“Do the Kantri never kill one another?” I asked, trying to control myself. I could feel my temper rising. I loved him dearly, but who was he to judge Jamie?
“No. Never since time began has one of the Kindred killed another,” he said passionately. “It is a deed worthy of the Rakshasa.” I could barely see him, but it looked as if he had wrapped his arms around himself.
That did it.
“It might well be,” I said sharply. “Remember, we Gedri are the ones with a choice. Very well, it’s true, Jamie chose wrongly all those years ago, but he has done better since. We have all our short lives to get it right, and Jamie did so before I was born. I’d be dead if it weren’t for him. And you’d be dead if it weren’t for Rella taking out that mere behind your back.”
“She killed to save my life, not for pay!” he answered, stung.
“Probably,” I said. “But he’s just as dead. Have you thanked her for saving your life?”
“Too late,” said a deep voice I’d never heard before. I screamed as a dark shadow lunged towards Varien.
I drew my boot knife and stabbed as hard as I could, but I could feel the blade being turned off the stroke. Whoever it was wore a thick leather jerkin for the purpose. “Varien!” I yelled, trying to pull the dark shape off of him.
I might as well have saved my breath.
I’d forgotten just how strong he was.
I heard a grunt and saw the shape being tossed back into shadow and crashing into the undergrowth. “Are you hurt?” I asked, helping Varien up with my free hand while staring wildly into the darkness round about us.
“There are others. Watch and ward, Lanen.”
“Jamie! To me!” I cried, loud as I could.
“Lanen!” cried Jamie, already close, and there was light from somewhere, I could see a little. A shadow on the far side of the light drew back. Rella threw down the burning branch she carried and drew us all back from the light towards our own fire, just visible in the distance. “Jamie, you’re point, you two in the middle, back to the camp, go!”
We moved as fast as we could, but the tree roots made the going hard. Not just for us, thank the Lady, but it was terrifying trying to move at speed over treacherous ground in the dark. I clutched my knife for comfort, but I had already learned it was no use.
We were just at the edge of the clearing when I heard a sound behind me. I turned around, trying to see through the border of shadow. “Rella?”
“I’m here, girl, save your breath. That wasn’t me. Go on into the firelight.” And we were in the clearing. Jamie threw more branches on the fire and it blazed enough for us to have a look around. Nothing to be seen. I stopped Varien and made him look at me. “Are you hurt?”
“No more than I was before, dearling,” he said. He turned away and found his sword lying by his pack. He drew it, saying ruefully, “Wisdom learned late is better than none, is it not, Jamie?”
“Keep your eyes on the trees, man,” said Jamie, scanning the undergrowth for movement. “And remember what I told you, keep your sword raised, if it’s halfway through the stroke by the time you start you’re ahead of your enemy.”
Rella stood, as did Jamie, with her back to the fire, “You take north, I’ll take south, eh Master?” she said. Jamie just grunted assent.
I wish I could say I was thrilled at the prospect of battle—certainly the ballad singers would have it that way. Idiots. They’ve never been able to understand one simple thing. I’m terrible with a blade, and even then I knew it. I’m not one of the Warrior Women of Arlis, much though I might have wanted to be, and I was afraid. In the dark, the four of us against who knew how many—in fact I feared it was more like two against the enemy, for I thought Varien not much more use than me.
We are all mistaken from time to time.
Certainly when the four of them burst through the trees, every man of them armed with swords and shields and coming straight at me, it took all my courage to hold my dagger ready and not run. “Hells’ teeth,” I muttered; then my blessed temper rose past my fear and I yelled something at them. I’ve no idea what I said, to be honest, but it did seem to stop some of them, or at least slow them down.
Jamie
Just before they came through into the clearing, I saw out of the corner of my eye that Varien was holding his sword exactly as I’d taught him, very correct, looking like the greenest of recruits.
They came in from the side nearest Lanen, across the fire from me. The second they showed themselves Rella was moving, looking for the best way in, as I was. And Lanen?
When I saw they were all headed for her I despaired. If they were really determined to kill her they’d probably succeed before we could do anything. Then she yelled, my own Lanen, in pure fury, “Stop where you are, you bloody bastards! Any closer and you’re all dead men!”
I nearly laughed. Some of them stopped, and Rella had long enough to throw a knife—flat, deadly. He dropped and barely even gurgled as he died. I thought that might slow them down, but no. Fools.
The big one came straight on to seize Lanen, but suddenly Varien was in his way. Varien tried to strike with his sword, of course, but I’d not had time to teach him about targes, and all of them had those little shields that are so useful in handto-hand battle. I couldn’t watch, for I was faced with one of my own to worry about, but Lanen told me later how it had gone.
Lanen
Varien was hard put to it in his first swordfight. I tried to distract the bastard but he kept fighting Varien. When he realised how badly Varien handled a sword he laughed. “Fool!” he cried, dodging even a fairly well-aimed blow easily. “Give it up. She’ll feed the demons no matter what you do.”
I thought I was the only idiot stupid enough to throw away my sword, but when Varien heard those words he did just that. I heard what could only be called a hiss as his sword clattered on the ground, and he was inside the other’s guard in the very instant, his hand drawn back to strike. I saw him put his whole body into the blow, direct to the face. There was a sickening crack as the man’s neck snapped backwards and he dropped.
Varien roared, turning to the nearest foe, the one fighting Jamie. He struck him from behind, sending the man reeling forward full onto Jamie’s sword. Then suddenly I wasn’t watching anymore, because the last of them had turned from fighting Rella to seize me from behind. I felt a knife at my throat and heard him yell, “Move and she’s dead!”
Everything stopped.
“Drop your swords!” ordered the voice. He stood directly behind me. Jamie and Rella threw their swords on the ground. Varien just watched, his eyes never moving from his prey.
“She’s no good to your master dead, you know,” said Jamie quietly.
“She’s no good to you dead either. Keep back and she’ll live,” he growled, backing up and pulling me along.
And there I was, helpless again until he stumbled on a tree root and lost his balance. I pushed back and fell on top of him as hard as I could. I heard the breath go out of him all at once. He lost interest in holding the knife at my throat and I scrambled up, getting out of the way so that Jamie could grab him.
Except that Jamie was too slow.
In one movement Varien, growling, hauled the leader of the mercenaries upright by the front of his tunic and hit him full in the face with the heel of his hand. The man went limp instantly. Varien dropped him as if he hadn’t existed and came to me. “Lanen,” he said, taking my hand gently.
“Shia save us. How in the Hells did you know to do that?” breathed Jamie.
“I have no claws, but my arms have much of their old strength,” said Varien. “It seemed to work, in any case.”
Jamie
Rella and I moved the bodies deep into the woods. Even as I dragged away the poor dead meres, even as my soul burned within me in the private darkness at having killed again, though it were only to save my own life, I clung to one solid rock in all the shifting sand of this cursed night. Lanen had not killed anyone. The worst s
he’d done was fall on to a man who held a knife at her throat.
Thank the Goddess for that.
Lanen hadn’t killed.
Lanen
That was when it started, right after that terrible fight in the dark. I’d never been so near to death before, feeling it all around, knowing that only by harming others could you survive. It was awful.
Ah, now, speak truth, Lanen: it was awful after I realised Varien had killed the one who held a knife at my throat, and that he was the last. I had felt a fierce rush of joy when I saw him drop. You can’t help but delight in a victory that means you’re going to live, but death is death and when I saw four bodies that had but moments before been living men—well, my supper hadn’t been much to keep down anyway.
It was late when we were all gathered again round the fire. Jamie insisted on setting a watch, just in case there were others we didn’t know about. All of us who weren’t on watch slept like stones, but with our weapons in our hands.
Exhaustion caught up with me as I lay thinking about the dead men away there in the woods. My last thought was that, dreadful as their deaths were, they had attacked us and would have killed us if they could. I slept better than I thought I would, but all night I kept thinking I heard voices.
I roused early, as you do sleeping rough, and if it was possible I think I was wearier on waking than I’d been on going to sleep. The voices murmuring in the back of my mind were a little easier to ignore now I was awake, but they hadn’t stopped. I wasn’t about to mention this to anyone. I thought at the time I was imagining the ghosts of the dead men cursing at us, so I resolved to ignore it.
I was also hungry enough to know that food was going to be the most difficult thing about this part of our journey, now that we did not need to fear immediate attack. We had brought some food with us but there was very little to spare, and we were a long way from the nearest market Breakfast was oats cooked in water with a little salt. I had been chilled through from sleeping on the ground, and I felt gnawed with hunger, but still the heat I got from it was a damn sight better than the taste.
We left immediately after we ate, carefully avoiding the place where Rella and Jamie had taken the bodies. I was nearly sick again when I thought of them, but distance helped. We went vaguely south, for though we had still not decided where we should go, all of our destinations lay to the south of where we were.
We rode through the day, stopping only briefly for food at noon, but we made camp early in the afternoon for we were all weary, and I the worst. I was still shaking slightly, and though I kept it to myself I still thought I heard voices at the edge of hearing. Varien and I were told off to see what we could find in the way of small game. How we were meant to catch anything I can’t imagine. I had a bow and I was usually decent with it, but I couldn’t hit a thing that day. We spent much of our time searching in the slanting light for arrows that I’d sent into the undergrowth. At least the walking warmed us a little. Jamie had his bow and was out looking for something more substantial. He said he’d seen deer scat, and he was a much better shot than I.
Varien and I were coming back empty-handed to the camp when I heard the scream. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before—not human, but a living creature seeing its death and crying out in fear and pain as its life was torn from it. It brought me to my knees, retching, poor Varien beside me holding my head and wondering what was wrong. “What in the Hells was that?” I asked feebly, when I could speak.
“What ails thee?” asked Varien, deeply concerned. He could not keep his thoughts from reaching me. “What didst thou see/hear/what hath touched thee?”
I couldn’t explain aloud, so I tried responding in truespeech. “It was a cry of pain, a creature meeting its end, I heard no words just pain and fear and the falling away of life. I am frightened it was so real so near, death so near, Goddess keep it from us all.” Even truespeech was difficult. “Can you see it, hear the memory of it in my mind if I think of it?” I asked, and when he nodded I thought again of what I had felt and heard and tried to let him see it. It seemed to work, for he immediately stood upright, his hands on my shoulders.
“Lanen, kadreshi.” His voice was deep with astonishment. “Truly the Wind of Change is blowing wild upon us, for surely you are being shaped even now.” He raised me to my feet. The memory was fading a little, it was easier to stand, to think. Varien took my chin in his hand and turned me towards him. In the cold afternoon light his silver hair gleamed like frost, and his deep green eyes were solemn with realisation. “Lanen, what you heard was the death cry of a deer. Jamie must have found what he sought.”
“That’s ridiculous! Why on earth would I hear such a thing?” I cried, really frightened now. “Don’t tell me deer have truespeech!”
“No, my heart, of course not. But it happens sometimes, when one of the Kantri grows old or infirm, that they begin to hear such things—the day-song of birds, the rush of sap through the heart of a tree, the death screech of small creatures in the long grass when owls are hunting. Dearling,” he said gently, “do you hear anything else?”
“Oh Hells,” I said, my eyes wide and filling with tears against my will. This was vastly worse than the attack in the night. I was filled with dread, fear like a pit opened bottomless before me. You can run from or fight with other living souls but your mind is with you always. “Varien—oh Hells. I’ve been hearing voices, just out of range—I mean, I know they are voices but I don’t know what they are saying.”
He closed his eyes, just for a second. “Lanen.” Then, looking up, “I do not know how this can be. You have an affliction that falls only upon the Kantri. When did this start?”
“Last night.” I swore. “Hells blast and damn it!”
There, that felt better. “Why do you ask?”
His eyes looked less haunted immediately. “Then it cannot be the same. Are you well otherwise?”
At least that made me smile. In fact it made me laugh. “What, you mean apart from being exhausted and having been captured twice in five days and fighting for my life and watching my farm burn down around me and my husband kill men with his bare hands? Apart from that?”
“I do not jest, kadreshi.”
“I’m sorry,” I answered, recovering myself. “We do that sometimes, it’s the only way to deal with things that are too hard to bear, we just have to laugh about it.”
“I know. We do the same. Are you well otherwise?”
“As far as I can tell, yes. I’m weary to my bones and ravenously hungry, but aside from that I think I’m well enough. Why, Varien?”
“It usually affects us at the end of a long life, and only after a prolonged time without food.” He was shaking his head. “Forgive me, dearling, I do not mean to worry you. I am wrong, I must be. Know you of any such illness among your own people?”
I managed to smile. “Only madness, my dear. And last I checked I was as sane as I ever have been.”
He caught me to him, his arms strong about me as if he were holding me against one who sought to take me from him. “Come, my heart. Let us go back to the fire, this setting winter sun warms nothing. Perhaps I make more of this than is in it. You are cold and weary, it could be mere chance or imagination. Come.”
But when we got there, Rella and Jamie had taken the deer’s carcase a little way into the woods to clean.
It got worse from there.
To use words is misleading, for there were no words then. Only feelings, sharp as the light after a thunderstorm, and the unformed shapes of thoughts like shadows in a deep pool.
There was longing, for I had not seen him or heard his voice in many years. There was loneliness, for though I did not know where to go I knew that I needed to be with him, needed to know that he lived. I flew high many nights, searching, wondering, yet too full of fear to leave the home I had made for myself.
The thought of him was remembered joy, family, home—his absence a bitter wound that bled sorrow. I needed him, needed his presence. The w
orld was changing, moving towards a place where no light shone. I could not be sure any longer even of my own kind. I had seen fighting among us and death that shocked me to my bones, made even heart’s-fire cold.
Where there should have been calm waters there were thorns, and a feeling in the blood of darkness like deep winter spreading over life and light. I needed him—teacher—friend—Father. I needed to hear the sounds he made, on the edge of understanding, so near, so near …
vi
Recovery
Maikel
The poor madman, my master, sat up in bed. He was still fast asleep but he was laughing this time, which was better than before. The last two mornings he had wakened screaming bloody murder, rousing not only his watchers but full half the household. When I went to release him from this dream he did not fight me as he had, but relaxed into my arms and slept again without waking. I almost had some hope that his cure had begun.
I had been a Healer in the House of Gundar since first I came into my power. He had been thirty-five then, and I in my early twenties. Over the last fourteen years I had watched the changes that had overtaken him and seen his association with Magister Berys of the College of Mages draw him into the worst of himself. I had willfully blinded myself for many years, but on that voyage to the Dragon Isle, Marik had revealed himself as a soul lost to the Rakshasa. I had planned to leave him when we returned, but then he had pitted the strength of his demon-centred power against the Lord of the Dragons. I did not know precisely what had happened; but when his guards carried him to the ship, mindless, helpless as a newborn, I knew I could not leave.
Without the lan fruit we would have lost him. I had heard of such things, of course, and knew the theory, but I had thought it merely legend until I saw the miracle that one of those fruits had wrought on the Lady Lanen. Horrible bums, to the bone, bums that would have taken months to heal—if she had even lived—with the most skilled and constant care in all of Kolmar, had disappeared overnight. Arms that should have been hideously scarred for life had no more than a few traces of those ravages wrought by I knew not what fire. True, I saved her from the fever that raged within her, but for all my strength she would have died that night without the fruit from a lansip tree.