But what if doing so rips an even larger gap?
She became aware of Harn waiting for her response. Perhaps he thought she was losing her nerve. Behind her, the Knorth cadets stirred restively, waiting to take their oaths with hers. Everyone else had finished.
Jame took a deep breath and swore the strongest oath she could:
"Honor break me, darkness take me, now and forever, so I swear."
The first part she spoke alone into a startled silence. Then came a ragged echo, not just from behind her but also from all down the hall on both sides, and every massive banner shuddered where it hung:
"So I swear" . . . "So I swear" . . . "So I swear. . . ."
Jame knew she had struck hard at someone, but whom?
Gorbel stared at her with his mouth agape, no yawn this time. Then he laughed unsteadily and said something that made his cronies snicker.
At the far end of the hall, there was a sudden stir of consternation among the Randir.
"Indeed," said Sheth softly, looking at her. "So swear we all."
Harn blinked. "That," he said, "should do nicely."
As he tied her scarf back on, correctly this time, she took the opportunity to twitch his coat closed over a particularly large grease stain. At least the bandages still wrapped around his knuckles were clean.
"Salute!" came a collective roar from the sergeants.
As one, except for Jame, the cadets wheeled to face their house banners.
Now what? she thought, belatedly turning, and then flinched as the Randir war cry ripped through the hall, discordant and shaken; but perhaps that was how it was supposed to sound.
The deep, sure note of the Brandan answered it from across the hall. Then the Coman, small and shrill, like their house; the Edirr, in a falcon's jeering shriek; the Danior's gleeful howl; the Jaran, a shouted phrase in High Kens: "The shadows are burning!"; the Ardeth, not loud, but with a swelling under-surge of Shanir power.
And now for us, thought Jame.
She took a deep breath, down to the pit of her soul, and let loose with the rathorn war cry.
It began as a scream, high and wild. She could hear each cadet's voice in it, tuning to her own, ripping the air. Rathorns were called "beasts of madness" for their effect on their prey. Their cry was an assault in itself, an incitement to panic. Then it sank to a bone-shaking roar.
Yells of consternation and outrage cut it short as if with a snap of teeth. Jame turned to see that every banner in the hall but her own had fallen, half on top of their assembled companies. Heavy tapestries heaved as indignant cadets fought their way out. Angry randon crowded around the Commandant, brandishing lengths of the banners' cords and crying foul, although clearly they had snapped by themselves, without external tampering.
And all this time that wild cry went on and on, under the floor, under the flagstones. In the subterranean stable, every horse was screaming.
"Truly," said Sheth, regarding Jame over the heads of his furious officers, "we live in interesting times." He clapped his hands. "And now, we feast."
The doors to New Tentir were flung open. Beyond, the training square blazed with light, falling on long tables loaded with food and drink. Roast ox and stag, stuffed stork and crisped carp; mawmenny stew boiled in wine, garnished with almonds; baked pears and apples swimming in caramel sauce. The cadets cheered, as much with relief as joy, and rushed out to drown the taste of fear with ale. Jame and Sheth were left, looking at each other.
"I think," said the Commandant, "that you may have broken the Randir Tempter. At least, they carried her off gagged to stop her raving. A pity, that. I would have liked to hear what she had to say. Nonetheless, if you please, don't make a practice of driving your instructors mad."
"N-no, ran. I'm sorry—I think."
"At the moment, that is all I require of you: think. Now go."
But on the threshold she hesitated, stopped between past and future by the sudden memory of something she had just heard but not immediately recognized. Over the cries of cadets and horses, out in the dark, in the night, a rathorn had answered her.
Chapter VIII: A Forgotten Name
Summer 5
I
Gothregor's herbalist stood over a simmering pot, stirring it. The cream-colored paste was almost ready. From a basket at his elbow, he picked out a large, hairy leaf of comfrey and added it to the mixture, making a face as its spines stung his fingers.
Afternoon light slanted into his workroom through its southern facing windows. It also shone through the pot's stream and the glass bottles arrayed on the sill with their tinctures of iodine, decoctions of agrimony, burdock juice, and spirit of camphor, among a score of others. The Kendar's hands moved through a haze of pale green, rose, and amber light as if he were also mixing them too into his healing art, as perhaps he was.
Outside lay the broad inner ward of the Knorth fortress, with the garrison's barracks in the outer wall to the right. To the left rose the Old Keep. If one craned out the window to look east, far back beyond the Women's Halls loomed the desolation of the Ghost Walks, where the Highlord and his family had lived until assassins had slaughtered all but a handful and the rest had gone into exile with Ganth Gray Lord.
The physician sighed. He himself was a Knorth, as his family had been for generations. It grieved him that so few of his house were left. If . . . no, when its last two Highborn were gone, what would happen to their people?
A door opened in the wall beside the old keep. From it emerged a lady, followed by a randon guard. From their purposeful angle across the inner ward, they were headed straight for the infirmary.
"Company from the Women's Halls," remarked the herbalist, as if to himself. "I think . . . yes, they're Ardeth."
From behind him came a stifled exclamation from his waiting patient and a rustle of cloth. Then all was still again.
As he wrapped his apron around his hands and lifted the pot off its tripod, away from the fire beneath, the Highborn entered without knocking. He turned and saluted her respectfully.
"Lady, how may I serve you?"
The Ardeth swept into the cluttered room, black eyes darting about it behind her mask. Because of her tight under skirt, she moved in tiny steps converted by long practice into a smooth glide. However, her full outer skirt brushed against glasses, instruments, and furniture, knocking some over. As she pivoted, the belling garment toppled a chair. This, in turn, snagged the table's floor-length cover and would have pulled it off if the doctor hadn't hastily set the pot on it.
"Guard, tell this Knorth my business."
The randon sergeant—a woman, as were all who protected the Women's Halls—returned the herbalist's salute. She would have been more deferential if he had been a Shanir healer or even a surgeon, but still as a soldier she had a healthy respect for anyone connected with the healing arts.
"My lady seeks the Highlord." She regarded the pot of steaming paste and raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment on it. "Matriarch Adiraina wishes to speak to him."
The herbalist bowed. "I will inform my lord when I see him. He has spent the morning searching for a missing Knorth Kendar. That, perhaps, is why you have failed as yet to . . . er . . . run him down."
"Perhaps," agreed the sergeant. "Lady?"
The Ardeth had made a dart for the door leading to the infirmary. Inside, she bent down and peered under each bed in turn as if she expected to find the Highlord of the Kencyrath hiding beneath one of them. Disappointed, she returned to the workroom. There, the draped surgeon's table caught her eye. As she approached it, however, a low growl stopped her in her tracks and the guard's hand dropped to her sword. The cloth stirred. A sharp muzzle emerged, flat to the ground, followed by a pair of fierce, ice blue eyes set in creamy fur. The wolver pup glared at the two Ardeth and growled again, low in her throat, showing a dark, curled lip and the needles of her white teeth.
"Well!" said the lady. "I thought we had seen the last of these mangy creatures."
With that,
she turned on her heel and glided away. The guard saluted, with an amused glance at those defiant, blue eyes, and followed.
The physician began to soak linen bandages in the cooling pot.
After a moment, the table cloth lifted and Torisen Black Lord crawled out from underneath.
"The Ardeth matriarch is looking for you, my lord," the Kendar reported dutifully.
Torisen righted the chair and sat down on it. The pup slunk out and crouched warily beneath, making herself as small as possible. The Highborn looked very tired and not a little dusty, with cobwebs adding more strands of white to his dark, ruffled hair. "If Burr asks," he said, with a wry smile, "you can tell him that I've already searched under the surgeon's table."
"And for whom are you searching, my lord?"
Torisen tried to meet the other's sober gaze, and failed. That was the trouble: as in the commons room that first night, he couldn't remember the ruddy-faced Kendar's name. And now the man was missing.
"My lord?" The herbalist was regarding him with concern, probably wondering if, like his father before him, he was coming unhinged.
Was he?
Then with a sick jolt, Torisen remembered why he had come to the infirmary in the first place. Reluctantly, not looking at it, he placed his injured hand on the table.
The herbalist loosened the bandages.
"Well now, that's not so bad," he said, examining the three broken fingers, splinted together to immobilize them.
His tone was so kind, so reassuring, that Torisen looked up sharply. Yes, this man knew his dread of becoming a cripple. Perhaps everyone did. Trinity.
"The swelling has gone down considerably. And this happened . . . when?"
"About six days ago."
The herbalist reset the splints and began to wrap his hand with paste-soaked cloth. "Another term for comfrey is 'bone-knit,' " he said. "I've heard that some such plants of great potency grew among the white flowers in your great-grandmother Kinzi's Moon Garden, along with many other special herbs; but the way into that place was lost long ago. In another week, barring accidents, you can have your hand back. There."
Torisen blankly regarded the neat, new bandage that imprisoned all but his thumb.
The herbalist turned to straightened his work area. "My lord. . ." he said over his shoulder.
"Yes?"
"The missing Kendar is named Mullen. Do you remember who I am?"
He asked it casually, without turning, but tension underlay his voice.
"I do. Thank you, Kells."
II
A hundred other Kendar names raced through Torisen's mind as he slipped out by way of the infirmary, the wolver pup following at a wary distance as if afraid he would chase her away. Harn, Burr, Rowan, Winter . . . no, she was long dead, cut nearly in two by his father's sword . . . Chen, Laurel, Rose Iron-thorn . . .
It was nothing, he told himself uneasily, to forget one out of so many. Yes, he was new at this, but surely such things happened all the time. Besides, this Kendar had been in his service less than a year.
The battle at the Cataracts the previous fall had opened gaping holes in the Knorth ranks which many were eager to fill. Torisen wasn't sure why, but he could only bind a certain number before he began to feel a distinct, distracting strain. At the Cataracts, he knew he had over-extended himself. Still, if he could, he would have taken in anybody who asked. One way or another, weren't they all Ganth's victims? However, as Burr had explained to him, the Knorth Kendar kept close track of status and resented any infringement of it, as many did his acceptance of that turn-collar, Brier Iron-thorn.
In their estimate, first came the Exiles, who had disappeared with Ganth into the Haunted Lands and paid for their loyalty with their lives. Of them, only Torisen, his sister and, it was rumored, a priest had survived—how, exactly, remained unclear.
Next were Those-Who-Returned, whom Ganth in his madness had driven back at the high passes of the Ebonbane.
Last came the Faith-breakers, who had chosen to stay with the Host after the White Hills when Ganth had thrown down his name and title. These Kendar had sought and for the most part had found places in other houses, whose ranks had also been thinned by battle. Torisen had heard rumors that some had gone into the Randir and remained there, implacable foes of the house that they believed had betrayed them.
At any rate, by the time Those-Who-Returned had limped back, the Kencyrath had had little room for them except as yondri-gon, threshold-dwellers, in whatever house would give them shelter. In token of their fervent hope that the Highlord would one day return, many had branded themselves with the Knorth sigil, the same highly stylized rathorn head used to mark the Knorth herd. It was Torisen's goal to reclaim these first, along with their families; but there were so many. It had been so much easier when he had been merely the commander of the Southern Host. Then he had been responsible for some twenty-five thousand lives, but for none of their souls. Now, two thousand-odd Knorth Kencyr, body and soul, laid claim to him, with many, many more still unredeemed. Sometimes he woke in the middle of the night, unable for a moment to breathe under the pressure of their need. At such times, floundering in the dark, he felt like a swimmer dragged down by a multitude of clutching hands, desperate to cast off every last one of them. Dammit, he couldn't save everybody.
Ha. You can't even save yourself, boy.
But he thought that he had at least rescued the missing Kendar—a middle-aged Danior yondri, he now remembered, One-Who-Had-Returned. When the man had knelt before him, he had seen the three wavy scar lines of the Knorth sigil branded on the back of the man's neck. This is someone, he had thought as he accepted those broad, worn hands between his own, who knew my father's face; and he had felt embarrassed by the glowing gratitude in that round, red face. No one should have such power to make or break, power that he often saw other lords abuse as his father had, power that he didn't really want.
Admit it, boy. You're weak and you know it, especially since your sister returned. She's gelded you, and you never even noticed.
Sometimes it was hard not to snap back at that voice in his mind, behind the locked door in his soul.
Oh yes, father? he wanted to say. Was it better to give up, as you did, and let everything fall apart around you? And if my sister sometimes unnerves me, our mother unmanned you. Destruction begins with love, you said. Remember?
But he couldn't say that. Not yet. The image formed in his mind of the hall of the Haunted Lands' keep where he had grown up. He was sitting in it still, in the dust and dark, his back hunched against the voice behind the locked door.
Just ignore it, he told himself doggedly. Father is dead. Sooner or later, he's got to shut up.
Of course, not love but duty bound him to the forgotten Kendar. When he found what's-his-name, he would give him a good tongue-lash for neglecting his duty that morning and then reinstate him. That would show Kendar like Kells how foolish they were to have made such a fuss.
He had been headed for the garrison dormitory, meaning to search it, when a voice ahead stopped him. In the sharp diction of the Coman, a lady was demanding to know where the Highlord might be found.
Torisen turned and bolted for cover.
III
Late that afternoon, a tired post horse trotted through the north gate into Gothregor and stopped. Its rider swung stiffly down, staggering as her feet hit the earth. One leg nearly buckled. Steward Rowan hung on to the saddle, cursing softly, waiting for the old injury to release her cramped muscles. She owed those damn Karnids for more than the scars on her face.
Before her lay the broad, green inner ward, sliding into the shadow of the western mountains as the sun set behind them. At this hour, the Knorth garrison should have been settling down for the night. Instead, small, determined processions crisscrossed the darkening grass. Each was led by the gliding form of a lady followed, like a goose with her goslings, by a line of masked Highborn girls and a randon guard who brought up the rear. When two such lines meet, the
y cut through each other without a word in passing. Others were threading purposefully through the garrison's barracks, kitchens, and other domestic offices. A few Knorth Kendar could be seen whisking furtively in and out of sight, trying to keep out of the way.
As Rowan stood, staring, she was spotted. A small, plump lady turned abruptly and came at her as much at a run as her tight underskirt allowed. Her line of girls—by far the longest and most varied in the ward—swerved to follow her. Rowan saw as she approached that it was Karidia, the Coman Matriarch.
To Ride a Rathorn Page 16