Without awaiting a reply or cue, Colbey spun the blade and began a kata as beautiful as life. His dance was a whirl of wind and passion, like the transient flicker of a candle flame. The sword skipped through the air. At times, it moved so swiftly it disappeared. When it came into view again, it never reappeared quite where the crowd expected.
Mitrian tossed a fist-sized fruit toward Colbey, and the elder accepted the challenge. As it fell, his blade darted. The sword halved the fruit, revealing its salmon-colored center. Neither half found the ground unmolested. Four even pieces of scarlet-skinned fruit settled in the dusty street.
When Colbey’s last sweep split the air, many men pressed toward the stand to buy their own skill.
Fools who believe any prowess can be bought without pain. Despite his hatred for deception, Colbey knew that the buyers expected merchants to use exaggeration and wild claims to sell their wares. Hawking had become as much entertainment as sales tactics, and assessing the quality of products fell on the patron. Even if there was a magic powerful enough to make warriors of fat dolts, only the Wizard who cast the spell would benefit, for the blades would wield the men.
The smile on the merchant’s face became a priceless memory. His swords were not priceless, though their cost had tripled in the last few moments. His salesmen busied themselves collecting money, and the merchant did not forget his benefactor. He approached Colbey. “Sir, keep the swords. No cost.” A broad grin spread across his face. “I am Kerska.” He bowed.
Colbey returned the smile, not wholly with kindness. Had the swords been less finely crafted or his mood been less benign, he might have met this merchant with violence instead of indulgence. “Colbey Calistinsson. Of the Renshai tribe.”
The merchant’s grin wilted slightly, and he studied Colbey as if trying to guess whether the Northman played him.
The party picked up its Genuine Renshai Swords and continued on its way, leaving Kerska to wonder while he wallowed in his newfound riches.
CHAPTER 23
The Fields of Wrath
The pleasures of the Renshai’s journey westward included the warmth of summer and the green glow it gave the deep forest, full bellies, and more than enough gold to secure provisions in the tiny farm towns they entered. By day, they rode through woodlands, plains, and farm fields. Every evening, they stopped to train and practice before settling for the night.
Colbey enjoyed the seemingly endless cycle of travel and teaching. Since Tannin and Mitrian had bested Valr Kirin in a nameless alley in Porvada, Colbey had seen no sign of Northmen, not even another trap like the one Mitrian had triggered. Though unexplained, the change was welcome.
Still, a day did not pass without one of the group trying to understand Valr Kirin’s motives. “Maybe they gave up and went back to the North,” Mitrian suggested one morning.
It seemed plausible. The Northmen’s xenophobia had not endeared them to the West, and they had to have encountered hostility in the myriad towns scattered throughout the Westlands. Also, the Northmen had crops and families of their own to tend. Surely most had returned to their homes, but Colbey dared not underestimate Valr Kirin or the Nordmirian’s need to slaughter the last Renshai. “Maybe,” Colbey conceded without enthusiasm. “But we can’t afford to relax our guard.”
Tannin piped in. “Maybe they got arrested and jailed in Porvada.”
This time, Colbey only nodded. His intuition told him he would see Kirin again, and the frown on Shadimar’s face only confirmed the certainty. Still, the summer stretched on without sight or sound of Northmen.
* * *
Gradually, the summer became inextricably twined with fall, then surrendered to the autumn gales. Leaves dried and burst into bold colors. Dark, weathered rocks that had earlier borne turtles and salamanders grew cold and barren. Accustomed to the Northland’s perennial cold and ice, Colbey enjoyed watching the parade of seasons, his excitement compounded each day the Western Renshai grew closer. Soon, Colbey knew, the Renshai tribe would exist again. Their ranks would swell by eighteen, and one of them, Tannin’s sister, was with child. Soon, Renshai blood would again flow among the tribe that had originally come from Renshi. He would find himself surrounded by students eager to learn the sword mastery their ancestors and Northern cousins had known. And Colbey would train them until others could take his place.
Autumn had nearly ended when Tannin led his companions to the Fields of Wrath. And Colbey met his people. He met them as mottled corpses with dull eyes. A stronger enemy had come and gone. The Valkyries, too, had come and gone. Wolves, coyotes, and scavenger birds had come, feasted for a time, then they had gone as well. All that remained were rigid, soulless bodies, sword-slashed or riddled with the familiar gold and white crests of Valr Kirin’s Northmen’s arrows.
Colbey went still, feeling his dreams fragment around him, leaving no emotion at all. The pain had become too familiar to hurt. Tannin froze, his eyes as lifeless as those around him. No one, living or dead, spoke or moved for longer than a minute. Then, Tannin drew his sword and thrust the blade at the sky. “Sif!” he screamed.
Colbey cringed at the curses that could fly so easily from Tannin’s tongue to Gladsheim, cringed that Sif might hear them or Tannin might shout them.
“Sif!” Tannin repeated. “I left them in your hands.” Tannin struggled to squeeze the words from his throat. “They died in battle. And I thank you.” After a moment of silence that said so much, he added. “Allow me to thank you again when Kirin lies dead.” Tannin sheathed his sword, but his eyes still pleaded with the heavens. The agony radiating from Tannin nearly suffocated Colbey, and he recognized that same desperate need for action that had driven him when he found the headless corpse in the grove. He thought Tannin might run, without reason or direction, until something large enough to stop him filled his path.
Instead, Tannin joined Mitrian, who searched desperately for some glimmer of life among the bodies she gathered for pyre. Unintentionally, Colbey shared Tannin’s emotions as they collapsed so deeply that their lack felt as tangible as his grief had moments before. Despite the brooding unnaturalness of the feeling, Colbey preferred it. Sapped of strength, Tannin would become more tractable and predictable, more likely to act from logic than emotion, if he could act at all.
Rache and Korgar joined the task, checking and gathering bodies. Shadimar and his wolf perched on a stone the size of Béarn’s throne, watching over the woodlands in all directions. Trusting Shadimar to guard them from Northmen, Colbey helped the others, unable to keep tears from his eyes. Eleven of the fifteen bodies bore only wounds that would not bar them from Valhalla, and Colbey could not help appreciating Valr Kirin’s honor. Apparently, the Northman who had mutilated Episte was not among those who killed the Western Renshai. Or else Kirin had kept the man under control.
Mitrian started the pyre, and Colbey raised his swollen eyes to the flames consuming all that remained of the earthly Western Renshai. “An odd group of lasts we are,” he said softly. “A tribe without tribes: the last Myrcidian, a princess without a kingdom, a freed slave without a history, a lost barbarian, and the last of both Northern and Western Renshai. . . .”
Tannin never lifted his gaze from the pyre. “I’m not the last. I counted the dead. My sister was not among them, nor her husband. There’s a third missing, too. Her name is Vashi.”
A blue mirror of the leaping flames grew in Colbey’s eyes. Escaped? Or captured. He did not know the Western Renshai well enough to speculate. If they’re out in the woods somewhere, we’ll need to find them. “Tannin. Is there a likely place they’d go?”
Hysteria edged Tannin’s voice. “I don’t know. None of them has lived anywhere but here.” His pace quickened, until Colbey could barely make out the words. “Maybe they’re alive? Do you think they’re alive? Are they here? Can we find them?”
Colbey chose to address the last question. “We have little choice but to assume so.” He considered sending Korgar into the forest to search, doubting he
could make the barbarian grasp the mission. Even if he did, how could he make the Western Renshai understand? Colbey knew any other member of the group would make too much noise to do anything more than scare the others away, and if they searched at random they could wander for months without accomplishing anything. We need someone who knows these forests, how to track, and how to move through the woodlands in silence.
A name came instantly to fill the description. Arduwyn. Colbey recalled a time just before the Great War when Episte’s father had hunted Garn and Mitrian, when Colbey had needed to evade the younger Renshai. Colbey had hired Arduwyn to track Rache from one end of the Westlands to the other, to keep Colbey informed of the other’s route, and to keep Rache safe. Arduwyn had done his job admirably. Now, Colbey tried to guess where he might find the archer. He knew that Mitrian and Garn had sent the flame-haired hunter to Béarn, yet he also knew that the Erythanian forests beckoned Arduwyn like a lover. And he would need to pass through Erythane to reach Béarn. “How far is Erythane?”
“A half day’s walk,” Tannin replied. “Why?”
Colbey answered the question, though surely not in the spirit that Tannin had asked it. “Because Rache and I are going there in the morning.”
The youngest Renshai glanced up from the pyre, noticeably startled.
Colbey continued, offering enough information to satisfy them all. “If anyone witnessed this battle, Erythane is a logical place for them to go. It’s the largest nearby city. And there may be someone there who can help us.” He did not explain further, skipping instead to stem protests. “I only need one person with me, and Rache’s at a stage where he can’t afford to miss a training session.” He glanced sidelong at Garn, realizing he would take the child from the ex-gladiator’s lessons.
Either Garn had not yet figured out the implications, or it did not matter. He listened as raptly as the others.
“I want the rest of you to stay here in case the survivors return. If it’s a trick, I want most of us here to fight Northmen.” Colbey finished quickly, trying to make it clear that there would be no discussion. He had made the decision, and it would stand. “Now, it’s time for sword work.” He gestured Mitrian, Rache, and Tannin to him. “Garn, set the camp in the woods. I’m not leaving us out in the open for archer targets.”
Garn began leading horses, and Shadimar came to help him. Colbey gathered his charges and began their practice.
* * *
Rache Garnsson rode at Colbey’s side, proud to have been chosen to accompany his torke, yet intimidated by the honor. Aside from the war and their current journey, Rache had never left Santagithi’s Town since he had arrived as an infant. He had heard stories that Erythane dwarfed even Porvada. Its citizens only used the common trading tongue, which was Rache’s first language, to communicate with foreigners. For his part, Rache knew just a few words of the Western city language.
Colbey and Rache arrived at the border of the city of Erythane in the early evening, an old man and a young one caked with the dust of their journey. A meticulously lettered wooden sign directed travelers to the major landmarks of the city, including several inns. Colbey tapped a finger on the sign, indicating the closest inn, The Knight’s Rest. Rache nodded tacit approval. They headed down the main roadway.
Accustomed to hailing every person on Santagithi’s streets by name, Rache could not comprehend the vastness of Erythane. He followed Colbey along deeply dug, smooth-paved roads with his head bowed. Occasionally, he looked around the closely spaced stone cottages, with their flower boxes and penned pastures, deluding himself that the city stretched only as far as his vision. Dark-haired men and women passed with lowered eyes and grunted replies to Rache’s compulsive greetings.
The Knight’s Rest inn rose like a hill above the neat, Erythanian homes. Outside and in, Rache found it clean to a fault, dustless, sterile, and no more amiable than the citizens on the streets. Four work-hardened men sat at a table near the bar, gulping drinks and speaking little. Three others conversed in low tones at the opposite side of the common room. Colbey took a seat at the bar. Tired from the trip, Rache sat beside his sword master, resting his elbows on the counter and his chin in his hands. While Colbey sought the attention of the barkeep, Rache allowed his thoughts to wander.
“Barmaid!” One of the men at the table behind Rache shouted. “I’d like to buy that child a drink. Bring him milk!” Laughter broke from the men in a strange quartet: two gruff, one sneering, and the last a musical giggle. Rache turned to find the brunt of their joke and discovered that they were looking at him.
Confusion blossomed. They can’t mean me. Rache knew a simple innocence, much like his father’s, that came from inexperience. I was blooded at two. By Renshai law, I’m a man. He fought rising anger and glanced at Colbey for direction. The approval of his mentor meant more to Rache than personal pride, though he understood that his love was dangerous. If not to war, he would lose his teacher to age soon enough. What would Episte have done? Rache considered, remembering the brother who was just enough older to become a hero and a model in his mind. Episte hated war; he might have drunk the milk. Still, Rache could not banish the memory of Episte’s attack at the Midsummer’s Festival. Then again, maybe he would have charged them in a bitter frenzy.
Now that they had gained Rache’s attention, one man addressed the Renshai directly. “Where’s your mama, baby?” A stiff black beard and mustache parted as he spoke, filled with beer foam and crumbs. Flies buzzed around the dirty laborers. One perched on the speaker’s hand and another on the table beside him. “Does she know her little kadlach stole his father’s butter knife?” He used the vulgar term for a disobedient child, indicating Rache’s sword with a gesture.
The others howled their laughter, interspersed with wide-mouthed imitations of crying babies. The gruffer voices issued from a bearded redhead and a scar-faced brunet. The giggles pealed from a stout, clean-shaven Erythanian. All four wore battered scabbards at their hips.
Again, Rache looked for Colbey’s guidance.
Colbey shrugged, tossing the initiative back to Rache.
The darkly bearded man spoke again. “Does your mama know your senile, old grandfather takes her kadlach into bars?”
The slight against Colbey drove Rache over the edge of impropriety. He sprang from his stool, drawing his sword in an instant. The blade swirled once around his own head, gently caressed the speaker’s hair, and bit into the table near his hand. The man hastily withdrew his fingers as Rache’s sword returned to its rest.
The redhead staggered to his feet, hand poised on his hilt, but he did not draw. Apparently, memory of Rache’s swiftness stayed him. Unfamiliar with taverns and towns, Rache could not know that, at a more popular time of the day, The Knight’s Rest would have had a bouncer who would have evicted Rache. The barmaids avoided the conflict, and the bartender stared at the door of the tavern, finding something that held his attention too fully for him to even notice Rache’s confrontation.
Watching all the men around the table at once, Rache pointed at the place where his sword blow had marred the surface. “There was a fly on your table.” Pinching the mangled insect between his thumb and forefinger, he flipped it into the redhead’s mead. Then, with a feigned clumsiness that seemed impossible for a man who had just killed a fly with a sword, he swept the dark-bearded man’s drink into his lap.
The speaker jumped to his feet, sputtering. While his companions sat in shocked silence, wits dulled by alcohol, the bearded man whipped a shortsword from his sheath. He lunged for Rache.
Rache struck fast as a heartbeat, seizing the wrist and twisting. The sword clattered to the floor. Rache’s eyes blazed like emeralds; all humor left them. “Do you really want to do that?” A smile eased onto his face, but it could have rivaled Colbey’s for coldness. “I know I want you to.” His fingers tightened around the wrist. Though his forearm remained the same size, it looked chiseled from stone. The power that was an inheritance from Garn made the decision
for the bearded man. Hurriedly, he sat down.
Satisfied, Rache returned to the bar as Colbey was ordering mead from the lean, middle-aged barkeeper who wore a stained apron. Dark hair sprinkled with sandy highlights and gray fell around his face, and his eyes trained on Colbey and Rache reluctantly. He seemed more interested in the door at the farther end of the tavern. The abstraction had, apparently, kept him oblivious to Rache’s run-in, because he said nothing about it.
“I’ll just have milk,” Rache said loudly. “Those men offered to pay.” He jerked his thumb toward the foursome sitting behind him.
Colbey chuckled softly, and this wordless gesture of approval warmed Rache.
The barkeep dashed off for the drinks, returning shortly with a mug of mead and a tankard of goat’s milk. He set the drinks on the counter, so distracted that he gave the milk to Colbey and the mead to Rache. He opened his mouth to speak, still staring at something near the back of his common room. His eyes went cold, the corners of his lips twitched downward, and his words went unspoken.
Rache looked over his shoulder, flashing a warning glance at the foursome, daring them to comment on the mix-up with the drinks. Beyond them, he saw nothing that should inspire a barkeeper’s wrath. The three men he had noticed on entering still conversed in hushed tones. The only new patron was a man Tannin’s age, dressed in tailored wool and satin, who was flirting with a barmaid no older than Rache.
Colbey took a gold coin from his bulging purse and set it on the bar. The barkeep’s gaze snaked toward the coin and rested on it briefly. But even money did not hold his attention long. He could not seem to keep from staring at the far end of the tavern.
Colbey sighed, dropping subtlety. “I’m used to the attention of men I’m trying to bribe.”
The bartender craned around Rache for a better view. “I’m sorry. That girl is my daughter.” He gestured toward the young barmaid. “That rodent comes in here and puts . . . and does. . . .” He sputtered angrily and incoherently, broke off with an enraged toss of his head, and started again. “He thinks he can paw her because he’s the son of one of the king’s knights.” The barman’s face contorted into a mass of furious wrinkles.
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