The twenty-three Found who stood witness to the beginning of the warriors’ journey, hidden among the trees of the valley side, were by blood the brothers and sisters of Karsa, Bairoth and Delum, yet they were strangers as well, though at that moment that detail seemed to matter little.
‘One shall make it.’ This from Bairoth’s eldest brother.
Delum’s twin sister shrugged in reply and said, ‘We shall be here, then, upon that one’s return.’
‘So we shall.’
Another trait was shared by all of the Found. Siballe had marked her children with a savage scar, a stripping away of flesh and muscle on the left side—from temple down to jawline—of each face, and with that destruction the capacity for expression had been severely diminished. Features on the left were fixed in a downturned grimace, as if in permanent dismay. In some strange manner, the physical scarring had also stripped inflection from their voices—or perhaps Siballe’s own toneless voice had proved an overwhelming influence.
Thus bereft of intonation, words of hope had a way of ringing false to their own ears, sufficient to silence those who had spoken.
One would make it.
Perhaps.
Synyg continued stirring the stew at the cookfire when the door opened behind him. A soft wheeze, a dragged foot, the clatter of a walking stick against the doorframe. Then a harsh accusatory question.
‘Did you bless your son?’
‘I gave him Havok, Father.’
Somehow Pahlk filled a single word with contempt, disgust and suspicion all at once: ‘Why?’
Synyg still did not turn as he listened to his father make a tortured journey to the chair closest to the hearth. ‘Havok deserved a final battle, one I knew I would not give him. So.’
‘So, as I thought.’ Pahlk settled into the chair with a pained grunt. ‘For your horse, but not for your son.’
‘Are you hungry?’ Synyg asked.
‘I will not deny you the gesture.’
Synyg allowed himself a small, bitter smile, then reached over to collect a second bowl and set it down beside his own.
‘He would batter down a mountain,’ Pahlk growled, ‘to see you stir from your straw.’
‘What he does is not for me, Father, it is for you.’
‘He perceives only the fiercest glory possible will achieve what is necessary—the inundation of the shame that is you, Synyg. You are the straggly bush between two towering trees, child of one and sire to the other. This is why he reached out to me, reached out—do you fret and chafe there in the shadows between Karsa and me? Too bad, the choice was always yours.’
Synyg filled both bowls and straightened to hand one to his father. ‘The scar around an old wound feels nothing,’ he said.
‘To feel nothing is not a virtue.’
Smiling, Synyg sat in the other chair. ‘Tell me a tale, Father, as you once did. Those days following your triumph. Tell me again of the children you killed. Of the women you cut down. Tell me of the burning homesteads, the screams of the cattle and sheep trapped in the flames. I would see those fires once more, rekindled in your eyes. Stir the ashes, Father.’
‘When you speak these days, son, all I hear is that damned woman.’
‘Eat, Father, lest you insult me and my home.’
‘I shall.’
‘You were ever a mindful guest.’
‘True.’
No more words were exchanged until both men had finished their meals. Then Synyg set down his bowl. He rose and collected Pahlk’s bowl as well, then, turning, he threw it into the fire.
His father’s eyes widened.
Synyg stared down at him. ‘Neither of us shall live to see Karsa’s return. The bridge between you and me is now swept away. Come to my door again, Father, and I shall kill you.’ He reached down with both hands and pulled Pahlk upright, dragged the sputtering old man to the door and without ceremony threw him outside. The walking stick followed.
They travelled the old trail that paralleled the spine of the mountains. Old rockslides obscured the path here and there, dragging firs and cedars down towards the valley below, and in these places bushes and broadleafed trees had found a foothold, making passage difficult. Two days and three nights ahead lay Rathyd lands, and of all the other Teblor tribes it was the Rathyd with whom the Uryd feuded the most. Raids and vicious murders entangled the two tribes together in a skein of hatred that stretched back centuries.
Passing unseen through Rathyd territories was not what Karsa had in mind. He intended to carve a bloody path through real and imagined insults with a vengeful blade, gathering a score or more Teblor souls to his name in the process. The two warriors riding behind him, he well knew, believed that the journey ahead would be one of stealth and subterfuge. They were, after all, but three.
But Urugal is with us, in this, his season. And we shall announce ourselves in his name, and in blood. We shall shock awake the hornets in their nest, and the Rathyd shall come to know, and fear, the name of Karsa Orlong. As will the Sunyd, in their turn.
The warhorses moved cautiously across the loose scree of a recent slide. There had been a lot of snow the past winter, more than Karsa could recall in his lifetime. Long before the Faces in the Rock awoke to proclaim to the elders, within dreams and trances, that they had defeated the old Teblor spirits and now demanded obeisance; long before the taking of enemy souls had become foremost among Teblor aspirations, the spirits that had ruled the land and its people were the bones of rock, the flesh of earth, the hair and fur of forest and glen, and their breath was the wind of each season. Winter arrived and departed with violent storms high in the mountains, the savage exertions of the spirits in their eternal, mutual war. Summer and winter were as one: motionless and dry, but the former revealed exhaustion while the latter evinced an icy, fragile peace. Accordingly, the Teblor viewed summers with sympathy for the battle-weary spirits, while they detested winters for the weakness of the ascendant combatants, for there was no value in the illusion of peace.
Less than a score days remained in this, the season of spring. The high storms were diminishing, both in frequency and fury. Though the Faces in the Rock had long ago destroyed the old spirits and were, it seemed, indifferent to the passage of seasons, Karsa secretly envisioned himself and his two companion warriors as harbingers of one last storm. Their bloodwood swords would echo ancient rages among the unsuspecting Rathyd and Sunyd.
They cleared the recent slide. The path ahead wound down into a shallow valley with a highland meadow open to the bright afternoon sunlight.
Bairoth spoke behind Karsa. ‘We should camp on the other side of this valley, Warleader. The horses need rest.’
‘Perhaps your horse needs rest, Bairoth,’ Karsa replied. ‘You’ve too many feast nights on your bones. This journey shall make a warrior of you once again, I trust. Your back has known too much straw of late.’ With Dayliss riding you.
Bairoth laughed, but made no other reply.
Delum called, ‘My horse needs rest as well, Warleader. The glade ahead should make a good camp. There are rabbit runs here and I would set my snare.’
Karsa shrugged. ‘Two weighted chains about me, then. The warcries of your stomachs leave me deafened. So be it. We shall camp.’
There would be no fire, so they ate the rabbits Delum had caught raw. Once, such fare would have been risky, for rabbits often carried diseases that could only be killed by cooking, most of them fatal to the Teblor. But since the coming of the Faces in the Rock, illnesses had vanished among the tribes. Madness, it was true, still plagued them, but this had nothing to do with what was eaten or drunk. At times, the elders had explained, the burdens laid upon a man by the Seven proved too powerful. A mind must be strong, and strength was found in faith. For the weak man, for the man who knew doubt, rules and rites could become a cage, and imprisonment led to madness.
They sat around a small pit Delum had dug for the rabbit bones, saying little through the course of the meal. Overhead, the sky s
lowly lost its colour, and the stars had begun their wheel. In the gathering gloom Karsa listened to Bairoth sucking at a rabbit skull. He was ever last to finish, for he left nothing and would even gnaw, on the next day, the thin layer of fat from the underside of the skin. Finally, Bairoth tossed the empty skull into the pit and sat back, licking his fingers.
‘I have given,’ Delum said, ‘some thought as to the journey ahead. Through Rathyd and Sunyd lands. We should not take trails that set us against skyline or even bare rock. Therefore, we must take lower paths. Yet these are ones that will lead us closest to camps. We must, I think, shift our travelling to night.’
‘Better, then,’ Bairoth nodded, ‘to count coup. To turn the hearthstones and steal feathers. Perhaps a few lone sleeping warriors can give us their souls.’
Karsa spoke. ‘Hiding by day, we see little smoke to tell us where the camps are. At night, the wind swirls, so it will not help us find the hearths. The Rathyd and Sunyd are not fools. They will not build fires beneath overhangs or against rock-faces—we shall find no welcoming wash of light on stone. Also, our horses see better during the day, and are more sure-footed. We shall ride by day,’ he finished.
Neither Bairoth nor Delum said anything for a moment.
Then Bairoth cleared his throat. ‘We shall find ourselves in a war, Karsa.’
‘We shall be as an arrow of the Lanyd in its flight through a forest, changing direction with each twig, branch and bole. We shall gather souls, Bairoth, in a roaring storm. War? Yes. Do you fear war, Bairoth Gild?’
Delum said, ‘We are three, Warleader.’
‘Aye, we are Karsa Orlong, Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord. I have faced twenty-four warriors and have slain them all. I dance without equal—would you deny it? Even the elders have spoken in awe. And you, Delum, I see eighteen tongues looped on the thong at your hip. You can read a ghost’s trail, and hear a pebble roll over from twenty paces. And Bairoth, in the days when all he carried was muscle—you, Bairoth, did you not break a Buryd’s spine with your bare hands? Did you not drag a warhorse down? That ferocity but sleeps within you and this journey shall awaken it once more. Any other three . . . aye, glide the dark winding ways and turn hearthstones and pluck feathers and crush a few windpipes among sleeping foes. A worthy enough glory for any other three warriors. For us? No. Your warleader has spoken.’
Bairoth grinned over at Delum. ‘Let us gaze upward and witness the wheel, Delum Thord, for scant few such sights remain to us.’
Karsa slowly rose. ‘You follow your warleader, Bairoth Gild. You do not question him. Your faltering courage threatens to poison us all. Believe in victory, warrior, or turn back now.’
Bairoth shrugged and leaned back, stretching out his hide-wrapped legs. ‘You are a great warleader, Karsa Orlong, but sadly blind to humour. I have faith that you shall indeed find the glory you seek, and that Delum and I shall shine as lesser moons, yet shine none the less. For us, it is enough. You may cease questioning that, Warleader. We are here, with you—’
‘Challenging my wisdom!’
‘Wisdom is not a subject we have as yet discussed,’ Bairoth replied. ‘We are warriors as you said, Karsa. And we are young. Wisdom belongs to old men.’
‘Yes, the elders,’ Karsa snapped. ‘Who would not bless our journey!’
Bairoth laughed. ‘That is our truth and we must carry it with us, unchanged and bitter in our hearts. But upon our return, Warleader, we shall find that that truth has changed in our absence. The blessing will have been given after all. Wait and see.’
Karsa’s eyes widened. ‘The elders will lie!’
‘Of course they will lie. And they will expect us to accept their new truths, and we shall—no, we must, Karsa Orlong. The glory of our success must serve to bind the people together—to hold it close is not only selfish, it is potentially deadly. Think on this, Warleader. We will be returning to the village with our own claims. Aye, no doubt a few trophies with us to add proof to our tale, but if we do not share out that glory then the elders will see to it that our claims shall know the poison of disbelief.’
‘Disbelief?’
‘Aye. They will believe but only if they can partake of our glory. They will believe us, but only if we in turn believe them—their reshaping of the past, the blessing that was not given, now given, all the villagers lining our ride out. They were all there, or so they will tell you, and, eventually, they will themselves come to believe it, and will have the scenes carved into their minds. Does this still confuse you, Karsa? If so, then we’d best not speak of wisdom.’
‘The Teblor do not play games of deceit,’ Karsa growled.
Bairoth studied him for a moment, then he nodded. ‘True, they do not.’
Delum pushed soil and stones into the pit. ‘It is time to sleep,’ he said, rising to check one last time on the hobbled horses.
Karsa eyed Bairoth. His mind is as a Lanyd arrow in the forest, but will that aid him when our bloodwood blades are out and battlecries sound on all sides? This is what comes when muscle turns to fat and straw clings to your back. Duelling with words will win you nothing, Bairoth Gild, except perhaps that your tongue will not dry out as quickly on a Rathyd warrior’s belt.
‘At least eight,’ Delum murmured. ‘With perhaps one youth. There are indeed two hearths. They have hunted the grey bear that dwells in caves, and carry a trophy with them.’
‘Meaning they are full of themselves.’ Bairoth nodded. ‘That’s good.’
Karsa frowned at Bairoth. ‘Why?’
‘The cast of the enemy’s mind, Warleader. They will be feeling invincible, and this will make them careless. Do they have horses, Delum?’
‘No. Grey bears know the sound of hoofs too well. If they brought dogs on the hunt, none survived for the return journey.’
‘Better still.’
They had dismounted, and now crouched near the edge of the tree line. Delum had slipped ahead to scout the Rathyd encampment. His passage through the tall grasses, knee-high stumps and brush of the slope beyond the trees had not stirred a single blade or leaf.
The sun was high overhead, the air dry, hot and motionless.
‘Eight,’ Bairoth said. He grinned at Karsa. ‘And a youth. He should be taken first.’
To make the survivors know shame. He expects us to lose. ‘Leave him to me,’ Karsa said. ‘My charge will be fierce, and will take me to the other side of the camp. The warriors still standing will turn to face me one and all. That is when you two will charge.’
Delum blinked. ‘You would have us strike from behind?’
‘To even the numbers, yes. Then we shall each settle to our duels.’
‘Will you dodge and duck in your pass?’ Bairoth asked, his eyes glittering.
‘No, I will strike.’
‘They will bind you, then, Warleader, and you shall fail in reaching the far side.’
‘I will not be bound, Bairoth Gild.’
‘There are nine of them.’
‘Then watch me dance.’
Delum asked, ‘Why do we not use our horses, Warleader?’
‘I am tired of talking. Follow, but at a slower pace.’
Bairoth and Delum shared an unreadable look, then Bairoth shrugged. ‘We will be your witnesses, then.’
Karsa unslung his bloodwood sword, closing both hands around the leather-wrapped grip. The blade’s wood was deep red, almost black, the glassy polish making the painted warcrest seem to float a finger’s width above the surface. The weapon’s edge was almost translucent, where the blood-oil rubbed into the grain had hardened, coming to replace the wood. There were no nicks or notches along the edge, only a slight rippling of the line where damage had repaired itself, for blood-oil clung to its memory and would little tolerate denting or scarring. Karsa held the weapon out before him, then slipped forward through the high grasses, quickening into the dance as he went.
Reaching the boar trail leading into the forest that Delum had pointed out, he hunched lower and slipped ont
o its hard-packed, flattened track without breaking stride. The broad, tapered sword-point seemed to lead him forward as if cutting its own silent, unerring path through the shadows and shafts of light. He picked up greater speed.
In the centre of the Rathyd camp, three of the eight adult warriors were crouched around a slab of bear meat that they had just unwrapped from a fold of deer hide. Two others sat nearby with their weapons across their thighs, rubbing the thick blood-oil into the blades. The remaining three stood speaking to one another less than three paces from the mouth of the boar trail. The youth was at the far end.
Karsa’s sprint was at its peak when he reached the glade. At distances of seventy paces or less, a Teblor could run alongside a galloping warhorse. His arrival was explosive. One moment, eight warriors and one youth at rest in a clearing, the next, the tops of the heads of two of the standing warriors were cut off in a single horizontal blow. Scalp and bone flew, blood and brain sprayed and spat across the face of the third Rathyd. This man reeled back, and pivoted to his left to see the return swing of Karsa’s sword, as it swept under his chin, then was gone from sight. Eyes, still held wide, watched the scene tilt wildly before darkness burgeoned.
Still moving, Karsa leapt high to avoid the warrior’s head as it thudded and rolled across the ground.
The Rathyd who had been oiling their swords had already straightened and readied their weapons. They split away from each other and darted forward to take Karsa from either side.
He laughed, twisting around to plunge among the three warriors whose bloodied hands held but butchering knives. Snapping his sword into a close-quarter guard, he ducked low. Three small blades each found their mark, slicing through leathers, skin and into muscle. Momentum propelled Karsa through the press, and he took those knives with him, spinning to rip his sword through a pair of arms, then up into an armpit, tearing the shoulder away, the scapula coming with it—a curved plate of purple bone latticed in veins attached by a skein of ligaments to a twitching arm that swung in its flight to reach skyward.