by J. L. Doty
The spinning slowed and she tried to come to a stop facing away from the blade, facing any direction but the blade. But the spell overpowered any choice or desire on her part, and she came to a stop facing it squarely. She could not have done otherwise.
“Ahhh!” Salula growled happily. “This morning, due north. And now, northwest. Maybe he’s on the move. We’ll have to wait until dusk to be certain.”
Rhianne sat down by their campfire and sobbed openly, shedding tears of frustration and anger. Salula interpreted them as the tears of a frightened young woman. She chose not to correct him on that matter, for if that tiny bit of misdirection gave her some advantage at some point, she would be a fool to give that up now.
Salula sat down opposite her. “He’s moving slow and careful, so we’ll take our time and be sure.”
She asked, “How did you know something in me could be used to find that blade?”
Ignoring her question, Salula grinned and laughed, but said nothing.
She now knew to a certainty they were camped due south of the Benesh’ere camp. They hadn’t moved since he’d brought her here with her hands tied to the horse’s saddle horn. He fed her, not well, but well enough. He kept the fire low, clearly not wanting to draw attention with a trail of smoke during the day, or brightly glowing embers at night. But he did burn a fire and kept it just high enough to give her the warmth she needed so she didn’t take a chill and fall ill. No, he had to take care of her so she might betray whoever now carried that blade. But how did he know she could sense the blade so?
France, and Salula, both and yet neither. She wondered if anything remained of the swordsman, or if his soul had been completely destroyed by the demon Salula. He caught her staring at him, turned the swordsman’s blue eyes upon her, and she shivered at the emptiness of his gaze. Nothing human remained in that look, but perhaps something human remained in the soul. She looked away, and he laughed, his voice sounding like rock grating on rock.
The last meal she’d eaten in Norlakton had dried on the front of her dress, and at most she’d been able to peel away desiccated bits and pieces of it. But there still remained the stain of the bile and other fluids from her stomach. There must be a stream or brook nearby, for several times the halfman had ordered her to, “Stay. Don’t move and don’t make a sound.” And she’d remained frozen like a statue while he’d left the camp briefly and returned with water.
“I need to bathe,” she said. Slowly, those blue eyes turned her way and stared right through her. “I’m filthy.”
He considered her for a moment, then stood and said, “Follow me, pretty one, but say nothing louder than a whisper.”
She obeyed, for she had no choice. He led her about fifty paces from their camp to a small stream, stopped there, pointed at it and said, “Go ahead. Bathe.”
The water in the stream flowed barely ankle deep, so she couldn’t immerse herself completely. “Do you have soap?” she whispered.
He laughed at that. “What do you think, pretty one?”
She stepped around him and stopped at the edge of the stream, and waited for him to walk away, or at least turn his back, but he stood unmoving, staring at her in that eerie silence of his.
She asked, “Can’t you at least turn your back so I have some privacy?”
“You didn’t need much privacy that night you pleasured my men in Castle Elhiyne.”
That angered her. “And you know that was not by my choice.”
“Aye, they did tell me you were a lifeless doll. A pretty doll, but still lifeless. Still, if you want to bathe, then you’ll bathe with me watching you, or you’ll not bathe at all.”
She had intended to clean the dress anyway, but she was not about to voluntarily disrobe in front of this monster, so she laid down in the stream and let the cold water wash over her. She turned over to completely soak the dress down, then stood and ran her hands over her body inside her dress in an attempt to clean herself. Then she wrung as much water out of the dress as she could.
He led her back to the camp and she sat down on a log near the fire. Thankfully, the fire was warm and the dress reasonably dry by dusk. And of course, since dusk had arrived, he spun her again.
“West-northwest,” he said. “He is on the move. We’ll get up early and follow.”
Chapter 20: Attunhigh
Morgin rode straight to the place on Morddon’s back trail where time had weathered the outcropping of rock. He sat in Mortiss’ saddle and looked at it carefully, knew quite well it took a real flight of imagination to see the head of a great, winged griffin in the jagged angles of a piece of granite. But that mattered not, for he’d memorized that feature all those centuries ago, and even if it didn’t look exactly like the head of a griffin, it was the feature he remembered. He could begin his search knowing he’d at least started on Morddon’s back trail.
It took most of the morning to get to that starting point, and then he spent the afternoon coursing back and forth, always trying to move higher up the side of the mountain in a zigzag pattern, turning frequently to look back down the trail. The other features he’d memorized so long ago weren’t stored in a nice, ordered list in his memory. He never knew what feature he would find next, couldn’t even name the features he sought. He hadn’t known he needed to find an outcropping of rock that looked like the head of a griffin until he happened to look upon it and recognize it. Only then had he remembered it.
At the end of that first day, he’d travelled only a short distance up the mountain, and had yet to spot another feature he recognized. He stopped searching well before dusk, found a good sheltered spot for a campfire, strung his bow, left Mortiss to graze and went out to find something for dinner. He shot a medium sized rabbit, gutted it and skinned it. He built up a small fire, roasted it and ate well. He was happy to find he’d have a little left over for breakfast.
~~~
“My hands hurt,” Rhianne pleaded as her horse quick-stepped up a small embankment. The knots in the rope binding her hands to the saddle horn seemed to tighten whenever her horse jostled her a bit. “The knots are too tight. Please.”
In front of her, Salula reined his horse to a stop, and hers stopped obediently. Salula turned about in the saddle and stared at her without moving for several heartbeats. Then he pulled on the reins of her horse, making it step forward until it stood beside his. He looked down at her hands. Coated with grime and dirt, her fingertips had turned a bluish-white, with no color beneath the nails.
Saying nothing, he reached over and carefully untied the rope. With her hands free she lifted them and opened and closed her fingers, trying to restore the circulation, though when it did return it came in painful spikes and searing flashes. He gave her a few precious moments, then said, “Always keep one hand on the saddle horn.”
Her left hand shot down of its own accord and gripped the horn. Thankfully, he hadn’t ordered her to grip it tightly, for she guessed doing so continuously would become as painful as the rope had been.
“Even if you fall from the horse, you’ll keep one hand on the horn.”
He nudged his horse’s flanks with his spurs, it walked forward, and when the slack in her horse’s reins tightened, it followed. She closed her eyes and tried to nap in the saddle, as she’d heard experienced soldiers could do. But the blade hammered at her senses and refused to allow her a moment’s respite. It must be close, though she couldn’t sense distance, only direction, and even that was little more than a vague sensation, nothing as accurate as when he spun her and Valso’s spell took hold.
At noon, he reined his horse to a stop, dismounted and tied its reins to a bush. Then he said, “You can let go of the horn and dismount.”
The way he’d phrased it released her from the compulsion of holding onto the saddle horn, and allowed her to dismount, but did not compel her to do so. From such little clues she was slowly gleaning the limits of the compulsion spell. She dismounted quickly so he’d have no inkling of his mistake.
&n
bsp; She touched the medallion that had somehow adhered to the center of her forehead, and wished for a mirror of some kind. She felt the outlines of some sort of rune there, and she dearly wanted to try to understand its nature. Patience, she thought. Patience is needed here.
When he said, “Come here,” she crossed the few paces separating them. She wanted to resist, but knew it was fruitless, knew to bide her time and learn more of the limits of the spell.
He gripped her by the shoulders and spun her, and as Valso’s spell engulfed her she lost all sense of time and place. Spinning, spinning, spinning, for her there existed only the blade and its malevolent power, a beacon that called to her, though she knew if ever she truly answered its summons, it would be her undoing.
The spinning had stopped some time ago, though she hadn’t realized it and had just stood there, her eyes closed, overwhelmed by the siren call of such power. She struggled, and with an effort of will opened her eyes. Salula sat on a nearby rock, staring at her with those pale blue eyes.
“Due north again,” he said, standing. He turned and faced north, stepped to the edge of their small camp and stopped near a smile pile of kindling he’d gathered. “He’s zigzagging, searching for something.”
Salula had clearly expected to corner his prey much sooner than this. And had the fellow traveled in a reasonably straight line, or followed some well-defined path, they probably would have. But by now, both she and the halfman knew that if they followed the direction provided, if they travelled due north as indicated, by dusk they’d find he was east or west of them, some direction that would force them to turn once again from a simple, straight line.
“Blast and damnation!” the halfman snarled. He kicked the pile of kindling, scattering it about their camp. Then he turned to Rhianne and said, “We’ll wait a bit before going on, see if he changes direction again. So sit down.”
The compulsion dropped Rhianne to the ground where she plopped awkwardly onto her butt. She said, “Might I at least sit in a more comfortable place?”
Salula considered that for a moment, then nodded toward a nearby boulder and said, “You can sit there.”
That had released her from the compulsion to sit in place, but the way he’d phrased it had not induced her to go sit on that rock. Still, she picked herself up quickly and did so anyway. Let him think his words had bound her to the compulsion of sitting on the rock, while she remained free to do otherwise.
She had no illusions that she’d find an opportunity to take advantage of it, not this time, not here and not now. But there would come a time, perhaps at a critical moment when his life hung in the balance. Yes, there would come a moment, a single instant in time, and then she would act.
~~~
DaNoel waited with his men the prescribed one hundred paces from the Penda-Elhiyne border, in this case a dry-wash that cut deeply through arid fields at the western end of the boundary. The Penda patrol had stopped at the prescribed distance on the other side, and when the Penda lieutenant nudged his horse forward, DaNoel turned to his sergeant and said, “You know what to do.”
The sergeant, an old veteran of many campaigns, nodded and said in a surly tone, “Yes, my lord.” He didn’t approve of DaNoel’s tactics, but DaNoel cared nothing for the man’s opinion, and had made it quite clear he was not to express it. His only concern should be to obey DaNoel’s orders.
DaNoel spurred his horse forward into a walk and crossed the distance to the dry-wash slowly, watching the Penda lieutenant closely for any sign of treachery. He didn’t recognize the man, and thankfully the fellow wasn’t foolish enough to try anything. They each stopped a few paces short of the dry-wash, and DaNoel called out, “I am DaNoel et Elhiyne. And you?”
The fellow frowned, his eyes narrowed and he said, “Lord DaNoel, I am Lewendis et Penda, third son of Cyril who is second cousin to Lord BlakeDown.”
A distant relative of BlakeDown, so distant he was barely one step removed from a commoner. DaNoel didn’t need to recite his pedigree, and he’d be damned if he’d honor Lewendis with the title Lord. “Lewendis,” he said. “I haven’t heard that name before.”
Lewendis almost flinched, and his lips hardened into a straight, angry line. “Until recently I’ve spent most of my time protecting Penda’s northern border.”
“Protecting!” DaNoel said, laughing. “I should hardly think Penda needs protection from those Tosk toadies of BlakeDown’s.”
Lewendis’ spine stiffened. “The Tosks are a valued ally.”
The right moment had come, so DaNoel reached up, lifted his hat and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his forearm, giving the signal he’d told his sergeant to watch for. He didn’t need to look over his shoulder to see the sergeant deploying the archers: the look on Lewendis’ face told him all he needed to know. And behind Lewendis, the Pendas were hastily trying to set up some sort of response.
Lewendis demanded, “What treachery is this?”
With a dozen archers deployed, DaNoel now had the upper hand. It pleased him to see this Penda humbled so. “No treachery, Penda. Merely cautious insurance. You Pendas are known for speaking with a slippery tongue.”
“Will you kill me now?” Lewendis demanded. “Murder me right here?”
“Of course not.”
“Then I’m free to leave?”
“Of course.”
“And receive an arrow in the back.”
DaNoel shook his head. “No, that would be a Penda type of treachery. You’re free to go, and do so alive. And you have five heartbeats before I give the signal for my archers to fire.”
Lewendis’ eyes widened, he wheeled his horse about and spurred it hard, wisely reining it left and right in a zigzag pattern. DaNoel gave him the five heartbeats, then raised his hat and waved it. Laughing at the fool Penda, he looked up and saw twelve arrows arcing overhead. He watched them reach their zenith, then descend among the Penda patrol. None of them struck home, but the Pendas retreated in a chaotic rout.
It was time those arrogant Pendas learned a lesson. DaNoel laughed again, laughed all the way back to his men.
~~~
One by one Morgin had found five memorized points of reference, though he’d had to course far and wide to do so. He’d lost an entire day before realizing that one of the points, an unusual rock pillar, no longer existed. It had long ago tumbled into a pile of large boulders. But as he and Mortiss climbed higher up the side of Attunhigh his options grew fewer, which proved to be to his advantage. Standing on the crest of a ridge with a precipitous drop to either side, he had no choice but to follow the ridge, which led him nicely to the next point of reference; fewer choices, less coursing about, faster progress.
That morning he crossed above what would be the snow-line in winter, though now all that remained were a few patches of white clinging to the shadowed side of a gulley, or to the bottom of a ravine. Tall pines dotted the hillsides, with almost no undergrowth to impede him, and Morddon’s back trail no longer seemed a fragmented sequence of memories, so he now moved with much greater confidence.
~~~
“He’s definitely searching for something, pretty one,” Salula said as they set up camp for the night.
This high up the nights took on a decided chill, so Rhianne huddled in her blanket, snuggled close to the small fire and tried to ignore the halfman’s manic ramblings.
“And I wonder what. What is he trying to find? What is so important to him? He already has the sword. So what else matters that much?”
She had learned that the spell did not compel her to answer his questions, unless he first ordered her specifically to do so.
“My curiosity is up. So I think I’ll let him find what he seeks first . . . then kill him.”
Rhianne could only pity the poor fellow, whoever he might be.
~~~
Tulellcoe and Cort dismounted in the inner bailey of Elhiyne. Avis rushed breathlessly down the steps of the main entrance accompanied by a young squire. “Lord Tulellcoe,” th
e old man said, breathing heavily. “Forgive me. We didn’t know you were coming. Nothing is prepared.”
Tulellcoe put a hand on his shoulder. “Calm down, man. I know I’ve arrived unannounced, so I don’t expect anything to be ready. Are my old rooms still available?”
“Aye, my lord. The Lady Olivia would not allow them to be assigned to anyone else, though they’re a bit musty. We should air them out and change the linens. I’ll have someone on that right away.” He looked at Cort. “And I’ll arrange a room for the Balenda.”
“There’s no need,” Tulellcoe said as the squire took the reins of the two horses. “She’ll be staying with me.”
The young squire glanced sidelong at Cort, but the old man showed not the slightest reaction to such a revelation. Cort, being Cort, neither blushed nor lowered her eyes, but smiled at the young squire. He blushed and lowered his eyes.
Tulellcoe glanced at the sky, gauging the time of day by the height of the sun: a little before midday. “Please see the Balenda to my rooms, and arrange a bit to eat. I assume my aunt is in her private chambers.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Tulellcoe left Cort in Avis’ care and headed for Olivia’s private audience chamber.
“Nephew,” she greeted him, seated among cushions on a comfortable couch. “Welcome back. What has it been, more than a year?”
Today she wore a dark, reddish robe, almost a deep brown the color of dried blood. And her black hair contained more streaks of gray than he remembered.
“A bit more,” he said.
She patted a spot beside her. “Come. Sit beside me.”
Anyone fool enough to take that invitation and sit beside her would find himself intimidated by the nearness of her power, a tiny bit of which she always allowed to leak into the room for just that purpose. He crossed the small room, leaned down and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. “I’ll stand,” he said, placing his hands in the small of his back and stretching. “Been in the saddle for days, and I need to walk the kinks out.”