Exile's Children (53 page)

All, it seemed, waited for Morrhyn, whilst he appeared only to luxuriate in the lodge's warmth.

He beamed, stretching his hands toward the fire, and said, “Ach, but it's good to sit in a lodge again. Not”—with an apologetic glance at the Grannach—“that it was not fine in the caves. But this is somewhat like coming home.”

Rannach said, “This
is
home.”

“Yes.” Morrhyn looked around. “And a fine place you've made of it. You prosper here.”

Arrhyna lifted the kettle from the fire and realized she lacked cups enough for all. Marjia saw her discomfort and went bustling outside to return with cups that she held as Arrhyna filled them and then passed around.

When all were served, Colun said bluntly, “Do we get down to it? Or shall we sit around talking small, while …”

“Hush, you.” Marjia dug an elbow into his ribs. “This is for Morrhyn to say, no?”

Colun grunted and ducked his head and looked to the snow-haired wakanisha. Arrhyna felt her mouth dry. It seemed a draft found a way through the lodge's hides, dancing cold fingers down the length of her spine. She touched Rannach's hand, staring at Morrhyn.

He sighed, no longer smiling, and said, “I've news, and not much of it good. Ket-Ta-Witko stands in danger, and all the People; terrible danger … ”

He spoke then of the war Chakthi pressed, and the attacks the Commacht had suffered, the indifference of all save Yazte's Lakanti. He
told of his quest, of finding the cave and surviving there, and the dreams that came to him. From time to time he broke off, allowing Colun to describe the ravages suffered by the Grannach, and how the invaders came through the mountains, and the Stone Folk were slain and now become a single people with him their leader. Arrhyna listened and felt her heart grow chill. Her fingers entwined with Rannach's and held them hard.

“They've not come here,” Rannach said when the awful telling was done.

“Not yet,” Colun returned him. “This valley is out of their way; they go to your plains. But when they're done there …”

“Are they successful,” Rannach said. “Are they not defeated.”

“The People stand no chance against them.” Morrhyn's voice was a cold wind blowing down the night, unwelcome as it was unavoidable. “This I have dreamed, and I tell you it is true. The clans are all divided, and save they unite … Even if they do unite … ”

He shook his head helplessly, hopelessly. Rannach said, “Then the Maker delivers the People to these … Breakers, you name them? He turns his face from us?”

Morrhyn looked awhile into the fire and then shrugged. “Surely the People are tested,” he said lowly. “Surely they have erred, and—I believe—earned his displeasure.”

“What's that to do with me?” Rannach asked, and glanced sidelong at Arrhyna. “With us?”

Morrhyn raised his head to face the younger man. Arrhyna thought she saw pain writ there. “Nothing,” he said, “and everything. Do you not see it?”

Arrhyna believed she did, and liked it not at all; but she kept silent, waiting for her husband to speak.

Rannach frowned. “I am banished,” he said at last. “Accounted no longer of the People, but an outcast.”

Colun snorted then, irritably, and asked, “Think you these Breakers shall make such fine distinctions when they come back to scour these hills? What shall you do then? Go to them crying, ‘I am not of the People. Leave me be?' I think they'll not care much who or what you are, but only slay you and your bride. I'd thought Racharran's son made of better stuff.”

Rannach scowled and Arrhyna tightened her grip on his hand, fearing he'd take such offense as to strike at the Grannach.

“Soft, soft.” Morrhyn spoke again, his narrowed hands gesturing placation. “Shall we friends fall to quarreling and disagreement like all
the rest? Are we no better than Chakthi, or those others who pretend there's naught amiss?”

He looked from one to another, his eyes lit with such inner fire as to still them all. Arrhyna thought she saw the Maker looking out from those orbs—how else could Morrhyn know she was pregnant, save all his dreams were true? And if they were all true … Again she felt those chill fingers trail her spine, tingle over her heart.

Rannach met Morrhyn's gaze awhile, then lowered his eyes. “Tell me what it is I should see,” he said, his voice gruff with confused emotions. “I am only a plain man, a simple warrior. I do not see these things so clear.”

“The Ahsa-tye-Patiko is more than just a set of rules,” Morrhyn said, his voice soft but yet seeming to ring loud as any clarion. “It is our covenant with the Maker, the thing that binds us to him and him to us. And it stands broken, forgotten or ignored by many. Thus are those wards he set about our land weakened, and the Breakers able to come through.”

Rannach frowned. “You say the sins of men deliver this scourge?”

“Yes.” Morrhyn nodded solemnly. “The Maker forgives much, but when men forsake the covenant of the Will … Why should he remember us when we forget him? Listen—Chakthi's was the first sin, that he was akaman of the Tachyn but still agreed to Arrhyna's kidnap. No less Hadduth's, for he was wakanisha and should have dissuaded Chakthi from that course … ”

“Ach, dissuade Chakthi?” Rannach waved a scornful hand. “He's as likely to try dissuading Chakthi as attempt to milk a bull buffalo.”

“And so perhaps his sin is the greater,” Morrhyn said. “For it was Hadduth's charge to define and interpret the Will, and he did not. Like Chakthi, he turned his face from the Maker in pursuit of only human profit: that was the second sin. And then—the third—Vachyr took Arrhyna, which was a sure breaking of the Ahsa-tye-Patiko.”

“And I slew Vachyr.” Rannach's voice was defiant, his eyes no less so. “I slew him within the aegis of the Meeting Ground.”

Morrhyn said, “Yes,” looking directly at Rannach. “That was the fifth sin.”

Rannach said, “The fifth? Surely the fourth, if it
was
a sin—he gave me no other choice.”

Morrhyn said, “Did he not? Truly?”

Rannach hesitated. Arrhyna drew in a deep and frightened breath, clutching his hand hard. Morrhyn knew all that had transpired: she saw it in his eyes, all fiery with the dreams the Maker had sent him. She summoned up her courage and said, “I urged Rannach to kill him. I told
him what Vachyr had done and told Rannach to slay him for it. So is there sin to be apportioned here, then I must take my share.”

Rannach said, “No! What sin there is is mine alone. I chose to slay Vachyr; I was mad with rage. Leave Arrhyna out of this.”

Morrhyn said, “I cannot. She's of the People, as are you. You are both the Maker's children, parts of his creation and so bound by his Will. Arrhyna's was the fourth sin, that she urged you to the fifth.”

“Then are we guilty as Chakthi?” Rannach asked defiantly. “Guilty as Vachyr and Hadduth?”

“No.” Morrhyn shook his head and stretched out his lips in a wan smile. “Your sins were those of reaction, not commission. And you suffered banishment, by agreement of all the Council.”

“Then what is all this about?” Rannach demanded.

“Atonement. And the saving of the People. Forgiveness; salvation, all well.”

“I do not understand.”

“I must go back to Ket-Ta-Witko,” Morrhyn said.

Soft, somehow knowing what should come next, Arrhyna gasped, “No!”

Morrhyn smiled at her—gently, apologetically—and said, “This is a hard duty, but I've no other way, no other choice.”

“Rannach cannot go back,” she said. “On pain of death, he cannot! They'll execute him, does he go back.”

“Why should I?” Rannach asked.

“Because
I
must,” Morrhyn answered. “And because you love the People. Because you are a brave, good man. Because I need you.”

Arrhyna said again louder, “No!”

“I'll willingly gift you a horse; two,” Rannach said. “But go back? That's my death. Even my father would command it.”

“Not with the word I bring,” Morrhyn said. “The word I
must
bring, else all the People fall to the Breakers. And the last of the Grannach, and all the worlds beyond, unending until nothing is left save destruction and ruin and chaos, and all the Maker's works brought down and only sad, dark night left ruling.”

Rannach sat openmouthed, his eyes haunted. “So bad? Truly?”

“Truly.”

Arrhyna, all cold now, said, “Must it be Rannach? Why not …” She looked, ashamed, at Colun.

Morrhyn smiled sadly and said, “The Stone Folk saved me when I might have died in the snow, and they've fought battles enough with the Breakers and have their own wounds to tend. They've done their share, with more to come. Now I need someone who can ride hard and bring
me safe to the People. The Grannach do not ride—I've no other choice but to ask Rannach.” His sad smile went away, only remorse left behind. “Could it be otherwise … ”

Arrhyna closed her eyes tight against the tears that threatened, and in that self-willed darkness heard Morrhyn add, “But there's a thing he should know before he chooses. Shall you tell him, or I?”

She opened her eyes to face that future she had sensed approached since first Morrhyn embraced her, and she knew he saw her as only a wakanisha could. Almost, she hated him for that knowledge, but not quite. How could she, when in his burning eyes she saw only unwelcomed truths and the pain that seared him for what he knew, and knew he must do?

She heard Rannach say, “Tell me what?” and turned her face to her husband.

“I carry your child,” she said.

Rannach's jaw dropped. His expression was comical enough that Arrhyna almost laughed: would have, had other and weightier matters not pressed her lips tight together. Then Marjia said, “Why are men always so surprised?” And she could not help but chuckle.

Rannach asked, “A boy or a girl?”

Which seemed to Arrhyna so foolish, she began to giggle, and say, “How can I tell?”

But Morrhyn said, “A boy. A fine and healthy boy.”

And all the laughter ceased as they looked to the Dreamer, who essayed an almost shamefaced smile and shrugged, saying, “I saw it in my dreams. It's a boy, who—”

He broke off, his smile disappearing.

Arrhyna said, “What? Tell me, Morrhyn.”

The wakanisha licked his lips nervously, and ran a hand over his gaunt face and said, “There are threads to dreams, like all the threads that weave out a blanket. Some go one way, some another; others are broken … ”

Arrhyna felt the fingers again, dancing chilly down her spine, as if all the possible futures plucked at her. She reached slowly for the kettle, filling her own cup and then passing the receptacle on. Bad manners, she knew, but knew she had no time now for manners, only the terrible dread urgency that filled her. She voiced a question even as she felt convinced she knew the answer, as if she owned the powers of a Dreamer.

“Does Rannach not go?”

Morrhyn took a cup and sipped, then he looked her sadly in the eye and said, “It must be his choice. I cannot say.”

She drank tea and felt an emptiness open inside her. She said, “That's no choice, is it?”

He shrugged. “There are always choices.”

“Poor choices sometimes,” she said. “And sometimes no choice at all.”

Rannach looked from one to the other, confused, and asked, “What do you say?”

Arrhyna tore her eyes from Morrhyn's solemn gaze and turned to face her husband. “The horses are healthy, no?”

Rannach nodded.

“And there's a deer to butcher?”

Rannach said, “Yes, you saw it.”

She nodded. “You'll need meat, are you to travel fast.”

“I've not agreed to go yet,” Rannach began.

“If you do not, then our child will die. Likely I shall too. And you, and all the People. Is that not right, Morrhyn?”

Morrhyn nodded. “That's one trail the future takes.”

Arrhyna could not understand how she was able to speak so firm, so clear. “Rannach, do you go ready that deer. You'd best leave soon.”

He said, “And leave you alone? With child?”

Marjia said, “She'll not be alone. She'll be with us.”

Rannach hesitated.

Arrhyna said, “Go, husband. I'll be safe with our friends. Safer than if you remain.”

Rannach frowned, staring at her, and she took hold of both his hands and smiled as best and warmly as she could and said, “There's no other choice. I wish there were, but there's not. So go and do as Morrhyn bids you, then come back safe.”

For a while he only stared at her, reading the truth in her eyes. Then he swallowed hard and ducked his head and kissed her, and went out from the tent to butcher the deer.

Racharran took only five of his most reliable warriors with him, men proven in battle who would not panic or run at the sight of what he feared they'd encounter. All well, he hoped they would spot the strangelings only at a distance—locate the placement of their forces and assess their strength that he have some clearer idea what the People faced—then come back safe with such information. That was what he hoped, and what he told Lhyn would happen as she held him tight and fought back tears, but they both knew that hope was one thing and reality another.

He was no Dreamer that he could foresee the future, but he could not forget Bakaan's wounds or the dying warrior's words, which seemed clear portent of things to come. He wished Morrhyn were there to advise him—he felt he became akaman and wakanisha both, and that was a terrible weight to carry. But he put on a brave face and led his little party out from the canyon across the snow fields, in the direction of the catfish river Bakaan had described.

The snow was hard frozen and relatively easy to travel. The White Grass Moon waned, and with its going the snowfalls ceased, replaced by only bitter cold and winds that cut to the bone. Icicles hung glittering in the watery sunlight from trees that thrust out naked branches like the clutching fingers of nightmares. Rivers and streams were locked beneath thick crusts of ice, their water black as night and cold as death's kiss beneath. There was little game: deer sought the shelter of the woodlands, and the few buffalo herds they saw huddled disconsolate in closepacked, defensive groups where trees or terrain afforded some shelter. It was not a time to travel. That, at least, was some consolation, for Racharran thought not even crazed Chakthi could persuade his warriors out from their Wintering Ground in such harsh weather.