The Guardian (28 page)

“What are you saying?” Kerid asked.

“There’s more.” Nassim motioned that he wait. “Yvor told me that he was approached by another refugee from Chaldor who’d sign on, and Martyn spoke of two more. All claim to have fought for Andur and fled when Talan invaded; all have coin aplenty, and seem to spend it readily.”

“Loot?” Kerid asked.

“They have too much,” Nassim answered, “if what they say is true.”

“So what do you say?”

“That perhaps Talan sends spies.”

“That’s not so surprising, eh? We must be hurting him somewhat by now.”

“Even so.” Nassim shrugged. “I don’t like it.”

Kerid nodded. “I’ll speak with the Mother, see what she thinks.” He paused, plucking a rose that he twirled a moment between his hands, ignoring the thorns that pricked his palms. “Perhaps we should speak with these would-be allies.”

“They all want to meet you,” Nassim said.

Kerid grinned and dropped the rose, crushed, to the marble pavement. “Are they spies, what can they learn? That we raid Talan’s boats? That’s common knowledge in Hel’s Town.”

“I think there might be more to it,” Nassim said.

“I’ll speak with the Mother,” Kerid promised.

G
ulls sat sleeping on the bollards as Nassim walked the harborfront, seemingly oblivious of the cats that prowled the wharves. Sleek shadows under the filled moon transformed the river to a kaleidoscope of flickering patterns.
The Durrakym lapped gently against the stones and the
Ryadne
tossed on the slight swell like a beautiful woman peacefully asleep in her bed. Nassim watched her awhile, loving her sleek lines, thinking of her speed and maneuverability. She was his first command, and he loved her fiercer than he’d ever loved a woman. Cristobel was a delightful distraction, but he’d others along the river, and none so entrancing as the
Ryadne;
he swept a protesting gull from a bollard and sat, staring at her. There were no sailors aboard, nor any harbor patrols, for Hel’s Town was neutral territory and none offended the Mother on pain of death. But Nassim wondered about Tyron and the others, and feared that if they were spies for Talan that they might seek to cripple his wondrous vessel. So he sat and cut a plug of tobacco and began to chew, thinking that he might spend this night on board … just in case.

He rose, his knife still in his hand as footsteps came soft across the cobbles. He turned to find Tyron approaching. A cat mewed, looking up from the fishhead it chewed, and the stranger kicked it aside.

“That’s deemed unlucky here,” Nassim warned.

“A cat?” Tyron smiled and shrugged. “A miserable scavenger—like you.”

He closed the short distance between them, moonlight glinting on naked steel. Nassim thrust his own blade forward even as he saw, from the corner of his eye, three other men moving from the shadows, all holding knives. He shouted, hearing his cry echo unanswered off the walls, and spun, launching himself onto the deck of the
Ryadne.

Tyron followed, and as he landed, Nassim sprang forward, driving his tobacco-stained blade deep into the man’s throat. Tyron did his best to scream, but the severed artery choked his cry in blood. Nassim kicked him and stamped on his wrist, reaching down to snatch the knife from the assassin’s hand. It was a longer blade than his own, narrow and twin-edged, with a fuller running down half its length. He slashed it across Tyron’s eyes as the other three came leaping down to face him.

Nassim backed away, holding both blades defensively before him. He shouted again, but still no answer came, nor hope of aid, and the three spread out, looking to encircle him.

He moved across the steering deck and a man darted around to deny him access to the short ladder that ran down to the rowing platform. Nassim spun, blades thrust out, moving in threatening circles. He knew that he could slay one, but doubted he could defeat all three, and they blocked his avenues of escape. He knew them then for assassins, well trained and deadly.

But he was no innocent; he’d lived too long on the river, and fought too many battles, to be easy prey. He feinted an attack, pretending panic, and smiled grimly as he heard a man laugh, contemplating easy victory. That one he cut across the belly, spinning even as the man cried out to drive his second blade through the descending hand of the one to his left. There was a grunt of pain and the knife fell from the assassin’s fingers. Nassim twisted his own blade, feeling the steel grate on bone as it was torn from his grip as the man stumbled away.

Abruptly he felt fire lance his back and knew that he was stabbed. He flung himself forward, hacking his remaining knife at a cursing face. The man jumped back, and Nassim kicked him, his foot landing hard against a knee so that the man whimpered and fell down.

Nassim felt fresh fire scorch his ribs and turned, barely deflecting a thrust that would have pierced his midriff. He stepped backward and felt a hand clutch at his ankle. He drove his free foot into a yielding belly and stamped over the fallen man. He heard pained cries, and felt a savage enjoyment. He faced two now—one dripping blood over the formerly pristine deck, but still holding a long blade in his good hand; the other unharmed and grinning wickedly as he advanced.

Nassim eased a little way back. He felt a sticky warmth running into his breeches, and a curious exhaustion. His
feet were leaden, and he saw that he left bloody footsteps across the deck. His eyes were hard to focus—the two men seemed to shimmer in the moonlight; it danced over their blades, and he knew that he could not defeat them. He must escape or die.

He waved a blade that had become suddenly heavy and mouthed a riverman’s foul curse. And summoned all his waning energy and propelled himself backward to the taffrail and fell over it into the Durrakym.

The water engulfed him. He could not decide whether it was warm or cold, for his body experienced both sensations, feverish as his movements. He felt his limbs chill and his heart race hot. He let go his weapons and thrust his head above the surface, gasping in a deep breath before he dived again, forcing himself to swim. For an instant he heard shouting, then all was silent as he struck out beneath the surface, making for what he hoped was the shoreward direction. Hoping he’d not emerge to find Talan’s killers waiting. Hoping he could survive to warn Kerid that assassins were sent.

T
he hunters paused, staring down the long slope at Cu-na’Lhair. The creatures did not know the name of the place, only that it was the first habitation of any size they had seen in days, and that the town bustled with activity. They hunkered down amidst a stand of windblown pine and began to chew the meat they had stolen from the last farmhouse along their path. The occupants, an elderly couple, had objected to the creatures’ depredations, and the hunters had slain them. They had been hungry, and the farmers’ shouting had irritated them. Now they felt only a mild frustration: their psychic senses told them the quarry had come here, but there were so many life-scents drifting on the breeze that they knew finding them would be difficult, and had they taken to the river, perhaps impossible. They must, they decided, enter the town and
find some human that had spoken with the quarry, but not yet. The sun was still high and mortal men would likely take objection to the hunters’ distorted forms. When night fell, they thought, they would enter and see where the trail led.

I
did not like this place. It was aptly named, and its desolation seemed to creep into our souls. Some, I knew, would call the Highlands bleak—and surely they were wild and lonely—but there was a great beauty in the hills and moors, and here there was none that I could see. The land was all stony and empty, as if drained of life. What little vegetation grew was sparse, the grass more grey than green, and the trees no better—all twisted by the constant wind, gnarled as the fingers of old arthritic men whose blood ran dark and sulfurous as the miserable rivers. We rode swathed in the warm gear Mattich had gifted us, thankful for the food he’d supplied—for surely there was none to be found here. Mostly, we rode in silence. Ellyn continued in her dark, morose mood, and Shara seemed contemplative, lost in her own thoughts. For my part, I rode wary, scanning the dismal landscape for sign of danger, recalling the tales of my youth, of the weirdling creatures that were supposed to inhabit this strange and empty place.

That night we sat about a sorry fire that sputtered and sparked in the gusting wind. The tents I’d set up provided some little protection, and I’d tethered the horses on a pitiful sward where they might take what sustenance they could from the grass and the few thorny bushes. Our own provisions
were not that much better, but at least we had hot tea, and a flask or two of brose.

“I’d heard the Barrens are filled with strange creatures,” I said.

Shara nodded. “So the stories go, but I think there are not so many.” She chuckled, gesturing at the vista. “What is there for anything to eat here?”

“Us,” Ellyn grunted.

I glanced at her, for her tone was surly, as if she sought argument.

“You’ve my magic to protect you,” Shara said.

“Which you say you cannot use for fear of these hunters,” Ellyn returned. “Or was that a lie?”

“No lie,” Shara answered equably. “The less magic I employ, the better for now. But is it truly necessary …”

Ellyn snorted.

“And my sword is at your command,” I said.

“
My
command?” Ellyn pouted, refusing to meet my eyes, hers flickering a moment in Shara’s direction.

“I am your appointed guardian,” I said, “and while I live, no harm shall come to you.”

She snorted again, and tossed her plate aside, drained her cup, and rose. “I shall retire,” she announced, with the hurt dignity of a troubled child.

Shara and I sat silent as she entered her tent. Then Shara said, “She’s much to learn.”

I said, “Not the least, manners.”

Shara shrugged. “She’s young and afraid. She’s lost so much, and faces so much. Would you not be afraid?”

I looked around. Dark clouds sailed the sky, driven streamered on the wind, obscuring the moon. It was so dark I could not see far beyond the fire’s glow, and I felt the horrible emptiness of the Barrens deep in my soul. I nodded and answered, “I am. I do not like this place.”

“None do,” Shara said. “Save those lonely souls that live here.”

“Like you?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I’ve no more liking for this place than you.” She shuddered, staring about awhile so that I must resist an impulse to put an arm around her shoulders.
“I feel
what made it … Old wars, bloodily fought in ways we cannot imagine. I dream here, Gailard, and they are unpleasant dreams.”

“Wars?” I asked, confused. “Who’s ever fought a war in the Barrens?”

“The Old Folk,” she replied, her voice soft, as if she feared to arouse ancient spirits. “Those who inhabited this world before we came. They owned powers we can only dream of—which I do.”

She laughed then, but it was a quiet, nervous laugh, as if she feared to wake sleeping monsters.

“Here.” I poured brose into her cup. “This shall help you sleep.”

She smiled her thanks and sipped the liquor. I said, “And what lonely souls
do
live here?”

“Ellyn’s not entirely wrong to fear them,” she answered me, sending a chill up my spine. “I doubt they’ll attack us, but even so … There
are
creatures in this place that resent humankind. Things made by an older world that know only hatred.”

I laughed, seeking to cheer her. “So there’s not so much difference between that world and this, eh?”

“Likely not.” She sighed. “Perhaps we never learn from our mistakes, but only perpetuate them by different means.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Surely each mistake—do we recognize it—is a lesson learned.”

She smiled at me then, fondly. “Perhaps for you; perhaps for individuals. But for humankind, for all of us? Listen—the Barrens were created by war, by weapons beyond our imagining. This land is sere because it was scorched, as if the gods poured fire and poison on the earth. Men rode the skies then, and they did not fight with swords or spears or bows, but with the power of the sun itself, and things that might slay a man a mile away.”

“No arrow travels that far,” I said, softly, awed.

“They did not use arrows,” she said. “Their strength was beyond our ken. But is the strength of the Vachyn sorcerers not beyond the ken of ordinary men? Did Chaldor know magefire before Nestor came? Do you not see? Talan would conquer—he’d own Chaldor, and with Nestor whispering in his ear, he’ll look to Serian and Naban—and all the old mistakes come again. Does Talan employ more Vachyn, then they might transform your Highlands with their magicks, and make them like the Barrens. Their power is different, but the end might be the same—surely their intent is not so different than the Old Folk’s.”

“Save we halt them,” I said, thinking that I had heard more than my mind could properly encompass.

“Yes: save we halt them.” Shara yawned and rose. “And now I’d find my bed.”

I watched her go, my mind all atumble. I considered myself only a simple soldier, but it seemed I had become enmeshed in a web of massive intrigue that should take more than plain steel to cut. I drank another cup of brose and went to check the horses.

They were restive—they liked this place no better than I—and I spent awhile gentling them. Then I found my tent and settled into troubled sleep.

T
he next morning, as we traversed a pan of ground that seemed a combination of sour earth and salt, I saw strange tracks. There were three lines, one smaller than the two that crisscrossed the silvery-grey soil. The first was clawed and went on two legs, the others far larger and running on four. They crossed our path from east to west and there was no dung, so I trusted that they’d passed us and gone on, and offered no threat; but still I strung my bow and rode with an arrow held ready to nock.

Then, around noonday—as the sun shone reluctantly from a louring sky that was a combination of grey and red like blood on old, faded cloth—we came to a wood.