Blood Seed: Coin of Rulve Book One (14 page)

The distance dwindled between him and the knife. The inner warning shrilled, scraping against the back of his throat. Just as it had when the sickle spun toward his chest. Just as it had all those years ago, when the black mist hovered within inches of his bare feet. 

The man directly in front of him turned aside, and Sheft forced himself to step into his place. The monstrous presence behind the priestess leaned forward. The knife, warm and sticky, was pressed into his hand.

He tightened his spirikai into an icy knot, shook back his sleeve, and placed the tip of the knife where the others had: midway between wrist and elbow. It was as if he pressed it against his own throat. The inner warning rose to a shriek, and at its crescendo he pushed down on the blade.

His numb attempt didn’t even pierce the skin.

Acutely conscious of Parduka watching him, of the entire circle watching his every move, he pressed harder.

Too hard! Panic gripped him; he fought it down. Letting up on the pressure, he dragged the sharp point up his arm. Blood welled and chased the point. Ice surged in the coils of his spirikai, but he held it back. He had to bleed long enough for the priestess to see, long enough to make a smear on the sheep. Red trickled down his arm, and the ground seemed to spring up at him. Just in time, he swooped down on one knee and thrust his oozing arm into the wool. It was slick with other men’s blood.

He wiped his arm and released the pent-up ice. It raced up his chest, through his shoulder and down past his elbow. He felt it freeze the cut. Pulling down his sleeve, he climbed to his feet. Had Parduka noticed the tremor in his hands? Had she sensed his terror? Ice was spreading into his wrist and fingers, and more of it was rushing out of his spirikai. He let up on the constriction, but the biting cold raced through his other shoulder before he could control it. Stiffly, he turned away.

A hand grabbed his arm. In the torchlight Parduka’s face crawled with shadow-deepened wrinkles, and two points glinted from the pits of her eyes.

“The knife, you fool!” she growled. “Give me the knife!”

He was the last man, still clutching the weapon. Blindly he passed it to her and stumbled back to his place, into the now intact circle.

He breathed. He was just another black-cloaked figure, hidden among the others. The ice was taking its time to retreat, longer than it ever had, but finally only his left forearm was heavy with cold. He shook with relief—and the beginning of reaction. It was over. Thank God Rulve, he had done what he had to do, and now it was over.

But it wasn’t.

The men crowded closer and watched Parduka, who was now kneeling beside the sheep. From her pouch she removed an object and held it up in the torchlight. It was a metal spoon with serrated edges and a sharp point.

She gestured, and three of the hooded figures came forward. Two grasped the animal’s bound legs, and one held its head firmly by the ears. Parduka spread open the sheep’s eyelid to reveal the staring white ball. She placed the point of the spoon at its corner. With a quick, hard thrust she dug in, scooped out the eye, and flicked it onto the ground. Black liquid spurted.

The animal squealed and thrashed. Sheft squeezed his eyes shut, twisted his head into the hood. The sounds sawed through his stomach. He smelled the reek of blood, the feces of a terrified animal. He swallowed again and again, struggling not to be sick.

A thump told him when they turned the animal over. Oh God, she was going to cut out the other eye too. He steeled himself.

The sheep bellowed, and the man next to him gasped. Sheft jerked his eyes open. The sharp spoon was shining in the firelight—hacking, glinting, coming down again and again.

“It’s butchery!” the man whispered in horror.

Gouts of blood spurted over Parduka’s hands. Splotches of white writhed on the ground as the blood-streaked animal squealed and kicked against the ropes.

At last she scooped out the eye, a pathetic, dripping thing, and flicked it away. The sheep lay twitching on the ground.

Shaking, Parduka got to her feet. She took a breath, then turned and faced the Riftwood. She raised her arms, the right hand gloved with blood. “Come, Wask!” she cried. “Accept our sacrifice.”

Boom.
A single beat of the drum sent a wild chill down Sheft’s back.

“Come, Meerghast! Accept our blood.”

Boom.

“Come, Rûk! Take away our sin.”

Boom.

The torch-flames sputtered, precarious and vulnerable in the immense darkness. It was madness to summon a creature that was already too close. He fought an urgent need to hide, to huddle on the ground under his cloak.

The sheep, unbound now, tottered to its feet, blood streaming from its eye sockets. The hooded figures funneled it mercilessly forward with swipes of the torch against its hindquarters.

The drum beat faster—
boom boom-boom
—but it was his own heart pounding in his ears and resonating in his chest. It was beating down the barrier between him and Wask, between his will, his veins, and the thing in the dark. His blood drew it. His very pulse jerked it closer.

Like a vortex, its presence funneled toward him. It whirled into his mind, two urgent whispers twined as one.

“Come—come to me—to me.”

The dual command rushed through his spirikai; with equal strength it repelled and compelled him.

“Bring to me—bring—the sweet blood—bring.” 

It summoned him like a drumbeat, like a great, tolling bell. It caressed him like a lover’s touch, and he yearned to respond. A muscle in his thigh tensed, about to move him forward.

With a deep chill, the vortex passed through him. It wound around the circle, then spun into the dark.

The vision cracked, splintered all around him, and he realized what he had almost done. Wask didn’t know who he was. It didn’t know his name. It had issued a general call, and he had almost left the circle to answer.

In petrified silence, the men holding the drum stared into the Riftwood, the instrument forgotten. The priestess held the torch high. The night rose up like a wall, and it squirmed with images his straining vision produced. There was no wind, but old leaves rustled. His arms erupted in pinpricks.

Parduka stood absolutely still. Then, staring fixedly at something just outside the torchlight, she backed away.

The fog stirred. A shadowed hump rose slowly, stretching up and up, until it reared over their heads. A hollow intake of air sucked at his cloak, as if into a cavern. He crouched to keep his balance as dead leaves and stones streamed toward it, followed by the sheep. It fell, kicked feebly, and its blood-soaked body disappeared into the maw of darkness. It left a long black smear. 

Under its length, the ground quivered. Antennae sprouted like obscene plants, followed by hundreds of shiny brown carapaces scrabbling out of the soil. The night shrilled with the sound of night-beetles.

As one, every person turned and fled.

He stumbled among them, the soaked edge of his cloak flapping against his pant legs, his hood falling back. A stiff wind sprang up, sending shreds of fog sailing through their midst. Two men snatched up the drum, which twisted wildly on its crosspiece as they ran. Hooded figures splashed into the Meera, a few running backward and holding out their wind-whipped torches like defensive swords. Men fought to stay close to a halo of torchlight, and those left behind cried out and redoubled their efforts. A man grabbed for another man’s torch, and it fell into the river and winked out. 

Sheft churned through the water, panic clawing at his back, the chittering of night-beetles and the howling of the wind rising like a black tide behind him. A man next to him slipped, windmilled his arms, and fell with a splash. Screaming, he fought his own cloak as it billowed around him. Sheft yanked the man to his feet. He glimpsed a long nose and wide, frightened eyes before the man pushed past him, almost knocking him down. Another man roiled by, moaning in fear.

An inimical gaze raked down Sheft’s back, but he dared not turn. He concentrated on the lights of the village, too far away, while the huge dark breathed down his neck. The warning clamored inside his head, mingling with the manic clattering of pebble-gourds tied to someone’s belt. He plowed on, dizzy with reaction, terrified of losing his balance, slowed by limbs numb with ice. 

Jerking his hood back over his head, he was among the last to stagger out of the river. The figures in front of him shouldered past each other, gasping for breath, their wet cloaks swirling in the wind. Glancing behind them, they rushed to their wagons or down the village street. Those who had lanterns held them high, but their lights soon disappeared as they drove or ran off, as fast as they could, to their homes. The farmer Greak barely waited long enough for his son Temo to swing onto their wagon. In a panic he whipped up the horse, and they careened off to their fieldhold to the north.

Sheft stood shivering by their wagon until one of the figures approached him, swung up onto the seat, and tossed back its hood. It was Tarn. His lips were white in the light of the lantern.

“It’s never been like this before,” he said in a strained voice. “Parduka is losing control.” 

With numb hands, Sheft pulled himself onto the seat and they rode off. The wind died down and soon the few lights of village were left behind. The wooden wheels creaked in the still, cold night. He realized that the cut on his arm was stinging fiercely and had been for quite some time.

From the cave of his hood, he looked out at a world completely different from what it had been only a short time ago. The mild weather of Acorn had slipped away, and Hawk gripped the valley. The fog was gone and the silent threat of frost hovered over the fields. Too many stars glared down, too close and glittering with sharp, crystalline points. On his right, the Riftwood kept pace with the wagon, like a constant stalking presence. 

The beauty around him, his intimations of Rulve, the love he’d felt in the tent—all these had led him down a naïve and childish path. He had believed creation was permeated by a divine presence, but now he saw the truth of it. Malice threaded through his world like a mold. Evil waited on one side of the Meera, evil on the other side sought to placate it, and evil from his own veins fed it.

He had crossed a forbidden river, and he himself was the bridge.

When they got home, Sheft toed off his damp shoes, threw his cloak on the chest, and headed toward the ladder to his loft.

“Sit down,” Tarn ordered. He removed his cloak and draped it over the back of the nodding chair. Riah, wearing a shawl over her winter nightgown, had waited up for them. She sat in the circle of light cast by the oil lantern on the table, where she’d been stripping leaves off a pile of thamar stems for tea.

Sheft had forgotten about the discussion Tarn wanted. Reluctantly, he crossed the room and lowered himself into his usual place on the floor near the hearth. It was banked for the night, with only a few coals glowering in the ashes.

Riah took one look at him. “Are you all right?” she asked in a low tone.

“No,” Tarn answered for him. “Nothing is all right with him. And this is the point of what I have to say.” He took seat and, ignoring Sheft, spoke only to Riah. “On my way home from Greak’s this afternoon, I stopped at the Council House. I wanted to learn more about the allegations against Sheft. Dorik, Pogreb, and Rom were there. It was not a pleasant conversation.” He sat on his chair by the hearth, pulled off his shoes, and flung them down. “I was informed if I did not keep my son under control, the elders could not answer for what the council might have to do. Pogreb even brought up that old matter of restoring the Rites.”

Sheft’s arm throbbed, his pant legs were still damp and cold, and ice-reaction filled his head with wool. “Father, this isn’t—”

Tarn went on as if he did not hear him. “Dorik reminded those present that two residents were needed to bring any formal charges to the council for investigation.”

“Formal charges? Did it come to that?”

Again he was ignored. “Pogreb suggested Voy and Gwin, but Rom was reluctant for the son of one elder to bring accusation against the son of another.”

“He didn’t want Gwin involved,” Riah said, “because no proof was involved either. Rom must be careful if he hopes to be Holdman one day.”

“At one time he would have entertained no such hopes,” Tarn retorted, “for I would have taken that position. But now it appears I cannot manage my own household, much less village affairs.”

“What were the actual charges?” Riah asked, leaning forward. “Or is everyone still dealing in rumors and gossip?”

“Dorik said five accusations were made, none formal—at this point. Three I had already heard: assault, public brawling, and accosting a woman.”

Although Etane and Moro had warned him, the list was still devastating. “But we went through all that,” Sheft said. “Father, I didn’t assault anyone. It was exactly the opposite. And Mariat herself said—”

“Another accusation was bribery.”

Bribery! Who in Ele’s name did they think he bribed? Suddenly he remembered the toll-taker. “But Father, I only—”

“There was a fifth allegation.”

Sheft took a breath, as if he were about to be submerged.

“Dorik said there was no proof as yet, and therefore no charges, but he had a duty to inform me.” Tarn’s whole visage hardened. “The attempted molestation of a child.”

Of a
child
? The words stunned him. What could he have possibly done to warrant—?

“I was told Sheft lured a small boy onto his lap, where he threatened him with a knife. Rom hinted you had done something even worse than that, but refused to talk about it.”

Worse? The charge of molestation was so monstrous that for a moment he couldn’t speak. “That’s not true!” he choked out. “There
was
a little boy—he wanted to learn how to carve wood—but I only—”

“I had to sit there,” Tarn said, “and hear from men I have known all my life, that my son—the first time he showed his face in another town—ran completely amok.” He cast an icy glance at Sheft. “If you had planned this for a dozen years, you couldn’t have done anything worse to my reputation.”

“It’s all lies!” he exclaimed. “How can you believe any one of them?”

“What I believe is not the problem. What the villagers believe is.” 

Riah slapped her hand on the table and stared at Tarn. “Those men would find any excuse to attack you. You should know that. You’ve been to Ullar-Sent and have seen the world. But these villagers are worse than dumb animals. They grub about in this little backwater, in this trash-heap of a town, and spew venom out of their ignorance. Why in God’s name do you listen?”

Tarn jerked his head toward her. “I listen because I must! This ‘trash-heap’ is my home. You may come from some fine realm in the north, but I live
here
. I was to become Holdman
here
. My dream was to drag this backwater out of darkness and into the light of law and justice. I listen because gossip and rumor have power, the power to ruin us. Every day we who believe in the light battle against those like Pogreb and Parduka, who would cast us into the darkness of ages past. That is why I listen!”

“But you’re listening to lies!” Sheft cried. “Father, none of those things are true.”

The minute the words left his mouth, he remembered exactly what had been itching at the back of his mind ever since the events in Miramakamen’s tent. He had protested that he was a farmer, and the son of a farmer, and the old man told him “none of those things are true.”

A sudden cold enveloped him.

Tarn sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Don’t call me that, Sheft. I was never your father, and you were never my son. I thought that would be plain to you by now.”

Sheft stared at him. Surely his father had spoken in anger, in terrible disappointment, using rash words meant only to hurt. He looked at Tarn’s lined face, but now it held no anger, only weariness. For a long moment, Sheft forgot to breathe.

Tarn shook his head. “I’m not surprised you never saw it. You always chose to remain aloof, to draw your strangeness about you like some distinctive cloak. You are too wrapped up in yourself to notice anyone or anything else.”

The words hit him like an icy wave. He had to swallow, hard, before he could speak. Even now his question seemed absurd. “Whose son am I?”

Tarn got up from his chair, and suddenly he seemed like a stiff old man. He went to the cupboard for a mug. “Explain it to him, Riah.”

“I? You have decided on this course, so now finish it. We agreed I would tell him when the time was right.”

“And when was that going to be? On your death-bed? It has already been too long.” He spooned thamar-leaves from the jar into the cup and poured hot water from the kettle into it. At first Sheft thought he would not answer his question, but then he turned.

“My first wife died, giving birth to a stillborn son.” The slight tremble in his lower lip lasted but a blink of an eye. “I did not want to live. My father urged me to forget the past, to travel to Ullar-Sent and learn the paper-craft there. So I went, but the city teemed with strangers, and I could find no healing for my grief. I petitioned Ul in the Great Temple, but received no answer.”

Tarn lowered himself into his chair, careful not to spill his tea. “Nevertheless, I persisted in my studies. Less than a year later, in the hall of the paper-crafters, I met a young foreign woman, a widow. She had been put into the care of the old scholar who taught us. At that time, she seemed very beautiful to me and in need of protection, for she had with her an infant boy, barely two months old. Riah told me she was the wife of—what was the man’s name?”

Riah gazed at the table. “Neal. His name was Neal.”

“This Neal,” Tarn continued, “was a ruler who lived far to the north. He was killed in some quarrel with his younger brother, who then took the holding as his own. When Riah was delivered of a son—who was, I suppose, the true heir—the brother and his faction sought to eliminate this danger to his succession. A few Neal loyalists filled a pouch with coins for Riah and helped her and her infant escape to a family friend in Ullar-Sent. This friend was the scholar who taught the paper-craft.”

His eyes on the past, Tarn sipped his tea. “I learned of Riah’s story and began to see her as the gift of Ul, the answer to my prayers. With a mother’s loving smile, she held up her son to me and proclaimed he was destined from birth to do great things. Even though the infant appeared sickly to me, and with those eyes of his perhaps even blind, I raised no dispute, for I hoped Riah would fill the gap in my heart. We became held-fast, and I brought her to my house. By then my father had passed on. Riah’s baby, however, did not thrive. He cried incessantly, and I was certain he would die.”

Tarn placed his cup on the small table beside his chair. “Caring for him seemed to impose an emotional burden on Riah. She changed; became anxious and distant. But the boy”—not a muscle moved in his face—“lived. As time went on, I began to realize that taking on a second family had not been a good idea.” 

He didn’t have to say why. The piss-head, the eel-eyes, had lived.

Tarn sighed and rubbed his eyes. “But the coins paid for the paper plants, the drying screens, and the glass panes in our windows. I learned a valuable lesson, which I used to the good in my deliberations with the council: never allow heart to rule instead of mind.”

Riah scooped the thamar leaves into the jar and quietly withdrew. Tarn arranged his shoes in front of the hearth, then he too crossed to their bedroom and closed the door.

Sheft squeezed his eyes shut and rested his forehead on his drawn-up knees. Nothing had really changed. His father—
Tarn
he corrected himself angrily—Tarn was still the same man. He would still react to him in the cold way he always had. Why shouldn’t he? He himself was still the same—still the foreigner, still accused, still hurting anyone who came too close.

He opened his eyes. Why was he lying to himself? Everything had changed. Who was he? Who was this Neal? Was it Neal’s ghostly voice he heard on the wind, calling him to vengeance? Was it Neal’s legacy he carried in his veins?

To answer these questions he must go—home. He must go back to where he had been born, to a place ruled by an uncle who murdered his brother, stole his holding, and tried to kill his own infant nephew. An uncle who might share his own dark blood.

In the north, he had a heritage. All he had to do was claim it.

Was this the great mission Miramakamen had predicted for him? Gather a band of hardened warriors loyal to him, equip them with swords and armor which Rom no doubt kept in the back of the smithy and would give to him at no cost, and ride off on a horse he did not possess to a holding somewhere in the north? There he would do battle with an ensconced ruler who’d probably engendered several heirs by now. These would be his cousins, and they would hate him. 

A bitter laugh rose up inside him, but soon trickled away. He had to go. Even if he went alone and on foot. He had to find out who he was and where he belonged. He’d promised Etane to help with the field-burn, but after that he’d be gone. Even though his leaving town would surely be seen as an admission of guilt, Tarn the council elder would be better off without him.

And he wouldn’t have to watch Mariat find happiness with someone else.

He heart lifted when he considered there might be a chance he could outrun the black mist and leave behind his blood’s curse. But the brief hope winked out; there was an equal chance he would only drag it with him.

He raised his head. The house he had lived in all his life now seemed alien, and the people who dwelled here he no longer knew.