Now as he rode the wide plain on his way back to the Cauldron in Ylorc he let the gusts of wind clear his mind, carrying away whatever worry they could. The icy flakes that rode the air currents stung as they impacted his skin, but he could tolerate them, concentrating on avoiding them when he could, keeping his mind busy.
He was unprepared, therefore, when the wind that slapped him at the bowl of the Krevensfield Plain carried with it a strong taste of salt.
Achmed slowed his canter and opened his mouth to allow the salty air to swirl in and around it. He spat on the ground.
The breeze contained the salty taste of sweat and blood; somewhere around here a battle was being fought.
In addition, the salt water on the wind had the unmistakable tang of the sea. Achmed spat again in disgust. Since the sea was a thousand leagues away, it could only mean one thing.
Ashe was here somewhere.
Moments later he could hear the voice of Llauron’s son, calling from a swale to the south.
“Achmed! Achmed! Here! Come!”
Achmed exhaled and nudged his mount forward slowly to the upper edge of the swale, looking into the small valley below.
Even before he crested the swale he could taste the carnage on the wind. The smell of pitch mingled with fire and blood was still burning in the air, sending up tendrils of sour smoke toward the wintry sky.
Once he reached the top, Achmed winced involuntarily at the sight. The dip of the swale was strewn with bodies, some scorched from the burning pitch that still smoked on the snowy ground. Riderless horses wandered aimlessly, some still bearing their human burden slumped across their backs. The remains of a wagon burned dully in the midst of the scene. By quick count there had been a score or so horses bearing the colors of Sorbold, and another dozen in dull green or brown, with no standard displayed on their blankets. The Sorbold contingent had numbered, from the look of it, one hundred or so foot soldiers along with the twenty horsemen.
Their victims had been a smaller party, perhaps a dozen in total, apparently ambushed at the bottom of the swale, most of them brawny men, older, with an assortment of armor and weaponry, but no apparent common standard. They had held their own for a while, it appeared, but now their corpses were scattered about on the floor of the swale, their blood staining the ground a rosy pink.
In the middle of this butchery Ashe, his features obscured by the swaths of his hooded cloak of mist, was standing guard over a remaining soldier clad in motley clothing, defending the injured man from the seven remaining Sorbolds, one of whom lay at the ground at his feet. Achmed’s eyes riveted on that soldier; he was swiping at Ashe with a hooked weapon that looked suspiciously like the ones used in the tunnels of Ylorc.
From a distance he judged Ashe to have the upper hand despite being outnumbered; a moment later he was proven right as Ashe, fighting with Kirsdarke, the elemental sword of water, in his left hand, and the wooden shaft of a broken wagon brake in the other, swept three of the Sorbolds down with the shaft and eviscerated a fourth in a flash of streaming blue. He looked over his shoulder at Achmed, who remained motionless atop his mount. Though his face was obscured by the hood of his cloak, the relief in his voice was unmistakable.
“Achmed! Thank the gods you’re here!”
He turned again, reinvigorated, and stabbed the Sorbold with the hook through the chest, parrying the attack from the two that remained standing with the wooden shaft.
Achmed jumped down from his mount and hurried down the face of the hill, stopping halfway. He crouched in the bloody snow and picked up a short sword that lay next to the body of a dead Sorbold soldier; it gleamed in the morning light with a blue sheen as dark as midnight, its razor-sharp inner edge glinting dangerously. It was one of the Firbolg-made drawknives, a weapon restricted to use by Achmed’s elite Bolg regiment. His hands, thin and strong within their leather sheaths, began to shake with anger.
Ashe pulled his sword from the fallen Sorbold’s chest, then spun out of his parry, landing a solid blow to the temple of the rightmost Sorbold. He slashed the one on the left across the neck with Kirsdarke, slamming both their heads together with crushing force. He leapt over the bodies in time to avoid the charge from the last three remaining Sorbold soldiers, looking around for Achmed.
But the Firbolg king was walking from body to body, gathering weapons, cursing under his breath.
Ashe returned to his task, quickly dispatching the remaining Sorbolds in a flurry of thrusts from the glowing water sword. He bent down and checked the fallen man he had been protecting, then turned in annoyance and shouted to the Firbolg king, who was picking up a whisper-thin disk from the ground.
“Thanks for the help,” he called sarcastically as Achmed came nearer.
“You didn’t say ‘help,’” Achmed said, not looking up from the weapons he was examining. “You said ‘come.’ I came. Be more specific next time.”
Ashe sighed and returned to the injured man, covering him with a saddle blanket from a riderless horse.
A moment later Achmed was beside him; he dropped the weapons with a clang onto the snowy ground, all but the cwellan disk.
“What happened here?” he asked sharply.
Ashe’s eyes glared up at him from within his hood. “Have a little respect. Do you know who this man is?”
“No, and unless he can answer my question, I can’t say as I care.”
“It was an ambush of some sort,” Ashe said, checking the unconscious man’s breathing. “It appears to be part of a Sorbold column that may have broken off from the rest. I don’t know what happened to the remainder of the column—there are two sets of tracks, separated by half a day or more. Undoubtedly more of the same violence the land has experienced for twenty years, but the first I’ve heard of on the part of the Sorbolds.”
Achmed folded his arms, reflecting silently. He had seen large, spread-out caravans making their way back to various lands on his way through the province of Navarne, though he had stayed at a distance. It seemed to him at the time that they were somber for revelers who had just attended a festival—mournful, in fact. He took a deep breath at the thought of what might have been in the wagons they were following.
“If you are headed to Navarne, you might want to have a look in on Stephen,” he said, “if you can do it from a distance. I can see you are still in hiding, though I can’t imagine why.”
“Gods—the winter solstice festival,” Ashe said softly.
“It would also help if you leave one alive for questioning next time.”
“No good—they’re thralls of the demon. They never remember anything.”
Achmed nodded sullenly. “Who is this man?”
Ashe looked down at the bloodless face. “His name is Shrike,” he said after a moment. “He is a First Generation Cymrian, sworn at one time to Gwylliam, and now to Anborn.”
“And you think this information would somehow interest me?”
Ashe rechecked the twine he had bound around Shrike’s bleeding arm, and pulled out his waterskin.
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t,” he said bitterly. “He is merely one of the last of your kind, someone who trod the same soil on the other side of the world that you trod, that shares your history. One of the few to live that long and still keep his sanity. He is merely a human being, bleeding his life onto the ground below him. I apologize most sincerely; why on Earth would any of that interest you?”
Achmed picked up the drawknife from the top of the pile and thrust it under Ashe’s nose. “Do you know what this is?”
“It’s a chicken leg.” Ashe poured the water from the skin onto a bloodstained handkerchief and placed it across Shrike’s forehead. “Or perhaps a long-stemmed daisy.”
“This chicken leg is a Bolg weapon that has no trade agreement to allow it out of the mountain,” Achmed snarled. “These designs are secret—being in Sorbold hands means it has been stolen, or planted here in the attempt to cast blame for this atrocity on Ylorc, just as was attempted last
summer when chewed-upon bodies were tossed into the Moot!” He threw the weapon down on the pile again and glared off to the south, to the foothills of the southern Teeth that formed the northern border of Sorbold.
Ashe shaded his eyes and looked up in the same direction.
“Seems as if someone wants to start a war with you.”
“So it seems.”
Ashe leaned down and put an ear to the injured man’s chest. “He’s going to die if we don’t get him to a healer.”
Achmed began gathering up the weapons again. “So that seems as well.”
“That’s rather callous, even for you. I have no horse; will you help me get him to Sepulvarta?”
Achmed glared at him and gestured to the field. “There are two score of them running around here. Take one, and take him yourself.” He looked down at the face of the soldier; it was an old face, worn and weathered like a sailor’s, with a cruel wound across the eyes. “But I wouldn’t waste my time at the basilica in Sepulvarta if I were you. When Rhapsody was injured to the point of dying in autumn I took her there; the Patriarch and his priests were less than useless.” He eyed Ashe’s finger. “That, of course, was because Rhapsody gave you his Ring of Wisdom to heal you. You carry the office now; the Patriarch is just a figurehead. Why don’t you try to heal him yourself?”
The hooded man stared off into the wind, silent. A moment later he pulled off the leather glove that protected his left hand and took hold of the ring on the third finger. The ring was a plain one, a clear, smooth stone set in a simple platinum setting. Inside the stone, as though internally inscribed, were two symbols on opposite sides of the oval gemstone, resembling the symbols for positive and negative. Gently he took the hand of the injured man; it was a soldier’s hand, rough, thick-fingered and bloody. With great care he slid the ring on the smallest finger.
Both men watched intently for a moment. The dragon nature within Ashe’s blood hummed, curious, below the surface of his skin; he struggled to keep it at bay while trying to learn what it could discern. The dragon only felt a few small changes, a tiny improvement, not enough to keep the First Generation Cymrian alive much longer. Ashe judged that he might survive for a few days if he was kept sheltered, but not much more after that. Carefully he removed the ring from Shrike’s finger and returned it to his own, pulling on his glove again.
“The ring is not by essence a ring of healing, but of wisdom,” he said, rising. “It endows its wearer with the knowledge to enhance what one is already born to. The Patriarch, by study, and aptitude, and office, was a healer. He gave it to Rhapsody, who by nature and training is a healer, too. She was able to heal me with it. I am not a healer. It imparts to me wisdom in other matters.”
Achmed chuckled wryly. “Ah, yes, that’s right. It will advise you in your decisions as the Lord Cymrian if there is ever another Council called, as your father is hoping. And it has made you aware of the First Generation Cymrians still blessing us with their presence in this world—is that how you knew this man?”
“No. I have known him since boyhood. He is a great man, a kind man. He must be saved.” Ashe looked west across the Krevensfield Plain. “If there is no one to help him in Sepulvarta, the next nearest place is Bethe Corbair. There’s a basilica there, and the benison, Lanacan Orlando, is a renowned healer. Could you take him there? It is on the way to the Bolglands.”
Achmed bent and gathered the purloined weapons, fury blazing in his eyes. “No. I will not be diverted—actually I have already been delayed far more than I can tolerate. There is nothing more essential than for me to return to Ylorc and find out what is going on in my kingdom, if I still have one left. Take him yourself—or, better yet, take him to Gwynwood to your father’s Tanist. Khaddyr is said to be one of the greatest healers on the continent. If he can’t help this man, I doubt anyone can.”
“He’ll never make it to Gwynwood—it’s too far.”
“Then take him to Bethe Corbair yourself—I will support your hiding no longer. You’ve been healed, and your soul has been returned to you. What else do you want? One might think it more than a bit craven of you to continue walking the world in the luxury of anonymity when your friend here is dying.”
“With your permission,” came a growl from beneath them, “I would like to be taken to Anborn, if you please. And I’m not dying; that would be against orders.” A racking wheeze broke off his words as the old man slipped back into unconsciousness.
Achmed and Ashe stared down at the battered man at their feet, then looked to one another.
“Well, it appears the ring has given him wisdom in his lot as well, hasn’t it. Do you know where to find Anborn?” Achmed asked, wrapping the weapons in a pitch-stained saddle blanket from a dead war horse. Ashe considered for a moment, then nodded. “Sounds like a good plan. Well, I’ll leave you to your journey then.” He started back to his mount.
“Wait,” Ashe called. Achmed exhaled in annoyance and turned back once more. “Rhapsody—is she all right?”
“She told me that you were no longer keeping company,” Achmed retorted impatiently. “If so, her condition, and all other information about her, is no longer your concern. Forget her. She has forgotten you.” He mounted, slinging the bundle of weapons before him in the saddle, and spurred the horse to a gallop. A moment later he had ascended the swale to the west and was gone from sight.
Ashe waited for a moment, as if suspended in Time, then captured a passing gelding and brought it over to where Shrike lay, breathing shallowly.
“Do not fear,” he said to the unconscious man as he lifted him into the saddle. “I will see to it that you make it there.”
18
Eastern Avonderre, Near the Border of Navarne
Shattered blasts of freshening snow rose into the air beneath the pounding of the gelding’s hooves. As it swirled up it blended with the clouds of mist emanating from Ashe’s cloak, forming a fragile white screen around him and his galloping mount. From a distance he and it appeared as little more than a gust of wind whipping the snow before him.
The southern forest rim crossed the borders of Navarne and Avonderre, areas that had seen some of the greatest bloodshed from random eruptions of violence. When Ashe had traveled through this place alone, it was always silently, on foot, carefully skirting whatever living beings registered on his dragon senses.
Now, with his body restored, his soul his own once more, he braved their notice, focusing all his attention on the wounded man sprawled before him across the horse’s back, and on locating his commander.
Shrike moaned intermittently as they traveled, whispering incoherently from time to time, otherwise lying silent across Ashe’s knees. Occasionally the dragon in Ashe’s blood felt the man’s pulse ebb, his breathing grow shallow. When this happened he rested his hand, with the Patriarch’s ring, near Shrike’s heart, wordlessly encouraging him to hang on to life long enough to reach Anborn.
The ring’s power seemed to be sufficient to sustain the man’s essence, to keep it trapped within its earthly shell, at least for the moment. Ashe shielded his eyes from the sting of the wind and the burn of ice crystals slapping his face, remembering the last time he had seen a First Generation Cymrian struggle with death.
Talthea, the Gracious One, sometimes known as the Widow.
The woman had been under the care of Khaddyr, the great healer of the Filids, who was also his father’s Tanist, his future successor. She lay, writhing in agony, locked in ferocious combat with the forces of this life and the next, on the Altar of the Ultimate Sacrifice, the ancient stump of a long-dead tree of massive girth, in the midst of the Circle, the center of the Filidic order.
Ashe, still a child, had stood by helplessly, dwarfed by the mourning crowd, muttering rote prayers he knew by heart but that made no sense to him and wishing desperately that she would be all right, despite never having seen her before. The wisdom of memory made him realize, more than a century later, that the anguish he felt then was mostly a reflection
of the rest of the Filidic order’s grief, a palpable sorrow that was raging all around him. He had not been able to understand, then or now, why her gruesome fight was not to live, but to die.
Khaddyr worked tirelessly to save her, to keep her on this side of the Gate of Life, but in the end she succumbed to wounds that should never have been mortal. Ashe had been but a young boy at the time, and had watched, devastated, as Khaddyr had bowed his head over the woman’s body, then collapsed, weeping.
He could still feel the comforting grip of his father’s hand on his shoulder, Llauron’s voice speaking in his ear, as it did now in his memory.
She wanted to go, Gwydion. She did not wish to remain in this life any longer, and took the earliest excuse it offered her to leave.
Why? he had asked as the Filid priests gently led Khaddyr away. He stared at the corpse’s alabaster face, wreathed in the death grimace of one who had lost a fierce battle.
Llauron’s grip had tightened slightly; then his arm slid around Gwydion’s shoulder. Longevity that borders on immortality is as much a curse as a blessing, my boy, maybe even more so. She may appear youthful, but only because she was a young woman when she came to this new land. She left her heart behind in Serendair, a homeland that was rich in magic. After she left, both her heart and her home came to rest, silent, beneath the waves of the sea; she lost much in the passage as well. She has lived half again a thousand years, bearing witness to much suffering in that time, none greater than her own. Now finally she is where she has wanted to be all along.
Why does she look so unhappy, then, Father? he had asked, staring at the contorted features, the furrows of pain frozen forever on her otherwise-beautiful face, her glassy eyes blindly reflecting the filtered light of the sun above the canopy of leaves.