Fire Arrow (15 page)

"Father," she whispered, "you are avenged." But the words were as empty as the dead man's eyes. All was ashes and blood in her mouth. She swayed as if she were weeping, but no tears came; not for the man who had drowned in brown water, not for the man who lay dead beside her, and not for herself, for the thing inside her that had died as well.

The arrow had come back, as Collun had said it would, piercing her own heart.

Her body quaked with tearless grief until finally she let her head fall to the mat. When she rose, she purposefully set to work. She cut a hole in the mat and, taking the man's body by his large shoulders, slid him into the water headfirst.

She found a branch and, with her knife, whittled it into a flat piece of wood. In Eirrenian she carved the date and the words "Five Scathians died this day in Bog Maglu."

She stuck the piece of wood upright into the mat. Then she walked away.

Brie did not know where Fara was. She hadn't seen the faol since the sorcerer Yldir's death. Brie trudged on, her eyes probing the wafting smoke for any sign of the white animal.

Then she spotted a dash of blue. The scarf she had tied to the cinnamon fern. She had come to the edge of Bog Maglu.

There was a movement near the fern. Someone was crouching in the sedge. Then the person stood and came toward Brie. It was Hanna. Jip and Maor burst out of the grass and shrubs, greeting Brie enthusiastically.

The older woman's eyes widened when she saw Brie. Silently Hanna held out her arms. With a sigh, Brie let the woman enfold her. Slowly, tonelessly, she told Hanna of Yldir's death. The older woman closed her eyes in sorrow.

"We must go back," Hanna said, "and bury him."

"I know."

Hanna cleaned Brie's blood-streaked face and bandaged the wound on her forehead. Then they went back into Maglu, Hanna, Brie, and the two dogs. The rain had reduced the fire to a smoldering blanket of thick gray smoke that smelled of burnt chicory. They passed the wooden marker Brie had fashioned for the Scathians. Hanna saw it but said nothing.

They found Yldir's body beside the stones of memory. Using few words, Hanna instructed Brie in the Dungalan burial ways, and by day's end they had fashioned a small rough-hewn boat for use as a casket. They spoke little as they worked. Hanna once asked Brie if she had found the crippled man she sought. Brie replied that he might have perished in the bog. After that, Hanna did not ask Brie any more questions.

Gently they placed the sorcerer's body in the boat, a skin bag of cymlu-berry wine at his elbow. As they did, Brie noticed birds circling above. They were seabirds—kittiwakes, gannets, guillemots, fulmars, and cormorants. The seabirds were uncharacteristically silent, and one by one they began settling on the stones of memory. By the time Hanna and Brie had cut a large hole in the peat, the stones were covered with birds. And as they slid Yldir's boat-casket into the ancient water of the bog, the birds gave tongue, each to their own individual song. It was loud, even harsh, but somehow beautiful.

Brie thought of the other two bodies that lay in the same waters, the men she had killed. Then her gaze fell on the wooden box. It was charred, but the runes on it still faintly glowed. As she watched, they flickered out.

Meanwhile, Hanna approached the stones of memory. The seabirds on the larger of the two stones lifted off, almost as one, and hovered above. Hanna kneeled by the stone and, using a sharp-pointed piece of iron she had found in the remains of Yldir's hut, began carving Dungalan words at the base of the stone. It took her much of the night, but when she was done she read aloud to Brie, "'Yldir of the sea did die this day in Bog Maglu/So shall his tale be told as long as the stones of memory stand.' "

The seabirds suddenly rose up and with a whoosh ascended to the sky. They were soon lost to sight. Then Brie felt something brush against her legs. It was Fara. Crouching down beside her, Brie ran her hand over the faol's back. Fara arched against the girl's hand. Her white fur was scorched and damp. Brie guessed she had swum under the peat mat to escape the fire.

Then Hanna, Brie, the two dogs, and the faol left Bog Maglu.

"Will you come with me to Ardara?" Hanna asked.

Brie was silent, threading the panner thong through her fingers. She knew not what to say; it mattered little to her where she journeyed.

"Or do you return to Eirren?"

Still Brie did not answer.

"When the snows come to the Blue Stacks, you will not be able to travel through, not until the spring thaw. But the snows will not come for two moon cycles, so there is time for you to visit Dungal, if that is your wish."

Silence.

"Biri," Hanna said, her voice gentle, "come with me to Ardara. You will find a welcome there."

And so Brie went to Ardara. She had a message for one who lived there. And who better to deliver tidings of death? she thought grimly.

 

During the journey, Brie remained silent. She did all that she had done before Maglu, walking, eating, sleeping, but she felt like a shadow, lost and without mooring, as though the thread that connected her from one day to the next had snapped. She set one foot ahead of the other, but knew not why.

For so long she had sought this one thing: the death of her father's killers. Now that she had achieved it, or nearly so, the deed stuck in her throat. Before her father's death ... what had directed her steps then? She could barely remember, but it seemed she had always been thrust forward, like a small boat driven by a great wind, to be the best at whatever she undertook—the best archer, the best trail finder, the best at building a stone wall. Except for those few months with Collun at Cuillean's dun, she could remember no time when she had known peace.

And Collun. What would he think of her now? Would he pity her, or would he recoil from the blood on her hands? She could not think of Collun now. Better to think of nothing at all.

***

Bogland gave way to rich farming land. Cozy, whitewashed farmhouses were scattered here and there along the way, and the people were friendly to the wandering Traveler and her silent companion.

Hanna and Brie arrived in Ardara at midday. The town was bright and bustling and full of vigor. But Brie felt like a specter moving among these people with their active, certain lives. Ardara was a well-cared-for town, if not a very prosperous one. The buildings were solidly built, and though many of the boats bobbing in the harbor or pulled up on shore could have used fresh paint, they still looked snug and seaworthy. There were all sizes of boats, from curraghs—rowing boats with turned-up prows to help them in the surf—to two-sailed ketches forty feet long or more, for handling the deep water of the sea. Dogs were everywhere on the streets of the village: intelligent, strong dogs like Jip and Maor.

Dungalans either were fair-haired with dark eyes or had hair which bore that distinctive copper hue, like Rilla's and Yldir's, with matching coppery eyes. Most of the men (and a few younger women, though not many) wore the distinctive garb of the Dungalan fisherman: trousers of homespun tweed held up by a multicolored, braided belt called a criosanna, and thick flannel shirts, dyed indigo.

Hanna and Brie did not stop in town but traveled on until they came to a large farmhold to the north of Ardara. The farmhouse stood on a rise. Looking back from the door Brie had a clear view of the sea and fishing boats, in miniature, stretched out toward the horizon.

The farmer's wife, Lotte, greeted Hanna warmly. She spoke fast, in Dungalan, and Brie understood only a few words. Hanna introduced Brie as Eirrenian, translating the woman's words. Lotte looked a little surprised, her eyes caught by the faol. But she was welcoming to Brie and tried to speak more slowly so that Brie could follow what she said.

Her husband was out in the barley field, Lotte said, and had just been saying this morning that he wished the Traveler would come soon. "It seems as though harvesttime comes earlier every year," Lotte commented. "And Garmon believes there will be an early frost." She pressed warm buttered bread into their hands, and together they made their way to the barley field.

Farmer Garmon was a prosperous-looking man with gray side-whiskers and an open smile. He embraced Hanna warmly, said his crops were well nigh bursting. Then he welcomed Brie, saying that any friend of the Traveler was a friend to him, and did she know any good tales from Eirren?

"How is your daughter in Dungloe? And your son in Mira? And my friend Lom?" asked Hanna.

"They are all well. I have another grandbairn, Sophe's second son. And as for Lom, he is spending more and more time working on that boat of his. I'll be lucky to tear him away come harvest day," Garmon said. Hanna explained to Brie that Lom was the youngest of Garmon's sons and daughters and the only one still living in Ardara.

"A fine son he is, too, though I lost him to the sea long ago." Brie could see disappointment on the man's face, but acceptance as well.

"You will like Lom," said Hanna to Brie. "He works with Jacan and his son on their fishing boat until his own is built."

Garmon showed them to the barn where they would sleep. "But treat the farmhouse as your home," he said.

"Shall we call on Jacan?" Hanna said when the farmer had left them.

Brie nodded.

***

The fisherman Jacan had a lean, weathered face, dark copper hair and beard, and the keen blue eyes Brie recognized from Rilla's panner work. He wore a leather fishing apron and smelled of fish.

His son, Ferg, was almost the duplicate of Rilla—copper hair, pale skin—but Jacan's other daughter, Hyslin, had fair hair and rose-colored cheeks. She had been paring potatoes, her sleeves pushed up over her elbows, when Brie and Hanna arrived.

They greeted Hanna warmly, but were wary of Brie, and of Fara, who sat on her haunches by the front door, eyes half closed. When Brie entered the cheerful, comfortable room with its smells of fresh bread and fish, she felt like an ill dark wind blowing cold through the house.

"There is bad news," Hanna said in Dungalan.

"Go on," replied Jacan, his face suddenly taut.

"Rilla is dead."

Hyslin let out a cry, dropping her paring knife. Ferg's pale skin went a shade paler.

"How?" asked Jacan.

"By goat-men. Murdered." Brie stepped forward, speaking low in halting Dungalan.

"The gabha?" Jacan looked disbelieving.

"I was there," Brie said. "I saw. She bade me bring you the news. And I brought her panners as well." She handed Jacan the leather pouch.

He stared down at it. "What of Ladran?"

"Dead, too. He ... died going to Rilla."

"She never should have married that raff," said Ferg, anguished.

Jacan was silent. Hyslin lifted her apron to her face and cried into it.

"We stay with Farmer Garmon until harvest," Hanna said to the fisherman, then added, "I am grieved for you, Jacan."

Brie, Hanna, and the faol left the house. Brie touched the panner around her neck.

"There is another I would have you meet," Hanna said as they walked along the harbor.

"Who?" asked Brie without interest.

"Sago. He is a Sea Dyak sorcerer, like Yldir. He is not as powerful as Yldir, though perhaps he is even older. With Yldir gone, I believe Sago is the last of the Sea Dyak sorcerers in Dungal. Some say he has little draoicht left and even fewer wits. But they still come to him for advice on fishing. Indeed, there is none better."

The Sea Dyak sorcerer lived south of Ardara's harbor in a secluded inlet. His home was a small, round, one-room building, called a mote, made of white stone and seashells. At the top were lodgings for seabirds.

Sago stood waiting in the shell-lined doorway, as if he was expecting them. He wore a tunic the color of seawater, and Brie was struck by how thin he was: His arms and legs looked to be no more than bone with skin stretched over them. The dome of his head was covered by a close-fitting cap of the same seawater color as his tunic; feathery wisps of white hair protruded from the cap. His skin was worn by weather and age, but his green eyes were unclouded, and they watched intently as Brie and Hanna approached.

"So," the sorcerer said to Brie with a wink, "the arrow finds its mark."

Brie gave a start, her hand going to the panner at her neck. The sorcerer had spoken in Eirrenian. Brie looked sideways at Hanna. The older woman shrugged.

"Come." Sago led them inside.

After the brightness of water and sun, the inside of the mote seemed dim, but a window of green glass provided some light. Brie had the sensation of being underwater: Green-hued light rippled on the surfaces of things. The walls of the mote were lined with shelves made of driftwood, and each shelf was jammed with flotsam cast up by the sea—shells of all shapes and sizes, feathery sprays of seaweed, frosted sea-glass, smooth sand-coins, brittle sea stars, and many other oddments.

Inside the mote were several seabirds. One tern settled onto Sago's shoulder and ate bread crumbs from his hand.

"Some sepoa?" asked the sorcerer, holding up an empty cup encrusted with bits of many shells.

"It's a kind of tea made of seaweed, sweetened with " honey and cinnamon," explained Hanna. "It's actually very good."

"Yes, please," Brie said.

They sat on cushions and drank the seaweed tea. Sago did not speak, but gazed steadily at Brie. She began to be uncomfortable under his scrutiny, and yet, as had been true with Yldir, she felt an odd Tightness about being here in this cluttered, dim mote. She sipped the sepoa tea thinking it tasted almost like ginger cake.

"Yldir is dead," said Hanna.

The bird on Sago's shoulder let out a cry, sounding almost human, and beat its powerful wings.

Sago's eyes were bright, staring out the dim green window. "The water went dark, almost black, as if a cloud had passed overhead. But there was no cloud. We knew it was Yldir." His eyes suddenly twinkled, and he said,

 

"
There was an old man
And nothing he had,
And so this old man
Was said to be mad.
"