Godbond (24 page)

I went at once with Kor to his chamber, to stay there with him, and he had a boy bring me food—seaweed, forsooth, and fish, and mussels pried from the rocks. Not food such as I would have savored a few seasons before, but I was grateful for it, and grateful that not even Pajlat with his Fanged Horse minions and his Otter River allies could cut Kor's folk off from Mother Sea entirely. They had tried, at first, to besiege Seal Hold, biding their time between the raids that burned the lodges. But since my people of the Red Hart had come to aid Kor, Pajlat had camped on one side of the headland only so as not to divide his force, freeing the way down to the sea. Also, he had attacked more fiercely. Times were hard at Seal Hold. But there was more food for me there than I had seen in many a starving day.

I ate hungrily, then lay down beside Kor and slept, for I was much in need of sleep. Even in my slumber I sensed that Kor was lying awake in pain, and more than once in that night I sat up and silently handbonded him, then went to sleep again. A haunted sleep, for Mahela's black cloud lay heavily on the night, and my dreams were troubled.

Chapter Seventeen

The shouting seemed at first to rise out of the troubled dreams. Then I jolted awake. The Hold was full of echoing yells and footfalls.

“Raid,” Kor mumbled, struggling to rise from his bed. The shock of his wound had made him weak, and he had managed only to prop himself on his elbows when I sprang up and pushed against his chest to make him lie down again.

“Stay,” I ordered him. “Tyee and I will see to it!” I snatched up my weapons.

“Dan!” Kor exclaimed, something of moment in his voice—but there was no time. I ran out with the other warriors awakened out of slumber. In the haze of my dreams I had thought at first that the enemies were raiding the Hold itself, but not so. Sentries had given the alarm, and the sounds I had heard were those of Seal and Red Hart warriors running to answer it. I ran with them. Someone at my side, a fair young Red Hart, cried, “The water!”

Karu. I could see her in the dim light outside, daybreak's light just graying the edges of the sky. And of course Pajlat would be raiding against the water supply, the cliff just back of the Hold where the rivulets trickled down into the stone troughs carved to catch them. If he could keep us from water, in a few days he would have defeated us. I ran that way, and Alar found her own way to my hand, and her light blazed far brighter than the clouded dawn. Something in her seemed to move me out of self, as often happened. I was no longer mere Dan, but I was Vallart, the hero out of that long-ago time of swords and glory, or even—something more, I was not sure what, and there was no time to think on it. Dawn was all shout and thrust and cut, batter, beating the enemies back. Close work, a confusion of knives and spears—I leaped to a stance atop the rim of one of the stone troughs, where I could slash at any enemy who came near, and from there I could see all who struggled. The raiders were mostly Otter. For the sake of stealth they had left Cragsmen and mounted Fanged Horse warriors behind. And stealth had taken them almost to their goal, but the Seal and my yellow-headed tribefellows of the Red Hart were pushing them back—

I came back to self at the thought of my tribemates, I was once more Dan, Sakeema's fool, looking out over the fair-haired warriors I had sent to this fray, some of them hard beset, and one—not there.…

Something had shaken Kor's voice.…

And then I heard the coarse roars and the cracking of whips as the Fanged Horse charged the headland, and I saw how Mahela's cloud lay like a black hand of doom over us all, and looking up, I saw flying just beneath the cloud a dark, sharp-winged bird. And I knew that all my nightmares had been better than this day.

The longest of days. Some of the old Seal women inside the Hold managed to bridle the horses and bring them to us, or we might not have survived. A few at a time, scurrying, they brought them out. One brought Sora to me—the only aid Kor could give me, that day.

After the enemy had tired of lashing and beating and stabbing at us and had at last gone away, on toward sundown, I walked into the Hold and went to look at Kor.

Lightheaded, I felt afloat in weariness and hunger and—grief. I found Kor where he lay in his bed, saw the fever-sweat glistening on his pale face, saw him open his eyes to look back at me.

“I wanted you to eat, and sleep, and eat again, Dan,” he said softly to me, “before I told you.”

And though it should not have surprised me—for many people die in fighting, and why not, then, my brother?—my knees gave way beneath me, and I sank down to crouch at Kor's side.

Tyee was dead.

Kor handbonded me and told me the tale. More than once he told it to me, speaking it softly, almost chanting it as shamans sometimes whisper-chant the legendary tales, and at last it came clear to me that it was Tyee, my brother the shaman and seer, Tyee the Red Hart king, for whom the thunder cones had spent their fire.

He had met death not in battle but on the trail to Seal Hold, not far from the Demesne, two days' journey up the Blackstone Path on the flanks of Chital. My people, rising at first light, found their king lying under a devourer, swaddled in its gray fleshy folds, completely hidden and very still.

They attacked the fell servant of Mahela with their blackstone knives—which did no good, for devourers are not hurt by knives of stone, no more than water is. And they tugged and wrestled at the monster with their hands. Perhaps because it was annoyed, or perhaps because it disliked daylight, the devourer lifted off Tyee, and he moved, groaned and came shakily to his feet—he had withstood it, for he was a worthy king, and in a night's long, silent battle Mahela's minion had not been able to take him into its maw. He stood straight and pale to watch it go. But whether out of ill humor, or because it had orders, the devourer swiftly circled back and struck him a blow with its thrashing tail, thicker than a man's thigh and far stronger than any warrior's arm. A heavy blow, an attack, it knocked him ten paces away from the place where he stood, over the trail's edge, over the lip of a crag and down the sheer mountainside, falling without a scream—perhaps the blow itself had killed him, had crushed his chest. My people had found his body on the rocks far below.

“The thunder cones blazed for him,” I said to Kor, “and I feared it was for you. I went nearly mad with grief and shame, and now my shame is the more.
Ai
, Tyee.…”

“Shame?” Kor asked gently.

“Or regret … that I had ever gone on my fool's journey.”

“But how could you have helped Tyee?”

“It is not that. I had no thought for him, Kor.” I had been so taken up with fear for my bond brother that I had spared none for my brother in blood, my mother's son, Tyee.… Grief, heavy in me.

Some of my people had come into the chamber while Kor was speaking with me, the young yellow-braided Red Hart warriors, man and maiden, looking taut and drained with much fighting. One of them, Karu, touched me on the shoulder. She sat beside me, the others sat close by me on the stone floor, clustering around me.

“That is how we also felt,” one of them said. “Shamed.”

“We had often scoffed at him,” admitted another.

“And muttered,” said Karu, “and wished you had stayed to be our king, Dannoc.” She was looking levelly at me. That was like Karu, her courage, to face these things. “But how we missed Tyee when he was gone. We attended his body with greatest honor.”

“And honored his word also,” said Kor quietly, “and came here to fight for me.”

My people spoke further, remembering the fires in the east, the sunrise like no other sunrise they had ever seen, as the thunder cones had shot forth blood-red flame and burning rock, fearsome even at the distance, and the rising sun had turned the smoke, spreading so that it seemed to cover the earth, the colors of blood and fire. They had shivered, watching, keeping vigil by their slain king, knowing for the first time that he had been great. They had gifted him with their ornaments, even the feathers from their braids, and raised a cairn over him, and kept watch for a day before traveling on in haste to Seal Hold.

“Mahela has erred, taking Tyee,” said Korridun softly, with a keen-eyed, perilous softness. “His death has sent me warriors willing to die. It sent my bond brother on his way back to me many days before battle was joined.”

Silently I scanned the faces of the Red Hart warriors. I did not know them as well as I once had.

“Who among you is a bold, swift rider,” I asked, “and loyal, and courageous, to do as King Korridun may bid?”

“There are few enough of the curly-haired ponies left,” Kor put in, catching my drift, “and they are footsore from the long journey, and many of them wounded. But there are some fanged mares we have captured.”

“Better yet. The fanged mares are fierce and swift. But the rider must be as fierce, to master one.”

Everything depended, so I thought, on this rider who would go to Tassida and give her his mount so that she could come to us. It should have been me, if I was “the seeker.” But I could not leave Kor.… I heard what my people of the Red Hart had to say and looked long into their eyes before I chose my messenger. Karu, I thought at first, but Karu might be jealous of Tass in her heart. I chose a youth. Then in haste Kor and I told him his errand, and I saw him onto a fanged mare and off into the nightfall. Darkness would guard him from the enemies camped on the beach below.

I went in and stayed with Kor, and changed his bandaging, and saw to it that he passed water. Even in his agony mindful of his folk within earshot, he would not cry out, but afterward he lay the night in a stupor. I lay by him, wakeful with despair.

My grief colored my thinking, I told myself, grief and the shadow of Mahela's cloud, that all seemed so dark. But I had seen well enough how my people, mine and Kor's, were worn down with fighting, their numbers too few, many of them fighting despite wounds. I knew well enough what I should do. A bold attack, a raid on the enemy's camp at dawn or midnight, a sword to Pajlat's heart.… But I did nothing. Despair told me that such attempts could not succeed, but only send us down faster to death. Perhaps despair was right.

The next day dawned in brume so thick that warriors could not see the comrades within bow-reach of them. Voices rang like the speaking of spirits out of the fog. We of the Hold stood tense guard all day in the murk, but Pajlat did not risk the cliffside paths to attack. Perhaps Mahela took no pleasure in the combat when Korridun was not taking part, that she sent such weather. Or perhaps she had gone off to shadow Tassida again, and wanted the war to wait for her return. Or she had gone on some yet darker errand.… Afterwit tells me it was so, she had gone to keep Tassida from us by whatever means, for my soul knew she was absent, I felt the gloom lighten, my heart lighten somewhat during the respite of that day.

Just before nightfall the fog cleared away. There would be fighting the next day.

That night Kor was well enough to pester me to eat. And when, before dawn of the next day, I cursed Pajlat and got up out of my bed, Korridun rose to stand unsteadily at my side.

“You can't fight!” I exclaimed. For unless I guessed wrongly, there would be hard battle that day.

He snapped, “We'll see whether I can or not.”

“I am not daring you! Kor—”

“I am the king!” he flared. “What, am I to lie abed when my warriors go to combat wounded?”

He was at least well enough to be mettlesome. My heart lightened, and something teasing in me rose to meet his peevishness. “Let me at least get some fresh bandaging on you,” I said, and I started to reach for it. He struck my hand away. I smiled, for the blow was stronger than I could have hoped.

“I'll tend to my own hind end, thank you. Get out of here.”

“Make sure you pass water,” I instructed.

“Out!” Kor shouted, and I went. But to annoy him further, I readied Sora for him rather than letting him do it himself. With ill grace, and out of necessity, he let me help him mount. Then he rode out to see to the placement of his warriors—I stayed within the Hold, catching a mouse-colored fanged mare for myself, until I heard the cheer go up as our people saluted him. Then I joined him, and he and I rode to the headland's point to watch the enemy's preparations.

The Fanged Horse encampment straggled along the beach as far as I could see, and the raiders in their hundreds were preparing their mounts for war by tying on the tassels made of human hair and blowing into the mares' nostrils the powder made of dried fungus that was reputed to make the horses swift and fierce. On the fringes of the beach, under the twisted spruces clinging to the storm scarp, Otter River warriors tested the edges of their knives. The twelve of Cragsmen sat lumpishly, like boulders, widely spaced, as if they might fight with each other if they came closer together.

It would be a sharp battle, for though we on the headland held the higher ground, the attackers were far greater in number. Kor's folk had been few since Mahela had vented her wrath on them the winter before. The Red Hart were few since my father had wasted many of their lives.

“I hate this,” Kor said softly to me, all spleen gone from his voice. “It breaks my heart. It is so senseless.” His eyes were on his meager war host, and on the enemy below.

I nodded.

“Have you taken note, Mahela has not lifted hand against us, to take us to her realm? There has been no need for her to bestir herself. We are doing her work for her.”

The realm of death, he meant. Mahela's work, the taking of souls.

“The world going down into the old hag's maw,” Korridun said more harshly, “and we of the tribes, killing each other. It is horrible.”

Pajlat and his raiders had mounted their fanged mares. Kor sighed. “Line of battle,” he shouted, and he and I took our places at the center of it. He sat steady on his mount, his face grim.