by Jenna Rhodes
“Wouldn’t they have had their backs to the Revela and been cut off if the battle turned?”
“Kanako hoped so, but he was wrong. They swept up below us, toward the stomach of our troops, because they crossed at night and we had deemed them superstitious devils who wouldn’t dare such a maneuver. The sun rose at dawn, and we look out at a floodplain of Bolger troops. They’d never been so organized before—or since. Kanako knew that his sole hope was to so completely annihilate their troops in our defeat that they would scatter and the nation would be broken. That, he accomplished.”
Jeredon moved in his cart. It creaked under his impatient weight. “Why are we damming the Revela, then?”
“Because this is a dry year. The queen is counting on Galdarkan arrogance to not know all the stories about Ashenbrook and Kanako’s death, that he would not have bothered listening to toback shop tales and there are no Bolger storytellers to listen to. The Revela will once again be uncrossable and even pontoons won’t manage it. Now, the Revela is the driest, most dangerous, rock-ridden trench we could have hoped to dig, if we’d the time. Instead, all we had to do was dam her main tributary up in the mountains and she becomes bone dry.”
“And the Galdarkans think . . .”
“They think that she will be low, and easily fordable, and their retreat. By the time they see she is gone, it will be too late.”
“My sister is brilliant.”
“Possibly.” Bistel lowered the point of his staff to the ground as he got to his feet, and Alfra scrambled up as well. “She might have had a bit of sage advice, too.”
Jeredon had the grace to flush a bit as he tucked his chin in slightly. “I meant that, of course.”
“Naturally.” Bistel walked a pace and then came back to the side of the cart. “She has plans we formulated together and plans which she has kept to herself. She doesn’t intend for us to turn the Ashenbrook red with our blood again. I had hoped she would trust me enough before this day to confide in me what else she has in mind.” He stopped, and then added, “You know your sister well.”
“We’ve always been close.”
“Then it is likely you know her Talent. I won’t ask what it is. Her grandfather made a point of keeping that knowledge under wraps, and I won’t press for a betrayal, but we . . .” Bistel paused, then shook his head sharply. “There is no ‘we’ anymore. I am the only one old enough to remember! Once there had been a ‘we,’ though, and we surmised that one of the secret Anderieon abilities was to prophesy. It followed on the known one, of bridging this plane to the Gods’ for treaties such as the one which created Larandaril under the protection of the sacred Andredia. Your grandfather was a very young warlord when Kanako rode out, but records show that he warned Kanako of what he faced. Kanako did not listen. When it fell to Anderieon to take up his banner and scatter what remained of the Bolger clans, he did so, before we all retreated to our Houses and Fortresses and left the citizens of Kerith to fight their own skirmishes for many a century. Luckily, there wasn’t much fight left in anyone for quite a long while. I remained a warlord, and he became the Warrior King. There were wars among ourselves, the Secret Wars, about which no one will speak except perhaps in the Books of All Truth. That is another matter. What remains is that your sister earned the title she carries now, and it is likely that part of what she does is as knowable to her as it is unknowable to us.”
“Prescience.”
“Stronger than that, I deem. Let’s hope that she has foresight and common sense; otherwise, the same Vaelinar arrogance that doomed us before will doom us again.”
“How so, if she knows the rivers?”
Bistel pinned Jeredon with his brilliant blue-on-blue eyes. “A ruler knows what it is to buy an alliance with his or her body, be it in bloodletting or marriage bonding. She’s refused to speak of Diort. Arrogance? Or does she know that which I do not? I pray it’s the latter. I am too old to risk my life again for the former. I don’t wish for history to repeat itself endlessly. ” Bistel swung aboard his stone-gray charger, his aryn staff tucked up under one arm as if it might be a sword. “Rest while you can. They’ll come at us again in the morning, I think. They’ve licked their wounds and made their repairs and replotted their strategies. There are no trees high enough for them to look over the Revela, and we’ve managed to keep their scouts either away or dead. They’ll be greatly surprised when they put their backs to what they plan as a safe retreat. Greatly surprised.”
Jeredon swept his gaze over the river plain as the warlord rode off. He did not know what his sister had planned and from what he could see, they were as trapped as Kanako, only this time by no river instead of a river too high and fierce to cross. But Bistel seemed to think she meant to put Diort’s back to it, giving him no place to go. He could only hope it would be that easy. She didn’t want to annihilate his forces, only beat them to a standstill. It would take more than that, he feared. And where was she?
Chapter Forty-Eight
THE ARMY OF QUENDIUS reeked. They held a dry and musky odor about them that filled his nose with strangeness. He tried to outmarch them but was lucky to stay on his feet. Their movement had gone from a walk to a march to a trot, pressured from those at the rear to the front. Those leading dared not slow. Garner still moved easily, but he knew that some of the two hundred or so guards behind him had begun to wheeze and labor yet dared not drop back. He could hear Beezel’s loud grunt every time his left boot hit the tunnel floor even though the veteran caravan guard lumbered at the rear of their pack. His shambling discomfort echoed ahead to all of them, warning them what they would be reduced to, all of them. A day, a night, and a day, by Garner’s reckoning, they had spent in the tunnels, with little time for a breather and food and none for sleep. The army which followed on their heels would envelop them, run over the top of them, or even devour them. They would not be seen again. The Ravers had taken their horses and ponies one at a time, bounding forward to pick one they wished, tearing the reins from its rider’s hands and bringing it down to eat in the middle of their pack. It could happen to any one of them. That fear prickled the hair on the back of their necks and drove them more mercilessly than any whip. Bregan paced Garner, his elven brace moving smoothly, but the rest of his body had begun to fail him. The Kernan trader’s pale skin had lightened even more except for the slash of color across his cheekbones. Sweat slicked his forehead. He flicked a glance over as Garner looked toward him.
“I think we’re not here to fight,” Garner said quietly, with a chin point toward Quendius who trotted a handful of body lengths or so in front. “I think we’re here to keep him from them.”
“I believe you may be right.” Oxfort mopped his forehead with his sleeve.
Quendius kept an easy pace with Narskap by his side although Narskap seemed distracted, winding the stifled air of the caves and casting forward now and then as if he searched the dim depths ahead or the occasional tunnel which shot off from their passage. The pathways glowed when Quendius reached them, not overly bright but clear enough they could be traversed. Once or twice, at the beginning, Quendius had cupped an odd amulet which hung about his neck on a braided thong, and a Raver had sprinted forward, touched foreheads with him and then dropped back as though given an order. As for the caves themselves, all the ways they had taken were marked with glazed and painted tiles inset into the walls and a mere touch from Quendius had brought a glow up in a faltering, flickering start as if reluctant or burned out, only to be forced. Garner had wondered if the glow fed all the way back down their lines or if the others were driven toward the light and that was why they kept increasing their paces.
They both watched as Narskap leaned close to Quendius, his wiry frame little more than a skeleton draped in worn leather armor, his lank hair tied back at the nape of his neck. Surprisingly, the Hound reached near Quendius in height, something Garner would never have figured, even seeing them side by side. Quendius stood as a tall man, even among tall men yet Narskap nearly met him
at eye level though Garner had never reckoned Narskap as a being tall and straight. Something inside Narskap hunched as if life had dealt him a near lethal blow and he awaited the second, fatal one. Nonetheless, Narskap argued with his commander now. What about, the two could not hear, nor did Garner think that even those closest could, for they showed no inkling at all about anything happening. The guards were, quite simply, in a slow run for their lives and knew it, and endeavored only to keep moving.
Quendius snapped an order. Narskap shook his head, and then, deliberately, swung away from the other, and took a feeder tunnel on his right. Quendius watched him go, and then snarled in anger. He made a furious gesture that swung the amulet around his neck to one side, like a pendulum. It caught the dim light and gave off a dull glow before disappearing from sight. But Quendius did not slow nor did he signal any of the guards to follow Narskap. The Hound had not slipped the hold of the packmaster, but he might have snapped at the hand which fed him, Garner thought.
Bregan took Garner’s arm and pulled him sideways into the same tunnel as they reached it. The tramp of boots covered their defection. Bregan reached up and touched a set of marks painted onto a beautiful though half-recessed and hidden tile in the wall. It glowed at his touch.
Garner caught his breath and saw Bregan fighting to do the same. The trader had spent his frail strength keeping pace. It was defect or die as the army caught up and overran him. They both withdrew deeper into the small cut as the march of other steps drew nearer and nearer, drowning out even their labored exhalations.
They could not go back now, even if they wished. Or they could only if they had the strength and will to sprint back into place with the caravan guards, but Garner doubted that Oxfort could manage it. He did not know if he himself could, as his sides burned and his breath wheezed slightly. Even as he pondered the choice that Bregan had made for them, the invading army began to trot past.
He saw the Ravers. He knew them by their odd gait. Some hopped and leaped on two legs, others gamboled on four, uneven legs, their black rags in tattered wisps about their shining carapaces. Bregan drew in a hiss and then held it as if afraid they might hear him. Garner worried more about their scent. Heat boiled off him like a kettle even though he shivered and dust coated him, caking over the sweat of his body, dust raised by the troops as they went by. Bregan steepled his hands over his nose in protection as they both watched in horrified fascination.
Things followed after the Ravers. Things like no beings he had ever seen before, and he was not sure he could ever describe to another who had not already seen such a creation. Lean and muscled, they trotted upright like a man, but there all resemblance ended. He would have said nothing that looked as they did could run except that he saw them. Only one scent hung about them, that of blood. Copper, sweet, ripening blood. They hissed as they quick marched, tongues flickering in and out. Panting? Complaining to one another? The noises they made battered at his eardrums, atonal and sharp, pitched lower and higher than he could hear in comfort. They wore armor, or perhaps it was their hide along the back, folded into plates about the shoulders and flanks. Some of them were spined, short and sharp, now and again, heavy and blunt. Armor and weapon were grown out of their own tough hide, in addition to what they carried. Teeth, many, sharp and pointed, glinted in every gaping mouth.
Beezel reeled into his view, his staggering form buffeted uncaring by the tide surrounding him. Sweat poured off his purpling face. He clutched his left arm and cried, “Stop, just let me stop! Help me . . .”
They sssssisssed at him as he spun about, helplessly. Their ranks broke around him, as a tide parts around a huge boulder jutting up from an ocean floor, leaving him vulnerable to one huge figure as it bore down on him.
Beezel took a whooping gulp of air as he fell to one knee, cradling his arm to his chest, heavy creases of pain etched into his weathered face. The . . . thing . . . came at him, a hand out.
Long curving claws tipped each finger on that hand. It swiped through the air, catching Beezel by the throat, and ripped it out. Blood spurted out in a wave that flooded the ground. Beezel waved his arms and toppled onto his side. Crimson splashed up and all around him as he did. Garner turned Bregan’s face away, hoping only that Beezel was dead before the thing began to feed greedily, tearing flesh from bone in long bloody strips. One or two others joined it, at the end, and they fought over the last scraps and gobbets of meat.
Tears coursed down his face, hot and wet, and dried far too quickly, and were far too few. His body had little moisture it could spare, even in shock and sorrow for a comrade. He took Bregan and shoved him down the feeder tunnel, praying only that they not meet Narskap, less afraid of the dark than he was of what he’d just seen. He did not stop until they’d gone far enough that the sound of the passing marchers was only a mild thrum in their ears.
“If only he could have stayed on his feet,” Bregan said, in a low breath. “On his feet.”
Even a whisper might be too loud, but he answered anyway. “An army that feeds on itself never stops. No wounded. The enemy losses only fuel it. No survivors.” Garner tore his attention away from the main tunnel and put his back to the stone wall. “We can’t let it reach its goal. Whatever it is. Whoever they are.”
Bregan made a noise in his throat. He wiped his mouth with shaking fingers. “They are the Raymy,” he managed. He turned and pressed his face to the stone and then shifted farther down the tunnel into its obsidian depths before finding something and fingering it upon the wall. His touch feathered across an inset tile, and he put his hand forward to it as it lit, as if its coolness, as if its subtle light, could both soothe and guide him. After a moment, he reared back and put his fingertips to it, tracing and strengthening the object. Whatever he worked upon the tile, it answered. “We can outrun them.”
Garner felt his lips twist. “I won’t go back. I’ve got to warn Sevryn. I’ve got to get the warning out.”
“Why? What have the Vaelinars ever done for us, but weave a web about us that strangles us, Ways that bind us and tax us . . .”
“Ways that bridged us together after the Mageborn tore us apart.”
“It took the Mageborn to turn away the Raymy.”
“They went for each other’s throats after.”
Something glinted deep in Bregan’s eyes. “They did not value one another.”
“As you don’t the Vaelinars? The Galdarkans?”
Bregan spit dryly to one side. “At least defend something of Kernan, if you’re going to defend anything.”
“They’re human! Human enough that many of them have loved us, and we loved them back. They redressed their wrongs. They know the mistakes they’ve made. They’re human,” he repeated, adding “There’s nothing human in that army.”
“You’ll kill us, playing the hero.”
“There’s no other way. Die this way or go back and try to stay on our feet . . .”
“All right, all right!” Bregan waved a hand, quieting Garner. “We can travel a pathway they cannot, by sheer bulk of their numbers. These side tunnels are narrow. They can chase us if they see us, but not en masse. If I can but know where they were headed . . . I saw the tiles . . .” Bregan closed his eyes tightly, face screwed in memory. “I read everything in the trader libraries growing up. Everything. It stays with me, even languages long dead.”
Garner looked at the brushed-on sigils. He knew a little of the Galdarkan style from his brief stint in Calcort, and he would have staked his life that he looked at it now. “Who made these?”
Bregan gave a shrug. “Perhaps it was the Mageborn you so revile.” He leaned over to adjust his brace. “Have you water in your pack?”
“Some.”
“As do I. A drink now, and then we go this way.” He pointed down the feeder tunnel as he straightened.
“Where to?”
“A place called Ashenbrook.” He frowned. “I should know that name.”
Garner took his waterskin out and drank a lit
tle, slowly, wetting his lips and tongue, and letting it trickle down his throat, before taking a second sip. “Where Kanako fell and the Vaelinars won a blood-soaked victory, according to toback shop tales.”
“Then we can only pray history repeats itself.” Bregan took his own drink, capped his flask tightly, and waved Garner ahead of him. “Everything is against us. Time, tide, and all manner of flesh.”
The wide and treacherous Nylara River stretched sinuously across their view, deeply sapphire, foaming sea green where it etched into the riverbank. Lara looked down at the tradesman they had accosted, he with but a few caravans parked idle at the river’s edge.
“There’s no Ferryman here. Ay waited better part of a day, then sent for regular boatman from across t’Nylara. Ropes still in place, and th’ barge, but no Ferryman. Took the most of yestiddy and t’day to get my caravan acrosst. This be th’ last of it.” The trader hitched up the shoulder of his finely embroidered vest as though it scratched him under his heavy winter coat.
“What do you mean, he’s not here?”
“Are you daft? Looky around you. No Ferryman! Now, mind you, he takes his time, part’clarly when it comes to trader caravans, ever since th’ Oxfort son struck him down. He carries a grudge, that un. Traders sum-times wait much as ’alf a day t’get him to show up. Now there’s sum that says he ferries other rivers, too, but ay can’t be sayin’ that. You all would know more abut that. Mebbe you’ll have more luck gettin’ th’ ornery beast t’ answer.” And he leveled his heavy eyebrows to look at them. Despite his heavy northeast Kernan accent, his meaning was clear, his words seeming to hang in the air between them.
Lara’s mount stamped restlessly. She looked to Bistane. “Tree’s blood.” Her mouth worked on words she wanted to spit out, but did not. His eyes reflected both her anger and her worry. The Ferryman was not a being, beast, or man, but a Way and what if he had spun out of existence just as the Cut had done around Sevryn. Yet there was no sign of anything amiss at the edge of the Nylara River other than the missing phantom. As she glared across the bright blue ribbon of the river, harsh winter sun glancing off it, she saw, she felt, no sign of the Ferryman. What she did feel hit her like a blow, the link with her vantane cutting across her vision of the Nylara: a field of war, trampled grass running red-brown with blood, horses down and struggling to get to their feet despite shattered legs, men and women strewn everywhere like broken dolls, and a trap waiting to be sprung that would spare all the rest of the fighters from the same fate—if she and her troops could but get there in time. As planned, by the hand of the Ferryman. She shut her eyes tightly. Bistane’s arm went around her waist to steady her in her saddle.