But there was something in the wind.
She could not really put her finger on what she felt; it was transitory, ephemeral as the wandering breeze itself. But a change was coming; she could feel it. And it made her skin prickle in cold, even beneath the growing heat of the summer sun.
The noise of preparation dimmed; she looked away for a moment from the soldiers making ready the horses, wagons, and supplies that would accompany them on their trek to Yarim and turned from the ocean of billowing grass westward toward the real sea, one hundred leagues away.
Is that where it’s coming from? she wondered, trying in vain to find the thread in the wind, the change in the air, whatever alteration in scent or heat or density that was causing her melancholy. Attuned as she was to the vibration in the world around her, in the tone of the music that life made, as a Lirin Singer, a Namer, she could seek such changes.
But she found nothing.
There had been no dreams, no nightmares that foretold of anything looming, warnings like the ones that had once nightly plagued her sleep. When she was wrapped in Ashe’s arms, the bad dreams stayed at bay; a dragon guarding one’s dreams was the most peaceful means to a night’s rest. But even more, when she was away from him, in Tyrian or journeying back again, there had been no visions, no premonitions, no omen to give credence to this sudden change in the wind.
Perhaps she was only imagining it.
Yet as she stood, peering futilely into the distance, she felt another chill, a different one, this time at her back. The tiny hairs at the nape of her neck bristled and beads of sweat appeared, cooling a moment later in the morning breeze. Rhapsody turned quickly, staring over the battlements of Haguefort eastward, toward the ever-reaching expanse of the Krevensfield Plain, but the sensation was gone. Nothing met her eyes but endless swimming fields of highgrass.
She put her palm to her temple, seeking to dispel the throbbing that had arisen from deep within her brain; as she did, to the south she felt yet another quiver, like a tremor in the ground. She bent quickly and touched the earth beneath her feet, but found nothing out of the ordinary.
And then, as quickly as it had come, it too was gone.
“Aria?”
Rhapsody looked up to see Ashe, on the roadway below, watching her along with the guards, the soldiers, and Gerald Owen. She mustered a smile and shook her head, a gesture that sent everyone back to his appointed task except Ashe, who handed the chest he was carrying to one of the escort troops, then headed up the grade to her side.
“Is something wrong?” he asked as she stood and brushed the dirt from her hands.
“I’m not certain,” she replied, shielding her eyes again and looking around. Whatever had disrupted her thoughts, had given her pause, was gone now, if it had even been anything to begin with.
“I don’t think so,” she said finally.
“We can still send an avian message to Achmed if you wish to stay home,” Ashe said, running a finger through a loose strand of her hair. “He won’t be leaving Ylorc for another day or more; Yarim is so much shorter a trek for him.”
Rhapsody took his hand and pulled him back toward the wagons. “Not at all. I am very much looking forward to this journey,” she said as they walked to the caravan. She stopped as a carriage marked with the royal standard plodded into the line, drawn by a team of bays. “What is that?”
Ashe bowed deeply. “M’lady’s coach.”
“Surely you jest.”
The Lord Cymrian blinked. “No. Why?”
“You want me to ride in a carriage?”
“Why not?”
“Coaches are for — for, well —”
A wry look of amusement came into Ashe’s blue eyes. “For what, my dear?”
“For — well, for nobility and the like.”
“You are nobility, Rhapsody. You’re royalty now, as much as it pains you.”
She cuffed him playfully. “You’re right, it does, but that’s not the problem. Coaches are for the pampered, or the old, or the ill. I don’t wish to be any of those things, not yet at least.”
“Are we never to overcome your distaste for royal amenities? It might afford us a private place to sleep.”
“I’m sure the regiment will appreciate that. No.”
Ashe gave a mock sigh of annoyance. “Very well,” he said, and gestured to the quartermaster. “We don’t need the coach, Phillip. Thank you.”
“It would just slow us down anyway,” Rhapsody said, going to her roan mare and patting her affectionately. “And Twilla would be jealous.”
“Let it be noted that I attempted, indulgent husband that I am, to spare your hindquarters from the saddle, and you rebuffed my efforts,” Ashe said, attempting an injured air.
“Well, my hindquarters thank you, and please do not comment further on that statement,” Rhapsody said, patting the roan again. “Are we almost ready?”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps we should find Melisande and Gwydion Navarne. And I wanted to be certain to bid farewell to Anborn.”
Ashe nodded in the direction of the crest of a hill. “He’s over there,” he said. “I’ll gather the children if you want to go say goodbye.”
Rhapsody kissed him appreciatively. “Thank you.”
She waited until he had ascended the steps of Haguefort before heading toward the hill he had indicated. She stopped halfway up, listening to the moan of the wind again, but there was nothing in it out of the ordinary that she could discern. Finally she sighed and hurried up the hill face to the summit.
At the top of the hill Anborn sat, alone in his wheeled chair. His back was to her, but as she approached he spoke.
“It’s coming from the west, I believe,” he said.
Rhapsody stopped where she stood. “What is it?” she asked apprehensively.
The ancient soldier didn’t move. “I don’t know,” he said.
Rhapsody slowly came forward until she was beside him. Even standing upright she was only slightly taller than the Lord Marshal was when seated. She waited, not wanting to disrupt whatever he was listening for. Together they stared out over the endless meadow to the horizon, brightening now with the full ascent of the sun. Finally the general spoke.
“I thought I heard the call,” he said.
“You had said. On the Skeleton Coast.”
Anborn turned his azure gaze on her. “No; again, last night.”
The chill returned, prickling her flesh, but this time Rhapsody knew that the source was the general’s words. “Where?”
Anborn looked away again. “If I knew, I would be there.” He rolled his shoulders, the massive muscles rippling beneath his shirt, then straightened his useless legs with his hands.
“I heard nothing, though I sense a change in the air,” Rhapsody said, brushing the hair from her eyes as the breeze blew through again. “I have never heard the call of the Kinsmen on the wind, Anborn; I’ve only been the one to cry for help, and you answered. I thought that if a Kinsman called, and there was one within the hearing of that call, he would come; that the elements themselves would aid in bringing him.”
The general nodded. “That was my understanding as well.”
“So then how could this be?”
Anborn shrugged. “I have lived more than a thousand years, Rhapsody. If I live a thousand more, I will still not know the answer to every question you would have.”
Rhapsody smiled slightly. “Indeed that is true,” she said, putting her arm across his shoulder. “And even if you knew, I doubt you’d share the information. You cannot even deign to tell the buttery cooks what you want for supper.”
“Your new one is wretched, by the way. I’ve had better swill and hardtack in the belly of a cargo ship.”
The light words dissipated on the wind, leaving an image ringing in Rhapsody’s mind.
“Could the call have come from the sea?” she asked. She felt Anborn’s muscles tense slightly beneath her arm. “Llauron used to say that the wind over
the sea sometimes caught sounds and spun them, like raveling wool, keeping them flying about forever, battered by the vibrations of the endless waves. Is it possible you are hearing a call that came from someone on the sea, maybe yesterday, maybe a hundred years ago?”
Anborn scowled. “If we are to debate all of what is possible, you will not arrive in Yarim in time to meet the Bolg king,” he said gruffly, though the affection was unmistakable in his voice.
“Perhaps that is why you are hearing it and I am not,” Rhapsody said. “Perhaps it came from a time before I was even here, before I became a Kinsman.” Her face colored slightly in the morning sun. “It is still so hard for me to believe that I am one; I haven’t the lifetime of soldiering service that most have.”
Anborn shook his head. “Many lies are put on the wind, but the wind itself never lies. You called and I heard you, so whatever you did to obtain the status must have been worthy. Hard as it sometimes is to imagine it.” He pinched her hip playfully.
“What do we do, then?” she asked, slapping his hand and trying to keep the desperation she felt at bay.
Anborn shrugged again. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.” The lines in the general’s face crinkled as he squinted into the sun, then turned his gaze to the fields again. “You cannot save the entirety of the world, Rhapsody; no one can. If it is to be, if there is a Kinsman in distress, and he is able to be saved, the wind will see to it that he will be. I stand ready — well, all right, I sit ready.” He chuckled and patted her face gently, allowing his hand to linger on her cheek for a moment. “And I know you do as well. So we will wait and see what is to pass. In the meantime, go and live your life. Go to that dry red brick of a city and flood it; drown it, for all I care. It’s a place of dry rot, and deserves to blow away in the wind, as far as I’m concerned, but if this is what you seek to do, by all means go do it. You cannot wait on destiny; it comes to you, usually when you are least ready for it.”
Rhapsody took the hand that rested on her face and kissed it, then bent and kissed the general’s cheek.
“Thank you, Anborn. Are you staying in Haguefort for a while?”
“A short while, long enough to undo the miserable lessons my useless nephew has been giving the young duke. That boy doesn’t even know how to spit properly; it’s a crime.”
Rhapsody laughed. “Oh good. Well, I’m sure he will be a whole new man when we return.”
“Count on it. I may not be here to welcome you home, alas. You know how much I dislike staying in one place for too long.”
She nodded. “Yes. I will miss you, as always.”
The general waved a hand at her. “Go. The caravan was almost ready when I came out here an hour or more ago. They are doubtless waiting for you. Travel well.”
He waited until she had disappeared over the rim of the hill before he spoke.
“And, as always, I will miss you, too.”
THE CAULDRON
Achmed marveled at how quietly the Bolg had assembled.
The caravan to Yarim had been stocked and made ready during the night, so as not to disrupt the morning muster or early maneuvers; the work had been accomplished in virtual silence, impressive because the wagons with the drill bits and gears were seven yards long, with four axles each, weighty, cumbersome equipment that clanked and groaned under the best of circumstances. It was a tribute to Grunthor’s training and the natural grace of the Firbolg body, made flexible and stealthy by necessity.
Despite the efficiency of their actions, the king could see that the Bolg who had been selected to travel to Yarim were nervous.
The scars from the centuries-old tradition of Spring Cleaning still remained, four years after he had taken the throne, a hideous annual ritual in which the Orlandan army, drunk on power and better armed and trained, came to the foothills of the Teeth and laid waste to a Bolg village, thinking that their bloodthirsty actions were keeping the demi-human population in check and preventing the cannibalistic hordes from attacking the border provinces of Bethe Corbair and Yarim.
In their haste to destroy and hurry home, the soldiers of Roland had seemed to miss the fact that the site of their devastation was the same every year. The Bolg manipulated the situation masterfully; a ramshackle village was hastily constructed and populated with the castoffs of the semi-nomadic society — the old, the infirm, the sickly. The solution, to his mind, was pragmatic and clever; it kept the herd stronger, while appeasing the bloodlust of Roland, and prevented them from coming deeper into the Teeth where the Bolg really lived. The deception had been the convincing factor to Achmed that this populace, the race of his unknown father’s people, was worth his effort to protect.
From horseback he could see them now in the light of dawn, gathering their foodstuffs and weapons, hitching the dray horses to the wagons — oxen might have been better, but would never have survived in the Teeth. Bolg didn’t care for the taste of horseflesh, and could be threatened into treating the animals as transportation, not food, unlike the four unfortunate teams of experimental oxen he had purchased from Bethe Corbair a few years back. He still occasionally saw Bolg pass him in the tunnels, their crude headpieces sporting the bovine’s horns, usually just one from the center of the forehead or sprouting from their heads atop a helmet. He had once even seen one adorning a lesser commander’s codpiece, and muttered a silent apology to the late ox.
So for all that the human inhabitants of Yarim would no doubt tremble at the sight of a cohort of the Firbolg army approaching from the east, they could hardly be as unsettled by it as the Bolg were at the thought of entering into the heart of the former enemy’s territory in a small, sparsely guarded group. They had more justifiable reason to worry, in his opinion.
The ground rumbled to his right, and Grunthor appeared atop Rockslide.
“Oi think we are ready to depart, sir,” the giant said.
Achmed nodded and turned to Rhur, who wore an apprehensive expression, noticeable in the gray light. Since the aspect usually seen on Bolgish faces was taciturn, it was especially unsettling.
“As ordered, look to Omet for guidance in matters of Gurgus, and to Hagraith in administrative ones,” he said. “If there is something about which you are uncertain, await my return.” The Bolg artisan nodded.
Achmed took up the reins, signaled to the quartermaster, then urged the horse forward until he was at the head of the supply column. He cleared his throat.
“Ready?”
The dark faces and hirsute heads nodded silently.
“Very well, then. We’ll be in and out quickly, so as not to have to endure these people any longer than absolutely necessary. Fall out.”
With a grinding scream of wood, the noise of the animals, and a flash of the summer sun on the blue-black steel of the drill bit, covered a moment later in canvas, the Bolg engineers set forth for the red clay of Yarim.
AT SEA, AT THE CROSSING OF THE PRIME MERIDIAN
The seneschal could hear the sailors calling to each other from the riggings of the Basquela, even over the bellow of the sea wind.
“Point o’ No Return, Cap’n!”
“Point o’ No Return! All hands hoay!”
The shout was picked up by a dozen voices, then a score, then two score, passed all around the decks like the warning of wildfire or flood.
Fergus, the seneschal’s reeve, stood up from the sea chest on which he sat and motioned to the armsmen the seneschal had brought from Argaut to gather abaft the mainmast. A man of few words, Fergus communicated largely in a lexicon of terrifying growls, grunts, and snorts, but in the building gale he resorted to sweeping arm gestures and a black glower.
The seneschal grabbed for a nearby stay and clutched the mouse, the metal ball on the stay’s collar. The Prime Meridian, the invisible line that sundered the sea and was said to have been the exact place where Time began, was the fabled Point of No Return, where a ship might pass silently and without incident, or be caught and scuttled b
y an errant crosscurrent; worse, the wind had been known to suddenly die down, becalming the ship on the open sea. It was the place that sailors dreaded, but were forced to brave on any circumnavigation. The metal under his hands was slippery and cold in the salt spray and stiff wind.
“Ease the ship,” the pilot shouted to the helmsman. “We’re gonna closehaul ’er.”
Clomyn and Caius, the seneschal’s trusted crossbowmen, staggered to their feet, looking for a place to grab hold and ride out the crossing of the meridian. Twins whose hearts beat in unison, and whose skill with their weapons was unmatched in all of Argaut, the brothers had been green since leaving port, and now lumbered, pale, as their stomachs rushed into their mouths.
“Bear a-hand, mates!” the captain called, steadying himself. “’Tis a heavy sea today; look alive. Warp her, or we’re gonna be all in the wind.”
The ship’s crew, long accustomed to braving the Point, scrambled aloft or manned their posts, preparing for a violent ride. The heave of the sea was strong, slapping high waves over the sides, drenching the armsmen in the seneschal’s regiment.
The seneschal, himself unsettled by the pitching of the vessel, clung to the stay, gasping for breath as he caught the spray from a cresting wave full in the mouth. He shouted for Fergus, and the reeve made his way across the slippery deck.
“Secure me,” he ordered his reeve, who nodded and braced himself, then grabbed hold of the seneschal’s arm.
“Luff! To the lee, man!” called the pilot to the helmsman again.
The seneschal felt the black fire within his soul rage with anger at the helplessness he now felt. The ship was pitching violently, the sailors scrambling, when only a few moments before they had been following a fair wind, making good time. That his journey, and thereby his goal, was in jeopardy, infuriated both man and demon.
“Right the helm!” the captain shouted.
“Hold sound,” the seneschal said to Fergus, who nodded his understanding.