The Bear sotfk-4

by R. A. Salvatore

  These people had lost many of their loved ones and their very way of life. Because of the scorched earth and utter ruin, because of the absence of hope itself, they saw no way to reclaim it. As brutal as those four men leading the clan had been, they were the only measure of security and stability those poor folk on the hillock could hope to know. They were darkness, to be sure, but they were also the guides through the darkness, however wretched.

  The young warrior knew that he could go back and kill those four and perhaps convince the others to then follow him. He could take them to Pryd, or even to Ethelbert.

  He stared up at the stars and he shook his head at the helpless futility of it all.

  He slept there, up in the tree, exhausted from his ordeal and from, most of all, the emotional battering he had taken in the shock of the cruel reality.

  He awoke before the dawn, thinking to go straight off to the north to Pryd Town. Instead, Bransen went along the foothills of the Belt-and-Buckle. He avoided the hill where he had fought, but he looked for other clans. He found many of them scattered among the hills, desperate people living in caves or under overhangs or atop hillocks that provided them a defensive position. Bransen didn't get close to any, the bitter experience fresh in his thoughts, but he viewed them from the nearest vantage points, one after another, throughout the rest of that day. He ended by climbing as high as he could among the nearby mountains, a clear perch to widen the view below him.

  Dozens and dozens of campfires dotted the night terrain, one or two at a time, mostly, but with one congregation of more than a score.

  Bransen marked that spot and went there before the dawn.

  He found the same situation as he had witnessed on the hillock, only many times larger in scale. This was the prime clan of the region, it seemed, with no fewer than fifteen armed bosses, men and women alike, brutalizing and commanding many others, young and old and infirm.

  Soon after he left that complex of rudimentary dwellings built under the overhangs of red-rocked cliffs, Bransen came across the scene of a recent battle-probably one between the clan he had just left and a lesser group that had happened upon them.

  Crows picked at the bodies scattered in the region, which included a few who might have fought back and a few more, very old, who would have no doubt been helpless in the face of the assault. There were no children to be found, however, except for the body of a single young girl. Bransen glanced back at the large clan and wondered how many among the children he had seen there were recent acquisitions.

  The troubled young man did not sleep in that devastated region that night. He couldn't sleep. So he walked back out to the road and to the northern fork that would lead him to Pryd Town, and north beyond that, he hoped, to Chapel Abelle and Cadayle.

  FIVE

  Visions of Graveyards

  "Not as secure as you insisted," King Yeslnik scolded Laird Panlamaris when the truth of the murderous night became evident across the city.

  "What do ye know of powries?" the laird asked flatly.

  Yeslnik stared at him for daring to so challenge the throne. Indeed, all about the pair, men and women of both courts shuffled nervously.

  "You ever fight one?" Panlamaris went on, not backing down an inch. His voice grew thick, his accent flowing in and out like a master bard scaring a group of children about the bonfire with tales of goblins and ghouls. "You ever stick your sword into one's gut, tearing out its innards and thinking your battle done, only to have the beast laugh at ye and leap on ye?"

  Yeslnik started to scold him but wound up merely swallowing hard.

  "Aye, but it's a dactyl demon itself the witch Gwydre's put upon my city and upon us all," he said, standing up straight and casting his gaze all about the room. "Don't you doubt it, King Yeslnik. The powries are more than Palmaristown's problem."

  He kept glancing away to the east as he spoke, toward Dame Gwydre's chapel prison. His thoughts turned to a vision of a charge against those walls, when at last they would be breached, when Dame Gwydre would kneel before him, begging for mercy.

  "And what will you do about our problem?" King Yeslnik said-again, Laird Panlamaris realized when he turned his attention back to his present surroundings.

  "Your city has a most important guest, the king himself," Yeslnik said. "And you allow these beasts to crawl in at night and cause such mischief?"

  "No warships in port this night," Panlamaris said. "The powries come from the river, and so the river will be watched."

  "See to it that they do not return until my own ship is long gone from your wharf."

  "Aye, my king," the laird repeated absently, for his thoughts were again on Gwydre, kneeling before him, crying and begging until the moment he took her head from her shoulders. They called it Sepulcher. To the powries this was procreation, and for hundreds of years it had been the only means of continuing their race. Mcwigik and Bikelbrin and the others took the hearts of their fallen comrades and buried them, then danced their magical movements and sang their songs invoking the healing powers of the world to breathe life into those hearts anew. In a matter of weeks a new powrie would emerge from the shallow graves, small at first but fast to grow into the image of the one who had provided the heart.

  Mcwigik led the songs, the first of which spoke of times long past when the bloody-cap dwarves dominated Corona. Numbering in the millions, their kingdoms ruled supreme in every land from Behr to Alpinador and on the islands across the great Mirianic. Even those places now considered wilderness, like this very region across the Masur Delaval had been, according to powrie lore, once tamed under the armies of the dwarves.

  But Sepulcher, for all of its rejuvenating magic, was a practice of inevitable decline; any dwarf lost whose heart could not be reclaimed could not be replaced. What's more, Sepulcher produced only male powries; even a female dwarf heart would yield a male child, one that looked much like its predecessor but was undeniably male. The dwarves had never been prolific breeders in the traditional sense, and, alas, there remained no female powries to be found in any event.

  This was the lament of the songs as the dwarves, locked in a huddle, arms across each other's shoulders, moved to the second act of their ritual. The lament drifted to the recitation of heroic feats of heart retrieval, mostly at sea, as the determined dwarves steadfastly refused to let their race pass from the world. Among the powries no heroes stood taller than those who would dive into the cold waters to secure the lines to a sunken barrelboat and her lost crew.

  The final act was a call to the powrie gods to grant a woman from the Sepulcher and was followed by the melodic and droning song of the warrior, the final, resigned acceptance.

  Put me deep in the groun' so cold I'll be dead 'fore I e'er get old Done me fights and shined me cap Now's me time for th'endless nap Spill no tear and put me deep Dun want no noise for me endless sleep Done me part and stood me groun' But th'other one won and knocked me down

  Put me deep in the groun' so cold I'll be dead 'fore I e'er get old Spill no tear and put me deep Dun want no noise for me endless sleep

  "Aye, but they're coming," Captain Shiknickel informed the singers, and all eyes turned to the wide river. In an ultimate act of defiance, the powries had decided to create their mass Sepulcher directly across the river from Palmaristown on the western bank of the Masur Delaval and in full view of the city lights across the way.

  "They'll find our boys," one dwarf lamented.

  "Nah, but the dopes ain't for knowin' nothing about Sepulcher," Mcwigik replied.

  "Yach, but what's yerself knowing about what they're knowing?" the other asked. "Ye been on a damned island for a hundred years!"

  "I'm knowing that if they knew, they'd've cut the hearts after staking our boys. Cut 'em and burned 'em, and we'd be down a fair number o' dwarves."

  "Aye," many others agreed, including Shiknickel.

  "Mess it all up, then, and no cairns," reasoned Bikelbrin. "If they're not knowing that we buried something here, they'll not be lo
oking."

  "Summer's on, ground's soft," a different dwarf warned. "Not hard to see that the ground's been turned."

  Bikelbrin grinned wickedly and looked to Mcwigik, and then the two of them turned to Shiknickel.

  The dwarf captain laughed. "So we buried our waste, eh?" he remarked. "Dig them holes back halfway to the hearts. Had a hearty dinner meself…"

  That was all he needed to say. The dwarves excavated two feet of dirt. As was customary in Sepulcher, the hearts were down twice that. The dwarves did their business, laying a layer of shite into the holes once they were opened. They then filled the holes, scraped the ground, and tossed stones and branches about haphazardly.

  "As fitting a cairn as any powrie'd e'er want," a satisfied Mcwigik announced.

  "Boats ain't far. Arrows'll be flying in soon," a dwarf near the water warned.

  The powries retreated up the riverbank to the north, where they had beached their barrelboats. They didn't immediately climb aboard and put back out, though, for the sailing ships didn't hang around on that side of the river for long. The dark of night favored the powries, who could see the silhouette of sails clearly enough against the starry canopy, while their barrelboats would be almost completely invisible to sailors on Palmaristown ships.

  More than one of Shiknickel's boys pointed that out as they watched from a rocky point. They were hungry for revenge and eager to ram a few warships after burying the hearts of their fallen.

  Shiknickel held them back. "Boats're already out, pedaling across the gulf," he reminded them. "Our boys'll be paid back in full order, and soon enough, when all the boats o' the isles come forth. Oh, but there's human blood to be spillin', don't ye doubt, and I'm tellin' me own shiver to know that they're killing more than any others."

  The cheer was muted out of necessity, but there was no missing the enthusiasm from the powries at the proclamation. The Palmaristown stakes had gone too far; the folk of Honce, though they didn't really appreciate it yet, had declared war on the powries.

  And to a one, the ferocious dwarves were more than happy to oblige. You do wrong by me, King Yeslnik," Father De Guilbe protested at a private meeting between himself and the ruling couple. "To associate me with Artolivan and his ilk insults me profoundly."

  "I have done you wrong?" Yeslnik replied, dramatically placing his open hand over his chest and setting the timbre of his voice to express surprise and injury, and, on a subtle level, a measure of a threat. Clearly, he was calling for De Guilbe to recant, but the priest, a veteran of battle and policy, a huge brute of a man who never shied from a fight and never spoke anything less than that which was on his mind, smiled and nodded.

  "You look upon me with contempt, as does your wife," he said.

  Queen Olym gasped in exasperation, even gave a little wail.

  "I see it and I do not blame you at all, given the horrible treatment the Order of Abelle has shown to you," De Guilbe explained. "You scarcely looked at me on the docks, other than a single sneer."

  "You would elevate yourself to the level of Laird Panlamaris, then?" the king asked incredulously. "Or that of his son, who conquered a third of Honce in my name? You believe that you, a monk who no longer even has Artolivan's ear, is as important to me as those two?"

  "More important," De Guilbe said matter-of-factly, his barrel chest puffing out.

  King Yeslnik seemed less than impressed. Queen Olym gave a bored sigh.

  "An army might win a man's body by either breaking it wholly or forcing him to inaction," De Guilbe explained. "No doubt your great armies will sweep the land with the banners of King Yeslnik and Delaval City. But it is the church and not the state that keeps peasants truly in line. Would you have your entire reign be a matter of destroying one revolt after another?"

  "You presume much."

  "I have seen much. The folk of Honce-of any land-need the reassurance that their miserable existence will lead them to some place better. They need hope in eternal life and justice. The Samhaists provided that, albeit harshly, but they are of little consequence now. Because of the war, because of the healing powers of our gemstones, the Order of Abelle has become ascendant. We are the guardians of eternity and the partner you will need if you hope to keep the peasants in line."

  "I mean to kill Father Artolivan. You do understand that, I hope."

  "I would kill him myself if the opportunity ever arose."

  Yeslnik didn't immediately respond, other than to tilt his head back and study the man more carefully. After a long silence Queen Olym remarked, "He wants Chapel Abelle for himself!"

  "Ah," Yeslnik agreed, as if she had obviously hit the mark.

  "We cannot wait for Chapel Abelle to fall," Father De Guilbe replied.

  "We?" asked Yeslnik.

  "You have already announced that you will march to Ethelbert's gates first. You will tame the land around Chapel Abelle to isolate Artolivan and Gwydre and their traitorous followers. You will not return before the end of summer, surely, and you will not camp your army on the field throughout the Honce winter. Nor do I expect defeating the chapel will come easily if you assembled a hundred thousand strong warriors for the task! Her walls are thick and tall and her brothers skilled at the use of gemstone magic, as Laird Panlamaris will surely attest."

  "He doesn't believe in you, my great king," Olym remarked, but Yeslnik hushed her with an upraised hand.

  "Your assault will not begin within a year, and I fear it may be several more before you finally break through those walls and expel the traitors."

  Again Olym tried to protest and again Yeslnik silenced her by putting the back of his palm before her face.

  "You do not have several years," said De Guilbe. "The peasants will need reassurance. They need to believe that their eternal-"

  "Laird Panlamaris has already told me of your wishes to be instilled as an alternative father of the order," King Yeslnik interrupted.

  "His wishes, as well. He understands the need."

  "And I do not?"

  "I would never hint at such a thing, my king. I am well-known among the brothers of Abelle. When I was selected to travel to Alpinador those years ago, every brother in the order heard my name, and they knew it even before that time, during the years when I was a leading master at Chapel Abelle. More than a few of my brethren understand, as do I, that Father Artolivan's decision to walk a neutral line in the greatest war Honce has ever known was a fool's errand. Wars have winners and losers, and it has been clear from the beginning that Delaval City would become the center of Honce, and her laird the new king of the land. I argued for such as soon as I returned from my adventures in the north. I told Artolivan to follow your edict to its fullest extent with great hope that the war would then soon end and you could assume leadership over the unified kingdom."

  "Perhaps you were not as influential as you believed, eh?" Yeslnik said cleverly.

  "Not with Artolivan's minions at Chapel Abelle and certainly not with Dame Gwydre and her followers," De Guilbe admitted. "If ever there was an argument against allowing a woman to preside over a holding, Dame Gwydre is it!"

  The two men laughed at that declaration, but Olym didn't follow suit. Yeslnik, then De Guilbe, cut the laughter short with an uncomfortable cough or two.

  "You need to give the brothers of the many chapels a choice apart from Father Artolivan," De Guilbe explained. "There will be debate in every chapel regarding the edicts of Father Artolivan, and it will oft be contested. If you present an alternative to Artolivan-Father De Guilbe of the Chapel of Precious Memories here in Palmaristown-then those arguments will be less conclusive. More and more brothers will cease to resist you as you sweep the land of all resistance to your inevitable rule." Artolivan paused thoughtfully before adding, "Besides, my king, your ascent is obviously not without the sanction of God."

  Yeslnik's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

  "Absent God's graces, no man may ever claim such a title," De Guilbe explained. "Thus, you are not merely King Yeslnik
but Blessed King Yeslnik."

  Yeslnik paused and looked to Olym, but she could only offer a shrug in response. "You really believe that?" Yeslnik asked.

  "It matters not," said De Guilbe. "All that matters for your security and the strength of your kingdom is that the peasants believe it."

  "Can I trust you, Father De Guilbe? I do not even know you."

  "You can trust the judgment of Laird Panlamaris. You can know for certain that I left Chapel Abelle in disgust over Father Artolivan's refusal to admit the obvious: that Yeslnik is King of Honce and that we, his servants, are duty bound to abide by his edicts. That much, my king, you can verify and trust."

  "Loyal to me?" the king asked. He held out his hand, a large jeweled ring sparkling in the room's torchlight. De Guilbe immediately fell to one knee, took up the slight hand, and kissed the ring.

  "I may decide to move you to Chapel Delaval," Yeslnik said. "It would do well and wise for the seat of the church and state to be near each other, for we would need to converse often."

  "I go where you command," De Guilbe said with a deeper bow of his head.

  "For now that would be the Chapel of Precious Memories. Better that you are here, where the common folk are both weary and wary. I'll not return to Delaval City until the autumn at least, so I'll not need you there until then. My subjects of Delaval are very loyal."

  "I am to claim myself as Father De Guilbe of the Chapel of Precious Memories?"

  "I will make that claim for you, of course, and will also declare that the Chapel of Precious Memories serves as temporary seat of power for the Order of Abelle."

  "Your faith in me is greatly appreciated," De Guilbe said.