Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (111 page)

Sorrow nipped at him, and he began to weep, but he struggled against it. He rubbed his face hard with the back of a hand, obliterating the tears. He knew where weeping would lead. He had to keep walking without looking back.

Ai, God. The innocent boy dreaming in Osna village would have given anything to march among the Lions, bent eastward toward adventure and the glory of righteous war.

Ai, God. That innocent boy
had
given everything: the only home and family he knew, the only woman he loved, the father who had loved him and died at peace because he had given everything he had into the hands of the heir he trusted.

All in ruins.

He sank to his knees, had to support himself on the ground with his spear fallen to the track beside him as he fought against the sobs that welled up in his chest. He could not weep. He must not weep. But he was drowning, swimming in grief, lost as the waves swamped him. Bodies jostled against him as though to lift him out of the tide
as he looks over the shoulder of Namms Dale's new chieftain. There were few sons of the old chief left to choose from, after the conflagration visited upon Namms Dale by Nokvi, but Stronghand has been patient in gathering up a stray ship here and a pack of warriors there. Now one of Namms Dale's surviving children has risen to take the staff of leadership. He has given himself the name Grimstroke and, like Bloodheart, he has chosen to observe the death magic ceremony.

Like Bloodheart, he has called his underlings together to witness his ceremony, to give notice that he does not fear death and treachery because treachery will rebound with greater force upon any person who dares to assassinate him.

But in truth, only one who fears death and doubts his own strength resorts to the death magic spell. Bloodheart revenged himself in this way upon the man who brought about his death. But the curse is a sign of weakness, not of strength. Bloodheart, after all, is still dead.

Stronghand watches as Grimstroke extrudes a claw and unhooks a tiny jar carved out of granite. Only stone can contain the venom of the ice-wyrms. The delicate granite lid falls back,
and at once Hakonin 's hall is permeated with the scent of the only death a RockChild fears. Only a single grain of silvery venom lies in the jar, but it alone is enough poison.

The Namms Dale priest shakes a rattle and tosses a handful of herbs into the air. The herbs drift down onto the altar where corpse and jar lie side by side. The dead hatchling is no bigger than a man's hand, and as white as roe. One pinch of a claw would slice it in half. It reeks of salt and seawater.

Only through killing does a hatchling become a RockChild instead of remaining forever a dog. In each nest, some of the blind hatchlings turn upon the others while most merely escape to live their short lives in the dog pack, the unthinking brothers of those who walk and plan. It is mind that separates a son from a dog, thinking that makes one a person and another simply a beast. In the nests of the Mothers, it is that first blind, groping kill that makes a mind flower.

And when the nests burst open and the hatchlings stumble out, corpses remain behind, caught in the ragged membrane. They soak there in brine, untended, unobserved, undecayed
—

—
unless a new chieftain fears death enough to risk the trek to the lair of the ice-wyrms, so that he can weave the death magic: the dead hand that will stalk the one who killed him and bring about the murderer's death as recompense, a death for a death.

The priest lights incense, and the scent of it is so sweet that it stings, but it does not vanquish the smell of the grain of venom. With pincers forged of iron, Grimstroke lifts the grain from the jar and gently deposits it into the gaping, unformed mouth of the tiny corpse.

There is silence in the hall as Grimstroke's underlings wait and watch. But there are other chieftains in the hall, from other tribes, whom Stronghand has called together to witness the rebirth of the Namms Dale chieftainship. It is his way of overturning Nokvi's victory, of calling notice that he, Stronghand, will say who lives and who dies, who will flower and who will merely bark at his heels like a dog. Yet he needs these same allies to defeat Nokvi. And they need him. Alone, they will be sucked one by one into Nokvi's jaws to become puppets dancing to the tune of human magic. They all know what transpired when Rikin's tribe raided Moerin, that the Alban sorcerers ensorcelled their own human brothers to charge as berserkers into a battle they could not win. Perhaps some even hoped Stronghand would die there, caught in Nokvi's trap, but he did not. They know now that Nokvi's alliance with the Alban tree sorcerers threatens them all, and that they have no protection against Nokvi 's magic unless they join with Rikin.

The dead hatchling shows no change as the venom dissolves into its lifeless body.

"You carry the curse," says Grimstroke suddenly, claw still extruded, a lingering threat or something simply forgotten.

"I do not," says Stronghand, and he pitches his voice so that it carries to all of the gathered chieftains: eight tribes have sent representatives, have come, as the humans say, when he called. He is not sure it will be enough.

"I do not carry the curse," he repeats. "I did not weave the death magic spell when I took Rikin's standard for my own hand. Any of my rivals who is strong enough and cunning enough to kill me is welcome to his victory."

Grimstroke laughs. He is beholden to Stronghand for his chieftainship, and because he knows it and resents it, his gratitude, like old fish, stinks a little. " will gladly walk behind you until your shoulders bow under the weight of your arrogance. Then I'll kill you and take your place. "

Stronghand grins, baring his teeth as humans do to show fellow-feeling. "Then we understand each other," he says, although the words are meant for all of them.

The priest croaks out a garbled phrase and shrinks back from the altar. Like all priests, who prolong their lives by unnatural means, he fears anything that smells of death.

The chest of keeping is brought and opened beside the dead-white hatchling that still lies limp on the altar. The late summer sun spills in through the western doorway, pouring light down the central aisle and veining the dark wood altar with its amber glow.

The little corpse shudders, stirs, and comes to life, out of death, for that is the other legacy of the ice-wyrm 's venom, that it can bring life out of death or death out of life, the horror that is both and neither.

Priest-words are spoken that seal it, the dead hand, to the life of its killer, and Grimstroke claps shut the lid and shuts the corpse inside the box that will hold it now and until he dies.

Alain screamed, trapped in darkness.

But it wasn't his voice he heard.

He heard the scream again, a shriek, a frantic call for help. A horn stuttered, wavered, and sputtered out. From the camp, he heard answering shouts made faint by a wind rushing in his ears like a tempest, and as he came fully to himself he found himself kneeling on the ground, braced on his hands. Water gurgled past his fingers, and as he stared at the water, he realized that he had shifted forward during his lapse until his hands fetched up in the stream, pressing against the moss-covered stone track.

The stream was running the wrong way.

Sandaled feet stopped in mid-stream right in front of him. From this vantage, all Alain could see was leather winding up muscular calves. An obsidian spearpoint slid into view, drifting in front of his nose. Although there was no moon, there was light enough to see clearly the man standing before him: as Alain looked up from calf to thigh to a torso fitted with a cuirass ornamented with strange, curling beasts, he knew with a chill that it was no
man.

A white half cloak was clasped at the figure's shoulders.

He looked up into a beardless face more bronze than pale, with deep, old eyes under a sweep of black hair tied up in a topknot and adorned with an owl feather. The spearpoint remained fixed before Alain's nose.

At this instant, Alain became aware of two things: the tense murmur of men gathering to fight in the brush behind him, and the silence of the hounds, who sat alert but unmoving at his feet.

"I do not kill you only because the sacred ones attend you," said the prince. Alain recognized him now, but it was not at all clear that this prince of a lost people recognized Alain. "Move off the road. Let us pass."

From behind, Alain heard Thiadbold's strong voice. "Roll away, Alain, and we'll loose a volley. There are more behind him, a host of them. My God."

Was it starlight alone that lit them, or an unnatural light that flowed with them like witchfire? Cautiously, Alain straightened until he knelt, upright, before the prince. His knees pressed hard into paving stone. Behind the prince, the procession trailed off down the path into the forest, a host he could not count because he could not see them all. They all had that wonderful, disturbing consistency to them, more shade than real and yet real enough. Their weapons looked as deadly as his own spear, which lay as a dark spar in the grass. They looked deadly enough to kill, these shades, bows and spears held ready by grim-faced soldiers, both female and male and yet manifestly not human men and women. Light rose from them in the same way that steam rises from a boiling pot. The old track gleamed as well, a silvery thread piercing the land east to west.

"What are you?" asked Alain. "Are you Dariyan?"

"I know not this tribe," answered the prince. "Stand aside."

"If we stand aside, will you go on your way without harming us?" asked Alain, not moving from the path.

"Let us shoot, Alain! Move aside!" cried Captain Thiadbold, and by the stillness of the prince's face and the unblinking regard of those soldiers closest to him, Alain realized that the prince and his followers could not hear Thiadbold's voice.

"Nay, Captain," said Alain. "Let them pass in peace. Their fight is not with us."

"Are there others with you?" demanded the prince.

A shade-woman crowding behind the prince hissed, raised her bow, and drew down on something behind Alain's head just as he heard grass rustle behind him and Thiadbold's voice, much closer now. "They're spread thin," said the captain. "Use cover to give you room to shoot."

"I'm standing up," said Alain, and with infinite care he did so, moving as slowly as he could to make sure no one would be startled. He was careful to keep his feet on the old track. "I beg you, Captain Thiadbold. Call your men back. Let them pass in peace. They have no quarrel with us." He lifted a hand, palm up and open in the sign of peace. "Where is Liathano, my lord prince?"

"She is walking the spheres," said the prince, eyes widening with elegant astonishment. "How is it you know of her? Yet there is something familiar about you—

"Go on your way in peace, I pray you," said Alain. "I swear on my God, the Two who dwell in Unity. Swear on your own god, and we will step back. We will not molest you. There is no war between us."

The shade-woman standing behind the prince spat on the ground. "There is always war between us!"

"Nay, be not impatient," said the prince, setting his spear haft down on the path. "We have our own troubles. This
ijkia 'pe
tells the truth. They are fully of the world. We need not fight them."

"Not now," said the woman, "but if the tide washes us back to shore, then it is better if there are less of them."

"Nay. reckless one. Or have you forgotten the army of
shana-ret'zeri
which pursues us?" He lifted his spear and shook it. Bells, tied to the base, rang softly. "So be it,
ijkia'pe.
I swear by He-Who-Burns that as long as you touch no one of us, we will touch no one of you. But I will stand here beside you while my people pass, and my spear will pierce your heart if you have lied to me."

Alain stepped back from the path. "So be it. Captain Thiadbold, I pray you, tell the men to stand down. Let these people pass, and there will be no fighting."

A woman's voice, very human, spoke. He thought it might be that of the blonde Eagle who rode with them. "Listen to him, comrade. I think he sees more than we do."

"Stand down," said Thiadbold. "Let no man attack, by my order."

The command passed down through the gathered Lions, an echo of the whisper of the shadowy procession as it moved on. The prince stood aside to wait beside Alain, although he kept his feet upon the stones, and now the shade-woman led the way, striding forward with her bow taut before her. She, too, wore a cuirass of gleaming bronze, but she had no sword, only an ugly obsidian dagger strapped to her thigh.

"God have mercy," swore Thiadbold. By the sound of his voice, he seemed to be standing a few steps behind Alain. "I've never seen a woman that beautiful. I'd die happy if she plunged her dagger into my heart at the moment of release."