The Jack of Souls (33 page)

Harric’s stomach rose in his throat.

Brolli lifted his eyes to Willard. “It is hot and weeping. And you still lose blood. You need big rest and healing.”

Willard snorted smoke. “If Bannus finds us, it won’t matter how I’m rested.”

“I am not skilled in my people’s healing magic.”

“I wouldn’t take it if you were.”

Brolli made a harsh sound that was surely a curse in the Kwendi language. “
Then take the Blood of your Phyros
,” he said fiercely. “Your oath must wait! Your life is in danger. Everything is in danger.”

Willard sucked the ragleaf calmly. “That is not an option, Ambassador. Do your best with the bandage.”

“In one day you are unconscious.”

“Then tie me to my saddle. I will not take the Blood.”

“In two days you are dead.”

Willard dropped his eyes.

Brolli stood. “Take the Blood.”

Willard’s eyes flashed. “I swore an oath to a lady, Ambassador. That may seem trivial to you, but to me—”

“Your lady would prefer you die than break this oath?”

“I might as well die if I do!” Willard snapped. The suddenness of his anger made Harric jump. The Kwendi didn’t flinch. Willard sagged again, and sighed. “If I thought I could take the Blood only this once, to save my life, I might find forgiveness in her eyes. Of course. But I fear once I take it I will not stop. I don’t even dare a plaster, as I did yesterday. That plaster alone nearly broke my will, Brolli, made me forget everything. You have no idea how strong the Blood of a god is in your veins. I would sooner accept your magic healing.”

“Sir, there is healing at the fire-cone tower,” Caris said.

Willard grunted. “What? Your friend’s an herb-wife?”

“She’s Iberg,” said Caris. “A sister of the Bright Mother.”

Willard choked smoke out his nose. “A witch? You’ve been leading us to a witch’s tor?”

“No, sir…” Caris stammered, face flushing. “One of the Queen’s fire-cone towers. She licensed Abellia to live there.”

Willard sorted his rag-roll to the other side of his mouth. “The Queen, you say. I’ve heard about that.” To Brolli he explained, “White witches use the Life power of the Bright Mother moon, Brolli. Healing, calming magic. They can use it to snuff out fire to keep the fire-cones safe.” He shot a cutting glance at Caris. “And I guess
you
weren’t afraid of her magic, being from the West Country. Probably an ordinary thing to you.”

“It would be hard to be afraid of Sister Abellia,” Caris said. “Once you meet her you’ll see.”

“You accept her healing there, old man,” said Brolli. “That is good compromise.”

“Blast it, Brolli, I’ve lived five lives and never let the moons touch me. Not starting now.”

“Stubborn old man! You once take Phyros blood! How is that different?”

“Phyros blood is the Blood of a god, Ambassador. It is not of the moons.”

“The moons come from the gods.”

“
Blast
your logic, Brolli! Arkus gave us Three Laws, and they distinguish Arkendians from all of our neighbors, including you. The first law states that we worship no gods, including Arkus himself; the second forbids slavery; the third states that we use no magic. Ever. Only Three Laws, Brolli, but they’re what keep Arkendians strong and independent, and I don’t question them.”

Brolli glowered. Then a grim smile lifted one side of his broad mouth. “None of this matters. You will be unconscious from your wounds by time we arrive at white witch, and unconscious is agreement to heal.”

Willard laughed in spite of himself. “You crafty little impit. You mean if I pass out you’ll have me healed whether I want it or not? If you were an Arkendian officer I’d have you court-martialed.”

Brolli bowed. “This quest is not about your conscience. It is about our futures, about the treaty I must propose to my people. And since I cannot survive without you, it is about your healing.”

Sir Willard’s eyes smiled, but his voice retained an edge. “I’m Arkendian, Ambassador. Refusal of gods and magic has made me strong. I won’t pass out.”

Brolli snorted. He handed the clotted bandage to Harric. “Rinse it in stream as best you can.”

Harric kept the gory rags at arm’s length as he hurried to the stream. Under the influence of the ragleaf, his pains diminished. The herb also made his ears ring, however, and his head seem rather heavier than usual.

By the time Brolli and Caris had packed the wound with new rags and bound it with a tight wrap about Willard’s waist, Harric had scrubbed the gore from the rags.

Willard looked gray-faced as he fished in a belt purse for a fresh roll of ragleaf.

A horn sounded in the valley.

Harric’s head snapped instinctively toward it. It sounded again. No farther than a mile behind them in the west, he judged.

Brolli muttered another Kwendi curse. “Get up, old man.” He and Caris helped Willard to his feet as Willard lit a new rag-roll from the stub of the old.

The horn sounded again, this time in four musical notes. A higher horn echoed the tune, farther south.

Harric smiled and relaxed. “That’s not a hunting horn. That’s ‘Heave-Ho, Father,’ a peasant work tune about a priest hauling a wagon.”

“Peasants don’t sound horns, boy.” Willard snorted. “It’s a
priest-hunting
song from the West Country. Same tune, but the Brotherhood changed it to ‘Hang High, Father.’”

Brolli’s brow creased above his daylids. “Why they hang priests?”

“For the crime of freeing peasants.”

“That is bad. They must hunt the priest who blocks the bridge for us yesterday?”

“Most likely.”

“We cannot let them!” Brolli confronted Willard. “We must help him as he helped us.”

A flicker of irritation crossed Willard’s eyes. “Ambassador, I’ve saved that man from hunters more times than he can count. And I say it
may
be Father Kogan they hunt. Just as likely there isn’t a priest at all and they’re using the song to lure me out for some asinine rescue.”

“What is ass-nine?”

A third horn, higher than the others, sounded to the northwest.

“They’re all over the valley,” Harric muttered, as he stuffed his pack on Rag’s back.

Brolli scrambled up the side of the willow as quick as a squirrel, grappling foot and hand to the highest crook that would take his weight. The southern horn sounded its merry notes again, and Brolli pointed in the direction of the sound. “Down this stream. Maybe a mile away.”

“Can you see them?” Willard asked.

Brolli moved another branch. “No. We’re too low.”

“Doesn’t matter. Saddle up.”

Brolli descended in a controlled fall. Harric and Caris hurried to saddle the horses.

“Boy, be sure we leave no sign of being here. Heeled boot prints and hoof prints have to go. Must seem nothing but shepherds camp here. Girl, lift Molly’s saddle for me.”

As they flew about the camp, the horns sang to each other across the valley. Then a throaty blast answered from the far west.

Willard froze. He bit off a curse. “That’s Bannus’s horn. Gods take him, I haven’t heard that for a long and blessed time.”

A pulse of guilt hit Harric. Had his mother put the immortal on their trail?

“Girl. How far before we leave this stream and climb out of this valley?”

Caris stared. Her gaze wandered from Rag to Willard, unfocused.

“Girl! Keep an ear for the rest of us! How far till we leave the stream?”

Her eyes found Willard. “Soon. I’ll know the path when I see it.”

“Mount up and lead. Brolli! Dust any tracks the boy missed.”

Nor bow down to high lords among you.

Neither rely you on magic,

And you shall be strong.

—The Three Laws of Arkus

Father Kogan’s Hidey-Hole

K
ogan saw the
farmer from across a field of oats, and set out for him at a trot down a well-trod path between the furrows, clutching the Phyros ax beneath its massive head. The man saw him and stopped outside the front door of a small log farmhouse, tilting his leather hat back to watch the priest’s approach.

“I need a place to hide, brother,” Kogan said when he reached him, panting. “Crossing your fields. I seen the collar on your scarecrow, and knowed you was friendly to the cause o’ freedom.” Kogan pulled aside his hedge of beard to expose the forged iron collar of his calling. “Father Kogan’s the name.”

The farmer doffed his hat and nodded his respect. “Name’s Miles. We owes everything to Father Oren. He run us out three year gone, and helped dig our first cellar, too. Be a right shame if I didn’t help ye now. What’s chasing ye?”

“Westie knights.” Kogan spat.

“Don’t surprise me none. Heard the horns all morning. They seen ye?”

“Not as I think.”

“They got scent-dogs?”

“None as I heard.”

The farmer gave a sly grin. “Not that they’d need ’em. Father Oren weren’t much for bathing neither.” Before Kogan could regain enough breath to object, Miles turned into the house. “Step inside, Father. We’ll hide you in the old root cellar.”

Kogan followed, ducking low beneath the doorframe, and once inside stood tall amidst log rafters and the scent of new-baked bread. His stomach growled so loud it startled the farmer. “Mighty obliged, brother. But a cellar’s the first place they’ll look.”

“We got two cellars. Old one went sour last spring, so we dug a new. We’ll let ’em search the fresh one and they’ll never guess we got another.”

Kogan glanced back through the door and across the hay field, where the lance pennons of his pursuers bobbed beyond a distant rise. “Let’s see it.”

“Help me move this table, Father. It’s right under.”

Together they moved a massive log table across the plank floor. The farmer swept aside the rag rug that hid a trap door sealed with tar.

“Puttied her with tar to keep the stink in.”

Kogan frowned. “Can a man breathe in that hole?”

“I reckon
you
could, Father.” The yeoman grinned.

“Now, hold on there! Just cause a man don’t bathe don’t mean he like the smell o’ shit.” Kogan frowned as he dug the hand ring from its recess in the door, and yanked. “Unless it’s his own shit, a’course. But everyone likes that.”

The door swung up, stretching and tearing the tar seal at the edges. A smell like soured cream and compost wafted out. Below, the hole was deep and wide, and every visible surface—including the underside of the door—hung in thick sheets of downy white fungus.

Kogan peered in doubtfully. “You don’t got a third cellar?”

“No, Father. But get in quick. I can hear the hoofs now.”

A horn sounded brightly in the fields. The tune was “Hang High, Father,” which gave Kogan visions of ramming trumpets up the arses of the squires who played it.

“Quick, Father, so I can get the table back!”

“I’ll be found out if my belly growls like that again. Best you give me a loaf or two to quiet her.”

The yeoman scrambled and fetched a loaf and tossed it down the hatch. “There!”

“That weren’t but a crumb for a man my size!”

“Blast it, Father, if ye get us found out—”

“Just toss another,” Kogan said, dropping his ax into the hole and placing a bare foot on the first step. The step folded like paper beneath his weight, and he fell like a stone through the rest of the treads to the bottom.

“Sit tight now, Father,” Miles said, an edge of panic in his voice. “Quit your cursing or they’ll hear ye sure.”

Fear in the man’s voice made Kogan bite his tongue. The trap door slammed, engulfing him in darkness. He wrestled free of the wooden wreckage, and located the loaf flattened beneath him, now slippery with sour-smelling fungus.

“Coulda done with another loaf!” he shouted.

*

Hunting horns sounded
again. Bannus’s throaty basso drew steadily closer, to join the others.

“Help me to my saddle,” Willard growled. “No sense busting all your fancy bandages before we’ve even started.”

With the help of all three of them, he swung his good leg across Molly’s rump. When he finally sat at up in his saddle, his face was the color of bone. “Just stiff,” he said. “I’ll limber up.”