In the Red Lord's Reach Page 17

  Simir smiled at him, then. "You don't need your sword to be one of us," he said. "All you need is your music. You haven't sung for me yet today, my Alaric. My ears thirst for the sound of your lute as a dying man thirsts for water on the endless desert sands."

  "What do you know of desert sands?" Alaric said, smiling too.

  "Only what you've told me in your songs. Come, we'll go back to the camp and show everyone that you sing your best when Simir listens."

  "Yes," said Alaric, scrambling up and dashing out the fire with one swipe of his foot. "Yes."

  ****

  FOR THE NEXT few days, he was too busy singing to join the weapons practice, which, though it had slacked off since Simir's return, was still more common than before his departure—as if, in his absence, the nomad men had rediscovered some old fascination with sword and bow. Through all the daylight hours they spent encamped—and the summer days were long now—some bowman would always be sighting on his target, some pair of feinting, slashing, thrusting swordsmen would be testing each other's endurance. Several times, one of his regular sparring partners came to Alaric, trying to lure him to that afternoon's practice field. When he demurred, Zavia would tease him that he'd given up the sword because he kept stumbling over his own feet; and he would laugh and say she wasn't far wrong. Finally, though, he did go back, just for a short bout, because Simir wanted to watch him.

  "You're not as bad as you think," Simir said afterward. "You're not clumsy."

  "And sometimes I even hit my mark," replied Alaric.

  "That comes with time."

  "And discipline."

  The high chief nodded. "It's an exercise that brings strength. Not a bad thing to have, come winter."

  Not so much because he cared to spend his time so, but because Simir seemed to want it, Alaric took his sword up regularly once more. The other swordsmen were all glad to see him return, but he thought that was hardly because he was a promising student. Rather it was because, with him in their contests, every one of them could be assured of defeating someone.

  "I can feel the muscles of your arms and chest growing, my Alaric," Zavia whispered as she snuggled against him.

  He smiled at her in the darkness. "That pleases you, does it?"

  "Everything about you pleases me," she purred.

  He kissed her hair. "Then I am pleased as well."

  ****

  FOR ALL ITS value as exercise, the weapons practice was a measured business, almost stately in its movements, the movements of men who had no wish to harm each other. The best of them, paired off, contested most swiftly, sure of each other's skills, but even this was mere sport; when they wanted to show their fighting blood, they set up a wooden post and took turns hacking pieces from it.

  Berown watched their practice for some afternoons, his eyes following the arcing blades at first with indifference and then, at last, with hunger. When he asked to join, finally, there was some discussion of the matter, and a compromise was reached: no sword for him, but if he cared to spar with a wooden blade, they could carve a few, and several youngsters were willing to try his skill.

  He was awkward in the beginning, but that soon passed. He had been the Red Lord's man, and he knew something of sword and shield. He was, indeed, a good, middling swordsman, better than some but yielding to others. And though he took praise proudly, he also yielded with some grace—Alaric noticed that particularly, and it heartened him. It was a sign that the man was feeling easier in his new life. His companions had all begun to settle in, to learn new ways, to smile again, even to laugh; they had shut the past behind them. For Berown, though, Alaric had thought it would be harder, for he had been a leader back in the mountains, if only of a handful of ragged fugitives; and now… now he was nothing. But a wooden sword, it seemed, was giving him a place among strangers.

  They had not spoke to each other since that first day; they only nodded now and then on the afternoon's practice field. In the evening, in the long slow twilight that preceded the northern summer night, Berown stood at the edge of Simir's circle sometimes, as other people did, and listened to Alaric sing. There had been no trouble, no trouble at all.

  Afterward, though, Alaric thought that perhaps Berown had watched him a little too hard on those long evenings, with eyes that forgot to blink.

  How it began, he never quite understood—what particular thing provoked it, what he might have said or done. Later, witnesses said that Berown had been sparring steadily with his wooden sword, but not doing quite so well as usual, and reddening a little in the face. His assigned watchers were lax, had been so for some time, seeing nothing much worth watching in him, and caring more for the archery a few paces away than for a contest of wood against wood. Not far off, Alaric stood talking to another man, his sword point against the ground, his back to the wooden combat.

  He never knew whether he heard Berown's rush or just felt it somehow, a vibration in the ground, like the pounding hooves of a warhorse. He turned, and the man was there, looming, steel in his hand and rage in his face. There was no time to call for help, no time even to raise the sword and block the falling blow. Death looked into Alaric's eyes, and instinct claimed him. He vanished.

  He found himself far to the south, beyond the mountains, in the forest where he sometimes hunted, where the trees were close-set, and the game was scarcely shy of men. Safe. As he had always managed to be safe.

  He shook his head sharply and gripped the sword with rigid hands. They had all seen, a dozen and more of them, there was no escaping it. No darkness had been his shield, no smooth talk of delusion would cloud their memories. In an instant, Berown had stripped him naked to their eyes. Then let it be so, he thought, his teeth clenched so hard they ached. He would not run away this time.

  He willed himself back to the north, but a short space from the practice field, where the grass was high and no men stood.

  He saw them all before anyone saw him. They had fallen back from Berown, a ragged, wary circle in whose center the fugitive from the Red Lord's valley swung his stolen sword with vicious swiftness, and turned, turned, so that no one could strike him from behind. Then someone caught sight of Alaric and shouted and pointed, and a great commotion arose.

  They were cheering.

  They had seen, and they were cheering.

  Alaric felt a great love well up inside him for every man on that practice field, and just for a moment his vision blurred. They were not like other people, these nomads, not anything like them. He dashed the tears away with the back of one arm and straightened his spine. He raised his sword, and the hilt felt slick with sweat.

  "Stand aside, all of you!" he shouted. "He is mine!"

  They obeyed instantly. Berown was left alone, still slashing at air, but turning no longer. "Face me, witch!" he roared.

  Alaric did face him, in his own special way, appearing behind him, before him, to his left, his right, flickering like a flame, hardly there before he was gone again. Never had he used his power so completely, with such flexibility, not even the night he fought at Simir's side. Berown slashed a dozen times, twisting, turning, shouting hoarsely, but he wounded only empty air. Alaric's sword flickered with him, feinting, teasing, tantalizing, till at last it struck with a loud slap—not the edge but the flat of the blade, a stinging blow to Berown's calf. Another to his buttocks, a third to his belly, almost doubling him over with its force. Another to his head, to knock him over, and then Alaric's boot stamped on his sword hand and scuffed hard, and the blade went spinning free.

  "Yield!" Alaric shouted, the point of his own blade against Berown's throat. He saw that throat work as Berown tried to speak and failed. He eased the blade back a finger's-breadth, enough to let the man nod.

  Alaric stepped back, then prudently sidled to the fallen sword and picked it up. Berown made no move to rise. For a long moment he stared up at the sky, and then, very slowly, he turned on his side and curled his body, drawing his knees up, hugging his crossed arms to his chest. He began to
weep.

  Alaric turned away from him, holding the second sword high. "Does this belong to someone?"

  A man came forward to claim it, and then the circle of onlookers broke, and the nomad men surrounded Alaric, shouting and laughing, every one of them trying to grip his arm or clap him on the back. He laughed himself, leaning on his sword in the midst of the hubbub, loving them all. He laughed, wild and free and joyous. Around him, the crowd grew and grew, till nearly all of Simir's band had enveloped him, and he felt his heart expanding to encompass them all. Zavia shouldered her way through the throng to throw her arms around him, and he kissed her soundly, loving her even more than the rest.

  "I knew it was true!" She had to shout to be heard above the clamor.

  "Yes, it's true," he shouted back.

  "The strangers spread the story; everyone must have heard it by now. You could have told me."

  "Are you angry with me?"

  "Only a little." And she hugged him again.

  The crowd parted to let Simir through. His face was anxious at first, but when he saw Alaric smiling, with Zavia in his arms and all the other people pressed close about him, he smiled, too. "So it's out in the open, now," he said. "And you see how empty your worries were! This is the north, Alaric. Everything is different here!"

  "I believe that now," said the minstrel. "I hope Berown may come to believe it, too." He hesitated. "He's not well, I think. Perhaps I hit his head too hard."

  Simir's smile turned crooked. "Anyone else would have killed him. I would have."

  Alaric shook his head.

  "Still, you have your victory," said Simir, "and one these folk won't soon forget. Come," and he raised his voice to the crowd, "let us toast Alaric's triumph with wine all around. Let us drink to the skills of our newfound witch." He put his big arm around Alaric, and around Zavia as well. "Simir's band is so rich in magic—how lucky we are here in the north!"

  ****

  BEROWN WOULD NOT rise from the ground, would not even uncurl his arms and legs to let himself be carried easily, and in the end they had to bring a litter to transport him to Kata's tent. Two days and a night she kept him, and when he left her at last, he was a different man, walking silent and slow and slope-shouldered, as if he carried a heavy rock on his back. He was no longer interested in weapons practice. Instead, he spent his days in camp doing simple tasks for the cooks, carrying water, fetching fuel. He avoided Alaric, but if by chance the two of them met, his eyes did not linger, and they were dull.

  "She has soothed his soul," Simir told the minstrel.

  Alaric nodded. "But at what price?"

  "You're concerned, my son?"

  "He was a leader once, even if his people were ragged and starving. Now he has nothing, perhaps not even himself. I pity him, Simir. Don't you?"

  "He tried to kill you."

  "Even so."

  Simir smiled. "I do pity him. He's lived a tragic time. Will you make a song of him?"

  "I don't know. I'm not in the mood for tragic times just now."

  He could not remember being happier—not, at least, since his childhood with his teacher Dall. The endless trek north beneath the bright summer sky, the long pale evenings of song and laughter, the nights with Zavia in his arms—he could not think of what more he might ask of life. And since learning his secret, the nomads looked at him with new respect, new fascination, new friendship.

  He thought nothing of it when a woman who had served him a few meals, a woman of middle years, a trifle plump but still handsome enough, caught his arm one evening and whispered an invitation in his ear. A minstrel grew accustomed to such invitations; the lure of the stranger was strong, and a good voice, charm, and youth enhanced it. He smiled at her but shook his head. Zavia, he said, was enough for him.

  Some nights later, a second woman asked, and later still, a third. It was the third who told him bluntly what she wanted of him: not his body for its own sake, but his magic for her hunter husband. As Kata could give a man hunting magic, so—she thought—could Alaric transmit his power to a man through her.

  "I'm sorry," he told her, "but this power is mine alone; I have no way of passing it to someone else."

  She went away disappointed, but her disappointment did not keep other women from asking for their own husbands. Nearly every night, he had to give the same answer to someone else. Knowing magic as they did, he realized, they could not believe that he might be unable to grant their wish.

  "Yes, a male witch could have his pick of the women, once each at least," Simir said when Alaric told him about the invitations. "It might be a pleasant time, as well as a duty."

  "But how can I make them believe that it won't help them?"

  And Simir smiled and said, "Perhaps you can't."

  Alaric knew that Zavia had noticed the whisperings, but she said nothing; indeed, she smiled more broadly when he came away from them, and she linked her arm in his as soon as he was beside her.

  Kata was the one who called him to account.

  "So we have a new witch practicing among us," she said when he had entered her spice-scented tent after a peremptory summons. There was a glint in her eye at odds with her usual cool expression, and not a pleasant glint. "I hear you're much in demand, my Alaric."

  He looked down at the carpet. "They may demand, lady, but I have nothing to give. Perhaps… you could explain that to them; they don't seem to believe me."

  "Why should they? It was a pretty display you put on, with your sword and your nimbleness. How could it fail to impress them? Now they ask of you what they would ask of any witch."

  Alaric shook his head. "Lady, I meant only to save my life."

  "You could have accomplished that by vanishing and never returning."

  He looked up sharply. "No. That would have saved my skin, but not the life I've found here in the north."

  "And what life would that be, my Alaric?" Her cold, pale eyes narrowed. "Not the minstrel's life, no, not anymore. Your name is in every mouth, but not as a minstrel. They speak of you as they speak of me, as if we two were equals. As if this paltry power you were born with could be as great as the wisdom I have spent my life uncovering." Her voice deepened, became almost harsh. "And yet, my Alaric, I hold you"—she raised a hand toward him, empty palm upward, and she closed the fingers tight on that emptiness—"here."

  For a moment, he could not tear his gaze from her fist. The smell of sweet spice seemed to swirl about him, and he felt, for just an instant, that he had shrunk to a mite and was standing inside those caging fingers, struggling. Then he shook himself and realized that she had dropped her hand, and he lifted his eyes to hers. "What can I do, lady? I've told them…"

  "Then you must show them."

  "In what way could I—"

  "You must serve me on my next journey to the Great Waste. You must carry my goods and obey my orders and put my life before your own. Only so will they understand that you are no better than they."

  "The Great Waste?"

  "You wished to visit the Northern Sea, did you not? We'll pass it on our way."

  "Pass it? In the south, they say the Northern Sea is the end of the world."

  "They are fools in the south." Then a slight smile curved her lips. "Or perhaps not such fools after all, for it is not this world that lies beyond, but a different one."

  "Different? In what way, different?"

  "That, only those who have gone there know. Well?"

  Alaric bowed to her. There was only one possible answer. "I am yours to command, lady. If you wish it, I'll go."

  "The journey is hard and dangerous."

  "I've known hardship and danger before."

  "You think your witch's power will protect you. But you must swear to me that you will not use it."

  "Lady—"

  "You must swear. We go to gather magic on this journey, and it must be done properly. Using your power may destroy what we seek; we dare not chance it. I know what the journey requires; all else, we leave behind. I
will protect you, my Alaric. Look to me, and you will be safe."

  He hesitated. Not to use his power, to face danger exactly as other people did—that was a hard promise to keep. He had made it to himself often enough, as he tried to pass for an ordinary man, and broken it again and again. He wasn't sure he could keep it, for his instincts, his reflexes seemed beyond the control of his will, preserving him when conscious thought would have been too slow. And yet he saw that this time he must keep it, must obey Kata in every particular, or lose her goodwill forever. "How many others go with you?"

  "Four, all men who have made the trip before."

  "And how long will you be gone?"

  "We return before the first snow flies."

  "A long journey, then."

  "Farther than back to the mountains. But summer is short here in the north, and the first snow comes sooner than you might think. Well, my Alaric, will you come, or are you too much afraid of doing without your magic?"

  He took a deep breath. "I am afraid," he said. "But I am curious, too. I would see this different world you speak of. Perhaps there's a song or two in it. When do we leave?"

  "As soon as supplies can be made ready."

  ****

  SIMIR'S FACE SHOWED his displeasure at the news of the minstrel's coming departure, but he said nothing. Instead, he ordered one of his own deer slaughtered and the meat smoke-dried for the journey. And he gave Alaric his best fur cloak to take along, "Because I have been to the Waste, and I know how cold the nights are."

  Zavia was furious, though she only showed that fury when they were alone in her tent: and even there she kept her voice low, whispering her anger, for her mother was near enough to hear a shout. "What have I done to her?" she demanded. She sat on her heels, with both fists raised to the blank wall beyond which her mother's tent was pitched. "Why must she take you away from me?"

  "I doubt she was thinking of you, my Zavia," Alaric murmured.

  "She never thinks of me! I don't mean anything to her, I'm just a servant. Her own daughter, her heir, but my happiness is meaningless."

  He put his arms around her. "Dear Zavia, we won't be gone very long."