by David Drake
Ilna knelt and breathed deeply. The dust was still settling; she sneezed and covered her face with the sleeve of her inner tunic. It was just luck the wyvern's momentum hadn't carried it straight ahead, plowing through her and the hunters. Even if the impact didn't finish them, she'd seen how quickly the beast had reacted when her pattern no longer held it. She'd made a mistake . . . .
"That was too bloody close," Asion said quietly. He wiped the palm of his right hand on his tunic, then gripped the sling-staff again.
Karpos looked down at the wyvern; it spasmed violently. "I'll never get those arrows back," he said. There was a red patch on his left wrist where the bowstring had stung it. "It'd take all day to cut'em out, and long odds the shafts're split anyhow."
"I'll help you turn new ones," Asion said. "That was too close."
Ilna got up and dusted her tunic where she'd been kneeling. She held the pattern bunched in her left hand; she wouldn't pick out the knots until she knew what'd happened to the other monster.
"Come," she said, angling now toward the abandoned village. "I'll lead. We'll find Temple."
The houses mostly trailed along either side of the track leading into the valley, but at the upper end they spread in a skewed checkerboard below the wall around the shrine. Dust was settling there, but nothing else moved.
Karpos had an arrow nocked. He glowered at the drystone hut on his side of the narrow street and muttered, "This is too tight for comfort. It's bad as going after a tiger in brush."
"I don't hear the brute," Asion said. "It called a couple times when it took after Temple, I heard that. I wasn't paying much attention, though. They could run down deer, it seemed like, the way the gray one was coming at us."
The street kinked around a house bigger than most of those in the village. It was built on three sides of a courtyard. There was a brushwood fence across the front to pen goats at night. Asion's staff whirred, and Karpos drew the string back to his ear.
Ilna raised the pattern before her and stepped around the corner.
The blue-mottled wyvern lay in the ruins another courtyard house, its head buried in fallen stone. The beast must've lunged forward when it got its deathblow, demolishing the thick wall. Temple's sword had pierced the wyvern's chest just below the right wing, leaving a gash as wide as Ilna's palm. The wound had stopped bleeding, but judging from the blood covering the street and neighboring buildings it must've spurted like a mill race.
Temple sat on a feed trough in the courtyard, polishing his sword with a tunic the householders had left behind when they fled. His back was to Ilna and the others, but he watched them in the mirrored face of the buckler which leaned against the wall.
"Greetings, Ilna," Temple said, sheathing his sword. He draped the cloth over the trough. "I'm glad you three are all right."
Ilna bunched her pattern and started immediately to pick it back to strands of yarn. It would've worked on Temple also, if he'd been facing her directly.
"By the Lady, friend!" Karpos said in amazement as he relaxed his bow. "How did you do that? How did you kill the brute by yourself?"
Temple turned and slung his buckler again by its strap. "They're quick, as you saw for yourself," he said calmly, "but they don't think more than one step ahead. I dodged around walls until I was in a place where the step it took was past where I was hiding."
Asion lifted one of the wyvern's claws with the butt of his sling staff, then let it drop flaccidly. The middle claw on each foot was as long as a man's hand, thick, and as sharp as one of Karpos' arrows.
The little hunter looked at Temple. "That was a good job," he said, but his tone sounded harsh to Ilna. "Putting the blade between two ribs the way you did. If you'd hit bone, you'd have had a problem, wouldn't you?"
Temple shrugged as he stood up. "I told you I had experience," he said.
He looked across the valley. Ilna followed his eyes and saw villagers streaming toward the homes they'd abandoned when the wyverns came.
Ilna looked at the yarn in her left hand. "There's still the woman, Bistona," she said. Sharply she added, "I don't intend to kill her."
Asion grimaced; Karpos gave an unconcerned nod. Temple smiled and said, "Of course, but we'd best be with her when her neighbors arrive. They may be less charitable than we are."
Karpos looked puzzled and said, "She's crazy, isn't she? And the Lady protects crazy people. They wouldn't hurt her."
Ilna sniffed. "It's possible Master Breccon and his fellows are less religious than you are, Karpos," she said. "Yes, let's see to Bistona now."
The main street led directly to the archway into the temple enclosure. There was no gate and the posts were stuccoed wood with a wicker trellis to form the arch. The grapevines planted at the base of each column were only beginning to leaf out. In summer when the foliage had spread, broad leaves would hide the wicker.
Ilna smiled faintly. That'd be a pity, because whoever'd woven the willow shoots into an arch had been quite skillful. Her craftsmanship—Ilna touched the wicker for a fleeting image of the maker, a woman well into her sixties with gnarled fingers—was of more interest to Ilna than the artless twistings of vines.
Bistona stood between the two pillars of the shrine's porch. They were wood also and had been carved as statues, though the paint and details had weathered off. Ilna couldn't tell if they were meant to be men or woman.
Or both, she supposed. She'd seen statues in Erdin that were women from the waist up and men below; Liane had called them hermaphrodites. Ilna had better reasons to dislike Erdin than a few statues, but the statues had disgusted her.
The compound was littered with the stinking remnants of the wyverns' meals. Their jaws were strong enough to shear the largest bones, but they were messy eaters. For a month bone splinters and bits of flesh, now rotted to pools of liquid, had been flung in all directions.
There was no clear path to the steps of the shrine, so Ilna tramped through the filth. Initially her face was set with distaste, but it suddenly struck her that only a few minutes ago it'd seemed likely that her own corpse would be contributing to the mess.
"You're smiling, mistress?" said Asion in surprise. The little hunter was walking almost beside Ilna. She'd intended to lead.
But she was in a good humor, so she merely said, "I prided myself on neatness when I kept house for my brother and me. It'd have been very unpleasant to become part of this garbage midden."
Asion blinked but didn't speak further. Temple, walking behind them with Karpos, chuckled.
Bistona stood like a third statue across the front of the porch. Close up she looked much younger than Ilna had thought from across the valley; her wild hair was blonde, not white. She was probably only a few years older than Ilna herself.
Bistona's staring eyes looked generations' old. Well, so did Ilna's own, she supposed.
Ilna walked up the first of three steps to the porch, then paused on the second. She held a pattern, this time a gentler one, knotted in her hand, but instead of opening it she said, "Mistress Bistona? We've come to help you."
Is that a lie? Well, we've come to save her from being burned alive by her neighbors, at least.
Bistona shuddered; her eyes focused on Ilna. The irises were bright blue, disconcertingly similar to those of the wyverns.
"My sons are dead," she said. Her voice cracked; perhaps she hadn't spoken since the Change. "I thought they were still alive, but I was wrong."
Bistona was filthier than the wyverns because unlike them, she didn't lick herself clean. Ilna kept from sneering only because she had a great deal of experience in holding her tongue. That would've surprised many of those who knew her, but they couldn't see what was going on in her head.
"I'm sorry about your sons," Ilna said. "We've killed the animals responsible."
After thinking for a moment—the priest's house was close by, but it was probably as squalid as the shrine's compound—she added, "Mistress, let's go to your home. You need to lie down, I'm sure."
&
nbsp; The villagers had returned. Most of them were going first to their own houses, but Breccon, Graia, and the elder with the mutilated hand had entered the compound. The men were muttering bitterly about the disorder.
Bistona turned and reentered the shrine. Something inside croaked harshly.
Ilna frowned but walked in behind the woman. She was mad, just as Asion had said, and it was possible that her seeming normalcy would vanish into murderous rage at any instant. Still, they'd determined to help her, so Ilna didn't have any choice.
The interior of the shrine was lighted only through the front doors, but that was enough for the small room. A mosaic of the Lady spreading her hands was set into the back wall; it was made with bits of colored glass, not stone, and She wore the broad smile of a simpleton.
There wasn't a statue, however. Where it should've been was a couch. It looked real, but even the bolster and the tucks in the mattress were carved from marble. Bistona lay on it as though it was stuffed with goose down.
Open trusses supported the roof. The raven perching on the end beam croaked again, startling Ilna. She hadn't noticed the bird in the shadows.
"No!" she said sharply to Karpos, but he was already relaxing the bow he'd drawn in surprise. She smiled: it hadn't been just her.
The shrine's interior smelled like a snake den in winter, though the wyverns hadn't fouled it with their droppings. The plastered walls had been painted deep red, but the beasts had worn much of that off. Scratching themselves, Ilna supposed. Sheep did the same.
"Have you found the demonspawn Bistona?" Breccon demanded.
Ilna turned. Breccon stood on the porch with his wife and the other elder. They might've tried to follow her and the hunters in, but Temple had drawn his sword and slanted it across the doorway.
"There's no need for that," Ilna said tartly to Temple.
"Perhaps," said the big man with a smile. He sheathed his purplish blade with the smooth ease of water poured from a ewer, but the villagers remained where they were. As he'd intended, obviously; and perhaps he was right after all.
"Bistona's lying on the couch," Ilna said to Breccon. "She's not responsible for the monsters, and from what she said a moment ago she may be coming back to her right mind."
She paused, feeling her face harden. "You're to treat her as one of your own," she continued. "I may never return to your village, but if I do and Bistona's been mistreated, I'll consider you no better than the monsters we rid you of this morning."
Bistona called, "Lamo eararacharraei anachaza!"
"What did she say?" Asion demanded, looking from the reclining woman to Ilna. "I didn't understand it."
"Richar basumaiaoiakinthou anaxarnaxa!" Bistona said. Her eyes were open but unfocused; her hands were crossed over her chest like a corpse.
"It's wizardry," Ilna said. The words meant nothing to her, but she'd heard Tenoctris and others speak words of power often enough that by now that she recognized the tone and rhythms.
And a very inconvenient time for it, she thought, though she didn't add that opinion out loud. Bistona's chanting was bound to make the villagers uncomfortable, and they obviously blamed her for their misfortunes already.
"Breccon, she's speaking for the Lady!" Graia said excitedly. "Redmin's dead, but the Lady's made Bistona Her oracle in his place!"
"How's that an oracle?" Asion said. "Can you understand it?"
"Phameta mathamaxanrana echontocheritha!" said Bistona.
"No one understands it, not even wizards," Ilna said contemptuously. She'd seen this sort of fakery before. No doubt Bistona would shortly "awaken" and announce to the village that she was now their priest and they should honor her. Well, that was the sort of result Ilna'd wanted, but it still irritated her to see it done through a lie.
"Ilna os-Kenset!" croaked the raven. "The straight path is crooked, the crooked path is straight."
Its voice was harsh but completely understandable. There was no chance Ilna was misinterpreting the sort of sounds birds ordinarily made.
Graia gave a shout of delight and clutched her husband. The other elder knelt and touched his forehead to the floor of the porch. He crossed his hands, whole and maimed, over his head.
"You must turn aside," said the raven, "or you will not reach your goal."
Bistona stirred on the couch. She blinked twice and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.
"I'd never heard a bird talk before," said Karpos, not frightened but wondering.
"Yes, yes," said Graia, "the Lady always speaks through the Servant, good sir. Well, when she does."
"A lot of times Redmin says the Servant told him the answer and the suppliant has to leave his gift for the Lady," Breccon explained. "But sometimes it's like this."
"Graia?" said Bistona, sitting up on the stone couch. "How did I get here?"
Then, with a hint of shrillness as she touched her filthy garment, "What's happened to me?"
Temple gestured the old woman inside. Graia hesitated a moment, then scurried to Bistona and grasped her hands. She began speaking, quickly but in a low voice.
The raven croaked and spread a wing to preen its feathers. The bird had the mangy look of extreme age.
The elders whispered to one another, but Temple and the hunters were looking at Ilna. "Do you expect me to say something?" she said angrily. "There's nothing to say. I don't have a goal!"
Her companions didn't speak. Ilna brushed past Temple and went quickly down the temple steps. She knew that she was leaving the shrine lest the bird say something more to her. That showed weakness and made her even angrier.
Ilna faced around. Temple and the hunters had come out onto the porch.
"I've never turned aside," Ilna said. "I'm not going to start now!"
But as she spoke, she remembered that once long ago she'd given herself over to evil, to Evil. She had turned aside from that.
If she hadn't, if she'd continued the path she'd set for herself, this world would be an icy desolation . . . as she had seen.
* * *
The screaming horse awakened Garric, but his sword was in his hand before his own senses were alert. King Carus had the instincts of a cat and the reflexes of a spring trap; he never forgot where his sword was, and anything untoward sent his hand to it.
That complicated Garric's life, because it generally wasn't appropriate for a prince to snatch out his sword. There'd been times it'd kept him alive, though, and this might be one of those times.
The horse screamed again. The sound cut off with a snap of bone, though other animals continued kicking and braying in the stables below Garric's window.
The shutters of Garric's room were barred, but the right-hand one sagged and let in moonlight. He laid the sword across the mattress stuffed with corn shucks and pulled his boots on quickly. Stepping on a pitchfork in the dark could be the last mistake he ever made.
"Do you know what you'll be getting into if you go down there?" Shin asked.
"No," said Garric. His belt was still hung from the peg at the head of the bed; he buckled it on. Not only might he need his dagger, he was likely to want to free his hands while keeping the sword available in its scabbard.
"You could wait here," Shin said. "The room's sturdy. You have no idea what creatures roam this region."
The private rooms of the Boar's Skull Inn were at the back of the second floor. They were built for merchants who wanted to lock themselves, their guards, and their baggage in for the night. There was plenty of space for Garric and the aegipan, though the latter'd chosen to curl up on the floor rather than share the mattress with its coverlet of sewn sheepskins.
Garric threw open the shutters and looked out over the slanting stable roof. He didn't reply. He wouldn't like himself if he'd been a person who thought in Shin's terms; and anyway, Shin hadn't asked a question.
The boy, Megrin, stood at the edge of the forest bawling something. Garric couldn't make out the words; perhaps they weren't words at all, just terror given voice. The n
ext window over opened. Master Orra looked out, met Garric's eyes, and ducked in again. His shutters banged.
The ghost in Garric's mind laughed. "There's no lack of folk wanting someone else to do their fighting," Carus said. "I never minded being that someone."
Garric's shield leaned against the wall below where his sword had hung; he picked it up by its twin handles. It was wicker waterproofed with a covering of waxed linen, meant for skirmishers. It felt uncomfortably light compared the line infantryman's brass-bound round of birch plywood that Garric had worn in battle, on his arm and far more often in Carus' memory, but even so it was more than most travellers would have.