by Tanya Huff
“Don’t tell me he’s lost another one,” Gyhard muttered, reining in.
Vree glared at him, but Karlene paled at the thought of a third discarded corpse. Unable to banish a vision of Otavas lying rotting on the road, she struggled to make sense of what the kigh were trying to tell her. When she finally understood, anger obliterated the horror.
She Sang a piercing gratitude and, breathing heavily, threw herself up into the saddle. “Your Kars has done it again,” she snarled.
A muscle jumped in Gyhard’s temple. “And what has my Kars done?”
“Sang the kigh back into the dead. He did it there …” Karlene jerked her head toward a small fishing village, half-screened by giant cottonwoods, squatting between the road and the river. “Night before last.”
“We should have expected it.” Gyhard shrugged. “He had to replace the two bodies he lost.”
The bay shied sideways, reacting to its rider, whites showing all around its eyes. Karlene was so furious, she could hardly speak. “Sure. Should’ve expected it. Except he didn’t rob a grave this time. These two weren’t dead. First he killed them. Then he Sang the kigh back into the bodies.” Her knuckles were white around the reins. “No more stopping. No more sleeping until he’s stopped.” She slammed her heels into the horse’s ribs, and the startled animal leaped forward, the bard bent low over his flying mane, her braid a pale pennant.
“She thinks she’s in a ballad,” Gyhard snarled, holding his gelding back.
Vree fought to keep her seat as her own horse danced in place, anxious to race after its companion. “She’s angry at herself because the prince was killed like these two were and she hasn’t rescued him yet.”
“Ah, and you can recognize that; you’re angry at yourself because I’m still in your brother’s body?”
Vree smiled tightly at him. “I wasn’t until you brought it up.” She gave the gelding its head and it pounded off down the road.
As the two of them drew away, Gyhard spent a few pensive moments remembering all the years, all the lives, when he’d managed to remain in complete control.
* * * *
Horse and rider motionless in the dappled shade of a cottonwood, Neegan watched as Vree and the bard galloped off and left Bannon on his own. He moved between one heartbeat and the next, guiding his horse up onto the road, eyes locked on the young man sitting, shaking his head, oblivious to the danger.
In spite of everything he’d seen, Neegan was taking no chances. Bannon had received the same training he had and was younger, stronger, and faster. But Neegan had years of experience Bannon never would, and he could anticipate every defense his target might make.
He put his heels to his horse and, as the animal lunged forward, drew his feet up under his buttocks, then launched himself through the air. Bannon turned, eyes wide, and, to Neegan’s complete astonishment, made no defense at all. The force of the older assassin’s attack flung both men out of the saddle. Totally unprepared to be holding an unresisting body, Neegan slammed into the ground. Bannon slammed down on top of him. Caught between the double impact, air exploded out of his lungs. Gasping for breath, he tried to twist out from under the frightened gelding’s flailing hooves, but the weight across his chest held him in place.
Time slowed as the hoof descended.
Time stopped.
* * * *
Still clutching the end of one rein, Gyhard swore as a hoof pounded into the meaty part of his shoulder then, as another parted the world a hairbreadth from his nose, he managed to scramble clear. On his hands and knees, desperately sucking in air, he realized his attacker hadn’t been so lucky.
Blood poured from a half circle where the skin had been ripped from the man’s forehead and bone showed through the red.
“Got your head stomped in,” Gyhard panted, staggering to his feet and trying to calm his frightened horse. “All things being enclosed, better you than me.”
And then he noticed the black sunbursts.
“Assassins who desert become targets.” Standing over Avor’s corpse, Vree had made the point very clear.
“Oh, shit.”
It was all he could think of to say.
He couldn’t see either of his companions although he thought he could hear hoofbeats growing fainter in the distance. Ignoring the shakiness in his legs, and the pain in his shoulder, Gyhard pulled himself up into the saddle and looked down at the assassin. “All at once,” he said thoughtfully, “I’m discovering a distinct desire to get out of this body.”
* * * *
Pushed tight into a front corner, his hands gripping the top board of the cart, Otavas watched the summer storm approach, a line in the dust of the road marking the leading edge of rain. It moved with such deliberation that after he saw it hit the two running between the shafts, he had time to brace himself before it closed over him. Lifting his face to the deluge, eyes squinted nearly shut, he welcomed the force of its cleansing.
He flinched away as the old man pawed at his arm, the ancient voice lost in the drumming of the rain. “Don’t touch me!” he screamed. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t be heard because the old man never listened.
The touching and pulling continued, but after that single protest he ignored it. Over the last few days he’d become very good at ignoring things he could do nothing about. Dead things for the most part.
A warm channel of salt water cut a path through the liquid sheeting down both cheeks and ran into the corners of his mouth. Invisible tears. Safe tears. Pain that couldn’t be used against him. He wept silently, swallowing the urge to keen and wail lest the old man force him into sleep and nightmare again. He wept until he was exhausted, wrapped in the arms of the storm.
* * * *
“The dead feel no hunger, no thirst, no pain but can fight and die and joyously rise to fight again in Jiir’s army …”
Neegan had heard the priests of Jiir proclaim those words over a hundred graves. He clung to the memory, used it to push himself up out of darkness—pain pounded with red hot hammers on his skull, so he wasn’t dead. A drop of water splashed on his hand, and he used it to anchor himself to the real world.
Only his right eye opened.
His left cheek pressed against the ground, he could see the yellow-gray clay of the road, damp pockmarks multiplying in the surface dust; beyond the road a fringe of grass and weeds thrashed in the wind; above, a wedge of gray-green sky.
He could hear only the wind and the approaching storm—no birds, no insects, no enemies.
He could smell only blood.
Although he sensed no danger, he was lying wounded and exposed and that was danger enough. The single drops of rain merged into a solid sheet of water. In the distance, behind him, he thought he heard someone yell.
A moment later, the roaring pain in his head louder by far than the storm, Neegan lay in the long grass, spewing bile. Finally, stomach empty, he crawled toward a half-remembered tree, pride keeping him moving when he’d rather have just laid down and drowned in the mud. He lost track of time, lost track of everything except breathing and moving forward under the constant punishment of pounding rain.
Then the multitude of tiny blows falling on his head and shoulders eased. He crawled a little farther and flopped over on his back, staring up with his one good eye at the dense canopy above him. Although gusts of wind swept walls of water through his fragile shelter, the leaves were thick enough to halve the power of the storm.
His shoulders against the trunk, Neegan inched his way up into a sitting position, his head balanced with as much care as he’d ever used to balance a dagger. Questing fingers touched bone, then pushed the flap of skin back into place. He lived only because the hoof had stuck the thickest point of the skull a glancing blow. Carefully, he scraped away the dried blood sealing his left eye closed and, more carefully still, opened the eye.
There were a pair of narrow wheel ruts under the tree, signs of four, maybe five people, and blood that wasn’t his. No threat, no dan
ger. He could barely see the road—the trees and the village and river on the far side were lost behind a curtain of water. The voice he’d heard, or thought he’d heard, had probably been a protest from the village.
With the sun buried behind the storm, it was impossible to tell how long he’d been lying on the road, how long it had taken him to crawl to the tree, how long since Bannon had ridden away and left him for dead.
Bannon had made an assumption an assassin would never make.
“Yet another … question.” He licked rain from his lips and swallowed.
Somehow he managed not to slice off a finger as he cut a strip of wet cloth from the bottom of his tunic. The moment he had the strength to raise his arms, he’d bind the flap of skin in place. The moment after that, he’d aim himself at his targets again.
For now, he sat, the pain in his head beating in time with his heart, and wondered why, when all logic suggested he should be lying on the road with his throat slit, he was still alive.
* * * *
Squinting through the rain, he anxiously watched the backs of his newest children as they strained to move the cart and its two living passengers. The narrow wheels cut deep ruts in the road. The wet clay clung to the wood, adding to the weight, digging the cart in deeper.
Slower … Slower.…
He’d sent Kait and Wheyra to push from behind when the road first began to suck at the wheels, hoping that it would be enough to keep them moving toward home.
The cart lurched one final handbreadth forward and stopped.
Reaching out with his staff, he touched Iban on the shoulder. The dead man froze in place. Hestia continued to drag her feet up out of the mud, one after the other, until he touched her as well.
The tailgate had swollen in the rain, so after Kait and Wheyra had clambered down, he’d had them slide it inside the cart rather than replace it. With a longing look at the silent figure standing, head bowed, beside him, he walked carefully back to the open end and squatted. His two older children continued to push against the grip of the mud. They’d work themselves to pieces for him, but he wouldn’t allow that sacrifice again. Fingers trembling, he lightly caressed the two new bones hanging on the silk cord around his neck, finding them easily by touch alone for a desiccated band of flesh ringed them both.
“Enough,” he said at last, shaking loose from grief and pitching his voice to carry over the wind and rain. “We can’t go on.”
* * * *
Lost in the storm, Otavas remained unaware the cart had stopped until the old man grabbed his arm and pulled him around. He flinched back, but the clawlike fingers held.
“We must stay here for a while.” The old man’s voice cut through the noise of wind and rain. “Please, my heart, you must sit.”
The prince stared out over the front end. Although it had to be around mid-afternoon, the rain was so heavy he could just barely see the shafts. No one held them. Frowning, he pushed a lock of dripping hair back off his face.
“We pushed the braces into the mud.” The old man nodded and leaned closer. “There is no other shelter, we must stay in the cart.”
Moving away from the hand shoving down on his shoulder, Otavas found himself seated between the corner and the rolled bulk of the pallet. Spaces between the floor planks had allowed the cart to drain and the close quarters stopped most of the wind—but shelter? The prince swallowed a sob and rubbed at his cheeks with his palm. To his surprise, after the old man lowered himself into the other corner, Kait and Wheyra lifted the tailgate and laid it across the front half of the cart.
The rain stopped pounding on his head and shoulders.
“A roof.” The prince watched as the two dead women sat just outside the overhang and the two murdered fisherfolk sat just beyond them. “But you’re still getting wet …”
“We are … dead, High … nesss.” He thought it was Kait who spoke, but the downpour made it difficult to tell for certain. “It doesssn’t … matter.”
Otavas shivered.
“Are you cold, my heart?”
“Stop calling me that.” But his protest had lost its force, and he didn’t move away when the old man pulled the mostly dry blanket from the center of the pallet and draped it around him.
“Do you remember how we used to sit, wrapped together, by the fire? You always loved to watch the flames …”
“We didn’t sit together. I didn’t love to watch the flames,” Otavas broke in wearily. “I’m not who you think I am.” He waved a hand at the four silent figures sitting in the rain. “They know who I am! Why can’t you get it through your thick head that I’m the youngest son of the Emperor, who won’t rest until he finds me. He’ll order all seven armies out. They’ll tear the Empire apart. They’re out there now, looking for me. They’ll find me. They will.” It had become his catechism against the darkness.
The old man smiled and handed him a boiled potato from the nearby empty oilskin bag. “I always said you had the most beautiful eyes.”
* * * *
It had never been much of a building—ruined it was even less of one—but as far as Vree could tell, the stone walls were solid and enough of a roof remained for them to sleep, if not dry, then no worse than damp. Tying the reins to the overgrown thornbush by the black-on-black rectangle that defined the door, she left the exhausted gelding and made her way back to the road.
Grabbing Gyhard and Karlene each by an arm, she dragged them close and shouted, “I found shelter! We’re stopping here!”
“No!” Karlene tried to pull away but Vree tightened her grip. “We have to keep going. We can’t waste this chance to catch up. Kars couldn’t possibly move a cart through this.”
“Look, we only know he’s more than a day ahead of us, but we don’t know how much more—it might not even be raining where he is!”
“The kigh say it’s raining down the whole river valley!”
Vree rolled her eyes and threw up her hands in surrender. “I don’t give a shit if it’s raining all over the whole slaughtering Empire! If you want to keep going, you’re going without me!”
“And me!” Shielding his face with his arm, Gyhard pulled his unwilling gelding forward. “Where is it?”
“There, just a little ways off the road.” Vree half turned and pointed into the night.
“I can’t see anything …”
“Neither can I. Bannon spotted it.” She trailed her fingertips over the wet horse as it passed, the mud sucking at its hooves like a living, hungry thing. Wishing she hadn’t thought of that, she shifted her weight from foot to foot and watched Karlene take a step up the road, wet reins Stretching, the bay staying right where he was. “What are you trying to do, kill yourself?” she yelled, catching hold of the bard’s sleeve.
“I’m trying to save the prince!” Karlene yanked the sodden fabric free, dragged her right foot out of the mud, lost her balance, and fell to her knees.
“Well, you’re going to do him piss all amount of good if you end up crawling to the rescue!”
The bard put down a hand to push herself back onto her feet. It sank up to her wrist. Breathing heavily, she squinted up at Vree. “You could be right.”
* * * *
*It’ll never burn.*
*She seems to think it will.* Vree squatted and stared at the pile of wood she and Karlene had gathered while Gyhard hobbled the horses. She could tell by the feel of it that the stuff they’d picked up in the ruin was punky and at least half of what they’d found outside had to be green. Most of it was wet.
*Yeah, well, she also thinks that you and I had our lives stolen away by the army.*
*She’s never said that.*
*She hasn’t had to. You can hear it in her voice, see it in her face every time she asks us a question.*
Frowning, Vree squeezed streams of water out of her hair and tried to remember every conversation she’d had with the bard. *I never noticed …*
She felt Bannon sigh and shake her head slowly from side to side. *You wo
uldn’t, sister-mine.*
Before she could ask what he meant, the shadow that was Karlene bent over the wood and Sang four piercingly high notes.
Vree threw up an arm to protect her eyes from the sudden light. “How did you do that?” she demanded, blinking at the flames.
“Fire kigh,” Karlene sighed and sat down in what looked like a barely controlled collapse. “I can’t remember ever being so tired.”
“And yet you were going to walk all night.” A dribble of water made its way through the rotten thatch up above and splashed against the back of Vree’s neck. She hurriedly moved to a drier spot.
*Vree …*
*I hear it.*
Her left hand cautioning the bard to silence, a dagger appeared in her right. Head cocked, eyes closed, she tracked the rustling path of something moving under the debris at the base of the wall.
*Just a little …*
*Now!*
Steel clanged against stone, and a humpbacked shape scurried to safety through a triangular crack.
“Terrific,” Karlene sighed, pulling the package of food closer to the fire. “Rats. First rain, now rats. What else can go wrong.”
“The horses have fallen into a sinkhole out back. I don’t think we can get them out.”
“What!” Karlene had heaved herself halfway to her feet when Gyhard moved into the firelight and she saw the look on his face. “That’s not funny!”
“It was for a moment.” He turned to Vree, and the grin disappeared. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head and crossed to where her dagger lay almost hidden in the shadows. When she picked it up, it felt as though it no longer belonged in her hand.
“Vree?”
“We missed.” The weapon lay cold and unforgiving across her palm. She looked from it to Gyhard; to a familiar face. “We never miss.”
*Never miss …* Bannon echoed. Or perhaps he’d spoken aloud, and she’d been the one who’d merely thought it.
“Everyone misses once in a while,” Gyhard said softly. “It doesn’t make you less then you were.”
“No. More.” She tried to hide the fear in a bitter laugh. “We react as one. We throw as two.” Dropping her gaze, she sheathed the blade. “What happens if we’re attacked?”