The younger of the two Cthochi snorted. “You are a fool, woman, to travel with two boys in this land. Don’t you know there is war here?” He was tall and well-muscled, but she could tell little else about him but the color of his brown eyes.
“I said I am Jecha.” She replied. “Do none of you know that name?”
“We do not know it.” Replied the other man, shorter and thicker and perhaps a decade older. “But you are of the Entreddi. We will take you across the river and you may be judged by the Ghaill. It is a long way to travel.”
“I do not wish to walk all the way to Northcraven.” Jecha replied. “I am old. You will take me to your chieftain, and he will know my name. He will give me a boat and men to take me to Northcraven.”
“It is certain he will. And perhaps wings to fly with and a golden chariot to ride about in.” The tall Cthochi mocked, but he seemed uncertain. “In the morning we will take you to see our chieftain, and likely your own death.”
“No, you will take me to him now. He will praise you for having brought me to him straight away, and if not, you may kill all three of us.”
“If you can.” Yeg and Derry said almost in unison, causing a wide white grin to slash across the face of the younger Cthochi.
The promise that they could kill them if they were wrong decided the two Cthochi scouts, and they walked away. They were gone only a few moments, then they returned on the river, having retrieved a war canoe from the place where they had cunningly hidden it nearby. It was painted in vertical stripes to blend in with the reeds. “We must bind you.” The taller one said.
“You may bind these two.” Jecha answered him. “I am too old to be tied up by foolish warriors fighting their foolish wars.” He started to argue, but the shorter man interrupted.
“It will be as you say.”
They crossed the river in the half moonlight, quietly and swiftly as only the Cthochi can go. They left the canoe hidden on the western shore, and Jecha was now in the Cthochi Aulig lands. They walked about a mile through thin forest to the Aulig’s tents. Jecha strode fearlessly to the large middle fire, now just a few embers glowing smokily in the dead of night, and waited.
A thin man of perhaps sixty approached her. “You are Jecha the seeress?”
“I am.” She replied. The man looked distressed.
“Unbind her followers!” He shouted, careless of who should hear. Several warriors’ heads popped out of openings in tents. “Mistress Jecha, please forgive our discourtesy.”
“There is no need.” Yeg said, when they came to unbind his hands from behind his back. He put his unbound arms down at his sides. “We are already unbound.”
Jecha looked at the older man, the chief. “You at least remember my name.” She said. “And I would have yours.”
“I am Demmer Brokenspear. I have the honor of leading this host.”
“Thank you Demmer.” She replied. “I am given to understand that Ghaill Earthspeaker is encamped by the city of Northcraven. I would have words with him, as soon as it may be done.”
“We will put you in a canoe with six strong rowers just as soon as you wish to travel, seeress. Any place you desire, the Cthochi will take you there.”
“I wish to travel now. Yeg, Derry, come. Also, you must not punish the man who bound up the hands of my men. It is not his fault they escaped the bonds. They are not the kind you can tie with ropes.”
“If the Mortentians catch us on the water it will go badly for us.” Yeg said.
“There is a good fog, and it will be on the river both tonight and tomorrow.” She replied. “They will not see us.”
The journey to the landing by the camp west of Northcraven took twelve hours by canoe, with the river doing most of the work. As Jecha had predicted, heavy fog lay over the river, and they passed through the rest of the night and half of the next day without being interrupted. They passed the town of Maslit in the predawn darkness and the town of Redwater in the afternoon without being challenged, although there were many boats on the water, both Cthochi and Mortentian. Right under the walls of Redwater Town they negotiated the rapids called The Narrows, the Cthochi rowers skillfully maneuvering the boat so that it made almost no sound and Jecha was only splashed once.
Occasionally they passed the body of a man or woman floating in the river, victims of the fighting. Fighters on both sides found the river a convenient way to dispose of both their victims and their companions. Yeg and Derry meditated, and Jecha looked like she was meditating, too, but the occasional sound of her soft snore gave her away to the Cthochi rowers.
It was midday when the Cthochi finally announced that they had arrived at the river camp of Ghaill Earthspeaker. The drums had been pounding all night, so they were expected. An honor guard of Cthochi, the tallest and the fiercest of them, lined the banks of the Redwater when the canoe landed, and men waded into the water to lift them from it. They all carried captured Mortentian swords, and most of them wore chainmail as well.
They were led directly to the center of the camp, which sprawled over many acres, and a large pointed tent of sewn deerhide stood there, with several trophies and flags to mark it as the tent of the Ghaill of Ghaills, the Earthspeaker. Across the fogbound river she could see the tops of the towers and fortresses of Northcraven, coming into and out of view, maybe a league distant. Jecha walked into the tent without invitation.
Ghaill Earthspeaker looked up at her approach. Even sitting he was enormous, and when he stood, his grey-flecked hair nearly touched the top of the tent. He was wearing a deerskin tunic and a large steel sword. “Seeress. It is good that you are well.”
“As well as can be expected, given how old I am. I guess I came at a good time. There doesn’t seem to be any fighting going on.”
“No. We are not fighting much here, only waiting. We are making the death of Northcraven, and it is a big city. It takes a lot of work and patience to break such a place.”
“It is a strong place.” Jecha replied. “How do you expect to take it?”
The Ghaill sat back on his low stool. “The stonecutters have this thing that I saw when I was a child and walked among them in Northcraven. It is a cage made of iron and wood. They put my cousin in it for some imagined crime that he was innocent of, but that is the way of the stonecutters. They hung the box on the side of the city wall, and for a few days people would throw things at it, foul things and stones and bits of brick to hurt him. He ignored all of this, and after a while the people forgot he was there. It took him a long time to die.”
“Yes.” Jecha nodded. “A starving box.”
“Yes, that is what they called it. Now Northcraven City is my starving box. I let them come in, and I even let them bring food, but I let none leave. There are many thousands there. In winter the ice will fill their port, the fish will flee and no more ships will come. They will burn all of the wood in the city. There will be no more food for them. The more who come into the city, the sooner they will die, for the winter will be long and cold. My seers have predicted this winter. They will be eating each other by late winter. Those who do not starve will freeze, and if any are left by early spring, we will slay them easily, but I don’t think any will be left.”
“I bring word of this.” Jecha replied, touching her dice bag significantly. “In spring the Cthochi will be inside the walls of Northcraven, but you will have need of the walls. Do not break them.”
“You have seen this?” His reply was breathless and excited.
“I have.”
“Your words bring me great comfort, seeress! They are a gift beyond price. Name anything we have taken, and it is yours!”
“Do not take comfort from my words. You should fear them. This also I have seen.”
He shook his head, not understanding.
“For my gift I would speak to Allein-a-Briech.”
“He has grown morose. For a month he spoke of nothing but Rakond’s returning, but Rakond did not return.” The Ghaill replied. “Now he speaks to n
o one.”
“He will speak to me, and he will give you a command on my behalf.”
“We shall see.” The Ghaill’s voice was doubtful.
She led him to another tent, this one no less elaborately decorated, but somehow feeling shabby and neglected. When the doorflap opened a sour smell stung her nostrils, like that of a sick room or an embalmer’s. She had to step sideways to avoid animal droppings on the floor. She saw the bent and weary looking form of Allein-a-Briech, staring listlessly into the fire at the center of the tent. His hair was long and unbraided, and the white color of it was stained yellow with smoke and lack of washing. He was sitting cross-legged, and his handmaiden looked at Jecha apologetically.
“I am sorry, he does not speak.”
“Perhaps he would speak more if you scrubbed the shit from the floor, as is your duty.” Jecha’s scolding was harsh. “Now leave us, lazy child.” The woman was probably forty, but to Jecha they were all children. She left in a red-faced hurry.
When they were alone, she turned to Allein-a-Briech, the most feared shaman in all of the history of the Cthochi, and she grimaced and wrinkled her nose. He stank.
“You big baby. You will speak to me.”
He remained silent, staring into the fire as if he had not heard.
“Very well, petulant one. I will speak first. I have seen him, your son. He is with the stonecutters, as you call them.”
He gave a weary sigh, but said nothing. He already knew this.
“I have seen this also. In the spring he will lead Cthochi warriors in battle.”
For a moment his ruse of inattention held, but he could not maintain it. He looked up at her, his eyes bloodshot as if he had not slept in weeks. “You …. You lie to give me false hope.”
“I would not lie to a child.” She replied contemptuously. “Not even to the sulky tit-babe you have become.”
“Why do you insult me?”
“You deserve it and more, tit-babe. Listen to me now. You will move your people south and take them across the Redwater, Allein-a-Briech, or they will perish. You will do as your son commands you to do, or all of Marten’s people will perish.”
“As he commands? I don’t take orders from anyone, neither him nor you.”
“Then you will die, and all of your people will die. There will be no one left to mourn you. In the afterlife they will say that you died because you were a sulky stubborn stupid man-baby, and you will not be allowed in the forever tents with the adults, nor will they let you join them in the great hunt.”
“You have seen this?” He said, astonished.
“No. That part is obvious. Get up from your fire, child-man. Take counsel with your Ghaill and stop acting the part of a fool. I am not too old yet to turn you over my knee.” Jecha’s voice was acidic.
“I have seen nothing of what you say.” He replied, and Jecha still sensed the sulkiness in his tone.
“No, you haven’t. You were always a piss-poor seer, and you never understood half of what the bones told you. You wasted your gift in schemes of murder and ambition, and you never served it.”
“I saw the need to bring Rakond into the world.” He said defiantly.
“Seven Secret Gods. You get one thing right in fifty years and you think you are a seer. You forget who you are talking to. If you do not learn humility you will spend the afterlife washing shit from the smallclothes of immortal infants. I am done speaking with you, stubborn fool. All across the north the good sons of better mothers are bleeding and dying because you are a fool.”
“What do you think I have wrong, woman?”
“Only everything. I said I was done with you. Talk to your Ghaill, Allein. He at least has some sense. And if you dare to touch the bones again, read what they tell you, not what you want them to say. You have acted the part of a murderer because you don’t listen.”
Once she had left the shaman fuming in his tent, she returned to the tent of the Ghaill. “I seek a ship, Ghaill. She is called the Kalgareth, and she has black sails. She is of the kind the Mortentians call a grand sloop. Her captain is a tall man from a far land who carries a noble’s sword with a scalloped blade. Her master is a black-haired woman with a hard face, like a man’s. The two of them were seen in Northcraven and were known to deal with the Cthochi. You will bring me all that is known of this ship and these people among the Cthochi. That is the price of my words.”
“I will pay it, seeress.” The Ghaill replied. “We will speak of it in the Cthochi drumspeak. In two days you will know all that can be learned in this way, and if there are any alive who can speak to what you ask, I will bring them to you here.”
“Good.” She replied. “Now, you have had at least four hours to know I was coming. Show me to the tent you have prepared for me and bring me some hot tea. I am cold.”
For four days they waited in the grand tent the Ghaill had provided for them, and Jecha spent most of the time gossiping with the servants or entertaining visitors from among the many Cthochi villages and clans that were represented in the Ghaill’s host that was besieging Northcraven. She knew many of the older men, for even though they had been mere boys when last she traveled among the Cthochi, still she remembered them, often recalling some story or wish they had confided in her as children.
“Did you ever marry that girl Walks in the Dawn?” She asked one battle-scarred veteran of fifty. “I remember you had eyes for her before you captured your first trophy.”
“You predicted that she would marry me.” The man said proudly. “She did, even though it seemed she would never see me. We had five sons and six daughters. Three of my sons the stonecutters killed in the last war, but the others are here, and I am a grandfather now of nine.”
“You wanted to go sailing the last time I spoke with you, Jumps Limping. Did you ever get the chance?”
“Ah, the sea. Yes, I sailed with the Borni for two seasons and came back with the knowing to make a war canoe. I now have the crafting of many, and I have been even on the Tolrissan Sea, like you said I would.” Jumps Limping showed her several skintintings he had from his sailing days.
With the servant girls she talked about the boys they wanted, and she made minor predictions and gave reams of advice, but she did not roll the bones. The Cthochi had a very dark future ahead, and she was of no mind to share future heartbreak with them. She well knew that most of the men in this camp would be dead before summer came again, and it made her weary and sad.
On the second day the drumspeak brought a message regarding the Kalgareth. It said little more than that some people who had been involved with the ship were coming, and would be there in two days. On her fourth day in camp they arrived.
A war canoe came down the Redwater from a Cthochi camp that lay across the river from the Mortentian town of Maslit, and passing Redwater Town in the night, it drew up to the war camp of the Ghaill early in the morning. Four men rowed the canoe, three men sat in it, and one man lay bound on the floor. All of the men were Cthochi from the same small community, the Greencreek clan.
The oldest of them, a subchief of perhaps forty summers, stepped first from the canoe, then directed the others to bring forth the bound man. “I am Khoth who Dreams.” He said. “We bring news to the Seeress.” Jecha stepped forward from the line of people who had gathered to witness the arrival of the canoe.
“Bring them to me.” She said, and she walked alongside of the Greencreek people to her tent. Yeg and Derry stood waiting, hands on their belt knives. “Bring me the one who is bound first.” She did not ask why one of their number was tied up.
The others dragged the bound man forward, and Jecha noticed that they wrapped their hands in hides before touching him. She took a seat at a small wooden stool, and directed them to tie him to the center pole of the tent.
“He has a … a sickness of the mind, Seeress.” Khoth who Dreams said, and Jecha merely nodded. “He is not himself.”
“I understand.” Jecha said. “You are right not to touch him. Are
there many others with this sickness in the Greencreek band?”
“Only him.” Khoth replied. “And only since you summoned us. We have all of us seen the ship you described, but only Bearmarks has this illness.”
Bearmarks stared woodenly at his surroundings, then his eyes fixed on Jecha. “Entreddi witch.” He said, his voice and face showing no emotion.
“Yes.” Jecha said in reply. “I am the Entreddi witch. We’ve met before, I think.”
“I recall it. That was delightful.” The voice inside of Bearmarks said, but it was not his voice, nor was there any expression on his face. “How is your family, witch?”
“Where are you?”
“Like I would tell. I laugh at your pitiable attempts to find me, witch. Every effort you make to harm me only helps me, did you know that? I thought not.” A sound came from Bearmarks’ throat, an eerie parody of mocking laughter.
Jecha looked at Bearmarks, and there was sadness in her eyes. Then she looked at Khoth. “You will have to kill him, I am afraid.” She said, and he began to protest.
“He is a good man and a good hunter.” Khoth said. “He was fine just days ago.”
“Was he?” Jecha replied. “There have been no times when he went away for days and nobody could find him or know what he was doing?”
“Shut up, witch woman. You know nothing.” The thing inside of Bearmarks said, but Jecha ignored him, looking at Khoth.
“There were such times.” Khoth admitted. “But that was before this war even began.”
“And did you ever see him talking to the black-haired woman from the ship I described in my messages?”
“Yes.”
“You know nothing, Entreddi witch.” Again she ignored the thing.
“He spoke to her several times, unless I miss my guess. And this was around the time that children went missing from the villages around you, but not from your village. And after each time he would disappear for a few days, and then he would come back and offer no explanation, or no explanation that made sense, is that right?”
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 69