Oath Breaker (16 page)

Raising his head, he looked straight at her. His eyes widened. She mouthed his name, but he frowned.
Stay out of this.

"On your knees." A Forest Horse woman put her spear to his back and forced him down. She had a mistrustful face tattooed with holly leaves, and green lips tight with anger. A horsetail cascaded over her hair, and

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Renn guessed she was the Leader. She bowed low to her Mage.
Thiazzi accepted the homage in silence, but Renn caught the glint of eyes behind his mask, and thought, He's enjoying this.

"Mage," said the Leader. "Here is the evil one who tried to destroy the True Forest. I've seen him before. Two summers ago, we caught him trying to poison us with the sickness."

"I was seeking the cure," said Torak. He sounded spent.
"We should have hanged him then," said the Leader. "We should make good the mistake."
People rattled spears on shields in violent assent.
Renn threw herself forward, but two hairy paws held her back. "Stay silent," the old Auroch man hissed in her ear. "You'll only make it worse."

Releasing her, he took the speaking-staff from his Leader and shambled forward. "But if we kill him," he said, "we break clan law.
Our
Mage, the Auroch Mage, wouldn't sanction this."

 

"To kill an unbeliever is to do good." Thiazzi's powerful voice filled the clearing. "And this is no ordinary unbeliever. See the scar on his chest where he tried to conceal his evil nature. See the tattoo on his brow. The mark of the outcast."

205 This was too much for Renn. "He isn't outcast anymore!" she cried. "Fin-Kedinn took him back, all the clans agreed!" "The Deep Forest never agreed," replied the painted mask. "The Raven Leader sought to change clan law. Clan law cannot be changed." "Except by you," said Torak. "Be silent!" hissed the Forest Horse Leader.
Torak raised his head and glared at Thiazzi. "You break clan law whenever you want. Don't you, Thiazzi?"
Puzzled faces turned to the Mage.
"Slaughtering hunters," Torak went on. "Murdering my father. My bone kin ..."
"Silence!" shrilled the Forest Horse Leader. "How dare you insult our Mage!"
"He's not your Mage," Torak flung back as he struggled to his feet. "He's a Soul-Eater."
Howls of outrage from the crowd, but Thiazzi was triumphant. "By his own mouth he condemns himself! Here's proof of his wickedness!" "What's
wrong
with you all?" thundered Torak.
Trees stirred. Torches flickered. Even the Forest Horse Leader stepped back.
With his scarred chest and glittering eyes, Torak looked terrifying--and exactly what Thiazzi had said he was. "Have you forgotten how to
think?"
he bellowed at 206
the crowd. "Doesn't it seem odd that your new Mage has suddenly grown so warlike? Can't you
see
that he's not one of you?"
Renn had never seen him so angry. His rage was like the freezing white fury of the ice bear, and it frightened her. It frightened the others, too. Thiazzi's laugh broke the spell. "See how desperate he is! He knows he is condemned!"
Relief shuddered through the crowd. The Mage had restored their certainty.

"I've heard enough for judgement," declared Thiazzi. "An outcast in the True Forest is an insult to the World Spirit. This is why the Spirit stays away. The outcast must die."

The wind got up. The red tree sighed.
Renn stood aghast.
Torak stared stonily at Thiazzi.
"Although," said the old man, still holding the staff, "if this truce is to stand, the Auroch Mage must also agree."
That brought his clan to their senses, and they watched to see how the Forest Horse Mage would respond.

Torchlight played on the wooden face. Behind it, Renn sensed the racing thoughts. He wanted Torak dead, and soon. But if he snubbed the Aurochs, he risked a riot and the ruin of his plans.

"Of course he must agree," Thiazzi said between his
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teeth. "Tonight, the Auroch Mage keeps to his prayer shelter, as I shall keep to the sacred grove. Each clan shall paint a tree with earthblood. When both Mages return, and if we are of one mind, the outcast shall die."

 

Torak woke to a raging thirst.

 

Horsehair ropes constricted his wrists and ankles. His bruises throbbed, his head ached. Drifting in and out of wakefulness, he tried to work out where he was. A cramped shelter. Roots against his cheek ...

He jolted awake. They had laid him beneath the scarlet tree. Soon they would hang him from it.
He couldn't see how he was going to get out of this. How long did it take to paint a tree red? That was how long he had.
He thought of Renn. She didn't look as if she'd been beaten, so maybe they would let her live. If only she didn't try to help him.
And Wolf? He saw Wolf--if he was still alive--seeking him through the charred Forest. Lost, bewildered, howling for his pack-brother. Never getting an answer. Helpless, Torak slid into a blazing sea of thirst.
Someone was holding his head, pouring water into his mouth.
He coughed and spluttered. His tongue was swollen; he couldn't swallow. "Don't stop," he pleaded. It came out a meaningless mumble. 208

Birch bark was rough against his lips, and a cool hand supported the back of his head. Water coursed down his throat, soaking into his flesh like a flood drenching suncracked earth.

 

"How do you feel?" whispered Renn. "Better," he croaked. It wasn't true, but it would be soon. Shutting his eyes, he felt strength stealing into his limbs, while Renn sawed the ropes at his wrists with her beaver-tooth knife. "Wolf," he muttered.

"I saw him yesterday. He's fine." "Thank the
Spirit.
What about--" "The ravens are fine too. Try to sit up; we've got to be quick." "How did you manage this?" he asked as she started on his ankles. "I didn't," she said tersely. "Everyone's asleep; I don't know why. It's as if they've taken a sleeping potion. It can't last much longer."

Biting down on the pain, Torak rubbed the feeling back into his wrists, while Renn washed the blood off his face and told him how Thiazzi had declared a truce among the clans. "He must've tricked the Auroch Mage, and now he's got them all in his power." She paused. "Torak, this is much bigger than we thought. He's turning them against the Open Forest."

He was trying to take that in when they heard a noise outside. A sleepy murmur, horrifyingly close. A rustle of
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wovenbark that subsided in a snore.
When all was quiet again, Torak breathed out. "Why didn't they tie you up too?"
Renn strapped her knife to her calf and yanked her legging over it. "They're scared of me ... because I'm a Mage."
He met her eyes in the red darkness. Her face was sternly beautiful, and a shiver ran down his spine.
Then she was his friend again, reaching behind her and thrusting a pair of buckskin boots at him. "I stole them from a Lynx. They'd better fit." As he pulled them on, she peered from the shelter. "Can you walk?"
"I'll have to."

The moon had set and the torches had burned out; both camps were dark and still. Around the shelter, four hunters sprawled asleep beside their weapons. Their breathing was so faint that at first Torak thought they were dead. He grabbed a bow and a quiver, jammed an axe in his belt.

 

Crossing the open ground to the torches seemed to take forever. His head throbbed. Pain flared in his bruised limbs at every step. Renn vanished into the shadows, and he thought he'd lost her. She reappeared with her bow and a quiver, and pressed something into his hands. It was his knife.

"How did you--"
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"I told you, they're all asleep!"

At last they were past the Auroch camp, huddled behind a clump of junipers. Renn leaned close, her hair tickling his cheek. "They brought me here blindfolded, I don't know where we are. Do you?"

 

He nodded. "We came in dugouts. The Blackwater's about twenty paces over there. We'll take a boat and head upriver. Then we leave the boat and cross into the next valley, that's the valley of the horses. From there it's straight to the sacred grove."

 

She frowned. "Let's get to the boats."

 

They reached the river without mishap, and found a line of dugouts drawn up on the bank. Quietly, they pushed the end boat into the shallows, and Torak climbed in. The pain of his bruises was gone, numbed by the thrill of the chase. "The current's not strong," he said softly. "If we paddle hard, we might even overtake him."

Renn stood in the shallows with her boots strung around her neck, but made no move to get in. "Torak. Turn the boat around."
"What?" he said impatiently.
"We can't go after Thiazzi. Not now."
He stared at her.
"If you killed him now," she whispered, "you'd be confirming every lie he's told them about the Open Forest."
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"But--Renn. What are you saying?"
"We have to go back to the Open Forest. Find Fin-Kedinn. Warn the clans what's happening."
"You can't mean this."

Wading closer, she gripped the dugout with both hands. "Torak, I've
seen
these people! They do everything he says. Slashing their faces, cutting off hands. They will attack the Open Forest!"

He began to be angry. "I swore an oath, Renn. I swore to avenge my kinsman."
"This is bigger than vengeance. Can't you see? If Thiazzi dies, they'll think it's an Open Forest plot."
"But he's not their Mage! Once he's dead, they'll see that!" "They won't
care!
Torak,
think!
If you killed him, they'd see it as proof of what he said. They'd attack. The Open Forest would fight back. There'd be no stopping it!" He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. "You said you'd help me. Are you deserting me now?"

She flinched as if he'd struck her. "If you go after Thiazzi, I'll have to. Someone has to warn the Open Forest." In her voice he heard an echo of Fin-Kedinn: the same flinty resolve to do what was right, no matter what the cost.

"Renn," he said. "I cannot turn around now. I need
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you to come with me. Do this for me."
"Torak--I
can't!"
He looked at her standing there with the black water swirling around her calves. "Then that's how it is," he said. Digging in his paddle, he started upriver. 213

TWENTY-SEVEN
Renn stood in the freezing shallows, staring blankly . into the darkness. She couldn't believe Torak was really gone. It was a mistake. It had to be. Any moment now and he'd reappear and say, "Sorry. You're right. We've got to get back to the Open Forest." He wouldn't just leave her.

 

But he had. She faced the long, dangerous journey without him. And she was quite sure that he would never get near Thiazzi. How could he, when the Oak Mage held the Deep Forest in his fist? Thiazzi would kill him. She would never see Torak again.

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A reed tapped her on the shoulder, and the willows murmured a warning:
Better get away from here, fast.

Biting her lower lip hard, she squelched toward the nearest dugout. She got behind it and pushed, but the heavy pine didn't budge. Slithering in the mud, she gave it another heave, and the boat jerked loose and splashed into the shallows.

 

Swiftly she tossed in quiver, bow, and boots, and jumped in after them. But as she made the first stab with her paddle, the dugout tipped sharply, nearly throwing her out. She paddled frantically.

Shadowy hunters dragged her back to land.
"You helped the outcast get away," said the Forest Horse Leader. "Yes."
"Where did he go?"
"B-back to the Open Forest."
"You're in league with him."
"He's my friend."
"You're in league with him against the Deep Forest."

"N-no." Her teeth were chattering--the chill of the river was seeping into her marrow--but they wouldn't let her ashore. Scarred faces loomed over her, engulfing her in a stink of tallow, wet wovenbark, and hate.

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"You poisoned us with Magecraft," said the Forest Horse Leader. "No."
"You put a sleeping-draught in our water."
So she'd guessed rightly. But who had done it, and why?
"You put a spell on us!"

Renn hesitated. Taking credit for others' deeds had been her mother's skill. "I warned you I was a Mage," she said coldly. "None of you was hurt. And none will be--if you take me to the Auroch Mage."

The air crackled with fear and hatred. Renn prayed that their fear would prove the stronger.
"Why would we do that?" said the Forest Horse Leader.
"The Auroch Mage has the respect of all," Renn said haughtily. "I will speak only to him."
"You're in no position to bargain," hissed the Leader.
Renn thought fast. "Is this how the Forest Horses respect the truce?" she said. "By scorning the Auroch Mage? What do the Aurochs say about that?" It was the turn of the Forest Horse Leader to hesitate.
The shelter of the Auroch Mage squatted like a toad in the lee of a fallen spruce. 216

The Aurochs had brought her here blindfolded--by river, then overland--and she had no idea where she was, although she knew by the smell that she was close to the burned lands.

 

"Our Mage is old and frail," they'd warned her as they slipped off the blindfold. "You mustn't tire him. And remember, you're only seeing him because he wishes it." Then they'd vanished into the Forest, leaving her alone before the shelter.

She stood with her hands tied behind her back, in a tangle of deadnettle still damp with dew. Above her towered the tree's root disc, smelling of earth and rotting wood. It was pitted with the nests of bats and owls, and hung with auroch horns incised with spirals. From these and the encircling pines, slender ropes of red wovenbark trailed into the shelter's smoke-hole. Renn guessed they were spirit ladders, to help the Mage climb to the spirit world.

The shelter itself appeared oddly homey. A fragrant haze curled from the smoke-hole, and the wovenbark cloth across the doorway was decorated with a border of trotting aurochs.

"Come inside," said a faint voice.
Awkwardly because of her bound hands, Renn got down on her knees, nosed aside the wovenbark, and shuffled in.
The fire was small, but welcoming. Above it, the red tails of the spirit ladders dangled through the smokehole,
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dancing in the heat. On the other side of the fire, Renn saw her bow and the stolen arrows lying beside a mound of leaves.
It shifted. "I've sent my people away," wheezed a voice as quiet as a summer breeze in a sapling. "When two Mages meet, it's best if they're not overheard." Renn bowed respectfully. "Mage."