The Briar King (22 page)

Wind rushed through the forest like an army of ghosts on the run, and the ancient trees rattled and groaned like doomed titans facing the Stormlord. Low thunder rumbled distant, bright coppery claps nearer. Chariot wheels and whip-cracks, his father had once called them, when Aspar was very young. He couldn't remember his father's face, his name, or almost anything else, except for that phrase and the smoky smell of tanned buckskin.

“Shouldn't we get out from under this?” Winna asked, raising her voice above the approaching storm.

“Yah,” Aspar agreed. “The question is where? And the answer is, I don't know. Unless there's squatters hereabout I don't know of, there's no place to go.”

A chattering swarm of swallows blew overhead, almost indistinguishable from the leaves caught up in the furious air. A raindrop the size of a quail's egg spattered against the ground.

Aspar searched the landscape. Two weeks on the greffyn's trail had taken them deep into the low-lying fens surrounding the Slaghish River. The Slaghish had its headwaters to the south, in the Mountains of the Hare, which was where the storm was coming from. If they didn't find high ground, they would soon have flood to add to the worry of lightning.

It had been a long time since he had been here, and even then he'd just been passing through. Which side of the valley rose most quickly? In his recollection, there was a ridge pretty near in one direction, but leagues away in the other. And he suddenly remembered something else, too. Something Jesp had told him, many, many years ago.

“Let's try this way,” he shouted.

“The river?”

“It looks like we can ford it, here.”

“If you say so.”

The water was already muddy and rough. They dismounted and felt their way across, Aspar first. At midstream the water came to his chest and nearly to Winna's neck. The current quickened noticeably in the crossing; they wouldn't be going back over anytime soon.

Across the river they remounted and rode east across the low ground.

A short time later, the rain arrived in earnest. Dry ground became scarce as the streams feeding the Slaghish rose, and Aspar feared he had made a mistake. He worried that they would have to clamber up a tree and cut the horses loose to fend for themselves.

But then, at last, the land began to rise, and they started climbing out of the valley. The rain was pounding now, a relentless curtain of gray. Aspar was soaked to the bone, and Winna looked miserable. The storm grew more violent, and limbs and whole trees shattered by lightning or wind fell all around them.

If what Jesp told him was true—and if the years hadn't dimmed his own memory too much—the ridge ought to be stony, full of caves and shelters. Even a small overhang would be welcome.

It was with some relief that he found the rocky back of the ridge. Jesp might have told him honest, then, which was always a pleasant surprise. He had loved the old witch, after all, and after her fashion she had loved him.

They followed along the ridge, as overhead the sky went
one shade of storm gray to the next darker. Night was falling, and still the tempest gathered strength.

His reckoning was good, though. While there was still just enough light to see, he found a jutting ledge that overhung a shelter comfortably large for the two travelers and their mounts.

“Thank the saints,” Winna said. “I don't think I could have taken another moment of that.”

She looked pale and chill. It wasn't so cold outside, but it was cooler than a human body, and rain washed away all warmth. Aspar unwrapped a tarp proofed against water with resin, and drew out a dry blanket.

“Take off your wet things and wrap in this,” he said. “I'll be back.”

“Where are you going?”

“For firewood.”

“You think you'll find something in
that
that will burn?” Her teeth were chattering.

“Yah. Change.”

“Well, turn your back.”

“I'm going.”

It took a while to find what he was looking for—pine lighter knot, dry wood in the rainshadow of the rocks, other stuff that would fume but eventually light. When he had a good armload, and a haversack full of tinder, he returned to the cave.

By then it was near dark. The worst of the thunder had moved off, but the wind was still snapping trees. Winna watched him silently, tightly wrapped in her blanket, as he nursed flame from the damp wood. He noticed she had unsaddled the horses and brushed them down.

“Thanks for taking care of Ogre and Angel,” he said.

She nodded thoughtfully. “Will we lose the trail?” she asked.

He shook his head. “The thing about the greffyn's trail is it gets easier to follow the farther we fall behind it. Gives things more time to die.”

“What about the men?”

He hesitated. “You noticed that, did you?”

“Asp, I'm no tracker, never even hunted, but I'm not a fool either. The horse tracks are plain enough, and I see there's more than one. And boots, now and then.”

“Yah.”

“You think someone else is following the greffyn?”

“No. I think someone is traveling with it.” He reluctantly explained his theory about the bodies at the sedos, the ones clearly killed by men, adding Sir Symen's stories of similar murders, as well.

“Fifteen days it takes you to tell me this?” she said.

“I wasn't sure they were
with
it, at first. The paths cross, part, then come back together.”

“Anything else you aren't telling me?”

“The Sefry think this is the work of the Briar King.”

She paled further. “Do you believe that?” she asked.

“I didn't at first.”

“But now you do?”

He hesitated an instant too long. “No.”

“But that's just you, isn't it, Asp? That would make you gullible, wouldn't it, to admit they might be right.”

“Maybe I should have told you this from the start,” he replied. “Maybe then I could have talked you out of coming.”

“No. There you're wrong.” Her face was set bravely, but he noticed her chin was quivering. He suddenly had a nearly overpowering urge to go fold her into his arms, keep her warm, tell her he was sorry to be such a closemouthed bastard, tell her everything would be fine.

“How can you hate the Sefry so, Aspar? When they raised you? When you
loved
one.”

That broke something cold in him, spilled something harsh. “That's none of your damned business, Winna,” he rasped out.

When he saw the hurt on her face, he couldn't look at her anymore. He was almost relieved when she silently stood and moved to where the horses were. He thought at first she might be crying, but discounted that. She was tough, Winna, not weepy like some women. Nosy, yes, but not weepy.

He wished he hadn't snapped, but it was too late now, and apologizing wouldn't make it better, would it?

The sky was still leaden the next day, but the rain was gone, leaving only a fog in the valley below. As Aspar had expected, the lowlands were flooded and would take several days to drain. He decided to continue south along the ridge; the gref-fyn's path had been going roughly in that direction anyway.

They came across the telltale trail of dead and dying vegetation before midday. Any trace of the monster's human escorts was gone, but he had expected no less.

As usual, they followed alongside the poison trail, rather than on it.

“The Briar King,” Winna said, for the first time breaking the frosty silence. “When I lived in Glangaf, we used to have a Briar King every year—you know, for the spring festival. He broke open the beer casks and led the dance. He gave us kids sugar candy and presents. When Father moved us to Colbaely to take my uncle's business, they didn't do that. The old women build wickermen and burn chickens up inside of them. They make the sign of evil if anyone says his name.”

“Yah. Colbaely's closer to the forest, and its folk are mostly from the old stock. Not Virgenyans from over the mountains or steaders from the west. For the old folk, the Briar King is no laughing matter.”

“What do the Sefry say about him?”

Aspar cleared his throat with some reluctance. “That he was once a prince among the old gods, the ones who made the world. That while they all died, he was cursed to live. That his only wish is to die, but the only way for him to die is to destroy the world itself. The Scaosen, who killed the old gods, managed to bind him to sleep, but every age or so he wakes …” He frowned. “There is a woman, I kann, and a thief who tried to steal from him who is now part of the curse. And a doomed knight of some sort. The usual silliness. I never paid much attention.”

“I remember hearing that he wakes only when the land is ill,” Winna said.

“In Dolham town they spell he wakes every year,” Aspar grunted. “That he begins to toss and turn in autumn, cracks his eye in the dead of winter, then rolls over and falls asleep again by spring. All of the stories tell a different tale. It's why I don't trust 'em. If they were true, they ought to say the same thing.”

“Not completely different,” Winna said. “They all seem to think it's a very bad thing for him to be awake.”

“Except for your beer-pouring fellow in Glangaf.”

“Even he did some hard things. I remember one fellow who had been judged an adulterer by the town Comven. The Briar King dumped hog sceat on him, right in the middle of the town square, and then rooted up half his potato crop. Anything the Briar King did to you, you had to bear. After the spring festival, no one wanted to see him, because that usually meant he was coming to punish someone. And he had to do it, you see? It was part of the geas laid on him by being chosen.”

“Odd town, Glangaf. After his year was up, what happened to the fellow who was made king?”

“Everyone pretended to forgive him. Usually they didn't.”

“How did they decide who the king was each year?”

“The men drew lots. The loser had to be king.”

“Where did the trail go?” Winna asked.

Aspar was asking himself the same question, and he didn't like the answer that was suggesting itself. They stood facing a cliff of the same crumbling yellow rock that had sheltered them the night before. Behind it the foothills rose precipitously. A stream drizzled from the top of it, pattering into a pool some twenty paces in diameter. A stream from the pool continued downhill to the Slaghish lowlands. To the south, the vague blue outline of the Mountains of the Hare reared up into untroubled clouds.

The trail led into the water.

“Don't touch it,” Aspar warned.

“I know better,” Winna replied, as Aspar dismounted and began an examination.

No tracks, no dead fish. Probably the storm had flushed the pool out pretty well. In fact, since by his calculations they were at least three days behind the beast, he doubted that any of this water had been here when the greffyn was; it was all down in the Slaghish now, on its way to the Warlock and eventually the Lier Sea.

Still, he wanted to be sure. He found a talus slope that let him ascend to the top of the cliff. There was no sign of the greffyn's passage on top.

He went back down.

“It's in the water?” Winna asked.

“It went into it. I don't think it came out.” He started stringing his bow.

“You mean you think it drowned?”

“No.”

“Then—” She started backing up.

“Look,” he said, pointing.

On the surface of the pool, water-skaters wove ripple-webs, and small fish chased away from the edge.

“If it was still in there, these wouldn't be alive, I don't believe.”

“Unless it can choose when to kill and when not to. In that case it might be hiding, waiting for you.”

“I don't think so. I don't think the pool is that deep.”

“What then?”

“Jesp—the Sefry woman who raised me. She used to talk about this place. She claimed there was a Halafolk
rewn
in these hills.”

“A what?”

“The Halafolk live in hidden caves. They call 'em rewns.”

“I thought that was just phay-story dust.”

Aspar shook his head. “If I remember right, this one is named Rewn Aluth. I'm guessing Jesp was telling the truth.”

“The Halafolk,” Winna repeated. “Down there.”

“Yah. I'll bet there's an entrance below the water, there. Typical.”

“You—you've been in one of these rewns before?”

He nodded. “Most people think the Sefry and the Halafolk
are two different people. They aren't. The caravaners are the wanderers, the restless ones. But they return home, now and then. When I was a boy, they took me with them.” He sat on a rock and started unlacing his cuirass.

“What are you doing?” Winna asked.

“Those tracks we've been following—the ones with the greffyn—they could just as easily be Sefry as human.”

“You mean you think the two are connected? That the Halafolk are responsible for the killings?”

“All of the dead I've seen have been human. We've been trying to clear the Sefry out of the royal forest for decades. Maybe they got tired of it.”

“If that's so, you can't just go in there yourself. Even if the greffyn doesn't kill you, the Halafolk will. You need an army or something.”

“If the king is to send an army, he needs reason. I don't have anything to give him but guesses, yet.” His shirt was off. “Wait here,” he said.

The pool was just deeper than he was tall, and clear enough that he had little problem finding what he was looking for—a rectangular opening in the rock face that led into the hill and slightly down.

He came back up.

“There's a tunnel,” he said. “I'm going to see where it goes.”

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

He unstrung and recased his bow and placed it back on Ogre's saddle along with his armor. He made sure he had his dirk and ax, took several deep, even breaths, then a deeper one, and dived.

The tunnel was roomy enough, and smoothed, but he had no trouble pushing himself along. What he did have trouble with was the darkness. Daylight faded quite quickly behind him, as his lungs started to ache. He remembered, too late, that the Halafolk were known for making false entrances into their havens. Traps designed to kill the unwary.

And it occurred to him that tunnel was too narrow to turn
around in easily. Could he back out quickly enough to save