"You can."
"All right. You may dice as you wish, Khogar Vai." Although they were technically equals, Jahaksi's voice unconsciously assumed a tone of command. "But now I need you to employ the chains."
"I'm not sure if they will work." The wizard responded. "They may make matters worse."
"Nevertheless we must try them. We must make the eagle docile, or it will never survive the journey north. Need I remind you that it was your circle that forged them in the first place? At that time I was assured by both Messenger Natarak and High Lord Tataka Khai that they would work."
"I will try them, may the Master give me strength." With that Vai stood in an ungainly fashion and picked up his walking stick. He then opened a small silver chest lying on a low table close at hand. He pulled out the chain, a thin line of silver links that rippled in his hands, over a pace in length, and then pulled out a smaller bracelet and snapped it onto his wrist.
Jahaksi resisted an urge to take the doddering old man's arm and support him as they walked over to the wagon.
Lanae, sitting on the tail of the wagon, saw them coming, and she wondered what this weak old man was doing in the company of such a warlike and youthful group. During the last four days she had learned the names of the five or six men who kept close to camp, although she knew that Jahaksi kept two dozen or so men she never saw scouting the woods. She had seen the old man before, but Jahaksi had not mentioned who he was or what he was doing with the troop. She had not failed to notice the slight contempt the Brizaki leader held for the man.
She had grown somewhat used to sleeping on the floor of the cage next to Sentinel while the wagon moved at night. Jahaksi had, in his usual courteous fashion, provided her with a thick blanket so the nights were not too cold. The constant motion of the wagon had kept her from sleeping at first, that and the natural fear that came with being a prisoner, she supposed. For the past two nights she had been able to sleep soundly, however, and Sentinel, too. It was doing the eagle no good to be bound in a cage without the opportunity to fly, but at least he seemed healthy. In the manner of an animal, the eagle had seemed to outwardly accept his change in circumstances, but Lanae knew that beneath the surface Sentinel's proud spirit seethed.
During daylight hours she was permitted to walk about the temporary encampments under the close guard of Tathaga, who seemed to think of the duty as some sort of punishment, although Lanae could not imagine what for. Tathaga only spoke in his own language, however, and Lanae did not think he could even understand her. She found the Brizaki to be strictly formal with each other and with her.
Jahaksi and the old man came nearer.
"Please step aside and permit this one to approach." Jahaksi gestured to the old man. The old man said something in Brizaki.
"I don't think I can put the chain on the bird without it biting me." Khogar Vai said to Jahaksi. He turned to Lanae. "Greetings, child. I can speak your language. My name is Khogar Vai, and I have something I wish for you to do."
Lanae nodded in reply as she hopped down from the wagon. She was not sure she wanted to help the old man, but she also knew she had little choice. It was better to appear cooperative. "Yes. What is it?"
"I must have you to put this necklace on the eagle's neck." He held out a silver chain, shimmering with a number of linked strands, in his wrinkled palms. Lanae noticed a similar band around the old man's wrist.
"What is it for?" Despite her captivity she was still Sentinel's rider, after all, and even if it meant her death, she would never do anything to hurt the great bird.
"A token of ownership." The old man replied. "It signifies that the bird has been taken, and that I am the owner of the bird, nothing more." Something in the old man's expression urged Lanae to yield, and before she could think to refuse, she found that she'd taken the great necklace in her hand. Jahaksi said something to the old man in Brizaki.
"Are you compelling her?"
"Only a little, Jahaksi. Compulsion is part of seeing, after all. Simply a matter of permitting others to see things as you wish them to."
"You did not tell me that you retained that power, Vai." The rebuke in Jahaksi's tone was unmistakeable.
"Only a little, Jahaksi." The old man's voice was condescending. "Hardly worth mentioning." Then, in Mortentian: "It's all right, girl. Go ahead and put it on him."
Lanae eased open the door to the cage when Jahaksi unchained it. Sentinel looked at her curiously as she approached. When he saw the necklace, he did not react. It was not uncommon for his riders to place such tokens on him. They recognized him as the greatest of all eagles, after all, and it was only natural that they should adorn him with gifts. The great eagle permitted his rider to put the necklace around his neck.
Jahaksi, ready to grab the girl should she seek to interfere in any way, watched with intense curiosity as the wizard began preparing his effort to overthrow the will of the great eagle. "Have you seen an artifact such as this in use, Jahaksi?" Vai's tone was detached and impersonal as he took off his cloak in preparation.
"No, High Lord. I assume it is a form of compulsion?" If it helped the wizard to talk, Jahaksi would do his part.
"Only in part, Lord Jahaksi. Compulsion is just the surface of it, the initial challenge of will. Once I have opened a bridge through the realm of Seeing, the binding of the chains is elemental."
"I see. Perhaps I was wrong to ask you to do this, then. Hadn't we better wait until we are at sea, Vai? I thought you told me you could not feel the elemental powers here."
"The four primal elements, that is true. This binding only touches on those powers, Jahaksi. The real force behind it is in the realm of darkness. That element is truly pervasive. There is no land anywhere untouched by darkness." Vai had his shirt open, and a number of cryptic runes were carefully drawn across his chest and down his arms.
Another voice interrupted the wizard. "When this works, you will have no more use for the girl, Jahaksi." Da'all Khor seemed a bit smug as he spoke from behind them. His hand was on his sword hilt.
"You are correct, Da'all Khor." Jahaksi nodded. "If it works, you may kill her as you have been asking." His lack of confidence had no effect on Vai's preparations.
Lanae could not understand their words, but she understood Da'all Khor's gesture plainly enough, as well as the slightly predatory glance he directed her way. Whatever they were doing, she realized that her life was in the balance. She had felt an odd sensation when the old man spoke to her, as if he were trying very hard to persuade her to do something, but it had just been a feeling. The truth of the matter was that it was her situation as a captive that had compelled her to obey, not any power of his.
Unfortunately for Khogar Vai, he did not truly appreciate this fact.
"Kheile Ban Ghexauri!" Khogar Vai spoke the words of power, his intonation perfect, his body fully prepared. The runes carved into the flesh around his heart and painted on his face and arms were perfect in every line, and he had prepared this enchantment for several days. Several lifetimes of study and experience went into this single moment, and many wizards had been driven mad by the effort required to reach the level of arcane understanding the High Lord Khogar Vai had surpassed two centuries ago. He was steeped in the deepest mysteries of the Art, his soul was bound to the existence of a hundred netherworld demons and his Power was second only to perhaps one or two enchanters in the world. In the history of time, only half a dozen enchanters had ever felt the Power that coursed through his dark veins daily, and in this matter, this specific enchantment, he was unsurpassed. Even in the City of Magic none could boast a finer knowledge or a more subtle command of the Art of the Binding.
And in the land of Mortentia, where the magic had lain dead for ten thousand years, none of that mattered.
The enchantment was so powerful that even Lanae saw it working, although only as a shadow. With the uttering of the strange words the old man's eyes suddenly widened and focused sharply on the head of Sentinel. The great eagle, who had been preening himself care
fully, suddenly stopped all movement except that of his head, which snapped up instantly. The great head shot forward, and the eagle's eyes seemed to pierce through the bars of his cage, boring into the eyes of the old man.
Lanae realized suddenly that she was watching magic at work. She recoiled at the thought. The old man was some sort of warlock, and was attempting to bewitch the great eagle. For a long, long moment the warlock and the great eagle stared at each other, their wills struggling. The old man seemed to grow, or the shadow of him seemed to, until it towered over the cage. But Lanae could see that the contest was not one-sided.
Sentinel, the great eagle, the largest and finest of all bird kind, sensed what was happening, even as the power of sorcery reached into his primitive mind. With the finely honed instincts of all animal kind, he felt the power of the wizard's attempt at dominion over his will.
But Sentinel was no dog. He was no horse. He was no mere domestic animal or pet to be tamed, even by so strong a will. He was the greatest of all eagles. He did not serve his riders as a slave or a pet, no matter what they believed. He had been raised by the loving hands of man from the shell, and he served freely and of his own great will. His was a fine, free spirit, tempered in the hard land of Mortentia where magic was dead. He was in the land of his birth, where the very stones supported his will.
Khogar Vai was a weakened wizard on the soil of a foreign land he scarcely understood.
Jahaksi watched the wizard make his attempt. He heard and recognized the words of power, words that would have shaken the very earth were they uttered with understanding in the Empire. Here they seemed to ring hollow and fall flat.
Like a shadow in his mind he saw the eagle crouch, gazing at the wizard as he had gazed at the fawn, the bones of which lay on the floor of his cage. Suddenly the eagle seemed to spring, his form launching through the bars of the cage. His great talons reached for Khogar Vai, seizing him like a sack of turnips. Instinctively Jahaksi reached for his sword, but before it had even cleared the scabbard the eagle struck with its mighty beak, tearing through the most powerful wards of protection as if they were not there, and ripped the heart from Khogar Vai.
Tathaga, who had no magical training whatsoever and very little imagination, saw only this: The old man said something and looked at the eagle, the eagle looked back for a moment, and the old man clutched at his chest and fell to the ground, quite obviously dead. Then the eagle, still in its cage, went back to preening itself.
Chapter 22: Entreddi Encampment, West of the Dunwater River
The fire had burned down to embers. The sun had not yet cleared the horizon, but the eastern sky held its promise in a wine colored basket. Only the brightest stars hovered on the western rim of the world. The encampment lay silent as a tomb.
Tuchek said nothing, nor did he writhe in his bonds. Dethil the lamplighter slept uneasily, troubled by the cords that bound him.
Aelfric stared into the dying embers of the fire, the remains of the night lurking pantherlike beyond. Haim kneeled at the side of the ancient Entreddi woman, rubbing water-soaked cloth over her face.
"Are they all dead? Are you certain?"
"It ain't a question, Aelfric." Haim had dropped the sarcastic milords from his speech during the night, shedding the artifice like a false second skin. "You want to look, go ahead."
Aelfric did not want to look. The dreadful silence coming from the wagons where the women and children had been was all the evidence he needed to confirm Haim's observations. He was grateful for the half-breed's willingness to go and look inside each wagon earlier, and conversely ashamed of his own unwillingness to do so.
The bodies of the men around the fire gave mute testimony to Tuchek's efficiency with the sword. Only the fact that he'd been disoriented and seemingly shocked into immobility had enabled Aelfric to disarm and bind him while Haim held him fast. The blademaster had given no explanation and offered no words to the two young men, nor had they asked him any questions.
The night's horror held them all in a fierce and perilous silence.
"She's coming around." Birds had begun singing to greet the morning. Haim cradled the old woman's head in his lap. She sputtered and gasped, then moaned.
Haim felt her grip like the talon of a king's eagle as she seized his arm and whispered fiercely. "How many?" The birds fell silent.
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Jecha."
"HOW MANY?" She demanded loudly, her voice cutting through the morning's sepulchural silence.
"All, Jecha. Every one."
"AH GODS!" She shrieked, sitting up and grasping at her heart. She looked at Tuchek with eyes that burned. He lowered his head and looked at the ground. "I TOLD you not to touch them! I TOLD you to drive them away!"
A single tear fell from the blademaster's eye and into the dust.
"Ahhhh!" She wept. "Damn you! Damn you, Tuchek." From wrinkled slits like rumpled cloth her tears welled forth, and somehow the sight of the old, proud, strong witch woman weeping tore into Aelfric's gut like a burning axe. Then, with a suddenness that surprised them all, Jecha stopped weeping and became as still as stone.
A weak plea from across the fire brought her eyes around. "It w..w…was all a d…d…dream, w…w…wasn't it mother?" Her scream had awakened the halfwit, and he looked at her with a desperate sort of madness in his eyes. She shook her head bitterly, then, thinking better of it, stood.
She walked over to the shaking, moaning halfwit and took his head into her trembling arms like she would have comforted any child. "Yes, child." Her voice shook only slightly. "It was all just a dream, child. Go back to sleep, now." Dethil shook with deep, wracking sobs, ignoring the fact that he was bound tightly at the ankles and wrists.
"Th…th…thank y…y…you, muh…muh…" The word seemed to catch in his throat.
"Hush, child. Go to sleep, child. It was all just a bad dream. Hush child."
"Muh…muh…mother. Muh…muh…" The word trailed off to nothing, and Dethil slept again. She laid his head gently down.
The old woman stood, her one good eye fixing on Aelfric as he sat beside the fire. Somehow the early morning greyness made her seem even more horrible in her grief and terrible loss. "You may untie them, Aelfric."
Haim started. "Are you serious?"
"I don't think that's a good idea, Madam Jecha." Aelfric added.
She continued to stare at him, her face devoid of expression. "I did not ask for your opinion, Aelfric. The enchantment has passed, and you may release them. They are not to blame for this, despite what I said earlier."
"How can you…" Haim began, but the witch woman cut him short, her voice like a cracking whip.
"You have lost nothing here, boy. I have lost everything. If anyone has a claim to bind and hold these, it is I. Now do as I say!"
Aelfric began kicking weapons clear of the space surrounding Tuchek as Haim began to reluctantly untie the blademaster. "You don't need to disarm him, Aelfric. I have told you that the enchantment has passed." Aelfric ignored her and continued what he was doing. Only when there was not a sword within fifteen strides of the sitting man did Haim release his bonds.
Tuchek massaged his wrists, getting the blood back into them. "Jecha, I…" But then he, too, found himself struggling for words.
"Hush, Tuchek. It is not time for you to speak." Tuchek closed his mouth and nodded acknowledgment, returning to his brooding silence.
"You three." Jecha pointed at Tuchek, Aelfric and Haim as if there was someone else she could have meant. "We have work to do. Haim, there are shovels on the back of the red wagon."
The sun had drifted well past the nooning before Jecha decided that the hole was deep and wide enough to accommodate all of the bodies. "Not that one." She commanded, when Aelfric began pulling at the corpse of the eyeless beggarman. "I will not sully the memories of my kin with his filthy essence."
"Should we burn him then?" Aelfric handled the body gingerly. "That's the way to get rid of a warlock, isn't it?"
&n
bsp; "He was no warlock." Jecha's voice was contemptuous. "He was only a tool, a vessel to carry the black enchantment. Tie him to a stone and drop him in the river for the suckerfish." Haim and Aelfric did as she commanded.
Around midmorning the halfwit had awakened again, and by then the men had moved the bodies to the side of the hole and out of his immediate sight. Jecha untied his hands while Aelfric watched him suspiciously. Ignoring his expression, she washed the blood from Dethil's trembling hands and slowly walked him back to the riverside. Haejin's small boat remained on the bank where they had drawn it up the night before. She pressed a small purse, weighty with gold, into his hand.
"Take this and give it to your master for your care, Dethil. Tell him you found it by the road. Speak nothing of the dream you had last night."
"Y…y…yes, mother."
"Shouldn't we hold him for the king's warders?" Aelfric eyed the halfwit suspiciously.
Jecha frowned in Aelfric's direction. "He is blameless and harmless. He was nothing but a tool and remembers nothing. The warders would hang him and Tuchek as well. Is that what you want?"
Aelfric simply looked at the old woman, his face devoid of expression. Under the circumstances, hanging the two did not seem a bad idea.
"We've work to do, Aelfric." Haim grabbed Aelfric's shoulder from behind. He had overheard the exchange, and wished to draw his companion away from the old woman before he said anything else. "She's the one who speaks for the dead here. If she's got no claim, we got no claim, nor the warders neither. Let it go." He held a single bloody slipper with bells on it in his rough hands.
Aelfric resisted the pull for a moment, then nodded and returned to the grim work of interning the dead.
Dethil's broad back bent sadly over the oar as he laboriously crossed the Dunwater, and he landed nearly two miles downriver before the current released him. He walked long and thoughtfully back toward Alidis.
Jecha said the full name of each person of the family Haila as they lay them in the single mass grave. The four grim-faced people performed no other ceremony, after the custom of the Entreddi. Tuchek said the names of Haejin and his son. By midafternoon the Aulig threw the last spadeful of dirt onto the mound. Jecha took the shovel from his hand.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 18