In the Red Lord's Reach Read online

  "You know," said Alaric, as if speaking to Daugas alone, "you have two choices. One is to leave the mountains and find a fresh life elsewhere, perhaps in some other valley or even on the southern plains. There are other lands than this one—lands whose lords are strong enough to keep evil men away and yet are kind and just and would be shocked to hear of a lord who used his people as if they were his cattle. You could be farmers again, and live without fear."

  "And the other choice?" asked Daugas.

  Alaric lifted a piece of meat from the flames and nibbled delicately at its crisping edges. "Has the Red Lord an heir with the same love for peasant torture as he has himself?" he inquired.

  "He has no heir at all," said Daugas.

  Alaric chewed a juicy morsel, then swallowed. "Your second choice, then, is to return to your own valley."

  "That is no choice at all," said Daugas.

  "It would be, if the Red Lord were dead."

  "Dead!" said Berown, his voice heavy with scorn. "And how would you kill him, minstrel?"

  "I have a plan. But I'll not tell you about it."

  Berown shook his head. "Fool. You'll be the one to die, not him."

  Alaric smiled. "I hunt where there is no game, Berown. I travel without fear of bandits. When I say I can do a thing, I mean it."

  "Do you think it's never been tried? The last time, the fool was a long time dying. And his head hung on a pike above the battlements until the crows picked the skull clean."

  "I can kill him," said Alaric.

  Daugas looked up at Berown. "What if he speaks the truth?"

  "He's mad."

  "But if," said Daugas.

  Berown stepped close to Alaric, stood above him, glaring down. "I'll tell you what would happen if you killed him, minstrel, if by some impossible stroke of luck you killed him. We might live well for a year or two or even more, but someday the bandits would come down out of the mountains, and there would be no Red Lord to stop them."

  "If they exist," said Alaric.

  "You think they don't?"

  "I think they are a tale told by the Red Lord to keep his people from assassinating him."

  "I have seen them."

  "Years ago," said Alaric.

  "I have no reason to believe they have gone away, and you'll not convince me of it. I remember the Red Lord burning his own fields to kill the bandits. And I remember their shouts as they vowed to return someday and destroy us all. Some of these others may be too young to have such memories, but I am not."

  "You fear the bandits more than you fear him," said Alaric.

  "Yes."

  Alaric looked around at the crowd. "You others—you feel the same?"

  There was much muttering from the group and, eventually, nodding. "We couldn't live up here if the bandits weren't afraid of him," said Gedimina.

  "But you wouldn't be living up here at all if he were dead."

  "And if he were dead," said Berown, "no one would be living down there."

  "Don't kill him, minstrel," said Gedimina. "I'd rather be alive in the mountains than dead in the valley."

  Alaric shook his head and looked at Berown. "It's you that has convinced them of this."

  "No, minstrel. We heard it at our mothers' knees. The Red Lord keeps our valley safe, and long life to him."

  "Long life," echoed the other exiles.

  Alaric scanned their faces, shimmering in the air beyond the fire. "And if I should decide to kill him anyway?"

  Gedimina sank to her knees beside him and clutched his arm. "No, please, no."

  He looked at her contorted face. "You believe I can kill him?"

  "Yes, I believe!"

  He peered into the flames. "I was going to do it. For you, for all of you. And for the others, the ones who still live in the valley. But… they wouldn't thank me, would they?"

  "No," said Berown. He frowned. "You really think you can, don't you?"

  Alaric had to laugh, half in wonder, half in relief. "I can, but it no longer seems the proper thing to do." He glanced at Daugas. "That leaves the first choice, doesn't it?"

  "If you'll show me the way," said Daugas, "I'll go out of the mountains with you."

  "Well, that's one less mouth for the mountains to feed," said Alaric. He looked up. "What about the rest of you? I'll lead you out."

  "Past the bandits," muttered Berown.

  Daugas said, "Malgis?" He lifted his hand, and after a long moment she came out of the crowd, the baby in one arm, and linked her fingers with his.

  "Who else?" said Alaric.

  "They just stared at him with wide eyes.

  Berown said, "We'll never see any of you alive again."

  "That's true," said Alaric, "but not because the bandits will kill us."

  "You'll be carrion within a few days."

  "No, but perhaps you will be. That deer won't last much longer. And then what will you do?"

  "We'll find something," said Berown.

  Alaric thought of hunting for them once again before he left, but he saw the futility in that; they would not be able to eat what he brought them before it spoiled. And after all, he thought, I owe them nothing. He gathered up his pack and lute. "Get your belongings together," he told Daugas and Malgis. "We'll leave as soon as you're ready." He turned to Berown. "My sword, sir." With some reluctance, the leader of the exiles handed the weapon over, and Alaric slipped it into his pack.

  "We are ready," said Daugas. "We have no belongings."

  Alaric eyed their tattered clothing and the rags that wrapped the baby Malgis held. "Very well," he said. "As long as the weather is fine, let us go."

  They walked easily in the spring sunlight, and they spoke little. Alaric kept a careful eye on the ground beneath his feet, and he hummed snatches of melody to the ragged rhythm of his step. Occasionally, he bade his companions stay where they were while he scouted the terrain ahead; at those times he walked beyond their sight and then used his own mode of travel to flit forward and determine the easiest passage. This was the route he had taken to the Red Lord's domain, and although he knew it could be traversed on foot, there were some difficult stretches. They camped that night at the very edge of the territory that Malgis and Daugas knew. The baby, which had not cried all day, whimpered now with the oncoming chill of night, and the small fire that Alaric built was not enough to comfort it. He gave Malgis his lute wrap for it then, and slept with the instrument close against his bosom.

  In the morning, he stole a pair of chickens from a distant farmyard, not wanting to waste traveling time lying in wait for a wild creature. After the meal, they resumed their journey.

  In his scouting forward, Alaric saw no trace of other human beings, but the farther they walked from familiar territory, the more nervous Malgis became. Her eyes moved constantly, and she walked a little behind the others, always glancing back, as if expecting someone to follow. At first Alaric just smiled and reassured her that there were no other people nearby, but as the sun sank in the west, her nervousness began to communicate itself to him, and he ranged farther in his scouting, both forward and back, seeking some source of danger. That night they camped under overhanging rocks, and she begged Alaric not to make a fire. Unable to calm her fears, he acquiesced.

  The following day dawned gray. The rain had begun while the sky was still dark, and their rock shelter was scarcely enough to protect them from the wet. Daugas and Malgis huddled together, the baby between them, and Alaric sat shielding his lute for a time before he decided that he was too hungry to let the rain deter him. He went out, leaving his cloak to wrap the lute, and returned, drenched, with a rabbit. They had no small trouble cooking it while the rain spattered their fire. Malgis stamped the flames out as soon as the meat was done enough to suit Alaric.

  "No one would be out in this weather to see the fire," he said.

  "You were out," said Malgis.

  "If the bandits were as desperate as I was," he replied, "they would do well to find some other way of life."

/>   "How is it," said Malgis, "that you always find game when you go out, and yet we have found so little?"

  Alaric smiled. "I'll tell you a secret, my friend: when I was a child, we had a bad summer, and the crops on my parents' farm died; and then we had a bad winter, and the game in die woods disappeared. My parents were almost starving, and though they gave me more food than they took themselves, I was a sack of bones barely covered with skin. And so we decided to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Well at Canby. We walked, though it was far, and all along the road we begged crusts of bread and rinds of cheese from travelers. At last we came to the well, and my father threw in the only coin we had in the world, and he prayed that we might not starve. I prayed, too, as I recall, though I really didn't know what I was about—I prayed hard. And after a while, other pilgrims wanted to pray at the well, for it was a very popular shrine in those days, and so we went into the woods to gather fuel for that night's fire. We had not been among the trees for more than a few moments when a rabbit bounded out from behind a stone and stopped in front of us, sitting up on its hind legs and looking at us as if it expected us to perform some wonderful deed. My father took the knife from his belt very slowly, raised it very slowly, and still the rabbit stayed where it was. Then my father flung the knife and impaled the creature, and very soon we had a delicious meal. Ever after that day, my father was able to find game when we were hungry, and so am I."

  "Where is this Canby?" asked Daugas.

  "Far from here," said Alaric. "You would have to walk half a year or more to reach it."

  "And does the well always grant the prayers of pilgrims?"

  Alaric shrugged. "I cannot speak for anyone else." He glanced toward his lute, but decided against unwrapping it while the rain still fell. Having just made up the tale of the pilgrimage, he rather liked it, and he stored it away in his capacious memory, to be set to music on some other day.

  "Perhaps that's the same good fortune that keeps you safe from bandits," murmured Malgis.

  Alaric made no reply but only gnawed the bones of the rabbit and watched the sky for a glimpse of sun. That came at last, well past noon, and with it the end of the rain. Alaric stood up and stepped into the sunshine. "Shall we go on?"

  Pools of water lay everywhere, hiding sharp or slippery stones in their muddy depths, and the streams were indistinguishable from their banks. Soon all three travelers were spattered with mud to their waists, and Alaric's boots, stout though they were, had begun to leak. He called a halt before dark, for they were approaching a steep descent, and he preferred to make it when the light was fresh and the ground dry.

  Once more Malgis balked at building a fire, but Alaric argued that they were wet as well as cold and would all have fevers by morning without a blaze. They built it, finally, among large boulders, and they leaned so close to it that Alaric doubted any light got by their screen of flesh.

  The next day, Malgis gazed down the plunging slope and did not wish to go farther.

  "It isn't as difficult as it looks," said Alaric.

  She sat down on the ground. "I can't," she said.

  "I'll take the child," said Daugas. "It will be easier for you then."

  She clutched the baby to her bosom. "No."

  "Malgis!"

  She looked up at him with wild eyes. "Listen to me. They're waiting for us out there." She pointed sharply at Alaric. "He's leading us to them."

  Daugas shook his head. "The minstrel is our friend."

  "He's been lighting fires to show them our path. Why should they come after us when we'll be walking right into their camp?"

  Daugas knelt and closed his arms about her. "No."

  "He tried to make the others come, too, but they weren't foolish enough to believe him." She pulled away from him. "But you, you were!"

  Daugas glanced at Alaric, despair on his face. "I thought she would be all right," he said, "with a full belly."

  Alaric looked down at the woman. "I mean you no harm, Malgis."

  "Liar!"

  "Have I not fed you? Have I not given you the wrapping of my most precious possession for your baby?"

  Tears welled from her eyes. "Take me home, Daugas," she pleaded. "Oh, please, take me home."

  "I'll take you to a new home," he said, catching one of her hands between his own. "Across the mountains."

  She shook her head violently. "Please!"

  "You don't want to go back there," said Alaric, squatting beside her. "There's nothing for you there but cold and hunger."

  "She means the valley," said Daugas. "She always means the valley. " He stroked her dirty, tangled hair with one hand. "Oh, Malgis, trust us and come along."

  As if in reply, she jerked Alaric's dagger from its sheath at his belt.

  In the instant that her hand reversed its arc to strike him, he vanished.

  He found himself in the forest, in the bower where he had spent the night when Daugas watched him, and he cursed the reflex that had sent him there. Another man would have caught her wrist and forced her to drop the blade; another man might have suffered a scratch on the shoulder or chest wrestling the knife from her grip. But Alaric had vanished into thin air, proving himself something other than a normal human being.

  Proving himself a witch.

  It was a name he had never wanted. There was too much fear attached to it, too much hatred, too much danger of an unexpected arrow or an unseen dagger. For a known witch, death was always near.

  Almost, he did not go back. He was vulnerable to Malgis and Daugas now and would never again dare turn his attention away from them, even for a moment. Yet he felt responsible for their lives, having brought them so far, and now that he had exposed himself, he thought he might as well cut their journey short and take them out of the mountains in his own way. After he had found some secure place for the knife.

  For safety's sake, he reappeared a short distance from the spot he had left. He had been gone a few heartbeats. Daugas still knelt at the top of the steep slope.

  Malgis was gone.

  Alaric glanced about quickly, to see if she had run away, but even as he did so, he knew what had happened. He remembered precisely where he had been squatting, with his back to the brink. The force of her knife thrust had plunged Malgis over the edge.

  Daugas rose slowly, like a man in a dream, and started his descent. He did not notice Alaric following softly after. He clung to the rocks as he climbed down among them, and his hands left each surface as if pulling away from honey. When he reached her, he eased his arms around her and gently lifted her head to rest on his thigh.

  She had fetched up against a boulder halfway down the slope, and there was blood on her face and arms and knees. The baby lay nearby, silent. Alaric looked at it and then wished he had not.

  Daugas was whispering her name.

  Alaric saw his knife wedged among the rocks farther down the incline. He made no move to retrieve it.

  Her eyes opened. "Daugas?"

  "I am here."

  "Where is the baby?"

  He looked around slowly, saw the child, stared at it for a long moment, and then said, "I think the baby is hurt."

  One hand clutching the boulder, she pulled herself into a sitting posture. "Bring him here."

  Daugas crawled over to the child and lifted it. The small body lay limp in his grasp as he took it to Malgis.

  She looked into her baby's ruined face. With a corner of one of her rags, she tried to wipe the blood away. Then she laid her ear against the tiny chest. Her head was still bent in that position when she said, "He's dead."

  Daugas said, "Yes," and tried to take the corpse from her hands, but she would not allow that.

  "I'll carry him," she said, "until we get hungry."

  Alaric felt his gorge rise. "Bury it," he said. "I'll see that you're fed."

  Daugas looked up then, cringing. "Go away!" he cried. "Leave us alone!"

  "I'll take you out of the mountains now."

  "Please," said Daugas. "Just leav
e us alone."

  "I never meant to cause you harm."

  For answer, Daugas touched the still form that lay in Malgis's embrace.

  "Should I have stayed and let her kill me?" Alaric demanded. "She brought this on herself; will you tell me that I should have traded my life for your child's life?" His hands tightened into fists as the man and woman made no move, no reply. "Bury it," he said at last, harshly and loud in the mountain quiet, "and I'll take you to safety… by magic."

  Daugas shook his head. "We want no part of your magic."

  "There is no danger involved," said Alaric.

  "No."

  "You'll feel nothing. In the blink of an eye you'll be far from these mountains. I know a good land where you'll be able to make a new life for yourselves."

  "No."

  Alaric stepped one pace closer, and Daugas shrank back, his arm circling Malgis protectively. She, still hunched over the baby, seemed not to notice what was going on around her.

  "Are you afraid of me?" asked the minstrel.

  "Please leave us alone," said Daugas.

  "I kept my vow to bring you food, did I not? Now I swear to you that I can take you to a better place as easily as I can breathe. Come along, Daugas."

  He shook his head.

  "But what will you do if you don't come with me?"

  "We'll go back," said Daugas.

  "You'll starve."

  "We'll find food somehow."

  Alaric sighed heavily. "I could take you against your will, you know."

  "If you try, I'll gouge your eyes out, I swear it."

  "I only want to help you, Daugas!"

  "Liar!" he said. "Don't you think I know who you are?"

  "I am your friend."

  "Liar! What witch was ever a friend to anyone?"

  Alaric looked down the slope, toward his knife, which gleamed in the morning sunshine. "All right," he said. "Be your own masters." He began a careful descent, giving a wide berth to the man and woman who remained motionless, one of them watching him. He picked up the blade and sheathed it. He glanced up, one last time. "Farewell, and good fortune to you both."