Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (19 page)

Now he waits in the shield of the Lightfell Waterfall whose ice-cold water pours down the jagged cliff face into the deep blue waters of the fjord, where stillness triumphs over movement. He waits, watching six ships round the far point and close in on the beach. Beyond them in the deepest central waters a tail flips, slaps, vanishes. The merfolk are out; they have the magic to smell blood not yet spilled, and now they gather, waiting to feed. Eighteen ships have so far returned from Gent and the southlands. Tonight when the midnight sun sinks to her low ebb, OldMother will begin the dance.

Has he built enough traps? Are his preparations adequate?

That is the weakness of his brothers: They think strength and ferocity are everything. He knows better.

He tucks the little wooden chest that he dug out from the base of the fall tight under his elbow and slips out from the ledge. Water sprays him and slides off his skin to fall onto moss and moist rock as he picks his way up the ladder rocks to the top of the cliff. There the priest waits, anxious. He wails out loud when he sees the box.

"I would have found it eventually," Fifth Son says, but not because he wishes to gloat. He merely states the truth. Gloating is a waste of time. He does not open the little casket. He doesn 't need to. They both know what lies inside, nestled in spells and downy feathers. "You have grown lazy, old one. Your magic cannot triumph over cunning. "

"What do you want?" wails the priest. "Do you want the power of illusion, that Bloodheart stole from me? Your heart hidden in the fjall to protect you from death in battle?"

"My heart will stay where it is. Nor do I want your illusions. I want immunity."

"From death?" squeaks the priest.

"From your magic. And from the magic of the Soft Ones. For myself and the army I mean to build. Once I have that, I can do the rest."

"Impossible!" says the priest emphatically.

"For you working alone, perhaps. " The priests keep their arcane studies a mystery even from the OldMothers, such as they can. "But there are others like you. In concert, you can surely work a magic that has a practical use. And once I triumph, you can share in the booty."

The priest laughs, a reedy sound like wind caught in stones. "Why would you think I and those like me want booty? What good does it do us?"

"Then what do you and those like you want?"

The old priest leans forward. Hands trembling, he reaches for the casket, but Fifth Son merely draws it away. He does not fear the priest; his magics seem mostly show, but he knows that a keener mind could wreak havoc with them.

He does not trust magic.

"Freedom from the OldMothers," whispers the priest hoarsely.

Fifth Son lets out a breath, satisfied and surprised by this confession. The jewels drilled into his teeth glint in the sun as he bares his teeth. "I can give you that. After you and those like you have given me what I need."

"But how am I to convince them?"

"That problem is yours to solve. "

He leaves the old priest behind then, and runs ahead. The priest will search, of course, and use his magic to call to his hidden heart. But there are other magics that know the power of concealment. Before he goes to the OldMother's hall to assemble with the others, he takes the chest to the homesteads of his human slaves and there he gives it into the care of Ursuline, she who has made herself OldMother among the Soft Ones.

She has assured him that the circle-god has magic fully as strong as that of the RockChildren 's priests
—
this will prove the test of her god's magic. And in any case, no RockChild will imagine that he might entrust a mere weak slave with something so powerful and precious.

She is curious but not foolhardy. She takes the casket from him and without attempting to look inside
—
-for he has told her what it contains
—
confines it within the blanket-covered box that she calls the holy Hearth of their god. Then she places withered herbs, a cracked jug, and a crude carved circle on the altar and sings a spell over it, what she calls a
psalm.

"Our bargain?" she asks boldly. She is no longer afraid of him, because she has seen that when he kills, he kills quickly, and she does not fear death. He admires that in her. Like the WiseMothers, she understands inexorable fate.

"Our bargain," he replies. She wants a token. The Soft Ones are ever like that, needing things to carry with them, objects to touch, in order to keep their word. He traces the wooden circle that hangs at his chest, his gift from Alain Henrisson. "I swear on my bond with the one who gifted me with my freedom that I will give you what you ask for if you keep this chest safe until I need it. Do that, and I will keep my bargain
—
as long as I become chieftain. Otherwise I will be dead, and you will be as well."

She chuckles, but he knows enough about the Soft Ones to see this laughter does not insult him but is instead a compliment. "You are different than the others. God give Their blessing to the merciful and the just. They will guide you to success. "

"So you hope," he agrees.

He leaves her hovel, whistles in his dogs, and heads down the long valley to OldMother's compound. The path runs silent before and behind him; only a few slaves mewl and whine in their pens, dumb beasts shut away until the great events of the next hand of days have played out their course. His slaves, un-confined, are at their work
—
or hidden in certain places according to his plan. He has entrusted them with a great deal, but they know that if he does not succeed, they will die at the hands of the victor.

OldMother's drone rises up, a low rumble that lies as close along the steep valleys of Rikin as the blanket of spruce and pine and the mixed thickets of heather and fern; her song makes the lichen quicken and grow on rock faces, a pattern readable only by the SwiftDaughters. He strolls out onto the dancing ground of beaten earth alone but for his dogs.

His brothers howl with derision when they see him.

"WeakBrother, do you mean to be the first one to bare your throat? "

"Coward! Where were you when the fighting came to Gent?"

"What treasures did you give to Bloodheart, tongueless one?"

So they howl, taunting him. Their warbands cluster in packs, each pack striving to be the loudest
—
as if loudness denotes strength. He has ordered his soldiers to remain silent, and they do so. He, too, remains silent as OldMother slides the knife of decision out of the pouch in her thigh and raises it to point at the fiery heart of the sun, now riding low along the southern range. With a slashing motion, she brings their noise, and her drone, to a sudden end.

Six of Bloodheart's sons come forward into the center of the dancing ground, and when he steps forward last of all, there are seven. All the other RockChildren have chosen not to contend but instead to bare their throats to the victor. No doubt those who choose submission are showing wisdom in knowing just how weak they are.

The seven who will contend turn their backs to each other, and kneel. SwiftDaughters glide fonvard over the dirt and form the net of story, hands linked, gold and silver and copper and tin and iron hair gleaming as they begin to sway, humming.

Silence except for that low humming permeates the clearing. Even the dogs do not bark. Distantly, he can almost hear the WiseMothers hearing that silence as speech, turning their attention to this mortal instant.

Do they know how momentous this day will be? That one day the SwiftDaughters will weave it into their song of history? Or do they laugh at his ambition?

Soon he will find out.

The heavy tread of OldMother shudders the ground beneath his knees. She alone judges the worthiness of the contestants. The SwiftDaughters part to let her bulk through. He, with his brothers, bows his head.

She makes a slow circle. Suddenly, there comes a grunt, the sharp copper taint of blood, and a thud as one of Bloodheart's sons topples over. His blood soaks into the soil of the dancing ground. Dogs growl, and a few bark and are hushed, or killed.

He feels the knife of decision brush his head, his throat, and linger at the girdle of shimmering gold he wears at his hips: the girdle woven of the hair of a Hakonin SwiftDaughter.

Then it moves away. Six sons remain.

The SwiftDaughters rock back and forth, foot to foot, and begin the long chant, the history of Rikin 's tribe. It will take three days to tell, and when they are done, only one of Bloodheart's sons will stand on the blood-soaked ground and claim victory.

The circle parts. He leaps up, knowing better than to be caught by one of the other five and forced into a brute fight: they all outweigh him, they are bigger, brawnier, and stronger.

But he has strength of a different kind.

With the dogs and the warriors yammering and howling and barking behind, he races up toward the fjall where the first of his traps lies waiting.

Alain woke to frenzied barking, the Eika dogs going crazy—

Only it wasn't the Eika dogs. Rage barked at his door, scratching insistently, and he heard the others howling and barking from Lavastine's chambers as if they had gone mad.

He scrambled to throw his tunic on over his shift. Without bothering with hose he flung open the door. Tallia called out behind him, but he ran on, to Lavastine's chambers.

The servants parted before him. They had not dared come too close. One had been bitten, and his arm wept blood. Alain waded into a seething whirlpool of hounds, all of them tearing around the chamber like a dog chasing its tail; only old Terror stood, legs up on the embrasure of the window, growling menacingly. Alain stuck his head out the window, but he saw only worried servingmen and a few curious onlookers who had paused to stare at the commotion. Wind stirred the flowering bushes just outside. A rodent—or an unseen bird—rustled in the leaves, and Fear, Sorrow, and Rage bolted out of the chamber and raced around the long building. People scattered from their path.

"Peace!" Alain cried, leaning out of the window, as they skittered to a halt on the other side. They sniffed in the bushes. "Sit." They sat, but they still growled softly at wind and leaves. Behind him, in the chamber, the barking settled and ceased, and the silence that weighed down made his ears ring. He turned to see Lavastine sitting on the bed, half clothed, examining Ar-dent's paw. She whimpered as he spread the pads and examined the flesh with a frown.

Alain crossed to him at once and knelt beside him, then set a hand on Ardent's flank. Her nose was dry and her breathing came in a labored pant.

"Bitten," said Lavastine, "but I know not by what."

Alain sat on the bed to examine her paw. She nipped at him weakly when he probed at the flesh, but she trusted him too well to bite him. At first he felt only how hot her paw was; a swelling bubble grew between the pad of two toes. Finally he found the wound, two tiny red punctures.

"Was she bitten by a snake?"

Lavastine rose and went to speak to a servant, who quickly left. "We'll speak with the stablemaster." The count paced over to the window and stood there, silent, with a hand resting on Terror's great head.

Alain swung a leg over Ardent to pin her down, cut the pad of her paw with his knife, and sucked out what of the poison he could, if indeed she had been bitten by something poisonous, then spat it out onto the floor. Her blood had a sour, metallic taste, and it clotted at once, did not even bleed—only seeped from the cut. He offered her water in a basin, but she would not drink.

Lavastine returned from the window and signed to a servant to help him dress. Another left to get Alain's clothing. Then Lavastine sat down beside Alain on the bed. He considered Ardent, stroked her head while she lay shuddering and panting hoarsely, not moving otherwise.

"it is time we returned to Lavas," he said, "since we have what we came for. I will ask my cleric to name a day propitious for a long journey, and on that day we will take our leave of the king and ride west."

"Father." Alain stuttered to a halt. His blush certainly had as much heat as the infection on poor Ardent's paw. He glanced up to see the servants busy at their tasks, pouring water to wash in, sweeping the steps outside. "I didn't—we didn't—" He could not continue, and yet he could not lie to his father.