The Stone of Farewell (54 page)

Josua's people were content to pause and rest a while on the riverbanks, enjoying the sound and sight of the first swiftly-moving waters they had seen since deep in Aldheorte Forest. When Gutrun and Vorzheva made known their plan to follow the river downstream a short distance to where they could bathe their limbs in privacy, Josua was quick to object, worried for their safety. When Geloë offered to go with them, the prince reluctantly consented. It was difficult to think of a situation beyond the witch woman's enormous competence.

“Ah, it is somehow as if I never left,” Vorzheva said, dangling her feet in the current. They had chosen a sandy bank where a stand of birch trees in midstream widened the rivercourse, shielding them from the view of their distant fellow travelers. Her voice was careless, though her face belied her. “It is like when I was a little girl.” She frowned as she splashed water on the numerous scratches covering her legs. “But it is so cold!”

Duchess Gutrun had loosened the neck of her garment. She stood a little way out from the bank, the river eddying around her plump calves as she splashed water on her throat and scrubbed at her face. “It is not so bad,” she laughed. “The river Gratuvask that runs by our home in Elvritshalla—now that is cold water! Every year at spring the maidens of the town go down to the river to bathe—I did when I was young.” She straightened up, staring at nothing. “The men must stay inside all morning, on penalty of a beating, so the maidens can splash in the Gratuvask. And cold! The river is born from the snows of the northern mountains! You have not heard shrieking until you hear a hundred young girls plunge into a chilly river on an Avrel morning!” She laughed again. “There is a story, you know, about one young man who was determined to see the Gratuvask maidens—it is a famous tale in Rimmersland, perhaps you have heard it... ?” She broke off, water sluicing from her cupped hands. “Vorzheva? Are you ill?”

The Thrithings-woman was bent over, her face pale as milk. “Just a pain,” she said harshly, straightening up. “It will go away soon. See, I am better now. Tell your story.”

Gutrun looked at her suspiciously. Before the duchess could say anything, Geloë spoke up from her seat on the bank nearby, where she had been tidying Leleth's hair with a comb made from fishbone.

“The story must wait.” The witch woman's tone was sharp. “See—we are not alone.”

Vorzheva and the duchess turned to follow Geloë's pointing finger. Across the meadows, some three or four furlongs away to the south, a mounted rider stood poised on a hillock. He was much too far away for his face to be discernible, but there was little doubt he was looking in their direction. All the women stared back, even Leleth, her strange eyes wide. After several silent moments in which it seemed that no hearts beat, the solitary figure turned his horse and rode down the hillock, vanishing from sight.

“How ... how frightening,” the duchess said, clutching the neck of her dress closed with a damp hand. “Who is it? Those horrible Norns?”

“I cannot say,” Geloë rasped. “But we should return to tell the others, in case Josua did not see. We must be concerned with any strangers now, be they friend or foe.”

Vorzheva shuddered. Her face was still pale. “There are no friendly strangers on these grasslands,” she said.

The women's news was enough to convince Josua that they could dally no longer. Unhappily, the company shouldered their few possessions and set off again, following the course of the Ymstrecca east alongside the border of the now-distant forest, a thin dark strip on the misty northern horizon.

They saw no one else all afternoon.

“These seem like fertile lands,” Deornoth said as they searched for a spot to camp. “Isn't it strange that we have seen no people beside that lone rider?”

“One rider is enough.” Josua was grim.

“My people have never liked it here, so near to the old forest,” Vorzheva said, and shivered. “There are spirits of the dead beneath the trees. ”

Josua sighed. “These are things I would have laughed at a year ago. Now I have seen them, or things even worse. God save me, what a world this has become!”

Geloë looked up from where she was making a bed of grass for young Leleth. “It has always been the same world, Prince Josua,” she said. “It is only that in these troubled hours things are seen more clearly. The lamps of cities blur many shadows that are plain beneath the moon.”

 

Deornoth awoke in the deeps of night, his heart beating swiftly. He had been dreaming. King Elias had become a spindly thing of grasping claws and red eyes clinging to Prince Josua's back. Josua could not see him and did not even seem to know that his brother was there. In the dream Deornoth tried to tell him, but Josua did not listen, only smiled as he walked through the streets of Erchester with the terrible Elias-thing riding his back like a deformed baby. Every time Josua bent to pat the head of a child or give a coin to a beggar, Elias reached out to undo the good work when Josua had passed, snatching the coin back or scratching the child's face with dirty nails. Soon an angry crowd followed behind Josua, shouting for his punishment, but the prince went blithely on, unknowing, even as Deornoth screamed and pointed at the evil thing riding the prince's shoulders.

Awake on the benighted grasslands, Deornoth shook his head, trying to pull free from the clinging sense of disquiet. Elias' dream-face, wizened and spiteful, would not leave his mind. He sat up and looked around. All the camp was sleeping but for Valada Geloë, who sat dreaming or pondering over the last coals of the dying fire.

He lay back and tried to sleep, but could not for fear the dream would return. At last disgusted by his own weak-heartedness, he got up and quietly shook out his cloak, then walked to the fire and sat down near Geloë.

The witch woman did not look up at his approach. Her face was red-splashed by firelight, eyes staring unblinkingly into the embers as though nothing else existed. Her lips were moving but no sound came forth; Deornoth felt a chill creep up the back of his neck. What was she doing? Should he wake her?

Geloë's mouth continued to work. Her voice rose to a whisper.
“... Amerasu, where are you? Your spirit is dim... and I am weak
...”

Deornoth's hand stopped an inch from the witch woman's rough sleeve.
“... If ever you share, let it be now ...”
Geloë's voice hissed like the wind.
“Oh, please ...”
A tear, scarlet-shot, trickled down her weathered cheek.

Her despairing whisper drove Deornoth back to his makeshift bed. He did not fall back into sleep for some time, but lay staring up at the blue-white stars.

 

He was awakened once more before dawn—this time by Josua. The prince shook Deornoth's arm, then lifted his handless right wrist to his lips, gesturing for silence. The knight looked up to see a clot of darkness to the west, thicker even than the general obscurity of night, approaching along the line of the river. The muffled sound of hoofbeats rolled toward them over the grass. Deornoth's heart raced. He felt on the ground for his scabbard, and was soothed only a little by the feeling of his sword hilt beneath his fingers. Josua crawled away to wake the others.

“Where is the witch woman?” Deornoth whispered urgently, but the prince was too far away to hear, so he crawled over to where Strangyeard lay. The older man, sleeping lightly, was awake in a moment.

“Be still,” the knight murmured. “There are riders coming.”

“Who?” Strangyeard asked. Deornoth shook his head.

The oncoming riders, still little more than shadows, split almost noiselessly into several groups, sweeping wide around the encampment. Deornoth had to marvel at their silent horsemanship even as he cursed his party's lack of bows and arrows. A folly, to fight with swords against mounted men—if men they were. He thought he could count count two dozen attackers, although any estimate was dubious in this half-light.

Deornoth got to his feet, even as a few shadowy figures around him did the same. Josua, nearby, drew Naidel from its sheath; the sudden hiss of metal against leather seemed as loud as a shout. The surrounding figures reined up, and for a moment utter silence fell once more. Someone passing a stone's throw away would never have suspected the presence of a single soul, let alone two forces at battle-ready.

A voice broke the stillness.

“Trespassers! You walk on the land of Clan Mehrdon! Lay down your arms.”

Flint rang on steel, then a torch blossomed behind the nearest figures, throwing long shadows across the campsite. Mounted men, hooded and cloaked, surrounded Josua's band with a ring of spears.

“Lay down your weapons!” the voice said again in thickly-accented Westerling. “You are prisoners of the randwarders. We will kill you if you resist.” Several more torches flared alight. The night was suddenly full of armed shadows.

“Merciful Aedon!” Duchess Gutrun said from somewhere nearby. “Sweet Elysia, what now?”

A large shape pushed toward her—Isorn, going to comfort his mother.

“Do not move!” the disembodied voice barked out; a moment later one of the riders walked his horse forward, his spear point lowering, catching a glint of torchlight. “I hear women,” the rider said. “Do nothing foolish and they will be spared. We are not beasts.”

“And what about the rest?” Josua said, stepping forward into the light. “We have many here wounded and sick. What will you do with us?”

The rider leaned down to stare at Josua, momentarily exposing his hooded features. He had a rough face, with a shaggy, braided beard and scarred cheeks. Heavy bracelets clinked on his wrists. Deornoth felt his tension ease somewhat. At least their enemies were mortal men.

The rider spat into the dark grass. “You are prisoners. You ask no questions. The March-thane will decide.” He turned to his fellows. “Ozhbern! Kunret! Round them in a circle to march!” He wheeled his horse to supervise as Josua, Deornoth, and the others were herded at spearpoint into the ring of torchlight.

“Your March-thane will be unhappy if you mistreat us,” Josua said.

The leader laughed. “He will be more unhappy with me if you are not at the wagons by sun-high.” He turned to one of the other riders. “All?”

“All, Hotvig. Six men, two women, one child. Only one cannot walk.” He indicated Sangfugol with the butt of his spear.

“Put him on a horse,” Hotvig said. “Over the saddle, no matter. We must ride fast.”

Even as they were prodded into movement, Deornoth sidled closer to Josua. “It could be worse,” he whispered to the prince. “It could have been the Norns who caught us instead of Thrithings-men.”

The prince did not reply. Deornoth touched his arm, feeling the muscles tense as barrel staves beneath his fingers. “What's wrong, Prince Josua? Have the Thrithings-men thrown in with Elias? My lord?”

One of the riders looked down, mouth set in a humorless, gap-toothed grin. “Quiet, stone-dwellers,” he snarled. “Save your breath for walking.”

Josua turned a haunted face toward Deornoth. “Didn't you hear him?” the prince whispered. “Didn't you hear him?”

Deornoth was alarmed. “What?”

“Six men, two women, and a child,” Josua hissed, looking from side to side. “Two women!
Where is Vorzheva?”

The rider slapped a spear butt against his shoulder and the prince lapsed into anguished silence. They trudged on between the horsemen as dawn began to smolder in the eastern sky.

As she lay on her hard bed in the darkened servant's quarters, Rachel the Dragon imagined she could hear the gibbet creaking, even above the howling wind that skirled through the battlements. Nine more bodies, the chancellor Helfcene's among them, were swaying above the Nearulagh Gate tonight, dancing helplessly to the wind's fierce music.

Nearer at hand, somebody was crying.

“Sarrah? Is that you?” Rachel hissed. “Sarrah?”

The moaning of the gale died down. “Y-yes, mistress,” came the muffled reply.

“Blessed Rhiap, what are you sobbing about? You'll wake the others!” Beside Sarrah and Rachel, there were only three other women now sleeping in the maid's quarters, but all five cots were huddled together to conserve heat in the large, chilly room.

Sarrah seemed to struggle to compose herself, but when she answered her voice was still shaken by sobs. “I'm ... I'm afraid, M-mistress Rachel.”

“Of what, fool girl, the wind?” Rachel sat up, holding the thin blanket closely around her. “It's blowing up a storm, but you've heard wind before.” Torchlight bleeding beneath the doorway revealed the faint shape of Sarrah's pale face.

“It's ... my gammer used to say ...” The maid coughed wetly. “Gammer said that nights like this ... are when dead spirits walk. That you ... you can hear the voices in the w-wind.”