The Western Wizard (54 page)

Colbey cleared his throat. Instantly, everyone’s attention was riveted on him. He saw a pleading in each gaze that begged him to find the solution and the missing child. He knew that it was probably a figment of his imagination, but the burden became a promise, though he did not voice it. Exhaustion rode him, but he could not sleep until he knew for certain and fulfilled that vow he had made to himself and, in his mind, to the others as well. “Wait here for Episte. Korgar and I will look for him.”

Colbey seized the barbarian’s arm and headed into the woods before anyone could protest, yet Shadimar’s words followed them. “Secodon, go with them.”

Paw steps crushed the weeds with a sound no louder than his own passage, then the wolf was with them. Colbey did not mind. When tears blurred his gaze and frustration hardened his muscles to knots, he knew his two companions would never tell.

*  *  *

Colbey wound through the shadows of the foliage, his hood shielding his white thatch of hair and its golden highlights. Korgar faded into the brightly lit forest, then reappeared so often that his skill no longer amazed Colbey. He found himself thinking about the days when his own
torke
had taught him
brunnstil.
Though seventy years had passed, Colbey could still hear himself saying: “Brown and still?” He made a broad gesture to include the expanse of brush and weeds. “Wouldn’t still and green make more sense?”

The
torke
had smiled with a patience Colbey had long
sought to mimic. “Colbey, think of the wolf, the bear, and the woodland cat. Think of deer and of
wisules
, the worst cowards and best hiders in all the animal world. Think of every animal that has ever eluded man or beast in the woods. And when you have consider them all, I want you to make a list. I want you to consider all of the animals that successfully conceal themselves. Then I want you to name every one that’s green.”

Now, in the forests south of the town of Greentree, Colbey smiled at this memory from a time when his only concern was becoming the best swordsman he could. He dwelt on the past and the memories it inspired, glad to release the concern that had wound his nerves to aching coils for the last half day. He knew he should have returned long ago. Already, his companions would be worrying over his own safety as well as Episte’s. Yet, his conscience would not allow him to abandon the search.

Korgar emerged from a patch of thistle, without a rustle to betray his passage. “
Anem
,” he said, his voice a guttural growl. He jabbed his hand in the direction from which he had come, then indicated a circular path of avoidance.

Colbey sighed, stopping in his tracks. Over time, he had come to recognize
anem
as the barbarian’s word for Northmen. He could not help wondering if he had made a mistake by avoiding the areas that Korgar indicated. Having never seen Episte, Korgar might mistake the young blond for one of the Northmen’s own. “How many?” Colbey held up one finger, adding consecutive digits to the count until he reached five. He used the whole of his bandaged hand for the sixth marker.

Korgar grunted, nodding.

Colbey dropped his count. It made no sense for Episte to be among others, unless the Northmen had captured him. Yet that made less sense. The Northmen would have no reason to keep a Renshai alive, and Colbey could not imagine anyone taking Episte without a lethal fight. He also believed that, despite his communication difficulties, Korgar would mention the oddity of a prisoner. Or so he hoped.

Directly behind Colbey, Secodon sat, whining softly.

Colbey shifted his direction. The turn of his thoughts
back to Episte brought with it a feeling as heavy as lead. His mind conjured images of the teenager as a toddler, capering through maneuvers designed for older students. Memories paraded through his thoughts, of Episte at every age, an endless succession of skill and frustration.
So competent, yet so unmotivated.
The idea both pained and brought joy. As much as it hurt to have a student with so much potential and so little desire, it was what made Episte Episte.

Brush rasped from Colbey’s jerkin as he worked through a dense copse and into a sparser area of forest. He tried to suppress the rush of memory that hammered at him. The images retreated, replaced by insidious feelings dredged from a depth Colbey had never before discovered. His love for Episte frightened him. The strength of his emotion surpassed anything he could recall from the past, even his ties to his parents. For all that he had tried to leave Episte’s nonmartial upbringing to the boy’s mother, the temptation to sweep the child away from her had proven strong. Though he had resisted in the physical sense, his mind had betrayed him. Colbey knew without the need to doubt, that he was, in his own mind and in the boy’s, Episte’s father.

Secodon paused, nostrils twitching in a thin breeze that Colbey scarcely noticed. The wolf plunged ahead, brush crackling in its wake. Colbey continued onward, sticking to the stripes and patches of darkness. The realization opened a deeply buried section of memory, and love seemed to geyser from it with an intensity that again brought tears to Colbey’s eyes. They surprised him. He could not remember ever having cried before, not even as a child. Yet he could not have stopped the tears if he tried. Episte meant so much more than just one more student among decades of students. The few remaining Renshai made each one more precious, but none more so than the last that still carried Renshai blood.

The idea rankled. Colbey had spent too long denying the importance of bloodline to place emphasis on it now, but his mind seized the concept and held it. In his youth, Colbey had fallen in love twice; neither woman had borne him a child. In turn, each had left him for a man who could give her a family. From that time, Colbey had never
known any woman as more than a friend, a peer, or a student, and the idea of settling with one never crossed his mind again. He had no need nor reason. Of them all, only Episte could carry on the physical traits that, though secondary to the sword skill, still distinguished Renshai: the blond or red hair and pale eyes that seemed so natural to Colbey, the slower aging, and the skill that had come because those with natural and trained ability survived long enough to procreate.

Secodon returned. The wolf danced an excited circle around Colbey, then started back the way it had come. After a few steps, it returned to Colbey.

Colbey followed, curious. As it became obvious that Secodon was leading him somewhere, guarded hope rose. He could not help but wonder if the beast would take him to a rabbit’s burrow or a fox’s den. Had it been any other trained wolf, he would have expected such a find. Yet Secodon belonged to Shadimar. Though the wolf seemed normal, aside from reading the Wizard’s moods, Colbey allowed a shiver of joy to surface.

Episte.
Colbey’s tears abated, and he smiled. He formed mental pictures of the teen, imagining the exuberant embrace when the youngster realized that he was no longer lost in unfamiliar forest. When the hugs had finished, Colbey promised himself that he would again apologize for hitting Episte. He would confess that the rage that had possessed him when he believed Episte was lying had burned harder because of the love and hopes and plans he had projected on the last man with Renshai blood.
My son.
Colbey stepped into a clearing.

At his approach, flies rose in a buzzing cloud. Three bodies sprawled on the ground black with blood. Two lay in familiar positions, agonizingly twisted and stiffened in rigor. Each bore wounds that could only have come in battle: one a thrust through the abdomen, the other a gash across its throat. The third body flopped in the center of the glade, naked and lying on the tattered remains of a tunic and cloak. Small and lanky, it obviously belonged to a young teen. The limbs sprawled as if in sleep, yet their stiffness betrayed death. And it had no head.

Colbey gasped in a ragged breath. Sadness assailed him first, the grim knowledge that this youth, whoever
he had been, had never reached Valhalla. The need for the dead to be a stranger kept other possibilities at bay, and realization seemed to take an eternity to trickle into Colbey’s brain. He stood, frozen and rooted. He did not know for how long; but, when he moved at last, his limbs tingled with the prickling sensation that comes with remaining in one position too long. Korgar had stepped up beside him.

At length, Colbey emerged from his trance enough to approach the body. The neck bore evidence of repeated trauma. No clean stroke had claimed the head, and the lack of wounds on the remainder of the body sickened Colbey. This man had died slowly and in a horrible agony that he could not imagine even the most savage Renshai inflicting on an enemy. Colbey dropped to his haunches beside the corpse, dreading what need told him he must do. Blood did not bother him, nor death. He had claimed both too long and too many times to find them anything but commonplace. But the ugliness at his feet went beyond any mortal honor he could fathom.
Why would anyone do this to anyone else?
The answer came faster than he could suppress it.
Because the Northmen’s hatred has grown beyond rational thought or behavior.
The next followed naturally.
Which means this corpse can be no one but Episte.

The idea evoked a pain that mercifully stole all thought from Colbey. Having conceived the horror, however, he had to know the truth. Catching a cold, bloodless arm, he flipped the body to its back. Though stained with gore, the tatters of cloth matched Episte’s cloak and tunic perfectly.

No!
Colbey pawed at the clothing in mindless agony. “No!” he screamed, not caring who heard. “No! No! No!” And the rest of the call came as naturally as breathing, that which he had learned to shout when cut, though that pain had always before been physical. “Modi! Modi!” The clothing balled into his lap, some of the blood still wet enough to smear the bandage and gel in the hairs of his arm. Santagithi’s locket fell free, the chain snaking across the bloodstained dirt.

Colbey seized the trinket. Though it could be no other, he had to know for certain. He cupped his hand around
the piece, fingers quivering on the latch. It opened to reveal the familiar piece of parchment and the words in the elder Rache’s hand.

Colbey snapped the locket closed. It pinched the skin on the side of his finger, the sharpness of the pain reviving him from a state of numb shock to a rage that seemed to tear him asunder. He jabbed the jewelry into his pocket so hard that the lining tore. He whipped the sword from his sheath with his unbandaged hand and advanced on the dead Northmen. If they would steal the glory from Episte’s death, then he would butcher Valhalla from them as well. From this day forth, no Northman would find the joy of the afterlife. Colbey would see to that. Quickly, he advanced on the dead, intent on hacking them into enough gory pieces so their brothers could never recognize them, could never perform the ceremonies that would assure them the honor of an afterlife.

Yet even as Colbey raised the blade, he knew that he could never let it fall. The two men who lay here had not disgraced Episte. Rather, they had surely fallen at his hand. To dismember them was wrong, and to carry a stark, ugly vengeance against all Northmen equally so. To claim limbs from the dead would require Colbey to abandon all the promises he had made to himself, to his goddess, and to the future of Renshai. It would revive every crime he had vowed to make right, rekindle every hatred against the Renshai that he had dedicated the last decade of his lift to undoing. He returned the blade to his sheath.

Colbey’s anger continued to flare, the violence that would have dispelled it thwarted by conscience. He channeled it into gathering the largest branches he could handle, slamming them against trees before tossing them into a pile in the clearing. He hauled the corpse onto the bed of logs and kindling, its headlessness a spear that jabbed his heart with every glance. Then he gathered more wood, assisted by Korgar.

Only after Colbey had set the pyre alight did he consider the consequences of his actions. On the surface, he knew the smoke and fire would draw enemies. That did not bother him. For now, he would welcome the chance to send a thousand Northmen to Valhalla. Reward or not,
at least they could no longer trouble the Renshai. But Colbey knew he had no right to honor this corpse. To offer the gods this empty shell, its soul already doomed to Hel, was blasphemy. As the red trickle of flame grew into an orange-white fury, Colbey lowered his head, waiting for his goddess’ disapproval. Yet Sif gave him nothing.

Grief bunched inside Colbey, still needing an outlet. So many times, he had watched friends, family, and companions collapse in red ruin. So many times, they had died in the glory of battle, and he had known joy instead of sadness, had celebrated instead of mourned. But the means and result of this death allowed Colbey to bear a sorrow and regret like nothing he had ever known. And it still sought an outlet. The fire grew. Its heat become uncomfortable against Colbey’s cheek, driving sweat from his brow and threatening damage to his sensitive Northern skin. It created flickering shadows that danced along the trunks of stately oak and hickory.

One more thought nearly stole Colbey’s breath. As he had wandered around the clearing, in shock, then rage, then in his search for kindling, he had never found the head.
Why would they take the head?
Only one answer came, and the cruelty of the idea tortured even the Golden Prince of Demons.
We will see that head again.
His hand clutched at the locket through the fabric of his pocket, and he knew how that sight would demoralize Rache, and perhaps the others as well. Even prepared, Colbey doubted he himself could stand the sight, though he felt certain it would enrage rather than paralyze him.

Needing an emotional purge now even more than before, Colbey stepped away from the fire. The howl of grief and agony that escaped his throat surprised him at first. Then he cried out again, and Korgar’s mournful note of sympathy forced a sweet and mellow duet, a tribute to the last Renshai who could have passed on the bloodline. And, in the distance, Secodon answered.