The Horse Lord

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The Horse Lord Page 5

by Peter Morwood


  "No!" The word spat from bloodless lips, chasing the tsepan as it flickered across the room to thud into a panel. Thrumming with the impact, its pommel swayed so that the blue-enameled crest—his crest—winked at him like a sardonic eye, mocking his cowardice. Aldric rubbed his throbbing hand, but the pain would not go away. His haunted eyes looked far into the distance, towards the sun hanging low over the Blue Mountains, edging a lapis lazuli sky with gold, A gentle breeze passed through the shattered window, caressing his face and the sweat beading it.

  I have lived as well as I may, Aldric thought. I have eaten good food and drunk fine wine, I have had worthy friends. I might have loved… I have never slain a man. Why then fear to die? All must go out into the darkness, and only kailinin may choose their time of passing. It is an honourable right, that one may leave this melancholy world to return reborn in the great circle.

  Quietly he crossed the room and twisted the tsepan free, then returned to kneel at his father's feet, laying the dirk before him. Caring nothing for the still-wet blood upon it, he bowed and pressed his brow against the floor. Cold stickiness spread across his skin. The formal phrases for the rite of tsepanak'ulleth refused to form in his head and he was ashamed. Quickly he opened tunic and shirt, then reversed the dirk and nuzzled its point into place under his breastbone. The weapon stung.

  "My lord father," he whispered at last, "I am dishonoured and full of sorrow. I ask forgiveness and offer my life as recompense."

  "Do… not!"

  The barely audible words shocked Aldric like the stroke of a mace. Blood trickled from where the tsepan's point had broken skin and jabbed deep, but the boy felt nothing. He stared into eyes lit from within by the effort of holding off death by force of will alone.

  "You live… good. Good…" Aldric kept quiet, knowing that Haranil-arthul must have had good cause to cling to this half-life so long. "Duergar has done this…" the old man gasped hoarsely. "Destroyed us…" As Aldric listened, his father choked out the story. It made grim listening. Duergar Vathach had been a familiar figure at all hours of the day or night, and when he appeared just before dawn the doors were opened. But hiding in the shadows had been a gang of hired bravoes who had rushed the sleeping citadel, slaying all who refused to serve their master. Duergar was no scholar, but a necromancer of the Drusalan Empire, aflame with some mad scheme. Clan Talvalin had been convenient hosts, now no longer needed.

  "Forget tsepan—laws—honour if you must. But live— let the clan survive. It must… not die… as I die… Please… my son…" Aldric clutched the old man's hand desperately as his father stiffened, dragging in a shuddering breath. That breath came out again in a faint little moan as Haranil, the Clan-Lord Talvalin, in his sixty-sixth year, relaxed in his chair for the last time. Aldric felt the life take its leave, released at last by the stubborn will to brush past like a movement in the air. And then it was over.

  Although his face was taut with grief and tears ran down his cheeks, Aldric had no time for mourning; he had much to do. Reaching down, he lifted the tsepan and pressed it to his lips.

  Then he sliced it deeply across the scars on his left palm, cancelling all other oaths in a scarlet spurt of blood. The pain purged him of confused emotions, and he was able to stare dispassionately at the pulsing cut before putting it to his mouth and swallowing some of the sweet-salt flow. It was warm in his cold throat.

  "En mollath venjens warnan," he said harshly. "The curse of vengeance be upon thee, Duergar Vathach my enemy. Thy life will pay the weregild for my father. On my blood I swear it." Gripping his queue in smeared fingers he slashed it off with the dirk, then did the same to each ear-lock and flung all three to the ground. The cropped hair gave him a strange, youthful look belied by his eyes and by the blood oozing down his face. "I renounce my duty," he intoned as each tag of hair came free. "To Heaven if it guard thee; to any king whose laws protect thee; and to my honour lest it make me fear to slay thee—by any means I may." It was a sentence of death for Duergar and maybe for himself as well. He completed the old ritual of the venjens-eijo, the avenging exile, by sheathing his dirk and saluting with his sword before returning it to the scabbard across his back.

  Then from the corridor outside a singing floor began to squeal.

  Only a muscle moved in Aldric's cheek for perhaps three seconds. Then he snatched the heavy taiken off his father's lap and shrank into the shadows just before the door opened to admit torchlight and men. Their faces were familiar: men who had called themselves traders, on their way from Datherga to Radmur with a wagon-load of swords. So they had claimed. They and others like them had trickled through Dunrath like a rivulet of dirty water—Duergar's raiders. With hindsight it was all so very clear.

  Both wore taipanin—shortswords—through their belts, and armour of a kind, but the first also had a visored helmet and Aldric coldly marked him down. Such headgear would be useful when he had to walk unnoticed from the citadel. Cocking the taiken double-handed behind his head, the boy took a soft step forward.

  Even now he was not ready to strike without warning from behind like an assassin—but giving this murderer fair warning was downright stupid. Then his problems vanished as, for some reason, the helmeted man looked around. His head tumbled to the floor wearing the slightly confused expression of a man who literally never knew what had hit him.

  Aldric stepped across the corpse, taiken already in attack position and concentration focused on the second man who gaped, foolishly forgot his torch was a useful makeshift weapon and dropped it in favour of his sword. The delay was nothing less than fatal.

  Something flickered across his body from shoulder to hip and the hand which steadied his scabbard. It was a stroke so old that it came from a time when taikenin were curved—but neither time nor straight blades reduced its efficiency. The mercenary stood for a moment, eyes and mouth wide with shock. His left hand dropped from its wrist just an instant before his body split along the huge diagonal cut.

  Aldric stared at the exploded corpse for several minutes. After his near suicide and the shock of everything that had followed, he was close to fainting. Only adrenalin had kept him on his feet, and now it ebbed swiftly to leave him nauseous and unsteady. This revelation of his own appalling skill was too much. He had never killed before, and to start like this… And why that cut—something out of the distant past? The sour taste of vomit rose in his throat and his head spun. Then, as he had been taught, the kailin breathed deeply, pushing the shattered dead from his plane of awareness. They ceased to be sickening, just as they had ceased to be threatening. Regrets, qualms and conscience would remain, but they would no longer interfere with his survival.

  He did three things in rapid succession: broke his father's sword against the fireplace and left its shards respectfully at the old man's feet; picked up the soldier's helmet, shook out its ex-owner's head and set it on his own; and set a torch to the place. Noting with grim satisfaction that not even fresh-spilt blood stopped the flame from taking hold, Aldric bowed once to the funeral pyre and walked away.

  There were still only one or two people to be seen, and he wondered where they had been earlier on. It was only when Aldric rode out of the stable that he realised with horror that he had seen no other horsemen. The roan gelding seemed to be shouting for attention as he trotted quickly for the drawbridge, but since an alarm gong began to sound as dark smoke billowed from the donjon, nobody showed much interest. It gave him the chance to pause near the winding-gear for the drawbridge and delicately saw through the ropes holding its counterweight portcullis. There were no guards anywhere, although the icy wind slicing in from outside should have told him why.

  As the cords began to unravel and snap of their own accord under their burden, he set heels to the horse and went over the bridge as fast as he was able. Even then he felt a sudden upward lurch as a rattling rumble broke out behind him. His mount jumped the last few feet as the drawbridge made a violent, uncontrolled ascent and slammed behind him with a huge hollow b
ang.

  Aldric rode straight for Baelen Forest, though had he known of the guards sheltering from the wind within the gatehouse his course might have been more crooked. Instead it remained as unerring as the arrow which slammed into his left shoulder. The boy might have gasped, even screamed—he could not remember. His only recollection was of the world spinning away down a long polished tube that had utter blackness at the bottom.

  When he came to his senses there were trees all around him and the horse had slowed to a walk. The high saddle had held him in place, as it was meant to do, despite the way he swayed drunkenly with every step the gelding took. Aldric straightened up as best he could. The wind was still sighing about his ears, and when he looked up past dark branches to the sky he could see stars. There was a vague threat of rain in the air; it was marginally warmer and the snow was turning slushy. At least that would make his tracks harder to follow…

  Then the trees came to a sudden end and a valley yawned before him. Aldric tensed, knowing this place all too well, but with nowhere else to go he rode out from the tumbled light and shadow on to the upper slope. He glanced back painfully, listening for sounds of pursuit and hearing none. What might have been a fragile laugh formed in his throat, only to die in a gurgle when he saw what hung above the forest behind him.

  Away to the north-east, above Dunrath, a bloated spiral cloud was swallowing the sky. Long tendrils stretched towards the forest until it resembled some vast hand extending taloned fingers southward to clutch and rend. A flicker passed through the cloud, throwing its coiling bulk into sharp relief—but no lightning Aldric had ever seen was that vivid, venomous green.

  Raw fear welled within the youngster's brain and was not dispelled when he tore his eyes from the convoluted sky. Something was disturbing the snow just by his gelding's hoofs. Then the thing broke surface.

  Starting backwards in horror, Aldric yelped and clenched his teeth against the stab of pain his sudden movement brought. Then he stared in disbelief. On the ground was what had once been a hand. It was long dead, rotten leather stretched taut over a claw of old brown bones. But it was moving. The Alban looked away, only to meet the empty eyesockets of a skull heaving itself from the earth. Its jaws worked, dribbling ancient mould across the clean snow, and pulpy white things squirmed in its hollow nostrils.

  There was a sonorous droning in the air and a humming more felt than heard. Other shrivelled relics rose out of the past into the nightmare present until the whole valley was bubbling like putrescent broth. A vile stench clogged Aldric's mouth and nose until, despite the scarf around his face, he hung retching over his saddlebow.

  The hand he had first seen was thrashing more violently now. It had become fleshy, filling out with muscle even as he watched, and the reek of decay lessened somewhat. Then the hand twisted and clutched his horse's foreleg, sending the animal rearing back with a neigh that was almost a shriek of outrage. Aldric was almost thrown and kept his seat more through adhesive willpower than any real skill. Trying impotently to quiet the shuddering roan, he looked down to see an almost exhumed body drag itself from the crumbling soil, then clung frantically to his saddle as the champing horse finally got the bit between its teeth and took off at full gallop.

  Aldric reeled back and hammered the shaft in his back against a saddlebag. Red agony overwhelmed him and his mouth gaped wide, but long before any cry emerged he had slipped into the dark again.

  Three

  Parting the Veil

  In the grey light of dawn Aldric regained consciousness to find his left arm cold and stiff, hard to move and painful when he tried. But pain meant life. When he was dead he would no longer feel pain; nor love, nor joy, nor laughter. Though in his present mood he might as well be dead, for he was sure that he would never laugh again in this life. The dead felt nothing—even when they moved, he recalled with a shiver. But he was not dead yet, nor helpless either.

  He slid clumsily to the ground, supporting himself with a stirrup when his knees threatened to give way. With only one hand, opening a saddlebag posed problems surmounted only by effort, ingenuity and much use of his teeth. Within was dried meat and wheaten bread for himself, grain and a feeding-bag for the horse, and a bottle of wine. Water he had in plenty from the melting slush around him.

  Memory made the boy's appetite slighter than it might have been, and he queasily set the meat aside after a few mouthfuls. Instead he turned his mind to the arrow; it had struck into the muscles by his shoulder blade and only the heavy leather jerkin had saved him from a fatal skewering. Panting for breath, he worked up his good hand far enough to hook two fingers over the shaft, whimpering as the head shifted in living flesh. Blood seeped stickily through his clothes, leaving a smell in the cold air that made the roan gelding stamp nervously. Aldric clenched his teeth and jerked the arrow hard.

  It snapped and he fell forward into slush and dead leaves, sobbing. He only regained his feet again because the horse leaned over him, so that he could grip the reins and let the gelding lift him upright. Patting the beast's nose, he buzzed affectionate nonsense into its ears.

  In the clear autumn-to-winter sky a black crow drifted endlessly. The bird was still circling overhead more than an hour later, descending in lazy spirals wherever the trees grew thick. Now that pain no longer fogged his mind completely, suspicion found some room again in Aldric's brain. He stopped, listening for any sound of pursuit, but Baelen Forest answered only with the noises of small living things. Then a wolf howled thinly in the distance and the crow cawed. Twice, then twice again. The kailin looked up with a strange expression on his face and carefully dismounted.

  There was a telek bolstered on his saddle, and beside it the crossbow which stayed there all the time. Aldric led the gelding under a tree, forcing deep into the shelter of its needled branches, and saw how the crow swung lower. It was then that he took down the crossbow and painfully cranked it back. Above him he could see the crow straining to sight him, and glared at it. "Stay there, bird," he muttered, "and you'll soon find out what I'm doing."

  A bolt ripped up through the screening pine needles and feathers burst from between the crow's wings. Aldric swore softly, but not at his good shot; rather because the bird did not caw as it died—it screamed.

  The wolf howled again, an anguished sound like hunger made audible. Aldric mounted again and let the horse move off at an easy jog. Panic tempted him to lash his steed to a gallop—but panic was no longer a luxury he could afford.

  There were dead leaves and mud plastered on his clothes where he had skidded face-down across the ground. Raising himself painfully on one elbow, Aldric tried to shake the whirling stars from his head. How… ? The booming in his skull made it so hard to think…

  Then he rolled over and swore hopelessly. The horse, the poor faithful horse, the blasted brute that was his only hope of escape lay on its side, flanks heaving. Its eyes were rolling with pain and fear, and the cause was all too plain.

  Some small animal had dug itself a burrow, and the horse's leg had gone into it almost to the knee. They had only been trotting, but the gelding's leg had snapped like a stick of celery.

  Aldric could do nothing for such a break and only one thing for the horse. Kneeling by its head, he gentled it with soft words and drew the short sword from his belt. When the horse relaxed, trusting him, he drew the blade across its neck and felt like a murderer. He regretted killing the horse more than the two men yesterday. They had been unknown killers; the roan gelding had grown up with him since it was a wobbly-legged foal and he a skinny boy in his teens. What he had just done was like severing a limb; kailin and mount were a single unit, and the loss of one diminished the other.

  There was nothing on the carcass he needed, not even the crossbow, since his need was now to travel fast and light. Taking only a little food and the water bottle, he began to walk.

  The wolfs howl was much closer now and what Aldric had thought—hoped—was an echo was without doubt an answer. He started to run. It was
late afternoon now and the sky would soon be growing dark. Though the full moon was almost a week past, Aldric was afraid of nightfall. His breath hung in smoky clouds on still air that grew more harshly cold every time he sucked it into his lungs.

  Then the snarl came; a harsh ripple of ferocity right at his heels. In a desperate attempt to run faster and look behind him, his legs went out from under him and he finished up in an untidy limb-flailing bundle with his throat well placed for ripping. It remained undamaged and cautiously he raised his head. The undergrowth rustled, then emitted a throaty, malicious chuckle. When nothing else happened Aldric hauled himself up and sidled towards the bracken. Then he whirled and sprinted away.

  After that the flight became a nightmare. Things snarled and giggled out of thin air; bushes and gnarled roots took on distorted shapes in the shifting evening light; and still he ran, though now his muscles were dull and his legs as slow to move as if he were wading in honey. Sweat soaked him, running down his face and blinding him to the hooked branches which tore at his back. Times without number he collided with trees or fell headlong, dragging himself on by force of will and little else. His grey-green eyes took on a glazed, dead look ghastly in a living face.

  Night rose from the ground like a fog, made darker by the clouds shrouding the sky in grey. A small breeze began to hiss among the branches, carrying a few drops of rain from the iron sky. Thunder rumbled distantly, chasing the flash of its lightning across the heavens. Reeling from tree to tree, Aldric knew his mind and body were failing fast. Then the thunder bellowed in earnest and he took another tumble, snapping his sword as the rain came down in a solid mass. Finally he gave up and stood cursing and crying in a storm that slashed rain against him like a hail of arrows. When a hand clutched the raw agony that had been his shoulder there was a brief, blinding moment of abject fear.

  Then the ground came up to meet him and all the lights went out.

 

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