Tides of Rythe (The Rythe Trilogy) (19 page)

“I’ll tell them, then, as you’re in such a mood.”

“Do as you like, Wen, but don’t drag me into it.” And with his last words on the subject Shorn turned to face the wall with an ill-natured huff.

Wen made himself comfortable and told them the tale.

“There are many things I am sure you don’t know about Shorn, and many things I could not say about him. His life until we met was one of flight, endless flight from those who pursue you now. He told me, and if he wasn’t such a sullen groat he could tell you himself, that he left his childhood home, the Island Archive, when he was ten years old, but what he didn’t tell you is that it was the Seafarer’s that took him onto their boat all those years ago.”

Renir settled himself. He loved a good tale, and any chance to learn more about the mercenary whose fate was tied to his own was welcome.

“I was already on the boat, ship or island – I’ve yet to find the words to describe the Seafarer’s vessels. When we met, the only two landfarers on the ship, we were drawn together, perhaps because no matter how welcoming the Seafarers were on the outside, deep down we knew that we were outsiders…however long we stayed aboard this vessel we would never truly be welcomed into their arms. We stayed under polite sufferance, and we both knew it. When Shorn discovered what I was, he b
egged me to train him. I had
sworn never to raise a weapon again, but I could no more stand against his will than you all. He is a whirlpool, drawing those close to him into his fate. He tugs, and we dance on his strings. I have only just come to realise this, but had I known it then, I am not sure it would have changed anything. He is a vortex, and all those he touches are changed in the passing, as I was.

“I held out for a year, but the constant badgering of the young can wear the sturdiest of men down, and to my chagrin and eternal shame, I gave in. I began teaching Shorn, teaching him the only art I had ever known, and soon I discovered that he would be an artist with the palette I gave him, painting pictures in blood and bone. But I didn’t know that to begin with, and once I had taught him for too long, too long to stop, he had nearly surpassed me – and he was still so young. I could no more stop than kill myself. I have always been weak.”

This he said so sadly that Renir found himself wondering at the depths of shame that drove a man such as Wen. He was discovering that the weapons’ master was more than just a blade and arm. Perhaps he would be an asset yet…or perhaps his shame would be undoing, as Shorn’s rage might be his.

As if reading his mind, Wen said, “Shorn hid it well, but he was consumed w
ith rage within. He hid it well,“ he repeated sadly. “
He was calm in all his training. Never did he let on what he would become – a mercenary, a killer such as had not been seen since ages past. If only I had known…but then, perhaps the crucible of war has mo
u
lded him into what he needs to be in the final days. I do not know. The gods draw men into their plots and I cannot fathom their will or their ways.”

Shorn grunted, but kept his peace. Renir wondered if this was what Shorn wanted all along – a purging of the past – but one that was too painful for him to excise alone.

“I taught him well. But as he grew into a man, there were other dangers than just his sword. A young woman began to show interest in him. There had always been young girls watching us train, and men, too. But I would not train them, and they never asked. The Seafarers are people of deep pride. They would not have landfarers teaching them what they knew. Even if they had asked, I would have refused. But it was only natural that it should happen – I could no more stop it than stand against the tides. The young woman came back, day after day, and she would talk to Shorn, and then hold his hand, brush past him…all the ways a woman leads a man by the nose. But Shorn’s anger, I believe, held him back from love. Or maybe, I don’t know the truth of this, he sensed in her the seeds of darkness.”

“Shiandra,” guessed Bourninund.

“Of course,” replied Wen. “Who else? It is by her hand that we are held. She is Dainar’s daughter, and he can stand the wrong no more than she can. He would grant her the sun if he could. That such a beauty should spring from his loins…and Seafarer children are rare enough. She wanted Shorn, and Shorn did not want her.”

“I can’t see why,” said Renir. “She is as fine a woman as I have ever laid eyes on.”

“That’s not saying much, Renir. Your experience in such matters is shy, even for one so young.”

Renir bristled. “I can’t help it if I was married. How’s a man supposed to meet beautiful women when he’s got a wife?”

“Easy,” said Bourninund. “Most people figure on marrying someone beautiful in the first place.”

“Well, it’s not like I had a choice. She had her hooks into me before I had a chance to pick someone else. Anyway,” he added gruffly, “she wasn’t a bad woman.”

“Few are, Renir. I’m sure she was fair. Perhaps one day you will remember her so, too,” said Drun, who Renir had thought sleeping. The old man’s strange yellow eyes were closed, but his ears missed little, and his mind even less.

“Perhaps,” replied Renir. “Anyway, just because Shiandra loved Shorn, I don’t see why she would want to have him killed.”

“Few better reasons for ire than love, boy,” said Wen. “And I’m not sure love is the right word. I believe she coveted him. He was a fine looking young man back then, and she was, and by the looks of it, still is, a wilful woman. She wanted him, and he did not want her. But even so, a man is often led by his loins, especially one so young…”

“I know how that goes,” interrupted Renir.

“And I, too,” said Wen. “Who could blame a man? One thing led to another, and then Shorn refused her hand in marriage. There was nothing else Dainar could do – he set us ashore, and the rest is history. Shorn left to become what he could, me, well, I set out to make amends. But sometimes the past is something that drags along behind you, weighing you down. And here we are, facing the past again.”

Drun opened his eyes, looking at Shorn’s back. “Sometimes we must lay the past to rest before we can fully explore the future. Every action has consequences, even those which we do not take.”

Shorn had no doubt about who Drun was addressing his comments to. “Sometimes you make my bowels ache, priest,” was his only retort.

Slowly, carefully, the men talked into the night. Not one mentioned the court to come, or what they would do. They knew they had no weapons, but they did not need to plan – if Shorn was to die, then they would die fighting to save him. Sometimes, duty is plain enough.

Renir wondered if he would die well. Fighting like the heroes of old, with nothing but his fists against a bow. Perhaps he could catch an arrow in his hand, or fight his way to a sword before he was slain. He did not know how to wield a sword, but surely it was better than bare fists against a weapon. Was he fast enough to duck an arrow, swift enough to gain a weapon, or lay low an opponent before he died? He did not want to die badly, not when he was surrounded by such men as these. He knew they would fight well, and die for each other…he only hoped it would not come to that. But, he resolved, whatever happened, he would not be put to sea. He would die fighting, not drowning or eaten alive. Better the blade…

*

Chapter Thirty-Six

…was a warrior’s thought, Renir realised. He looked down at himself from a great height, and only when he could see himself as he was, his dreaming eyes sharper than his own, did he see himself as he had become. He was broad across the shoulder, still unscarred, but grizzly in countenance. Many would pause before attacking such a man. I have become like them, he thought to himself from his lofty perch, floating above his body. I am a warrior.

But not yet a mercenary. Never that.

Only gradually was he aware of another presence, beyond his reach, on a different plain than this.

She called to him, and he knew her voice. In his dreams, he knew her voice, but the knowledge would fade upon waking. It always did.

“We must speak. Time is ever short, as it was always destined to be short for us. Come to me…listen well.”

Renir floated, ethereal and splendid, unclothed above the sea. Below the surface he could see the seawolves, prowling the depths, shimmering underneath the waves. Foam hung on the air, blow by unfelt tides and ghostly winds. From beneath the sea a face rose, but one obscured by the depths. Try as he might, he could not make it out. Perhaps if he were to go below the surface, he would be able to see more clearly, but even in dreams he understood that to do so would be to risk death, an unclean death, rent and torn by the serrated teeth of the seawolves, gulped into their gullets and digested over days…his dream self shuddered, and on his cot his body’s breath quickened at the thought.

“No, there is no need to come down here. All you need is to hear me.”

He wished he could see more clearly. He almost remembered, but the memory was like the tides. Just as he thought he could feel the knowledge of who the woman was, the tides took it out of his reach. She was the sea, and he the shore, forever meetings, only to part again with the shifting of the moons.

He reached out to the water, but she hissed at him from the darkening depths.

“
No! You must not!”

“But who are you?”

“In time, perhaps, you will know,” she said, calmer now that he had moved his hands away from the water. “For now, hear me, and listen well. You are on the precipice once again, and once more I must draw you back from your own undoing. Time and time again, throughout the ages, you have tried to fall – you are your own undoing. Again, you court death, as though you rail against your purpose, but I have not come so far to let you fail now.”

“I don’t understand. You are a witch, and yet you care what happens to one man? I know of witches. They never care for the living, they consort with the dead.”

“You know nothing but the fool rumours of men, born of the ignorance of an age. Hear me now, and hear me well. Mind me, Renir. I will rend your dreams and houn
d your soul if you die now. I
f you fear me then love me also, for I am your salvation. Now, when you wake you must remember this, if you remember nothing else…”

*

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Renir’s eyelids twitched in his sleep, and once or twice he called out. Drun watched him through hooded eyelids, tired himself but a light sleeper. He pursed his lips thoughtfully as he watched, but he did not try to intrude. He had done so already, and he felt a barrier around Renir’s sleeping mind, as though the man were shielded from intrusion. It would not do to trespass there, of that he was sure.

Someone, something, was already there. And Drun knew without understanding why, that his presence would not be welcome. Not welcome at all.

He lay thinking as the sun slowly rose outside, unseen but sensed, his god rising in the sky to bring life and wakefulness once more to this side of the world, passing over the other, forgotten for the night.

Renir was a mystery to him. He grew in stature, it seemed, with each passing day. He awoke refreshed and alert, but his sleep was tortured, sometimes punctuated by flailing, or screaming, sometimes murmuring and laughing, but always busy. Anyone with such a rich dream life should be shattered upon waking, tired beyond belief. It was as if Renir lived a second life, in dreams.

Their passage had been strange, indeed. He was unsure as to Renir’s place in events to come. He had been so intent on watching Shorn, trying to guide Shorn to an awakening, that he had ignored their companions for too long. Renir, suddenly a warrior of some note, despite his inexperience. Renir with his childish wit and wisdom born of the heart, Bourninund, as loyal a friend as any could wish, bound, too, to Shorn’s fate, drawing into the whirlpool that Wen imagined as Shorn’s wake. Wen himself, strange, strong and just maybe insane and suicidal. Wen could no more take his own life than that of an innocent. Each man had his own reasons for joining them on this journey, there own purpose to discover along the way. They would play as large a part in whatever was to come as perhaps Shorn himself. Shorn, the Saviour, but who was he to save? Rythe? Himself? Those he touched along the way?

Drun did not know, but before he could come to any conclusions, the door opened and a guard stepped inside.

“Morning has come, old man. Rouse your companions. Court begins after you break fast.”