Talus and the Frozen King (25 page)

'He became the frozen king.'

The words came readily. Talus let them pour out, relishing the sensation that his mouth was the mouth of a river and that the water gushing through it had come down from some high unknown peak, and that he was only its channel.

'The king had six sons. Like everyone else in Creyak, they were forced to live by his rules. The strictest rule of all was that no son could take a woman, not until he himself was king. It was hard for them all, but especially for the younger ones, who grew up knowing that, as long as their brothers remained alive, they might neither marry nor take the crown.

'Hashath worked hard to maintain the peace he had created on this island of Creyak. But still he had his enemies. Greatest among these was a man he had played with as a child. This man's name was Farrum. Unlike Hashath, who looked inwards, Farrum looked out, out into the world. Hashath was a man interested only in protecting his borders; Farrum, on the other hand, was a conqueror. Long after he was driven from his home, he was driven by a burning desire to return.

'To return to Creyak, and to make it his own.'

Talus wondered how Farrum would react to his words. With this last part, he'd strayed from truth to speculation. Although Mishina had told him about the feud between the two rival kings, Talus could only guess at Farrum's motivations.

The vivid scarlet flooding Farrum's scarred cheeks told him he'd guessed well.

'But Farrum needed to be clever,' Talus continued. 'He knew it is not enough simply to kill a king and take his kingdom. Invasions are violent, brutal things. They breed resentment and fear.

Sooner or later, those Farrum had conquered would fight back. No, victory did not mean defeating the people of Creyak. It meant winning them over. Farrum needed to do more than just kill a king.

He needed to control one.'

Farrum had had enough. He brandished his obsidian swathe high over the subdued Mishina.

'Are you finished prattling, bard?' he shouted. 'If you are, I'll save you the trouble of finishing your story and finish the shaman right here and now.'

'Stay your hand!' Talus roared. Every man in earshot flinched: Tharn and his men on the south side of the henge; Farrum's on the north; the small group of boatmen clustered round the sacrificial boulder; Farrum himself. And Bran and Lethriel too, of course, hiding behind the ridge of rock to his right. Talus was glad to see them alive and well.

He caught Bran's eye and winked, hoping the gesture carried more confidence than he felt.

For a long, held breath, Farrum held his black blade aloft. Talus waited. Finally, Farrum lowered his weapon. Some of the onlookers sighed. If Mishina was going to escape, this was his chance. Talus saw Bran watching the shaman, saw the surprise on his companion's face as he realised Mishina wasn't moving.

Talus wasn't surprised at all.

'I sense impatience,' he said, 'so I will bring my story swiftly to an end. So far, I have told you only truths you might have worked out for yourselves—if you did not know them already. The truth about Hashath's murder is different. It is hard to see. But see it I have.'

He paused. The snow shimmered and the stars revolved in the sky.

'There is a man among you,' he said. 'A man who, two nights ago, approached the king of Creyak from behind and drove a bonespike between his ribs, killing him within a breath or two. This man then dragged the king's body out into the arena and fled the scene.'

Tharn stepped forward between two of the henge's wind-ravaged pillars. Each of the wooden posts stood twice his height, yet somehow he seemed to dwarf them and everything around him. Talus had never seen a man look more hungry.

'But --' Talus raised one finger '-- the story is not quite as simple as that. No man commits murder without a reason. And no man kills a king unless he is insane, or unless something—or someone—gives him both the courage and the tools to do so.'

Talus tugged gently on the rope he was holding. Alayin stepped forward like a dutiful slave.

To the watching crowd, she would seem tethered by the neck, unable to escape. In reality, the rope lay in loose loops over her shoulders. Talus needed no knots to keep Farrum's daughter at his side.

Not when she'd joined him of her own free will.

'Are you ready?' he murmured.

'Just finish your tale, bard,' said Alayin. 'I will do what I must.'

She too was watching Farrum. The hate in her eyes saddened Talus. Truth cut deeper than any blade he knew. Yet he had no choice but to wield it.

'Our killer had a goal, you see,' Talus said. 'Something he wanted more than anything in this world—or in any other. Murdering the king was his first step along the path to that goal. But, to reach the end, he would have to do more. He would have to kill each of his five brothers, one after the other. Gantor, ever the loner, was easy. Sigathon's death, I suspect, happened more by fortune than planning. Because by now the whole plan was coming apart. Is that not right, Farrum?'

The old warlord glared at the bard. Wind ruffled his cloud of white hair. 'I don't know what you mean.'

'You do. Because you are the force that gave the killer the courage he needed to kill.'

Talus licked his lips. It was the bard's job to lead his audience down unknown paths. He'd done that well enough so far. But the sensation of control was just an illusion. At any moment the audience might look round and realise where they were.

When that happened, there was no telling what they might do.

'You, Farrum,' Talus repeated. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tharn take another step forward. 'But the courage you supplied was not enough. The killer also needed tools. They were supplied by another. By the man who lies in front of you, Farrum, and who you have no intention of killing at all. Stand up, Mishina, and tell your new king what you know, and what you did. Put aside your so-called spirits and show us what is real.'

Tharn beckoned Arak to his side. The young man came dutifully forward. He looked like a miniature version of his brother and king, except where Tharn stood immobile, Arak's body snapped with tiny tremors he seemed unable to control.

There was no sign of Fethan.

Farrum's blade had lowered again. Moving like a snake, Mishina wriggled out from beneath it. Once he was clear, he dropped lightly from the boulder and shook himself down. His painted face cracked with an expression that might have been anger or amusement—Talus couldn't tell which.

Then the shaman punched Farrum clean on the point of his jaw. The old man staggered back, but made no attempt to retaliate.

'Spit out your words, Talus!' Mishina shouted. 'You have come this far. Let us see how far you dare to go!'

The buzzing in Talus's head—which during his speech had dulled to a gentle drone—went completely away. He had no desire to speak again. The silence both inside himself and across the henge was too blissful. The sensation of peace wouldn't last; it never did. But for now, briefly, he savoured it. 'Very well.' He forced the words out. 'If you will no speak, I must. However strong the killer's urges might have been, he still needed a way to overcome the taboo of killing the king. You, Mishina, gave him that. You supplied him with the intoxicating greycaps he needed to take away his fears.'

Mishina laughed. 'Your thoughts are muddled, bard. You have still not told us why this killer did what he did.'

'Two reasons, one of which would lead to the other.'

Another laugh. 'As I said, you are a muddled man.'

Talus felt a prickle of irritation in the skin of his back. But he would not let this so-called magic man goad him.

'The first reason,' he said, 'was simply to take the place of king. You see, the killer was one of Hashath's sons.'

This was a truth Talus had lived with for some time. Not so most of the watching crowd.

Gasps and cries rose up on clouds of vapour. Flint weapons rang as their blades clashed together.

Talus raised his hand. 'The second reason was far stronger.'

'Stronger than the urge to become king?' said Mishina. 'What would a man desire more than that?'

Without prompting, Alayin took another step forward. Now, like Talus, she was poised right on the edge of the rocky crag. She spread her arms. The white of her bearskin shone in the moonlight.

'Me,' she said.

Bran had been listening hard to Talus's story. Much of what the bard said made sense—seemed obvious, actually. Bran wondered why he hadn't worked it out for himself. Right from the start he'd been suspicious of Mishina, but he'd put those feelings down to his general mistrust of shamans.

Bran had never needed magic men. His own relationship with the spirit world had always been a personal one: just him and the sea-guardian Mir, out on the waves together.

Until Keyli had died; after that he'd turned his back on Mir for good.

Yet, even though Talus had explained Mishina's role in what now appeared to be not just a single killing but a complex plot, Bran still didn't know who the killer was. Until the massacre at the totem pit, he'd been convinced it was Sigathon. But now ...

'Tharn won't be able to hold himself back much longer,' said Lethriel. She'd risen to a crouch.

'I should go to him.'

Bran pulled her down. 'Are you crazy? Do you really want to throw yourself into the middle of all this?'

She looked at him with tears in her eyes. 'I'm already in the middle of it.' But she stayed all the same.

Up on the wolf's-head crag, Talus was speaking again:

'Alayin speaks the truth. With all his brothers dead, the killer would become king. More importantly, he would be free to take the hand of the woman who stands beside me: Alayin, daughter of Farrum, king of Sleeth. However, Alayin was more than just a prize.'

'What are you saying, bard?' Tharn's voice exploded like thunder across the crater. Lethriel flinched.

Talus stared across the henge directly at Bran. Last time their eyes had met, the bard had winked. Now he just looked tired and sad.

'Alayin was a reward,' he said. 'Enough!' came a voice from somewhere to Bran's right. Bran looked that way just in time to see a man step out of the shadows beside a henge-post so contorted by wind and weather that it was more holes than wood. The man was unusually tall.

Cabarrath's long furs were wet with blood. The axe he carried dripped a red trail in the snow. His brow hung low over his eyes, which were lost in darkness.

'You say what you say, bard,' said Cabarrath, 'but how do we know your words are true? You are a teller-of-tales, after all. How do we know this is not just another of your stories?' He stopped, his body rigid but for the hand that held the axe, which was shaking. Blood splattered from the edge of its stone blade.

'Because I look with my eyes,' Talus replied. He seemed unperturbed by Cabarrath's unexpected arrival.

Cabarrath looked across the henge to where Tharn was standing. Arak stood close at the side of his brother and king. Like Cabarrath's, his axe was trembling.

Tharn nodded, once.

'And what do your eyes see, bard?' said Cabarrath.

'When he was stabbed,' said Talus, 'Hashath managed to scratch his attacker's face.'

Tharn made a strange barking sound. 'You can you know this? You were not there!'

'I found flakes of mud under the dead king's fingernails when I examined him in the cairn.

Whoever killed the king did so with his face hidden under a coat of paint.'

'Mishina!' Tharn bellowed. He advanced between the wooden pillars and entered the clear ground inside the henge. His axe swung.

After a breath, Arak scurried after him. Cabarrath held his ground, but his grip tightened on the handle of his axe. Bran raised his hand to touch the bump on the back of his head. Had Cabarrath noticed him hiding here with Lethriel? He hoped not.

Following their king, the Creyak warriors moved forward. Somewhere in the Creyak lines, a drum began to beat, then another. A low humming echoed across the henge, rising and falling in pitch as spears thudded on the snow-covered ground.

On the opposite side of the henge, Farrum's men raised their stone weapons in response.

Unlike their enemy, they made no sound. Somehow their silence was more threatening.

Talus opened his arms. Wind gusted through his motley robes, opening them like wings.

'Stop!' he cried.

Incredibly, everyone stopped. If Bran hadn't seen it for himself, he wouldn't have believed it: this scrawny bald man in his tattered collection of skins holding sway over two armies that were ready to tear each other to pieces. How did he do it?

'Mishina is a man of many colours,' Talus went on. 'Enter his house and you will see them all, as I did. Blue, yellow, white, black ... but nowhere in the home of the shaman did I see the colour of the paint I found under the fingernails of the king.'

Tharn and Cabarrath shared another inscrutable look. Between and around them, the entire henge was silent.

'What colour was it?' said Tharn.

'Red,' said Talus, and Bran knew instantly who the killer was. From the look in Tharn's eyes, it was obvious Creyak's new king did too. Cabarrath's expression was impossible to read, because already he'd turned his face away and started marching across the henge towards the spot where Tharn and Arak were standing.

Farrum moved his hands, sending a signal to his army. Six of his warriors broke from the horde to join him and Mishina at the sacrificial boulder.

'Explain!' Cabarrrath roared at Talus as he walked towards his brothers. His long legs ate up the ground. He raised his axe, spraying more blood through the air. 'Do not start another of your games.'

'Oh,' said Talus, 'I'm afraid that a game is exactly where this does start. A game for two opponents that uses coloured stones: some black, some red. The opponents wear the colour of whichever stones they take as their own.' Cabarrath halted halfway across the henge. 'I know this game,' he said slowly. 'It is played by Sigathon and Arak. Sigathon always wears black. And Arak ...'

Tharn had stepped back into the shadow of the nearest pillar. Now he was a dark, menacing shape looming over Arak. Only the tip of Tharn's stone axe was in the moonlight. It seemed to burn with cold blue fire.