Suddenly, the Sheason stopped. He turned and searched the terrain in a full circle about them. The cold came more severely, the frost of the great spaces between the stars descending upon them.
Connected.
That was the feeling. Braethen reached out experimentally and all of a sudden felt that from the farthest star above to the ground beneath him, a kind of relationship existed. That every movement was known to every other mover, like swimming in a still pool, the ripples giving away your presence. To move meant to disturb the whole, but Vendanj strode onward, a hand raised to his chest. With wary fingers, Braethen took hold of his sword, remembering the last time he’d raised it in his own defense, and grimaced a little at the touch.
They walked over a knoll, moon shadows vague and ghostly behind them. Then, in an instant, the world turned to fire. As if from nowhere, seven great hulking shapes rose from the ground. They stood against the velvety darkness of the sky, their massive silhouettes blotting out stars. Behind them stood two sleeker shapes, draped in long robes with wide cowls. Velle! Beside each of the Quiet renderers stood shorter figures, slumped and beaten. Each of the beings stirred, and the feeling of connection, of being close, part of everything, part of them, rippled like heated tar. Braethen drew his sword and agonized over the lethargy he felt, the way he often did in dreams when he tried to flee but his legs disobeyed.
Only Mira seemed unaffected, but Braethen believed even she had lost a step. The Far rushed in, dancing close to the Sheason, and crouched. She held one sword before her; the other cocked back over her shoulder.
One of the Velle uttered a command in a deep, rasping voice, and the Bar’dyn fanned to the sides: three moved left, three to the right, and one stayed directly before them. Mira turned to face the three on the left. Vendanj took two steps out and threw back his cloak to free his arms as he turned to face the three on the right. Braethen caught a glint of argent in the blades of the Bar’dyn facing the Sheason. The mammoth creatures out of the Bourne hesitated.
“Step in, sodalist,” Mira said without looking. “Fill the gap and remember what I’ve showed you. Remember balance. Fight quickly, not rushed.”
Braethen took three long, careful strides and held his sword out at an angle.
The Bar’dyn directly ahead of him pivoted into a defensive posture, and spoke. “All this way. How fitting that you will come to an end here.” His voice rasped as though damaged by the smoke of a thousand fires.
The sound of the Bar’dyn’s voice flowed over Braethen like waves in that pool of connection, but beneath, his muscles tightened and suddenly the grip of the sword felt wonderfully sure and right. Braethen looked past the speaker to the two forms behind him. They stood still, implacable, the hatred in their eyes palpable, their calm disquieting.
Velle. By my father’s Sky, I have lived to see Velle walk the land.
Then each of the tall, still figures reached for the closest hunched man beside him, and took vicious hold of his flesh. Weak cries came, uttered through swollen lips. In a breath, the air burned with red flames that sizzled and shot like lightning in random patterns from each free hand.
“Roll!” Mira screamed.
Braethen reacted instinctively, falling to his left and scampering. Mira leapt back, and Braethen heard the sound of the Sheason’s thick cloak snapping as he dashed aside. Great shards of fire bit the ground where they had been standing. The earth boomed in protest and shook. In that moment, the Bar’dyn came on. Two rushed Mira, nearly taking her by surprise as she tried to escape the fire. A pike whirled through the air toward her head, another at her knees. The Far ducked and leapt in the same movement, landing on her feet just when the Bar’dyn were upon her. She pivoted sideways and dove between them, just escaping a second blow from a quick blade.
Braethen rolled to his knees, dust rising in his throat and forcing him to cough. He still held his sword, and got his second hand to its grip as the third Bar’dyn dove toward him. He had no time to roll again, and tried to raise the sword to accept the charge. He was too late. The force of the massive creature bowled him back and under, a gout of saliva spraying his face with rank-smelling mucus. Pain bloomed in his chest, taking his wind. The Bar’dyn clutched his throat.
Something unbidden rose in him, then. He looked into the face of the Bar’dyn and wrapped his hand around the hilt of his sword, gripping it savagely. His chest heaved, and he roared, “I am I!”
The force of the words stopped the Bar’dyn for a moment, and in that time, Braethen brought the sword up, pulling its sharpened edge across the beast’s neck. The thick, armorlike skin gave under the blade. Braethen scarcely noticed the white glow. The Bar’dyn fell back, trying to stop the blood that coursed from the wound. A frightened surprise touched its eyes as it stared at Braethen and pulled away, growing slower with each scrambling pace.
The sodalist’s concern turned immediately to Vendanj. As he whirled, he saw the Sheason make a long sweeping gesture with his arm toward the closest Quietgiven. The Bar’dyn toppled forward, and struck the ground like a great piece of ironmongery.
The strangled cries of the bent and ravaged men near the Velle grew louder. Braethen suddenly realized that without Forda in the ground to draw upon in the Scar to replenish their expended Will, the Velle were using real men, stealing their Forda to fuel their fight. Anger burned hot behind Braethen’s eyes and he whipped his sword in a harsh arc toward the Velle, then moved fast to join Vendanj.
Each breath he took seared his lungs. He raised his sword, which now glowed as bright as a meridian sky. Around him, a yellow mist rose, spreading quickly in every direction.
“Vendanj!” he cried, swatting at the air with his blade.
The Sheason spun at the sound of his name. In that moment, the two Bar’dyn behind him advanced. Braethen tried to yell a warning, but the yellow mist stole his voice. He pointed, and just when the Bar’dyn raised their swords at Vendanj, the Sheason lifted both arms, his fists clenched. Thunder bellowed from his mouth and struck the Bar’dyn like a battering ram, casting them back several strides. The impact drove the yellow haze from the air in an instant.
Just as quickly the soil began to bubble, then to flow like mud, and he and the Sheason began to sink. More cries screeched into the night, and Braethen saw the first men being used by the Velle pitch to the ground, spent. The sound they made as they fell was ghastly, as if even their dying breaths were stolen from them. Braethen fumed and struggled to wade from the mud in which he was now nearly knee deep. Mira leapt over the growing quagmire to meet the advancing Bar’dyn leader. The beast’s great sword swept toward her. The Far feinted back and threw one of her swords at the Bar’dyn in a mighty heave. The Bar’dyn raised a quick hand to ward off the attack. Mira’s sword pierced his palm through, spattering drops of blood into the Bar’dyn’s face. The beast yowled and continued to sweep its steel at the Far, shaking Mira’s sword from its other hand.
As Braethen fought the thickness claiming his legs, Vendanj touched his arm. Together, they began to rise from the mud, which continued to bubble and spurt. The Bar’dyn to the right had regained their feet and rushed around the mud toward Mira.
Then, several hollow pops sounded from behind them, and the whistle of fletching tore past their heads. A moment later, the Bar’dyn captain absorbed a volley of arrows with his chest and neck. Some of the shafts broke against the armorlike toughness of the Bar’dyn’s skin, but many found purchase in the massive body, driving it backward in a stumbling fall.
Vendanj stood and heard the popping of another volley as the Bar’dyn tried to scramble away, arrows showering their backs and legs. Those Bar’dyn that could still move scurried off into the night. But the Velle stood firm, keeping hold of their human vessels to draw more Forda.
Braethen turned to see Grant and eight striplings standing back with bows aimed and drawn. Vendanj put his hands together and raised a bright ball of light to illuminate the entire area. The youths gasped at what they saw. Braeth
en turned around in the mud and saw it, too. The men the Velle held to draw upon for their Forda were a few of Grant’s own wards. The first two had already fallen; the second two appeared alive enough, but firmly in the skeletal hands of the Given.
“Your brothers,” Grant said evenly. Some of the striplings looked at him with horrified expressions; others nodded gravely. “See what will become of them. It is your mercy.” He raised his own bow and held his aim.
The Velle were preparing some dark use of those they yet held—their last vessels of Forda.
A moment of dark regard stretched across the Scar.
As Grant began to shout, “Fire,” the Quiet renderers drew the remaining life from the wards they gripped. Before anything more could happen, they vanished, like shadows when the sun dawns over a barren plain. Several arrows whistled over the Scar, sailing harmlessly high against the night. The two wards slumped when the hands of the dark emissaries disappeared.
Braethen sat tiredly in the mud, his legs weakened to exhaustion. Several of Grant’s wards wandered off to mourn, some went to their fallen brothers. Others examined the bodies of dead Bar’dyn.
When Braethen regained his breath, he tromped from the mud to see for himself what Vendanj had done to the first Bar’dyn he’d faced. Just being close, Braethen felt the freezing cold emanating from the corpse. The soil around it was white with frost. Braethen imagined that the Sheason had frozen all the fluids in the beast’s body with a wave of his hand. He turned to see Mira run into the dark; the Far never ceased to amaze him with her endless energy.
Vendanj had taken himself out of the slop and knelt where the Velle had been, looking over the emaciated corpses of Grant’s fallen fosterlings. Grant came up beside the Sheason, Braethen came to Vendanj’s other side.
They stared at the lifeless bodies.
“They were your own,” Vendanj said through labored breaths. The Sheason finally succumbed to his exhaustion from the battle and sat directly on the ground.
“They were already dead,” Grant answered. This man from the Scar spoke with a bluntness that chilled Braethen, even after just confronting the Velle. He then took a parchment from the saddlebag of his mount and handed it to Vendanj. “I finished reading your list of names … to the last. You win, Sheason,” Grant said. “I’ll come with you to Recityv. There are old debts to pay. But I am not the man I was when I left there. You’d do well to say as much to those who might grow hostile at the sight of me.”
Vendanj nodded, still looking at the dead youths lying in front of him. The Sheason then lay back on the hardpan of the Scar to rest. He took a sprig of herb and laid it on his tongue. He looked not so different from the corpse beside him.
A thousand questions boiled in Braethen’s mind. But his Sheason was in need of rest. He stood watch over him for a long time, thinking, wondering. Somewhere in that time he cleaned his sword. When Vendanj stood again, they reckoned by the light of the dog star and started on their way to Recityv.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Recityv Civility
Tahn and Sutter traveled north for three days, passing towns with greater frequency. Always, as they rode closer to town, wood gave way to stone and stone to brick. And as frequent as were the towns, more frequently did they see encampments of brightly appointed wagons and carriages. Standards rose high on staffs and spears, some borne by flinty-eyed men who would not return a look. But more often the pennons appeared hand-fashioned, their dyes less brilliant and the embroidery competent but unrefined. These came lashed to lances that Tahn guessed had once been farming implements. The two of them passed unnoticed through these towns and camps. Only standard-bearers seemed to be interesting to the townsfolk and to those who bore crests of their own.
At dusk of the third day since the public execution, russet hues lit striated clouds like grand versions of the banners they saw. Dusty weeds lined the road, dirtied by the passage of hundreds of wheels and hooves. Occasionally, Tahn and Sutter passed a cluster of wagons circled in a fallow field against the evening’s chill. Fires blazed in their midst, the faraway hum of conversation and vague scent of roasting meat enticing on the air. Even there, standards rose against the shadows of sundown, announcing loyalties or bloodlines. The symbols and colors stood vividly against the gathering gloom, but Tahn recognized none of them. Noble families, he assumed.
As they continued up the road, they were almost run down by a fast-moving caravan.
It was led by a lone rider carrying a horn. Behind him, eight riders clad in full dress armor and helmets galloped, one bearing a standard on a long pole. The banner showed a bright silver hammer set against a field of black. Next came a war-wagon drawn by a six-horse team. After it, four carriages, each pulled by a team of four horses, sped past, followed by another war-wagon. Behind the procession, Tahn counted no less than thirty men, most in lamellar and brigandine armor. Half of these carried bows.
The rumble of wheels and hooves filled the evening sky like thunder.
Sutter’s jaw dropped, and his eyes widened. Tahn clapped him on the back in jest, but was no less impressed. The parade of standard-bearers surely meant royal delegates of some kind. Tahn did not know the crest, but one thing seemed certain. They were on the right road to Recityv. In seconds the highway was clear again, save for a lingering dust that refused to settle.
The following morning, the road widened drastically and became more pocked and rutted by the hour. Ranches of cattle, sheep, and goats sprawled over several hills alongside the winding road. Tahn noticed that many of the gates leading out to the houses bore a black iron sigil of a tree with as many roots as branches.
Then, unexpectedly, a great wall appeared in the distance, rising twice as high as any Tahn had seen before. It extended so far to the east and west that trees concealed the ends. Above it, Tahn could see even taller domes and spires and great vaulted roofs, gables pitched like the tip of a spear, each one higher than the last. From afar, he sensed the sheer size of the place, of Recityv. In the distance, the wall bore a hazy golden hue that shimmered behind heat rising up from the land.
But Tahn knew the city was no mirage.
More and more travelers joined the stream of people moving toward the gate, some walking, others riding as he and Sutter did, still others in ornately decorated carriages. Again, he felt for the sticks in his cloak. Their touch reassured him slightly, until he thought of Wendra. He only hoped that she and the others had arrived safely.
The thought of the others reawakened in him a suddenly powerful longing for Mira. He thought maybe the next time they were alone, he’d be more bold. Merely recalling her face made him flush.
“Well, Nails, this is what you came for.” He gestured ahead. “That’s more adventure than I think even you can handle.”
A distant look passed over his friend’s eyes before the familiar smile returned. “We’ll find out, then, won’t we, Woodchuck?”
As the road widened, it also become more congested. A league from the city wall, houses sat nestled among hosts of tents woven of bright-colored, expensive-looking canvas. More cook fires burned, the smoke settling like a low cloud over the many temporary dwellings.
Along the road, merchants had staked out space for their carts. Standing before their wares, they held samples of their goods and eagerly sought to catch the eye, pitching to anyone who looked their way. Everything he could imagine was displayed by well-manicured merchants and traders. Some hawked exotic foods, claiming origins as far west as Mal’Sent and as far south as Riven Port. Tahn noted pairs of soldiers adorned in burgundy cassocks and cloaks, a white circle prominent over the left breast bearing the sigil of the tree and its roots.
The chaos of countless merchant barkers, squealing children, stock and pets braying and barking, laughter, insults and curses, quarrels, all rushed at Tahn in a swirl of humanity.
It reminded Tahn of the road to Myrr, but much bigger, more crowded, dangerous, and somehow startlingly hopeless—these people beyond the gates.
More of them here looked on with hawkish eyes and weapons on their belts; while others huddled in shadows raising dirty hands for alms.
Tahn took it all in, and thought longingly of home.
In many ways, this city outside the city differed from others he’d seen of late. But one way proved more than a little unsettling: As he and Sutter rode closer to the Recityv wall, the roadside became increasingly populated by street prophets.
Calling as enthusiastically as their trading counterparts, these men, women, and children looked at everyone with astounded eyes and seemed to see no one. Matted, dirty hair hung from tanned scalps as they gestured maniacally with their arms and turned skyward to rant.
“Every son and daughter is an abomination, a curse from the Whited One.” The man calling out a wild-eyed screed shouted through lips cracked from incessant talking and exposure to the sun. Scabs, looking like dried leeches, riddled his lips, but did not stop his raving. “The end of Forda I’Forza has long since passed, and we live in a hollow time, a dead age. A dry wind blows south from the farthest places, starting at the other end of the Bourne and passing over us like a whisper. Don’t you see!” The man began to jump up and down, accentuating each word with the pounding of his heels on the soil. “We are Quiet already. We are come to our earth and haven’t woken yet to taste the worms. No Exigent, no renderer, no regent or general, no one can undo what has been done. Our Song of Suffering is over, it is the echo of it from a distant cliff that we hear. And when it is gone, we’ll have been dead a generation.”
Tahn and Sutter swung wide of the man, tramping close to a woman seated on an elaborate rug who clicked her fingers together and spoke in words that rhymed every third phrase. She spoke of lands west of Mal’Sent, whole worlds on the other side of the oceans. She told of a place that hid beyond the Bourne like the forgotten child of orphan parents. At the end of each rhyme, she opened her eyes to see if anyone had placed a coin in the hat at the edge of her blanket. Her substantial belly hung over the waistband of her skirt, and a slender wrap that hung loosely from her shoulders more than hinted at a full bosom beneath. Straight, dark hair had been gathered in a brass ring at the crown of her head, pointing skyward like a harvest bale.
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