The Four Forges (20 page)

He had no more idea what that should mean to him now than he had years ago when he’d first heard it. Something he knew he had to remember, and had not trusted himself to retain, and so he had imprinted it into a child’s game to be memorized. His breath eased out in a soft sigh, disappearing into the spring breeze that carried the beginning of another tune to him. It drew him toward it, as ild Fallyn musicians with the finesse only the Vaelinars held, joined in with the country players, and began to play the strands. The melancholy tune drew him closer, as he recognized it, and it caught at him.

A fine, strong voice began to sing.

 
Sevryn parted the last of the growing crowd to see the singer, and it was Bistane, his body curved in unconscious yearning as the last notes of the song melted away, followed by the final strains of the instruments, in a haunting refrain that echoed the singer. A soft murmur rippled through the listeners, and a few clapped. Bistane lowered his face then, as if noticing he’d drawn a crowd, and he stepped back, turning away from Tressandre’s look of amusement, as she directed the players to quiet. She’d almost certainly baited Bistane into the singing by merely having the song begun, its anthem burned like the name Trevilara, into their very being. He did not feel it as they did, yet Sevryn cleared away an annoying catch in his throat. None of them remembered who or what Trevilara had been, save that it embodied all they had lost.

“Enough melancholy,” Tress declared. She tossed her head, her lustrous hair cascading over her shoulders. “A dance!” She gestured to her servants who brought up their winds and strings again and merry notes filled the air, notes that made the feet want to strike and the body twirl.

She grabbed up Bistane’s hand before he could pull away, and then the hand of a tall Kernan lad who’d come close to stare at her, and with a laughter that rang joyously, swept them with her to the dancing ring. The villagers joined them, no strangers to dancing, the awe of Bistane’s singing forgotten, and the circle swung ever wider.

 
Grace squeezed Nutmeg’s hand. “Oh, listen! They’re dancing again.” Nothing in the booths could pull at her like the sound of the music did.

Nutmeg tugged her forward. “Come on, let’s watch.”

Her heart did a little squeeze. How could she watch without wanting to dance? But she followed her sister’s impetuous movement through the last of the winding shopping lane and onto the beaten ground where sawdust had been sprinkled over the bent grass and spring flowers, and many feet had tapped the earth into a firm surface. Nutmeg’s small shoes flew across the grounds and Grace after her, the music sinking into her body like a stone into the river, causing ripples of wondrous change. Forgetting her hobbled stance, she straightened as someone caught up her free hand, and she and Nutmeg melded into the marvelous circle.

Spring sunlight struck them. Grace tilted her head back inside her shadowy hood, seeking it as instinctively as a flower pushing up through the meadow. Warm flesh pressed her hands and her feet wove an easy pattern as they danced, and the circle swung ever wider. The melody grew louder and faster, carrying her with it. Laughter bubbled out of her, but she could not even hear her own voice, for they all laughed and sang a wordless song to the music sweeping them away. Faster, faster, intricacy of steps lost, she was little more than running sideways gracefully and in time, and then . . . oh, then, as Nutmeg clung to her right hand, she swore her feet left the ground. She no longer danced, but flew!

“Tressandre!” a male voice sliced warningly through the merriment.

Rivergrace did not see anyone, her vision a blur of faces and the colors of their clothes, and the circle of dancers rose higher, spinning faster, and she could feel the music running through all of them. It felt like the Silverwing at flood tide, crashing down from her mountain roots, dangerous and beautiful and irresistible. Her arms held tightly on both sides, as if her fellow dancers feared letting go and crashing to the ground, and they spun.

Wheels did not seem to turn as fast as they did. Her ears roared with the sense of it as joy and fear ruled her body equally, and she could barely hear Nutmeg’s laughter as the frantic music thrilled through her. Sound and soul carried them. The Vaelinars woven throughout the circle raised their hands, seemingly to lift them up as they all swung around. What magic was this? Her cloak unfurled about her, threatening to fly away. She twirled through the air as though on a swing from the highest apple tree she could imagine . . .

“Tressandre!” the male voice bellowed in anger, and the circle faltered as his rage touched Rivergrace, and whatever Tressandre was must have felt it, too.

The music slowed, troubled. She saw the ground begin to rise toward her feet once more, and the blur of noise fell apart into jumbled sounds. Nutmeg let out a high, shivery noise more of terror than happiness and she murmured back a soothing sound she only hoped her sister could catch. The circle held together despite a high-pitched scream here and there, and she could see pale faces emerge, as well as those like hers flushed with the melody that charged the air. A sudden emptiness made her feel weak, uncertain that her legs could hold her if they ever touched ground again . . . They slowed and lowered, and slowed, and then—Someone screamed sharply, the sound cut off abruptly. The music crashed to a jarring halt. Rivergrace let go in alarm, falling to the earth, stumbling to her feet. Villagers tumbled about each other like a pack of unruly puppies.

“Raiders, and to arms!”

She wove on her legs as if she’d been drunk, unsteady as a newborn calf or foal. She grabbed in midair for something to steady herself and found nothing. The crowd rose around her, wobbly, tumultuous, pushing and shoving.

A piercing shout rose above the noise.
“Ravers!”

Men and Bolgers ran past, weapons in hand. Nutmeg tumbled on top of her. Grace grabbed her, pulling her around and behind her. The cloak muffled her movements, the hood falling back over her eyes as she looked for the trouble, seeing only people running in every direction. She saw no one she recognized, not Da, not Garner or Keldan. . . .

“Nutmeg! Grace! It’s Ravers—run to the shops! RUN!”

From out of nowhere, she spotted Hosmer, looking about frantically, his short sword in one hand, and his stout applewood quarterstaff in the other. He did not see them, but she saw him and let out a whistle that began and then fell short from her lips gone suddenly dry. He heard it anyway. He twisted about, and waved his sword toward them, before dashing to the open road, his militia coat flapping about him, as disaster rode down on them.

He ran toward the Ravers instead of away. Her throat went dryer than her mouth. Nutmeg hauled on her arm. “Come on!”

She turned in the direction pulled, and a Bolger bumped them hard, grunting, a great two-handed sword in his hands. Nutmeg went sprawling. He picked Nutmeg up by the elbow to set her back on her feet with scarcely a look, his leathery face split in a grimace, his forger’s apron still on, his homespun shirt rolled up over his scarred and branded arms. He pushed the girls away from the stampeding, fearful crowd and then headed after Hosmer.

She could see the shapes then, dark riders on lathered horses, and strange, loping runners beside them, so many she couldn’t count them with one look. Ravers and Bolgers and the runners, dust boiling about them, shadows shrouding them. Nutmeg bolted toward the village behind then in a weaving run, but Grace found herself frozen in place, staring. The faceless, hooded things bearing down the road seemed bent on one thing, and one thing only.

She could hear the high-pitched, hissing cry, a keening that lanced through the air, like a whirlwind whistling high over all the other catastrophe. “Ssstrange blooood.” It drained her will to hear it.

The forces collided in a thunder of grunts and steel strikes and the squeal of horses. Then, like branches parting in a high wind, the invaders divided, two thin groups splintering off as the main core wrestled with the defenders. She could not see Hosmer’s square form among them, and feared to. She tore her eyes away from the sight, pivoting then on legs still feeling spindly and weak. With a deep breath, she forced herself to run after Nutmeg whose short legs still carried her swiftly across the fairgrounds, over the debris of fallen booths and scattered gaieties trampled beneath. Fleeing side by side, yet far behind the crowd, they gained the main street.

Bolgers charged from the side alley. Nutmeg veered away from the Stinkers. Grace could not tell if they were friend or foe as she chased after her sister. Her heart thudded in her chest, her head reeled. Something loomed in the corner of her eye and she darted to the side. A Bolger, riding low, charged past her, fist grasping at thin air, cursing. He leaned even lower from his saddle to grab up Nutmeg, thrashing and squealing as he hoisted her into the air and over the neck of his mount.

No breath to scream with. Her throat froze as the Bolger reined up, turned his mount and then pounded past Grace, his face grimacing in triumph. She clawed as him as he rode by, his boot catching her in the chest and shoving her aside. She went to her knees with a smothered sob.

She did not stay down. She would not! Grace leaped to her feet and stood in the dirt a moment before whirling around and running back to the trampled remains of the fair. Images ran through her mind, the swordsmith, his crude stand at the fair’s edge. She found the booth at the edge of the chaos and fell to her knees again, searching with trembling hands. “Here, here, help me, help me, Gods. Help me find it!” She sifted through broken wood and torn cloth, frantically, hands shaking so hard that even if she found what she needed, she didn’t know if she could hold it. Words bubbled from her lips like water from a spring, and then, oh, then, she grasped the cold hilt of a sword, crude and hidden, but there with a handful of others. She only needed one. Then, she got to her feet slowly and walked in the direction Nutmeg had been taken.

 
Sevryn felt the power Tressandre wove pulling at him, leeching strength from him. He leaned away from it, watching the circle of dancers in their unknowing joy, each who joined adding to the power of her enchantment, each feeding her as she danced with them, her head thrown back and her whole body aglow with a kind of fierceness. He could see Bistane rise up in anger and yell at her for entrancing all of them. If she heard, she ignored him. She pulled at all within her range, feeding off them to fuel the magic woven into the music, and Sevryn denied her his power. It took a moment or two of centering himself as Gilgarran had pounded into him many a time, and shrouding his efforts so that she would not even know she’d touched him. He was no fool. Tressandre did not make merry for its own sake. The ild Fallyn were searching for Talent, however they might find it, and she was filling herself with every remnant of it she sensed. He brushed his hand through his hair, stepping back from the spectacle when Bistane bellowed in rage a second time, and hells broke loose. Then, in a matter altogether different, or perhaps the same, the raiders hit, as if summoned by Tressandre’s flaunting of power.

Sevryn drew his katana. Streaming people fled past him, lurching, their strength weakened by Tressandre’s hold on them, unknowing, screaming, and yelling. He spotted Bistane throwing off Tressandre’s hold, and bolting to his pavilion for armor and arms. They brushed past Sevryn as he stood assessing the panic, and he felt that moment on him, that tinge of his own power that said he stood at a crossroads, and the choice he would make now would forever change his life. It came upon him rarely now, so rarely that he knew it had all but been burned out of him in his lost years, although it had never been a gift he could summon when he willed. It crept upon him now, and he turned slowly in its hold, casting for that turn, that decision of fate that lay upon him.

He saw the girls. The tall one took up the Dweller lass, shielding her with her own body from the chaos jostling them in every direction, and he made his choice. He trailed after them as they worked their way through the shards of the fair booths, his attention on them and them alone. Buffeted by people running by in every direction, he lost them and then found them again. Sevryn tightened his hold on his katana as one man, a Galdarkan, caught his arm and tried to wrestle it from him. He lunged toward the man, giving in, and then twisting his arm away, and brought it back with an elbow to the other’s throat. The Galdarkan dropped to his knees, wheezing and blinking in surprise. Sevryn strode on, with no time to see what became of the Galdarkan.

A sharp hiss broke his concentration. He ducked, even as he turned toward the sound, with an instinct that saved him. Steel sang by his ear so sharply he could feel his hair catch on its edge. He dropped to one knee and looked into the swathed face of a Raver on foot, black-carapaced armor shining in the light between torn, crimson wrappings. It swung again, but Sevryn was not there to meet the blade. With a roll, he moved to his feet, at the creature’s flank.

It had no scent but that of strangeness. Its ragged cloak hung in wisps about its oddly jointed body. Sinewy or bone-thin, it moved in ways no man could move naturally, making it difficult to anticipate its actions. It hopped straight up, as Sevryn struck, his own blow slicing the air where the thing’s knees had been.

Sevryn smiled grimly. He collected himself and they stared at one another a moment, taking one another’s measure. He rolled his wrist, turning his katana as he moved in. The Raver reacted as he thought it might, twisting and bending in unnatural angles, but it mattered little for the thing avoided the katana and never saw the daggers Sevryn tossed with his left hand, one, two, three, right at the hooded face.