Tyrant Trouble (Mudflat Magic) (27 page)

There
was no other answer. Although we repeated our arguments at each meeting, and I
studied the horoscopes again after each argument, Tarvik knew I was right. If
Kovat lived, fine. Otherwise, the survival of everyone depended on evacuating
the city.

I
sat by candlelight and decided to again touch a chart. Sure, at first my
reaction to Ober's chart was maybe caused by my dislike of her. But then she
drugged Tarvik and proved me right. The evil in her heart was as bad as bad
got, more terrible than any vision I ever imagined. I never again wanted to
feel the cold absence of a heartbeat and I didn't want to know what happened to
the deathwalker.

I
don't go looking for horror, am not one of those people who watch gross-out
films on late night TV. If Kovat's heart was as black as Ober's heart, I didn't
want to know.

I
thought of a thousand reasons to avoid seeking truth. Then, with my eyes closed
to shut out distractions, I placed the palm of my hand over the sun in Kovat's
natal chart.

Nothing.
No warmth, no chill, no heartbeat. Enough. I wasn't going to try again. If
Kovat lived, he'd be back before Tarvik had to make a decision.

As
winter moved slowly across the mountains, trailing thin sheets of snow behind
cold winds, the people packed up their belongings. They didn't argue and they
didn't whine. They just followed Tarvik's orders.

“They
move with their flocks to follow the grasslands,” Nance explained. “They are
used to packing up their belongings.”

Tarvik
added, “If Erlan brings his army, he will count on finding us here to resupply
his troops. We will leave him nothing but empty storerooms.”

This
was what he said on his more sensible days. Other days he rushed around our
courtyard complaining and waving his hands, then grabbing me to question me,
his hard grip leaving bruises on my arms.

“What
good can this do? My uncle will not be fooled by an empty city! He will follow
us. Are we to run forever? Stargazer, I would rather stay here and fight.”

He
had grown older, fiercer, his brow constantly drawn forward above his eyes in a
scowl that reminded me of Kovat. He was no longer the boy whose hand I'd bitten
to teach him manners. All I could do was run away to my room in the temple.

He
sent me a gold bracelet as an apology, which I gave to Nance to add to her
temple ornaments. Then I made him wait a day before again opening the courtyard
gates to him.

Although
I had little hope, Tarvik was not ready to believe his father was dead.

He
constantly said, “Erlan could never trick Kovat.”

Waiting
was almost unbearable. Each day we watched for a scout from Kovat's army,
wishing for good news and expecting bad news. When neither came, patience
disintegrated into quick tempers and stupid arguments. I tried to think of ways
to calm Tarvik because I didn't want him making snap decisions.

So
I made a point of inviting him to join me, to spend more time talking, less
time thinking.

“Come
sit by the fire,” I'd say, and we wrapped ourselves in sheepskins and furs against
the winter cold, and I turned the talk to nothing of importance. He needed
company and he needed to have some time away from his worries.

Tarvik
liked to sit yoga-fashion, his legs crossed with his feet tucked under his
outspread knees, warming his hands around a mug of heated mead.

“Tell
me about this star magic you do. Who are the stars? How do they speak to you?
Are they your gods, then?”

Okay,
where could I start to explain Homer’s pantheon plus all the other religions
that worshiped the sun and stars?

Nah.
It would take years to get through them all and I was planning on leaving as
soon as I figured out where somebody'd hidden the exit.

Instead
I tossed him a bit of palmistry. “I don't know why the stars leave messages,
they just do. Here, give me your hand. See that line? That's your heart line
and that's your head line and they are so close together, I think your heart
rules your head.”

“Is
that good or bad?”

Was
there an answer? For a warrior, probably thinking with his head was more
important.

“It
makes you a good friend,” I said.

Once
I questioned him about the Daughter and her consort. He said, “They were very
clever about some things. They knew how to heal injuries. But they knew nothing
about the mountains and kept asking if I could show them the path to the
outlands.”

“Is
there a path to the outlands?”

“That's
what death is.”

“Tarvik!
I came from the outlands, you said so yourself. Do I look dead?”

He
touched my hand, grinned. “You don't feel dead.”

Another
time, when his mood was as stormy as the night sky and I could not even
interest him in stories, I tried another approach. Although he liked to hear me
talk, he liked even better to have a listener.

“Tell
me what you know of the lifedrainers,” I said.

His
brow smoothed and he smiled at my question.

“Tales.
Something to frighten Nance with when we were small.”

“So
there is no such thing?”

“I
didn't say that.”

“Are
there?”

He
set his mug down on the ground, leaned back on his hands and stared into the
embers. “Umm. I know of no one who has seen them. But the shepherds believe in
them. So does Kovat, who fears nothing, and so does Erlan, who is terrified of
them. My father told me once he left Erlan tied to a tree in the forest and
told him the lifedrainers would eat him. They were small boys. He did it as a
prank. Erlan was so terrified he bit and tore his way free and was covered with
scratches and blood by the time he found his way home.”

“A
story to make you glad you never had an older brother. Does Kovat often tell
you stories?”

He
frowned. “He is gone often and when he is here, he is surrounded by others.”

“Okay,
explain these lifedrainers to me. Nance believes in them.”

“Nance
believes anything. About the lifedrainers I know little except that they are large
and have wings. I always thought they sounded like giant bats. I might believe
in giant bats, but in creatures who can change their shape or disappear? I
would have to see them to believe them.”

“I
would rather not see them or believe them.”

“A
girl who is afraid of horses isn't going to like giant bats.”

Now
what story could I make up about giant bats, I wondered, and as I hurried
through the following day, I let my imagination play with the idea. But I never
had a chance to tell him that story.

Our
short but pleasant evenings by the courtyard fire ended in despair.

Although
Tarvik's scouts found a sheltered valley two days walk from the city, in the
direction of the high plains where Nance loved to camp on her secret outings,
we agreed everyone would stay put as long as possible. There was way too much
cold and hunger involved in an evacuation. Until the choice came down to get
killed or run, we'd wait.

Scouts
watched from higher ground for the returning army. They could reach the castle
on their horses in one day, a distance that would take four days for a marching
army. That would give us enough time to evacuate.

“These
plans are for nothing,” Tarvik complained. “My father will return and he will
be furious when he finds his whole city disrupted.”

I
hoped he was right and a victorious Kovat, rather than a murdering Erlan, would
return.

“Kovat
did ask me to look at the stars of his brother's family. He suspected them. So
maybe he was careful around his brother.”

“But
would he suspect poison?” Nance asked.

We
learned the answer to that question a few days later when the scouts spotted
the tattered remains of an army approaching. They raced back, slid off their
exhausted horses, and collapsed at Tarvik's feet. We waited until one of them
could breathe enough to speak.

“They
bear no banners, but we could see them well enough,” the scout reported. “We
were above them on a cliff when they made the turning down river. It was Erlan
in the lead.”

“And
my father?”

“We
searched. We could not see him. It is Kovat's horse that Erlan rides.”

“And
our army?”

The
scout looked almost afraid to answer, not afraid of Tarvik but afraid of what
he had seen and what it meant. “We saw none of our own warriors. It is Erlan's
men, less one in four perhaps, but well armed.”

“Do
you think we can hold the castle against them?” Tarvik asked.

The
scout bowed. “For a few days. I would willingly die in battle to serve you,
prince, as would all the guard.”

Tarvik
hesitated, still believing that somewhere, somehow, his father was alive. I
watched, unable to offer advice. The furies that drove the barbarians' minds
didn't make sense to me, but I was the newcomer, didn't have any good ideas. If
proof came that his father was dead, I guessed Tarvik would burn with the
desire to slash his name and rule across the mountains, a fitting heir to Kovat
the Slayer.

However,
in these past weeks he had watched his people drag their small caches of
belongings from their tumbledown huts, clutched in protective arms by their
owners as though they were the temple jewels. The clothes they wore, a cooking
pot and a couple of matted sheepskins made up the entire possessions of most
families. They wrapped their pottery communal cups for the journey as carefully
as they wrapped their children's feet against the snow.

Tarvik
made his decision. “You are right, Stargazer. The castle doesn't matter. We
must lead the people to safety and then stay with them to protect them, in case
Erlan follows.”

Would
Kovat have done that? To Kovat every man, woman, child was a possession to be
used. He never shared his captured wealth with them. If their lives stood
between him and fame, guess which Kovat would choose. For the first time, I
respected Tarvik.

The
barrows led the procession, pulled by workmen, their wooden wheels creaking
under the weight of all the stuff from the storerooms, food, oil, candles,
bedding. Stripped away also was anything Erlan would want to plunder, metals,
jewels and tapestries from both temple and castle.

They
wound down the hill and followed the valley route. Beyond the second row of
hills the barrows would head west, following ancient paths through the woods
until they reached the safer valleys. A safe valley, I got told, was one with
only a couple of narrow entrances. Those could be defended against an army by a
very few guards.

Behind
the barrows the families massed and separated among their livestock, the
stronger ones carrying lumpy packs of belongings on their shoulders, while the
children flapped their ragged hems at the goats to keep them moving. Others
carried sacks that jerked in their hands and barely muffled the dismayed
squeaks of the chickens. Although the ground was frozen beneath the snow
tracings, it smashed apart under foot and hoof, leaving a trail of mud.

Nance,
Tarvik and I rode on horses, our hoods pulled forward to protect our faces from
blasts of winter wind. Guards and servants walked around us. At the rear of the
line, mounted guards tried to sweep away with leafless branches the tracks of
our direction.

We
had gone only a short distance when, looking back, we saw what Erlan would see.
The trail could not be hidden. Mud oozed up through the brushed snow.

“He
will follow,” Tarvik said. “If the Daughter herself appeared on the hilltops
and shook her fist, Erlan would not stop. We can no more hide in the valley
than we can defend the city.”

He
said more, muttered complaints, but I ceased to listen. What he said was true,
I knew, but was he completely right? The horoscopes spun through my memory,
those of Tarvik and Kovat and Erlan, and then I saw my own horoscope in my
mind. I had never been much good at reading it. Still, it was worth a look. And
there it was, Mercury, aspecting that degree in my chart that linked deception
and strength.

Maybe
the planets denied victory to those other charts. Mine was different. The
planets dared me to outwit evil.

Shivering
behind the almost closed gate, I had peered through the narrow slit as the sun
set over the western hills night after night, trying to better place Mars and
Venus. I couldn't see Mercury but I had it memorized for the year.

Now
it hit me that what I saw in the sun's setting, besides planet locations, would
be of greater value to me than any chart. An idea uncoiled in my mind, a mixture
of sunset and the comment Tarvik made carelessly about the Daughter appearing
on the hilltop and shaking her fist.

When
Tarvik rode away from us to direct the guard, I shouted at Nance. I should have
nudged Black toward her. But I had made an agreement with the horse that if it
did not try to buck me off, I would sit still and let it choose its own
direction.

When
Nance heard me, she turned and rode back to me. “What is it?”

“No
point in me going with them. Tarvik is right, Erlan will follow and murder us
all.”

“What
else can we do?”

“Nance,
if we're probably going to die, anyway, will you trust me now with a plan that
might save the rest of them?”

If
we had been in the temple, Nance would have wailed her dismay. As it was, she
bit her lip and nodded.

“Find
Lor,” I said, knowing he would be walking near her.

While
she circled away to search for him, I pulled on the reins, said the “whoa”
thing, and was surprised when Black stopped.

We
stood as an island. The marching guards washed around us. When a mounted guard
called to ask if I needed help, I waved him on. With the responsibility of the
people, flocks, and possessions on their minds, the last guards passed me with
no more than a glance.