Winter Warriors (16 page)

Slowly the beggar peeled off his wretched coat and the soiled shirt he wore beneath it. “And your footwear,” said Dagorian. “You may keep your breeches. I think I’d rather hang than wear them.” The man’s body was fish-white in the moonlight, his chest and back crisscrossed with old scars—the marks of many whips.

The officer donned the clothing and the coat, then sat down and pulled on the man’s boots. They were of cheap hide, the soles as thin as paper.

“You’re the one they seek,” the beggar said suddenly. “The killer Drenai.”

“The first part is right,” Dagorian told him.

“You won’t pass for a beggar. You’re too clean. Well scrubbed. You need to lie low for a few days, let your hair get greasy, and get some dirt under your fingernails.”

“A pleasant thought,” responded the Drenai. Yet he knew the man was right. He looked at the beggar, who had made no
attempt to clothe himself despite the chill of the night. He is waiting for me to kill him, Dagorian thought suddenly. And that is what I should do. “Get dressed and be on your way,” he said.

“Not very bright, are you?” said the beggar, pulling on the fine blue woolen shirt and giving a gap-toothed grin.

“You’d prefer it if I slit your throat?”

“It’s not about preference, boy. It’s about survival. Still, I’m grateful.” The beggar rose and swung the black cloak around his thin shoulders. “You’d better start thinking about a hiding place. If you can stay clear of them for a couple of days, they’ll believe you escaped from the city. Then you can make a move.”

“I do not know the city,” admitted Dagorian.

“Then good luck to you,” said the beggar. Holding the boots in his left hand, he moved to where his knife lay and picked it up. Then he was gone.

Dagorian moved away, ducking down a dark alley. The man was right. He needed a place to hide. But where could a man hide from the powers of sorcery?

He felt the rising of panic and quelled it. The White Wolf had taught him much, but the most valuable lesson was that when in peril, keep a cool head. “Think fast if you have to, but always think!” Dagorian sucked in a deep, calming breath and leaned against a wall. Think! Where can the powers of sorcery be held at bay? In a holy temple. He considered traveling to one of the many churches, but that would mean asking for sanctuary. The building might be holy, but he would be putting his life in the hands of the monks. And—even if they did not betray him—he would be risking their lives. No, that was not an option. Where else, then? At the home of a friendly sorcerer who could place ward spells around him. But he knew no sorcerers—except Kalizkan.

Then a thought struck him. The old woman who had been killed by her son. She had laid ward spells on all the doors of the inner room.

Dagorian carried on walking, trying to get his bearings. The old woman had lived in the northern section of the old
quarter. He glanced at the sky, but there were thick clouds and he could see no stars. He walked on for an hour. Twice he saw soldiers of the watch and ducked into the shadows.

At last he reached the woman’s house. Moving to the rear, he scaled a wall and entered the building. There were no windows in the back room, and Dagorian lit a lantern. Blood still stained the walls, and the rune stones remained scattered on the table. He glanced at the two doors. Both bore the carved triangle and the snake.

Hoping that the ward spells were still active, he blew out the lantern and moved to a narrow bed in the corner.

Sleep came instantly.

He was sitting in a cave, and a fire was burning. He felt hot and confused. “Be calm, child,” came a familiar voice. He tried to place it and remembered the shining figure who had rescued him at the wizard’s house
.

“What am I doing here?” he asked, sitting up and looking around. The cave was empty, and when the voice spoke again, he realized it was coming from the blazing fire
.

“You are not
here.
There is no
here.
This is a place of spirit. Your body lies in the woman’s hovel. It was a good choice. They will not find you.”

“Why do you not show yourself? “

“All in good time, child. Have you put together the clues? Do you even begin to understand what is happening?”

“No. All I know is that Malikada wishes me dead.”

“Malikada cares nothing for you, Dagorian. You are an incidental in a great design. Kalizkan—or the creature that calls itself Kalizkan—is a demon lord of enormous power. He seeks to cast the Spell of the Three Kings. If he succeeds, the world will be changed beyond the recognition of man. It will become as it once was. The demons will be flesh once more, and the two worlds will become one.”

Dagorian raised his hand. “Stop for a moment. This is making my head spin. The two worlds? What is the meaning?”

“Eons ago the creatures we call demons lived among us. Shape shifters, blood drinkers, were beings. We were at war with them for a thousand years. Then three kings came together
,
and with the aid of a mighty wizard they changed the world, banishing the demons to another place, a gray realm of spirit. Sorcerers can still summon demons using blood magick, opening the gateways for fleeting heartbeats. But when the spell is done, the demons return to the gray. Kalizkan seeks to repeat the Spell of the Three Kings.”

“And he can do this?”

“It has already begun, child. The Ventrian emperor was the first to be sacrificed. But the spell requires three deaths, each of kings, and each king to be mightier than the last. When the final death blow is delivered, the world will be cursed as it was in time past. The drinkers of blood will return.”

“Three kings? Then they will try to kill Skanda. I must get to him.”

“You cannot. His death is but hours away, and on the fastest horse you could not reach the army within a day. By this time tomorrow the Drenai army will be destroyed, and Skanda will be strapped to the altar.”

“Sweet heaven! There must be something I can do.”

“You can save the third king.”

“There is no king greater than Skanda.”

“There is his unborn son. If destiny allows him to live, he will be a greater man than his father. But Kalizkan plans to destroy him.”

“I could not get into the palace. They are searching for me everywhere.”

“If you do not, then all is lost.”

Dagorian awoke in a cold sweat. As he saw the solid walls of the house, relief swelled within him. It was a dream. He laughed at his foolishness and fell asleep once more.

Wrapped in his cloak against the night cold, Nogusta leaned back against the tree and fed another stick to the fire. Bison was snoring softly, the sound strangely comforting in the quiet of the night. Nogusta drew one of his ten diamond-shaped throwing knives from the black baldric draped across his chest and idly twirled the blade through his fingers. The silver steel gleamed in the moonlight.

Ushuru would have loved this place of high, lonely beauty, the vast expanse of the mountains, the wildness of wood and forest. She would have been happy here.
We
would have been happy here, he corrected himself.

Time had not eased the grief. Perhaps he had not wished it to.

His mind flew back, ghosting over the years, seeing again the huge living room. They had all been laughing and joking, sitting around the hearth. His father and his two brothers had just returned from Drenan, where they had negotiated a new contract with the army for a hundred horses, and the celebrations were in full flow. He could still see Ushuru sitting on the couch, her long legs drawn up beneath her. She was crafting a dream deceiver for Nogusta’s youngest nephew. A web of twisted horsehair woven around a sapling circle that would hang over his bed. Nightmares were said to be drawn to the deceiver and trapped in the web, leaving the sleeper free of torment. The twenty-year-old Nogusta moved to her side, placing his arm over her shoulder. Lightly he kissed her cheek.

“It is a fine piece of work,” he told her.

She smiled. “It will confuse the sleep demons.”

He grinned. She had learned the western tongue well, but her translations were always too literal. “Do you miss the lands of Opal?” he asked her in the ancient tongue.

“I would like to see my mother again,” she told him. “But I am more than content.”

She continued to weave the web. “Of what does Kynda dream?” he asked her.

“Fire. He is surrounded by fire.”

“He burned his fingers last week at the forge,” Nogusta told her. “Children learn by such painful mistakes.” Even as the thought came to him, a bright picture formed in his mind. A small child tumbling down a steep slope. As she fell, her foot became trapped under a jutting tree root, snapping her leg. Nogusta stood.

“What is it, my love?” asked Ushuru.

“A child hurt in the hills. I’ll find her.”

He kissed her once more, this time on the lips, then left the house. The memory burned at him now with exquisite pain. He had been twenty years of age and would never kiss her again. The next time he saw her, less than ten hours distant, she would be a corpse, her beauty destroyed by knives and fire. Kynda’s nightmares would have come true, flames roaring through his bedroom.

But this he did not know as he set out to find the village child. When he came upon her, she was unconscious. Freeing the child, he splinted the leg and then carried her back to the village. He had been surprised to find no search parties, and it was just after dawn when he entered the village from the north.

A crowd surged out from the meeting hall as he approached. The girl was awake now. Her father—Grinan the baker—ran forward. “I fell down, Daddy,” she said. “I hurt myself.” Nogusta saw that the baker’s shirt was smeared with soot. He thought it strange. Grinan took his daughter from Nogusta’s arms. Then he saw the splint.

“I found her by Sealac Hollow,” said Nogusta. “Her leg is broken, but the break is clean. It will mend well.”

No one spoke. Nogusta knew the villagers had little love for his family, but even so their reaction was strange, to say the least. Then he saw that a number of the men in the crowd also had scorch marks on their clothes.

From the back of the crowd came Menimas, the nobleman. He was a tall thin man with deep-set dark eyes and a mustache and beard trimmed to a perfect circle. “Hang him!” he said. “He is a demon worshiper!”

At first the meaning of the words did not register. “What is he saying?” Nogusta asked Grinan.

The man avoided his eyes. He looked down at his daughter. “Did this man take you away, Flarin?” he asked her.

“No, Daddy. I fell down in the woods. I hurt my leg.”

Menimas stepped forward. “He has bewitched the child. Hang him, I say!” For a moment no one moved, then several men ran at Nogusta. He downed two of them with a left and right combination, but the weight of numbers overpowered
him and he was wrestled to the ground. They bound his arms and dragged him to the oak on the market square. A rope was thrown over a high branch, and a noose was fastened around his neck.

He was hoisted up, the rope burning into his throat. He heard Menimas scream: “Die, you black bastard!” Then he passed out.

Somewhere within the darkness he became aware of sensation, warm air being forced into his lungs. He could feel the flow of it, his chest rising to accommodate it. Then he felt the warmth of a mouth upon his own, pushing more air into his starved lungs. Gradually other sensations followed: a burning pain on the skin of his throat, the cool of the ground beneath his back. Strong hands pushed down on his chest, and he heard a commanding voice. “Breathe, damn you!”

The warm air had stopped flowing now, and Nogusta, growing short of oxygen, sucked in a huge, juddering breath.

He opened his eyes to find himself lying on the ground, staring up at the leaves of the oak. The rope still hung from a thick branch, but it had been hacked in two. The face of a stranger swam into sight. Nogusta tried to speak, but his voice was a croak. “Say nothing,” said the gray-eyed man. “Your throat is bruised, but you will live. Let me help you stand.” Nogusta struggled to his feet. There were soldiers in the square, and twelve villagers were standing by under guard.

Nogusta touched his throat. The noose still hung there. He lifted it clear. The skin below was raw and bleeding. “I … rescued … a child,” he managed to say. “And … they attacked me. I … don’t know why.”

“I know why,” said the man. Turning to Nogusta, he laid a slender hand on his shoulder. “Last night these people burned your home. They killed your family.”

“My family? No! It cannot be!”

“They are dead, and I am sorry for your loss. I cannot tell you how sorry. The killers believed … were led to believe … that your family kidnapped the child for … some blood rite. They are simple and stupid people.”

The pain in his throat was forgotten now. “They didn’t kill them all? Not all of them?”

“Yes. All of them. And though it will not bring them back, you will see justice now. Bring the first!” he ordered. It was the baker, Grinan.

“No, please!” he shouted. “I have a family. Children. They need me!”

The pale-eyed soldier stepped in close to the pleading man. “Every action a man takes has consequences, peasant. This man also had a family. You have committed murder. Now you will pay for it.” A woman outside the ring of soldiers screamed for mercy, but a noose was placed over Grinan’s head and he was hauled into the air, his feet kicking out.

One by one the twelve villagers with fire-blackened clothes were brought forward and hanged.

“Where is Menimas?” Nogusta asked as the last man died.

“He fled,” said the soldier. “He has friends in high places. I doubt he will be convicted.”

Leaving the village to bury its dead, the soldiers and Nogusta returned to the burned-out estate. Nogusta was in deep shock now, his mind swimming. The seven corpses had been wrapped in blankets and laid out in a row before the ruins. One by one he went to them, opening the shrouds and staring down at the dead. The child Kynda was unmarked by fire, and his tiny hand was clutching the dream deceiver made by Ushuru. “Smoke killed him,” said the officer.