Three Coins for Confession (38 page)

Farenna slowed often, the rest of his riders spilling out of
formation behind him. When he did, Chriani could see a pulse of pale blue light
at his hands as the captain held the bloodstone talisman high, its steel chain
wrapped around his fingers. With no one but Dargana behind him to see, Chriani
made the moonsign more than once. This was only the light of Farenna’s magic,
though, the dark chip of stone still showing no pulse of blood-red the one time
Chriani circled close enough to see.

It was strange to his eyes to see a mage armored in mail, but the
Ilvani sorcerers were also warriors by nature, proficient with weapons and
armor in a manner the Ilmari war-mages almost never rose to. Or perhaps the
Ilmari mages simply embraced any excuse to stay out of combat. Farenna’s
chain-clad arm was set outstretched and sweeping before him each time they
stopped, his eyes closed as if he was sensing the direction of the unseen
connection between the relic and those who created it. Then he would spur ahead
without a word, the others following down side trails or pushing through
undergrowth and pale bracken to reorient their course.

Over a long first day of riding, that course led them steadily
north, Chriani judged, watching daylight shift through the trees as the day
wound on. The unseen sun was bright above them, the light filtering down from
the canopy as wind-shifted waves of green. Without that light, Chriani was
certain that his sense of direction and distance would have been long gone.

They made short stops at regular intervals as they had before,
Chriani feeling less fatigue overall as his body grew accustomed to the rhythm
of the grey beneath him. His balance had continued to improve, so that he had
less need to lock his legs as tight to the horse’s flanks as he had behind
Farenna.

While they rested, the Ilvani focused on their horses more than
they did themselves. Chriani did his best to rub down and clean the grey
without the felt and tools his ranger’s saddlebags had always held, following
Dargana’s lead when he needed to. The animosity he had felt from the Ilvani on
the ride from the Hunthad had mostly been replaced by a lesser indifference on
this ride. Taelendar remained the exception, her expression ice cold each time
Chriani’s gaze accidentally crossed hers. The other Ilvani had yet to speak to
him, though. Chriani kept his distance, did his best to give them no excuse.

They took their long rest after dark that night, Chriani more
than ready to sleep by the time they stopped. He sought out Farenna first,
though, not used to the silence of the ride that had left too many questions
churning in his mind.

The captain sat alone as he ate, but he nodded to welcome Chriani
where he crouched beside him.

“How do you ride, friend Chriani?”

“Haven’t fallen off yet. I’ll take that for now.”

Farenna smiled as he offered Chriani a portion of his bread, but
Chriani shook his head. Not hungry for some reason. Too much on his mind.

“How much farther?”

“We break the wall of Muiraìden at daylight,” Farenna said. “Were
we to cross the sand hills at speed, we would be within and nearly across
Nyndenu before the sun falls. But our goal is closer than that, I think.”

Chriani didn’t know whether it was some lingering sense of having
had Veassen in his mind, or just his unexpected immersion into this new world
over the previous two days, but his understanding of the Ilvalantar was sharper
somehow. “You can tell where the cult is? Your magic?”

Farenna nodded. “The lóechari’s power as I sense it is not far
into the forest. A reason, perhaps, that our patrols have seen no sign of them.
They would understand that moving within sight of the wall of Muiraìden would
give them away.”

“What about griffons? Can they see us from the air?”

“The gavaleria reach into Crithnalerean only under extreme need.
The griffons sense the old magic there. On the ground, the Calala have pushed
north in secrecy, to hide their numbers and purpose from Ilmari patrols. That
stealth works to our advantage, for now.”

They broke out from the Greatwood as the sun was rising
molten-bright to the east, as Farenna had said. On any map Chriani had ever
seen, the Ghostwood was an island of the Greatwood, splintered off from
Muiraìden by the open space of the unmarked border between Crithnalerean and
Laneldenar. He had seen that border from the north and at a distance, marking
it as an expanse of sand hills that cut between the great stands of trees. Seen
from the south, though, that narrow sea of sand was marked with an archipelago
of dark groves that spread out between the two forest walls, like the Ghostwood
had been torn away from the Greatwood and left a trail of fragments behind.

The ruined groves where Dargana had taken him and Lauresa were
the forest’s northern flank, close to the Clearwater Way and edged off by the
scorpion wastes that spread into the Sandhorn. Chriani and the Brandishear
rangers had passed within far sight of that flank as they rode the Clearwater
Way two weeks before, but Chriani had kept the shadow of what happened there
far down in his mind.

All the land from the Sandhorn to the Greatwood in the south had
been the territory of the Crithnalerean exiles. Dargana’s people. But Dargana
had called the Crithnalerean broken now. They saw the signs of that as they rode
north, making their way carefully across the unseen frontier. They slipped from
grove to grove when they could, watching for a long while against the threat of
patrols, then sprinting across open scrub and sand into the next pocket of
green. In each sheltered copse, they saw abandoned settlements —
well-built shelters and corrals blended seamlessly into the trees, almost
invisible until they’d been stumbled into.

Chriani saw broken arrows scattered, signs of horses having
stampeded. No bodies, though. No evidence left to warn Ilmari patrols of
whatever clash of Ilvani had happened here.

The sun was at its height as Farenna called an unscheduled long
stop within a broad grove of limni, the Ilvani watering their horses at a small
stream that twisted through the trees and north toward where the wall of the
Ghostwood loomed. That was the direction the captain faced as he knelt with the
talisman in his hand, shrouded at the edge of the grove. The pulse of
blue-white light that surrounded the relic was brighter now.

“Stay sharp.” Dargana’s voice came from behind Chriani, her black
mare sidling toward him. “If there’s trouble, this is where it starts.”

“I’ve fought the Ilvani before.” Even at a whisper, Chriani’s
response caught the attention of Taelendar, who gave him and the exile a dark
look.

“You’ve fought the Ilvani on your ground,” Dargana said. “Along
the frontier. You’ve never seen Ilvani fight Ilvani in their own lands. Just
watch yourself.”

Chriani simply nodded as he stepped his horse forward. Dargana spurred
up to stay alongside him.

“Watch out for the unexpected,” she added, but in Ilmari. Her
voice was the faintest hiss in Chriani’s ear, not wanting the others to hear
her.

His response was lost to a change in the echo of the grove behind
them. The wind was faint within the trees, but it shifted suddenly. The sound
deadening, then rising again. Drawing closer. Dargana and Taelendar both heard
it as he did, twisting their horses around, shifting back into shadow as they
drew weapons. Their movement was enough to alert Farenna and the others, blades
drawn and gleaming in the half-light. No one spoke.

The war-band appeared through the trees as a straight-line
attack, racing toward them in unnatural silence. Not just the voiceless assault
that was the Ilvani trademark, but a deadening of all sound that could only
come from spellcraft, and which had let the Ilvani draw close enough to mount
their ambush. They were a force of six in matching grey leather, some kind of
uniform Chriani had never seen before. Most had blades in each hand, their
horses running free, silent hooves tearing the ground.

Even as they closed, Chriani saw the flash of gold in all the
grey-armored Ilvani’s eyes.

It happened almost too fast to follow. Farenna’s riders spread to
both sides as they shot forward, Chriani following Dargana by instinct. Trying
to choose a target as the Ilvani squad split to surge past on both sides.
Hoofbeats rose from out of the silence as they did, Chriani sensing how that
silence was centered on the lead rider. That leader was the first to fall,
Farenna racing past him with sword and long-knife raised, flashing in silence
and a spray of blood. Then the ambush leader had fallen and his spell was
broken, and the drumming of hooves filled the grove as the Ilvani tore each
other apart.

Chriani had fought against the Valnirata a half-dozen times.
Those dark days along the Clearwater Way. Minor skirmishes on the frontier,
including the assault that had followed him to Rheran without his realizing it.
He had grown up on tales of the deadly battle prowess of the Valnirata. Had
seen it directed against him and the rangers who rode at his side. But before
seeing that combat skill unleashed against itself, taking both sides of the
battle, Chriani realized he had never seen and could never have imagined the
full extent of its deadly perfection.

As they had when pursuing the rangers from the Greatwood that
day, the Ilvani rode at full speed — but toward and through the
enemy ranks, not away. No one fleeing, no one seeking distance or trying for
range. Horses crashed past each other through the trees, twisting in and
cornering back in impossibly tight turns, no one slowing. Blade on blade rang
out again and again, coursing like a whirlwind of blood and steel.

Chriani wasn’t fast enough to be part of it. His horse was
surging, trying to run, but he was balking at the reins, the trees of the grove
too close. He desperately wanted to take up his bow, but there was too much
cover. Too much movement for him to focus, though that didn’t stop the Ilvani
from firing point-blank. Arrows hissed into the center of the fray from riders
on the outside, were slashed from midair with sword and knife by riders at the
center.

The attacks of the archers were joined by the bright light of
spell-fire, flashing to all sides now. That light was the warning that let
Chriani spin to see an Ilvani warrior crash into view ahead, racing straight
for him.

He kept the reins lashed tight in his left hand, felt the
backsword’s unfamiliar balance as he arced it into motion. He caught the
downward slash of the figure’s sword on his own blade, ducked below the
follow-up attack of the long-knife that arced above his head. Then the Ilvani’s
golden eyes went wide as Chriani twisted around, following through the arc of
his swing to hack through muscle and bone at the shoulder. The warrior lurched
as he was torn from his horse’s back, tumbling to the ground.

Chriani thought of Kathlan. Thought of the wonder she might feel
to see this fight play out, the perfection of movement in horses and riders. A
stray thought, tugging at him. Making him falter as another Ilvani surged past
him, slashing out. The grey moved to evade, faster than Chriani could ever have
commanded it. He rolled with the horse but got his blade up too late, the
Ilvani tagging his shoulder with her long-knife as she flashed past.

The grey had twisted around and was racing after the Ilvani by
the time Chriani realized she was breaking from the grove. Fleeing north. He
dropped the reins and pulled his bow, the sword tossed to the ground behind
him. Instinctive action, not thinking. Passing out of the trees and into bright
sunlight, a hundred strides of open ground spread out ahead of him, the Ilvani
warrior already halfway to the green shadow that marked the wall of the
Ghostwood. She was riding a twisted course around low stands of scrub, keeping
anyone behind her from a straight-line shot.

Chriani made no attempt to guide the horse, letting it pick its
own course as he twisted to adjust his position. He let two arrows fly, saw one
of them hit, catching the Ilvani in the shoulder. She lurched but held on,
disappearing into the trees.

Hoofbeats rose from behind him, Chriani realizing that they’d
been following him the whole time. Though he felt like his horse was running at
full speed, Dargana and Taelendar were beside him, then past him, racing into
the trees where the cult warrior had disappeared.

A dozen paces into shadow, Chriani saw them pull up quickly. He
nearly lost his balance as the grey slewed to a stop.

In a stone-strewn clearing, the Ilvani warrior and her horse were
both dead, a long swath of torn moss and scattered rock marking where they’d
fallen. To judge by the way Dargana and Taelendar were circling, watching the
trees warily, neither of them had been the ones who finished the warrior.

Chriani moved in closer, paced the grey around the dead Ilvani.
She’d been caught under the horse as they’d both dropped, its weight holding
her fast now as the last of a deep-rooted convulsion took her. He saw the flash
of gold at her mouth. A coin gleaming through a trickle of blood.

The horse falling made no sense to Chriani, and he wondered if
the throes of the Ilvani’s unnatural death had spooked the animal, sent it
tumbling to break its neck. Ilmari horses often shied from spellcraft, but
surely the horses of the Ilvani would be inured to magic. Unless the power of
the coins carried a darkness that even the Ilvani steeds would fear.

He wondered further at what had dropped the warrior in the first
place. His arrow shouldn’t have been enough to kill her, but she might have
been wounded already. Or perhaps her fleeing the battle had triggered the death
that her confession to the cult had promised her.

From the corner of his eye, Chriani saw the pulse of blood-red
light at the fallen warrior’s wrist.

He was off his horse without thinking, Dargana hissing a warning
that he ignored. The hunter’s heart that the lóechari wore was a match to the
ones they had tracked him with before. A jagged chunk of bloodstone set in
gold, strung on silver cord this time. But this one was pulsing as brightly as
the first talisman had when Chriani found it. The Ilvani dead in the black
grove, his body broken before the forest shrine.