by Anthony Ryan
“I am Queen of the Merim Her,” she told him, voice raised so they could all hear. “Called to parley by the Mahlessa herself, granted safe passage and all respect due my rank.”
Davoka appeared at her side, eyes scanning the crowd with considerable anxiety. “This is unwise, Queen,” she murmured to Lyrna in Realm Tongue. “This is not your realm.”
Lyrna ignored her, fixing Mastek with a harsh glare. “The Grey Hawks have spilled blood and lost warriors in my defence, they have honoured the word from the Mountain.” She pointed at the kneeling Alturk. “All at this man’s order. This places me in his debt. Amongst my people an unbalanced debt is the greatest dishonour. If you kill him without a reckoning, you dishonour me, and you dishonour the Mahlessa’s word.”
“I need no words from you, woman,” Alturk grated, head bowed, his large hands gouging into the earth. “Is the well of my shame not deep enough?”
“He is varnish,” Lyrna told Mastek. “Judged as such by his own war-band. His words no longer have meaning for the Lonakhim.”
Mastek slowly lowered his war club, fury still shining in his eyes but the slump of his shoulders told of something more—relief. “What would you have us do?”
“Give him to me,” she said. “I will present him to the Mahlessa. Only she can balance the debt I owe him.”
“And this one?” Mastek pointed his club at Alturk’s son.
Lyrna looked down at the young man, at the hatred in his face. He spat at her, wrestling against his bonds and trying to rise before swiftly being forced back to his knees by the surrounding warriors. “Weak!” he snarled at them. “This Merim Her bitch makes you her dogs!”
Lyrna turned back to Mastek. “I am not in his debt.”
◆ ◆ ◆
He sang his death song as they looped a rope about his already bound hands and lashed it to the saddle of Mastek’s pony. Turning to face the rising sun, Alturk’s doomed son sang a dirge in lilting Lonak, most of the words archaic and unknown to Lyrna but she noted the phrase “vengeance of the gods” repeated several times. He was jerked from his feet in mid-song as Mastek spurred his mount into motion, dragging him away at the gallop, the rest of the band closing in around as they rode hard for the south. Davoka commented she had once seen a man last a whole day being dragged behind a pony. Alturk watched his former clansmen disappear from view and said nothing.
Lyrna felt Sollis’s eyes on her as she went to her pony, checking his hooves for signs of injury and working the worst of the knots from his mane. “Do you have something to say, brother?” she asked.
Sollis’s expression was as unreadable as ever but there was a new tone in his voice, the suppressed anger she usually detected replaced by what might have been respect. “I was just thinking, Highness, that the Lonak may have it right,” he said. “We are riding with a queen after all.” He gave a small bow before going to see to his own mount.
The mountains closed in again as they journeyed north, the peaks broader and higher even than those found around the Skellan Pass, the summits shrouded in perpetual cloud. The tracks they followed became ever more narrow, winding around hill-side and mountain in increasingly treacherous spirals. The first night out from the scene of the Sentar’s defeat they camped on a precipice above a drop Ivern judged at near five hundred feet, a damp blanket of mist descending as night came.
Alturk sat apart from them, still and silent at the edge of the precipice, not troubling to eat or make a fire. Lyrna had begun to approach him but stopped at an emphatic shake of the head from Davoka. Instead she went to sit opposite Kiral. Davoka had positioned the girl beside a smaller fire, as far from their own as was practicable, both legs bound together since there was no soft ground to stake her to. She regarded Lyrna with an incurious glance, reclining against a rock, every inch a bored adolescent.
“Does it hurt?” Lyrna asked her, gesturing at her scar.
Kiral frowned. “I don’t speak your dog tongue, Merim Her bitch.”
Not all gambits work, Lyrna thought with a rueful grimace. “The scar I left you with,” she said. “Does it pain you?”
The girl shrugged. “Pain is a warrior’s lot.”
Lyrna glanced at Davoka, seeing the wariness in her eyes as she watched their conversation. “My friend thinks you are no longer her sister,” she said. “She thinks her sister has been claimed by you, that what lives behind your eyes is no longer the girl she cared for.”
“My sister is blind in her devotion to the false Mahlessa. She sees lies where she should see truth.” Lyrna could see no particular emotion in the girl’s face, finding her tone flat, like a child reciting one of the catechisms of the Faith.
“And what is this truth?” she asked.
“The false Mahlessa seeks to slay the spirit of the Lonakhim, to turn the sight of the gods from us, to leave us with no stories for our fires or our death songs. Peace with you, then peace even with the Seordah. What will that make us? Will we grub in the earth as you do? Make slaves of our women as you do? Labour in service to the dead, as you do?” Again the same flat tone, fanatical invective delivered without a hint of passion.
Lyrna nodded at the hulking form of Alturk, dim and forlorn in the mist. “Do you know why I saved him?”
“Merim Her are weak. Your heart is soft, you imagine a debt where there is none. He followed the false Mahlessa’s word, you owe him nothing.”
Lyrna shook her head, eyes searching the girl’s face. “No, I saved him because I saw that you wanted him dead. Why is that?”
Nothing, not even a flicker of concern or a sign of deceit when she replied, “He has ever been the Sentar’s persecutor. Why would I not wish him dead?”
There’s no evidence here, Lyrna decided. The girl was strange indeed, quite possibly insane, but that was hardly proof of Davoka’s conviction. She got up to return to her place by the main fire.
“I heard a strange thing about Merim Her women,” Kiral said as she rose.
“And what is that?”
For the first time there was some animation in the girl’s face, a malicious curl to her lips. “Custom forbids them a man until they are joined. And after that they are only allowed their one husband. Is that true?”
Lyrna gave a small nod.
“But you, Queen, are not joined.” Her gaze ranged over Lyrna, it was not the gaze of any adolescent girl, Lonak or no. “You’ve never known a man.”
Lyrna said nothing, watching the girl’s features as she laughed, soft mocking rasps. “I’ll make you a bargain, Queen,” she said. “I’ll answer any question you have with an honest tongue, and all I ask is a taste of that unsullied peach between your legs.”
Is this it? Lyrna wondered. Is this finally my evidence? “What are you?” she asked.
The girl’s laughter subsided after a moment and she lay back against the rock with the same bored expression as before. “I am Kiral of the Black River Clan and true Mahlessa to the Lonakhim.” She looked away, staring into the fire, still and indifferent, her face blank of all expression.
Lyrna returned to the larger fire, sitting down at Davoka’s side. The Lonak woman seemed reluctant to meet her gaze. “I can’t kill her, Lerhnah,” she said after a moment, a note of apology in her tone.
Lyrna patted her hand and settled down to sleep. “I know.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Two more days brought them within sight of the Mountain, the home of the Mahlessa. It rose from the floor of a small valley nestling between two of the tallest mountains, a circular spike of stone, curving up from a wide base to a needle-sharp point at least three hundred feet in the air. It seemed to shimmer in the sunlight, but as they drew nearer Lyrna saw it was honeycombed from base to top with balconies and windows, all hewn out of the rock. From the weathering of the surface she judged this a truly ancient structure, the architecture so unfamiliar as to appear alien, like somethin
g from a distant land never visited by modern eyes.
“The Lonakhim built this?” she asked Davoka.
She shook her head. “It was waiting for us at the end of the great travail. Proof that the gods had not turned their sight from the Lonakhim. For who else could craft such a gift?”
They entered via a tunnel, the walls ascending to meet overhead in an elegant arch of stone. There were no guards at the mouth of the tunnel and they proceeded unchallenged into the Mountain’s interior. After a hundred paces the tunnel opened out into a broad courtyard, ringed by balconied walkways bathed in sunlight shafting through the many circular windows. A number of women were waiting there, some armed and wearing similar garb to Davoka, others dressed more simply in robes of black or grey. Their age ranged from young to old and none seemed perturbed by their appearance, although the sight of Kiral provoked some hard stares from the women bearing arms.
“I see you had an interesting journey,” a short, blunt-faced warrior said, coming forward to take the reins of Davoka’s pony. “I trust you have a story for the fire.”
“More than one.” Davoka dismounted, favouring the blunt-faced woman with a warm grin. “We need rooms, Nestal.”
“Ready and waiting.” Nestal’s gaze roamed their company, settling on Lyrna. “Queen,” she said, with an incline of her head. “The Mahlessa asked that you be brought to her as soon as you arrived.” She turned to Kiral, her expression hardening. “Together with this one.”
Lyrna had expected the Mahlessa to make her home on one of the Mountain’s upper floors but Davoka led her to a stairwell in the centre of the chamber, the spiral course descending into shadow.
“No!” she barked when Smolen and the two brothers attempted to follow. “Stay here. Men do not look upon her.”
Smolen seemed about to protest but Lyrna held up a hand. “I doubt your sword would aid me here, Lord Marshal. Wait for me.”
He bowed and stepped back, standing stiffly at attention, every inch the loyal guards officer, albeit one without armour or any vestige of his former finery save his sword and the boots he had contrived to retain, and even they had lost their previous mirrorlike sheen. For the first time in days it occurred to her that her own appearance was hardly more edifying. No more ermine robes or finely tailored riding gowns, just sturdy leather garb and hardy boots, scuffed and dusted from the trail. But for her hair she might well have been taken for Lonak.
“Please, sister!”
She looked round to see Kiral resisting Davoka’s tug on her leash. Her once-passive features now so riven with fear it almost seemed she wore a mask. “Please,” she begged in a terrorised rasp. “Please if you ever thought me your sister, kill me! Do not take me to her!”
She continued to beg and struggle as Davoka took hold of her and forced her to walk down the stairwell, her pleas becoming plaintive shrieks as they descended into the shadows. No fear of death, Lyrna thought. What awaits her below is worse.
She smoothed her hands over her dusty, trail-marked clothing and followed them down.
CHAPTER THREE
Reva
She ran, until her lungs burned and her legs ached, she ran. Away from the road, away from him, away from the lies, through the long grass and into the trees. She ran until exhaustion sent her sprawling in a painful tangle of sword and cloak. Scrambling to her feet, she cast about for landmarks, chest heaving from exertion and panic. He’ll come after me, hunt me down, make me listen to more lies . . .
She began to run again, tripping almost immediately as her fatigued foot found a tree root. She fell to her arms and knees, sobbing in hard, aching jerks, her mind racing. If he did exist, his bishops say he hates you for what you are . . . You were sent in search of a thing that can’t be found in the hope that I would kill you . . . A fresh martyr . . .
“LIES!” Her voice resounded through the trees, wild and feral. The trees, however, had no answer save for the creak of wind-stirred branches.
She sat back on her haunches, face raised to the sky, mouth wide as she drank the air. She knew now Al Sorna wasn’t coming in pursuit, his skills were such that finding her would have been a simple matter, but here she sat, alone. She remembered the edge of despair in his voice as he called after her, a note of defeat . . . I now deny my song though it screams at me to let you go.
Follow your song, Darkblade, she thought. I’ll make my own.
She ran a shaking hand through her too-long hair, her sluttish, Asraelin hair. Filthy, Fatherless sinner . . .
The priest! The priest will have answers to these lies. She would return to him and he would speak the truth and the World Father would once again bless her with his love, prove she was not hated, prove the sin had been beaten from her, prove she was worthy of His holy mission . . . Worthy to carry her father’s sword.
The sword. The prospect of returning to the priest without it, demanding he answer the Darkblade’s lies no less, was absurd. But if she had the sword, his face would reveal all the truth she needed. The sword was the truth.
She opened her eyes to the stars, picking out the Stag. The fore-hoof, she knew, pointed almost directly due south, towards Cumbrael, the Greypeaks . . . and the High Keep. Perhaps it was still there, lying unclaimed in a shadowed corner of the Lord’s chamber, waiting for her. If not, then she had little chance of finding it elsewhere.
The thought came to her as she started to rise, a swift treacherous whisper in her mind. Go back. They will welcome you.
“With lies!” she hissed back.
With love. When did the priest ever show you that?
“I care nothing for his love, or theirs. The love of the Father is the only love I need.”
She got to her feet, brushing loose soil from her clothes, and began to walk towards the south.
◆ ◆ ◆
The bow was fashioned from wych elm and pale cream in colour, the centre of the stave smooth and shiny with use, the wood on either side ornately carved, one side showing a stag the other a wolf. It was different to the ash bow Al Sorna had made for her, abandoned the day she ran from him, longer and somewhat thicker, no doubt making for greater power and range.
The bow’s owner lay on a blanket of grass in the lee of an aged tree stump, several miles from the nearest road. His eyes were closed in an apparently blissful slumber, his mostly white beard stained red and an empty earthenware wine jug in his lap. At his side a bored-looking sheep-hound, all shaggy fur and dolorous eyes, gazed up at Reva with a complete absence of alarm, only angling its head in a curious manner as she crept closer to gently lift the bow from the drunkard’s arms. The quiver of arrows was too firmly wedged beneath his back so she left it. Arrows were more easily made than bows.
She had gone about twenty paces when she stopped, eyeing the carving on the stave and finding it even more fine than she first thought. On the upper side the stag stood with its antlers lowered in readiness for combat whilst below it the wolf crouched, teeth bared in a snarl. The craftsmanship was remarkable, the carvings finished to a level that told her this was an item of considerable worth.
The sword is all, the priest had said. The Father will forgive all sins committed in pursuit of the sword.
Reva sighed, retraced her steps, placed the bow back in the drunkard’s arms and sat down to wait for him to wake. After a while the sheep-hound came over, sniffing and whining for scraps of the rabbit she had snared the day before. The old man woke with a start at the dog’s appreciative bark as she fed him a morsel.
“What!” He clutched at his bow, fumbling for an arrow. “Whaddya want, ya whore ya!”
Reva watched him fail to pull an arrow from the quiver, abandon the attempt and reach instead for the small knife in his boot, wild eyes becoming still and rapt at the sight of the single gold piece she held up.
“That’s a nice bow,” she said.
◆ ◆ ◆
Th
e arrow smacked into the tree trunk with a sharp thwack, buried in the wood up to at least a handspan of its length. It was a practice arrow, just a sharpened yard of wind-fallen ash with no head or fletching, and yet she had found her mark from a distance of twenty paces.
The old man had named himself a shepherd although there was no sign of a flock for miles around. He claimed the bow was a souvenir from a forgotten campaign against the Cumbraelins, when he was but a lad and the lord’s men came to take him for a soldier, though his poor mother wept. Reva thought the tale unlikely. The bow was a fine weapon but it was not Cumbraelin in design. She assumed the shepherd had either stolen it or won it at gaming. In any case he had been too eager to be off with his new-found wealth to provide a fuller explanation of the bow’s origins, striding his unsteady way across the sheepless meadow, wine jug in hand and his sad-eyed dog trailing after.
She had been travelling for two weeks now, keeping off the roads and sheltering in woodland at night, hunting where opportunity rose, suppressing her hunger and always following the Stag’s hoof south. There were few people about, the drunken shepherd the first she had seen for several days. This far from the roads there was little chance of encountering either traveller or outlaw, although she kept a wary eye out for the latter.
That evening the bow reaped a moor hen, plucked, spitted, cooked and eaten before the sun fell. She knew her time with Al Sorna had weakened her, the weeks of sleeping on a full belly leaving her too much in thrall to her hunger. Every night she offered thanks to the Father for delivering her from the Darkblade’s lies and begged His forgiveness for her sinful indulgence.
After eating she drew her knife, taking hold of a length of her ever-growing hair and making ready to cut. It had become a nightly ritual, her determined purpose waning as she touched the blade to the sluttish curls, never actually cutting. She told herself she needed to maintain the disguise. Asraelin women don’t wear their hair so short . . . And she had yet to cross into Cumbrael. It had nothing to do with vanity, or the many times Alornis had said how she liked the way it caught the sun.