The fall of Highwatch con-1

by Mark Sehestedt

  "My lord!" Argalath called from behind him.

  Guric slowed, not because of Argalath but because of what lay before him. It looked like a large bundle of supplies, wrapped in fine linen, various symbols drawn round the knots of cord that bound it.

  "Valia…" said Guric.

  "My lord, please," said Argalath. "We must not break the seals until we have the blood."

  Guric took one step forward. "I must see her."

  "No." Argalath grabbed Guric's shoulder.

  Guric looked down. "Unhand me, Argalath."

  There was no anger in the words. No threat. Guric was not a man to threaten. People did as he told them or suffered the consequences.

  Argalath released him and bowed. "My lord, I beg you. Seeing her now will only bring you pain. We are so close, so close…"

  Guric looked down at the bundle. At his wife's corpse. He had not seen her in three years, and that last sight had haunted his dreams since.

  "Those who wronged you," said Argalath, his voice pitched for all to hear, 'who wronged her, must pay."

  Guric contemplated all that lay before him. His mouth felt very dry. "There is no other way?"

  "No. Kill them. Kill them all, my lord. And save the youngest for last. Her blood shall bring Valia back to you."

  CHAPTER THREE

  Only once before had Hweilan ever felt such utter, black despair. Worse than fear was the certainty of hopelessness, and she had truly felt it only once. It wasn't the day she'd been told her father was dead. That day had been confusion. At ten years old, Hweilan had not been able to fathom the thought of a world without her father.

  Until she saw his body. That had been the day. Her mother had insisted. Her child was the offspring of warriors, through both mother and father. She could weep. She would grieve. But she would not shrink from the stark reality of death.

  Merah had taken Hweilan to the temple where her father's body lay, tended by priests in preparation for the last rites of the Loyal Fury. Her mother ordered everyone from the room and took Hweilan to the granite slab.

  Hweilan did not resist. She was, in fact, curious in the way all children are. She had seen death before. Sheep, swiftstags, horses, even people. But never someone she knew. Never someone she loved.

  Her father lay on the slab, draped in white linen up to his chest. She could not see the wound that had killed him. She'd heard the priests call death "eternal rest," but one look at her father, and there was no mistaking him for being asleep. His eyes were closed, but the sunken cheeks and colorless pallor of his skin, gray as the stone on which he lay, and just as lifeless…

  She reached out with one hand. Her mother didn't stop her. She touched her father's cheek. It was cold and stiff, though slightly yielding, like when the outer layer of a damp cloak froze on a winter's night. It was the most awful thing she'd ever felt.

  "He's dead," Hweilan said.

  "Yes," said Merah.

  That was when the reality had hit her.

  "Who will take care of us?"

  Her father had been there the day Hweilan took her first steps. He had heard her first words, begun her lessons in fighting with blade and spear, had stayed up with her through the long nights of winter, telling stories by the fire. It had never entered into her darkest fears that he would no longer be there.

  "We must care for each other now," Merah said. She turned Hweilan from her father and knelt before her. "I have something for you," she said, and reached into the folds of her robes. She withdrew a small sheepskin bundle, bound with a leather cord, and handed it to Hweilan.

  "What is it?"

  "Look."

  Holding the bundle in one hand, Hweilan worked at the knot with the other. She could feel something hard within. She peeled back the soft folds of the bundle. Nestled within was a sort of spike, slightly curved and yellowish brown like horn. Slightly longer than her ten-year-old hand. She touched her finger to the point. It was sharp. The other end broadened into a sort of handle, and little notches had been cut into it.

  "My people have given these to their children for generations," said Merah.

  "What is it?"

  "A kishkoman."

  "Kishkoman," Hweilan said in a whisper of awe. "Kish…" She searched her memory. Her mother had taught her little of her native tongue, but this word she knew. "Knife."

  "Very good, Hweilan." Merah smiled, though tears were thick in her eyes. "Kishkoman means whistle-knife."

  "Whistle-knife?"

  Her mother took the horn knife, put one of the grooves to her lips, and blew.

  A sound pierced Hweilan's ears, high and so sharp that it seemed to cut right into the center of her head.

  Her mother lowered the kishkoman and smiled. "You heard it?"

  "Yes. It hurt."

  "I was afraid you might not. But the blood of my people runs strong in you."

  Hweilan said nothing. Simply stared at her gift. For her last birthday, her family had given her dresses, gowns, cloaks, jewelry, and a doll of silk. Gifts fit for the granddaughter of the High Warden. But gifts for a little girl. Soft gifts. This was far better.

  "It is made from the antler of a young swiftstag buck," her mother said. "Among my people, mothers give them to their children when they are old enough to go off on their own at times. The whistle is beyond the hearing of most folk. But our people, Hweilan, we are… not like others. If you find yourself in danger, if you need help, blow this, and we will hear."

  "But what if you are too far to hear?"

  Merah's smile did not lessen, and in her eyes, behind the tears, a new light shone. Not pleasure. Not even pride.

  Ferocity.

  "Then you use it like this."

  Her mother brought the sharp horn around in a punch so swift that Hweilan heard it cutting the air. Merah's fist stopped with the point of the kishkoman touching the soft flesh behind Hweilan's chin.

  Eyes wide, breath caught in her throat, Hweilan looked up at her mother and saw not the widow of the High Warden's only son, not a grieving wife, but a barbarian queen, proud and fierce.

  "Your father is dead, Hweilan. Death comes to us all. Many in this world are stronger than you. They may try to take your life, and they may succeed. But you must never give it to them. Make them pay, Hweilan. Make them pay."

  Hweilan sat on the ground near her father's tomb, thinking on these things.

  The final resting places of the family of the High Warden were high above the fortress. The cemetery was on a wide shelf of rock that looked down upon Highwatch. Boulders and tough bushes, their thick leaves green year round, were the only wall. Rugged, scraggly pines, their gnarled roots clinging like talons to the broken rock, lined the path to the graveyard before spreading out into a small grove that separated the tombs from the path. Rather than digging into the hard rock to bury the dead, thick stone coffins lay in the yard in even rows. Over two score in all, and only four of them empty. They were simple in design, unadorned save for the inscription bearing the name of the deceased and a few words of devotion to Torm. Of all the bodies laid to rest here, her father was the only one she'd known.

  That had been the darkest day of her life, but her mother had given her hope and courage to face a world that had suddenly seemed uncertain and decidedly cruel. But she had still been a girl then. A girl who needed her mother. And now, her mother was part of that cruel world. Had it always been so? Was that realization what it meant to become an adult?

  You're not a little girl anymore. Your childhood is over. You must find your fate, or it will find you. Her mother's words.

  Hweilan reached under her leather jerkin and pulled out a braided leather thong, old and weathered with age. The kishkoman hung from it. She seldom went without it, and even after all these years, the point was still sharp. Once, while hunting with Scith on the open steppe, she had fallen down an ice-slick slope, landed hard, and the kishkoman had given her a nasty cut.

  Scith…

  Of the Var tribe, he had served
the High Warden as his chief advisor and ambassador to the Nar tribes. But after the death of Hweilan's father, Scith had been much more than that to her. Hweilan had taken to following Scith when he went onto the steppe to meet with the tribes or to hunt. The first few times, she had sneaked away, and after being caught, she had been punished. But her mother-and much to her surprise, her grandfather-had spoken for her. It would be good for one of the family to learn the ways of the land and the native people.

  The priests taught her to read and write, and instructed her in history and the faith. But it was Scith who gave her the education she loved. How to speak the native tongue of the Nar. How to track both beasts and men. How to find shelter and survive the harsh Nar winters. How to hunt and live off the land. He was a good teacher. Hweilan loved him like a beloved uncle, both mentor and confidant.

  Hweilan missed their closeness, and the division that had grown between them hurt like a thorn under the skin.

  Hweilan had not been the only one in need, not the only one with a hole left by her father's death. As one of the chief servants of the house and Hweilan's teacher, Scith spent much time with the family. He and Merah had grown close. Many whispered that they had grown too close. Hweilan had even heard it said in Kistrad that Scith the Var had found enough favor in Highwatch that he now shared the Lady Merah's bed. The looks that some in the household gave her mother told Hweilan that the rumors were not isolated to the common folk. Had they been lies, Hweilan would have known how to deal with them. But the plain fact was that Hweilan feared there might be some truth to the rumors.

  It had soured her friendship with Scith. She still took lessons from him, still sometimes accompanied him among the tribes, but their once warm affection had turned cold. He had not said anything to her. A Nar warrior did not speak of such things. But she sometimes saw the regret in his eyes.

  "Find your fate, or it will find you," Hweilan muttered to herself. She looked at the stone coffin that held her father's body. Sometimes, no matter what choices you made, fate found you anyway. Found you, smashed you to the ground like some great wheel, then just kept on rolling, merciless and uncaring.

  Swift shadows passed over the ground. Hweilan looked up. The sun was no more than a blurry disk in the gray murk of the sky, and beneath it several winged shapes circled. Even as she watched, one of them tucked its wings and dropped.

  Scythe wings were not graceful fliers like hawks or the great mountain eagles, who rode the skies like a fine ship might ride the waves. Scythe wings conquered the sky by brute strength and ferocity. Called orethren by the priests and scholars, the beasts looked like some sort of unholy combination of a monkey, bear, and bat. But they were loyal mounts for the Knights of Ondrahar. The Nar held them in superstitious dread, and the goblin tribes in the Giantspires were absolutely terrified of them. The wing of the orethren- jointed like a bat's, the final spur of which curved forward in a sharp bone-gave them their more common name 'scythe wings."

  The beast spread its wings just in time, its free fall turning into a glide that swept the graveyard with a harsh wind as it passed overhead. The pennant whipping behind the rider's back bore the standard of an open gauntlet flanked by two golden wings. It was Soran's standard.

  Hweilan stuffed the kishkoman back under her jerkin.

  The scythe wing circled back around and settled on the rocks above the tombs. It sniffed the air and glared at Hweilan. Even from the distance of forty feet or more, Hweilan could feel the ground trembling at the roar building deep in its chest.

  Horses could not abide Hweilan's presence, nor her mother's. No horses would bear them, and the knights' scythe wings were even worse. A horse would merely roll its eyes and run, only kicking and biting if she inadvertently cornered it. But the scythe wings…

  The one time Hweilan had come near, the great beast had tried to swipe her with the great wing bone that earned them their name. Had her Uncle Soran not had the beast under tight rein, Hweilan would have died.

  "Easy, Arvund," said Soran. He climbed out of the saddle and stroked the scythe wing to calm him. The creature kept its gaze locked on Hweilan, but its growl changed into something more like a purr, and it lowered its head to rest on a snow-covered rock.

  Soran was the single most imposing man Hweilan had ever seen. His elder brother Vandalar, High Warden and Hweilan's grandfather, was taller, but not by much, and Soran's frame was wrapped in thick muscle. Middle age softened many men. Soran had only grown harder, like old oak. And now that even middle age was passing, he was harder still. The Chief Priest of Torm at Highwatch, Commander of the Knights of Ondrahar, Soran was one of the most feared and respected men within five hundred miles. No one who met him ever forgot him. He was solemn to the point of grimness, but he was also the most fair, just, and uncompromising man Hweilan knew. He demanded much from his men and his family, but he demanded the most from himself.

  Soran hadn't chosen the best landing place, not that there were many to come by up here, and it took him awhile to get down. He walked up to Hweilan, not removing his helmet, but loosening the straps on the face mask so that it slapped against his chest as he walked. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright from exertion, and his face set in their usual deep lines.

  "Well met, Hweilan," he said.

  "Why are you here?" said Hweilan.

  Soran did not smile, but she saw a gleam of mirth in his eye. "Is that how you greet your uncle?"

  "Well met and all hail," she said in a flat voice. "Now why are you here?"

  "My brother's wife is convinced that you've run off to marry a Nar chieftain. She has guards searching every cranny of the castle and servants searching Kistrad. Even Guric's men are hounding the fortress for you."

  "She rousted the Captain of the Guard?"

  "You know your grandmother."

  Hweilan looked up at the other knights circling above. They were so high that she just barely made out the wings. "How did she persuade you to send the knights out after me?"

  Soran snorted. "Don't flatter yourself. You are a stop along the way. We have other troubles."

  "The Nar?"

  "Yes."

  It was not unusual for many clans to camp in Nar-sek Qu' istrade for the winter. But come spring, most went back into the open steppe to hunt, tend their herds, and feud. It had been much the same this year, but a great many had not moved on. In fact, more had come and were camping just beyond the main gates of the Shadowed Path.

  "Your mother told me where she thought you might be," Soran said. "She asked me to come here and ask you to come back."

  "Ask me or command me?"

  "If this were a command, she'd have come herself."

  "Hmph."

  Soran opened his mouth to say something, but then his eyes settled on the thing leaning against the stone coffin beside Hweilan: a bow. Unstrung, it was almost as long as Hweilan was tall. Of the finest yew, it had many runes of power etched along its surface-all inscriptions sacred to Torm and the Knights. Seeing it, Soran's jaw tightened, and his nostrils flared. "That isn't a toy, girl."

  "I know," she said. She wrapped her hand around the bow. "It was my father's. It's… it's the only thing I have left of him. That and memories. I bring it with me when I come here."

  The anger melted out of Soran. "You've never used it?"

  Hweilan snorted. "Used it? I can't even string it."

  "Why do you carry it now?" said Soran.

  She looked down at the bow. "It helps me remember him. He's been gone so long. My memories of him aren't as clear as they used to be. I come here. To remember. To think. To…"

  "Honor the dead?"

  "Something like that."

  From far above them came a cry, harsh and guttural. One of the scythe wings circling overhead. Arvund, still perched on the ledge nearby, snorted and flapped his wings, raising a cloud of frost and grit.

  Soran looked up, scowled, then said, "Would you like some advice from your older and much wiser uncle?"

  "
Not particularly."

  His scowl deepened. "Very well, then. How about a request? Don't be so hard on your mother."

  "She's sending me away!"

  "Don't be foolish," said Soran. "Of course she isn't. That's your grandmother's doing, and you know it. I've met Duke Vittamar's son. I like him. But that wasn't what I meant about being hard on your mother. I meant Scith."

  Hweilan flinched as if he'd slapped her. "You've heard? You… approve?"

  "Hweilan…" said Soran. "Your mother is a woman. Your father has been dead for seven years. You can't expect her to spend the rest of her life alone. I would have thought that you'd be the first to defend her. Scith is a good man. And you know that better than anyone. He devoted his life to our family before you were born. He loved your father as a brother, and your father loved him."

  "Then why is he rutting his brother's wife?"

  Soran stood very still, not even blinking. All the flush drained from his face, and his white skin was almost pale as his short hair. "You will never speak so of your mother again," he said. "If you do so in my hearing, you will regret it the rest of your days." He stood there a moment, looking down at her, then said, "I'm surprised you listen to those nattering hens."

  "You don't?"

  "If you'd stop thinking about yourself for half a moment, you'd see," said Soran. Scith loves your mother and she him. That's plain. But they can do nothing about it. For one reason."

  Hweilan snorted. "What?"

  "You."

  "What?" Hweilan realized she was shaking. She hugged herself but couldn't make it stop.

  "Think," said Soran. "She has long since passed her time of mourning. But you know how things are in this house. Vandalar loves your mother like his own daughter. But your grandmother rules the house, and you know how she feels about your mother-how she's always felt. Your mother's only status in the household is as the widow of the High Warden's son. If she takes a lover or a husband, it'll be the end of any power she holds-and right now, you stupid, ungrateful, little girl-the only reason she's clinging to that is you."