Warautumn (6 page)

“Fish in the lake, at minimum,” Myx offered matter-of-factly. “Probably small game and birds here. But for anything
that would really fill us or support us long-term, we’d need to reach the mainland.”

“Which I assume we will,” Rann gave back, shifting his gaze to Riff, whose clan—Ioray—ruled shipcraft. “In the meantime, we need to look at this logically. Food, we have some of and can eventually get more. Shelter—we seem to have found that as well, though I’d hope for something cozier for cold weather. Ideally, something we can close off.”

“For winter,” Myx echoed darkly.

“Which leaves clothing,” Lykkon finished. “We basically have what we had on, which is fairly sturdy—all but Vall and Kylin, I mean. Fortunately, we’re all much of a size, except Bingg, and my clothes chest was one of the things that made the jump.”

“Point me to it,” Avall sighed. “I’m tired of sitting around in just a cloak.”

Ever dutiful, Bingg hopped to his feet and showed Avall a middle-sized oak chest that had fallen over but otherwise sustained no damage. A quick inspection produced three sets of indoor clothing, all in Argen maroon. Avall claimed the most worn set and started dressing. “It would be helpful,” he observed as he pulled on Lykkon’s third-best pair of house-hose, “if someone briefed me on what’s happened since I was captured. About the war, I mean.”

“And if you briefed us on what happened while
you
were captured,” Rann countered. “Like what’s going on with Zeff and the master gem.”

Avall shrugged. “I don’t know all of that. I was imprisoned every moment I was in the hold, and they plied me with imphor to get me to talk, but I’ve learned how to talk around the truth somewhat, and I listened carefully to how they phrased their questions. But to answer
your
question: One night Zeff came storming into my cell with the master gem, demanding to know how to work the regalia. I don’t remember the specifics of the confrontation, but he was as angry as I’ve ever seen him—and he’s not a man who angers easily. Basically, he
beat me and when he saw that he’d bloodied my face, forced the gem into the blood, so that we wound up … linking—I won’t say ‘bonding.’ Luckily for me, I was able to draw some force from the Overworld while we were joined and managed to use that to fling him away. He left, but beyond that, I don’t know anything until they came to my room, stripped me, and clamped me to that tabletop. That, and the fact that I was able to contact Kylin while he was harping—probably because the gem was so close—along with the fact that Kyl’s a very strong thinker. The rest you know.”

Lykkon scowled. “So you think Zeff learned how to link the gem to the sword from you?”

Avall shrugged in turn. “He might have, but I have no way to know what he found in my brain while we were … together. Though of course I’d have shown him
nothing
by choice.”

“What about other gems?” Rann inquired. “Have they reached the mines yet?”

Avall tugged on an overtunic and rejoined them. “If they have, I haven’t heard about it. But that doesn’t mean much; information is hard to come by in there. What I’ve told you really is all I know, honestly. Oh, I could add a few details, but I’d as soon save them for later, since something tells me we’re going to have plenty of time to talk. In any case, we’ve got more important things to discuss right now—like what’s been going on in the camp and elsewhere.”

Rann and Lykkon exchanged troubled glances. “You don’t know about the coup in Tir-Eron, do you?”

Avall looked up sharply. “What coup?”

“Simply stated,” Rann replied, “Priest-Clan staged a coup. It was Mask Day, and they used the chaos that’s so pervasive then as a cover to contrive the assassination of most of the existing chiefs—including some of their own, apparently. They’ve taken over the Citadel, and, as far as I can tell, it’s martial law in Eron George—Priest Law, better say. We’ve been busy with the siege and couldn’t help—either way we’d
have had an enemy at our backs and we were closer to Gem when we got the news.”

“And to me,” Avall gritted. “You should’ve gone back to retake the Gorge, not forged ahead to retake me.”

“It’s over and done,” Rann flared. “And I did nothing against the advice of my Council. In any case, Tyrill
is
alive—or was—but she wasn’t in a position to regain her chieftainship, never mind the stewardship you gave her when you left. We’ve had a few messages from her, however—she’s a survivor, that one. As to whether the problem has spread to the other gorges, we don’t know. It makes a certain amount of sense for the same thing to have happened everywhere, but it makes as much sense for some of the other Gorge-Chiefs to act unilaterally and try to oust Priest themselves. Granted, the cream of your army is at Gem, but there are still able men and women elsewhere. Remember that Vorinn’s as good as you have right now, and he missed the last war entirely. He’s also got a brother who’s martially inclined
—and
is somewhere in the north.”

“So to cut to the core,” Avall concluded, “the army can do as much good where it is as back in Tir-Eron, and the heart of the realm is at present a theocracy with two surrogate governments thrown in: one in Tir-Eron under Tyrill, who’s my legal representative there, and one at the front—probably under Vorinn, if I know anything.”

“Vorinn in fact,” Myx confirmed. “It was announced in camp shortly after Rann abdicated.”

Avall rounded on Rann fiercely. “You
abdicated
?”

Rann looked him straight in the eye. “The choice was how and when I saw you die. That wasn’t a choice I could make.”

“Oh, Rann, Rann,” Avall groaned, burying his face in his hands. “I’m not worth that. I’m not worth you ruining your life over.”

“It’s done,” Rann whispered. “And you’re still King.”

Myx exhaled listlessly and stood. “Not that this isn’t
interesting or important, but … shouldn’t we take better stock of our situation? Avall said he’s seen this place in a vision, but that’s the only proof we have that we really are on an island in the uninhabited west. There could be a twenty-towered palace right above us and we wouldn’t know it from here.”

“True enough,” Rann agreed. “But from what we saw in what little daylight was left, there were no signs of habitation anywhere out there. No lights, no roads. Which is not to say they don’t exist, but any exploration should probably wait until daylight. At that time … we should split up. Someone will have to stay here with Kylin, I suppose, but one group of us should go down to the lake, another group should see what’s above us, and we also need to explore laterally. I’d say we do the first two in the morning—with an eye to finding fresh water that isn’t lake water—and if we have time, check out the other in the afternoon. That should keep us busy. We also need to see what we have in the way of bows, as they’ll probably be our most effective hunting weapons.”

“And tomorrow night”—Avall looked troubled but went on—“tomorrow night, much as I despise the notion, I’ll try to bond with what’s left of the gems. I don’t think I have it in me to try that before then, and I refuse to let any of you try.”

“And tonight?”

“Tonight,” Avall said through a yawn, “we set watches, while the rest try to get some sleep. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m exhausted.” He looked around expectantly. “What do we have for bedding?”

“My camp bed didn’t make it,” Lykkon sighed, “but we all have our cloaks. There’s the rug itself, and a couple of cushions I had scattered around.”

“More than enough to keep us warm,” Avall said through another yawn. “Now then, who’s taking first watch?”

“I will,” Riff volunteered. “Seeing how I was most sober before all this began, and seem to be least … affected now.”

“Very well,” Avall agreed. “Now, what say the rest of us take inventory, and when anyone gets too tired to work, that
person can go to sleep. The fire won’t last all night anyway, unless we work at it. Fortunately, we won’t need it for warmth.”

“No,” Myx said softly. “But what will we do when winter really does arrive?”

Tyrill san Argen-yr took a deep breath and shuffled toward the bridge. It was one of two bridges that stretched from the Isle of The Eight to the banks of the Ri-Eron, in which the Isle was centered. This was the southern bridge, however: the one Tyrill had rarely used for most of her eighty-odd years, simply because she’d had no reason to use it. South Bank—by convention, not Law—was largely the province of what passed in Eron as a middle-class (there was effectively no lower), and was therefore the haunt of assorted businesses and small holdings belonging, in most cases, to Common Clan or clanless. A few High Clans had holds there as well, notably Lore, and some of what were known as the Earth Clans—like Beast, Grain, and Tanning—but they were the exceptions.

Some of those holds were in ruins, too, courtesy of rebellion run rampant on Mask Night, thirteen nights before. Fortunately for their owners, most were sufficiently extensive that even fire could not claim all of them. And fortunately for Tyrill, ruins made excellent shelter.

The Eight knew she had sheltered long enough in the lee of what had been the kitchen of one of Beast-Hold’s septs: sheltered
there and waited, clad in the darkest, most nondescript hooded cloak her squire, Lynee, could find, while she watched the night progress and traffic on the South River Walk grow thin. And if anyone had chanced to note her there—why, they would have seen nothing more than a thin, white-haired crone sleeping off too much drink—as evidenced by the empty beer pot beside her, and the smell of the stuff lavishly splashed across her tattered clothing.

She was, however, as sober as the neatly laid flagstones beneath her, when she steered her way into the moonlight. Two moons shone bright on the Ri-Eron to her right, as she angled toward the waist-high wall that marked the edge of the River Walk. She made a point of wobbling and occasionally flailing for balance, too—this in spite of the cane that was far too necessary, and joints that hurt far too much. Once, she even let herself stagger into the wall itself. She would have to be careful about that, though; too much motion would draw unwanted attention to what needed as few witnesses as possible. Still, she made it a point to stop and cough loudly several times, each time raising her hand to her lips.

She wondered if it was wise to attempt what she was planning. A quarter ago she would have said no, but a quarter ago her Kingdom had not been in chaos, her loved ones lured away, imprisoned, or dead, and she herself unhomed. Why, if not for the bravery and largesse of her Common Clan squire, Lynee, she might well be dead herself.

But if things went as they ought tonight, someone else would die instead.

She had never killed anyone outright. But she now possessed a tool with which she could kill at some distance while remaining relatively undetected, and it would be a shame not to use it for the greater good of Eron.

She wondered about that, too: who that half-seen figure had been, that had left those objects on the floor of her favorite two-son’s shrine. She did
not
wonder what they were, however, nor how to use them; and their use had, indeed, become
almost second nature in the few days since she had acquired them.

And there was her target now!

The bridge terminated in a guard station staffed by Priests of The Eight. Or, more properly, by Priests of the Ninth Face, since that radical sept now governed its parent clan. The guards changed shifts eight times a day, generally at cross-eighths, so that the portentous times—midnight, dawn, sunset, and sunrise—were always policed by the same person. That guard would have come on duty almost two hands ago, and if he was true to his habits would step outside precisely at midnight, take a turn around the station, perhaps piss over the parapet if he thought no one was looking, then return to duty.

When he did, Tyrill would be ready.

Another breath and she staggered farther up the way, but not far—never far—from the wall. She also coughed into her fist again, but when she lowered it, fingers still deft from eighty years of smithing snared something from the folds of her clothing—something a quarter of whose length she could conceal in her hand, while the bulk ran up her sleeve. Something she had previously loaded with a small glass dart tipped with one of the most potent poisons in existence.

And there was the guard: right on time!
He had sauntered out of the back of the station and disappeared around the farther, western, side. Tyrill quickened her pace in his absence. Range could be crucial with this particular weapon. He turned the corner obligingly; she slowed again as he started past the station’s front wall and toward her.

It was now or never.

But he wasn’t turning! He was coming toward her! Had she drawn more attention than she thought?

“Lady,” the man called with polite authority. “It’s late, and there
is
a curfew. I must ask—”

He never got a chance to frame his question, because Tyrill chose that moment to cough again. Only she didn’t really cough. The hand she raised contained a blowgun of Ixtian
origin, and that blowgun housed a dart tipped with scorpion poison. The cough was a puff of wind carefully applied. And such was Tyrill’s luck—or skill—that her first attempt struck home. She couldn’t see the dart, of course, but she did see the man swat his neck where bare skin showed above his blue surcoat. Nevertheless, she betrayed nothing, merely reeled to the rail again and used it to brace herself (with the blowgun still in her hand in case she had to drop it into the river hastily), while the man continued forward. He managed three more steps before his eyes went very wide and he stumbled. Turning clumsily, he fled back to the guard station—perhaps to summon help—except that he could not cry out, for that poison froze the voice early on. Then the breath. Then the heart. Tyrill didn’t even have to dispose of the body, for the man—frantic in his haste—struck the wall as he tried to turn the corner onto the bridge, slipped on something she couldn’t see—and tumbled over. She heard the splash as he struck the water a span below her feet.