I smiled smugly at my triumph. Presently I glimpsed a faint light off in the distance, fluttering through the stark silhouettes of the trees. As it drew nearer it split into two. Akhmar’s familiar burnished radiance, and another, paler but more intense. I let my breath out in relief and waved in their direction.
“There.”
Yatol turned to look, and a glimmer of joy just touched his eyes.
“Who is that with him?”
“Amoin, Brother of birds – and scouts.”
They were with us sooner than I expected. Amoin reminded me of Mykyl, but he wasn’t nearly as formidable. There was a shimmering translucence to him, as if he had just been gathered from the scattering winds. He spoke directly to Yatol.
“They are safe, Farseer. They bore the battle until you had gone, and before you came to the Branhau they escaped before the face of the enemy.” He turned his eyes on me – they were like prisms. “Your brother called me to their defense, for they stayed long to let the others return safely. I bore them away, then he bade me bring word to you.”
“They’re safe!”
“He can see you, then?” Yatol asked. Then, in realization, “You rescued us before.”
“It was I. As to him seeing us – vaguely, yes. More than the young scholar can. More even than Tyhlaur.”
Yatol closed his eyes. “They’re safe.”
“You took them to Alcalon?” I asked.
“Ah, no! He would tolerate no such voyage. They went back to the camp. But the army is moving, and perhaps against its will retreating toward the city.”
A moment of silence passed. I could feel tangibly that Akhmar was communicating with Amoin, wordless, with unreadable gazes. I glanced helplessly at Yatol and found him watching them intently, his face mirroring my confusion. Akhmar turned suddenly back to us.
“Come,” he said. “The Citadel is still half a world away.”
I turned to Amoin. “Will you watch over them?”
“I would not let them out of my sight,” he said, holding my gaze.
Somehow, looking into the unfathomable depths of his eyes, I couldn’t imagine anything being lost to his sight.
He didn’t smile, or offer any words of blessing or farewell – but I felt them. Then he was gone. Yatol already sat on Akhmar’s back, and as soon as I joined him everything melted back into grey gloom.
“Yatol,” I said when we were underway. He turned his head a little, so I went on, “You said you know this land here. What is it like? How far does the Branhau reach?”
“It curves part way around the Perstaun, and I believe it stretches down nearly a week’s journeying – for someone on foot, anyway. After that we know there are some low hills. They extend down to the Laoth, the sea. I don’t know how big the Laoth is. None of my people have ever crossed its full breadth, or reported their discoveries if they did.”
My blood went cold, and I instinctively thought of my father.
“Do you think we’ll find him there?”
“Your father?” Yatol said. “I don’t know. But I believe so.”
Akhmar hadn’t spoken a word through our conversation, but now he slowed and turned his fire-hued eyes to us.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. I nodded meekly, and Yatol, stolid for a moment, agreed. “I will be back shortly.”
Yatol slid down. As my feet touched the ground I sucked in my breath, feeling like I had been punched in the stomach with an icy fist. Yatol gripped my arm to steady me.
“Merelin?”
I watched Akhmar vanish into the trees, then turned to gaze back the way we had come. The forest was grey and silent. Not empty.
“I can’t get it out of my head,” I said at last. “It’s been in my thoughts since we returned.”
“Here, to the Branhau?”
“No, to Arah Byen.”
Some breath of wind stirred the treetops, but it startled me with more than just surprise. My face must have showed my terror, because Yatol spun around to survey the forest.
“What do you sense?”
“Someone following us,” I said, miserable. “I felt it first when Khymranna came, then again in the Ungulion camp. I didn’t feel it again until we came back to the Branhau, when you went to find food.”
His gaze shifted over the trees, wary, then back at me with deep concern.
“Is it at all like that night in the Perstaun?”
A strange calmness crept over me. I shrugged indifferently and said, “I guess it was nothing. I was just being silly. Besides, what could possibly follow us when we’re with Akhmar?”
He didn’t seem convinced. And when the brush behind him broke and rustled, he grabbed the knife from my belt and spun around.
I didn’t move, or scream like I thought I might. I just froze, raw terror seizing me with infuriating strength. Then the vines parted and two men ducked through, both holding ready weapons and one carrying a flaming torch. They stared at us, and us at them, then suddenly Yatol tucked the knife in his belt and raised his hands.
“Ingaea!”
“Yatol!” cried the taller one.
He lowered his spear at once, his grey eyes lighting up with joy, and he embraced Yatol fiercely. The older man still stood with his short sword bared, apparently in no hurry to sheath it. Some strange hostility burned in his eyes, but he didn’t say a word.
“Royin, it’s Yatol!” Ingaea cried. “Has it been so long since you saw him?”
“Aye,” the other man said acidly.
Yatol suddenly recognized him and he recoiled looking stricken, like a condemned man. This meeting had rubbed some old wound raw, and I winced as if it were my own. I went to stand beside Yatol – an angry sparrow in the midst of hawks. Royin ignored me. He still had his gaze fixed on Yatol, eyes like splinters of ice. If his face had been any blanker, it couldn’t have been more expressive. There was no set to his jaw, no frown, no furrowing of his brow. He just stared with deep hatred at Yatol, and Yatol would not meet his gaze.
“What divides you?” Ingaea asked, bewildered. “In what conflict did you part?” His gaze strayed over me, a quick disinterested glance as he turned back to Royin. “Have you harbored this hate for four years?”
“Four years,” Royin repeated, his voice like sluggish venom. A deliberate pause, then he concluded, “Aye.”
“What—” Ingaea began.
“He knows.”
Yatol stood straight and still, but the pain in his eyes tore at my heart. I couldn’t understand that grief, or the hatred that rankled Royin’s mind. I glared at him and took Yatol’s arm. I don’t know why I did it, but Yatol glanced down at me with a faint smile of surprise.
“Can’t you let the past die?” Ingaea asked.
“Rebuke him, not me,” Royin said. “He was willing to let our future die.”
And suddenly I remembered what Yatol had told me about my father’s last return to Arah Byen, and I knew exactly what he was talking about. I felt all the blood seep from my face, then rush back with burning heat.
“How dare you?” I shrieked, clenching my hands in fists. Yatol grasped my shoulders, but I wrenched away from him. “How dare you? Who are you to accuse him?”
Royin gave a thin, empty laugh. “And who are you to defend him, little sister? I was there.”
“You’re a liar!”
Yatol drew me back with his arms around my shoulders, and I clung to them, shaking with rage and grief.
“What has Yatol done to merit this?” Ingaea snapped, then added, low, “The most honorable man I know.”
“You know nothing of what happened. A foolish deserter, that’s all Yatol amounts to. Where do you suppose he’s off to now, if not to escape the battle ahead?” Royin had spoken with sudden quickness, harsh and jarring, but then his eyes narrowed and he said in that slow venomous hiss, “It was always like him to abandon his duty.”
I felt the muscles in Yatol’s arms tense, then suddenly he released me. He grabbed Royin by the shoulders and flun
g him against a tree. His face was dark with wrath, and his eyes burned. Don’t kill him, Yatol. Don’t kill him.
“And where were you?” he gritted, holding his forearm against Royin’s throat. “Where were you when he needed you?”
“It was you who abandoned the portal!”
Yatol’s arm tightened against his neck. “He was dying! He was dying and you did nothing! Whose cowardice was it, Royin? He gave everything and you stood by to watch.”
“I did not fail my duty…”
Yatol released him abruptly, drawing back his arm as if to strike him. But then his gaze went cold and impassive, and he lowered his hand.
“Do you have any idea what duty is?” he asked, voice low with scorn.
“You are still a coward, then!” Royin called after him, rubbing his throat. “And a fool.”
“But it was him my father trusted, not you!” I cried. “Whatever duty you think he abandoned, he is still sacrificing himself to fulfill!”
“Merelin,” Yatol murmured.
But Royin straightened, curiosity getting the better of him. “Your father?”
“Yes. Davhur – my father.”
And Royin laughed. Thin, cold laughter.
“Your father was Davhur,” he crowed. “And you travel with this man? Did he ever tell you what he did? Or did he hide it in his shame?”
“I know what happened,” I said coldly, face burning. “I know what you failed to do. Of the two of you, I would think you would be the one hiding things in shame. That’s cowardly, to use someone else’s actions to hide your own guilt. And if you think I’d let my judgments be swayed by yours, you’re a fool as well as a coward.”
I turned away, seething with contempt, adrenaline and anger hammering in my veins. I didn’t hear Royin say anything else, but after a moment of stifling silence the undergrowth rustled and I canted my head just enough to see him stride off. I only felt sorry that he had taken the torch, leaving us in dim uncertainty. Ingaea stayed with us, but for some time neither he nor Yatol spoke. Their faces seemed ghostly in the faint half-light.
“He never forgave himself for that day,” Ingaea said finally.
“Neither did I,” Yatol growled.
Forgive who? I wondered.
“There’s an outpost nearby that Royin and I just left. They have food and beds, and weapons if you need any. I can take you there if you like.”
Yatol hesitated.
“Please do,” I said quickly.
I could feel Yatol’s questioning gaze, but I didn’t return it. Those few moments of silence had renewed my earlier rush of fear, and now I stood in the terror that whoever or whatever had been tracking us had nearly reached us.
“We’d like to go,” I said, desperate. “Where is it?”
And suddenly a flock of birds exploded from the trees deeper in the forest, swirling into the murky sky and shrieking a chaos of retorts. I jumped.
“Yatol…”
“Take us,” he said to Ingaea.
Ingaea nodded and took a brand from his pack, lighting it with a flint before heading into the trees.
“No need to be alarmed,” Ingaea said. “I’m sure the kirgahl were just startled by Royin. That was our direction. We’re heading toward Alcalon. The runners called us out…not sure if we’ll make it to the lines before the Ungulion surround them, but we’re going to try.”
He was rambling on, trying to ease my fears, when a terrible scream cut through the forest. It hit us like raw tortured anguish. We all froze, but the scream wouldn’t stop. It carried on in waves of greater and greater pain, then suddenly something came crashing through the brambles.
None of us knew him, that first moment he appeared, still sobbing in torment. I couldn’t make out his features, if he had any left. A shriek tore from my throat, and I lifted my hands. Ingaea grabbed me. Everything blurred. Everything except Royin’s tattered face. I couldn’t tear my gaze from it. Shredded hands reached out to grab Yatol’s shoulders, bloodied eyes stared up at him. All his broken weight sagged toward the earth. Yatol gripped his arms and staggered to support him.
“He is looking for you!” The words dragged from his throat. “He has been following you!”
His knees buckled, but Yatol managed to hold him up.
“What, Royin? Who? How many?”
“The Lord of K’hama! He himself!” Royin gasped. “A score of Ungulion with him. Forgive me, Yatol. This time I didn’t fail…” He sucked in air and his hands spasmed on Yatol’s shoulders. “He questioned me…I said nothing. Nothing! Go…flee…you have time…” His eyes widened. “Forgive me.”
His head sagged down, and Yatol lowered him carefully to the earth. He stood gazing down at him, hands open at his sides. They were red, hands and arms and shirt, all streaked and damp with the crimson blood from Royin’s broken body. I thought he had more wounds than flesh, and Yatol’s arms blurred into the same tortured form. I clung to Ingaea. I felt nothing. I stared at Royin’s empty, featureless face, even when Yatol came toward us.
Yatol took me from Ingaea’s grasp, reaching to take my head in his hands. Blood. Bloody hands. Torn, bloody hands. Royin’s hands, stretching out to grab me.
“No!” I screamed, pulling free. “Leave me alone!”
I tried to ward him away. I didn’t see his face. Only the head, the empty, bloody head with tormented eyes. Hands reached up, spread wide to reassure me, but I tore away in terror, collapsing in a shuddering heap. My body ached with sobs. Couldn’t breathe. No sooner had I gulped in air than it was spent. It felt like drowning.
A sound cut through my terror, something vague in the distance. Sticks breaking. I felt myself swept off the ground. The grey world drifted to black.
Chapter 25 – The Gift of Fire
“Where is Akhmar?”
The question drifted, faint, into my turbid thoughts. Yatol, speaking somewhere beyond me in the blank smothering darkness.
“Akhmar travels with you?” Ingaea’s voice, bright and clear. He sounded surprised, or awed. “It’s been many years since I have seen him.”
I let out a shuddering breath. I found myself sitting up, wrapped in a blanket of some coarse woolly fiber. Somewhere nearby there must have been candles or torches. The warm flickering light danced against my eyelids. When I forced my eyes open I found that the flames came from a small fire, but Yatol knelt between it and me and mostly blocked it from view. Ingaea was farther away, stooped over a chest of some sort.
“He left just before you found us. He must have stopped here because this place was so close.”
“Aye.” Ingaea stood, hoisting Yatol’s leather pack. “This should be enough to keep you for a while. It’s all we have left here, but it’s just as well. No one will ever be coming to this place again.”
I leaned my head on my knees, glad to be unnoticed, and gazed around the tiny hut. It reminded me of Enhyla’s, only smaller, with pallets all along the wall and racks of tarnished weapons in the corners. It wasn’t made of living wood like Enhyla’s, but clay or mud with dried brush for a roof. The floor was bare earth. Past Yatol I glimpsed a wooden platform, a dead-still figure lying enshrouded upon it. The plain white cloths hid the corpse, but I knew it was Royin. I didn’t fear him anymore, hidden under the shroud. The thought of him dead made me strangely sad. I wondered what Yatol thought of him, now. I wondered what he thought of himself.
“We can’t afford to stay any longer. What weapons can I take?”
“Whatever you can carry. I have mine already. Not that they will do me or you or anyone much good, especially if it is the Lord of K’hama who hounds you. If I had a weapon that could destroy them I would give it to you with all my heart, but I know of no such object.”
Yatol drew the small knife from his belt and held it out. The firelight slithered over the blade, casting it in vermilion hues.
“This blade,” he said simply. “The only one I know that can be borne by human hands, though not without a cost.”
“T
he Blade of Heaven!” Ingaea cried. “Then Akhmar is not the only one of the Brethren whom you know.”
“No.”
He stood and turned to me, holding out the blade. I broke from my thoughts to take it from him. The hilt felt warm, heavier than I remembered it, and I smiled a little.
“Merelin carries it now.” To me he said, “Are you ready? We should go soon.”
“Before he comes,” I said. I could tell Yatol had been thinking the same thing. “I’m ready.”
I must not have looked ready, though, because Yatol hesitated. I stared at the bier, and then at Ingaea standing beside it, singing or chanting something in low tones. Yatol’s gaze followed mine.
“To peace, Royin,” he said softly. “We give our days seeking it, but it is only in death that we find it.”
I closed my eyes, echoing his words in my mind. Yatol laid his hand on my shoulder, and the three of us left the hut in silence. Once outside Ingaea stopped and glanced back.
“You know what they do to the bodies of our fallen, Yatol.”
Yatol turned, his eyes gleaming with that white fire. “Aye.”
“We cannot leave him to be desecrated,” said Ingaea, almost pleadingly.
I wondered if the light in Yatol’s eyes startled him.
Yatol said nothing. He gazed down at his hand, the palm filled with radiance like I had seen after the Brethren came. Slowly he closed his fingers over the light, and it erupted in flame. He drew his hand back, spreading his fingers to the night. For a moment nothing happened, then suddenly the hut burst into swirling fire. Somehow it didn’t surprise me, but Ingaea ducked away from Yatol, wide-eyed. The rush and crack of burning thatch filled the air, and the burnished light flared on our faces.
Ingaea inched back toward Yatol and took his hand, and the radiance danced over Ingaea’s fingers.
“What are you?” he murmured.
But Yatol didn’t answer. He kept watching the hut, the thick black smoke curling into the sky. Waves of heat washed over us, thick with a mossy smell that singed my lungs and drew tears from my stinging eyes. Then, mixed with the earthy smell, the nauseating stench of burning flesh. My stomach churned, and I wrenched away to survey the forest behind us. I couldn’t feel the Ungulion’s presence now, and I wondered if Royin might have said something to mislead them. All was quiet but the dull roar of flames.
Down a Lost Road Page 24