The Night Holds the Moon

by Roberts, Parke; Thompson, Colleen

  As each took up the story, most identified themselves as had Caldan. Most, but not all. Neither the youngest woman, nor the much older man who draped his arms over her protectively introduced themselves. Several of the men, one other woman, and a couple that held hands together tightly at the edge of the group did not speak their names. Occasionally "who knew the night" followed a name, and once, in Chahiri's case, one name was followed by, "who dreamed".

  Now and then, one or two of the highlanders had colored their faces black as they had listened, and then had left the circle. Each time, not long after, one or two others stepped in from the trees to sit and remove their thin gloves and face paint. Chahiri had been one of the first, and she sat herself next to Caldan as the tale had moved around the circle and returned to her.

  To her fell the end of the story: the death of the king. Rumor and suspicion still surrounded King Nedritinn's demise. The Tarskans insisted that Nedritinn had been killed by a snow lion he hunted alone, yet they had refused to return the king's body or to present the head of the bloodthirsty beast. Accusations of regicide, cannibalism, and cowardice had availed the royal family nothing. Threats had left the highlanders unmoved; even an appeal that a lowland hunting party be allowed to enter Tarska to pursue the beast themselves had been denied.

  Only his word had kept Drewinn, King Nedritinn's son, from mounting a war of retribution. His father had made him swear solemn oaths promising no reprisals against the highlanders were any accident to befall him there.

  "A wise one does not go hunting a snow lion alone, not even with ten wizard hounds," said Chahiri, "although I have heard of one simpleton who tried such with only two. We won't speak his name.

  "The battle must have been terrific. From the signs we know that Nedritinn gave good measure of himself, but the battle was one-sided from the beginning, and this did not change. Nedritinn had gone hunting snow lion, and had he been the victor, he would have brought back the pelt and the meat. But, the snow lion was the mightier hunter, and if he takes the pelt and the meat of his prey to his camp, who are we to interfere? 'The wise take only what they need, the greedy will choke upon spoiled meat.'"

  Chahiri wiped her hands on her leggings and stood. "Come with me, young one. I have decided what I will do with you."

  He had been permitted to sit within their camp; he had been privileged to hear their tale. No words of thanks seemed adequate. In fact, no words would come. He could only bow respectfully, and follow Chahiri from the camp.

  In the grainy, grey light before dawn, beside a narrow birch not far from the boundary that marked the area that the highlanders had set aside for themselves, she turned to face him.

  "All were warned not to enter this place. You disregarded that warning. You invaded our privacy. And yet, young Heratinn, I cannot find it in my heart to kill you."

  She extended her hand, and as he reached out to clasp it, Chahiri seized the meat of his palm, twisting to lock the joint as she struck his elbow from behind with her other palm.

  Heratinn screamed as the joint shattered, but Chahiri grabbed his shoulder and refused to let him fall or run.

  "Quiet!"

  Nauseated, swaying, Heratinn mutely cradled his distorted arm.

  "You write with that hand?"

  "Yes," he gasped. He blinked to clear his greying vision.

  "You will not do so for some time, I think, and this, too, will help you to remember. Never return, Heratinn. Do not come to us here, and do not come to us in the highlands. I tell you now that if Nedritinn were to sit so close to our border today, he would not remain through thirty-two suns. We would kill him on the first, and the scavengers would take his carcass where they pleased."

  He did not ask why. He had been privy to enough meetings of the council to know.

  "One more thing, young one. It is discourteous to carry tales from one fire to another. And as for your arm, you are a bright creature; you will think of some excuse. Go and remember."

  o0o

  No one had curled up for sleep when she returned to the fire.

  "Tarrg's toenails but you grow clumsy, Chahiri," complained Ihar. "The entire encampment must have heard him scream. What did you do with the carcass?"

  "Nothing," she answered.

  "Nothing?"

  "Nothing. He remains within it."

  A cry of anguish, anger, and very real fear went through the circle. Caldan only watched.

  "What is it that you do to us, Chahiri?" asked Ihar, pale and strained with dread. "You cannot let them come and go. One is enough to open the floodgate. Thousands will think that they can do the same; that they can come to us, here or at home, and live. They will be all over us, like a swarm of ants on a moth with a broken wing, and we will not be able to hold off so many."

  "He will say nothing," Chahiri assured the elder.

  "You don't know that! It is not your right to expose us to such danger!"

  "Let her explain herself," suggested Caldan.

  "Listen, then, Ihar. Do we want to bring trouble to Caldan now? If we had killed Heratinn, no lowlander would believe that it was not at Caldan's bidding. We are his people. To all lowland eyes the pup has been submissive, even supportive. It would offend them terribly. They would call it murder and treachery of the worst sort, and all of the prestige that Caldan has gained by letting the pup live would be turned to hate eight times over."

  "The pup, the pup," grumbled Ihar. "I still don't understand why you failed to dispose of this one when you rid us of the bitch and the other whelp."

  "Chahiri does," said the king. "She told when she brought Heratinn into camp."

  Ihar rolled his eyes. "It must be time for me to take the walk up the mountain. Enlighten me."

  "You aren't so old yet, Ihar," said Chahiri. "You just didn't spend your childhood pranking with Caldan. If he were an arrow, he would wander five miles before hitting a target ten yards away. And he'd double himself besides.

  "Heratinn is like Nedritinn in two ways--first, he has the honor blindness; he would be another 'one man against one beast', like his great, great grandsire. That is why he will not tell, and Caldan also somehow uses this honor to keep our puppy muzzled for now. This is so?"

  "Yes."

  "Heratinn is like Nedritinn in another way. Did I not mention his good manners? He does not hate us--except for you, Caldan, and perhaps me, now. If he had taken the throne, we would not have had so sympathetic a 'king' in almost seventy years. Caldan could not have two of himself, of course, but he provided the best he could in case he should fail."

  "Chahiri, you are an astounding woman," said the king.

  "You should have recognized that properly, then," the warrior retorted coolly. "How long will the pup's muzzle hold?"

  "The end of the war. No longer."

  "And then?"

  "You answered that one as well, Chahiri," Caldan said grimly. "'The wise take only what they need; the greedy will choke upon spoiled meat.' Heratinn has never wanted the throne, but he will never rest while I have it. The pup dies."

  o0o

  The Royal Elite healer who bound and splinted Heratinn's right arm disputed the former monarch's story of a fall. Heratinn ignored his arguments. He was too distracted to care that his veracity had been questioned.

  He must depose Caldan as soon as the war was over. There could be no waiting for the best opportunity or the correct time.

  Time was something he doubted he would have much of. For all that he played the Lhantian noble, Caldan was first a Tarskan. Despite the pain of the experience, Heratinn was glad of his opportunity last night to learn firsthand what that meant. To break his neck would require little more effort than his arm. He posed a threat no highlander would allow to linger. Not out of sentiment.

  But how did Val Torska plan to deal with Elzin? What could she mean to him--the Saire of Lhant? What could she mean to one who kept his history more carefully guarded than a hoard of priceless jewels? She must mean death to him, above all things. Her
Flute was what had kept the highlanders in check for all these years, her Flute and the overwhelming population of the lowlands. Heratinn found himself wondering if Caldan as king might become a danger to her.

  Perhaps not. He must know he ruled at Elzin's whim. The rest of Lhant would not accept Val Torska without her support. But Caldan was a highlander, and Heratinn's encounter last night assured him that highlanders were above all else treacherous.

  Thank the gods Castandra was different. Though Tarskan by birth, she had not been raised in such a brutal environment. She was day to Chahiri's night, warm and familiar, not dark and unfathomable. He needed her, and he needed Elzin, to help him wrest from Caldan what belonged to him. Somehow he must convince them both that Val Torska was unfit to govern Lhant.

  He did not know yet what he would tell them, but he knew where to begin to look.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The shadow of steel has fallen

  The steel shadow has come down

  Let me ride on horses of flame

  I will ride on horses of smoke

  And hide myself in the wind

  And leave nothing behind but bone

  Leave them nothing but bone!

  --adjuration of the Kyr warrior

  The morning was still young and cool when the picket ship raced into the harbor to warn of the approach of the Buktoz armada. Soldiers rushed to secure the castle, and messengers galloped away on ready horses to inform the commanders of each division.

  In wave after wave, King Gorbagg's army came ashore, well out of range of Castle Sheldwinn's archers. Lhant's "defense" allowed the Buktoz to quickly win the docks, and ship upon ship disgorged its cargo of fighting men, all eager for victory and the spoils. Certain that surprise had been complete and that conquest was assured, King Gorbagg himself stepped ashore within hours. From his captured mount, he urged his men on as Lhant's army fell back inexorably before their overwhelming numbers.

  Lying flat on a small hillside in the Royal Preserve directly to the north of Sheldwinn, Caldan and Heratinn watched the approach of the armies. The highlander had made no comment about the events of the previous night, except to offer Heratinn a scribe to take his notes, and he said nothing now as he watched his careful plans fall into place.

  Concealed by the woods behind them, the true defense of Lhant awaited impatiently the signal to attack. At the king's sign, the cavalry would rush down to seal off any retreat while the slower foot soldiers charged to their positions and surrounded the enemy. A simple plan, the best sort for war. The swift procurement of the men and materials to needed to accomplish it had been the true achievement.

  Losses mounted on the island's side; still, the highlander waited until the Buktoz reached precisely the position he had long ago marked as optimal on his war maps. He stood, and the carnage began.

  And it was carnage. Now it was Gorbagg's army that was vastly outnumbered, but for the Buktoz, there remained nowhere to retreat. Caldan had warned his troops to give no quarter; not one Buktoz, from the lowest to the highest, was to be left alive. The Saireflute's grim visions gave the Lhant's soldiers no cause to argue.

  But from this high vantage point, the battle to Heritan seemed unreal, even anti-climactic he watched the circle of Lhant's army tighten inexorably around the invaders. It was very nearly finished by the time the rays of the setting sun had stretched their shadows to long, black ghosts. Not one of the couriers, within easy shouting distance behind them and still holding the reins of their readied mounts, had been needed to relay a single new order. Yet, from the back of his ebony war horse, Caldan appeared to be waiting--for what, Heratinn could not guess. Certainly Val Torska could expect no change in the tide of the battle?

  Without warning, the highlander touched the flanks of his mare, and she exploded into motion. Following the king's bearing, Heratinn spotted a rider streaking toward them. Through his spyglass, Heratinn could make out horns. The riders met; the horned mount wheeled about and both horses raced away as the last of the Buktoz fell.

  The riders disappeared in the jubilant multitude.

  o0o

  He stepped down from his horse even as she slid; a short step as Char sat upon her powerful haunches, spraying a backwash of earth as she plowed to a halt. The warmare's momentum carried him forward and he did his own slide, to his knees, to kneel beside her. She opened her eyes.

  "Caldan," she said. "I know it by the grand entrance. I like a king that makes a grand entrance."

  "If you truly appreciate it, then you will help the king explain the dirt on his knees to the lowlanders."

  They had removed Chahiri's warpaint, her face was pale and fragile as snowdrop blossoms, luminous with sweat. He had seen that look another time; then, the look of a labor gone dreadfully wrong.

  As if she had read his mind, Chahiri gave a painful laugh. "Hah! I give birth to a prophecy. Someone should have warned me about the pangs. Don't touch that!" Caldan dropped the edge of the blood-soaked blanket as if he had been slapped. "You will not remember me that way. It’s mortal--let it be.

  "If you must lift something, lift my head into your lap. I always liked that."

  He did her bidding as gently as he could, but he could hear her grind her teeth in agony, even over the celebrations on the battlefield.

  "Much better," she gasped. "How often have we sat like this, Caldan?"

  "Often," he said, stroking her hair back from her brow. "Never often enough."

  "How neatly you maneuvered yourself onto my crew."

  "I worked two crews, that year."

  "I heard. Was it worth it, just to hold me like this?"

  "Oh, yes. To be with you was certainly worth that. I loved you."

  "I knew that. But how I hated you for that iron will. I thought, at first, that it might be Lyrvahn, her memory, that stood between us. And then I realized that it was something else, even stronger. Duty. That you would do what you were bred and trained to do, that you had some plan that a mate might get in the way of. Did you know, then, that you would go so far?"

  "No. I only hoped."

  "No," she echoed. "It hurts. It hurts to be sacrificed for only a hope. Tell me why, then."

  "If I were to get so far, in order for our children to inherit, they would have to be recognized as 'legitimate' according to lowland law."

  "And you could not manipulate so well were you married. You used yourself for a weapon. Did the weapon turn on you, Caldan? Do you really love the Saire?" She closed her eyes. "No. Don't answer. I could not stand it if you said yes, and I could not bear it if you lied. It is not worth the risk, even to find out that what I wish is so. I would rather die wondering."

  "Chahiri--"

  "Hush!" A moan ground past her clenched teeth; her back arched as if it were a bow drawn tight. "The time is now!" she gasped. "These things may not be changed: Beware the twins, Caldan. The twins will betray you!"

  She fell back, panting raggedly. "There it is. I have given birth, but only to more pain. Who are the twins, Caldan?"

  "I do not know. Miska and Tacha? But, they are in Tarska. How would they betray me? Why?"

  "Words," she groaned. "Only words to me. I cannot answer for their meaning.

  "It comes; the steel shadow falls. I will not be there for the cutting of the trees this time. Chahiri has paid her taxes instead to Tarska. One life and one prophecy and one man. And in return, a Kyr sits on Sheldwinn's throne. The tax burden will ease. The lowlanders will not be allowed to overrun us. All that, all these great and inconceivable things accomplished, yet we dwindle and die. We will not be swallowed up, at least, but we will still be gone. All our race, extinguished. There are not enough of us; not enough…"

  "I did all I could."

  "No!" In a sudden paroxysm of strength, she reached up, grabbed a lock of his hair and pulled him over her. Impossibly, her grip was like iron, strong and unbreakable, like Elzin's when she had held him in the Mist. "Hear me! This is but a skirmish; the future holds the true confro
ntation. Save or destroy: the Red King must choose. Fulfil the prophecy!" she cried. "Save us!"

  "Release me, Chahiri," he snapped. "The Red King is only a legend. I am only a man."

  She collapsed back into his lap, defeated, and let her head loll. Tenderly now, he supported her, brushing again the damp cobwebs of her hair from her eyes. "I am in such pain." Her voice, wet and rasping, bubbled up from deep inside her, and he had to bend very close to her to hear her words. "Such pain. I despair. Forgive me."

  He kissed her forehead, her eyelids. "Shhh. Nothing to forgive. Rest. Here is Listar; he will give you something for the pain."

  "No. Home. The others want to go home. You, too, but there is no helping you.

  "I might linger for hours. Caldan, honor me. I will not have them wait."

  "Your trust honors me." As if from a distance, he heard himself give the ritual answer. He felt propelled, headfirst, by some irresistible force, bereft of all choices, although he knew he had made so many choices all of his life and each was his own.

  Her mouth was feverish and eager when he tasted it. Salt there, and the ferrous, bitter taste of blood. She had forgiven him; not for the first time, but the last of many. He could feel the beat of her pulse beneath the fingers of his left hand where it helped support her head and neck; the fine, strong thrum of her heart, now turned traitor, mindlessly driving her on and on through no future except her own pain. He knew her heart, had laid his hand or cheek or his own heart against it times past counting, knew it well and where it was. Now was the time for both certainty and strength, and he spared neither. With unerring accuracy he struck, burying his knife to its hilt, and he stopped her heart instantly and forever.

  And then he wept.

  It was not for long. The body can only hold so many tears, even if it has waited over sixteen years since last shedding them. And Chahiri was right; the others would want to go home. So, it was not long, and all that time the others shielded him from prying eyes, yet left him alone because they knew that for him, grief was a private thing.