The Gate of Bones (2 page)

Another man stirred in the gatehouse. “What if we've misjudged?”

“I do not think we have. We know of the laziness of these invaders and the outlaws they have gathered to them. We know the other villages they have hit, just as the harvests have been laid down for store. Shall we wait for the Holy One to return as Warlord, or protect ourselves with the skill he passed down to us? I vote we fight.” The chieftain's attention returned to rest on the questioner. “Nervous or eager, Flameg?”

“Both. Waiting is never easy.” Flameg shifted his burly frame, and wood creaked under him as he moved. He stilled immediately. They had wanted to draw no attention. No one knew they waited. No one knew a snare had been laid. His hand brushed across his longbow.

“Do not even think it.” Mantor traded looks with his head guardsman.

“No.” Flameg nodded. “I will think it, but not act it. The council has agreed with your guidance, and for that matter so do I, but—” He had no time to finish his sentence. A call sounded from the gatewalk, and even that could barely be heard over the low rumble, the sound of hoofbeats approaching.

Many hoofbeats.

The group got to their feet. Trader Renart had said little, his wiry frame wrapped in a tartan cloak against the chill of the autumn night, his hair in a mouse's nest of disarray, his eyes still sleepy from a hastily caught nap. He was not a fighter, not like the chieftain and Flameg or even the chieftain's heir and daughter, Pyra. His tattoo marks sprinkled the backs of his hand and his clever fingers, like a craftsman. Once he was back in the graces of his guild, and far in the future when he became a master trader, he'd gain a single dot at his temple, to indicate his knowledge and experience. Flameg's markings were across his powerful shoulders, not to be seen unless he took off his tunic. Renart flexed his hands now. He wondered again if he should have regretted it, those first tentative trades, especially with the second group, who his keen senses soon told him were vastly different from the first people he'd met. Yet he'd not hesitated to barter and trade with them. Not until they'd caught and tortured him. They were mortal enemies, these Magickers and Dark Hand, and it had been his ill luck to discover them both.

Did they bring war with them, war such as only the Warlord had once fought? His far-flung kingdom now lived in peace, in cities and villages across the lands, ruled only by councils which took the Warlord's words from the writings of his time, and from the words and visions of his Holy Spirit now. Even the Warlord's fortresses were now little more than dry, rotting piles of wood, barely more than a wall here, a guard tower there. He was neither a warrior or a counselor who heard the spirit, but he was a trader and scribe. So, as the others prepared, he reached out to Pyra.

He took the paper and ink from Pyra, and the leather pouch she tossed to him, as she drew her curved cutlass to join her father. Trying not to show the tremor that ran through him, he stowed the writing instruments and implements, and then slung the pouch over his shoulder. The rumbling thunder grew louder until it broke into hoofbeats. Unmistakably, it roared into the noise of horsemen charging down the valley toward Avenha's gates.

Mantor gave a quick nod and a grunt of satisfaction. “They come. Now the trap awaits.” He crooked a finger. “Follow me.”

Orange flame trailed down the hill as the riders swept through the night, torches in the hands of the outriders. Renart held his breath. He had heard the tales, and hoped them exaggerations, but he knew now they were not. He turned his gaze away. He had not brought them to his world, but had he helped them thrive? Barely more than three dozen at first, they'd attracted the lazy and outlawed who would rather steal than work themselves. He looked at a charge of nearly fifty riders, and it took his breath away.

In a cloud of smoke and dust and chaff from the newly shorn fields, the raiders swept up to the barred gates, barely slowing. Riders at the front threw up gloved hands. Crystal gems grasped in their palms caught the gleaming light of the Hunter's Moon and threw it back at the wooden gates. Gemstones flared, emitting great bolts of power. Lightning cracked, and the air stank of scorched wood as the gates exploded into fiery splinters.

Above and to the side, the chieftain's gatewalk trembled, and Mantor cursed under his breath. Renart looked quickly at him. Had he thought the gates would hold against sorcery? His guardsman caught the chieftain's elbow. “Now?”

Mantor shook his head. At his flank, Pyra's face paled, but she kept her stance at the ready. “Not yet,” Mantor answered quietly. “Not yet.”

Renart kept his balance, his strange shoes gripping the narrow wooden gatewalk with ease, but he hardly noticed. Below, riders swept into the town, hammering down doors and heading with precision toward the longhouses where the food stores were kept. It made him ill to watch. Despite the carefully laid plans of the chieftain, a door was suddenly flung open and a shouting man ran out. He brandished his scythe, sharp and hooked, and his square body blocked the narrow street. Then he sank with a cry of pain, an arrow buried in his thigh, and the raiders rode over him without a second thought.

“Stubborn man,” grunted Mantor. “He wouldn't leave and let me handle these raiders. They'll pay for that, even so.”

Pyra let out a muffled sound. Renart watched her put her wrist to her mouth, stifling her emotion. Chieftains had to be made of stern stuff. Her free hand tightened about her cutlass, her wrist like a mask over the expression on her face. Renart thought for a fleeting moment he'd never seen anyone more fierce or beautiful.

“It won't work,” said Flameg.

“We shall see.” Mantor pulled his own longbow off his shoulder and nocked a wicked-looking black arrow. His body blocked them all into the shadows of the gatehouse. His dark eyes narrowed as he looked down into the village that was the trust of his guardianship.

Renart found himself breathing again, shallow, quiet inhalations. The raiders raced to a storehouse and, with shouts and gestures, surrounded it. Six men dismounted and gathered up a battering ram, taking aim at the stout double doors. Wood groaned and then cracked, but stood up to the assault.

“Enough!” A woman's voice split the air. Curbing her mount with a strong pull on the reins, she kneed the others aside and raised her gloved hand. In it, the crystal gleamed. A ray of power blazed from it, her horse rearing under her in fright, as the warehouse door shattered. She pivoted her horse around, her great skirts swirling about her and covering the animal. With a look of disdain, she lifted her hand, and again Lightning swept out of her palm. The remains of the door blew apart in splinters that caught fire and drifted through the air in orange curls.

“We can't fight blades against Lightning fire.”

“Not this way, no.” Mantor lowered his longbow. He pulled back into the shadows even farther, drawing all of them with him. “Take Pyra and go, Flameg.”

“Chieftain—”

“There is nothing you can do here, now, tonight. Take her and go.”

The guardsman's mouth clamped shut, his lips thinning in protest, but he lowered his head and then made a fist of obedience, bringing it to his shoulder. Pyra threw a kiss at her father, before scampering after Flameg as he swung down from the gatewalk and the two disappeared. Renart tried to watch her leave, but the hidden gate worked all too well, and she was gone without a trace.

Mantor hissed.

Shouts of anger rose, and the warehouse shook as the horsemen pounded inside and . . . and discovered the structure was empty. Torches dipped and flared, and wood crackled up into reluctant, smoky flame, for the wood had been green, on purpose. Eventually, it would burn, but slowly.

Mantor had left them an empty village to ransack. Only a few stubborn old men had refused to go, and one of them now lay dead in the street. The chieftain ground his teeth angrily. Renart heard him murmur something to the Warlord under his breath.

In fury, the raiders bashed down stores, homes, guild houses, the other two empty storehouses, and burned all they could, looting what few goods had been left behind. They destroyed everything they touched.

Empty, Avenha had been, but not unlivable. Now, it was. Renart sighed, then choked as smoke filled his nostrils, his throat. His eyes watered fiercely. With screams of hatred and anger, the horsemen swept back to the gate, and milled about, shaking their hands and throwing the last of their torches on the broken walls of Avenha. Then, with the horses crying in pain as spurs and whips lashed their sides, the raiders thundered back into the night.

They waited until only the noise of the fire could be heard, then Mantor stirred. He swung down from the gatewalk, and held up his hand to help Renart.

Once outside, trotting across a newly harvested field, heading for the hillside caves where he had sent his people, Mantor said, “You were right. They're unstoppable, this Dark Hand. You were also right about how we must fight them.” Under the Hunter's Moon, Chieftain Mantor halted and put his hand on Renart's shoulder. The trader suppressed a shiver, suddenly realizing just why the chieftain had brought him to Avenha that night.

“Send for the Magickers.”

M
ORE USED TO RIDING in a caravan than on a horse, Renart took the night road cautiously, following a ribbon of trampled and rutted dirt that seemed ominously dark despite the Hunter's Moon at his back. He needed speed, but riding at night called for caution lest he lame or lose the horse altogether and be stranded on foot. On foot, he would never get to the Magickers before the cold of the mountain passes got to him.

He wondered if his suspension would get worse for seeking them out again, without his guild's direction. But then, how could it? The chieftain had sent him, and who would argue with Mantor, a leader of Avenha as well as a councillor of the Holy Spirit? If one who followed the Warlord in all ways of his life told him to do something, Renart was bound by the laws of the land to do it.

If it brought him trouble this time, he'd bear it. Or perhaps he would become a wanderer, one of those itinerant workers who always seemed unwelcome wherever they traveled, beyond laws and civilization. He didn't think the wanderers had a good peddler among their groups; he could probably teach them quite a bit and learn a bit himself. He could travel again, then, something his ink-stained hands and mind longed to do. Being a clerk for the warehouses was
not
what he had in mind when someone said “Trader.” Not in the least.

Then again, he was traveling, his saddle-sore legs reminded him, and riding on a very dark road. The only good thing about it was that he could tell it clearly led away from the direction in which the raiders had ridden. Renart murmured a word of thanks to the Warlord's Holy Spirit for that happiness. He had no idea if the spirit of that long-ago warrior heard him or not, but the lands had lived long and in prosperity after his death, due to the strength of the Spirit he left behind to keep it so. The councils prayed to him and received answers, or so they claimed, and they also had written volumes well stocked in libraries everywhere of the sage advice the Warlord had given while he was still alive. Yet, even the old Warlord had been quiet about this latest menace in his countries. Did he sleep? And if he did, would what Renart was about to undertake wake him?

The countries he would leave behind him, the Warlord had explained, were like a chain of clasped hands, an impenetrable wall of spirit and knowledge that could hold back any foe . . . as long as it remembered it was a chain composed of many and acting for the good of many but never at the expense of a few unless so willed and offered in sacrifice. Simple enough. It had kept them safe for centuries, once the living Warlord had turned back the enemies from across the great sea. It was said it was not only his might that had turned back those enemies, but a massive plague, and many worried that those times could return. Yet the Spirit of the Warlord seemed to keep them safe.

Now, Renart wondered, how the Warlord's words would stand against these strange enemies from much, much farther away than that. With thoughts weighing heavily on his mind and his eyelids, he traveled the dark road slowly into the night, finding no answer and only the immediate danger of being a fool alone on this journey. He hoped morning would find him safe and well along his way.

As the night's darkness thinned and even the light of the moon paled before the dawn, Renart swung down off his horse, and found a good place to pasture it for a bit of rest and grazing. He squatted in the damp grass and debated on making a fire for warmth, but the thought of night raiders still about made up his mind for him. Why take chances?

He stretched gingerly, feeling muscles protest being on horseback for so long, and the scarred welts from his torture also protested, although with far less pain than he'd ever hoped. It was something he tried not to think about, knowing that he could have been beaten far worse than he was, and that the healing ointment applied by Tomaz Crowfeather's deft hands could have helped far less than it did. That Magicker was an elder, one with a great sense for the land and its beasts, and had a presence about him that had reassured Renart from the first time he'd spied him. Tomaz had remarked at the time, that the beating was not too bad, and that Renart was lucky. The Dark Hand had ways of knowing whether he spoke truth or not, in answer to their questions, and if he held back. They must have decided early on that Renart knew little.

And so he had, then. The questions Isabella and the quietly menacing Jonnard had put to him, between blows, made no sense. Were there other Gates? How often was the Gate opened? Who came through? How had Haven gathered people? And more . . . more that, despite the beatings, he could never have answered. They'd finally thrown him out on the road in disgust, where he'd made it back to his little peddler's cart, crawled onto it, and let the old horse draw him where it would. Luckily, it had taken him to Iron Mountain.