Behind him, Penit declaimed in a bold voice, “Do you not see the families driven from their homes? The Quiet is making refugees of the people, and they flood to every safe town or city, seeking safety. The food runs out and the people starve or riot. City arbors reek of the unbathed. Granaries are being ravaged. The streets are filled with every unsavory practice. Children forced into whore dens. All to survive while you send unprepared armies to die!”
Penit became a silhouette against the fire, gesturing and pacing, pointing and covering his heart with his hands.
Tahn, distracted by the lad’s bold speech, turned back to face Mira. “I saw you grab the boy and spring from the wagon at the courtyard in Myrr. I’ve never seen anyone move so quickly.”
A warm chuckle came from the shadow where Mira sat. “How many Far have you known, woodsman?”
“And now the largest legions out of the Bourne march into the east.” Penit’s voice echoed behind them. “And so I ascend these stairs of the great Halls of Solath Mahnus in the free city of Recityv, as one of King Baellor’s Wombs of War whose grandmother’s sons and mother’s sons have gone to fight this enemy and fallen.”
Tahn stepped closer so that he might discern Mira’s face in the darkness. “One,” he answered, indicating her. “But in the Hollows little is known of the Far. Even the readers do not often talk of your people. Braethen’s books seem to have only passing references. We thought them legends and myths, and yet here you are.”
Mira’s grey eyes caught a reflection of the fire behind. “Here I am,” she echoed.
“And I stand here,” came Penit’s strong, young voice. “On these chiseled steps with the child whose life I carried in my womb.” Penit raised his hands high as though holding aloft a small child. “I stand here, denied an audience by King Sechen Baellor the Swift. Denied a hearing, though my family’s blood has purchased this city’s freedoms. I lift my child here and call upon you to form a council to represent all the people.”
Tahn was suddenly grateful for the dark. Perhaps his awkwardness would not be so evident. “You said before, when the raven came, that you would have a choice to make. What choice?”
“It is not for us to talk about at this time,” Mira answered. “Maybe never. But I am grateful for your concern.”
He sat down with her, watching. “That was genuine. Not subtle.”
“I know,” she said.
* * *
Penit’s voice came again, loud but tremulous, as if filled with the spirit of Layosah. “Or else I should rather dash my babe on this stone stair and snuff her life, than see her grow and bear another generation to go to war!”
It was clear that these weren’t just sketches to the boy. Something of the valor and integrity in them surely must mean something to him personally.
“Well done, lad,” Braethen said, his own voice soft, reverential. “Layosah’s speech brought about the Convocation of Seats that ended the First War of Promise. She was a remarkable woman.”
Wendra seemed not to hear. The wound for Wendra was too fresh, but the boy, Sutter knew, could not have known that. Still, Sutter’s heart ached seeing Wendra in pain.
Vendanj looked away into the hills behind them, his brow a tangle of deep furrows over dark eyes.
For Sutter, the scene felt like the rub of salt on an old wound newly opened—the awful moment when he was orphaned. Despite being so far removed from the memory—by years and by distance (so far from the Hollows now)—it seared him still, his skin hot despite the chill on the air.
Of them all, that night, Sutter was last to fall asleep.
* * *
Tahn woke to the vague and distant sound of drums. He lay unmoving, the smell of frozen earth strong in his nose. At first he thought the sound was the beating of his own heart echoing in his ears, pulsing the way it did when he swam in the Huber River back home, diving under the water, the beating loud in his head. Then he recalled the reader’s story of Nicholae’s Drum—a pauper boy’s toy that had, over the ages, become known as a mythic weapon.
But this rhythm pulsed out of time with his heart.
Tahn pushed himself up and looked around. Only Vendanj stirred. Tahn looked instantly to where Mira stood watch: the tree was empty. Vendanj rose and quietly woke the rest of them. Tahn stood and looked skyward. The lesser light hung near the high meridian; the dawn was still several hours away. Vendanj rolled his blanket. Tahn and the others took his silent direction and, beneath the silver shadows of the moon, they packed without speaking.
The drumming grew louder. Though they beat in unison, Tahn could now hear several drums, the sound repeating at long intervals from the road to the west which they had left. The incessant, monotonous beating unnerved him. If they returned to the road, the Bar’dyn would find them; the open country to the north led directly into a towering escarpment that ran east and west, in both directions farther than he could see. Tahn guessed the plateau above them led to the High Plains of Sedagin—a place of more legends about which he knew little.
Mira stepped into their midst, her face pale in the starlight. “Bar’dyn,” she said to Vendanj. “An entire collough led by a tracker commanding an advance party. They are close.” She paused, looking back the way she had come. “Closer than the drums.”
“Sedagin, then,” Vendanj said in a low voice.
“The Sedagin ceded too long ago,” Mira countered. “The only thing longer than their blades is their memory. We may not be welcome.”
Tahn saw Braethen nodding, though the sodalist kept silent.
The sound of movement interrupted them. Mira wheeled silently, drawing both blades in a deft cross-arm move. Before Tahn could turn, she had taken a position between the trees and the rest of the party. Vendanj came slowly past Tahn and stood beside Mira as four hulking figures stepped from the trees like shadows leaving the darkness. Beside them, a smaller, crippled-looking figure stood hunched, leaning on a short staff just a few strides away—the tracker.
A withered hand crept from the folds of its cloak, each bony finger wrapped tightly by translucent skin through which could be seen a lattice of blue veins. Then it pulled back its cowl, revealing a hairless head covered with the same strange skin. The tissue beneath ran in striated lines over gnarled bone. Its bulging eyes reminded Tahn of a dead animal bloated from several days’ rot.
Tahn’s breath hung on the air in a thin cloud. The sodalist stepped in front of Penit, but no one else moved, and for a moment, the small clearing might have been a court statue garden.
Into the quiet the hunched tracker croaked, “Did we wake you?” Tahn, peering through the darkness, saw the thick, tough skin of the Bar’dyn, their massive hands bearing a talonlike thumb on both sides of their palms. Most of them held large, double-sided axes. The last one in the line held a drum at its side and a mallet in its right hand. But neither the size nor their weapons frightened Tahn as much as the look of patient reason in their broad faces.
Again the crippled-looking thing spoke, its voice like the grinding of small stones. “Why do you flee?” it asked. It stepped forward, pointing its short staff at Vendanj. “Nola Will, Sheason, now and always.” A sallow gleam opened in the thing’s face where crooked teeth reflected the faint light.
Vendanj knelt down on one knee, and Tahn thought momentarily that the Sheason intended to yield. Vendanj turned his head slightly, whispering. Tahn only heard it because he stood directly behind Mira. “Don’t let it strike that drum.”
“Yes,” Mira said softly. “But the rest will not be able to see to use their weapons when it begins.” Her head nodded toward Tahn and the others behind her.
Vendanj shifted his hard gaze again to the tracker. “No,” he said, his response calm, steady, peaceful. Then the Sheason swung one hand into the earth, his fingers tearing like iron tines at the cold, hard ground. He lifted a fistful of soil and tossed it into the air with a great sweep of his arm. The dirt erupted into shimmering dust, which hung on the air as particles of light
illuminating the clearing. In that same instant, Mira crossed the distance to the Bar’dyn holding the drum and severed the leather strap used to carry it. The drum fell uselessly to the ground.
The tracker screeched with its wretched voice, “Velle’shea!” The Bar’dyn burst from their stances and charged them. Wendra grabbed Penit and retreated to the far side of the clearing. Braethen, drawing his sword, readied himself for their charge. Sutter lifted his own sword and crouched. Tahn briefly worried he would never again see his friend’s gritty courage.
He raised his bow and drew an arrow quickly, internally speaking the old words I draw with the strength of my arms … and fired almost randomly at the large creatures. He let fly three shots. The first two glanced off the armorlike skin of the Bar’dyn. The third took one in the eye, stopping its charge.
The tracker threw a knife at Vendanj. The Sheason saw the attack coming and thrust up one hand. A sudden gust of wind felled the knife in mid-flight and blew the tracker off its feet.
The Bar’dyn nearest Mira swung its ax in a huge downward stroke. The Far sidestepped the blow and brought her swords up in quick counterstrikes to the beast’s groin. When the Bar’dyn fell to its knees, Mira put her second blade through its teeth. The Given slumped forward. She turned immediately to the one who’d been carrying the drum, and narrowly dodged a waist-high stroke. The Bar’dyn swung past her, and Mira attacked its wrist with her blades so closely swung that they appeared to be a single sword. The Bar’dyn dropped his weapon, but countered with a blow from its taloned hand. Mira slumped into a back roll, regained her feet, and caught the beast’s other wrist in a similar strike. The Bar’dyn howled and threw its massive body toward the Far, wanting to smother her beneath its immense girth. Again, she was too quick, leaping aside as the Bar’dyn crashed into the undergrowth. She jumped to the beast’s back, rotating her swords in a blur, then plunged them into the creature’s neck.
One of the Bar’dyn brought its huge ax up and swept it down toward Braethen. The sodalist retreated, one edge of the Given’s weapon catching him on the arm. A spray of blood hit the Bar’dyn, maddening it further. Before it could draw back to strike again, Braethen pushed his sword forward with both hands in a straight thrust for the Bar’dyn’s belly. The stroke pierced the skin, but the Bar’dyn uttered no cry. It grasped the sword by its blade and ripped it from Braethen’s hands. The creature tossed the sodalist’s blade aside and swung its ax around for a final blow.
Instantly, Sutter rushed in. He threw himself on the beast’s arms, overburdening its attack. The Bar’dyn dropped its ax and clutched at Sutter, sinking massive hands into his flesh and throwing him down. The creature raised its foot over Sutter’s head and was about to crush his skull. Before it could do so, Braethen retrieved his blade and brought it down into the Bar’dyn’s face, sending the beast reeling.
A second Bar’dyn charged Tahn. With no time to draw another arrow, Tahn took several steps back. The Bar’dyn bore down upon him, holding its ax in a wide grip. Tahn lifted his bow as though to strike the Bar’dyn, but knew the futility in it. When the Bar’dyn was just a stride from him, it erupted in flame. Red fire scorched its skin, and an awful-smelling smoke rose from the creature in black waves. The Bar’dyn opened its mouth to scream, but the flames licked at its tongue and teeth and muffled the cry in its throat.
Mira fell upon the Bar’dyn Sutter and Braethen had wounded, slaying it from behind before it knew what had happened. The last of the Given snapped the arrow that had pierced its eye, and looked with its other eye at the fire engulfing its companion. With that, the creature turned and lumbered off into the darkness.
The light in the air began to dissipate slightly as the dust settled. Rasping breath filled the air, but over the sound of labored breathing Tahn could hear the distant beat of drums.
Then, just beyond the clearing, someone struck the drum the Bar’dyn had been carrying. The tracker! And struck it again. The sound rose in a penetrating bass note that carried farther than any scream or cry might. In response, the chorus of drums farther south beat twice in quick succession.
“Your horses!” Vendanj commanded.
Tahn jumped on Jole and the others mounted their steeds. Mira rushed in from the dark as the last of the light dust disappeared. Sheathing her swords, she jumped in stride onto her horse, and turned an inquiring look at Vendanj. The Sheason did not hesitate. “North,” he said. “To the Sedagin.”
Mira nodded and kicked Solus into a gallop. Vendanj waved for the rest of them to follow, and took the rear position behind Braethen. Shapes rose up and slipped by in a blur: trees, large rock outcroppings. Tahn rode hard through the weave of foliage and knolls and sudden dips in the land.
The drums grew louder, each beat sounding to Tahn as though it was joined by still more mallets upon tightly drawn hide. The night air chilled his cheeks and hands, making them throb. He looked back at Wendra, who rode beside the boy, and found fierce determination on both their faces. Past them, he saw Sutter actually smiling thinly in the starlight. That was when he saw them. Just over Vendanj’s shoulder several shapes were crashing through the trees. Saplings snapped under their feet, their footfalls like large stones rolling down a hill.
“Vendanj!” Tahn called, and pointed.
“Ride!” the Sheason shouted.
Tahn turned forward and saw Mira twenty horse-lengths ahead, jumping a ravine with Solus at a dead run.
Dear Sky, Tahn thought.
“Don’t slow!” Mira called back. “Trust your mount!”
Tahn bent forward and spoke in his horse’s ear; Jole raced ahead. “Come on, old friend. Dash!” Something quickened in Jole’s legs and before Tahn could say more, the horse leapt into the air. The world felt suspended and silent. The chasm beneath them was deeper than Tahn expected, but they passed it quickly and Jole’s hooves caught earth again, never slowing.
Penit’s horse made the jump easily with its lighter burden, as did Wendra’s. Behind them, torches flickered in the woods, and the sound of crashing branches came like a whir of droning crickets ten thousand strong.
Sutter came next, lashing his mount’s rump before the leap. Up and over he came, yawping loudly as though initiating the Kottel Rhine back home. His gleeful cry was met with unearthly calls from the Bar’dyn just fifty strides behind Vendanj. Braethen came on, gathering his reins in both hands to steel himself for the jump. The sodalist’s horse misjudged the slight pull on its reins and began to pull up as they approached the ravine. Dirt kicked up from the steed’s hooves, and it whinnied loudly, spitting clouds of steam from its nostrils into the chill air.
“No!” Tahn screamed, pulling Jole around.
In an instant Mira was beside him. She grabbed Jole’s reins and pulled Tahn close. “Vendanj said north. He knows the cost!”
She tried to yank Jole back into a run. But Jole faithfully obeyed Tahn, who used his legs to direct the animal toward the ravine.
Near the crevasse, Braethen’s steed locked its front legs and slid toward the drop. The earth at the edge was loose, and the horse began to tumble into the ravine. The animal kicked furiously against its slide, and managed to steady itself. Vendanj came on, watching the struggle but preparing to make the jump. It seemed the Sheason intended to leave the sodalist to the closing Bar’dyn. Looking past them, Tahn saw small trees falling like a wooden wave in the Bar’dyn’s passage toward them. The drums grew more frantic, beating out polyrhythmic cadences that began to confuse Tahn and confound his mind.
Tahn turned to Mira, beginning to frame a plea for assistance. Wendra, Penit, and Sutter reached them and slowed, following Tahn’s concerned gaze back toward the crevasse.
Sutter saw it immediately. “Tahn, we can’t leave him!”
Nails wheeled and headed back toward the ravine. Tahn tried to follow, but Mira held Jole’s reins firmly. Then something locked deep inside him, a clear feeling that calmed his heart. He cupped his hands beside his mouth to throw his voice, and yelled, �
�No, Vendanj!”
Tahn’s call rose powerfully, and the Sheason seemed to sense something in Tahn’s voice. He immediately pulled Suensin to a stop. Vendanj turned to face the advancing Bar’dyn, who were but twenty strides from them now. At least a dozen of the figures rushed toward him without slowing.
“Help him!” Vendanj called. He clasped his hands and lifted his face to the sky. Sutter came to the ravine and jumped it again, yelping with delight as he had before. He jumped from his horse and extended his hand to the sodalist. Just strides away, the air began to rush in toward Vendanj, red and violet particles streaming toward him with increasing speed. Soon they were streaks of yellow and white, and it appeared as if the air itself were gathering inside him.
The Sheason unlaced his fingers and extended them toward the ground in front of him. Great shocks of lightning shot from his fingertips, lighting the ground in a blanket of popping, sizzling energy. The lightning brought the Bar’dyn to an abrupt stop, but not before it caught the first several in its field. The lightning leapt up their massive frames, coursing down their arms and racing around their bodies like a living thing. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, and great howls of anguish accompanied the searing sound of the earthbound storm.
The sodalist took Sutter’s hand, ripping his satchel from his steed’s saddle just as the horse went over into the crevasse. Braethen’s legs dangled in the air, and Tahn heard the horse land with a heavy crash at the bottom of the drop.
“Let go of the bag, Braethen!” Sutter cried. “I need your other hand to pull you out!”
“No!” the sodalist argued.
Sutter’s grip slipped. He thrust his other arm over the precipice and grasped Braethen’s wrist. “I can’t hold you much longer!”
The sodalist looked down, then back at Sutter, but still did not release his satchel.
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