The Lightkeep

by Catherine Miller

  She nodded fervently, doing a similar assessment of her own. His clothing was slightly rumpled, as if someone had grabbed tightly and the fabric had not yet relaxed to its previous state. But there were no slashes, no cuts to skin or weave that would indicate he had some hidden injury that required immediate attention. “The others?”

  “We will convene eastward,” Rezen informed them. “When each is able.”

  Penryn nodded. “I am sorry,” she told him, feeling a bolt of shame go through her. “I wanted them to help us. I thought they would.” She had. However foolishly. She had wanted to think the best of them, to believe that they would put aside their traditions and face the true threat as was needed of them.

  She did not know how many clans would choose to listen to a rabble of strangers, most especially when the news they carried was not what they wished to hear, let alone believe.

  They trusted the sages to keep them safe. Trusted that their Lightkeep would complete her sacred work and all would be peaceful amongst them.

  They had done what they were told, had performed the rites and sent their sons when called.

  And now war was coming to their dwellings.

  “None of that now,” Rezen insisted, leaning forward as best he could while keeping the proper elevation for them. All so he might press a kiss to her forehead. “None doubt that you did all you could. They are responsible for their own responses, not you.”

  She smiled dimly at that, finding it something Grimult would have told her, and finding the same swell of warmth and affection she had always experienced when wisdom mingled with comfort.

  How had she gone so long without such things?

  They needed a place to go. Not merely a meeting point, but somewhere that they could find reinforcements for what was to come.

  And she did not know where to suggest.

  She looked to her husband, hoping for guidance. “I do not know what to do next,” she confessed, feeling small, feeling a failure.

  Grimult nodded, as if he was expecting such an admission, and she did not know if that should come as a relief or leave her with a stricken feeling in her belly. She experienced some of both.

  “We have tried your people,” he gave in answer. “Perhaps it is time we convince some of mine.”

  Penryn’s eyes widened, thinking of his family. Of course he would want to go and warn them first, and she felt a moment’s shame that she had not suggested it. “I thought you said your family was far,” she reminded him, wondering if they had time yet to go the distance and for their warning to have any use at all. The horde was slower than the riders to be sure, but their determination gave their weary feet incentive to keep moving forward, and certainly they had only days between them. A week if they were terribly fortunate.

  A glimmer of sadness, and Grimult shook his head. “Not my family,” he corrected. He turned his attention toward Rezen. “The others are eastward?” Grimult asked.

  “Moving there, yes,” Rezen confirmed, trepidation clouding his response.

  “When it is safe to do so, they should return to their families. Discuss as a clan how best to protect yourselves, and be willing to hear from others when the time comes.” Rezen gave Penryn a panicked look, and Penryn could well understand. He meant to stay with her, that much was obvious, but there was more family yet to protect, and she would gladly see him go to them rather than face the consequence of relation to her.

  “Where will you go?” he asked Grimult, but continued to look only to his daughter.

  “We need those trained in battle,” Grimult answered. “We need my fellow initiates more than we need sages and their orders.”

  Rezen did not bother to deny it. He rubbed a hand over his mouth, perhaps trying to conjure argument, but his shoulders sagged, even as his wings continued to move to keep him in line. “I will tell those from the Mihr that their skills will be needed,” he confirmed, and rather than pull only his daughter in to an embrace, he simply opened both arms and leaned forward, clasping them both quickly against him, Penryn crushed between. “Be safe,” he murmured, a prayer and an entreaty, and Penryn thought she might cry again for the want of it.

  “You as well, Papa,” she urged in return, brushing at her eyes as he withdrew.

  Another whistle, Rezen’s head turning. “I should go,” he told them both, already beginning to drift further away from them.

  Penryn was tired of this. Of meetings and partings, of endless tears and uncertainty for the future. This needed to end, and quickly. They needed a plan, needing some small measure of hope that there would be an outcome that was not as intolerable as all the ones that her mind was beginning to conjure.

  With a few strong pulses of his wings, Rezen was too great a distance to speak to at all, and she was sorry for that as well.

  When there was likely so much she should have said.

  Grimult moved onward, not where they had come, but circling around, his eyes darting furiously to ensure that none were in pursuit of them. It did not surprise her, as doubtlessly none were allowed to settle too close to the keep’s walls. But it made her anxious, her own attention pulled to every bit of movement, usually an errant bird chirping madly at the foreign intrusion, some soaring high overhead, others diving back toward the trees as they sought the shelter of foliage for their protection.

  “I do not disagree with you,” Penryn said at last, as the trees parted and open spaces filled their view. The earth itself was hard-packed and kept free of underbrush, what at first appeared to be mounds of cloth and sticks taking shape as they grew nearer. They vaguely resembled people in outstretching of wooden limbs, the heads circular in shape and clearly stuffed to give proportion to an otherwise lumpy body.

  She could not guess their use, but they must serve some purpose for there to be so many of them stationed a good few paces between each one. “But the initiates were sent home when the Journey began, yes?”

  Grimult gave a hum of confirmation. “Many, I am certain. Although a few lived close, so they will not be difficult to find.” He shook his head briefly, as if to some errant thought or doubt that he did not want to find purchase. “It is the instructors I want most. If we can turn them to our side, the rest will follow.”

  She had gone to her instructors for help, and received censure instead. She did not know why his would be different, but for all their sakes, she hoped it would prove true.

  They were no longer alone, others circling about. But their robes were not of crimson, blacks and dark greens bearing sigils she did not recognise as they came up to meet them. Her nerves were great but she trusted Grimult.

  Just as he had trusted her.

  She shoved the thought away. She was not to blame for the sages’ actions. Her father had been clear on that, and she would believe him.

  He kept going, not landing as she had expected, but continuing on to a stilted dwelling. There was no movement from within the walls and he opened the door with confidence.

  There were many beds lining the walls, and she blinked in recognition. He knew this place, had likely lived here. Curiosity urged her forward, but Grimult’s hand came out and grabbed hold of her wrist. “I need them to listen to me without distraction,” he informed her, and her brow furrowed in confusion. If he was asking her not to interject, she would mind her tongue. These were his people, as he had already mentioned. Before she could question him, he released a sigh, his hand slipping down to twine her fingers briefly with his. “I am asking to speak with them alone,” he said instead. “If you are present, it will dissolve merely into a recounting of my wrongdoings.” A breath, deep and already irritated. “And I do not have the patience for that this day.”

  He was on edge, there was no denying that. There were hard lines about his mouth, and she could well remember the threat of harm he had inflicted on the guard, and doubtlessly would have seen it done.

  She swallowed thickly and nodded her head, withdrawing into the dormitory. Grimult was allowed to return. She was
not.

  If the sages had not already come and told the instructors of their misdeeds, then he had time to tell them of what he witnessed.

  “I will be here,” she assured him, for truly, there was no way down on her own.

  He nodded, and squeezed her hand once more.

  Before he flew down to the grounds below.

  And waited for those circling overhead to land.

  Her skin itched with the desire to be below, to hear all that was said and, she could admit, take pride in her husband as he led such an important discourse.

  But he had asked for her removal, for her patience, and she would give it, and could not afford to ruin his attempts at direction by peering down for long, no matter how she so desperately wanted to do.

  She saw six gather about him, surprised to see first salutes, then embraces. This was what he should have had from all, not to be cursed as the sages had done, calling a blight upon even something so precious as his family.

  She forced herself to withdraw, to hide herself away within the dormitory lest temptation get the better of her, straining to hear any scrap of their conversation. She looked about the large room, the cot beds that did not look particularly comfortable, and tried to imagine her husband in any of them.

  There were notches specially crafted into each, allowing initiates to sleep on their backs if they so chose, and she ran her hand along one of them. Was this common of most beds? One had never been offered to her, all of the beds she had known either square or perfectly rectangular.

  A land-dwellers sleeping space.

  That is what she was, but also not, and she nibbled at her lip again.

  Twelve cots in total, and there were many other dwellings lined up on their stilts, some opposing, others side by side.

  Had they already settled back into home-life? Already snared a girl to call their own now that prestige and honour were a part of their name and blood, coming so close to the coveted title of Guardian.

  But not quite.

  That alone was for her husband, even now pretending that he had not wedded her at all, had not brought her back and secreted her away in his old dwelling space, so that men who should revere him and hold his name with the respect due him would unstop their ears long enough to listen.

  It was not the way she would have it done, but she could well see that her way had failed her.

  She wrapped her arms tightly about herself, feeling strangely cold and very much alone.

  Their talks lasted longer than she would have imagined. Far longer than the sages had provided them, at the very least.

  After a time, she sank down onto one of the cots, stripped of its linens, watching as the sun grew low in the sky. Darkness was good, as it would hide them from unwanted attention, friendly or otherwise.

  Her stomach clenched a little, reminding her that their hasty meal had been long before, back when hope burned brightly that things might settle rightly into place.

  Now she felt worn and small.

  And darker thoughts insisted that her husband was down there, and either had forgotten her entirely, or worse.

  That the sages had reached his instructors first, and even now had been struck down by the circle, his body rapidly cooling in the evening air.

  But before she could force stiffened limbs into movement, there was a rustle, a thump of boots as they met the wooden platform of the dormitory’s edge.

  And the door swung open.

  She blinked. She had not realised how dark the dwelling had become, and she could not immediately make out who was standing there, not with only the moon casting even greater shadow at its back.

  She did not speak, did not move lest she give away her location prematurely. There was little she could do beyond drop to the floor and tuck herself beneath one of the barren cots, but even so small a movement might produce more noise than she could afford.

  Not if these had been the men to have trained Grimult. To have bestowed all the gifts and skills that had seen them through their trials together.

  “Penryn?” came the voice, and there was no mistaking that at least.

  She got to her feet and stumbled forward. She did not care if others were behind him, only wanted to touch, to ensure that he was all right, that he was safe and not dead after all as her mind had conjured so cruelly only a moment before.

  And he caught her, and pulled her close, a hint of pride in his voice as he murmured into hair.

  “They will come,” he assured her. “They will call them, and the initiates will come. And they will fight, regardless of what the sages choose to announce.”

  And something in her loosened, whether by at his presence, or at his words.

  Perhaps the day had not been such a wretched failure after all.

  Fifteen

  The air was crisp and cool on her tongue, sharper at these heights, though she was provided some measure of protection by the walls around her. A thick mist had settled over the plains, stripped bare of trees, an abrupt border for where the clans were permitted to settle.

  It had been surprisingly easy to coax the initiates over the line of the boundary.

  The instructors also had answered the call to action, grim faced and full of purpose, weapons held tightly in their fists and strapped to their persons, ready to meet a challenge they had never thought would actually come.

  But it had.

  She still could not quite believe that they had responded with so little doubt or discussion. That Grimult’s word had been enough to persuade them to action, her presence met with a tightening of the lips, a flash of chastisement, before admonishments were buried behind talk of plans and scouts willing to travel the distance and bring back news of positioning and pace.

  They could not be allowed to press upon the dwellings.

  Not where fledglings slept, where women heavy laden with child could not freely move and escape if need be.

  So they pressed inward, ignoring the markers, the sentries with their crimson tabards, and moved where once had been forbidden.

  The landscape had been chosen with care. There were fields open enough that the horde would have to choose to pass through there, but trees were flanked on either side, providing protection for those in the air.

  Initiates were scattered there even now, hiding within the boughs.

  Waiting.

  Already there was a smudge at the horizon, dark and rippling with movement as a great host moved forward. There was no sound, not yet, but there would be.

  Grimult had tried to prepare her, tried to tell her of the blood that would soon be spilled, sights and smells that would come when death met untouched fields, and she wondered how he might know.

  Perhaps the instructors knew more than she had thought, that their books and lessons centred on truth rather than merely fiction, of battles won and others lost.

  What accompanied a slaughter.

  The smudge took shape into individual peoples. Some on the great beasts she remembered, spears and curved blades held tightly at the perimeter as they circled in perfect counterbalance to those moving steadily onward. The gaits of those shepherded in the centre were slower, and some were of statures hardly befitting warriors. Had they brought children to do battle?

  She swallowed, feeling an unease settle through her at the thought. She did not want a massacre. Did not want to imagine the open field cluttered with bodies, whether they proved seasoned warriors or worse, wingless children brought along with their parents for a goal they surely did not truly comprehend.

  Her stomach roiled further when she pictured the alternative, of winged folk felled and murdered, cast into the seas to drown as they plunged into the depths. Fledglings screaming out in fear, a people wholly unprepared in their own defence.

  Only a few were trained.

  And they were here.

  And would have to be enough.

  Others had come with them. Brothers and fathers who would not be parted, bearing farming tools and fishhooks rather
than the swords they had no experience in wielding. Her heart ached to see them, full of determination, the need to defend against a foe they had never seen with their own eyes.

  Until now.

  She bit her lip, looking anxiously down at the land below.

  She was stationed in a sentry tower, with orders to remain there, and she had not even felt the need to remind Grimult that she would be utterly unable to descend on her own. It was higher still than the stilted dwellings, built up higher than even the tree line, so sages might man the post and check for miles about them that all was calm and none had trespassed.

  But where were they now?

  She pulled her arms more tightly about herself. There was a knife at her hip, buckled there at her husband’s insistence. She knew it troubled him greatly to leave her, but he was needed elsewhere. Needed to be with his fellows.

  Not worrying for her.

  Although she could not deny that he was surely feeling it all the same.

  Just as she was for him.

  The persistent trudge forward produced an eerie rasp through the grasses, and Penryn pulled her cloak tighter about herself.

  To see the approaching multitude from her vantage point, their numbers spanning such a great distance, their people seemed far greater than she had remembered.

  Surprise was on their side, but not for long, and there was no pretending they would not all soon be overwhelmed.

  Her skin itched and she rubbed at her hands, her arms as her anxiety grew.

  This could not end well. Regardless of the outcome, there would be too many deaths.

  The horde moved closer. Voices wafted upward, even as they attempted to keep them low. But there were simply too many as they mingled and mixed, the meaning obscured as Penryn strained to listen and tried to understand.

  The halt was abrupt, the silence a stark contrast as riders hissed, the fur on their beasts bristling as low growls emitted.

  They were not as close as they should have been. There was to have been no warning before the initial attack came.