The Hekamon (53 page)

"The augur?" He wasn't familiar with anyone
who went by that title.

"He's in charge of the Augury, a wooden temple in
the forests further east. Saskia told me that they conduct strange
rituals there, and that the augur wanted to put her talents to uses
that she didn't agree with. She believes herbs should be for
medicinal purposes only, or, if they are to be used to converse with
spirits, then it should not be with malevolent ones. Her lack of
co-operation endangered her, so Vondern gave her refuge."

Giving someone refuge? That was the first good thing he
had ever heard about Vondern, but he didn't like the sound of the
augur, "It's a good thing this Augury is a long way east."

"I said it was further east, not a long way east."

"Oh."

"It's not that far," Alyssa indicated with a
small movement of her head, "we supply them with herbs,
empessence mainly, and they send us food in return, so we depend on
them."

Alyssa started making herself comfortable, and in the
process rolled her woolen tights below the hems of the leather
braccae, so her legs would be completely covered. As she did, her
ankle tattoo once more disappeared from sight.

"What power did the necklace give your mother?"

"She didn't tell me, I might have been too young to
understand. Later, I heard it gave her the power to make men fall in
love with her, but I don't know if that was true," she said,
laying down again and facing him, with her head resting on her hand.

"I think it might have been true," he said,
resting in a similar fashion.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I think you've inherited that ability,"
he said, blushing at the admission.

"You're sweet," Alyssa said smiling, "and
say the nicest things."

She leaned over a kissed him and was about to speak
again when something behind him caught her attention. Looking past
him, her expression changed to one of shock and then fear.

Sensing something was badly wrong, Galvyn turned and
looked through the flickering fire and out of the cave.

Moving out of the shadows and into the light was a man.
Not much older than he but strong looking and holding a dagger, his
expression one of fury and contempt.

"What's going on?" The man growled, before
becoming a roar, "What are you doing?"

Galvyn leapt to his feet and took a step toward the
fire, taking a burning log and retreating back into the cave. He
searched for an answer that might pacify the aggressor but saw the
man's attention was focused on Alyssa, who had jumped to her feet,
also.

Galvyn tried to place himself between them, but Alyssa moved to
the side of the cave and, if anything, nearer the intruder.

"He made me come here, I didn't want to," she
said, her voice panicked and her expression one of fear.

Her words
making the man, who had reached the fire and taken a log, turn his
attention to him.

"Alyssa?" Galvyn called out, unsure of what
was happening.

Backing further into the cave, he reached out so
she could take his hand. Together they might be able to fight the man
off, but instead the girl backed up against the wall of the cave,
further away from him and then out, past the fire and the man
advancing toward him.

Galvyn thought that, maybe if he could distract
the man, Alyssa could make her escape.

He turned and started running into the cave.

Looking
back, he could see the man was following him, a dagger in one hand, a
burning torch in the other, face contorted in an expression of rage.
As the man neared, Galvyn could see his pursuer's face was tattooed.
He must be a ferguth, an enforcer. Suddenly Galvyn feared for his
life, he was in mortal danger.

"Alyssa?" he shouted, but heard no response,
so stumbled on, further into the darkness, with just the light from
the torch to guide him.

It was only when he was almost on the plateau, that the
light of the fire became apparent. A few paces closer and there came
the sound of voices. Their words were indistinct, but that there were
people at the caves was now beyond doubt.

His next step was to determine who.

Moving forward, Kormak was now no more than fifty feet
away, with the fire's orange glow illuminating the area. He couldn't
see any sign of movement but the voices were becoming clearer now. It
was still hard for him to make out any words, but they did not sound
like the deep voices of woodsmen, either from the trading posts to
the west, or the augur and his men to the east.

Advancing, and using the trees for cover, Kormak was now
just twenty feet away and behind the last tree he could use. Ahead
lay the open area of the plateau and once beyond this point, he would
be visible, there were no more shadows for him to hide among.

Peering around the tree, he was unable to see who the
voices belonged to, they must be inside the cave, with the fire at the entrance obscuring them. At that moment, a voice
came through much more clearly. With no more trees to muffle the
sound, the voice was unmistakable. It was the higher pitched voice of
a young women, a voice he knew well.

Taking
the dagger from its scabbard, Kormak moved out from behind the tree,
and as he did so, his perspective of the cave mouth changed.

He could
now see two people laying in an embrace, just beyond the fire and a
little way into the cave. He stopped. He had been sure the voice he'd
heard had been that of his sister, but now he was equally sure it
could not have been. He have must have been mistaken.

Just then, the
two moved apart, and by the light of the fire he could see that it
was
Alyssa.

He stepped forward and demanded to know what was going
on. Who was she with? She didn't know anyone this this of the river
and the voight had decreed she was beholden to Tolle, if she was
acting willingly, the punishment would be severe. Had he just seen
her kiss the man she was with? Or could his eyes have deceived him.

"What are you doing?" he shouted.

From her answer the situation became clear. She had not
kissed him, she had not betrayed the ferguths or the betrothal she
had accepted. It was not Alyssa who was deserving of punishment. It
was the man who had tricked her and taken advantage of her innocence.
It was something he was going to pay for.

Kormak sized up his enemy, and saw that he was not a
formidable foe, not by any means.

Younger than he, smaller, too. He
was no more than a boy. The Coralainian they'd captured had described
him as such.

So this was the one. The accomplice. Pretending he could
recover Alyssa's necklace and taking advantage of her wishful
thinking. So this had been his game.

Seeing the boy had grabbed a burning log from the fire,
Kormak did likewise and moved past the fire and into the cave. The
boy grabbed for Alyssa, perhaps trying to take her hostage. If that
was his plan, it failed. Alyssa sidestepped his grasp and was out of
the cave and safe.

Kormak positioned himself to make sure the
Demedelite could not escape so easily, and, seeming to realize this,
the boy made off in the only direction open to him, further into the
cave.

Kormak gave chase.

He knew from his previous visits
here that the caves went back a long way, but he'd rarely ventured
far inside, there had never been a reason to do so. This time though
he would go as far as was needed, nobody assaulted his sister and got
away with it.

A few dozen paces in, Kormak saw that it might not be a
long chase. The boy ahead of him was stumbling and tripping over his
own feet in his panic. Kormak tightened his grip on his dagger, he
would be merciless. Even if Alyssa didn't demand it, Tolle and
Vondern would.

He could not return with an account of how he'd let
the accomplice get away, or given him nothing more than a beating.
When a Fennrean was harmed, there could be no leniency. His father
had received no mercy, why should he show any?

At that moment, he wondered if the boy knew. Was his
anger so palpable that the boy anticipated his fate. If so, some
survival instinct took effect, because, like a new born deer, the
boy's ungainly legs suddenly found their proper gait and he started
to move away with each stride. Kormak responded by running faster,
too, and for a time he neither gained on, nor lost sight of the
subject of his anger.

As they went deeper, the floor of the tunnel became
rougher, rocks and stalagmites littered the floor. It just needed the
boy to trip and he would be on him, instead it was he who tripped,
before losing his balance and falling heavily. The torch rolling from
his hand and almost extinguishing on the wet tunnel floor.

There were
steams that ran down the hillside above these caves and the moisture
was seeping in making the rock slippery underfoot.

Getting to his feet, Kormak picked up the log and angled
it low, so that the weak flame could recover. His progress would be
impossibly slow without a light to guide him.

As the flame recovered,
so did he and within seconds he was back into his stride. While
ahead of him, all that was now visible of the boy was the faint glow
of his torch.

Undeterred, he ran on faster. If he were to slip
again, so be it. He must not let the boy escape, no matter what. Yet
the boy was now out of sight, Kormak knew he had to get closer, if
the tunnel were to split in two, he could lose him. But even now he
could see that the glow of the torch ahead was hard to make out. Not
just hard, impossible, there was no light before him, only darkness.

By the light of his own torch, he suddenly saw why.

The
tunnel was changing, becoming a cavern, with incisor
sharp rocks on the floor and ceiling, the cave was opening like jaws
before him.

The glistening wet rock was all around him but no longer
ahead of him, before him lay only blackness. The floor of the
tunnel ended.

Kormak instinctively threw himself backwards and with as
much force as he could muster, but his forward momentum was too great,
and he slid on for several more feet across the wet rock.

Reaching
back and letting go of the torch, he started grabbing for any hold he
could find, but instead found only loose stones. His feet and legs,
sliding out over the abyss, his body following but slowing and only
at the very edge of the precipice did his fingers find grip.

Over he went, clinging to the ledge, his body swinging
back and slamming against the rock face. The jarring impact almost
prising him away and into the depths below. The wind knocked out of
him and gasping for breath. Kormak held on to the cold, wet rock as he
swung back and forth.

Slowly his movement settled and his body became still.
Yet no sooner had he come to rest, than he started scrambling and
searching desperately with his feet for something to bear his weight,
but found no foothold. Instead only smooth rock and thin air.

Hanging by his fingers, he looked up and saw the roof of
the cavern, shadows flickering by the light of his discarded torch.
He looked down and saw, for at least thirty feet, only blackness. He
could feel himself slipping over and hear himself taking deep
breaths. It wasn't the only breathing he could hear.

Slowly turning
his head, Kormak could see, only a few feet away and hanging by his
finger tips, the boy looking back at him.

Alyssa stood alone under the stars and watched as the
smoke from the fire swirled upwards.

Lost in the
firmament, Alyssa was overcome with a feeling of vertigo, as she
suddenly found herself standing on a world turned upside down. With
the smoke, not rising up but pouring down, like the sands of an
hourglass. Filling the void below her with sparkling grains, that
hinted at an eternity she could scarcely imagine.

Standing on the hard rock of the plateau, and away from
the warmth of the fire, Alyssa felt a chill run through her. A cold
wind had descended, swirling about her and bringing with it the
rustling sound of leaves falling through the branches.

At least, it sounded like leaves, a look up told her
otherwise.

Against the star filled backdrop of the heavens, a dark
cloud moved overhead.

Warm bloodied, predatory and scurrying through
the night sky, the black cloud was alive. The fire had attracted
moths, and they in turn, bats. The sound of their leathery wings,
causing Alyssa's skin to crawl and her shoulders to haunch.

She walked a few paces back to the fire, and took hold
of the last of the three logs Galvyn had placed there. Alyssa held it
above her head, while wrapping her other arm around herself for
reassurance, bowing her head in reflection.

The flame she held aloft
overcame the darkness, and the sounds of the menacing
creatures above her diminished, until only the breeze in the trees
remained.

Alyssa slowly raised her head and stood impassively,
staring into the blackness of the mountain before her.

She
anticipated screams. Expecting the very mountain itself to scream at
her through the mouth of the cave. Standing as she was, just a few
hundred yards away from the tallest of the peaks.

She cowered beneath
the near vertical wall of stone, that towered above her and crushed
her with its sheer presence.

Yet, there were no screams.

It had not been long since the bearers of the two other
torches had run into the cave. Not much more than a minute, it should
have been enough time. Long enough for Kormak to have caught Galvyn.
Perhaps he had been mercifully quick.

If so, her brother could emerge
from the deathly silence at any moment. He would walk out, with the
deed done and honor restored. At least, Kormak would think honor was
restored. She would know differently. Not that she would say
anything. How could she? What use would the truth serve now?