Season of Sacrifice (30 page)

People cried out in the cathedral, for they had heard Jobina’s accusation, and now they feared the beast that lurked within the sand. Alana braced herself for the horror, for the serpent in the cage to writhe its way into the cathedral. The Guardians, though, must have heard her silent prayer, for the Mothersnake did not escape. The sand flowed back from the far wall, kissing the top of the crystal enclosure, but the cage held.

Even as Alana realized that the Mothersnake was contained, chaos exploded around her. Women in the congregation screamed, and men bellowed. High Priest Zeketh shouted orders to his priests, exhorting them to seize the Sun-lord and the Sun-lady, whatever the cost. Bringham’s men fought to their lord’s side, brandishing swords against the treacherous priests. Coren hollered for his own men. Reade sobbed, calling for his da as if his heart would break, and Maida’s voice rose in a pitiful moan.

“Hold!”

The single word broke through the tempest like a ray of sunshine. Maddock moved to the foot of the dais, tall and fearless. Smoke from the incense-charred carpet rose around him, but he stood tall and true, with a naked sword glimmering in his hands. He thrust Maida toward Alana, and the woodsinger gathered the little girl against her hip, uncertain of Maddock’s intention.

“Hold!” the warrior repeated, and an edgy silence fell over everyone in the cathedral. “Coren. Bringham. Fight your own battles, with your own men, but let these children and women return to our home. Let us go.”

“My, my,” Coren said after a long moment. “If it isn’t the People’s coward, mewling on my steps.”

“Call me names, if that makes you feel more a man.” Maddock turned his sword so that it caught a beam of shimmering sunlight. He looked from Coren to Bringham and back again. “Let us go,” he repeated.

“And why should I do that, little man? One of you rebels already lies crushed upon the dais. Why should I just step aside and let you take our Sun-lord and Sun-lady?”

“Everyone now knows what you planned to do, Coren. If Bringham doesn’t cut you down for double-crossing him, your own men will turn against a child-killer. End the charade and let us go.”

“You believe that raving whore?” Coren gestured dismissively toward Jobina, who now stood gagged and broken at Donal’s side.

“I believe that you intended Reade and Maida to die.” Maddock glanced at Bringham, but he threw his words toward Coren. “You intended to betray your rival, Southglen. You and Zeketh meant to sacrifice the children, so that you could take their place. You wanted to live the old legends, to be Culain.”

“To be…You’re mad!” Coren cast his denial toward his rival. “We spent weeks working out this truce, Southglen. Why would I endanger that by harming the Sun-lord and the Sun-lady?”

Maddock answered before Bringham could reply. “You wanted all of Smithcourt for yourself, Coren. You wanted to sit on the Iron Throne yourself, whatever the cost to Maida and Reade, to two helpless children.”

“You lie!”

“Do I? Then fight me, Coren. Fight to prove that you walk with your Seven Gods on paths of justice.”

“Fight
you
?” Coren managed to coat the question in incredulity.

“Aye. Here and now. Single combat, with sword alone. If I win, we outlanders get free passage through Smithcourt’s gates, horses for all of us, and we ride home unhindered.”

“And when I win?”

“
If
you do, you’ll have the children, free and clear.”

Coren glared at Maddock for a long minute, as if he were trapped inside a cage. Before he answered, he turned to Bringham, measuring his rival’s hungry stare. “Southglen? What say you? If I rid us of this fool, will our own truce hold? Will you stand beside me as we present Smithcourt to the Sun-lord and the Sun-lady in this house of the Seven Gods?”

Bringham looked about the dais, staring first at Maddock, then at Alana. His intelligent eyes came to rest on the giant censer, on the bloody ruin that had been Landon. Slowly, he shook his head and turned his gaze on Zeketh before he said to Coren, “You work with the priest. I will not trust a man who just ordered my death. I will not trust a high priest who ordered his own men to slay me before his altar.”

“I was fooled by him as well!” Coren protested. “I thought he would work with
both
of us, that he would help us to build peace.”

“Words, Coren,” Bringham spat. “You think to seduce me with words.”

“Donal!” Coren shouted without hesitation. Coren kept his eyes on Bringham’s, steady and unwavering. “Take High Priest Zeketh into custody. Now!”

Donal did not hesitate. He barked orders to a dozen of his men, short sharp cries like a dog in the night. Moving with the same efficiency that he had harnessed against Jobina, against the People, against poor Maida back on the Headland of Slaughter, Donal ordered his men to surround High Priest Zeketh.

Zeketh bolted for the front of the dais, but Donal anticipated the move, snagging the priest’s flowing black robes and tripping him. Zeketh fell hard, his teeth catching his tongue. Blood flecked the large man’s lips as he struggled for breath, fought to regain his feet. “The Seven Gods will smite you! All of you will burn in endless fire!”

“In your company,” Donal growled. Two sharp jabs to Zeketh’s solar plexus cut off further imprecations.

A few of the other priests made as if to escape from the dais, but they were rapidly restrained by Donal’s men. “Very good, Donal,” Coren said when Zeketh was forced to his knees. “Gag him.” Donal followed suit. “Now give him to our brother Southglen.”

“My lord?”

“Hand the priest to Bringham.”

Donal complied without further protest, waiting until the somewhat-surprised Bringham had managed to pass the priest on to his own captain. Coren nodded when the transfer was complete. “Smithcourt has no room for those who would play traitor in the house of the Seven Gods.” Zeketh bellowed behind his gag, but he was restrained by the rough ministrations of Bringham’s men.

“There,” Coren said, when the priest was once again silent. He cocked his head toward Maddock, but he spoke to Bringham. “Are we agreed then? Shall I dispatch this miserable outlander so that we can return to the Sun-lord and Sun-lady’s Service?”

Bringham looked as if he wanted to refuse, but he clearly had no choice. Even if he doubted Coren’s loyalty, he could hardly argue with the speed with which Coren had handed over the conniving priest. Southglen sighed and stepped down from the dais, gesturing for his lieutenant to drag Zeketh from the fray.

“Very well, then,” Coren said, and he bowed stiffly to Maddock. “I accept your challenge, outland dog.”

Coren drew his sword for the first time since the confusion had begun, and he handed his rich, brocade cloak to Donal. He made a few passes with his weapon, as if he were getting the feel of its weight. The remaining priests cleared a circle for the two men, encouraged to step lively by Coren’s wary soldiers. Maddock moved away from Landon’s wrecked body, away from the Mothersnake’s glass cage and the charred carpet and all the horror that had already been wrought in this corrupted house of the Seven Gods.

Alana tucked Maida against her side, making sure that the girl could not see the bloody combat to come. She tried to shield Reade as well, but the boy would have none of her comfort. Instead, he twisted like a trout caught on a line, writhing away as if her touch burned him. She barely managed to keep him standing before her.

Reade leaned toward the two men, his eyes dark and distant. His small body tensed, and his throat began to vibrate with a single syllable. The sound was scarcely more than a whisper, but when Alana strained, she could make out one word, repeated over and over again. “Da. Da. Da…”

Meanwhile, the men circled each other like nervous cats, and the congregation caught its collective breath. Alana thought of all the times that she had watched Maddock practice his fighting forms, all the times that she had thought he was a foolish boy, a foolish man. Back on the Headland, back on the village green, she had not been able to imagine a time or a place where Maddock would need his sword skills. Snared by her memories, Alana was not prepared for the brutal clash as Maddock finally rushed at Coren.

Both men used their swords like deadly extensions of their arms, attacking each other with the flats of their blades. They scarcely rotated the weapons to take advantage of their sharpened edges as they crashed and parried, lunging and leaping back.

Coren drew first blood.

Maddock tried to block a blow, but he calculated the angle poorly. In an instant, Coren’s sword had slid down the tempered iron cross, rasping toward the outlander’s arm. Only by twisting away at the last instant did Maddock avoid losing a limb. As it was, Coren’s sharp edge caught him across his bicep, splitting the bright crimson fabric to bare flesh that soon glinted with its own bloody sheen.

Reade cried out at the blow. Sliced free by the sword’s brutal path, the boy’s emotions were as transparent as if he still wore his woodstar. Alana read terror and hatred, all stirred together with a confused love for Coren. The woodsinger wished again that she could reach Reade through his missing bavin, that she could make him stop rocking back and forth, stop crooning his single syllable over and over.

Even as she longed for Reade’s lost woodstar, though, Alana remembered that there was more at stake than a single child’s sanity. An entire kingdom hung in the balance. And Maddock wore a bavin, too. Maddock, who even now was bleeding from a cut above his eye, whose sword arm burned as if he’d been attacked by a devilfish. The woodsinger could sense those hurts and more, bruises and darts of pain.

Taking a deep breath, Alana dove back into her own bavin.

“Why haven’t you reached for us?” one of the distant woodsingers demanded.

“We’ve been waiting for you!”

“We wanted to help you!”

Alana thrust her thoughts at them. “What? What can you do?”

The woodsingers hovered, muttering wordless concern. That was the problem, Alana wanted to scream. That was why she hadn’t reached for her sisters before. They might miss her, they might fear for her, they might even love her, but they had no support to offer. Not now. Not across a desolate land. Not leagues and leagues from the Tree. Not while Maddock fought for his life.

Thrusting aside her hopeless disappointment, Alana threw her thoughts forward, along the shining thread of Maddock’s woodstar. She blazed her consciousness through to where the bavin pricked his chest, to where it nestled beneath his stolen uniform. The lacy wooden points were sharp against his skin, and they leaped with his heart as he failed to deflect a glancing blow from Coren’s heavy sword.

Not letting herself think, Alana absorbed the sudden pain, soaking up the agony before Maddock’s leg could register the blow. The warrior wasted a precious breath bracing himself for the jagged hurt, and he was so startled by his reprieve that he nearly stumbled.

Alana collected the pain in her own body, in her own mind, and then she thrust it back toward her sisters. For one timeless instant, she thought that they would fail her. She thought that they would not understand what she intended to do, what she needed to do, how she would save Maddock. Then, just as her throat wrapped itself around a bruising sob, she felt one woman reach out.

Sarira Woodsinger. The woman who had sung Alana’s father’s bavin, who had given her own life trying to bring him back to port…. Alana felt Sarira catch Maddock’s pain through the bavin, gather up the agony and store it away inside the Tree.

Then, before Alana could clear her mind, before she could settle herself to receive the next blow, she felt her sister woodsingers throw wordless thoughts across the bavin thread. Devotion. Faith. Support.

They knew what she was doing, they knew what she was asking, and they gave unstintingly of themselves. They took all the hurt and pain and fear from Maddock, all the agony that passed through Alana, and they fed it to the Tree, transforming it into strength and pride and sturdy, oaken love.

All of their efforts, though, were not enough. Even with the collective might and wisdom of the woodsingers, Alana could not harvest every one of Coren’s blows. Pain leaked through her grasp, weakening Maddock, distracting the People’s only hope. Alana choked back a sob as the flat of Coren’s blade landed across Maddock’s back—her back—and she almost lost her bond with the Tree.

Almost, but not quite. A voice sang to her across the land, quivering across the white bavin thread. “Fairsister!”

“Parina Woodsinger,” Alana gasped. She felt her ancient sister speak from the Tree’s very core.

“Prithee, fairsister, fade not your heartstrength now. Listen to the lostboy. Follow his guidesong.”

“Lostboy?” Alana barely had the strength to send the question as she gasped against the blinding pain.

“The huerboy. The hevvasinger.”

“Reade.”

“Aye. Listen to him. Let the hevvasinger guide ye. Let him hue ye in.”

Alana wanted to argue. She wanted to explain that Reade was only a child, a boy who had been lied to and fooled and used as a pawn. She wanted to explain that she was exhausted, that she was beaten, that she had no energy left for battle.

Instead, she remembered the time that she had first discovered the bavin’s white thread. She recalled giving herself over to Parina’s wisdom, descending into the Tree’s sap-heavy, liquid heart. She remembered that weight in her body; she recalled the drag on her thoughts. She felt herself pulled into the Tree’s core, into the People’s past, into the wisdom of Parina Woodsinger.

She heard Reade’s guttural cry, felt him call, beneath her fingers, through her flesh. His throat rasped across his one word, over and over, “Da, Da, Da.” Each heartbeat drove her deeper into the Tree, each breath pulled her mind closer to its core. She sensed Parina beside her, felt the weight of all the Tree’s rings, knew the wisdom of every word that every woodsinger had ever poured into the oak.

Da, Da, Da. Alana watched Reade presented to the Tree as an infant, cradled in his now-drowned father’s hands. She saw herself as well, nestled in her own father’s arms. She saw Maddock being offered up. She saw Jobina and Landon, and Teresa and Goody Glenna, generations more, all the People through the centuries.