Path of the Sun: A Novel of Dhulyn and Parno

by Malan, Violette

  Patience, she was saying, and Parno knew it was as much a reminder for herself as it was aimed at him. As anxious as they were to learn what had brought their young friends through the Path of the Sun, it was more important to first secure the goodwill of these Espadryni. He had never realized before how much the Brotherhood took for granted the acceptance and respect they generally encountered. They did not usually have to earn the trust of every casually met stranger; their Mercenary badges were like Tarkin’s passes, allowing them entry practically everywhere they went.

  “Perhaps after we have eaten, I can persuade my Partner to play his pipes for us.” Dhulyn’s words drew Parno’s attention back to the present. “He loves to learn new songs and to share the ones he has.”

  They were eating, and both Gun and the now awake Josh-Chevrie had been given fens bark tea from Dhulyn’s own supply when the Espadryni on watch, eating while mounted not far away, gave a whistle in three long notes, sounding not unlike a high-pitched wolf.

  “The Long Trees People.” Tel-Banion helped Josh-Chevrie to stand, and the other Espadryni immediately put down what food they might be holding—though one youngster simply stuffed his piece of flat cake whole into his mouth.

  “You are not at war with them,” Parno said, though he and Dhulyn had both stood when the Horsemen did and, feeling the tension in the air, were automatically checking their weapons.

  “No.” Josh-Chevrie cleared his throat. “But it is not our season to be in these lands. We must act as guests.”

  Parno caught Dhulyn’s eye, and she nodded. She had picked up her sword from the ground when she stood, and now she hooked it to her belt, where it would be at hand without making her look actively aggressive. Mar was helping Gun to his feet, and when Dhulyn went to stand beside them, Parno took up a position on their other side, leaving space enough to swing his own sword if needed.

  The scout, his horse barely trotting, entered the camp. “Only two,” he said, turning his mount around so that he was facing in the direction from which he’d come. The rest stayed on their feet, Parno noticed, perhaps for the same reason that he and Dhulyn had sheathed their swords. It would take them only a moment to whistle up their horses and mount, but to do so before the others arrived would not be acting like the guests they were.

  It seemed only a moment until they heard hoofbeats slowing to a trot, and the two Long Trees Tribesmen entered the camp.

  “Greetings, Josh-Chevrie.” The taller one had his head tilted to one side, and both were grinning. “Did you fall off your horse?”

  “Had a small disagreement with these Mercenary Brothers,” Josh said, gesturing behind him. “But we are sorted now.”

  “Parno Lionsmane, Dhulyn Wolfshead, it is good that you are here.” It wasn’t until the man greeted him that Parno realized the two Long Trees Tribesmen were Moon Watcher and his brother Star Watcher. It was clear from their faces, and the way they smiled at Dhulyn, that they had received the news. “Is it you who have brought the Cold Lake People?”

  “We have no need of others to bring us,” Josh-Chevrie said, a hint of steel coming into his voice.

  Parno took a breath, but at the flick of Dhulyn’s left thumb held his tongue.

  “Our Singers sent us when they saw the fire’s smoke in the sky, to see for ourselves how bad the damage was and how far it might spread,” Josh-Chevrie said. “We were on our way back to our own territory after the rain when we found these two,” he gestured at Mar and Gun, then winced as his wound moved.

  “Found them, left them, and found them again, if the trail we have been following tells us anything,” Moon Watcher said.

  The Cold Lake Tribesmen looked around at one another. Dhulyn’s fingers moved in a flash of signals.

  “If I may,” Parno said, and waited until everyone was looking at him. “It’s obvious there is much to discuss, news to exchange. Why should we not sit down and talk at more leisure?”

  The suggestion was too sensible to ignore, and they were soon seated once more around the fire, the two Watcher brothers together, Parno seated next to Star Watcher, the silent one, with Josh-Chevrie next to Moon Watcher. Dhulyn sat on the far side, with Mar and Gun just behind her, Tel-Banion at her elbow, and the other Cold Lake Tribesmen scattered between. Introductions were made, and Moon Watcher began to nod as soon as Dhulyn explained who Gun and Mar were and where they had come from.

  “That explains then, how it is that their track comes out of the area of burning.” Moon turned to Josh. “But along their trail we found a place where they met a man riding a Cold Lake horse. This man sat with them a while, made a small fire, and then left them, heading east. Sun Dog and Grass Snake are following that trail now. Was it not one of you then?”

  Josh shook his head. “We came upon them here, where you find us.” He raised his head until he could direct his gaze across the banked fire and over Dhulyn’s shoulder. “Who was it you met then,” he asked Mar. The Espadryni might accept Gun because Dhulyn had said to, but Parno noticed they didn’t speak directly to him if they could avoid it.

  “The trader that we told you about, Bekluth Allain,” Mar said.

  “That’s an odd coincidence,” Parno began. “Ah, no, forgive me. If there is only one trader who moves among the Espadryni, of course it’s not odd that when anyone meets a trader, it should be the same man.” He shrugged. He didn’t recall the trader saying he’d met anyone, but then again, why should he?

  “Nor is it odd that you should have seen the marks of a Cold Lake horse,” Tel-Banion said from his seat next to Dhulyn. “We traded horses with him some time ago.”

  The Watcher brothers looked at each other, and so strong was the sense that they were exchanging information between them that Parno actually reached out with his Pod sense to see if he could feel the exchange. But, of course, he felt nothing.

  “We do not wish to give offense,” Moon Watcher said finally, turning away from his brother to address Josh-Chevrie, “but we would like to examine the hoofprints of the mounts you have with you.”

  A heavy stillness fell over the Cold Lake Tribesmen, and Parno mentally located the four weapons he had closest to hand.

  “I do not know in what way we have offended you,” Josh said finally. “But it appears you believe us to be lying.”

  “May I ask a question?” Dhulyn’s rough silk voice fell into the silence like a delicate shower of rain drops into a pool. “Moon Watcher.” She was careful to address the brother who spoke. “A fire may happen accidentally, and in any case, the rains had apparently stopped this one long before great damage was done. Your people have gone to much trouble to follow the trail of my friends. Perhaps if you told us why?”

  “You are right, Dhulyn Wolfshead.” Moon Watcher looked in her direction, but Parno noticed the man lowered his eyes as if shy to stare at her directly. “If it were only the fire, we should not be here. It is what we found within the area of burning.”

  “And this was?” Parno took up the questioning, and Moon turned toward him with a look that was close to relief in his face.

  “We found a body, partially burned,” the man said. “Not killed by the fire, but before, and the fire set to conceal the crime.”

  “I swear by Sun, by Moon, and by Stars, this was not our doing, nor the doing of any Cold Lake man. Please, examine the tracks of our horses.” Josh-Chevrie gestured toward the horse line.

  Leaving Mar with instructions to wait with Gun by the banked fire, Dhulyn Wolfshead let the Espadryni lead the way to the horses, deliberately hanging back, giving them privacy and at the same time space for herself to think. If the Watcher brothers were here, and Sun Dog and Grass Snake accounted for . . .

  “Moon Watcher.” She increased her pace until she was at the man’s elbow. “May I ask whose body you found?”

  Moon Watcher’s eyes flicked toward her, but he must have been reassured by something that he saw in her face, for he answered without looking away. “The boy, Ice Hawk.”

  Dhu
lyn froze between one step and the next. She thought of the boy as she had first seen him, his blue eyes watchful, but curious, as his grandfather and the others had brought her and Parno into their camp. And later, as he came to her, big-eyed with excitement, bringing information and ideas he believed might be of use to her. To think that he was gone, and in that way. She drew in a deep breath. Moon Watcher, finding her no longer beside him, hesitated, stopped, and waited, looking back at her.

  “And Singer of the Wind, his grandfather, he knows of this?”

  “It is why he is not here himself, why we are sent instead. He stayed with the body of his grandson. Gray Cloud and Sky Tree, who I know would wish to be remembered to you, stayed also, to be of help to the Singer in this.”

  “Of course.” Dhulyn nodded. It would have been a great shock, and Singer of the Wind, though by no means as old as the Cloud Singer of the Salt Desert Tribe, was still an old man.

  “And he was not, you say, killed in the fire?” They’d be looking for the killer then. There would be a blood price to pay, at the very least.

  “Not killed by the fire; we wish it were so. The body—” Moon Watcher’s voice faltered. “It was a body such as you know of, such as you described to us, Dhulyn Wolfshead.”

  The truth was there in his voice, in the starkness, in the pain. Dhulyn saw again the horror that had been the Princess Cleona, but her mind refused to show her the image of the boy Ice Hawk. For which she thanked Sun, Moon, and Stars.

  Sounds from the horse line reminded her of their present purpose, and Dhulyn imagined Moon Watcher was as happy as she to turn his attention to the horses of the Cold Lake Tribesmen. One was out with the man on watch, Dhulyn reflected, but the Watcher brothers would have seen those tracks as they followed the man into the camp in any case. The remaining four horses were led off a short way, so that their tracks could be seen more easily.

  Both Moon Watcher and his brother Star Watcher inspected each set of tracks, separately and then together. Dhulyn, her professional interest aroused, inspected the tracks herself as each brother finished. The last one examined, Moon looked at his brother, brows raised, and waited for Star Watcher’s nod before he spoke.

  “None of these horses is the one that rode away from the young strangers.”

  Dhulyn was still examining the last set of tracks when she stopped again, frozen by what she could not believe was in front of her eyes.

  “Parno!”

  Her Partner was at her side in an instant, looking to where she was pointing.

  “I see it,” he said. “But how?”

  “What do you see, Mercenaries?” Moon Watcher and Josh-Chevrie had approached them together.

  “I know this track,” Dhulyn told them. “This is the track of the horse ridden by Princess Cleona of Arderon, one of the tracks that we followed into the Path of the Sun.” She turned around and quickly spotted the horse whose tracks these were. Unlike Bloodbone or Warhammer, it was only slightly larger than the other Espadryni horses, and there was nothing in its color or care that would distinguish it. “Where did this horse come from?”

  “He is mine.” Josh-Chevrie had been leaning heavily on Tel-Banion’s shoulder, but now he came forward to his horse and slung one arm over the animal’s flank. “I have not had him long; my father traded two horses for him.”

  “Traded with whom?” Dhulyn had an idea already what the answer would be. “Another Espadryni?”

  “No, it was Bekluth Allain,” Josh said.

  And somehow I am not surprised, Dhulyn thought, remembering the vera tiles. “Did your father ask from where the horse had come?”

  “From the fields and towns, of course; from where else would Bekluth Allain bring him? There is not a horse in the land of the Espadryni that we do not all know or recognize.”

  “But that’s the man we met, the man who told us to come this way and find the Cold Lake Tribe.” Mar had walked up behind them. Dhulyn went to her and took her hand.

  “Are you sure it was the same man?” Anyone can use a name, Dhulyn thought. “Describe him.”

  Mar frowned, drawing her brows down over her dark blue eyes. “As tall as the Wolfshead, perhaps a touch taller, but he may only seem so because he is so thin.” She gestured to her ears. “Gold rings in each ear. Straw-colored hair, coarse and thick. Wearing very well woven clothes, expensive cloth I’d judge . . .”

  Dhulyn looked to Parno and found him looking back at her. He touched his right ear. Go slowly. She lifted her left eyebrow.

  “That is the trader,” Josh-Chevrie said. “And what else did he tell you?” He sounded almost angry. “Did he tell you to say that your man is a Finder?”

  “Yes.”

  Moon Watcher was looking back and forth between them. “But that would be easily explained, surely. He would have wanted him to find one of the Tribes, so that he could be judged whole or broken. As apparently he was, though it was judged badly.”

  “You would have done no better,” Josh said, stepping away from his horse, his face hard, his injuries forgotten. Moon Watcher looked him up and down, consulted his brother with one look, and put his hand on his sword. “I am no friend of the trader’s,” he said, the implication clear.

  Dhulyn stepped deliberately between them. Normally she’d leave arguing hotheads with noble ideas to Parno—he was used to such people. But she knew that neither of the Espadryni would strike while she stood between them. Their own training—the very honor they were about to fight over—the respect in which all the Tribesmen now held her, would prevent any such actions.

  “Sirs.” She used her most moderate tone. “In the interest of solving the puzzle we have before us, can we not put honor aside long enough to allow for free discussion?”

  “How can honor be set aside?” Star Watcher’s voice was so like his brother’s that for a moment no one realized it was the silent brother who had spoken.

  “What of Ice Hawk’s honor?” Dhulyn said, still in her quiet voice. “Since he cannot speak and act for himself, we all,” she gestured to herself and around at them, “who are concerned with his death must speak and act for him. Should that not be the first action of honorable men?” Moon Watcher’s stance became just a hair less militant, though his hand remained on his sword hilt. Josh-Chevrie showed he was listening by a narrowing of his eyes. Behind him Tel-Banion extended his hand as if to catch Josh by the sleeve. Dhulyn searched frantically through her mind for further, weightier, arguments.

  “And what of the honor of your Tribes?” she said. “Are you not obligated to clear yourselves, even in your own minds, of any complicity, however accidental, in the death and the fire. Is that not an honorable task?”

  “These are fair words, and true.” Star Watcher spoke as if pronouncing from a seat of judgment.

  “I agree,” Moon Watcher said. His voice was just a little lighter, a little less rounded than his brother’s, Dhulyn decided. “I withdraw my remark. It was ill-judged, and I apologize for having caused any offense.”

  Josh hesitated, and Dhulyn held her breath. Moon Watcher had apologized completely and thoroughly, but Josh-Chevrie had shown himself to be more than a little hotheaded. Finally the young man relaxed, taking a deep breath.

  “I accept, I take no offense. Come, let us return to our seats, where we may have this ‘free discussion.’ ”

  Leaving the horse line behind them, they found that Gundaron had opened the banked fire and was heating more water, using the largest of the Cold Lake Tribesmen’s pots. In it he had put the bones of the rabbit and prairie squirrel, along with some dried herbs Dhulyn recognized as having come from her own pack. Her lips compressed, and she drew in a breath through her nose. Gun’s idea was a good one—she might even have suggested it herself—but she thought he knew better than to go into her packs.

  When everyone had been served some of the broth, and Dhulyn had explained where to find and how to recognize the wild version of the saphron herb, it was Parno who had the first question.
/>   “Are we sure this is the same killer? The one that my Partner and I have been looking for?”

  “Singer of the Wind had no doubt, and I must say we all of us agreed with him. The body was opened and the parts . . . dispersed, in the way you have described to us, Dhulyn Wolfshead.”

  Dhulyn nodded, grateful that she did not have to describe yet again what she and Parno had seen, that she could push the image of the body—she coughed. “But can we therefore assume that the fire was set to delay or to confuse the discovery of the body? Is there no possibility that it started accidentally?”

  Moon Watcher consulted his once more silent brother with raised brows. Star Watcher moved his head once to the left and back again. “We would say none,” Moon said. He indicated the fire before them. “The stones of the fire spot had been moved aside, opening the circle. Ice Hawk was young, but even a child would not have prepared his fire in that careless fashion. No Tribesman’s child in any case.”

  “So we can say the fire was deliberate.” Josh was drinking his broth one-handed.

  “Then the person we seek had both reason to kill Ice Hawk and reason to disguise that fact.” Whether or not that killer turned out to be the trader, Bekluth Allain. The others seemed to have set aside his actions toward Mar and Gundaron for now, but Dhulyn knew they were still unexplained.

  “But why would the killer you seek have reason to kill Ice Hawk?” Moon Watcher said. “The tales we have heard from Sky Tree concerning the demons—they have never touched the Espadryni before.”