Aoleyn stepped back and fixed him with a stare. “So are we to stand out here and stare at each other through the rest of this beautiful day? They’re packing for the journey up the mountain. I’ve chores…”
“By word of Tay Aillig,” the man said. “I’m not to go against those words. Are you?”
“I haven’t yet decided,” she replied.
“I can’no let you.”
“You can’no stop…” she started to reply, but she paused, looking past him. Following that gaze, the sentry was truly relieved when he glanced back to see his partner returning, along with a pair of women.
“Where have you been, foolish child?” the Crystal Maven scolded, but the timbre in her voice changed and her eyes went wide when she took a good gander at Aoleyn. Connebragh spoke the surprise for both of them.
“What happened to you? By Usgar, are you hurt?”
Aoleyn flashed that smile of hers again, her dark eyes sparkling in the afternoon sun. “It’s a long story,” Aoleyn replied. “Might I change my clothes and wash before I tell it?”
“No,” came Mairen’s uncompromising reply.
* * *
Things had not been going well for him, but young Egard held faith that his uncle, the great Tay Aillig, would spin the disaster of the previous night into something worthwhile. Egard, Tay Aillig, and Aghmor had been down there, on the lower slopes of the mountain. They had tried to bait the demon fossa by tying a man they had captured to a tree.
They had gotten a bear instead, a great and huge mountain bear, full of rage. It had driven them away, three at least, after flinging poor Ralid aside.
Tay Aillig always had a plan, Egard reminded himself, but he shook his head at that notion, still trying to come to some understanding of why his powerful uncle, who could have any unwed woman in the tribe, and probably more than a few of the married ones, had settled upon Aoleyn.
Aoleyn! She was much nearer to Egard’s age than to that of Tay Aillig. And she was an obstinate creature, disobedient and unaware of her place in Usgar hierarchy. Many times had younger Egard and Aoleyn locked horns, once even physically—and that had not ended well for the mighty young warrior. He had been but a boy, he reminded himself, but he winced at the mere thought. For no, he had been a young man, something driven home pointedly when Aoleyn’s knee had risen forcefully into his groin.
Egard shook away the thoughts of that long-ago fight, and of Aoleyn altogether. He couldn’t afford to be distracted here. Not now. Too much was at stake, though he wasn’t even sure of what that might be.
He looked to the sun, beginning its descent over the huge, rectangular lake that marked the northwestern base of the great mountain of Fireach Speuer. Egard and his search party, seven other Usgar warriors, were low on the mountain now, much nearer at least two of the lakemen villages than they were to the Usgar camp, as they searched for Ralid.
There would be no Blood Moon this night, so the demon fossa was not a concern, he knew, but still, being this far down the mountain with so small a force could lead to great catastrophe.
That thought, too, he shook away. These were pitiful lakemen, and no threat to the great Usgar warriors, no matter the odds.
He cupped his hand beside his mouth and gave a series of yips, like a coyote’s call, two short yelps and then three more. This was a universal call among the Usgar for occasions when parties got separated hiking the many jags and chasms of the mountain peaks, or to bring lost fellows back together in the white blindness of winter storms.
Others in the war party answered in the prescribed cadence, one yip from the first man, then two from the second, then one and two more from a third, and all done with perfect imitation of a coyote pack.
If the missing man heard the call, he would know to answer with a long howl.
Of course, Ralid wouldn’t hear it, Egard knew painfully well, being fairly certain that Ralid was dead. The bear had hit him hard with its swatting paw, hurling him into the thick trunk of a tree. Egard could still hear the sickening crack of Ralid’s shattering bones. The warrior grimaced as he pictured again his friend’s body broken against the trunk, as he recalled the fight, where he, Aghmor, and mighty Tay Aillig himself had been chased away.
They had been forced to leave their prisoner behind, as well, the one Tay Aillig was using to bait the fossa.
That man—a lakeman, they supposed, though his skull was not misshapen, as was customary among the villagers who called Loch Beag their home—was also almost certainly dead, for they had left him tied up helplessly, and with a ferocious bear rampaging about the area.
Egard started another coyote call, for he had to keep up appearances. He saw another of his band coming over a low ridge to the side, and the man just shook his head. So Egard gave a sharp caw, the sound of a crow, the universal Usgar signal that a lost man was not yet found. The searcher near him similarly cawed.
Five other crow calls followed closely, and Egard snorted in frustration. They were in the area, and spread out wide enough that one of them should be very close to Ralid’s body.
Then came a long howl from the eighth searcher, and Egard sucked in his breath. He steadied himself and headed for the caller, not really wanting to see Ralid’s corpse. He was certain his friend was dead, but seeing it seemed as if it would somehow make it all too real. He had work to do here, he reminded himself. Tay Aillig had not sent him down here to fail. His hand went reflexively to his pocket, to some fabric he had stolen from a particular tent.
The eight men converged on a trail that Egard recognized, descending steeply to a clearing—to the clearing, he knew, where they had strung up the prisoner, where they had fought the mountain bear, where Ralid had been killed.
A heavy flap of wings greeted them when they came down onto the edge of that flatter and clearer area, as a host of buzzards flew off. Others remained, their wings out wide imposingly, crowing over their feast.
Usgar spears drove them off, revealing the gory meal: a huge pile of half-eaten guts.
“Ralid?” one of the searchers gasped, looking as if he was about to vomit.
“No Usgar,” said another. “That’s the belly of a beast, not a man, and most likely the guts of a bear.”
“The buzzards eat fast,” another remarked. “A bear ripped to … that?”
“Dressed,” the man who had identified the pile clarified when he bent over the fly-covered remains. “Not eaten. The bear was dressed, skillfully so.”
“Ralid!” Egard cried, trying to sound surprised and convincing, and when the others all looked at him, he pointed across the clearer area, to a large tree on the north side. It was hard to make out from this distance, and Egard would not have recognized it had he not known what to expect, but following his lead, the others, too, were able to make out the form of a leg, wrapped awkwardly around the bottom of the tree, bending in a way that a human leg should not.
Egard waved them by, and six fanned out and moved across the clearing to identify their friend, while the seventh continued his inspection of the gory pile of bear guts, noticing, too, to the side, the severed animal’s head.
“Uamhas,” one of the men approaching Ralid’s body said, using the Usgar’s derogatory name for the lakemen. He stopped and pointed to the ground. Two other Usgar joined him to help sort out the riddle of some tracks the man had noticed.
Egard wondered if those were his tracks, and those of his companions, but it seemed too far afield from where they had battled the mountain bear. No matter, though, for all the party was distracted then, so the man moved his hand into his pocket and looked for his opportunities.
“They leave deep tracks,” the man inspecting the area remarked. “Burdened.”
“With the prize of the dressed bear?” asked another at the scene.
Egard and two others arrived at Ralid’s body. He was surprised that the uamhas hadn’t taken the corpse, or desecrated it at least. Certainly, he would have pissed on the bodies of any uamhas he came across. He loo
ked across the flat area to his friends inspecting the tracks, and figured that the uamhas hadn’t even seen Ralid when they encountered, and apparently killed, the great bear.
No matter, he thought.
“Take him,” he bade the others near him. “With all honor and care.”
When the two lifted Ralid and began moving off, Egard began directing the others, sending three to follow the blood trail and see if the uamhas were still near, and moving the other two about the area to see if they could better discern all that had happened here.
He, too, went about that task, except instead of searching for clues, he planted some, then made sure that he directed the others properly so that they might find them.
* * *
“Who granted you passage out of the camp under the light of Iseabal’s bloody face?” Mairen demanded when she and Connebragh got Aoleyn away from the sentry, far to the side and into the shallows of a rocky overhang where they would not be seen or heard.
Aoleyn stuttered for an answer.
“You’re to join the Coven, girl,” Mairen scolded. “Does that mean nothing to you?”
“Of course…” Aoleyn started to reply.
“Shut up,” Mairen interrupted. “For once in your days, listen, girl, and do’no speak!”
The Usgar-righinn launched into a tirade then, scolding Aoleyn repeatedly, telling her of all the things she would need to change if she was truly to join the sacred Coven, warning her that her marriage to Tay Aillig would not protect her in this sacred endeavor, as the Coven was none of his concern. That he could not protect her even if he should one day ascend to become the Usgar-triath, the Chieftain of the entire tribe.
Aoleyn heard little of it, though she was wise enough to appear engaged. Instead, her thoughts were sorting out the fabrication she would tell of her ordeals of the previous night, and her great victory over that most awful demon fossa, one that would forever change the ways of the Usgar and their safety on Fireach Speuer.
Wouldn’t Mairen feel foolish then?
“Usgar-righinn,” she began respectfully, head bowed.
“Why do you believe you have anything to tell me?” Mairen snapped back.
Aoleyn lifted her head and stood strong against Mairen’s withering gaze. “But I do,” she insisted. “And when you’ve heard, aye, but you’ll understa…”
“Shut up, girl,” Mairen replied. “There’s not a word you might be…”
“I killed the fossa!” Aoleyn blurted before she could be interrupted.
For a moment, nothing, then Connebragh gasped and Mairen’s face screwed up strangely, the middle-aged woman falling back a step.
“Well, not killed,” Aoleyn said before the others could recover. “But destroyed it, truly. It was a spirit thing, possessing a cloud leopard, rotting the poor creature…”
Mairen hit her, slapped her across the face, and it was no ordinary slap, but one enhanced by magic, by a burning, biting, shocking sting of lightning. Aoleyn flew backward, crashing against the rocky wall and cracking her head in the process, adding wet blood to the dried. She fell to the ground, hard, and rolled over onto her back, clutching her head, stunned.
“What is that?” she heard Mairen say, but it seemed like the woman was, far, far away.
Aoleyn felt hands on her, about her belly, and her eye focused just enough for her to realize that Connebragh was inspecting her. She felt a slight tug on her navel, and that brought her sensibilities flooding back to her.
Aoleyn gulped and tried to cover up. They had found her secret: her belly ring set with the magical gemstones she had extracted from the sacred crystals! She threw her arms across her abdomen, pushing Connebragh’s hands away. She started to sit up, but Mairen was there, suddenly, kneeling heavily on her chest, pinning her back and pulling her arms aside.
“What is that?” Mairen asked her repeatedly, but all the desperate and dazed Aoleyn could answer was a frantic cry of “Leave me alone!”
The two women had her fully pinned, then, and Mairen drew out a crystal, one tinged with dark red flakes. Aoleyn knew the magic of this item, and she began struggling mightily as Mairen fell into the magical item and sent her vision through the crystal. Aoleyn had to beat her to the draw, but she could not, as Connebragh, recognizing her attempt at spellcasting, slapped her hard and repeatedly across the face, defeating her concentration.
Aoleyn knew she was doomed, for now the Usgar-righinn could see the emanations of magic, not just the items. Now Mairen understood the gems set in Aoleyn’s belly ring, and the young woman’s earrings, too, became quite clear to her, Aoleyn could tell by her gasp. Mairen tore them out viciously, then grabbed Aoleyn’s wrist and pulled the pinned young woman’s hand up before her eyes, shaking her head as she studied Aoleyn’s ring, wound in magical wedstone wire and set with an enchanted ruby and serpentine stone. Mairen nearly broke Aoleyn’s finger in wrenching that ring from her.
“Strip her!” the Usgar-righinn instructed Connebragh, and with the other woman’s help she yanked and tugged and tore at Aoleyn’s clothes, and punched Aoleyn hard whenever she resisted.
They found the anklet she had woven into her skin, one set with the blue stone of frost, and bars that could create lightning.
“What does it mean?” Aoleyn heard Connebragh say.
She felt Mairen’s hand go to her belly, then a slight pulling sensation.
“It means,” the Usgar-righinn replied, and she gave a sudden yank, tearing the belly ring from Aoleyn’s flesh, “that our little Aoleyn has done a grave heresy here.”
Aoleyn went limp. She just lay back helplessly and did not resist, barely whimpered, as Mairen pulled the anklet from her flesh. She thought, but only briefly, to try again to fall into the magic and jolt the woman away, but no, she was defeated. What point was there in even resisting now? For they knew.
They didn’t even bother dressing her when they called the sentries over, instructing the men to take Aoleyn to her tent in the campground, and to empty it of everything but a simple blanket. “Bind her, hands and legs,” Mairen ordered them. “And watch over her. She is not to leave, to have no visitors, and to have…” she looked right into Aoleyn’s eyes as she finished, “nothing.”
2
WITH HER HEAD CHOPPED OFF
A ray of sunshine awakened Talmadge, peering in through the hanging skin door on the village cottage. When the grogginess subsided, he remembered where he was, and so knew that it was late morning, at least. This was Fasach Crann, the lakeman village directly in the shadow of the huge mountain, Fireach Speuer, and it wouldn’t know direct sunlight until long after the diffused dawn, particularly in this late season, when the arch of the sun moved further to the south, more directly behind the towering mountain.
The traveler wiped his eyes and tried to remember the previous night, one spent indulging in the fish wine made in the village, which tasted horrible but kicked like an angry centaur. He still had that awful tart flavor in his mouth, from green grapes so bitter they actually stung when chewed. Unfortunately, they weren’t much better after being pressed into wine.
When he rolled over, more of the night’s escapades came back to him, for his companion this night, a lovely young woman with two elongated humps on her skull, fashionable wheat-colored hair flowing thickly down both, sat across from him, wearing a forced smile and little else.
Talmadge tried to dissect that apparent discomfort. She certainly hadn’t been uneasy with her nudity the previous night.
“Am I not pleasing to you, then?” she asked, and the man sucked in his breath uncomfortably, as he remembered more about the encounter, or more particularly, the lack of.
“It’s nothing to do with you,” he said. “I had a most difficult few days.” He began to elaborate, but just sighed and let it go. How could he begin to explain the swirl of emotions that had filled his head since returning to Loch Beag and these lakeside villages? Once, this region, particularly this village of Fasach Crann, had been Talmadge’s most
cherished destination, where the intrigue and deceptions of the outside world could not catch him. But that was before the lake itself had risen up against him, in the form of the great sea monster that lurked in its depths. That creature had attacked him savagely in his flimsy little boat, had tossed it like a toy, and had taken from Talmadge the only woman he had ever loved.
That was years ago, and now, finally, he had dared to come back to this place, only to find himself captured by Usgar, beaten and stabbed, and tied up as bait for the demon fossa.
Another woman had saved him, an intriguing young Usgar who was not at all like the deamhan reputation associated with that warlike tribe.
He looked up toward the mountain, wondering what had become of that tough young Usgar, so deceptively small and pretty, yet so full of ferocity and surprising skill, the likes of which he had only once before encountered—in his lost, beloved Khotai.
That Usgar woman had left the cave of the demon creature battered and exhausted.
Should he have remained with her? Certainly, Talmadge hadn’t been able to get her out of his thoughts since that night. She had saved his life, after all, and then he had dared to enter the cave of the monster to return the favor.
He looked back at the woman beside him, who had offered him her bed. He couldn’t even remember her name. While most of the people from his land, from Honce-the-Bear to the east, wouldn’t care much for the appearance of the lake folk, with their elongated skulls, Talmadge saw past that difference and thought they could be quite lovely.
This woman before him was quite lovely. He hadn’t lied to her, though, and his problem had nothing to do with her. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be with any woman who was not Khotai. Not even the unusual Usgar lass on the mountain, though she had intrigued him more than he had ever expected.
“Go on, then,” the woman said, nodding, and she seemed calm and accepting. She looked to the door to a pile of clothes—where Talmadge’s clothes had been, but these were not his. His were bloody and torn, with knife holes, but these were fresh and clean.
Reckoning of Fallen Gods Page 4