The Iron Palace (19 page)

Although accustomed to his low estate, Stregg was discontented with it. It embittered him, especially when he recalled tales of his great-grandfather’s priesthood. That august man was long dead, but stories of his power and authority were handed down within Stregg’s family as precious lore and tokens of better times to come. Stregg had grown up in a tiny hut, eating cabbages and roots while hearing accounts of long-ago banquets served in manor halls. Stregg’s father and grandfather had been priests also, but by their day, wars had ravaged the countryside until there were no manors left.

A poor land makes for a starveling priest, and Stregg’s homeland was poor indeed. For generations, armies from Bahland had preyed on it until the area south of the Turgen was known as the Empty Lands. It was a region dotted by burnt-out towns and moldering ruins, a place of forgotten names. It wasn’t wholly unpopulated; there were scattered peasant dwellings, and a few villages remained. But nothing lingered that was worth a long march to pillage.

Stregg’s appearance epitomized the want of the Empty Lands. He was mostly bone, with a tall frame that seemed to possess only enough flesh to animate it. His hatchet face was dominated by dark, sunken eyes. They appeared overlarge, and when their compelling gaze fixed on someone, that person found it difficult to look away. Though Stregg was well shy of thirty winters, his stringy and thinning hair made him look older. Its dark hue contrasted with his sallow completion. Since Stregg’s creed esteemed power as a sign of grace, he cultivated an imposing presence. Lacking physical strength, Stregg exuded a sorcerous air. The peasants in his homeland
were convinced that he was skilled in the dark arts, a belief Stregg actively encouraged. Fear, however unfounded, was a source of power.

Stregg had left at dawn, not because he was eager to return home, but because he wished to escape the condescension of the other priests. His poverty marked him as a failure in their eyes, a man bereft of the Devourer’s grace. Their judgment galled Stregg.
It’s easy to grow fat in Bremven
, he thought.
Try getting a sack of roots from a hungry peasant
.

Taking a road that avoided the nearby town, Stregg headed east. His long strides soon sped him away from the Iron Palace. By late afternoon, he was traveling among less worldly folk who were more easily intimidated by a priest. Stregg’s mood lightened somewhat, and he reflected that although he was lowly within his order, he possessed gifts nonetheless. Even before he began dreaming of the Iron Palace, he sensed his master stirring in the world. To Stregg, it was a presence reminiscent of the faint tingling immediately preceding a lightning strike. Moreover, of late he had begun to have violent dreams that were so vivid he felt he was witnessing real events: A huge man was gutted on a boat. Another was garroted while he pissed. Helpless captives were slaughtered by maddened men. Such signs convinced Stregg that the day approached when even the Devourer’s lowest servants would be raised high.

After Stregg had traveled for several days, the eastern road dwindled to a trail on the grassy plain. Then he turned northward. On the final leg of his journey, Stregg’s pessimism over his prospects lessened, for he began to feel closer to his master. It was a subtle thing, and Stregg wasn’t certain that he was heading toward the heir. Nevertheless, it seemed logical that Bahl’s missing son would be in the north. If his mother had wished to hide, the Empty Lands were an ideal place. Only the Grey Fens were more remote, and they were deemed impassible. Stregg’s steps quickened,
and at times, he fancied that he could feel the weight of silver around his neck.

As Stregg returned to his home, Yim prepared to leave hers. She slaughtered another ailing doe to smoke its meat for her journey and assembled other provisions. She tanned hides and replaced her bloodstained tunic. She fashioned a goatskin pack and made a water skin from a goat bladder. Yim gathered everything she thought she would need on the road, weighing each choice and changing her mind often.

There was one preparation that Yim couldn’t rush; she had to rebuild her health and stamina. She ate well and rested often, but days passed before she felt recovered. When she did, she went to Tararc Hite. There she offered her herd to Rappali, who was reluctant to take the gift.

“I want yar company, not yar goats,” Rappali said. “Stay, Yim. Ya’ve made a life here, and I doubt tha outside world’s improved since ya fled it.”

“You know why I can’t stay,” said Yim. “I must go for Froan’s sake and for your son’s.”

“It grieves me sorely that Telk’s gone, but gone he is. ’Tis fate, a thing beyond our changing.”

“And it’s my fate to leave, so I want you to have the herd.”

Rappali’s eyes welled with tears. “First Telk leaves, then you. ’Tis beyond abiding!”

“It’s hard,” said Yim, “but you’ll survive.”

“Aye, but will ya?” asked Rappali.

Yim didn’t answer, for she wasn’t sure. Instead, she changed the topic back to goats and made arrangements to bring the herd over.

Five days later, Yim returned to Tararc Hite at dawn to lead Roarc, his brothers, and their assorted kin to Far Hite. None had ever made the trip before, and after they experienced its treacherous convolutions firsthand, none wanted
to make it again. Yim had corralled the herd to ease the transfer, but it was difficult nonetheless. The goats had to be carried over the wet portions of the route, which meant most of it. It took all day to fetch the entire herd. Afterward, Roarc roasted a goat to celebrate Yim’s gift.

Courtesy required Yim to stay for the feast, so she did. She felt ill at ease throughout the meal, for it seemed to her that Roarc was also celebrating her departure. His brothers and their families appeared equally glad that the strange outsider was finally leaving. Adding to Yim’s discomfort was her suspicion that the entire herd would be devoured before winter was over. It seemed emblematic of her life in the fens; all her work and sacrifice had come to naught.

Yim left the feast as early as politeness allowed, pausing to say good-bye to Rappali. The two friends moved away from the firelight and the others. Rappali forced a smile, but the moonlight revealed teary eyes. “Well, Yim, ya were always a stubborn one. Otherwise, ya’d have never made it here in tha first place.”

“I doubt I would have survived if you hadn’t found me.”

“ ’Twas fate, so ’twas tha Mother’s doing, not mine.”

“Still, I’m glad it was you.”

Rappali seized Yim’s hand. “Sometimes I have hopes of seeing Telk again. But as for ya … I know ’tis my last sight of ya.”

Yim responded by embracing her only friend with a fierceness that bespoke her reluctance to leave and the certainty that she would. The two clung to each other for a long while. Yim didn’t want to let go, but she did eventually. “Good-bye,” she whispered in a voice thickened by emotion.

“Good-bye, Yim.”

Making her way home by the light of a waning moon, Yim arrived at Far Hite well after midnight. It seemed particularly
desolate without her animals. She walked down the empty pathway to her dark home, entered it, and sat upon her bed.
Now, nothing remains to hold me
, she thought. Nevertheless, something did—fear. With departure imminent, Yim feared her goal was beyond her capacity. She felt as she had upon the slaver’s auction block—forgotten, insignificant, and utterly alone. From that bleak perspective, Yim saw her hopes of finding Honus and somehow saving Froan as only self-delusion and foolish bravado.

Pondering her future, Yim had only one certainty—she’d receive no help from Karm. She recalled the goddess’s final visitation.
Karm said I had a choice. She claimed I knew what would be gained and lost through it
. Yim was convinced that all her visions had served to bring her to that moment.
That moment’s past. I chose my path, and the rest is up to me
. Yim wasn’t sure why that was so, though she suspected the goddess was constrained from further intervention. What ever the reason, Yim believed it was futile to look to Karm for guidance.

“So what will you do?” Yim asked herself, speaking aloud to fill the silence. “Remain here?”

The idea had some appeal. Yim envisioned herself as a hermit, ignored by the world and ignorant of its tragedies. “And if someone chances to see me, they’ll think I’m a boghaunt.” Upon reflection, Yim concluded her imaginary observer would be mostly right. “For I’d be swallowed by the bog, only not yet a ghost.” Such a life hardly seemed worth living. Having withdrawn from fens society, the only alternative to such an existence was to undertake her journey. To do that, she must accept that fear would dog her every step: fear that she would fail, fear that she would make things worse, fear that she would find Froan transformed into a monster, fear that the evil within her would gain the upper hand.

“Can I abide being so afraid?” Yim didn’t know, but she
thought that she could endure it for a day. That day would begin when the sun rose. “When it does, I’ll leave and not worry about the next day until tomorrow.”

When the sun rose, Honus grabbed a sling and a handful of stones. Then he went out to hunt hares. Like everything he did, it was part of his training regimen. Hunting accomplished three objectives: It focused the mind; it enhanced skill; and if successful, it nourished the body. For Honus, it also provided a lesson in humility, for it proved the extent of his decline. He who had single-handedly slain thirty-six members of the Iron Guard had yet to bring down a hare after ten days of trying.

Exiting the ruined keep, Honus made his way to a grassy, eastward-facing slope where his quarry liked to breakfast. He squatted in the dewy turf, fitted a stone into the pocket of his sling, and became perfectly still. All Sarfs were trained to focus on the task at hand with minds emptied of all emotion except devotion for the goddess. “Achieve this,” the masters had said, “and your every act will honor Karm, be it plucking a blossom or cleaving a man in two.” Ever since Honus had submitted to Daven’s discipline, he had struggled to regain that state of purity.

So far, he had failed, for bitterness tainted his feelings for the goddess. Honus strove to love Karm and believe that she loved him, but memories intruded to spoil his efforts. Try as he might, he couldn’t forget his long stretch of desolation or its cause. Squatting in the wet grass, he doubted it was possible.

Forget Karm
, he thought,
and think of Yim instead
. The idea was blasphemy, and Honus knew it. Regardless, he cleared his mind of everything except the hunt and his devotion to Yim. Then calm stole over him. He no longer felt wet or chilled or hungry. When hares hopped forth to nibble moist greenery, he watched them without bodily or mental distraction. His focus was perfect and so was his
aim. Each stone he let fly was an act of devotion and had devotion’s trueness. Three stones, three kills. It was over in an instant. Honus rose to gather his quarry with the confidence of a man who had finally found his way.

A breeze from the west eased the noon’s heat as Froan rowed. His back and arms were easy with the work, as were his calloused hands. He knew by heart each turn of the irregular course from the pirate island. Froan had mastered other nautical skills as well, and whenever the captain ordered “up sail,” he got to it as quickly as any man aboard. His pirate’s life had settled into a routine of daily raids that brought slim pickings from easy targets. On those ventures, Froan served only as a crewman. Others were always chosen for the boarding parties. Ever since he had been sent out to collect the fishermen’s catch, Froan hadn’t left the boat except to come ashore at day’s end. At nights, he ate with his crewmates, drank sparingly, and retired to the woods with Moli.

Faced with such a lulling routine, another man would have grown at ease, but not Froan. His powers of perception had sharpened, so he knew that the captain regarded him as a threat. Bloodbeard did everything to hide that fact. He was always affable to Froan, and he treated Moli no worse than he treated his own women. Whatever plotting he did was done out of sight with his closest men. Yet Froan could gaze into a man’s eyes and see beneath appearances. In the captain, he saw animosity, cunning, and patience.

Froan was impressed that Bloodbeard recognized him as a rival, and he was curious what the captain would do. He decided to observe his adversary and learn from him, confident that when the clash finally came, he would prevail.

Bloodbeard’s first move was to identify Froan’s allies within the crew. Those were Telk, whom the captain called Bog Rat, Toad, and the men who had raided the cattle boat with Froan—Chopper, Serpent, Gouger, and Eel. In addition
to those six, Catfish had fallen from the captain’s grace after the incident with the fishermen. Froan noted how Bloodbeard closely watched all those men. Moreover, without being overly obvious, the captain isolated them from Froan and one another. It wasn’t hard to do, since the captain’s men outnumbered Froan’s by more than two to one. Thus, although Froan’s life had been peaceful of late, the longer circumstances remained calm, the more certain he was that they were about to erupt.

When the pirate boat was clear of the islands, Bloodbeard ordered the sail raised. Then the oars were pulled in, and the pirates let the wind take them upriver to their hunting grounds. The leisurely trip was nearly over when the captain suddenly commanded that the sail be lowered. As Froan rushed to tie the sail to its spar, he noted that the captain had fixed his gaze on a distant ship the likes of which Froan had never seen. It was a large craft, with two decks and a built-up stern and bow. Yet, unlike a cattle boat, it was sleek and fast looking. Oars bristled from ports in its lower deck, while the upper one swarmed with armed and armored men.

“Oh, shit on us,” said a crewman, “the guild’s war boat.”

“ ’Tis turnin’ toward us,” said another.

“Oars out!” roared Bloodbeard, “and row to save yer precious arses.”

Froan dashed to his bench, grabbed his oar, and waited for the captain’s beat. It came quickly and was a rapid one. “Long strokes, men!” shouted Bloodbeard. “If ye want to rest, think o’ danglin’ from a pole. Fer dangle ye will, if they catch us. And as they fit the noose ’bout yer neck, thank Shadow fer firin’ that cattle boat.”