Bloodsongs (36 page)

The rebel dropped to his knees, clutching desperately at the spurting hole in his breast. Then, he fell forward. A red spittle oozed from his mouth into the dirt.

Mercy?
she thought bitterly to herself.
If Kel has to die, then I have no mercy for his hirelings, either.

Telric stood over his lifeless opponent, examining a gash in his sleeve. “Just a scratch,” he announced, ripping the material away to show her. “I was careless.”

She forced a mirthless grin. “Nearly over, I think you said.”

But Telric had been right. The red cloaks fell on the few remaining mercenaries like starving wolves, riding them down, surrounding them, and hacking until the bodies hardly looked human. Seldom had she witnessed such savagery from trained soldiers.

Telric had spoken earlier of honor, and she had criticized him. The world was not generous to men with ideals. He had only to look and learn a lesson. When men fought men, honor was seldom involved.

The clamor of steel on steel faded. The battle shouts echoed away. There was no pounding of horses' hooves or hiss of arrows in the air. Only a grim and terrible moaning from the wounded or dying hung over the field. It, too, quickly diminished as Keled soldiers walked among the fallen, giving swift and final end to their enemies.

“The people of Keled-Zaram are avenged,” Riothamus declared as he rode up to her. He dropped from his mount and stood holding the reins. “We have you to thank for it.”

“Don't thank me,” she muttered. “Help me find Kel. I lost sight of him when the battle began.”

Riothamus gazed back over the carnage and rubbed his chin. “I'll help you,” he replied quietly, almost apologetically. “But it may not be easy. Some of my men have done their work too well.”

She knew what he meant. The body might not be recognizable. Her son could be lying dismembered, hewn apart by the overzealous Keleds. Or horses might have crushed him beneath their hooves, leaving little that resembled Kel.

Still, she had to know. She threw her arms around Ashur's neck and offered a silent prayer to her gods. Then she started across the field to walk among the dead.

Old memories rushed upon her of other times and other wars. The distinctive odor of blood crept into her nostrils. It mingled with the smells of men who had fouled themselves in their final moments. She stopped, her eye caught by something shiny on the ground. It was a jeweled medallion on a broken chain of fine gold. She bent, scooped it up, and handed it to Riothamus, who, along with Telric, followed her. “To the victor,” she said bitterly.

There was a sick feeling in her stomach. She had gotten out of this business long ago and thought never to return. Too much war had filled her younger days, and too many times she had wandered over fields like this one searching for her friends.

The faces were the worst. There were the hardened faces whose scars told of lifetimes in battle, old faces, and young faces of mere boys seeking a first taste of adventure. There was a shank of gray hair and a grizzled beard; there, a bare chin that never knew a razor. Blood stained them both.

But old or young, worldly wise or innocent as virgin children, every face bore the same expression. Fear-widened eyes, mouths frozen in twisted, soundless screams, skin already turned death pale.

Not one had expected to die. Not one had welcomed it. Death was a god that only claimed an enemy or a comrade. What man, soldier, farmer, or king had not convinced himself in his heart of hearts of his own immortality?

She winced at the upturned faces. Every one of them reflected the surprise and terror they had found on the point of a sword. She uttered another prayer to the god Orchos, who ruled the nine hells.
Let it be different with me
, she prayed. But she knew it would not.

Sarius came running up to join them, flushed and breathless with excitement. Blood splattered his finery, and blood dripped fresh from the sword he held. He rammed the blade's point into the earth and left it quivering while he flung his arms around his king. “We've beaten the bastards, every last one of them!” He pressed his lips to Riothamus's and hugged him again. “Now, we'll leave them to rot and their cursed bones to bleach as a warning to all would-be rebels.”

“You'll bury them or build them a pyre,” Frost said through clenched teeth. “Just as I did for the people of Soushane.”

Sarius looked disdainfully down his long nose. “That's enough out of you, bitch. Your usefulness is ended. There's a cell back in Kyr waiting for you.”

Telric's sword hissed from its sheath.

Riothamus put out a hand. “Hold, Rholarothan. Sarius still feels his blood racing and oversteps himself.” He pushed the young governor back a pace. Sarius looked outraged and started to speak, but his king gave him a light backhanded smack on the mouth and raised a threatening finger. Sarius pouted but held his tongue.

“We'll make a pyre for the dead,” Riothamus promised Frost. He gave the order to Sarius, who grudgingly carried it to the nearest red-cloaked officer. “There'll be no prison for you,” he said when his lover returned. “I think you've paid a higher price this day than any of us.”

“I haven't found my son yet.” She turned away from him and resumed her search, kicking the hilt of a broken sword aside with her toe.
Broken weapons
, she thought morosely,
broken lives
.

“Dark angels without wings,” she said aloud when Telric bent to pick up the hilt. He gazed at her, appearing to understand. He drew back and threw the bit of metal high and far. It sailed end over end, sparkling in the sunlight, then plummeted back to earth.

“I don't know how it happened,” she overheard Riothamus say to Telric as she bent to examine a body. The face was ruined, but a tuft of dark hair sprouted on the chest. Kel was smooth-chested. “When the charge began,” the king continued, “and the battle cry went up, it sounded like there were a thousand of us, and everywhere I looked there were red cloaks. Yet we were only two hundred and fifty!”

Telric looked appropriately grave but said nothing for a long moment. Then he rubbed at the scratch on his forearm. “This was your first taste of heavy fighting, wasn't it?” He waited for Riothamus to nod. “In all the confusion, perhaps it only
seemed
to you that your men were more numerous. You won because your men surprised and disoriented the rebels.” He paused and nodded toward Frost. “She's an excellent strategist.”

She could not even smile at how easily her friend lied. A deep conviction began to gnaw at her, though. “He's not here,” she announced with grim certainty. Still, she went from corpse to corpse.

Riothamus scoffed. “He must be here. Not one of them escaped.”

“I tell you, he's not here!” She picked up a sword that lay abandoned on the ground; both edges were notched and dulled. She spun around, her gaze scouring the field again. In her frustration she brought the flat of the blade down sharply on her knee. It made a brittle
snap
. She discarded the separate pieces angrily. “He must have had some spell,” she mumbled.

“You said he wouldn't have anything prepared,” Riothamus reminded her. “You said his sorceries took time to ready. He must be here!” For the first time he stooped to examine a body with his own hands. He rolled it over, gave it a cursory glance, and moved to yet another. A growing knot of desperation stole into his voice. “He must be here!”

“A small personal spell, maybe,” she continued as if she hadn't been interrupted. “Some charm that let him slip away.”

At that instant, a horrible din rose from the far western edge of the field. Every man stopped in his tracks and turned, staring toward the source of the shrieking, seized by an uncontrollable shivering.

Frost felt the blood in her veins turn to ice. She knew that frightful sound. She whirled, shielding her eyes from the setting sun, and gazed upon all her worst fears.

Kel sat upon his big black stallion. The sun glinted redly on the short length of metal in his clenched fist. There could be no doubt that it was the dagger, Demonfang. Nothing else on earth made such a hellish cry.

Across his saddlebow, Kel held a bound and squirming red cloak. He cradled the Keled's head in the crook of one elbow as if he were holding a baby. The man twisted and writhed to no avail in the sorcerer's unyielding grip.

The dagger's shrieking strained to a wilder pitch. Even over such a distance it seemed to fill the air with its abominable hunger. Frost felt its power like a potent vibration that crawled on her flesh, that burrowed into her mind.

Still Kel waited, as if to be sure that everyone saw and knew who it was that mocked them. The red cloaks had drawn first blood in this battle; he would draw the last. He raised the dagger high above his head. The sun's glow touched the metal, and it shimmered like a short, scarlet flame.

Demonfang flashed downward, sinking to the hilt in the Keled's chest. The shrieking paused as hell yawned to receive another soul; then the dead man's mouth opened, and those same shriveling screams issued again.

Frost shut her eyes and counted her heartbeats until the dreadful chorus ended. When she opened them once more she could barely see through a red film of hatred.

Kel pulled Demonfang free and sheathed it. Casually, he lifted one leg and dumped the murdered soldier in the dirt. With limitless gall he held up a saddlebag for them to see.

She could almost hear his laughter as he turned the stallion and rode into the narrow strip of forest toward the Lythe River and Esgaria. It required no witchcraft to tell her what was in that saddlebag. He had wanted her to know; he had meant to taunt her.

Kel had his Three Aspects at last. One from Soushane, one from the well at Dakariar, and one from the Plain of Kings. He had seized them and made them his despite all her efforts to stop him.

Now, he would carry them to Esgaria and lay them at the feet of the sorceress Oroladian.

But I'll still come for you.
She sent the thought flying on a burst of magic and drove it forcefully into her son's heart. Even as he plunged into the Lythe's waters she felt him stiffen at her touch.
I'll come for you both!

She ran for Ashur, intent on following her son. But heedless of the bodies and the debris that littered the field, she tripped and fell flat on her face. Dust filled her mouth, and she stared into a dead man's eyes.

 

 

 

Chapter Sixteen

 

The wind rose sharply as the sun drifted from the sky. The trees shook, and the leaves rustled. The normally placid surface of the Lythe rippled with tiny, dancing white-caps. On the banks the grasses shivered.

A thick brown smoke churned among the branches, held down by the wind, unable to escape into the higher reaches of the air. It bore a nauseous tang that clung to everything it touched as it roiled up from the massive funeral pyre.

Frost brushed away the strands of hair that whipped at her face. The clear hoofprints on the soft earth led straight into the river, pointing the direction Kel had taken. She sucked her lower lip and stared across the Lythe into Esgaria.

A flock of cawing birds flew overhead. They wheeled slowly, gracefully, toward the sunset. She listened until their cries and honkings faded in the distance.

Did the gods send her a sign? Would they lead her to Kel if she followed them? Or had chance alone sent them flying into her homeland?

“An omen?” Telric said, displaying that uncomfortable talent he seemed to have for knowing her thoughts. He pointed the way the birds had flown.

She shrugged and looked back over her shoulder. The trees were too thick to see the field. She should at least say good-bye to Riothamus. Oddly, she felt as if some bond of friendship had been forged between them. But there was no time, and the king and his men were working hard at a sorry task, piling bodies on the pyre they had built on the very ruins of Kel's tower.

Sarius would think she had deserted or fled for fear of her life. Riothamus, though, would know where she had gone. He would understand.

She nudged Ashur's flanks with her heels. The unicorn started into the river. The water swirled about his legs, around her boots. The bottom fell away suddenly, and she submerged nearly to her chest. With a muscular lurch, Ashur began to swim.

An abrupt splash alerted her that Telric had decided to follow. He had said little since Kel's escape, and she had made no effort to breach his silence. There seemed little need for words.

The river chilled her. The strong midstream current threatened to sweep her from the saddle. She wrapped her legs around the unicorn and stubbornly gripped the saddlebow. These waters had almost claimed her life once; she wouldn't give them a second chance.

Ashur's hooves found purchase on the muddy floor. He scrambled up the side of the bank and tossed his soaking mane. She yelped and tried to shield her eyes from the cold spray.

“I'll get you for that,” she swore in a low voice.

“For what?” Telric pulled up beside her. Without warning, his horse also shook itself, and she was showered a second time. Telric laughed as she wiped her chin. Droplets rolled down his face and into the beard that had begun to grow on his chin. “For that?” He laughed again.

She had to admit it was a good sound.

Then, an awful quiet filled her. Her very soul seemed to stir and tremble in her body. She gazed around at the trees, the deepening blue of the sky, the shadows that surrounded her.

She was home.

“I've found his tracks,” Telric said roughly. The leather of his saddle creaked as he leaned over to study the markings on the ground. “I said I've got—“

“It doesn't matter,” she answered softly. The wind died, and an odd hush settled over the forest. She was reluctant to disturb it.

But Telric had no such compunction. His voice was harsh and jarring in the stillness. “What do you mean?” He pointed. “Look, he's gone this way.”