Ravenheart (2 page)

“We’ll rest a little,” said Grymauch. “Then I’ll find the Wyrd.”

Jaim Grymauch moved out along the ledge and stared down over the mountainside. There was no sign of pursuit now, but there would be. He glanced back at his wounded friend. Again and again he replayed the scene in his mind. He should have been there sooner. Instead, to avoid being seen by Lanovar, he had cut across the high trail, adding long minutes to the journey. As he had crested the rise, he had seen the soldiers crouched in hiding and watched as his greatest friend walked into the ambush. Masking his face with his scarf, Jaim had drawn his sword and rushed down to hurl himself at the enemy. He would willingly have sacrificed his own life to save Lanovar from harm.

The sun was setting, the temperature dropping fast. Jaim shivered. There was precious little fuel to be found that high. Trees did not grow there. He moved back alongside Lanovar. The Rigante leader’s face looked ghostly pale, his eyes and cheeks sunken. Jaim’s black cloak sat on the man’s shoulders like a dark shroud. Jaim stroked Lanovar’s brow. The wounded man opened his eyes.

Jaim saw that he was watching the sky turn crimson as the sun set. It was a beautiful sunset, and Lanovar smiled. “I love this land,” he said, his voice stronger. “I love it with all my heart, Jaim. This is a land of heroes. Did you know the great Connavar was born not two miles from here? And the battle king, Bane. There used to be a settlement by the three streams.”

Jaim shrugged. “All I know about Connavar is that he was nine feet tall and had a magic sword crafted from lightning. Could have done with that sword two hours ago. I’d have left none of the bastards alive.”

They lapsed into silence. Jaim felt a growing sense of disorientation. It was as if he were dreaming. Time had no meaning, and even the breeze had faded away. The new night was still and infinitely peaceful.

Lanovar is dying
.

The thought came unbidden, and anger raged through him. “Rubbish!” he said aloud. “He is young and strong. He has always been strong. I’ll get him to the Wyrd. By heaven, I will!”

Jaim rolled to his knees and, lifting Lanovar into his arms, pushed himself to his feet. Lanovar’s head was resting on Jaim’s shoulder. Moonlight bathed them both. “We’re going now, Lan.”

Lanovar groaned, his face contorting with pain. “Put … me … down.”

“We must find the Wyrd. She’ll have magic. The Wishing Tree woods have magic.”

In his mind he saw the woods, picturing the path they must take. At least four miles from there, part of it across open ground. Two hours of hard toil.

Two hours.

Jaim could feel Lanovar’s lifeblood running over his hands. In that moment Jaim knew they did not have two hours. He sank to his knees and placed his friend on the ground. Tears misted his eyes. His great body began to shake. Jaim fought to control his grief, but it crashed through his defenses. Throughout his twenty years of life there had been one constant: the knowledge of Lanovar’s friendship and, with it, the belief that they would change the world.

“Look after Gian and the babe,” whispered Lanovar.

Jaim took a deep breath and wiped away his tears. “I’ll do my best,” he said, his voice breaking. His mind, reeling from the horror of the present, floated back to the past: days of
childhood and adolescence, pranks and adventures. Lanovar had always been reckless and yet canny. He had a nose for trouble and the wit to escape the consequences.

Not this time, thought Grymauch. He felt the tears beginning again, but this time he shed them in silence. Then he saw Gian’s face in his mind. Sweet heaven, how would he tell her?

She was heavily pregnant, the babe due in a few days. It was the thought of the child to be that had led Lanovar to trust the Moidart. He had told Jaim only the night before that he did not want the child growing up in the world of violence he had known. As they sat at supper in Lanovar’s small, sod-roofed hut, the Rigante leader had spoken with passion about the prospect of peace. “I want my son to be able to wear the Rigante colors with pride and not to be hunted down as an outlaw. Not too much to ask, is it?” Gian had said nothing, but Lanovar’s younger sister, the red-haired Maev, had spoken up.

“You can ask what you like,” she said. “But the Moidart cannot be trusted. I know this in my soul!”

“You should listen to Maev,” the raven-haired Gian urged, moving into the main room and easing herself down into an old armchair. One of the armrests was missing, and some horsehair was protruding from a split in the leather. “The Moidart hates you,” she said. “He has sworn a blood oath to have your head stuck upon a spike.”

“ ’Tis all politics, woman. Peace with the highland Rigante will mean more tax income for the Moidart and the king. It will mean more merchants able to bring their convoys through the mountain passes. This will bring down the prices. Gold is what the king cares about. Not heads upon spikes. And as one of his barons, the Moidart will have to do what is good for the king.”

“You’ll take Grymauch with you,” insisted Gian.

“I will not. We are to meet alone, with no weapons. I’ll take Raven.”

Later Maev had come to the hulking fighter as he sat in the doorway of his own hut. Normally his heart would beat faster
as she approached him, his breath catching in his throat. Maev was the most beautiful woman Grymauch had ever seen. He had hoped to find the courage to tell her of this but instead had stood by as she and the handsome young warrior Calofair had begun their courtship. Calofair was now in the north, trading with the Black Rigante. When he came back, he and Maev would walk the tree.

Jaim glanced up as Maev approached. “You’ll go anyway,” she said.

“Aye, of course I will.”

“You’ll not let him see you.”

Jaim laughed. “He’s a bonny swordsman and a fine fighter, but he’s a hopeless woodsman. He’ll not see me, Maev.”

Gian came walking across to them. Maev put her arms around the pregnant woman and kissed her cheek. Jaim Grymauch wondered briefly how it would feel if Maev did the same to him. He reddened at the thought. Gian stretched and pressed her palms into the small of her back. This movement caused her pregnant belly to look enormous. Jaim laughed. “Pregnancy suits some women,” he said. “Their skin glows; their hair shines. They make a man think of the wonders of nature. Not you, though.”

“Aye, she’s ugly now, right enough,” said Maev. “But when she’s birthed the rascal, she’ll become slim and beautiful again. Whereas you, you great lump, will always be ugly.” Maev’s smile faded. “Why does the Moidart hate Lanovar so?”

Jaim shrugged. The truth clung to him, burning in his heart, but he could not voice it. Lanovar was a fine man, braw and brave. He had many virtues and few vices. Sadly, one of his vices was that he found women irresistible. Before wedding Gian the previous spring, Lanovar had been seen several times in Eldacre town. Few knew the woman he had met there, but Jaim Grymauch was one who did. He suspected that the Moidart was another. Rayena Tremain was beautiful, no doubt about it. She was tall and slender, and she moved with an animal grace that set men’s hearts beating wildly. The
first affair with Lanovar had been brief, the parting apparently acrimonious.

Rayena wed the Moidart four months later in a great ceremony in Eldacre Cathedral.

Within the year there were rumors that the marriage was foundering.

Lanovar began acting strangely, disappearing for days at a time. Jaim, concerned for his leader and his friend, had secretly followed him one morning. Lanovar traveled to the high hills, to a small, abandoned hunting lodge. After an hour a lone horsewoman rode up. Jaim was astonished to see it was Rayena.

Beside him now Lanovar groaned, the sound jerking Jaim back to the painful present. Lanovar’s face was bathed in sweat now, and his breathing was shallow and labored. “I was never … frightened … of dying, Grymauch,” he said.

“I know that.”

“I am now. My son is about to be … born, and I’ve … given him no soul-name.”

In the distance a wolf howled.

1

T
HE THIN CANE
slashed through the air. The fourteen-year-old youth winced but uttered no cry. Blood seeped from a split in the skin of his right palm. The tall, bony schoolmaster loomed over the black-haired boy. He was about to speak but saw the blood on the tip of his bamboo cane. Alterith Shaddler gazed at it with distaste, then laid the bamboo on the shoulder of the lad’s gray shirt. Drawing the cane back and forth, he cleaned it, leaving thin crimson streaks on the threadbare garment.

“There are those,” said Alterith Shaddler, his voice as cold as the air in the stone schoolroom, “who doubt the wisdom of trying to teach the rudiments of civilized behavior to highland brats. Since knowing you, boy, I am more inclined to count myself among their number.”

Alterith placed the cane upon the desktop, straightened his threadbare white horsehair wig, and clasped his hands behind his back. The youth remained where he was, his hands now at his sides. It was a shame that he had been forced to draw blood, but these clan youngsters were not like Varlish boys. They were savages who did not feel pain in the same way. Not once did any of them make a sound while being thrashed. Alterith was of the opinion that the ability to feel pain was linked to intelligence. “No sense, no feeling,” as his old tutor, Mr. Brandryth, was apt to say regarding clan folk.

The schoolmaster looked into the youth’s dark eyes. “You understand why I punished you?”

“No, I do not.”

Alterith’s hand lashed out, slapping the boy hard upon the cheek. The sound hung in the air. “You will call me ‘sir’ when you respond to me. Do you understand
that
?”

“I do … sir,” answered the youth, his voice steady but his eyes blazing with anger.

Alterith was tempted to slap him again for the look alone—and would have if the distant ringing of the dusk bell had not sounded from the Saint Persis Albitane School. Alterith glanced to his right, gazing through the open window and across the old parade square to the main school building. Already Varlish youngsters were emerging from the great doors, carrying their books. One of the masters came in sight, his midnight-blue academic cape shimmering in the afternoon sunshine. Alterith looked with longing at the old building. Within it were libraries filled with historical tomes, fine works of philosophy, and diaries of famous Varlish soldiers and statesmen. There were three halls and even a small theater set aside for great plays. The teacher sighed and returned his gaze to the cold stone walls of his own classroom. It was a former stable, the stalls having been ripped out and replaced with twenty ancient desks and chairs. Twenty chairs and fifty students, the unlucky ones sitting in ranks around the walls. There were no books there, the children using slate boards and chalk for their work. The walls were bare except for a single map of the Moidart’s domain and beside it the daily prayer for the Moidart’s continued health.

What a waste of my talents, he thought.

“We will recite the prayer,” he said, offering the customary short bow. The fifty pupils in the class rose and, as they had been taught, returned the bow. Then the chant began.

“May the Source bless the Moidart and keep him in good health. May his lands be fertile, his people fed, his honor magnified, his laws be known, his word be obeyed, for the good of the faithful.”

“Good day to you all,” said Alterith.

“Good day, sir,” they chanted.

Alterith looked down into the eyes of the black-haired
youth. “Begone, Master Ring. And bring a better attitude with you tomorrow.”

The lad said nothing. He took one backward step, then spun on his heel and walked away.

One day, thought Alterith Shaddler, Kaelin Ring will hang. He has no respect for his betters.

The master sighed again, then moved swiftly across the room, lifting his greatcoat from its hook on the wall and swinging it across his thin shoulders. Despite the promise of spring, the highland air was still icy cold. Wrapping a long woolen scarf around his neck, Alterith left the old stable and walked across the parade ground into the school proper, striding down the now-silent corridor leading to the outer grounds. Several of the other teachers were sitting in the academic chamber as he passed. A fire was blazing in the hearth, and Alterith could smell the spices used in the mulled wine. It would have been pleasant to sit in one of those deep armchairs, his feet extended toward the fire. But then, unlike the members of staff at Persis Albitane, teaching was Alterith’s only source of income, and he could not afford the chamber membership fee. Pushing thoughts of mulled wine and warm fires from his mind, he strode out into the cold air. The sun was shining brightly in a clear, bright sky. Immediately his eyes began to water. Alterith squinted toward the road and the lake beyond.