now.”
Birmun nodded. “If so, you’ve done well, Medek. You’ll be rewarded.”
The man smiled and showed his orange teeth. They rested their horses and drank goat milk from skins, and Birmun chewed salted venison which he offered to the Arbman when he saw him staring. The man licked it and frowned, but ate it anyway.
“Waste of salt,” he muttered, then rubbed his hands together and vaulted to his horse without using his arms, and urged it towards the drop.
Birmun and Dag followed, leading their mounts on foot. Dag once lost his footing and nearly pulled his horse down to trample him, but they stepped and stumbled their way back to softer, greener earth without disaster.
Their pace at the bottom, at least, was leisurely. Birmun and his retainer kept quiet and looked at the terrain as Medek concentrated, but for the most part they didn’t know what to look for, and just followed him in silence as the time dragged.
“God cursed shit-eaters.” When the sun began its drop, and still no sign of the outlaws, Medek began muttering. He led them West across nearly the whole valley before he turned back and said they must have passed their quarry.
“They move slow,” he explained, before taking them back South, nose now gaining a hue similar to the root he chewed.
Birmun simply followed. Volus turned his eye, and the light from its glow lit the skies in shades of red and purple before the inevitable dark. Medek finally dropped off his horse, avoiding Birmun’s gaze as he climbed the highest tree they could find.
“I see,” he called, almost at once, stepping carefully down from branch to branch. “They stop and make god-cursed fence.” He made stabbing gestures with his hands. “Horse-spears, like farmers. Yes?”
Birmun nodded, understanding but confused. “Why should they make a proper camp here? There’s nothing but woods and dried up valley.”
The little man shrugged, and Birmun supposed it made no difference. In single file they picked their way through the curving landscape, avoiding hilltops so as not to be seen, though since they were messengers and would soon announce themselves, he didn’t truly think this mattered.
Near the final hill before the outlaw camp he said as much and climbed to the peak, wanting a good look before he committed.
They’d built a stockade as the Arbman said, and even a trench. Men moved freely outside gathering wood and water from the valley. They’ll have scouts and hunters and scavengers, he realized, feeling an urge to run and hide as quickly as possible.
But he held his ground. He took a closer look at the men in sight, and saw they were warriors. Most had shields slung across their backs, even as they took their rest. They carried spears or swords or axes, and sometimes all three. Many had chain-linked armor or at least a leather cuirass, and the ones who didn’t looked so big and armed they must have been unprotected by choice.
“We go, in there?” The Arbman shook his head, his forehead sweaty. “No. We no come out.”
Dag cleared his throat. “I’m inclined to agree. These are hard, disciplined men, Chief, not bandits. They might just kill us for seeing that.”
Both looked to Birmun, whose hand went thoughtlessly to the scroll at his side, wishing for the hundredth time he could read what it said. But whatever his feelings, he trusted Dala and would do her will. He had never failed her. He wasn’t going to start now.
“We go in,” he said, and smiled, enjoying the horseman’s fear. “I thought you raiders had stiffer spines.”
With that he reached up and un-pinned the small, silver bar through his ear that marked him as a chief, and urged his horse forward. He expected by now they’d been spotted anyway and had no choice. He turned his eyes back to the camp for one last look, and his pleasure at the tribesman’s discomfort vanished.
There, waiting at the gate of wooden spikes—already directing a few warriors to move it aside—was the biggest man Birmun had ever seen. He stood in plain sight, staring at Birmun’s hill. Even from a distance it was clear he wore polished iron all over his body, and had an almost bald head that looked somehow black—as if he’d smeared it with dirt, or ash.
Bukayag, he thought, hardly believing it, and suddenly afraid.
In truth he had always thought the man little more than myth—a man like any other who had rebelled and fled or died, leaving a story to live on only in skald tales. But this man watching as if Birmun was expected—this man was no myth.
Birmun raised his hands to show he meant no harm, and rode forward, perhaps to his death, and the mountain’s flames.
Chapter 48
Ruka watched the Galdric scouts come forward, and admired their courage. Tahar and his falconers had spotted them the day before, but Ruka told him only to watch, mostly out of curiosity, wanting to see what his enemies would do.
He knew a small army of Northerners camped on a mountain near Alverel. Egil told him they’d come down after their bloody rebellion on the lawstone, and some minor chief and a priestess scoured the beltway and some of the South and still remained after two years. Looking for me, he thought, amused.
He studied the men and their horses as they came towards him. One was clearly a tribesman from the steppes, his wild pony largely unburdened by gear or supplies, a small hunting bow lain strung across his lap. Men like him could ride across the whole of the Ascom surviving on nothing more than a flask of milk mixed with blood pricked from their mounts.
The others looked like Northern chiefsmen. One was young— tall, a wiry but muscled warrior only slightly older than Ruka—the other a veteran perhaps near forty. They had shields and scabbarded swords. The younger seemed ready to fall off his horse.
“I feel their fear, brother,” whispered Bukayag. “Perhaps they’re assassins.”
Ruka resisted the shrug and tempered his brother’s itch for violence. Bukayag had wanted to kill the scouts from the beginning, arguing they would simply run back to their masters when they’d seen enough, and perhaps soon hundreds of men would be hunting them in earnest.
Ruka didn’t think so. Clearly someone from Husavik sent word of Aiden’s attack, and if the valley army meant to respond then they’d have sent a larger force. Perhaps someone was only curious. Perhaps someone, maybe a priestess or a great chief, wanted to use this little uprising, or believed they shared an interest with Aiden, or with ‘the last runeshaman’. Whatever they wanted, it would give Ruka leverage. He would manipulate them and buy time to gain more men and supplies, or just ignore them.
With the Eastern forest so close—a huge, maze of trees nearly devoid of civilization, mostly contemplated in fear by the superstitious men of ash—he had little fear of attack. With some ‘divine’ promise of safety, he and Aiden’s men could move deep into the trees and ambush any brave enough to follow. Ruka had been here before as an outcast. He knew every cliff, valley, waterfall and cave.
So, he’d convinced Aiden, and they’d waited. With their time the men cut down trees and made rope and carts. And though the chief had seemed bewildered, since the gods demanded haste just the day before, Ruka only smiled.
“We’re on the path now, Aiden. But we can not know what obstacles may come.” He knew the yew trees here were good for lumber. They’d need all the supplies on the coast, and to begin preparing now would seem prophetic later.
The dead did the same in his Grove,
but it seemed best to be productive in both worlds, and the wood there was different.
Aiden’s retainers lifted two heavy gate-posts from their holes and moved them aside for the visitors, opening a path in the spikes.
“We are messengers,” said the young warrior, his hands raised in a gesture of peace. He lowered one slowly and withdrew a scroll tied to his belt.
Ruka watched them very closely. He noticed the concern in the older man’s eyes. But not for himself, he decided, for the other man. Perhaps they are kin. Is it his father? Why then does the son speak?
Egil had hobbled to Ruka’s side when the men approached, as ordered, and many others watched from the hill they’d chosen as a camp. Eshen lurked by a near-by post, his new, long dagger tucked inside the cloak that shielded half his face. Aiden sharpened a sword by his tent, appearing uninterested.
“I am Bukayag, son of Beyla. Whose message do you carry?”
The young warrior tried and failed to subtly inspect Ruka’s face, armor, and camp.
“Dala, daughter of Cara, High Priestess of the South.”
At hearing this name, for a moment Ruka stood over the mangled corpse of priestess Kunla, waiting for death. He watched the chaos of Alverel and all the faces and terror until he found a young, pretty apprentice with a scarred cheek and determined eyes. She had, in a way, saved his life two years before.
She had ordered the Galdric warriors who pursued him to hold, and in their confusion and delay Ruka had overcome his moment of weakness and doubt, and fled North. ‘We serve the same God, you and I,” she’d told him. “One day you will see.”
Ruka blinked and cleared the past from his eyes, then nodded. Egil limped forward to take the message.
“My mistress said she used simple symbols. Do you have a matron who can read?”
