The Jackal of Nar (84 page)

“Are you Kalak’s woman?” asked the girl.

“No,” said Dyana. There was a touch of sadness in her tone that Richius approved of. “I am not.”

“She is your bhapo’s wife,” explained Richius. “She’s here to help us. Dyana, isn’t she something? She learned Naren from Tharn, and from reading this book he gave her. It’s just a bunch of poems, but she picked it up.”

“Here,” said Pris to Dyana, patting the floor beside her. “You sit. Kalak is going to read for us.”

“Oh?” said Dyana. “How wonderful.”

Richius flushed. “It’s just a poem she likes, Dyana. She wants me to read it for her.” He looked at Pris. “And I never said I would.”

“Please,” begged Pris.

“Yes,” chimed Dyana. “Please, Richius. Read it for us.”

Richius glanced down at the book. For some odd reason he wanted to read it for Pris, and now that Dyana was here he wanted to read it even more. They both watched him, and they were too compelling to refuse.

“This poem doesn’t seem to have a title,” he began haltingly, “so I’ll just start.” He cleared his throat and waited for Pris and Dyana to settle down. “Ready?”

“Yes,” said Pris happily.

But Richius had no sooner opened his mouth when a frantic cry erupted. A woman bolted into the chamber, startling them all. Pris jumped to her feet. The woman was screaming in pure panic. She rushed over to Pris and grabbed her, pulling her close and cradling her head against her legs. Her face lit with anger as she cowered in the corner of the room with the girl, speaking so quickly that her words ran together in a babbling, incoherent stream. Richius drew back.

“Dyana, what the hell is this? Who is she?”

“Shhh,” ordered Dyana. “This is Najjir, Richius. Voris’ wife.”

Pris was protesting through her mother’s skirt, but her mother didn’t hear. She continued berating Richius. Dyana stepped between them, trying to calm the woman. Richius still had the book in his hand. He stood there mute, unsure if he should stay or go, wanting to help and not knowing how.

“Kalak!” cursed the woman, spitting at Richius. “Kalak!”

“I didn’t do anything,” said Richius, backing toward the door. “Tell her, Dyana.”

“I think you should leave,” said Dyana carefully. “Now.”

“Dyana, I didn’t do anything wrong. Make her understand.”

“Just go, Richius,” said Dyana sharply. “I will explain it to her when she calms down.”

“God damn it.” Richius turned to leave and saw a shadow in the doorway. Voris was staring at him. His bald head was red with rage.

“Nogiya asa?” asked Voris hotly, looking at his hysterical wife. The woman pointed to Richius and said the hateful word.

“Kalak!”

Voris’ eyes bulged from their sockets. He stepped aside and gestured to the door. Obediently his wife departed, dragging Pris, who gave Richius an apologetic look before disappearing into the hall. Dyana hurried to defend Richius, firing off a flurry of explanations to the warlord. But Voris would hear none of it.

“Kalak!” he thundered, barely controlling himself. Richius guessed easily what was the matter.

“Tell him I didn’t hurt her,” he told Dyana calmly. “Tell him I only came in to talk to her.”

Dyana tried to speak, her voice all but inaudible against the warlord’s bellows.

Richius held up his hands, finally shouting, “Enough!”

Voris stopped yelling. He scowled at Richius.

“Enough,” said Richius again. “Voris, listen to me. I didn’t do anything to your daughter. I never would.” He held up Pris’ little book. “Here, this is all we were doing. Just reading some poems.”

Voris snatched the book away from him, listening to Dyana’s translation of his explanation. The warlord waited until she was done, nodded, then looked directly at Richius and spoke.

“He says that Pris is not to read this language,” said Dyana. “He wants to know if she told you this.”

“She told me,” confessed Richius. “Tell him I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone against his wishes.”

Voris took the apology badly.

“That is not good enough,” said Dyana, translating Voris’ furious words. “You are in my house now. You will follow my ways.”

Richius nodded. “Yes. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Voris went on, his voice still shaking with ire. He paused and waited for Dyana to translate. Dyana did not.

“What is it?” asked Richius. “What did he say?”

“I am sorry, Richius, I do not understand him. He says you are to stay away from his children. If he sees you near them again he will kill you. He says that you will not take another of his children away.” Dyana looked at Richius questioningly. “Do you know what that means?”

Richius nodded gravely. “I do. Tell Voris he has nothing to worry about. I will stay away from his family. Tell him also that I’m sorry about Tal.”

“Tal? Who is Tal?”

“Just tell him.”

Dyana did as he requested, passing on the cryptic message to Voris. The warlord scowled at Richius; the pain of his loss was clearly evident. When Voris spoke again there was a slight unevenness in his tone.

“Voris says that he hates you, Richius,” said Dyana, clearly confused by the exchange. “He does not know if he can do what Tharn asks of him.”

“Tell him I understand. We must both do our best. I’ll do my best to prove myself to him. And I won’t go near his children again. Promise him that for me, Dyana.”

Dyana made the promise. Voris simply nodded.

“One more thing,” said Richius. “And be careful how you tell him this. I don’t know if I had anything to do with Tal’s death, but if I could bring him back I would. Tell him that, Dyana.”

“Richius, I do not understand any of this,” said Dyana. “Who is Tal?”

“Voris’ son. I’ll explain it to you later. Just tell him, Dyana. Please.”

Reluctantly, Dyana agreed. They both watched Voris for a reaction, but his face never changed. Instead he glanced down at the book of poems in his hand, shaking his head ruefully.

“Did you tell him?” Richius whispered.

Dyana nodded. “Everything.”

But Voris seemed disinterested. He sighed wearily and stuck the little book in his sash. He did not look at Richius again, but spoke directly to Dyana only briefly before leaving the room. Dyana raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“He still expects us for the meal,” she said. “He wants us to hurry.”

Richius didn’t answer. Dyana gently touched his arm.

“Richius,” she asked carefully. “Did you kill Voris’ son?”

Richius shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”

“Is that what this was all about?”

“He wants me to stay away from his children, and I don’t blame him. Go to dinner without me, will you? I’m really not very hungry anymore. I will see you in the morning. Maybe we can start my studies then.”

Dyana’s voice was soft in the half-light. “I will have a servant bring some food to your chamber. Sleep well. We will be busy tomorrow.”

“Good night, Dyana,” he said, and left the chamber. Nearby, Voris’ voice echoed down the cavernous halls, and Richius quickly decided to go in the opposite direction, toward the main gate. He stepped out into the cool spring evening, savoring the earthy fragrance of the air. To the west the sky was a peculiar purple, to the east a violent vermilion. The infant night was ripe with stars. Moonlight rested on the broken statues in the abandoned garden. In the trees, nocturnal hunters readied to take wing, rustling and preening for the night’s work. An illusory peace had settled on the valley like a blanket.

Richius spied the watchtower, gazing up to its twisted peak so far above him. That was where the real peace was, he decided. The structure was connected to the rest of the castle, but it had its own entrance, a narrow slit cut into stone. There was a guard stationed there, a young man in the typical garb of a Dring warrior. He bowed to Richius as he approached.

“I’m going up,” said Richius. He pointed his index finger toward heaven. “Up. All right?”

The guard nodded. “Doa trenum.”

“Fine,” said Richius, squeezing past him. “Whatever.”

Inside, the watchtower seemed much smaller. Darkness soaked every corner, held at bay only by a single torch hanging defiantly against a wall. Except for the torch and the formidable staircase spiraling ever upward, the tower was empty. Richius grabbed the torch from the wall and began ascending. The stone risers were gritty beneath his feet, and his boots crunched on untold layers of filth as he mounted the steps, keeping his arm outstretched before him. The world had dropped away, and all he could hear was the scrape of his feet and his own labored breathing. Stale air filled his lungs, making him cough. Ahead of him, the stairs unfolded endlessly out of the blackness. He thought to turn around, go back down and forget the peace he might find at the pinnacle, but he was sure he was closer to the top now than he was to the bottom so he continued his climb, hoping each step would be the last. Finally he saw the end of the staircase, bathed in the unmistakable glow of moonlight.

“Thank God,” he said, and the sound of his voice startled him.

He heard other voices in the dark, then stepped up into the pinnacle of the tower, into a chamber surrounded by glass and awash in the pale light of heaven. Two more red-robed warriors were inside, staring out through the glass in boredom and talking between themselves. They started when they noticed Richius.

“I’m sorry,” Richius offered, embarrassed. “I didn’t know you’d be up here. I’ll go.”

He made to turn around but the warriors called his name.

“Kalak?”

“Yes,” said Richius. “All right, yes, I’m Kalak.”

The two warriors sized him up, nodding and cocking their eyebrows. They spoke and chuckled to each other. Then one came forward and directed Richius toward the windows.

“Dring,” said the man. He smiled. “Dring.”

Curious, Richius went to the window. All around him was the Dring Valley, rolling and verdant and dark. This wasn’t the Dring of so many nightmares. This was a primeval Aramoor, wild and lush, a force of nature. He put his nose to the glass, trying to forget the graves he had dug here.

“Yes,” he said. “Dring.”

And then a strange light came alive in the distance. Richius watched it glow, unsure of the cause. The warriors watched it, too. It flared like an orange star, burning in a single bright puff before dimming, then glowing a steady crimson. Another sparked to life, then another, and soon the horizon was ringed with them, tiny pinpoints of flame set against the western sky.

Richius clenched his teeth. A memory came to him like a hammer blow, a recollection of fire and kerosene and igniters glowing red against the night. He moved back from the window.

“So it begins,” he whispered. “God save us.”

H
igh in the watchtower of Castle Dring, in a dark, hidden belfry of its vaulted pinnacle, was a giant, antiquated bell. In the better days of the castle’s youth, the bell was rung by the lord of the keep on occasions of celebration and, sometimes, of peril. It sang for the people of Dring for nearly two centuries, alerting them of prayer time and warning them of the occasional, episodic crusades of invaders. Its voice was clear and perfect, woven as tightly into the fabric of the valley as the howling of wolves.

But like so much of Castle Dring, the bell was more fragile than it looked. On the day that Voris the Wolf wrested the valley from its previous warlord and personally rang the bell to proclaim his victory, the bell cracked, killing forever its angelic voice and bringing forth only a jangling, ear-crunching din. The bell was never rung again.

For twenty-three years the bell hung silent in its belfry,
collecting rust and spiders, and being neglected by the new lord of the valley, who raised children that never heard the bell’s song and who warred occasionally with another warlord from the north. Nevertheless, it was a time of good things in Dring. Even without the bell, the devout of the valley knew when to kneel for prayer, and the holidays still came without the bell to ring them in. People still farmed and grew up happy, the birds still migrated with the seasons, and flowers always bloomed in the spring, just as the gods of the earth had sworn.

Yet the bell was never wholly forgotten. There were many who remembered the great bell of Castle Dring, including Voris himself, who had once proclaimed to Jarra the Dumaka that he would ring the bell again if the valley he cherished was in mortal danger.

So, when Richius and the warriors burst into his dining chamber with news of the Naren invasion, the shrieking bell sliced open the night. Riders had come from the front, confirming the dreadful news that Nar was on the march. It was a call to arms everyone in the valley expected. Shortly after dusk the ringing began. To Richius’ ears, it was like something out of hell itself, and as he thundered toward the front, following Voris and Dumaka Jarra by torchlight, he was grateful to hear the sound dying out behind him. It was nearly midnight, and every creature in the valley was alert, awakened by the pounding bell and the hammering of a thousand hooves. The forest pulsed with eerie orange light as the defenders of the valley rode forth from Castle Dring, jiiktars and torches in hand, headlong against the mechanized invaders.

And as they rode, two hundred strong to bolster their brothers at the front, the warriors of the Dring Valley sang their terrible war songs and cried to heaven for strength and victory. They sang as Voris directed them, their voices bold and heavy, so that the shrill music of the bell fell away behind their chorus like the soft bleating of a lamb.

Richius held fast to the reins of his gelding Lightning, following Voris’ lead down the thin, meandering corridor cut through the forest. A fearful excitement bubbled up within him. Those were flame cannons he had seen, he was sure of it. They were being warmed for imminent battle, probably a dawn attack. He glanced up at the high moon. Midnight. Six more hours.

“How far are we from the front?” asked Richius over his shoulder. He felt Dyana’s arms tighten around his waist.

“Not far,” she called into his ear. “Voris says less than an hour.”

Richius grimaced. The last time they were on horseback together, they were running from Tharn’s storm. Now they were running down the gullet of peril again. He let the sweetness of her breath warm the back of his neck, loving the closeness of it and hating himself for agreeing to let her come. Neither he nor Voris had wanted Dyana to accompany them to the front, but her argument had been sound. Without her, she had claimed, he and Voris would be unable to speak to each other. So they had left Shani in the care of Voris’ wife, Najjir, with the insecure hope that they wouldn’t be orphaning her, and rode off with Voris and his Dring defenders.