Briar King

by Keyes, Greg

  Men fight from the outside, with clumsy swords and arrows, Sister Casita had said, trying to pierce the layers of protections we bundle in. They are of the outside. We are of the inside. We can reach there in a thousand ways, slipping through the cracks of eye and ear, nostril and lip, through the very pores of the flesh. Here is your frontier, Sisters, and eventually your domain. Here is where your touch will bring the rise and fall of kingdoms.

  Anne, confused and suddenly frightened again, stumbled back, shaking.

  What had she done? How?

  “Casnar!” Cazio shouted. Anne noticed he’d managed to stand, though not firmly. “Leave off your brave battle against unarmed women and address me.”

  The knight ignored him, cutting wildly in the air.

  “Haliurun! Waizeza! Hundan!” he shouted. “Meina auyos! Hwa … What have you done to my eyes?”

  “Hanzish!” Anne said. “Austra, they’re from Hansa!” She turned to Cazio. “Kill him! Now, while he’s blind.”

  Cazio had begun advancing, but now he stopped, puzzled.

  “He cannot see? I can’t fight a man who cannot see.”

  The knight lurched toward Cazio, but even in his injured state the Vitellian easily avoided him.

  “How did you do that, by the by?” Cazio asked, watching his erstwhile opponent crash into a tree. “I’ve heard a dust ground from the nut of Lady Una’s frock—”

  “He was going to kill you,” Anne interrupted.

  “He has no honor,” Cazio said. “I do.”

  “Then let us flee!” Austra urged.

  “Will honor allow that?” Anne asked sarcastically.

  Cazio coughed and a look of pain wormed through his brow. “Honor discourages it,” he said.

  Anne shook a remonstrative finger at him. “Listen to me well, Cazio Pachiomadio da Chiovattio,” she said, remembering how her mother sounded when she was giving orders. “There are many more knights than this one, and we are in danger from them. I require your protection for Austra and myself. I require your aid in removing us from harm’s way. Will your honor deny me that?”

  Cazio scratched his head, then grinned sheepishly. The blinded knight stood with his back against a tree, sword out, facing no one in particular. “No, casnara,” he said. “I will accompany you.”

  “Then let us go, and quickly,” Austra said.

  “A moment,” Anne told them. She raised her voice. “Knight of Hansa. Why have you and your companions sinned against Saint Cer? Why did you murder the sisters, and why do you pursue me? Answer me, or I shall wither the rest of you as I have darkened your eyes.”

  The knight turned at the sound of her voice.

  “I do not know the answer to that, lady,” he said. “I know only that what my prince tells me to do must be done.”

  At that he charged her. Almost casually, Cazio stuck out his foot, which the knight tripped over. He went sprawling to the ground.

  “Have you more questions for him?” the Vitellian asked.

  “Let me think,” Anne replied.

  “The night wanes, and she is our ally. The sun will not be as kind.”

  Anne nodded. She didn’t think the Hanzish knight would tell her more even if he knew it. They would waste precious time.

  “Very well,” Cazio said. “Follow me, fair casnaras. I know the countryside. I will guide you through it.” His brow wrinkled. “If you do not rob me of my sight, of course.”

  Cazio’s ribs felt as if they were aflame, but his blood, at least, did not flow strongly. He was able to set a good pace but could not run for any length of time. That was just as well, he knew, for running would only wear them all out.

  Of course, there was no reason to expect the knights attacking the coven would come after them. If it was women they wanted, they already had plenty.

  Didn’t they?

  “How many of these beetle-backed ruffians are there?” he asked.

  “I’m not certain,” Anne answered. “Some thirty to begin with. Some were killed by the sisters of the coven.”

  That was impressive. “And you’ve no idea why?” he asked.

  It seemed to Cazio that Anne hesitated too long before answering.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I think they killed all of the sisters. The novitiates were hiding. I don’t know what happened to them. Austra and I fled through the fane of Saint Mefitis, a cave that emerges near where you found us. Where are we going?”

  “Back to the triva of the countess Orchaevia.”

  “Can she protect us? I saw no soldiers there.”

  “True,” Cazio replied. “She sent them away for the Fiussanal. But why should these knights pursue us?”

  “Why shouldn’t they?”

  “Have they some especial grudge against you two? Did you endear them in some way?”

  Again, Anne seemed to hesitate. “They will pursue us, Cazio.”

  “Why?”

  “I cannot tell you that. I’m not sure I know why myself. But it is a fact.”

  She did know something then, but wasn’t willing to tell it. He looked at her again. Who was this girl, really? The daughter of some northern warlord? What had he gotten himself into?

  “Very well, then,” he said. Whatever it was, he was deep in it now. He ought to see it through. Perhaps there would even be some reward in it for him.

  Lady Ausa’s robe lay coral on the eastern horizon and the stars were vanishing above. They were out in open countryside, easy prey for horsemen. He tried to quicken his pace. If Anne was right, and they were followed, returning to Orchae-via’s triva would repay the countess in poor coin for the hospitality she had shown him. The place was defensible, but not by two swordsmen and a few serving women.

  “There is an old estate nearby,” he considered aloud. Z’Acatto had dragged him to it one day in hopes of finding an unplundered wine cellar. They had found the cellar, but all of the wine had gone to vinegar. “It will make a good hiding place,” he decided. After all, if he couldn’t defeat one of the knights in single combat, what chance did he have against ten, or twenty? His father had made the mistake of choosing to face the wrong enemy for the wrong reasons. He would not make the same blunder.

  Anne didn’t answer, but she was beginning to stumble. The sandals she and Austra wore were hardly fit for this sort of travel.

  Lord Abullo’s horses were well in the sky, pulling a burnt orange sun free of the horizon, before Cazio made out the crumbling walls of the ancient triva. He wondered if the well was still good, for he was terribly thirsty. The vinegar was all gone, smashed by z’Acatto in a fit of disappointment.

  They had almost reached the walls when he thought he heard hooves, and a glance back showed two horsemen approaching. There was little need to wonder who they were, for the gleam of the now-golden sun on their armor was evident.

  “They may not have seen us yet,” Cazio hoped aloud, leading them behind a picket of cedars bordering the abandoned mansion. “Quickly.” The gate had long since crumbled, leaving only the columns of the pastato, and walls that were sometimes knee high and sometimes higher than his head. Weeds and small olive trees had cracked the stone of the courtyard and pushed it up as Lord Selvans sought to reclaim the place for his own. In the distance, he heard the approaching percussion.

  “Just where I left it,” Cazio murmured, when they reached the vine-draped entrance to the cellar. The stairs still remained, albeit broken and covered in earth and moss. A cool breath seemed to sigh up from its depths.

  “We’ll be trapped down there,” Anne protested.

  “Better there than in the open,” Cazio pointed out. “See how narrow the way down is? They won’t get their horses in, and won’t be able to swing those pig-slaughtering blades. It will give me an advantage.”

  “You can barely stand,” Anne said.

  “Yes, but a da Chiovattio who can barely stand is worth six men hale and healthy. And here there are only two.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Cazio. If we go
down in there, can you win?”

  Cazio shrugged. “I cannot say. But out in the open, I cannot.” The words sounded strange to him, though he had already thought them. He took Anne’s hand, and she didn’t protest. “On foot, outside, you will be run down before you can travel a cenpereci. We should not wish for choices we do not have.”

  Reluctantly, the two girls followed him down.

  “It smells like vinegar in here,” Austra observed.

  “Indeed,” Cazio remarked. “Now remain below.”

  For a moment the world seemed to turn strangely, and the next he was lying on the cold stone.

  “Cazio!” Austra cried, coming to his side.

  “It’s nothing,” Cazio murmured. “A dizziness. Perhaps an other kiss might cure it.”

  “He can’t fight them,” Austra said. “He’ll be killed.”

  “They still may not know we’re here,” Cazio pointed out.

  But they heard hooves on stone, and nearby.

  “I’ll need that kiss,” Cazio whispered.

  He couldn’t see her blush, but Austra leaned close and touched her lips to his. They tasted sweet, like wine and plums, and he lingered on it. It was likely the last kiss he would ever have. He thought of asking Anne for one, too, but she wouldn’t give it and time was dear, now.

  “That will be my token,” Cazio said, clambering to his feet. “And now it will be my pleasure to defend you ladies.”

  His legs shaking, Cazio climbed back up toward the sun, where shadows were moving.

  For some reason, he remembered where he had heard of a purple moon. It was in a song his father used to sing when he was a boy.

  And when will the clouds come down from the sky?

  When the fogs down in the valley lie.

  And when will the mountaintops meet the sea?

  When the hard rains come, then shall it be.

  And when will the sky have purple horns?

  When the old man walks who calls the thorns.

  He remembered the line because, unlike the other verses, it never made any sense to him.

  It still didn’t.

  In the distance, he thought he heard a cornet sounding.

  To Muriele the world felt suddenly silent, as if all of the sounds of battle had retreated to an infinite distance. She looked at the dead face of her daughter, saw her as an infant, as a child of six spilling milk on the Galléan carpet in her sunroom, as a woman in a wedding gown. The silence gripped beneath her breast, waiting to become a scream.

  Elseny must be dead, too. And Erren, and Charles …

  But the silence was in her, not without. Steel still rang, and Neil’s fierce battle cries proved him still alive. And over all that the sound of a horn, growing steadily louder.

  It had sounded far off, at first, as if shrilled from the ends of the earth. Now it called from much nearer, but with a prickling she realized that it wasn’t approaching, only growing louder. And the source of the sounding was quite close indeed.

  But where? Muriele puzzled at it, used the mystery to cloak Fastia’s dead face and her own imaginings. It didn’t take her long to discover the sound came from the wickerwork feinglest Elseny had filled with flowers only the day before. And in her dazed sight, the feinglest was changing, as slowly and surely as the sunrise drowning the morning star in gray light.

  Her gaze fastened and would not waver, and as the horn droned louder she saw the change quicken, the wickerwork drawing tighter and taller. The vague resemblance to human shape was more pronounced with each heartbeat. Muriele watched, unable to move or speak, her mind refusing the sight as anything more than a waking dream.

  It grew on, and the wailing of the trumpet rose so loud that Muriele at last managed to pull her hands to her ears to try to stop the sound, but her palms held no power to diminish it.

  Nor could her brain arrest her eyes from seeing the feinglest shiver like a wasp-wing in flight, throw out arms and sprout proud antlers from its head, and open two almost-human eyes, leaf-green orbs in black almond slivers. A powerful animal musk penetrated her nostrils, overwhelming the sickly sweet scent of the flowers.

  The Briar King towered the height of two men over her; his gaze connected with hers. He was naked, and his flesh was mottled bark. A beard of moss curled from his face, and long unshorn locks of the same dangled from his head. His eyes seemed to see nothing and everything, like those of a newborn. His nostrils quivered, and a sound came from his throat that carried no meaning for her, like the snuffling of a strange beast.

  He leaned near her and sniffed again, and though his nose was of human shape, Muriele was reminded more of a horse or a stag than of a man. His breath was damp and cold, and smelled like a forest stream. Muriele’s flesh crawled as if covered with ants.

  The Briar King turned to Fastia and blinked, slowly, then shifted his strange eyes back to Muriele, narrowing them as they came mere fingers from her own.

  Her vision dissolved in those eyes. She saw strange, deep woods full of trees like giant mosses and trunked ferns. She saw beasts with the eyes of owls and the shapes of mastiffs.

  He blinked again, slowly, and she saw Eslen fallen into ruins and swallowed by vines of black thorn with blooms like purple spiders. She saw Newland beneath the stars, covered by dark waters, and then those waters dancing with pale flame. She saw a vast hall of shadow and a throne of sooty stone, and on it a figure whose face could not be seen but for eyes that burned like green flame. She heard laughter that sounded almost like a hound baying.

  And then, as if in a mirror of polished jet, she saw her own dead face. Then it was again the face of the Briar King, and her fear was gone, as if she really were dead and moved beyond all mortal thoughts. As in a dream, she reached to touch his beard.

  His face contorted in a sudden expression of pain and rage, and he howled, a sound with nothing human and everything wild in it.

  Aspar was too far from his bow. The greffyn would reach Winna and Ogre long before he could fit an arrow to string. He did the only thing he could do; he threw his ax. It struck the greffyn in the back of the head and bounced, leaving a gash and drawing a thin train of ruby droplets.

  “So you can bleed, you mikel rooster,” Aspar snarled in perverse satisfaction.

  The greffyn turned slowly to face him, and Aspar felt the fever from its eyes strike straight through to his bones. But it wasn’t so bad as before; his knees trembled but did not betray him. He gripped his dirk as it came, but he did not watch it. Instead he focused on Winna, on her face, for he wanted to remember it.

  He couldn’t quite remember Qerla’s face.

  It was luck to find love twice in one lifetime, he decided, and luck always came with a price. It was time to pay it, he supposed.

  Give me strength, Raver, he thought. He’d never asked Haergrim for anything before. Perhaps the Raver would take that into account.

  The greffyn came, then, almost faster than sight could follow. Aspar turned just slightly, striking the beast above and between the eyes with the iron hilt of his dirk. He felt a terrible shock in his arm and knew he was already dead.

  He heard Winna scream.

  Incredibly, the greffyn stumbled at the blow, and Aspar took the only chance he had. He threw himself upon the scaled back and wrapped one arm beneath the hooked jaw. The creature screamed then, a shrill cacophony that almost overshadowed the rising sound of the horn.

  He guessed where the heart might be and drove his dirk there, once, twice, again. The greffyn crashed into the courtyard wall, trying to dislodge him, but for the moment his arm was a steel band. Aspar felt larger, like one of the great tyrants of the forest, his roots sinking deep, pulling strength from stone and soil and deep hidden springs, and when his heart beat again he knew he was the forest itself, seeking vengeance.

  Motion blurred everything. He caught a brief glimpse of Winna’s anguished face, of Ogre, proud and fearless, rushing to his aid. There was air, and then water, as they plunged into the canal beyond the gat
e.

  Close the gate, Winna, he thought. Be the bright girl. He would have shouted it, but the water was wrapped too tightly about him.

  All the while his dirk was cutting, as if the Grim had indeed taken Aspar’s hand for his own. The water of the canal burned like lye.

  Cazio stood unsteadily at the entrance to the wine cellar, but when he raised Caspator, the weapon did not waver.

  “Hello, my fine casnars,” he said to the two armored men. “Which of you do I have the honor of killing first?”

  The knights had just dismounted. He noticed one of them had more ornate armor than the other, all gilded on the edges. That was the one who answered him.

  “I know not who you are, sir,” the fellow said. “But there is no need for you to die. Leave here and return to a life that might be long and prosperous.”

  Cazio looked down the length of Caspator. He wondered if his father had felt this way at the end. There was certainly no profit in this fight. No one would hear of it.

  “I prefer to live an honorable life to a long one, casnar,” he said. “Can the same be said of you?”

  The knight regarded him enigmatically for a moment, and Cazio felt a brief hope. Then the man in gilded armor turned his head toward his companion.

  “Kill this one for me,” he said.

  The other man nodded slightly and started forward.

  He doesn’t have a shield, at least, Cazio remarked to himself. The eye slits. That’s my target.

  The horn in the distance grew louder. More knights, probably.

  The knight came hewing. Cazio calmly parried the blows, though Caspator shivered from them. He riposted at the steel visor, but the fellow stayed out of distance, and Cazio didn’t have the footing needed to lunge. They fought for several long phrases before the heavy broadsword finally smashed down onto Caspator’s hilt, shocking his already numbed arm enough that the weapon clattered to the ground.

  It was then that a cascade of mortar and brick fell on the knight’s head. Dust and grit followed, stinging Cazio’s eyes. Masonry tumbled past him down the worn stairway, and he saw the knight collapse, his helm deeply dented.