The Dark Glory War (51 page)

The grand temeryx’s claws curled away as they scrabbled at my boot. The beast bounced back a step and peered at me curiously, then jutted its nose forward and sniffed at the blood seeping into the long scratches it had carved in my flesh. The heat of its breath seemed a distant echo of the fire burning a line from my scalp to my shin.

The staccato dripping of blood down my cheek and off my jaw marked time for me. I think the droplets slowed as blood clotted, but I had no trust of my senses. Chytrine watched me, her eyes roiling as blood collected in my boot. A chill settled into my flesh through the rents in my clothes, but the fire in my skin did not diminish and I knew the wounds would putrefy.

Finally she shifted in her throne, with her eyes widening somewhat. “Before you amused, now you impress. Your stoicism amazes me.”

I allowed myself one nod and somehow restrained myself from leaping back and around in a furious dance designed to bleed the pain out. I had no doubt such action would amuse her, but I thought impressing her was preferential given the circumstances.

“The bargain.”

She nodded. “I shall keep to it. Those of your friends who are dead will remain dead. Those who live will remain alive.” Chytrine let a light chuckle roll from her throat. “Of course,your actions have determined their fate. It is clear my invasion of the south was premature, for my leaders were dull and my troops insufficient to accomplish all I set out for them. Sinceyou destroyed mysullanciri, I must replace them, and I would have good leaders, heroic leaders, in their places. Your friends will serve me well in that capacity.”

“No, no, you can’t do that.” My hands curled into fists. “They deserve better. They deserve their freedom.”

“Do they?” She snorted sharply, her flared nostrils eroding her beauty. “Perhaps another bargain. I will grant them their freedom in exchange for something only you can give me.”

I felt as if thorny vines had wrapped themselves around my heart. “And that would be?”

“Your allegiance and service.” She leaned forward and smiled most seductively. “You will become my newsullanciri. You’ve certainly won the right, having destroyed the others. I will make you over into that which you wish to be, and I will grant your friends their freedom in the bargain. You will serve as my warlord and consort, and the world will be ours.“

Such an offer, it would seem, would require long deliberation before a decision was made. If I agreed, my friends would be given their freedom. They—they who knew so much more than I did and who knew me—could certainly muster the strength and devise the strategies needed to defeat me. And to appear in the south with an army that would make Scrainwood melt into a trembling puddle had appeal. I could even direct the invasion so it accomplished her ends while minimizing the damage to my people.

Those thoughts did occur to me at the time, but they evaporated in a heartbeat because I knew I could never trust Chytrine. I had agreed to her first contest and she remained true to her word, but not the spirit of her words. She had tricked me once and I knew a second trick lurked there, waiting to take me. I had given her a minor victory, and even if denying her another would cost me my life, I deemed denying it to her a goal worthy of being so dearly purchased.

I shook my head. “No. I won’t join you. I will never join you.”

Chytrine straightened up in her throne. “Every man has his price. I would have thought saving your friends was yours.”

“Oh, it would be, but I have no doubt your offer will trap me while cheating me out of that price.”

She laughed once, and it probably came out more harsh than expected. “Very good, Hawkins, very good. I tell you this now, each one of these, your friends, came to me willingly. I met their price. The Vorquelf, in her last moment, allowed herself to believe you had abandoned her, so she accepted my fellowship. And your Lord Norrington, in his pain he dearly sought the surcease you denied him. I promised him an end to pain and he swore to serve me. So it was with the others, even the dead, who merely wished to remain in this world.

“So, you were right. If I granted them their freedom, they would still serve me assullanciri. Theywould have servedyou asyour sullanciri, but you have chosen to oppose me.” Her thick-lidded eyes half closed. “You have proved clever and stalwart so far, but will you have the stomach for what will come?”

I transformed my personal pain into the pain she had caused so many others, then used that anger to fuel my words. “If it means defeating you, I will gladly do my part. I will always oppose you.”

“I am certain you think you will, but you should beware such irrational beliefs. They leave you prey to folly.” She opened her arms to take in the hall. “The urZrethi of Boragul believed themselves the only ones worthy of becoming fledged. I appeared to them as Tzindr-Coraxoc, fletched on arms and legs, and they accepted me as their leader. You men of the south are just as foolish and, to my advantage, you are more than capable of playing yourselves off, one against another.”

“Even the most stupid leader in the south can recognize the threat you pose, Chytrine.”

“Is that so? We shall see.” She smiled at me again, leaning forward like an adult about to indulge a child in some kindness. “I will give you two days’ headstart, then I will send my hunters after you. If you make it south, you can warn your kings and queens that I am coming. You can give them the most dire warning you can think of, and tell them that I’ve said my next appearance will be worse than that.Their champions are nowmy champions, and unless they find a way to breed heroes as quickly as I can breedgrichothka —what you style as gibberkin—the children of today will never see their own offspring mature.”

Sitting back, Chytrine arched an eyebrow at me. “Do you understand this message?” “I do, and I will deliver it.”

“Will you, or will my hunters find you first?” She watched me with boiling eyes. “I almost hope you do survive.”

“I will, and you will regret it.”

“Never, Hawkins.” She stood and descended from her throne. “I always win, and victory over you is something I will savor.”

She leaned toward me and licked blood from mv cheek-T recoiled from the touch of her tongue, but not quickly enough. She caught my jaw in one hand, then kissed me on the lips.

The burning on them surpassed the pain from my wounds, and my world went black.

fT’that I actually awoke again is a miracle for which I cannot I account. Perhaps one of the godlings—Arel of luck or Nilin I of perversity, or even Fesyin of pain—decided I was entertaining enough to continue my mortal trials. The oath I swore Resolute to help him liberate Vorquellyn, that, too, could have been powerful enough to rouse me. How I came to wake really matters not at all, but just the fact that I did waken is important.

Chytrine clearly did not intend it to be so. I had been carried from her throne room and tossed bodily from Boragul, wearing only that which I’d had on in my audience with her. Frostbite had already numbed my fingers, toes, nose, and cheeks, and likely would have gnawed clean through me had I not regained consciousness. The pain from my cuts did get dulled by the cold, but that was a small comfort.

I found myself in the shadows of Boragul, and this worried me greatly since their shadows only point north. In that direction a vast ice field spread out, featureless save for snowdrifts discernible only by hints of blue shadows. For me to make my way home I wouldhave-tr, c*-.-., had previously decided was impassable, and win my way south with legions of gibberkin hounding my every step.

I forced myself to my feet and balanced unsteadily on the snow’s thick crust. I drew Tsamoc and set about chopping out thick blocks of snow, which I shifted into position to build a snow den of the type Drugi had showed us how to make. Though I knew little about building a dome, Tsamoc cut blocks that fit perfectly together. As I worked, my body warmed, and in two hours I had a snow den somewhat larger than a coffin.

It might not seem as if a shelter built of snow could prevent someone from freezing, but the body produces heat of its own and the shelter trapped the warm air. It was clear to me that being protected from the northern winds that had begun to howl meant I would not freeze to death quickly, but freezing slowly has little more appeal. I tried to keep moving, at least as much as my shelter would allow, but as night fell, fatigue and pain ate away at my resolve to remain active. I told myself I would just close my eyes for a moment or two, to husband my strength, and somehow I made myself believe that whatever force had awakened me the first time would do so again.

Awaken again I did, and I felt much warmer. This was undoubtedly because of the tallow candle burning near my head and the thick wool blanket spread over me. At my feet I found the heavier winter clothes I’d worn when coming north and a pack stuffed with a jumble of supplies, including a skin of wine, a packet of dried meat, another with cheese and some biscuits. Most important was a pouch containingmetholanth. My silverwood bow and the quiver of arrows Cavarre had given me lay beside Tsamoc on the snowy shelf I’d carved in the sword’s honor.

Of equal import were a gold plate piled high with meat and next to it another with a berry tart. I can only assume my benefactor was the feast servant with whom I shared part of my food. The meat could not have been dog, for it tasted far too good. And the tart, which had been delicious previously, now convinced me that it really was the food of the gods.

I mixedmetholanth with some of the wine and packed it into the most gaping portions of the wounds. I shredded the tunic and trousers into rags and bound my wounds with them, then slipped on my warm clothing. I held my hands over the small yellow flame, drinking in its warmth. I mumbled a prayer to Aren, asking for my benefactress to go unpunished and, to this day, I hope that prayer was answered.

The next morning I gathered up my things and started out. The snow supported me and, by keeping Boragul to my left, I knew I was moving west. The featurelessness of the landscape was disheartening in that it made it difficult for me to determine how far I’d come. I accepted that burden, however, since the landscape also offered my enemies nowhere to hide. Any that wanted to get me—the first thirty, anyway—had to be better archers than I was, and I doubted any of them had my motivation to make shots count.

True to her word, Chytrine didn’t send her hunters after me for two days, which meant I might have outrun them until I was trying to make my way through the pass, save for a savage storm that blew up out of the north. I was able to dig myself another shelter and just hunkered down to wait it out. I have no idea how long it took to pass, but it was enough time for some of the wounds to begin to suppurate and for me to become feverish.

I knew the infection and fever was not good, but my supply ofmetholanth had dwindled away to nothing. With the rising fever came delirium, which I fully expected to kill me. As it turned out, it actually saved my life.

Of the days after the storm I remember very little, and what I do remember comes in flashes. The storm, it seems, covered my trail so well that Chytrine’s hunters actually moved past my shelter, never detecting me. Then, in my fever-walks, I headed directly west and actually overshot the mouth of the pass. Somehow I realized my mistake and cut back to the southeast, where I made contact with the fringes of a hunting party.

A fevermad bowman is not one I would expect to shoot well, and I have no recollection of what I shot where, though my supply of arrows shrank to five. I do know I did not kill all the hunters after me because we did eneaee in running battles I was more an animal than a man, learning all manner of ways to hide myself from hunters when they moved in packs, then darting out to pick off the stragglers.

I’d reached the northern foothills of the Boreal Mountains, just west of the pass, and was moving through a sparse bit of forest when the core of the pack that had been hunting me finally tracked me down. I remember seeing shadows flitting between small pines and hearing the crunch of feet on snowy crusts. The stone set in Tsamoc glowed softly, supplementing the moon’s weak light. It did draw the enemy to me, but I didn’t care since the only way I could deal with them was if they came within sword’s-reach.

The last of them—there were four, I think—came hard and fast. I parried a spear-thrust down to my right, then brought Tsamoc up and around in a slash that split the gibberer’s spine at his waist. He crashed down through the snow’s crust as I turned to my left and swatted a longknife aside with my mittened left hand. I slashed weakly at him, cutting his flank. Then, as I tried to turn further to the left to continue to engage him, the crust parted beneath my feet, sinking me in snow to my knees. Though my weight was shifting directions, my feet couldn’t, and I toppled onto my right side, Tsamoc slicing deep into the snow.

The gibberer loomed up over me, raising its longknife in both hands, set to plunge it down through my belly. I snarled and tugged at Tsamoc. I tried to kick out with my feet, but they were trapped deep. I looked up into the gibberer’s feral eyes and I knew my fight was over.

Then a whirring buzz drilled into me and something flashed through the night. The gibberer screamed and clutched at its eyes. It reeled away, stumbling and breaking through the crust. A different whirring sound built and faded, ending in a wetthunk. The blind gibberer’s wailing ceased, its spine arched against a metal cross half buried in its back. It flopped forward and lay still.

The whirring buzz returned and I knew myself to be in the full and probably fatal throes of fever, for only delirium could account for the thing that landed on my stomach. A foot and a half tall and appearing to be largely armored with glossy black casing segments—like those on an insect—the creature folded all four of his arms over his chest. His four wings, which resembled those of a dragonfly, folded back down toward his feet. Two antennae rose from his forehead, just before the bristly shock of hair covering his head. He regarded me with two jewel-faceted eyes.

“Quick, quick,” he piped in a high voice. “Alive, he alive. Quick, quick.”