The Dread Hammer (2 page)

He made sure they fell together. He went down on his side to avoid breaking his bow, and the ferns closed over them. They would have been nicely hidden if Ketty hadn’t started to struggle. Smoke rolled her onto her back, pinning her against the ground as he hissed in her ear. “Be still or they’ll know you’re here! If they come hunting you, I’ll have to kill them.”

“What are you?” she whimpered. “I saw you. You were smoke—!”

He scowled at her, lying helpless beneath him in the green twilight under the ferns. “That’s what my sisters named me, but you don’t have to name me the same.”

“Smoke?” she whispered, as the vibration of the cantering hooves rumbled up from the ground.

“It will be fixed if you say it again,” he warned.

Her brow wrinkled in abject confusion. “Smoke?”

His lip curled. “It’s done then.”

“
Are
you a forest spirit? One of the Hauntén?”

“Hush now. They’re here.”

A man’s deep voice boomed over them. “Ketty! You clumsy sow. You left a trail for me to follow as plain as the forest road.” Fern fronds crunched under the horses’ hooves. “I brought my whip, Ketty, and your husband.”

Ketty opened her mouth. Smoke clapped a hand over it before she could protest that the widower was not her husband yet. She stared up at him with wild eyes.
Stay still
. He mouthed the words.
Do not move. Do not show yourself.

She nodded tentatively and he took his hand away. Then he reached out again to the threads that formed the weft of the world and, seeming to become a heavy pall of gray smoke, he sank away into the moist ground.

The living soil was a reflection thrown off by a maze of fine threads in the world-beneath. Smoke let his awareness divide and slide across the threads’ tangled paths as he hunted for a spirit of mist. There were many ancient forces within the weft and warp of the world-beneath. Most of them were too dangerous to disturb, but the mist was one Smoke did not fear. So when he found it, he woke it up.

It stirred, sleepily at first. He called to it again.

Such forces expected to be summoned only by the Hauntén, the forest spirits. Smoke was not such. The mist was overcome with anger when it realized this. It boiled up out of the ground, determined to chill and deceive the insolent creature that had dared to waken it. It came so swiftly that its cold, billowing vapor startled the horses, making them snort and draw back.

Both men were nearly unseated. They cried out in consternation. Then the one who was betrothed shouted to Ketty’s father. “This is a haunted place! It was not my wife we heard crashing away, but some enchanted creature.”

Ketty’s father was a braver man. “The print of her foot was on the road. It
is
her, and if you would have her for a wife, then stay and find her!”

But his horse danced beneath him, close to panic, snorting, stamping, turning in circles. Smoke heard the outraged pleas of the crushed ferns,
Send them away! Send them away!

Since that was the result Smoke desired anyway, he consented to the task.

Following the threads back up from the ground, he manifested behind a tree, and at once he let go a great screech like the cry of a banshee.

The horses reared and whinnied. Ignoring the shouts of their riders, they plunged back to the road and fled, galloping north, returning to the safety of their home.

Smoke wiped the wet of the mist off his forehead. “It would have been easier to kill them,” he groused.

Ketty made no answer, and when he went to look for her he discovered she was no longer among the ferns. “Ah, Ketty, you are a clever, wild wolf.” Closing his eyes to listen, he heard faintly the rustle of her passage. She was fleeing east, away from the trail and deeper into the Wild Wood. If she had doubled back, crossing the trail to run west instead, he might have let her go. Running west would have been a bad sign. The Puzzle Lands lay to the west. He’d been born there, and had run away, and was determined never to go again. But Ketty had run east, straight toward the sanctuary of his secret holding in the Wild Wood as if she knew the way and was eager to reach it.

“Ketty, you can’t deny we are meant for each other.” With a pleased smile he let his reflection dissolve again and he set out after her, an errant shimmer of smoke breaking free of the mist’s cold temper.

~

O
ur prayers are spoken to the Dread Hammer, but other spirits can hear them too.

Long ago the warriors of the Lutawan king used to come north into the Puzzle Lands to hunt and abuse our people, and to take our women south to be sold like beasts in the marketplace. We longed for vengeance and prayed to the Dread Hammer to teach us the ways of war. Koráy of the Hauntén overheard our prayer and alone among the forest spirits, she felt bidden to answer it.

Leaving her mother and her sisters, Koráy glided west along the strong threads of the world’s weft until she came to the very edge of the Wild Wood, but from there she could not bring herself to go on, not while she still heard her mother’s voice calling her home through the maze of fine threads that bound her to the Hauntén.

So Koráy prayed to the Dread Hammer to break those threads. Afterward she could no longer summon the forces of the Wild Wood or move as smoke along the weft of the world, and when she looked at the world and the world-beneath, she knew they were not the same.

Koráy wove new threads, and with them she bound herself, heart and soul, to the people of the Puzzle Lands, who later named themselves the Koráyos people, and who call those of us who are the descendants of Koráy “the Bidden,” because Koráy came when she was bidden to do so.

The Bidden had served as guardians of the Puzzle Lands for five generations, but they were not kings. The Koráyos people ruled themselves, deciding right and wrong and settling their internal affairs through councils and judiciary, but all authority for security and defense belonged to the Bidden—first to the Trenchant Dehan, and then to his twin daughters, Takis and Tayval.

The twins were forever linked to one another by Koráy’s binding threads. Takis was eldest, if only by an hour. People said she was a spirit like Koráy—proud and bright, a born leader. She was a warrior by choice, a diplomat by need, a seductress as the chance presented itself, and a beloved figure to the Koráyos people. By contrast, Tayval was an enigma. She was rarely seen outside the family hall at the Fortress of Samerhen, and she never spoke, not even to the Trenchant. Many assumed her to be simple, but the truth was otherwise. While Takis was the bright face of the twins, Tayval was the source of their deep intellect and power.

Both were in conflict with their father, the Trenchant Dehan.

“I differ from my father,” Takis said softly, whispering into the ear of the Lutawan general as they lay together in her tent, with only a single oil lamp to hold back the night's shadows. “I think our conquest of the borderlands is a mistake. Holding this territory doesn’t make us more secure. It only feeds resentment, and makes it harder to negotiate what I want—a true and lasting peace between our people.”

The general lay on his back, his eyes closed, a half smile on his lips as he listened to her . . . or perhaps he was just enjoying the warmth of her breath against his ear. Certainly he was relaxed, pleased with his prowess and deeply satisfied. Takis had seen to that—and she was well equipped for the task. Still young at twenty-six, comely if not beautiful, dark haired, green eyed, with a warm-brown, well-balanced face and an athletic figure, she had easily won the general’s appreciation.

“I have a heartfelt regard for you,” he confessed in a gentled voice.

His was a strong and handsome face with a proud nose and chin, smooth lips, and a sun-darkened, brown complexion. His black beard was neatly trimmed, as was his black hair. Takis had enjoyed him as a lover—she was a bit befuddled by how much she had liked him.The taste of his skin had pleased her so much more than other men she'd known. Even better, she liked his temper. Nedgalvin felt like a man who could think for himself and could think in radical new ways while still knowing how to appease the old guard. How else could he have been promoted to general at the age of thirty-seven?

Takis said, “In my experience, a man who finds himself welcomed into his enemy's bed is inclined to think he has already won the war. Are you such a man?”

He opened his eyes to look at her. “Are you such a woman, to bring the battlefield into your bed?”

“I am.”

He stiffened, as if suddenly suspecting that she had a knife hidden in the bedding.

She smiled at this revealed fear. “It's not my ambition to bring you down Nedgalvin, but to raise you up.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “You have already done that, lady, quite effectively.” Then he rolled onto his side, reaching for her, as if ready to start all over again.

“In a more permanent fashion!” Takis protested with a laugh, letting him spill her over onto her back. He set about kissing her cheeks, her neck, her breasts, while Takis said, “I tire of your king. I think war is his only amusement.”

“Perhaps you’re right. But I have more diverse interests.” His kisses wandered ever lower on her belly.

“Ah, but you are a rational man.”

“I was, before I lost my head over you.”

Takis drew in a quick breath as he gently spread her legs, tasting what was there. Her fingers grasped at his hair as she whispered, “A rational man—like you—would make a better king.”

He stopped his ministrations, raising his head to gaze at her with anxious eyes. “Don’t speak such words, Lady. They will be heard. Know that my only ambition is to serve the king.”

Takis nodded somberly. “That is right and proper, whoever the king may ultimately be.”

“Are you a kingmaker, Takis?”

“I cannot negotiate with the existing one, so it seems I’m forced to be.” She sat up, shifting so that she was cross-legged in the bed. “Think on it, Nedgalvin. Peace would be a benefit for both of us, but peace is impossible while the Lutawan king preaches that our oppression and enslavement is mandated by your god.”

Takis knew the true name of this god was Hepen the Watcher. He was cast out of the north long ago by the Dread Hammer. But in the south people had forgotten his name and called him only ‘God.’

“The king speaks for God,” Nedgalvin said as if by rote. “You must submit to him to be saved.”

“We would rather be saved
from
him.”

The general winced. He sat up in turn. “Is it true you’re a witch who can read a man’s mind?”

Takis laughed. “The Dread Hammer is not so cruel as to force me to wallow in a man’s unfiltered thoughts.”

The general did not share her humor. “I wish you could hear mine now. I dare not speak them.”

“Because the king hears all things?”

The general nodded.

“Whatever the reach of his mind, he can’t penetrate the Puzzle Lands. Will you cross the border and come to me so we may speak freely?”

“I cannot.”

“I’ll open the way for you.”

“I would be missed.”

“For a single night?”

“Can I trust you?” he wondered.

“You must chance it, but I assure you it’s a chance worth taking. Will you come?”

He thought on it for many seconds, and in truth Takis could not read his intention. Then at last he nodded. “I will come.”

Takis smiled. “Then our present negotiations are done. Return to your own encampment now. But two nights hence, an hour past sunset, come alone to the Trader’s Stone—you know where that is?”

“Yes, but there is no pass over the mountains there.”

“There will be when you come. Ride past the stone, toward the Séferi Mountains. The way will be open. We call it Scout’s Pass. The trail is very narrow at times, but once you reach the crest, you’ll see Fort Veshitan.” She cocked her head, studying him thoughtfully. “I’ll tell you this, as a token to affirm my good faith. All the women who flee from the southern kingdom seeking refuge in the Puzzle Lands are housed for a time at Fort Veshitan. There are at least a hundred there at all times, being schooled in our customs. This is how I know it’s possible for your people to learn new ways. Will you come?”

The general’s face had gone stony, though whether to hide his anger or his eagerness Takis could not say—nor did it matter. He must prove his own good faith. “I will come,” he said gruffly. “But only if you withdraw all your troops from the region around the Trader’s Stone, and from this hidden pass. I will not risk being seen in an act of treachery.”

“The way will be open to you,” Takis said again. “As a sign of my good faith I will withdraw all my troops and also the spells of deception and confusion that protect the pass.”

The general nodded. “So be it.”

They both dressed. Then Takis walked with the general across the encampment, each one flanked by their own escort. At the edge of the Koráyos lines they bid one another a formal goodbye. The general and his men mounted their horses and set out toward the Lutawan encampment, marked by a scattering of small fires more than a mile away.

Takis stood watching their retreat until her sister, Tayval’s, voice spoke crisp and emotionless in the back of her mind.
Don’t hope too much
.

“Perhaps he’s braver than he seems,” Takis said softly.

Two women on watch stood nearby. Both looked up at the sound of her voice, but only for a moment. The Koráyos soldiers were used to Takis, “speaking to ghosts.”

Takis bid them both good night, then returned to her tent, alone.

~

T
here is the world, and then there is the world-beneath. In my mind they are separate places, but Smoke is like the Hauntén in that he sees no separation and moves easily in both. He’s like the Hauntén in that the lives of inconvenient people mean little to him. He’s like the Hauntén in that his eyes shine with an emerald gleam when the light is dim. He is often mistaken for a forest spirit, but Smoke is not Hauntén. It’s not in his nature to summon the forces of the Wild Wood as the true forest spirits will do.