Witchlanders (20 page)

“Don't be so dramatic,” Ryder said, pushing him on again. “If it's true—as you've been insisting—that you
don't know anything about the attack, then you have nothing to fear. I've never been one to defend witches, but they wouldn't kill someone without cause.”

Falpian turned around. “They killed people without cause all the time during the war!”

“I told you to keep moving!”

Falpian turned and tramped on, scowling. Up ahead, a high branch cracked under its own weight, and he watched it fall, raining diamonds.

“It was different during the war,” Ryder added gruffly. “You attacked us. Barbiza. Tandrass. The black ships. We were defending ourselves.”

Falpian snorted. “What about all of Kar's priests you executed without trial? What danger did they pose? And what about all the Baen farmers and merchants who lived in the Witchlands before the war? You sent them all over the border to the Bitterlands, and those who wouldn't go you killed.”

“That never happened.”

Falpian was shocked by Ryder's arrogant sureness. “What? My mother was a Witchlander back then—her people were innocent farmers! Half of them died during the war, or lost their homes at the very least.”

“If they looked like you, they weren't Witchlanders. They were Baen. They belonged in the Bitterlands, and those farms weren't their homes.”

The statement struck Falpian somewhere deep. He turned again, his voice shaking with quiet anger. “If a family has lived in the same house for generations, worked the land, paid their tithes, how is it not their home?”

Ryder shook his head. “I know there were Baen living in the Witchlands before the war, but they were all in league with the black magicians from the Bitterlands. When the fighting started, what were we supposed to do? Just let them stay on
our
land, plotting behind
our
backs?”

“My mother's family had nothing to do with the black magicians!” Falpian's voice echoed through the trees. “Some of my aunts and uncles even worshipped the Goddess.” He could see that Ryder was surprised by that, and pressed his advantage. “You people used the war to steal every piece of land you could. What do you think you're walking on? Twenty years ago this path was covered with innocent Baen men and women leaving the Witchlands with everything they had on their backs. And did you people ever stop to wonder if the land could feed them all? Kar's sake, why do you think it's called the Bitterlands?”

Ryder looked him up and down with a smirk. “You seem well fed to me.”

“I'm one of the lucky ones. There are always beggars at our gates.”

“Oh, what a tragedy, you have to look at poor people,”
said Ryder. “Besides, the attacks on Barbiza and Tandrass justified everything else.”

Falpian felt the blood rush to his cheeks. A picture of his mother came back to him: a woman in blue looking out at the ocean, fingering her remembrance beads. Such a long string—one bead for every relative Falpian would never meet. Even as a child, he had always known somehow that his mother's heart was somewhere else. It was in the land of stories, the homeland that he had never seen: the Witchlands.

“You are taking me to my death,” Falpian said coldly. “If you know anything about witches, you know it's true. At least have the courage to admit it.” At that Falpian turned on his heel and hurried on, depriving Ryder of the satisfaction of pushing him.

That was better. Anger was better than the dull feeling of loss that threatened to swallow him. He was so angry that he almost turned again in his tracks, resolved to fight Ryder for the humming stone in his pack—but common sense got the better of him. How could he fight with his hands tied? He'd never win. Besides, Ryder was bigger, stronger, meaner . . .

. . . but was he faster?

Up ahead the path curved to skirt a ditch filled with snow-covered brambles. Falpian glanced back. Ryder had sheathed the Witchlander sword, and Falpian could do a lot in the few moments it would take to pull it out again. Maybe, if he was fast enough, he could get back to the echo site with
enough breath in his lungs to sing. But he and Ryder were more than halfway through the gorge now, and every step was taking them farther and farther away from the only place where Falpian had a chance. He had to act now.

As they passed the curve, Falpian turned and butted Ryder as hard as he could toward the ditch. Ryder lost his footing and staggered back. Without waiting to see him fall, Falpian bolted.

At full tilt he raced back toward the echo site, but almost immediately he could hear Ryder behind him. He left the path and took off through the trees, leaping over low bushes turned to crystal by the storm. Ryder followed, so close that Falpian could hear his labored breath. They skidded down a small gully and out onto a frozen creek. Falpian slipped and tottered, unable to keep his balance. Ryder caught up with him now, his sword unsheathed. Falpian fell to his knees. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling Ryder grab him by the hair.

“My sisters are in the coven, and the coven has been attacked,” said Ryder, his voice hoarse in Falpian's ear. “Can you understand that? I need to get home.” Falpian gasped as Ryder pressed the cold blade to his throat. “I swear, Falpian, if you slow me down I will leave your blood in this gorge. Do you doubt me?”

“No,” Falpian said through clenched teeth. “I don't doubt you.” Ryder pulled him to his feet.

Ryder's sisters. Witches! Falpian hadn't known that. As they made their way back to the path, Falpian thought of children playing with bones, learning blasphemies for nursery rhymes, and he thanked the God his own sisters were far away.

At the base of the mountain, they took a short rest. Falpian sat on a log, eyes tracing the path that twined dramatically upward through the trees. Maybe he'd drop dead of exhaustion before he even got to the coven.

“Your mother's people,” Ryder began. He handed Falpian a bit of the lump.

Falpian brought it greedily to his mouth. “What about them?” he mumbled.

“I was thinking. You said your mother's people came from the Witchlands.” Ryder chewed a chunk of lump. “But you must have learned to sing from somewhere.”

Falpian kept eating, his voice nonchalant. “My father lied about his age and crewed one of the black ships that attacked Tandrass when he was sixteen.” He knew he shouldn't antagonize Ryder, but after feeling a blade at his throat, he couldn't resist. He looked up at him and smirked. “Kill anyone you know?”

Bo caught them a rabbit—a big one, white and fluffy in its chilling coat. From the blood on the dog's jaw, it was obvious he'd kept another for himself. Falpian had always
made a mess of skinning rabbits, but Ryder laid it on a rock and paunched it with cold expertise, then made a few decisive cuts and peeled its skin off like a jacket. It was still warm, and the purple flesh steamed in the cold air. Falpian gaped, both revolted and impressed.

They were a little less than halfway up the mountain, and the view of the gorge was dizzying and gray. Falpian was bone tired. His lips were chapped, and his face was burned by the wind. They'd stopped their climb in the middle of the afternoon, and Falpian had thought it was because Ryder could see how tired he was. Now he understood it was because everything took so much time: building the shelter, gathering wood and kindling, melting the snowpack so they had a good place to build a fire. All through the afternoon, Ryder kept frowning up at the mountaintop, and Falpian could see that it nearly killed him to stop, could see that what he really wanted to do was carry on all through the night toward his sisters—even if he died trying.

Ryder skewered the purple mass of rabbit on a long stick and handed it to Falpian. “Here. Can you at least roast this?”

Falpian grasped the stick clumsily. His hands were still tied, and he was barely able to move his fingers from the cold. “Where are you going?”

Ryder was already walking away toward a stand of bare
zanthias. “More wood,” he grunted. “And don't get any ideas. There's nowhere to run.”

Falpian leaned the stick over the crackling fire, enjoying the warmth that was beginning to thaw the front half of his body. Beside him, Bo looked up lovingly, his gray tail sweeping the snow back and forth.

“I don't suppose you want to chew these ropes so I can get free,” Falpian said. Bo's tail swept harder, sending a spray of snow hissing into the fire. “I didn't think so.”

The rabbit was just starting to drip fat, giving off a mouthwatering scent, when Falpian was hit with the revelation of Ryder's mistake. The pack. Ryder's leather pack was sitting right there in the snow. And the humming stone was inside it.

Carefully he set down the half-cooked rabbit, eyes darting toward the stand of trees. His fingers were still numb and clumsy, but it wasn't hard to pull the pack open, even with his hands tied. There it was, the humming stone.

He kneeled down and blew a hurried breath. Nothing—the stone made no sound. Nervously he looked behind him, trying to ignore Bo's big, staring eyes. He regretted what he had to do. But he'd already determined that Ryder was stronger and faster, and there was no way to put him to sleep for a while, or transport him far away—this wasn't a nursery tale where magic did exactly what you wanted. His only option was to stop Ryder's heart. Falpian blew
another breath across the face of the stone, and this time he heard a low rumble. Bo was growling at him.

“Stop that,” Falpian hissed, but when he held up the stone to try again, the dog's growling turned to a snarl. “This has gone far enough. You're a dreadhound.
My
dreadhound. The witches will kill you, too. We've got to get away. We've got to get back to Stonehouse and . . .” Falpian hesitated. “And then . . .” He lowered his hands. What exactly were they going to do after that?

He glanced again toward the trees, but Ryder was still nowhere to be seen. The zanthias were bare now, but Falpian remembered how they had turned the mountains scarlet, how he had wished on one of their feathery pods on his first day at Stonehouse.
Don't let me disappoint my father again. I'd rather die than disappoint him again.
When he thought of returning home, Falpian could only imagine disappointment on his father's face. A realization swept over him.

“Oh,” he said aloud. “I was wrong.”

He should have seen it before. Just because the scroll was blank didn't mean there was no mission. His father hadn't given him a blank scroll out of cruelty—or to make sure Falpian stayed on the mountain. It was a gift. His father had given it to him so Falpian would know, in the last days of his life, that he would play a part in the coming war. His father
would
be proud of him. All he had to do was die.

His mission was to die.

When Ryder returned, Falpian and Bo were just where he'd left them. Falpian stared into the fire. He didn't look up as Ryder took the stone from the white ground and quietly slipped it back into the pack.

“Will you make sure the witches do not bury me?” Falpian said, his voice strangely calm. “My people believe that a man cannot reach the afterlife unless his body is burned and his smoke rises up to Kar.”

“It won't come to that,” Ryder said. But Falpian heard the doubt in his voice.

The cold. Falpian hadn't known how deeply it could get inside you. How it could own you. He and Ryder lay back to back in the dark of the snow shelter, their packs for pillows, evergreen branches for bedding. Outside the wind howled for their blood. Falpian's hands were tied behind him now, a precaution he couldn't really blame Ryder for, but one that made it impossible to get comfortable.

“Didn't you almost freeze to death the last time you made a snow shelter?” he said, his teeth chattering.

“I wasn't careful,” Ryder said curtly. “I didn't stop soon enough, and I let my boots get damp. We'll be fine.”

Ryder was obsessed with damp clothes. He'd insisted that he and Falpian dry theirs in front of the fire before they went to sleep, but Falpian wasn't sure that toasting his
socks on sticks was really going to help him now.

“I almost wish I was in the coven,” he muttered. “Boiling in the witches' cooking pot.” A short burst of laughter escaped him. It wasn't the least bit funny, but he couldn't help it.

The mission was on course, he tried to tell himself firmly. His father wanted him to die, and he was going to do it. His father wanted to make it look as if Falpian had been killed by witches, and now he really was going to be killed by witches. Missions weren't supposed to be easy, after all.

He laughed again, mirthlessly, shivering at the same time.

In the dark, Falpian heard Bo give a great yawn. Ryder had made him an evergreen bed too. It wasn't necessary—a dreadhound could bury himself in snow with only his nostrils showing and survive the coldest weather—but Ryder probably didn't know that. Falpian had to admit it was kind of him. He tried to push aside the idea that there were things he liked about Ryder, in spite of his ignorance. Someone who lived so close to the border would be quick to die when the war came.

“You might not believe this, but I'm sorry,” Ryder said.

“What?” Falpian wasn't sure he'd heard right.

“This morning when we were talking about the war, about your people—I probably said things I shouldn't have.”

“Oh.” He didn't want Ryder to apologize; it only made him more human than he already was, even harder to view as an enemy.

“The truth is, I never thought much about the Baen. My father told a lot of stories about the war, but they never changed. You'd ask him a question, and instead of answering he'd just start in again on one of the stories you'd heard a hundred times before. After a while you just stop asking. My mother wouldn't talk about it at all, but . . . I think there were things about the war she wasn't proud of.”