The Dark Ferryman (65 page)

Narskap did not think the Eladar’s positioning to be accidental. He was poised to give cover to the two warlords whether they knew he was there or not, and he had two full quivers with which to do so.

Quendius put his arrow to string and began to draw it back slowly and carefully. Narskap crouched, weighing his decision in his shattered mind, biting his lip until his mouth ran with blood to keep the howls back, the howls that always plagued him when he tried to reconcile one life within his body with another, always failing. His mouth filled with the coppery taste.

Quendius moved a foot to better brace himself, longbow ready. He stepped on a twig. Here, where little existed but shale and granite and dirt, a scrub pine had gamely pushed its way up and died, leaving a brittle reminder of its fight for life. The twig snapped with a sharp crack that echoed.

Nutmeg’s head came about with a cry, and Jeredon threw himself in front of her as he saw the archer standing in position. The arrow flew. Its ruby point sparkled in the graying day. She struggled against his hold to move him, too late, his weight too ponderous for her as the shaft hit home. It struck his broad chest, and Jeredon sank, blood spilling from his mouth as he fell. The arrow dug its way deeper as he gave a yowl of pain. He clawed at the shaft, and she wrapped her hands around his and they pulled it loose together, jerked it free as the thing itself squealed and keened, denied in its attempt to burrow its way through his heart and body. She picked up a rock and smashed it, smashed it as she would a viper, smashed it like a vicious
thing
until its ruby head was nothing but sparkling powder. A cloud leaked from it, dark and oily, a smear upon the day and sunlight until it dissipated.

“Nutmeg.”

She gathered him in, hopelessly trying with her embrace to quench the font of blood his chest had become. “Don’t talk, don’t move. Someone’ll find us. Someone will come. Don’t talk. Just breathe for me. Just keep breathing!”

“No use. I hear it calling for me. Home. Trevilara.” He managed to get one arm about her, curving her body to his. His voice came with agonized effort, gasping, wheezing. “I didn’t mean to leave you this way.”

“You’re not leaving me! I won’t have it.”

“There’s no other way. I’m bleeding inside, I can feel it.” His arm tightened around her. He pressed her tightly to him, and inhaled deeply of her scent, her hair, stilled her mouth with a small kiss that he broke away from, and his hands drifted down to her waist. A strange smile of wonder then passed across his face. “Why . . . Nutmeg,” he breathed. The light faded from his eyes, but not the smile, not the expression of joy and contentment overshadowing one of pain. She did not see it for long moments until she realized the blood had slowed, and she could not feel him moving against her. She pushed back to see what was wrong.

It was then she began to cry.

Quendius scrambled back with a muttered curse as both Bistel’s and Diort’s attention swung their way, but they could not see him or the fallen Eladar either, through the few shrubs that clung to the hillside, nor did they hear the small woman crying as if her heart would break, the clamor of the battle below filling the air. He heard it, and he would have taken her life, too, for destroying his arrow, but there would be time for that. He had at least one more shot he wanted to take before retreating to let his army do their bloody work. Moving downhill stealthily, he found a new pinnacle and knelt in place. Bistel had his hands full as Ravers swarmed. His horse kicked and tossed at least two aside to writhe on the gravel in their shattered carapaces. Diort hefted his hammer.

Narskap moved with him. He filled his hand with his dagger. Quendius straightened and lifted his bow.

Narskap sprang.
“Haviga aliora!”
he cried and plunged the dagger in the back, up under the rib, straight and deep to where his master’s heart lay.

QUENDIUS JERKED. The longbow fell from his hand, and the arrow clattered to the stone in front of him. He coughed and a fine red mist sprayed the air. He swept the arrow up and turned in one smooth move to bury it deep into Narskap. Narskap dropped on his back.

They looked into one another’s face. Quendius’ mouth drew to one side. “If I had a heart where Vaelinars have a heart, you would have succeeded. ” He screwed his arm around with a grunt and clawed at the dagger hilt. He pulled it free. “Alas for you, my hound, I have a heart where Galdarkans carry it. A little higher and to the center. Thanks to my mother. You, I fear, are not so lucky.” He watched as the arrow ate its way into Narskap’s emaciated body as his back arched and his heels drummed in agony. “Like all hounds, we knew the time would come when you would snap at me. Your teeth hurt.” He coughed and showed pain, but not pain enough. Death did not ride his face. Narskap stared up into flint-black eyes with no heart in them at all.

The arrow churned and ate until it stopped where the rock slab at Narskap’s back halted its progress. Quendius grabbed Narskap by the shoulder and pulled the arrow through with a wet, slurping noise accompanied by a Demon squeal of satisfaction. He dropped Narskap’s body slumped on the ground. He watched as blood pooled slowly.

Then Quendius nocked the arrow again and took his position. The fighting grew fierce as Bistel opened a wedge for Diort and the tall Galdarkan warlord stood at the tunnel’s opening and raised his war hammer Rakka,
earthmover
, to strike.

“Can’t have that,” Quendius said. He pulled the string taut.

Narskap felt Cerat as the Demon churned hotly inside of him. His mouth drew tautly to either side in a rictus of pain. He drew the strength of the arrow within him. He drew on Rakka, which he could feel nearby. He called on the small but bloodthirsty demon he’d imprisoned decades ago in the sword Quendius carried. He called them all back. All home, to him. To him. He waited to see what kind of death Cerat might bring him.

Nutmeg raised her head from Jeredon’s bloody chest. She stared with anger at the rocks above. She knew who had shot the arrow. She gently laid Jeredon’s still form down and pulled his short sword from its sheath. By branch and root, leaf and flower, she would take her vengeance or die trying. She climbed over a split boulder and through a handful of stunted pines, their needles gray green with dryness and sharp as sewing needles. She scrambled over a quartz-shot bit of stone that would normally catch her eye with its beauty, and a slide of gravel slipped under her boots, taking her with it in a hail of pebble and dust.

“Now, for the love of the Gods,” Bistel said to Diort. With a grunt, he twisted his sword to let a Raymy carcass fall from it, turned, and parried a razor-sharp pincer on his aryn staff. Bistane held the corridor a length away, a sword in each hand, afoot, and busy. Father and son and Galdarkan had carved their way up to this rocky gate and held it free. It would only stay that way for a breath or two, but they had cleared it. Raymy boiled inside, hesitating, their voices in low growls and piercing hisses, bottle-necked at the cavern’s exit.

Diort bunched his shoulders and swung his great war hammer upon the rock arch. The hammer hit with a noise like thunder, but he did not hear Rakka’s voice sound. Rock split at the impact, but the arch of the tunnel stayed in place. Diort wrapped his hands tightly about the handle to strike again, and he felt the absence. Rakka had gone. Where, he did not know. Died, disappeared, gone. The hammer had emptied of the Demon God. He put his head back and roared in disappointment.

In a curtain of gravel and dirt, Nutmeg slid under the hooves of Bistel’s immense warhorse. She let out a tiny squeal as she did, and Bistel stared down in amazement.

“Quendius,” she got out. “Arrows!”

Bistel dismounted in a leap and grabbed Diort by the shoulder, swinging him about. As he did, the air whistled and crimson blossomed deep in his left shoulder.

"Father!”

Bistel put a hand to his wound and the arrow. He looked to his son. Blood splattered his stark-white hair and sharply-chiseled face. A knowing expression passed through his blue-within-blue eyes.

“Get the warlord mounted and out of here.”

Bistane kicked a body out of the way to get to him. “My lord . . .”

“Do it.” He took Nutmeg by the elbow and hoisted her to her feet. In chopped strides, he pulled her over bodies strewn along the trail.

“Father!” Bistane had Diort mounted and stood at the reins of his own horse as it reared and danced among the blood.

“Son. Go.” He paused a moment longer, and then he tossed the aryn staff, its wood bitten and nicked with the blows it had parried.

Bistane caught it from the air. His face hardened. He threw himself on horseback and whipped both the horses with the staff, bolting from the scene.

Bistel turned back. He stumbled. His chest gurgled. He broke the arrow shaft. He looked down at Nutmeg and seemed to really see her for the first time. He touched her wet face. “This is far less safe than a library.” He pointed their way.

She could see the copse he led her to, and put her small weight under his shoulder to help him to the shelter. Behind them, the Raymy and Ravers quarreled among themselves over the carcasses of their own as they issued from the cavern, and the two of them were forgotten. He sank gratefully to the ground. He took off his helmet, let it drop, and lay down beside it, his snow-white hair glistening with sweat.

“Did you . . . find what you needed . . . at the library?”

“Not what I hoped.”

“And . . .” He paused to take a long, sucking breath. She could only wonder why the arrow had not eaten him inside out, but it mattered little. It had killed him anyway. “And what had you hoped for?”

“I wanted to find out if I could love a Vaelinar, and if he could love me back.”

“Ahhhh.” He touched her wet cheek again. “That is not . . . the sort of thing . . . we Vaelinar write in our books. We feel it, but we do not write it.” His chest bubbled and she could see his pulse throb in his neck, and his skin pale. “When this is all done,” and he turned his head, peering down the slope toward the river savannah where two armies melded to fight a third, “Ask Bistane to tell you about Verdayne.” He sucked in a breath. “I have something . . . I want you to take. It is a burden, a trust.” He licked his lips. “You can say no.”

“There is no one else here.”

He smiled thinly. “Bistane will come back for . . . me. But it is not something . . . I wish him to have . . . yet. You are honest. By the very stock of your blood, you are honest.” He gathered another breath, in great pain from the creases across his face. “Take the book from inside my mail, tucked in my shirt. Keep it. Give it to your sons to keep . . . until the day you feel it should be given. And to whom you would give it to.” His eyes of brilliant blues locked onto hers. She did not quite know what to answer.

“I will,” vowed Nutmeg. She unlaced his chain and found the book inside as he told her, wrapped in cloth that had become drenched with blood. She pushed the cloth aside to reveal a hand-sized journal.
Book of Ways
, it read. She tucked the book inside her bodice. “Until the day comes when I think it should be given.”

“Thank you.” Bistel managed a shallow breath and then shuddered. His body gave a terrible wrench as if it fought to hold on, and failed.

And then his form began to rise from the ground. Nutmeg stepped back, her eyes wide. He floated in the air; a silvery glow came over him, and he turned slowly. Tendrils of gold wavered about him, weaving, and his skin grew as translucent as the finest gossamer. It danced about him, weaving and caging, then wisping away as if a thousand small wings had covered him. Then, as quickly as it had come on him, the glow left and he dropped back to the beaten earth, dead.

She stayed with him until Bistane thundered back, to watch as the son lifted up his father’s body in his arms, and looked at her. His horse’s nostrils flared at the smell and the mount lifted his head warily.

“Thank you, milady Farbranch, for not leaving him alone.”

“He . . . it . . .” Nutmeg stammered and stopped. Then she found a word or two. “He glowed. It was beautiful. Gold and silver, all about him, and peace.”

Bistane studied her face. “Truly?”

“Truly.” She hugged her arms across her bosom, over the book, which still held the warmth of its previous carrier.

Solemnly, he strapped his father’s body to the spare horse, and gave her an arm up to ride in front of him, and took her down to the lines where warriors wept before going back to fight again.

Rivergrace found Sevryn. Or, rather, Sevryn found Rufus, grinding new edges on troubled blades, with Rivergrace perched nearby. He gathered her up and swung her around, murmuring, “Aderro,” into her neck, over and over. He finally let her feet touch ground again, but he did not let her go.

“You are mine,” he told her, “and no king or queen or kingdom will take me from you again.”

“ ’Bout time,” Rufus grunted. He held a dagger to a grindstone and pumped his legs again, turning it.

She smoothed his tawny hair from his face. “How goes it?”

“The only hope we had was Diort closing the tunnels, but the hammer failed. The Demon held within it is either gone or dead.” He kissed her softly again. “We may not leave here alive.”

“But we both know what lies beyond death.”

“Aye. It’s the dying that I don’t look forward to. The Raver are not gentle and the Raymy . . .” He stopped.

Grace looked at the sky, the sullen sky, always promising rain but never delivering. But the Ashenbrook held water. It had once fed this grassy plain, although the savannah now was dry as tinder. A thought struck her. “Take me to Lariel.”

“Rivergrace . . .”

“Take me to Lariel!”

He blew out a breath and took the newly sharpened dagger Rufus handed to him. The Bolger stood and wiped his hands on his apron. “Go with.”