Lyrec (15 page)

The others arrived fast, but not in time to save their comrade.

“It’s his own fault,” Elforl stated coldly. “Stay together. Now both of you stay with me or we’re dead men.” They nodded. “He wants a horse. He can’t get across the tors without one. We make sure they’re all tied together and then we can sit back and wait for him to try and take one. The alternative is we follow him.”

“I’m for killing him,” said Abo, hotly.

“Agreed,” said his partner. “I can’t wait in this fog—I’ll be seeing him everywhere.”

Elforl shook his head at their foolishness. “Very well. We go hunting. But stay together.”

They started at the camp, spread out to cover the entire circle, close enough to see one another. The fire crackled, hiding any soft sounds beneath its own. The men watched the shadows with straining eyes.

Nothing moved. No one came out to face them.

There was a thump and Abo toppled onto his back. The other two rushed to him. He lay with a bleeding gash in his forehead. The rock that had struck him lay not far away.

Elforl peered into the darkness admiringly. “This one’s not interested in heroics—he’s a canny one. We should have killed him this morning.” He looked at the last man left him. “Well, we can hardly go on or he’ll brain us both. We’re too slow—we’re targets. Same is true if we sit still. We go into it fast now, together. Come on.” He ran forward. The other soldier raced after him, not wanting to be abandoned in the fog, tracking Elforl to be sure he wasn’t swallowed up by the mist. He didn’t see the small black shape leap out from above.

Borregad landed on the soldier’s shoulder and dug in his claws to hang on. Then he lashed out across the soldier’s cheek and neck.

The man danced in agony. He grabbed at the weight on his shoulder, twisting his face away to protect it. His hand closed on empty space. The weight of the cat landed on his other shoulder. Huge black eyes stared into his. He cried out and swung his sword up to kill the fiendish thing. Borregad dropped away an instant before the sword struck, slicing into the soldier’s own shoulder. He fell to his knees, clawed at the ground with one hand while his other tore at the hilt, dislodging the sword from his wound. He rolled over, found the blade again, and lay on his back, ready for anything that might come to get him. He wondered fearfully where Elforl was.

*****

When he heard the cry behind him, Elforl turned in time to see his man cut into his own shoulder.
Witchcraft!
“He’s making us kill ourselves.” He heard a sound behind him and acted on it before the realization had even come to consciousness. The jeit stick whipped the air ahead of him, striking nothing.

The figure stood beyond its reach. Elforl could make out the shadows of the eyes, the darkness of the beard. He moved ahead, expecting at any moment to be deceived by some spell, to see monsters come at him. “I wish I’d smashed in your skull this morning,” he said. The figure did not move or answer. “The captain was a fool to bring you along. Abo tried to tell them you were a sorcerer, and they ignored it.” The figure shifted stance, presenting less body to him.

Elforl carefully took out his dagger. He lunged with the stick, swinging it up at the figure’s head from the side, following it with a low dagger thrust at the abdomen. With a minimum of motion, Lyrec’s sword swatted the jeit stick in one direction and swung back to block low in the other. The dagger screeched along the blade.

Elforl retreated in anticipation of an attack, but none followed. He was amazed at the precision of his enemy’s movements—how could the fellow have learned such swordplay since this morning? And how was it that he held the sword so well in hands that should have been swollen and useless by now? So he was indeed Kobach. He must be killed quickly before some further phantoms emerged.

Elforl lunged again. He brought the jeit stick around in a spinning circle, nearly impossible to fend off with a sword.

Lyrec stuck his sword straight up, blocking at such an angle that the blade pared into the haft of the jeit. The two weapons stuck together. Elforl jerked the stick away fiercely and the blade snapped in half. He used the backward tug to drive his other hand, and the dagger, forward. The blade should have sunk into the center of the shadowy figure, but somehow it missed, and his hand rasped against leather. Elforl tried to draw it back for a second stab, but it would not come free: A hand had closed upon his wrist like a manacle. Elforl brought the jeit up again, swung it as he tried to yank his arm free. Instead of resisting, Lyrec launched into him, twisting and throwing him off balance, and ducking in too close for the jeit stick to strike. Elforl lost the dagger and stumbled as Lyrec caught the jeit’s metal ball in his free hand and gave a sudden sharp pull. The Ladomantine had to run forward or else give up his remaining weapon. He realized just before both his feet left the ground that Lyrec had brought him to the edge of the buttertub. “Fools,” he uttered, took one final helpless swipe with the stick, and vanished into the pit.

Lyrec knelt down to retrieve Elforl’s dagger. He glanced over his shoulder into the buttertub.
I hated that.
 
He was very good in his way—master of an art.
 
He heard what he assumed was Borregad approaching and turned back casually.

The soldier with the shoulder wound stood wavering, trying with all his might to hold his sword steady for a killing blow. His face was pasty and shone with the painful exertion.

“Put it down,” Lyrec said. “Put it down now and stop.”

The young soldier’s eyes opened wider. His agonized face twisted, and with a snarl, he launched himself in a charge. He struck at Lyrec, but Lyrec had already moved. The sword cut into moist ground, the soldier ran up against it. His boot split open. The blade sliced into his foot and he shrieked. He tripped and stumbled to one side, away from Lyrec, who made a desperate attempt to grab him as he plunged into the hole. The soldier’s scream ended abruptly with a crack, followed by the sound of sprinkling stones.

Lyrec stared at the embedded sword in disbelief.
They’re crazy, Borregad.
 
Did you see him?
He drew it out of the ground, and threw his broken one into the pit.
He could have put down his sword—he could barely hold it. He preferred to die.

The cat emerged from the shadows ahead.
And you risked your life for the likes of them.

I don’t understand this behavior.

Poor innocent.
 
It’s simply that—Lyrec, behind the stone!
The cat scrambled to one side as the tip of a sword cleaved the ground where he had stood. Lyrec drew back two paces and raised his new sword defensively.

From behind the rock, the Ladomantine captain stepped into view. He watched Borregad fleeing into the fog. “Rotten beast, I’d forgotten about you.” He looked up at Lyrec. “Ah, did you think I was dead? You’re too gentle and humane, foreigner, to live in our kingdom. You should have slain me. Too bad, because that’s not the sort of mistake I’m likely to make. I want you.”

“Do you?” replied Lyrec. “Perhaps I’ll enlist. If the likes of you can reach such a lofty post just think of how high someone with a brain might go.”

“I’ll cut you into little pieces!” The captain charged. His sword swung out in an arc aimed at Lyrec’s jaw. Lyrec batted it aside with the slightest of parries. The captain muttered a curse and came on again. His blade whistled through the air, but his target moved back a step and slapped down his blade with enough force to pull the captain off balance. He stumbled back into position, growled, and made a blind, enraged run at Lyrec. With both hands he swung the sword down.

Lyrec stepped aside and stopped it against the flat of his own. The two blades rang, sending shock-waves into the captain’s arms that nearly broke his elbows. For a moment his sword touched the ground, his arms were drained of strength. In that moment of helplessness, he expected to die; but Lyrec did not attack. The captain shook sweat from his brow and smiled to himself. An honorable man…well, he’d warned him about showing kindness.

“I-I’ve no fight left in me,” the captain feigned. “What did you…my arms, they’re so weak.”

“Put down your sword and let me see.”

“Why would you help me? We’re enemies.”

“You’re proud of that, aren’t you? You enjoy being somebody’s enemy.” He took a step forward. The captain jerked his sword straight up at Lyrec’s groin. But it whined against metal and stopped. In his left hand Lyrec held Elforl’s dagger parallel with the ground. The sword had driven against its haft. Lyrec glared at the captain. “And a liar, as well.” He pushed down with the dagger, took a step over the sword.

The captain saw death in the black eyes. He bounded away, drew back his arm and then thrust to impale Lyrec. He watched, unable to believe his eyes, as his opponent’s blade skimmed precisely around his own and turned it to the side.

Lyrec slammed his dagger into the captain’s breastbone. The captain convulsed and choked. The sword fell from his grip, lie looked imploringly at Lyrec and saw all consideration erased from that face.

Using the dagger as a handle, Lyrec lifted the captain off his feet. The Ladomantine’s fingers clawed at the air, his body shook with spasms he could not control. Each step Lyrec took brought the captain more pain—an escalating, protracted agony. Bright glitter ringed his vision. Vultures screeched in his ears. Then the pain lessened and he experienced a moment of great calmness and clarity. The dagger had gone. He floated in space above his enemy. Lyrec seemed to be moving away. The captain realized that he’d been thrown into the pit. He was reaching his arc, beginning to descend with nothing below. “Wait!” he sobbed. “Wait, wait now,
please!”
The last word became a long scream that pursued him into the black abyss and did not end so much as fade like a ghost into the background of the night.

Lyrec marched away from the pit. He paused only to take the captain’s sword and fling it into the buttertub, too. He could hear Borregad trying desperately to communicate with him, but he sealed himself off.

Engorged by a new emotion, he required solitude. This was not something he ever wanted share with anyone. Most of all, he never wanted Borregad to know how much cruel pleasure he’d just felt.

Chapter 10.

Alcemon, the baker of Trufege, tugged at the jacket of the man going up the trail ahead of him and said, “He’s mad to make us do this.” He meant this to be a whisper for the ears of his comrade alone, but the night was crisply cold and Alcemon’s words carried all the way to the man about whom he was speaking—Varenukha, the priest of Trufege.

Hearing what was said, Varenukha stepped off the trail and motioned the others to keep going. He watched the shadowy shape of the short, swarthy baker approach, and considered how to deal with him. It was imperative that he undo Alcemon’s doubt, quash it before it spread like disease through the group. They had almost reached the top of the ridge. In a few minutes they would look down on the valley of Ukobachia. This was no time for doubt.

Weighed down by the bundle of torches he carried, Alcemon trudged up to Varenukha without even seeing him. The tall, thin priest simply pulled the baker out of line.

Before Alcemon could react, Varenukha’s sour breath was warming his cheek. “Did I hear you say I’m mad?” His scowl sharpened the lines of his face, repeated in the crescent of his mustache.

The unnerved baker surprised Varenukha by defending his statement. “We’re going to do murder,” he said.

The priest shook his head, then patted the baker on the shoulder. “No, Alcemon, no. That’s where you’re so wrong. These are not people—they’ve defied their humanity through their irreverence to the gods. Do you think I lied when I said Chagri came to me in a vision? This is our god’s work we do.”

“What about the messenger who came to you?”

This question was so unexpected that the priest could not speak for a moment. Alcemon had seen the Hespet’s messenger. Likely they all had. But the baker had perceived a relationship between that and what they were about to do; and if Alcemon, no gifted thinker, had concluded this, then it was likely the whole party of villagers suspected it. Varenukha wasted no time. He spoke loud enough that some of the others would overhear. “That man brought a message to me from the Hespet—an invitation to Lord Tynec’s coronation. I told him my duties here are too pressing. His appearance and our undertaking this night are utterly unrelated.” He scanned the faces going by, faces that made a point of not looking at him. They must believe him, and Alcemon must be convinced so that he in turn would convince others. Varenukha climbed more than a mountain this night— he climbed a notch higher in his quest for the Hespetacy. More significant by far than being assigned priest to a village of heretics, a victory here would be something the Hespet and others never forgot. Varenukha had succeeded in taking control of them more than anyone had anticipated. Now he would prove it by leading them into Ukobachia. Judgment was at hand for the witches.
 

Turning back to Alcemon, the priest produced his fiercest gaze. But the baker was not ready to be intimidated yet. “I want to know what is the word of Voed?” he asked. “You mention Chagri—you
always
speak of Chagri. But what of Voed? What does he say?”

“It’s Chagri that your village
—our
village, for have I not accepted it as mine?—it is Chagri you have all offended. His word, his visitation is synonymous with the word of Voed. Do you reject that? Are you willing to blaspheme further after all the heresy you people exercised? It’s a wonder you aren’t being burned alive right now!” Spittle shot from his mouth, he was so angered. With great effort he steadied his voice. “You lost your wife the last time, Alcemon. It’s your own existence that hangs in the balance now. Yours and theirs.”

The baker cowered at that: whatever else he doubted about the priest, he believed completely that Varenukha could have Trufege razed and the inhabitants killed. He reached out to touch the priest, but pulled back, afraid to make contact. “Forgive me, priest, I only ask to understand. That’s all. No heresy of thought or deed.” He backed away onto the trail where another of the villagers—one less given to questioning—shoved him on his way up the mountainside.