The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood (17 page)

“I’m curious about something,” said Vessia. “I don’t know why, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about your strange little speech earlier. Why would a human, even one with mixed heritage, want to help strangers of another blood? Why take a risk no one is asking you to take? What makes you want to be a hero?”

“I would have offered you a better hero if I could have,” Dindi apologized. “But I had no right to volunteer anyone else besides myself.”

“That doesn’t really answer my question.”

“It’s the best I can do.”

“Vessia!” a man shouted. “VESSIA!”

It was one of the prisoners. Though he had already been dragged a considerable way by the guards, he had recognized Vessia from that distance. He broke away from his captors and ran toward her.

Vessia drew her dagger, but the guards ran him down a few feet from her. He was an elder, an uncle of a respectable age. His silver hair did not earn him any respect from the guards. They kicked him in the head and ribs.

“Please, Vessia, I’m begging you,” he gasped. “My daughter told me she could do nothing for me—I would have to appeal to you.”

“You don’t have to beat him,” Vessia told the guards. She asked Dindi in a low voice, “Why does he know me? Who is his daughter?”

“He’s your husband’s brother. His name is Vumo,” said Dindi. “Amdra is his daughter. He probably thinks you’ll spare his life.”

“Not mine.” Vumo wheezed. He shoved aside the grip of the guards and stood on his own, albeit a bit shakily. “There’s a boy. His name is Tamio. He’s injured, and he needs a Healer. He’ll never survive without magic. His friend Hadi is carrying him right now, but he can’t carry him over that gulf, they will both fall….”

“Hadi!” said Dindi. “And Tamio. Oh!”

Vessia raised her brows.

“Hadi is my own blood. Tamio is a friend.”

“The threads of fate are inclined to cross many times in a tight weave,” Vessia remarked. She shrugged and gestured at the warriors. “Take the old human, and have him pick out the boys. You can put them all in Amdra’s house.”

“Thank you, Vessia,” said Vumo.

He staggered off with the warriors.

“Thank you, Vessia,” echoed Dindi quietly.

“I think I have you figured out, little hero,” said Vessia. She sounded smug. 

“Yes?”

“You must have known your kinsmen would be taken prisoner,” said Vessia. “Or suspected it could happen. You wanted to position yourself to benefit them. Not to mention, improve your own place. I keep making the mistake of thinking we Aelfae are outcastes and enemies here, but Xerpen is War Chief. His status shines on us like light from a torch. We glow with his power—and you want to bask in that glow yourself. You wanted to curry our favor. You aren’t a hero. You aren’t a clown either. You’re a cunning she-wolf, with a nose for safety. You want to save your own skin.”

The bonfires in the Plaza of Eagles still burned, but the licking flames had died down to a low, orange glow. A few roisterers sang bitter, drunken songs, but most of the tribesfolk had slunk away to curl up in their stone houses, or sheepskin tents, to prepare for another day of merriment and bloodletting.

“Am I right?” prodded Vessia.

“I don’t know,” said Dindi. “I don’t feel very cunning. But I don’t want to die. I don’t want my kin and clan to die. I don’t want my people to die. Do you?”

“I don’t want to die,” said Vessia. “But I was
meant
to be immortal. You—I’m sorry—were not. That is the gulf between us, which can never be bridged. Not even by a single thread.”

Pain forced Tamio awake. He knew Vumo had speared him, but he could not identify the place of the wound. Every limb and organ ached. His vision was fuzzy around the edges, and all he could grasp at first was that Hadi was beside him, offering him water. Tamio sipped, coughed, and groaned.

Things resolved into shapes and textures: the smell of burning sheep-dung; the feel of woven wool; a wall beside the mound where he lay built up from thin layers of orange-tinted rock. So he was in Orange Canyon but in a spacious stone lodge, not a tent. Nice to know that, even injured, he was coming up in the world. Wooden rafters above his head swayed in the haze from a hearth. Or maybe it was his head that was still swaying.

“Am I doomed?” he asked Hadi.

YOU ARE GOING TO DIE IN HORRIBLE PAIN! Hadi’s panicked eyes informed him while his mouth, lagging behind, formed the words: “Nooooo, of course not! You’ll be just fine.”

Which to believe? Tamio preferred the idea he would be fine, so he decided to go with that.

“So where are we?” He observed the
wall-hangings: orange, with black and white animals (eagles, spiders, and sheep) dancing zigzags across the rows. His first impression of a spacious hall had been correct. The lodge was narrow but long, with a high ceiling. Narrow doors on the broad side were sealed shut by leather aprons. Fleece rugs softened the packed-mud floor. Jars in the corner were crammed with frozen black potatoes and other dried foodstuffs. Tall towers of folded blankets were stacked in another corner. Altogether, pretty posh. “The tribehold—Cliffedge.”

“Yes. We were separated from the other prisoners, just the two of us, and brought here.” Hadi paused. “They only brought me to take care of you. The old fellow ordered it, the one who, uh…”

“Stabbed me?”

“Yeah. I don’t know why.”

“I think it was because I challenged him to a dual.”

“I mean
, I don’t know why he had you—and me—brought here.”

“It was the least I could do.” Vumo himself parted the leather over the doorway and entered the lodge. “Also the most I could
do. My powers don’t extend far here. I
have
managed to arrange for a true Healer to tend you.”

“Wasn’t that grand of you,” sneered Tamio.

“Tamio!” Hadi leaned forward to mutter, “He may have saved our lives. Maybe we shouldn’t piss in his beer?”

“I’m not saying I believe you’re my son,” added Vumo dryly.

Hadi’s jaw worked up and down as if he couldn’t swallow no matter how he chewed the outrageous idea. Tamio laughed, or tried to. It turned out to be a bad idea. Laughing threatened to use muscles that refused to be used.

“Is he really your father, Tamio?” Hadi asked, eyes wide as sieves.

“Why would I lie?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply…”

“For a lot of reasons,” said Vumo. “The biggest one being that there’s supposedly going to be a Vaedi Vooma soon. If there’s a dance war to choose a new Vaedi, you probably figured—rightly—there would be a dance war to choose a new War Chief as well, since my brother is old and will have to hand the staff to a new buck soon. And you probably figured—rightly—that the aspiring candidate to new War Chief would have a better chance if he were believed to be blood kin of one of the great Zavaedies in the Labyrinth. And you probably figured—rightly—that no one would believe Vio would cheat on the White Lady, since even if he were that kind of man, which he’s not, she’d put some fae hex on him if he were and did. And you probably figured—rightly—that you
could
get away with claiming to be one of my by-blows, and not the first, either.”

“Or,” Tamio said through gritted teeth, “I probably figured—rightly—that you screwed my mother.”

“Can’t prove that,” said Vumo, with a shrug.

“You saw my proof. It turned your blade. It saved my life.”

“More than one man could have given your mother a shell.”

“I never told you a man gave my mother that shell.”

“Well, I just assumed…” Vumo shifted uncomfortably. He was still standing near the doorway, near his escape route.

Tamio bared his teeth in a savage smile.

Vumo cleared his throat. “
Or
you could have had just such a shell in your possession and decided, after hearing my story, to make a claim on me. Yeah, that seems most likely, as I think on it.”

“Go muck yourself.”

“Is there anything else you need? Within reason.”

“Where’s Kemla?” asked Tamio. “The young woman who…”

“I know who she is, Tamio, and what she is to you.”

“You asked what I needed. I need
her
.”

“I said
within
reason. That’s outside reason.”

“I want her spared!”

“I’ve already asked for too many favors. You, and, by necessity, since you were unconscious, your friend here. If you’d rather the girl, I could switch them. Two is the limit I can ask for.”

“Two? Fine.” Tamio glared at Vumo. Should he be surprised his sorry excuse for a father had nothing to offer but sorry excuses? “Hadi and Kemla. Send me back to the other prisoners.”

Vumo made a face. “I’ll see what I can do. Do your part, and cooperate with the Healer. If you die after all the trouble I’ve gone to, I’ll kill you.”

Footsteps approached the door. Under the leather flap, Tamio could see two small feet in sheepskin boots.

Vumo’s relief was visible. “The Healer is here.” He told Hadi, “Let her tend him. You can wait in the courtyard.”

Hadi touched his hand to Tamio’s before he left. Just outside the door, as Hadi passed the Healer, he made a weird, strangled sound of surprise. Tamio tensed.

Only after both men had disappeared past the door apron did the Healer enter. The petite woman wore an Orange Canyon parka, wooly and warm, over Yellow Bear garments much less suited to the mountain chill. She looked vaguely familiar… no… quite familiar.

It was Gwenika.

Finnadro wanted to begin the questioning that night, but Xerpen said to wait. “There’s something more important I want to show you first.”

What could be more urgent than finding out the identity of the Traitor among the Aelfae, more important than punishing a murderer?

Xerpen led him to the edge of the cliff. Finnadro stiffened. Here he had chased Umbral. Here too the bone cages holding his people drooped like banners of shame. Chasing Umbral, he’d noticed the cages were empty and had not asked what happened to the prisoners. He feared the answer.

“Look,” said Xerpen. 

Raptors were arriving with new prisoners, filling up the cages again. Finn drew a sharp breath.

“Look closer,” insisted Xerpen.

The new prisoners wore sheepskins and orange wool; they were not his people.

“I’ve released your people,” said Xerpen softly. “All of them. For you, Finnadro. As a sign of my trust in you—and in our friendship. Our peoples should never have warred! That was the Deathsworn’s doing. I am ashamed I let myself be drawn into his trap. I have set your people free as my way of saying: I am sorry.”

Finnadro was overwhelmed.
Thank you
. It was not enough.

“You are generous, Uncle.”

“Xerpen. Call me Xerpen.”

Finnadro bowed his head. “Thank you, Xerpen. But then who…why… these new captives…?”

“Not all of my warriors behaved honorably during the war,” said Xerpen. He looked angry and righteous. “Those who burned the forests. Those who harmed the Sylfae, your own gentle Lady’s people—such deserve no mercy. They will be punished. I will see to it myself, though it will grieve me to have to chastise my own. It must be done.”

“I understand, uncle. I would do the same.”

“I know you would, Finnadro. We are two woven of the same threads, are we not?”

“You do me too great an honor.”

“You do yourself too little credit.” Xerpen pointed to a building. “Do you see that place where they are taking some of the criminals? It is the Waiting House. And beside it, the other building—the white one. Do you see it?
That
is the Blood House, but it used to be called the Place of Cutting.”

Xerpen spoke with a voice like liquid gold. Smooth, filled with light, a voice that both lifted and soothed. Listening to him was akin to closing one’s eyes to fall asleep to a song, an easement of woe. He described the history of the Place of Cutting, the Blood House, and though the events he described were terrible, his voice made them weirdly thrilling.

“This was why I begged you to hold off on your questioning of the Deathsworn just yet,” said Xerpen at length. “His questioning should take place in the Blood House. But I will need this place first for the discipline of my own. Do you understand?”

“Of course, uncle. Where is he now?”

“In the Waiting House. The stone is solid; he will not escape. It is there the most dangerous of the guilty ones from my own people will be held as well. I wish I could question him myself, in your place, to spare you this burden, but there are reasons I cannot. However, I can give you something that will help you. If I may?”

Finnadro had no idea what he had in mind, but trust came naturally after all Xerpen had done for him. Finnadro nodded.

Xerpen twisted his hands oddly, hooking the space near Finnadro. It was as if Xerpen were grasping his aura, though Finnadro could not see the Chromas Xerpen manipulated. What Finnadro felt was a shock of cold, as if someone had thrown ice water in his face. Not wanting to appear weak or ungrateful, he stilled the impulse to shiver.