Bloodsongs (9 page)

She stared down into the swirling water. A large piece of driftwood arrowed its way along the currents, passed before her, vanished downstream.

Perhaps, she reasoned, it would have been better never to have come to Keled-Zaram, never to have made a home and settled down. Kimon was dead now, and Ashur had disappeared long ago. One son was slain, and the son of her flesh had gone gods knew where.

It chilled her to realize how alone she was.

“It's you and me, horse,” she said, giving her mount a pat on the withers, urging him into the stream. That was the first she had spoken and the only voice she'd heard in days. “It's you and me,” she repeated just for the sound of it.

The horse waded carefully to the center of the stream and stopped. It bowed its head to drink. The water came halfway to its belly, and though her boots were already wet, she freed her feet from the stirrups and held them high to avoid a further soaking. She knew enough not to let him drink his fill and tugged gently on the reins. A cluck of her tongue set him moving again, and they scrambled up the opposite bank.

She twisted in the saddle and looked back once more. Was this truly the spot where she and Kimon had once stopped? She was certain it was. But time and rain had long since washed away their footprints.

In the late afternoon the rooftops of a small town appeared suddenly in the south. Soushane, if she recalled its name properly. She and Kimon had passed through it, too. She stopped and sniffed the air.
 
It smelled richly with the savory smells of cooking as wives and daughters began the evening meals. The wind blew the odors to her, and her stomach felt suddenly empty. She leaned forward, lifted her nose, inhaled deeply. Barely, she could spy the smoke curling high from the nearest chimneys. There was a tavern there, too, or used to be. She licked her lips at the thought of warm wine.

But she tugged the reins and turned her horse aside. Soushane was a stop for the border patrols.
 
They were also fond of its tavern. She was a fugitive. Word of her crime might not have reached this far, but then again, it might. She took another sniff, filling her nostrils with a sweet, unidentifiable flavor, and sighed. A piece of dried fruit from Amalki's bag would make her supper tonight, and to wash it down there was water. Gods, how there was water!

She swung wide around Soushane to avoid being seen. Keled-Zaram shared a long border with Esgaria and the warrior-state Rholaroth. The border itself was a river called Lythe, whose source was somewhere far to the north of Rholaroth in the cold, forested land of Rhianoth. She had seen that distant country but did not know the truth of the legend that the river sprang wild and raging from the mouth of a vast black cavern that led down into hell itself. “Which hell?” she had asked innocently enough as a child. But her mother had only smiled, arched her eyebrows in a way she had, and proceeded to another legend.

The river Lythe was not far away. She and Kimon had crossed it and arrived at Soushane in only two days.

She kept a sharper watch now. Where there was a town, there would be farms. Where there were farms, there would be farmers with tongues. She did not want to be seen.

And there were patrols to watch for. It was not likely they would work this far from the border, but there was the chance of a supply troop or a replacement detachment. Soushane was not large enough to host a garrison, but a day's ride north and west, at high-walled Kyr, it was a different story.

The weakling sun seemed not to set so much as to merely fade from the sky. Night closed in quickly, but not before she glimpsed remembered foothills in the far distance. Memories chilled by the passage of years shivered through her. She pushed on through the thick of darkness, ignoring the aches of her body, the small voice that cried insistently for her to rest. Not until the ground began to rise steeply under her horse's hooves, not until it leveled and began to fall again, did she stop and dismount.

It was cold, and she was hungry. She curled up on the damp earth with her sack of provisions and her waterskin. The reins still grasped in one hand, she worried what to do about her mount. She had no hobbles to fasten his legs, and she feared letting him wander free. Finally, she tied one rein about her ankle. It was bothersome, but it freed her hands for eating.

She sipped slowly from the waterskin. It bore the faintest taste of the red wine Amalki had filled it with days ago, wine she had quickly finished. Fresh stream water had taken its place; it lacked the liquor's bite, but it was cool and welcome.

She unhitched her sword belt and laid it close by, then she plunged one hand into the sack. It was too dark to see; her fingers closed on the first thing they brushed. A sausage. She broke it in half, returned part of it, and ate the rest. Next, she found cheese, a bit of hard bread, several pieces of dried fruit. She surprised herself. The bag was far lighter when she finished than when she began, and her belly was contentedly full.

The horse nibbled the grass near her feet, apparently too weary to think of roaming off. She reached out and rumpled its forelock. It looked up at her with soft, moist eyes and went back to feeding.

Frost lay back, locking hands behind her head, and gazed upward at the featureless night. If only she were dry; if only the ground was hard and warm under her back; if only there were stars to count or a fire to sit and stare into. She closed her eyes.

But it's not so bad
, she caught herself thinking.

After a while she untied the rein from her boot and stood. She listened. The darkness was still. If the world turned, as some philosophers insisted, it turned in utter silence. No creature, no insect, made a noise, no limb or blade of grass stirred. Even the horse had stopped its munching.

But there was something. A muffled beating, a far-distant drum throbbed at the edge of her awareness. She strained to hear it. Then her lips tightened in a thin, satisfied line of recognition.

It was her own heart. The wild, triumphant sound of it melted all through her, filled her with its affirming power.

She laughed suddenly, and the echo of it rolled among the hills. The numbness that for so long had been part of her was gone. She knew, at last, that she was still alive, fully and vitally alive.

 

Dawn flamed in the east, pushing back the thick gray clouds with wispy streamers of gold and vermilion. The air was warmer than it had been for days. A steamy moistness hung over the land as the sun exerted its strength.

Naked, Frost stretched, enjoying its touch on her bare skin. Her clothes and cloak lay spread on the ground. Though she knew they would not dry there, for a few moments she was free of their cloying dampness. She shook back her hair; at least it was beginning to dry. She combed her fingers through it to smooth the snarls and tangles.

She ate from the sack again and drank half her remaining water. From her vantage she could look back the way she had come, across a flat, broad expanse. The sun was brightening; she shielded her eyes. Nothing moved out there, not even the one scraggly tree that broke the steppe's monotony.

She turned to look the other way. The peaks of high, rolling hills rippled the horizon. They might have been mountains in the first ages after creation, but time had worn away their majesty.
Shai-Zastari
, the Keled people called this range: the Barrier Hills. On the other side was the river Lythe, and beyond that, Esgaria.

She saw her purpose at last. It had festered within her, hidden and secret, from that moment in Amalki's home when she'd donned garments untouched for so many years. She had strapped on her sword. She remembered clearly how it had felt when her fingers had curled around its familiar hilt. Yet her other hand had closed on emptiness, grasping for a weapon that hadn't been there.

The empty hand had brought her on this path. Through rain and miserable cold it had led her. She had fooled herself, believed she had wandered merely to avoid capture. But all the while that empty hand had known.

She stared at her palm. Soon, she would fill it with what it longed for.

Bending to retrieve her sword, she drew it from its scabbard. She was long overdue for a hard workout. Twenty years overdue.

Her fingers curled around the hilt. The leather wrapping was damp, but orange fire flickered along the steel as she slowly exposed it to the sun. The blade gleamed, smelling of fine oil. Kimon had cared for it with the ritual precision of his Rholarothan heritage. The edges were keen, the point perfectly honed. Light danced along its entire length, rippled like dazzling water as she turned it.

In all the intervening years she had not touched it, fearing the memories it stirred. But now, that fear was gone and her past came rushing upon her. In an instant she relived her life, every great sadness and every overwhelming joy, every adventure and every quiet moment. They had been locked up, those memories, in her sword, and she had set them free. She didn't try to resist or shut them out. She welcomed them. A long sleep had been lifted from her, and Frost was Frost once more.

But when the memories were past, a vague sense of emptiness still lingered and, at the core of that emptiness, some darker emotion. It nagged, and she probed it as she would a sore tooth.

It worried her, but she began the first tentative steps of a barely remembered practice pattern. The movements came back slowly. Little by little, though, they became a dance. She swung her sword in familiar two-handed drills, cutting, thrusting, blocking. Still, some sensation gnawed at her tike an itch demanding to be scratched. She whirled, dodged imaginary blows, sidestepped, and parried.

Suddenly she stopped. The sword trembled in her hand, plunged to the hilt in a foe that had no face. She held it there, sweat running into her eyes. Then, slowly, she twisted and twisted it.

At last she knew what emotion hovered at the heart of her emptiness.

Revenge.

Kimon had been taken from her. Murdered and mutilated. Samidar had wept and grieved, but Samidar had done nothing more. She bit her lip, tasting shame. Well, Samidar was gone now, and there was Frost.

Kirigi, at least, she had avenged. His murderer screamed in hell while the soul of her young son rested a little easier. But what of her husband? What of his soul?

Kimon would have no peace until she gave it to him.

But could she give it?

She took careful stock of herself. Already her breathing was ragged. Sweat streamed thinly down her throat, rolled down between her breasts. Her shoulders throbbed, promising sharper aches to come. She reviewed her performance; rusty would be a kind word. Slow and clumsy were more accurate.

She might practice for a long time and never regain her old proficiency. But if she didn't have her sword to count on, what did she have?

She shook her head, then began to work again, moving through her paces with careful deliberation. She studied herself, making small corrections, discovering weaknesses,
remembering
.

Her mouth formed a grim line when she finally rested.

She sheathed the blade, but she held it by the scabbard for some time, considering the sweaty mark of her hand on the hilt wrapping. She laid it aside, finally, and reached for her clothes.

It took some effort to stamp into wet boots, then she strapped the sword around her right hip. Her cloak was still thick with moisture. She left it spread on the ground while she made a hasty breakfast of a bit of cheese and the last piece of bread.

In the first gray of twilight she had spied a gnarly bush, invisible in the night. She'd tied her horse to it and freed it from the weight of the saddle. Already it had eaten half the leaves.

She grabbed up her cloak, saddled the weary beast, and began a long, gradual descent into a narrow valley. A steep climb led out of it and into another. At the bottom she found a small stream of run-off water and let her mount drink.

It didn't take long for the sun to dry her garments. Its warmth beat down upon her bare neck. For the first time in days she enjoyed a measure of comfort. On the summit of the next hill, though, she saw the clouds that lingered still far in the east. No matter; if it was a storm, she was riding away from it.

All afternoon she picked her way carefully along the increasingly treacherous slopes. The horse was tired; she didn't push him but let the animal choose its own pace. The ground was mud slick; a wrong step would be dangerous.

Ahead, one tall peak rose over the others.
Sha-Nakare,
the Keled soldiers called it: Watchers' Hill. From its pinnacle a man could spy across the Lythe into Esgaria. In the early days of the Keled kingdom, there was always an encampment of troops atop
Sha-Nakare.
But war had never come between Esgaria and Keled-Zaram, and the soldiers were long years gone.

She made her way toward that highest hill, forgetting to eat until her belly rumbled. She took something from the bag, not even noting what it was. It eased her pangs, and she pressed on.
Sha-Nakare
loomed over the other peaks. It alone might be called a mountain, but only by men who had never seen the Creel Mountains of Rholaroth or the sharp, impossibly jagged Akibus chain in the haunted land of Chondos.

Softly the sun sank from the sky. The palest golden nimbus crowned the summit of
Sha-Nakare
as she approached its lower slope. Night crept up behind her. In the shadow of the mountain she felt the jaws of darkness close.

She debated whether to continue. Somewhere, she knew, there was an old trail leading to the top. If she could find that, it wouldn't be a difficult climb even in the night.

She gazed up at the sky. For the first time in many evenings there were stars. Soon there would be a moon, a waxing gibbous moon, if she remembered correctly. That meant light to see.

But when was moonrise? She twisted in the saddle, searching the heaven for some indication, finding none. She chewed her lip. Patience was not one of her virtues. The moon might appear any moment or not until very late.