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Dwalia’s jaw dropped open in horror. I thought it was at what the man had said but then I followed her gaze. Vindeliar still sat his horse beside a grinning Ellik. The fog man wore an uncertain half-smile, a necklace of pearls, and a fur hat. A brightly figured scarf swathed his neck, and his hands were gloved in red leather with tassels. As we watched, one of the men who had ridden with him slapped him on the thigh and told him, “This is just the beginning!” Vindeliar’s smile broadened and became more certain.
That broke Dwalia’s resolve, I think. “Vindeliar! Remember the path! Do not stray from what has been seen!” she shouted at him.
Ellik wheeled his horse and rode it right up to her, pushing her back until she stumbled and nearly fell into the fire.
“He’s mine now! Don’t speak to him!”
But the smile had faded from Vindeliar’s plump face and he watched in dismay as Ellik leaned down to backhand Dwalia. She did not move but accepted the blow. Courage, or did she fear worse if she avoided it?
Ellik stared down at her for a moment until she lowered her eyes. Then he rode back to his own fire, announcing, “Tonight we feast! And tomorrow, another test of our fine friend’s abilities!”
Some of the Servants were staring hungrily and longingly at the soldiers’ camp. As Ellik dismounted, his men offered him the best of the loot. For a time, a stricken Vindeliar looked toward our camp like a dog that longs to return to its familiar kennel. Then Ellik’s men surrounded him, handing him an opened bottle of wine and a sweet cake. A moment later he was down and one of his riding companions had thrown a familiar arm across his shoulders and drawn him into the thick of their comradeship. I recalled a dream I had had, of a beggar sucked down and drowned in a whirlpool of jewels and food.
Cold rose in me. None of them had foreseen this. But I had. Only me.
I didn’t understand how that could be and suddenly I knew that I had to understand. There was great danger in me not understanding these dreams. I was the only one who could seize the tiller and steer the boat, but I did not know how.
Hush, Wolf-Father bade me sternly. Say nothing. Not to these people.
I have to know.
You don’t. You don’t have to be that. Take a breath. Breathe now, smell the scents of now. Be alert to the danger that is now. Or you will never have to fear tomorrow’s danger. There was sad finality in his warning, as if he knew too well the meaning of it. I tamped down my questions and opened myself to all that was happening around us.
“At least they did no worse than take her clothing,” Odessa said quietly.
Dwalia, sitting dispiritedly by our fire, guessed the reason for that. “Until they know the limits of Vindeliar’s power, they will not risk putting themselves in a position in which the whole town might suddenly turn on them. But while they are playing childish pranks on merchants, we sit here exposed to any who might decide to wander through this stretch of woods. We can be seen now. Anything might befall us. ”
Odessa’s brow wrinkled. “Anything?” she asked, as if the concept puzzled her.
Dwalia looked ill. “Anything. We are so far from the path, I do not know how to recover our way. I do not know if we should act or hope that the path reclaims us. Anything we do may take us farther from our correct choices. ”
Odessa nodded almost eagerly. “So we were taught in the school. ‘Trust the way of the White Prophet. Avoid extreme actions. Only the Prophet through her Catalyst may steer the future best. ’ But when we are so far from the path, is it still true?”
“So we must believe,” Dwalia replied, but she sounded uncertain to me. Her luriks had ventured closer as she spoke. They huddled around her like a flock of sheep clustering close to their shepherd. A remembrance of a dark dream came to me. I clenched my teeth, feeling I held back vomit rather than sounds as the words of the dream echoed in my head. The sheep are scattered, given to the wind’s teeth while the shepherd flees with the wolf’s cub.
I heard a raised voice from the other campfire. “Why? Why not? For a celebration! For those of us who stayed here and waited while you tested the boy in town. ”
“They are mine,” Ellik replied, but his stern words were laced with tolerant amusement. “When they are changed to coins, then be sure you will be given your rightful share. Have I ever cheated you of your rightful due?”
“No, but …”
I craned my neck. It was the handsome rapist speaking. By the firelight, his nose and cheeks were red with more than cold. They had been drinking the stolen wine. I caught a glimpse of Vindeliar. He was sitting flat in the snow, a foolish smile on his face.
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“It’s all his fault,” Dwalia said in a poisonously bitter voice. I thought she was speaking of Ellik but she was staring sightlessly into the darkened forest. “He did this to us. He could not be content with the role he was given. He was treated well. He had no reason to run off, to choose a Catalyst of his own, to destroy the path with his willfulness. I feel his influence in this. How that can be, I do not know. But I am certain it is so, and I curse his name. ”
“So spare us two or even one!” Hogen suggested boldly. “One will not make that big a hole in your purse, Commander!”
I thought that Ellik would be furious at the demand, but perhaps he had been made more mellow by drink and by his enjoyment of his prize that day. “Commander? No. Duke. Duke I will be again, with this boy on my leash. Name me so from now on!”
At that proclamation, some of his men cheered.
Did Hogen judge him mellowed with wine and success? He flourished an elaborate bow to Ellik and said in a mockingly elegant voice, “Duke Ellik, your excellency, we your most loyal subjects beg a boon of you. Will not you spare us one of yon womanflesh for us to enjoy on this cold night?”
The other men erupted in laughter and cheers. Duke Ellik joined in. He slapped the man firmly on the back and spoke loud and clear. “Hogen, I know you well. One will never be enough for you. And by the time all of you have finished with one, there will be nothing left for the market!”
“Then give us two, and she will have half the work!” Hogen proposed boldly, and at least three of the man shouted their approval.
Beside me, I felt Shun stiffen. She set her hand on my shoulder, and her grip was like a claw. She bent to say by my ear, “Come, Bee. You must be weary. Let us go to our rest. ” She clutched the shoulder of my coat and almost lifted me to my feet as she pulled at me. Around us, the luriks crouched frozen around the fire, their gazes turned toward the other fireside. Their eyes grew wider in their pale faces.
“Can we not flee?” I heard one whisper. “If we scattered into the forest, some of us might escape!”
“Do nothing,” Dwalia hissed. “Do nothing. ”
But Shun paid her words no heed. She had me on my feet and we were moving, stepping quietly back from the circle of firelight. In their terror, the luriks did not seem to notice our departure. Dwalia did. She glanced at us but did nothing, almost as if she wanted us to flee.
I had lost track of the conversation from the other campfire, but the rough burst of laughter I heard was more frightening than merry. Ellik lifted his voice and sounded almost jolly in his tolerance.
“Oh, very well, Hogen. All here know that your brain cannot work when your dick is lonely for a dip. I will give you one. Just one. Chosen especially for you. Come, subjects! Follow your duke. ”
I dug in my heels and, with an angry hiss, Shun halted. I stared back. I was terrified but I had to see what was happening. Shun’s grip vised down on my shoulder but she stopped trying to drag me. I think she felt the same paralyzing curiosity. The same dread and horror.
Ellik came toward our fire, a wide, drunken grin on his seamed old face. His hand was on Hogen’s shoulder as if he steered the man, but I think he more leaned on him as he staggered through the snow. The rapist was as handsome as ever; his golde
n hair gleamed in the firelight, and he smiled with his even white teeth. So handsome and so cruel. Some of the luriks had been perched on their bundles around the fire. They stood as Ellik came on and retreated, but not far. They clustered closer to Dwalia as if she would protect them. I knew she would not.
“Do nothing,” she warned them in a stern voice as Ellik came closer. His men clustered behind him and the handsome rapist, leering like panting dogs. Hogen’s mouth was wide and wet, his left hand gripping his crotch loosely as if to contain himself. His pale eyes wandered over the luriks like a beggar child staring at a display of sweets. The Whites froze like rabbits. Shun made a low sound in her throat. She crouched down and I allowed her to move me some paces sideways to the flimsy shelter of some willow saplings. We both stared.
“Here she is! Here’s the lovely for you, Hogen!”
Ellik stretched forth his hand and let it hover near a slender girl with a face as pale as the moon. She gave a low cry and cowered closer to Dwalia. Dwalia did nothing at all. She stared at Hogen and Ellik with a stony face and made no sound. At the last moment, Ellik’s hand darted sideways and he seized Odessa by the front of her coat, pulling her from the shelter of the others as if he had just selected a piglet for the spit. Her mouth sagged into a cave of woe, her homely, unfinished face contorting as Ellik dragged her forth to the mocking cries of his men and Hogen’s cry of disappointment. “She’s ugly as a dog’s butt. I don’t want her!”
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All the men behind him roared with laughter at his protest. Ellik laughed until his face was bright red and then wheezed out, “Your cock has no eyes! She’ll do for you. She wouldn’t bring anything at the market anyway!”
Odessa had half-fainted, sagging to her knees, held up by only by the wiry old man’s grip on the neck of her shirt. Ellik was stronger than he looked. He gave a sudden heave, pulling her to her feet and swinging her into Hogen so that he had to catch her in his arms or fall himself. “Take her, you hound!” All humor suddenly fell from the commander’s face. His expression was savage as he said, “And remember this night well when I deduct her value from your share of our take. Don’t think you can whine and bargain with me, boy. I set the bargains. And this ugly rag of skirts is what you get from me tonight. ”
Hogen stared at his commander over Odessa’s bowed head. She had come to her senses enough to struggle feebly, her hands paddling at Hogen’s shirtfront. Hogen’s face had gone dark with fury but as he met Ellik’s gaze, his eyes dropped. “Stupid bitch,” he said disdainfully, and I thought he would cast Odessa back into the other luriks. But instead he shifted his grip on her, catching her one-handed under the throat and dragging her off with him. The other soldiers, gone silent for a short time at their commander’s rebuke, followed him with sudden shouts and offers of wagers and demands to be next upon her.
Dwalia did nothing. Her followers huddled behind her like sheep. I wondered if each was secretly glad the wolves had dragged off Odessa and not herself.
Not wolves. Wolves feed when they are hungry. They do not rape.
I’m sorry. I could tell I had offended Wolf-Father.
“Come. ” Shun dragged me behind a snow-laden bush. “They won’t stop with her. We have to escape now. ”
“But we’ve nothing with us …”
From the other campfire, we heard short bursts of screams. The men mocked Odessa, whooping along with her. Shun’s grip on my shoulder began to shake. “We have our lives,” she whispered angrily. “That’s what we flee with. ” I could tell she could scarcely get breath into her lungs. She was terrified. And trying to save me.
I could not take my eyes off the huddled luriks. Dwalia was a standing silhouette against the firelight. Abruptly she moved. “Ellik!” She shouted his name angrily into the night. “We had an agreement! You gave us your word! You cannot do this!” Then, as I saw the two men he had left watching the luriks move toward her, she shouted at them, “Do not block my way!”
“That’s … stupid. ” Shun’s voice shook out of her body. “We have to run. We have to get away. They’ll kill her. And then there is nothing between them and us. ”
“Yes,” I said. I listened to Wolf-Father. “We must leave no fresh tracks. Move where the snow is trampled already. Get as far from the camp as we can while they are busy. Find a tree-well, a, a place under an evergreen where the branches are heavy with snow and bent down, but the ground around the trunk is almost clear. Hide there, close together. ”
I’d reached up to take her by the wrist. She let go of my collar and abruptly I was the one who was leading her, away from Dwalia and her paralyzed luriks, away from the campfires and into the dark. Odessa’s screams had stopped. I refused to wonder why. We moved furtively, until we were at the edge of our campsite. Shun was not speaking. She simply followed me. I took her to the trail the horses and sleighs had made through the snow when we first arrived. We were moving steadily, both of us breathing raggedly with fear, backtracking the trail of the sleighs and horses. The forest was black, the snow was white. I saw a game trail crossing our path. We turned and followed it, leaving the runner tracks behind us. Now we moved as deer did, ducking our heads to go under low-hanging, snow-laden boughs. “Don’t touch the branches. Don’t make any snow fall,” I warned. On a rise to our left, I saw a cluster of evergreens. “This way,” I whispered. I went first, breaking trail through the deep snow. I was leaving tracks. We couldn’t help that.
The snow will be shallower in the deeper forest. Go, cub. Do not hide until you are too weary to run any farther.
I nodded and tried to move faster. The snow seemed to clutch at my boots and Shun made too much noise. They would hear us running away. They would catch us.
Then we heard Dwalia scream. It was not shrill, it was hoarse. And terrified. She screamed again and then shouted, “Vindeliar! Come back to us! Vinde—” And her voice was cut off, as swiftly as one quenches a torch.
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I heard frightened voices, a chorus of them, some shrill. Questioning, like a flock of chickens woken in the dark of night. The luriks.
“Run now. We must run now!”
“What are they doing to her?”
“Vindeliar! He must help us. ”
Behind us in the night, I heard Dwalia’s voice rise in a desperate choked cry. “This must not happen! This must not happen! Make it stop, Vindeliar! It is your only chance to return to the rightful path. Forget what Ellik told you! It wasn’t true! Forget Ellik!” Then, in a desperately hoarse voice, “Vindeliar, save me! Make them stop!”
Then a different kind of scream cut the night. It wasn’t a sound. It hurt me to feel it; it made me sick. Fear flowed through the air and drenched me. I was so terrified I could not move. Shun froze. I tried to speak, to tell her we had to get farther away, but I could not make my voice work. My legs would not hold me up. I sagged down in the snow with Shun falling on top of me. In the wake of that wave, a deadly silence filled the forest. No night bird spoke, no living thing gave voice. It was so still I could hear the crackling of the fires.
Then a single shrill, clear cry. “Run! Flee!”
And then the hoarse shouting of men. “Catch them! Don’t let them steal the horses!”
“Kill him! Kill them all! Traitors!”
“Stop them. Don’t let them get to the village!”
“Bastards! Traitorous bastards!”
And then the night was full of sound. Screams, cries. Men roaring and shouting. Orders barked. Screeched pleas.
Shun was the one to rise and drag me to my feet. “Run,” she whimpered, and I tried. My legs were jelly. They would not take my weight.
Shun dragged me through the snow. I staggered to my feet.
We fled from the rising screams into darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Red Snow
I but recount the rumors and gossip as they come to me. Th
e tales I am hearing seem too wild to be true, but as you have ordered me, I do. This is what news reached me. The Duke of Chalced is no more. A horde of dragons bearing armored riders came out of the wilderness and attacked the city of Chalced. They spat fire or something just as destructive. They ringed the city with circles of destruction. Finally they targeted the palace of the duke himself, destroying it with their spew and the battering of their wings and the lashing of their tails. It is said that his towering stronghold crumpled to a quarter of its height and is no longer inhabitable.
The elderly and ailing duke, it is said, came out of his palace to stand before his troops. A tower fell, crushing him and much of his soldiery. Chancellor Ellik, long the duke’s most trusted advisor and a sword companion from the time of their youth, survived. The Chalcedean forces were reduced to a retreat that became a rout.
By the next morning, the daughter of the Duke of Chalced had emerged as allied with the dragons and their tenders and now claims to be “rightfully” the Duchess of Chalced. Ellik has proclaimed that he was the duke’s chosen successor and accused the so-called duchess of witchcraft. One Redhands Roctor, formerly a minor nobleman in the west of Chalced near Heastgate, has challenged both of them. His military forces were untouched in the attack and in my opinion are most likely to prevail. Chalcedeans are unlikely to accept the rule of a woman, even one with the goodwill of dragons. Duke Ellik’s forces were greatly diminished in the dragon rout of Chalced city. It would take divine intervention for him to return to power and influence, especially since he failed to protect the city. The “Duchess” of Chalced has offered a reward for his severed head, and the people of the city of Chalced call him a coward who abandoned them to the dragons.
—Unsigned report to Lord Chade Fallstar
Fleeter and I made good time. The moon silvered the snow and I had the stars to keep my bearings. The cart trail soon joined a wider way as we neared the Maiden’s Waist, though the wide passage through the rolling hills scarce merited the title pass. Fleeter was glad to be on trodden snow again. The roan employed her long-legged stride as we climbed the last stretch, and then we loped through an evergreen forest, and down a narrow trail that wound through bare-limbed oaks and alders. The slow winter dawn gradually came to light our way. Fleeter dropped our pace to a walk and breathed. The trail widened and I passed several small homesteads. Smoke rose from their chimneys, and candlelight told of farmers waking early. I saw no one outside.