Bard's Oath (70 page)

Good. Now—let us end this.
With that, Linden swooped down, the others following. Below him was the all-too-familiar clearing in the Haunted Forest that held Arlim’s hut with its deadly secret. They would come back here shortly and cleanse it with dragon fire. Using it as a guide, Linden veered to the east, searching for the other, even deadlier clearing.

This time he knew just what he was looking for and there was no storm to distract him. Bare heartbeats later, he hovered over the place where a witch spruce had once stood guard over a grave, beating his wings to hold his place. The others joined him, quartering the circle below them.

Nothing had changed. The trail of broken mushrooms and scattered King’s Blood flowers that the girls had left was still visible.

Shima—now.

The black dragon veered in and dropped his burden into the center of the clearing, then returned to the outer edge of the circle. The long box holding the extra soundboards shattered when it hit the ground.

Linden glided in and opened his forelegs. The rowan box fell, tumbling end over end. Its lid flew off and the shrouded harp fell out. Then the silk covering came free, wafting here and there as it drifted down.

But by some trick of the gods or because like called to like, the harp plummeted straight toward the stump. It smashed into it with a hideous jangling of strings. And though it lay splintered upon the broad surface of the stump, the harp’s last cry rang on and on and on, filling the forest.

Linden slid away.
Go on, love,
he said.
Raven was your friend first.
This would be the end of it; the guilt-stricken Sether had done for the rest—he hoped.

Maurynna dropped down and spread her jaws wide. A gout of fire burst forth. The ringing became a shriek as flames leapt up from the dead wood of the stump, towering toward the sky.

Then came silence. Blessed silence, broken only by the crackling of the fire. Gull the Blood Drinker was gone at last.

Seventy-one

Otter came into their chambers;
his face was grey, and he moved as slowly and heavily as if each of his years weighed upon him like an anvil. He sat down without a word and pointed at the goblets on the table.

Linden took the hint and poured out some wine for him. “Are you well?” he asked as he handed it to the bard. It was plain that whatever news Otter bore had stricken him to his very soul. “What was the Guild Master’s decision?”

Without a word, Otter drained the goblet and held it out for more. After he’d drained that one as well and set the goblet to one side, a little color came back into his cheeks. Still, the bard shivered like a man with the ague. “A moment,” he said in a ragged whisper. Then he gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles stood out stark and white. He stared down at his hands as if he’d never seen them before.

Or would never see them again. Linden now knew what Leet’s punishment was to be. The mere thought made him queasy and he was no bard; he merely played the harp as a pastime. Between the two of them, only Otter could fully appreciate the horror of Leet’s coming fate. To a bard—especially a Master Bard—this was worse than death. No wonder Otter looked ill.

Yet what was coming was no less than Leet deserved for all he’d done and tried to do, Linden thought.

But the thought still sickened him; Linden left the sitting room and entered the sleeping chamber as the others clustered around Otter. Once there, he went to the open window and looked across the courtyard to the Black Tower. He sat on the wide ledge and stared at the shuttered window of Leet’s cell. The window stared blindly back at him.

He wondered when they’d give Leet the news. Surely it would come as no surprise to the renegade bard. He’d broken his oath, trampled his sworn word into the dust. The oath that said never do harm, but rather help; never to kill—save in the last extremity of defending oneself or another—and certainly never to kill for revenge.

Leet had done just that and, worse yet, used an innocent man as his tool. A man he would have let die when he could have saved him with a word.

It was that oath that kept bards safe, gave them free passage even between warring armies, kept them from harm while traveling. More than once, while journeying with Otter, Linden had seen a band of robbers turn aside when they realized their intended prey included a bard; even men that desperate didn’t risk the wrath of the gods.

Leet’s actions had jeopardized that protection for all bards. He had to be punished. But as Linden studied the heavy wooden shutters, he thought death would be kinder.

It was quiet this high up. The gentle breeze flowed like silk over his skin, and the honey-colored shimmer of the bright sunlight spoke of tranquil summer days riding through the mountains around Dragonskeep, of dallying in flower-strewn meadows. So peaceful on the surface, so serene …

He only heard the anguished scream because he’d been listening for it. Muffled behind the shutters, it was so faint it might almost have been imagination. He knew it wasn’t.

Despite the heat, a shiver went down his spine. Linden glanced through the doorway to where the others still clustered around Otter and almost went to join them. Instead, something made him stay at his post. So he waited and watched—though for what, he wasn’t certain.

After a time, something happened. The guards who had escorted Leet back to his prison chamber must have left, for the heavy shutters opened slowly. Pale hands thrust between the black iron bars of the windows; the long, agile fingers that once had danced skillfully upon harp strings clawed at the air, graceful no longer.

Linden wondered if anyone had had a chance to thoroughly examine the room since Leet had replaced Raven as its occupant so quickly. He knew he should have no pity for the man. Yet he understood why Leet had sought Tirael’s death in revenge for his grandson’s. The part of him that was still Yerrin—and a mountain Yerrin at that—sympathized with the need to see a blood debt paid.

Not that I can now. I’m a Dragonlord. But what would
I
do if someone killed Maurynna? Could I hold to my
own
oath?

But there was also the matter of
how
Leet had taken his revenge. By freeing Gull’s spirit, Leet had driven one man into dark evil and cost his victims their lives as surely as if he himself had cut their throats.

Then he had used a child for a foul deed, and made Raven into a murderer, a tool to be destroyed in turn because Leet had always been jealous of his great-uncle. No, all that was more than Linden could forgive anyone, oathbound bard or not.

But he’d seen Otter’s stricken face, knew what Otter—if faced with a choice between losing the first two joints of each finger and his thumbs, or death—would pick.

Leet would have no choice. Because he’d abused both oath and gift, his fingers would be amputated and he would be turned out to make a way in a world that would now regard him as a thing of vileness, a living blasphemy to be driven away with curses and blows. The only thing forbidden would be killing him and ending his punishment. Nor could he take his own life and end his misery. Linden knew a temple mage would lay a geas upon Leet to prevent it.

Oh, yes—Leet knew what he faced. Linden could see it in the way the renegade bard threw himself against the iron bars again and again, trying to force his way through the narrow gap, seeking the mercy of death.

Linden mindspoke Otter.
Do you hate him?

As he waited for a response, he could see Leet slamming against the bars; Linden winced as the bard staggered back, then flung himself headfirst at the barred window.

The weary answer came back at last:
Believe it or not, I can’t bring myself to hate him. I did before, because of what he’s done to Raven, and I still loathe him for what he did to those other people, of how he perverted our calling. Yet now that I know for certain what will happen to him, part of me feels sorry for him. Can you believe that?

Bright red ribbons of blood dripped down Leet’s face. He threw himself at the bars once more.

Yes,
Linden replied.
I can.
And he could. For him, it would be as if his wings were to be cut off. He’d be only half alive then. And as he soared through the sky on his wings, a bard’s spirit soared in his music.

But you can’t play the harp without fingers,
Linden thought.

Leet collapsed against the bars. The sound of his weeping came thin and ghostlike across the gulf between the towers.

His mindvoice shaking, Otter went on,
Leet is to spend half the year wandering, and half the year at the luthier’s home so that all folk will know Thomelin’s part in this. By the gods, I wish they’d chosen to hang the man. It would be kinder, though I’m not certain Leet deserves any mercy for all he’s done. But then I look at my own hands, and wonder if that had been
my
grandchild
 …

You would never have chosen a coward’s way of striking back,
Linden retorted.
You would have openly Challenged Tirael even though it would have meant your expulsion from the guild.

Would I, though? And let the world know why it mattered so much to me? Left my daughter to bear the shame of old scandal as Romissa will? No, I’m not certain I can point that finger, boyo.

Having met Romissa, Linden had somewhat less sympathy on that count than Otter. It was her surviving children whom he pitied. Not because they were the children of a bastard; to him, that was no shame. In the oldest Yerrin law—the law that Linden grew up with—there was no such thing as a bastard child, only degrees of legitimacy.

But an oathbreaker and murderer in the family was an ill thing for anyone. And Leet would likely live for years yet, a constant reminder for his grandchildren of the tainted blood they bore. Because of their grandfather’s sins, they would be tormented endlessly, and shunned by all.

He felt no sympathy for Leet. He had precious little for Romissa. As for Thomelin, he was unsure. Had the luthier known where the wood came from? But the children … They were innocent.

Otter “sighed.”
How odd—when I was young, someone once told me there were worse things than death. In all these years I never believed it. Now I do.

I wish you’d never learned otherwise,
Linden said. Then,
Have they given him to Iryniel yet?

Linden couldn’t remember the last time a bard was given to Iryniel; the Punisher must be hungry indeed these days. He would not easily let go of Leet, and woe to anyone who cut that cursed life short before Iryniel was moved to grant the final mercy.

But until that time …

No—that will be done at the dark of the moon, in the cusp of time between one day and the next.

Linden nodded; yes, that would be the proper time. And it meant half a tenday’s grace.

He let the contact with Otter’s mind fade.
I wonder if Leet’s strong enough,
he thought. Then he reached out with his mind, letting an image of the other window flicker across it like a flash of lightning. The other window—and a chisel.

There; it’s done. Now it’s up to the gods—and Leet—whether he pays for all those lives with his own and his grandchildren live free of his shadow.

And if Iryniel didn’t like it, Linden thought, the Punisher could bloody well take it up with him when he died in his turn. Too many children had already suffered.

Epilogue

Yarrow’s holding in Yerrih

“What in the world—?” Raven
said as a shadow slid over him. Shading his eyes, he looked up in time to see Maurynna, in her dragon form, wheel in the sky to pass over him once more before spiraling down to land and Change.

“Well met, Beanpole!” he called as he rode to meet her. Stormwind neighed a greeting.

“Where are you bound for?” she asked.

“Nowhere in particular. Want to come with us?”

She laughed. “How can I refuse?”

He held out his hand and an instant later she was up behind him. Stormwind ambled on. “So what brings you here?”

“This and that. I’ve news for you. The first is … Leet was never given to Iryniel. He found the chisel.”

Raven inhaled sharply. “And the loosened bars?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” Raven thought about that, unsure how he felt. It seemed too easy a death for all the pain Leet had caused. “And the luthier who made the harps? Will he be punished?”

“No, there’s no proof he knew just what the wood was. Besides, he’s Kelnethi. Cassorin law doesn’t reach that far.”

They rode on in silence for a time. “Do you still blame yourself for Tirael’s death?” Maurynna asked him at last.

Raven laughed bitterly. “You already know the answer: Of course I do.” And he always would. It was like a wound that wouldn’t heal, a sick burning in his stomach. It would never go away, he thought. Never.

“Thought so. This might make you feel a little better.”

With that, her hand appeared in front of him, offering him a folded parchment. It had a seal on it, but the wax was already broken. She waggled the letter—for that was what it seemed to be—at him.

He took it, puzzled. “What is it about?” he asked as he turned it over in his hand.

“Just read it.”

Raven sighed. As he unfolded the parchment, a small voice in the back of his mind complained that this was a waste of time. He thought of refusing, but no doubt Rynna would tell Stormwind not to bring him home until he did, and it was one hell of a long walk. Even so, he’d half a mind to refuse.…

As he glanced at it, certain words and phrases seemed to leap out at him. Raven held his breath and read.

Greetings, Master Luyens!

By the time you get this, I shall be either a married man or a hunted one.

Remember the girl I told you about? She’s here, I’ve seen her, and I’m more in love with her than ever. I must have her.