Rythe Awakes (The Rythe Trilogy) Page 13

  “’Let us settle this as men!’ he cried out. After some time, the raiders in a huddle, they agreed. We thought they would send their best. Code, Renir, is what sets our kind apart from you. It is a code born of the horror of battle. We thought in our ignorance that they would feel the same.

  “The Draymar raiders lined up. Then their leader said, ‘If you can take us all, then we will let these people live’. And as the first stepped forward, Shorn – I still do not know to this day what it is that drives the man – let out a ferocious cry, and ran forward before any of us could stop him. After the days of battle, it was his rage, Renir, scarlet rage, that saved us all.”

  Bourninund took a drink. “He is an animal in battle. We joined the battle. I myself killed three of the raiders. We killed eight mounted men, much harder to hit than one on foot. Shorn battled the leader while we tried to hold the men and women of the Draymar at bay.” Bourninund paused and took out a stone-bowl pipe, which he stuffed with a noxious smelling paste. Renir declined as Bourninund sucked thoughtfully before continuing.

  “Such battles are not the fables you hear of. Even with hard men and women, there is still fear in their eyes…fifteen of them surrounded us. Three of my friends were killed that day, and we took eight. I and Porith, my travelling companion fought against the remainder – back to back, hands slipping on hilts soaked with blood. Porith died from a spear thrust to the thigh. He fought while he bled to death. I would all have died, but Shorn killed their leader, I don’t know how many minutes he took – ten, perhaps, I thought…then he came to our aid…we ‘won’ that day, Renir. Shorn and I survived. Later, talking to the villagers, I honestly understood what kind of man Shorn was.” Bourninund face was serious as he said, “That evening, the villagers plied us with drink, we left the bodies of the dead where they lay and took succour in wine. Drunken tales or not, each and every villager swore the same. The battle began just after Dow rose and ended before sunset. Shorn fought the leader alone from midday to sunset, after two days without sleep. That the man is possessed is in no doubt…I only hope his demons are the good kind.”

  Renir’s eyes didn’t touch on Bourninund as he shifted his gaze to the tent flap. “Their leader was a ferocious man…Shorn killed him with a broken sword. He had lent his sword to me.”

  Renir weighed this up in his head. “He lent you his sword?”

  “Yes, without so much as a thought for himself – he fought the man with half a sword, Renir. With his sword…my…what a sword,” Bourninund smiled, “I lived.”

  Renir, sitting with one leg folded over the other, bowed his head for a time, until he said, still looking down, “So the man has honour?”

  Bourninund nodded in agreement but said, “No, Renir. The man is honour. It is jaded and ugly honour, an honour that a man such as you would not understand. But his honour saved my life. He has no fear of death…such a man as that could be truly free…”

  Renir shook his head. “But he still tortured that man.”

  “The man you bewail had no honour. He was a murderer of all. The world itself will be a better place without him.” Bourninund spat onto the dirt floor.

  “So are you saying this makes him a good man? Makes up for the torture of another soul?”

  “No! You idiot! It does not make him a good man…he is a good man. There is good in him. As a puddle looks to be full of mud, there is still pure water hidden in its murk – you would do well to remember that if you travel together.”

  “Well, I don’t plan to travel with him much longer. I will return home soon – I hope I will never see him again. Your life is not my life.”

  Bourninund sighed. “No. I don’t suppose it is. Where are you headed?”

  “A little fishing village east of the Culthorn mountain range, on the Sturma side…”

  “On the south coast?”

  “Yes? Why?”

  “You cannot return there.”

  “What are you saying? It’s safe. We have no enemies – the Draymar are quiet now…”

  Bourninund swept at some dirt with his hand. Then he picked at some grass. Renir waited.

  “That will change.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that will change.”

  Renir rose up sharply and ran lurching from the tent.

  He burst into the tent were Shorn lay, one of the mercenaries was changing his bandages and applying a foul-smelling salve that smoked when it came into contact with any moisture – the scabbed areas of smaller wounds were immune, but where Shorn’s wounds were open the salve hissed. The mercenary doctor had stitched both wounds. It looked as though part of his trouser was stuck there. The doctor was wrapping clean dressing around the leg. The arm was already done.

  Shorn was looking up at Renir and spoke before Renir could. “I am sorry you had to see that.”

  Renir ignored him. “What of the Draymar? What haven’t you told me?”

  Shorn sighed. He wished it had not come to this.

  “The Draymar will raid the south.” By way of explanation he added, “I didn’t know you.”

  “My village is on the south coast! I told you! What kind of man are you?!” Renir walked over to Shorn and punched him as hard as he could, rocking Shorn’s head back. The doctor leapt to his feet before the screaming man could hurt his patient anymore. He struggled to hold Renir, who flailed and kicked.

  “My wife, you callous groat! You knew all this time and you let me follow you!”

  “You saved my life, Renir. I saved yours!”

  “What of my wife! My friends – because they didn’t save your life they die?!”

  “You cannot stop it!”

  “Well I’m damn well going to try! Why didn’t you tell me!”

  “You’re not listening to me! Because you cannot stop it! We trained the Draymar, they will attack along the coast, and there will be war again. We were paid to do a job. We did it.”

  “You are not a man!” He missed the sheen pass across Shorn’s eyes. “You knew? The people there are just like me…” He looked furious – “My wife!”

  “It was already too late! I, you, all of us, cannot stop it! This is what we are paid to do – we trained them, and we were paid – did you think me a saint, man! You knew what I was!”

  “I didn’t know when I nursed you back to health in the mountains – I didn’t know when I told you my wife lived on the coast you knew men would go to kill her! If I had known I would have let you rot!”

  The man holding Renir back said softly, “Hold now, Mandolan is right, he saved your life. If you had gone back you would be dead.”

  Renir stopped for a beat. The healer called him Mandolan, too? Then he screamed in all his frustration. “Then why didn’t you tell me!”

  “Because if I had you would have gone…”

  “Of course I would’ve gone!”

  Shorn looked him in the eye for the first time and shouted with all the force of fire. “And you’d be dead!”

  Renir stopped struggling. The fight went out of him slowly and the man who had been tending Shorn’s wounds gradually, as though letting go of a wild animal, let him go. Renir slumped and walked to the corner of the tent. He sat down hard and put his head between his knees. He breathed heavily. “I have to go back.”

  “It’s too late, Renir. You can’t help.”

  Renir spoke with his feet. “I have to go back.”

  Shorn breathed in through his shattered nose and spoke to the Doctor. “Are we done?”

  “You need to stay and rest, but yes, there is little more I can do.”

  “Then,” Shorn swung his feet around and onto the floor, “let’s go.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? You’re not fit to walk anywhere. You’ve lost too much blood. I don’t know how you’re awake, let alone alive.” Shorn did look pale and his face was drawn against his skull. Deep shadow hung underneath his eyes and his skin stretched tight against his jaw. “Then we’ll take a couple of horses.” He rose to
one foot. “No!” The doctor walked forward to force Shorn back to bed, but Shorn grabbed his hand and held him. Bourninund came in from outside. “It’s OK, Gy, let him go.” Shorn pushed the doctor’s hand away. “I will give them Nabren’s horses. They deserve that at least.”

  Shorn thanked him. “Do you know anything of a wizard?” he asked his old friend.

  “No, Nabren must have spoken to him in secret. None of us knew, Shorn. You must believe that.”

  Shorn studied the man’s face. “I do, Bourninund, I do…and it is good to see a friendly face.”

  The two clasped hands, Shorn’s left now bandaged against his chest. “I wish you were coming with us.”

  “I cannot. I may see you again if you are travelling to Sturman lands – I believe there will be work for me there soon…” He caught sight of Renir’s disapproving look. ”Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said, Southerner? There will be war whether I train people or not. This is what I do, Renir…do not be so fast to judge.”

  “Leave him be Bourninund – I think he has had enough for one day.”

  Bourninund nodded to Shorn. He put a hand on Renir’s shoulder. Renir left it there and looked up sullenly. “One day you will understand that the world is not of our making. We struggle in our own arena.”

  Shorn pulled his sword from beside the bed, and slung his scabbard over one shoulder. “Can I trouble you for provisions?”

  “Anything. Ask and it is yours – I already feel bad that Nabren did this without my, or anyone’s knowledge, and that I was stupid enough to believe him. He told us you had left.”

  “Why would I?”

  “I don’t know, our work was nearly finished…it seemed feasible.”

  “Do you know who drugged me?”

  “No. Like I said, I heard nothing. Some of us have already left, Shorn. I do not think you will find your poisoner either…but you know…”

  “Yes. I know. Death comes to all who ask it.”

  “Yes. Whoever was responsible. They asked. You will come.” He paused. “The Raven was insane you know – he did not trust anyone. Maybe he did it himself?”

  “No, it does not ring true. It seems I have enemies I have not even heard of.”

  “Wasn’t it always so?” Bourninund slapped Shorn on the shoulder with a bony hand. “Enough. We ramble like women. We will pack the horses and send you on your way – I fear though, too little – too late.” This last he directly kindly at Renir. Renir did not notice, lost as he was in thought.

  “I have to go anyway,” Shorn said.

  “I understand,” Bourninund replied. And he did.

  *

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Renir’s village still slumbered after a cold night. Gordir was already awake. Gulls sharp cries sang out a counterpoint to the soft hiss of bellows working a furnace, the birds hidden in the early morning mists that hung over the seas after a cold night. The sand was still dark with damp along the shore. The snow covered tips of the Culthorn mountains could be seen in the distance, golden orange where the rising sun, Carious, hit them. Dow would follow later – soon it would overtake its brother as the world spun away from it, signalling the start of another long autumn and the freezing, endless winter after that. Only together do the suns make enough heat for life. When one hides, the other struggles on alone to keep the true winter that lives between the stars at bay.

  The Sturmen believe the stars are snowflakes waiting to fall.

  The air was crisp and slightly salty. Dew sat on the straw rooftops, twinkling goodbye to the stars as they faded out and turned to blue.

  The gulls cries drifted away. To the north of the town, unseen, a new sound took their place. The long beach grasses withered in sudden crackling heat. The air split under power. There was a moment where the air gave way to the harsh realities between all worlds. The merest glimpse of the other existence, the space between the worlds, slid through.

  A new sound came through the gap in realities, emerging directly into the frigid morning air of the Spar. A voice chanting.

  A robed figure stepped through a portal torn wide with nothing more than words. The protocrats lips moved and the chant drooled out in salivated wet syllables. The words had life all of their own – they were not tied to the movement of his lips but tangled outside of them. They grew in power and volume and the hole behind him pulsed. It became larger with each wave, the smaller phases becoming shorter, until the hole held at the diameter of two grown men. The man in the robe continued to chant, breath irrelevant for the blood-eyed man. His power swept the wind into shapes. The life from the withering grass around him fed the words. He stepped to one side and the soldiers marched out.

  The Protectorate Tenthers stepped through the portal one by one, moving into positions around the wizard, until the last of the Tens, the fighting units that worked as one, came through. Thirty men calmly stood in the sandy, grassy dunes, intent only on their surroundings.

  Not one looked back at the closing hole.

  The Tenthers arrayed themselves before the wizard. The first five soldiers in each Ten were armed with swords, lightly armoured for skirmishing. The next three carried light and heavy spears. The next a large, folding latticed shield. The soldiers use this to fight in town – a moving wall from which to fight behind as they advanced. The last man in the line carried a long metal spear with a bulbous round head full of fuel. While the soldiers fight, the Hirdinaers follow on behind, swinging the Hirdin like a staff – impact caused the fuel inside to ignite and burn hot and fast. The Tenthers were in position, waiting. Their armour ate the sunlight, made from a dull brown metal that did not stand out overly against the sandy ground and hid them from distant view. The Hirdinaers would not be used today, but as part of the unit they still came.

  The lead swordsman raised his sword in the air so the teams to the west and east could see, and looked to the wizard.

  Klan Mard closes his eyes. He opened them and stared at the morning sun. “One day soon, Father,” was all he said.

  He flicked his hand nonchalantly.

  Fifteen swordsmen advanced and Klan Mard sat down. His shattered parts sighed in relief. It had taken him a week to heal himself after his punishment, most of that spent in a trance or talking with the Speculate, Jek Yrie, discussing his latest duty. The Prognosticators insisted the man currently known as Shorn would be here – at the hands of those warriors Shorn himself had trained. The irony of it was delicious. Klan felt better already.

  But the Draymar were too messy to allow them to prepare the way. Shorn was being treated as a great threat. Klan didn’t know why the Protectorate were so wary of the mercenary – he was, after all, merely a man – but Klan would follow orders. The Draymar could handle Shorn when he came. The Tenthers would clear the village first. Preparing the way for the ambush. Not a trace of the villagers would remain.

  Klan breathed easily while he waited. He no longer bled, but his injuries still hampered him…but he could feel it rising in him. Soon, tonight…the feast would be there. He knew it. He didn’t know how he knew it, but if the mercenary had not died from the poisonous emotions that dripped from the beasts he had summoned, he just knew the warrior would go back for his sword. Klan remembered the sword well. A relic like that was not something you left behind. The prognosticators assured him that Shorn would come to the village. That could only mean that Nabren would die from the inevitable confrontation. Tonight, Klan would feed on his pain, for Nabren’s soul was a feast worth having. For now he would have to settle for the anguish of these peasants.

  Why he was not allowed to interfere before Shorn reached the village only the prognosticators (and perhaps Jek) knew.

  The sun beat on his tilted face as he savoured the sounds of slaughter. (And let control go to savour his own pain.) The incumbent agony in the humans that had lain dormant since their birth broke free and flowed into Mard.

  It tickled his senses delightfully. Klan smiled and dozed to a lullaby of screams while
the Tenthers did their work.

  Once he woke and started, shocked from his nap by the clatter of metal on metal. The sounds went on for some time, and he listened intently with his head cocked to one side. Softer screaming returned and he relaxed again.

  The suns raced overhead, the heat rose. Klan went back to sleep. He slept seated upright on the hillock, as the wind blew at his robes.

  He woke fully rested after a short nap and glanced to the sky. Seeing enough time had passed for his underlings to finish their work, he rose sharply and walked toward the village, He took in the scene from where he leant against a wooden shack.

  One of the Tenther Pernants (a unit leader) walked toward him. The approaching Pernant gradually blocked the slaughter from view. Klan looked up at the intrusion, annoyed.

  “Pernant North, Master. Our work here is finished.” The leader of the north team stood proud in front of Klan, his breastplate speckled with blood but his sword already cleaned and in his scabbard.

  “Hmmm…All dead?” Klan asked, closing his eyes to savour one last wisp of pain floating by.

  “Yes, we lost four soldiers, but we exterminated all of the villagers.”

  “Excuse me, Pernant North, my mind was elsewhere…what did you just say?”

  The Pernant tried to look Klan in the eye. His voice remained proud and strong. “I lost four men, Lord.”

  “Funnily, that’s what I thought you said. How, pray, did you manage such an impressive feat of incompetence against an unarmed village, of, how many?”

  “Five men, seven women, eight children and a dog.” The Pernant saw Klan Mard’s eyes brighten and added a hasty, “Lord.” Then continued; “There were unknown factors…”

  “And what would these be, Pernant? Perhaps a Hath’ku’atch? The invisible army of the underland?”

  Pernant North shook his head. “No.”

  “Well?” Klan stood straight, towering over the man. “How did you lose four men? Idiot!”

  “There was resistance. A…a…blacksmith, Lord.”