Stormrider (11 page)

“Very well,” said Cumberlane sadly. “Let the matter commence. You will choose your weapons and then stand back to back where I bid you. On my command you will advance ten paces and turn. Once you have done so, neither man will move. Not a step to the left or the right. I shall then give the instruction to fire. If either man shoots before I give the word, he shall be deemed a craven and shall face a charge of murder. Is my instruction clear?”

Both duelists nodded.

“Each man will fire a single shot. Should no one be hit, the duelists will remain in position while the pistols are reloaded.”

Ferson strolled to where two silver pistols had been laid upon the table. Gaise Macon followed him. Ferson waited while Gaise examined both pistols. They were Emburleys and handsomely crafted, the long barrels engraved with scenes of running deer, the butts boasting the leopard rampant crest of the Winterbourne family.

“Will they suffice?” asked Winter Kay.

“Admirable, sir. Admirable!” Ferson said, jovially.

“Then choose, Master Macon,” said Winter Kay.

Gaise Macon made his choice. Ferson took up the second pistol. Both men then handed the pieces to the Redeemers behind the table. The knights expertly primed the flash pans, snapping shut the covers, then tilted the weapons to add a charge of powder. The Redeemers then each took a round lead ball from a bowl set on the table.

“A moment, sir,” said Gaise Macon. “I shall choose my own ball.”

“They are all identical,” said Winter Kay.

“Of course they all
appear
that way,” Gaise Macon said, smoothly, “but I have learned to judge by feel.” Reaching into the bowl of shot, Gaise Macon rolled several of them in his fingers. Then he produced one. “This feels perfect,” he said. Reaching across the table, he relieved the surprised loader of the silver pistol and dropped the shot into it. Lifting a small square of silk from alongside the bowl, he pressed it into the barrel. Sliding the ramrod clear, he tamped down the charge. “I am ready,” he said, looking directly at Lord Ferson.

Mulgrave suppressed a smile. Ferson no longer looked confident. His face was ashen, and he was blinking rapidly. It seemed to Mulgrave that even the man’s ludicrously waxed mustache points were about to sag. Ferson licked his lips and cast a glance at Winter Kay. “Such behavior is insufferable,” he said.

“In what way, sir?” asked Lord Cumberlane.

“He . . . he impugns the . . . the neutrality of . . . the competence of . . .” He stammered to silence. Sweat was showing on his brow.

“Ready yourselves, gentlemen,” said Lord Cumberlane. “Back to back, if you please.”

Gaise Macon removed his topcoat, handed it to Mulgrave, and walked out into the center of the garden. Ferson lagged behind, staring at Winter Kay. Then he stumbled out to take his place. “Be so good as to remove your uniform jacket,” Cumberlane told him. Winter Kay strode out and relieved him of the garment.

“Now, gentlemen, ten paces, if you please, and then await my instruction.”

Mulgrave moved back from the line of fire and watched as the two men slowly moved apart. His stomach was knotted now, and a great fear filled him. Both pistols were now primed, but though he was a coward, Ferson could still win. One well-placed shot and Gaise Macon could be lying dead on the cold ground.

As the duelists reached the tenth pace Lord Cumberlane called out: “Halt.”

Ferson spun and fired. Gaise Macon staggered to his left, then came upright. Blood was flowing from what appeared to Mulgrave to be the side of his head. A stunned silence followed. Lord Cumberlane stood staring at the wounded man. “It was a hair trigger,” shouted Ferson. “It went off early.”

“You were not told to turn,” Cumberlane said, icily. He began to walk toward the wounded Gaise Macon, but the young general waved him back.

“It is all right, my lord,” he said. “The shot merely grazed my ear.”

“I am pleased to hear it,” said Cumberlane. “Now you may take your own shot. If the knave still lives after you have fired, I shall see him hanged.”

Gaise Macon readied himself. Ferson stood blinking in the sunlight, looking wretched. His pistol dropped from nerveless fingers. Mulgrave saw with deep embarrassment that the man was weeping. It was an appalling scene. In the background a large number of Ferson’s soldiers had gathered to watch the duel. Some turned away in disgust. Others waited for the inevitable conclusion. Ferson fell to his knees, throwing his arms over his head.

Gaise Macon, the left side of his shirt drenched with blood, lowered his pistol and discharged his shot into the earth. As the sound thundered, Lord Ferson screamed and threw himself to the ground.

Mulgrave ran to Gaise’s side. Blood was streaming from the ruined earlobe. “I am proud of you, sir,” he said. “There would have been no satisfaction in killing such a cur.”

Gaise Macon sighed. “We’ll talk later.” Slowly he walked back to the trestle table, laying the pistol upon it. Then he approached Lord Cumberlane.

“I’ve never seen the like,” muttered Cumberlane. “Damn, but it shames us all.”

“As the aggrieved party, sir, I wish for no action to be taken against Lord Ferson. It will satisfy me if he resigns his commission and returns to his home.”

“The knave ought to be hanged. By heaven, he’s an affront to Varlish manhood. But I hear what you say.” Cumberlane held out his hand. “I hope you don’t live to regret your kindness, Gaise Macon.”

Gaise shook the general’s hand. “I hope I
never
live long enough to regret kindness, General. Though I am not sure it was kind. I think that for the coward every day carries a kind of death.” Gaise swung away and found himself facing Winter Kay. “I thank you for the use of your pistol, sir,” he said.

Winter Kay said nothing, but he returned Gaise Macon’s bow.

With that the young general walked from the garden, Mulgrave beside him.

5

Draig Cochland would do most things for money. He would willingly steal and rob and would think nothing of killing a man during the process of either activity. Draig was not a man to be fooled by those who established society’s rules. It seemed to him that the entire world was run by robbery of one kind or another. The whole structure of society depended on it. It always surprised Draig that other men could not see that. The poor hill farmer who struggled to survive through drought-plagued summers and harsh, bone-numbing winters still had to give one-tenth of his crop to the Moidart’s gatherers. What was that if not robbery? Give me one-tenth of all you have or I will lock you away or hang you. Draig had voiced this many times in rowdy tavern arguments. It was always fun. People would get red in the face and argue about the need for taxes to build roads and maintain schools and such. Draig would laugh at them. “Schools, eh? The Moidart wears silk shirts and you wear homespun cloth.
That’s
where your money goes.”

It was like Old Gramps had always said: “Steal a loaf of bread and they hang you; steal a land and they’ll make you king.”

Draig’s concept of good and evil was simple and easy to maintain. What was good for the small Cochland clan was good, and what was not was evil.

Or so he had thought before the Varlish rider had come into the high country settlement the Cochlands called home.

The man had ridden far, and he had come with promises of gold coin if the Cochlands would do a service for his lord. This lord remained unnamed, though Draig guessed it to be the Moidart, but as a gesture of good faith the rider had brought ten silver chaillings as a gift.

Draig did not like the man, but then, that was not unusual. Draig did not much like anybody. Except perhaps his brother Eain, though truth to tell he was not
that
fond of him, either. No, it was not the dislike that bothered Draig. It was something entirely different.

Even now, two hours after the rider had left, Draig could not quite put his finger on the cause of his disquiet. The man was Varlish and well spoken, which was enough to earn Draig’s contempt. He was also cold, his eyes hard and flinty. But that was not it, either.

Draig sat quietly by his fire, his heavy shoulders hunched over. After a while Eain came in and squatted down opposite him. Despite Eain being a year younger, they could almost have been twins; both were green-eyed, large, and hulking men, their faces flat, their red beards matted and filthy.

“What did he want?” asked Eain.

“He wanted us to kill someone.”

“Good coin in it?”

“Aye, so he promised.”

“Excellent. Who are we to kill?”

“A child and a woman.”

Eain’s eyes narrowed. “Are you making a joke, Brother?”

“No.”

“I’m not killing any child. Or any woman, either,” he added after a pause.

“No? Why?” asked Draig.

“What do you mean, why? You just don’t, is all.”

Draig sat quietly for a moment. Then he nodded. “Aye, that’s what I told him. He wasn’t best pleased.”

“Who did he want killed?”

“The Dweller by the Lake and the boy Kaelin Ring brought down from the hills.”

“The lad whose parents were killed by Hang-lip?”

“That’s the one.”

“It makes no sense,” said Eain. “Who’d profit by such a deed?”

“We would have,” observed Draig.

“You know what I mean.”

“Aye, I do, and I’ve no answer to give you.”

Eain took up a long stick and prodded the fire into life. “I expect he’ll go to Tostig and those Long Valley lads. They’ll do it, right enough.”

“I expect so. Ten pounds he was offering.”

Eain swore softly. “I’ve never even seen ten pounds in one place.”

“You sorry I turned him down?”

Eain thought about it. “Nah,” he said.

Draig rose from the fireside and walked to the doorway of the hut. Ducking his head, he stepped beneath the sagging lintel and out into the clearing. A few of the Cochland clan were outside. Two scrawny children were throwing snowballs at each other, and four others were hauling an ancient sled up the hillside. Only four of the men of the clan were in the settlement; the other twenty-three were off to the east in two groups, seeking to steal cattle and head them south to Eldacre. Draig scratched at his beard. He was not sure exactly how old he was, but he felt too old to be chasing over the mountains after a few scrawny cows.

He felt strangely unsettled. Ten pounds was a fortune. A man could live well for two years on ten pounds. Yet he had not even come close to accepting the commission. The wind picked up, and he shivered and returned to the fire.

Eain had set up the cook pot tripod and was mixing oats, salt, and water into the old black pan, stirring it with a cracked and stained wooden spoon. “I know what you’re thinking,” said Eain.

Draig stared balefully at his brother. “You don’t even know what you’re thinking half the time.”

“You’re thinking of warning Kaelin Ring.”

“Why would I do something that stupid? The Varlish is a man of power. I don’t need him as an enemy. And I wouldn’t want Tostig and his crew creeping in here to cut my throat.”

“All right,” said Eain. “Then what were you thinking of?”

Draig hawked and spit into the fire. “I was thinking of warning Kaelin Ring,” he admitted.

“We don’t even like him,” argued Eain.

“I don’t like you, either, but I’d tell you if there was a snake in your boot.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You’d just wait and laugh when it bit me. Like when that bloody tree branch fell on me. You could have shouted. Didn’t, though, did you?”

“Gods, man, that was fifteen years ago, and you’re still on about it. I told you then it was funny.”

“Nothing funny about a broken shoulder.”

“No, you’re wrong. That was even funnier.”

“Well, a pox on you and the horse you rode in on.”

“I don’t know why you say that,” said Draig, settling down by the fire. “You’ve never ridden a horse. Neither have I.”

“I like the sound of it. It’s like poetry.”

“All the best poems have the word ‘pox’ in them,” said Draig. “Are you going to stir that porridge? I hate it when its full of black bits.”

Eain grinned at him, showing stained and misshapen teeth. “You really are in a strange mood, Brother.”

“Yes,” agreed Draig. “That’s true, right enough. You remember when the Dweller came here and healed old Scats? We thought he’d lose that eye, but she put a poultice over it, and all the pus just dried up.”

“I remember. You got angry because she wouldn’t heal a boil you had.”

“It wasn’t a boil; it was a cyst. Big as a damned goose egg.”

“Whatever. She said you were a man who deserved boils.” Eain laughed. “Never thought to hear you let a woman talk to you that way.”

Draig shrugged. “Didn’t bother me,” he lied. “She wouldn’t take no payment from Scats. Made no sense. She’d walked twenty miles. Wouldn’t even eat with us.”

“Probably didn’t like black bits in her porridge,” observed Eain.

“Probably.” Draig suddenly swore. “You know what’s really liced my skin? That Varlish just assumed I was the kind of man who would kill a woman and a child. That’s the reputation I have. No wonder the Dweller wouldn’t heal my boil.”

“Cyst,” Eain said, gleefully.

“And the horse you rode in on,” said Draig.

Eain chuckled and stirred the porridge. “You think Tostig will agree to kill them?”

“Of course he will. There’s no Rigante in that man.”

“There’s not more than a thimbleful in us,” Eain pointed out. “And that was from Great-Gramps, which means it was three parts liquor anyway.”

Draig suddenly laughed. “You are not wrong, Brother. We’re Cochlands now. And we look after our own. To hell with anyone else, eh?”

“Damn right.” Eain served up the porridge in two deep wooden bowls, and they ate in silence.

Finally Draig put aside his empty bowl and pushed himself to his feet. He swore suddenly. “Damn, but I
do
like Kaelin Ring,” he said.

“You said you didn’t like anybody.” Eain sounded aggrieved, and Draig laughed.

“The man’s a fighter, and there’s no give in him. When the Varlish took his woman and imprisoned her, he walked into that fort and brought her out. Have to admire that.”

“He thrashed you and broke your nose,” argued Eain. “We don’t want to get involved in this, Draig. Tostig is an evil whoreson. Added to which he’s good with sword and knife. Kaelin Ring can take care of himself.”

Draig shook his head. “Not if he don’t know what’s coming. I think I’ll walk to Ironlatch.”

“I’ll not come with you on such foolishness.”

“Who asked you?”

“We’re not Rigante, Brother. We don’t owe anybody anything.”

“I never said we did.”

“Has it occurred to you that the Moidart is the one who wants them dead?”

“Yes,” said Draig, a sense of unease settling on him at the mention of the man’s name.

“If he found out you’d gone against him, you know who he’d send.”

Draig shivered and did not answer. He knew, all right. Huntsekker would come with that cursed scythe, and Draig’s head would be in a bag.

“It’ll be Huntsekker,” said Eain. “He never fails.”

“Give it a rest, Eain! Anyway, he did fail once. He didn’t catch that fighter Chain Shada. Word was that Grymauch took him out from under Huntsekker’s nose. So he’s human. He’s not some demon of the dark to frighten me.”

“Well, the thought of him frightens me,” said Eain.

Draig moved across the hut, lifting an old bearskin coat from the floor. He shook it, then swung it around his shoulders. “We are not going to get involved in this,” he said. “All I’m going to do is have a quiet word with Kaelin Ring. Then we’re out of it.”

In the dark of the night Chara Ring stood at the upper bedroom window, staring out at the moonlit snow and the sharp, jagged lines of the distant mountains. A blue and green Rigante shawl was wrapped around her slender shoulders, and her thoughts were deep and melancholy.

Five years earlier she had been taken by Varlish soldiers and brought to the Black Mountains fort and there had been brutally raped and abused. Often she would dream of being back in that bleak dungeon, listening to the laughter and grunts of the soldiers and the vicious words of the traitor Wullis Swainham. So many times since then she had convinced herself that she was over the worst and that the vileness of that night had no power anymore. Standing in the window, she knew she was wrong. She knew that it would always be with her, like a wound upon the soul.

There was no doubting her love for Kaelin Ring or that she enjoyed the feel of his arms around her. Mostly she could lose herself in the act of lovemaking, and occasionally it was even joyous. She had laughed with the Dweller about the importance to her of the physical closeness she had found with Kaelin. It was not strictly untrue. Chara needed to feel that Kaelin desired her. Often, however, as he held her and entered her, she would see again the ugly, bestial faces of the men in the dungeon. The brutality of what she had endured would erupt from her subconscious, making her want to scream for Kaelin to get away from her. She would hold it back by picturing the moment when Kaelin had come for her on that dreadful night.

In an act of breathtaking recklessness he and Rayster had entered the fort, killing the guards at the gatehouse and donning their uniforms. Then Kaelin had made his way to the dungeon and rescued her. She turned from the window and gazed at his sleeping form. He was lying on his back, one arm outstretched. In the moonlight the scar on his cheek shone bright. Chara remembered the saber duel with her brother Bael that had caused it. It seemed a lifetime ago. As did so much of her life before the dungeon. It was as if she were two different people: Chara then and Chara now.

She no longer spoke to Kaelin about her memories. It was not that he did not care. It was that he cared too much. He wanted to find a “cure” for her. In some ways it was touching, in others infuriating. On rare occasions she would open her heart to the Dweller. There was comfort there, for she would listen without seeking to offer remedies.

The worst moment had come just before this winter, when she and Kaelin had visited Black Mountain to bring in supplies. As the wagon was being loaded, the two of them had walked through the town and out on to the low meadow by the stream. The day had been bright and clear, the sunshine warm. It had been like a summer day, and Chara had felt at peace. She was holding Kaelin’s hand and laughing at some little jest he had made. Then she saw a man, also walking with his love. Three children were running alongside them: two tawny-haired boys and a girl with long auburn hair. Chara had stopped, her hand falling away from Kaelin’s grip.

The man was one of the soldiers who had raped her.

She had thought them all killed in the battle at the Rigante pass, a battle won by the brilliance of her husband, who had led the Rigante in a night climb down a sheer rock face to emerge behind the besieging Varlish. She had
needed
to believe they were dead, punished for what they had done to her.

As Chara stood and watched the man and his family heading off toward the stream, she saw him turn and look at her. He smiled and waved. Kaelin waved back. It seemed incomprehensible to Chara that the man did not recognize her, but she knew that he did not. She felt her heart would break. This man and others had all but ruined her life. Yet here he was, by a meadow spring on a sunny day, leading his family out on a stroll.

A part of her longed to tell Kaelin of the man’s deeds. A part of her wanted to see her husband march across the meadow and cut the man’s heart out. Yet it was only a small part. The children with him were not guilty of any evil, nor was the woman who walked by his side. Would it ease her pain to see this woman widowed?

Chara had turned away.

“What is wrong?” asked Kaelin.

“I have a headache,” said Chara, taking his hand once more. “It is no matter. Why don’t we go back into town and find a place to sit quietly and eat.”

In the faint light of predawn Chara saw Senlic Carpenter move out to the far gate and lift the latch. His limp was more pronounced in the cold of the early mornings. He seemed to have aged badly since the stroke had hit him in the autumn of the previous year. His hair was very white now, and he spoke with a slight slur. When he smiled, which was rare these days, the left side of his face did not move, and his left arm was nearly useless. She watched him clumsily open the gate. His dog, Patch, a black and white mongrel, ran out into the meadow.