The Bloodstained God (Book 2) (23 page)

He looked back along the line again, allowed his eyes to lift into the trees. Most of the branches were bare, so there should be nowhere to hide. A few evergreens offered the possibility of ambush, but he did not think that foresters would be so obvious. He watched them anyway, waiting for movement, for something to shoot at.

An arrow flashed past his eyes and one of his men, the one who had been showing a sleeve, crashed out of the shrub he’d been intimate with a moment before, his shoulder and neck red with dye. The man swore, glanced in Barain’s direction and then started the long walk back out of the forest.

Well, at least he had a direction now. He risked a quick glance around the tree and looked along the path the arrow had flown. He was a good judge of direction, and he could see that the only cover on that line was a group of three trees. He notched an arrow to his own bow and signalled him men to come up behind him. He pointed out the three trees, gestured at them to spread out and advance.

They made about twenty paces before the first arrow came. It came from behind and to the right, and one of his men swore and stopped, and walked away with a new red badge on his tunic. Barain broke into a run, and his men followed suit. They didn’t run in a straight line, but moved from side to side as randomly as they could. Barain himself did not take his eyes from the three trees. If he was going down he was going to take a man with him.

More arrows came out of the trees. To the right, up ahead, he actually saw a man step out from behind a trunk and loose an arrow. He let his own fly, and in the scheme of things it was a pretty good shot for a running man, but the arrow flew a yard wide, and then the figure was gone again. By the time they reached the trees there were only five men left in his squad. Barain went for the middle tree and the other men took the others, two to each.

Nothing. There was nobody there. He put his back to the tree and looked around him. His other men hadn’t had any luck either. One of them looked across and shrugged. What now? All around them the forest rustled and waved thin branches against a pearly winter sky. It seemed hostile, even sinister. He’d watched the trees all the time. There had only been a couple of seconds when he’d looked away, when the man had shown himself, and that certainly wasn’t enough time for the shooter to have moved. He looked up at the branches, but they were clean and bare. A squirrel couldn’t have hidden up there.

It felt like magic, like the man had stepped into the tree itself and disappeared, but that couldn’t be right. Even Durander mages couldn’t do that. The man had to be here. He looked around again, but there was no cover, just a few denuded shrubs and a carpet of leaves, golden yellow, stretching as far as the eye could see.

He looked at the leaves again. Just how thick were they? He’d hardly been wading through them, and there shouldn’t be a layer thick enough to hide in. He studied the ground before him. What if there was a hollow there, just behind the tree, a hollow full of leaves that could hide a man? He shouldered his bow and drew the training sword from its sheath.

He looked to left and right. One more of his men had gone down. He gestured to the remaining three, prodding the leaves around his feet, pointing at the area that was immediately concealed behind each tree. The men caught the idea, and each drew his sword. Another arrow struck home, this time coming from the left and slightly ahead. Were there really just twelve men in here?

He lunged forwards and prodded the ground, but it was just leaves. He took another step, lunged again, and something hammered into the small of his back, knocking him forwards onto his knees.

He reached round and touched the place he had been struck, and his hand came back stained with red dye. Dead then. Time to go back. He took one last look, scanning the leaves before him, and there, just showing in the smallest gap, he could see the end of a finger, perfectly still, the fingernail was chipped, dirt beneath it.

“Nearly got you,” he muttered.

*              *              *              *

The steady trickle of Cain’s men leaving Myras Woods continued all afternoon, and Skal counted them with growing satisfaction. When the number passed twenty he began to feel confident. Not one of Tilian’s foresters had emerged. It was happening exactly the way that Tilian had said it would. He could see that Cain had grown very still, apart from the occasional drumming of his fingers on his knee or the arm of his chair. The expression on the general’s face had become thoughtful, and he had stopped talking. Others may have taken these signs as an indication that he was annoyed to be losing, but Skal knew better. He’d seen Cain like this at the wall. It meant that he was thinking, calculating, planning.

This was a new weapon. He had no idea what was in Cain’s head, but he was getting into the habit of imitating his former commander, trying to think the way that Cain thought, and the possibilities were enough to set his mind to racing down new paths. There were woods everywhere. Most of the kingdom’s roads ran through woodland at some point, and the same was true of Berash, Afael, and Telas.

What puzzled him was that nobody had thought of this before. It was obvious once you’d seen it. It was a sort of long sightedness, he supposed. The great lords who ruled all the lands had foresters by the score and soldiers by the hundred. The separation was complete, and he would not have paired the two in the same thought, nor would any of them, not his father, not the old duke, not Aidon or Quinnial. Soldiers fought. Foresters looked after the forest, hunted deer for the table, and deer, well, they were not men. Everywhere there were talents that could be used in war. He remembered Cain’s carpenters, building stairs out of wagons. It was like that.

But Cain saw it, Tilian saw it. They were low born, untrained, used to living on their wits. There was something here that Skal had always suspected. Some people had natural ability, and given a chance it emerged, given just a little light and air it burst forth like a rose among daisies. All the training in the world could not compensate for a dearth of talent. He knew that he had talent. He was good with a sword, had learned his lessons well, and easily. It all came naturally to him. He wondered of Cain would have been a good student. The older man lacked his ability with a blade, but his mind was sharp, in a ponderous, no stone unturned sort of way.

Barain was one of the last to emerge. The sun was sliding down towards the sea, imparting a cold glitter to the water when the sergeant came out. Skal knew him. He’d been Tilian’s sergeant; a competent man, a good soldier, albeit a smith before he’d volunteered, and he’d been one of the first to do so. As he walked past Cain he muttered under his breath.
”Another ten seconds and I’d have had the bastard.”

Cain looked up sharply.

“That’s forty-three,” Skal said.

“Yes,” Cain seemed to wake up, unwind and reached out for his cup of wine. Finding it empty he filled it and tasted it before setting it down. “I was counting, too. I think that barring some miracle we can take the result as conclusive.”

“Tilian has proved his point, then?”

“You just promoted him, did you not?”

“Yes. Lieutenant – and captain of the guard at Latter Fetch.”

“Good choice. He seems a smart boy. Is he country born?”

“Bas Erinor. He worked in a warehouse before the war.”

Cain raised an eyebrow. “City bred? Will you bring him to the Friend tonight? I’ll set up a private room, just a few officers. I want to see where we can go with this.”

Skal nodded. “He’ll like that,” he said.

They waited until the bitter end. The last of Cain’s men was escorted out by Tilian’s victorious squad. Out of the forest they were just young men again, slapping each other on the back and joking among themselves. They were pleasant young men, Skal thought, and he wondered how good they would be at sowing carnage amongst the enemy. Had any of them ever killed a man? Well, there was time to learn that, he supposed, plenty of time before spring.

Pascha was worried about Narak
’s state of mind.

He had returned from the Green Isles in deep mourning, and that was understandable enough. She, too, felt the loss of Narala. Everyone in Wolfguard shared in that grief, but Narak seemed to want to hoard it all for himself. He had retreated almost immediately to the lair, deep beneath the ground, and forbidden anyone from coming to him.

He should have gone out, she thought, become the wolf again and roamed the forest for a few days, even a week. Wolves did not feel grief, they were not sentimental. His wolf nature would have been a bandage beneath which his trauma could have healed.

Instead he had turned it inwards. She had never known him to be so negligent of his duty to others, and she could not see things improving quickly if he persisted in cutting himself off. His people needed him, just as he needed them. His isolation was another blow for all concerned to bear.

In spite of the edict he had issued she thought that she would have to speak to him. No member of the Benetheon had the authority to forbid another, and even within Wolfguard Pascha did not feel bound by his preference. It would be impolite to disregard his wishes, but she thought it necessary.

She had to get past Poor first. The steward took his duty very seriously, and regarded Narak’s edicts as law. She made her way down through the curving corridors into the poorly lit tunnels of the lowest level. Poor was waiting, as she knew he would be, just within earshot of the lair, standing patiently in the half light between two lamps. When he saw her approaching he stepped away from the wall, nor exactly barring her passage, but indicating by the movement that he wished to speak with her first.

“Has he eaten today?” she asked.

Poor shook his head. “No. Nor yesterday.”

“If you have something brought I will take it to him.”

“He will not eat, Deus. And he has forbidden any to disturb him.” She knew this of course, but Poor clearly felt the need to remind her.

“Poor, I am not his to command, and you know there is a bond between us, even now. If I take him food he may yet eat it.”

Poor seemed to consider this for a moment. There was no way in which he could prevent her from entering the lair, and that alone was a persuasive argument. “I will have something brought, Deus,” he said. “Wait here until I return.” The last was more of a plea than a command.

“I will wait,” she said.

Poor stepped quickly along the tunnel, the lamps fluttering as he passed them, and very soon he was out of sight. Pascha stood alone in the silent passage. It was unnaturally quiet down here. The many feet of rock above her, the carpet of soil and leaves, trees and shrubs above that sealed the lair from the upper world, and yet the stone also caught whispers, a boot scuffing the stone, the sound of her swallowing, a sigh, and passed them along the stone walls, an eclectic susurrus of  tiny sounds. It was like a breeze, shivering through dead leaves.

She thought she heard a voice. Just at the limit of what she could hear, and her ears were very keen. She heard the hints of baritone, like meat under the skin of the whisper, almost like music played in a distant room. She listened.

Again she heard the deeper tones. Was Narak talking? If so, he was speaking to himself, for Poor would not have allowed another mortal to pass, and Jidian was with Sithmaree several layers above her head. She had checked.

There was another tone, too, an answering tone, higher, even fainter, like the wind-blown song of a flute. It was a conversation. Yet it was all so faint, so ephemeral, that she doubted her own hearing.

Poor’s footsteps, returning down the tunnel drowned out all traces. He was carrying a tray, draped with a cloth. She lifted the corner and saw bread, cheese, fruit; simple food. It was what he liked.

“I’ll take it,” she said, and lifted the tray out of the steward’s hands. He let it go with a good grace, and she walked on, down the forbidden passage that led to the lair. She trod firmly on the stone, making sure that he would hear her approach. She did not want to surprise him, not in this mood.

She stepped into the doorway and stopped. The lair was almost dark. One candle burned, its flame dancing as if caught in a sudden breeze, but there were no breezes down here. Narak was seated in his accustomed chair, the light from the candle making him half silhouette, his right side shining like a sliver of new moon.

“Pascha.” She could not see his mouth move. That part of his face was dark, and she could not see his eyes, but his tone was neutral.

“You must be hungry,” she said. “Poor tells me you haven’t eaten for two days.”

There was a pause before Narak answered. He picked up the candle from where it stood, half behind him – why was it behind him? – and placed it on the table so that she could see his face.

“Yes,” he said. “Bring it over here. Sit.”

She crossed the lair and put the tray on the table. Narak pulled the cloth away. He seemed calm, but closed. He did not meet her eyes. He looked at the food instead.

“Poor is a genius at this,” he said. “This is exactly right – just what I want.”

“He knows you well,” she replied.

Narak began to eat. He ate rapidly, like an animal, almost; his hand moving quickly between the plate and his mouth. He hardly seemed to chew the food at all.

“What did you want?” he asked, barely pausing between mouthfuls. Pascha didn’t answer. She waited until he stopped eating and looked at her. “To make sure I was all right,” he said. “I am.”

“Do you want me to go?”

Narak wasn’t how she had expected him to be. He seemed businesslike, quite normal. It was as though she had interrupted him in the middle of some important task. He did not answer her at once, but put another piece of fruit in his mouth, chewed it slowly as though to buy time. Pascha wondered about the voices, the ones she thought she might have heard out in the passageway. She looked around the lair, but by the light of the single candle she could see nothing. It was all bare rock and shadows, thick rugs on the floor.

“No,” he said. “Sit a while. Wine?” He offered a jug.

Thank you, no,” she said. There was nothing much that she wanted to say. A thousand years ago she might have told him how sorry she was, how she missed Narala, too, but it was all unnecessary. He knew. She knew he knew. Words were pointless.

He filled his own cup and drained it down. Still trying to get drunk, she thought. It seemed that Narak believed that if he drank enough he could still blot things out. He always had, but it never worked. Now he seemed to want to tell her something. She could see the words forming in his eyes, the way he shifted his body to face her, the tilt of his head, but there was indecision, too, a shadow of doubt.

It was the doubt that won. He shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not the right time.”

Pascha nodded. She stood up to leave.

“Thank you,” he said.

“For what?”

He smiled. “You know,” he said. She did. For caring. For being the one to bring the food and sit in the dark with him for a moment. For loving Narala. For fifteen hundred years of being there, even when she was not.

She nodded and left the lair, glancing back as she passed through the door. Narak was leaning forwards, picking up the candle from the table, moving it again.

*              *              *              *

Narak reached back behind him, tipped the candle so that wax dripped on the floor on a small space between the rugs where stone was exposed, and settled it into the hardening pool. He turned back, and was almost startled to see the Bren Ashet standing not five paces from where he sat. It was a good trick, that; the vanishing into stone and then stepping out again in the blink of an eye.

“Where were we?” he said.

“We have not moved,” the Ashet said, literal to the last. He examined it again. It was a remarkable creature. It had a hundred bodies, perhaps a thousand, he had no idea of the number really, but only one mind. It was the perfect messenger. One stood here with him, short and pale, thin to the point of fragility, and others stood throughout the Bren domains, deep under the earth, scattered.

“The light is not too bright?”

“I can tolerate it,” the Ashet said.

“What were we discussing?”

The Ashet looked at him and blinked. Blinking was a sign of discomfort. The Ashet were not used to conversation, not given to the form. They listened, they remembered, they reported. Accuracy was their forte.

“You were questioning me,” it said. “You were asking questions.”

It was almost clever to put it in so general a way, as though it hoped he would forget his line of enquiry, but he had not. He was trying to glean information about his dreams; dreams that could only be visions through the eyes of the Bren Ashet itself.

“About dreams,” he said. “Dreams which you claim cannot be.”

“I said that the Ashet cannot share what we see. It is not possible.”

“I can do it,” Narak said.

“You are Benetheon God of Wolves, I am Ashet.”

“Someone else, then. Something else. It takes what you see and gives it to me while I sleep. I hear its voice. Is it the Bren Alar?”

“I do not know.”

“Is it possible?”

“I do not know.”

“Do you think it is possible?”

The Ashet blinked again. He was asking it to speculate, and the Bren Ashet did not speculate. It was detrimental to accuracy. It confused things. “I do not know,” it said.

Narak looked down at the plate of food that Pascha had brought. It was empty. He was still hungry, he realised. Had he really not eaten for two days?

“Where are the Bren digging new tunnels?” he asked.

“There are many new tunnels,” it replied. “The Bren are always digging new tunnels.”

“Important tunnels,” he said.

“Tunnels are tunnels. I am not aware of importance. I do not know.”

Blood from a stone. Water from rock. Anything would be easier than questioning this thing. Either it was dissembling or it was deliberately kept ignorant of such matters. It was even possible that nobody thought to tell it, Narak supposed. After all, it was just a messenger, a conduit for information. Men do not think to tell pigeons about the messages they carry.

He felt tired. He had not slept for four days, not since Narala died, and for him it was still that day. When he slept that day would end, and a night would put a little distance between the memory of Narala and himself, and he did not want that. Not quite yet. But it was not the hours that made him tired. He could go for a week, even two without sleep and feel none the worse for it. It was a weariness with duty, with war, with tragedy, with all the world. He felt that perhaps he understood Pelion for the first time. How long had the old man waited, grown bored and impatient with the world and all the power he wielded in it? Pelion had lasted longer than this, and yet Narak already felt that departing the world would not be so great a loss, not for him, and not for the world. Yet there were those that still depended on him, and those for whom he cared and would not abandon.

“Go back to your rock,” he said to the Ashet. He turned away. There was still a cup of wine in the jug and he poured it, raised it to the darkened room. To you Narala, loyal and beautiful, loyal and dead, avenged in a manner that you would not have wanted, but avenged none the less. To you and your dark brown eyes, your perfect skin the colour of good soil, your smile that brightened so many of my days. A day will come when I will join you in the earth, and we will be forgotten together as the ages of the world roll over us, because nothing lasts, not Pelion, not the kingdoms, not you, not I.