Stormrider (4 page)

The white-haired woman shivered, though not from the cold. The iron afterglow of evil hung in the air.

The figure of Rayster emerged from the tree line. Seeing the tall, fair-haired clansman lifted her heart momentarily. Moving past the Wyrd, he walked to the tree and helped as Basson’s body was lowered to the ground. Rayster’s pale blue eyes met the Wyrd’s green gaze. “There’s not much of them left to bury back there,” he said. “I’ve gathered what I could upon a canvas sheet. We’ll need to light fires to soften the earth before digging. You are sure the bear is gone?”

“Aye, clansman, the bear is gone. He hunts other prey now.”

“I cannot find a trace of the youngest,” said Rayster.

“He is alive,” said the Wyrd. “And with Kaelin Ring.”

“Ah, but that is good news,” Rayster said with a broad smile.

“Aye. It was fortunate that Ravenheart chose this day to visit. Set the grave fires, Rayster, for the light is failing and I have much to do.”

She walked away from him then and entered the ruined hut. The clansmen had relit the fire, and removing her wool-lined hooded cloak, she sat before the flickering flames. Closing her eyes, she thought of Kaelin Ring. “Be true to your blood, Ravenheart,” she whispered. “The bear is coming for you.”

Building up the fire, she sat quietly. Hang-lip had always been a cruel beast, yet this action of his had baffled the clansmen. Not so the Wyrd. The beast was possessed. Somehow the enemy had managed to control him. Perhaps it was Hang-lip’s twisted nature that had allowed them access. Whatever the method, their target was the child Feargol. He had the gift. The Wyrd had tried to explain this to Finbarr, but the clansman had angrily turned her away. “You’ll not fill my son’s head with these ancient stupidities,” he had told her.

“Can you not see he is frightened, Finbarr? He is hearing voices. They are threatening him. I can help.”

“He is daydreaming. All children fear what they do not understand.”

“Not only children, Finbarr.”

“You stay away from my boy!”

She should have pushed him harder, she thought. Instead she had merely walked away from the cabin. The Wyrd sat now, feeling the ache in her bones. “You are getting old and frail,” she said aloud.

“You’ll never be old, Dweller,” said Rayster, using the name she had acquired in the north. He moved alongside her and stretched out his hands to the fire. “You look now just the same as when I first saw you. And I was a toddler then.”

“No, you weren’t,” she told him. “You were a babe, four days old. You were tiny and yet braw. You should have been dead, but there was spirit in you. Mountain spirit. You gladdened my heart then, clansman. You do so now.” Rayster gave a crooked grin that was wondrously infectious. The Wyrd smiled back at him, and they sat in comfortable silence, listening to the crackling of the fire. The three other clansmen moved in, but they did not sit close to the woman they knew as the Dweller by the Lake. She was a witch, and she could—so they believed—read minds and hearts. They kept their distance. This amused the Wyrd, for she knew them all well and there was little in their lives that could shame them. They were brave, caring men and good clansmen. Korrin Talis drank a little too much and became maudlin, and Potter Highstone crept away to an Earth Maiden once in a while, but they were small sins. She glanced at the youngest, Fada Talis. He was full of guilt, for his family was waiting for him to find a girl to marry, while in his heart he dreamed only of Rayster. Small sins, if sins at all. Yet sadly it was never the sin itself but only the weight men placed on it that counted.

“We’ve set the grave fire, Rayster,” said young Fada Talis. “How long should we wait?”

“It’ll be tough digging whenever,” said Rayster. “But we’ll wait an hour for the fires to soften the ground. Keep an eye on them and keep them fed.”

“I will.”

“Did you see the deaths, Dweller?” asked Korrin Talis. In his midtwenties he was losing his hair, which had receded at the temples, giving him a sharp widow’s peak above his brow.

“Aye,” she answered him. “Finbarr and Ural put up a brave fight. They died swiftly.”

“Rayster tells us that Kaelin has the youngest,” he said.

“Yes, the boy is with Ravenheart. The bear is hunting them.”

“Why did you not say?” shouted Rayster, pushing himself to his feet. “We must go and help him.”

“Sit down, man!” snapped the Wyrd. “Do you think if that was a possibility I’d have dawdled here?”

“Will they escape it, then?” he asked.

“No. It will come for them. Kaelin Ring will fight it. I cannot predict the outcome.”

“He’s a bonny fighter,” said Potter Highstone. The oldest of the clansmen, Potter was powerfully built and had been nicknamed Badger by his friends after the heavy black and silver beard he sported. “I’d wager my money on Ravenheart,” he said. “Especially if he’s carrying those Emburleys. Fine guns, by heaven.”

“I don’t know,” muttered Korrin Talis. “I’ve seen Hang-lip. Take a damned cannon to bring him down.”

“Where are they now?” Rayster asked the Wyrd. “Can you see them?”

“No, I cannot
see
them, clansman. Yet I know where they are. Kaelin has taken Feargol to the cliff cave. It is there the last fight will take place.”

“That’s at least six hours from here,” said Fada Talis.

Rayster sat down again beside the Wyrd. She could feel the tension in him. He yearned to be able to aid his friend. He caught her looking at him. “I am sorry, Dweller. I did not mean to offend you.”

“Whisht, man. There is nothing you could ever do to offend me.”

The men chatted for some time, talking of the skills of Kaelin Ring and the stories of Hang-lip. The Wyrd stretched herself out on the rug before the fire. Closing her eyes she carefully opened the eyes of her spirit.

Two demonic figures floated close by, their scaled faces only a few inches from her own, their blood-red eyes watching her. Sitting up, she reached into the pouch by her side, taking a pinch of the powder there and placing it under her tongue. Bright colors flared before her eyes, and she felt fresh energy pulse through her veins. Rayster walked out of the cabin to help Fada with the grave fires. Even with the heat it would be hard work digging a grave in this winter soil, she knew.

“You look tired, Dweller,” said Potter. “You should sleep for a while.”

Rising, she walked through to the small bedroom and sat on the broad bed. In there the residue was still strong, and she could feel the spirit echoes of Finbarr Ustal’s fear. As the first crashes to the timbers had awakened him, he had rolled from his bed and gathered his musket. Ural had stood with him. The Wyrd reached out and touched the carved wood of the trunk in which Feargol had hidden. It was old, but there was still power radiating from the symbols.

Something cold touched the Wyrd’s heart, and she shivered. In the old days there had been many of these spell chests, crafted and blessed to bring good luck to the owners. It had saved the boy, but not the parents.

Closing her mind to the awful images, the Wyrd walked back to the main room.

Rayster came in from the cold. “Time to dig, lads,” he said. “I’ve found a pickax and two shovels.”

Two hours later, the men exhausted, the grave dug and filled again, the Wyrd stood beside it. Holding out her arms, she spoke in the ancient tongue.

“Seek the circle, find the light,

say farewell to flesh and bone.

Walk the gray path,

watch the swans’ flight,

let your heart light

bring you home.”

She stood silently for a moment, then shuddered. Her gaze flicked toward the tall talon-gouged tree. “They are not free yet,” she said. She swung toward the men. “Go and rest now,” she said. “I have work to do, and I need to be alone.”

She waited as they trooped back to the cabin, then walked to the tree and gathered her thoughts. Glancing up, she looked at the bough to which the frightened boy had clung. Taking a deep breath, she whispered a word of power. The air around her grew still. A shadowy figure began to form upon the bough. The Wyrd looked into the frightened eyes of the young boy sitting there. “It is time to come down, Basson,” she told the child’s spirit.

“The bear will get me!” he said.

“The bear is gone, boy. He cannot hurt you now.”

Basson shut his eyes tight and ignored her. Wearily the Wyrd walked away, entering the trees and standing upon the bloodstained ground where the remains of Finbarr Ustal and his wife had been found. “Finbarr!” she called. “The Dweller needs you. Ural! Your son is frightened. Come to me now.” A mist seeped up from the snow, surrounding her. She felt a presence to her right, just outside her line of sight, then another. “Follow me, Rigante,” she whispered, and walked back to the tree. The mist flowed with her.

At the tree she called out again. “Look who I have with me, Basson,” she said. “They have come to take you home.” The boy opened his eyes. All fear fled from him. “I thought it had killed you,” he said. He began to climb down. As he did so, his form grew paler, the lines increasingly indistinct. By the time he reached the ground, he seemed little more than woodsmoke. Ignoring the Wyrd, the child’s spirit flowed and merged with the mist, which then rolled and moved back toward the trees. The Wyrd spoke the words again:
“Seek the circle, find the light, say farewell to flesh and bone. Walk the gray path, watch the swans’ flight, let your heart light bring you home.”

Suddenly her legs buckled, and she fell to the snow. Rayster, watching from the ruined doorway, ran to her, lifting her into his arms and carrying her back to the cabin.

“I will be all right,” she told him as he laid her by the fire. “I will be fine. As long as I do not sleep.”

2

Kaelin Ring slept fitfully, waking often to feed the fire. Little Feargol, exhausted, lay in a deep and dreamless sleep. Smoke drifted lazily to the ceiling of the cave and then out into the night. Rising, Kaelin moved to the cave mouth. The night sky was clear of clouds, and he gazed at the bright stars. Moonlight gave the snow-covered landscape an ethereal quality, and he shivered, partly from the cold but mostly from the awesome beauty of the land.

A bitter wind whispered across the cave mouth. Kaelin returned to the fire and wrapped himself in his cloak. He had told the child he would lure the bear and shoot it. He doubted Hang-lip would be foolish enough to stand around and be shot at constantly. At some point he would have to go out and meet it with musket and spear. The thought was not a pleasant one.

Chara had urged him not to travel to Finbarr’s cabin. “The weather is too fierce,” she had said. “It is foolishness.”

“Perhaps so,” he had admitted. “Yet I need the walk.”

“Then hold your son for a moment,” she had said, her voice angry. “And when you are lying in a snowdrift and your life is drifting away, think of how you will never see him grow.” With that she had stalked from the room.

Aye, you’re a fool right enough, Kaelin Ring, he told himself as he added another chunk of wood to the flames. There’s no denying it.

Hunger gnawed at him. There was a little meat left but no cheese, and he had finished the last of his bread the previous morning. The meat he decided to leave for Feargol. The child would need all his strength for the walk to Ironlatch. The fuel store was low now, enough perhaps for half a day. They could not wait out the bear.

Kaelin gazed around the cave, focusing on the jumbled stand of broken rocks that made up the western wall. Maybe men were sleeping here at the time of the roof fall, he thought. Perhaps their bodies are buried beneath those rocks. Cavemen dressed in furs or ancient hunters sheltering from the snow.

“There are spirits of heroes wandering every forest and mountain,” Jaim had told him once. Kaelin wished it were true. Then perhaps he could talk to Jaim one more time and say his farewells. Perhaps then he could put aside his grief.

“Is it morning yet?” asked Feargol, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Almost. Did you dream?”

“No. I had a lovely sleep. Are you going to shoot the bear with your pistols?”

“No. I shall use your daddy’s musket. It takes a bigger charge.”

Feargol stood up and looked around. “I need to pee,” he said.

Kaelin smiled. “Anywhere you please, my friend. There’s no one here to scold you for peeing inside.” The child walked to the cave mouth, then scampered back inside.

“Its too cold out there, Uncle Kaelin.” He ran to the rear wall and relieved himself. Then he returned to the fire. “Will it take us long to reach Ironlatch?”

“It will. It will be very cold, and you’ll need your hat.”

“I’ll tie it down like Bane.” He looked across at Kaelin. “Can I see one of your pistols?”

The boy had asked many times during Kaelin’s visits to hold one of the Emburleys, but Finbarr had always told him no. Kaelin pulled one of the silver pistols from his belt. Reversing it, he passed it to Feargol, who took it in both hands.

“It is very pretty,” said the boy, turning it over. “What is that animal?” he asked, pointing to the engraved pommel.

“Jaim said it was a lion, a ferocious beast who lives in the hot lands far to the south, across the seas.”

“Is it big, then?”

“Jaim said they could be ten feet long from the tips of their noses to the ends of their tails. And their teeth are as long as a man’s fingers.”

“When I’m big I shall have pistols with lions on them. And I shall shoot all the bears.”

“That would not be good,” said Kaelin. “The bears have a right to live their lives, to mate and rear young. They are not all as evil as Hang-lip. Don’t hate the bears, Feargol. Hate is bad. Bane didn’t hate bears.”

“Not even bears with bad faces?”

The question brought back the memories of the previous night’s curious conversation. “What did you mean when you said you told your daddy about the bear?” he asked.

“I told him it was coming. That I had seen its bad face.”

“What did you see?”

“I was playing with Basson, and I saw this face. It was in the air. It had scales and red eyes. It spoke to me.”

“Did Basson see it?”

“No. He got angry and said I was making it up. The face frightened me, and I told Daddy. He didn’t believe me.”

“What did the face say to you?”

“He told me I was evil and I was going to die. He said a bear would eat me up.”

“And that is what you told your daddy?”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen the face again, Feargol?”

“No.”

“If you do, then tell me.”

“Is there anything to eat?” asked Feargol.

“You have a mind like a butterfly,” Kaelin told him, laughing. Just then there came a faint noise. Feargol was about to speak, but Kaelin hushed him. Then it came again—but not from outside the cave. Kaelin turned his gaze to the mass of broken rock. Suddenly the wall trembled, and a muffled roar sounded.

Hang-lip had found a way up into the cliff!

Kaelin scrambled up, gathering the musket. Just as he did so, the wall trembled again, and several boulders tumbled into the cave. Dust filled the air. More rocks fell, and Kaelin saw Hang-lip’s huge, scorched head. Raising the musket, he fired. The shot hit the bear in the mouth, snapping one of its front teeth. Furiously the beast thrashed at the rocks. Kaelin dropped the musket and drew his pistol, sending another shot into the bear’s throat. A huge boulder gave way, and Hang-lip surged up and into the cave. Kaelin let the pistol fall and swept up the spear. With a battle cry he leaped at the huge beast, plunging the spear deep into its chest, driving it on, seeking the heart. A taloned paw smashed into his shoulder. The spear snapped in two, and Kaelin was hurled over the rocks. His left arm numbed by the blow, he rolled to his knees, drawing his hunting knife from its sheath. Without thinking, he surged up and charged the bear. Blood was pouring from its throat, and the broken spear was wedged deep. Ducking under the beast’s jaws, Kaelin slammed his knife into its belly.

A shot thundered. The bear’s head jerked up, then its body sagged and fell across the young Rigante. Kaelin lay very still. The bear’s head was on his chest, and he could hear its ragged breathing. Slowly the sound grew more rasping until it was little more than a whisper. Then it ceased.

Kaelin eased himself from under the beast. As he did so, he saw that its right eye had been shot through. He turned. Little Feargol was sitting by the fire, Kaelin’s pistol smoking in his hands.

“Did I kill it, Uncle Kaelin?”

“You did,” said the man. Feeling was coming back into his arm, and he flexed his fingers. He sank down next to Feargol and retrieved his pistol. Then he put his hand on the child’s shoulder. “Did I not tell you I had a magic eye? You have killed Hang-lip and avenged your family. You are a hero, Feargol.”

“I don’t want to be a hero anymore, Uncle Kaelin,” said the child, tears in his eyes.

Kaelin drew the boy into a hug. “I know. We shall go soon. I am very proud of you, little man. Your daddy would be, too.”

Feargol began to cry. Kaelin patted the boy’s back. “All right, let us dress warmly and take to the snow.”

A bitter wind blew across the waters of Sorrow Bird Lake, moonlight flickering on the crests of the tiny waves as they lapped against the ice forming around the shoreline. Snow lay thick on the branches of the pine trees bordering the shore, and a heavy silence hung over the winter land.

The night sky was brilliantly lit by a full moon. Around it stars glittered diamond-bright against the impenetrable blackness of the heavens.

At the center of the lake was a small wooded island. Just within the tree line stood a roughly built sod-roofed hut. Hazy smoke drifted from its cast-iron chimney.

In the open doorway of the hut stood a small, slender woman, a pale blue and green shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Her white hair, normally tied in a single braid, hung loose, the cold breeze rippling through it.

The Wyrd’s spirits were low, and she felt old and alone.

The Redeemers had found the path to her spirit, and she was running out of tricks to thwart them. Spirit journeys now were fraught with peril.

Despair touched her, and she fought it back.

Pulling shut the door, she walked out to the frozen shore, the snow crunching beneath her booted feet. She shivered, though not from the winter cold. She could feel the dark spirits hovering around her, waiting. By now they would have sent killers to find her, cold-souled men who would ride north and seek to enter Rigante lands. They would not find it easy. Call Jace did not allow strangers to travel the inner passes. The Wyrd sighed. She did not doubt they would find a way. Circling the small island, she returned to her hut. The fire was burning low, but she did not build it up. Too much heat and she would fall asleep. Then they would find her spirit as it wandered and, in her weary state, snuff out her life like an unwanted candle flame.

It was most galling. The Redeemers saw themselves as so deadly. They believed themselves all-powerful. The truth was that the Wyrd could, if she chose, kill all of them. Aye, that was tempting! She could become a creature of avenging fire and burn their souls to damnation. Would it not advance the cause of good to destroy them? she wondered.

“Aye, and therein lies the path to your own destruction,” she said aloud.

The power granted to her by the spirit of Riamfada all those years ago had come at a price. “It is born of love,” he had said within the tranquil setting of the Wishing Tree woods. “It is of harmony and joy. You may use it to heal, to enhance, to bring together. Never to destroy.”

“I don’t want to destroy anything,” she had told him.

“Let us hope that is always true.”

Oh, there had been times in the past when she had wished to cause harm. When the Moidart had betrayed Lanovar to his death, when the greedy bishop of Eldacre had tried to have Maev Ring burned for witchcraft. Evil men who deserved death. Yet the temptation had never been as great as it was now. Is it just because my own life is threatened? she asked herself. Is my desire merely to save myself? The Wyrd hoped that was not true.

She gazed around her small, single-room hut, her eyes lingering on the objects gathering dust on the shelves. There was an old green cap that had belonged to Ruathain, stepfather to Connavar the King, and a bronze cloak brooch Connavar’s mother had given him when he was twelve. A bronze and silver wristband lay alongside the brooch. This had been worn by Vorna the Witch, long ago when the Rigante had been kings of the highlands. There were other items: scarves, belts, jugs, and cups. All had been owned by heroes of the clan. Nothing there was worth more than a single chailling in the markets, and yet they were beyond price. She had but to touch them, and her mind would fill with color and she would hear the voices of their owners drifting down through the centuries. Closing her eyes, she would see fragments of their lives: Connavar fighting the bear to save his crippled friend, Ruathain holding his sons in his arms, Bane gathering the army to defend the homeland . . .

Moving to the nearest shelf, the Wyrd reached out, picking up an old cloth heavily stained with dried blood.

“Oh, Jaim,” she said, “you were the best of them.”

This cloth had been used by Maev Ring to wipe the blood from Jaim’s face after his epic fight with the Varlish fistfighting champion Gorain. The one-eyed Jaim Grymauch had stood toe to toe with the champion and, incredibly, had defeated him. “You had a heart as big as the mountains,” said the Wyrd, a tear in her eye.

The greatest regret of her long life had come the day she had told Jaim Grymauch of the arrest of Maev Ring. Jaim had loved her and had been determined to rescue her. The Wyrd had asked him to wait. He could have gone to the cathedral, where she had been imprisoned for the trial, dealt with the guards, and freed her. He would have lived then and known happiness. But no. The Wyrd told him that the future well-being of the Rigante depended on his delaying his rescue.

So Jaim Grymauch had waited. They had brought Maev out to burn her at the stake, and Grymauch had marched through the crowds like a giant of old. He had scattered the guards and killed three knights of the Sacrifice. Then, having rescued Maev and seen her free, he had been shot down by the muskets of the Moidart’s soldiers.

Even now his death felt like an open wound to the Wyrd.

Everything she had told him had come to pass. His heroism had forever altered the relationship between the northern Varlish and the Rigante. Before Jaim’s death the highlanders had been treated like an inferior race and viewed with ill-concealed contempt. A fog of hatred and fear had blinded the Varlish. Jaim Grymauch had been the cleansing storm.

Now it seemed his death might have been for nothing, after all.

War, destruction, plague, and death were rampant in the southern lands. Malice hung in the air, touching all living things, disrupting the harmony of nature, and poisoning the nature of all earth magic. It even affected the Wyrd. Normally tranquil of nature, she found herself more swift to anger. Man had always feared spell casters. Almost all societies had at one time or another burned witches. Yet ironically, man himself could cast the most destructive spell of all. With his endless lust for war he could pollute the very magic that fed his world.

The Wyrd took a deep breath, then relaxed. She could feel the spirits of two Redeemers hovering near her. They hungered for her death, their minds overflowing with images of inflicted pain and suffering.

“You will not make me hate you,” she said aloud. However, even thinking of them brought anger to her heart. Best to think of nobler men, she told herself, turning her thoughts to Kaelin Ring.

The years since the death of Grymauch had been kind to him. Still in his early twenties, he was admired by the Black Rigante, holding a position of honor in the council of their leader, Call Jace, and married to his daughter, Chara. Kaelin’s first child had been born two years previously, a boy they had named Jaim. Life was good, yet the black-haired young Rigante would often wander the lonely hills around Ironlatch Farm, camping out at night in the woods, sometimes for days.