Crusade

by Daniel M Ford

“I think Urdaran’s monks like to make themselves sound like more than what they are,” Rede answered. “Goddess knows I did. But I think they see more than I do in these dreams.”

  “And why do you want to offer your ‘gift’ to me?”

  “I don’t,” Rede answered. “I want to offer it in the service of the Goddess. If that means serving you, I’ll do it.”

  “And I am to believe your repentance is real?”

  “I can’t make you believe anything.”

  “What else have you seen, then?”

  Rede shook his head. “I’m not sure. Men whose very flesh churns with the sights of battle. Claws sprouting from their hands. Flame and war in their wake. All of them coming for you.”

  Allystaire removed his hand from around Rede’s neck. “And what will you do if I refuse your offer? If I banish you from Thornhurst?”

  “You won’t do either of those things,” the man said, the unnerving calm of his voice clashing with the wide wildness in his eyes, huge dark pools in his face, the whites standing out starkly. “You won’t banish me because the Voice won’t allow it. And you won’t refuse my offer because, Allystaire Stillbright, you need to prepare for a war, and you know you can’t turn down the advantage of my visions, muddled and hard to understand though they might be.”

  “Do not presume to tell me what I will or will not do,” Allystaire said, anger rising in him and clawing against the growing certainty that Rede was right.

  “If you tell me to leave, I’ll go to the Wit and tell him. And you know the dwarf will not turn me away. If you can’t be practical, he can.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you. I want to serve the Goddess. She gave me back my eyes and saved my life, and then I used it to do horrible things in Her name. I was badly led by the priests of Braech, true, and their hired men.”

  “There will be no preaching for you, Rede. No rousing the crowds. No forming bands of supporters behind you. If I allow you to stay, it is at my discretion, and you report to me, Torvul, or Idgen Marte. You will still do any work that is asked of you.”

  “Folk haven’t been any too willing to ask,” Rede said.

  “How often do the visions come upon you?”

  “When I sleep. The Shadow’s Mercy is no longer upon me, so now it is every night.”

  “What? How?”

  “When next you see me in this life, for good or for ill the Mother will retract this mercy,” Rede quoted. “Those were her words when she cursed me with it. She was bound to them.”

  Allystaire let the words hang in the air for a moment along the steam of their breath. “Then the Shadow’s Mercy kept the dreams at bay?”

  “On the days that I fulfilled the conditions of it, yes.”

  “And yet I am told you have been helping where and when you were allowed since you arrived. I will admit, Rede, I thought you were doing that because of the curse.”

  “The conditions the Shadow set no longer have any bearing on how I sleep.”

  “If I worked with Torvul and Gideon, I believe the three of us could remove it entirely. Give you back your own mind, your own dreams.”

  “No!” Rede shook his head insistently, lifted his hands in protest. “No. Then I would have nothing to offer Her.”

  “You would have the same as any person in this village. You would have your hands, your spirit, your willingness to work.”

  “Even with an Inward Eye that sees all in fragments and shadows, I am more use to Her and to you than a strong back. And you know it.”

  “You put more value on yourself than I ever will, Rede.”

  “Allystaire! Have you not listened to me? You are in danger.”

  “From whom? Where?”

  Rede’s arms and shoulders shook as if he could barely keep the answer contained, finally groaned, “Everywhere,” through clenched teeth. Allystaire felt flecks of spittle flown from Rede’s mouth land against his cheek, wiped them away in disgust. “I can’t…the fire, the death, it is all over. So many places. And yet it is all for you.”

  “You are babbling, Rede. Do I have enemies in the world? Of course. If that is the best you can tell me, then begone. Go to Torvul if he will have you.”

  “I only want to help!” Rede shouted, but by then Allystaire was walking away from him. “You need what I can tell you.”

  “You are telling me nothing more than any fair-day charlatan with a globe of glass and a pack of painted tiles,” Allystaire said. “I do not listen to them and I shall not to you.”

  Behind him he heard a choked, sobbing sound, a thump as Rede fell to the ground, clubbed at it with a fist, then a rush of noise as the man ran off.

  Torvul? Allystaire thought.

  Inside enjoyin’ a smoke and a jot of ikthaumanavit. And I heard all of it.

  Allystaire pushed open the door. Mol, Timmar, and Cerisia were busy clearing the table, while Andus Carek had appeared in the taproom and was idly tuning his lute on his stool near the hearth. He seemed far too quiet and too observant for Allystaire’s taste, and he offered the bard a frown.

  Andus Carek only smiled broadly back.

  Torvul was seated right close to the hearth, doing precisely as he said, a silver-fitted pipe clenched in his jaws.

  Allystaire took the seat opposite him. “How did you hear?”

  Torvul tapped the sleeve of his robe with a thumb, the nail knocking against something concealed inside it. “I took the liberty once I saw him follow you out.”

  “Will you watch him? See if sense is to be made of his ramblings?”

  Torvul thought on it as he puffed at his pipe, then sent a series of perfect smoke rings upwards, uncurling as they reached the ceiling. “Ya know what he says is true, since you used your gift upon him.”

  “You could not possibly have heard that,” Allystaire replied.

  “No, but I know you, and I know you’d not take a single word from him without making damn sure it was the truth.” Another mouthful of smoke, this time allowed to drift out in a cloud. “You should’ve killed him, but if he’s alive and willing to help, how can we turn him away?”“I think he believes he is having visions, Torvul. Flame and war? Men whose skin writhes with battle and who have claws on their hands? It is babble. Too little to make any sense of.”

  Andus Carek suddenly let off his lute playing. “Forgive me for intruding,” he began, his richly accented voice mild. “Sir Stillbright, have you ever seen the Dragon Scale Berzerkers?”

  “Big hairy bastards in fur and badly made armor swinging dull iron,” Allystaire said. “No different from your average Islandman except in their devotion to Braech.”

  “Ah,” Andus Carek said, shaking his head and raising one hand, palm out. “Ah, no. No, Sir Stillbright. You have not seen a true Dragon Scale Berzerker. Not every Islandman warrior who swears himself to Braech and mans a boat to raid in the Sea Dragon’s honor is one of them. The Dragon Scales wear no armor but upon their hands. And they mark their flesh with scenes of battle, to honor what they have done and how they hope to die.”

  Allystaire and Torvul turned their eyes from the bard to each other’s, Torvul’s pipe drooping in his mouth until he reached up and took the bowl carefully in his fingertips.

  In unison, they stood up and raced out the door, Torvul close upon Allystaire’s heels. When Allystaire shoved open the door the dwarf suddenly turned back and ran for the small bottle sitting by his chair, made it vanish up his sleeve, and then double-timed back.

  CHAPTER 22

  A Little Faith

  Turns later, with Torvul’s unguents granting them sight in the darkness and sharper hearing, Allystaire and Torvul had combed the entire village and much of the remaining wood beyond, only to find no trace of Rede.

  “We’re no woodsmen.” Torvul puffed as they leaned against the trunk of a tree. “He’ll turn back up
, I’m sure of it, but we’ll do no more good stumbling about and scaring the local critters out o’their winter sleep.”

  Allystaire felt his skin growing clammy as his sweat-soaked shirt pressed against it and pulled the cold air to him. “I may have erred badly, Torvul. If he was truly having visions we need to learn as much as we can of them. I let my dislike of the man endanger us.” He stroked the head of his new hammer, already a familiar weight at his side, his thumb tracing the sunburst.

  “He’ll not go far. He thinks he’s bound to us.”

  “Mayhap he is not wrong about that,” Allystaire ventured.

  “We will find him,” Torvul said. “In fact, if we asked Gideon to search for him, we’d find him tonight.”

  Allystaire shook his head. “I do not want that he has vanished to spread, nor do I want it known why we seek him.”

  “And you’d hide that even from Idgen Marte, Gideon, and Mol?”

  Allystaire sighed. “It stings wrong.”

  “Then don’t do it. Stones Above, for you of all people that should be easy to understand. More than likely he’s just crawled somewhere warm and out o’kickin’ range and is holing up till dawn.”

  Allystaire frowned. “Folk have treated him that way?”

  “I meant you,” Torvul said. “I don’t begrudge how you feel about the man. I was ready to put a bolt into him upon first meetin’.”

  “And it was Idgen Marte that stopped you, not me.”

  “I recall.”

  Allystaire crossed his arms over his chest, sighed. “Let me call to her.”

  Torvul cleared his throat and started to protest. “That’s not a good idea just now.”

  Nonetheless, Allystaire had let his senses reach out to Idgen Marte’s mind. Instead of being met with a sleep-hazed grumble, he found heat and pleasure. She was totally unable to respond coherently, but he had sensory pictures of her in the moment. He realized quickly that the bard was in the room with her, on one knee at the foot of the bed, her startled cry aloud surprising both him and Andus Carek who lifted his head, and quickly Allystaire retreated back to his own head.

  Man and dwarf looked off into the night, and not at each other.

  “She appears occupied,” Allystaire ventured, in a slightly hushed voice.

  “I tried t’warn you.”

  Another long pause broken only by a low night wind clacking the leafless branches against one another.

  “Pray the poor bastard knows what’s he’s in for,” Torvul offered.

  “Hmm.” Allystaire crossed his arms over his chest. “Hope he is a bit tougher than he seems.”

  “Anyone makes their living on the road has t’be.”

  “You miss the road, Torvul?” Allystaire seized the moment to change the subject and he could feel the tension draining away, heard the dwarf let out a held breath.

  “I’m not made for it,” the dwarf said, with a shake of his head. “None o’my folk are. Took t’it because we had no choice. The home we take with us in song, the bonds of family, the Loresong, they are the only things that make it bearable.”

  “Then why were you on it alone?”

  “It may shock you to learn, Allystaire, that I was not always the most obedient and respectable member of my caravan.”

  “You were banished?”

  “Aye,” Torvul said, “and it’s too cold and I’m too sober t’tell you any more of it just now. I’m for bed,” the dwarf added, until a rustling and a loud release of breath startled the pair of them. They whirled, hands going for weapons, only to find the village dog that often accompanied Mol standing only a foot or two away, tail swishing, tongue lolling.

  They glanced to one another, then back to the dog.

  “I think,” Torvul said, “that help has arrived.”

  “Aye.”

  “Don’t suppose you still need me, then?”

  “I would prefer you were present when we find him.”

  Torvul sighed. “Fine.” He waved a hand at the dog and said, “Go. Find him.”

  In response, the dog sat on her haunches and stared at the dwarf.

  “On. Mush. Hunt. Find Rede.”

  The dog licked her chops and showed no signs of obeying the dwarf’s commands.

  “Are you really at a loss of what to say to a dog?” Allystaire took a half step forward and knelt and extended a hand. The dog stretched her neck forward and sniffed his palm, then licked it once, carefully. Allystaire scritched the top of her head, murmured a few quiet words. “Mol sent you, yes?”

  The dog made a quiet “whurfle.”

  “Good,” Allystaire said, scratching a bit more vigorously now, with both hands, one under her chin. “Then you know who we need to find. Help us, would you?”

  He stood, the dog gave another light “woof” and began trotting away. Allystaire looked to the dwarf.

  “A word of this,” Torvul said, “and I’ll poison you.”

  * * *

  With the dog leading the way, it wasn’t long till they found Rede. Wearing only his thin robe, barely shod, wet, and shivering, he was hunched inside the bole of a dead tree.

  He didn’t seem to notice Allystaire or Torvul approach, though neither made anything like a stealthy approach. The dog looked from Allystaire to the shivering monk, whining.

  “Rede,” Allystaire said, wincing as he realized how loud and sharp he sounded. “Rede,” he tried again, softening and moderating his voice. “I never thought I would say these words, Rede, but I owe you an apology.” Allystaire turned to him. “The vision you spoke to me, that I dismissed? The bard clarified it for me. It was not the useless charlatanism I said that it was.”

  Rede surged to his feet, unsteadily, blinking his eyes rapidly. “What did he tell you?”

  “That what you told me matched the description of Braech’s Holy Berzerkers, the Dragon Scales. I believed them ordinary Islandmen warriors. That they go bare-chested, their skin marked with images of death and war, into battle. That they wear no armor but upon their hands.”

  “Men whose skin crawls with battle, whose arms end in claws,” Rede muttered, sharply inhaling. “Then I am worthy. My life may yet be lived in value to Her.”

  “We will take you in, Rede. Feed you, clothe you, shelter you – which we would have done regardless of what you see as your use to us. In return, I ask that you speak of any visions you have to one of us, one of the Five. Will you do that?”

  “Anything,” Rede said fiercely, his frame once more shaking with the intensity of his answer. “Anything to pay back my sins to Her.” He started to drop to one knee. Allystaire caught him and pulled him to his feet.

  “Just tell us anything that you see, no matter how little sense it might make. That is all I ask.”

  Rede nodded vigorously, his movements bordering on convulsion. Allystaire looked hesitantly to Torvul, who was already stepping forward to take the former monk by the arm with one hand and reaching for a bottle in one of his pouches with the other.

  “Have a drink of this,” Torvul said, lifting the bottle he extracted towards Rede. “Warm you up. Let’s get back to the village, put some food in you, find some dry clothes.”

  * * *

  With Rede safely housed in the warmth of the Temple for the night, Allystaire and Torvul made their way back to the dwarf’s wagon over the crunch of cold grass. Allystaire found himself pondering Rede’s jumbled visions when Torvul finally spoke up.

  “If I were you, when you’re back to the Inn, I’d move real quiet past Idgen Marte’s room.”

  “I might just sleep outside,” Allystaire said. “The fear will keep me warm.”

  “Disappoint the Archioness, if you don’t give her a last chance.”

  “We have come to an understanding,” Allystaire said.

  “Tell the truth, she didn’t seem the type to g
o pining for anyone, ‘specially a man with your face.”

  “I think it unlikely she will pine overmuch,” Allystaire snorted. “Surely Innadan’s court has fairer men to draw her eye.”

  “Think you can trust her?”

  “I do,” Allystaire admitted. “If nothing else, her fate, and her Temple’s, are tied to us now.”

  “Has it occurred to you,” Torvul said, “that she may still be tryin’ to get what she came here for in the first place? Her Ladyship folded into Fortune’s Temple, all that rot? Thrown her lot in with us she may have, but there’s nothin’ stopping the rest of their faith from tryin’ t’swallow us up as we go. They can afford t’play a long game here.”

  Allystaire shrugged. “The longer they wait, the more opportunity we have to grow.”

  “The more chance they have to work against us.”

  “Torvul, it may be time we have to show a little faith. There are those besides us who wish for a better world. We cannot afford to cast aside every potential ally that does not serve the Mother.”

  “I’d feel better if we could keep an eye on her.”

  “I feel as though Gideon can do just that.”

  Torvul grunted. They paused where they would part ways, Allystaire to the Inn, Torvul to his wagon. “Sure Rede’ll be well?”

  “He survived the hardest part of winter and made it to snowmelt without our help,” Allystaire said.

  “As y’say,” the dwarf grumbled. “Remember, move quiet. I spent too much time on her new sword to have it ruined on your skull.”

  Allystaire clasped the dwarf on the shoulder and made his way slowly back to his room. He did creep carefully past Idgen Marte’s room, but the steady sighing of sleeping breath he heard in the otherwise still silence of the Inn gave him no worries on that score. Once inside his own room, he set his hammer down, tugged off his boots and set them carefully beneath the peg he hung his cloak upon. Other garments were carefully folded. He looked from bed, to the wall, and back.

  Only a few turns till dawn. A bed’ll not kill me, he told himself, as he lowered carefully onto it, stretched out underneath the blankets, and tried to put Rede from his mind.