If all else went as the Tarskan planned, King Gorbagg would regret the day he turned his greedy eyes toward Lhant. Unless he came himself. The dead, thought Hommil, do not regret.
o0o
He, Caldan, Hommil, and Shendiss broke off their meeting to watch them come. Though they came at a trot, and not a thundering charge, Heratinn found them just as fearful as the scrolls had described them: horned beasts, and as often horned riders, night black and blood red and bone white, fiends and phantoms and nameless things bearing grisly trophies and ornaments. They halted before them.
One apparition stepped forth from the other horrors--a demon rider upon the animated skeleton of some monstrous beast. Only this close could Heratinn see that the skeleton was truly a seal brown horse, skillfully painted, and that the beast's horns branched from a thick piece of leather molded to the mare's head and held in place by a bridle the precise color of her coat. The thick saddlepad was fringed with the thigh bones of small animals; they clacked and clattered together drily.
The demon dismounted, leaving its macabre steed to stand where its reins were dropped. Fingering its necklace of small, bleached skulls, it sauntered up with sinuous insolence, then, casually, removed its head. Black hair spilled like pitch between the demon's shoulder blades.
"By all the gods! It's a woman!" exclaimed Hommil.
"I should hope so," the demon's new head retorted drily. "I would shudder to think this cursed outfit made me into something so brainless as a man."
Heratinn smiled in wonder and admiration. "Faced with such a fearsome company, the Buktoz will flee in terror," he predicted. His eyes drank in each detail; he must record all as soon as possible.
The woman locked her cool black eyes to his brown ones. "So… this is the pup who would be king?"
He felt the very blood drain from his face, then rise again at once. Still, he pursed his lips and said nothing, but only added another insult to Caldan's account. By Shador, those debts would be paid. As soon as the Buktoz were vanquished…
The woman arched one eyebrow, like the black wing of a gull. "Kill him, Caldan. This pup cuts his teeth."
"That is enough, Chahiri. He is no pup, and I will look to his teeth."
"Caldan…" She turned from Heratinn to stand before him, smiling. "What a barbarian you look. We go to war, and you haven't any face paint on. Let me see…" She ran a finger along the black paint on her chin. "Here," she said, drawing a streak along one of his cheekbones. "And here." A streak along the opposite. "And definitely here." Caldan's eyes widened in surprise, and Chahiri pressed her lips to his in a long, slow kiss that set the rest of the highlanders hooting with laughter, cheers and catcalls. Chahiri stepped away neatly and without haste.
"Five minutes alone with him and he would be mine," she announced. This started another celebration in the Tarskan ranks, which the king waited out with wry indulgence before he spoke.
"Chahiri, who wards the Bay of Griffins?"
"The rocks, who else? And what the rocks don't take, the night will have. The night will look after the highlands. The night in the highlands is very inhospitable to uninvited guests--isn't that so?" she asked, smiling with feigned innocence at Commander Shendiss.
Shendiss Starmap frowned, remembering his promotion to Commander of the Royal Elite Guard seventeen years before, a post left vacant after the Tarskans had entertained another large group of 'uninvited guests'. Then, they had sent home the head of a king as a party favor.
"I trust the night is enough," said the king.
"There is more than the night, but there are other things as well that you should know. A few minutes of your time, Caldan." She pulled up one corner of her mouth. "And less than five."
o0o
"No reprisals for the knife in your ribs?" Chahiri asked. Cross-legged, she and Caldan faced one another in the private wooded area the Kyr had selected as their camp.
He smiled at her fondly. "You will have your joke."
"I had more than that," she said, reaching across to slowly and familiarly dab the paint from his mouth. "Caldan, Caldan. I will say this quickly, like it is best to pull a tooth. I have come here to die. Ah-ah!" she insisted, cupping her hand over his lips. "Hush." She leaned back, hands on knees, and grinned gamely. "We have less than five minutes; I let you start and I may have none of them.
"I will die here in this battle, in the lowlands. The Dreamer has seen it, and I believe. But the Dreamer has seen other things as well. Chahiri carries a prophecy for you. Only at the ending will she know it. Only then can she pass it on." Chahiri faltered for a moment, staring at her hands--now fists--as if she tried to guess what they held concealed. "Caldan, for the first and final time, be there for me. If only for the prophecy, be there for me."
"Chahiri--"
"No," she waved down his protest. "Your pardon. That was unfair. You would never ask me to wait. Not with words. But I did wait, because it was plain to me and the others that you would want me to. Always I believed, 'soon, soon', and with each year that passed I thought, 'see how much time has gone by. Surely it cannot be too much longer. After all, we will not live forever, he and I.'"
"Go back, Chahiri," he urged. "Do not fight. Turn back and make the Dreamer wrong."
"'These things may not be changed,'" she said, a prophet's precursor. "And, I do not wish to try. This prophecy that I have for you must be important. What I say to you then cannot be changed, but what comes after may be altered. Forewarned, you might prepare. So much has been accomplished. How can I refuse so small a price? That price, and the other. Would all this have been possible had we joined? I do not think so. Still, you will forgive me if I say I hate her, your Saire, for every moment she has spent with you.
"Go, Caldan. Say nothing. I am too aggrieved to listen or to be fair. Just go now, and be there later."
o0o
Heratinn could hear them, now, but still could not make out their words. The highlanders kept themselves apart from the rest of the assembled; they made their own meals, kept their own hours, and had their own fire, around which they all now gathered. Not one, other than Caldan, had attended the briefings.
Heratinn had been disappointed by the absence of the woman who had insulted him earlier. He wanted proof that his guess was right, that Chahiri did indeed head the group of Tarskans.
Was it so? Did they permit her, a woman, to command a group of warriors? Incredible. What kind of people sent their women into battle, and what kind of women went so willingly, so confidently, as Chahiri obviously did?
He tried to imagine Castandra, fanged and horned in the guise of a demon, astride a mount that looked more beast than horse. Ridiculous. Then he recalled her confident familiarity with the short, powerful hunting bow she had used during their journey to the highlands, the defiant way that she later ridden bareback up to Elzin on that windy hill. The way that her eyes could turn to cold steel when he pressed her just a little too far about her father…
So slow, so cautious, he inched closer. The highlander camp had been declared off-limits. Dire warnings had been issued to everyone. Anything might happen were he caught. He hadn't stopped to weigh the risks against the rewards; his curiosity had simply been too much for him to bear.
A branch snagged his heel behind him. Carefully, he twisted his foot, then drew it forward to release it. It resisted, so he tried again, this time twisting it farther. Still caught. Chewing his lip in frustration at the delay, Heratinn turned with deliberate caution to free himself.
But it was no branch that had snared him. Instead, the slender, black-gloved hand of Chahiri held his heel.
He sighed. "I should have known it would be you." She released him, and he turned toward her. "I won't deny I was intruding. I've long been curious about your people."
"Foolish, to deny the obvious," she said, shifting out of the moonlight that had washed her black-painted features with silver. That easily, she disappeared, although she had scarcely stirred from where she had been before. He knew
because she continued to speak. "I am curious about you as well, Heratinn, son of Hulgmal and Trewinn."
"Then ask what you will, Chahiri," he invited. "Perhaps you will discover that I am more than just a pup. Or perhaps not. I will give you facts, not opinions."
"Perhaps I want both," said the night. "You remember my name. Caldan would have spoken had you asked questions about me; so, you are observant. Tell me, then, why you live, Heratinn. He can see your hatred as well as I."
He paused for a moment, then decided that the truth would do him no more harm than a lie. Less, he suspected, for Chahiri might kill him if she sensed duplicity.
"He lets me live to please the Saire. He fears my blood would cost him her support. Or such is my best guess."
"The Saire," she said flatly. "Always the Saire. So, the creature is fond of you? Then that may be. And he holds you in check because at the moment, you want the same thing he does: to end this war quickly. And after?"
Heratinn shook his head. He had long considered this of late. "I do not know. Surely, a man so fond of plans will have one perfect for the situation. Perhaps I shall have an accident, or perhaps he means to make the Saire forget me with an offer of marriage. Or he may have some threat I cannot guess. He's a clever man. Do not worry much on his account. The bat finds its way through the dark."
She chuckled. "I meant you. What will you do, after?"
"Oh. Still, the answer doesn't change. I don't know. I was not groomed for the monarchy. I never desired it. I wrote histories of Lhant, and I hope to document this invasion. Yet, the monarchy was mine. I can't help but resent its loss. Perhaps I will be more content in time."
"But, you do not think so. He has offended you irreparably, somehow. It is less the crown and more revenge, then?"
He hesitated for a moment, but he had already given her reason enough to slit his throat if that was what she wanted.
"I am the last of Sheldwinn's line," he told her simply.
She sighed and moved back into the light so that he could see her features again, and he was surprised to read only pity in them. "Pride. Is it so important that the last of Sheldwinn's line should die for it? He might love and respect you, but neither of those will stay his hand if you move against him. Still," she patted his leg companionably, "we all die. Oh, yes. We all die. The trick is to die well. I think that you will die well, Heratinn.
"There is no deceit in you; you are truly curious about us. What was it that you expected to see?"
Heratinn smiled. "All the secret things you keep from outsiders. Whatever it is that makes you separate from us, and perhaps even a clue as to why you so value that separateness. That has always been the greatest mystery to me.
"My people have always been seekers," he continued. "There's a sailors' saying that suggests we'd rather cross the ocean than cross the street. We're attracted by the exotic and bored by the familiar and accessible. But your people are different. They rarely leave the highlands. They cloak themselves in secrecy and shun us.
"I've asked many questions of many people over the course of my life, but I have come no closer to satisfying my curiosity. Tonight I thought to put away my manners and find out on my own. Imagine! Trying to sneak up on highlanders! That would be a trick worth learning."
She regarded him peculiarly for a time, then stood. "Come with me, Heratinn," she said at last. "Perhaps that is a secret which will be revealed to you."
She took his hand and helped lift him to his feet as if he weighed no more than a cat. His hand still very firmly in hers, she led him into the night, toward the Tarskan camp.
All talk within the group had ceased and every head was turned in their direction by the time Heratinn drew close enough to see. Their faces were not painted here, and Heratinn noticed that, although they were greatly outnumbered by the men, Chahiri was not the only woman in the company. They stepped within the circle of firelight.
"Chahiri, what have you found?"
"Oh, this?" she asked, as if suddenly remembering her charge. "I discovered it nearby. It made so much noise, at first I thought that it was clumsy Caldan walking out to take a piss away from the fire."
The others laughed, and with a flick of his wrist, the object of her taunt snapped a pine cone in her direction. It flew true as any arrow, but she deflected it neatly.
"What will you do with it, Chahiri?" another asked.
She stood back from Heratinn, squinting. "I don't know," she answered, speculatively tapping one long finger against her chin. "Too thin-skinned for decent leather. Too small to ride, too old to train. It does talk, which may or may not redeem it. I have an idea. Set it in my place for a while and tell it a story, while I return to picket and think of what to do with it."
Caldan sat impassively as a silent ripple of disapproval washed through the rest of the Tarskans. The skin on the back of Heratinn's neck grew tight, raising the fine hairs there.
"What harm, just this once?" Chahiri asked offhandedly. "Do it because I ask."
Silence, and still Caldan said nothing. Heratinn discerned that he might live or die at the group's decision, yet the king would do nothing to sway them.
The man with the bridle sighed. "You couldn't bring something more appealing into the camp for a pet?"
"Say a skunk or a badger?" proposed one.
"Or a smaller tick," another suggested coldly.
"I liked this one," said Chahiri. "It appeared to have good manners. Let it be an example to you."
"You have something in mind," said Caldan.
"Always, old wolf. 'Better the hunter should have no bow than no patience'."
"I see."
"Sit, young one," she said, pushing Heratinn toward the fire. "You'll start?" The king nodded. "The tale will be mine to finish, then." Chahiri rejoined the night. Heratinn sat gingerly, and Val Torska began.
"My name is Caldan, and this is who I am:
"Son of Toravni, who was daughter to Ravahn and Torchai, who knew the night.
"Son of Ardai, who was son of Natyrcha and Chadar.
"'Better the hunter should have no bow than no patience.'
"A lowlander sat. It was high summer, and hot where the Elder River droned, on and on, and on yet more, and on without ceasing, saying, of course, nothing, but muttering anyway, and true to its namesake." An older Tarskan fired off a pine cone, but Caldan batted it away as easily as Chahiri had parried his earlier volley.
"But the lowlander did not sit beside the cool river, although he went there sometimes to drink, or to take a fat, brown trout from the water. He did not sit in the shade of a tree, although there were many trees and the sun was hot enough to curl the grasses like washing mice. This lowlander did not poach; he did not build; he did not intrude. Instead, he did what he must that he might sustain himself, and returned always to his spot in the open and stared at the Wyrmfangs, purple and white in the distance.
"Thirty-two days is long to sit in the open. The lowlander's skin turned first the red of poppies, then burned and peeled, and at last grew the warm color of a new fawn's coat. His cracked lips bled, his face grew hair, his clothes fell to rags. Daily his appearance became stranger. Those who watched might have thought him unbalanced, but his walk, when he moved from his spot to do any of those necessary things, had purpose for all its stiffness.
"The watchers wondered: What could be the intent of the lowlander's strange vigil? Utterly alone, infinitely patient, he seemed to wait for something to come to him from the Wyrmfangs. What such a thing could be, however, none could imagine.
"At last it was decided that this mystery must be solved, and when the lowlander went to the river to drink in the afternoon, Chadar went down and put some cubes of venison over the man's fire and sat beside them while they cooked.
"When the lowlander returned, he sat across from Chadar.
"'I have been waiting for you,' he said. Chadar would have laughed, but he had heard that lowlanders do not understand laughter, and he had not solved the mystery yet and s
o did not want to antagonize his host, strange though he may be.
"'Thirty-two days is a long time to wait for someone you do not know.'
"'It is not too long to wait for someone you wish to know. What is your name?' Chadar answered him honestly, and the lowlander sat himself up very straight and said, 'I am Nedritinn, and I am your king.'
"Chadar wrinkled his nose. 'My king needs a bath, then. He has not had one in thirty-two days.'"
"My name," began another voice. Heratinn looked for the new speaker, and found him, laboring over a bridle, "is Ryrskha, and this is who I am:
"Son of Handrai, who was daughter to Horvachni and Toratch.
"Son of Yanhra, who was son of Dyrchal and Choasti.
"'Words are the arrows in the quiver," he continued gravely, "and courtesy the bow that delivers them most true.' And truly, it was a great courtesy for the lowlander to bathe himself immediately in the river, though woe to those downstream…"
Those gathered laughed, and the tale went on, passed easily from one Tarskan to the next. It happened that the mysterious lowlander was who he claimed: King Nedritinn. And, one by one, the highlanders led Heratinn through the life of his great, great grandfather--as they knew it--with humor and an intimacy that made him live anew. They revealed to him the mystery of how Nedritinn had come to be acquainted with the Tarskans, and more: how his great, great grandfather had moved and spoken, how he might have thought, and what he had done in the highlands, which he had never talked of and where he had never brought another.
The Night Holds the Moon Page 39