Raven's Shadow rd-1 Page 16

  I wonder if she knows that something has happened to me? Is she looking?

  It was an old thought by now, and held a certain comfort.

  “A boy came to be king when he was only sixteen,” Tier said, “when his own father died in battle. War was common then, and the kingdom he inherited was neither so large nor so powerful that the king could sit in safety and leave the fighting to his generals.”

  The story of the Shadowed was one he knew so well that he had once told it backwards, word for word, for a half-drunken wager. He’d missed one phrase, but his comrades hadn’t noticed.

  “This young man,” he said, “was a good king, which is to say that he promoted order and prosperity among his nobles and usually kept the rest from starvation. He married well, and in time was blessed with five sons. As years passed and his sons became men, his kingdom waxed in wealth because the king was skilled at keeping the neighboring kingdoms fighting among themselves rather than attacking his people.”

  The floor above him made a sound, as if a listener were settling in more comfortably. Tier added his unknown listener to his audience.

  A boy, he decided with no more evidence than his visitor’s willingness to travel without lights. There were spaces between the boards that would have let light into Tier’s cell, if his unknown guest had brought so much as a single candle with him.

  He would be a boy old enough to be allowed to wander about on his own, but not so old as to have other duties to attend to; an adventurous boy who would venture into the dark corners where prisoners were kept.

  “The king had many of the interests of his kind. He could hunt and ride as well as any of his men. He danced with grace and could play the lute. None of his guardsmen or nobles could stand long against him with sword or staff.” Tier had always had some doubt about the king’s prowess—what kind of fool would beat his king at swordplay?

  Tier fought to picture the king in his mind, pulling out details that weren’t in the story. He’d be a slender young man, like Tier’s son Jes—but his hair would be the pure, red gold of the eastern nobles….

  Seraph had told him that some of the Bards had been able to create pictures for their listeners, but his cell stayed dark as pitch.

  “But what the king loved most was learning,” he continued, in the proper words. “He established libraries at every village, and in his capital he collected more books than had ever been assembled together then or since. Perhaps that was the reason for what happened to him.”

  Tier found himself grinning as he remembered Seraph’s contemptuous sniff the first time he’d told her that part. Books weren’t evil, she’d explained loftily, what people did with the knowledge they’d gleaned was no judgment against the books that held it.

  “Time passed, and the king grew old and wizened as his sons became strong and wise. People waited without worry for the old king to die and his oldest son to take the crown—for the heir was every bit as temperate and wise as his father.”

  Tier took a sip of water, experience guiding his hand to the place where he left the earthen bowl. He let the pause linger, as much a part of this story as the words which followed. “Had that happened, like as not, our king would have gone to earth and be as forgotten as his name.”

  “One evening the king’s oldest son went to bed, complaining of a headache. By the next day he was blind and covered with boils; by that evening he was dead. Plague had struck the palace, and, before it left, the queen and every male of royal blood was dead.”

  Tier’s voice trembled on the last word, because he heard, as clearly as he’d heard his own breath, a woman’s voice wailing in grief. He’d done it—and he found the thread of magic that powered the eerie sound.

  A board creaked above him, closer than the sounds of the mourning woman, recalling Tier back to the dark cell where there was no plague, no dead women and children.

  “The king became haunted, spending hours alone in his great library. But no one took much note, because the plague had spread in short order to the capital city and then to the towns and villages beyond. A horrible, ravening sickness that touched and lingered until its victim died a week later, deaf and blind to anything except pain.”

  Cautiously he tried to feed energy toward the path that had allowed the woman’s cry to sound. It seemed to him that he could feel the unhealthy miasma of evil coating the emptiness of his cell floor. He stood up abruptly, but the feeling ebbed as he stopped feeding the story. The control reassured him. It was only a story, his story.

  He resumed his efforts as he continued the story. “One day, after the last of his grandsons died, the king went to sleep an old, broken man and woke up a young man of eighteen again. They called it a miracle at first, some kind god’s deliverance from the ghastly illness that killed two of every three that came down sick. But the plague spread further, unaffected by the king’s miraculously returned youth. It traveled across borders, devouring the royal houses of the kingdoms all around, until there was only one kingdom and one king.”

  Tier’s voice stuck there, as the magic of the generations-old words caught him in brutal understanding of the numberless dead whose death had fed the evil that was in the king.

  “He ate their lives,” said a voice abruptly from the ceiling above Tier.

  A shiver ran down Tier’s spine, though the words were the exact ones he’d intended to use himself. Somehow the oddity of his listener knowing the words to a Rederni story was part of the strange shape the story was taking.

  The soft, sexless voice continued relentlessly, “He ate them all to preserve himself—and so he lost himself in truth.”

  Tier waited, but when his visitor said nothing more, Tier continued the story himself.

  “As the years passed and the king lived far beyond his life span, what few of his old advisors who escaped the original plague died, old men that they were, one by one. As they did the king replaced them with dark-robed, nameless men—it was these who gave him away at last.”

  “The king’s youngest daughter, Loriel, discovered them feasting upon a child in her father’s antechamber,” Tier said, drawing the horror of that into his dark cell. He could hear the sound of fangs crunching the fragile bone in his soul.

  He could see it.

  A woman, older than he’d pictured her, stood in an open doorway. Her hair, like Seraph’s, was pale, though washed in sunlight rather than moonlight. Two figures crouched before her, anonymous in heavy brocade robes. They were too occupied with what was before them to notice that they had been seen. Between them lay a boy of ten or twelve years whose freckles stood out against his too-white skin. His shoulders jerked rhythmically back and forth in a mockery of life as the king’s councillors buried their heads in his abdomen and fed.

  Tier’s shock kept him from holding the image, though the wet sound of their feeding accompanied his voice. “And she fled to the last of her father’s advisors, a mage.”

  He stopped speaking and tightened his control until the only sounds remaining in the cell were the ones that belonged there.

  “And so they gathered,” said his listener.

  “And so they gathered,” repeated Tier, and the repetition felt right, felt like the rhythm of the story. He relaxed; it was only a story, one that he knew very well. “The remnants of people who had survived the plague. But the sickness had taken the experienced warriors, the lords, and commanders, leaving only a broken people. Loriel led the first attack, herself.”

  “She died,” whispered the listener and the magic coaxed Tier as well, raising needs he’d never realized he’d felt.

  “She died,” Tier said, “but left behind a handful of men who had learned what leadership meant, left them with the ancient mage who taught them and fought by their side. They battled the minions of the Shadowed. As his followers died, the king called upon a host of evil; ancient creatures woke from their slumbers to fight at his behest.”

  Tier let his magic free, finding the places where he had bound it to
o tightly over the years. The bindings, he saw, had been the reason he’d had such difficulty. As the magic swept through him, exhilarating and frightening by turns, the words came to him, as well-worn and soft as an old cotton coverlet, but full of unexpected burrs that pricked and stung.

  “He lost himself and his name. There remained only a title, given by the men who died fighting him. They called him the Shadowed.”

  “Numberless were the heroes…” The other’s voice became part of the story, too. Tier felt his magic rush up to envelope his listener.

  “Numberless were the heroes who fell,” continued Tier. “Their songs unsung because there was no one left to sing.” He paused, letting the other do his part.

  “Then came Red Ernave who fought with axe and bow…”

  “A giant of a man,” said Tier. “He gathered them all, all the men, women, and children who could pick up a stick or throw a stone. He called them the Glorious Army of Man, and he taught them to fight.”

  As if there were no walls in his cell, the people of the Glorious Army gathered before Tier. Gaunt-eyed and battered, they stood in silent, unmoving defiance of the evil they fought. There were a few men, but most of them were hollow-cheeked women, old men, and a small, precious gathering of children worn by hunger and fear.

  Tier knew, by the Owl-borne bond that formed by magic between storyteller and audience, that his listener saw them, too.

  “And in the first days of autumn the king’s old mage took council with Red Ernave. They talked alone all night, and when the morning sun came, the mage’s days had found their number. He was burned in great ceremony, and as the last coals died, Red Ernave assembled his army. He brought them to a flat plain, just beyond the Ragged Mountains.”

  Tier had been there, once. He’d been following the track of a deer and found himself, unexpectedly, on the plain of Shadow’s Fall. There was no marker to warn the unwary, but he’d known where he was. Even so many centuries later, under a blanket of pure white snow, there was death in that place. He could almost feel the soil of the wounded land under his feet.

  The meadow stretched out before him now; he recognized the shapes of the peaks that surrounded it. There was no snow on the ground to hide the shape of the bodies littering the ground.

  “There, there they faced the hosts of the Shadowed and fought. The sky grew black and blood drenched the ground.” Tier smelled the bitter scent of old blood and almost gagged at the familiar odor of war.

  “Bodies piled and the battle raged around them for days. And nights.”

  His cell rang with the sounds of battle, and he realized he’d forgotten how overwhelming it was: the clash of metal on metal and the screams of the dying.

  “The Shadowed’s creatures needed no sleep and they fed upon the dead. The Army of Man fought on because there was nothing else to do; they fought and died. But not so many died on the third day as had fallen on the second day. By the fourth day it seemed that the evil host was thinning, and hope rose among the ragged band—and for the first time they drove the host back.”

  Tier found that he had to stop to catch his breath, and slow his heartbeat. In his pitch-black cell he saw a red-maned, scarred warrior with his axe held wearily against his shoulder, waiting for Tier to continue telling his story.

  But it was too real now, and the words were gone, lost in the desolation of the long-ago battle.

  “And hope flooded the Army of Man for the first time,” said the other, in a voice as ragged as Tier’s.

  “But even as they cheered, the skies darkened, though it was yet midday, and another assault began.” The words were Tier’s again, though they seemed oddly unreal compared to the scenes that unfolded before him.

  It was hard to breathe, the air was so foul. Red Ernave’s hands were weary from the endless fighting. His axe laid into a creature that looked as if it had once been a wolf before the Shadowed’s magics had gotten to it. It died hard and Ernave had to hit it a second time before it lay still.

  He found himself on a small rise without an immediate opponent. He took the chance to rest briefly and ran his gaze over the fighting—and saw the Shadowed for the first time since the battle had begun.

  The Shadowed was less than he’d expected. A full head shorter than Ernave and half his weight, he looked no more than a lad. He bore more than a passing resemblance to Loriel—though her eyes had never been so empty. The Shadowed smiled, and Ernave, who had thought he was tired beyond fear, found that he was wrong.

  A voice beside him said, “I’m here.”

  It was Kerine, the scrawny Traveler who was now their only wizard. He’d staggered into Ernave’s encampment several winters ago and been a thorn in Ernave’s side ever since.

  “It only needed that,” said Ernave sourly.

  Surprisingly the wizard laughed. “When the Shadow one is dead, I’ll wash my hands of you, you hard-headed bastard. But from this moment until that we are brothers, and I’ll stand with you. It’ll take more than that axe of yours to kill the Shadowed.”

  Ernave said, “Come then, brother,” and cut a path through the battle to the Shadowed.

  The Nameless King fought alone. His own creatures granted him a wide berth—as if there could only be so much evil in one place and the Shadowed’s presence made all other dark things unnecessary.

  Ernave approached from the side and swung, but the king’s shield intercepted the blow. Ernave’s axe sank through the thin metal outer layer into the wood underneath and stuck.

  Ernave jerked his axe hard and forced the Shadowed two wild steps to the side before he slipped his arm out of the shield’s straps.

  Ernave slammed the shield into the ground, splitting it as he would have a log so that his axe was free. It was a swift and practiced move, but he just barely managed to bring his weapon up to parry the king’s strike.

  The Shadowed fought as well as the old mage, his advisor, had warned Ernave. Time and again the sword slid along Ernave’s axe, turning the blows so that the heavier steel of the axe didn’t damage the sword blade.

  The king’s mouth moved with magic-making the whole time he fought. For the most part Red Ernave forestalled the spell with heavy blows that forced the king to lose his rhythm and concentrate on swordwork. Doubtless there were more spells that Kerine deflected, but, every so often, a spell touched Ernave with white-hot heat that drained his spent body even more.

  The king was fresh, and Ernave had been tired unto death before the battle began. Even so, Ernave planted his feet, and, with a swift pattern of his axe, he forced the king to leap away.

  The axe felt heavy in his hands, and every time it jerked as the king turned aside another blow the shock shot up Ernave’s forearms and through his shoulders and neck in a flash of pain.

  Ernave stumbled over nothing and, as he fell, his axe caught the king a glancing blow in the knee and laid it bare to the bone. Ernave didn’t hesitate, but kept rolling until he staggered to his feet and turned back to face the king.

  The Shadowed shrieked and the semblance of the young man the king had been fell away, leaving behind something that was little more than sinew clinging to bone. There was no time for horror. Ernave surged to his feet and struck at the king’s sword again.

  The blow hit fairly at last, shattering the elegant blade. Ernave set himself for a killing blow, but the Shadowed dropped his sword and lashed out with his hand. Claws that belonged on no human fingers sunk deep into Ernave’s side.

  Ernave cried out, but the pain did not slow his strike and the axe cleaved sweetly through the Shadowed’s neck.

  Bleeding and breathing heavily, Red Ernave stared in astonished shock at the body of the old, old man who lay on the ground.

  Who’d have thought the Shadowed could really be killed?

  “How did you do that? How did you withstand his magic? I couldn’t block it all. You are no mage.” Kerine’s nagging voice broke through the buzzing exhaustion that made everything seem oddly distant.

  “The
old mage,” said Ernave, his breathlessness growing worse until he breathed in shallow pants. “He gave the last of his life to hold off the dark magic long enough for me to kill the Shadowed. I thought he was a fool to believe it would work… but it didn’t matter as we were all dead anyway.”

  As he finished speaking he fell to his knees.

  Buried deep in Red Ernave’s heart, Tier, knowing how this story ended, realized his danger and struggled to surface, but there was nothing to cling to as Ernave began to submit to the death bequeathed him by the Shadowed.

  A thin whisper rang in his ears.

  “And so the great warrior died in the wake of the Shadowed and left…”

  “Left the battlefield.” Tier grasped the words. “Left his army to mourn.” But he couldn’t remember the next—

  Kerine tried uselessly to save Ernave with what little remained of his power.

  “They burned the thing that had once been a king,” continued Tier’s visitor softly when Tier stopped speaking.

  Tier fumbled a little but the familiar words began to flow again, separating him from his story. “And… and scattered his ashes in stream and field so that there would be no grave nor memorial to the king who had no name.”

  The pain in Tier’s side faded and he was once more safe in the dark of his prison.

  “They buried Red Ernave in the battlefield, hoping that his presence would somehow hold the host of darkness at bay. They trailed into the empty city where the Shadowed had ruled and pulled down the king’s palace until not one brick stood upon the other. Then the remnants of the Glorious Army of Man waited, for they had no place to go. The last of the cities and villages were years since ground to dust under the weight of the Shadowed. Only when the food ran short did the army drift away in twos and threes.”