The warlords of Nin dk-2

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  For a moment she stood in indecision-should she return and try to discover what had become of her friends? Or go on, to complete her charge and deliver her message to the King?

  It was an empty choice, she knew. The enemy which had overcome them in the ravine at Diem was the same which had surprised her and her companions on the road. Now the lives of two more had been added to the sum, for there was little doubt in her mind that by now Quentin and Toli were dead. And were it not for the importance of her mission she would have stayed to share their fate.

  There was nothing to be done but to go on.

  She gazed out over the land, her dark eyes sweeping the horizon for any recognizable landmark. Away to the south she saw a thin slice of spangled blue which merged with the sky. The sea, she thought, I have not gone far wrong. By squinting up her eyes she could almost see the road itself as it hugged the coastal hills. She cast one last look over her shoulder to see if the dark enemy had followed her, but saw nothing except the radiant sky and the hills of summer. So she turned with heavy heart to leave.

  Clambering back down the side of the hill Esme heard the excited whinny of a horse. Was it Riv or some other? She stopped, her heart now fluttering in panic. She listened.

  From beneath the leafy canopy directly below her she heard again the shrill scream of a horse in distress. In the tangle of leaves and branches she could not see the animal, nor its assailant. As quickly and as quietly as she could, she slipped the rest of the way down the hill, careful not to show herself openly.

  Once below the treetops she saw Riv, legs splayed, head down, backed against the rocks, shaking his mane and baring his teeth. But she could see nothing at all that should so upset him. All was as she had left it. Not a single intruder, man or beast, was in evidence.

  Esme dropped to the ground and crouched in the grass for a moment. Hearing nothing and seeing nothing disturbing, she rose and went to the frightened animal to comfort it.

  “There, Riv. Easy, boy.” She patted his sleek jaw and curled a slim arm around his neck. “Easy now. What is it… huh? What has affrighted my brave one?”

  The horse calmed under her touch and soothing voice. He nickered softly low in his throat and tossed his head. But he continued to look away across the creek-at nothing Esme could see.

  “There, now. See? All is well. There is nothing-”

  Before Esme could finish, Riv tossed his head, eyes rolling white in terror, and broke away from her. She snatched at the dangling reins, but the horse leaped away and ran through the long grass to stand whinnying across the hollow.

  “Riv!” Esme shouted impatiently. “You perverse creature! Come back here!” She stood with her hands on her hips as the horse bucked and shied, spinning in circles of fear as she watched. What had gotten into that animal? wondered Esme. She had seen nothing like it before.

  Away, foul beast!

  And take your rider-

  Or be ye still,

  And stand beside her.

  At the strange, singsong words spoken in a rasping gabble of a voice, Esme whirled around. Her hand flew to the long dagger at her belt.

  Not hangman’s knot,

  Nor blade of knife

  Prevail against

  This sibyl’s life!

  Esme could not believe her eyes. For there, in a huddle of rags on a rock in the middle of the creek, stood a humpbacked old woman. She held a long staff in one hand and waved the other before her as if warding off bees. As Esme watched in mute astonishment, the old woman hopped lightly as a cricket from stone to stone and so crossed the stream without so much as wetting a single tatter.

  Upon landing on the bank the old women shook her rap in a flurry and stamped the ground three times with her staff. Then she proceeded to hobble toward the spot where Esme stood gaping in amazement. Where had she come from?

  “Who are you, old mother?” asked Esme warily. The withered creature did not answer but drew closer in her peculiar hopping gait, swinging the staff and puffing mightily. Her hair hung in a mass of tangled gray snakes bedecked with bits of leaf and twig. The shriveled face looked like a dried apple, a mass of lines and creases browned by the wind and baked by the sun. When the woman moved, Esme imagined she could hear her brittle bones rattle; she appeared as old as the rocks under the hill.

  “Who are you?” Esme repeated her question.

  The hag made a pass in front of her with her wavering paw. Esme saw the rough hands and blackened nails and noticed, too, the scent of smoke and filth which billowed about the old woman.

  If rock and hill

  And laughing water

  Be hearth and home,

  I’m Orphe’s daughter,

  She turned her weathered face slyly toward Esme and grinned a leering, toothless grin. It was then that Esme saw the sunken sockets where once eyes used to be. The old woman was utterly blind.

  “You live here… in this hollow?”

  So ye say

  And speak ye true.

  And I would ask

  The same of you.

  “Me? I am Esme. I did not mean to disturb your home. I heard the horse…” She turned and noticed Riv had calmed and now stood watching and cautiously nodding his head as if spellbound. “I will trouble you no further, but will leave at once.”

  Of leaving let

  No man be spoken,

  Till I have known

  You by your token.

  The ancient oracle held out her hand and propped her chin on her staff and waited. She looked like a bent and gnarled tree on a withered stump offering a lonely branch. Her ragged clothing fluttered in the breeze like leaves.

  “I do not have a token, old mother,” said Esme, thinking fast. It did not do to upset an oracle. Especially one of the caste who called themselves the daughters of Orphe, for they were very powerful and wise. “But let me offer a blessing in your name when next I come to a shrine.”

  The hag threw back her head and laughed, and Esme saw two lonely brown teeth clinging like lichens to their place in the elderly jaw. The old seeress’ laughter rang like the clatter of hail in an empty pot.

  Of blessings I

  Have little need.

  Bless me instead

  With a noble deed.

  Esme started at the old woman’s use of the word noble. She asked suspiciously, “What deed would you have me perform?”

  The rabbit caught

  Within yon briar,

  Tastes the better

  When aroast with fire.

  The old woman crooked a knobby finger along the stream behind them. Esme followed it with her eyes and saw a hawthorn thicket rustling vigorously as if something were indeed caught within it.

  “You would have me cook you a meal? This is the deed you require?” Esme did not like the idea; she was anxious to resume her journey. The country was not safe; the enemy prowled the hills at will. She had had two encounters already and did not welcome a third. She wished she had some item of value she could give the hag and be on her way. “Very well,” she said slowly, and reluctantly went to retrieve the rabbit she knew she would find caught among the thorns.

  Orphe’s daughter turned and followed her with sightless sockets. She smiled, and the wrinkled old face contorted in a shrewd, lipless grimace. She mumbled happily to herself and fluttered like a crippled bird to perch herself upon a nearby rock to wait.

  Esme had no difficulty catching the rabbit. She could see it struggling in the thicket. Reaching in carefully, she pulled it out by the scruff of the neck. She could feel its tiny heart beating madly as she held it close. It gave a terrified kick and leaped out of her arms. Esme watched as it bounded away, afraid that she had lost it and would now be cursed by the oracle for failing in her deed.

  But the rabbit, a plump hare, gave two faltering jumps and then pitched forward-dead. Esme ran to it and picked it up. The racing heart was still. She took her dagger and cut off its head to bleed it. She left it dangling by its hind legs from a branch while she went in
search of wood to make a fire.

  When at last the fire was crackling and the skinned rabbit gutted and roasting on a spit, Esme went to the seeress and announced, “Your meal will be ready soon, old mother. And I have found you an apple to eat with your meat.” The apple she had thoughtfully peeled and diced into a wooden bowl which she retrieved from Toli’s pack behind the saddle. She then ground the large golden globe to mash with the handle of her dagger.

  The hag said nothing but hopped nearer the fire and seated herself. Esme went to the stream and filled a second bowl with water.

  “Perhaps Orphe’s daughter would care to wash her hands before eating,” Esme said gently, holding the bowl before her.

  The old woman nodded regally and dipped her hands daintily into the bowl and rubbed them together. The water turned murky with dirt. The old woman then wiped her wet hands on her filthy clothes and smiled.

  Esme fetched her another bowl of water, took the cooked meat from the spit and cut it into strips which she shredded and chopped. “Your meal, my lady,” said Esme, for the oracle had assumed a queenly air as she was presented with the bowl of apple and rabbit, thoroughly minced.

  Esme withdrew to watch the old woman dine with obvious pleasure, licking her fingers and smacking her lips. When she had finished, she held out the bowl for more. Esme filled it again and sat down beside her to wait. The sun reached its zenith, dwindling the shadows in the glade to nothing, and still the old woman hunkered over her bowl. Esme clasped her hand around her knees and forced herself to wait as patiently as possible.

  At last the old woman had eaten her fill. She placed the bowls on the ground beside her and rose up with much creaking and snapping of joints. She shook herself forward to stand before Esme and leaned once more on her staff. This she did with such surety of motion and without hesitation that Esme realized for the first time that the hag saw as much with her inner eye as others did with perfect vision. She shuddered to think that as a child the woman had probably had her eyes put out to further enhance her strange gift

  The deed was done

  And with thoughtful art.

  As best befits

  A most noble heart.

  By this I know

  As by a gold ring,

  Princess ye an

  And your father King.

  Esme gasped and jumped to her feet. The hag had spoken rightly, but it frightened her to have her secret so easily known.

  “You see much that cannot be seen with eyes alone, priestess. Since I have served you as you asked, allow me to leave with your blessing.”

  A blessing ye ask

  And this ye receive,

  Your secret safe

  If none you deceive.

  Full rare is she

  Whose safety would spend

  In risking death

  For love of a friend.

  But this ye do

  And this will be found:

  Your errand done

  When two are unbound.

  The old woman turned and scuttled away. Esme felt a nudge at her elbow and realized that Riv had come to her and was anxious to be off and away from the queer old woman.

  Esme climbed into the saddle and watched the shapeless bundle of rags hop from stone to stone back across the stream. “Thank you for the blessing, daughter of Orphe. May your prophecy be true.”

  At that the hag stopped and turned once more toward Esme. She raised her crooked staff overhead with both hands and turned around three times very fast. Esme wondered that she did not fall off her precarious perch in the middle of the stream.

  The old woman’s rasping voice rose to fill all the hollow.

  I speak what is

  And not what may be.

  But since you ask,

  Hear my prophecy

  The oracle raised her face toward the sky and muttered a long incantation while the staff waved back and forth over her head. Then she brought the knobby head of the rod down with a crack upon the stone where she stood. Her hand shot into the air, fingers spread like a claw. Her words echoed in the dell.

  Seek ye the sword

  And do not yield it!

  If foe be flayed,

  A King must wield it.

  With a skip and a jump the hag disappeared as quickly and as mysteriously as she had come. But long after she was gone her words rang in Esme’s ears like the clear peal of a bell.

  SIXTEEN

  QUENTIN HUNG limply from the wagon wheel, his mind benumbed with the pain drumming through every extremity of his broken body. He whimpered softly, unaware that he was making any sound at all-unaware of anything but the throbbing, insistent agony.

  All day long the wheel had spun-over rock and root, through dust and deep water. And Quentin, lashed to the wheel, had been slowly tortured into insensibility. He did not notice when the wheel finally stopped, nor when the sun set, nor when night brought an end to his torture.

  He hung on the wheel and whimpered softly and pitifully as darkness deepened around him.

  Amidst the ordered confusion of Nin’s army making camp for the night, the moon rose fair and full, and with it the Wolf Star. Quentin gazed unblinking at the moon with unseeing eyes. Some small part of his mind watched it curiously, a frightened animal peering out from the cave where, it had retreated to escape the hunters.

  After a long time it seemed to Quentin that the moon was coming toward him, leaving its course in the black dome of heaven to swim closer and closer. He could see it weaving over him, shining with a gentle light. It had two dark eyes that watched strangely. He wanted to reach out and place his hand against its smooth luminous surface, but his hands would not obey. Then the moon disappeared.

  Years passed, or were they moments? Quentin next felt something cool touch his forehead. He opened his eyes and saw that the moon had come back. It was looking at him and whispering to him, but be could not hear the words though they buzzed softly in his ears. He struggled to lift his head to speak, but lacked the strength, so simply allowed the moon to comfort him with its cool touch.

  “Kenta, can you hear me? It is Toli. Kenta…”

  Quentin blinked his eyes and peered dully back at the round shining face of the moon. He opened his mouth to speak, but could not remember how to form the words.

  “Do not try to speak. Just listen to me. I have come to free you. Kenta, can you hear me?”

  Quentin moaned. Why was this moon so persistent? What did it want? He wanted only to drift back into the soothing void of unconsciousness.

  “Here is some water.” He felt something press against his lips, and cool liquid spilt gently into his mouth. He swallowed feebly and then again. “Drink it slowly,” came the whisper.

  Next Quentin felt something tugging at his hand. He felt it, though it seemed to him that his hand was faraway and no longer a part of him. When the hand was free, it fell limp and useless to dangle at his side. He watched as the moon stooped to slice through the cords which bound his feet. Then the other hand swung free, and he pitched forward onto his knees and into the solid arms of the moon who whispered in his ear, “Can you move?”

  Quentin made no answer. He felt himself rolled to the ground gently and then half-lifted, half-dragged under the shelter of the wagon. His head was raised, and the cool liquid poured into his mouth. Then he was laid back down, and Toli fell to rubbing some life back into his friend’s mangled limbs. He sank once more into peaceful oblivion.

  “Kenta, wake up.” The voice was the barest of whispers. Warm breath tickled his ear. “It is time to go.”

  “Toli?” The word was a slurred moan.

  “Shh!-not so loud. I am here. Thank the god you are alive. I thought I had lost you.”

  “What has happened? Ooohh…” His shoulder had begun throbbing again, and the pain and the night chill revived him somewhat. “Where… where am I?”

  “There is no time, Kenta. It will be morning soon. We must get away now. Can you move?”

  “I-I do not know. I do n
ot think so.”

  “You must try. Come, I will help you.” Toli gently lifted his master to a sitting position, but even this effort caused black waves of dizziness to wash over Quentin. He moaned again and could not restrain it.

  “I think your right arm is broken, Kenta. Hold it close to your side and try not to move it.”

  “I cannot feel anything. But my shoulder… ahh!” Toli had placed his hands under Quentin’s arm to drag him from beneath the wagon.

  “The soldiers are asleep, but there are sentries around the perimeter. They are careless, for they are not expecting an encounter this night. We have a chance. Can you stand?”

  “I…” With Toli’s help he struggled to his feet, then swayed uncertainly. The pain took his breath away.

  “I will hold you, but we must move now.” Toli guided his first faltering steps as Quentin stumbled helplessly forward, trying to make his legs move in harmony. It was no use-he collapsed not two steps from where they had started.

  “Good,” grunted Toli. “We try again. Lean on me.” He raised Quentin back to his feet, and they started off again.

  Quentin tried to raise his head, but searing fireballs of pain burned through his brain at the effort. He let his head wobble upon his chest as Toli propelled them forward. The earth felt queer beneath his feet, as if it were rolling away from him with every step. His legs kept entangling themselves and tripping him, but somehow Toli kept them both upright and moving.

  “Ahead is a gully-maybe fifty paces. We will be hidden there. We can rest before moving again. But we must be as far away from here as possible before daylight.”

  They lurched through the darkness as Toli’s nighthawk vision kept watch for signs of discovery. They were moving away from camp; the wagons stood between them and the huddled masses of sleeping enemy soldiers. But ahead lay the circle of sentries at their posts.