Tivi's Dagger (10 page)

Cheered at the thought of not sleeping in
dangerous circumstances, the spring returned to my step. Kari
paused at the hut and peered through one of the openings. There
were noises coming from within, shuffling and cawing. Then he
opened the front face to reveal several pale birds sitting on
roosts inside, blinking sleepily in the sudden light. Their soft
feathers were puffed up and they were ready for sleep. Around each
of their ankles was a silver ring, one of which was stuffed with a
tiny roll of parchment.

Gently, Kari lifted the bird and removed the
message. “I will bring it to the Keeper to save him the journey.
Come, let’s find the home. It must be near.”

It was not a quarter mile after that we came
across the clearing. The Keeper’s hut was not large, but it looked
sturdy enough. A pile of wood lay half-chopped to the right of the
entrance, the axe propped up against the wall. There was a stone
well with a full bucket hanging from the rope; some tiny
red-feathered birds were perched along the rim, sipping and
ruffling their feathers. The door to the hut was open.

Kari knocked a few times then went inside,
only to reappear with a frown. “The food on the table is sprouting
maggots and the fire is dead in the grate. I’d say he hasn’t been
here this two or three days.” He looked around. “And yet his horse
is tethered yonder.”

The wind felt suddenly chilly as I glanced
at Brin, wondering what he would do. The forest was strangely
silent, apart from the gentle rustling of the trees around us.

“
What does the message
say?”

Kari pulled it from his pocket and unraveled
the scrap of parchment. “It is forbidden to read it, but under the
circumstances…” His lips formed the words as he read, then his face
paled. “The King asks all Keepers to be alert for Night Walkers and
to remain indoors until guards are sent. Agents of the Blood Red
have been spotted, it doesn’t say where. I’d speculate that the
warriors we’ve just seen are on their way to deal with them. Let’s
hope they do so, and soon.”

Brin’s lips formed a thin line. “Let’s go
looking for the man before nightfall, then. I’ll bet he’s fallen
foul of one of these spiders you speak of, or some other banal
thing.”

“
I hope so.”

“
I’ll come with you, Brindar.” Lana
had fixed her belt so her daggers swung at her sides within easy
reach.

Kel and I looked at each other. Neither of
us was adept at the sword, nor particularly brave. “Kel, you stay
here and clean up this hut,” Brin said, as if reading our minds.
“Throw out that rotten food and get a fire going. It will be a cold
night. Ned, with me.”

“
Yes, brother.” I rubbed my hands
together, trying to get some warmth into my fingers which were
suddenly freezing cold. What on earth did Brin think I could do
were we to be faced with some walking abomination? One year of
fencing at school and the occasional drunken duel over the dubious
honor of a merchant’s wife had not prepared me for the dangers that
lurked in the wilds. I had a little magic too, inherited from my
maternal grandmother but, forbidden to use it for so long, I was
not sure if any trace remained. In any case, I had forgotten how to
direct it. Brin believed the magic — like all my other flaws —
could simply be prayed away. Perhaps, in this, he had been
successful.

As we stepped outside I reminded myself that
it was not yet dark; that all we were doing was searching for the
Keeper who had, more likely than not, simply ensnared himself in
one of the animal traps I’d noticed upon entering the forest.

Keeping the cabin in sight, we scouted
around the area for a while until it was clear that dusk was
gathering and we could hardly see under the thick canopy of leaves
above us. Just as we were about to give up, Lana grabbed Brin’s
arm.

“
What’s that?”

We peered through the tree trunks and my
heart missed a beat.

There was a body on the forest floor.

“
The Keeper,” Kari said, and we went
over to get a closer look.

In life the Keeper had been a robust,
muscular man with wind-scalded cheeks and thick black hair. But now
his milky eyes stared blindly at the sky and his mouth gaped open,
tongue dark with flies. His clothes had been ripped down the front
and entrails spilled out of the stomach cavity, stinking like
rotten meat. The stench of the body and the buzzing of the flies
made my guts lurch. “By the Gods,” I said, shaking my head. “Some
scavengers have feasted upon this poor wretch’s corpse.”

Brin looked grim. “It was no scavenger. This
was the manner of his death. Look how the blood is spattered about
the place, on those tree trunks, on the forest floor. His guts were
ripped from his body.”

Lana knelt beside the body and lifted the
torn edge of the man’s shirt. “Kind of scooped out, maybe by claws?
It’s quite a clean wound, no teeth marks, no organs eaten or even
chewed, as far as I can see. And look,” she wiggled the
bone-handled dagger, still sheathed at the man’s belt. “He had no
time to even draw his weapon, when surely he saw its approach.
Kari, what manner of beast lives in these woods that could do such
a thing?”

Kari was staring at the body, his mouth
working wordlessly, his face the color of dough. My heart softened
as I remembered how young he was. There was little in a dusty tome
or a trainer’s yard that could prepare a man — warrior or not — for
the sight of a murdered body such as the one lying in front of us.
A faint breeze lifted the needles from the forest floor and blew
them gently onto the Keeper’s open eyes. Kari’s hands began to
tremble. He was clearly in a state of shock.

Lana put her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s
get you back to the hut.”

He allowed us to lead him a further
twenty paces or so before leaning against a tree and hurling up the
contents of his stomach. I rubbed his back and whispered platitudes
as he gasped and retched.
It’s all right,
don’t worry, I’m here
. Brin gave me a strange look,
then walked off in the direction of the hut where smoke was
beginning to curl from the chimney.

Lana turned to me. “Brin will want to bury
the body while there’s still light.”

I looked at the darkening sky. “He’ll have
to dig fast.”

“
I’ll help him. You look after
Kari.”

“
Wait!” Kari blurted out. “It’s not
proper to bury him in the earth. There are rituals to complete,
prayers and…”

Lana cut in. “Kari, the stink of him will
attract other beasts, if not the same one that slaughtered him in
the first place. It is not safe for us to leave him lying
there.”

As we approached the hut, Brin emerged with
two spades. “It is all I could find,” he said, handing one to Lana.
“Let’s be fast. It will be dark very soon.”

It struck me that Brin was behaving as if
Lana was the only competent one around. Apparently I could not be
trusted even to dig a hole. What other slights would he come up
with? I glared at him and steered Kari inside, my hand on his
back.

Kel had been busy inside the hut. A fire was
crackling in the grate with a generous supply of wood piled up to
one side that would surely keep it going all night. The table was
clean and laid out with a spread of whatever he had salvaged from
the Keeper’s cupboards — chunks of stale bread, a pot of stew
recently heated on the fire, pickled roots in bowls. The stench of
the corpse still lingered in my nostrils but it had been some time
since our hurried lunch, and my stomach was starting to
grumble.

Kari sank into a chair, staring into the
fire.

“
Terrible news,” Kel said, chewing a
heel of stale bread with great effort. “Was it a Night Walker? What
are we to do now?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. I suppose we
will have to wait for Brin to decide, once he’s buried the
body.”

“
Will you look for the Keeper’s
parchments?” Kari was suddenly animated. “I must send a message
about what’s happened here. The nearest Temple will likely be in
the next village, on the other side of the mountain.”

The scraps of parchment, sliced carefully
into tiny strips, were in a drawer in the cabinet beside the fire.
As I pulled one out, I noticed a likeness of a woman in a simple
wooden frame, propped up against some thick books. It was a faded
painting but done in intricate detail. Her eyes were smiling, curls
lightened by age framing her heart-shaped face.

“
Did he live alone?”

“
Looks like it. I do not see the hand
of a woman in this grim décor.” Kel waved his hand at the dark
walls and dusty surfaces devoid of any decorative trinkets. The
floor looked rarely swept, the rugs faded and
threadbare.

Kari scratched a message in intricate runes
then blew on the parchment to dry the ink. “I will send word of
what’s happened to the Keeper. We should wait here until a response
comes.”

“
Won’t that take days?”

The color was slowly coming back into Kari’s
cheeks. “It should not, for the birds are swift. But this is a
serious situation. The security of our land depends on this system
of messages, so we cannot simply abandon the birds. They must be
tended to until a new Keeper is assigned, otherwise they may fly
home to the hills and take their messages with them.”

I walked with him back to the bird hut and
helped him attach the message to the bird’s ankle. It was one of
the pale morning birds that nested in the temples. A type of raven,
perhaps, unfamiliar to me with its beige feathering and bluish
beak. It cocked its head and looked at Kari with an intelligent
eye. He whispered something to it and then threw it into the air,
watching as it fluttered then took wing, circling around the
mountain and away. Then we filled the trough inside the hut with
seed and closed the door.

Finally, it had grown dark. Kari took my
hand as we walked silently through the trees and back to the
Keeper’s hut. Lana and Brin had not yet returned and I stared out
of the window into the night, slightly fearful. I sat down at the
table with Kel and took a spoonful of stew, imagining the look on
my brother’s face when Kari proposed a delay to our pilgrimage in
order to linger near the site of a brutal killing with the purpose
of feeding birds. We ate silently as the fire crackled in the grate
emitting dancing shadows around the dim room. The stew was cooling
but the flavors had blended together well, crunchy roots and ground
meat in a thick, smoky gravy.

Kel lit a few candles and pulled out his
books. I thought of the hands that had cut the vegetables we had
just eaten, the man who had set the traps outside, the woman in the
picture. It felt like we were sitting in a mausoleum and I was glad
the clock had not been wound up so I did not have to listen to the
long seconds that my brother and best friend were spending out
there in the darkness.

Eventually Brin and Lana returned, filth and
sweat shining on their exposed skin. Lana sat down at her bowl of
cold stew and sniffed her armpits. “By the Gods, I reek worse than
a field of rotting onions! Is there any facility for washing in
this place?”

Kel pointed at a door behind. “There is a
tiled room in there, and a pipe leading to a tank on the roof.
Perhaps there is still water, although I doubt it’s warm.”

Surprisingly, Brin agreed to Kari’s request
that we stay in the hut until we received a response to his
message. Perhaps he was also fearful of the tunnel that lay ahead,
although it did not show on his face. He took his box and
commandeered the Keeper’s tiny bedroom for himself, leaving the
rest of us to sleep where we saw fit. There were few options, and I
found myself that night wriggling on the hard floor on a rug that
smelt of damp and years, shivering under a scratchy blanket with a
half-empty sack of rice as a pillow.

“
This
is
comfortable,” I grumbled, trying to imagine I was lying on the silk
sheets of my soft bed at home and failing.

Lana wriggled beside me and sighed. “I fear
we will suffer worse discomforts than this.”

Kel spoke mournfully from the armchair he
was slumped in. “Why do we simply not return to Lis? I have no
desire to encounter Night Walkers, agents of the Blood Red,
goat-sized spiders, nor any other monstrous creature, despite the
enticing prospect of visiting Thar Mati. And let’s face the truth;
ancient as it is, the shrine cannot be much different to those
dedicated to the Thirteen back in Lis. It would be satisfaction
enough for me to study a while at the archives of one of these
monasteries, if the monks would permit it.”

Kel was voicing what I was rapidly coming to
wish for; that we just turn tail and go home. I could only hope
that the sight of the poor Keeper’s body would make Brin think
twice about proceeding, but I knew in my heart that there was no
stopping my brother once his mind was fixed upon a goal.

“
The shrine is very different from
those in Lis,” Kari said eventually. “My grandmother was most
surprised that Brindar wished to go there, if I’m honest. Surely
the Protectors know its history.”

Kel snorted. “They are too busy rewriting it
to learn it, Kari.”

I turned to Kari, idly curious. A shaft of
moonlight was shining into the room through the half-shuttered
window. Kari’s eyes were heavy-lidded with sleep. He rested his
head on his hands and smiled at me and for a moment it felt as if
we were the only people in the room.

“
How is it so different?” I asked,
more for the chance to keep listening to Kari’s voice than for any
curiosity about the shrine.

“
Thar Mati is the highest mountain in
Methar, where it was long ago believed that the Gods made their
home. Back when our lands were one it was the holiest of all
shrines, now fallen into ruin but still a stunning sight. Those of
the Silver do their best to tend to it, but so close to the
un-named lands it can be a dangerous undertaking. None have yet
dared to restore the nearby Temple for permanent
habitation.”