Angus Wells - The God Wars 01 (33 page)

 
          
"At
least he feeds us," Calandryll said. Bracht nodded and began to eat.

 
          
After,
there was little to do save rest on the bunks and talk until sleep took them.

 
          
"Tell
me about Kern," Calandryll asked.

 
          
 
 
 
Bracht sniffed and said, "Kern is
your word for it, a southern word. We call it Cuan na'For, which means the
Land
of
Horses
."

           
"The forest is
the Cuan na'Dm, is it not?" Calandryll prompted when his companion fell
silent. "What does that mean?"

           
"The
Heartland," came the answer. "The Cuan na Dm is the great forest that
surrounds Ahrd. That's a sacred place, tended by the Gmagach, who were created
when the world was young. The folk of Cuan na'For seldom venture there, for the
Gruagach are jealous guardians and apt to treat intruders unkindly."

           
He laughed curtly and emptied the
last of the flagon into his mug.

 
          
"They
tend to kill people. They are strange creatures— devoted to their wardship of
the Holy Tree—but they care for Ahrd. The rest?" He sighed fondly.
"Oh, it's a fine, free place, unlike your home. We have no cities, but
live in tents and follow our herds over the grass. It's foaling time now, and
the grass will be lush. The sun will shine and the wind will blow; the rivers
will run blue, and my clan will follow the horses north."

 
          
"You
said you were Asyth," Calandryll murmured into the darkness. "There
are five tribes, I believe."

 
          
"The
Asyth, the Lykard, the Valan, the Helim, and the Yelle," said Bracht.
"The Asyth raise the finest horses and the stoutest warriors."

 
          
"Are
you at war with the Lykard?" asked Calandryll.

 
          
"Not
when I left," said Bracht. "Why?"

 
          
"When
I spoke of leaving Gessyth by the
Geff
Pass
you said the Lykard were enemies."

 
          
Bracht
chuckled.

 
          
"Mine,
I am not much loved by the Asyth, either."

 
          
"Why
not?"

 
          
There
was a long silence, then the Kem said, "It is a personal thing."

 
          
Calandryll
frowned but made no attempt to press the matter it was obvious that Bracht had
no wish to discuss it. Instead, he asked, "Were you a warrior?"

 
          
"We
are all warriors," Bracht said. "Sometimes the clans fight one
another, and we steal horses—that's the way of Cuan na'For—and sometimes the
Jesserytes cross the Kess Imbrun to make war."

 
          
"It's
strange that the folk of Kem—Cuan na'For," Calandryll amended,
"worship a tree when you raise the finest horses, while the Jesserytes
worship Horul."

 
          
"The
Horse God?" Bracht sniffed again, dismissively. "The Jesserytes are a
strange folk. It's said they worship a horse because they couple with them, but
I think that may not be true. We worship Ahrd because we have always worshiped
Ahrd."

 
          
He
yawned sleepily. Calandryll asked, "Have you fought them?"

 
          
"Aye,
at times," Bracht answered, "When the mood comes on them they seek to
cross the Kess Imbrun after our horses and our women, and we join to send them
back. Or give them to the crows. But those are little more than
skirmishes—we've fought no great war since the High Khan Tejoval sought to
invade us, in my grandfather's time. He brought an army over the rift, vowing
that he would bum the Cuan na'Dru and Ahrd with it. All the clans sent warriors
then, and we destroyed the Jesseryte army. The old men say it was a mighty battle
and the rift river was red with Jesseryte blood. They say the crows got too
bloated to fly then."

 
          
The
bunk creaked as he shifted, yawning again. Calandryll wondered how he could be
sleepy: he felt too nervous to contemplate slumber. He asked, "Have you
ever been in love?"

 
          
Bracht
sighed and said, "Do you think of your Nadama?"

 
          
Now
Calandryll paused, taken aback. The question had sprung unbidden to his lips,
and he was not sure why he had asked it. He realized that he had not thought of
Nadama since ... When was the last time? Since their encounter with the
byah
?
Since the dreams along the trail to Aldarin? He said, "No."

 
          
"I
thought I was," Bracht said, "Once. But ... something happened."

 
          
His
voice grew flat and Calandryll sensed that he touched on another forbidden
subject. "I think," he said slowly, "that I have accepted she's
lost to me. She might be wed to Tobias by now; certainly by the time I
return."

 
          
If
I return.

           
He was surprised by his own
acceptance, by the absence of that knife that had turned each time he thought
of her. It was gone now: it seemed that imminent danger, the possibility of
death, cauterized the wound. He conjured an image of her face and found it
blurred, as though
time
and
distance eroded the edges of his memory. He felt a weight was lifted, something
in his soul freed: he chuckled.

 
          
"Good,"
said Bracht.

 
          
"Aye,"
he agreed, "it is."

 
          
"And
so is sleep," said the Kem.

 
          
Calandryll
nodded in the darkness, hearing Bracht change position, the bunk creaking.
Through the port he heard the steady, soothing slap of waves against the hull,
the low, slow groaning or timbers. He closed his eyes.

 
          
And
found himself standing on the deck of the
Sea Dancer,
the sun bright on
his face, the wind died away to a listless murmur that draped the sails like
wet sheets hung from the spars. All around, the
Narrow
Sea
glistened, smooth as a millpond, and the
crew moved past him, unseeing. Rahamman ek'Jemm stood behind the wheel with
Bracht at his side. The mercenary's hands were bound and when Calandryll called
his name he gave no sign that he heard, staring at the black boat that drew
steadily closer, driven by great black oars that swept the waves in silence, a
figure in a black cloak standing at the prow, one hand caressing the dragon's
head. The boat came alongside and the figure sprang to the
Sea Dancer's
deck.
Calandryll could not see its face. A hand beckoned and ek'Jemm bowed, pushing
Bracht to the companionway. The black-cloaked figure towered over the Kern as
he was shoved rudely forward, then reached out, grasping him by the waist,
lifting him high. Calandryll began to run as the monstrous figure held Bracht
high, turning to the rail, but his legs were jelly and the planking of the deck
seemed to buckle and give way under his feet. He shouted, but no one heard and
all he could do was watch as Bracht was tossed over the side, to the warboat
that was no longer a vessel, but a huge, black dragon that raised a gaping,
many-toothed maw to accept the body. Calandryll shouted again and this time the
black figure turned toward him and he saw red eyes burning within the smoky
shadows of the face. He struggled to draw his sword, but the blade was mired in
the scabbard as firmly as he was mired to the deck, and all he could do as the
relentless figure strode toward him was raise his hands in protest, feeling
fingers like steel claws lock about his wrists, lifting him as they had lifted
Bracht . . . Who said, "You dream! Calandryll, you dream!" pinning
his flailing arms down on the bunk.

 
          
He
opened his eyes and saw the Kern's face close, his breath redolent of ek'Jemm's
nostrum.

 
          
"Dera!"
he mumbled, wiping sweat from his brow. "I thought ..."

 
          
He
shook his head, the dream already fading, the images breaking as the mist had
broken in Aldarin harbor, swirling and dissipating, lost even as he tried to
hold them.

 
          
Bracht
let loose his arms and pointed to the window.

 
          
"I
think you had best ready yourself."

 
          
He
crossed to the port, squinting into the brightness of a new day, and groaned.
The warboat stood off the starboard quarter, its sail furled, the sweeps that
drove it like giant drumsticks beating a relentless rhythm on the skin of the
sea. He could see the figurehead. See the bulging red eyes and the flared
nostrils, the carved fangs, painted white, a curling scarlet tongue between the
black lips. Circular shields decorated with a variety of fanciful designs hung
along the bulwarks and behind the prow and among the oarsmen stood archers,
shafts notched ready. He felt a vibration from above, heard a dull twanging
sound, and saw a bolt whistle through the morning air. It raised a splash to
port of the warboat.

 
          
"Ek'Jemm
uses the arbalest," he cried. "Perhaps he means to fight."

 
          
"Perhaps
I misjudged him," Bracht said. "Perhaps his bolts will frighten them
off—if they be no more than ordinary corsairs."

 
          
A
second bolt fountained a glittering column no closer
than
the first and the warboat veered rapidly to starboard,
cutting around the
Sea Dancer's
stem with an agility the larger vessel
had no hope of matching. Calandryll saw the archers raise their bows. The
arrows were brief, dark flashes against the blue sky. He heard a man scream,
the sound shrill as a sea gull's cry, and the dark boat was gone from sight.

 
          
He
turned as the hatch opened and a hulking seaman armed with a cutlass filled the
doorway. Behind him stood three more: hope faded.

 
          
"You're
to come topside."

 
          
The
man stood back, cutlass poised. His order required no translation: Bracht
glanced at Calandryll and smiled.

 
          
"Ahrd
be with you, and your own goddess."

 
          
"And
with you."

 
          
Calandryll
wanted to say something more in reply but could not find the words. He slung
the satchel from his shoulder, briefly touched the talisman concealed beneath
his shirt, and stepped into the narrow corridor. Bracht followed him, menaced
by the sailors' heavy blades, and onto the deck, to the companionway, and up to
the poop.

 
          
 
Rahamman
ek'Jemm stood with folded arms
and dour face beside the helmsman. A bare-chested Kand stood miserably by the
arbalest; another lay moaning on the deck, two arrows protruding from his right
leg. The war-boat was already past the merchantman, swinging wide around her
bow, gone past before the arbalest mounted there had time to sight and fire.

 
          
"I
tried," ek'Jemm said, "and that's the result."

 
          
He
pointed to the wounded seaman, the shafts bristling from deck and mast and
sails.

 
          
Bracht
grunted and said, "You give up easily, Captain."

 
          
The
Kand turned cold green eyes on the freesword. "As I told your comrade,
I'll not forfeit my ship for a miserable one hundred varre. If it's you they
want, they'll see you now and I'll give you to them. If not," he shrugged,
"then we'll fight."

 
          
As
if to emphasize his point a second volley of arrows arched into the azure. They
seemed to hang for a moment, suspended at the apex of their flight, before
rattling onto the
Sea Dancer's
deck.