Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno

by Malan, Violette

  He touched the point on the wall where the blue line seemed to disappear. Was this tile a little rougher than the rest? He pushed against it with the tips of his fingers. Did it move? Give just a little under the pressure? Or was it hope that made him think so?

  Gun rubbed his hands together and blew on them. The tiles were cold. He set his feet, braced himself, and pushed at the tile again, this time with his thumbs. There was a grinding noise, and the floor opened beneath him.

  “There. That should do it, my lord.” Jo-Leggett pushed the final rock into place, tossing the loose bush to one side. In another day or so it would be dry enough that no one would notice it again.

  Epion walked around to view the section of ruin from another angle. With the green flag gone, there was nothing to distinguish this spot from any other. He nodded his satisfaction. “Can you get the pony back without being seen?”

  “Nothing easier,” Jo-Leggett said with a grin. “I walk him into the stable yard complaining loud and long how the young Scholar ran off leaving me to manage both beasts, and no one will notice they didn’t see him with me.”

  “If you can do it naturally, suggest that the boy ran off to see Falcos.”

  Gabe-Leggett had brought his horse down to him, and as Epion swung himself up into the saddle he saw Gabe was still staring at the pile of broken stone that marked the Scholar’s grave.

  “Do you hear something,” he asked.

  Gabe looked up. “Won’t we want it then? The book?”

  “I do not believe so.” Epion smiled. “Have any of the men we sent through the Path ever returned?”

  “No, my lord.” Gabe stood patient.

  “Then I don’t think the book has been of any real use to us, has it?” Epion glanced down at the entrance again. “Until now, at any rate.”

  Twelve

  BEKLUTH ALLAIN LIKED this time of year best. The sweltering temperatures of summer were over, leaving cooler, crisper days ideal for walking or riding. True, the nights were also cooler, but they weren’t yet so cold that a fire was needed for more than cooking, so he was relieved of the constant search for fuel—or from having to use dried horse dung, the smell of which, in Bekluth’s opinion, you never entirely got out of your clothing. The only drawback to this time of year, he thought, was that in about a moon or so he’d have to stop trading entirely for the season and decide what small town should be his winter base this time. Even the Red Horsemen would start moving farther south soon.

  At least Bekluth had money enough to pick and choose, thanks to the foreign horses. He’d been clever about them, quite clever really, though he said so himself. He did not get horses every time of course, that would have been too much to expect. So far he’d taken two to the trading center in the Gray Hills, claiming to have obtained them from the Red Horsemen, and both had fetched good prices, which he’d taken part in coin and part in the type of provisions—salt, sugar, and dried fruit—that the Horsemen would trade for or he could use himself. These last two were better horses, as befitted beasts from the stables of a Royal House, and would have brought much better prices at Gray Hills had he been foolish enough to make such an amateur’s mistake as having more horses to trade again so soon. One of them he’d traded to the Cold Lake People—telling them it came from Gray Hills—for the sky stones found in creek and stream beds in the dry season. The other he’d keep for now, stashed away in the place only he knew of.

  He smiled broadly. It was years now since he’d left his mother’s people to go trading on his own; he could say anything, tell any tale he liked, and no one the wiser. Everyone he traded with thought he was based with someone else, and he was the only one the Red Horsemen would trade with at all. Why he could—

  He stopped so suddenly that the three ponies he had with him kept moving for several paces until their lead ropes pulled taut. His smile faded away. His mother had taught him many valuable lessons before her death, the most valuable being not to draw attention to himself. He’d been careful to follow her lessons, and they had kept him safe so far.

  And new wealth might bring him that kind of attention. It would bring him better quarters, surely, a more comfortable inn with a better cook than usual. But if he showed too prosperous, the Guilds would take an interest in his trading route, and that he couldn’t have. So he couldn’t, he absolutely could not, splash money about, no matter what tale he had to tell. He shook himself.

  “What if I paid them their cut,” he said aloud. They’d leave him be then. Or would they?

  No. That was dangerous thinking, the kind his mother had punished him for. He couldn’t show his new wealth. It was as simple as that. He was tolerated as a small, independent trader, his route ignored by the Guilds, considered too risky for too small a return. If he showed up at a Guild with enough money or goods to pay them their fees, some rival would decide his route was worth taking. And then how could he help anyone?

  It took a nudge from one of the ponies, strong enough to make him take a step forward, to get Bekluth’s thoughts to stop chasing themselves in circles. He set off again, a tune coming to his lips. He was worrying for nothing. Soon none of this would matter. Very soon now he would pass through the Sun’s Door for the final time. Where people understood him and appreciated his skills. That was what he’d been promised.

  He turned west and began to angle his way toward the territories of the Salt Desert People. It took him the rest of the day and most of the next to find the spot he was looking for. He’d cut the angle too sharply and ended by having to cast back and forth a bit before he was able to follow the smell of burned flesh directly to the pit. He left the ponies well back and approached the orobeast trap on foot. The Red Horsemen had been here, that much was obvious. The ground around the edge had been trampled. They had not been able to lift the bodies out of the pit and, unable to expose them cleanly to the Sun, Moon, and Stars, had burned them where they lay. This was even better than he’d hoped; the Horsemen would avoid a death fire for at least a moon or more.

  He squatted on the edge of the pit and looked down. With the sun almost overhead, there was only one corner in shadow, and even there he could make out shapes clearly. The Horsemen had come unprepared, and without extra fuel the fire had not burned hot enough to reduce the bodies completely. If you knew what to look for, it was easy enough to understand the traces. There were the remains of one horse, and there the second. Between the two you could make out the shape of one of the men, and the second was—

  Bekluth leaped to his feet and ran around the other side of the pit. The other body was there. It had to be. They had both gone into the pit, horses and all. He squatted again, but no amount of squinting could make another body appear.

  Somehow the second man had escaped. Or no, not escaped. If the fall had not killed him, perhaps the Salt Desert People had found and taken him when they made the death pyre.

  Bekluth stepped back from the pit and held his hands to his head. He forced himself to take deep breaths, deep and slow. He would go to the Salt Desert People and see what the man had told them. The man was a stranger to them, Bekluth was their friend. They would believe what Bekluth told them. He could take care of this. It was simple.

  Dhulyn knew she’d only been a short time asleep when she felt Parno’s hand on her shoulder. He did not shake, or squeeze, so while she came instantly awake and clearheaded, she did not reach immediately for a weapon.

  “The Espadryni wish to speak with us, my heart.” Parno spoke in the nightwatch voice.

  “Now?” She answered the same way. Soft voices could not awaken Delvik, but Parno evidently saw no reason to share their thoughts with their hosts, and she had ample reason to trust his judgment.

  “They have been sitting in council,” he said. “I suppose they wouldn’t wake us if they didn’t think it of some importance.” He shrugged, and she felt the movement through his arm. “Star-Wind doesn’t meet my eye.”

  “Not a good sign.” Dhulyn threw off the light cover Parno mus
t have laid over her and rolled upright, stretching out first her shoulders, then her arms, back, and legs. She tightened the laces on her vest, made sure her hair was well tied out of her face. A glance told her Parno was armed, though his weapons were sheathed, and she picked up her own sword from where she’d placed it ready to her hand and slipped it through her sash.

  “And Delvik?” she asked.

  A shadow in the doorway answered her. “I will sit with him, if you will allow it.” It was the same younger Horseman who had been sitting in the tent when they arrived.

  “I have given him iocain for the pain,” she told him now. “He should not awaken before sunrise.”

  The camp was quiet, with very few even of the night sounds common to any large encampment of men. There were lights burning in three of the tents in the women’s area, Dhulyn saw, but otherwise the camp slept. A light rain was falling, little more than a mist, but enough to keep people inside. Dhulyn glanced up, but there was too much cloud to see the stars, shining backward in the sky. There would be more rain before dawn.

  The tent of the chiefs held perhaps twenty-five men, sitting at their ease around the central fire. All the men, Dhulyn estimated, who had passed their naming day and would be counted as adult members of the community. Those present now would represent all the adult men who were not out on sentry duty, gone hunting, or with the herds. A space had been left empty next to where the two chiefs, Singer of the Grass-Moon and Spring-Flood, sat next to each other at the far side of the tent from the entry. Everyone in the tent turned to look at them as they entered, though Dhulyn noticed that many seemed reluctant to meet her eyes.

  “Will you sit, Mercenaries?” Spring-Flood said indicating the space to his left.

  Dhulyn touched her forehead and picked her way through the seated men. It didn’t make the least difference where they sat. They were badly enough outnumbered to make it a question whether they could fight their way out should the need arise. If these were town men—even soldiers—she might have given good odds that she and Parno could deal with all of them. But nomads, that weighted the wager in a different way.

  The men moved their feet out of her way, some still without actually looking at her, though there seemed to be no reluctance in allowing them to pass. It was apparent that whatever the council had brought them to hear, all were in agreement with it.

  “We regret, Mercenaries, that we were unable to heal your Brother.” It was Singer of the Grass-Moon who offered this apology, Dhulyn noted. As the most powerful of the shamans, such magic would have been his responsibility, even if he had not undertaken it himself.

  “We accept that there is a limit to all things,” Dhulyn said. A more profound silence fell at her words. Someone in the shadows coughed.

  “It is distracting for us to hear a woman’s voice in this tent, Dhulyn Wolfshead. We do not wish to offend, but we would take it as a great favor, if Parno Lionsmane could speak for you both.”

  “I am the Senior Mercenary Brother present,” Dhulyn said. She was more than a little surprised to find that she was offended. She was familiar with this attitude of male superiority—what woman who traveled wasn’t?—but she realized that she had taken it for granted that she would be treated as an equal by the Espadryni, regardless of their attitude toward their own “broken” women. Pretend you are in the Great King’s Court, she told herself. But it was hard to do when she looked around her and saw what might have been her own people.

  “But you are bonded, are you not? The two of you are as one person. It should not matter to you which of you speaks, yet it matters a great deal to us. You would do us much honor if you agreed.”

  Dhulyn drew in a deep breath. On the one hand, that they were Partnered did not change the fact that she had been a Mercenary Brother longer than Parno. On the other hand, they were Partners, and the fact that he did not normally speak for the two of them did not mean that this would be the first time. Remember the Great King’s Court, she told herself again.

  She signaled Parno with a flick of her left thumb.

  “As we are guests in your home,” Parno said, smoothly picking up on his cue. “We will agree.”

  The older man leaned back against the saddle that had been placed behind him as a rest. Spring-Flood cleared his throat. “It is as our honored guests that we wish to speak with you,” he began. “We have talked long on the subject of your Brother, Delvik Bloodeye. We understand the need for a warrior to end his life when he sees his usefulness to his Brothers is over, and we would not stand in the way of such an intent.”

  Here it comes, Dhulyn thought, fighting to keep her face from showing her irritation. There’s a “however” coming, clear as clear.

  “However,” Spring-Flood continued, “we ask that Parno Lionsmane’s be the hand that releases your Brother to the Sun, Moon, and Stars.”

  Dhulyn didn’t even bother to signal Parno; he knew what her answer would be.

  “Dhulyn Wolfshead is Senior Brother,” Parno said, just as she expected. “Senior to Delvik Bloodeye, as well as to me. Our Common Rule requires this of her, not of me.”

  “With respect to your Common Rule, it would still be seen as a killing done by a woman of the Espadryni.” This time a murmur of sound and movement followed the Horse Shaman’s words. This time he had not referred to the women as “Seers,” Dhulyn noticed. “Dhulyn Wolfshead might be seen as no longer whole. We cannot allow it.”

  This time Parno looked at her, waiting for her sign before speaking. She drummed her fingers on her knee.

  “We will wait here until you have gone on. We’ll manage,” he added.

  “Your determination to abide by your oath, and give your Brother Delvik Bloodeye the Final Sword, despite ill consequences to yourself, actually weighs in your favor, young one.” Singer of the Grass-Moon reached across Spring-Flood and touched Dhulyn on the back of her right hand, so there could be no doubt whom he addressed. His voice was raspy with overuse. “But it is not consequences to you that concerns us here, but consequences to ourselves, to our Seers. You may ride away, even pass once more through the Door of the Sun, and this land, and our concerns, will be behind you. But our women will know that you killed a man and were not punished for it. It will make them restless, make them test the boundaries and constraints of the Pact, and we will be forced to punish them because of your example.”

  Dhulyn inhaled sharply, opened her mouth . . . and closed it again, before the flash of anger made her speak. It was unthinkable that they could do this, that they could take her duty from her. She looked at Parno. His eyes flicked to the gold and silver armlet Dhulyn wore on her right arm, and she pressed her lips together in frustration. Finding and aiding their Brothers was only part of their mission here, if the most important part. They had still to find the killer of the Princess Cleona, which the help and goodwill of the Espadryni would make easier.

  And even if she might be willing to throw such aid away, was she willing to be responsible for the maiming, perhaps even the deaths, of Espadryni women? Dhulyn took a deep breath. She could hold to the exact letter of the Common Rule, risk failure in their mission, and endanger innocent people. Or, she could let Parno act for her in this, reasoning that it was much the same as his speaking for both of them. Was that an argument that would hold before a Senior Brother such as Gustof Ironhand?

  Of course that would only matter if they were able to pass back through the Door of the Sun. Today’s troubles today, she thought.

  She rested her left hand on her knee, small finger extended to the side. I agree, but I don’t like it.

  When Mother Sun was well up, Dhulyn helped Delvik Bloodeye, sweating and with teeth clenched against the pain, out of the tent into the watery sunshine. An area had been cleared in the center of the camp, in front of the main tent of the chiefs. The women’s section touched one side of this area, but there were only a few sufficiently interested to gather closely enough to watch, and these seemed to be watching Dhulyn rather than anyone else.
Once again most of the men of the Salt Desert had gathered to watch the ceremony, leaving the underage boys to mind the herds and flocks. Dhulyn frowned. She would have much preferred that Parno give Delvik his Final Sword in private—this was something between Brothers, after all—but she could understand that the Espadryni felt very differently.

  Dhulyn blinked against the light, her eyelids feeling gritty. Parno’s pipes were an unfamiliar weight on her left shoulder. They had all three washed themselves as clean as possible, put on their best clothes—which in Delvik’s case meant borrowing Parno’s cleanest trousers and a cloak of Dhulyn’s that she only used in the worst cold. The sword at his side, however, was his own.

  When she had their Brother positioned properly, Dhulyn caught Star-Wind’s eye and nodded. At his signal, everyone except the Mercenaries sat down on the ground.

  “I would have been proud to give you my death, Dhulyn my Brother,” Delvik said almost in her ear.

  Dhulyn cleared her throat. She had judged the dose of iocain correctly. “I would have been honored to receive it.” She nodded to Parno, who drew his sword. “Parno is my Partner; you know that we are the two edges of one sword.”

  Delvik nodded. “Find that cursed murderer, my Brothers. Give him an extra blow for me and for Kesman.” He looked around them, at the faces of the Horsemen, some curious, some frowning. “Things would be so much better if we Brothers ran the world.”

  “There would be fewer people.” Dhulyn was rewarded by Delvik’s crooked smile. “Are you ready, Delvik my Brother?”

  “I am. But . . . may I stand alone?”

  Dhulyn released him slowly, giving him time to find his own balance. Delvik had to put his weight on his left foot, he could not even touch his right to the ground.

  Delvik drew his sword with his right hand, and smiled. Then he saluted Parno with his sword, the motion as crisp as if they were putting on a demonstration. Parno extended his own blade and gave that of Delvik a sharp rap, making the steel ring.