[Hurog 01] - Dragon Bones Page 21

  “If you’ll excuse me, ladies,” I said, “I’ll desert the field of battle, for no man wins a war with a lady’s tongue.”

  Ciarra stuck her lady’s tongue out at me.

  The trail we were riding through the overgrown forest was wide enough for a wagon, so Pansy and I had little trouble working back to the rear ranks where Bastilla rode with Oreg.

  I turned to ride beside them. “Go talk to Ciarra, Oreg. See if Haverness’s daughter is any happier with you than she is with me.”

  “She finds you objectionable?” Bastilla sounded amused.

  “I believe it is my eyelashes.”

  Oreg batted his eyes at me. “Mine are prettier than yours are, Ward. She’s bound to like them.”

  When he’d ridden off, I slowed until we brought up the rear. I switched to Avinhellish, which I spoke with a terrible accent but well enough for my purpose, which was to ensure that no one overheard what I had to say to Bastilla.

  “I believe I owe you an explanation, Bastilla.”

  Her marvelous eyes sparkled in the dappled light, and she smiled. “An explanation for what, Ward?”

  “For my refusal of your offer the night before we came to Callis.”

  Her smile fled as if it had never been. “How so?”

  “If we had not been on duty that night, I would have taken you up on your offer. And it would have been wrong.”

  “Ah.” Her gelding bowed his head against her white-fingered grip on the reins. “I am too old for you? Perhaps Tisala suits you better?”

  I shook my head. “Not too old.” I couldn’t let her think this had anything to do with Tisala. “For you, sex is a game—one you play very well. But I cannot view it that way.”

  “You sound like a virgin bride.” Her voice was brittle with hurt.

  I shook my head. “My first lover taught me that love only works between equals.” And she had been right. She had led and I followed, unable and unwilling to break out of my idiot act, even where I loved. “You and I are not equal in this; you can sleep with Axiel and Penrod without causing them to fret. Anyone who can do that is far more skilled than I am. My second lover taught me that coupling without love is worse than nothing—at least for me.”

  “And you don’t love me.”

  “Do you love me?” I wouldn’t have asked it if I hadn’t known the answer.

  Her chin went up, and she didn’t say anything.

  “I should have said this that night. There is no love between us, lady. Respect and lust, yes, at least on my part. But not love.”

  “You will regret this,” she said with a careful smile to hide the hurt in her eyes.

  “Lady, my body already does,” I said ruefully. “But it is the right thing. I will not play games.”

  She did not reply. After a few moments, I decided it might be best to give her some time to herself. As I rode past Penrod and Axiel, I jerked my head, and both of them fell back to ride behind Bastilla.

  THE PRIEST LOOKED AT us blandly. “We are here to protect these things. They are dedicated to Meron, and we must keep them in her temple.”

  The temple in question was a little timber building, half the size of the peasant huts of the town. The priest, Oreg, Bastilla, Axiel, and I were the only ones inside, as there simply wasn’t room for anyone else. Tisala had tried to talk to the priest for a few minutes before throwing her arms up and stalking off to get the rest of the little village into packing up and leaving. I hoped she was getting further than I.

  “Except for the armband, they’re not much,” reported Oreg from the altar where he and Bastilla were getting a better look at the items in question. “What magic they had upon them has faded. The armband was powerful once, but there’s no shape to the magic anymore.”

  The priest was visibly displeased with Oreg’s assessment.

  “They are not worth your life; even the goddess knows that,” Axiel said. I’d left the negotiations to Axiel, once Tisala left, since he looked the least like a Northman and spoke Oranstonian.

  “I know that, my son.” The priest set aside his irritation to smile gently at the dwarf king’s son. “But my word is worth my life. If I die in her service, I shall be with her forever.”

  “You’re aiding the enemy,” said Oreg unexpectedly. “These don’t seem to be powerful, but if the Vorsag gain enough of them, and if they have the right sort of knowledge, they can use this to destroy even the memory of Oranstone and the Great Healer, Meron. If you take them to a fortified place, they will still be hers.” But the priest would lose his power outside this village, and he knew it.

  “You imply Meron cannot protect her temple,” chided the priest.

  Oreg moved to my side. “There are rules the gods must follow, or they invite destruction. If she steps in to protect this temple, the Vorsagian gods can act on their behalf, too.”

  “Perhaps the Vorsag serve Meron, too. Perhaps she has decreed that they shall have the sacred objects.” The priest was enjoying this.

  Stala said that to persuade someone, you had to know who they were and what they wanted. What made a priest of Meron? They were a peasant group, loosely knit with little higher organization. As Oreg continued to argue, I thought about what we must look like to the priest. Shavigmen, or at least not Oranstonian. But he’d been no more ready to listen to Tisala.

  The followers of Meron were men of the land, farmers and herdsmen. Peasants. If a peasant had spoken to a nobleman’s messengers the way that this priest was, my father would have him whipped until he couldn’t stand up. But a priest was different.

  I looked at the priest’s calloused hands; he helped in the fields. Perhaps he had his own herds.

  “Eh,” I broke in, interrupting Oreg rudely. “They’re mages, what do they know about the way of the Healer? Good with a fancy argument, they are.” I’d heard enough peasant Oranstonian to know I’d gotten the accent close to right. “Nobles who sit in stone halls don’t understand the goddess. I worked the land myself, before I took up the sword, and didn’t I feel her hand guide my plow?” I thought my father’s head herdsman might be a man of the priest’s ilk, and his mannerisms weren’t difficult to adopt. “Doesn’t mean I don’t think you ought to take whatever the goddess holds sacred and save it for her.” I nodded at the armband that held its place of honor on the altar. “Hate to see that on the arm of one of those heathens who burned Silverfells and stole the dragon stone.”

  For the first time, the priest looked shaken in his convictions.

  “If you take them with you to Callis,” I said, “as soon as Kariarn turns his attention elsewhere, you can return them to their place.” I heard something odd outside.

  He took a deep breath. “I suppose . . . temporarily . . .”

  It was the faint clash of steel on steel I’d heard. I left the priest dithering to Oreg and took a quick step to the temple door and peered out. It required no more than a glance.

  “To arms!” I bellowed, as if I wasn’t the last person to see. “Raiders!”

  They had doubtless meant to sneak up on the village. But had met with a few of Tisala’s men who’d been on the outskirts of town. I tore out of the temple and was on Pansy’s back before I’d finished speaking.

  The first few men hadn’t slowed the mass of Vorsag down much, but by the time I arrived at the fighting, they’d run into the larger block of our troops and their forward progress had slowed to a crawl.

  Pansy screamed, a harsh, shrill stallion’s warning, and plunged into battle. And time slowed. Everything in me was concentrated on each moment, each block, each blow, each life lost. I became gradually aware that Tosten fought on my left and Penrod my right, but it had no meaning beyond the moment.

  I loved the battle, even when it was against scarecrow bandits. Here, where sword met sword and I tested myself against the mettle of my opponent, it meant something when my sword sank deeply into flesh. Pansy told me with twitches of ears and muscles where he was going to move, and he listened in turn to my sh
ifts of weight. We brought death to our enemies, and I loved the power of it. And that final love, one I shared with my father, frightened me more than any battle ever could.

  Axiel had been right; a real battle was different. The knowledge that here at last I was facing my own kind, warriors trained in martial arts, added the sweetness of competition to the fray. These men had a real chance of killing me as the bandits we’d fought before did not. For these were regular army men, for all they wore outlaw’s rags over their armor.

  Stala would have told me to pull the men, because our armies were too evenly matched. There would be no victor here, just dead men to litter the ground. But there were villagers behind us, unarmed women and children I’d been sent to protect.

  A long-fought battle has a flow to it. Fierce speed when I was in the heart of the enemy army followed by almost peaceful moments when Pansy and I broke through the battle lines and there were none to come against us. I held Pansy there to give him a rest and saw that there were others doing the same.

  In one such pause, Tisala joined me, meeting my grin with one of her own before the years of command fell back upon her shoulders.

  “We’re evenly matched,” she said.

  I nodded, moving my right shoulder to try to restore some feeling to my arm. “I hope that occurs to the Vorsagian commander soon. We can’t let them through to the village, but if the Vorsag don’t pull back, there won’t be many of either side left.”

  She scanned the battle and pointed to a group of her men who were cornered. Without another word, we both put our horses at the enemy.

  Her stallion was as hot for battle as Pansy and nearly as well trained, but Pansy’s heavier build made him a more effective weapon. When he shouldered a Vorsagian horse, the other horse went down with its rider. Tisala’s style of fighting was different from my own, with flourishes designed as much to cow the enemy as anything else, but she killed as quickly as I did.

  At another lull in the fighting, I noticed the sun hung low in the sky, though I’d have sworn it was still early afternoon. Pansy’s head hung low, and I rocked back and forth with the force of his breathing.

  “The commander’s breaking off.” Penrod rode up to me, his teeth flashing white in the dark blood and gore of his face. “They weren’t expecting a troop of fighters here. They outnumber us, but not enough to make this anything but a bloodbath for us both.”

  “A good general never wins a close fight,” I quoted my aunt. “He pulls his men out before his losses are high and hits the enemy another time.”

  “Your aunt never left her troops behind.”

  I followed his gaze and saw that the man who’d been commanding the Vorsag was escaping through the trees, while his underlings were organizing a retreat in a slightly different direction.

  “Shall we go after him?” I asked. Without waiting for his reply, I sent Pansy leaping over a slippery mass of bodies, and we galloped after the fleeing man.

  Beyond the growth of trees was a short limestone cliff. Pansy and I drew up beside it just in time to see the Vorsag scarper over the top. He’d abandoned his horse, so I jumped off Pansy and dropped his reins to the ground. I could hear Penrod doing likewise behind me.

  “Do you think he’s gone up here?” I said. No one answered.

  Something hit me in the arm. I spun around, sword upraised, and saw Penrod with a surprised look on his face. In his hand was a dagger red with my blood. Behind him, my brother pulled his sword out of Penrod, and the horseman slid to the ground.

  “Penrod?” I said blankly, for the scene was too strange for understanding. “Tosten.”

  Tosten dropped his sword and looked at me. “He was trying to kill you,” he said, sounding as shocked as I felt. “I followed you and saw him raise his dagger to stab you in the back.”

  Warm blood wet my hand, attesting to Penrod’s attack.

  Penrod lay faceup on the ground, the terrible wound hidden underneath him. He smiled palely at me. “I’m glad . . .” His voice was a hoarse echo of itself. “I couldn’t stop.”

  I had to drop to my knees to hear him, but he didn’t say anything more. His body convulsed, and he died in the messy way all men do. Tears gathered in my eyes, and I blinked them away.

  Tosten bent down slowly and picked up his sword, cleaning it on the bottom of his shirt as he stared at the dead man. “I didn’t even realize it was Penrod until I struck him.”

  Penrod had been a mainstay of his childhood, too. What there was of it.

  I looked up at Tosten. “He died fighting the Vorsag.”

  “Yes,” he said, understanding perfectly without further explanation. Penrod’s name wouldn’t be blackened by betrayal. He bent and closed Penrod’s eyes, then knelt beside me. “Siphern guard his path.

  “Why would Penrod try to kill you?” Tosten asked.

  I shook my head, feeling incredulous, although the evidence of Penrod’s attempt at murder was throbbing painfully. It made no sense.

  “Some wizards can control people for a brief time,” said Bastilla’s voice thoughtfully. From the way Tosten started, he hadn’t heard her approach, either. She walked up to us in her blood-splattered leathers. “But to do that, the wizard has to be nearby.” There was something wrong with her voice. She and Penrod had been lovers, but she sounded as detached as the huntmaster looking at the stag he’d just brought down.

  Bastilla leaned over me to get a better look at Penrod and balanced herself with a hand on my shoulder. I remember a flash of energy gathering there between us, then blackness claimed me, and I knew no more.

  12

  Callis: Beckram

  Commanders are used to losing people on the field of battle, but usually there’s a body.

  THE ONLY THING BECKRAM could work up enthusiasm for were the daily practices with Stala. There he could focus on the fight and the aching grief and guilt faded, leaving only the empty hole where his brother had been. Stala no longer let him fight with the other men.

  She forced him to pay attention to his defense by hitting him with the flat of her blade. “Do that in battle, and you’ll be missing an arm,” she snapped.

  He responded with a swift thrust and a series of moves that kept her too busy to talk for a few minutes. Only after she disarmed him did he realize that he’d followed no pattern, and if any of his swings had connected, he’d have killed her. Which was, of course, why she’d quit letting him fight with anyone else.

  He made no move to pick up his sword, just swayed a little on his feet and concentrated on not falling down. “Sorry.”

  “Let’s try it again.” He noticed that she wasn’t even breathing hard.

  Slowly, he picked up the sword again and faced her.

  “I am not going to take the news to your father that he’s lost another son, Beckram.” Her voice was not unkind. “If it takes a few bruises, then that’s your choice not mine.”

  When she was through with him, he staggered to his tent and collapsed on his bedroll. Sometimes when he was this tired, he didn’t dream. If no one disturbed him, he might sleep as long as an hour. He closed his eyes, but it wasn’t sleep that came to him, but thoughts of his cousin.

  All in all, he thought, Ward’s sudden recovery of his wits made him even more unlikable. Instead of a fool, he was a manipulator. All those incidental remarks in public that caused Beckram to squirm had been deliberate. Not that he’d been the only one to suffer.

  Despite himself, Beckram grinned, remembering Lord Ibrim’s widow’s face after she’d made the mistake of propositioning Ward in a public place a few years ago. Even then, Ward had been as large as a man full grown. Beckram’d felt a great deal of satisfaction at her embarrassment, as she had gone out of her way to torment Erdrick the night before. Tittering with her gaggle of friends over the hick who’d worn a shirt with a stain on it to a formal dinner, she’d reduced Erdrick, sixteen, to public tears.

  Beckram’s smile died as he realized that Ward had witnessed that little incident, too. Had W
ard been defending Erdrick? He remembered the look on Ward’s face when he’d told him about Erdrick’s death. Shocked sorrow had been followed by cold rage that chilled Ward’s eyes until they didn’t look like a cow’s at all.

  If he’d met Ward just this week, he might have liked him. Yesterday over dinner, Ward told the story of how he’d escaped Hurog and reduced the whole table to tears of mirth—even Alizon. Lying now in the dimness of the tent, Beckram doubted any of it had been funny at the time. The whole lot of Ward’s band looked worse for wear, their clothes not much more than well-mended rags.

  “Beckram!” called a familiar voice outside his tent.

  “Kirkovenal?” The Direwolf’s second son was one of Beckram’s few real friends, so he sat up instead of sending him away as he would have anyone else. “Come in.”

  Kirkovenal stepped into the tent and tied the flap closed behind him. His red hair had been recently shorn in the traditional Oranstonian manner, leaving a pale strip of skin above both ears.

  “Someone told me your cousin was here,” he said abruptly.

  “That’s right.” Beckram crossed his legs and gestured for Kirkovenal to sit beside him. “And it appears my uncle’s death left Ward strangely recovered from his mental affliction.”

  “What’s he doing with Ciernack’s Bastilla?”

  Beckram snapped his fingers. “That’s where I’d seen her before. I don’t think I ever knew her name.”

  “So what’s she doing with Ward?”

  Beckram frowned at his friend’s obvious agitation. “You knew Ward lost Hurog because he tried to stop Garranon from taking back one of Ciernack’s slaves.”

  “Bastilla was that slave?” Kirkovenal sounded dumbfounded, as if it had never occurred to him.

  “It’s not as if Ciernack has more than ten or twelve,” Beckram said. “What’s wrong?”

  The Oranstonian rubbed his hands over his face. “Did you ever pay attention to what went on in Ciernack’s tavern? Did you notice how many of the patrons were Oranstonian?”