Beyond the Bulwarks Page 23

  The cold made Anzo want to piss. He’d downed his share of ale to Eyeloth’s memory and more at Theregond’s side, listening to the King fret over the endangered alliance.

  The winds worsened, his temples throbbing to their rising whistle. Pain worked its way up from his heels to his shoulders and small cuts sustained in the during the assassination attempt burned under bandages. At his side Heathen slogged with the gait of a man not fully awake and Anzo took solace that his misery was shared. He glanced through billowing snow to the vague outline of the palisades, sought some hint of Varya there. But she’d chosen isolation again, after the brawl. Despite her contributions, the magical nature of her heroics had apparently only increased her status as pariah.

  Ungrateful wretches. Anzo kicked his way through another drift.

  The procession reached the pyre and spilled around it, forming a circle with the warriors arrayed in front, shields planted rim-to-rim, helmeted heads bowed and whiskers drooping. Theregond and his men worked their way close, behind the pallbearers. Anzo kept near them. Over the howl of the wintry gale, a low murmur began, rose slowly, and became a chant to Orkall.

  Durrim and the others mounted the pyre, carried Eyeloth to the top and the place prepared for him. Gently, they laid the chieftain to rest, the group breaking off, one after another, until Durrim was left alone. After a time, he stood and pivoted slowly to take in all onlookers.

  “My kinsmen,” he called, voice breaking with effort and emotion, “this was Eyeloth, warrior, chieftain, friend—” a grimace cut into the words “—and father. He goes now to Orkall, who holds a place for the brave at His Table. But before we consign his mortal form to the fire of Eternity let us speak now of his glories.”

  Voices broke through the winds, Endus, Straedus, warrior after warrior, speaking briefly how they knew the man, how he saved them in this battle or that, how his statecraft preserved their people through uncertain times. Some, the elder, grizzled veterans in particular, spoke to his piety, and their words and gazes were edged as they went to the Prince. Durrim took it all graciously, even as the dialogue dragged and the elements snarled about folk whose pride could no longer hold off the shivers and stamping of feet for warmth.

  Finally, it was done. Durrim saved his words for last. “My father and I disagreed often and vigorously,” he said. “But we were united in the belief that the Hamrak must move forward into the future rather than wallow in our past. We were united, too, in our love.” He raised the fist of respect to the gathering. “I am Durrim, the Son of Eyeloth. I ask now of you, my kin, my people, for the right to claim what is mine by birth and right.”

  The winds answered Durrim. He pivoted again, slowly, glowering down on the Hamrak, features that had drooped in sorrow going sharp, angry. Murmurs began. Armor clanked and a warrior from Durrim’s entourage growled something.

  “Must I ask again?” Durrim shouted, his tone ragged and disbelieving.

  “Take the blade!” One of his retainers shouted.

  “Wait!” Endus lurched forward from the circle to the snarls of Durrim’s loyalists. “Is this the time for this? We have not yet sent his soul on its way.”

  The Hamrak circle shivered as the grumbles spread. Anzo tensed, put his hand to his sword, noticing Theregond doing the same and nodding gently to his own men.

  “This is tradition!” Durrim answered.

  “You were cast out from this clan not three months ago,” Endus insisted.

  “And reunited,” Durrim replied. He balled his fists, put them to his hips. “Desire the blade for yourself, Endus?” Durrim glared at the warriors bunching around the man. “Or do one of you?”

  “You pledge your father to Orkall, yet all know you stray from His path,” declared one of the white-bearded elders.

  “He is the Son of Eyeloth!” roared one of Durrim’s companions. “This is ridiculous!”

  “The patron god of all Vhurr-kind is ridiculous?”

  “No,” another of Durrim’s men snarled, “but disrupting this sacred moment with your womanish hand-wringing is!”

  “A wrinkle, eh, Weasel?” Theregond whispered with a mischievous glance at Anzo as the disturbance grew ugly.

  Anzo grinned back. “You have something planned to smooth it out?” He noticed Heathen stirring from his hangover to grip his axe.

  “Maybe.” Theregond shrugged. “But let’s see what the lad does.”

  Durrim smote his chest. “If someone truly believes I am not fit as heir to my father, let them make their stand and take their oath and meet me in the Circle of Honor.”

  “Threats do not make a chieftain,” one of the elders called in a creaking voice.

  Theregond chuckled and shouldered his way forward to the front ranks of the throng, his men at his back, Anzo and Heathen falling in with them. Glances darted their way, some of the warriors, those uncommitted, shuffling back. Endus and his faction noticed the move, the skinny, pale warrior blanching at the obvious threat.

  “Do I hear a challenge?” Durrim barked. “I am waiting!”

  Endus looked back and forth between Theregond’s party and the obvious division of Durrim’s supporters. Caught there, the little man scowled and shook his head. “There’s been enough Hamrak blood spilt. If it is the will of the many, Orkall, at least, would not have the few tear it asunder.” Grudgingly, he lifted the fist of respect.

  Durrim offered the man a nod, more the acknowledgement of a smoldering-eyed wolf to newfound prey. Turning from the challenge, he stooped and picked up the Blade of the Hamrak, held it high over his people. “It is settled. I am the Son of Eyeloth, now Durrim, Chieftain of the Hamrak! May Orkall—may all the gods—stand with me!”

  As one, the Hamrak sank to their knees. Theregond and the Erevulans followed their example out of respect, as did Anzo and Heathen, the latter with a derisive snort that earned him an elbow to the ribs.

  A lone figure did not mimic the motion. Imilira, Eyeloth’s concubine, bearing a torch whose shuddering light gleamed in tears, stepped through the kneeling crowd and ascended the pyre. Wintry blasts set her black mourning skirts aflutter like the wings of a stirred crow. Shivering, she joined Durrim at the top, handing him the torch so that she could kneel and press her lips to the dead chieftain’s brow. Taking her hand, Durrim led her down from his father. At the bottom, he turned and paused, for a moment brittle in the snow, like a boy figurine about to topple.

  Visibly steeling himself, Durrim flung the torch onto the waiting timbers. They caught quickly, the flames feeding greedily until they swept to the peak and consumed the body. The blaze snarled, buffeted the mourners back as its ferocity built and the smoky memory of Eyeloth billowed heavenward.

  Anzo glanced at Theregond. The light of the pyre seemed dim before the triumphant gleam across his face.

  ***

  Midwinter was something of a misnomer amongst the Vhurrs. The true, blustering, black heart of winter, when the granaries ran low and even the rats withered to bony thinness, was still a month away. But Midwinter’s Eve, the longest night of the year that was marked from Kharzul to Aurid to the Barbaricum, carried especial meaning. To folk for whom the elements were an enemy as sanguine and relentless as any invader, the night and its feasting was a last, furious flash of joy and debauchery before uncertainty and desperation could no longer be ignored.

  The chieftains of the Free Cantons pledged to Theregond’s alliance arrived from the countryside in dribs and drabs, swelling Caerigoth as they had months before for the Council. The great lords came, the elders of the smaller, subordinate villages following in their wake, along with independent farmers and wandering warriors—seeking a lord or simply a warm night and a girl. All bore gifts to their host, Durrim, jewels, wagons of foodstuffs, slaves, and barrels of the bitter Vhurrian ale. For Theregond, they brought the gift of their renewed pledges.

  The Hamrak erected a monstrous pavilion on the parade ground of Caerigoth, mighty sheets of canvas stretched atop a scaffolding of beams and tighte
ned chord, groaning under the weight of the snows, which finally ceased that evening to let the moon lance the sky with silvery rays. The Fire Hall of Eyeloth—now Durrim—had been repaired to some degree by the frenzied efforts of Hamrak carpentry, but only spring would bring the time and materials to return it to its former glories. Few noticed, though, reveling under the stretched roof in a blur of smoke, drunkenness and dancing.

  Durrim and his immediate entourage, along with Endus and some of the Hamrak elders—included not out of any respect, but to show all the seamless succession of power—occupied a circular platform at the heart of the pavilion, supported by the central tent post. These political considerations left Anzo, Heathen, and Varya to wander the peripheries in search of a table. They had not far to look; Theregond beckoned them to his and they settled in with his Erevulans.

  Aehemir and some of the ladies of Theregond’s house excused themselves to seek pitchers to refresh their men. To her obvious shock, Varya was invited to join. Casting Anzo a glance, she accepted and trailed after them in the crowd. Anzo tensed despite himself. Whispers and sharp looks followed in her wake, but after her work against the assassins none dared call her out.

  Theregond had forgone his usual cup, was guzzling straight from a trencher. An emptied pitcher lay on its side at his elbow. Apparently satisfied, he slammed the container to the tabletop and wiped his whiskers clean, his eyes gone glassy, his features flush with more drink than Anzo had seen before.

  “My lord?”

  “They’re not here,” he growled with a wave into the throng. “Ardegant, the bastard, and his Gevruum are not here.” He drew a knife, began to pick greasy leavings from his fingernails. “’When the Frost Giants howl’, the little rat said. Well, they’ve been howling.”

  Anzo glanced at Heathen, the boy already well into a pitcher himself. “The Frizti have not yet arrived, either.”

  The king nodded absently. “I don’t worry over Ystun. Never doubt a man when his back is to the wall.”

  “You think it’s treachery?” Anzo asked.

  “I’d be a fool to think otherwise, wouldn’t I Weasel?” Theregond’s voice was harsh and slurred. Drink brought out a ragged edge, a teetering on the brink of control that Anzo had only seen once.

  “You already guessed.”

  “I thought it the moment he wouldn’t pledge his oath,” Theregond rasped. “The simpering, pissed-pants little boy, he could have at least been man enough to lie to me!” He fingered the handle of the pitcher.

  “So,” Anzo leaned close to the man, “the question is, has he gone over to the Faces?”

  “Or has he taken advice such as yours and gone to the Aurids, as the Marovians once did?” Theregond shook his head like an angered bull. “I don’t know.” He picked up the half-drained pitcher and dashed it to pieces on the table, splinters and foam spraying. “I just don’t know!”

  Despite the din, heads turned their way. Varya and the returning Erevulan women folk halted at the display, her eyes turning uncertainly to Anzo’s as she waited with fresh drink. Aehemir took a testing step further, features drawn. Impatiently, Theregond waved them on. Fresh mugs were pressed hastily into fists, Anzo taking one and shooing Varya away before she could whisper in his ear.

  A troop of Hamrak maidens made their way to the heart of the pavilion, led by Imilira in her mourning colors, and arrayed before Durrim’s table. Relative hush fell over the crowd as Eyeloth’s widow led the girls in song, a dirge of sorts to Orkall and to the gloried dead. Vhurrian voices joined them after the first few stanzas, full and lusty, men and women swaying together as the ale flowed in and passion flowed out. A pipe started up at some point, wove a melancholy counterpoint, followed by the plucked, metallic notes of bards’ harps.

  Anzo took a pull of his drink and tried to smile with the music. He’d heard the ballads and poetry of Aurid, the ominous chants of Thothan acolytes, the wild, woody lute work of Kharzulan berbers, the clashed cymbal garrulousness of Yrenerian bands, but none had the sad, fatalistic quality of these people, who dwelt forever on the cold boundaries of utter destruction and mocked it with indifference. At his side, Heathen swayed, perhaps even mouthed a few verses, pledged to Aeydon and a different path in his heart, but still the boy of the Barbaricum.

  So was Anzo, after a fact.

  Theregond, too, appeared taken with the songs of his people, the naked anger sheathed momentary as glazed eyes lost some of their fire and his woman sat on a stool at his flank. His hand drifted to her thigh, was covered over by her slim, bony fingers.

  Anzo felt warmth at his back, smelled ginger, and knew Varya was with him. He turned slightly to smile at her. She returned the look. “I’d be lying to say it wasn’t beautiful,” she whispered. “I wonder, sometimes, if we haven’t misjudged these people.”

  Snaking his arm around her hip, Anzo pulled her a little closer, heart pulsing wine into the hard corners of his mind. “I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you more.”

  A touch of color lined her cheeks. “It’s all right.”

  “Someone should thank you for what you did.” He tightened his grip. “Thank you, Varya. You’re a brave woman.”

  “For a witch?” Her words held a teasing edge.

  “I didn’t say that. Never.”

  The singing continued in a new vein, but the party began to fracture back into its component revelries. The throng parted to let Reisdack of the Thrungi through. Theregond stiffened at his approach, pushed Aehemir away. Reisdack had the cold, wild look of a drunk startled from his stupor by a strike to the head.

  “Our pact is incomplete,” Theregond growled.

  “Maybe,” Reisdack slurred. “But there is word, perhaps.”

  “What?”

  Anzo noticed a flurry of activity at the heart of the celebration. Messengers dusted with snow wove through the crowd to Durrim’s table. The chieftain was on his feet, words unheard but gestures sharp and grave.

  “There’s been a sighting from the walls,” Reisdack hurried to say as the tone of the gathering changed, gossip flying and tension souring the cacophony. “Riders approach the gates.”

  “The Gevruum?” Theregond glanced at Anzo.

  “Yes,” Reisdack nodded, “but not many.”

  “Ardegant?”

  The chief of the Thrungi shrugged, but there was something about his stance, a pre-battle kind of anxiety. “I don’t know. It’s strange. I think, old friend, we’d better get to the walls.”

  ***

  Moonlight glistened on ice crust outside the walls of Caerigoth, picked out hard shadows under bowing, snow-weighted trees and lay as brilliant on the open fields before the gatehouse as a spotlight on an Aurridian theater. Murmurs spread across the palisades with the jarring clang of weapons and armor being readied. Shadows bunched in the tree line below the settlement and from them issued the nervous whinny of horses.

  Durrim took his place atop the gates, sputtering torches picking out his finest armor—plucked from the Elder Tyrant’s hold—in black ice shimmers. Endus, Straedus, and the other Hamrak elders bunched about him, cutting the chill air with tight whispers. Anzo, Varya, and Heathen held back to one side with Theregond and his men. Behind them, the pavilion rippled, no longer with celebration but with the disturbance of folk issuing from its confines to the walls in murmurs and tension.

  A horn called from the dark. The Hamrak gate master answered with a hoarse note of his own. The invitation extended, a clot of riders slid from the trees into the field without banners, without the Vhurrian catcalls of greeting and bravado, only the silence of deadly purpose. Anzo heard a sharp grunt and the group slowed to a halt, allowed a single man to continue forward. Pale light made Ardegant’s fiery red hair obvious, billowing un-helmed. A spate of snow twisted into his path, cast him momentarily like a dark figure amongst dying stars as he reined in below the wall.

  “Durrim!” the chieftain of the Gevruum called.

  “I am here, Ardegant.

  The man squin
ted up at the gatehouse, found Durrim’s scowling visage against the pale, silvery sky. “You are chieftain now?”

  “You know I am.”

  A wisp of disdainful smirk twitched Ardegant’s lip. “We have heard of your father’s passing. Among other things, I bring my condolences. Your father was a great warrior. He will be missed in the coming days.”

  “He is already,” Durrim replied, hand clenching at his sword. “But, more, we have been missing you at our table. You were to bring us an answer, chief of the Gevruum. Have you brought it now?”

  Ardegant’s eyes sought the folk lining the palisades. “Is Theregond there with you?”

  Theregond leaned over the wall. “I am, bastard.”

  Ardegant cackled at the words, shook with gaiety, as though he were out on a lark. “Oh, I see the mighty Erevulan needs no warning of my intent.”

  “Not when you wear your cowardice like a dress!” Theregond snarled.

  Ardegant stiffened in the saddle, humor dissolving from a face gone white as the trampled snow. “You will know something of cowardice, Theregond, when I see you nailed dying to a tree.”

  “Your answer, Gevruum!” Durrim barked.

  “Need I even bother giving it at this point?” The chieftain shrugged. “Very well. Our answer is refusal.”

  “Cut him down!” some Hamrak shouted from the wall as growls and cursing spread.

  “Hold!” Durrim commanded as steel rattled and arrows were knocked. The distant-thunder rumble of the outraged men continued, but weapons stayed. “We will not share in this dog’s treachery by butchering him under a flag of truce!”

  Ardegant laughed again. “Leadership comes easily to you now, eh, boy? Would you sound so confident without your walls, without your Theregond and his dead god behind you?”