Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands (68 page)
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Authors: David B. Coe
BOOK: Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands
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Fotir said nothing. An instant later, however, a wind began to rise, slowly at first, but building swiftly until the river waters grew turbulent and white, like the Western Sea during a storm. Shurik’s horse struggled against the gale and the rough waters, but the traitor continued to cross. Had the water been deeper it might have stopped him; as it was, Grinsa and Fotir were going to have as much trouble reaching him as Shurik was having fording the river.
“Can you add your magic to mine?” Fotir asked, his voice strained.
“Not without revealing to Shurik that one of us is a Weaver.”
By the time they came to the shallows, Shurik had managed to reach the far bank. The minister was watching them, the smile on his lips seeming to say that he knew he was beyond their reach. Fotir allowed his wind to die away, and Shurik’s grin broadened. After a moment he raised his sword, as if saluting them. Then he turned his horse from the river, and disappeared into Mertesse Forest.
“We might be able to catch him before he makes it to Castle Mertesse,” Fotir said.
“And what if we meet up with the rest of the Mertesse army?”
“You’re a Weaver!”
Grinsa looked back at him. “Are you serious?”
“I’m not suggesting we fight them. But certainly we could raise a mist to get away if we had to.”
“No,” the gleaner said, shaking his head. “Shurik won today. There’s nothing more we can do.”
He faced the river again, gazing at the line of trees beyond its waters. A part of him wanted to go after the man. He deserved to be punished, not only for his betrayal, but also for the role he had played in Tavis’s suffering. More than that, though, even without bolstering Fotir’s wind with his own magic, Grinsa had begun to wonder if the man knew somehow that he was a Weaver. He couldn’t stop thinking about the minister’s strange comment on the road leading to the castle, and the way Shurik looked at him during their brief silent exchange in the keep. In all likelihood, he was merely imagining things. As a Weaver, Grinsa lived in constant fear of having his true powers revealed, and in the past he had allowed such concerns to get the better of him. But in this case, the danger felt especially real. Shurik had already shown himself to be a cunning enemy. Armed with this knowledge, he would be a threat to Grinsa’s life, and perhaps to Keziah’s.
“I’ll find him eventually,” Grinsa said, his voice low. “I won’t even have to work very hard. I have a feeling that Shurik will be looking for me as well.”
X
aver and his father were still in Kentigern’s inner ward when Fotir and the gleaner returned to the castle. Xaver’s father was overseeing the gathering of the Curgh dead, not something he would usually have been anxious to let Xaver watch. But Hagan had not strayed more than a step or two from Xaver’s side since their reunion a short while before. It almost seemed to the boy that his father feared letting him out of his sight, lest they be separated again. In truth, Xaver was just as reluctant to leave Hagan.
aver and his father were still in Kentigern’s inner ward when Fotir and the gleaner returned to the castle. Xaver’s father was overseeing the gathering of the Curgh dead, not something he would usually have been anxious to let Xaver watch. But Hagan had not strayed more than a step or two from Xaver’s side since their reunion a short while before. It almost seemed to the boy that his father feared letting him out of his sight, lest they be separated again. In truth, Xaver was just as reluctant to leave Hagan.
He had already told his father much about their time in Kentigern, particularly about the last few days as they battled the Aneirans, and the swordmaster was eager to thank Fotir for all the minister had done to keep Xaver safe.
Before they could reach the Qirsi, however, the minister and Grinsa rode to where Aindreas stood. The two sorcerers dismounted and began talking to the duke and gesturing toward the gates.
“Impossible!” Xaver heard the duke say. Aindreas started to walk away from the Qirsi, shaking his head and saying, “I won’t listen to this.”
Grinsa followed him, speaking once more, though in a voice too low for Xaver to hear.
After a moment Aindreas whirled on the man, raising a finger as if in warning.
By this time Kearney had joined them, and a few seconds later Javan and the duchess did the same.
“Come, lad,” Hagan said, hurrying to the duke of Curgh’s side with Xaver close behind him.
“Is this some Curgh trick, Javan?” Aindreas demanded, his face crimson.
The duke stared at him, his expression blank. “Is what a trick?”
“This gleaner and your first minister are telling me that my first minister is a traitor, that he’s the one who weakened my gates.”
“Is it true?” Javan asked, facing Fotir.
“I believe so, my lord.”
Aindreas shook his head again. “It can’t be true. Shurik isn’t even a shaper.”
“That’s what he told you, Lord Kentigern,” Grinsa said. “But he might have been lying.”
“Or he might have been telling the truth,” Fotir added, “and working with a second traitor who is a shaper. Either way, the man has betrayed you. And now he’s crossed the river to Aneira.”
“What?” Javan said. “You saw him go?”
“Yes, my lord. Grinsa—” He hesitated, glancing briefly at the other Qirsi. “We both have had our suspicions about him and when we saw him leave the keep, we followed. He managed to get across the river before we could stop him.”
“There must be another explanation,” Aindreas said, beginning to pace. “I’ve known Shurik for nearly ten years. He’d never do this to me.”
“Have you noticed him behaving strangely?” Kearney asked.
“He’s Qirsi! Of course he behaved strangely!”
“More so than usual? Perhaps just before you left the castle to march against Curgh?”
Aindreas stopped in midstride, his eyes flying to the face of his swordmaster. “Demons and fire!” he whispered. “The day we left. When he claimed he’d been walking and that he was feeling ill. ‘Battle sickness,’ I called it. He was sweating and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days.”
Fotir glanced at the gleaner. “That’s how I’d look if I’d just come from weakening all those portcullises.”
The duke squeezed his eyes shut, as if his head were hurting. “Bian throw him to the fires.” He opened his eyes again, looking warily at Grinsa and the minister. “I swear I’ll never trust one of you people again.”
“We’re not all traitors,” Fotir said.
“Perhaps not, but it does seem to run in your blood.”
Fotir glared at the duke, but he kept his silence.
“There’s nothing more we can do,” Grinsa said. “He’s well into Mertesse Forest by now.”
Javan nodded. “Then we should return to what we were doing. I’d like to have some daylight by which to make camp, and we still have work to do here.”
The three dukes began to walk off in different directions once more, like warriors at a tournament returning to their corners of the field. Hagan turned to join Javan, but Xaver hesitated, watching Tavis follow Kearney. The young lord had washed the dried blood from his face, but he still moved stiffly, no doubt from the injury he had suffered earlier that day. He stared at the ground as he walked. No one said anything to him or walked with him. It almost seemed that he was of another world, that the others in the castle couldn’t see him.
The two of them hadn’t spoken since the last time Xaver saw his friend in Aindreas’s dungeon. Earlier in the day, when they were all standing in the center of the ward, Tavis barely even looked at him. Xaver wanted to go to him. A part of him felt that it was his duty to do so. In spite of all that had happened, he was still Tavis’s liege man. Yet something held him back. The distance between them felt greater now than it ever had before. He couldn’t begin to comprehend all that his friend had been through since Brienne’s death, nor could he guess at what the young lord was feeling now. The expression Tavis bore in his dark blue eyes made him look far older than his sixteen years, and the scars he carried had changed his face, making it severe where once it had been youthful and handsome. Had Xaver seen him on a farm lane, far from the walls of Kentigern or Curgh, he might not have recognized him. In a sense, with Tavis now under Glyndwr’s protection, they weren’t even of the same house anymore.
“You coming, Xaver?” his father called to him.
Xaver continued to watch his friend, unsure of what to do. Finally he turned to his father and shook his head. “I’ll be along soon,” he said.
Hagan’s eyes flicked toward Tavis for an instant, as if he had read Xaver’s thoughts. He nodded his consent.
Taking a breath, Xaver ran after Tavis, calling to him as he drew near.
The young lord stopped, but at first he didn’t turn. It almost seemed that he was trying to decide whether to speak with Xaver or flee.
Xaver halted a few steps from him. “If you want me to leave you alone, I will.”
He saw Tavis take a breath. “No,” the boy said, facing him at last. “I almost looked for you earlier. I’ve wanted to talk to you. I just …” He shrugged, then winced slightly, rubbing his side.
“You all right?”
“You mean this?” he asked, patting his side. “I’m fine.” He dropped his gaze. “I got lucky, Stinger. He would have killed me if he hadn’t fallen.”
Xaver shuddered, remembering his own first kill from the night the siege began. “You know what my father says. ‘I’d rather be a poor swordsman with luck than a good one without it.’”
Tavis smiled, though even then he looked sad. “A poor swordsman with luck,” he repeated. “That definitely was me today.”
“You should have seen me a few night ago,” Xaver said. “I was fighting like we used to when we were ten. If my father had been there he would have had me running the towers. Right then, in the middle of the siege.”
The smile lingered on Tavis’s face a few seconds longer, before fading like the last light of day. “How’s your arum?”
It took a moment. “It’s fine. I’d almost forgotten about it.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
Xaver racked his brain for something to say, but nothing came to him.
“I saw Brienne,” the young lord said, making Xaver shudder a second time. “I was in the Sanctuary of Bian on Pitch Night and she came to me.” He swallowed, and Xaver thought he saw a tear in the corner of Tavis’s eye. “She said I didn’t kill her, Xaver. She even showed me an image of the man who did.”
“I’m not surprised. I’ve believed you were innocent for a long time.”
“I wasn’t certain until I saw her. I wanted to be, but I kept thinking about what I did to you.”
Xaver didn’t want to talk about this at all. He had been telling the truth a moment before. He had managed to forget about it. But speaking of it was rekindling his anger and making his chest ache
again. It almost seemed that his forearm was beginning to throb once more.
again. It almost seemed that his forearm was beginning to throb once more.
“So what will you do now?” he asked. “Are you going to live in Glyndwr until her murderer is found?”
“That would mean living there forever. I have to go after him, Xaver. I have to find him.”
“You’re not serious.”
“No one else will. No one in Kentigern believes he exists, and I wouldn’t ask anyone in Curgh to do it for me. Besides, I’m the only person who knows what he looks like.”
“He’s an assassin, Tavis. Even assuming that you can find him, he’ll kill you the first chance he gets. And if he doesn’t, one of Kentigern’s assassins might. Kearney can’t protect you if you leave Glyndwr.”
“What’s my choice, Xaver? Living the rest of my life among people who think I’m a murderer, in exile from my family and the court of my ancestors?” He shook his head. “I’d rather be dead. At least this way I’ll be doing something.” He smiled, perhaps the first true smile Xaver had seen from him since they left their home to come to Kentigern. “I’m a Curgh, Stinger. Could you imagine my father living his life under another man’s protection? Could you imagine him living in the highlands, forty leagues from Curgh?”
Xaver had to grin as well. The fact was, he couldn’t imagine either Javan or Tavis doing anything but what his friend had in mind.
“You should at least take someone with you,” he said. “You can’t expect to do all this alone.”
“I don’t. I think Grinsa will be with me.”
“The gleaner?”
“Yes. I don’t understand all that he’s told me, but it seems that our lives are linked in some way. He’s had visions of this. He says it’s why he freed me from Aindreas’s dungeon.”
“So you trust him.”
“I suppose I do. He saved my life, at considerable risk to his own. I don’t have many people I can trust. There’s my parents, you and your father, Fotir, and the gleaner. None of the rest of you can come with me, and I don’t want to go after the assassin alone.”
“For what it’s worth,” Xaver said, “Fotir trusts him, too. He told your father that he couldn’t have chosen a better guardian for you.”
“I think that may be true.”
It seemed to Xaver that there was more to this than what Tavis was telling him, and he thought about pursuing the matter. Perhaps two turns ago he would have. But something in the young lord’s manner stopped him. For the first time, Xaver felt far younger than his friend. Perhaps it was the scars on his face, or the scars Xaver couldn’t see. Whatever the reason, he couldn’t help thinking that Tavis had earned the right to keep some things to himself.
“I haven’t told anyone else what I intend to do,” Tavis said. “Not even Grinsa, though I think he knows what I have in mind.”
Xaver nodded. “I understand. I won’t mention it until you’ve had a chance to speak with your mother and father.”
His friend smiled again, though the look in his eyes remained grave. “No, Stinger. You don’t understand. I’m not going to tell my parents, at least not for now. My father would think me a fool, and my mother would worry about me day and night.”
“Actually, I think you’re wrong about them. You said it yourself: your father would never sit idly in another man’s castle while the assassin who had ruined his life walked the Forelands, a free man. And though your mother might worry, she’d also understand. She doesn’t want you to be known as a murderer for the rest of your life any more than you do.”
Tavis gazed off to the side, as if considering this. “You may be right,” he said after some time. “Perhaps I will tell them eventually. But not yet, not until I’ve spoken with Grinsa.”
“And Kearney. You have to tell him.”
The young lord nodded. “I know.”
They lapsed into silence, both of them gazing around the ward, as if unwilling to look at each other. After several moments of this, Xaver made up his mind to leave his friend, at least for the day. Before he could say his goodbyes, however, the young lord surprised him.
“I’m going to miss you, Xaver. I already have. I know I never told you this back when we … before we left Curgh, but you’ve been a good friend. Better than I had any right to expect.”
He shook his head. “Tavis—”
“Let me finish. You’ve been far more than a liege man to me, though there have been too many times when I’ve treated you like a common servant.” He paused, taking a long breath. “But I think the time has come for me to release you from your oath.”
“We’ve already talked about this.”
“Yes, I know. But everything is different now. I’m not in line to be king anymore, or even duke. I’m no longer a lord of Curgh. A man in my position doesn’t need a liege man. And a man in your position shouldn’t be tied to a disgraced noble.”
Xaver knew he was right. He could hardly serve as Tavis’s liege man with the young lord living in Glyndwr or traveling the Forelands in search of Brienne’s killer. But while much had changed since the last time Tavis offered to release him from his oath, Xaver’s feelings about this had not. If anything, he felt less inclined to accept the offer this time than he had after the incident at Curgh. In spite of the humiliation and suffering Tavis had endured since then, or perhaps because of them, the young lord seemed more worthy of his service now than ever before. Standing with him in the middle of Kentigern Castle, Xaver saw little of the spoiled child who only two turns before drank himself into a stupor and came at him with a dagger. He did see a darkness in Tavis that frightened him, but he also saw a maturity that he had long hoped for, but had never truly expected. At last, this was the man he wanted to serve.
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