Exile's Challenge (2 page)

Bemnida raised her head and obeyed, urging her mount on until it stood alongside his.

“So, Bemnida,” he said gently, “tell me of this magic.”

Bemnida looked a moment confused. Akratil smiled at her, and motioned that she speak.

She licked a thread of blood from her lips and said, “It was as if they knew of our coming and rallied against us.” Then paused, nervous under that red-eyed contemplation. “As if they owned such magic as warned them. And showed them how to escape.” She gestured at where the gate had stood.

“Some did know of us. Those who'd hear us and take our way, whose ambition chooses the dark path.” Akratil's smile was feral, like a wolverine savoring a kill. “Some I … spoke with.”

“Yes.” Bemnida ducked her head in agreement. “But the others, those we fought here … They
knew
. Why else did they gather here?”

“Perhaps those little dwarvish folk warned them.”

“How?” she asked. “What few we left alive were surely trapped in their tunnels, in the hills. How could they have
brought word? They used no riding animals and this is a wide world—how could they have traveled so far in time?”

Akratil nodded. “Indeed. So, how did the others know? Save they do own some scrying.”

Bemnida, encouraged, said, “And more. Such magic as enabled them to fashion that gate and flee our wrath.”

“And that,” Akratil said. “Which was surely great magic.”

Bemnida nodded.

“Great as mine?” asked Akratil.

“No!” Bemnida shook her head vigorously, soft golden hair flying in a cloud about her bloodied face.

Akratil spoke as if she had voiced no denial. “Great as that Power we serve?”

Again Bemnida shook her head, her denial louder now. “How could that be? Is the day mightier than night? I say, no—that the darkness conquers light, and that we are the darkness of all the worlds' light, and the Power we serve is surely the greatest of all.”

“But they escaped us.” Akratil's voice softened, a vocal caress, as if he whispered endearments to a lover. “We came to this world and have conquered all until now. Until we came through those hills and fought these folk. None others have stood against us, none others have escaped us.”

Bemnida said nothing.

Akratil said, “Think you some other Power aided them, Bemnida?”

“It is not my place to say.” She bowed her head.

Akratil reached out, setting a talon to her chin, raising her head until she looked into his eyes again. A droplet of bright blood welled from his touch, trickled unnoticed down her slender throat. “It would seem that you alone own the courage to speak, to think. And now that you have begun, I'd hear the rest.”

Bemnida's eyes flickered around. The surrounding horde stood silent, attentive as a wolf pack awaiting the kill. The moon was westered past the Maker's Mountain now and shadows flung from the hills, the serried peaks bathed in patterns of silver and jet. Into the silence an owl hooted three times. Bemnida said slowly, “Perhaps there was a Power; perhaps they called on it.”

“Perhaps.” Akratil chuckled softly. “After all, is there that Power we serve, why not another?”

“Yes.” Bemnida essayed a smile that failed to reach her troubled eyes.

“And that Power effected their escape?” Akratil said.

Bemnida said, “I suppose it was so. How else could they flee?”

“Save aided by a Power great as ours.” Akratil nodded thoughtfully. “Save aided by magic great as mine.”

Bemnida sat on her strange mount in silence.

Akratil said, “Which cannot be. There cannot be a Power greater than that we serve, nor magic greater than mine. Are we not that dark side of all beliefs—counterpoint to the feeble imaginings of the creatures we destroy—were we not created to reive worlds in dark judgment of betrayal and dishonor? Was it not dishonor and betrayal called us here?”

“So it is,” Bemnida agreed, lowering her head. “It is as you say.”

“Even so, they did escape us!” A man, torn-faced and bloody, urged his mount from the throng. He wore armor dented in battle, carmine in color. “And to me that suggests such a Power as Bemnida speaks of. Think on it, Akratil: are they protected by some Power equal to our own, then surely it were better we leave them go. We were never defeated before—only now—and we've not the means to chase them. I say we let them go.”

Akratil said, softly, “Is that your true thought, Yuell? That we leave off our duty, forsake our honor?”

Yuell shifted nervously in his saddle. His mount pawed the trampled ground. He said, “It is. You saw the gate they made, and you know we cannot follow them. Whatever Power guards them must surely be great as ours, and has closed that pathway.”

Akratil said, “Perhaps,” and looked to Bemnida. “What think you?”

“That we have a duty,” she said, “and can we pursue them, then we must.”

“We lost many here!” Yuell gestured about the Meeting Ground. “Too many! I say we look to other worlds.”

“I'd have these folk,” Akratil said, a gauntleted hand closing
as if it crushed some soft thing. “I'd not so easily admit defeat, nor betray our cause.”

“They're gone!” Yuell argued. “We know not where—only that they are gone beyond our taking.”

“How say you?” Akratil asked Bemnida.

And she answered: “That you are our leader, and I shall follow you down all the roads of time and space, to all the worlds.”

“Then kill me this upstart.”

Bemnida's blade swung clear of the scabbard in a fluid motion that delivered the edge to Yuell's neck in a swift, sweeping arc that severed the skull from the body and sent it rolling across the grass.

From the arteries of Yuell's throat thick columns of blood fountained high, black in the moon's light, lesser spoutings from the veins. His body jerked, dead hands tightening on his beast's mane, so that the creature roared and bucked, tossing the corpse clear of the saddle. It landed heavy and still, the carmine armor all streaked with gore. The head came to rest against a tussock that held it staring sightlessly at Akratil, the blank, dead eyes fixed on his. The mouth was stretched wide in a rictal smile that seemed adoring.

Akratil, too, smiled, and touched Bemnida fondly. “That was well done.”

“Thank you.” Bemnida sheathed her blade, and gestured at the snarling lion-thing: “Calm it.”

A Breaker whose armor was all jet black save for the crimson sigils on chest and back ran forward, bearing a long pike. He prodded the animal, shouting, and it ceased its rumblings and retreated slowly.

“Take that away.” Akratil pointed at the corpse, the head. “Feed it to the animals.”

He waited until that task was done, then faced the horde again and said, “There was magic employed here, that these folk escaped us. But there exists no magic greater than mine. Nor any Power greater than that we serve.”

He danced his weird horse around, and from the horde came a great shout of agreement. He let it ring awhile, then raised a gauntlet, motioning his followers silent.

“These folk have escaped us—for now! But amongst them
are some I've spoken with in dreams, some who take our way. Some, I know, have chosen our path. They're mine: I've their scent in my nostrils, and I can find them. I can find them in the night, when they sleep; and when they dream of conquest and vengeance, they leave their spoor on the shadow trails, along all the roads of blood and darkness. They shall show us where they are, and bring us to them.”

He smiled a horrid smile, his face still handsome but also torn and burning, as if the malign purpose that made him what he was shone through, the skull beneath the skin exposing its deformity.

Bemnida stared at him, adoringly.

“We shall leave this world, to find the other where our prey has gone. They shall not escape us! Set up the pavilions here, and feed the beasts on the fallen. We wait here until I find the way. But know this—I
shall
find it! It matters not where they are, or when. We
shall
find them and destroy them. We shall reive them and their new world; we shall give it all to death, that they know the price of betrayal and dishonor.”

Arcole held his musket across his chest, thumb ready on the hammer, finger tensed against the trigger. For all these folk appeared friendly—and surely Davyd felt no doubt of their benevolence—they still looked to him altogether too much akin to the demons, and had Colun betrayed him and Flysse and Davyd, then he'd sell his life dear. They could not escape, not with the mountains at their back and their Grannach escort and these others there in such numbers as must surely overwhelm them, but he'd not die easy: he'd come too far, chanced too much—he'd take as many as he could with him, should they prove hostile.

“They're friends.” Davyd's voice was urgent, nor less the hand that clutched Arcole's, pinning it still that he not fire. “Listen to me! They're friends, I tell you!”

Arcole glanced sidelong at the redheaded youth. There was an authority born of conviction in Davyd's voice, as much in his green eyes. He seemed no longer the boy, ever willing to follow, but a man now, commanding in his certainty.

Behind him, Flysse said, “I believe Davyd is right, Arcole.”

Her voice was soft—not quite emptied of nervousness, but still calm, as if she would accept Davyd's judgment, as if she elected to his belief rather than her husband's suspicion. Arcole looked at the silver-haired man whose eyes shone bright as a winter sky, whose mouth was stretched in a smile, as if old friends came at last to home after too long away. He seemed only welcoming, and Davyd was a Dreamer, whose talent had brought them safely here.

“You're sure?”

Davyd said, “I've dreamed of him,” and turned confidently to the man. “Morrhyn?”

The white-haired man lowered his head in agreement and touched his chest and said the name again, then pointed at Davyd and spoke his name. Davyd laughed before he nodded answer. Morrhyn opened his arms, and—to Arcole's great surprise—Davyd stepped forward into the embrace as if the father he had never known came back from the sea to greet him.

Arcole frowned, confused, and turned to Flysse. “This goes beyond my understanding.”

She smiled and hooked an arm through his, which made it quite impossible to use the musket even had he deemed it necessary, and said, “Do you trust no one? Surely Colun's proven his friendship; surely Davyd's proven his dreaming.”

Arcole shrugged, guilty now, and said, “Yes. But even so, they
are
much like the demons.”

“Davyd explained that,” she said. “Colun told him they all came from the same place, no? But these folk are enemies of the demons, and it was Colun's Grannach saved us from them. And nursed you back to health.”

Arcole nodded. “I know, but …”

He had no opportunity to say more, for Davyd was standing before him, the man called Morrhyn at his side, and all the rest clustering round, speaking amongst themselves and to the newcomers as if this was some great and anticipated event for which they had been waiting.

Then Morrhyn raised a hand and silence fell. He spoke with Davyd, the words quite incomprehensible to Arcole or Flysse, so that Davyd must translate.

His young face creased as he struggled with the unfamiliar language. “This is Morrhyn.” He ducked his head toward the white-haired man. “He welcomes us to this land, where we shall be safe from …” He shrugged. “This is difficult, but I think he said from the demons or anyone else who chases us.”

“Difficult?” Arcole frowned. “I hear noises like water over stones, or the wind in the trees, but you understand? How?”

Davyd's face assumed an expression that was both embarrassed and delighted. “I don't really know,” he said, “except … I think Morrhyn taught me in dreams.” He shrugged.
“Like in the Grannach caverns? When I could almost understand Colun? It's as if …”

He hesitated, faltering for the words. Morrhyn touched his shoulder, spoke, touching his forehead and Davyd's, gesturing at the high hills, his hands moving in a pattern that was itself language.

Davyd chuckled and ducked his head as Arcole watched in disbelief, aware he witnessed some kind of communication that lay just beyond his comprehension.

“You remember I told you I'd dreamed of a man like Morrhyn?” Davyd said. “Well, I did; and he dreamed of me. Of us. He knew we were coming—that's why the Grannach were waiting for us, and Morrhyn's people. They're called …” He hesitated, stumbling over the name so that Morrhyn repeated it slowly. “Matawaye. They live here, the Grannach in the mountains.”

“I understand none of this,” Arcole said.

“Nor I,” said Davyd. “Not really; only that it happened and I
can
understand them. Or most of what they say, at least.” He frowned. “I've much to learn, but Morrhyn says—I think—that I shall. And you, in time. But most important, we're safe here. The demons cannot pass through the mountains.”

“Nor Wyme's Militia?” Arcole asked.

Davyd chuckled. “Through the mountains? Didn't you say they'd not even come into the wilderness?”

Arcole nodded. There was magic at work here, such as he failed to comprehend. He was familiar with the hexing powers of the Evanderan Autarchy, knew somewhat of prophetic dreaming, but this was something else: as if the passage through the mountains imbued Davyd with the gift of tongues. Or it was as the young man said—that Morrhyn had reached out in sleep to teach this odd and guttural language to the youthful Dreamer.

For surely Davyd understood sufficient that he might play the part of interpreter: urged on by Morrhyn, he began to introduce folk.

The tall young man whose black hair was fastened in two long braids with silver brooches was named Rannach, and he was some kind of leader. He was very handsome, his features
aquiline and somewhat stern until he smiled, and then only sunny. Arcole held out a hand, which Rannach stared at in confusion; then Rannach touched his own to his chest and extended it palm outward. It was, Arcole supposed, the manner of greeting in this unknown land, and he aped the gesture, at which Rannach and the others beamed in approval.