Northlight (27 page)

“Terricel sen'Laurea.”

“A scholar in our midst?”

“What do you know about us? You're — ”

“A
norther?
A gross, uneducated, bloodthirsty norther?” Jakon lifted his face and the light fell full on his ice-blue eyes. “It is not
we
who are ignorant of our neighbors.”

He paused, then said with sudden passion, “What is the matter with you people? Haven't you got enough troubles of your own without dragging them up here? Unless you're not quite as innocent as you seem. Unless the Butcher of Brassaford now sends children to spy on us — ”

“We weren't spying!”

“You weren't? Then what exactly
were
you doing?”

Terris pressed his lips together, as if the truth might spring out, all on its own. No norther, especially one who referred to Montborne as the
Butcher of Brassaford,
was going to help him find a missing sister, a missing
Ranger
sister. And if somehow he let it slip that he was Esmelda's son — who knew what use this Jakon might make of that? While he was wondering what to say, here was Jakon, watching him with the intensity of a hungry viper.

He can watch me all he likes, for all the good it'll do him! He's no better than a playground bully. I've met enough of those in my time, wanting to see how tough Esme's son really was. But he's got limitations like all of us. He can't read my mind — and he can't get anything from me unless I choose to tell him.

The center of the long-house seemed to stretch out in back of him, a vast, unnaturally quiet space like the belly of a giant beast that held him in its jaws, caught but not yet swallowed. Terris's muscles tensed and his pulse quickened. His palms, held together by the leather thongs, felt cold and slippery.

Deliberately, he shut out all awareness of where he was and what might be about to happen to him. Turning his focus inward, he imagined he was back in the Starhall, at its very center, with the worst of the stomach-twisting
wrongness
flooding over him. Then, as if the years of discipline had hardened into an instinctive reflex, his breathing slowed and his pulse returned to normal. His muscles softened, although he stayed balanced on his feet. He stopped sweating. His face settled into an impassive mask.

“All right,” said Jakon. His voice, although still soft, took on new, chilling undertones. “You can tell me now, or you can tell me later. But, my friend, I promise...you
will
...”

Behind him Terris heard approaching footsteps, the soft-soled boots worn by the northers. Jakon was no longer looking at him, but beyond him. For a flickering second, the norther's eyes narrowed and the muscles of his jaw stood out, hard and taut.

Terris turned to see Kardith between two tall northers, each with a firm hold on her arm. Her hands were tied in front of her and her boots were missing, but she didn't seem to be hurt.

But Kardith was a Ranger. She'd patrolled these borders for years. Who knew how many northers she'd killed or what they'd do to her now? What special kind of revenge would they devise, just for her? And there was that spark of recognition on Jakon's face, that surge of emotion, quickly masked. Terris didn't know what it meant, but his mouth went dry.

Slowly Jakon got up from the drum stool and walked over to Kardith. They were of a height, as he wasn't tall, but his shoulders were heavier and more powerful, his hips leaner. Her face, framed by her ragged curls, looked dusky next to his. She stared back at him steadily.

Without taking his eyes from hers, Jakon slid the dagger from his belt and brought it to the base of her throat, the cup of soft flesh where her collarbones and breastbone met.

Terris's hands curled unconsciously into fists. His heartbeat quickened and yet he couldn't look away. Kardith was moments away from dying, and he could do nothing, nothing but watch. An image rose up behind his eyes, so powerful and vivid that for a moment it wiped out his normal sight. He saw Kardith pivot, a sharp spiraling movement that jerked one of her guards off balance. She jabbed her opposite elbow into the other's solar plexus and he buckled over, gasping. The next moment her arms were free, the dagger in her still-tied hands, the point speeding toward Jakon's heart...

But no, Kardith did none of this. She continued to stand absolutely still, even her eyes. Yet there was something in the way she met the dagger that was not courage. Not courage or bravado but simply that she had no fear of anything Jakon, or any norther, could do to her. She didn't even flinch as a trickle of blood ran down her chest and soaked into the cloth of her shirt.

One drop, two, three...four.

Jakon lifted the dagger tip in a salute and resheathed it. He glanced from Kardith to Terris. “Is this cub under your protection?”

For a moment Kardith hesitated, surprised by the question perhaps, or puzzled. Then she shook her head.

No?
Terris wondered, startled.

“No?” Jakon repeated aloud. “I may be nothing but a ‘norther barbarian,' but I'm not entirely lacking in wits. Do you expect me to believe you're under
his
protection? Or that he made it here from Laureal City on his own? Or that it's sheer whimsy — or misguided chance — that puts a herdsman, a scholar and the best knife-fighter in all of Harth, together on my borders?”

“Believe whatever you like,” she said coolly. “You will, anyway.”

Jakon went back to the drum stool but did not sit down. He stood looking out of the nearest slit window. Silence settled like a cloak around him.

He knows it's useless to threaten her. He's wondering if he can get her to talk by torturing me.

Terris had no particular illusions about his ability to withstand physical pain. What he'd thought of as agony along the trail would quickly pale beside what these northers would do to him. All the tricks of self-control he'd learned in the Starhall would collapse like a house of dried leaves. In a few hours he'd be screaming his guts out, willing to do or say anything to make them stop, begging Kardith to tell them whatever they wanted to know.

And she wouldn't, no matter how he pleaded, no matter what they did to him. Of that he was absolutely certain.

Sounds filtered in through the slit windows of the long-house — muted noises from the encampment on the shore, the fir branches rustling in the wind, the slapping of the lake waters. Jakon sat silent and unmoving on his drum stool. It seemed to Terris that he was measuring each weakness of his captives, weighing each strategic possibility.

One of the norther guards brought Etch through one of the side doors. He held Etch's uninjured arm bent back, the joints locked, yet the leverage seemed more supportive than restraining.

Terris was stunned at how desperately sick Etch looked. He'd known Etch wasn't doing well, but he hadn't realized how badly. On the trail, they hadn't been able to exchange more than a few silent glances. Etch must have hidden any sign that his wound was infected, fearing the northers would kill him right then, rather than risk him slowing them down. The skin around his mouth was dull gray, his eyes strained and glassy. His beard had started to come in and it covered his lower face like a shadow. He swayed on his feet.

The first-aid kit Annelys had packed contained antibiotics, if only Terris could get to them. He remembered how Etch had fought for the gray mare's life, his fervor and then his gentleness with Kardith the next morning.

To them he's just another souther to be gotten out of the way. What do they care if he's a decent man or a criminal? But if they kill him — or let him die — it will be my fault. Mine. He's here, hurt and a prisoner, because of me.

The northers didn't give away anything, but they might be willing to bargain. What did he have to offer in trade for Etch's life?

Just then, the norther who'd led the party that took them prisoner entered the room and bent to whisper something to his chief.

Jakon's face darkened as he listened. Watching the subtle shift of tension, Terris's mouth went dry and his spine stiffened as if he'd been stabbed by slivers of ice.

“In his pack?” Jakon said. “A
what?
No, no...you were right to tell me...too important to wait...I'll see it now.”

There was only one thing Terris or any of them carried that was too important to wait. The one thing that would instantly end any pretense of innocence. The one thing Terris should have thrown away, melted down, buried deep as a grave rather than risk it falling into norther hands.

And there it was, on the carpet in front of Jakon, the lacings that bound its wrappings now being untied, the soft leather now slowly unrolled.

Against all reason, against all his efforts to resist them, tears rose to Terris's eyes, bitter tears of shame. Shame that such a thing should come from Laurea, his Laurea. Shame that this proud man should find it in his keeping.

Terris watched, sickened and speechless, as Jakon bent to examine the dagger. The air turned dense, as if the room held its breath and time itself slowed to a snail's pace.

For an instant, Jakon's body became an exquisitely sensitive mirror — recognition, puzzlement, outrage, each reaction sharp and clear before blending into the next. Terris couldn't see Jakon's face, but he heard the catch of his breath, saw the hunching of his shoulders, the infinitesimal clawlike curling of the scarred fingers.

“What is this — this
thing?
” Jakon said in a low, hoarse voice. “This unspeakable obscenity of a weapon? Who is the smith that dared to forge it — and for what foul purpose have you brought it here?” He reached to pick up the dagger.

“Don't touch it!”

It took Terris a moment to realize he'd actually spoken aloud, and then he was as surprised as anyone. Jakon was no fool, and he'd handled weapons all his life. He would have found out the dagger's secret without any help. Yet something inside Terris, something that knew nothing of politics or strategy, had seized his voice and cried out in warning.

Jakon looked up, hand still outstretched. The carved bone gleamed in the softly filtered light.

Terris wet his lips. “The tip. A poison channel.”

Poison...

The word rippled through the long-house, a sudden leap in tension in the norther guards. Their eyes went narrow and jumpy.

Jakon kept his gaze on Terris as he curved his fingers around the hilt. It occurred to Terris that if the poison had been there instead, in a hidden needle or some coating designed to soak through the skin, then Jakon would have fallen into the trap. Jakon had known it, too.

Jakon's face gave away nothing, yet in that brief moment, Terris could see the man underneath the mask, as clearly as if he were made of glass. He saw Jakon burning with an inner fire that warmed everything he touched. Longing shot through him, to surrender and be part of that soaring, uncomplicated light.

Terris blinked, and Jakon became an ordinary man once more, a man of solid and slightly battered flesh.

Jakon straightened up, holding the dagger flat in front of him. One sandy eyebrow tilted upward
. Do you know what this is? Do you know what this means?

Somewhere in Terris's mind, a voice nattered at him to keep silent, to keep faith. To remember that the northers had always been his enemies, that only Laurea stood between their chaos and the very heart of human civilization.

All his life hung in balance, all the times he'd kept quiet because he was Esmelda's son, all the things he'd done while trying to pretend that who he was had no importance. All the hours he'd spent sweating in the Starhall when every instinct shrilled at him to get out of there. Every action, every syllable, every breath deliberate.

He walked forward and, without knowing why, placed his fingertips on the dagger. It was awkward with his hands still tied, but it
felt
like the right thing to do. The northers made no move to stop him. He met Jakon's eyes, like ice, like palest blue topaz, and wondered what kind of man was this, to have the truth so freely from him.

For that matter, what kind of man was
he?

Terris told the story simply, without embellishment. The killing of Pateros, the rage building in Laurea against the north, the duplicate dagger meant for himself. He knew that Jakon might well refuse to believe him, might torture him, might kill him, might kill all of them. Strangely, that no longer mattered. It was as if some other force, intuitive and mute, moved through him and spoke with his voice.

Jakon held the dagger steady under Terris's fingertips. One moment his eyes seemed opaque and expressionless; the next, they flared with a passion so hot and raw it scalded all the color away.

“Why would you betray your own country to tell me this?” Jakon asked. “Why?”

Because what has happened is wrong, and I had no part in it.
“Because if this war happens — if we allow it to happen — it will be as bad for my people as for yours.”

Jakon nodded, considering this. “We had no hand in the death of your Pateros,” he said. “We are not so witless as to trade an enemy we know for one we do not. He was honorable to us in victory, something few of your southers understand. But if we had wished him gone, this coward's weapon would not be our way.” Jakon paused. “But why the poison? What need was there? Why couldn't Montborne have used an honest blade? He's taken enough of them from our dead.”

“He needs to convince the gaea-priests you've developed horrible new weapons,” Terris said. “So he can build more of his own.”

It's that, his passion for new weapons, and not the war itself, that makes him so dangerous in Esme's eyes.
The invisible tempest battered at the edges of his consciousness. He shivered and thrust it away.

“Things...like this?”

“Yes.”

“You can never have enough of death and treachery, can you, you southers?” Jakon flared. “You think all Harth is yours, and you can do whatever you like. First you steal the hill pastures that have been ours for the hungry years since the beginning of time, and ever since we have watched our children starve and our elders go into the night before their time. Then when our young men ride out in anger and madness, you slaughter them like sheep!