“Yes, Gal Pakh,” Thatt agreed. “We spill their blood ‘till no blood left to spill. We wash their land with blood.”
“I will hunt the dreamstone. I will take but a score or two with me, and half the graomwrnokk. It may be many moons before I can rejoin you, here. Do not relent.”
“Until they are dead, or we dead first, we staying to be here.”
“Shaa will honor us both with victory,” proclaimed Dieavaul. Even as he said it, the creeping pain seeped from ilnymhorrim, little white-hot pinpricks that walked under his skin across the back of his neck to smolder in his scalp behind his eyes.
Ah, he thought. There you are.
Callagh Breigh sent a shower of burnt orange and yellow-green leaves scattering in chaotic eddies behind her as she cleared a path in the undergrowth with angry swings of her knotted ironwood cudgel. She swatted branches aside, her careful hunter’s step lost in her rage. She knew these woods and its secrets as well as any man or woman, save her father, but caution was not her worry today. Craignuuwn was a half-day behind her, as was Oona and her unwelcome but half-expected revelation.
The old man was right, after all, damn him.
Even with his cryptic forewarning, Callagh had merely stood and stared at Oona, her hands clutched into fists at her sides, her well-chewed nails biting into her rough palms. There was a lump in her throat, of sentiment, or bile, or some combination of both, as her stomach twisted sour in her belly.
“What?” she’d repeated, when finally words came.
“He wanted to see you before he left,” Oona explained, her eyes plaintive, “But Master Madrharigal took him straight away that morning. You’d already risen and gone off, and we didn’t know when you might return. We couldn’t risk it.”
Callagh frowned at the memory. Risk? Risk what? It made no sense at all. Finally Cal had seen her, responded to her as a woman and not a silly girl; kissed her, danced with her and held her close. Finally. And now, she returns from the hunt only to find he’d struck out for Dwynleigsh the morning after things were settling in as they should?
She’d always feared this day. She knew that Calvraign was not likely to remain in Craignuuwn. He was meant for more than shepherding; his was a proud line and he was a leader born even if he didn’t realize it, yet. One day he’d be off to receive his own mantle from the Bard College, or join the king’s army, or gods-knew-what.
But why now, and so suddenly?
“You cannot run from the day you fear,” the old man had said. “The day will always find you. You must not avoid it, but prepare for it. No one can escape fear. What will you do when it finds you? That’s the question, ahn cranaoght.”
“Why d’you call me that?”
“Not for who you are, but what you’ll be.”
Another branch shuddered aside from her insistent bludgeoning. Calvraign, you stupid boy. What’ve you done? she raged to herself. He’d noticed her. She was sure of that. She’d felt as much when he’d embraced her at the inn. There was no hiding that, she remembered with a flush. So, why abandon her so quickly?
“We’ll all die,” she’d laughed at the old sack of bones, there on his fallen log by his dying fire. “We’ll all be ghosts.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he croaked, his blind white eyes staring just past her shoulder. “You’ll just be a little dead. A little ghost.”
Callagh kicked a stone from the game trail into the gorse, and spat after it. Oona was bothered by something – bothered and busy looking not to be bothered by it. Was Calvraign in danger? It seemed unlikely, unless one of his sheep had finally objected to his gwythir playing. But what else could it be?
“Funny, comin’ from you,” she’d laughed at the hermit, he but a jumble of bones with skin thrown over him. “You look mostly dead, yerself.”
“Ha! Yes!” he’d responded, his air squeaking from tired lungs. “Looks can be deceiving. You flatter me, little ghost.”
Callagh hadn’t known if the old man had lost his senses to age or if he was just crazy. He looked older than the dead tree on which he always sat, and not much better for wear. But he was not completely witless. Somehow, he lived out in the deepest thickets of the Crehr, the Ad Craign Uhl, where even she tread with great caution, lest she wake the old trees or disturb less savory spirits from their sleep. He lived here, unafraid and undisturbed, and no matter how hard she looked she could never find him unless he first sought her.
“But I’ll find you today,” she muttered to no one, lashing out at another tree branch. “You said’s much, yerself.”
Some of his stories told of Duath Andai who would take on mortal guise. When she was younger, she’d thought he might be of the Duath, or perhaps a draough or an aulden; but when he referenced either it seemed he spoke as if he was not of their kind. And yet, not of her kind either, she’d noticed. But she loved his tales as much as she did Brohan’s, and he’d never caused her harm. His occasional meanderings into his ahn cranaoght nonsense had always seemed harmless enough. From what she could tell, he was something less than the Duath but something more than a gypsy fortuneteller.
Now, as she crested the small ridge that looked down into the bramble and thistle of the unkempt highlands, where the Ad Craign Uhl marked its boundary with prickly thorn and beautiful bloom, she reconsidered.
“I’ve to get on, now,” she’d said, “but I’ve a bit to spare, if you’re hungry.” She nodded to the hares and spotted greykierks slung across her shoulders.
He’d refused, as always, waving her away with a sly smile, “You are kind, but I’ve eaten already.”
The encounter had ended as countless others before, and she’d turned to climb down to Craignuuwn with a hard day’s hunt balanced on her back and a new story to pass along to Cal and her Da’. But when he spoke again it changed everything.
“When next we meet do not shirk. You will know what must be done. But you must hurry. Your swain has fled his cage, and you must be there and back before the moontide ebbs, or he will be forever beyond your help, and you beyond mine. Keep to the old ways, ahn cranaoght, and the old ways will keep you.”
She’d stood frozen in mid-step, unable to move or even breathe, a chill sinking deeper with each word he spoke. She whirled about when his last word died, only to find the tree trunk empty, the clearing still and silent. He was gone, and vanished without a single blade of grass bent to his passing.
Callagh picked her steps more carefully as the shadows of the Ad Craign Uhl enveloped her. The old growth forced her to closer attention. She’d no wish to rouse anything more than had bestirred already. There had been more than enough surprises for one day, and she doubted not at all that the old man would have one more waiting for her in his clearing by the brook.
That knowledge did little to prepare her for what she found.
The clearing was there, as always: a stream, a cushion of purple heather spotted with the golden red blooms of highland wildflowers, and a log in the grass more moss and ants than wood. She’d found it a ten-year or more gone, and little had changed over the years. Sometimes the old man was there, sometimes not, but she always looked when she happened this way.
At first, she just assumed that the man was leaning against the log, asleep. He’d never been asleep before, and something in her gut told her that she never should or would find him asleep, but she could not leap to the most obvious conclusion without first pausing here.
“I’m back, just as you-” but her voice caught in the back of her throat as she drew nearer.
The skeleton lay in repose against the mottled green tree trunk, clad in tatters and rotted down to polished bone. The mouth gaped, the lower jaw cracked and hanging in an eternal sneer. Rose vines crawled and flowers blossomed through his teeth, nose and eye sockets, curling around his arms and legs and through his ribs and hips down to his leg bones and toes.
Dead. Years dead. Perhaps a lifetime or two dead. Yet it was him, there was no doubting that. His cloak, the glistening silver bro
och that fastened it, his staff with its carved bird’s head handle – it was her old man, her odd hermit, and she realized with a strangled sob, her friend. She took a settling breath.
When next we meet do not shirk. You will know what must be done. His words were hollow echoes in the confused buzz of Callagh’s thoughts. Keep to the old ways, ahn cranaoght, and the old ways will keep you.
“Why didn’t I ask your name?” she wondered aloud, even as she began to make her preparations. It wouldn’t be a deep grave, but she would dig it. She looked through her pack for the small spade she used mostly for trapping, and began to break up earth.
It seemed to her that he’d chosen his spot – here by the log where he’d sat, or she’d thought he sat, for all those visits. She wasn’t sure how the otherworld worked, exactly – had it all been an illusion? Had she been talking to a skeleton and a log all these years, merely thinking him a man? Or had it been real? Did his ghost rise and take a form to speak with the living? It was long hard work, but she had no more answer when she’d finished than when she started.
“Still, I should have asked yer name,” she panted, gently cradling the remains and laying them in her trench. “I can’t make a marker with your name if I dunna know it. Old Bones,” she murmured, “that’s all I know to call you, now.”
Rising from the freshly dug gravesite, Callagh walked into the woods to gather some wood for a fire. Aside from the kindling, she returned with willow branches, pennyroyal and a handful of juniper berries. It would take some more time, but the old ways were more stringent than the new – he couldn’t just be covered with dirt and be done with.
The willow branches she laid on either side of him, lining his resting place and both protecting him from meddlesome spirits and securing him in otherworld, safe from further interference by the living. She took a few moments to straighten his cloak, and she put some dried meat in his jaw so he would not have to search for his first meal on the other side. He had no weapon, so she placed the thin dagger Brohan had once gifted her in his delicate hands, so he would not be defenseless. As her token, she took his brooch and slid it into a small bait pocket in her pack, so he would recognize her as a friend if ever he did return.
The fire was slow to take, but Callagh coaxed a few stubborn flames and warmed a small palm-full of water from her drinking skin in her tin cup. She watched it smolder in the coals and listened to the wet wood hiss and whisper at her. Using a rock as a pestle, Callagh crushed the juniper berries and the pennyroyal into a muddy paste with the water and some ash from the fire.
Whoever he had been in life, in death his spirit had lost its way in the greylands once before, languishing between worlds with only a girl for occasional comfort. She didn’t want to take any chance that he would have such difficulty again. Callagh dipped her thumb in the fragrant paste – pennyroyal to speed his passage and juniper to guard it – and marked his skull with the blessings of the dead. She recited the oldest rite for the dead that she knew, one that the old man had probably taught her himself, years ago.
“May the mountains stoop before you,
may the flowing air bestir you.
May the deep waves part around you,
may the quiet earth support you.
May the suns fire warm you,
may the stars in heaven guide you.
May you find the infinite peace,
to the Light,
through Dark,
through Shadow,
where the Shining Ones await.”
Callagh shoveled the dirt over his remains until the rich soil formed a small barrow mound. With no name to make a suitable marker, she pounded his bird-staff into the soil to mark the head of the grave. She spread the remainder of the pungent minty paste on the eyes of the carved crow headpiece.
No sooner had she stepped back from her work, than a large raven alighted on its wooden likeness. Callagh jumped backward with a shriek and fell into the fresh dirt. The enormous black bird didn’t make a sound, but continued to watch her intently.
They call the ravens that ferry souls the roibhe ahn cranaoght, she remembered. Is that what he meant?
“Be on your way, old spirit,” Callagh said gently.
The raven cocked its head, and with a swift beat of its wings sailed into the night. She looked out to the horizon, now dark and moonless, getting her bearings. Dwynleigsh would be roughly southwest, and several days of hard travel. “Now I must be on mine.”
CHAPTER NINE
WALKING IN RAINBOWS
BLOODHAWK sniffed the breeze but detected no hint of the distinctive hrummish scent lingering in the fresh air. He nodded, satisfied. Doubling back and setting the false trail to the north had evidently thrown them off. With any luck, they would be well on their way into the demesnes of House Vespurial. Between the Border Knights, the Vespurial’s notorious Foresters, and perhaps even the rare aulden or two, the hrumm would soon cease being hunters and start being quarry. They would not carry on the chase much longer, if at all.
Then again, they were natural hunters, and wilhorwhyr their most valued prey. And what reward offered their heartless master for failure?
He scowled away his satisfaction and moved forward.
Bloodhawk was surprised that Dieavaul had spared so many of his war party to chase down one man. His plans of siege disrupted, perhaps he wanted vengeance or another soul for his collection? The thought of that siege still troubled Bloodhawk. With such secret armies as they had hidden in Malakuur, why risk alerting Providayne with such an underpowered attempt on Castle Vae? If they planned invasions, why not come through in force? A few hundred hrumm against that ancient fortress was like throwing a handful of leaves at a wall. Dieavaul was more assassin than general, to be sure, but he was not stupid.
A feint, perhaps? A mere distraction with the Pale Man at its head to lend it credence?
Bloodhawk harvested a handful of snow from a low hanging tree branch and rubbed it into his eyes. All in the past, he reminded himself. Whatever its purpose, it was either fulfilled or foiled, and he was no longer in a position to affect it.
After his escape, as he stood dripping and shivering on the banks of the Daemeyr downstream of the Pale Man and his minions, Bloodhawk knew what he must do. Two-Moons had surely warned the castle, so it was left to him to warn the aulden. The Ceeaemyltu had surpassed the Old Foe before; they had led the Seven Tribes against Anduoun. The aulden might provide some strategy to turn them back again. If not, they still deserved as much warning as the human kingdoms on their border. They too would be subject to the steel of Thar Malagch and his hrumm; they too would be put under heel of the andu’ai when the war came.
Yes. To the aulden, if he could find them, and from there he knew not – but first to them.
Bloodhawk’s abdomen stirred, and not for the first time since suns-rise. He’d been ignoring the inconvenient need gathering in his gut for the better part of the day. The pursuit had been too close. Now, however, he resigned himself to making a stop to relieve himself. Defying nature too long never yielded good results. He eyed a sheltered spot under a maple, the approach tangled with nettles and the waxy green and white leaves of poison star weed. It was the worst possible place to attend such business, so it would serve him well. He picked his way carefully through the unwelcoming flora, melting into the underbrush.
Bloodhawk set his bow and long sword within easy reach, and plucked two arrows from the quiver at his shoulder, spiking them into the dirt. He dug a hole with his worn trench knife, deep enough to hide any telltale scent from his trackers, but not so deep as to prevent natural decay. He unfastened his breeches and settled in to do what needed doing.
Bloodhawk was not pleased to be immobile and indisposed. It allowed his thoughts to drift, and the reasons for his flight were still too painful. The loss of Khyri, too close to the surface of his memory. Her death, by his own steady hand, still haunted him. His arrow had penetrated her breast and stolen her life with unerring precision, send
ing her from the world with the passionless cold kiss of steel.
I’m a fool not to rejoice in that shot, Bloodhawk admonished himself. She runs with Ingryst now, rather than bound to the hellforged. At least I spared her that.
Bloodhawk missed her, ached with the very absence of her. No emotion, neither fiercest love nor most furious hate, could ever fill that space. When his spirit sped from the mortal realms, he would join her. He drew some comfort from this.
Unless there is no one left to spare me in turn, he reconsidered, peeling back the top layer of moss from the forest floor. Cheerful thought.
Bloodhawk ripped the coarse green film of fuzz into smaller pieces and cleaned himself dutifully, discarding the soiled moss in the small latrine ditch. The fading suns-light cast long shadows across the ripple of leaves and swaying branches, and as the amber glamour washed over his eyes, his skin pricked into gooseflesh. He paused, halting his last toss in mid throw. He sensed in the ripples of iiyir what he could not see, hear, or smell. The smaller prey animals had gone quiet, and in the stillness it was as if the trees themselves had drawn and held their breath.
Bloodhawk froze and let the forest speak to him.
The footfalls were silent, but he felt them through the roots, stones and soil of the Caerwood. A dozen hrumm surrounded him, cordoning him in, pulling the noose tight.
Bloodhawk had been sure his clever backtracking and skillful misdirections, his careful, subtle marks in the foliage and turf, had fooled them. But whether they had seen through his masking, or lost his trail completely and just stumbled on, they had found him. Through fate or fortune, here he was, crouched over his own offal, his pants about his ankles.
Twelve, counted Bloodhawk, trying to swallow his alarm. He pivoted his head without moving his body, looking for any visible sign of his pursuit emerging from the closest line of trees. Not yet, he almost sighed audibly. They know I’m here, but they haven’t seen me yet. But twelve….
In Siege of Daylight Page 12
