“Fool!” the belkagen threw off his cloak and leaped halfway to his feet toward Gyaidun. A growl that was more savage beast than elf rumbled deep in his chest, and his eyes shone with a feral light all their own. With a squawk, Durja took to the air. Gyaidun’s eyes widened, but he did not back down.
The belkagen yelled at Gyaidun in his own tongue. Amira couldn’t understand it—though she did catch the word yastehanye at least twice—but she heard the anger in the elf’s voice. Gyaidun’s nostrils flared and he breathed like a bellows, but he could not hold the belkagen’s gaze. Though she had no idea what the old elf was saying, she felt very much as if she were watching an old patriarch giving a misbehaving son a severe reprimand.
“Te, Gyaidun? Te?” said the belkagen after a long tirade in his own speech. “Kaweh rut, kyed!”
Gyaidun sat there glowering, his jaw working as if he were chewing on old bark. Finally, without looking up, he said, “I apologize for my disrespect … Belkagen. I beseech your counsel.”
The belkagen glared at him a moment more, then gave a stiff nod and settled back down into his cloak. Both men sat gazing at one another but did not speak. Durja settled back into a tree near the horses, gave an inquiring caw, then went silent.
Amira cleared her throat. “Listen—”
“Please, Lady,” said the belkagen, a bit of anger still lingering in his voice. “Now we come to the part of this tale that concerns you, why I scratched up all these painful memories.” He sighed, then said, “What I saw in Hro’nyewachu I will not tell. Its part in our hunt is my own burden to bear. But I think Hro’nyewachu might be of help to you, Lady Amira.”
“Help me? How?”
“Hro’nyewachu is sacred to the Vil Adanrath, but she does not belong to us. She was here long before us and, I suspect, will still be here long after we are gone. She is a place of … need, both in meeting needs and filling her own.”
“But you said most who go in never return,” said Amira. “I can’t help my son if I’m dead or mad.”
“I said ‘a few,’ not ‘most.’ The belkagenet are few. Since my own master passed, I have walked alone west of the Glittering Spires.” He fell silent a moment, obviously wrestling his thoughts, then continued, “Nothing is certain, Lady. Nothing under this sun. But I believe Hro’nyewachu can help you.”
“How? I don’t need answers. I need to save my son.”
“I believe—no, I know it after Lendri told us what happened. The Fist of Winter has your son. Why? I do not know. They took Gyaidun’s son, and the boy was never found. Why? I do not know. I want to save your son, Lady”—he looked to Gyaidun—“and Erun, if we can, but there is too much we do not know. We are running in blind. I fear we are only running to our deaths—and Jalan’s.”
“And what?” Amira said “You think this oracle can help us? I am not Vil Adanrath. I’m human and not even from here and … and I don’t even like these cursed lands! What makes you think your oracle will help me? She might just as well kill me or drive me mad. I’ll be no good to my son then, and forgive me, but I don’t exactly trust Sir Drenched-in-Blood here or your Vil Adanrath to keep Jalan’s best interests in sight.”
The belkagen smiled and something like pride lit in his eyes. He looked to Gyaidun. “She has a hunter’s heart, does she not, Yastehanye?”
Gyaidun scowled and said nothing.
“You, Lady,” the belkagen continued, “know the arcane powers that spark the world. Hro’nyewachu … the source of her power I do not know. Divine? Arcane? A power from another world? I do not know. Perhaps she is all these things and more, perhaps none. But I do believe this: Hro’nyewachu has a mother’s heart. You have a mother’s need. Your hearts will beat the same song, I think. I could brave Hro’nyewachu again, and if you refuse, I will go. But Jalan is your son, Lady, yours the sacred bond. The bond between parent and child is a strength that might avail you much. I will do all I can to help your son, but I am only an old meddler. You are his mother.”
“Not his real mother,” Amira said, but even she heard the hollowness in her words.
“Would you die for him?” A bit of the anger was creeping back into the belkagen’s voice, and he shook his staff as he spoke. “Kill for him? Would you shed your last drop of life’s blood to keep him safe? Breathe your last breath?”
“Yes!” Amira looked away from them to wipe away the tears.
“Then you are his mother, Lady Amira,” said the belkagen. “In all ways that matter.”
Amira considered his words. She stared into the fire, thinking. Descend into a cave to seek some … eastern goddess or spirit or who even knew what it was? It seemed the very height of foolishness.
But she did not doubt the belkagen’s power. He’d saved her life and Lendri’s and obviously had powers and knowledge beyond her own. Besides, she knew one thing was true with or without his counsel. She’d seen what that dark thing who had her son could do. It had countered Mursen’s spell and snapped the man’s neck like a chicken. Even if she could find them before they did whatever they were planning to do to Jalan, she knew she could not beat the dark thing.
Her best hope was in cunning, getting close enough to grab Jalan and using her magic to whisk him away. But what would prevent them from coming after them again? They were hundreds of miles from home, tendays away from the nearest aid, even if other war wizards had come looking for them—and she could not be certain of that. Even if other members of her own order did find her, they would be more likely to arrest her and cart her back to Cormyr for trial than believe her wild tale and help her rescue Jalan.
Right now, like it or not, these mad folk of the Wastes and their odd ways were her best hope. Maybe her only hope. They had their own motives, their own hunt, but they were still the only friends she had. Could they protect her and Jalan if she did manage to rescue him? Would they even try? Did she have the right to ask them to do so?
Mad or not, fool’s hope or final hope, this oracle was at least that: hope. If there was any way to deal with Jalan’s captors once and for all …
“I’ll do it,” said Amira.
“Good,” said the belkagen. He did not sound relieved or happy. On the contrary, his tone was grave. Solemn. “You should go at midnight, when darkness and light stand in balance, but there are things we must do to prepare. I will help you.”
“Two things first,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Several times now I’ve heard you call Gyaidun yaste-something.”
“Yastehanye.”
“Yes. What is that?”
The belkagen glanced at Gyaidun, and the flicker of a grin crossed the old elf’s face. Gyaidun’s scowl deepened.
“Yastehanye means ‘honored exile.’ It is a term that many of the Vil Adanrath call our friend Gyaidun—though never in Haerul’s hearing. It is a title of sorts. One of honor and respect. Renown. In his anger, Gyaidun called me Kwarun—the name my mother gave me. Very disrespectful to the belkagen. By calling him yastehanye, I was … reminding him of his place—and mine.”
“Honored exile, eh? Why?”
The grin faded and died and the belkagen grew solemn again. “A long tale that is. And not mine to tell, Lady. Suffice to say that Gyaidun’s exile was both just and tragic. Although the Vil Adanrath honor the omah nin’s judgment of exile, still they respect the deeds that earned it.”
Amira looked to Gyaidun, whose scowl had not faded. “Sounds like an intriguing tale. Will you tell me?”
“No,” said Gyaidun.
Amira had to suppress a snicker. Odd as these folk were, still no one could pout like a man. They learned it as boys and never outgrew it—in the East or West.
“You said two things,” said the belkagen. “What is the other?”
“Yastehanye must take a bath. He smells like dead horse.”
Gyaidun glared at her and stood. “Your stomach growls for dead horse … Lady.”
He gave her a mock bow, and before she could reply he stompe
d away, headed for the pool. Although Amira couldn’t see it under the dried horse blood, she felt sure he was blushing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Akhrasut Neth
After washing in the pool, Gyaidun returned, dressed without saying a word to either of them, gathered his weapons, and proceeded to leave again. But he stopped and turned.
“You are really going to do this?”
He was looking to the belkagen, but the old elf did not answer, instead looking to Amira.
“Yes,” she said.
Gyaidun stood there, tense with anger and … something else. Uncertainty? Amira wondered.
“Why?” he asked. “Why … honored Belkagen?”
“Why what, yastehanye?” said the elf.
“I called you Belkagen.”
“Your words. Not your heart.”
The big man and the old elf stared at one another, neither gaze wavering or blinking. The anger was still there, Amira knew, but the heat was gone. In a way, this was worse, this cold tension that Amira sensed was born of hurt and loss from both of them. There was a slight curl to Gyaidun’s lip that spoke to Amira of derision. The perfect calm of the belkagen’s face, so obviously a tight mask, had an air of deep disappointment.
“Why what?” the belkagen said softly.
“Why help this”—he shot Amira an apologetic glance—“outlander seek Hro’nyewachu? For twelve years I have walked every horizon, sniffed every trail, and followed every track to find Erun. Not once did you give me this counsel. Why?”
“You are a hunter, Gyaidun.” Was that tenderness in the old elf’s tone? If so, it was slight. “A warrior. You are not …” The belkagen looked to Amira as he struggled for the word. “You have not studied the discipline of magic, nor sought the communion or made the sacrifices to the divine. Some of those taken by Hro’nyewachu spent years doing so. Hro’nyewachu might give you the answers you seek, but she would devour you. It is folly.”
“The omahet are not priests or wizards. They are warriors. Like me. And they have survived the Mother’s Heart.”
“They are Vil Adanrath,” said the belkagen. “You are not. The Mother’s Heart, we call her. But she is not your mother. Her jealousy protects our people.”
Our people. Gyaidun stared at the belkagen for a long moment, gave Amira a considering look, then turned and walked off. Durja cawed after him, and when the big man showed no sign of stopping or slowing, the raven took to wing after him. Both disappeared into the trees, and the sound of their passage was soon gone, leaving Amira and the belkagen only with the sound of the wind in the branches and the meat beginning to sizzle over the fire.
“Where is he going?” Amira asked.
“He must hunt.”
“Now? We have food. I don’t understand.”
“There is much you do not understand,” said the belkagen, and he sounded both tired and annoyed. “No more questions for now. Please. I will tend the fire. You should rest. You have a long night ahead of you.”
Though it rankled her to be ordered about, Amira lay down under the small lean-to of branches and brush that Gyaidun had made. She used her pack as a pillow and wrapped herself in the elkhide. Though her breath steamed in the cold, she was quite warm in the thick hide, and she lay listening to the wind as it came around the Mother’s Bed and set the trees to rattling. The belkagen muttered to himself as he tended the fire and food. His muttering fell into a half-whispered, half-sung chant, soothing in its rhythm.
Jalan … Amira thought, and the next thing she knew the sky was darker, the shadows among the trees thicker, and Gyaidun was walking into camp with a dead deer—a young buck—draped over his shoulders. She could not even remember closing her eyes—or opening them, for that matter. One moment she’d been listening to the belkagen and thinking of Jalan, and the next moment half the day had seemingly passed. Had the old meddler placed some sort of enchantment on her?
Whether he had or not, Amira realized as she sat up, she did feel rested.
Gyaidun knelt and dropped the deer well away from the fire. Aside from two arrow wounds to its throat, the carcass was uncut.
“Why didn’t you butcher it?” Amira asked as she emerged from the shadows under the lean-to and came to the fire. “It would’ve been easier to carry.”
Gyaidun didn’t answer.
The belkagen, who still sat next to the fire, spoke up. “Hro’nyewachu will be hungry. If you have no gift …”
“What?”
“Feed Hro’nyewachu or she will feed on you,” Gyaidun said, though he did not look at her. Instead he gave the belkagen a hard look and continued, “That much I know.”
“What kind of oracle is this?” asked Amira.
“I told you,” said the belkagen. “She is a being of need—both in fulfilling and needing to be fulfilled. Nothing comes free.
Blood for blood.”
A flutter passed through Amira’s stomach. The war wizards had their own rituals, many of which were dangerous, but she was beginning to regret agreeing to this. Confronting a danger for which she was prepared was one thing. Trusting the word of these foreigners with their strange ways and walking in unprepared to who knew what was something else.
“You are a foreigner here,” said the belkagen, and Amira flinched at hearing some of her own thoughts spoken back to her. “I will help you prepare, but you must trust us.”
There were a hundred questions she probably should have asked, but she said, “Your oracle doesn’t like horses? We have two that Gyaidun says we can’t ride. Why go hunting?”
“Hro’nyewachu is … akai’ye,” said the belkagen. “There is no good word in your tongue. Ancient. Primal. Tame blood will not sate her. She needs the blood of the wild.”
“Ah, Azuth,” Amira grumbled. “I hate the Wastes.”
As late afternoon deepened to evening, Amira saw the sun for the last time for many days. Still wrapped in the elkhide blanket against the cold, she stood just inside the edge of the copse. The glowing rim of the sun dropped out of the edge of the farthest clouds and was two fingers’ width from touching the horizon when Amira heard howling. First she thought it was the wind, but then she caught the mournful melody, rising and falling off the south. Others answered it. Wolves were coming. Many wolves.
She turned and made the short walk back into camp. The two remaining horses were skittish, their ears flicking, their feet stamping, and the whites of their eyes showing as they tossed their heads.
The belkagen still sat beside the fire. He was gnawing on a bit of horseflesh—a raw piece, Amira noticed, and turned away. Gyaidun was sitting on the very edge of camp, his back against a tree, Durja nestled in his lap. He was staring off into nothing and did not so much as glance her way. The open hostility between the two men was gone, but there was still a palpable tension in camp. It had been a large reason for her decision to take a walk.
“I heard wolves,” she said.
“The Vil Adanrath,” said the belkagen. “Haerul is coming.”
“Why do they howl?”
The belkagen glanced at Gyaidun. “They announce their presence. They wish us to know they are here, but they will not share fire with Gyaidun.”
“It is the omah nin’s way of telling me to get back to my camp and stay there,” said Gyaidun.
More howls drifted off the southern steppe, and both horses gave a nervous whicker. Amira remembered Gyaidun telling her that horses could not abide the presence of the Vil Adanrath, and something occurred to her.
“Belkagen,” she said. “Why do the horses not fear you? You are Vil Adanrath, are you not?”
“Yes,” said the belkagen, “and no. The calling of the belkagen leaves us … changed.”
“I don’t understand.”
Gyaidun snorted.
The belkagen gave him a dark look, then stood up. “I should lead the horses away. Lendri will likely be arriving soon.”
“What will you do with them?” she asked.
“Gifts for H
aerul and his pack,” the belkagen said as he untied the horses’ hobbles. “They will be hungry after such a long journey, and a little hospitality might soften the mood of the omah nin.”
Amira found a place by the fire as the belkagen disappeared off into the trees with the two frightened horses. The strips of horseflesh—now cooked—hung from a small rack near the fire. Her stomach rumbled but she winced.
“Not hungry?” said Gyaidun.
“I’m starving.”
“Then eat.”
“My family raises horses. Some of the finest in Cormyr—the finest anywhere. Horses are for riding, not eating.”
In the distance, Amira heard the sudden scream of the horses followed by the sound of galloping hooves.
“Not in the Wastes,” said Gyaidun. At first, she thought he was mocking her “outlander ways” again, but his voice held no scorn as he continued. “Even the Tuigan, who care for their horses more than any people I’ve ever known, eat horseflesh. There is no shame in it.”
“Would you eat Durja?”
The raven looked at her, his head twisting sideways, and cawed at her as if he understood.
“Durja is a friend,” said Gyaidun.
“When I was a little girl, horses were my friends.”
“You’re not a little girl anymore.”
The breeze slackened, and as the boughs and dry leaves settled, Amira heard another distant whinny, harsh and terrified, almost like the scream of a woman, and behind it she thought she caught the sound of growling. She shuddered.
Amira took a deep breath and looked to Gyaidun. The gloom of evening was deepening, and seated as he was under the tree, she could not tell if he was looking at her or not. “Gyaidun?” she said.
“Yes?”
“Tonight when I … seek the oracle, you know I am trying to help my son?”
“Yes.” His voice was flat.
“But if … if there is anything I can do to help your son, I will.”
He said nothing for a long time. She was about to decide she’d offended him again, trespassed on some fragment of eastern manners that she didn’t know, when he spoke again. “It’s been twelve years since Erun was stolen.”
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