The Swans' War 3 - The Shadow Roads (23 page)

I wonder how the Prince has been received by his cousin?" Carl said. He and Jamm sat eating apples and raw carrots they'd stolen from the nearby orchards and garden.

"You don't seem to hold the cousin in high regard," Jamm said between bites. Carl could hardly see him in the dark, but the sounds of his munching were loud and clear—unusual for the silent Jamm.

"My father judged him harshly, and he was seldom wrong about men."Jamm continued to eat. "Then I say we move our camp. There is an old barn foundation in a stand of trees overlooking the road. We can keep the manor house under our eye there.""Why would we move?""You can never be too careful," the thief said, and he began col-lecting up the apples and carrots, being sure not to leave any apple cores behind.

Carl woke to cold steel at his throat, the dark shape of a man loom-ing over him.

"Tell your companion not to move, or I'll cut your throat," a voice said softly.

"Jamm… ?" Carl said, but he could hear that Jamm was al-ready awake.

"I won't move," came a voice out of the darkness.

The man sat down on a stump, his blade still at Carl's throat. "You travel with two men I know: Prince Michael of Innes, whose father is said to have been murdered, and Samul Renne. Both men have recently been allies of Hafydd, or Sir Eremon, as some know him." The man was silent a moment. "Your father I knew by repu-tation, Lord Carl, but you keep strange company. So I wonder what you are doing in these lands. Make your answer convincing be-cause I will kill both you and your friend without much hesitation."Carl swallowed hard. Was this some ally of Hafydd's? He thought of the dead men they'd found in the grass and the stranger who rescued them in the dark.

"You haven't time to contrive an answer, Lord Carl. Speak now, or you will have no throat to speak from.""We are enemies of Hafydd," Carl said, praying he read the man right. "And have crossed the river in hopes of finding allies for our cause among the Prince's friends and family.""So you say, but both the Prince and the Renne traveled with Hafydd not so long ago.""I don't know that whole story, but certainly the Renne trusted Prince Michael, and as for Samul, he made some bargain with his cousins.""No doubt. He has made several bargains in recent weeks," the shadow said, but Carl thought he felt the pressure of the blade lessen a little.

"That was you who helped us that night when we were trapped in the lane… ?""Yes. Menwyn Wills allied himself with a sorcerer, making him an enemy of mine. His troops were trying to kill you, making you a possible friend… but it is difficult to tell friend from foe these days. Samul Renne has changed allies too often. If I had been Lord Toren, I would have sent him to the gallows, as the rumors said he had—along with Lord Carl A'denne." He fell silent a moment, thinking. "But if Lord Toren saw fit to let you live—to feign your death—then he must have either had good reason or been entirely desperate." The man removed the point of his sword from Carl's neck but held the weapon still so that he could use it instantly—and Carl was not going to test this man's reflexes.

"You've not told us your name…" Carl said.

The man considered this a moment. "Pwyll, I am called.""Pwyll?—who won the tournament at Westbrook?""By Lord Toren's generosity and sense of fair play—yes.""I have been secretly Lord Toren's ally," Carl said. "It was I who warned him of the invasion of the Isle of Battle.""Was it, indeed? I was far away when that happened, or I might have ridden with the Renne myself.""Then you are an enemy of Menwyn Wills?""I am an enemy of Hafydd's, and at the moment so is Menwyn Wills, though for all the wrong reasons, I suspect.""May I sit up?" Carl asked.

"Slowly. I can see your hands even in the darkness," the man said. "Keep them away from your sword and dagger. That goes for you, too, master thief."Carl sat up, trying to shake off both sleep and fear. It seemed his throat wasn't about to be cut. They might even have found an ally—a formidable ally.

Pwyll shifted on the stump. "Tell me, Lord Carl, do you trust Lord Samul and the Prince?""Prince Michael has worked against Hafydd even while his fa-ther was in the sorcerer's thrall. I don't doubt him in the least. De-spite present alignments, the Renne are still the main enemies of Hafydd, and Prince Michael is trying to rally allies to their cause. Michael believes that Menwyn will not win a battle with Hafydd despite the size of his army.""The Prince is right. Men-at-arms won't stand and fight a sor-cerer for a captain like Menwyn Wills. He does not have either their respect or their love. The first signs of sorcery, and they will break and run. Hafydd will gather them all together again in a few days and command them out of fear. Menwyn will not survive this war. But if we are to defeat Hafydd, he must be denied that army.""And that is the Prince's purpose.""There is a small problem that the Prince did not foresee…""And that would be?""His kin sent out a rider soon after he arrived, and a troop of men-at-arms wearing Wills livery arrived at the manor house not half an hour ago."

The river had narrowed and increased its speed while the cliffs had fallen way to rolling banks, which rose and dipped a little as they passed. To either side, dense forests of pine and fir mixed with oak and maple, beech and ash. There were trees growing there that Dease Renne had never seen before: a tree with bark white as a wave crest and branches that hung down like the weep-ing willow, a maple with leaves larger than platters. He watched the hidden lands roll by between his turns at the oars. No one who could manage a sweep was exempt. Even Elise, he noticed, took her turn, and the men in her boat were hard-pressed to match her pace. A gift from the river, she called this strength, but it was arcane, Dease knew, and it unsettled the men-at-arms, even A'brgail's Knights.

"Do you smell smoke?" A'brgail asked, sitting up and turning his head, nostrils flaring as he tested the air delicately.

Toren turned and gazed back the way they'd come. "Wind is in the north, so it must be coming from behind. Did we pass a camp-fire?" Dease saw Toren reach over for his sword, which he now kept buckled to a thwart. Hafydd was somewhere on this river before them, or so Elise claimed.

"The winds eddy and twist among these hills, Lord Toren," Theason said. "The smoke might be coming from anywhere." He too sniffed the air. "Forest fires can occur in summer. I have seen the places where they've burned—vast stretches, soon green again with new life, but the skeletons of the great trees stand for many years, like gravestones." Theason was silent a moment, then went on. "Do you know, the name Eremon, which Hafydd uses still, is the name of a shrub that grows up where fire has destroyed the forest? The seeds of the eremon bush can lie dormant in the ground for two hundred years, but the heat of the fire cracks their shells, and they sprout up only days after the fire has passed."No one had any response to this, and the boat fell silent.

"Do you smell the smoke?" Elise called a moment later. She was standing in the stern of her boat, wrapped in a Fael cloak, her hair wafting in the breeze. She twisted it into a rough tail and tucked it behind an ear, and then inside the collar of her cloak—a practiced motion that was all Elise. Sianon, Orlem had said, cut her hair short.

"Yes," A'brgail called, "but where is it coming from?"Elise shrugged. "The wind comes from all directions."And so it did. North for a while, then from the west, then south by southwest. It even veered east for a time. The smoke seemed to be carried on any wind, now stronger and more pungent, then weaker or gone altogether.

They rounded a bend in the river, and Dease's eyes were stung by smoke, the smell even stronger. Flakes drifted down from the sky, like snow, but this was a gray snow.

"Ash!"Theason said.

"Bring the boats together!" Elise called out. She had un-sheathed her sword and thrust the blade into the river.

"Is it Hafydd?" A'brgail asked, as the boats came alongside, oarsmen swinging high their sweeps and taking hold of the other craft's gunwale.

Elise did not answer but held her blade in the back of the river, eyes closed, her head cocked to one side as though she listened in-tently. Then she shook her head, drawing her sword from the water and drying it in a fold of her cloak, all in one motion.

"He is ahead of us yet—and some distance, too. But still, fire is I his greatest weapon, and we must be wary.""Theason said he has seen forest fires in the hidden lands be-fore," A'brgail offered.

Elise nodded. "Then let us hope this is such a fire and nothing more," she answered, but she stood again in the stern of her boat and surveyed all that could be seen, her manner stiff and appre-hensive.

Ash continued to snow down, dappling the water, where the flakes soon became a leaden scum spread over the surface. Smoke could be seen now, hanging among the low hills that bor-dered the river.

"Rain would be welcome," Theason remarked.

"Fire is a way of rejuvenating the forest," Eber said, "for it sweeps away the ancient trees, cleanses the soil, and allows the long cycle of growth to begin again." He held his son, asleep in his lap, and Dease thought the old man looked overwhelmed by sadness. "Young trees appear, flourish, and are replaced by others, like gen-erations, until you again have the mature forest we see here. It is the natural cycle and keeps each breed of tree strong, for the forest is full of scourges, even for the oak and the willow.""If anyone is wearing mail, he should take this opportunity to shed it," Elise said, but work at the oars was hot, and mail shirts had long since been rolled into oiled sheepskins and put away out of reach of water.

The smoke was thicker ahead, a cloud of it wafting out over the river, casting a shadow on the dark waters.

"What is it you fear, Lady Elise?" A'brgail asked. "Something I think."But she answered with a question of her own. "Who among you can swim?"A few voices answered in the affirmative—not enough, Toren thought.

"Those of you who cannot swim find another who can. Do as he says and do not let fear get the better of you."Eber turned in his seat in the bows, fear across his face. "But what of my son?" he said, his voice shaking with anger and appre-hension. "You swore that you would protect him.""And I will," Elise said. "Pass the boy back to me."Llya was wakened and passed quickly down the row of oarsmen to Elise, who took him up gently,smiling at him and caressing him as though he were her own.

"Don't be afraid," she said. "I am of the river. No matter what happens, you will be safe with me."The boy made some sign with his hands, and Dease wondered if he had understood at all.

They rounded another bend, and there the smoke was thick. Fire climbed a tree in the distance, branches breaking away and tumbling in flames. Despite cloaks stretched over mouths, smoke burned into the lungs all the same, and everyone coughed. The boats drifted into a gloom, like a dry fog. His eyes stung and wa-tered so that he could see almost nothing. The heat began to grow, so that Dease's face ran with sweat, and he could feel it spreading down his sides beneath his clothes.

"Douse your cloaks in water!" Elise yelled.

Dease pulled his cloak off and thrust it into the river. In a mo-ment he had it over his head, crouching within this small tent. He could feel his cousin beside him, hear him coughing. Dease was racked by a fit of coughing himself as the smoke tore at his lungs. He opened his cloak a little and tried to pick out any-thing in the obscurity. To run ashore would be a disaster.

"Flames!" he yelled. A wave of heat struck him like a blow, knocking him into the bottom of the boat. His cloak was quickly steaming itself dry.

"Into the water!" he heard Elise yell, and Dease threw himself blindly over the side. The cool water washed over him, drawing off the scalding heat. He struggled out of his cloak and threw the sod-den mass into the boat. He kept one hand on the gunwale, but the wood was growing almost too hot to hold. Quickly he switched hands, splashing water up onto the wood.

In the water beside him were others, faces blackened and ob-scured by smoke. Something burned his wrist, and he drew his hand away from the boat, only to find the burning did not stop in the water, and he scraped away at his skin for a moment before he was free of the scalding material.

Paint, he realized. The paint was bubbling off.

"Splash water on the boats!" someone yelled, but Dease turned quickly around, staring into the smoke that burned his eyes. The boats were gone!

Flame appeared overhead, the heat unbearable. Dease dove be-neath the water and swam. The forest fire, if that's what it was, leapt the river. The desire to cough was strong, but he fought it down, pressing himself forward into the cool water. To surface there would be to die. There was no light in the water, though he swam with his eyes opened. He didn't even know for sure that he was swimming downstream.

When he began to see black spots about the edge of his vision, Dease rose toward the surface, emerging into a smith's forge, the heat searing his face, wet though it was. Even the water seemed hot, steaming around him. Flames shot out of the smoke, and the sound of fire was deafening.

He drew in a lungful of smoke and coughed uncontrollably. The heat was more than he could bear, but he could not dive without air, and there was nothing to breathe but smoke.

Dease rolled on his back, gasping and hacking. Water choked him, but he could no longer find the strength to struggle. The world seemed to recede, fading, darkness swirling out of the air.

The river took hold of him, and he was pulled down, down into the waters. He did not resist, nor could he have, but slipped into a dream, a cool dream where he drifted within the river, held gently in its maw, carried off, where he did not know.

Toren felt they were in an oven, close, utterly dark, hot as a bed of coals. He could hear the others breathing, coughs echoing beneath the overturned hull. For a moment he rested, clinging to the inwale with his fingers. When he felt he had enough strength he reached an arm out and splashed water onto the hull, his fingers roasting in the heat of the fire.

In a moment he pulled the hand in again, dousing it in the quickly warming water.

"Call your names…" A'brgail said, almost at Toren's elbow.

Names were croaked in the darkness.

"Dease?" Toren called. "Dease? Are you here?"There was no answer. One of A'brgail's Knights was missing as well—their numbers down to eight. Toren cursed between fits of coughing. He didn't think anyone would survive outside the boat, the heat was too great, the smoke overwhelming. He took a breath and ducked under, surfacing in a kind of purgatory, flame and smoke roiling overhead, hotter than a blazing hearth.

"Dease!" he called. "Dease…" For a moment he listened, then went back into the relative safety of the overturned boat, drawing in a lungful of smoky air.

The current seemed to be infinitely slow, and the fire spread over a greater area than he had hoped. It even occurred to Toren that the boat might be circling in an eddy, not escaping the fire at all. He reached a hand out into the oven and splashed water up onto the hull, as did the others, but still it was growing dan-gerously hot. He reached up and pressed his palm to the planking— then pulled it quickly away. The wood was almost too hot to touch.

"It can't be much farther," someone lamented.

"How big can such a fire be?" a voice asked.

"Very great," came a small voice in response. "I have seen a fire scar the hillside for leagues.""We'll not survive for leagues," A'brgail said low to Toren. "An-

II

other few moments, and this shell will be on fire, and all the turtles will be forced out into the flames.""Let us hope…" Toren said. But A'brgail was right; another few moments, and they would be gone. He dipped his head under, for the air beneath the boat was growing hot. As he surfaced some-thing scalding-hot dropped onto his cheek, and he wiped it away— pitch from the seams between the planks! He heard someone surface into the boat.

"We're afire!"Theason gasped.

Toren ducked under the gunwale and surfaced into the swirling smoke. He rubbed at his stinging eyes, trying to clear them with water. Squinting, he could see flames spreading over the turtled hull. He stripped off his shirt and beat at the flames.

"The paint is aflame!" he called to the sooty face that surfaced beside him—Toren could not begin to guess who it was.

Whoever it was followed his example, and after a moment they had doused the flames. They ducked back into the boat, gasping, choking, his scalp feeling as though it had been seared.

"The paint," he managed. "It is aflame. We have to beat it with sodden shirts."Three men-at-arms ducked under immediately. A dull thump-ing sounded on the hull. When these three returned, three more went out—not a shirker among the group.

"I think the smoke is not so thick," one said as he returned, and Toren felt his hopes rise. Perhaps they would not be baked after all.

But it seemed a long time, even so, before the air began to clear, and glimpses of sunlight heartened them. They were a bedraggled lot when finally they washed ashore upon a narrow strip of mud and sprawled upon the grass. Smoke still filled the sky, drifting up in great, molten clouds. The air, however, could be breathed with-out promoting spasms of coughing. One of A'brgail's Knights called out, and Toren sat up to see the other boat, overturned, men clinging to it. It was brought ashore with some effort.

Dease was not there among the smoke-stained faces, though Eber, his white beard dirty gray, crawled out onto the bank.

"But where is my son?" he rasped. "Is he with you?""No, but he was with my mistress," Orlem Slighthand said. "He will be safe. Don't waste a moment in worry."A head count turned up two others missing besides Dease—one of A'brgail's Knights and a Renne man-at-arms.

The tall man from the wildlands was soon up, assessing the damage to the boats. Most of the gear was lost, though weapons and some other necessities had been tied to the thwarts, and these had not been jettisoned when the boats were overturned.

Toren was on his feet, but Slighthand had assumed control and was seeing to the men, tallying their weapons and tools—a natural leader. He stood overlooking the boats with Baore.

"Can they be put to rights?"Toren asked, feeling small between the youth from the wildlands and the giant.

Baore tugged at his sparse beard, thinking. "I will take a day to make them somewhat riverworthy. Some of the pitch melted out of the seams, and the paint is gone. The wood is scorched black in places, but not to any depth, luckily. We might find some of our oars washed up along the bank; otherwise, we shall have to fashion them with an axe. They'll be rough, but serviceable.""I'll lend a hand," Orlem said. "I'm not a stranger to wood, though I'm no shipwright."Toren waited until Baore had gone off a few steps, then said quietly to Orlem, "What has become of Elise? The old man is wor-ried to the point of distraction about his child."The giant crouched and ran his hand over the blackened plank-ing, rapping it with a knuckle. "The fire was not natural," he said in his deep rumbling voice. "Caibre created it to destroy us—to de-stroy Sianon… Elise. I cannot say what other snares he might have left to catch her. Caibre was brutal and cunning. I only hope she was equal to his art." The giant glanced back up the river. "I don't know how long we'll be safe here. The fire is spreading south. It will soon catch up with us. Whoever has skill with wood or boats should lend Baore a hand. A meal would hearten the men-at-arms. I don't know if we have a bow that can be used, but Baore has hooks and line. If there is a fisherman among us—other than Baore, who can-not be spared—then we should set him to finding food."Someone called out and pointed. Toren stood to find Elise, her golden hair awash, swimming toward them.