Season of Sacrifice (31 page)

Da, Da, Da. Storms and harvests, gales and feasts—Alana Woodsinger flowed through the history of her People into the roots of the giant oak.

Da, Da, Da. She drilled down to the woven mass that spread beneath the surface of the Headland, more complex than any fishnet, holding the Tree stable and steady and strong, nourishing it, anchoring it.

Almost lost in her dream, Alana clutched Reade against her side, pressing his head against her stolen uniform, feeling him shudder, feeling his entire body gather to cry one last time: “Da!” She held on to that final syllable, clung to his frantic plea, and she passed through the final barrier, flowing past Parina Woodsinger into the Tree’s deepest root.

Silence.

Silver.

Timelessness.

She could not breathe. She could not see. She could not hear.

Da.

Her body was trembling.

Da.

Her lungs were burning.

Da.

Her heart was pounding, bursting to be free.

Da.

She saw her father, smiling in the silver.

She saw him, and she knew that he was not alone. She knew that he was surrounded by the Guardians, by the Guardians of Water who had stolen him away, and the Guardians of Air who had made him welcome in the land beyond the sea. She saw that he had met the Guardians of Fire and the Guardians of Earth, greeted all of them in the fullness of time.

She saw her father, and she knew that he was with her mother, with
his
mother, with his own fisherman father. She saw him put his arm around the shoulders of another fisherman, and she recognized Reade’s lost da. Alana saw all the figures, all the ghosts, all the People gathered in the shimmering embrace of a woman. One woman. The Great Mother.

They were all with the Great Mother.

Alana started to walk into the circle of that embrace, started to take her last step into the promise of the endless, silver light.

But then her father turned his back on her.

He was not ready for her to join him. He was not ready to bring her into the silver circle. It was not yet time. She still had work to do, in the living world. Now. Before it was too late.

Alana grasped at the crystal mantle around her, seizing it in her mind, gathering it in her heart and lungs, pulling it into her bones. She filled herself with the essence of the Tree, of the Guardians, of the Great Mother. And then she cast herself up through the root, back to the surface, to the rings and the bark, across the land, to a warrior who needed her power.

She cried out as she poured her strength into Maddock, cried out in rage and sorrow and disappointment and relief. All of the Tree’s white-hot energy seared from her woodstar into his. She surged into Maddock’s mind and his body; she felt the warrior melt into her.

For one moment, she was swallowed by the pain of their melding, by the hot, white fire of his separate soul. Then, his thoughts moved with hers; her body moved with his. His breath became her own, and she gave him her arms, her thighs, her lungs, her heart. She pulsed with his being, and the Tree made them one—one blinding, shimmering whole.

She lived Maddock. She breathed Maddock. She
was
Maddock.

At last, she smelled smoke.

Bavins could not burn. The woodsinger knew that in her soul. But the smoke was not in her imagination; it came from the Tree. Alana forced herself to pull back from her warrior being, from Maddock. Separating from his body, from his mind, was like a physical pain, but she felt herself drawn away by her bavin.

With a suddenness that stole her breath, Alana Woodsinger plunged back into the stone and smoke of the cathedral.

She took only a moment to see that Maddock had taken a beating in the furious swordfight. He was bloodied, heaving for breath as he raised his massively heavy sword. She struggled to gather back the strands of his pain, but she had lost her grip on the Tree’s power, lost her way to the heartwood. Maddock staggered and cried out against the sudden onset of an entire battle’s agony.

Coren, though, was also winded, and he stopped to shake perspiration from his eyes. Even as Alana strove to recapture the bavin’s power, she watched Maddock exploit the break in Coren’s fighting form. He stumbled forward like a boat grounding on a shallow shore.

Coren saw the threat, and he raised his sword to defend himself. The motion brought him around halfway, and he adjusted his stance so that he could attack the outlander. That shift, though, brought him to the very edge of the marble dais. He flailed his arms for a single, graceless moment, fighting to recover his balance.

And he succeeded. He regained his feet, taking a quick double step to keep from slipping down the stairs. Two small steps. Which brought him up hard against the Mothersnake’s glass cage.

The iron-black branch shuddered under the impact, sliding even deeper into the silver sand. The motion was enough to upset the cage’s precarious balance, and it finally toppled off its stand. One metal-bound corner crashed to the marble dais, and the stone cracked, as if a massive spider had spun an instant web across its surface.

For one breath, it seemed as if the stone had absorbed all the impact. Then, a deep fissure opened in the glass. Silver sand poured out, like a river into the sea. The black branch lodged against the crack, forcing it wider. As Alana watched in horror, sand cascaded onto the dais, and with it, a deadly iron-black shadow. The Mothersnake writhed onto the platform, thick as a man’s thigh, roiling like clouds above a storm-tossed sea.

The massive beast curled upon herself, raising her head above her coiled body. Ripples ran down her flesh like night-shivers in a cemetery, and Alana could just make out the sound of the serpent’s scales rasping on the spilled silver sand. As if responding to the woodsinger’s horror, the Mothersnake opened her maw and revealed two perfect fangs, each the length of a man’s hand. Poison glinted from their needle-tips, iridescent globes that swelled as the snake reared.

Coren flung up his arm to protect his face, but the motion only drew the snake. With a silence more chilling than any roar, the Mothersnake launched herself from the burned and bloodied carpet and buried her fangs in the duke’s arm.

Coren’s scream echoed off the vaulted ceiling. He thrashed about on the carpet, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge the beast. His legs became tangled in the giant snake’s tail, and he arched his back to shift the unholy weight. Through it all, the snake’s fangs remained lodged firmly in his arm.

Then, the struggle was over. Maddock stood panting above Duke Coren’s twitching body. The sword in the outlander’s hand steamed as if the iron had just been forged. As the smell of hot metal grew, Maddock dropped his stolen weapon onto the singed carpet and broken marble, letting it clang beside the Mothersnake’s body.

Only then did Alana realize what had happened. Maddock had killed the Mothersnake. He had cut through her swollen body, severing her neck. Her fangs remained sunk in Coren’s arm, though, and even from this distance, Alana could see that the duke’s flesh was corrupting.

As if to confirm her vision, Coren struggled to a sitting position. He gritted his teeth and pulled with his good arm, forcing the severed head free of his flesh. Blood immediately began to flow from the wounds, dark and clotted.

“By all the Seven Gods!” Bringham managed to choke out the words, his face pale from across the dais.

Before the Duke of Southglen could recover, Reade pulled free from Alana’s grasp. The child collapsed on his knees beside Coren. “‘There are bad people who do bad things!’” Reade cried, as if he were seeking reassurance, as if he needed love and support and confirmation of the order he’d thought he understood.

Alana recognized the line from the unholy catechism that Reade had learned from Coren. She saw the boy hang on the quotation, waiting breathlessly for his mentor to respond, for the nobleman to make all right. Coren, though, only shook his head, swallowing noisily as he tried to still the flow of black blood from his arm.

“‘There are bad people who do bad things!’” Reade repeated. He looked frantically at Bringham, silent accusation flashing across his face. Alana reached for the boy, tried to pull him back, but he thrashed free. “Your Grace!” The boy cried to Coren, and he started to sob. “There are bad people!”

“Aye,” Coren managed at last.

“Say it,” Reade demanded. “Say that the Sun-lady and I can make Smithcourt safe again! We can bring order! We can lead the people!”

“You can’t—”

“I
can
! If you say it, I can!”

Coren reached out a hand toward the raging boy, but his fingers were covered in muck, blood and bile streaking his flesh. “I’m hurt, Reade.”

As Reade wailed in fury, Coren looked at Bringham, an odd desperation crossing his face. Alana thought for a moment that Coren was asking Southglen for mercy, that he was begging compassion for the child, pleading that the farce of the Sun-lord might continue. Whatever was asked, though, Bringham gave no answer.

Coren drew a shuddering breath and pointed a gory finger toward Alana. His voice shook, almost as if he doubted his own words. “Go with your people now, Reade. You’ll be safe.” Reade started to protest, but Coren interrupted him. “Leave me!”

The command deflated the child, who gasped and scrabbled for Coren’s good hand. “Please…” Reade moaned.

Coren pulled his hand back, setting his jaw and turning away. He whispered, barely loud enough for Alana to hear, “You don’t belong in Smithcourt, son.”

“Don’t call me that!” Reade recoiled. “I’m not your son! You’re not my da! You never were my da!”

“I—”

“You made me believe you! I thought you were strong, like Culain!” Reade’s anger exploded into tears, hot and fluid. “I thought you were my friend! I thought you would stay with me, that you wouldn’t go to the Guardians! I thought you were my da….”

Alana knelt beside the child, gathering him up as he sobbed with bitter recognition. Reade clutched at her crimson uniform, burying his face against her chest. She cradled him, rocking slowly. She whispered that he was safe, that he was loved, that he was back among his People.

Coren’s foul spell was broken. The Sun-lord was no more. Reade was a little boy once again, a little boy far from his home, sobbing like a lost and exhausted child. Alana managed to pull the boy to his feet, and then she eased both of them away from Coren, away from the dais and the Mothersnake and death.

Maddock, though, stepped closer to the fallen duke, edging his foot into Coren’s side. “We made a bargain.”

As if to enforce the agreement, Bringham strode forward. Coren swallowed hard before he forced words past his gritted teeth. “Donal will give you horses.”

It cost the duke to pull away from Maddock’s booted toe, to drag his poisoned flesh up higher on the dais. As if afraid his opponent might yet fight, Maddock dug his toe in deeper. “Now.”

Coren caught his breath against the agony of the motion, but he managed to speak to his lieutenant. “Five horses for them. One each.”

Alana looked up from where she ministered to Reade. “We won’t leave without Landon.”

For a long minute, Duke Coren gazed at her. Even with the pain that stretched his face, even with the pallor that spread beneath his beard, she could sense his power. She could sense the vitality of a man who had trained his flesh to accept poison, to rise above inevitable death. After all, Coren was faring better than the rabbit had, better than the coney that had fallen prey to the Avenger. The duke’s flesh was blackened, festering, but he was not yet consumed by the Mothersnake’s poison. His preparation, Jobina’s ministrations, Maddock’s torture…all might yet conspire to let Coren live.

Alana remembered how fierce the duke had looked when he stood upon the Headland, months ago, a lifetime ago. She thought about his visit to the People, his cold manipulation as he won over first the woodsinger, then the fisherfolk. She wondered if Coren remembered standing beside her on the promontory by the Tree, if he remembered how the wind had felt in their hair as she told him about the People, about their determination, about their strength.

“Six, then,” he finally agreed. “Six horses.”

Coren collapsed against the dais as Alana gathered her people and turned for the air and light outside the cathedral. Six people. Herself. Reade and Maida. Maddock and Jobina. And Landon.

Alana stood on the cliff, looking down on the waves that crashed against the rocky shore. The water was frothy and light, but great clumps of kelp had washed up on the beach. The summer months had been hot, and all the sea life had been plentiful—the fish, and the kelp, and the stinging eels that hid among the rocks just offshore. Her father would have rejoiced.

The woodsinger turned to her giant oak and began to sing to it, telling it once more of the rich harvest. A faint breeze whispered from the landward side, and Alana gathered her cloak about her shoulders, wondering again at the sense of comfort she found in the garment’s ragged patches of brown and red, blue and white. They were earthy colors, human colors. Not as splendid as silver, but all the more comforting for that.

Weaving that wave of comfort into her song, Alana swallowed hard against the acrid taste at the back of her throat. Whenever the breeze blew from the landward side, she could make out the lingering stink of burned wood. The stench never let her forget the jagged gash that gaped, the blackened wood-flesh that had split on the day of the Service.

Alana almost wished that the Tree’s memory of the Service had been among the ones that had been lost, that had been burned out by her desperate grasping of the oak’s strength. She did not want to remember the power and the glory. She did not want to remember that she was the one who had called the Tree to make its sacrifice.

Renewing her song, Alana consciously set aside the panic that was never far beneath her heart. She brightened her words, chanting to the Tree about its People, about their prosperity, about all the reasons that the oak should continue to seal off the burned, ruined part and fight for continued life. She closed her eyes, the better to reach out to the Tree’s calm quiet, and her song rose high and soft, floating out over the ocean.

“How much longer before the leaves fall?”

Alana’s eyes flashed open, even though she recognized Maddock’s voice. Indeed, she realized that she had heard him approach, heard him in the depths of her mind. The warrior had come often to the Tree throughout the long summer months and the turn to autumn.

Alana lowered a hand to the oak’s trunk, ready to push herself to her feet, but Maddock waved her back to the ground. When he sank beside her, he settled a leather satchel against the Tree’s roots, and his hands began an automatic sweep, gathering up something, anything, to keep from sitting idle.

“We’ve got another fortnight, at least.”

“From this side, looking out to sea, you can’t even tell.”

She knew he wasn’t referring to color. Instead, he was apologizing for the iron-black scar that raked the Tree’s other side. She said, “I can. I can tell.”

Alana settled the pain between them, stark as the tide line on the beach below. Even as the breeze died down, though, she chided herself that she was not being fair. Maddock had never asked for her assistance. He had never asked for the Tree to give its gift. Just as she had never asked Landon to give his life to her. “Maddock—” she started, at the same time that he spoke her name.

“You go first.” He nodded, and she swallowed hard.

“I know that we did what we had to do. You. Landon. Me. Even Jobina. But I never thought that what we did in Smithcourt would work such damage here.” Her voice trailed off, lost on the familiar path to despair.

“But you knew,” Maddock said, “that if we failed in Smithcourt, it would have an effect here. We needed to save Reade and Maida, to bring them home. The People could not stay mixed up in the sort of madness we saw in Smithcourt. And Jobina was right about one thing—if Bringham had won, he would have sent soldiers. Soldiers and tax collectors and the Guardians only know what other inland grief. Coren would have, too.”

“And is this so much better?” Alana’s voice cracked on the question.

“Alana, I have to believe that it is. I can’t know the pain you feel. I can look at the scorch marks, but I can’t know the part of you that is the woodsinger, the part that is the Tree itself.”

As if forced by Maddock’s words, Alana climbed to her feet, walking around the enormous trunk to the ugly, burned scar. Her throat tightened as she made herself study where the bark was charred away, blasted by a heat hotter than the woodsinger could fathom. The damage went all the way to the heartwood, down through the core to the roots, to the most secret depth of the Tree.

The memories housed in that part of the oak had been scorched, consumed by the People’s need, by Alana’s demands. The Tree had destroyed part of its past to save the People’s future.

Even now, if Alana held her fingers above the scar, she could sense the energy, the pure strength that the Tree had thrust across the leagues, had poured into her bavin, into her. Her throat closed with the taste of charred wood, and she remembered the pure seductive brilliance of that silver power. Her eyes filled. Again.

“It gave everything for us, Maddock.”

“Not everything. The seaward side was spared, Alana. The side of the Tree that looks to the ocean, to the People’s lifeblood.” Maddock grasped her hand, pulled her back around the Tree, until she stood on the ocean side again. “Look, Alana. From here, you can’t see what happened. From here, you can only see the red and gold leaves, the living branches.” He paused for a moment, and she knew he was trying to read her face, trying to find the feelings that she had thrust deep beneath the surface of her heart. “It was four moons ago today.”

“You think I don’t know that!” she cried.

“I know you do. Alana, Landon’s death was not an accident. He made a decision. He knew that saving you, saving Reade, was more important than anything else he could have done.”

The tears were bitter on her cheeks. “I thought he didn’t understand when I gave him Maida. I ordered him to watch over her, but I thought he was too weak, that he would fail me. Fail us. Keep us from escaping Smithcourt.”

“He must have thought the same.”

Before Alana could reply, could argue against Maddock’s implacable logic, the breeze carried a high-pitched laugh to her. “You can’t catch me!”

Even as Alana dashed tears from her face, Reade came tearing up the path, looking behind him as he ran, and whooping as if all the Guardians were on his heels.

“Wait for me, you little monster!” Jobina’s head appeared over the rise first, but her body was soon in view. She rested her hands on her widened hips, curving her shoulders forward as she struggled to catch her breath. Her belly bulged beneath her tawny shift, seeming to move with a life of its own as the healer gasped for air.

“I should have known you’d be here.” Jobina placed the words between the adults like an offering.

“Where else would we be?” Maddock snapped, glaring at the healer.

Alana, though, managed a smile. “There won’t be many more days when it’s comfortable to make the trek. Sit down, Jobina. You must be exhausted.”

The other woman shook her head. “If I sit down now, I’ll never get to my feet again.”

“And that would be such a loss?” Maddock glared, and Jobina started to respond in kind, but was cut short by Alana.

“Maddock.” His name was a warning, but the warrior refused to listen.

“She has no shame, Alana. She’s come up here as if she has a right! She’s so full with Coren’s child that she can hardly make the walk, and then she has the nerve—”

“Jobina! Jobina, look at me!” Reade interrupted Maddock’s tirade, and all of the adults turned toward the cliff. “Look, Jobina! I can fly!” Reade spread out his arms, letting the breeze catch his shirt and breeches.

As he leaned forward, the healer called out, “Not so close to the edge, Reade. Step back!”

“You can’t make me!” the little boy taunted, but Jobina only eyed him steadily. After a moment, he took a small step toward the adults.

“One more,” Jobina called, and Reade reluctantly complied. The healer turned back to Alana and Maddock.

The woodsinger swallowed a smile. “He seems in good spirits.”

“Teresa says that he slept through the night. He and Maida both.”

“Where is his mother now?” Maddock made the question a challenge.

“She’s coming up with Maida and Goody Glenna. They should be here in a moment.”

As if in response, there was a flurry of activity at the top of the path, and a half-grown dog came bounding past the adults. “Greatheart!” Reade squealed as the hound dug his forepaws into the earth between the little boy and the cliff.

Alana watched Maddock clutch for his absent sword, reflexively defending the women from the canine threat. Even Jobina blanched a little, settling her hands over her belly. “Reade,” she called, and her voice quavered.

The boy looked up with rebellion in his eyes, but then he sighed and turned to the gangly dog. “Sit, Greatheart.” The hound complied reluctantly.

“Thank you,” the healer said, just as Maida, Teresa, and Glenna came into view.

“Can we go down to the water, Jobina?” Reade’s face lit with eagerness. The healer looked doubtful. “You can see us all the way down!”

“Ask your mother.”

“Mum, can we?” Reade called. “Can we go to the beach?”

Alana saw how the young mother wanted to say no, how she wanted to keep her son by her side. Reluctantly, though, Teresa nodded her head. “Just don’t go in the water. And take that beast with you.” Reade tore for the cliff. “Wait for your sister,” Teresa called out, and Reade slowly turned about for Maida. The little girl looked as if she’d rather stay with the adults, but Teresa smiled firmly. “Go ahead, Maida. We’ll watch you from here.”

“But—”

“Go on. We can watch you all the way down the path.”

Maida’s lower lip trembled, but she moved toward Reade. Greatheart edged his head under her hand as she approached, and a smile brightened her face as she scrambled to the steep cliff path.

Goody Glenna nodded approvingly as the children began their descent. “They seem to be doing well, Teresa.”

“Jobina has been a tremendous help. Sometimes they’ll spend all day at her cottage, just playing.”

“They’ve been good for me, too, Teresa.” Jobina’s tone was respectful.

Glenna nodded approval, but then she turned to Alana with a glower. “I still don’t understand why the three of you let them come back with that…that beast.”

Glenna launched into her never-ending tirade about the hound, but Alana cut her off. “I’ve told you. We had no choice. Reade wanted him. He needed something, something good, to come out of all that happened in Smithcourt.”

“A child needs what he’s told to need,” the old woman grumbled, but the argument had lost its edge over the summer.

At Goody Glenna’s words, Jobina’s hands moved protectively over her belly. She looked up at her companions shyly. “My child needs his father,” the healer said softly. “I dreamed again last night.”

“The only way that brat will meet its father is by digging deep with a spade,” Maddock said, sneering.

“You lie! My son will meet his father. Duke Coren will ride out here before our boy is Reade’s age.”

“Coren is dead, woman!”

“You can’t know that!”

“Jobina, you were there. You’re a healer! Even if you think you loved the man, you can’t deny what you saw!”

“I saw a man bitten by a snake. I saw wounds infected with poison. But I saw no man die.”

“Has your child made you deaf? You were sitting in Goody Glenna’s cottage the night we came back to our People. You heard me tell about the Avenger!”

“I heard your story. I heard that the rabbit was corrupted even as you watched. But you ignore the entire reason that you were brought before the snake.” The healer’s voice shook with scarce-pent emotion, and she dashed tears from her cheeks. “I know about the poison that Coren consumed. I know how he tempered his body, how he prepared for the Mothersnake. Besides,
I
am the one who bears his child.
I
am the one he’ll ride to find. You don’t know anything about this!”

Before anyone could speak, Jobina strode toward the cliff path, disappearing down the incline to follow Reade and Maida. Alana settled her hand over the Tree’s scorched bark as she watched the woman disappear.

“Well.” Goody Glenna clicked her tongue. “I’d better go after her.”

“No, Goody,” Maddock sighed. “The path is steep. I’ll go.”

“You have better things to do. And I can’t imagine you’d bring that poor girl much comfort. Teresa will help these old bones get to the beach, and back.” Glenna was still shaking her head as she disappeared down the trail with the twins’ mother.

“Well,” Maddock said after a long, uncomfortable pause. “Goody Glenna was right about one thing.”

“What’s that?” Alana asked, her attention already recaptured by the wood beneath her fingertips. She could feel the turning leaves on the Tree’s healthy side, the tantalizing hint of life beyond the dead patch.

“I have more important things to do.” Maddock retrieved his satchel. Suddenly, he was awkward, unable to look Alana in the eye as he spoke, and he gave all of his attention to the leather pouch, fumbling at the ties. “I left the village at dawn this morning, and I had to go miles into the forest before I found these.” He drew out a bundle of cloth, finest wool dyed the green of a summer field. “There aren’t many left, but I didn’t want to wait for mistletoe.”

The black currants nestled against their leaves, glowing with juice. Maddock let his satchel fall as he passed the cluster to Alana. “Woodsinger, I offer you these berries as a token of my intention. Will you accept a humble fisherman’s hand in marriage?”

The proposal caught Alana entirely by surprise. She knew that she should have expected Maddock’s words. She should have been prepared with a response. Instead, though, she could think of only one thing: “We buried Landon four moons ago.”

“Aye.” Maddock reached out his free hand and brushed her hair back from her face. “He’s gone, Alana. He gave his life for us, and now he’s gone.”

“He gave his life for
me
!” she cried, and she stepped back from the cluster of currants cupped in Maddock’s fingers, as if they accused her of some crime. “He gave his life to save me. And now I’m back here, and the Tree is burned, and half our history is lost, and nothing will ever be the same!”