The Stone of Farewell (17 page)

“Yes. And I think the Norns will not be happy about such a plan. I fear that more of us will be wounded or killed. But we must seize our destiny with both hands. Prince Josua recognizes that, thank the Good God.”

Strangyeard sighed. “Do you know, I have been thinking. I feel quite ... quite ridiculous saying it, but ...” He trailed into silence.

“What?”

“Perhaps it is not Josua they seek to capture. Perhaps it is ... me.”

“Father Strangyeard!” Deornoth was quite surprised. “Why would that be?”

The priest bobbed his head, ashamed. “I know it seems foolish, but I must mention it. You see, I am the one who had studied Morgenes' manuscript telling of the Three Great Swords—and I am the one carrying it now.” He tapped the pocket of his voluminous robe. “With Jarnauga, I searched and studied, trying to divine the whereabouts of Fingil's sword Minneyar. Now that he is dead—well, I hate to sound as if I were shouting my own importance, but ...” He held out something small that swung from a chain, just visible in the growing light. “He gave me his Scroll, the badge of his League. Perhaps that has made me dangerous to the rest of the party. Maybe if I surrendered, they would let the rest of you go?”

Deornoth laughed. “If it is you they wish kept alive, Father, then we are lucky to have you among us, else we would have already been flushed and slaughtered like doves. Don't go anywhere.”

Strangyeard seemed uncertain. “If you say so, Deornoth ...”

“I do. Not to mention that we need your wits more than anything else we have—except for the prince himself.”

The archivist smiled shyly. “That is very kind.”

“Of course,” Deornoth said, and felt his mood souring, “if we are to survive the coming day, we will need more than wits. It will take a great deal of luck as well.”

 

After sitting with the archivist for a while longer, Deornoth decided to find himself a more comfortable spot to snatch an hour of sleep before dawn came. He nudged Strangyeard, whose head had sunk to his chest.

“I'll let you finish out, Father.”

“Mmmm... ? Oh! Yes, Sir Deornoth.” The priest nodded vigorously, demonstrating his alertness. “Certainly. You go and sleep.”

“The sun will be up soon, Father.”

“Just so.” Strangyeard smiled.

Deornoth went only a few dozen paces before settling on a level patch of ground in the lee of a fallen tree. A bitter wind ranged across the forest floor as though hunting for warm bodies. Deornoth wrapped his cloak tightly around himself and tried to find a comfortable position. After a long, chilly interval, he decided that there was scant chance he would ever fall asleep. Grumbling quietly, so as not to wake the others who were sleeping nearby, he rose to his feet and rebuckled his sword belt, then headed back toward Father Strangyeard's sentry post.

“It's me, Father,” he said quietly, as he stepped out of the trees into the small clearing. He stopped, astonished. A startlingly white face looked up, black eyes narrowing. Strangyeard was slumped in the arms of this dark-clad attacker, sleeping or senseless. A knife blade like the thorn of a great ebony rose lay against the priest's exposed neck.

Even as Deornoth threw himself forward, he saw two more pallid, slit-eyed faces in the night-shadows and called them by their old name.
“White Foxes!”
he shouted.
“The Norns! We are attacked!”

Bellowing, he struck the pale-skinned thing and grappled it with his arms. They toppled, the archivist tangled with them, so that for a moment Deornoth was lost in a welter of flailing limbs. He felt the thing reach out for him, its thin limbs full of slithery strength. Hands grasped at his face and pushed back his chin to expose his neck. Deornoth flung out his fist, which landed on something hard as bone. He was rewarded by a hissing cry of pain. Now he could hear crashing and shouting in the trees all around. He wondered dimly whether it meant more foes, or that his friends were awake at last.

Sword!
he thought.
Where's my sword?

But it was caught in the scabbard, twisted around on his belt. The moonlight seemed to burst into brilliance. The white face rose before him once more, lips skinned back, teeth bared like a drowning cur. The eyes that locked with his were as coldly inhuman as sea-stones. Deornoth fumbled for his dagger. The Norn grasped at his throat with one hand; its other hand, a pale blur, lifted free.

He has a knife!
Curiously, Deornoth felt as though he were floating on a wide river, carried forward on a slow and generous current, but at the same moment panicky thoughts flew around his head like grassflies.
Damn me, I forgot his knife!

He stared for another endless instant at the Norn before him, at the thin, otherworldly features, the white spiderweb hair matted across the brow, the faint lips drawn tight against the red gums. Then Deornoth swung his head forward, smashing his forehead into the cadaverous face. Before he had even felt the first shock, he threw himself forward again into yet another red impact. A great shadow mushroomed inside him. The shrieks and night wind faded to a muted and diminishing hum and the moon was drenched with clinging darkness.

When he could think again, he looked up to see Einskaldir, who seemed to be swimming toward him, arms windmilling, his war-axe a shimmering smear. The Rimmersman's mouth was open as though he shouted, but Deornoth heard no sound. Josua came just behind. Deornoth's two companions flung themselves against another pair of shadowy figures. Blades whirled and glinted, slicing the darkness with stripes of reflected moonlight. Deornoth wanted to stand and help them, but a weight lay upon him, some amorphous, unshakable burden. He struggled, wondering where his strength had gone, until the burden fell away at last and left him exposed to the rasping wind.

Josua and Einskaldir were still moving before him, their faces weird masks in the blue night. Other two-legged shapes were beginning to appear from the forest shadows, but Deornoth could not tell if they were friends or foes. His sight seemed to be obscured—something was in his eyes, something that stung. He moved his hands questingly over his face. It was wet and sticky. His fingers, when he held them up to catch the light, were black with blood.

A long, damp tunnel led down through the hillside. A narrow, torchlit staircase ran through it, half a thousand mossy, centuried steps that snaked down through the very heart of Sta Mirore, from Count Streáwe's great house to a small, hidden dock. Miriamele guessed that the tunnel had been the salvation of many an earlier nobleman, forced to flee his stately quarters by night when the peasantry became unexpectedly frisky or turned disputatious about the rights of the privileged.

After the end of a foot-wearying journey under the watchful eyes of Lenti and another of the count's closed-faced servants, Miriamele and Cadrach found themselves standing on a stone landing beneath an overhanging arch of cliff, the slate-colored harbor waters spread before them like a disheveled carpet. Just below, a small rowboat bobbed at the end of its painter.

A few moments later Streáwe himself arrived by another path, carried down the winding cliff roads in his carved and becurtained litter by four brawny men wearing sailors' garb. The old count wore a heavy cloak and muffler against the night fog. Miriamele thought that the sallow light of dawn made him look ancient.

“So,” he said, waving for his bearers to lower him to the stone platform, “our time together is at an end.” He smiled ruefully. “I feel a deep regret at letting you go—not least because the Victor of Naglimund, your beloved father Elias, would pay much for your safe return.” He shook his head and coughed. “Still, I am a honorable man, and an obligation unpaid is a ghost unshriven, as we say here in Perdruin. Say hello to my friend when you meet him. Extend my regards.”

“You haven't told us who this 'friend' is,” Miriamele said tightly. “The one to whom we are being given.”

Streáwe waved his hand dismissively. “If he wishes you to know his true name, he will tell you himself.”

“And you will be setting us across to Nabban on the open sea in this tiny little
isgbahta,”
Cadrach growled, “—this fishing boat?”

“It is scarcely a stone's throw,” the count said. “And you will have Lenti and Alespo along to protect you from kilpa and such.” He indicated the two servants with a wave of his trembling hand. Lenti was chewing sullenly at something. “You don't think I would let you go alone, do you?” Streáwe smiled. “How could I ever be sure you would reach my friend and resolve my debt?”

He waved for his servants to lift the litter. Miriamele and Cadrach were herded into the pitching boat, squeezed side by side into the tiny bow.

“Do not think unkindly of me, Miriamele and Padreic, I beg you,” Streáwe called as his servants wrestled him back up the slippery stairs. “My little island must maintain a delicate balance, a very delicate balance. Sometimes the adjustments seem cruel.” He pulled the curtain closed before him.

The one whom Streáwe had called Alespo untied the rope and Lenti reached out with his oar to push the little wooden boat away from the dock. As they drifted slowly away from the light of the dockside lanterns, Miriamele felt her heart sinking. They were going to Nabban, a place that now held little hope for her. Cadrach, her only ally, had been sullenly quiet since they had been reunited—and what name had Streáwe called him? Where had she heard that before? Now she herself was being sent to some unknown friend of Count Streáwe's, a pawn in some sort of strange business arrangement. And everyone, from the local nobles to the hum-blest peasant, seemed to know her affairs better than she did herself. What else could go wrong?

Miriamele let out a sigh of grief and frustration.

Lenti, seated across from her, stiffened. “Don't try anything, now,” he growled. “I have a knife.”

Simon
slapped a hand against the cold stone wall of the cave and felt a strange satisfaction at the pain. “Bleeding Usires!” he swore. “Bleeding Usires, Usires bleeding on the Tree!” He raised an arm to strike the wall again, but instead dropped it to his side and dug furiously at his breeches-leg with his fingernails.

“Calm y‘rself, boy,” Haestan said. “Was naught we c'do.”

“I won't let them kill him!” He turned to Haestan imploringly. “And Geloë said we must go to the Stone of Farewell. I don't even know where that is!”

Haestan shook his head unhappily. “Whatever this stone may be. I've not understood ye right since fell down and struck y'r head this afternoon. Y've been talkin' moon-mad. But about th' troll an' Rimmersman—what can we do?”

“I don't know!” Simon barked. He put out his aching hand to lean against the wall. The night wind keened beyond the door-flap. “Free them,” he said at last. “Free them both—Binabik and Sludig.” The tears he had felt himself holding back were gone. He suddenly felt cold-minded and full of strength.

Haestan started to reply, then checked himself. He looked at the youth's trembling fists and the livid scar striping his cheek. “How, then?” he asked quietly. “Two 'gainst a mountain?”

Simon stared furiously. “There must be a way!”

“Th‘only rope trolls took with Binabik's pack. Down a deep hole they are, lad. With guards 'round.”

After a long moment, Simon turned and slid down to sit on the cave floor, pushing away the sheepskin rug to bring himself as close as possible to the unforgiving rock.

“We can't just let them die, Haestan. We can't. Binabik said his people would throw them from the cliffs. How can they be such ... such demons!?”