Bloodsongs (7 page)

The horse glopped along in the black muck that had once been a road. She could feel the poor beast tremble between her thighs. It carried its head low; water rilled through its sodden mane.

The weather forced her to follow the road. It was too dark, and the rain fell too heavily to let her see far ahead. At a better time she could have ridden unerringly across the open fields. On such a gruesome night as this, however, she feared the unseen hole or narrow trench that could break her mount's leg. She trusted, instead, to the road, which would lead her right to her doorstep.

She was soaked and shivering, but somehow the unrelenting downpour had beaten away much of her pain. The sinking sun had left her prone on Kimon's grave, and the first rain had pasted the earth of his burial mound to her face and hands. Yet, when she at last got up, the driving storm had quickly washed the mud away. Something inside her had been deeply affected by that, and as she climbed upon her horse and departed the hills, she knew she had turned her back forever on the life she and Kimon had made together.

A bolt of lightning sizzled across the sky. Too late, she threw up an arm to shield her eyes, and afterimages of the bleak countryside burned behind her lids. A deafening blast followed, shaking her very bones, before she caught a breath.

The horse only looked up, blinked, lowered its head, and plodded on.

A peculiar odor touched her nose. She sniffed. It grew stronger, yet she couldn't identify it. She sniffed again. The wetness disguised the smell or muffled her senses. Still it lingered, more potent with each hoofbeat.

It was the odor of damp ashes.

Her inn was no more, burned to the foundation. The dimmest flicker of lightning illumined a piece of her kitchen fireplace. Here and there she made out something that might once have been a beam or part of a table. A roundish lump might have been her iron kettle. Nothing else remained. Even the stable was ashes; her horses, she assumed, would be in Riothamus's compound.

She slid from the saddle and wandered through the ruins, stirring the destruction with her bare toe. There was no fire left, not even a coal still glowing. The ash was cold and wet. Her feet and the hems of her skirts were quickly blackened. She made her way toward the fireplace. The brick was cracked and scorched. She gave it the smallest push, and it collapsed with a muted rumble.

Did they bury Kirigi first?
she wondered. Or are his ashes mingled here, too? If she dug around, would she find his bare, cooked bones? She peered around again, half expecting a charred and mud-splattered hand to thrust up through the debris. But fate or the darkness of night spared her that.

She returned to her horse and gazed back for one final look at what was once her home. For a moment the air was full with the sounds of laughter and lovemaking and birthing. Her sounds and Kimon's and Kel's and Kirigi's. So much was gone, lost in that pile of stinking ash, and no one would remain to measure the loss when she rode away.

She took her horse's reins and led him across the muddy road to the clean, rain-flattened grass. Carefully, she wiped the ash from her feet.

She had waited until night to come back, hoping to reclaim a few of her possessions, things she might need on a journey. Too late, now. It was all too late.

She mounted up and set a course across the meadow, riding north with her back to the ruin. To the east it was impossible even to see the walls of Dashrani, and she didn't worry about being seen, not on such a night as this.

There was no moon to chart the passage of time. She rode hunched over in the saddle, the slick reins wrapped laxly around one hand. The rain did not abate. Water ran thickly off her face, down her throat, between her breasts, chilling. She shivered again, and her teeth began to chatter.

She remembered such storms from her youth, storms conjured by the sorceresses in her homeland, far-off Esgaria. Her mother had been such a sorceress, imaginative and full of the power of her craft. Samidar had heard her mother speak the words that turned sultry summer evenings into tempestuous, frothing nightmares. She had seen the gestures that raised the gentle whitecaps of the Calendi Sea into towering, smashing waves and called down strange lightnings that encircled her wrists like scintillating serpents obedient to her will.

But this was no arcane storm. It lacked focus or direction. It was wild, lashing with fury and uncontrolled intensity. The rain bit her flesh, lightning burned the vision from her eyes, thunder roared in her ears. It raged without purpose, raw nature as fierce and unrelenting as any guided magic.

Perhaps it was the gods who sent this rain to hound her. She had offended a few in her time. Had they finally chosen to bring her low, to spin the wheel of her fortune to this dismal depth? Was it the gods that had turned one son against her and claimed the other's life? Was it the gods that had dragged her from her home and burned it to the ground?

She spat into the tempest. What could she not blame on the gods if she tried?
My fortune is in my hand
, she recalled. It was an old Esgarian saying, and long ago she had muttered it often. But now, there was no sword at her side to grasp as she remembered the words.

She had only the vaguest notion of where she was going. She rode mostly for fear that if she stopped, all the pain and grief would come back and crush her into the muddy earth, and she might never get up again. It didn't matter where she went, only that she keep going.

Still, when the steady, warm glow of a light appeared off to her right, she hesitated, then made slowly for it.

In the darkness and the storm she had almost missed her neighbor's farm. The glow was the hot, bright forge fire, and it illuminated the interior of the small stable barn. The doors to the barn were thrown open. She rode inside.

“Amalki?” she called.

A man whirled away from the forge, wielding a white-hot smoking coal poker as if it were a sword. His dark hair and close beard dripped with sweat; his naked chest and arms sheened in the crimson light. His eyes widened as he recognized her, then suddenly hardened. He cast the poker into a rim-charred water bucket. A cloud of steam hissed up as he hurried wordlessly by her and tugged the doors closed.

“Where have you been?” he said in a terse whisper. “The king's men have been searching everywhere for you. They found old Tamen and hanged him!”

She slid from her mount. “The bastards,” she muttered, stepping closer to the forge. It gave off a tremendous heat that promised to rapidly chase the storm's cold from her veins. “Tamen was my best customer and a good friend.” She paused to reflect on a few of the times he had spent in her inn and to remember some of his more amusing antics. “That's one more corpse to lay at Riothamus's bloody feet,” she said finally. “Perhaps these rebels have some cause, after all.”

“Keep a courteous tongue in your head, Samidar,” Amalki warned her. “That is my fire you warm yourself beside, and you know I served in the king's army. Riothamus is no great ruler, but he's no tyrant.” He handed her a rough blanket that had lain folded on an upended barrel. It was slightly damp, and she suspected he'd worn it over his shoulders to come out in the rain. She accepted it gratefully and made a reluctant apology.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked, changing the subject.

Amalki pointed to a stall where a thin-looking horse lay with its legs folded under it on a bed of fresh straw. “Sick mare. I feared the damp and cold would finish her if I didn't light the forge to keep her warm.”

“She should be warm enough,” Samidar answered, finding a strange kind of comfort in such small talk. “With those doors shut, this place will be a furnace.”

He nodded, sitting back on the barrel to regard her. A silence fell between them. She turned away from his gaze to stare into the shining coals.

“I've got some of your things,” he said at last.

She turned back to face him again, feeling a small surge of hope.

“When you're warm and dry, we'll go over to the house.” He must have read the questions in her eyes. “I was on the road when the soldiers started to burn your inn.” He hung his head, then a small grin parted his lips. “It seemed a shame to let everything be destroyed, so I took the sergeant aside and offered him a bag of coins to let me rummage.” He wiped sweat from his face with the back of his hand. “Of course, you can have it all back.”

If he had them, there were a few things she wanted. She couldn't burden herself, though. Her life at the inn was finished; there would be no point in keeping souvenirs. “What did you get?” she asked.

Amalki shrugged. “I don't know, really. I had a wagon, and I loaded it with everything I could get my hands on. Then the rains started before I could get home. I dragged it all inside before it was spoiled, but I've been out here nursing that poor beast ever since. No chance to go through it, yet.”

“Was there a trunk?” she asked. “A wooden trunk about this long and high with three metal bands and an iron ring?”

He looked thoughtful. “Yes, I think I got that.”

She licked her lower lip. The heat was making her thirsty. “Everything is yours,” she told him, “except a few items in that trunk.” She moved back to her horse and tugged on the cinch. “I'll unsaddle him, if you don't mind. Just for a while. He's soaking, too, and the saddle blanket will chafe him.”

Amalki shouldered her gently aside and hefted the saddle himself. He spread the small woven blanket near the forge to dry. “You've been a good friend, too, Amalki,” she told him. “You know I can't stay long.”

He didn't look at her but grabbed a curry brush and went to work on her mount. “Can't let this one get sick,” he answered. Then he added, “No one's looking for you until the storm breaks. That's not going to be soon. You can rest here and eat something, then ride out in the morning.”

She moved back to the forge's warmth while he brushed. “I can't wait that long,” she said. “I'll take you up on the food, though. I'm starved. I still don't know how long they kept me in that damned hole.”

“Two days,” he volunteered. “The soldiers rode to all the farms announcing your arrest.” He looked over his shoulder, and his mouth was a thin, tight line. “I'm sorry about Kirigi. He was a fine lad, always had a good word for people, and just coming into his full manhood.” He shook his head. “A shame, but at least you got his killer. If only you hadn't bespoiled a sacred rite to do it.”

She didn't want to talk about it, but the hint of accusation in his voice rankled. “Look at me, Amalki,” she demanded. “I've seen forty-three winters! I'm old by most nations' standards.” She swallowed before continuing. “A man killed my innocent son without even giving him a chance to defend himself. I took the only vengeance I could, ritual be damned! Yorul had more of a chance than he gave Kirigi. At least the pig had a sword in his hand.”

Amalki made no reply. He concentrated on brushing her horse, making long strokes from withers to rump. Samidar watched him morosely, and she watched the tall, twisted shadow he made on the far wall.

“Could I see my things?” she asked, suddenly impatient.

Amalki set aside the curry brush, leaned on the animal's rump, and looked at her. “I didn't mean to offend,” he said softly. “It's just hard for me to ignore the traditions of my own people. I sometimes forget you weren't born in this land. You did what you had to do.”

“And I'd do it again,” she told him with a sad shake of her head. “You've never had children, Amalki. You don't understand what a parent will do for them.”

His face lit with an embarrassed smile. “Maybe I will soon, though.”

Samidar relaxed a little. “How is Teri?”

Amalki held his hands before his belly, and his smile widened. “By the next new moon,” he said. “A descroiyo woman passed by with the last caravan. She told Teri's fortune.” He beamed as he spoke. “It's going to be a boy, Samidar.”

She closed her mouth. No need to tell him what trouble sons could be. Besides, the descroiyo's power could never be trusted. For a coin they told what the customer wanted most to hear. Of course Amalki wanted a son, and Teri wanted to give him that son. But if it was a daughter, the descroiyo would be long gone, and the parents would be just as happy. That was always the way.

She wiped sweat from her face. With the barn doors shut the heat continued to build. Her tunic's fabric turned stiff and scratchy as it began to dry, and she squirmed uncomfortably. “I'd still like to see that trunk,” she said.

Amalki nodded, led her horse into a stall, and scattered a handful of fresh straw for it to eat. Then he crossed to the doors and opened them a crack. He stuck his head out. “Just checking,” he said somewhat sheepishly. “No chance anyone would be looking for you in this storm.” He waved for her to follow.

The rain still beat thick and hard, and a wind had risen to whip it with stinging force. She ran after Amalki, mud splashing on her bare ankles, skirts flapping and tangling about her legs. Her wet hair blew over her eyes. She tried uselessly to brush it back and kept her sight on the dim outline of his small home.

Amalki reached the door ahead of her and pounded. The old wood shook visibly under his fist. She caught up with him just as it opened.

Teri moved back as they scurried inside. Her eyes widened when she saw Samidar, and her jaw dropped. Amalki took the wooden bar from his small wife's hands and set it across the door again.

“Blows open without it,” he said. “Haven't got around to making a proper lock.”

Teri caught his arm, her gaze full of questions.

Amalki reassured her with a kiss. “Get a bag together,” he instructed. “Fill it with food that can stand a journey. Get a water-skin, too.” He paused, made a face at the puddle he had left on the floor, mopped the droplets of rain from his chest and arms. “Make it a wine-skin. There's water enough.”