Bloodsongs (22 page)

They walked the circuit of the town. Now and then, they caught a frightened gaze peering through the crack of an upper-level shutter. No one else braved the open streets. Even the gutter-grazing animals had disappeared.

“I don't understand,” Pericant said. “These people know us. Why won't they answer when we call?”

One wrung his hands; a deep furrow creased his brow. “They think your son serves a demon. They've heard about the magic that follows him and the destruction he's brought to other towns.” Thick tears rolled suddenly down his cheeks. “These are my neighbors and kinsmen,” he said. “I don't want to see them die.”

Frost gripped the hilt of her sword, but she had no reassurances for the priest. The memories of Soushane were still too much with her. If she was confused about her son's motives, she could not deny he was to blame for that carnage.

She gazed around at silent Dakariar and wondered if tomorrow it would also lie in black ashes. Her hand clenched tighter around the hilt. Not if she could do anything to prevent it.

But could she?

There was no hope of raising a force to combat Kel. Plainly, Dakariar was a town of farmers and merchants, not warriors. It would do no good to barricade the streets. The rebels' numbers were too overwhelming. And, she admitted, no barricade at Soushane could have withstood that mystic hand of fire.

“There was a young woman living here,” she told the priests, “a daughter of Dromen Illstar. I don't know her name or residence.”

Lycho, Pericant, and Oric exchanged glances and shook their heads. “No name?” Lycho frowned.

“It's no great matter,” Frost continued. “Her father asked me to see about her. Probably she's left already. She had a husband to look after her.” But as she spoke she peered at the shuttered windows and wondered if Dromen's offspring cowered behind one of them. Her former sergeant had dwelled in Keled-Zaram for eighteen years; his daughter was sixteen.

A pair of pigs rounded the corner ahead, snouts close to the ground, sniffing. They stopped at sight of the humans, glared with smallish eyes that gleamed in the sunlight, and ran back the way they had come.

“The first ones we've seen,” Pericant observed. “Even the beasts sense trouble.”

Frost rolled her eyes but kept her mouth shut. How could they not sense it? It was midday, and normally busy streets were completely empty.

They returned to the Temple of the Well without further conversation. Oric drew up a bucket of water, and each priest produced his own cup from the pocket of his robe. Lycho shared his with her. Magic or not, it tasted cool and washed the dust from her throat. She asked for another, received the cup, and drained it.

Jemane came out to meet them. “We have guests,” he said quietly. “Two families. They believe the gods of the well will protect them if Kel na'Akian comes.”

Frost looked at Lycho. She had reason to believe in gods more than most men, and she believed in their power. But she had learned never to rely on their willingness to help. It was possible these priests were on better terms with the divine. The expression Lycho wore, however, did not encourage.

“Where are they?” Lycho asked of Jemane.

“Cleomen is feeding them. They haven't been here long.”

Oric sighed. “We must offer what comfort we can.”

Pericant held the door open, but Frost touched Lycho's arm. “Shouldn't you think of leaving, too?” She kept her voice low so the others wouldn't hear. “No one in this town will fight against Kel. You priests should think of your own lives.”

Lycho brushed her cheek tenderly, smiled with patience, and went inside.

She followed and caught his elbow again. A group of twelve sat at the long table, and Cleomen poured water for them as they ate from heaped platters. Oric joined in the serving. Frost turned her back to them and forced herself to whisper, “I don't know if I can stop my son. He may not even listen to me! You run a terrible risk if you stay here.”

The young priest laid a hand gently on her shoulder, but his gaze went past her to the families and his brother priests. “This is our temple,” he answered solemnly. “We've pledged ourselves to caring for it and to caring for the people of Dakariar who come to the well. Before, you might have convinced us to go.” He nodded to the refugees. “But now they've come. We can't turn them away.”

“Take them with you!” she urged. “They're no safer here than in their homes.”

Lycho shook his head. “Look at them, Samidar. That man and woman—‘ancient' would be a kind word. And those two are mothers with suckling babes. The rest are children.” His hand slid up to her chin and he made her look into his eyes. “How far could any of them run?”

She pulled his hand away from her face and squeezed it in a hard grip. “Go to the fields,” she said. “Hide in the wheat. Go anywhere, but go as far as you can. I saw Soushane, Lycho. I'm telling you, nothing was left!”

Lycho was adamant. “We serve the gods of the well,” he said simply, freeing himself from her grasp. “We are needed here.” He left her and went to aid his brothers.

Frost threw up her hands in exasperation and finally returned to her room to await the coming of night—and the coming of Kel.

 

At Soushane he had come from the east under the mantle of deepening darkness. So, as the sun's last rays cooled on her shoulders, Frost tied back her hair and waited just beyond the town.

She spotted the torches first, a wave of flickering light. From the south a thick cloud of smoke roiled into the sky as the fields began to blaze.

The rebel force drew nearer until she could make out individual riders in the front ranks. Rows of skull faces grinned back at her. She drew her long blade and gripped it in both hands, then turned the point down and leaned on it.
Wait
, she told herself.
Be patient and see what will happen
.

The northern fields began to burn, too. The smoke rose into the sky like an offering. How, she wondered, had they gotten around her? Then the thought shivered through her mind, Was it a human hand that set those fires? Or was it sorcery?

The advancing rebels stopped, and she knew they had seen her. At the center of the line, barely close enough for her to see the gesture, a figure beckoned two men forward. She stared; the skull mask was not enough to disguise her son.

The two riders paced ahead of the ranks, then suddenly spurred their steeds straight for her. Their weapons caught the gleam of firelight and flashed redly. Through the earth she felt the thundering of their horses' hooves.

With a calm detachment, she realized it would have done no good for Lycho to hide in the fields. Perhaps she should have sought him out before she left the temple, but only Cleomen had been in the main hall with the families, and she had said nothing to him. Still, she found herself recalling Lycho's soft embraces. Indeed, they had not needed love to make love.

She lifted her sword in a two-handed grip and balanced herself to meet the riders. They charged side by side. The man on her right brandished a double-edged sword like her own, a fierce cry on his lips. The one on her left leveled a stout spear. She thanked her gods and her luck that he braced it under his left arm.

Their battle shouts might have filled the night, but all she heard was the beat of her heart and the rush of her blood. The spear was the principal threat with its longer reach. It was also her foe's weakness. As they rode down upon her, the rider with the spear would try to impale her. The other would try to cleave her in two.

She could almost feel the labored breathing of the mounts, the heat of their lathered, sweating hides. The skull faces bore down upon her. An arm flung back, and the spearhead gleamed, flew to claim her life.

With a smug grace she leaped to her left, and the point whistled through empty air. Simultaneously, she dropped to one knee and raked her blade over the horse's legs. The beast screamed and crashed headfirst into the ground. Its rider tumbled head over heels and hit the earth with stunning force.

The second rider's momentum carried him past his comrade. By the time he stopped and wheeled his horse to face her, Frost had snatched up the spear. Their eyes met for just an instant, then she hurled with all her might, sending the shaft deep into his unarmored chest. The rebel fell sideways from the saddle, snapping the spear in half with his own weight, driving it even farther through his body.

She returned to the first rider and stood over him. His horse was dead, its neck broken from the fall, but he was in better shape. He struggled to catch a breath, to draw his sword when he looked up at her, but she put a boot on his hand and ground his knuckles into the dirt. A cry of pain and fear ripped from his throat, and he cringed into a fetal position in expectation of the deathblow.

She hooked the point of her sword under the edge of his skull mask and stripped it off. A thin stream of blood welled along his cheek where the point had scraped his flesh. “You're not dead yet, dung-ball,” she said evenly, gazing down at his dirty, youthful face. Odd how he reminded her at that moment of an adult Scafloc. “You're going to take a message back to Kel na'Akian. Tell him he's a bad boy, and his mother wants to talk to him.”

The soldier paled and stuttered, “M-mother?”

“That's close enough,” she assured him. “The exact wording doesn't matter. You just tell him I'm here.” She kicked him until he scrambled to his feet.

“M-my horse . . .” he wheezed, rubbing his bruises, backing away from her cautiously.

“Take that one.” She nodded to his comrade's mount. It stood uncertainly near its dead rider. “Don't make me wait.”

The nervous steed shied away as he limped toward it but finally allowed him to climb stiffly into the saddle. He seemed to find some of his courage when he loomed over her. She only glowered at him and brought her heel sharply down upon the skull mask. The brittle bone splintered with a loud
crack
. The subtle threat was not lost on the rebel, and his courage faded again. He jerked on his reins and started back toward Kel's army.

The entire front line rode a few paces forward to meet him, and Kel na'Akian held a short conference with his soldier. Moments later, the man took his place in the ranks, and Kel continued forward alone.

He sat his saddle proudly, the reins of his mount, a huge black, grasped lightly in one hand. The other hand rested on the pommel of his sword. His garments were of a shiny black cloth, and he wore a breastplate, greaves, and vambraces all of black lacquered leather. Even in the darkness he gleamed. The rising wind caught his black cloak, and it billowed behind him. A reflection of firelight told her it was lined with cloth-of-gold.

Shining and deadly
, she thought bitterly,
like a rabid angel
.

He stopped before her, pushed back his hood, and removed the skull mask. A thin, amused smile lifted the corners of his mouth. He leaned forward and looked down upon her. “During my five years of wandering I picked up quite a few tales about you,” he said with a touch of pride in his voice. He gazed at the corpse with the spear through its chest, at the horse with the broken neck. “But I never dreamed you were so good.”

She stared up at her son, rested her sword's point on the ground, and leaned once more upon it. “You've shamed me, Kel.” The wind rumpled his dark hair as the wide ebon pools of his eyes fastened on her. Green eyes, she remembered, but full of the shadowed night. “You've made me sorry I ever bore you.”

He slid from the saddle and stood beside his horse. “I'm glad to see you, too.”

They regarded each other for a short moment, then he came to her. Their arms went around each other, and she forgot all her anger and fear and confusion. They were mother and son locked in a warm, overdue embrace.

But the instant passed. The smell of smoke from the burning fields wafted over her, evoking memories of Soushane.

She stepped away from him. “Come with me, son,” she pleaded suddenly. “Ride away with me, now. We can leave all this behind and start over in another land.”

Kel's smile returned. He looked at her with a strange tolerance that sent a chill up her spine.

“We can start over,” she repeated, desperation creeping into her voice. “We can forget about your sorcerer and forget about Soushane!”

His eyebrows went up. “Soushane?”

“I was there,” she told him. “I fought. I saw what you did to the town. I only went to look for you, but I was forced to fight.”

“I didn't see you,” he admitted, “but how gratifying. Tell me, Mother, did you see me use this?” He pushed back the folds of his cloak to reveal the dagger on his belt.

She caught her breath at the sight of Demonfang. The dagger belonged to her. She knew its power better than anyone, and yes, she remembered how he had used it. Then she recalled
Sha-Nakare
and those demonic fireflies. She recalled the purse around her neck and its contents—and she recalled her suspicions. A vein in her temple began to throb; she clenched her empty fist.

“Your sorcerer obtained that for you,” she hissed. “Only magic could have found where I buried it long ago.” She fumbled for the thong about her neck and pulled the small purse from under her tunic. “Only your father and I knew where it was hidden.” Her breaths came quicker and shorter as she tugged it open. She fixed her son with a hard stare as she rolled the severed finger into her palm and tried to keep a grip on her sword at the same time. She held her grisly prize for him to see. “You tell me, Kel, and tell me true. I know the ways of magic. I know what magicians do to power their spells.” She paused, swallowed, half-afraid of the answer he might give her. What then would she do? This was her son! She trembled all over and raised the finger closer to his eyes. “Is this your father's?”

The smile faded from his lips. Otherwise, he didn't move, nor did he make any effort to lie. “Of course.”