The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy Omnibus (233 page)

‘He was much the same way with me, when I was a boy,’ I agreed with him. I scratched my neck, suddenly weary and uncertain. What belonged to me? What belonged to Burrich? ‘When I got older, he spoke to me more, and explained things more. I think that as you got older, he would have told you more about himself, too.’

I took a deep breath. Burrich’s hand was in mine. I wondered if he would forgive me what I was about to do, or if he would have
thanked me. ‘I remember the first time I saw your father. I was about five years old, I think. One of Prince Verity’s men took me down the hall to where the guardsmen were eating in the old quarters at Moonseye. Prince Chivalry and most of his guard were away, but your father had remained behind, still recovering from the injury to his knee. The one that makes him limp. The first time he was hurt there, it was because he leapt between a wild boar and my father, to save my father from being gutted by the animal’s tusks. So. There was Burrich, in a kitchen full of guardsmen, a young man in his fighting prime, dark and wild and hard-eyed. And there was I, suddenly thrust into his care, with no warning to either of us. Can you imagine it? Even now, I wonder what must have gone through his mind when the guardsman first set me down on the table in front of him and announced to all that I was Chivalry’s little bastard, and Burrich was to have the care of me now.’

Despite himself, a very small smile crept over Swift’s face. So we eased into the night, with me telling him the stories of the rash young man who had raised me. Web sat by us for some time; I am not sure when he slipped away. When the candle guttered, we lay down on either side of Burrich to keep him warm, and I talked on quietly in the darkness until Swift slept. It seemed to me that my Wit-sense of Burrich beat stronger in those hours, but perhaps it was only that I had recalled to myself all that he had been to me. Mixed in with my memories of how he had encouraged and disciplined me, of the times when he had righteously punished me and praised me, I now saw more clearly the times when a young single man had curtailed his life for the sake of a small boy. It was humbling to realize that my dependency on him had probably shaped his life as much as his had influenced me.

The next morning when I gave Burrich water, his eyelids fluttered a bit. For an instant, he looked out at me, trapped and miserable. Then, ‘Thanks,’ he wheezed, but I do not think it was for the water. ‘Papa?’ Swift asked him eagerly, but he had already faded again.

We made good time in our travel that day, and when evening came we decided to push on and try to be off the glacier before we stopped for the night. We were full of enthusiasm for that idea. I think we were all weary of camping on ice, but the distance yet to
travel proved farther than we had believed. On we went, and on, past weariness into that stubborn place where we refused to admit we had misjudged.

It was deep into the night before we approached the beach. We saw the welcome sight of watch-fires, and before it sank into my weary mind that one fire should have sufficed for two guards, we heard Churry’s challenge ring out. Prince Dutiful answered it, and we heard a glad cry of several voices raised. But none of us were prepared to hear Riddle shouting a welcome to us. When I recalled how I had last seen him, it raised the hackles on the back of my neck. I knew one wild moment of irrational hope that the Fool, too, would somehow be there. Then I recalled what Peottre had told me and sorrow drenched me.

We were among the last to reach the beach camp. By the time we arrived, all was in an uproar of welcome and story-telling. Nearly an hour passed before I managed to get the tale out of someone. Riddle and seventeen Outislander survivors of the Pale Woman’s palace were there. They had come to themselves, probably at the moment of the dragon’s slaying. Riddle and his fellow prisoners had been rescued from their dungeon by one of her guard, when his sensibilities had come back to him. They had joined forces to find a way out, and Riddle had managed to lead them back to the beach. They were all very confused as to what had led to the recovery of their senses and their liberation. It took all the rest of that night for us to splice the story together for them.

Chade summoned me to his tent the next day, to be present when Riddle made his full report. I listened to his account of how the Pale Woman’s soldiers had fallen upon Hest and him, capturing both of them. Their mistake had been in seeing some of her guards emerge from a hidden entrance to her realm. They could not be allowed to bear that information back to the Prince. Riddle was not able to describe coherently how he had been Forged. It had to do with the dragon, but every time he attempted to tell about it, he began to tremble so violently that he was unable to go on. At last and to my relief, Chade gave up on attempting to wring that knowledge out of him. Truly, I thought it was information better lost than discovered.

He was astonished to know that the Fool and I had glimpsed him in the dungeon. He said he did not blame me for leaving him there; that if I had forced the door, he would certainly have attacked me for the sake of getting my warm clothing. Yet there was something in his eyes, so deep a shame that someone he knew had seen him in that state that I doubted our fledgling friendship would survive. I did not think I could ever be comfortable again, looking at the man I had left behind to die. I wondered if Riddle would ever again be the light-hearted man he had been. He had seen into a dark corner of himself, and ever after would have to carry those memories with him. He admitted, before us all, that he was the one who had finally killed Hest. He had used his shirt to wrap his hands against the cold. He could recall how carefully he had planned to kill the wounded man and take advantage of the spoils from his body while the other Forged ones in the dungeon slept. He also told us that he recalled the Pale Woman telling them it was a sort of test; that those who survived the fortnight would be given the freedom to serve her, and regular meals. He grinned madly as he told it, his teeth clenched as if to hold back sickness, saying that, at that moment, he could imagine no better fate than to serve her and have regular meals.

Two of the Outislanders who had returned with Riddle were men of the Narwhal Clan, long missing and presumed dead. Peottre welcomed them with joy. The Pale Woman had preyed on their clan for over a decade, decimating their men before she finally reduced them to despair by stealing both the reigning Narcheska and her younger daughter. The restoration of these warriors to the clan only increased the Prince’s status as a hero in their eyes.

When Chade had finished his questions, I asked the three that had burned in me. The answers were all disappointing. Riddle had not seen the Fool at any time in his captivity or during his escape. He had not seen the Pale Woman, not even her body, after he was freed from the dungeon.

‘But I don’t think we have to be concerned about her. The man who came and freed me, Revke, saw her end. Something made her suddenly go mad. She screamed that everyone had failed her, everyone, and now only her dragon would win the day for her. She
must have ordered at least a score of men dragged forward. One after another, they were forced against the stone dragon, and slaughtered there. Revke said their blood soaked into the stone. But even that didn’t content her. She became furious, shouting that they were supposed to go into the dragon completely, that it would not rise unless someone went into the dragon whole.’

He looked around at our transfixed faces, perplexed. ‘I don’t speak Outislander as well as I should. I know it sounds mad, that she wanted someone to go into a stone dragon. But that was what Revke seemed to be saying to me. I could be wrong.’

‘No. I suspect you are exactly right. Go on,’ I begged him.

‘She finally ordered Kebal Rawbread given to the dragon. Revke said that when they unshackled him, the guards under-estimated the old warrior’s strength and his hatred of the Pale Woman. The guards had hold of him and were dragging him toward the dragon, and he was fighting them all the way. Then suddenly he lunged in the other direction, toward the Pale Woman. He caught her by the wrists, and he was laughing and shouting that they’d go into the dragon together and rise in triumph for the Out Islands. That it was the only way to win. And then Rawbread dragged her toward the dragon, shrieking and kicking. And then …’ He halted again. ‘I’m just telling the tale as Revke told it to me. It makes no sense, but –’

‘Go on!’ Chade commanded him hoarsely.

‘Rawbread walked backwards into the dragon. He sort of melted into it, and he held tight to the Pale Woman and dragged her in after him.’

‘She went into the dragon?’ I exclaimed.

‘No. Not all the way. Rawbread disappeared into the dragon, and he was pulling her after, so her hands and her wrists went in. She was shrieking at her guards to help her, and finally two seized hold of her and pulled her back. But … but her hands were melted away. Gone into the dragon.’

The Prince had his hand clamped tight over his mouth. I found I was trembling. ‘Is that all?’ Chade asked. I wondered where he got his calm.

‘Mostly. What was left of her hands was sort of burnt. Not
bleeding, just charred away, Revke said. He said, she just stood there, looking at her stumps. The dragon was coming to life by then. When it started to move, it lifted its head too high, and big chunks of the ceiling came down. Revke said everyone ran, both from the falling ceiling and from the dragon. And that he was still hiding from the dragon when he suddenly got himself back.’ Riddle halted suddenly, and then said with difficulty, ‘I can’t explain to you what it feels like. I was in my cell, back to the wall, trying to stay awake because if I slept the others would kill me. And then I glanced down and saw Hest dead on the floor. And suddenly I cared that he was dead, because he’d been my friend.’ He shook his head and his voice went to a whisper. ‘Then I remembered killing him.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ the Prince said quietly.

‘But I did it. It was me, I –’

I cut into his words before he could give any more thought to what he had done. ‘And how did you get out?’ I asked quietly.

Riddle seemed almost grateful for the question. ‘Revke opened the door for us and led us out and through her palace. It’s like a huge maze under the ice. We finally walked out of an opening that looked like a crack in an ice wall, right onto the glacier’s flank. Once we were out, no one knew what to do next. The others knew of no other place on the island where we could seek shelter. But I could just glimpse the sea from where we were. I told them that if we made our way to the sea and followed the beach, we’d have to eventually come to this base camp, even if we walked clear round the island first. As it was, we were lucky. We chose the shorter route and arrived here even before you did.’

There was one last question, but he answered it before I spoke. ‘You know how the wind blows at night, Tom. Drifting snow has probably covered all our tracks by now. Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could find my way back.’ He took a deep breath, and then added reluctantly, ‘Perhaps one of the Outislanders would be willing to try. But not me. Never. I don’t ever want even to get close to that place again.’

‘No one will ask you to,’ Chade assured him, and he was right. I left it at that.

Dawn was breaking when I returned to Burrich and Swift. Swift slept beside Burrich’s body. I noticed that he had moved, that one of his hands now lay outside his blankets. In tucking it in again, I discovered that Burrich clutched a wooden earring in his hand. I recognized it; the Fool had carved it, and I knew that inside it I would find the slave’s freedom earring that Burrich’s grandmother had won at such hardship to herself. That he had found the strength to take it off told me how important it was to him. I thought I knew his intentions for it.

Dutiful had released the homing pigeon that would fly back to Zylig to let the Hetgurd know that our quest was over. Nonetheless, it would take some days for the boats to reach us; in the meanwhile, we faced the prospect of short rations spread out over a larger party. It was not a pleasant thing to contemplate, yet I think most of us shrugged it off after all we had been through.

I found a quiet time with Swift, sitting beside the ever-dwindling Burrich. I told him the tale of the earring while I struggled to get it out of its wooden enclosure. In the end, the Fool’s handiwork proved too sophisticated for me. I had to break it to open it. Within lay the earring, shining as blue and silver as when Patience had first presented it to me. As she had that day, I used the pin of it to pierce Swift’s ear so he could wear it. I was slightly kinder to him than she had been to me; we numbed his earlobe with snow before I thrust the pin through it. ‘You wear this always,’ I told the boy. ‘And you remember your father. As he was.’

‘I will,’ Swift replied quietly. He touched it with cautious fingers; well did I remember its weight swinging from my raw earlobe. Then he wiped his bloody fingertips on his trouser leg and said, ‘I’m sorry I used it, now. If I still had it, I’d give it to you.’

‘What?’

‘The arrow that Lord Golden gave me. I thought it was ugly when he gave it to me, but I took it to be polite. Then, when all the others bounced off the dragon, the grey one struck and sank. I never saw anything like that before.’

‘I doubt that anyone ever has,’ I replied.

‘Maybe he had. He said it was an ugly bit of wood, but that it might still serve me well in time of need. He said he was a Prophet,
that night. Do you think he knew the grey arrow would kill the dragon?’

I managed a smile. ‘Even when he was alive, I never knew when he truly knew something before it happened and when he was just cleverly reconstructing his words to make it seem that he did. In this case, however, he seems to have been right.’

‘Yes. But did you see my father? Did you see what he did? He dropped that dragon in his tracks. Web says he’d never felt strength like that before, strength to
repel
a dragon.’ He looked at me, challenging me to forbid it to him as he added, ‘He says that strength like that sometimes runs in Old Blood families. That perhaps I’ll inherit it, if I use my magic with discipline and judgment.’