Exile's Challenge (55 page)

As Chappo died, Goso heard her say, “We'll eat well this night.”

The Breakers with her laughed; the Tachyn who had seen the slaying cringed and gasped. Ripples of alarm spread, and doubt. The watching crowd separated and the discussion at the center paused.

Goso stepped a pace back, Chappo's blood on his shirt. He clutched at his belt knife, then looked at the woman's challenging smile and loosed his grip, hands raised in gesture of acceptance. He heard her say, as if from a distance, “I am Bemnida, and I serve my master, Akratil. Do you argue with us, you know your fate.”

Goso saw her eyes travel to Chappo's body and nodded, swallowing the bile that rose in his throat. He feared his belly should empty, for it was hard to see a friend slain so casually—harder still to hear it announced that friend be eaten. He wondered what manner of allies Chakthi had found.

From where he sat with Akratil, Chakthi watched uncaring.

Akratil said, “Not all your folk are with us, it seems.” He gestured to where the woman dragged Chappo's body away.

Chakthi said, “So? They'll follow me, do you give us this land.”

“Is that all you want?” Akratil chuckled. “That's no large thing.”

“This land,” Chakthi said, his eyes shifting away, back, “and revenge for our banishment. Vengeance on Rannach—I'd have his head. And Morrhyn's; and I'd take Ket-Ta-Thanne for my clan alone.”

Firelight shifted over ornate armor as Akratil shrugged. “Easily done. Which first?”

Chakthi glanced at Hadduth, and for all his own awe and—were he to admit it—fear of the Breaker, could not contain the contempt he felt at his wakanisha's fawning. Hadduth was entranced: he stared at Akratil as if the man were a god whose every word was holy law. Chakthi felt anger stir and said, “Hadduth promised me Rannach. He said that Debo's taking would bring me my son's murderer.”

“It has,” Akratil said. “You know where they are.”

Chakthi snarled. “Yes! But they hide behind the magic walls of the fort! I cannot reach them there—the magic defeats us.”

“You, perhaps,” Akratil returned. “But us?”

“Give me Rannach,” Chakthi said. “The rest later.”

“The one,” Akratil said, “leads to the other. But Rannach—yes; and soon. Your grandson?”

Chakthi shrugged. “I promised you his life, no? Do you still want it, then it is yours.”

“It matters nothing now,” Akratil replied. “A sacrifice was required, and that we got. But perhaps he'd make good eating.”

Chakthi shrugged.

Akratil said, “So, we go first against this fort,” and laughed. “I'll give you Rannach's head, and those of any with him. My word on it.”

The sun shone bright and warm out of a sky devoid of all save a few wind-shepherded flocks of rolling white cloud; swallows and martins swept the heavens, and Fort Harvie stank of corruption. Crows and magpies sat the walls, waiting for the living inhabitants to depart, and rats scuttled boldly to the corpses. They went ignored by the five men who watched the wilderness forest from the ramparts, where the breeze blew stronger and somewhat took away the stink of death.

Rannach asked, “You're sure?”

“Yes.” Davyd nodded miserably, wishing he were not. “Chakthi would have his revenge, and so they'll come here first—to take your head, and all those with you.”

“And then?”

Davyd shrugged. “I dreamed no more than that. Salvation or Ket-Ta-Thanne? They might turn either way. But they are coming!”

“And the People?” Rannach asked. “Do they come?”

“I don't know.” Davyd shook his head. “Perhaps. The Maker help me, Rannach, but I cannot know for sure.”

“You dreamed it,” Rannach said.

“And much else,” Davyd replied. Maker, but with this warm sun on him, why did he feel so cold? Save it be presentiment of his own death. “I am not Morrhyn, that I can give you the clear yea or nay of it. I only know that the People
might
come—or not—and the only thing I can tell you for sure is that the Breakers come here in search of you.”

Rannach grunted. Debo found missiles to hurl at the carrion birds so that they rose in skirling flocks above the fort—and
then came back to settle anticipatory along the walls. Arcole translated for Var and Jaymes.

Var said, “Are these folk bad as you describe, then we'd best be gone, no?”

Jaymes said, “To where?”

Arcole said, “I don't know. Can we get past them, through the wilderness? Perhaps reach the hills and find the Grannach?” He glanced at Davyd. “Or the People coming to our aid?”

In turn, Davyd translated for Rannach, who said bluntly, “Were I Chakthi, I'd put men all through the woods, so that none might pass unnoticed. I think it should be very difficult to go back.”

Var said, “If all this is true, then all Salvation stands in peril.”

Jaymes said, “You doubt it? You saw the ghosts, no? You know what they did in Grostheim an' here. You know the other forts are likely the same, no?” He gestured at Davyd. “You think he's wrong?”

Var shook his head reluctantly: “No.”

“Then we have to decide what we do,” Jaymes said. “Folk'll need warnin' of this, else it'll be nothin' but slaughter.”

“But what,” Var asked, “can we do?”

They looked to Davyd. As if, he thought, I were the Prophet; as if I need only dream and give them answers.
Maker help me!
He stared at the bright sky, watching the birds dart and swoop, and shook his head. “If we stay here,” he said at last, “I think we shall all be slain. I doubt the hexes on this fort can hold the Breakers out. And even can they, we shall starve. So we must go.”

“Where?” Arcole asked.

Davyd shrugged again. “I don't know.”

“Well,” said Abram Jaymes, “if Rannach here thinks we can't make it through the wilderness, there's not too much other choice, eh?”

They looked at him and he sniffed, spat tobacco, and said, “We need to leave, else we're all dead, no? We don't have enough horses to carry everyone—so we go by the river.”

Arcole said, “How?”

“We build us a raft,” Jaymes said, “an' float downstream. We get away from this place.”

“To where?” Arcole demanded, touching the scar of exile that decorated his cheek. “Back to Grostheim and the gallows? I'd not welcome that. Remember that Davyd and I are branded exiles.”

“An' I was sentenced to hang,” Jaymes said. “An' Tomas here deserted his post to save my life, so likely he's proscribed outlaw an' renegade, too. An' Rannach's a savage Jared Talle an' more'n a few landholders would shoot on sight. But what other choice we got? They need to know what's coming at them.”

Arcole said, “I'll not go back to Grostheim. What does it matter to me if that place dies? Let the Breakers have it, and damn the Autarchy. Let the God's Militia fight the Breakers and the Tachyn—and may they slay each other.”

Davyd said softly, “They won't: the Breakers will conquer. Save …” He broke off, shaking his head.

Var said, “Most of the garrison is dead. The madness took them and they slew one another. Andru Wyme's dead, and Alyx Spelt. I think that only marines defend the city now.”

“An' there's another thing,” Jaymes said. “Grostheim's full o' folk like you—the ones with the brand on their cheek. You think they should die?”

“Not them,” Arcole replied. And looked to Var. “But why should I help your marines, or any other Evanderans? You brought us here, no?”

Var nodded. “Yes, I did. I served the Autarchy and obeyed my orders. But now …?”

“Can we not learn from one another?” Davyd asked. “Look at us! The Maker knows but we're different, no? Rannach's Matawaye and I'm a branded exile like you, Arcole. Major Var's an officer in the God's Militia, but he's standing with us alongside Abram and talking of fighting the Breakers. And if we don't fight them, then all is lost—Salvation and Ket-Ta-Thanne, both. You and Var fought the sea serpent together, no? Why not fight together now?”

Arcole said, “And if we do bring word? What then?”

Abram Jaymes answered: “A new order, a different world. Not Evander's rule, but Salvation's. No more branded folk—only
free men an' women. Nor any Inquisitors or the God's Militia or governors—only folk who live here; free.”

Arcole looked at Var, who ducked his head in agreement and said, “I find I've come to agree with Abram. Evander's no more right to claim this land than these Breakers, or Chakthi. Salvation should have the right to govern itself, free of the Autarchy.”

“And shall the Inquisitor agree this?” Arcole smiled dubiously. “Or the soldiers of the God's Militia? Shall the landholders agree to free their branded servants? Shall all those folk who came here to make their fortunes agree to sever ties with Evander?”

“They might just agree to be independent,” Jaymes said. “Talle's not exactly popular, nor the Autarchy. An' remember—there's more branded folk in Salvation than free men.”

Davyd said, “Are the Breakers not defeated here, they'll conquer and go on.” He frowned at the blue sky. “Likely to Ket-Ta-Thanne first, but then across this whole world. That should be a dreadful slaughter, Arcole.”

“My marines will fight,” Var said. “But they're not so many; and are they unready.… ”

“You ask me to aid that which put this on my face.” Arcole touched the scar on his cheek. “I committed no crime, save to kill a man in a duel of his own choosing—and for that, Evander branded me and made me exile.” His voice grew bitter. “I was sent indentured to this land for that, and now you'd ask me to aid the ones who did that to me. Why should I?”

“I'd ask you to help the branded folk,” Jaymes said.

“And I'd see the Breakers defeated,” said Davyd.

Arcole said, “I'd go back to Ket-Ta-Thanne. Let the Breakers have Salvation.”

“It cannot be that way.” Davyd shook his head. “Do the Breakers conquer Salvation, then they'll next come to Ket-Ta-Thanne, against the People.”

“Then let us warn the People,” Arcole said. “Let's go back to the mountains.”

“No, we cannot.” Davyd shook his head again. “It's as Rannach says—those paths are too well guarded.”

He turned to the Commacht akaman, translating what was said, and Rannach stared hard at Arcole.

In the tongue of the People he said, “Do you remember when you first came to us? I saw that mark on your face and could not believe men could do that to one another. I said then that I'd aid all like you—I say it again! We must warn these folk of what comes against them.”

“Even do they slay us?” Arcole demanded.

“Even so,” Rannach answered. “We've a duty to the Maker, no?”

Defeated, Arcole shrugged: “So let's build that raft.”

They gathered wood as the sun stalked fast across the sky—lengths of timber and barrels for buoyancy; ropes to lash the makeshift structure together. It seemed barely large enough to hold them all, and surely not the horses that they turned loose. They gathered up what supplies they could find and stowed them ready to mount on the raft. At least Arcole and Davyd had ammunition for their muskets, powder and shot in ready supply from the fort's armory.

The day lengthened, shadows spilling deep beyond the walls as the sun closed on the wilderness forest and began to decorate the timber with dancing light and shadow in harlequin patterns that tricked the eye and hid the shapes that came out from the trees.…

For they were hard to discern. Their armor seemed to take in light and throw it back all tricksy, so that they rode as if between day's light and night's, and could not be clearly seen but only came on astride slavering beasts that defied imagination in their ghastly delineaments.

Davyd
felt
them coming and shouted for the others to hurry with the raft, but even forewarned he was horrified by what he saw. Tekah had described them to him, and Rannach and Morrhyn, but … what were they, that they sat such creatures? That they wore such armor; that from them emanated so awful a sense of wanton destruction? He felt his belly cramp and his hands shudder as he leveled his musket and squeezed the trigger.

He could do no more: he felt a great calm possess him, and
something go away from him and something else open before, perhaps better. He had wanted—so badly, so much—to be a wakanisha, as was Morrhyn. To follow the Ahsa-tye-Patiko, which denied the Dreamer warrior's rights—the right to kill. But as he saw the Breaker slung from the saddle to tumble backward over the strangeling beast's hindquarters and dropped fresh powder into his musket, spat a ball into the muzzle, tamped it down and sighted again, he felt only the savage satisfaction he'd known as he slew Chakthi's warriors.

He sighted on the animal—what was it: lizard or lion?—that still charged roaring at the walls and put a ball between its eyes. The thing dropped, an obstacle that tripped those behind, and he shouted—needlessly, for all the others could surely hear the roaring—“Make haste!”

The rifles of Var and Jaymes cracked, Arcole's musket a deeper sound. Then they were clambering aboard the raft, Rannach and Arcole and Var pushing the fragile craft out from the bank, hauling themselves onto the planks as the current took hold and they began to drift downstream. Debo stared at the approaching riders and wailed in terror. Rannach thrust him down, unshipping his bow. Davyd reloaded his musket and thought better of firing—he was not so good a shot that he might find a kill from the swaying platform, but surely he felt a great desire to slay such abominations as charged to the river's bank.

He stared at them as arrows cut the air and splashed into the water. The sun was far westered now, the light translucent as it faded, drifting over their rainbow armor so that they seemed to dance in light and shadow, the Tachyn who rode with them drab figures, mundane in comparison for all their war paint. The Breakers were beautiful as tempting sin, and that contrast of beauty and evil was such as spun his mind. He thought he understood Hadduth's seduction, and Chakthi's, and wondered how the People had fought such beings—his musket stood forgotten in his hands as he stared, awed. It was as if the terrible grandeur of the strangeling folk entranced him.