The Guardian (19 page)

“So, you’re awake. Good; I’d not have you miss what’s to come.” She pressed the cloth to my mouth again, forcing me to swallow the bitter mixture. “You bleed well, Gailard, and it’s a fine, warm day. The ants will find you soon, and the flies. They’ll feast on you, and the crows will come. They’ll peck out your eyes before they eat your flesh, and when night falls there’ll be dogs and wolves.” She smiled horribly. “I hope you live a long time, Gailard. Long enough you know true suffering.”

She wiped the cloth across my chest, which burned fiery, and rose. I still hung suspended from my wrists. I found it hard to breathe, but even so I saw Eryk come to stand before me, Athol behind him, and Rurrid, wearing a bandage about his ribs.

“We go now,” my brother said, “to conquer the Dur. We shall ride with your little friend at our head, and does Mattich not concede, I shall do as I promised—send her to him in pieces. Think on that as you die, Gailard.”

I said, “Our father would curse you for this,” but I think it came out in a mumble, for Eryk cocked his head and beamed and said, “What’s that, Gailard? Do you beg for mercy?”

I said, “No,” but that, also, was a mumble Eryk did not seem to understand, for he laughed and touched my cheek, and licked blood from his fingers and turned away.

I saw Ellyn then. She was very pale, and her hands were bound before her. Two men stood beside her; one had a hand on her shoulder, restraining her. I think she’d have run to me, but she could not, and so only mouthed words I could not hear.

Then Eryk clapped his hands and gestured and they all turned away, leaving me to die.

It was, as Rytha had pointed out, a warm day. The sky was blue and filled with magnificent billows of high, white
cloud. I dimly heard the sounds of bees buzzing. I saw birds darting in search of insects. I tried to stand upright, but my legs would not support me. I licked my lips and tasted blood. I tested the ropes that bound me to the tree and knew I was too weak to break the bonds. I knew that I should die, and so I let myself slump, thinking that it were better I choked on my own straining weight than the crows come peck me to death.

I did pray then—to gods I was no longer sure I believed in, and who surely seemed to have deserted Chaldor—and asked them that I might die.

Then I felt a new pain. It seemed unlikely that I could, for my whole body burned. Each breath was a labor, and the tree’s bark against my back was agony, but still I felt a fresh intrusion on my suffering. It was as if tiny fingers traversed my broken skin, and I moaned as I knew the ants had come. I craned my head around and saw long trails of scurrying black bodies moving over the tree, running busily back and forth from bark to wounds, carrying tiny pieces of me away. I was barely aware of the flies, for they were a busy cloud around me that fell into the kaleidoscope pattern of my swimming vision, less important than the carrion birds.

Those I saw distantly: black specks that floated beyond the swarming flies, growing larger as they descended. I heard their cawing and then the windrush of their wings. They landed—a flock of twenty or thirty—some in the tree, others on the ground before me, where they paced about, beaks clacking in speculation. I tried to shout, but could find no voice louder than theirs. I tried to kick at them, but my legs were too weak. I whispered a curse and gave myself over to inevitable fate. I felt a bird land on my shoulder. Its claws dug into my flesh; I felt it begin to peck at my back. Another came down from the tree, and I saw its bleak eyes contemplate my face, its beak dart forward.

I felt such pain as I had never known, and knew that I must be plucked apart. I wished it had been the wolves and wild dogs, for that should be a swifter fate. But there were
only the black birds. I thought of the Darrach Pass and the horrid feasting there; I would make a poor repast, in comparison. I think I screamed, but I hope it was in anger rather than fear—for all I felt such fear as I’d never known. I had thought to die in battle, honorably; or aged, in bed. But always with honor, and there was none in this.

I felt my scalp tugged as a crow landed on my head, felt its wings rustle my hair as I tossed my head back. I looked into blank yellow eyes that contained no mercy. Then there were more, and I died.

E
llyn rode in a blur of tears that clouded her vision so that it seemed she traveled through fog. She fought the tears, but no matter how hard she blinked or wiped a sleeve across her face they would not stop falling, trickling from her eyes like old memories of shared pain. She gritted her teeth and cursed, but still she could not stop—only remember the horror. Her hands were unfastened now, but her ankles were lashed securely to the stirrups, and the reins were looped about the saddle horn. Her mount was tethered to that in front, which was ridden by the one called Rurrid. She hated him, and when she could, she’d heel her mare aside or slow the horse to cause him discomfort. And he’d gasp, and clutch at his bandaged ribs, and curse her, and make vile promises.

She wondered which of these Highlander savages she hated the most. Eryk, for what he’d ordered done to Gailard, or his fat wife, Rytha, for the scorn she spat? Rurrid for his lewd suggestions, or Athol, for swinging that awful whip against Gailard’s body?

She shuddered at the memory. Gailard had been bruised and bloody when finally that awful ride had ended, and she could hardly believe that he’d owned the strength to
stand and face his brother. She had seen executions—her dead father had explained they were sometimes necessary—but in Chaldor they were done swift, not like … She swallowed, her eyes clouding again. Not so bloody and vengeful.

And then the whipping …

By all the gods, she’d seen her guardian’s bones exposed, bloody through the severed flesh, and screamed in protest—which had gotten her a blow from fat Rytha, whose eyes were wide with pleasure. And had she not taken more as she dripped the vinegar-soaked sponge into Gailard’s mouth? And then, as Gailard hung from the tree and distant flocks of crows cawed announcement of feast and winged toward the bloody offering, Eryk had announced departure, and Ellyn had been tossed astride the chestnut horse and they had gone away.

She blinked some semblance of vision back into her eyes and saw the twinned clans riding out in battle array around her, and thought on her dreams.

They had been strange, full of promises and threat. She wondered if her mother’s promise of magical talent to come arrived, or if she only suffered feverish dreamings born of terror. Was Ryadne right, then there was hope—though she could not see it, not bound and carried like some captured slave. But still she prayed, asking that her dreams be true and the impossible happen.

“Do you slow that god-cursed horse again I’ll slit its throat and drag you behind me.” Rurrid turned awkwardly in his saddle to glare back at her. “And tonight I’ll teach you to be a woman.”

Ellyn spat her contempt. “I doubt you could do that, even had Gailard not unmanned you.”

Rurrid slowed his horse awhile and poked a finger painfully against her breast. “Wait and see, eh?” He grinned lasciviously. “I’ll show you what a real man is.”

Ellyn closed her eyes and prayed her dreams were true.

“S
ail ho, and it’s Danant’s flag!”

Kerid stared into the morning’s mist. The sun was scarce over the horizon, and the Durrakym was swathed in fog. From the steering deck of the warboat—now renamed simply the
Andur
—he could see little of the river ahead.

“Whereabouts?”

“Starboard a half quarter.”

“How big?”

“A three-master. A transport, I think.”

Kerid trusted his lookout and put the tiller over, hoping that Nassim and Yvor follow. He had little enough real experience of river war; Andur had never seen fit to pirate his fellow kingdoms.

“Battle station! Quietly!”

No time for grand gestures now. No howling horns, no drums or blaring bugles—better a silent approach through the mist. He glanced back and saw Nassim turn the
Ryadne
into line, Yvor bring the
Ellyn
abreast.

It was the strategy Mother Hel had explained to him as they said their farewells and he quit her luxurious bed: attack when you are not expected, and let stealth be your friend. Take the victim athwarts, but set one boat behind and one afore. And are you close to the shore, let them run. A frightened crew will fight when cornered, so leave them—if you can—some avenue of escape. That way they’ll quit the ship rather than fight, and you can bring it back to me.

Kerid chuckled and said softly, “For Chaldor and Mother Hel.” Then, louder: “Battle speed. Stand ready!”

The oarsmen leaned into their sweeps and the
Andur
leapt across the river like some hunting dog. The
Ryadne
and the
Ellyn
swung abaft and forrard. Those few men not tending the oars readied their shields and drew their swords; they—the chosen—would be first onto the deck of the Danant boat.

Their prey saw them too late.

They came out of the fog like wolves onto an unsuspecting deer. Kerid shouted, and the arbalest fired a bolt that swept through the Danant vessel’s sail and tore away the pennant. Then the
Andur
was alongside and grappling irons lofted. The
Ryadne
hove out of the mist and fired a heavy shaft into the Danant boat’s prow. The
Ellyn
hove to astern, loosing a bolt that tore across the steering deck of the larger craft and sent her tillerman screaming shrilly onto the deck below.

Kerid’s men swung on board. There were sixty in all on the
Andur
, the same aboard the
Ryadne
and the
Ellyn.
There were likely three hundred on the big Danant vessel, and the attackers athwart and astern would need time to maneuver into position before they might send men aboard. Kerid lashed his tiller and ran across the deck to seize a rope and clamber upward.

He breasted the thwarts and ducked as shafts whistled overhead; he had not anticipated bowmen. He saw men—his own—fall, and charged headlong at the archers.

“For Chaldor and for Andur!”

He slashed his sword across a bow, severing the wood and the face behind, and swung the blade in a scythelike movement that cut strings to left and right. He felt a blade prick his ribs and spun, falling back as his men swarmed across the deck of the Danant craft, driving his attackers away. He saw a man standing undecided between flight and victory above him, and drove his blade upward into the groin before the descending blade made the decision for him. The Danant man screamed and fell down, and Kerid rose with blood running down his side, and looked around.

Fifty at most of his own men left. He’d mourn the dead later; now he wanted only to take this vessel. He swung his blade and shouted for followers, and the Danant sailors were driven back under the sheer ferocity of the attack.

Then Nassim came on board with all his men, and from the stern Yvor sent fighters, and the boat was taken. Those Danant sailors who chose to fight were slain; those
who dived overboard and swam for the shore were left to live.

And Kerid laughed.

“By all the gods, we did it, no?” He stood on the steering deck. Blood ran down his side where he’d been stuck, but he ignored that, jubilant in his victory. “We’ve taken another of Talan’s boats, and there’ll be more to come. Now let’s take this one back to Hel’s Town and trade with Mother, and then come back to fight Danant again.”

A roar of approval met his suggestion, and they turned about, all save one, setting lines on the crippled Danant boat that they might haul her back to Hel’s Town and trade her and her cargo for more warboats.

Nassim lingered awhile.

“Is it Chaldor you fight for, or Mother Hel’s bed?”

“Is there so much difference?” Kerid grinned over the heads of the men winding bandages around his wounded side. “The one brings us the other, no?”

“It depends,” Nassim said. “I’ll sail with you on Chaldor’s behalf, but is it the other …”

Kerid frowned. “I’ll not deny I enjoy her company, but I fight for Chaldor.”

“I hope so,” Nassim said, and swung down the trailing lines to his own boat.

“T
his is not …” Egor Dival hesitated, seeking in the midst of his disgust to find the right words. “Not how I’d fight this war.”

“But this is
my
war,” Talan returned, “and you are my sworn general.”

“Even so! These …
things?”
Dival gestured at the creatures Nestor had made.

They stood, dressed in semblance of human men, but panting like dogs, anxious to be released from the leash of the sorcerer’s power. They wore shirts and breeches, and about each waist was a belt containing a sword and a pouch of food. Bits and pieces of the armor they had worn as men
hung about their bodies. At close quarters none would believe them human, and Dival felt a great loathing for all they represented.

“You took my soldiers,” he protested.

“Your
soldiers?” Talan exaggerated his expression. “Surely mine. To do with as I want.”