Age of Myth (13 page)

Persephone shrugged. She wanted to disagree, but that was an argument for another time. “Okay, but there are female Fhrey in Alon Rhist, too. So if our women can't fight, neither can theirs. Is it impossible to think a thousand men can kill a hundred Fhrey? And how many do the Gula have? If we all band together, we could overwhelm them with sheer numbers.”

“Not likely to happen.” The man shook his hairy head. “The clans would never join together. They're more likely to fight each other.”

She let out more line to her fish. “I see your point. It would take a man like Gath. Someone renowned, someone everyone would agree was the bravest, strongest warrior among them. Someone who all the chieftains could kneel to and not lose the respect of their people. It would take a hero.”

Time to set the hook.

“It would take someone who'd already proved himself by killing a Fhrey,” she said.

Persephone and Malcolm continued ahead but stopped a few steps later. The Dureyan had halted. “You want this Raithe person to be the keenig?” he said.

Persephone nodded. “I think it might be our only hope to survive.”

“That's crazy.”

“Doesn't sound at all crazy to me,” Malcolm said.

I love you, Malcolm!
He was practically holding out the net for her fish.

“You be quiet,” the man snapped.

“You are Raithe, aren't you?” Persephone asked. “Raithe of Dureya, the God Killer, wielder of the copper sword.”

Raithe glanced over his shoulder at the pommel, sighed, and then glared at Malcolm. “I blame you for this,” he said, and walked on.

After drawing out Raithe's identity, Persephone backed off, satisfied with her progress. The three walked on in relative silence. Ahead of them, Suri had stopped, Minna beside her. The girl seemed transfixed, staring off through an opening in the trees. When they reached her, Persephone realized they had climbed higher than she'd expected. Below them, the view was breathtaking, forest-covered hills stretched out for miles. The shadows across the landscape indicated the hour was later than she'd realized.

“That's the home of Grin,” Suri told them, pointing at a rocky face where the sun revealed a large cave.

“We aren't going up there, are we?” Persephone asked.

“No, ma'am,” the girl replied. “Magda is just ahead.”

“Magda?” Malcolm inquired.

“The old oak,” Persephone said. “Suri says it's the oldest tree in the forest.”

“Who or what is
Grin
?” Raithe asked.

“A bear or demon or maybe both. She killed my son, my husband, and several other men from Rhen.”

“Sounds like a good thing to avoid, then,” Malcolm said.

They continued on, and Suri led them off the ridge and into a shallow basin. As tranquil a place as anything Persephone could imagine, the valley held a flower-filled meadow. In the center stood a massive tree. Lower branches, each as thick as any regular oak's trunk, rested their elbows on the ground as they extended out hundreds of feet. Her gnarled and ribbed trunk, partially covered in green moss, was mammoth. A pair of huge knots gave the tree the appearance of a gentle, wrinkled face that looked down on them with sad eyes.

It was easy to see why Suri had described Magda as
holding court.
Nothing but flowers grew near her. That was Magda's field, and her boughs extended the width of it like a fine gown.

Suri stopped under the tree's leaves and knelt. Minna lay beside her. The others hesitated, unsure what to do. Slowly, Suri lifted her head to the leaves. “Say hello to Magda, the oldest tree.”

Malcolm walked to Magda as if in a trance and laid a hand on the oak. “She is indeed a
very
old tree.”

“Magda told me once she has lived for three thousand years,” Suri declared.

Malcolm continued to let his hands glide over the tree's bark, which was thick and gnarled with deep lines of age. “She would have seen it all.”

“What do I do?” Persephone asked Suri.

“Just ask her what you want to know.”

Persephone stepped forward and, looking into the knots as if they were eyes, she inquired, “Are the Fhrey coming? Will they attack Dahl Rhen?”

She waited, listening, expecting to hear a booming voice.

All was silent, and she looked at Suri.

The mystic shrugged. “Try something else.”

Persephone glanced at Raithe. “How can I save my people?”

They looked up at the leaves, Raithe wearing a nervous expression. In turn, each of them, even Minna, looked at Suri, who scowled.

“What?” Persephone said.

Suri shook her head in irritation. “Magda's being a beech.”

“A what?” Raithe asked.

“She's being quiet.”

“Maybe she's thinking,” Malcolm said. “Or she doesn't know the answers. Those are pretty weighty questions for a tree that doesn't, you know, travel much.”

“She talks to the other trees. They tell her all they've heard,” Suri explained. “That's how she knows so much. She hears news from everywhere.”

“But how can a tree know the minds of gods?” Raithe asked. “Or the lay of the future?”

“The more you know about the past, the easier it is to divine the future.” Suri stood up. “Magda!” she shouted, causing Minna to start. “Wake up! You have visitors! This woman is an important lady. She needs to know what to do. She needs to know…” Suri looked at Persephone.

“How to save our race from extinction at the hands of the Fhrey,” Persephone provided.

Suri looked her way for a second, licked her lips, and then turned her attention back to the tree. “Yeah, that.”

Again they waited. Suri's face scrunched up into an elaborate frown. “I don't understand. Normally—”

A breeze stirred the leaves overhead, and Suri's head snapped upward. Her eyes grew wide, and a smile spread across her face.

“Welcome the gods,”
Suri said formally.

“What?” Persephone asked, but Suri held up a hand to silence her.

“Heal the injured,”
the mystic went on.

“I don't under—”

Once again Suri waved for silence.
“Follow the wolf.”

The breeze died.

They waited.

Suri finally nodded with a happy look. “There you go. The answer to your questions.”

Persephone blinked. “That's it? Welcome the gods; heal the injured; follow the wolf? What does any of it mean?”

Suri shrugged. “I have no idea.”

Life on the dahl was dangerous. We lived in fear of everything: spirits, sickness, famine, wolves, and bears. That spring there was less sickness and famine and more wolves and bears.

—
T
HE
B
OOK OF
B
RIN

Raithe and Minna were friends from the moment they met, but then he'd always gotten along better with animals than people. In Dureya, some of the less aggressive wolves made a living off discarded scraps. The animals were tolerated because their yipping warned when trouble came to visit. As a boy, Raithe had grown fond of many of them, but few had been as friendly, and none so large, as Minna. In Dureya, animals didn't grow big for the same reason the people didn't smile—a lack of everything. Raithe held a similarly high opinion of Suri, who reminded him of his younger sister, the only sibling he loved. That she was a mystic despite her young age was astounding. Mystics were about as common as two-headed unicorns. The few who existed lived apart from the world of men, remaining untainted by influence and corruption. Having a wolf as her best friend demonstrated the sort of wisdom he appreciated.

Persephone was another matter.

He couldn't decide about her. She was attractive for her age; he guessed her to be about ten years older than himself. But she had been a chieftain's wife, the worst sort of woman, and he hadn't liked the way she'd tried to manipulate him. Using others was the way of those who slept in lodges. They thought nothing of deciding the lives of others. Then there were the three men who had tried to kill her. That sort of thing didn't happen by accident. If people wanted you dead, there was likely a reason. Also, she had acted stupidly on the cascade, risking her life for a man who had tried to kill her. Still, it showed more decency than he would have expected, which gave him pause. So did the fact that she'd spoken to him—a Dureyan—with respect. Such behavior would have been unusual from a farmer's wife, but she had been married to a chieftain and lived in a wealthy dahl. Although it was easy to assume her actions were designed to beguile, there was a genuineness about her. Raithe was far from worldly and no expert when it came to the ways of powerful women, but he'd always been able to tell the wolves that would bite from the ones that wouldn't.

“Minna?” Suri raised her brows when the wolf settled next to Raithe, nuzzling his leg. “That's no way to act. You just met him.”

“She's friendly.” Raithe bent down and scrubbed the wolf's coat.

“No, she's not, are you, Minna?” Suri smirked at the wolf, then shrugged. “Okay, from here follow the ridge back the way you came.”

Persephone, who was still staring back at the old oak, turned sharply. “Wait. You're not coming with us?”

The mystic shook her head. “No, ma'am. I live over that way.” She pointed through the blur of trees.

“But…” Persephone said, confused. “I thought you came to the dahl to stay.”

“Did you hear that, Minna? She's a strange one. We only came to tell you the news. Then there was the whole business of waiting on the trees to wake up, but that's done. You have your answer, so we can go home.”

Suri took a few bounding steps, causing Minna to leap from Raithe's side and chase after her. This made the girl grin. “Still likes me best!” She took two more steps, then stopped and looked up at the sky. “Better be quick, ma'am. Night appears to be in an awful hurry.”

Then, without so much as a wave, the girl ran off, the wolf chasing her through the trees.

“Ah, good…bye,” Persephone called after her. “And thank you.” She continued to stare until the mystic vanished, swallowed by the green.

Persephone looked back at the big oak, and said, “That's it? I nearly die and all I get are riddles? Not even good ones.” Raithe wasn't certain if she was speaking to him, the tree, or herself. Taking a breath, she sighed. Unfolding Raithe's leigh mor, she pulled it over her head like a hood and walked forward. “This way, I guess.”

Raithe followed Persephone through the trees. Malcolm had been slow to join them, lingering a while longer by himself.

“If we hurry, we can have a hot meal,” Persephone said, following the faint trail they had made in the grass on the way in. “You two like mutton? Sarah is working her way through a ewe Delwin butchered. I've lived with them since my husband's death, and I'm sure you'd be welcomed. She's down to the shank, which isn't the best, but—”

“It sounds like a holiday feast,” Malcolm said, running to catch up.

“I take it you're hungry.”

“Famished, good lady, famished. We've been living on a sparse diet of nuts, mushrooms, and the rare squirrel or rabbit, which between us doesn't amount to much more than a bite or two.”

Back up on the ridge they traveled in a line, their feet plowing loudly through dead leaves. The light cut through the gaps at a sharp angle. Trunks and plants were splashed with brilliant gold, and long shadows stretched out from the base of every tree.

“I've heard of your husband,” Raithe told Persephone as he walked behind her. “They say he was old.”

She nodded. “Over sixty years.”

“But you're not so old.”

“Thank you.” Persephone glanced back at him with a curious look. “I think.”

“I'm just saying your husband was a lucky man. Not only did he live a long time, but he was blessed with a young wife.”

She laughed—a nice sound. “I've not known Dureyan men to be so charming.”

“Ha!” Malcolm scoffed.

Persephone turned to peer at the slender man marching along at the rear of their parade. “Why do you laugh?”

“Raithe isn't what most would describe as
charming.
”

“How would you know?” Raithe asked.

“I've been with you night and day for who knows how long now, and you've never struck
me
as charming.”

“You're not a beautiful woman,” Raithe replied.

“Beautiful?” Persephone said. “Charming or not, you are certainly most kind, but there must be a terrible shortage of girls in Dureya if you—” Persephone froze in place, and her hand flew to her mouth in horror. “I'm so sorry. I didn't mean…I…” She bit her lower lip in agony.

Malcolm looked at Raithe with a bewildered expression as the three stood listening to the wind in the leaves.

When she didn't say anything else, Raithe asked, “What?”

She stared at him a moment longer as embarrassment slowly shifted to surprise. “You don't know?”

“Know what?”

“Dureya—the Fhrey.” She shook her head, her hand still lingering over her lips. “They destroyed Dureya and we think Nadak as well.”

Raithe stared at her, puzzled. People often said things that didn't make sense. Those who talked a lot were the most prone to the practice. Words spilled out of their mouths with little thought behind them. Persephone might be one of those. But she didn't seem the sort to lie, and there would be no point in making up such a thing. “What are you talking about?”

Persephone looked to Malcolm for help, but he remained silent, leaning on his spear. “A group of men from Nadak came to Rhen. They said they saw it themselves. The Fhrey killed everyone.” Then, more quietly, she added, “They burned the villages as well as the dahl.”

“The Fhrey did that?” Raithe asked, trying to picture such a thing in his mind. The gods had never attacked Dureya before, but he found it disturbingly easy to imagine. He looked to Malcolm. “Is this possible? Would they do that?”

“I…I expected them to come after us, not your people. But I suppose it's possible.”

“How many villages? Which ones?” Raithe asked Persephone.

His question made her cringe. “All of them. The report I heard said…” She frowned.

“What?”

“They found no survivors. None. You might be the last living Dureyan.”

She said more after that, but Raithe had stopped listening. Malcolm spoke, as well, but Raithe walked away. He had a vague sense of trudging down the ridge with them following. He wanted to think, needed to think, but couldn't. Once, when Herkimer had been training Raithe, he was struck in the head with a wooden mallet. He'd collapsed but was still conscious, his father looming above. Herkimer yelled, but Raithe couldn't hear. The words were faint and muffled, Raithe's thoughts lost in a fog. That's how he felt now. The world had stopped, and when it started again, his first thought was that Persephone must be mistaken. Dureya couldn't be gone. As poor as they were, his people numbered in the thousands. They lived in hundreds of settlements from the Forks to the High Spear Valley. They couldn't
all
be gone.

Why would anyone destroy a place as insignificant as Clempton?

“Raithe, do you know where you're going?” Malcolm asked.

Raithe stopped. They still traveled along the ridge, but the hardwood trees had given way to spruce and cedar as the three plodded uphill.

“Are you all right?” Persephone asked.

“I'm fine.”

She looked at Raithe for a long moment as if she were going to offer a dissenting opinion.

“We're going back to Dahl Rhen, right?” Malcolm asked. “I don't remember walking downhill at any point when we were on our way to the oak.”

Persephone paused and turned around. “You're right; we didn't.”

They were in the middle of an endless group of trees that were different from the ones Raithe remembered passing through earlier.

“We should have turned off the ridge at some point, I think,” Malcolm said.

The world beneath the canopy was darkening. The conifers blocked more sun than the hardwoods but not enough to account for the growing gloom. The piercing shafts of sun were gone, night was coming, and it was already hard to tell where one tree stopped and another began.

“I suppose we should head back to where we started going up again, then—” Persephone was interrupted by a not-too-distant howl.

“Do you think that's Minna?” Malcolm asked, his voice concerned but hopeful.

“Came from the other way,” Persephone replied. “Out there.” She nodded her head at the forest to their left.

Another howl echoed from slightly to the right of the first.

“Maybe we should go this way.” Persephone walked briskly in the opposite direction of the howls. Raithe followed after her with Malcolm in tow.

Soon they were skidding down a steep slope, plowing through brown needles still damp from a recent rain. The deeper they went, the darker the forest grew. Near the bottom, the air became noticeably cooler, and the floor of the forest was green with ferns. They waded into a grove of knee-high fiddleheads, where they discovered a creek.

“Is this the stream that goes to the cascade?” Persephone asked.

“Maybe,” Malcolm replied. His voice sounded strained.

Persephone followed the flow of water downhill. They trudged onward, but nothing looked familiar.

Howls continued, closer than before. Down off the ridge, the eerie sounds bounced off tree trunks and echoed back. Raithe couldn't determine where the howls came from, but he was certain of one thing—there was more than one.

Persephone picked up their pace as they continued downhill through brush and over stones. With each step, it seemed the world grew darker and the forest changed. Evergreens transformed into black curtains; scattered birches became slender, staring ghosts. Rocks and boulders hidden in shadows took on the shapes of crouching animals waiting to pounce. In the growing dark, he felt closed in, blinded and trapped by the closeness of the trees.

“I'm not sure I know where we are,” Persephone told them while pausing beside the creek.

“I don't think any of us does,” Malcolm said.

Persephone rubbed her arms. “Well, at this point I'm—” She stopped.

Movement. Creeping figures emerged from the undergrowth.

Three wolves, all black, with sharp, white teeth snarled through curled lips. The trio came out slowly, too slowly.

“Get behind me,” Raithe ordered, drawing the Fhrey sword and backing up.

Malcolm clutched the spear in front of him. “Just point and stick, right?”

Before Raithe could answer, Persephone screamed. He whirled around in time to see another wolf rush up from behind. Her shriek frightened the animal. It skidded to a halt. Raithe swung, but the wolf retreated out of range.

“Take my shield.” Raithe pulled the wooden board off his back and handed it to Persephone.

More wolves approached. Raithe saw ferns quivering all around them. This was a large pack, more than a dozen.

“Put your backs to each other!” Raithe shouted. “Stay close. Don't run.”

The wolves closed to within a few feet, swarming, circling; their tongues hung and dripped. The bravest, a big black wolf with some gray in its coat, inched closer. It snapped, then darted back when Raithe swung. This generated a round of loud yipping.

“Dammit!” Malcolm shouted, missing his wolf, which had darted in at the same time.

Persephone was the first to land a solid blow. Using the edge of the shield, she struck one hard on the snout, causing the animal to yelp and scuttle away. Another wolf lunged at Raithe. He was ready and caught fur, maybe a bit more. The animal yelped.

The pack looped around them in a constantly moving circle. Then, abruptly, one would dart in, snarling and snapping. The lunges and feints caused their tiny triangle to shift. Uneven ground hidden beneath ferns caused Raithe to stumble more than once. If he fell—if any of them did—the wolves would be on them. One deep bite and the smell of blood would put the pack into a frenzy. Bloodlust would overpower fear, and they'd attack as a group. That would end it. Raithe was certain he could kill two, maybe three, but the wolves would win.