Exile's Children (72 page)

Hadduth said, “Morrhyn's word.”

“His promise,” Dohnse said. “Got from the Maker.”

The Tachyn Dreamer looked hard at him and asked, “You believe that?”

“I do.”

He trusted neither of them any longer, but perhaps there was still hope. Surely he believed what Morrhyn had told him, and if that were true, then the Tachyn must follow the Commacht or be slain and damned. If he could persuade them to join the exodus, then perhaps his people might live and he retain some vestige of honor.

He opened his mouth to speak, ready to persuade, to convince; but Hadduth silenced him with a raised hand and said, “We'd best join them, no? Should they meet the Breakers along the way, they'll need friends.”

Chakthi stared awhile at his wakanisha and then nodded: “Yes. We'll speak with the clan this night, and in the morning go out.”

Dohnse looked, frowning, from one to the other. It seemed to him that decision had been reached too easy.

Yazte and his Lakanti found them as they toiled up out of a valley that hid them well, but was thick along all its length with deep snow. The Commacht scouts saw the newcomers first and signaled back to the column, which clambered slowly to the egress to find the Lakanti waiting before the edgewoods of a winter bared forest. It heartened the Commacht to see friends again and strengthened their belief in Morrhyn—even the doubters found it convincing that the Lakanti akaman should believe and bring his clan to join them. And the doubling of numbers was no bad thing, nor the supplies the Lakanti brought, for that summer's war had left the Commacht poorly provisioned for the trek.

Racharran smiled as he saw Yazte all swathed in furs like a great bear astride his horse and went forward with Morrhyn, leaving Rannach to see the clan safely up from the valley.

“Well met.” He reached to clasp Yazte's hand.

“Are we?” Yazte frowned grumpily from under his cowl. “I could be sitting warm and comfortable in my lodge if not for …” He looked past Racharran and his eyes grew wide. “Morrhyn?”

“Yes.” Morrhyn smiled.

Yazte said, “Jach told me you'd changed somewhat. But …”

Morrhyn shrugged and looked to Kahteney. “We must talk, my brother.”

Kahteney nodded. Himself slender as his akaman was plump, he looked fleshy beside Morrhyn. “I'd hear everything,” he said.

“You shall,” Morrhyn promised. “But later. Do we halt now?”

Racharran looked at the forest, then out across the snow. The sun westered fast and the light began to fade, the temperature dropping as the wind sent ghostly clouds swirling over the flatlands, rattling the bare branches like clattering teeth.

“Is it safe?”

“As best I can tell.” Morrhyn in turn studied the woods. “I've not dreamed of any peril here.”

“You dream?” Kahteney's voice was shocked.

“I do.” Morrhyn's smile was a mixture of gratitude and ruefulness. “Not always of pleasant things, but later we'll speak of this, eh?”

Kahteney ducked his head slowly, as if he'd discuss it all on the spot, but Yazte raised his voice over the gusting of the wind and said, “Do we set our lodges inside the wood before night finds us? Or shall we sit here talking until my old ones freeze?”

Racharran turned in his saddle to watch the tail of the column come up out of the valley. Rannach sat his borrowed horse beside a pillar of stone shining blackly with frozen meltwater, urging on the youngsters herding the loose horses. “There's something you should know,” he said, angling his lance at his son.

“That Rannach's come back?” Yazte looked at the mounted figure and shook his head. “Jach told me. Brought Morrhyn back, he said.”

Racharran nodded. “The Council's judgment?”

“Ach!” Yazte turned his head to spit into the snow. “You knew my feelings when that was delivered—they've not changed.”

Racharran said, “Even so. Do the others find us …”

“We spoke of this.” Yazte glanced sidelong at Kahteney, who smiled his agreement. “And it seems to us that Rannach's exile must be abrogated. Morrhyn needed him, no? And the People need Morrhyn's promise. And save for Rannach, we'd not have that. So? Do any object to his presence, they've you and I both to argue with. Now, can we, for the Maker's sake, set up our camp and open a flask of tiswin?”

Racharran laughed and said, “Yes!”

The trees broke the wind somewhat, even if their skeletal branches swung and swayed and rattled so that the night was filled with their chattering—as if it were the Spirit Night and all the dead of that year come wandering back. But still it was warmer than the open prairie,
and the lodgefires burned bright with friendship's heat and shared purpose.

Lhyn smiled as she worked with Roza, readying food for the men who spoke so earnestly of what had been and what might lie ahead. Yazte's wife was plump and cheerful as her husband, and her company alone lifted Lhyn's spirits. She felt better at ease than she had since quitting the Wintering Ground, encompassed by friends whose presence strengthened her—not to mention that the Lakanti had shared out their food and furs so that all were now better kitted for the journey.

She and Roza, with an escort of young warriors, had seen to the distribution, and she knew now that her people stood a better chance of finding Morrhyn's promised land with fewer losses, and that was enough for her. So did the men speak of manly things whilst the women readied the food that should fuel them for those endeavors, she did not mind. Anyway, even did he not ask her advice now, Racharran would talk it all through again and seek her thoughts when they lay under the blankets and she give them and—usually—be heeded. So she cooked and listened with half an ear to Roza, and half to what the men said.

Most of it she knew, and stirred the pot as Morrhyn told of his journey to the Mountain and the visions gotten there, and Rannach spoke of the Grannach's secret valley and all Colun had told him. They both told of the journey back—which filled her heart with pride, that her son was so brave—and Racharran spoke of the Breakers he'd seen, and the messengers sent from all the clans.

She pricked up her ears as Yazte asked, “Shall they join us, you think?”

And saw her husband shrug and answer, “I cannot guess. They were told … But do they hear is in the Maker's hands.”

Kahteney looked at Morrhyn then, with something akin to wonder in his eyes, and asked, “Have you dreamed of this?”

Morrhyn shrugged; Lhyn frowned to see him so thin, his shoulders like sticks under his shirt. “No. At least, not clearly—I've told you, there are branching paths that lead to different futures.”

Yazte studied him with awe in his eyes—and, Lhyn thought, something close to fear—and asked, “And this one? This path we take?”

“Is safe,” Morrhyn said. “And brings us to the Meeting Ground, where the Maker will bring us to a new land.”

Softly, Kahteney said, “I still cannot dream.”

Lhyn let go the spoon she held: there was such sadness in his voice. She wondered if a wakanisha's loss of dreams was harder or worse than a mother's loss of her son. But Morrhyn had gotten back his dreams; and she had gotten back her son: she felt sorry for Kahteney.

Morrhyn said, “Mine were lost awhile. When I came back into Ket-Ta-Witko, toward our Wintering Ground, I lost them.”

“Ach, yes!” Rannach laughed and reached for the flask of tiswin. “And that frightened me. Think of it—we'd come out of the hills with Breakers all around and Morrhyn guiding us past them. Until he came to our own grazing! Then he lost his dreams. The Wintering Ground was empty and he could not tell me where the Commacht wintered. Ach, I had to remember a thing my father told me years ago. That was lucky, eh?”

Lhyn said, “Rannach,” and waited as he turned his face toward her. “The tiswin goes to your head.”

He frowned, and then looked shamefaced and ducked his head and said lowly, “Yes, mother.”

She said, “You have done brave things, but Arrhyna waits for you to come back, no? And she bears your child. Shall you go back to her a drunkard?”

Rannach shook his head and said, “No, mother,” and set his cup between his knees.

Lhyn nodded and went back to her stirring of the pot, then looked again to where the men sat and wondered why Morrhyn faced her with such … she could not tell … suspicion, perhaps, in his eyes. Or guilt, or fear.

Their eyes met and he looked away, but not before she saw him compose his features in an expression of deliberate calm that hid those fleeting emotions she'd seen there. Abruptly, a terrible wondering filled her, as if his glance had lit a fire of ugly doubt. It had been at mention of Arrhyna and the child that he'd looked so troubled, and she could conceive of only one reason. Vachyr had raped Arrhyna—might the child then be his? Surely Morrhyn would know, but he had said nothing and clearly Rannach believed it was his seed that grew in Arrhyna's womb. Morrhyn's silence seemed confirmation of that, but if he only hid the truth from Rannach? Lhyn frowned and set such unpleasant notions aside. Better not to think of that: better, were it true, that Rannach not know. She stirred the pot and smiled at Roza and listened to the men talking.

“Can we trust Chakthi?” Yazte asked. “Might he not attack us in revenge for Vachyr?”

Her husband shrugged and laughed. “The Commacht and Lakanti, both? I think not—and does he believe, he'll surely bring his clan to join us. What else has he, save destruction?”

Yazte said, “I don't know; only that he fought you all this summer.”

Kahteney said, “Morrhyn, what do you believe? What do you dream?”

Morrhyn said, “As I've told you—of branching paths and many futures. But nothing of imminent danger.”

He lowered his head, not wanting to speak of all the paths, or all the futures: they were too diverse, and too dangerous. If he spoke of all of them, of all the fates that might, or could, befall the People; of all the fates that might, or could, lead them to destruction, then surely it must be too much and they founder in the wondering of it all like a horse mired in quicksand, kicking every which way to escape with nowhere firm footing. So he shrugged and hoped he did the right thing and faced Kahteney with a rueful smile that mirrored the one he gave Rannach when the young warrior asked how Arrhyna fared, and the unborn child.

Racharran said, “We must go on anyway, or the Breakers shall destroy us all.”

Yazte said, “Them or the Tachyn. Save now Chakthi might feel afraid …”

Racharran said, “We'll find out, no? When we pass them; and all well, Chakthi has listened to Dohnse and will join us. Like Juh and Tahdase, the Maker willing.”

Yazte smiled and grunted like a bear, echoing, “All well. But you're kinder than I, brother; I'd have left Chakthi and his Tachyn to these Breakers.”

“They're not all like Chakthi,” Racharran said. “Dohnse has honor.”

Dohnse was praying fervently as the Tachyn quit the Wintering Ground and rode out across the snow that Chakthi and Hadduth acted decently: because they believed Morrhyn's promise, not for selfish reasons.

He had listened to the Commacht Dreamer and did believe, but his akaman and his wakanisha?

Of them he could not be sure—not in his heart; not with the utter truth he had seen in Morrhyn's eyes, heard in the Commacht Dreamer's voice.

He believed; and had Chakthi not summoned up the clan and ordered it quit the Wintering Ground to join the exodus, he wondered if he might not have called rebellion against his akaman and led the Tachyn out alone.

If they would follow him.

He thought they'd likely not: truth was no sure thing when larger
forces governed belief. And he was nothing: only a warrior disgraced and excused by his akaman.

He was glad that Chakthi and Hadduth had listened to him, and still not sure but that they kept some hidden design to themselves, and he the unwitting pawn in their game.

But even so, the Tachyn struck camp and moved to join the Commacht; and he thought by now they must have met the Lakanti, so did his akaman intend some subterfuge or ambush then it must be against a clan doubled and strong—Commacht and Lakanti together—and he doubted that either Chakthi or Hadduth would risk so much.

He asked the Maker it be so, and rode on across the snow.

It was at that same river crossing where Morrhyn had first encountered Dohnse that they met again. The Commacht and Lakanti came on in a long, wide column across the plain, ahead of them the water flowing too swift to freeze, and past that the broken, ridged country, still snow-clad even as the year grew older. The scouts halted at the ford, and when a lone Tachyn appeared, sent a man back to bring up the akamans and the wakanishas. They came with an escort of armed and wary warriors and halted on the east bank.

Morrhyn narrowed his eyes against the wind's fist and the glare of sun on snow and said, “That's Dohnse.”

“And the rest?” Yazte grunted suspiciously, peering about as if he momentarily expected attack. “Hiding in ambush?”

“And send a man to warn us?” Racharran shook his head. “Likely they shelter, or are not yet arrived.” He turned to Morrhyn. “What shall we do?”

Morrhyn said, “Speak with him: I trust him,” and beckoned Dohnse forward.

The Tachyn heeled his horse, splashing across the ford, and halted before them, offering formal greetings. He eyed them somewhat nervously, as if unsure of his reception.

“Are you come alone?” Morrhyn asked. “Or is your clan ahead?”

“Ahead,” Dohnse replied, “sheltering in the breaks. Chakthi was …” He shrugged, his face expressing uncertainty. “He was unsure of his welcome.”

Racharran said, “You gave him the message?” And even as Dohnse nodded, “Then what doubt has he?”