Days of Blood and Fire

by Katharine Kerr

  “It be another one,” he burst out. “Meer, another mazrak.”

  Meer whimpered under his breath.

  “It be gone now,” Jahdo went on; “I hope it doesn’t come back.”

  “Never have I echoed a hope so fervently!” Meer considered for a moment, then pushed his blankets back with a huge yawn. “I’m tempted to try traveling through the forest edge, out of sight, like, but the footing will be too hard on the horses. Besides, if we lose the river, we’re doomed.”

  “Well, I was kind of thinking the same thing, about the river, I mean.”

  “We will pray to the thirteen gods who protect travelers before we set out today. But first, let’s lead the horses to their drink, and break our own night’s fast.”

  After the horses were watered and tethered out on the grassy bank to graze, Jahdo knelt by the gear, took out a few small pieces of flatbread and some chewy dried apples, a scant handful each for him and Meer, and laid them on a clean rock while he repacked the saddlebags to balance. Behind him Meer was strolling back and forth, singing under his breath and rehearsing phrasing, as he always did with a particularly important prayer. All at once the bard fell silent. Jahdo slewed round to find him standing frozen, his mouth slack, his head tilted as if he listened for some tiny sound.

  “What is it?” Jahdo got to his feet. “What be wrong?”

  Meer tossed back his head and howled. Never had Jahdo heard such a sound, a vast vibrating ululation of grief, all the world’s mourning, or so it seemed, gathered and rolled into this long wail, wavering and shrieking up and down the bard’s entire register.

  “Meer!” Jahdo ran to him and grabbed his arm. “Meer! Tell me. What be so wrong?”

  Another howl answered him, then another, long cascading waves of grief and agony, while Jahdo shook his arm and begged and shouted and, in the end, wept aloud in sheer frustration. The sound of his tears cut through the bard’s wrapped anguish.

  “Forgive me, lad,” Meer gasped. “But my brother, my brother! I think he’s dead.”

  “What?” Shock wiped the tears away. “Dead? When? I mean, how can you know?”

  “Just now, and the brother bond told me.”

  Meer shook the boy’s hand away and stalked into the forest. Jahdo hesitated, then decided that Meer would need to be alone, at least for a while. He wiped his face on a dirty sleeve, then picked up the food again, packing Meer’s share away, eating his own while he squinted up at the sun. Not even half of the day’s first watch had passed since the mazrak’s cry had wakened them.

  “I’ll bet it was the mazrak, too,” Jahdo said aloud. “I’ll bet that ugly old raven does have much to do with this.”

  Thinking of the mazrak made him shudder in cold terror. He ran across the open space, hesitated on the edge of the forest safety, groaned aloud, then dashed back again to grab the tether ropes of the horse and mule.

  “I don’t even want to think about that raven getting you,” he told them. “Come on. Let’s go find Meer.”

  He’d led them to the forest edge when he remembered their gear, spread out near the riverbank. Without Meer to lift the packsaddles, he couldn’t load the stock. Sniveling and crying in sheer frustration, he led the horse and mule onward. Fortunately, Meer was quite close, standing at the edge of a small clearing. Jahdo urged the horses into this sliver of open ground and dropped their halter ropes to make them stand.

  “Meer?” He hesitated, wanting to ask the bard how he fared, realizing that the question was stupid. “Meer, it be Jahdo.”

  Meer nodded, turning his sightless eyes the boy’s way.

  “Meer, we can’t just stay here. Forgive me, but we’ve got to do something. If that mazrak—”

  “True.” The bard’s voice sounded thick, all swollen with grief “No need to beg forgiveness. You’re right enough.”

  “Are we going to go back west now?”

  “Can’t. I’ve got to make sure he’s dead. In my heart, I know, but how can I tell my mother that I learned of his death without bothering to find out how or why or where he lies buried?”

  “Well, truly, that would be kind of cowardly. She’ll want to know.”

  Meer nodded his agreement. Jahdo chewed his lower lip, trying to find the right words. There were none, he supposed.

  “Meer, I be so sorry.”

  Meer nodded again.

  “Uh, I’m going to go get the food and what I can carry.”

  The bard said nothing, sinking to his knees, his face turned to the earth.

  Jahdo went back and forth, carrying armloads of sacks and bags, dragging the heavy packsaddles, staggering under their bedrolls, back and forth until at last he was exhausted but their gear safe in the tiny clearing with the horses. During all of this the bard never moved nor spoke. Jahdo went back to the river one last time for a long drink. He splashed water over his head and arms, as well, then knelt for a moment, looking up at the sky. A few stripes of mare’s tail clouds arched out from the west, but nothing moved below them, not even a normal bird. Shuddering, he hurried back to the forest.

  This time the bard looked up at the sound of his footsteps.

  “Do you want to stay here for a while?” Jahdo said.

  “I need to collect myself.” Meer’s voice was thin and dry, the sound of reeds scraping together. “My apologies, Jahdo. My apologies.”

  “It be well I do be real tired, myself. I just wish there was somewhat I could do.”

  Meer shrugged and sighed.

  “I guess you wouldn’t know where your brother is? I mean, well, you know.”

  “I don’t, I’m afraid, no more than I knew where he was when he was alive.” His voice choked on the last word. “But we don’t need scrying crystals to guess what’s happened. His false goddess has deserted him, and in the end no doubt she’ll do the same to all who believe in her! A curse upon her and her evil prophets both!”

  “I guess all we can do is keep going east and hope and pray and stuff. I be so scared.”

  But wrapped in his grief the bard never heard him. Meer clenched one enormous fist and laid rather than pounded it against a tree trunk. Under his breath he keened, a low rumble rather than a wail, yet it rose and fell with agony. All at once Jahdo realized a small horror—without eyes Meer couldn’t even weep. At last the Gel da’Thae fell quiet. For a moment he stood silently, then turned and spoke in an unnaturally flat voice.

  “Best be on our way. Whatever that may be.”

  All that day they headed more south than east, following the river and luck as well, to make a grim camp at sunset. Meer spoke only to the horse and mule, and in his own language at that, leaving Jahdo to bad dreams of seeing some member of his own family killed beyond his reach to stop it. For Meer’s sake he kept hoping that the bard was wrong and his brother still lived, but some days later they found that Meer’s inborn magic had revealed the truth.

  It was getting on late in the afternoon when the river, which had turned due east, grew suddenly wider, suddenly shallow. They might be drawing near to the ford Evandar had told them about, Jahdo supposed. He was beginning to think of finding them a campsite, when the boy saw black specks wheeling against the sky at some distance and, as far as he could tell, anyway, on the other side of the river. Meer stopped walking.

  “What’s that?” he snapped. “Do you see birds? I hear them calling a long way off.”

  “I can see them, sure enough. There be a lot of them. I don’t know what kind they are. They fly too far off, but they look really little, not like mazrakir.”

  “Good. Well, let’s see what they’re up to. Lead on.”

  Some yards on they came indeed to the ford, and on their side tall white stones marked its spread, just as Evandar had told them. Although the water ran shallow enough for Meer and the horses, Jahdo had to pick his way across the rocky bottom in water up to his waist, but he didn’t dare ride one of the pack animals and leave Meer to guide them. Since the river fed off the mountain snowpack, he was chilled dee
p by the time they scrambled onto the grassy bank at the far side. Meer felt his damp tunic, then laid the back of one furry palm against the boy’s cheek.

  “We’d best keep walking. Warm you up a little.”

  “Well and good, then. Do you still want to see what those birds are?”

  “I do. I have dread round my heart, but I must know the truth.”

  Meer’s fear turned out to be more than justified. As they traveled on, heading more south than east, the distant bird cries resolved themselves into the harsh cawing of ravens, wheeling and dipping over some unknown thing.

  “It might just be a dead deer,” Jahdo said.

  Meer only grunted for an answer and strode onward, swinging his stick back and forth before him like an angry scythe. After some hundred yards the horse and mule suddenly tossed up their heads and snorted. Their ears went back and they danced, pulling on their lead ropes.

  “Oh, by the blessed name of every god,” Meer whispered. “Do you smell that?”

  “I can’t. What?”

  “Count your human weakness a blessing, then. It’s the smell of death, much death, death under a hot sun.”

  Jahdo felt his stomach clench.

  “Let’s go back a ways and leave the horse and mule behind. Jahdo, forgive me. If I could go on alone and spare you what’s sure to lie ahead, I would, because you’re not a Gel da’Thae colt, raised to this sort of thing, but without you, how can I tell if my brother lies there or not?”

  “Well, true spoken. I’ll try to help.”

  They retraced their steps a ways and found a good campsite near the river, then unloaded and tethered the animals. Meer had Jahdo find pieces of old rag, soak them in water, and tie them round their noses and mouths before they set out again. As they walked, Meer prayed, a low rise and fall of despair.

  First the sound of the birds, and all too soon the stupefyingly foul smell of rotting flesh, led them down the grassy bank, then east of the river for some hundred feet. The land there rolled back rising from the river to a high wooded knoll that climbed like a grave mound behind the carnage. For a long time Jahdo could only stare at what he saw; every time he tried to speak he gagged from the smell. The air bludgeoned him, even through his pitiful mask; it shoved a dirty fist down his throat; it wrenched at his stomach with filthy fingers. Yet he was too horrified to vomit, which was perhaps the worst thing of all. I have to go through with this, he told himself over and over. What if it were Kiel lying dead there? How would I feel then? I’ve got to be Meer’s eyes. At last he convinced himself into courage, and he could speak.

  “Meer, there’s a flat space, like, and it’s all covered with dead men. They’re not buried or anything. They do just lie there, and they be all puffy. And the birds do crawl all over them like ants. The birds keep fighting with each other, and that’s why they keep squalling and flying.”

  “Indeed. “Meer’s voice was very thin but steady. “How many men?”

  “Oh, lots and lots. They’re all human beings. Off to the north there’s an overturned wagon. It be all broken, and there’s someone really tall lying by it.”

  “I hate to ask you this, lad, but can you bear to lead me there?”

  “I’ll try.”

  Fortunately they could skirt the edge of the battlefield rather than walk across it, but even so, Jahdo was caught by the horror and found himself staring at the corpses. He would never forget that sight, not as long as he lived, of bodies heaped and tumbled like firewood, broken, slashed, tangled, left there for wild things in a last gesture of contempt. Whenever the singers back in Cerr Cawnen had told lurid tales of battlefields, they’d always spoken of red blood and deathly silence. Here all the bodies lay gray and swollen, streaked with the black of dried blood or the dull maroon color of torn flesh where the birds were feeding. The field itself pulsed with life and noise as ants swarmed, ravens screamed and chattered, broke to fly only to circle and settle again, while under it all sounded the vast drone of thousands of flies.

  “I think they were killed with swords. There lie hoof-prints all round, too, and a couple of dead horses, but only a couple. Oh, wait, here’s an arrow, just lying here.”

  Although the shaft was broken, the point was mercifully clean. When Jahdo stooped down, he saw the tiny paw prints of foxes on the horribly moist ground—no doubt they crept up at night to share this banquet. He concentrated on the arrow, picked it up, and ran his fingers down the wood.

  “I’ve never seen an arrow so long. When it were whole it must have been longer than my arm, and the feathers are from some kind of blue bird.”

  “None of my people would loft a thing like that.” Meer was whispering. “Ah, evil, evil, evil come upon us!”

  Jahdo wanted to agree, but he didn’t dare risk speaking for fear he’d sob aloud. Between them and the wagon lay a scatter of corpses, as if they were a few sticks of wood tossed in the eddy of this river of death. A young man lay on his back, his head tilted in an unnatural angle, his eyes pools of slime in a bloated gray face. The body of a comrade lay slung over his legs. Nearby lay an arm, torn clear off and as gray as stone, with the bone exposed and picked clean all down the wrist. Flies crawled between the fingers.

  “Meer, watch out!” Jahdo’s voice came out all strangled. “Step round to your right.”

  “Very well.” Meer was tapping with his stick, but gingerly, afraid no doubt of what he might touch. “Lad, what are these dead men wearing?”

  “Some of them aren’t really dressed at all. The others have shirts with big sleeves and these leather vest things, and trousers that come all the way to their ankles, and there’s these thong things that tie them in.”

  Meer whimpered in a way that said he recognized this garb.

  They came at last to the overturned wagon and the enormous warrior stretched out beside it. At their approach a scatter of ravens shrieked and flew, but someone had dropped a cracked shield over the man’s face and folded his arms over his chest, too, with a cloak upon his hands, so that the birds had barely got a start on him. When Jahdo described these scant signs of respect, Meer made a long keening sound under his breath.

  “What does that shield look like?”

  “Well, it be wooden, and sort of egg-shaped, and whitewashed. In the middle there does lie this circle of metal with funny designs on it, and down at the bottom someone’s scratched this little picture that I guess is supposed to be a dragon.”

  “A little more detail, if you please, about that metal plate.”

  “Well, the design runs in circles, and one’s like when you braid a horse’s tail, three strands, and then there’s one that’s like a lot of knots, like someone did tie all these sheepshank knots in a long rope but then never did pull them tight.”

  Meer shrieked.

  “Slaver work, may the gods all help us! Can you bear to lift the shield, lad?”

  Gagging profoundly, Jahdo used the broken arrow to hook the shield rim and shove it to one side. At the motion it broke in half, the pieces sliding apart. All puffed with heat rot a huge distorted face looked up with eyes glazed and milky. His mane of coarse black hair lay tangled and clotted with dried blood, which also streaked one tattooed cheek.

  “Meer, I be sorry. He be Gel da’Thae.”

  Meer tossed back his head and howled, a cry of such pulsating agony that all round the ravens flew, flapping indignantly in circles overhead as the bard shrieked again and again, clutching his staff in both hands and raising it high as if to lay his plaint before the very gods themselves. Thanks to Meer’s teaching of the tore, Jahdo knew that the charms and amulets braided into Thavrae’s hair were for his protection in the Deathworld and had to remain with him. The cluster of talismans on the thong round his neck, however, needed to go back to his kin. On the edge of vomiting Jahdo drew the knife his grandfather had given him, knelt down, and cut the thong while Meer’s rage and grief swirled round him like a storm. When Jahdo yanked the talismans free, the head flopped to one side. Retching and gaggin
g, he stood up fast, shoving the charms into his pocket.

  “Meer, Meer!” He grabbed the bard’s arm. “It’s needful for us to get out of here. We don’t know where the enemies are. What if they’re still close by?”

  Meer wailed once more, then let the sound die away with a rattle in his throat.

  “True spoken, lad. It behooves us to head west as fast as we can travel.”

  Leaning on his stick, Meer let Jahdo lead him away, but doubled with grief the bard moved slowly. Once they were back at their camp, Jahdo sat Meer down by the pack-saddles, handed him one of the waterskins for a drink, then tore off the mask and threw it onto the ground. He rushed to the river, knelt, and plunged his head and shoulders into the water. Gasping and crying, he flailed round with his arms until his entire upper body was soaked and free of the smell. He sat back on his heels and wondered if he should vomit, but by then the gut horror had faded, leaving him with memories that nothing would ever purge.

  Meer began keening again, more softly, this time, but he was rocking back and forth, hands clasped round his drawn-up knees, rocking and moaning in a ghastly kind of music that had a certain beauty to it. Jahdo walked back and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “Meer, can you travel? We’ve got to get moving, Meer. I be so scared.”

  The Gel da’Thae never heard him, merely keened and rocked, all knotted with grief. Jahdo grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

  “Meer, Meer! Listen to me, Meer!”

  “Go on without me, lad. Let my house die here. Thavrae was the last hope of our house, a warrior who might win the right to claim a daughter as his own and hand over our name to her like a treasure chest. No daughters has my mother birthed, and woe, woe unto our clan and kin, that the gods would wipe our name from the face of the earth. Leave me, Jahdo, and let me die with the name of our house,”

  “I’m not going to do anything of the sort. If you stay I’ll stay with you, and then I’ll, die, too, and here you did promise my mother that you’d look after me.”