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“Children of Saïs, you shall shepherd your foes with the sword, the sacred pillars shall be raised from their ruins, and all who hate you shall be destroyed.”
A breath escaped Lavastine, a last shaping of words. “Done. Well. My. Son.” As Alain watched, his eyes began to glaze over, a stippling, granules speckling the white of his eye as his iris turned to sapphire. After the long struggle, it was all going so quickly now, but perhaps his soul had been tethered to faithful Terror, and with Terror gone, he sped, too, on the final journey. Perhaps he had only waited for news of this.
Silence reigned.
Alain wept bitterly. His tears soaked the coverlet and ran like rain off stone down Lavastine’s arm. The hounds growled softly but did not interfere as several servingmen came forward, and the steward pressed a finger against the count’s cold lips.
“God have mercy,” the steward said softly. “He is gone.”
Alain leaped up and grabbed a candle, held it before Lavastine’s lips. The flame stirred, the merest flicker.
“He still lives!” he cried. A servant took the candle from him gently. He flung himself down beside the bed, still weeping, still gripping the cold hand, and prayed with all his heart in it and his own hands wet with tears. “I pray You, God. Spare my father’s life. Heal him, and I will serve You.”
“My lord Alain. Come away. He is beyond us now. He has gone to our Lord and Lady.”
“The flame moved. He still breathes.”
“That was your own breath, my lord. He is gone.”
He shook off the hand impatiently, and Sorrow growled, echoing his mood. The servants moved back as he bent to pray. Surely God had power to heal any poison, any injury. This was only a trifle, compared to Their power. “I will do as Tallia wishes, or as You wish. I will swear my life to the church, forever, gladly, if only You heal my father, Lady. If only You give my father back his strength and his life, Lord. I will sire many strong children if that is Your will, or remain celibate, if You so choose, but please, I beg you, God, heal him. Don’t let your loyal servant die. Give me a sign.”
The tapestry on the wall rippled lightly as though a wind had stirred it, except the shutters were closed up against wintertide. It shuddered again as if a hand shook it and, shaking, shook him. His vision had gone all tight until he could only see the scene depicted in the tapestry: A prince rides with his retinue through a dark forest. A shield hangs from the prince’s saddle: a red rose against a sable background.
And there: hidden in the shadows of the tapestry. Why hadn’t he seen them before? Black hounds trailed alongside, a trio of them, dark and handsome. He could hear their footsteps padding on the earth, could hear the creak of harness and the steady clop of horses’ hooves. Wind made the branches dance, and because it had just rained, they were showered with drops from the leaves like the tears of watery daimones. He rode among the servants, innocent, invisible because he was one among many. He felt protected by the darkness and the shadows, by the wall of forest that towered on either side of the road. It made him bold, and he pressed his horse forward. As he came up beside the prince, he saw with a shock that it was no prince at all but a woman dressed as a man, as if in disguise. She was older than he had first guessed, with a cold, stubborn expression. The brooch that pinned her cloak shut was a fine jeweled replica of the red rose painted on the shield hanging at her thigh. What noble house bore the red rose as its sigil? She turned, unsurprised to see him ride up beside her, and said: “How fares the child?”
But there is torchlight coming up beside him, blinding him for a moment, and he no longer rides along the forest path but instead rocks in the breeze that is not a breeze but rather the timber of a ship beneath his feet, swaying gently on the water. Headland blots out the stars along the eastern horizon. Along the dark shore torches bob, massing, darting forward. He hears the schiiing of metal ringing against metal as a skirmish spreads up the twilit vale toward the great house built two generations ago by the famous chieftain Bloodyax of the Namms tribe.
Another war leader has arrived at Namms Dale before him.
A small boat ties up alongside his ship, and a scout—Ninth Son of the Twelfth Litter—scrambles on board to give his report. “It is Moerin’s tribe, nineteen ships, come to settle an old feud against the Nammsfolk.”
“Moerin’s chieftain is old Bittertongue, is he not?” asks Stronghand, still staring at the unfolding battle made bright by the last gleam of the sun on trusting spears and the flowering of torches all along the path of the fighting.
“Nay, old Bittertongue died in a raid last spring. There is a new chief who has taken advisers from the island known to the Soft Ones as Alba. He has named himself Nokvi in the style of the humanfolk.”
“Look!” Tenth Son of the Fifth Litter stands at Stronghand’s side, one of his standard bearers by reason of his sharp eyes and unusual strength. He raises an arm and points up into the darkening vale. “Where the great house stands. Look there.”
Flame flowers into life as bold as fire can be when let loose. Stronghand sets a foot up on the lip of the uppermost plank and leans out, staring into the twilight as the great house goes up in a towering blaze of fire. Torches ring the burning hall. He smells oil, quick to flame. “Listen!” says Stronghand, and all the men within sound of his voice quiet and listen.
Nokvi, chieftain of the Moerin tribe, has trapped Namms’ war leader and his fighting men inside the hall, coated the hall with oil, and set it alight, burning them alive. Not even the tough hides of the RockChildren can withstand such an inferno.
“Do we attack?” asks Tenth Son.
“With eight ships?” Stronghand cuts down sharply with his left hand, to signify “no.” “I came to make an alliance with the Nammsfolk, not to fight them. We must learn more of this ‘Nokvi’ before we fight him. Winter is coming on, and soon no ships will sail. But there are other ways to gather our forces even against a leader who has allied with the humans of Alba.”
He hates to turn away without that alliance he came for. It smacks of cowardice. But he is not a fool. He is not blinded by the lust for glory. He seeks something harder, and colder, and longer lasting than the brief if brilliant flare of battle glory.
He lifts the warhorn to his lips and blows the retreat.
The sound brought Alain sharply back to himself, a mewling that seemed remotely familiar and yet utterly strange.
“My lord count!”
Alain bolted up to lean over Lavastine, but the count might as well have been a stone statue. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.
He was dead.
A weight nudged against Alain’s leg and abruptly he remembered the chamber he stood in, and he realized that Sorrow, Rage, and Fear had collapsed to the ground and lay beside Lavastine’s deathbed like helpless pups, whimpering. It took him a moment longer to register the waiting attendants, who all stared nervously at the hounds, awaiting their reaction. The steward who had just spoken had not been addressing Lavastine.
