Authors: Angus Wells
“’Tis true,” Rekyn agreed. “Indeed, at the time of the last Coming the Kho’rabi wizards sent their magicks against the keep. See?” She pointed at the ramparts of the great turret, and I saw blocks there paler than their elder kin, the surrounding stones blackened as if with fire. “Two airboats there were, and both grounded inland. There was a great battle.”
I said nothing, but she must have read the enthusiasm on my face, for she smiled a little and went on: “The boats grounded to the west, and the fylie marched on Cambar. You noticed the wood there? That was the place of battle. It was a mere copse then, but so many brave men died there that Ramach, who was Lord Bardan’s father, decreed it should be left uncut, a monument.”
I promised myself I would, had I the time, go there. I asked, “Dhar and Sky Lords lie there together?”
Rekyn nodded. “Aye. For Ramach deemed the Kho’rabi valiant foes.”
“And you?” I asked. “What do you say?”
She hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “I am neither philosopher nor theologian, Daviot, but I agree with Ramach. This was once their land, and they surely came a very long way to meet their fate. Why not accord them that poor solace? Bardan, too, decrees the wood sacred.”
I felt my question was not entirely answered and frowned, fearing I went too far, as I said, “Are they not then evil?”
“I have never met one in the flesh,” she answered, turning toward me as we strolled, “and so cannot say for sure. The priests will tell you so, and perhaps they are right. Perhaps the Sky Lords
are
the God’s punishment for the sins of our fathers; perhaps they are only warriors sent into battle by their own priests. I’ll not judge them until I’ve spoken with one and learned more of their ways.”
This seemed to me sensible and I ducked my head in agreement. “Has anyone?” I asked. “Spoken with a Sky Lord?”
“No.” Rekyn shook her head, the loose black tail of her hair flying. “No Sky Lord was ever taken alive. Do they not fall in battle, they fall on their own blades. It seems they count it a great dishonor to be taken captive.”
“They kill themselves?” I asked, aghast, for this ran utterly contrary to our own teachings.
“Rather than be taken alive,” Rekyn confirmed.
I swallowed, digesting this as we completed our perambulation and went out through the gates. As we ambled leisurely down the avenue, my mind was only half on the grandeur of the houses; the other half wrestled with the notion of a folk so savage as to take their own lives. It was a thing too strange, too enormous, for my young mind to properly encompass. I wondered what manner of men were the Sky Lords, that they did this.
“So, shall we eat?”
Rekyn’s question brought me from my musing, and I saw that we had come to a building I now recognized as a tavern. I nodded dumbly: my experience of such establishments was limited to Thorym’s humble aleshop, and I did my best to assume an air of sophistication, a pace behind Rekyn as she found a table by the inner wall and settled casually on the bench there.
As we ate, Rekyn spoke to me of Cambar, of its trade and commerce and people, opening my eyes still wider to the world beyond Whitefish village, which even in the short time since I had left dwindled in my sight. It was strange that the place that only two days before had been the whole compass of my existence could so swiftly become so small a thing. It felt that betwixt sleeping and waking my narrow world was being replaced with another, larger place, and my excitement mounted as the commur-mage spoke. I listened rapt until she drained the last of her ale and suggested we find our way to the harbor.
I felt far more at home there, amongst familiar sights and sounds and smells. Even so, it was very different to Whitefish village. Many of the boats were larger, and to the north of the anchorage I saw two galleasses nodding on the tide’s ebb, their lateen sails furled, their oars stowed. Near where they rode at anchor there was a squat stone building I did not think was a warehouse, a throng of large, impressively muscled men lounging about the doors. Rekyn saw where I looked and told me, “Lord Bardan commands two warships.”
She paid the men scant attention, but they fascinated me. I had never seen shoulders so massive, nor chests so deep; I thought they must be powerful warriors. And yet there was something about them I could not quite define, a difference—something in the shape of their skulls, their broad foreheads and deep-set eyes—that set them apart from the men of Andyrt’s warband. As I watched a man in Cambar’s plaid emerged from the building and called some order that sent four of the giants down to the harbor’s edge. Two barrels stood there, huge casks I assumed they would shift on rollers or a cart, and even then only with difficulty. Instead, they took each cask, one man to either end, tilted it, and lifted it as if it weighed nothing, carrying both back to the building easily as if they bore no more than panniers of fish. I gasped, hardly able to believe men could be so strong.
Rekyn noticed the object of my amazement and said, “Each galleass is rowed by Changed. Those are bull-bred.”
Her tone was casual, as though such prodigious strength were entirely natural; as though the presence of Changed were entirely normal. To her it was; to me it was yet another thing of wonder.
“I have never seen Changed before,” I said.
“You have.” Rekyn smiled at my disbelieving frown. “Bardan keeps several bull-bred about the hold, for the heavier work. And not a few as servants. Those are cat- or dog-bred, of course. In Durbrecht you’ll see far more. Likely, do you elect to remain beyond your first year, you’ll have one for a body-servant.”
A servant?
My
servant? My jaw fell, and Rekyn laughed anew.
“It is felt,” she advised me, “that those training to become Mnemonikos are better employed in study than in such trivial matters as the cleaning of their quarters.”
“Did you have one?” I asked her. “When you attended the Sorcerous College?”
“A cat-bred female,” she answered, a hint of fond nostalgia in
her
voice. “Mell was her name.” Her tone changed, and it seemed to me a door closed behind her eyes. “When I left, she fled across the Slammerkin into Ur-Dharbek. I’d not thought Mell would go to the wild ones.”
I feared, from Rekyn’s expression, from her colder tone, that I trespassed on forbidden ground. But I was to become a Storyman, and how should I pursue that following save I asked questions? “Wild ones?” I queried.
The commur-mage nodded absently, yet a little lost in some private past. “The lands of the Truemen end at the Slammerkin,” she murmured, “and beyond lay those lands given over to the wild Changed. The Lord Protector Philedon decreed it so—that the dragons have prey to hunt and need not venture south.”
I did not properly understand her reticence—she had evinced little enough on most other subjects—but I felt it sure enough. I said, in what I hoped was an easy way, “The mantis spoke somewhat to me of the dragons. He said they are dead now, or gone away into the Forgotten Country.”
I thought for a moment Rekyn had not heard me, but then she nodded again and said, “Perhaps they are. Certainly, they prey no more on Truemen; and men do not venture into Ur-Dharbek.”
“Nor the Changed—the wild Changed—come south across the Slammerkin?” I ventured.
“No,” was all the answer I got, and I set my wealth of questions aside for some later time.
But I approached the hold with better-opened eyes, surveying the folk I saw, assessing who was Trueman and who Changed. The smith, I guessed, for he possessed the massive frame of the men (I could not think of them as beasts) I had seen at the harbor, and when I watched the serving folk, I thought I discerned aspects of the feline in several of the women, canine in more than one man. Rekyn was clearly indisposed to discuss them further, and I wondered if some taboo existed; I deemed it wise to hold my tongue. Besides, we found Andyrt in the hall and he called us over, so that we were soon embroiled in conversation with jennym and soldiers, and I found myself quaffing yet more ale.
Thus we passed what little remained of the afternoon, and in a while the candles and lanterns were lit against the burgeoning dark, and servants came out to set the tables for the evening meal. The aeldor and the Lady Andolyne appeared with Sarun and Gwennet, greeting me as friendly as before. Thadwyn, I learned, was gone north to Torbryn Keep in amorous pursuit of Lydea, daughter of the aeldor Keryn. Bardan questioned me concerning my day and I, emboldened by his easy manner, expressed my wish to see the site of his father’s battle with the Kho’rabi.
He and Andolyne exchanged a glance at that, and then he tugged his beard and said quietly, “Are the woods gone from Whitefish village, then?”
“No,” I said, “but no battle was ever fought there.”
“It’s naught but trees, Daviot,” he told me, serious now. “There’s no fine monument, nor trace of the fight. Only trees.”
I suppose my disappointment showed on my face, for he chuckled then and said, “But if you must, so be it. Andyrt, do you take the time on the morrow? I’ve matters to discuss with Rekyn anyway.”
I thought the jennym’s face clouded a moment; surely his response was delayed. From the corner of my eye I saw Bardan nod, and then Andyrt favored me with a wicked smile. “We’ll ride out there, eh?” he suggested.
I voiced enthusiastic agreement, picturing myself astride one of Cambar’s great warhorses, Thorus’s gift-dagger become a sword, myself in Cambar’s plaid.
The reality, I discovered the next day, was somewhat different.
Andyrt sat proud on the warhorse whilst I was brought a pony. A pretty enough beast: a gray-dappled mare with gentle eyes and, I was assured, a no less gentle gait. An ostler I suspected was horse-bred led her out and helped me mount. I climbed astride and felt myself raised a disconcerting distance from the ground, warily clutching the reins and then the saddle as the placid animal shifted under me.
Over his shoulder Andyrt called, “Ware the cobbles, Daviot. Do you fall, they’re somewhat hard.”
Fortunately for me, his humor did not extend to leading me into a fall. He held his own mount to a walk as we circled the Wall and turned westward across the pasture land, and as we rode he instructed me in the basics of horsemanship. I was far more concerned with the simple act of staying in the saddle, but I filed his comments in my memory, albeit I could barely comprehend how the shifting of leather against the animal’s neck, or the touch of a heel to its ribs, should steer it in one direction or another did it choose to ignore those hints. A boat I could understand; this swaying, undulating beast was a mystery. Still, I did not tumble, and felt I regained some measure of dignity. One day, I thought, I should become as confident a rider as my companion.
We went on at a slow pace, past grazing sheep, a herdsman who waved a greeting, over a little brook, more grass. The wood spread before us, all green and shadowy in the early morning sun. It was a plantation of oak, the tall trees rustling in the wind off the Fend. Andyrt reined in a little distance off, my pony halting less in obedience to my urgings than in parody of his stallion, innocently threatening to dislodge me as she lowered her head to crop.
“The wood,” Andyrt said needlessly, gesturing at the timber. “There’s little enough to it.”
“Can we enter it?” I asked.
“If you wish.”
I felt he hesitated an instant, and as he swung limber from the saddle I saw him make the sign of warding. I did not, for as I strove to climb down I felt my legs and buttocks shafted with pain and become as straws, quite inadequate to the task of supporting me. I clutched at the saddle, leaning for support against the pony, which stirred, threatening to topple me. I heard Andyrt chuckle and gritted my teeth,
pushing gingerly clear of my equine prop as I forced my back straight and turned on unsteady legs toward the wood.
“The first time always hurts.” Andyrt said. “Folk think you need only climb astride a horse and sit there, but there’s more to it than that. I’ll ask Garat potion a bath for you when we return.”
“My thanks,” I said, and then: “I’ve much to learn.”
Andyrt said, “Aye,” and cheered me by adding, “but I’ll wager you make a good enough horseman in time.”
I smiled and hobbled closer to the wood.
Andyrt surprised me then, setting a hand on my shoulder to halt me as he dropped to one knee, hands crossed against his chest in attitude of prayer. Confused, I waited for him to rise with a question on my lips that I bit off as I saw his face. I was not sure what expression sat there; not fear, but an emotion not entirely divorced. Awe, perhaps; and something of disquiet. I looked to the wood and wondered why.
It seemed no more than a plain oak hurst, the massy branches verdant with spring’s new growth. The closer trees were mostly young as oaks go, though toward the center I could espy vast, majestic trunks that must have been ancient when Ramach faced the Kho’rabi. I turned to Andyrt and asked him, “Were you here then?”
“No.” He shook his head, favoring me with a brief smile. “Think you I’m so old? Bardan himself was a babe in arms when this battle was fought.”
I mumbled an apology he seemed not to hear, intent on the holt. I had never set foot in a place of worship larger than the village cella, but it came to me that his must be the attitude of a man entering some sacred precinct, a cathedral … or a sepulchre. I fell silent as we walked slowly through the edge timber, moving deeper into the wood. It dawned on me that I heard no birdsong, that no squirrels chattered from the branches, nor were there the usual sounds of the small animals amongst the roots and fallen leaves. Indeed, nothing other than the oaks grew here: there was no undergrowth, nor even moss on the gnarled trunks. It was unnaturally quiet, the only sound the faint susurration of the wind-stirred leaves, as if the oaks murmured amongst themselves; as if they discussed our presence.
I felt suddenly uncomfortable. The dull aching of my thighs and buttocks was forgotten, replaced with a prickling
sensation that prompted me to turn to and fro, convinced eyes watched me from hidden places.
“You feel it.” Andyrt did not ask a question, and I nodded, whispering, “Yes.”