Fifth Quarter (17 page)

The boot caught him under the ribs and kicked him over onto his back. Jagged ends of bone grated together in his arm. He screamed.

The sandy-haired man standing over him smiled, slabs of yellow teeth barely visible in the midst of a bristling red beard.

Time slowed and Gyhard stared in horror at the descending spear.

I don't want to die
!

The crude point dimpled his heavy fleece jacket, parted the leather and the fabric beneath it, then finally touched the skin of his chest. To his surprise, it hurt less than the constant agony of his arm. The audible crunch as the heavy steel forced its way through bone was the worst.

Terror opened his bowels.

Then time took up its normal speed again and whatever gods had cushioned him from the initial blow retreated. He felt the spear slam out through his back and into the earth, and he jerked like a worm on a hook. He no longer felt the pain in his arm because pain was all he had left.

Almost all.

Out of the waves of scarlet and black came one coherent thought.
NO. NO. NO. NO
!

Somehow, he focused on the pale-blue eyes staring down at him in rapt fascination. Frantically, he began to claw his way up the spear shaft toward them. He could feel the rough wood ripping new abrasions around the edges of the wound. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but not dying.

Then his right hand reached out and touched a filthy cheek and the pale eyes widened.

Smoke and fire and strange faces. Women he didn't know writhing under him. Blood lust. Hunger. Rage. Too many images to make sense of. Gyhard pushed at them, shoved them away. When something called Hinrich pushed back, Gyhard clawed his way toward the center of the maelstrom.

Then he swayed, dropped to his knees, and stared in horror at the body impaled beside him. A body that quite unmistakably had not moved since it had been spiked to the ground. A bloody froth stained the golden mustache crimson as the dying man tried to speak. Failed. Died.

Vree wet her lips and swallowed hard. Death happened. To friends, to foes, to everyone in time. She couldn't remember a time when she hadn't known she would die and she clearly remembered a day in her early teens, a dagger in her hand and a crumpled body spilling blood onto the ground at her feet, when she'd accepted it as inevitable.

But to suddenly be in another body, staring down at the lifeless shell she'd worn since birth…

"What did you do?"

Gyhard rubbed his cheek, wondering why the telling of something that had occurred so very long ago affected him as it had. He had to clear his throat before he could speak. "I ran. The other bandits didn't even bother trying to catch me. Why should they? As far as they were concerned, they now had one less partner to share the spoils." His laugh held no humor. "I doubt they could have caught me anyway."

"Where did you run to?"

She could barely hear his answer. "Home."

The palisade around the steading had originally been built to keep out the bears and wolves and mountain cats that hunted in the forests of Sibu. Recently, it had served as a barrier against the approach of human predators.

Ice crystals forming in Hinrich's coarse red beard, Gyhard stumbled to the gate, fighting to breathe through the stitch in his side.

"Open," he gasped. "Let me in."

Ten feet and he'd be safe. Ten feet more and the nightmare would be over.

The crossbow bolt caught him in the left shoulder, flung him back, spun him around, and saved his life. The second shot whistled through the air a hand's span from his nose.

"No!" But pain and terror had hold of his throat and the best voice he could manage was a hoarse croak. "No, please. It's me. It's me, Gyhard."

He could hear them gathering behind the wall, could hear shouts of
Bandit
! and
Murderer
! and his sister demanding to know why the first two shots had missed.

Three days later, carefully hidden in a childhood sanctuary high in an evergreen, he watched his own funeral. Amidst the grieving were many howled vows of revenge and every adult member of the family carried a weapon close at hand. They knew the face he wore and would never allow it close enough for explanations.

Hinrich had killed him twice.

"I was in Hinrich's body seven years until I found the courage to… move on. Tomas was a distinct improvement. Young, dark, handsome; he had the most beautiful eyes…"

"Don't try to make me a tragic victim, Vree." His voice had picked up an edge. "I've turned the life I lost into an eternal life. Not a bad trade, in my mind."

"Your mind, my body," Bannon muttered.

From the corner of her eye, Vree could see his hand—all right, Bannon's hand—holding the reins. The white-knuckled grip seemed at odds with the tone of his voice. "Have you told this story before?"

This wasn't what he'd expected her to ask. The edge disappeared and he shrugged, the graceful motion seemingly dictated as much by the body he wore as his mood. "Once."

His face pleated into a thousand wrinkles as he smiled across his small camp at the young woman who sat crooning to her stillborn baby. As was common in the Capital when mother and child died in a birthing, Wheyra's body had been laid to rest with the infant cradled in her arms. Although no kigh lingered to be Sung back into the tiny body, the distraught mother had refused to leave the tomb without the baby. He had finally given in. He was fond of children.

One by one, he checked on the rest of his new family as they waited out the hottest part of the day in the shady hollow. The dry summer heat acted to preserve their tissues but direct sunlight did them no good at all. As the shadows moved and lengthened, he had to remain constantly vigilant lest one of them blacken and burn.

He called them by the names they'd answered to in life; names learned, for the most part, by clinging to the fringes of funeral processions.

He patted her hand. "Yes." The teenager had only joined the family the night before when the distance between two of the flat-topped tenements had proved to be just a little farther than she could jump. Her wealthy parents had spent most of the funeral procession loudly complaining about the type of friends she'd been hanging around with.

"Noooo," Kait repeated, and she would have gone on had he not quickly hushed her.

Something was happening over by the tombs.

"Don't move. Any of you." Leaning heavily on his staff, he started toward the road. He had no fear of leaving his family alone. They'd do what he said, they had no choice, and not moving was something the dead did very well. Nor did he fear that they'd be discovered by accident for living kigh would not come near. Three times guards had nearly stumbled on his camp. Each time they'd veered off without realizing they had.

It wasn't another funeral, he saw with disappointment as he shuffled into place behind a pair of merchants—who were not at all pleased at having their journey to the Capital interrupted by an advance wedge of guard wearing the Imperial sunburst.

Instantly, the irritation disappeared, and both merchants cheered as loudly as everyone else who'd been pushed to the side of the road.

Sunburst pennants snapped in the wind over the heads of those members of the First Army riding escort. Richly dressed in the muted colors thought appropriate for the hunt, a group of nobles preened under the attention. The Emperor, a huge hawk balanced hooded and jessed on his left fist, acknowledged the crowds, and managed to make everyone feel that they, personally, had been noticed.

As the pair of merchants yelled themselves hoarse, he turned to go. He had no interest in a living Emperor, who would, after all, end up as dead and wormeaten as any of his subjects. Then one of the riders directly behind his Imperial Majesty caught his eye.

Laughing, the young man pushed shoulder-length black curls back from his face with a slender hand. His mouth was wide; his teeth very white. Broad shoulders filled out a cream silk shirt and burgundy vest over a narrow-hipped, long-legged body. But his eyes—dark and thickly lashed and almost too large for his face. Intense eyes. Beautiful eyes.

He remembered what it was he'd been looking for. Years ago, he'd lost his heart.

Jabbing the knob of bone on the head of his staff at the closest merchant, he pointed a trembling finger at the young man and whispered, "Who?"

"Prince Otavas," the merchant snapped, rubbing her side. "And watch where you're poking that thing, old man."

He ignored her and stood staring in the direction the prince had gone long after traffic on the road returned to normal. Memories fought their way through the confusion the years had wrapped around his mind. He remembered a dark-eyed young man. He remembered joy. He remembered pain.

"I know you," he murmured at last, tears streaming down withered cheeks. "I know you."

"It's in the Capital, whatever it is." Karlene tossed her pack to the floor, then gently lowered her instrument case down beside it. "A day's walk out in any direction and the kigh are fine—but none of them would carry a message into the city."

"Did they give you any more information?" Gabris asked without much hope.

"No. Give me a chance to clean up and I'll do a full recall. Not," she added, moving through their workroom toward her own chambers, "that there's much more than what I just told you."

"Karlene…"

She froze, took a moment to wonder what had taken him so long, and turned to face the door. "Highness."

Still dressed in his hunting clothes, Prince Otavas bounded into the room. "I came up as soon as I heard you were back. How was your trip? Is there any news? News that I should pass on to His Majesty, my father, that is. You know how he hates to wait for official reports."

Karlene glanced at the senior bard—who nodded— before answering. "Whatever it is that's frightening the kigh, Highness, it's centered in the Capital."

Dark brows sketched a frown. "That's not good." A pause while he looked from one bard to the other. "Is it? I mean, nothing's happened. Perhaps whatever it is only affects the spirit world?"

"Perhaps." The bards had discussed the possibility, but neither believed it. Anything that so affected three of the four kigh—and quite probably the fourth as well—
had
to involve something at least potentially disastrous. But there was no point, Karlene decided, in mentioning that to the prince. She gestured at his clothing. "I see you've been out hawking."