A Prayer for Dead Kings and Other Tales (32 page)

He blinks.

Something is changed. The fight is done.

The druid Gadro, the priest Caris both lie in the mud to either
side of him. Gadro is motionless, choking breath through the haze of blood from
a shattered nose. Caris is moving, scrambling back with one arm hanging, the
bone broken to judge by the pallor at his face and the pain that turns his
breath to a rasping hiss.

Three others are down, crawling away. All the White Pilgrim can
think on is that he cannot remember which side they stood for.

Then was Gilvaleus sent to Kalista Keep in Magandis in the
North, where King Astran was a most fair man, but in the conflict between King
Telos and the Usurper did acknowledge Thoradun, who had promised to leave the
lands of
Magandis
free as long as its folk paid fealty and fought
at Thoradun’s behest. Thus did Irthna know that her Son would be safer in that
city than in any of the courts of the Southlands where Thoradun might think to
seek him, and no suspicion cast on him there.

The White Pilgrim looks to see blood on his hands. A torn swatch
of someone’s tunic is clutched in shaking fingers.

“I will not fall…” he whispers, but he knows not why. The cloth
slips from his grasp, twists like a sanguine leaf as it falls to the ground.

So was Gilvaleus named as Guderna, and was called a Squire’s
cousin’s son as he was sent into service in the armories with name and memory
not his own. But there was he quickly made a source of scorn, whereby the sons
of Squires and Knights called him farmhand, and Gilvaleus-who-was-Guderna soon
grew the repute of a hard fighter, who would not turn from taunt or jest. And
all such affronts were met instead with all the strength of the Young Prince’s
heart that not even the mighty magics of Irthna his Mother could undo, which
told him that against taunt or threat or the beatings of those that were his
masters now, he would not fall.

“Trust to the gods,” he stammers. “Trust to their judgement, but
do not…”

Then one day was the Young Prince assigned to a Knight’s train
as handler of arms to walk alongside the pack horses, and in this train were
two Squires on horse who were two that had taunted the boy they called Guderna,
and who laughed now to see him under their own orders. And in the train was a
Fair Girl, in the livery of a noble house but cloaked and hooded, who was to be
escorted from Kalista to the City of Lysar.

“Others will not understand. Others will claim to see the truth
of one thing… of other things. Do not make yourselves… Do not make your faith
the target of others’ wrath.”

“Begone, heathen!”

But on that road at sunset of the third day was the Knight’s
train attacked by the White Giants of the Northlands, that pressed down for
their dark hunt from the icy shoulder of the Drachen’s Teeth. Brave fought the
Knight but was thrown down, and his Squires did flee to save their own lives.
Then the Young Prince did take up fallen sword and stand alone against the
horde, and shouted that the Fair Girl should flee, and on his life he would
stand and fall in her defense.

The priest is on his feet now. Folk who stood facing each other
just moments before stand together now behind him.

“Leave your fane as rubble for the Black Duke’s eyes,” the White
Pilgrim says, “as you take your faith to hearth and field and make all your
places holy…”

“Begone! Take away your false words and the blood on your hands!”

But the Fair Girl did not flee, and standing back to back with
the Young Prince, she threw off cloak and hood and he was sore amazed to see
the Daughter of the King Astran, fair Cymaris, who carried the power of the
Sorcery that was her blood birthright from her Mother. Then fighting side by
side did the two vanquish the howling threat of the Giants, and Cymaris slew
their master, though the Young Prince Gilvaleus who she knew as Guderna was
sore wounded and near death.

Nothing more to say. Nothing more he can do. The White Pilgrim
stumbles as he turns. He feels a new ache in his shoulder, the knuckles raw on
his bloody hand. Through the mud of the field and toward the track, his eyes
are watering as he limps toward the setting sun.

And with magic draughts that were her Father’s gift, Cymaris
brought the bloodied Young Prince to health. And she said ‘Thou wilt come with
me and be safe, for I see the strength in thee and would not squander it for
service to those less than thee.’ And seeing her, the young Gilvaleus who knew
not that name knew her fairness, and felt a longing unaccustomed as she held
him and they took horse and rode away.

Ahead, the alder copse is beaten copper, black branches clawing
at the molten sky. Raised voices echo from behind him, but the White Pilgrim
does not hear. He blinks away the pain of the light, casts all thought aside.
Tries to begin the process of forgetting what happens here.

From the edge of the tree line, a figure watches him.

A smooth silhouette stands against the flame-roiled sky, holding
in the lee of a twisting trunk. Diffuse light etches rough-skinned bark,
arm-branches raised overhead as in warning. Through the blur of his sight, the
White Pilgrim sees the shadowed face, the straw-gold hair. The girl’s blue eyes
are bright. Watching with a look that tells him she watches for some time.

And then she is gone, slipping back into shadow with skirled
cloak and the faintest trace of footsteps across the forest floor. The White Pilgrim
stumbles, slows even as the sound of distant hoofbeats rises and falls. Riders
are passing on the well-traveled wain road to the west. A haunted cry comes
sharp in his hearing as a sunset-hunting falcon is flushed from the distant
trees.

Then all is quiet again. A breath of wind rises, seeming to
whisper in words. It takes the White Pilgrim a moment to realize that the words
are his.

And in the court of King Astran did Guderna who was Gilvaleus
find himself presented to Cymaris’s Father, and on her word, the King made him
one of his Daughter’s protectors, and claimed for him rank and pay besides. So
did the Young Prince’s hand once more hold the sword that he had been trained
to, the best blade in his Father’s court at twelve Summers. Then soon was he
training Cymaris to the blade, so that her skill was awe and wonder to her
Father and the court, and the Young Prince claimed the captaincy of her
Father’s guard, and Cymaris with her Sorcery was her Father’s advisor and heir.
And the Young Prince loved her, and sought his life at her side for all time.

He feels an emptiness twist through him, but he knows not why.

The White Pilgrim is cold suddenly. He feels the call of the
track he follows, the track that leads him here, that will lead him past the
copse where the Golden Girl stands a moment before. The track he knows he must
follow, though he knows not why. He pushes through a screen of black saplings
and copper shadows and is gone.

DARKNESS IS CLOSE, the sky cut by claws of shadow. His
pace is hobbled by the pain at his heart, and by the new ache he carries as a
reminder of the fight he leaves behind. He stoops once to wet his hands with
the rank milk of black toadstools, scouring the blood from them with clods of
dead leaves.

He listens, not sure what he fears to hear. In the shadow that
fills his mind suddenly, he sees the Golden Girl’s face. A vision that he
quickly forgets, letting the image slip away as he gazes beyond it.

Only a dream, he tells himself. He does not understand.

Ahead, the trail rises gently to be lost in a clearing. A broad
well of stony turf and leaf mold spreads within the sloping tree line, grey in
the last light of dusk as he approaches. Something presses on the White Pilgrim
now. He is wary, but he knows not why.

Ahead, a ring of giants are hunched in the shadows, lurking in
wait. He falters. His hand strays to his waist by forgotten instinct, grasping
only empty air.

He shakes his head to clear his sight, vanquishing the trick of
the eye that transforms a cluster of ruined huts. The clearing is a hunting
thorp long abandoned, wind blowing faintly through bare trees. From behind him,
a nighthawk calls.

And in that time, the greatest Knight of Marthai and Veneranda
was Nàlwyr, of the Ilvani of the Danawood, who had learned his skill at arms at
the hands of his Father, who was a bandit and rogue and bard of great legend of
that forest. But Nàlwyr had broken with his Father when but a youth of fourteen
Summers, and made his way to Hypriot and sought service in the Prince’s Company
but was rebuffed for lack of noble blood.

“You fight well for a greybeard.”

He hears the voice as laughter, ringing like a clear bell. Six
paces away, a wedge of stone thrusts up from grey grass. The Golden Girl sits
there, nearly invisible in the falling dark. Waiting for him. Watching with
eyes the blue of burnished steel.

Then the young Nàlwyr made challenge to the Captains of the
company, and the Captains scoffed, saying ‘We fight Warriors, not children full
of pride and hubris, so go now boy, back to thy family and thy fate.’ And
Nàlwyr’s eyes of steel blue flashed as brightly as his blade as he issued challenge
again to Sergeants and Knights and Squires in turn, who scoffed and turned
away, except for one.

The White Pilgrim sees those steel-blue eyes following as he
twists his gait, sweeps around the Golden Girl as if she might be puddle or
sinkhole, a rock or bole blocking his path. Her hair is long, the gold of
rain-fresh straw. Tied back and swept beneath the collar of a travel-stained
and much-patched cloak.

He sees silver at her ears, a bright gleam even in the failing
light. Four rings at the left, two at the right. The twist-thickened silverwork
of the forest Ilvani, the style of all the folk of the Great Woods. The White
Pilgrim does not notice before. The Golden Girl’s face not seen so closely in
his dreams.

He stumbles where his foot is clutched by a gnarled stump of
root, thrust up from the ground, unseen in shadow. He remembers a dream. Riders
in a village, hunting a girl whose name he does not know.

And that one was the Prince Sestian himself, who trained with
his troop in their armor and in the livery of a Captain, and was accorded no
sign or symbol of rank in battle, for he had pledged to fight always as the
companion of all those who served him, and to fall at their side if fate so
decreed. And Sestian said to Nàlwyr ‘In this time of war, any who offer to lay
their blade and life for Land and People shall be accorded the respect of a
Knight, even though they lack the skill and heart.’

The White Pilgrim walks on into shadow. He hears the Golden
Girl’s soft footsteps fall into place on the path behind him.

He tries to not think on these things anymore.

“You’ve traveled far by your look,” she calls. “Pilgrim, are
you?”

The huts vanish into darkness behind as he falters at the edge of
the clearing. He seeks for a moment to find another trail twisting into the
trees, barely visible. Black branches grasp like witch’s fingers as he pushes
through.

“You must have a name, wanderer,” the Golden Girl says, voice
close at his ear. His mind judges her size as he sees it, gauges the sound of
her step and finds it harder than it should be, even for a long road. A weapon
at her hip. Armor to make the weight he hears. And something else.

“Call me Justain. My father named me for the justice and the
peace that is the legacy of the true high king.”

“You prattle, child.”

The White Pilgrim hears the anger in his words as if from a distance.
Someone else speaking with his voice. Something is wrong. Something is changed,
but he does not understand.

“I mean no offense, sir, even as I note the fall of night. Two
travelers on the same road by chance would be wise to camp together, this far
from the villages. I have food that I am happy to share. A tale,
perhaps
.”

“I walk alone.”

“I have walked alone. For too long. I grow tired of walking
alone.”

Then the Prince Sestian faced the boy Nàlwyr, whose blade sang
the song that his Father had taught, and who disarmed his Prince and master
never knowing his name. And Sestian’s Captains and Knights were enraged and
came to their Prince’s aid, but Sestian bade them hold, and ordered each of his
Knights in turn to face the boy.

“You do not walk,” he says. “You run. At the sound of horse by
sunset. Hunted by the Black Duke’s riders.”

And when each Knight had fallen to Nàlwyr’s arm and the bright
singing of his blade, then did Sestian order his Sergeants to the field, and
then his Captains. And in the end, all laid down their arms and begged quarter
of the boy, and the Prince Sestian called Nàlwyr to him and made known his
name, and Nàlwyr bent to his knee and was ashamed for the hubris he had
unwittingly shown his Prince and Liege. But Sestian named him Knight, and said
‘Thy days of shame are done, and legends will be made of thee.’

The White Pilgrim does not look back, but he feels the fear that
threads the Golden Girl’s silence. “You’ve seen them?” she says at last. “The
riders?”

“No.”

“Then you know nothing, old man.”

“I know that no forces save the Black Duke’s ride in Sannos now.
Duke Hestyoc has sued for peace. Arsanc controls lands on both sides of the
Farwash and the Vouris.”

“Arsanc’s ambition is as empty as his deeds. This land belongs to
the people, and a true king worthy of them.”

“This land belongs to the Orosana and those who hold the faith of
the Twelve who forged Gracia from rock and iron.”

Her pace quickens then. She slips through the trees alongside
him, will not lose him, a pale blur in the shadow. “Arsanc is a pretender to
greatness. He claims the legacy of a past that does not belong to him, as he
claims a nation he has no right to rule.”

“I care not who rules Gracia, any more than I care why a wayward
girl holds the Black Duke’s interest.”

The twisting trail breaks suddenly to a wide dell, a dark slash
across its heart marking the east-west road that they are circled around to
meet. First starlight streaks the trail and the trees, and the haze above that
marks where the waning Clearmoon hides out the day in the darkening sky. The
White Pilgrim stays his course toward the road, intent on pushing past the
Golden Girl where she walks facing him, her light step avoiding obstacles she
cannot see.

But then from the corner of his eye, he sees her falter. Hand to
her breast, she clutches at something beneath her tunic.

The hoofbeats come a moment later, faint in the distance. Fear in
the Golden Girl’s face, in her voice as she spins to scan the black track
behind them. “We must get off the road.” She holds a rapier in hand, drawn too
quickly for the White Pilgrim to see it. Its fine blade is a line of silver
starlight in the gloom.

“I walk alone,” he says.

Torchlight through the trees now. They come from the west, cantering
fast. The steady thud of their approach is a deadly drumbeat, muffled by the
trees.

“Please…” she says.

“Please yourself and get back to the woods.”

“I can’t.”

He hears the pain in those words. He does not understand, but his
anger wavers. “I will tell them I saw you near the fane. You headed south
across the fields. Menos keep and watch you.”

“I won’t leave you. I’ve searched too long for you…”

That stops him. The White Pilgrim turns, stares through starlight
and shadow.

“Gilvaleus…” she whispers, but he only shrugs his aching shoulder.
Not a name he knows.

They are standing that way, face to face, the Golden Girl’s blade
still drawn as the horses thunder in. They pull up short with shouts and a haze
of dust. Four riders in tight formation, all with torches blazing and cloaks
wrapped tight against encroaching night. The leader is tall, hair shorn in the
manner of a seasoned campaigner. He barks an order in the rough tongue of
Norgyr as the riders spread out, surrounding the White Pilgrim and the Golden
Girl as she turns to go back to back against him.

A circle of shifting horses and weapons surrounds them. Two
crossbows. Two of the short sideswords that the Norgyr favor from horseback,
blades triple-tempered blue-black and razor honed. The four warriors are road
weary, eyes dark. Keeping close, but wary of the Golden Girl’s blade hanging
steady in her hand.

The leader raises a torch. He meets her defiant gaze with a cold
smile, but it is the White Pilgrim he speaks to.

“Your name, old man?”

“The name I once bore is lost to my sins and past, my lord. I am
only a pilgrim in all the gods’ names.”

The warrior laughs. He is younger than the gaze of his dark eyes,
face seamed with the faint scarring that healing magic leaves behind. Like so
many of the Norgyr, his skin is burned by wind and sun even in the nascent
spring. His pale hair hangs long, beard short, both knife-cut roughly. He wears
leather like the others, a shirt of ring mail hanging loose over it. Like the
others, he wears the black boar on the red band at his shoulder. His is set
with two blades in white that mark his rank.

“I am Gareyth, sergeant to my Duke Arsanc,” the warrior says.
“What business have you with this girl?”

“None, my lord. She met me on the trail and ignores my pleas to
leave me be.”

Behind him, he hears her breathing quicken. She is afraid now,
which makes him realize she has no fear before. Not caring about the Black
Duke’s forces, but cut by the White Pilgrim’s words.

“Let me help you then.” The sergeant lowers his sword, swinging
it behind him to mark the White Pilgrim’s path out of the circle and into the
empty night beyond.

“Denas walk with you,” the White Pilgrim says to the Golden Girl
as he goes. He looks back to her, sees her eyes wet as he limps carefully between
the horses, head bowed.

The sergeant, Gareyth, speaks to the Golden Girl. The White Pilgrim
is already forgotten as he slips into the darkness.

“Days to the king’s conclave, and half the armies of Thorfin and
Reimari are scouring Gracia for you, bastard brat. The pains you’ve put me and
my troop through, you should be thankful that my Duke Arsanc has ordered you
brought to him undamaged.”

The White Pilgrim hears but does not understand. He is a dozen
paces past the Golden Girl, past the riders. The empty altercation is already
on its way to being forgotten.

But he slows. A compulsion he does not understand twists through
him as he turns back.

The Golden Girl’s response to the sergeant’s threat is a blur of
grey steel that arcs out as she moves. The closest rider fires a crossbow,
aiming low for the leg. The Golden Girl counts on that, leaping as the bolt
strikes dirt behind her, then using the force of her movement to drive the
rapier through the soft back of the warrior’s leg and into the flank of his
horse beneath.

The beast screams in pain, bucking backward even as she ducks below
it. The warriors with crossbows find their line of fire broken. They draw
swords instead, joining the sergeant as he fights to keep his horse in position,
block the Golden Girl’s escape.

She makes no move to flee, though. The White Pilgrim watches her
weave between two of the northern knights, defying the advantage of elevation
as she parries both their blades, drives the rapier through the hand of one and
sends him tipping from the saddle. His torch tumbles to the ground, his
uninjured hand groping for his fallen sword, but the Golden Girl sends the
blade outside the circle of combat with a furious kick.

The torch is snatched up in her off hand, the Golden Girl
spinning to lock it to the rapier as she cross-blocks the sergeant, slashing at
her shoulder. She hurls the flaming brand at his horse in turn, the beast
rearing as it dumps him unceremoniously to his back.