Rythe Awakes (The Rythe Trilogy) Read online

  “Who are you?” she asked in a quivering voice.

  “I am Quintal. Who are you?”

  “I am Tirielle.”

  Quintal took her hand and bowed his head to it. She looked at him with one eyebrow raised. He turned his face to hers.

  “No. You are more than Tirielle…you are the First.”

  *

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Renir looked across the fire as it burnt low and threw Shorn’s face into shadow. Their horses were tethered on an abandoned branch at this, their first camp since leaving the mercenaries. They were still on the Draymar side of the hills, the wrong side, as far as Renir was concerned. Bed rolls were out and both men lay resting on their elbows. Shorn looked frail and weak.

  The food had helped though and some colour had returned. He looked up from the skewered meal he was gnawing at. It had dirt on it.

  “What?”

  Renir mumbled ‘nothing’ and lay back, looking up at the clear crisp sky, watching soft white clouds drift past the moons, swirling into each other, obscuring the night and then letting it through.

  He lay for some time thinking of something to say. Then he thought of something else. He could put none of his thoughts into words. Eventually, he came up on his elbow again and took a breath to start speaking. He let it go with a sigh and lay back down.

  Shorn looked across the fire in irritation. “What? Spit it out, man! I've had enough of your sulking!”

  “I’m not sulking. I just…I just don’t know if I want to travel with you. You are nothing that I thought you would be.” Renir threw his words out and waited for a backlash before his confidence wavered.

  When Renir had first met the man, that black white night, wandering through the mountain pass, fear in his belly ultimately replaced momentarily with relief when he found the mercenary, he had thought him cold and dangerous. The wizard in his head had led him to believe the fate of the world rested on this man’s shoulders. He seemed nothing like the saviours of legend. Just a man to be feared.

  Renir wondered if his first impression had been the right one.

  Then, after the fight in the passes, he had nursed Shorn back to some semblance of health (or away from death’s shores, at least, he thought looking at the bandaged man before him), spending over a week with the stranger. Renir felt like he got to know him, at least as well as he knew any of the other passing acquaintances that passed for his friends. He knew on a deeper level that the feeling was false. Searching inside, he could still find the fear. Fear of the man’s capabilities. Now…well now, everything was a lie. He braved the face of the man he had thought would become a friend, and saw how the darkness thrown from the fire seemed to slip over Shorn and cover him like a cloak. He almost wished they had never met.

  No, he decided. I do wish we had never met.

  “I am what I am, Renir.” Shorn shrugged the comment off.

  “A murderer?” Renir bit his lip immediately after he said it. Do I want to die here? He thought he saw Shorn’s hand flinch infinitesimally in the direction of his sword but stop. Renir wasn’t sure he had seen it. He let his mind decide that he had not.

  Shorn made a show of gathering his thoughts for a moment then raised his eyes to Renir. “I will not apologise to you for who I am.”

  "I thought you a man, but you are no man. How can you sit there, knowing my wife is to die. Knowing you will re-ignite war between two people, with all the destruction that will bring! It will mean the death of Sturma! You have caused the death of thousands – tens of thousands."

  "And how much of the world have you seen to judge me so!?" Shorn bashed the ground with the heel of his good foot as punctuation.

  "You’re right. I have seen little of the world. No doubt you have travelled it and learned much. Like the value of life..."

  "Nabren had no right to life."

  "...of honesty..."

  "I thought to protect you."

  “What about all the others!”

  “I did not make this war! I was paid to do it.”

  “Have you no conscience?”

  “I have no conscience. I am a mercenary. Are you feeble? How many times do you need to be told?”

  Renir nodded. "No, you are right. I am feeble. What kind of friend did I think you would be?"

  Shorn made to speak but stopped half way. His lips moved in silence. Renir waited.

  "I did you wrong," Shorn stated.

  Renir caught Shorn’s eye and nodded his assent. Shorn shrugged with his face, turning down his lips a little as if to say, ‘I can live with that’.

  Shorn's horse, half as tall again as the man himself, snorted.

  “I cannot fix the world, Renir. Not all men can build wagons or tend fields. I sell what I can. This is what I am.”

  Silence fell between the two. Renir laid warily back and looked at the sky. Shorn sat deep in thought for a while, until, without warning, the crippled mercenary and murderer began to pull great clumps of grass from the earth. Renir turned back and watched. The ground beneath him was quickly turning chill as the night air. He said nothing while he watched the man work.

  Shorn carried on doing this until there was a circle big enough for a man to stand in.

  "In Mornander,” Shorn began, “a small, peaceful peninsula far, far from here, they know the power of symbols."

  Renir shifted his weight and sat cross-legged.

  “Oh?” He said.

  Shorn ignored him and continued: "The people of this country believe the circle is sacred. They worship circles. They use circles to bind. The priests of that country perform the marriage ceremony when the couple to be wed step into a circle of fire. The couple must stay for three long beats. In the centre is a short pole – there is room for two to hold each if their balance is right...if not, they get burned. Most get burned a little. It is supposed to ensure the couple really want to get married; to teach them that love can bring pain; the value of balance; working together, cherishing each other. A priest told me that though, so who knows why they really do it?"

  "What are you doing then?"

  "You want to be friends? I thought the circle fitting." Shorn said it with sincerity.

  "Don’t be stupid."

  "Symbols have power. Would you rather I just call you friend?"

  "No! I mean yes. Not like that." Renir fidgeted. "After all I did for you, you lie, murder...you hacked that man to pieces!"

  "And yet here we are."

  Renir stood and walked around, his frame already thinner after a week in the harsh mountain cold. He pulled at his trouser leg.

  "Alright, what's your point?"

  "You saved my life, Renir. That is enough. Do you think I would forget that? What more do you need?"

  "What kind of man are you!"

  Shorn raised a palm. "That is what you really want? To understand me?”

  “Yes. I want to understand how you can do what you do and sit there with no remorse.”

  Shorn caught Renir’s eye and saw how seriously he was taking this. He sucked his teeth while he thought what to say. He could not think of enough, so he just spoke. “I am a killer of men. That is not the worst of me. That is all of me. I fight for money. I am the kind of man like all other men. I am in all other men. But Nabren burned, raped, mutilated – he committed more atrocious acts in the cause of war than any man I've ever met – the man loved death. The taste of it."

  "Then he and you are evil," said Renir tersely.

  "Evil requires hatred, fear, the baser emotions. Do you see me in love with death?"

  "A little, yes. And fear? Even I, for all my ignorance, can see your fear."

  Shorn said nothing in return.

  "How easily could you fall to that? You say Nabren was cold – what about you? Are you so sure of yourself?"

  "You sound like a priest!"

  "I'm no priest. I'm just a man. I've never killed anyone. Am I not all men?"

  "Enough! You talk in circles like a woman! I have said so
rry. I owe you my life and for that I tried to save you from the raiders – for that you hate me, too. Yet we return to your home in hope. And again, here we are." Shorn shrugged.

  Renir made no reply but stood awkwardly and walked off. He stood with his back to Shorn and stroked his horse's flank. It reminded him his rear was still sore. He shook the thought away. "I trust my friends."

  "Then trust that I would never cause a friend harm." Renir turned and saw the sincerity in Shorn's eyes. He stared for a moment, then walked away for some peace in the darkness. Shorn let him go.

  Renir paced alone, although he could still see the sputtering campfire burning brightly off to his left. He squatted and batted some grass. He walked some more. That the man was a killer he could live with. Despite the lies, Renir understood why he had been lied to. He understood, as did Shorn, before he even thought of it that to return to his home earlier would have meant a sure and swift death for him. That he lied, he could live with. He accepted that.

  That he tortured a man...? Was he truly so cold-blooded a man as Nabren? He had seen and felt with his own eyes hate coming from Nabren’s pores, like hatred was something he sweated. He tried to think back. The same feeling had not come from Shorn. Shorn thought it was a matter of honour. As far as Renir was concerned, that was just romantic foolery. But as a man who had known relative peace through all his years, he knew there was truth in what Shorn said. Still, he mused, so much of this life was outside his ken.

  He paced alone in the woods for some time. The man was a killer, a violent man who lived for violence. One with honour, yes, but a violent man just the same.

  He decided all men have their faults.

  As Renir came back Shorn dragged himself up on his crutch, and hopped into the circle bare of grass. Shorn waved his hand toward the circle.

  “We will travel on,” said Renir as he approached. Shorn was pleased, although he gave nothing in return, just flipped his head backward, calling Renir closer.

  "You can't say it can you?" said Renir as he walked to the edge of the circle.

  "What?”

  “Friend.”

  “Friend?"

  "Yes."

  "I just did."

  "Say 'I'm your friend', then."

  "Shut up and get in the circle."

  Renir looked to make sure nobody looked on as he stepped in and held onto Shorn to keep his balance in the tight circle, and said, "We’re not married if there’s no fire…right?"

  The two men held each other in the circle for a very short time and never spoke of it again. They spoke late that night though, carefully at first, Shorn telling tall tales of outlandish feats, and openly at last when Renir made them both laugh with tales of married life for a time. Renir stopped when his thoughts ran away with him and turned dark for a moment. He smiled a sad smile to Shorn and said goodnight to his horse. They turned in to sleep.

  When it finally came for Renir, sleep was troubled.

  *

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The mercenaries were packing up camp; their work on the Draymar plateau was done. Their leader, too, was dead. There was no reason to stay anymore. All the men (bar a few fights and one death) had peacefully agreed to take their share from money they found in Nabren's tent. They considered it payment for the job and went their separate ways.

  Klan Mard stood in his own moonlit shadow and watched them go.

  When they had left Klan stepped into the night-light. The grass where the men had traversed and slept was flat. The light from his eyes gave his face a red tinge. The robe trailed the grass and a soft swish followed him. In the milky glow of the low moons he looked demonic, the brightness from his bloody eyes growing and blurring his sharp features as it stole away all other light. He walked through the long grass to where the body still lay. He could smell like sight. There was another body in the camp. But this was the one he wanted. Nabren...

  He smiled inwardly. I knew I would see you dead.

  Nabren's soul shrank back. Klan could feel it, the great pain of his death. The fear was lacking, but the pain would suffice. There, awash in the pain of Nabren’s passing, the dolorous echoes of all his slain.

  Klan began sucking it in. The tortured soul writhed and cried out in agony. The grass under foot stretched out and held down the soul, the black green tendrils rising unnaturally to clasp wisps of the soul for Klan to feed upon, until the grass withered from the foul magic, blackening and turning to ashes. The soul thinned as Klan Mard pulled more pain into his being. The hatred spun out of control but Klan pulled it in. Control.

  Do you feel that, Nabren? Your life and death are mine.

  The soul whispered a fading: Why?

  Mard's eyes glowed brighter than the stars.

  Why? Klan laughed at him. Because I am Klan Mard and I bow to no man.

  Klan Mard swelled as Nabren De Sonbren’s soul, butcherer and legend, disappeared from existence.

  Klan turned his back and walked away, satiated on a hatred so immense it turned his form in a shimmering haze; black; then nothing, as he walked through the shadow to step out in the dark emotions tumbling like chaos itself, emotions that fuelled his passage, engulfed him, and let him travel back to Renir's village to wait for the Draymar, and Shorn's arrival.

  Forced to arrive through a chant, he would leave of his own volition. Now the dark wizard could travel at will, childish chants and words were behind him. How much more can I achieve? How much more have I yet to know?

  He resolved to find out.

  Sated, the wizard thought, There will be no zenith for me. I have ascended.

  To the north of Renir’s village he materialised unseen behind the scout and sat cross-legged on the sand. Only the brightness emanating from his smiling eyes alerted the scout, who sprang up, his sword already in hand. He saw it was the Anamnesor, the leader of the group, and relaxed too late. Klan stared at him and red light flowed forth.

  When Klan was finished torturing the guard and feeding on his agony, magic holding his pleas in, the guard was dead and no longer recognisable, a dry husk of skin and bone. Klan’s injuries were fully healed.

  *

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Some of the knights (their leader had named them the ‘Order of Sard’) tended wounded hearts and bodies with a tenderness that belied the swift violence she knew they were capable of. Their armour, their swords, their great black steeds – none were illusion. These men looked born to war. They had liberated the water and food stores from the canteen wagon. Two of the men were inside now, dolling out dried meats and biscuits from the guards’ staples. The prisoner’s food had been left to rot where it sat. It would not take long.

  The wooden prison tower was motionless now – the Sard would ensure it never moved again before breaking camp – but the reek still escaped from the tiny holes in the sides. It did not seem right to Tirielle that such a stench could escape such tiny holes. The smell was growing now that the wind had subsided.

  Tirielle A’m Dralorn wandered among the other prisoners. Five mounds broke the darkened earth.

  The Sard had told her they would explain everything at the evening meal. In the meantime she had more than enough time to go over what she knew, letting the thoughts flow as she had been taught. Let the insight come.

  They were here now. They knew her – the Protectorate were after her for what she had done, surely?

  A sentinel. Was that the trap? Had they wanted her caught? Had she been too close to the Protectorate? It wouldn’t come.

  The First. Something I am. Not something I did.

  I killed Fridel and they knew I would.

  Fate seemed to bounce me like a ball, she thought ruefully. It seems so pointless to even fight. Everytime she thought she had found her feet she was stumbling blindly again.

  The former councillor, exile and daughter to Dran A’m Dralorn wandered, trying to avoid her thoughts for just a while. She watched two of the Sard without their knowledge to pass the time: one short
and bullish, only slightly taller than Tirielle herself, the other never removed his helm. The shorter man had a full beard but sparse hair atop his head. He looked out of place compared to the rest of the knights, who were all of full stature…stately, even. The helmed warrior followed two paces behind the shorter man as they investigated the rest of the camp.

  She watched with interest when they came upon the Bayers.

  The fearsome Bayers had quieted after the battle, but now jumped and twisted in the air, tangling their leads and pulling themselves into a huddle. The posts that held their leashes remained firmly in the ground, for which Tirielle was grateful. They started to whine as the helmed man walked up to them. She could hear the clamour of newly freed prisoners, regaling each other with tales and making friends, although the spaces in conversation were still shy and long. Some were in no state to talk. The better off among them sat with hands on shoulders weaker than their own, or passed food gently as if dealing with fine porcelain.

  A distant hum reached her ears and she followed the melody with her eyes. The helmed man lay on the floor beside the Bayers, humming an ethereal tune that sounded like it played the air against the sharp edges of the helm, using it like an instrument. She watched in fascination as the Bayers calmed. They snapped at each other to get closer to the knight, then, at last, they lay down, all eyes on the man.

  The helmed paladin stood. He drew a knife from his belt as he stooped, then, he cut the leash. The beast did nothing at first, but then approached the man, padding gently until it could raise its forepaws onto his shoulders, the frightful maw level with his head. She could almost hear music coming from the man but it was tantalisingly out of reach, a feeling on the borders of her senses.

  The beast put its forepaws back to earth and wandered off into the night.

  One of the prisoners near the camp was also watching this. She rose up as if to shout out a warning to the camp, but Typraille laid a hand on her shoulder.