Brotherhood of the Wolf (8 page)

“The hunt didn't go well,” Borenson said, taking her hand. “We had some casualties.”

She wondered at that. There were still black-furred nomen prowling in the woods, and frowth giants. Raj Ahten had fled south from here more than a week ago, abandoning
those troops that were too tired to flee. She wondered how the lords had been killed. “Casualties?”

He nodded, unwilling to say more.

In moments they reached the cobblestone street. The morning air carried a keen cold bite, and Myrrima's breath fogged. Borenson hurried her through the portcullis of the King's Gate, rushing down Market Street to the city gate. There, just beyond the drawbridge, beside the moat, a huge crowd was gathering.

The fields before Castle Sylvarresta were full of bright pavilions that sprawled like a city of canvas. In the past week, another four hundred thousand peasants and nobles from Heredon and kingdoms beyond had gathered here, come to see the Earth King, Gaborn Val Orden. The fields were becoming an endless maze of tents and animals, enough so that now the tents covered nearby hills, and whole towns were springing up on the plains to the south and west.

Everywhere, merchants and vendors were setting up booths, creating impromptu markets among the host. The scent of cooking sausages hung over the throng, and because this was a feast day, hundreds of minstrels were already warming up their lutes and harps under every tree.

Four peasant boys ahead were singing so badly to pipes and lutes that Myrrima didn't know if they were serious or if they simply mocked others' poor efforts.

Borenson nudged aside some peasants and chased away a couple of mastiffs so that Myrrima could see what was at the crowd's center.

What she saw revolted her: a lump of gray flesh as huge as a wagon lay on the grass, the eyeless head of a reaver. Its feelers hung like dead worms around the back of its skull, and the rows of crystalline teeth looked terrifying as they caught the morning sun. The thing was dirty, having been dragged for many miles. Yet beneath that grime, along the forehead, she could see runes tattooed into the monster's horrible flesh—runes of power that glowed even now
like dim flames. Every child in Rofehavan knew the meaning of those facial runes.

This was no common reaver. It was a mage.

Myrrima's heart pounded as if it were trying to batter its way out of her chest. She found herself breathing hard, feeling faint. She went suddenly cold, and stood letting the heat of strangers' bodies warm her while the mastiffs sniffed at the reaver's head and wagged the stumps of their tails nervously.

“A reaver mage?” she asked dully. No one had killed a reaver mage in Heredon in over sixteen hundred years. She studied the thing's head. The monster could have bitten a warhorse in half. Or a man.

Peasants tittered; children reached out to touch the horrible thing.

“We caught her in the Dunnwood, down in some old duskin ruins, far underground. She had her mates and offspring there, so we killed them all and crushed her eggs.”

“How many died?” Myrrima asked, dazed.

Borenson did not immediately answer. “Forty-one good knights,” he said at last. “They fought well. It was a fierce battle.” He added as modestly as he could, “I killed the mage myself.”

She wheeled on him, full of rage. “How could you do this?”

Surprised by her reaction, he sputtered, “It wasn't easy, I confess. The mage gave me a hard time of it. She seemed loath to lose her head.”

Suddenly she saw it all clearly: why she had wakened every morning full of melancholy, why she could hardly sleep nights. She was terrified. She'd sought to wed a man for his wealth, and instead had fallen in love. Meanwhile, her husband seemed more interested in getting himself killed than in making love to her.

She turned and stalked off through the crowd, shoving away bystanders, pushing toward the castle gate, blinded by tears.

Borenson hurried after her, caught her at the foot of the
drawbridge and turned her with one big hand. “What are you so mad about?”

The sound of his voice was so loud that it startled a fish down in the reeds of the moat. The water swirled as something large swam away. A throng of people heading into the castle made way for Borenson and Myrrima, skirting them as if they were islands in a stream.

She turned up to face him. “I'm mad because you're leaving me.”

“Of course I'm leaving you—in a few days,” he said. “But not by choice.”

Borenson had killed King Sylvarresta, and Myrrima knew that it shamed him, despite the fact that Sylvarresta had given an endowment to Raj Ahten, lending wit to the Wolf Lord. Though Sylvarresta had been a good man, one who had only given his endowment under duress, the truth was that in such a horrible war as this, friend could not spare friend. Brother could not spare brother.

By granting an endowment of wit to Raj Ahten, King Sylvarresta had made himself an enemy to every just man, and Borenson had felt bound by duty to take the life of his old friend.

Once the deed was done, the King's daughter, Iome, was loath to punish Borenson, but neither could she forgive him. So in the name of justice she'd lain a quest upon Borenson, commanded him to perform an Act Penitent—to go to the lands beyond Inkarra and find the legendary Daylan Hammer, the Sum of All Men, and bring him back here to Heredon to help fight Raj Ahten.

It seemed a fool's quest. Though rumor said he lived, Daylan Hammer could not still be alive after sixteen centuries. Sir Borenson seemed loath to go, when he saw better ways to protect his people. Still, he was bound by honor to depart—and he'd do so soon.

“I don't
want
to go,” Borenson said. “I have to.”

“It's a long way to Inkarra. A long way for a man to travel alone. I could come with you.”

“No!” Borenson insisted. “You can't. You'd never make it alive.”

“What makes you think you will?” Myrrima asked. She knew the answer. He was a captain in the King's Guard, with endowments of brawn and stamina and metabolism. If any man alive could make it through the enemy territories, Borenson could.

Inkarra was a dangerous place: a strange land where northerners weren't tolerated. Neither he nor Myrrima could blend in easily: the Inkarrans all had skin as pale as ivory, with straight hair the color of silver. Borenson and Myrrima couldn't disguise themselves enough to hide their foreign birth.

For the most part, the Inkarrans were a nocturnal people. By day, they spent much of their time at home or in the shadowed woods so evading them would be nearly impossible. And if Borenson were captured, he'd be forced to fight in their dark arena.

In order to stay alive, he'd have to travel secretly at night, as best he could, never risking contact with the Inkarrans.

He said, “I can't take you. You would slow me down, get us both killed.”

“I don't like this,” Myrrima said. “I don't like the idea of your going off alone.” A vendor pulling a handcart moved close, and Myrrima stepped from his path, dragging Borenson with her.

“Neither do I, but you can't believe for a moment that you could help me.”

Myrrima shook her head, and a tear splashed down her cheek. “I told you about my father,” she said. He'd been a fairly wealthy merchant who had apparently been robbed and killed and then had his shop burned down around him to cover the crime. “I sometimes wonder if I could have saved him. On the night he was killed, he was not the wealthiest merchant in Bannisferre, or the most feeble. But he was alone. Perhaps if I had been with him …”

“If you had been with him, you too might be dead,” Borenson said.

“Perhaps,” she whispered. “But sometimes I think I'd rather be dead than live without knowing if I could have been of help.”

Borenson stared hard at her. “I admire your loyalty, I cherish it. But the worst day of my life came last week when I learned that you had ridden to Longmot, hoping to join me in battle. I want you to sleep by my side, not fight by my side—even though you have a warrior's heart.” He kissed her tenderly.

For just a moment their eyes met. She held his outstretched hand. A plea.

“If I cannot come with you,” she said, “I will not be happy until you return.”

Borenson smiled and leaned his forehead against hers, kissed her nose. “Let us agree, then. Neither of us will be happy until I return.”

He held her for a long moment, letting the crowd of peasants heading for the castle stroll past.

Behind her, she heard a couple of men talking. “Chose that whore Bonny Cleads, he did, not half an hour ago! Why would the Earth King Choose someone like her?”

“He says he Chooses those what love their fellow men,” a fellow said, “and I don't know of no one that's loved more of 'em than she.”

Myrrima felt Borenson stiffen in her arms as his attention focused on the peasants. Though he bridled to hear such criticism of the King, he did not challenge the men.

Myrrima heard a shout and a splash, as if someone had thrown something into the moat, but paid it no mind until Borenson pulled his head back from her and turned away.

She looked to see what had caught his eye. Four young men stood on the levee, looking down into the moat, about a hundred yards upstream. They were perched on a small rise, beneath an enormous willow.

The sun was bright and the skies clear. An early morning mist rose off the dark waters. As Myrrima watched, a huge
fish came up to the surface of the moat and swam about lazily. One boy hurled a spear at it, but the fish darted nimbly forward and dove again.

“Hey,” Borenson shouted as if angry. “What are you boys doing?”

One lad, a thin boy with straw for hair and a triangle for a face, said, “Catching a sturgeon for Hostenfest. Some big ones swam into the moat this morning.”

Even as he spoke, an enormous fish some six or eight feet long rose to the surface and began finning, whirling about in strange patterns. It ignored a duckling that nosed about in some nearby reeds. The huge fish did not seem to be hunting for a meal. One lad readied a spear.

“Stop—in the name of the King!” Borenson commanded.

Myrrima had to smile to hear him appropriate the name of the King.

The spear-bearing lad looked at Borenson as if he were mad. “But never has such a huge fish swum into the moat,” he said.

“Go get the King—now!” Borenson commanded. “And the wizard Binnesman, too! Tell them it's urgent, that there are some exceeding strange fish in the moat.” The boy looked longingly at the sturgeon, spear poised at his shoulder. “Do it now!” Borenson roared. “Or I swear I'll gut you where you stand.”

The boy glanced back and forth between Borenson and the fish, then threw down his spear and ran for the castle.

By the time Gaborn reached the moat, holding hands with his wife Iome while the wizard Binnesman walked behind, a great crowd of peasants had gathered at its banks. They seemed both perplexed and angry to have a knight standing there protecting the enormous sturgeons that swam not twenty feet from shore. There was much grumbling about how the fish were “good enough for the King's belly, but not for ours.”

Borenson had been gathering information about the fish
for several minutes. Nine sturgeons had been spotted at dawn, swimming into the moat from the Wye River. Now all nine fish finned at the surface, just outside the castle wall, performing a strange and sinuous dance.

Iome came and stood with Myrrima, smiling radiantly to have her husband home. Gaborn's and Iome's Days followed at their backs.

“You look well,” Myrrima said. “In fact, you are glowing.” It was true.

Iome only smiled at the remark. In the past few days, Iome had invited Myrrima to dine with her at every meal, as if Myrrima were some woman born to the court. Myrrima felt odd and apprehensive about such behavior, as if she were merely pretending to be a gentleman's wife, though Iome seemed in every respect to be genuinely pleased by Myrrima's company.

Iome's Maid of Honor, Chemoise, had departed this week to an uncle's holding in the north. For six years, Iome and Chemoise had been constant companions. But now that Iome was married, she no longer required a Maid of Honor to constantly remain in her presence. Still, Myrrima wondered if Iome craved a woman's company. Certainly Iome had sought to befriend her easily enough.

Iome kissed Myrrima's cheek and smiled in greeting. “You look well, too. What is the excitement all about?”

“Big fish, I guess,” Myrrima said. “I think our lords and knights are all still boys at heart.”

“Indeed, our husbands are acting oddly today,” Iome said, and Myrrima merely laughed, for both of them had been married only four days past, and neither she nor Iome were used to speaking of “our husbands.”

In moments young King Orden knelt beside the moat, a dark-haired, blue-eyed young man squinting into the depths beside the pink water lilies. The Earth Warden Binnesman followed, wearing his wizard's robes in shades of scarlet and russet.

When Gaborn saw the fish, he stared in frank amazement,
then sat down on his haunches, watching the fish as they wheeled and dove.

“Water wizards?” Gaborn asked. “Here in the moat?”

“That's what it looks like,” Borenson said.

“What do you mean, ‘water wizards'?” Iome asked Gaborn. “They're fish.”

The Earth Warden Binnesman gave Iome a patient look as he stroked his grizzled beard. “Don't assume that one must be human to be a wizard. The Powers often favor beasts. Harts and foxes and bears often learn a few magical spells to help them hide in the woods or walk quietly. And these fish look as if they are quite powerful.”

Gaborn beamed at Iome. “You asked me just the other day if my father had brought any water wizards for our betrothal, and now Heredon surprises me with a few of its own.”

Iome grinned like a child and squeezed Myrrima's hand.