C. Dale Brittain

by Voima

  “It will bite me all right.” He showed her the cut on his hand. “I was saved by fate, not any voima of my own.”

  They were both silent for a moment. “How many men is it,” Roric asked then, “that Hadros boasts he had killed before reaching Valmar’s age?”

  “Three, I think.”

  “And they were enemies he killed in battle, not men he knew. I wonder if even he could be proud of killing his friends.” Again there was silence for a moment.

  “The warriors—including Gizor—were Hadros’s sworn men,” Roric went on. “I will have to pay him compensation or be his blood enemy, even more than I am already, and yet I have nothing with which to pay him that he himself did not give me.”

  “Then we will win something in the Hot-River Mountains.”

  Roric lifted his head. “A kingdom, perhaps? I thought of it too. In fact—it was Hadros's idea. I wonder if he will appreciate that I am following his suggestion while I flee for my life from him.” He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Yes, that is exactly what I will do, a single warrior, capture myself a kingdom.” He put an arm around her. “You will be the rest of my army, Karin.”

  After a few minutes, he added, “As you plan this trip for us, have you thought how we will get to these mountains? Even if Hadros is not immediately on our trail, Gizor will be—if he lives.”

  “I know that,” she said distantly.

  “The ships will all be guarded against us, so we will have to go on foot unless we can steal horses somewhere. And it is a long journey. Did you have any other jewelry on you besides the ring you gave the Mirror-seer?”

  “This necklace,” she said, pulling out a thin chain from inside her dress. “It might buy us food, but not horses.”

  “If the Witch of the Western Cliffs is anything like a Weaver or Seer, we should save it for her. These creatures of voima seem strangely fond of mortal jewelry.”

  Roric stretched, then lay down and put his head in her lap. “You and your friends the faeys can plan something. There may be two dozen men surrounding this dell in the morning, and I need to sleep before I fight them.”

  2

  The faeys woke them shortly before dawn. “Come with us, Karin. Wake up, make her wake up. She has to come with us! It’s not safe to stay here. There are dogs in the woods. Sunlight is dangerous!”

  She and Roric allowed themselves to be squeezed into the tunnels before the faeys pulled the stone into position. With both of them inside, the space seemed even more closed-in than usual. She took deep breaths of the stale air and tried to remind herself of the alternative to being here.

  “Maybe we should just stay here all day,” suggested Roric. “By nightfall, we should be fully rested—we will have to be if we’re going all that way on foot. And they should have called off the hunt in these woods by then.”

  “You can stay here with us as long as you want, Karin,” said one of the faeys, giving Roric a sideways look as though not entirely sure whether to include him in the offer.

  “And where are you going on foot?” another asked. “Are you not happy here?”

  “There are mountains far to the north of here,” Karin said, “mountains that conceal an entrance to the Wanderers’ realm. We have to go there to rescue someone.”

  “Where does she get these ideas? It must be from Roric! She said she wants to marry him. But he just escaped from the Wanderers! Why would he want to go back? Maybe he should go back by himself and she can stay here!”

  “Wherever Roric goes, I go,” she said loudly, over their high voices.

  Roric grabbed her arm abruptly, surprise and joy on his face. “I hear a horse.”

  Karin, startled, listened. “I hear it too.”

  Echoing down the tunnels came the faint sound of a whinny, a thud as of hooves. The faeys were seized with consternation. “A horse? A horse! There can’t be a horse in our tunnels! Why is a horse here? It’s all Roric’s fault!”

  “Could it be the way is open again to the Wanderers’ realm?” he asked in delight. He started to jump to his feet, banged his head, and crawled instead, Karin right behind him. “This would certainly be easier than trying to find some way hidden in the Hot-River Mountains,” he called back over his shoulder.

  The way quickly became dark, and the stone floor and walls were cold to her hand. “It is!” cried Roric. “It’s Goldmane!”

  Karin wondered briefly to herself if he had been this pleased and excited when he reached her father’s kingdom and saw her there.

  The passage became a little wider here, and they crawled to either side of the stallion’s head. The faeys had followed them, though keeping their distance, and there was just enough faint green light from their lanterns to see Goldmane.

  He was sprawled out, legs extended. He had his head up, and his eyes were wild. The ceiling here was too low for him to stand, and the wall beyond him was completely solid.

  Roric stroked the stallion’s nose and rumpled his mane. “Did you come through on your own to help us, boy,” he asked affectionately, “or did they push you through that one-way door of theirs back into mortal realms?”

  The horse’s eyes rolled, but he became somewhat calmer. “I used to think,” said Roric, “that if we had access to the Wanderers’ knowledge then many aspects of mortal life which seem to make no sense would become clear, but I now think they are even more confused than we are.”

  Karin clenched her fists. Her heart beat inside her chest as though its space was too tight. The closed-in, trapped feeling was growing stronger. “Roric,” she said. “We cannot stay here all day. We must leave now.”

  Goldmane evidently agreed. He whinnied again and tried ineffectively to kick his way free of the imprisoning tunnel.

  “We can’t have a horse in here!” the faeys announced from a safe distance.

  “Good,” said Roric. “Help me get him out.”

  It seemed that there could not possibly be enough space to shift the stallion, yet somehow there was. The faeys came forward first hesitantly, then more bravely, then with happy boldness once they realized the horse would not hurt them. With Goldmane scrambling himself along, and the faeys behind him pushing, they worked him slowly toward the entrance to the tunnels.

  “What do you think, Karin?” Roric asked. His stallion’s nose was now against the stone that closed the tunnels, and he seemed to smell the open air beyond. “Do we wait until nightfall, with both Goldmane and the faeys more and more unhappy, or do we rush out into what may be the middle of the hunt for us? The dogs will have had no trouble tracking us to the dell.”

  She closed her eyes and opened them again. For the last ten minutes she had had to concentrate on her breathing to keep it from becoming wild gasps for air. “We go,” she said unsteadily. “I know you’ll be able to fight free of whatever is out there.”

  Roric grinned and kissed her quickly. “At least we’ll have the advantage of surprise,” he said. “Gizor will never expect us and a horse to come out of a hillside!”

  The faeys retreated back out of range of the feared sunlight. Karin put her shoulder to the stone, then stopped and looked toward them, feeling suddenly guilty. “Thank you,” she called, “thank you for sheltering us, and,” she paused for a second, “if I do not see you again, for always being my friends.”

  “Good-bye,” they called tentatively, then, “What does she mean, if she doesn’t see us again? Is she going to her kingdom now? But she said her kingdom was beyond the sea! Roric is making her do it!”

  Then she pushed, and the entrance stone rolled easily away. Goldmane kicked his way through the opening, and they went with him, out of the hillside into almost blinding daylight.

  The stallion scrambled to his feet. Karin, blinking hard against the sun, pushed the faeys’ stone back into a position. “Good-bye, Karin!” she heard faint calls from within. A piercing whistle split the air.

  “They’re here! I found them! Gizor! I found them!”

  Roric va
ulted up onto his stallion’s back. There was shouting in the near distance and a single warrior standing at the edge of the dell. She reached out and Roric grabbed her arm to pull her up behind him.

  They were still trying to find their balance on Goldmane’s bare back when a pack of dogs came boiling into the dell, and the spaces between the trees that ringed it were suddenly full of armed men.

  Roric yelled to his horse, and Goldmane sprang forward. Just one warrior barred their way on this side, and he leaped back as Roric swung his sword. Then the stallion was scrambling out of the dell and up onto the hillside beyond. As he shot under low-leaning oaks, Karin ducked down, clinging desperately to Roric.

  Behind them was frenzied barking and a shouting that might have had words, though none of them made sense. But in the midst of the men galloping after them was a wagon, and in it a bandaged warrior whose naked sword was held left-handed.

  Roric shouted again as Goldmane reached the road and began to run even faster. He turned his head slightly to look back at their pursuers, quickly being left behind. She could see fierce triumph on his face.

  The wind brought tears to her eyes and tore her hair loose from its braids. She pressed herself against Roric’s back as the stallion’s long, smooth gait seemed prepared to eat up the miles. Only a short distance before them was the sandstone cliff, and the steep road leading up away from the fields and woods directly dependent on the king.

  But gathered where the road began to climb were a group of mounted men and men on foot, mostly armed housecarls, the sunlight bright on their spear points.

  Roric leaned forward, brandishing his sword. “Hang on!” he yelled to Karin. For a horrified moment she thought they were going to try to run right through the men before them, and in the blur of faces she saw the king’s two younger sons.

  At the last second Roric jerked his stallion’s head around. Goldmane half reared, then started to run along the base of the cliff, all the mounted men on their heels. She looked over her shoulder to see Gizor’s group a quarter mile back, some of the riders already leaving the road, cutting across to try to intercept them.

  Again Roric wheeled his stallion. Clinging desperately to the mane while Karin clung to his belt, he turned again toward the road, shot within two feet of the startled pursuers’ horses, and raced for the way up the sandstone cliff.

  Now that way was barred only by a handful of men on foot, but among them were Dag and Nole.

  “Oh, no,” thought Karin, squeezing shut her wind-blurred eyes. “Not them too.”

  All but one of the warriors jumped back involuntarily as the stallion bore down on them. But Dag came forward, lifting his spear. Goldmane reared, almost losing his riders, and came down with iron hooves flailing. As the king’s son leaped away, Roric leaned over and knocked the spear from his hand with a well-aimed sword blow.

  And then the stallion found his feet again, sprang through the scattered foot-soldiers, and attacked the slope before him. A few spears came up behind them but fell short. Twice Karin thought she was about to slide off the horse, but Roric reached his right arm back to her, the sword still in his fist, and clinging to it she was able to stay on.

  At the top of the cliff, just before they entered the woods, Roric pulled up the stallion to look down. No one had pursued them up the narrow road, not even the dogs. But Gizor, lying bandaged in the wagon, a tiny figure far below, waved his sword at them and shouted. His words were carried away by the wind.

  “He knows no horse can catch Goldmane, even with two of us on his back,” said Roric. Sweat was pouring off him, and his chest was rising and falling, but the stallion seemed only slightly winded. “But the next time we meet, it will be a fight to the death.”

  “How did you do it?” Karin asked in a small voice. “Unarm Dag without having to kill him?”

  He laughed a short hard laugh. “He was trained by Gizor too. When you’re on foot with a spear against a horseman, always go for the horse’s eyes. But I knew he didn’t want to hurt Goldmane, and in that second of hesitation the horse reared and attacked him. And while watching the hooves he had no attention to spare for me.”

  He slid his sword back into its sheath. “We’d better put a few more miles between us and the castle, in case they follow us anyway—and I wouldn’t be sure Gizor won’t have another ambush waiting up ahead. So far the only reason you and I are still alive, my sweet, is that none of these warriors besides Gizor, much less Dag and Nole, want to see you dead, and some of them are even hesitant about killing me. We all know each other too well. When everyone is hesitating and trying to find a way toward peace, the most ruthless person wins—and Gizor, whether he’s my father or not, is the most ruthless person I know.”

  3

  King Kardan stood on top of the burial mound, a fresh-cut rowan twig and his dagger in his hands. The last time he had stood like this, ready to swear an oath to the massive, black-bearded king who waited at the foot of the mound, his wife had been under his feet but all his children had been alive. Now both his sons were buried here, and he did not know if his daughter still lived beneath the sun.

  He slowly slit the twig lengthwise, letting its red sap run out on his palm, then touched the dagger point to his finger. He squeezed out a drop of blood and closed his fist, mixing it with the rowan sap. From here he could see the headland above the harbor, but he was too far away to hear the sounds of his ship being readied for sea.

  “I swear on rowan and steel,” he said loudly and clearly, “that I have not harmed in any way Valmar Hadros’s son, that I have not ordered any harm done to him or had word of any. If I lie, may the lords of death take me living into the depths of Hel.” The wind whirled his words and carried them far away.

  When he descended from the mound, making his way carefully down the steep incline, King Hadros slapped him unexpectedly on the back. “I believe you, Kardan. You swore to me truly ten years ago, when you swore you would pay the tribute faithfully and raise no open or hidden revolt against me.”

  Kardan nodded, resenting the deliberate reminder that for ten years he had been a tributary king. “If we do not find Valmar,” he said stiffly, “even though I did not harm him, I shall of course pay you compensation. He was here in my castle under my protection.”

  Hadros rested a hand on his shoulder, and his eyes flashed from beneath heavy eyebrows. “I shall take no compensation for my oldest son. If he is safe, well and good. If he is dead, his killer shall pay the blood-guilt with his own blood.”

  He still had his hand on Kardan’s shoulder, either in fellowship or as a veiled threat, as they started slowly back toward the castle. “Now,” he said, “tell me more of what your daughter said of Valmar’s disappearance.”

  “You do not believe such stories?” asked Kardan in surprise. “All she said was that he had left with a Wanderer, one who had often been seen on Graytop over the years—where in fact no Wanderer has ever been seen. I know some of your beliefs and practices are different north of the channel, but even you cannot believe that the lords of voima ever appear in the flesh to mortals.”

  “I would not have believed it a short time ago,” the other king said very quietly, “but Roric went to their land and returned again.”

  Sensing a gap in Hadros’s confidence, Kardan asked quickly, “Who is this Roric, anyway? Where did he come from? And what assurance can you give me that he has not kidnapped my daughter at your orders?”

  Kardan expected the other king to reply heatedly, but when he answered it was still in that ominously quiet tone. “Roric is my foster-son, raised in my court; he was found at the castle gates as a baby. If he has kidnapped Karin it was certainly not at my orders! You should know I do not war on women.”

  He took his hand from Kardan’s shoulder to pull a ring from the pouch at his belt. “I gave him this when he reached manhood and we swore our oaths to each other. I ordered him, just the other day, to forget Karin, not to come here. He threw his ring at my feet, defied me, and came
anyway.” Hadros chuckled grimly. “Maybe the only reason I did not run him through on the spot is because I would have done the same at his age.”

  “You must know him well,” said Kardan, hearing the desperation in his own voice and scarcely caring. The two kings had stopped walking to face each other. “What will Roric do to her? You have, what is it, another two or three sons besides Valmar? Karin was all I had left.”

  Hadros smiled, suddenly and surprisingly. “You fear the lad will hurt her? Not very likely.” He turned to walk again; there was a slight limp in his gait. “Roric first asked, it must be two months ago now, for my permission to woo her. I refused it, of course. But she told me she intends to marry him—he must have spoken to her anyway.” He watched Kardan’s face as he spoke, and smiled again, although with tight lips. “She never said anything to you about that, eh?”

  “No.” Kardan looked straight ahead as they walked. They were almost back to the castle now. Karin intending to marry Roric! If he had appeared suddenly last night, he must be the unexpected assailant whom his guards had almost said was a wight, and she must have decided at once to go with him. But why had she said nothing to him?

  “You don’t like it that she didn’t tell you?” asked Hadros, in a tone of commiserating fellowship that seemed intended to drive home that he knew Karin far better than her own father did.

  Kardan did not answer. The other king seemed willing to forget that they had once been sworn enemies, but he himself was not yet ready to become friends with the man who had defeated him ten years ago and who must now, somehow, be behind the disappearance of his daughter.

  “Well, Kardan, I think there are things neither Valmar nor Roric has told me either.” Hadros shook his head. “By this time, I had expected—as had you—to be watching my sons and my young warriors reach manhood, with all the energy and courage I had twenty-five years ago, and all the wisdom I could give them now. It has not worked out quite as I hoped, but we may have to make the best of what we have. I fear you and I are too old, my friend, to start over.”