“But—”
Sword turned away and began gathering up his belongings as the spokesman struggled for words. He did not find them, and Sword offered no help.
By the time Sword had the tent down, the three Uplanders had given up and headed back toward their clan’s camp.
[ 18 ]
The looks on the faces of the Clan of the Golden Spear, when at last Sword found them, were not welcoming; some were astonished, while others were hostile. Sword ignored them as he trudged into the camp.
He had been careful to dress entirely in Uplander clothing—ara-hide trousers and vest over an ara-cloth shirt, his pack on one shoulder and his spear on his back—but there was still no chance he would ever be mistaken for an Uplander.
And then Fist, Dancer, and Whistler were there with spears pointed at him.
“What are you doing here?” Fist demanded.
“Seeking shelter,” Sword replied, “as I did last year.”
“You really are the Swordsman?” Whistler asked.
“Yes.” Sword wondered whether he had really lost that much weight, or otherwise changed so drastically. He had done his best to keep his hair and beard in check and maintain himself; the Summer Palace had no shortage of mirrors and blades. Perhaps some changes had been so gradual, he hadn’t noticed them.
“Where have you been?” Dancer asked. “Where did you hide in Winterhome?”
Sword looked from one to another. “I didn’t hide anywhere in Winterhome,” he said. “I stayed in the Uplands, as I said I would.”
“But you’re alive!” Fist said.
“Yes, I am aware of that,” Sword said dryly.
“You really . . . ,” Fist began, then stopped, as if suddenly realizing how admiring he sounded.
“I really survived a winter in the Uplands,” Sword affirmed. “I took shelter in the Summer Palace.”
“That can’t be,” Dancer said. “No one can live in such cold!”
Sword shrugged. “I did. In the cellars.”
“What did you eat?” Fist asked.
“Was that jerky enough?” Whistler asked.
“No,” Sword said. “I found other food.”
“How?”
“The ler led me to it.”
All three looked baffled at that. “What ler?” Fist said. “The ler in your sword? How did they know where to find food?”
“Uplander ler,” Sword said.
The three exchanged glances.
“He was probably hallucinating from cold and hunger,” Dancer suggested.
“Or loneliness,” Whistler murmured.
“The ler don’t talk to anyone,” Dancer added.
“But he’s alive,” Fist said.
Dancer shrugged.
“What should we do with him?” Fist asked.
“Why should you do anything?” Sword demanded. “The Patriarch granted me the right to live freely on your clan’s lands; that’s all I ask. I have my own tent now, and have learned to hunt my own ara; I need nothing from you but to be left alone.”
“But . . . ,” Dancer began.
“But then why are you here?” Whistler asked.
“Because when I tried living on my own, without Uplander comrades, the Clan of the Great Dragon chased me away. There are no unclaimed flocks of ara, are there? So I need a clan that will allow me to stay.”
Again, the three men exchanged baffled looks.
“Take him to the Patriarch, then,” Fist said.
The others accepted this. Dancer reached for Sword’s arm.
Sword stepped back. “I will come freely,” he snapped.
“As you will, then,” Dancer said, dropping his hand back to his spear.
Fist led the way, while Whistler and Dancer followed behind Sword, spears at the ready.
The Patriarch’s tent was just as Sword remembered it. It seemed odd to see it untouched by the winter. The relatively luxurious surroundings were, in their way, reminiscent of the Summer Palace—but of the palace as it had been before Sword repurposed the draperies, and smashed and burned much of the furniture.
“Then you survived the winter,” the Patriarch said as Sword bowed before him.
“Yes, O Patriarch.”
“And you have come to live among us again?”
“Only until such time as the Wizard Lord comes to the Uplands. When that happens, either he or I will die—or perhaps both. Should I survive that, I will return to Barokan and trouble you no more.”
“You still hope to slay him?”
“I do, O Patriarch.”
“In Winterhome they speak of the Wizard Lord as a hero who has brought new wealth and freedom to Barokan. They call you and the other Chosen arrogant monsters, slaughtering innocents in a failed attempt to maintain the old system that raised you up to a privileged position you did not deserve.”
“We harmed no one until the Wizard Lord turned on us, O Patriarch. When I killed, I killed in self-defense, or to avenge my murdered comrades, and I did not kill innocents.”
“That is not how the story is told now.”
“The Wizard Lord’s people tell the story as their master would have it known. I tell it as I saw it.”
“And how am I to know which version lies closer to the truth?”
“You will interpret the words of others as your experience and wisdom guide you, I am sure.”
“Meaning I will believe what I think best suits my own people, eh?”
Sword did not reply, but suppressed a small grimace. He thought the Patriarch would profess to believe whatever best suited him, not his people as a whole.
“You understand that if I give you shelter, and the Wizard Lord’s faction is triumphant in the end, I will have made myself unwelcome in Winterhome?”
“I cannot deny the possibility,” Sword admitted.
“Why, then, should I take that risk?”
Sword raised his head and looked the Patriarch in the eye. “Because, O Patriarch, I am the only limit on the Wizard Lord’s power. For seven hundred years the Chosen have kept the Wizard Lords in check, and prevented them from tyranny; now Artil im Salthir has broken that system beyond repair, and I am all that might prevent him from becoming a tyrant such as Barokan has never known. Would you see your young men recruited into his army, your young women taken for a harem? Were I gone, what would prevent the Wizard Lord from extending his rule into the Uplands? You have no magic to protect you, and no way to survive the Upland winters if he bans you from Winterhome. Keep me alive, and he will never be secure enough to threaten you; let me die, and you take your chances with his benevolence, for there will be nothing else to restrain him.”
“And for that reason we will not kill you, or deliver you into his hands, but to take you in as our guest. . . .” He spread his hands.
“I do not ask for a place in your tents,” Sword replied. “I have learned much since I first came to you. Allow me to camp on your lands and hunt the ara of your flock, and I need nothing more.”
The Patriarch leaned back in his seat. “Indeed?”
“Indeed.”
He considered that for a long moment, tugging at one corner of his beard. Then he said, “I think that can be permitted. One must make allowances for madmen, after all, and surely, given how you spent the winter and that you choose to defy the Wizard Lord, you can be considered mad.”
“Surely,” Sword bitterly replied.
“Well, then, we are in agreement.”
“So it would seem.”
And with that, the matter was settled. Sword made camp fifty yards from the nearest tents of the Clan of the Golden Spear.
He had assumed the separation would be a mere formality, but he discovered that was not the case; none of the Uplanders would speak to him, or come near his tent. Whenever he chanced to encounter one, that individual would hurry silently away.
Sword found this surprisingly irritating. He had not expected much from the Uplanders as a whole, after the three Dragoners had spoken of
the tales they heard in Winterhome, but he had thought some of them, Fist perhaps, and certainly Whistler, would at least acknowledge his presence and perhaps renew their acquaintance from last year. That even Whistler avoided him came as an annoyance.
The one Uplander he came across who did not flee at the sight of him was old Gnaw Gnaw, the crone who had taught him how jerky was made, how the cisterns worked, and a great deal more about Uplander life. When he approached her she simply sat, paying him no heed, going about her business.
That was hardly a warm welcome, but even this sad excuse for human company was immensely comforting after his long, lonely, miserable months in the palace. He stopped by often, just watching her do her everyday tasks.
Finally, one day he sat down beside her as she worked at carving needles from ara wing bones.
“You don’t avoid me,” he said.
“Why should I?” she said with a shrug. “No one’s going to bother an old woman about whom she talks to.”
“Then the others have been told to stay away from me?”
“Not in so many words, but the Patriarch made it clear that you were being tolerated, not welcomed, and we had all heard the stories down in Winterhome. No one wants to be taken for your friend when the Wizard Lord’s soldiers come for you.”
“You think they’ll come for me?”
She shrugged again. “Who knows? They came for the wizards, didn’t they? And the other Chosen? And I know word got around in Winterhome that we took you in.”
Sword glanced up, toward the western horizon. “I hadn’t thought about that,” he admitted.
“Seems to me you don’t think about much.”
Stung, Sword retorted, “I think about what matters to me.”
“And what’s that, then?” She looked up from her work and met his gaze.
“The Wizard Lord. My duties. My friends.”
“Not a long list,” she observed.
“It’s been enough to occupy my mind,” Sword said.
“All winter? You were alone all those months, and you never thought about what might happen to us because we sheltered you?”
“No,” Sword admitted. “I . . . well, I thought the Wizard Lord would leave you alone because you aren’t Barokanese. But now I don’t know why I thought that would stop him.” He shook his head. “I was too busy thinking about food and water, and the cold and the snow, and the Chosen, and the wizards, and my family, and the ler.”
“Well, most of those were reasonable concerns,” Gnaw Gnaw admitted. “The ler, though—who cares about them? Up here, we leave them alone, and they leave us alone. It’s not like Barokan.”
“They kept me alive,” Sword said. “I would have starved if not for them.”
Gnaw Gnaw frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“The ler. I talked to them, got them to help me.”
“You did sneak down to Barokan?”
“No, I stayed in the Summer Palace. The ler of the Uplands spoke to me there.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You were alone in that place too long, weren’t you? Loneliness can make one hear voices, I’m told.”
“No, I heard them the very first night.”
“Upland ler don’t talk to anyone.”
“They can’t, in the summer. Only in winter, when the ara are gone.”
“Is that what the voices told you?”
“It’s what the ler told me.”
She put down her awl and bone. “While I know there are just as many nature spirits here in the Uplands as anywhere else, Swordsman, they don’t talk to anyone. You imagined it.”
“I did not!”
“As you will, then.” She picked up her tools and turned her attention to her work.
For a moment Sword sat in irritated silence; then he got up and stalked away.
A few days later he found her boiling some foul-smelling mess in a small cauldron, well away from camp, where the stench would not trouble her clansmen.
“Is there any word of the Wizard Lord?” he asked. “Has he learned of the damage to the Summer Palace?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t heard,” she said. “Gossip does not travel quickly in the Uplands.” She prodded her brew with an ara-bone spoon.
Sword frowned. He was beginning to become concerned that Artil might make a visit to the palace to inspect the damage, and that he might miss it.
He was also worried that Artil might indeed come looking for him, or send a squad of soldiers, and that that might bode ill for the Clan of the Golden Spear.
“You haven’t heard anything?”
“Not about the Wizard Lord himself,” Gnaw Gnaw said, stirring. “I’ve heard Crookthumb suggest that your tales of talking to the ler are part of some scheme to recruit our young men into helping you murder the Wizard Lord, that you’re going to claim our own ler want them to help you, but I doubt that’s what you wanted to hear.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Sword protested. “The ler . . . I wouldn’t . . . It’s ridiculous.”
She shrugged. “Talking to ler is ridiculous in itself. If we believe that, why wouldn’t we believe the rest?”
“Because it’s nonsense!”
“Mmm.”
“The ler didn’t say anything about your people. They don’t know anything about you, not with all the ara feathers and bones and hides everywhere.”
“Just so,” Gnaw Gnaw murmured.
Sword stared at her in frustrated annoyance. “You still don’t believe me, do you?”
She looked up from her pot. “Why should I?”
“Because I am an honest man!”
“You’re Barokanese, and not even a Hostman. Why would I trust you?”
“Why would I lie?”
“You heard Crookthumb’s theory.”
“I don’t even know Crookthumb!”
“She knows you, she says. She claims she spent time with you last year, and that you’re just a-bubble with schemes and plots.”
“I don’t remember her by that name,” Sword said defensively. He remembered his few failed attempts at courting, but honestly could not attach the name Crookthumb to any of them. Perhaps she had claimed a more flattering name.
“So you can’t be bothered to learn our names?”
“I know yours, Gnaw Gnaw. And Whistler’s, and Dancer’s, and Fist’s, and Stepmother’s.”
“You saw a lot of us.”
For a moment Sword sat silently. Then he asked, “What happened when the Wizard Lord found out that your clan had sheltered me?”
Gnaw Gnaw shrugged. “Nothing. Not really. After all, we could reasonably claim not to know what had happened in Winterhome. But it was made clear that we should have known better than to take in one of the Chosen, under any circumstances.”
“Yet here I am again.”
Gnaw Gnaw grimaced. “The Patriarch does not like the Wizard Lord. Still, he’s taking a great risk.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to endanger you.”
“The Patriarch does as he pleases. He chose not to send you away. And he can claim he did this so he would know where you were, and could keep the Wizard Lord informed.”
“Has he kept the Wizard Lord informed?”
She looked up from her pot. “Would you believe my answer, if I gave one?”
“Yes, I would, Gnaw Gnaw. What do you care about the Wizard Lord or his plans? You’re an honest woman, and I would believe you.”
She looked him in the eye for a moment before giving another shrug and turning her attention back to her work. “If anything has been done to tell the Wizard Lord anything, I haven’t heard about it.”
Sword nodded.
After a brief pause, Gnaw Gnaw added, “You asked what happened to us when the Wizard Lord heard about your stay. You haven’t asked what we told him about you.”
“I assume you told him the truth,” Sword said.
“That’s exactly what we did. Including the fact that we left you up here to die.”
“Oh?”
“After all, everyone knows no one can survive an Upland winter. If you were mad enough to attempt it, was it not all for the best that we let you try? That was why he did not trouble us over taking you in in the first place.”
“I see,” Sword said. “But you can’t use that excuse twice, can you?”
“No. If you and the Wizard Lord are both alive when we next retreat to Winterhome, I expect our stay there to be unpleasant.”
“I see,” Sword repeated. “Thank you, Gnaw Gnaw.”
He turned and ambled away, thinking deeply.
He could not stay here and endanger the Clan of the Golden Spear, not after they had done so much for him. Besides, he needed to know what was happening at the Summer Palace. Had anyone come up from Barokan to check on its condition?
When he reached his tent he immediately began to break camp.
[ 19 ]
He had gone to the cliffs, where he had looked longingly down at the distant green of spring in Barokan, and he had explored the Summer Palace, where he had found no sign that anyone had set foot inside since he had last been there. He had tried to call on the ler, and had received no response but silence.
And there were no ara near the palace. After a few days he had to travel east again to find food.
He tried at first to find a clan that would allow him to stay on their lands as a guest, but that had failed. The Clan of Five Rings warned him off with a line of spears. The Clan of the Broken Tree allowed him to speak with a man called Guard, who asked him to leave as soon as he learned Sword’s identity; Sword obliged them.
Most of the others he encountered attempted to kill or enslave him. He was forced to injure a few men in defending himself, though he did his best to limit the damage to shallow, painful slashes on arms and chest, and he was fairly certain that, barring an unusually bad infection, he had not killed anyone.
He survived by taking ara. After the first few encounters with hostile Uplanders he did his best to approach each flock from the side farthest from the encampment of the clan that claimed it. His skill as a solo hunter rapidly improved with practice; no longer being weak with hunger helped.
The last traces of snow vanished into the dry air; the mud left behind hardened. The ara fledglings that had accompanied their parents from the south grew rapidly, becoming less and less obvious among their adult kin. The sun seemed to grow larger and hotter every day.
The Summer Palace Page 21
