The Weaver's Lament (18 page)

“I am deeply sorry for having put you in this position, my Heartsong,” he said, calling her by the appellation he had whispered to her upon her birth. “I still am hoping to awaken from this nightmare and discover that this is all but a dream.”

“Sadly, we are awake, Father,” Allegra said regretfully. “But we will be prepared, at least.”

She squeezed his hand and returned to her duties.

 

16

When night fell, while Meridion was working with the quartermaster, readying the riding and dray horses for their journey to the Bolglands, Ashe made his way to the stockade. He entered through the front gate after saluting the guards, then through the front entrance, where even more guards saluted him stonily.
Whether they know of what happened or not, they are still stoic,
he thought as he returned the salute and entered the building.
Good. They'll need that.

He passed easily through all the remaining layers of guards until he came to the cells in which the four commanders of the armies of the Alliance were imprisoned. He stopped in front of Reynard's cell, where the general was pacing back and forth, stanching his bloody nose, and crossed his arms.

Reynard stopped short and turned toward the Lord Cymrian.

“M'lord—”

“Don't,” said Ashe unpleasantly. “How dare you, you verminous piece of filth? You thought you could murder one of the Three and blame it on the misunderstanding of a comment made in annoyance?”

“M'lord, I thought you wanted—”

“Silence!”
The multiple tones of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, the hallmark of the dragon's voice, rattled the bars of the cell.

Reynard stepped back in terror.

“You are a bloody
general,
Reynard. Perhaps a private could claim he or she didn't understand, but a general always seeks clarification of intent if he is not absolutely certain of what he is commanded to do. You pathetic prick.” He leaned closer, his hands gripping the bars.

“You will be facing military justice, rather than my own, Reynard,” he said softly, his tone deadly. “For this you should be profoundly grateful. Are you, Reynard? Are you and your cohorts grateful?”

The men in the cells looked askance at one another.

Ashe slammed his hands on the cell bars, sending shock waves of sound through the echoing halls.

“Are you?”

A terrified chorus of
yes, m'lord
rang out.

“Well, that's good, at least.” The vertical pupils in the Lord Cymrian's searing blue eyes expanded in the dim light of the cellblock. “I have a question, Reynard, for you and you other men. Come closer, so that I can see the answer in your eyes, and be certain that you are telling me the truth. Come closer.”

Reynard began backing away. “M'lord—”

“I said come closer!”
Ashe shrieked. The multiple tones of the wyrm caused the metal of the bars to ring discordantly.

Shaking, Reynard obeyed.

Ashe pressed his face up to the bars. “Sickening as it is for me to have something in common with you gentlemen, you will be pleased to know that, like you, I am about to face military justice also.”

The commanders exchanged as much of a glance as they were able in their separate cells.

“So I now ask you a question, each of you, a question that I know that I, at least, can truthfully answer ‘no' to. I wonder if any or all of you can do the same. Are you ready for the question, gentlemen? And please bear in mind that I probably already know the answer, being a dragon.”

When silence answered him, he pounded on the cellblock doors again, making the hinges on the door of Reynard's cell squeal threateningly, as though they might break.

Yes, m'lord,
came the hurried communal reply.

The Lord Cymrian's voice dropped to a whisper.

“Here it is,” he said, his eyes gleaming with an angrier light. “The question to each of you is this—does any of the spunk dripping from the mouth of Grunthor's severed head belong to
you,
gentlemen? Or from any other orifice, for that matter?”

The four men went white. Three of their mouths dropped open as Goodeve lost his water, pissing himself.

“Well?” the Lord Cymrian demanded.

The men just stared in return.

Ashe's voice dropped to a deadly low. “I could have imagined, though I never contemplated it, that I might one day have to answer for actions like this perpetrated by ordinary soldiers or conscripts. But the thought that my squadron commanders and
generals,
for the love of God, the One, the All, would even entertain the thought of committing an atrocity against the supreme commander of an army that is part of the
very same Alliance
in which they serve has truly caught me by as much surprise as you gentlemen seem to be experiencing.”

Goodeve and Mendel began to weep in terror.

“And here's the most inexplicable part, gentlemen—this completely constitutes a war crime—yet we have not had a true state of war declared in over a thousand years, a time long before any of you or your great-great-great-grandsires were born. So even the defense of the ‘fog of war' will not hold.” Ashe exhaled, then looked down at the floor for a long moment. When he raised his head, there was something colder, nastier in his eyes, but a smile had taken up residence on his lips.

“So here is what we have in common, gentlemen—and I'd like to think that it is the only thing we have in common: we will all be going together to face military justice for your crimes—you for the commission of them, and me as your commander and sovereign.”

The soldiers looked at each other in confusion.

Ashe's smile widened. “We are all going to face
Firbolg
military justice. I am not entirely certain what that will entail, but since your actions destroyed what I valued most in the world, what I lived for, in fact, it hardly matters to me what the consequences might be.”

Immediately the men began begging in concert, their pleas running into one another.

Ashe stepped back from the bars of Reynard's cell and held his hand up cautiously, as if in comfort.

“Now, now, gentlemen, do not be distressed. I have a hard time imagining that the Firbolg could visit
anything
upon us that is worse than what you did to Grunthor. And while he had the additional injury of shock at your violation of all things holy, you will at least know what you are being buggered
for
. The only real difference I think you can expect is that, while apparently you were shoving your cocks in the Sergeant's mouth after you had already cut his head off—because otherwise you would no longer have them, as he definitely would have bitten them off—I am certain that the Bolg will not allow that to happen with you. They will probably just rip out all your teeth first so as to ensure the safety of their own equipment. As for other orifices, well, I happen to know that the Bolg only consider that an option if the recipient is alive, so you should expect that experience to be repeated frequently, for as long as they can manage to keep you from dying of hemorrhaging or splitting apart. So get some sleep; we'll be taking a long wagon ride tomorrow.”

He turned and started to leave the stockade, then stopped and held up one finger in the air, as if remembering something.

“Oh, I almost forgot. I want to thank you gentlemen for your assistance in helping me rid myself of a nickname I was given long ago by Anborn ap Gwylliam, my uncle, my father's brother, that I have never actually liked. It was he who chose to call me ‘Lord Gwydion the Patient,' which I always have thought made me sound as if I am in a hospice. But now, gentlemen, now that your actions have truly ruined my life, I would say with certainty that patience is no longer a virtue that I can claim. Do, by all means, give me the opportunity in the course of our mutual journey to the Bolglands to show you what I mean, if you're up for the consequences. I haven't roasted anyone alive in a good long while. Have a pleasant evening.”

He turned and left the stockade, whistling a grim tune that was devoid of any music.

 

17

ON THE ROAD APPROACHING YLORC, EASTERN CONTINENT

Rhapsody spent as much of the nightmarish journey to the mountains as she was able curled up like a baby in the womb on the wagon board beside Achmed, covered with a soft blanket, trying to sleep, and failing routinely.

After the first two days the Bolg king apparently had deemed it wise to stop during the day and take shelter, allowing the horses rest and the entire contents of the wagon freedom from interaction with the rest of humanity that was traveling the roads and the Krevensfield Plain.

The Lady Cymrian had worked up the courage to climb into the wagon bed from behind the board, and, fighting down her gorge, used her fire lore to remove as much of the heat from the wrapped body parts as she could. The wind was cool at summer's end, but the sun beat down relentlessly, and she could not bear to imagine what was happening to Grunthor's corpse beneath the blankets.

“Burlap,” she had muttered at one point to Achmed upon climbing back onto the board.

The Bolg king's brow furrowed. “What?”

“The bastards wrapped him in burlap, as if he were a potato or an onion, the fuckers.”

“Even more reason to leave their garrisons and towns in smoking ruins,” Achmed retorted darkly. “Are you set?”

They had spoken very little, almost not at all, as they traversed the breadth of the continent. Achmed's sallow skin was growing paler, she noticed, but his jaw was set and there was a sharp look in his eyes that was growing ever harsher as they traveled.

She understood how he felt.

The nausea that had filled her body from head to toe upon beholding her beloved friend's head, the eyes packed with crossbow bolts, the mouth and hair defiled, had only grown stronger with each day that passed. Her body was holding the grief, but her mind had somehow managed to numb itself to the point of disconnecting altogether. Any concept of what would happen beyond the next moment was unreachable.

She could summon no thought beyond her pain.

Achmed, in spite of no longer having the ability to sense the heartbeats of the continent, seemed to be able to predict the ebb and flow of people on the road, so their journey was accomplished with very little interaction with the rest of the continent's population. Little to no conversation took place between them; they passed as silently as it was possible for two furious souls driving a wagon carrying the defiled body of their beloved friend to pass.

After slightly more than a fortnight, they found themselves in sight of the Teeth just as the sun was setting.

The mountains had been wrapped in the magic of the Lightcatcher, the ancient instrumentality built into Gurgus Peak that channeled the vibrations of the light spectrum for so long, utilizing
Kurh-fa,
the green power of grass hiding, that at first it had appeared to Rhapsody as if the mountains had vanished into the overwhelming expanse of the Krevensfield Plain. She was sitting upright, staring around her, when a cavalcade of Bolg soldiers on horseback appeared as if from the air, shocking her further and causing her to tremble violently.

Achmed brought the wagon to a halt as the green haze faded and the mountainous realm she had known well for a thousand years appeared before her eyes.

The massive city of Canrif came into view, all of the doors and gateways and edifices carved into the stone of the mountains visible.

All across the wide mountain range Rhapsody saw guard posts and encampments of soldiers stretching for as far as she could discern.

The mounted guard that had just appeared signaled for permission to approach the wagon, and Achmed granted it.

“Perhaps you should step away for a moment, Rhapsody,” he said, more direct order than suggestion, climbing down from the wagon board as the soldiers dismounted. He reached up and helped her to the ground, then spoke a few sharp Bolgish commands that set a guard group of hirsute soldiers in a circle around her.

Rhapsody stood, sick at heart and shivering in her dressing gown, as the remaining soldiers conferred with the king. Several of them returned to their horses, mounted up, and rode off in the direction of Ylorc while Achmed pulled the wagon gate down. The Lady Cymrian turned away, unable to watch.

But she could not block out the sounds.

In all the years she had been among them, Rhapsody had never known the Bolg to mourn aloud. But as they took in the sight of their beloved military leader's corpse, a wave of vocal grief that was unmistakable rolled through the assemblage, agitating them into a state of barely contained fury.

Then, to a one, they threw back their heads and loosed a roar of rage that would have made Grunthor proud.

“Summon the Archons here, and prepare great braziers around the perimeter of the Moot,” Achmed instructed. “I need the first unit of the Keepers of the Dead to report here as well, and a catafalque built for his viewing. He shall lie in state as none before him, and all shall see what our enemies have done.

“In doing so, the reason for what we will do next will be unfailingly clear.”

*   *   *

Within a single turn of the day, what Achmed commanded had been accomplished.

Gwylliam's great Moot, an ancient amphitheater built into the ground outside the breastworks and guardian towers of the Bolglands, used as a gathering place for the Cymrian Council, and the site of great tribulation and great diplomacy, had been outfitted as it had surely never been before.

All around the vast, deep circle of earth, known to the human geologists as a
cwm,
the enormous Bolg army stood guard, every stone rampart filled with soldiers at attention. Rhapsody, accustomed to the hundred thousand or so attendees at each Cymrian Council meeting every third year, had trouble believing her eyes at the sheer scope of demi-humanity filling the enormous amphitheater carved into the steppes leading up the mountain range.