The Charnel Prince (28 page)

With a cold shock, she suddenly understood how well it all fit. Only her mother and Erren had known that she had been sent to the coven Saint Cer. And perhaps, as her mother’s bodyguard, Sir Neil. That would mean Roderick wasn’t her betrayer. Not that she had ever really believed that, but . . .

Cazio observed the change in her eyes and nodded soberly. “Yes, you see? It is all too suspicious. Just as I finally find us passage on a ship, along he comes.”

“It— Mother trusted him.”

“But you don’t,” he said. “Not now that you’ve thought about it.”

“Not now that you’ve put the idea in my head,” she said miserably.

She noticed that the little woman was gone. Neil now stood by himself, trying to appear uninterested in their conversation. For all she knew, he was fluent in Vitellian.

“Go find Austra,” she whispered. “And z’Acatto. All of you go to the ship. I will follow in a short while.”

“Why not go with me?”

“Because he’ll insist on going. Even if he is who he says he is, and he is true to my mother’s service, he won’t let me that far from his sight now that he’s found me.”

“But he may murder you the moment I am gone.”

That was true.

“Ospero,” she said. “Do you think he will help?”

Cazio nodded. “He’s still just outside. I’ll tell him to watch you,” he said.

She nodded. Then they returned to the street.

“Cazio’s going to get the others,” Anne told Neil. “I’m going upstairs to pack my things. Would you keep watch here?”

“I will,” Neil said. He looked wary. “Is there something I should know?”

“Not at the moment.”

He nodded. When she went up the stairs, she was relieved that he did not follow.

She did feel a pang of guilt. If he was telling the truth, Sir Neil had come a long, hard way to find her, and she was betraying him.

But she could not take the risk, not when she knew him so little. If she was wrong, he could return home the way he had come, and she would apologize.

She would apologize a great deal.

“HE LOOKED FINE WHEN HE WENT into the fane, and he didn’t look hurt when he walked out. Wasn’t until he left the mound that he collapsed.”

“Still—”

“Winna.” He tried to keep his voice gentle, but he felt the harshness creeping into it, like a burr caught in his throat.

He sighed. “Winna, I’m a holter. I know nothing of fanes or saints or shinecraft. That was Stephen. All I know is how to track things, find things, and kill things. That’s what I’m supposed to do. That’s what I will do.”

“That’s what the praifec ordered you to do,” Winna said. “But it’s not like you to be so obedient.”

“He’s destroying my forest, Winn. And I’ll tell you, if I do know anything about greffyns and utins and evil fanes and what’s happened to Stephen, it’s this—things like this didn’t happen before the Briar King stopped being a boygshin story and started walkin’ around. When I stop him walkin’ around, I reckon everything will go back to the way it was.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then I’ll find whoever built that shrine and kill them, too.”

“I know you, Asp,” Winna said. “You aren’t made of death.”

“Maybe not,” he said, “but she follows me close.” He put his head down then raised it back up. “Winna, here’s what we’ll do. You and Ehawk, you go back to Eslen. Tell the praifec what we saw here, and what Stephen said about it. I’m going on.”

Winna snorted. “Not likely. You’re going to drag poor Stephen around this forest by yourself?”

“He’ll stay on Angel. Maunt this—I almost lost you to the utin. I’ve had Black Marys about it ever since. I can’t think straight, not really, not with you in danger.”

“There’s only one arrow, you know. When we meet him, there’s nothing anyone can do but me, and I’ll do that best without any distractions. And you’re right—Stephen thought there was something about that fane that needed dealing with. None of us kann enough to know what to do, and if we all find our ends out here, the praifec will never know what we’ve learned.”

Winna’s lips compressed. “No,” she said. “That doesn’t make nearly the sense you think it does. You think you can do everything by yourself? You think the rest of us do nothing but drag you down? Well, you were by yourself when you came stumbling down to the monastery d’Ef, weren’t you? If Stephen hadn’t found you, you’d have died. If he hadn’t stood for you against the other monks, you’d have died. How are you going to feed yourself? If you leave Stephen to hunt, something will come gnaw on him.”

“Winn—”

“
Stop it
.
I made the same promise to the praifec that you did. You think I have no stake in this? My father lives in the King’s Forest, Asp—at least I pray saints he still lives. Ehawk’s people live out here, too. So you’re just going to have to live with your fear for me. I can’t fight like you, and I don’t have Stephen’s knowledge, but if there’s one thing I’m good for, it’s to make you more cautious than you would be normally. That’s how I’ve saved your life, and don’t deny it, you big stupid banf.”

Aspar regarded her for a moment. “I’m the leader of the expedition. You’ll do what I say.”

Her face went cold. “Is that how it is?”

“Yah. This is the last time you go against me, Winn. Someone has to be in charge, and that’s me. I can’t spend every moment arguing with you.”

Her face relaxed a bit. “But we’re all staying together.”

“For now. If I change my mind again, that’s the way it will be, understand?”

Her face hardened again, and he felt a little wind suck out of him. “Yah,” she said at last.

The next morning the sky pulled on a gray hood of clouds, and the air was as wintry as Winna’s mood. They moved almost silently, save for the snorting of the horses and wet plod of their hooves on the leaves. More than ever, Aspar felt the sickness of the forest, down in his bones.

Or maybe it was arthritis.

They found the trail of black thorns and followed it into the Foxing Marshes, where the ancient yellow stone of the Lean Gable Hills broke into steps for a giant to walk down to the Warlock. For normal-size folks like Aspar and his companions, the steps were a little more difficult to negotiate—they had to hunt for the places where rinns had cut their way and then gone dry. Where the thorns hadn’t choked everything, the land was still green with ferns and horsetails that grew almost as high as the heads of the horses. Leaves from hickory and witaec drifted as constantly as a soft rain.

And it was quiet as if the earth were holding its breath, which kept Aspar’s spine crawling.

As always, he felt bad for being hard with Winna, which irritated him in its own turn. He’d spent most of his years doing exactly what he wanted, the way he wanted, without any leave from much of anyone. Now a smooth-handed praifec and a girl half his age had him dancing like a trained bear.

Sceat
, Winna thought he was tame now, didn’t she? But how could she understand what he was, at her age? She couldn’t, despite the fact that she somehow seemed to.

“The Sefry came this way,” Ehawk said softly, interrupting Aspar’s quiet fume. He looked down to where the Wattau’s chin was pointing.

“That’s awfully clear sign,” he muttered. “Is that the first you’ve seen of ‘im?”

“Yah,” Ehawk allowed.

“Me, too.” Of course he’d been so busy thinking about Winna, he’d missed even that.

“Looks like he’s trying to lead us off again,” Ehawk said.

“South.” Aspar nodded. “He figured we’d come this way, following the thorns, and now he’s left a roadsign.” He scratched his chin. Then he glanced at Winna. “Well?” he asked.

“Well, what?” she retorted. “You’re the leader of this expedition, remember?”

“Just checking to see that you do,” he grumbled back. He studied the lay of the land. South was upcountry again, a stretch of ground he knew pretty well, and he had a feeling he knew where the Sefry was going.

“You two backtrack to the clearing we passed at noon,” he said. “I’m going to follow this trail a bit. If I’m not back by morning, then I’m probably not coming back.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Winna asked.

Aspar shrugged.

“What do we do if you don’t come back?”

“What we discussed earlier. Head back to Eslen. And before you start thinking it, the reason I’m going alone is because I can move more quietly that way, and not for any other reason.”

“I wasn’t arguing,” Winna said.

His heart dropped a little, but at the same time, he felt a bit of satisfaction. “Well, then. That’s good,” he said.

If Ogre resented climbing back up the hills he’d just come down, he didn’t let on, ascending without the slightest whicker to the high-canopied forest of oak. By the time they came to the relatively flat tableland, Aspar was certain where the trail was headed and quit following it, in case some unpleasant surprise had been left in his path. Instead he circled around so as to approach the place from another direction.

The sun was slanting hard and orange through the trees when he heard voices. He dismounted, left Ogre near a stream, and crept closer on foot.

What he found wasn’t really a surprise, but he still wasn’t fully prepared for it.

The place was called Albraeth by those few who still called it anything. It was a cone-shaped mound of earth, bare save for a few struggling, yellowish weeds and a single gnarled tree, a naubagm with bark like black scales and leaves like drooping, serrated knives.

Some of the branches dipped low, and the rotting remains of rope still clung to some, though it had been years since the king’s law had forbidden their use. It was here that criminals had once been hanged in sacrifice to Grim the Raver. It was here that Aspar had been born, on that sickly grass, below a fresh noose. Here his mother had died.

The Church had worked to end those sacrifices. Now they were busy with their own.

A perimeter of wooden beams had been planted in the ground around the mound, each about four kingsyards high, and to each beam a man or woman had been nailed, with their hands above their heads and their feet pulled straight down. Aspar could see the blood leaking from the holes in their wrists and ankles, but there was plenty more blood to see.

They had been cut open, each of them, and their entrails pulled out and arranged in deliberate designs. Some were still being arranged, and those who were doing so wore the robes of the Church. He wasn’t certain what order. Stephen would know.

He counted six of them. He had twice that many arrows. Mouth tight, he pulled out the first, considering how to go about what had to be done.

He was still working that out when a greffyn paced out from behind the mound.

It was smaller than the one that had almost killed him, its scales darker and sheened with green, but there was no mistaking its hawk-like beak and the sinuous, catlike play of its muscles. He could feel its presence, even at this distance, like heat on his face, and he felt a wave of dizziness.

The touch of the beast—even its glance—was deadly poison. That he knew from hard experience, and from the corpses of its cousin’s victims. So poisonous, in fact, that even those who touched the corpses contracted gangrene, and most died. Even maggots and carrion-eaters would not touch a greffyn’s kills.

But the monks weren’t dying. They didn’t even seem concerned. And to his astonishment, one even reached out to stroke it as it walked by.

He took a deep breath, trying to sort that out, wishing Stephen were with him. He would recall some ancient tome or legend that would force this all to make sense.

Six monks would be hard to kill, especially if they were of the order of Mamres. Six monks and a greffyn would be impossible—unless he used the arrow again.

But that one was meant for the Briar King.

First one, and then all the monks suddenly straightened from their tasks and looked to the east, as if they had all heard the same secret call. Their hands went to their swords, and Aspar tensed, realizing that he would have to run from this and find help.

But then he understood that they hadn’t found him out at all, that something else had their attention. He could hear it now, a distant howling, like dogs yet unlike dogs, terribly familiar and utterly alien.

Grim.

He remembered when he’d first met Stephen, they’d been on the King’s Road when they’d heard howling off in the distance. Aspar had recognized them as the hounds of Sir Symon Rookswald, but he’d fed the boy’s fear, told him it was Grim and his host, the hounds that carried off the damned souls who haunted the King’s Forest. He’d put a good scare in the lad.

Now he found his own heart beating faster. Had they summoned Haergrim? Had they summoned the Raver?

The howling grew louder, and there was a rushing through the leaves. He realized his hand was shaking, and felt a momentary anger at his own weakness. But if the hidden world was waking, why not Grim? Grim the heafroa, the one-eyed god, the lord of the birsirks, the bloody wrath, as mad as any ancient, pagan god could be.