Shapers of Darkness (12 page)

“Where do you think we’re going?” Tavis asked in a whisper, as the leader began to speak with the others in his band.

“They’re brigands. They probably have hiding places like this one all over the highlands, and I doubt they remain at any one of them for more than a night or two.”

“But they just arrived here this morning.”

“Yes, and they found us. They probably expect the Glyndwr army to turn up any time now.”

Tavis shrugged, conceding the point. “You’re better?”

“A bit, yes. Though I still don’t know how much magic I can chance.”

“Quiet! Both o’ ye!”

“Shaping will be still be hard,” Grinsa said, his voice dropping even further. “But maybe—”

“I told ye t’ be quiet!” the leader said, drawing Tavis’s sword and striding toward them. “I wan’ ye both alive, but tha’ don’ mean I can’ add t’ yer scars, noble, or take out th’ minister’s eyes. Now shut yer mouths!” He turned to look at the others. “I wan’ ’em kept apart, an’ I don’ wan’ ’em untied. We’ll put ’em across th’ horses’ backs.”

Tavis hadn’t taken his eyes off the gleaner. At the mention of the mounts, Grinsa’s eyebrows went up and he gave a slight nod. The brigands didn’t appear to notice.

A few turns ago, the young lord wouldn’t have understood, having known so little about Qirsi magic. Now, though,

Grinsa’s meaning was as clear to him as the brilliant azure sky above the highlands. Language of beasts.

Within moments, Tavis had been lifted roughly, slung over the shoulder of the tall brigand, and carried out of the circle of stones. The twins followed, bearing Grinsa together. The tall man untied the young lord’s hands, then retied them so that they were in front of Tavis rather than behind him. Then he lifted the boy to lay him over the back of one of the mounts—Tavis’s own, as it turned out—loosely securing the young lord’s hands to one stirrup and his feet to the other.

It wasn’t as uncomfortable as Tavis had thought it would be. Or so he thought. As soon as they started moving, he realized that he wouldn’t be able to bear much of this at all. Every step of the mount bounced him, making his head spin and his stomach heave. He closed his eyes, but that didn’t help. He could only imagine how Grinsa was suffering.

The brigands had horses of their own, and they set what seemed to Tavis a punishing pace.

“Gleaner!” he called.

“I know,” came Grinsa’s reply.

“Keep quiet!” the brigand growled.

“Ready?”

“Yes! Just get on with it!”

“Damn ye both! I said—”

Before the leader could finish, one of the horses neighed loudly and someone shouted a curse. An instant later, Tavis’s horse bolted, jostling him mercilessly. He gritted his teeth, his eyes shut once more. He could hear another mount running beside him and he hoped with all his heart that it was Grinsa’s. They seemed to gallop over the grasses for an eternity, until at last his horse slowed, then halted altogether.

“Gods,” Tavis managed to say. “That was—”

“No time, Tavis. They’re coming. Hold out your hands and pull them as far apart as the ropes will allow.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

Tavis did as he was told. An instant later, the small expanse of rope between his wrists burst into flames, singeing his skin.
“Demons and fire!” He jerked his hands apart and the rope snapped. Immediately he began beating on first one wrist, then the other, trying to put out the flames. “You could have warned me!”

“Never mind that! I’ll do the same for your feet. When they’re free, ride northward, as fast as you can!”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be right behind you.”

Tavis nodded. He could hear other mounts approaching quickly. Soon his feet were free. He jumped down to the ground and made certain that the burning scraps of rope were off of his boots and his mount. Then he swung himself back into his saddle and kicked at the flanks of his horse. “Ride, Fean!” he called to the mount. “Ride hard!”

He glanced back. True to his word, the gleaner was with him. He could see the brigands behind Grinsa. They were bearing down on them, their weapons drawn. The twins led the way, followed by the tall man and his stout friend. The leader trailed the others by some distance. It seemed that his was the mount to which Grinsa had whispered.

An instant later, the two lead riders abruptly halted, one of them screaming and flailing at his head. It took Tavis a moment to realize that his hair was ablaze.

“That should stop them,” Grinsa said. He smiled, but he looked deathly pale, as if the use of so much magic had drained him.

Tavis nodded, gazing back at the men. “They have our weapons, our food, our gold!”

“I know. But we can replace all those things in Glyndwr. We can’t fight them, Tavis.”

He was right, of course. He and the gleaner were alive: they had their mounts. He should have been pleased. But he couldn’t help feeling that they had failed, or rather, that he had failed them both. They were about to ride to war. They intended to do battle with a Weaver and his army of sorcerers. And somehow they had allowed five brigands to take nearly all their most valued possessions.

“It’s all right,” the gleaner said, seeming to read his
thoughts, as he did so often. “Sometimes a warrior proves himself best by knowing when to retreat.”

A warrior. He nearly laughed aloud. Whatever he was, he certainly didn’t feel like a warrior.

Chapter
Five

Curtell, Braedon

t gnawed at his mind like wood ants attacking old timber.

He could see the emperor’s plans taking shape, and so the Weaver’s as well. The master of arms trained his men with growing urgency; the quartermaster gathered provisions for Braedon’s army like some forest beast hoarding food for the snows; and Emperor Harel himself wandered about the palace daily, overseeing the preparations. At other times Kayiv jal Yivanne might go an entire turn without seeing the emperor at all, despite being a minister in Harel’s court. Now he saw the man constantly.

And each time the emperor came near, the minister had to resist an urge to warn him of Dusaan jal Kania’s betrayal, to tell him that the leader of this movement that had struck fear into the hearts of every Eandi noble in the Forelands resided here, in his own palace.

He didn’t dare, of course. If the high chancellor really was a Weaver—and the minister had come to believe beyond any doubt that he was—he would find a way to kill Kayiv, even if he was branded as a traitor. More to the point, the minister wasn’t certain that he wanted Dusaan unmasked, at least not yet. Kayiv had long dreamed of a day when a Qirsi in the Forelands could aspire to being more than merely a minister
or a festival entertainer. He disliked the high chancellor; he had since first coming to the emperor’s palace three years before, and when Nitara ja Plin ended their affair and made it clear that she now desired Dusaan, that dislike had deepened to hatred. But there could be no denying that the man was both cunning and powerful. If anyone could lead the Qirsi to victory, he could.

Still, not even Kayiv’s contempt for Eandi nobles like Harel could entirely overcome his fear of Dusaan. Even when he allowed himself to envision all that the success of the Qirsi movement might mean, he found his anticipation of this glorious future tempered by his knowledge of the man who would be the Foreland’s first Qirsi king. The emperor was a weak-minded fool. The Solkarans of Aneira were uncultured brutes, and Eibithar’s major houses had shown again and again that they were too concerned with their petty squabbles and limited ambitions to rule their people properly. Those who reigned in the other realms were no better. Nine centuries of Eandi rule had proved beyond doubt that Ean’s children were poorly suited to being kings and queens and emperors.

But would Dusaan be any better? As much as Kayiv wanted to believe so, all he knew of the man convinced him otherwise. He had seen how ruthless the high chancellor could be, and he sensed that Dusaan would be a savage, merciless ruler. Yes, the man was Qirsi, but a tyrant was a tyrant, no matter the color of his eyes.

It had been more than half a turn since Stavel jal Miraad, the elder chancellor, had come to him with evidence that Dusaan was offering false counsel to the emperor, convincing Kayiv that the high chancellor was a Weaver and the leader of the Qirsi cause. In the days since, the minister had grappled with his doubts, wondering if he could continue to support the Qirsi cause knowing where its triumph would lead, wondering if he possessed the strength or the courage to oppose Dusaan should he decide on such a course. To his dismay, he had come to understand that he was a coward at heart, a man who had hungered for Qirsi rule so long as the cost wasn’t too great, and who would allow his land to suffer at the hands of a demon rather than risk his life opposing him. No wonder Nitara
had chosen Dusaan, despite the nearly two years Kayiv and she had been in love, and the countless passionate nights they had spent together. The high chancellor led a movement that might well change the course of history in the Forelands, and he looked like a warrior, with his broad shoulders and wild hair. Kayiv could offer her nothing more than his heart and devotion, and it seemed Nitara had grown weary of these.

But though he no longer hoped to win back the minister, in recent days Kayiv had begun to see that there might be a way to combat the Weaver without placing himself in harm’s way. It was the coward’s path. He knew that. Still he thought it better to do something, anything, than to sit by idly as Dusaan brought ruin to all the land.

Oddly, his plan demanded that he turn for help not only to Stavel, but also to the Eandi in Harel’s court, something the minister never thought he might do. He hated the Eandi, and had nearly all his life. He still believed that the Forelands would be a far better place were its realms led by Qirsi nobles. As for Stavel, for as long as he could remember he had been disgusted by the blind devotion with which the older chancellors served Harel, and to his mind, none had been worse in this regard than Stavel. The chancellor embodied all that Kayiv hated about his own people’s history in the Forelands. The man debased himself with his obsequiousness. When Kayiv’s people spoke of white-hairs whose blood ran more Eandi than Qirsi, they did so with men like Stavel in mind.

But it was the chancellor who had first revealed to him that Dusaan was advising the emperor to begin his attack on Eibithar early, and that the high chancellor was presenting this as counsel that came from all of Harel’s Qirsi. Even had there been another Qirsi whose help the minister preferred to accept, he would have had to turn to Stavel eventually. And as it happened, there was no one else.

First, though, Kayiv needed to enhance his standing in Harel’s court. And for this, he needed the help of the one man who, only a short time ago, would have seemed an even more unlikely ally than Stavel: Uriad Ganjer, the emperor’s master of arms.

Rumor had it that the arms master was livid at the emperor’s decision to hasten the invasion of Eibithar, and that much of his ire was directed at Dusaan and the rest of the Qirsi, whose counsel he believed had convinced Harel to attack so soon.

As Eandi went, Uriad was more intelligent than most, and though a warrior, he was not given to the blind hatred of all Qirsi that Kayiv had observed in other Eandi men of arms. Still, the minister had never before had occasion to speak with Uriad other than to exchange pleasantries at an imperial banquet or while passing one another in the palace corridors. No doubt the master of arms would view with suspicion any overtures Kayiv made. The minister could only hope that Uriad’s anger at Dusaan and his concern for the success of the invasion would overmaster his distrust.

For several days after resolving at last to speak with the master of arms, Kayiv searched for ways he might contrive to begin such a conversation without seeming too obvious. The truth was, however, their paths rarely crossed, and it occurred to Kayiv that this was hardly a discussion to be started casually, or by chance. At last, on the eighth day of the waning, the minister decided that he had little choice but to approach Uriad directly.