Iron Axe (22 page)

“I . . .” Talfi concentrated, though he kept his distance from Danr. If he noticed the orcs beyond the firelight, he gave no sign of it. “I don't remember anything.”

Talfi's memory. He already had no idea what his life had been before he arrived in Skyford. Now something had happened—

—
he died, you idiot—

—that took away the rest of it. Danr realized his mouth was hanging open. He shut it. “Do you remember me? Grandmother Bund? The trolls? Orvandel the fletcher? Your foster brother, Almer?”

“No,” Talfi said. “Nothing.”

“Talfi.” Aisa entered the circle. “My name is Aisa. The magic that brought us here took your leg off. I tended you. Does this sound familiar?”

“No. Why are you all wrapped up? Is it winter?”

“You know what seasons are, and how to speak, and how to walk,” Aisa said. “And you remember how to swear by the Nine. But you remember nothing about your own past.”

“Not a thing. I suppose we're friends?”

At last relief rushed over Danr. Unable to help himself, he ran forward and crushed Talfi in an embrace. Talfi lived and breathed, and Danr wasn't going to let that go. But Talfi struggled within Danr's arms and made muffled cries for help until Danr set him down again.

“Sorry,” Danr said. “It's just . . . Vik, you were my best friend and you were
dead.
You have to make at least one allowance.”

Talfi blinked at him. “I was dead?”

“That orc there, the one who is trying to appear more brave than he is, only recently chopped off your head,” Aisa said. “I watched it roll across the ground.”

“Pardon?” said Hess from outside the circle.

“My head?” Talfi touched his head as if it might come off. “Orcs?”

It finally occurred to Danr to look at Talfi with his left eye only. It hadn't come to him to try it since he'd arrived in Skyford as a truth-teller. He shut his right eye—

—and Talfi vanished. Danr could see the ground and the fire right through the spot where he should be standing. Of Talfi himself there was no sign. Astonished, Danr opened both eyes. Talfi reappeared. Danr reached out to touch Talfi, but he ducked away.

“What's wrong with you?” he demanded. Danr backed up again, and a certain tension invaded the circle. He traded glances with Aisa, confused and upset, but also strangely thrilled. What should they do?

Kalessa raised her sword into the air. “The human warrior has conquered death! Celebrate his victory!”

And the orcs cheered.

*   *   *

The party went on until dawn. The orcs summoned up more drums, drink, a great deal of shouting, and a sinuous dance formed from the line of orcs that wound endlessly around the camp with Talfi at its head. Talfi accepted everything with a bemused sort of cheer that Danr recognized as his usual nature. That fascinated Danr in a grim sort of way. Talfi had no memory of his life before Hess killed him, but his personality remained the same, and how did that happen? Wasn't a person the sum of his memories?

But Talfi was a bundle of mysteries, one that Danr had been too busy to examine closely. He had told Danr that he had no memories before his time with Orvandel the fletcher. Now it seemed he couldn't even remember how to die.

Huh. Interesting way to think of it. Was Talfi's resurrection related to his memory loss? Or did it have something to
do with Death being chained up? Or both? He wanted to ask Aisa about it, but she was talking to Kalessa near the fire amid a pile of food and drink, and Kalessa wasn't letting anyone get close during their “sister time.”

In the meantime, the orcs continually asked Danr himself to relate the story of Talfi's death and resurrection between congratulations and back-poundings for winning his battle with Hess. They didn't seem to care in the slightest whether he was human or troll, Stane or Kin, and that was a strangely warm feeling, indeed it was, and now that Talfi wasn't dead after all, Danr's earlier mistrust and dislike for them was fading.

Surrounding the orcs was a great fence of wyrms. They tangled themselves into an enormous barrier that wove all the way around the camp. It was like watching a living version of certain carvings the Kin put on cups or tables, carvings of branches or serpents that wound around each other with no beginning or end. Danr wondered what would happen if anyone or anything tried to breach that fence.

Overhead near the waxing half-moon, the two stars that made up Urko were still drifting together. They were twenty-five days apart now. Twenty-four, if you didn't count today. Had Death known Danr would ask Grandmother Bund to Twist him to Xaron? Perhaps Death and Bund were talking about it right now. The thought made Danr reach for more drink.

After a couple of hours, he found himself drooping at one of the smaller fires with his stomach full and his head a little muzzy from the strange-tasting orcish ale. Unexpectedly, Aisa dropped down next to him.

“You look tired,” she said. “Hess has a tent near his for you and Talfi to share. If you don't mind sleeping next to a
regi
, that is.”

Danr sighed. “Not now, Aisa.”

“The truth-teller has a difficult time seeing the truth within
himself,” she observed. “Have you ever looked at yourself with that new vision of yours?”

“I said not—no,” he said, interrupting himself as the truth forced itself out of him.

“Did you look at Talfi when he came back? It might tell us something of how he did it or why it happened.”

“I did.” Danr realized that, tired or not, he was hungry to talk about it to someone. Around them, the celebration was winding down. The drums had stopped. Orcs were drifting off to their tents alone or in groups, their children long since asleep. Some curled up near the fires, content to drop off with the wyrms on guard.

“And what did you see?”

“Nothing at all. It was like he wasn't there.” Danr shook his head. “I don't understand a thing. Maybe we should ask Death about it.”

“Ha!” Aisa put a hand to her scarved mouth. “I suppose she might know the answer. And she wasn't at all frightening. Though I wonder if she appeared to us in a kindly aspect so we would help her.”

“It would be difficult to help a skeleton dressed in black,” Danr agreed, “especially if it waved a scythe at me.”

“Everything has happened so quickly,” she mused. “You stepped in when White Halli attacked me and set all this into motion. We both ran to the trolls and met your Stane family, and then your grandmother sent us to see the Three, and—what is it? What is wrong?”

He didn't want to answer right away, but her question tore the truth out of him. “My grandmother is dead,” he choked. “The spell that Twisted us here killed her. My left eye saw it coming. It's the monster's fault she died.”

“Oh.” She touched his arm. Like a friend and not a lover.

That made him ache again, and for a moment he saw himself with her, sharing a table in a long house together,
milking cows together, tending hearth and heart together. Sharing bodies together. His groin tightened a little, and he became uncomfortable.

“I'm so sorry, my strong one. I liked her, and it is unfair that she died so soon after you met her.”

“Thank you.” He sighed heavily. “I don't know why I'm so upset. I barely knew her. Vik, I barely knew the trolls. They abandoned me to the humans. Why should I care?”

“They are your past,” Aisa said. “Even if you did not know them. It was not their fault they were not part of your life, after all. The Stane were unable to come down the mountain. Your mother could have taken you up to see them, I suppose, but she never did. Perhaps it was a mistake for her to keep you away from—”

“My mother did the best she could,” Danr shot back with unexpected heat. “Everyone hated her because she told the truth and because she had me for a son. It wasn't her fault.”

“Yes, of course,” Aisa said. “I only meant—”

“I know what you meant,” he snapped. “You're very clear.”

Strain hung in the air between them like smoke. Danr knew he was tired, knew the drink and his tangled emotions pushed him into a snappish mood. He should apologize and say good night, but the monster inside wouldn't let him speak. Instead he stared at the fire, half hoping Talfi or one of the orcs would come by and say something to break the tension.

“Hamzu,” Aisa said suddenly, “have you looked at
me
with your true eye?”

Damn it. “Yes,” he was forced to answer.

She looked taken aback, and Danr's face burned. Now that she had asked him, he understood how she might see it—an invasion of her privacy, a way for someone else to burrow through the protective scarves she wrapped around herself. The tension grew tighter, like a net around a great fish.

Aisa pulled her rags closer. Her voice grew both soft and hard. “Why did you do this?”

Danr didn't want to answer this, either, but the words came. “I wanted to know what I would see.”

“And what—”

“No!” Danr snapped up a hand to interrupt her. “Just no. You're going to ask what I saw. But, Aisa—the truth always comes out bad. Don't ask for it. Truth hurts.”

“But still you
looked
at me,” Aisa said. “Why do you think I wrap myself up, Hamzu?”

The words shot out of Danr like wasps from a hive. “Everyone knows it's to hide the bruises from Farek's rape and Frida's beatings, and because you're always cold.”

“So I am,” Aisa said in a flat voice. “Your country freezes me. But it is also because
this
”—she gestured at herself—“is all I have that belongs to me alone.
This
is the only thing I have that no one can see.”

And he had violated it. He hadn't seen her body, but he had touched something much deeper than simple flesh. A sick feeling slid over him, mingling with the tension. But why should
he
be unhappy? Aisa had asked, and he had answered. It shouldn't be his fault that she asked for truth and beca me upset about the answer.

“My mother was right,” he said. “No one likes the truth.”

“It is not your place to decide if I will like the truth or not!” Aisa shot back. “It is wrong of you to keep these things from me. I am no longer a slave or a toy.”

“And I'm not a troll's bastard to be kicked around, and insulted, and yanked from one end of the world to the other,” Danr snarled. “I'm not your personal prophet who's forced to cough up answers when you demand them.”

Aisa stared hard at him. “What. Did. You. See?”

And Danr had to answer. “Hunger. You want the elves in the worst way. You're afraid that if one stood here right now,
you'd fall into his arms and weep for joy. I saw pain. You relive what Farek did to you at night and now you can't fully trust a man in the day. Not even me. I saw fear. You're afraid of me. You hope no man will ever touch you like a woman again. Not even me.”

“Do you
want
to touch me that way?” Her words came out in a harsh whisper. “Do you want me in your bed?”

Now Danr fought. He clamped his mouth shut. He chewed his lips until salty blood flowed across his tongue. But truth pricked behind his eyes and pushed forward. He tried to scramble to his feet to run away, but the answer burst out before he could manage it.

“Yes,” he gasped. “Just a moment ago I was thinking how I wanted you in my bed.”

And then Aisa was gone, leaving an empty hole next to him at the fire. Danr slumped into himself and stared into the flames. His stomach was cold. Shit. Why did she have to ask him that? Why couldn't she have asked him something else, like how he felt about her or
why
he wanted her in his bed?

“Because I never stop thinking about you,” he whispered to the dying fire.

But no—just like everyone else, she had to ask the foolish question, the one that got a bald-faced, painful answer, and like everyone else, she blamed Danr for what she herself had asked to hear.

Maybe he should run after and explain. She knew he couldn't lie. But even now his face burned with anger and shame. She had forced him to speak, pulled words out of him when she had known he wanted to remain silent. He felt violated and sick, as if icy Halza herself had run her hands over his soul.

And Aisa had said his mother had made a mistake in not bringing him to see the Stane. Aisa had no idea. Having a troll for a son had destroyed his mother's hope for a normal
life, and being a truth-teller on top of it had only made things worse. Vik's balls, if Danr hadn't been born, she might have found a husband and lived her life in a warm house with human children on a prosperous farm. Instead she was doomed to cough her lungs out with animals in a stable. And Aisa claimed it was her fault for not taking Danr to see the other Stane?

He cut his eyes toward her. She was talking to Kalessa again with her back pointedly toward him. Well, fine. She could go off with her new blood sister, or whatever it was the orcs called it.

Talfi had forgotten him. Aisa spoke against his mother and all but called him a rapist. The victory he had felt earlier that day was burning to ash at his feet along with the fire.

“Ah! Here you are!” Hess hauled Danr to his feet despite the height difference between them. “I have sent night riders ahead of us to summon the other nests to a Council of Wyrms. It is a journey of nearly two weeks to the meeting place.”

“Two weeks?”

“The wyrms are quick,” Hess said, “but the herds slow us down.”

“Herds,” Danr repeated. He was tired and upset, and he was finding it hard to follow everything now, but he didn't feel he should say so.

“Herds, yes. The plains don't provide enough to feed ourselves and these ravenous beasts both.” Hess gestured at the wyrm fence. “We rushed down here when we saw the wyrm smoke and left the herds behind with our herders, but tomorrow we will catch them up and leave for the council.”