Reckoning of Fallen Gods

by R. A. Salvatore

  And she was there, Aoleyn, who was around the same age as these boys.

  Thump watched her, marveling at the way she moved, at her ferocity. These boys were no match for her—she was too spirited and they knew she would embarrass them.

  She chased them off, then lifted the uamhas to his feet.

  But he was not an uamhas, not to her.

  And she spoke to him, “Bahdlahn.”

  * * *

  “Aoleyn,” Bahdlahn whispered as he awakened from that dream. “My Aoleyn.”

  He was shivering, cold and alone in the cave the Usgar named Aghmor had found for him. It was long past dawn outside, but was hardly bright inside the cave. The shelter was not large or particularly deep, but at the back of the entry area, which was no more than a shallow alcove beneath the lip of a large boulder, a small channel moved behind a natural rock wall, deeper under the stones. That second, inner chamber was sheltered from the bite of the winter wind, and in that place Bahdlahn could make a fire without fear that its light would be seen by his captors.

  Sitting now near the ashes from the previous night’s fire, Bahdlahn wiped a tear from his eye, replaying the dream, remembering that long-ago incident that had inspired the dream. Remembering Aoleyn, his Aoleyn, his dearest friend, and more than that. Much more than that, in Bahdlahn’s heart.

  Few were the moments of the last years when he wasn’t thinking about her, picturing her, imagining her, and in ways that he had never dared mention. He often felt the sexual urges of a man, and always when he saw or thought of Aoleyn. The sound of her voice made him nervous, but in a good way. A glance at her eyes made him feel as if he was lost, and found, all at once.

  He conjured an image of her and he held it fast, never wanting to forget a bit of her—her black hair and eyes, her crooked smile, those wonderful curves of her compact and powerful form.

  In years, he had not seen her without wanting her, without desiring her, without feeling an overwhelming lust for her.

  Except once, he thought, and he winced profoundly at the most recent, and most horrible, memory. For on that occasion, seeing his dear Aoleyn helpless above the chasm, all Bahdlahn wanted to do was cover her back up, and pull her to his arms to protect her. He would have wrapped her in himself and let his splattering flesh and broken bones shield her fall if he could have.

  If he could have.

  What in his entire life could Bahdlahn have done about anything?

  The young man sat up and rubbed his face, feeling the tears. He felt as if he had lost everything up at the chasm atop the mountain. The woman he adored, the only one he could talk to, the Usgar who had protected him and healed him and spoke to him.

  Without her, what was he? Was he even still Bahdlahn, or was he again, simply, Thump?

  “Oh, my Aoleyn,” he whispered into his hands.

  “Your Aoleyn?”

  Bahdlahn snapped his head up at the unexpected response, eyes wide with terror. He relaxed when he saw the speaker, Aghmor, moving through the narrow channel to enter the small inner cave. He carried an armload of foodstuffs, and had more firewood tucked under one arm.

  Bahdlahn chewed his lip.

  “Your Aoleyn?” the Usgar warrior asked again, quite sharply. He dropped his bundles and brought the spear from his back.

  “I … I…”

  “You are uamhas!” Aghmor reminded him with sudden and surprising anger. “A worthless slave. You are nothing. She was … she was Usgar, a strong Usgar woman. A witch of Usgar, who is not your god. I should strike you dead for such words. Your Aoleyn?”

  “She was my frien…”

  “Shut your mouth!” Aghmor yelled at him, and flipped his spear over, pointing it straight at Bahdlahn’s head. In that moment, with the look on Aghmor’s face, Bahdlahn had no doubt that Aghmor would kill him.

  The young slave sat there confused for a few heartbeats, trying to figure out where this level of outrage had come from. It made sense that Aghmor wouldn’t want someone he considered lesser, someone he considered not even a man, with any Usgar woman, but this … this went beyond that level of anger. The man seemed beyond thought here, his face twisted so fully that Bahdlahn wondered if the forced movement actually hurt him.

  A thought came to Bahdlahn, and then he understood. It all made sense, even Aghmor’s apparent generosity toward him in helping him get away from the murderous Tay Aillig. Aghmor wasn’t doing any of this for Bahdlahn’s sake, and indeed, he probably thought very little of anyone who was not Usgar. No, he was doing this for Aoleyn, for her memory, and for his own feelings for the young woman.

  Bahdlahn referring to Aoleyn as “my Aoleyn” had stung him greatly for reasons beyond hatred of anyone not Usgar. It had, and would, bother Aghmor to think of anyone else as partnered with Aoleyn.

  “Only my friend,” Bahdlahn said, and to his relief, Aghmor did seem to be calming down.

  Aghmor kicked the pile of food and furs that lay beside him. “I’m not knowing how long it will last, but you’ll find little else to eat through the whole of the dark season. The snows are falling heavy now, the passes fast closing. The Usgar are not far, yet I’ve walked the morning through just getting here.”

  Bahdlahn rose and moved past Aghmor to the narrow channel, then eased through to look out the shallow alcove. It had snowed hard the previous night, and still did. Very hard—Bahdlahn saw the trail Aghmor had made in entering the sheltered area, but even that was already beginning to disappear.

  “You should be on your way at once,” he said when he went back in.

  “And I’ll be lucky to make it,” Aghmor said. “Eat little. As little as you can. Unless we’re finding a thaw, I won’t be making this journey again.”

  The Usgar warrior paused at the entrance to the channel and looked back at Bahdlahn for just a heartbeat, scowling. Then he snorted and moved through.

  Bahdlahn accepted that scowl, and shook away the man’s insults and threats. He could only be grateful here. Without Aghmor, he would have been killed by Tay Aillig. That was a courageous act, Bahdlahn knew, for if the Usgar learned of Aghmor’s betrayal, his life would almost surely be forfeit.

  And now this, trekking through deep snows to bring food and furs and wood to the sheltered uamhas.

  Bahdlahn sorted the items, placing the wood with the other kindling on one side of the small cave, piling the furs on his bedding right beside the fire. Except for one, an old and ragged, but quite large bearskin, which he bundled about himself, sighing in relief.

  He gathered up the food and carried it through the channel. At the side of the shallow alcove was another small opening, into a second cave that was really just a hole. The cold out here would better preserve the meat, he knew, so he stuffed it in, moving it to the back of the small morsels already in there.

  The young man stood tall and stretched, staring out at the whiteness, the snow blowing sideways in the mountain winds, and so thick that it was hard to tell where the fallen snow ended and the new-falling snow began.

  “You should not have come out,” he said, though the words were drowned by the howling wind. He meant it, though. This was not a day to be walking on the mountain.

  That realization reminded Bahdlahn of the desperation of his own situation. If Aghmor had not come out this day with supplies, would he have been able to get back to Bahdlahn before the spring thaw?

  Bahdlahn had spent his entire life on the mountain, very high on the mountain in the winters. Since he was an uamhas and not Usgar, and so very expendable, he had been out of the protected Usgar encampment in the winter snows many times before, running tasks. He remembered his shock on each occasion. The warmth of the God Crystal protected the Usgar winter encampment from the snow and the wind, creating a small patch of perpetual springtime for the tribe. Just outside of the perimeter of the small plateau, the pine grove, and the lea holding the crystalline form of Usgar, loomed another world, one of winds that could freeze a man solid in short order, and of snow drifts so deep that Ba
hdlahn hadn’t been able to push through them. Worse, the whiteout of Fireach Speuer concealed the many ravines. More than once had Bahdlahn sunk down suddenly, grasping desperately to catch himself from a long slide that would have left him trapped and freezing.

  Looking out at the blizzard, he couldn’t help but appreciate Aghmor, despite the man’s scowl and insults.

  He wondered if he would ever see Aghmor again.

  That grim thought followed him back through the narrow channel to the inner cave.

  He heard a scream, and turned back and moved into the alcove once more, listening.

  Had it been a scream?

  He heard another, but no, it was the wind. He wanted to believe it was the wind, whistling through the stones. The storm blew more fiercely now, a curtain of whiteness whipping before the cave.

  Bahdlahn winced. He rushed back into the inner cave and began selecting furs to wrap his legs and feet.

  Back out at the alcove, he shook his head at his own foolishness.

  But he knew something was wrong. Perhaps it had been a scream, or maybe it was simply his own fears of the dangers he knew to be out there. He owed it to Aghmor to look.

  Out he went into the snow, trudging through, trying to follow Aghmor’s tracks exactly—but already, the storm was taking them!

  Still, he pressed on, breaking branches when he could, then sticking them into the snow, turned to indicate the way back to his shelter. He turned back repeatedly to get his bearings. He had only gone around fifty strides, but already the rocky ledge that formed his cave was lost to the blowing snow.

  He had to go back. His teeth were already chattering.

  Stubbornly he pushed on, following Aghmor’s trench in the snow, which was now no more than a slight depression. Despite the danger, he yelled for the man, but the wind grabbed his voice and scattered it to nothingness.

  A gust of wind knocked him from his feet sprawling in the snow. He pulled himself up and stumbled forward to a tree, grabbing it for support.

  “Aghmor,” he whispered, shaking his head, certain that the man would not be able to make it back to the Usgar encampment, and certain, too, that if he went on, the blizzard would claim a second victim.

  So be it, he thought. He could not dismiss his debt to this man, Aghmor, and what did he risk, anyway? Without Aghmor, where was he to go? How would he even survive the winter, or know when to flee safely down the mountain from the deamhan Usgar?

  Growling against the merciless winter, Bahdlahn pressed on into the thickening whiteness. He looked back repeatedly, trying to spot his shelter, but soon dismissed that notion, realizing that it was just slowing him down.

  He didn’t have time for that. He was wet now from the blowing snow, from falling into the snow, every bit of it getting through his wrapping, melting against his skin. By all reasoning, he had to turn back and hope he could find his way to the cave.

  But he didn’t. He pressed on.

  He moved through a copse of thin, bare trees, and the scraggly things gave him some bearings at least, and in here, the wind and snow lessened just a bit, and he could see Aghmor’s tracks.

  He followed them out the other side, where they all but disappeared immediately.

  “Aghmor!” he called, then paused and listened.

  Nothing.

  On he went, calling every now and then, and the storm thickened about him.

  Finally, Bahdlahn could go no further. He had to get back to the cave, had to hope he could find it quickly, or he knew he would die. He was almost halfway to the Usgar encampment, he believed, though that second part of the trip would be far more treacherous, scaling rocks and crossing deep dells.

  “Aghmor!” he called one last time, and when he heard no response, he turned about and made all haste, hoping to be quick enough to follow his own trail. At least no predators would be out in this miserable winter storm.

  He had barely gone ten strides when he heard a call. His name!

  No, it was just the wind, he thought, and he listened for many heartbeats.

  “Just the wind,” he whispered.

  “Bahdlahn!” he heard.

  The young slave whirled about and crashed through the snow. He came to the edge of a bowl, and there Aghmor’s tracks ended, for there, Aghmor had tumbled or been blown to the side, where the new snow had given way, sending him sliding down a steep decline.

  Peering through the blinding blizzard, he thought he spotted the man, or something at least, half-buried below and waving frantically.

  “Bahdlahn,” he heard more clearly when the wind swirled into his face, carrying desperate Aghmor’s plea.

  Bahdlahn looked all around. He had no rope, and there was nothing apparent to throw down to the man. He couldn’t get Aghmor out of there.

  At least not on this end of the bowl, he thought, and tried to remember this area more clearly. Then he didn’t hesitate further, and just hopped to the snow beside Aghmor’s descent, and rode the mini-avalanche down into the bowl, landing right beside the fallen man.

  “My leg!” Aghmor yelled, but it seemed barely a whisper to Bahdlahn, who stood right beside him.

  Bahdlahn looked down at the twisted limb and knew that it would not support the Usgar warrior. He glanced around, up the slope. Too steep that way.

  Bahdlahn shook his head, and before Aghmor could say another word, he grabbed the Usgar by the arm and hoisted him across his shoulders, then bent and retrieved Aghmor’s spear as well.

  Aghmor began yelling at him, but he didn’t listen, and just pushed on through the deep snow, back in the general direction—he hoped—of his cave, veering as he went so that he was not paralleling his own tracks. He had to hope that the dell exit would be less steep there, and it was, so much so that Bahdlahn was hardly aware that he had come out of the dell, when he crossed … his own tracks!

  He had to make better time, even with his burden, he knew, so Bahdlahn ran. He could hardly feel his legs any longer, but he ran. For all his life, for Aghmor’s life, he ran, the Usgar warrior bouncing about his shoulder. More than once, he stumbled down to one knee, but without hesitation, without complaint, Bahdlahn growled and pushed back up, running, stumbling on.

  Aghmor groaned and grunted along the bouncing way, and tried to call out continually, but to chatter that didn’t matter to Bahdlahn. Not then.

  All that mattered then was running on, keeping the trail before the wind and snow took it away. Somehow, some way, Bahdlahn kept going, and when he finally fell, exhausted, he was close enough to see the rocky ledge, and knew that his shelter was nearby. He didn’t even try to pick Aghmor up again, just dragged the half-frozen, injured man along, into the shallow alcove, then down the narrow channel and into the sheltered cave.

  “Get out of your wet clothes,” Bahdlahn told him, laying him beside the firepit. Bahdlahn rushed to the wood pile and set up a pyramid of his driest kindling, then placed some of the dry hair he had pulled from his scalp earlier beneath it, and took out the wooden hand drill Aghmor had given to him.

  Within a short while, he had a fire going, and as soon as he was certain that it had caught fully and would not die out until the wood was consumed, he went to Aghmor and helped him finish undressing, taking great care to get the pant leg over his obviously broken shin. Bahdlahn wrapped the injured man in dry furs, then stripped off his own wet wrappings and lay beside Aghmor, both of them resting there for a long time, letting the feeling return to their wind-bitten, frostbitten bodies.

  When he woke up, Bahdlahn found Aghmor sitting, huddling under his furs, shivering.

  “I’ll set more wood,” Bahdlahn said.

  “You need to carry me back to the camp,” Aghmor replied.

  Bahdlahn stared at him incredulously.

  “I’ll tell them that I freed you from goblins, and that you then saved my life,” Aghmor explained. “I do’no think Tay Aillig will kill you.”

  “We can’no.”

  “You are uamhas,” Aghmor sharply answered. �
�You will’no disobey me. Carry me to the winter plateau.”

  Bahdlahn shook his head. “I could’no get there alone. The snow…”

  Not about to continue the argument, with Aghmor’s scowl growing by the word, Bahdlahn went over and scooped the man up into his strong arms, then walked him through the narrow corridor to the front cave.

  They could barely see above the snow, snow deeper than Bahdlahn was tall.

  “We’d be down and dead before we neared where you fell,” the uamhas explained, carrying Aghmor back to the inner cave. He settled the man by the firepit, then went and gathered a few logs to restart the fire.

  “We’ve not enough food,” Aghmor said. “We’ve no’ passed midwinter, and have barely the food to last one man.”

  Bahdlahn shrugged, having no answers.

  “You will get more,” said Aghmor.

  Again, Bahdlahn shrugged.

  “I could kill you and eat you,” Aghmor warned. “Usgar do not frown upon such things!”

  Before he had even finished the sentence, Bahdlahn had the spear in hand, tip pointed at Aghmor’s face. “You are hurt. If you try, I will be tasting man-flesh, not Aghmor.”

  The horrified warrior shrank back from that prodding spear. “You dare?” he breathed.

  “I will,” Bahdlahn promised. “And you can’no move well enough to stop me.”

  “Do you know what I could do to you for such a threat?”

  “Are you knowing what I could do to you right now?”

  Aghmor started to respond, but instead just licked his lips and stared hard at the surprising young man.

  “We will take care the food and melt much snow to drink,” Bahdlahn explained. “When the storm is settled, I will seek food. When the paths clear, I will take you to the Usgar—near them, where you can call to them and be found. But I’ll’no be going back there. I’ll be dying out here, but not there. Never there!”

  There was no room for debate in his tone, and to his relief, Aghmor offered none, and instead merely nodded and said, “We will need food.”

  Bahdlahn nodded and moved out of the inner cave, carrying the spear. He set it up high, on an interior ledge above the cave opening, out of sight and up so high that Aghmor would have little chance of reaching it with that troubled leg.