Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 02 (41 page)

           
It flung open, a wide-eyed servant
flattened against the wood as a burly man, his russet beard unkempt, strode
past. He was bareheaded, sweat plastering his hair to his broad forehead, his
cloak and boots attesting to long hours in the saddle, his gray eyes troubled
as he gave brief salute, something close to fear in them.

           
“Gann Resyth?” Alarm edged Bedyr’s
voice as he recognized the chatelain of the Fedyn Fort. “You have word of
Kedryn?”

           
“Lord Bedyr,” Resyth ducked his
head, the motion curt as his salute, “Lady Yrla. I bring sad news.”

           
“Kedryn!” Yrla fought to maintain
some semblance of calm as she studied the distraught face. “What news, Gann
Resyth?”

           
The stocky commander spread his
hands wide, looking from man to woman, his lips pursing beneath the concealing
bush of his beard.

           
“An avalanche,” he said helplessly,
anguish hoarsening his voice. “There was an avalanche.”

           
“Come, sit.” Bedyr fought his own
trepidation, gesturing at his recently vacated chair. “Drink, man, and compose
yourself.”

           
He filled a mug with the mulled wine
and handed the beaker to Gann Resyth, who gulped it down and wiped his beard,
sighing gustily.

           
“Now,” Bedyr stood behind his wife,
setting a firm hand on her shoulder, “what has happened?”

           
Yrla took the hand, seeking comfort
in the touch as she studied the chatelain’s troubled features and prepared
herself for the worst.

           
“They reached the fort,” Resyth
began, “some moons ago. Your son, the Sister, Tepshen Lahl and the escorting
squadron. They announced their intention of entering the Beltrevan and even
though Sister Gwenyl warned them of the danger, they proceeded into the
Fedyn
Pass.
”

           
“What danger?” Bedyr asked curtly.
“Have the forest folk reneged on their promises?”

           
“Not the tribes,” said Resyth.
“Ashar! Sister Gwenyl warned them of his fell power; that it was strong in the
pass.”

           
Bedyr felt Yrla’s hand tighten its
grip, unaware that his own clamped harder upon her. He said, “Continue.”

           
Resyth nodded, took a deep breath,
and said, “They were two days out from the fort when we heard . . . Lady
preserve me, I am not sure what was heard! ... It was like laughter. Awful
laughter. The tittering of a mad god! Sister Gwenyl declared she felt an evil
presence and I led a troop into that dark place. I felt fear then, for I, too,
felt . . . something.”

           
He shuddered, his hands clamped on
the beaker he held as though he would crush the clay. Then he shook himself and
straightened his back, stilling the tremor in his voice with visible effort.

           
“There was a storm of snow. A
blizzard that howled between the walls, driven from ahead, not falling. For the
better part of a day we rode blind, then the snow cleared and we saw a single
horse. There was no rider; only the one horse, and that so panicked it took
three men to hold it. We pressed on. And then we saw it: a wall of snow and
stone that filled the pass. It was as though the Lozins had fallen! We could
not climb it and nothing could have survived its tumbling. Kedryn—all of
them!—must lie beneath that cairn.

           
“May the Lady forgive me that I
should be the one to bring you this news, but your son must be dead.” His voice
faltered, tailing off, and he shook his head, his eyes moist.

           
“I could come because the fort is no
longer needed. The
Fedyn
Pass
no longer exists.”

           
“No,” Yrla said softly. “It cannot
be. I cannot believe it.”

           
“My Lady,” Gann Resyth said
mournfully, “it is. It must be: nothing could have survived that downfall.”

           
“You saw no sign?” asked Bedyr, his
voice slow with anguish. “No smoke of campfire? No sound?”

           
“Bedyr,” said the chatelain, “there
was no pass! The mountains fell down upon it, pushed by Ashar’s hand. There was
nothing to see because nothing
could
have survived. Kedryn is dead.”

           
“I will not believe it,” Yrla said.

           
Bedyr put both his hands upon her
shoulders, seeking both to give and find strength. “I will send word to Brannoc
to search the forests,” he promised, “but . . .” His voice broke, husky with
held-back tears, “I fear Gann Resyth is right.”

           
“No!” Yrla shook her head. “The Lady
would not permit it.” “The
Fedyn
Pass
is Ashar’s domain,” said Resyth quietly.
“No!” Yrla repeated as tears coursed down her trembling cheeks.

           
There were five shamans, one for
each clan of the Drott, and their presence filled Cord’s lodge with a sour odor
of unwashed flesh and rancid hides. Each one, the Ulan explained, represented a
forest beast, taking that creature’s strength and cunning for his own that he
might employ it for the good of his clan. Bear, bull, cat, wolf and boar were
represented, the hides of that animal that was the clan totem decorating the
shamans’ bodies, cut bloody from the sacrificed beast and adding greatly to the
stink that radiated from the men. Two were venerable, the others younger, and
all suspicious of the trio of Kingdom folk.

           
Cord spoke with them at length, and
from their responses Kedryn surmised that they were dubious of his venture.
Equally, he guessed that the defeat of the Horde and the subsequent
disappearance of the Messenger had weakened the power of the medicine men, for
Cord became voluble as he spoke, several times drawing his dagger partway from
its sheath. Finally, he shouted down the objections and summoned members of his
Gehrim, who heard him out and then hurried from the lodge, returning with the
ala-Ulans, their presence filling the hogan to bursting point.

           
More argument ensued, the guttural
language of the Drott echoing within the confines of the hide walls as horns of
beer were passed about and Cord clearly found himself engaged in a struggle for
supremacy. It seemed to Kedryn—as best he could tell from the tone of the
dialogue and the way the men looked at one another—that the ala-Ulans sided
with Cord, likely not from any great desire to aid him but in order to
aggrandize their own secular power, while the shamans appeared to consider the
request blasphemous. He clutched Wynett’s hand, Tepshen Lahl to his right,
thinking that had he the opportunity he would learn the byavan, or the language
of the Drott itself, ihat in future dealings he might take vocal part, for it
was frustrating in the extreme to know that his fate was debated while he could
do nothing save wait, wondering at the outcome.

           
He studied the current speaker, an
old man clad in the skin of a boar, the skull fashioned into a helmet, the
lower jaw fastened below the wearer’s own so that as he spoke the great curving
tusks shifted before his seamed face, the eyes shadowed by the overlapping
carapace. He saw those eyes turn toward him, taking in Wynett, and endeavored
to understand the expression there, but too soon they swung back to Cord and
the argument was taken up by a younger man, muscled near as large as the bear
whose skin he wore. An ala-Ulan spoke, his voice low, seeming pitched between
deference and defiance, then Cord, then a shaman whose head was engulfed by the
homed skull of a forest bull, another chieftain, then the Ulan again.

           
Round and round it went, the words
seeming to fill the lodge with a palpable sensation that combined with the heat
and the miasma of hides and bodies to produce an almost hypnotic air. Kedym’s
head began to ache and he longed to stand, thrust aside the entrance flap and
walk out into what he guessed must by now be the night. Instead, he willed
himself to patience, gently easing out legs that threatened to go numb with too
much sitting- He caught Wynett’s eye and she smiled slightly, her face serene,
her composure communicating to him so that his impatience eased, stilling into
a determination to wait calmly. To his right Tepshen sat cross-legged, his face
blank, still as an icon, appearing unmoved by the debate.

           
Then, abruptly, there was silence,
falling so suddenly that Kedryn started, staring as Cord turned and said, “They
agree.”

           
“When?” he asked.

           
The Ulan scratched in his beard and
said, “Two nights from now they say the signs are most propitious.”

           
Kedryn ducked his head and said, “I
thank you, Ulan. And them.”

           
Cord apparently relayed this to the
shamans, for they stared at the trio from beneath the frameworks of their masks
and the bull-head nodded as though in acknowledgment, then the medicine men
rose and filed from the lodge, followed by the ala-Ulans.

           
Cord snorted when they were gone and
tossed back a horn of ale.

           
“They were loath to aid you,” he
remarked conversationally, “and I needed to remind them you are the hef-Alador,
and that I am their Ulan. I think the promise of the eagle persuaded them.”

           
He laughed at this, pounding a meaty
fist on the table until it seemed the portable frame must shatter under his
blows. Kedryn felt nervous that such threat had been needed and asked, “They
will do it? There will be no dissent?”

           
“When you go beyond?” Cord shook his
head, recognizing Kedryn’s concern. “No—I explained to them that should any ill
befall you through their offices, I shall offer them as sacrifice.”

           
This amused him further, and he
chuckled. “There will be no treachery, my friend. You will be safe as their
gramaryes can make you.”

           
“Thank you,” Kedryn murmured, not
entirely reassured.

           
“It is nothing.” Cord waved a
dismissive hand, his words confirming Kedryn’s earlier suspicions. “The shamans
grow too proud and I welcomed the opportunity to remind them of my own power.
The ala-Ulans, too, were with me—too many died storming your fortress on the
word of a messiah who deserted us.”

           
Kedryn nodded, stretching stiffened
legs, and Cord rose to his feet, beckoning them. “Come, let my people see the
hef-Alador; then we shall eat.”

           
They followed him from the lodge and
the Gehrim fell into step around them as they were promenaded about the
Gathering, warriors staring with open-eyed curiosity, women holding children
aloft that they might see the slayer of Niloc Yarrum. It was dark and fires
burned before the lodges, their glow overwhelmed by the blaze of the great pyre
topping Drul’s Mound. The light washed against the sky, driving back the night,
though Kedryn saw that the moon approached its full corpus.

           
“When Mother Moon is bellied,” Cord
told him, “then it will be done.”

           
Kedryn ducked his head in agreement,
his heart beating faster.

           
For the two days that followed they
were the wonder of the camp. As it had been in High Fort, after the battle,
Kedryn was required to relive his fight with Niloc Yarrum; women brought babies
that he might touch them; Kalar and Wyll, basking in the glory of their
finding, invited him into their lodges, showing him the possessions they had
gained from Ragnal and Narr; Tepshen Lahl warily showed his sword; and Wynett
replenished her stock of herbs; they ate heartily, and at night slept in Cord’s
lodge, Wynett modestly separated from the two men by a curtain.

           
And then came the night of the full
moon.

           
During the day a lodge was erected
between Cord’s hogan and the mound. It was small and contained only one
chamber, the hides that formed its roof and walls laced tight to the uprights,
the floor the hard dirt of the clearing. The shamans appeared one by one to
daub the outer walls with runes and symbols and the Gehrim set a circle of
torches on ribboned poles about the structure. There was no evening meal
offered Wynett or Kedryn, nor any beer, and as dusk fell the medicine men
presented themselves before the Ulan’s lodge.

           
“It is time,” Cord said as rattles
dinned outside, counterpoised by a thin wailing. He gestured at Tepshen Lahl
and said, “They go alone. No other may be present.”