Banewreaker

by Jacqueline Carey

  Pulling off his helm and tucking it under his arm, Tanaros smiled at the ploy. “I’ll match Lord Vorax’s offer, lads. A measure of svartblod to all who stood duty, and see it sent round to the lads on the wall, a full skin to each sentry-post. Send word to the quartermaster that it’s on my orders.”

  They cheered at that, standing aside to let him pass. In some ways, the Fjel were like children, simple and easy to please. Loyalty was given, and loyalty was rewarded. No more could be asked, no more could answer.

  Indeed, Tanaros thought as he entered Darkhaven proper, what more is there? He ran his hand through his dark hair, damp with sweat from confinement in his padded helm. Once, he had given his loyalty for the asking. Given it to Roscus Altorus, blood-sworn comrade and liege-lord, he of the red-gold hair and ready grin, the extended hand.

  Given it to Calista, his wife, whose throat was white like the swan’s, whose doe-eyes had bulged at the end, beseeching him; oh love, forgive me, forgive me!

  Wary madlings skittered along the hallways, scattering at his passage, reforming behind to trail in his wake. Tanaros, lost in his memories, swung his helm from its leather strap and ignored them. There was food cooking in the great kitchens of Darkhaven, its savory odor teasing the hallways. He ignored that, too. They would serve the barracks, bringing platter upon platter heaped high with mutton, steaming in grey slabs. What Lord Vorax demanded in his quarters was anyone’s guess. Tanaros did not care.

  Fjeltroll mate for life, Hyrgolf had told him. Always.

  He thought about that, sometimes.

  “Lord General, Lord General!”

  A lone madling, more daring than the rest, accosted him at the doors to his quarters. Tangled hair falling over her face, peering where her work-reddened hands pushed it away to reveal a darting eye.

  “Yes, Meara?” Tanaros knew her, made his voice gentle.

  She cringed nonetheless, then flexed, arching the lines of her body. “Lord General,” she asked with satisfaction, “will you dine this evening? There is mutton and tubers, and Lord Vorax ordered wine from Pelmar.”

  The madlings behind her sighed, envying her boldness.

  “That would be pleasant,” he said, inclining his head. “Thank you.”

  “Tubers!” cried one of the madlings, a hulking figure with a guileless boy’s eyes in a man’s homely face, hopping up and down. “Tubers!”

  Meara simpered, tossing her tangled hair. “I will bring a tray, Lord General.”

  “Thank you, Meara,” he said gravely.

  In a rush they left him, following now in Meara’s wake, their voices whispering from the walls. Left in peace, Tanaros entered his own quarters.

  It was quiet here, in the vast rooms he inhabited. A few lamps burned low, flickering on the gleaming black walls and picking out veins of marrow-fire. Tanaros turned up the wicks until the warm illumination offset the blue-white glimmer of the marrow-fire, lending a human touch to his quarters. Thick Rukhari carpets muffled his footsteps, their intricately woven patterns muted by lamplight. One of his few concessions to luxury. He undid the buckles on his corselet, removed his armor piece by piece, awkward without assistance, hanging it upon its stand. Sitting on a low stool, Tanaros sighed, tugging off his boots, the point of his scabbard catching on the carpet as he bent, the sword’s hilt digging into his side.

  War. It means war.

  Standing and straightening, Tanaros unbuckled his swordbelt. He held it in his hands, bowing his head. Even sheathed, he felt the blade’s power, the scar over his heart aching at it. Black it was, that blade, tempered in the marrow-fire and quenched in the ichor of Satoris himself. It was the gift he had received at the pact of his branding, and it had no equal.

  Tanaros Blacksword, he thought, and placed the weapon in its stand.

  Without it, he felt naked.

  There was a scratching at the door. Padding in stocking feet across the carpets, Tanaros opened it. The madling Meara cringed, then proffered a silver tray, other madlings peeping from behind her. Fragrant aromas seeped from beneath the covered dishes.

  “Thank you, Meara,” he said to her. “Put it on the table, please.”

  Hunched over her burden, she slunk into the room, setting the gleaming tray on the ebony dining-table with a clatter. Triumphant, she straightened, beckoning to the others. Whispering to one another, they crept into his quarters like shadows, taking with reverent hands his dusty, sweated armor, his dirty boots. In the morning these would be returned, polished and gleaming, the buckles cleaned of grime, straps fresh-oiled, boots buffed to a high gloss.

  Tanaros, who had beheld this drama many, many times over, watched with pity. “No,” he said gently when one, scarce more than a lad, reached for the black sword. “That I tend myself.”

  “I touch?” The boy threw him a hopeful glance.

  “You may touch it in its scabbard, see?” The Commander General of the Army of Darkhaven went to one knee beside the madling lad, guiding his trembling hand. “There.”

  The boy’s fingers touched the scabbard and he groaned deep in his throat, his mouth soft with ecstasy. “My Lord! My Lord’s blood!”

  “Yes,” Tanaros said softly, as he had done many times before, with this lad and others. “It was tempered in the marrow-fire, and cooled in his blood.”

  The madling cradled the hand that had touched it. “His blood!” he crowed.

  “His blood,” Tanaros agreed, rising to his feet, kneejoints popping at the effort. Always, it was so; the young men, the youths, drawn to the blade.

  “Enough!” Emboldened by the success of her mission, Meara put her hands upon her hips, surveying Tanaros’ quarters, finding nothing amiss. “Will you want a bath, Lord General?”

  “Later,” Tanaros said. The odor of mutton roast teased the air and his stomach rumbled at it. “Later will suffice.”

  She gave a firm nod. “Ludo will bring it.”

  “Thank you, Meara.” Tanaros made her a courtly halfbow. She shuddered, a rictus contorting her face, then whirled, summoning the others.

  “Come! You and you, and you. Algar, pick up the Lord General’s greaves. Come, quickly, and let the Lord General eat!”

  Tanaros watched them go, hurrying under Meara’s command, laden with their burdens. Where did Ushahin find them? The unwanted, the misbegotten, the castoffs of Urulat. Damaged at birth, many of them—slow, simple, illformed. Others, the world had damaged; the world, and the cruelty of Men and the Lesser Shapers. Beaten by jealous lovers, shaken by angry parents, ravaged by conquest, they were victims of life, of circumstance or simple accident, fallen and half-drowned, until wits were addled or sanity snapped like a fine thread and darkness clouded their thoughts.

  No wonder Ushahin Dreamspinner loved them.

  And in their dreams, he summoned them, calling them to sanctuary in Darkhaven. All through the ages, they had come; singly, in pairs, in groups. In this place, they were sacrosanct. Lord Satoris had decreed it so, long, long ago, upon the day Ushahin had sworn the allegiance of his branding. No one was to harm them, upon pain of death.

  Vorax had his indulgences.

  Tanaros had his army.

  Ushahin had his madlings.

  Mutton roast steamed as Tanaros removed the covering domes and sat to his dinner. He carved a slab of meat with his sharp knife, juices pooling on the plate. The tubers were flaky; and there were spring peas, pale green and sweet. Sane or no, the madlings of Darkhaven could cook. Tanaros chewed slowly and swallowed, feeling the day’s long efforts—the long efforts of a too-long life—settle wearily into his bones.

  A warm bath would be good.

  “WELL DONE, COUSIN.”

  A voice, light and mocking. Tanaros opened his eyes to see Ushahin in his drawing-room. The wicks had burned low, but even so the lamplight was less kind to the half-breed, showing up his mismatched features. One cheekbone, broken, sank too low; the other rode high, knotted with old pain.

  “Do you jest, cousin?” Tanaros yawned, pushin
g himself upright in the chair. “How came you here?”

  “By the door.” The Dreamspinner indicated it with a nod of his sharp chin. “I jest not at all. Readiness, our Lord asked of us; readiness, you have given, Tanaros Blacksword. A pity you do not ward your own quarters so well.”

  “Should I not trust to the security of Darkhaven, that I myself have wrought? You make mock of me, cousin.” Tanaros stifled a second yawn, blinking to clear his wits. A bath had made him drowsy, and he had dozed in his chair. “What do you seek, Dreamspinner?”

  The half-breed folded his knees, dropping to sit cross-legged on Tanaros’ carpet. His mismatched gaze was disconcertingly level. “Malthus is plotting something.”

  “Aye,” Tanaros said. “A wedding.”

  “No.” Ushahin shook his head, lank silver-gilt hair stirring. “Something more.”

  Tanaros was awake, now. “You’ve heard it in the dreams of Men?”

  “Would that I had.” The Dreamspinner propped his chin on folded hands, frowning. “A little, yes. Only a little. Malthus the Counselor keeps his counsel well. I know only that he is assembling a Company, and it has naught to do with the wedding.”

  “A Company?” Tanaros sat a little straighter.

  “Blaise of the Borderguard is to be in it,” Ushahin said softly, watching him. “Altorus’ second-in-command. He has dreamed of it. He’s your kinsman, is he not?”

  “Aye.” Tanaros’ jaw clenched and he reached, unthinking, for the rhios in the pocket of his dressing-robe. The smooth surfaces of it calmed his mind. “Descended on my father’s side. They are mounting an attack on Darkhaven? Even now?”

  “No.” Ushahin noted his gesture, but did not speak of it. “That’s the odd thing, cousin. It’s naught to do with us, or so it would seem”

  “The Sorceress?” Tanaros asked.

  Ushahin shrugged unevenly. “She holds one of the Soumanië, which Malthus the Counselor would like to reclaim. Beyond that, I cannot say. Those who have been chosen do not know themselves. I know only that a call has gone out to Arduan, to ask the mightiest of their archers to join the Company.”

  “Arduan,” Tanaros said slowly. Relinquishing the rhios, he ran a hand through his hair, still damp from his bath. The Archers of Arduan, which lay along the northern fringes of the Delta, were renowned for their skill with the bow. “Does his Lordship know?”

  “Yes.” Ushahin’s eyes glittered in the lamplight. “He knows.”

  The taste of fear was back in Tanaros’ mouth, the triumph of the day’s exercise forgotten. “Does he think it has to do with—”

  “The lost weapon of the Prophecy?” the half-breed asked bluntly. “How not?”

  Both were silent, at that.

  Dergail’s Soumanië had risen in the west.

  Dergail the Counselor had been one of three, once; three that Haomane First-Born had sent against Satoris in the Fourth Age of the Sundered World. And he had been armed, as they all had. Armed with the Soumanië, polished chips of the Souma with the force to Shape the world itself—and armed also with weapons of Haomane’s devising. One, they knew well; the Helm of Shadows, that Ardrath the Counselor had borne, which had fallen into Lord Satoris’ grasp, and been changed. One other, they knew and feared; the Spear of Light, that Malthus had hidden.

  But the last was the Arrow of Fire, that had vanished when Dergail was defeated and flung himself into the sea, and no one knew where it was.

  “Ravens bore it away,” Tanaros said at length. “Do they know?”

  Ushahin shook his head again. “They are as they are, cousin,” he said; gently, for him. “Brief lives, measured against ours; a dark flash of feathers in the sun. They do not know. Nor do the Were, who remember. Ravens bore it east, but it did not reach the fastholds of Pelmar.”

  When it came to the Were, Ushahin alone among Men—or Ellylon—would know. Oronin’s Children had raised him, when no one else would. Tanaros considered. “Then Malthus knows,” he said.

  “Malthus suspects,” Ushahin corrected him. “And plots accordingly.”

  Tanaros spread his hands. “As it may be. I command troops, cousin. What would you have me do?”

  “Do?” The half-breed grinned, his mood as mercurial as one of his madlings. “Why, cousin, do as you do! I have come to tell you what I know, and that I have done. You spoke, also, of ravens.”

  “Ravens.” Tanaros smiled. “Is it time?”

  “Time, and more.” Ushahin uncoiled from the carpet, straightening as he rose. “There is a wedding afoot, after all, and the ravens have come home to roost, with their eyes filled with visions. Your friend is among them. Will you come with me to the rookery on the morrow, ere his Lordship summons them?”

  “I will,” Tanaros said, “gladly.”

  THREE

  A LIGHT MIST WREATHED THE beech wood, and their steps were soundless on the mast of fallen leaves, soft and damp after winter. New growth was greening on the trees, forming a canopy overhead.

  It was a deeper green than the beeches Tanaros had known as a boy, the leaves broader, fanning to capture and hold the cloud-filtered sunlight The trunks of the trees were gnarled in a way they weren’t elsewhere, twisted around ragged boles as they grew, like spear-gutted warriors straining to stand upright.

  They were old and strong, though, and their roots were deep.

  Blight, the Ellylon said; Satoris the Sunderer blighted the land, the ichor of his unhealing wound seeping like poison into the earth, tainting it so no wholesome thing could grow.

  Tanaros had believed it, once. No longer. Wounded, yes. The Vale of Gorgantum had endured the blow of the Shaper’s wound, as Lord Satoris himself endured it. Deprived of sunlight, it suffered, as Lord Satoris suffered, driven to earth by Haomane’s wrath. Yet, like the Shaper, it survived; adapted, and survived.

  And who was to say there was no beauty in it?

  Ahead, a rustling filled the wood. There was no path, but Ushahin Dreamspinner led the way, at home in the woods. From behind, he looked hale, his spine straight and upright, his step sure. His gilt-pale hair shone under the canopy. One might take him, Tanaros thought, for a young Ellyl poet, wandering the wood.

  Not from the front, though. No one ever made that mistake.

  There, the first nest, a ragged construction wedged in the branches high overhead. Others, there and there, everywhere around them as they entered the rookery proper, and the air came alive with the sound of ravens. Ushahin stopped and gazed around him, a smile on his ruined face.

  Ravens hopped and sidled along the branches, preening glossy black feathers. Ravens defended their nests, quarreled over bits of twig. Ravens flew from tree to tree, on wings like airborne shadows.

  “Kaugh!”

  The sound was so close behind him that Tanaros startled. “Fetch!”

  There, on a low branch, a raven; his raven. The wounded fledgling he had found half-frozen in his Lord’s garden six years gone by, grown large as a hawk, with the same disheveled tuft of feathers poking from his head. The raven cocked its head to regard him with one round shiny eye, then the other. Satisfied, it wiped its sharp, sturdy beak on the branch.

  Tanaros laughed. “Will he come to me, do you think?”

  Ushahin gave his uneven shrug. “Try it and see.”

  The ravens were the Dreamspinner’s charges, a gift not of Lord Satoris, but of the Were who had reared him. Elsewhere, they were territorial. It was only here, in Darkhaven, that they gathered in a flock—and only when summoned, for Ushahin Dreamspinner had made them the eyes and ears of Lord Satoris, and sent them throughout the land.

  This one, though, Tanaros had tended.

  “Fetch,” he said, holding out his forearm. “Come.”

  The raven muttered in its throat and eyed him, shifting from foot to foot. Tanaros waited. When he was on the verge of conceding, the raven launched himself smoothly into the air, broad wings outspread as he glided to land on Tanaros’ padded arm, an unexpectedly heavy weight. Bobbing up and dow
n, he made a deep, chuckling sound.

  “Oh, Fetch.” At close range, the bird’s feathers shone a rich blue-black, miniscule barbs interlocking, layered in a ruff at his neck. Tanaros smoothed them with the tip of one finger, absurdly glad to see him. “How are you, old friend?”

  Fetch made his chucking sound, wiped his beak on Tanaros’ arm, then uttered a single low “Kaugh!” and bobbed expectantly. Tanaros reached into a pouch at his belt and drew forth a gobbet of meat, fed it to the raven, followed by others. In the trees, the others watched and muttered, one raising its voice in a raucous scolding.

  “He’s very fond of you.” Ushahin sounded amused.

  Tanaros smiled, remembering the winter he’d kept the fledgling in his quarters. A foul mess he’d made, too, and he was still finding things the raven had stolen and hidden. “Do you disapprove?”

  The half-breed shrugged. “The Were hunt with ravens, and ravens hunt with the Were. It is the way of Men, to make tame what is wild. If you had sought to cage him, I would have disapproved.”

  “I wouldn’t.” Finding no more meat forthcoming, the raven took his leave, strong talons pricking through the padded leather as he launched himself from Tanaros’ arm, landing on a nearby branch and preening under the envious eyes of his fellows, the tuft of feathers atop his head bobbing in a taunt. Tanaros watched his mischief with fond pleasure. “Fetch is his own creature.”

  “It’s well that you understand it. The Were sent them, but the ravens serve Lord Satoris of their own choosing.” Ushahin rubbed his thin arms against the morning’s chill. “You’ve a need in you to love, cousin. A pity it’s confined to birds and Fjel.”

  “Love.” Anger stirred in Tanaros’ heart. “What would you know of love, Dreamspinner?”

  “Peace, cousin.” Ushahin raised his twisted, broken hands. “I do not say it in despite. The forge of war is upon us, and all our mettle will be tested. Once upon a time, you loved a son of Altorus. And,” he added, “once upon a time, you loved a woman.”

  Tanaros laughed, a sound as harsh as a raven’s call: “Altoria lies in ruin because of that love, cousin, and the sons of Altorus are reduced to the Borderguard of Curonan. Do you forget?”