Rhapsody, Child of Blood (89 page)

Another image rose in her mind, leaving her trembling. It was the image of a man drowning in darkness, in unspeakable agony.

'Rhapsody? Are you all right?"

She felt her face, its muscles tight across her brow and cheeks. It was a face that conveyed her fear.

'Yes," she said shortly. "I'm fine. Why don't you come with me?" She smiled wanly, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "I'll take you to the Cauldron; Achmed will be glad to see you. He's king now, you know."

'The Cauldron?"

'Yes, that's what he calls his seat of power, the Great Hall and its surrounding area."

'Gods." She thought she felt a shudder from inside the cloak.

'Yes, well, these are Firbolg lands, after all. Come; allow me to show you some of our hospitality." She pulled her hair selfconsciously back into its restraints, turned, and started back to the rock ledge.

The gray shape followed her easily across the heath, the wind whipping at the fringes of his cloak. "M'lady, believe me, I would follow you anywhere. I'm just not sure I would be able to keep up if you decided to run." cAshe had never been to Canrif before; it was a somber, astonishing sight. The passes in the Teeth were heavily guarded by Firbolg troops who were consistently, if sparingly, armed and armored.

They held a watch as well as many of the soldiers of -

Sorbold, and better than those in Roland, whose armor some of them wore. Only the Lirin were better trained at this point; the concept was flabbergasting.

The last time he had come near the Bolglands was on his Spring Cleaning detail as a trainee in the army of Bethany, back in his other life, when he still had cause, and the ability, to walk openly in the world of men.

He had participated in the exercise with distaste but not malice, efficiently cleaning out the border towns and dispatching with alacrity and pragmatism the semi-human monsters who lived there.

It had bothered him a little at the time. It ate at him more now, seeing them as they really were: primitive and warlike, but people, not animals. And these two, Rhapsody and the man she called Achmed, had been able to harness the power the Bolg held, molding them into a formidable fighting force in almost no time. It was a significant piece of information, an indication of their power.

He had stood in the darkness of the heath and watched Rhapsody for a long time before he made himself known to her. At first he had no idea what she was doing, running into the wind, letting it billow her hair and dress about her like a sail on the high seas. After observing the intensity of her flight, the wildness of her dance, his throat tightened; she was trying to run away, but had nowhere to go. It made him want her even more.

Ashe tried to drive the thought from his mind as he followed her now, through the mountain passes and into the rocky halls, torch lit tunnels that led to the ancient Cymrian seat of power.

Canrif; it was legendary, the birthplace of the Cymrian Age, the best and brightest time in the history of the land, when systems of justice were formed and codified, great advances made in science, architecture, medicine, and art, the great basilicas and roadways built, and marvelous discoveries made. And all of it shattered by one blind moment of marital rage; a pity, really. Ashe looked around. It was like reliving history, walking these halls.

The ruins of the fortress were much as they undoubtedly had been left when the Cymrians fled: crumbling, dank with the odor of ancient pitch and smoke; the smell of grim defeat, still present four centuries later.

Gwylliam had been an engineer, a man who was responsible for some of the greatest structures in the known world, and Canrif was no exception. He had carved an almost unassailable stronghold out of an unwilling mountain, made sources for heat and light and ventilation, had found a realm in which the diverse population of races that had followed him on the last fleet out could live in familiar surroundings, and had held it together for three hundred years. It was a marvel to behold.

Rhapsody led him at last down a long corridor to what had once been the throne room, the Great Hall of Canrif, or Ylorc, as the Bolg called it. The two he had met in the market, the teenager, Jo, and the obnoxious man known as Achmed, were both there.

With them was an immense Bolg, obviously of mixed blood, whom Rhapsody introduced as Granthor; this must be the captain of the guard she had referred to when he first arrived. The giant had clicked his heels and nodded, but said nothing. Jo was bustling with excitement, but had obviously received some sort of corrective lecture and therefore smiled brightly at him, but said nothing as well.

'What brings you here?" Achmed asked bluntly.

Ashe sighed inwardly; perhaps he shouldn't have come. Before he could answer, Rhapsody did it for him.

'We invited him, Achmed; you were there." She turned to Ashe and looked up into his hood, her glance not exactly in line with his eyes, but close. "We're very glad you came, aren't we, Jo?" She smiled, and Ashe felt his knees tremble a little.

'Yes," said Jo.

'When are you leaving?" Achmed asked.

'Achmed! Please forgive him, Ashe. What he meant to ask is how long can you stay?

We'll need to ready accommodations for you." Rhapsody glared at Achmed and then smiled at Ashe again; he was finding it hard to break his gaze away from her, but it was necessary to keep alert about his surroundings.

'I'll stay as long as I'm welcome," said Ashe.

'Thanks for coming; it's been nice seeing you," said Achmed.

'Ignore him; he's trying to be funny, but he's not good at it," said Rhapsody, her face flushing with embarrassment and anger.

'I was about to say that I'll need to be on my way fairly soon anyway," said Ashe, amused by the kaleidoscope of Rhapsody's face; it kept turning from an expression of warm welcome to white fury and back again. It was a face he could spend a very long time watching without growing bored.

'We've been readying the ambassadorial quarters in expectation of the emissaries of the various lands and factions, now that we have signed a pact with Roland and Sorbold. You should be fairly comfortable there."

'Excuse me?" Ashe had heard about the rout of the army of Roland; it was impossible to escape the news. He had not heard that they had reached any kind of treaty; the three of them had only been in Ylorc for a few months. It seemed impossible that they could have even begun discussions, let alone signed a pact, when the peace treaty between Roland and Sorbold themselves had taken close to two hundred years to resolve. It was another cog in the wheel, another piece of the puzzle to the influence that these three had.

There were three; a significant number, though Ashe had no real belief in or fear of ancient prophecies. It was as obvious that they were not of this land as it was that Jo had been born here. Still, in the presence of such overwhelming and unique power one could be forgiven for giving in to the desire to believe again in hopes long abandoned.

Rhapsody laughed. "You needn't sound so surprised. A few weeks ago we signed a nonaggression pact and trade agreements with Roland, and a week later with Sorbold as well. The Bolg will be a force to be reckoned with again, but this time as an economic entity, not a marauding one."

As if to mock her words, in the distance a clamor went up, echoing through the rockwalls. Grunthor dashed from the room and into the hallway, followed by the others a moment later. They didn't need to go far; the messenger met them in the corridor outside the Great Hall. The Bolg guard was covered with blood.

Rhapsody pulled up short, listening to the exchange between Achmed, Grunthor, and the herald. She felt Ashe stop behind her.

'What's happening?"

'The Hill-Eye, the last of the renegade tribes, are attacking; idiots. Achmed has been working to bring them into the alliance, but they have resisted, and now they are burning some of the villages of the other tribes that have sworn allegiance to him."

'Hooray!" came Jo's voice from behind Ashe. "I've been in the mood for a good bloodletting since Spring Cleaning; it's been so boring around here. I'll get your bow for you, Rhaps." She took off at a sprint in the opposite direction toward their quarters.

Ashe touched Rhapsody's shoulder; she seemed distressed, but not afraid. "Is there anything I can do?"

'Well, you're welcome to pitch in if you'd like; at these times we can use all the help we can get. The Bolg are only recently organized and tend to panic and disperse when battle comes, especially with the Hill-Eye; they are the fiercest of the clans and bloodthirsty. It's in the master plan to spare the noncom-batants, but it's not easy to get Grunthor to stick to that sometimes, especially if he's angry enough."

Ashe nodded. "I'll be glad to help you. Just point me in the right direction."

Rhapsody smiled. "Thanks. Follow me."

Che fires that burned, lighting the exterior causeways of the Teeth, had been fed with rancid fat, contributing to the burning nausea Rhapsody felt encroaching on her lungs. She coughed, trying to clear the smoke from her sore eyes.

She had just delivered a swift, stinging blow to the thigh of the last Hill-Eye guard, knocking him to the ground, when a bony hand encircled her upper arm.

'Look," the sandy voice directed; even from just one word she sensed irritation.

She turned amid the diminishing mayhem to watch their guest in action. Even within the swirl of his cloak, the training and speed was undeniable.

He was standing alone, as he had been for most of the battle, knee-deep in casualties of his own making, sidestepping the awkward passes of the Hill-Eye with no apparent difficulty. It was almost as if he were trying to avoid killing them in the hope that refraining would be proper etiquette for a guest.

In a flurry of moves much too fast to follow with the eye, Ashe spun, his sword flashing blue in the dark. The remainder of the Bolg on him fell, one by one, like cards.

'He's good," Rhapsody murmured, watching him step artlessly in front of Jo, deflecting the blow that had been aimed at her. "I think he's almost as fast as you, Achmed. Hhmmm. I didn't think I'd ever see your match. What do you think, Grunthor?"

-

'Nice form," the Sergeant agreed. "What about you, sir? Whaddaya think?"

Achmed's brows drew together as they blackened with anger.

'I think he's a lot more dangerous than I originally gave him credit for." deepest part of the night had passed. Achmed sat alone in the dark, thinking.

The events of the day had been irritating and disturbing to him. It was not the failed assault on Canrif that bothered him; he had been anticipating the last-gasp attempt to drive him out. He was more troubled by the increasing revelations of the power of this stranger who was haunting their halls, following Rhapsody like a shadow.

He wondered if Ashe's arrival and the Hill-Eye's poorly planned raid were coincidental, especially given what he had seen in the lands around the White Tree and all the way from Navarne to Ylorc. Seemingly peaceful places erupted in strife and bloodshed out of nowhere, to return to foggy bewilderment as they tried to fathom the cause of the violence. The prospect that this danger had entered Ylorc angered him greatly. Far more upsetting, it worried him.

He and Grunthor had met after the assault was quelled. The Sergeant Major only had a short time to talk before he departed with the army to round up the Hill-Eye stragglers and subjugate the last renegade territory once and for all, but he and Achmed had been of one mind in their assessment of Ashe. Prior to seeing him in action, Achmed had written him off as a wastrel, a gadabout with delusions of gentlemanship. Generally his judgments did not prove so wrong.

Whatever else Ashe was, both Achmed and Grunthor agreed there was no doubt that this stranger was formidable. What Achmed couldn't understand was how he had missed this fact in the first place.

Certainly he had the capability to size up an opponent, to determine by the way one stood or moved what his abilities in combat were, at least. But there was something about Ashe that defied his capacity to do so. There was a haziness to him, a lack of definition or even visibility that made Achmed more uncomfortable than he had ever remembered being. That discomfort was heightened by Rhapsody's utter obliviousness of the stranger's odd vibrational cloaking.

Ashe had taken up arms willingly in defense of Canrif, slicing through the frontal assault on the halls of the Cauldron without help. Within a few moments after the fighting had begun, he had cleared the main hallway of half a dozen Hill-Eye infiltrators, then followed Grunthor out to the mountain passes in the Teeth.

He had served as Grunthor's cleanup man initially, dispatching the overflow the Sergeant allowed to pass, swinging with admirable sword technique in lightning-fast execution. His sword itself was hard to see, the blade appearing like a slash of blue in the darkness, sheathed quickly when not in use before it could be seen or examined carefully. He was well trained and obviously experienced. Achmed was more annoyed than ever, but at a loss to explain to himself why.

Ashe was also unassuming; he was easily directed and willing to fight on any front, including good-naturedly providing cover for Jo without being obvious about it to spare her feelings. And though it was apparent he enjoyed fighting beside Rhapsody he did not seem to seek to do so, but rather followed Grunthor's commands without question.

He was personally responsible for taking out more than a captain's share of the rebellion. Even Grunthor was impressed.

Now Achmed sat alone, in the dim light of the Great Hall of the Cauldron, pondering what to do. He did not like the feelings he was experiencing; he was unable to recognize jealousy, as he had never encountered it before.

The rancid smell of the place was apparent to him for the first time since he had become Warlord; it caused a bitter taste in the back of his throat that made him choke.

It was better to endure the presence of this man for the moment, he finally decided.

Better to learn of him first than to drive him away, knowing all the while that he would be back. It was important to find out what it was Ashe really wanted there. Whatever it was, Achmed knew he wouldn't like it.