Once A Hero (31 page)

She burst through the Ranger line. "Rik? Rik?"

Berengar whirled around from his station at the edge of the alley and stepped toward her. "Lady Genevera, no."

"I have to see him."

"No!" Berengar caught her wrist. "Don't go there."

She tried to pull free of his grasp, but could not. "Unhand me!"

"No!" Berengar pulled her to the side and trapped her against the adobe wall of the leatherworker's shop. "He's dead, Gena."

Despair swallowed her anger. "No, don't say that. I can help him."

"No one can help him."

"You don't know that." She pounded a fist against Berengar's chest. "He might not be dead."

Berengar secured her other wrist and pressed her back against the wall with his body. "Gena, he is dead. I have seen death. I know."

"I have magick."

"I know, but it can't do him any good."

She bit back an agonized wail. "Please, m'lord, please. I must see him."

"No, Gena, no." She saw him fight for control of his own emotions. "You don't want to see him like that."

"I need to see him, please."

"Gena, Durriken wouldn't want you to see him that way." He gathered her wrists together and held them against his chest in his right hand. He looped his left arm around her shoulders and hugged her close. "Allow him the dignity in your memory that the Haladina denied him in death."

The compassion in Berengar's voice broke through and eroded the urgency and resolve that had held pain at bay. She gripped Berengar's shirt and brought her head down to her hands as the tears started. "It's my fault. I should have been here with him."

"No, no, you cannot blame yourself. His death here is no more your fault than your death would have been accounted to him had we died yesterday." The count stroked her hair. "You would have done anything to save him, and he would have done the same for you, but not being there does not make you his murderer. Had you been here, I might be mourning the murder of two friends."

"Why did it happen?"

Gena initially resisted, then allowed Berengar to move her away from the alley. "I don't know why, but I do know we will find those who did this. My best people are dealing with it. They will bring the . . . they will bring Durriken to our home and he will be interred in the Fisher vault."

"I do want to see him, to say good-bye."

"I know, I shall see to it."

Gena lifted her head and kissed Berengar on the cheek. "Thank you." She shivered and nestled beneath his arm, availing herself of the refuge he offered until a cart came to carry them both home.

Genevera found herself surprised to think of Durriken as being so small in death. Except for a folded towel covering his loins, he lay naked on the gray granite-topped table. His body had been washed and his limbs straightened so that she could almost have imagined him to be sleeping. She stared at him, wishing and hoping his hairless chest would begin to rise and fall again, but from the chalky pallor of his flesh, she knew that would never happen.

Berengar stood with his back to the door. "The city's mortician thinks this odd, but I told him this was an Elven ritual."

"It is that, really." She slowly made one circuit of the table. "Unlike Men, we return our dead to the earth unencumbered by tokens and trophies of their mortal existence. Those who loved the deceased are asked to soothe their hurts; then we release the dead from any obligation they had to us."

She started to reach out toward Rik, but she hesitated. Death being so uncommon among her people, yet with so many dying back in the time of Neal, the ritual had become sacrosanct among Elves. She wanted to honor Rik for the person he had been inside, ignoring utterly his mortal shell, but she knew countless Elves who would take more offense at her honoring him in this manner than they would at her having slept with him.

Apostasy and heresy are no strangers to my family. She shook her head. It is right to do this.

She extended her left arm, lowering her hand, and allowed the tip of her middle finger to trace one of the purple cuts on Rik's chest. The first extended three inches from his breastbone up toward his throat and similar wounds scored the flesh beneath each breast. Identical diagonal cuts marked his chest near his shoulders and the lower edges of his ribs. The last laceration was the worst; a long, ragged crescent cut that had opened his belly.

The part of her inclined toward being clinical cataloged the likely damage done by each of the smaller cuts. The Haladina preferred the curved jambyfa dagger for close work, and she knew each of the cuts ran down and in to meet in Rik's heart. He would have died quickly, almost without pain, but as she touched each hole, she could feel the outrage Rik had known as his life ebbed away.

Clinical detachment dissolved in an ocean of memories.

Gena forced away the few bad ones, releasing Rik from his part in any negative thoughts. She clung to those wonderful and wondrous visions of the time they had spent together. It seemed such a short time, yet she had never felt they would end. Cloaking her wounded soul in the happy times, she let go of the last bit of resentment—that of having been abandoned by Rik—and looked up as Berengar spoke in a gentle voice.

Berengar slowly shook his head. "The Haladina refer to that form of death as tmemja tal-karti. It translates as 'Eight Cuts,' but each blow has significance to them. They reserve it for traitors."

Bile rose in her throat as she touched the start of the curved wound on Rik's stomach. Her fingers found cold, waxy flesh where so often she had felt only warmth before. Rik's stomach had been flat, but now gapped slightly open at the wound. Deep inside it she could see the blue-white rope of his bowels. Though Berengar had tried to shield her, she had heard the rumors about how the Haladina had looped Rik's intestines around his neck, draping them over him like an obscene bloody garland.

Clenching her teeth, Gena forced herself to trace every inch of the wound. She felt its cruelty and choked back her anguish and fury. She knew Rik would never have screamed in pain, but would have just glowered in anger at his assailants. She vowed she would not dishonor him by breaking down, even though her throat hurt with suppressed emotion.

You will be avenged, my love, by my action, because of my love.

That wound salved with her vow, Gena looked up at Berengar. "Why would they think Rik a traitor?"

Berengar would not meet her eyes. "Who can know the minds of the Haladina, my lady?"

"You need not spare me more pain, Berengar, for it cannot be worse than what I already feel." Gena touched the corners of Rik's mouth and gently brushed her fingers across his split lips. His right cheek and eye bore livid bruises, and a small cut had a curious right-angle twist to it, as if it had been made by a ring. She raised her hand to her lips, kissed her fingers, then again touched Rik's lips.

"He betrayed no one. They could have taken him as a spy for your family, I suppose."

"That might explain their killing him, but not in this manner." Berengar hesitated, then frowned. "I have heard a rumor . . ."

Her head came up. "What rumor?"

"A disturbing one. I had heard disturbing stories about Durriken and his vocation. I accepted him on the strength of his traveling with you, but . . ."

"You wonder if Durriken was playing some game on the Riveren side of things?" Gena shook her head adamantly and let fire play through her voice. "I may not have known Durriken long by Elven standards, but I knew him well. I knew everything about him because he opened up and shared himself with me." Her voice caught as she realized there had been many things she had not shared with Durriken, and she wondered if he knew she had held things back from him. "He would not have betrayed us, my Lord. Of this I am certain."

Berengar nodded once, curtly. "Then that is no longer a consideration. I do not know how their minds work, but the Haladina killed him and the Haladina will pay." His expression slackened for a moment, losing its fierceness. "That is, they will pay if you still feel able to undertake the trek for which I summoned you here. Without Rik, well, there is no onus upon you to do this thing. I can understand if you wish to mourn. I do not know enough about the Sylvan culture to know what you will do in that regard."

Gena nodded. "We mourn privately, at moments in which we feel a closeness to the deceased. Death is not as common among us as it is here, and seldom does it come prematurely, so there is not often that much regret." Looking down at Durriken, she brushed hair from his forehead. "I have so much to regret, and so little to remember."

Berengar extended his left hand toward her and opened it. "Perhaps this will allow you to remember him."

From his palm she drew Lord Orvir's ring and the silver chain to which it had been married. "My Lord, this was your brother's ring."

"No, it was Durriken's ring. I gave it to him and promised that I might give him the land grant that went with it if we succeeded. He gave his life in pursuit of our enterprise, so I deem it right that the title has passed to him, for however brief a time," The count shrugged uneasily. "The rest of Rik's effects, including his flashdrakes, are in your room here. I separated the ring only because I wanted you to realize that I meant for you to have it in his memory."

Gena slipped the chain over her head, past her ears, and let the ring rest between her breasts. "I thank you for your kindness." She closed her right hand around the ring and waited for it to warm at her touch. "I think there is no question that we must go forth with your plan. Neal Elfward fought against the Haladina throughout his life. No one who forged an alliance with the Haladina should be safe beneath his protection."

Berengar nodded in agreement and folded his arms over his chest. "Do you know where Cleaveheart is?"

"Not beyond question, but I think I remember its having been entrusted to my grandfather at the time of Neal's death. He and my grandaunt conveyed it to Jarudin."

Berengar smiled. "The imperial capital? Do you think it is still there?"

"I don't know, but that is the last place I know it has been." She glanced back at Rik, then nodded. "We bury our dead, then go to find Neal's weapons so we can avenge them."

Battles during the spring following Aarundel's wedding brought the final consolidation of Centisia under the Red Tiger's banner. Swinging up to the northeast, we nipped off a bit of Ispar, then retreated quickly as the Reithrese responded with a battalion of Reithrese Dragoons and a virtual horde of Haladina to hunt us down. The Reithrese did not follow us back into Centisia, though their allies did, and we sent the Haladina running back across the border after we'd left a quarter of their number bleeding on the north Centisian plains.

After that victory Sture renewed his call for an expedition to Irtysh. The Red Tiger said he would entertain the idea of that strategy and—in accord with a plan that Sture knew nothing about—I pulled the Steel Pack out of the Red Tiger's force in a fit of pique. We headed back toward Aurium, then slashed on into the mountains on the Kaudian/Esquihiri border to wait.

Word of the strike at Irtysh got out very quickly, and the Reithrese started shifting forces toward Ispar to harass our lines. Despite reports of new Reithrese activity to the north, Sture continued in his preparations for the expedition. When he was ready to go, he met with the Red Tiger for one last time and was given the news that he was going nowhere.

The Red Tiger wheeled his army around and drove hard into Kaudia. With the Exile Legion to guard his back, the Red Tiger pushed into the central reaches of Kaudia, and the Reithrese scrambled to oppose him. They brought Home Guards in from Reith and put up a spirited defense.

The Reithrese garrison and their Haladin allies held and fought well until the Steel Pack shot west and looped down south. We ended up well behind their lines and successfully raided a paymaster's caravan. As with all good mercenaries who have not been paid, the Haladina fighting in Kaudia began to look at returning to their homes. The Reithrese pulled back to defend key fortresses in the northwestern parts of the nation while the Steel Pack returned with our booty to the Red Tiger's freestate.

Both sides wintered in position; then with spring we brought the Exile Legion up and pushed sharply north. We skirted the line of Reithrese fortresses, but kept enough skirmishers out that the Reithrese didn't dare abandon them to attack us. As a result we stood poised for a hard march through Esquihir and Batangas to Reith itself. The Reithrese began to move troops from Ispar into Esquihir to press us from the north. Aarundel sent a message to Cygestolia demanding that passage through Elven Holdings be denied to them, so the Consilliarii immediately granted the Reithrese the right to come around the mountains and down. They swung wide a bit, venturing into the Batangas bulge to resupply after the long march. By the middle of summer they were prepared to send us back through the mountains into Centisia.

While battles are actually won or lost in the field, things done outside battle can almost guarantee the outcome before the first arrow flies or the first man falls. Aarundel and I both agreed that the Consilliarii would do anything they could to punish him and me for our audacity. He had defied them in rejoining the Red Tiger's army, and I dared love a sylvanesti without acting like an animal that they could destroy. While they hated the fact that Larissa and I were as heartbound as Aarundel and Marta, they also respected the fact that I fully observed their laws, so they had to find other means to destroy me.

The request to bar Reithrese passage through Elven lands came largely because the Red Tiger's plan would be ruined if the Reithrese moved into the Hiris mountains. Likewise, Aarundel's demand that our army be allowed the same sort of passage was denied, making it clear to the Reithrese that they had us trapped against the Hiris mountains. While I would not have seen that as a great threat, since our army could melt away into the mountains and another Human army could not stop them, the Reithrese and their wizards saw things entirely differently.