CHAPTER
21
He
Picked Up the Sword and Fought
THEY BROUGHT HIM in.
Pain was like a wild animal, tearing at the soft sections of his
body, pulling him apart. He did not understand how he could bear
it. Anticipating blacking out, he suspended most forms of thought.
They dropped him on the bed. He blinked at the ceiling and it began
to turn like a giant millwheel, slowly at first as it juddered into
motion, then more quickly as it gained momentum.
He was dazzled by the
sight. It was the night sky, rendered in perfect moving form,
wheeling clockwise as it should, turning around the pole star. This
must be what the Sull had intended when they carved the
constellations into the chamber’s ceiling, this instant when a
world of pain and loss could be soothed by a world of
stars.
Like sorcerers they
paid no heed to their enchantment. They moved above him,
unfastening buckles and latches, not ungently stripping him of
armor and clothes. White hot pain burst across his rib cage as they
peeled off the breastplate. It had an indentation as big as a fist,
and the cartilage of his ribs had collapsed around it. Words were
exchanged. Beautiful Sull words that sounded like
spells.
He lost
time.
Moonsnake bided in
the darkness, her pale and massive form curled around itself
forming a solid disk of snake. She waited for him now, he’d
noticed. At some point in their acquaintance he had ceased to be
extra weight. Let us hunt, she bid in
language so primal he had to translate it into words. Images and
tastes flashed across his eyes and tongue. A deer shivering as it
died. A longbone snapping in two. The sugar-sweet spray of bone
marrow.
No, he told her. Something, some half remembered
promise to himself, warned him to resist.
She
hissed.
He opened his eyes.
The stars had stopped turning and the pain returned. Night air
descending through the moonholes chilled him. They were working on
his naked body, stitching flaps of skin together with black thread,
smearing yellow-red ointment on open wounds, bandaging his ribs and
wrist. Did I lose another
fight?
Memories of
swordfights floated in his head. There was no order to them, no way
to be sure which one had occurred most recently, just a procession
of beatings and stabbings and slicing where steel points came at
him from all sides. Slowly, over the course of an hour, one of the
memories settled into place.
“Addie.”
The figures tending
him stopped to look at his face, and he realized he had spoken out
loud. Saddles of muscle in his lower back and thighs fired as he
tried to sit up. Sull pressed him down. One of them put a hand on
the damaged cartilage of his ribs. Pain seared him.
He lost more
time.
Voices lured him
back. A woman was speaking, and even though he did not fully
comprehend what she said he could tell from the tone of her voice
that she was speaking about him. Keeping his eyes closed, he
listened. She spoke Sull and he could not understand all the
words.
“He grows
faster.”
A male voice said
something in response.
“It is not important.
He heals well.”
“Sul Ji?”
“Not
yet.”
He shivered, and the
voices fell quiet. He could feel their owners inspecting him. He
ignored them. Something the woman said had pushed a thought adrift
in his mind. Faster. Suddenly hands
seized his jaw and yanked it apart. Liquid flooded his mouth. Head
snapping in panic, he coughed up the liquid, choking and
spluttering. The hands grabbed him again. One slapped against the
back of his head, the other cupped his lower jaw. More liquid was
forced in his mouth.
“Drink.”
He drank. Aware that
he was about to black out, he fixed together his two words and
repeated them as he spiraled into darkness. Addie. Faster. Addie. Faster. Addie.
Faster.
Moonsnake was waiting
for him. All it took was a loosening of will to enter her heart.
She acknowledged him with the slightest delay between breaths and
then they were one. Uncurling the great length of their body they
struck north for the hunt. A half-moon hung low in the western sky.
Time was short. Rich scents filled the air, but one stirred them
more than the rest: fresh blood. The snow was melting to water
beneath them as they cut toward the scent. As they drew nearer they
tasted something unexpected in the air. Fresh blood meant a
predator feeding on prey and they had been prepared to send off a
rival . . . but this. This was an affront to their being. It was a
half-moon, not a full one, and another of their kind should not be
in their territory this night. They flicked out their tongue.
Thrice. Tasted the creature’s age and size and sex. It was female
and inferior to them in every way. They increased their speed in
proportion to the deficit.
Righteous fury filled
them. They knew the instant their rival perceived them—the strong
musk of snake fear spored the air—and knew an instant later their
rival was helpless. She was gorging. Her prey, a newborn deer, was
part-in and part-out of her body. The fawn’s head and neck had been
consumed but its legs and abdomen lay quivering on the snow. Its
chest was in the snake’s mouth. Immediately she began disgorging,
contracting muscles in a wave from abdomen to head, forcing out the
meal. Her milk blue eyes tracked the threat. Her scales
mirrored in defense, making her
instantly more difficult to perceive. It was not a strategy that
worked when you were attached at the mouth to a deer.
They struck, their
fangs fastening onto her abdomen and yanking her and her prey
furiously through the snow.
Coven Mother. The rival begged in terror and pain.
Spare me.
They yanked her
again, but their fangs sunk no deeper. The taste of snake blood did
not please them.
I beg you. The force on her abdomen had aided the
disgorgement and as the rival pleaded for her life, the deer’s head
popped from free from her jaw. It was encased in a sheath of
saliva.
Take it, Coven Mother.
Deer scent charmed
them. It was late and dawn was coming and this snake had been
taught a lesson in precedence. Withdrawing their fangs, they warned
it, Do not enter this territory again unless
you come with your sisters at full moon.
Yesss, Mother, the rival replied as she sidewinded
away from the kill. Bleeding and in terrible pain, she headed for
the sheltering darkness of the forest.
They did not spare
her another thought and fed.
Raif awoke. Mist and
soft morning light poured through the moonholes. Something was
making a scratching noise in the corner of the chamber.
Rat. He was pleased to find an
appropriate name. Turning his head, he looked toward the source of
the noise. A figure dressed in gray was crouched close to the
chamber’s oak door, smearing dirt on the wall. Raif watched him. He
had a small pot and kept dipping his finger in it and dabbing the
stonework. Raif calculated the distance between the figure and the
bed, and then struck.
He had not accounted
for the drag caused by pain but he still managed to reach the
figure before the figure could form a defense. Hissing, Raif
grabbed him by the throat and yanked him away from the wall. The
pot he held went skittering across the chamber.
“How many?” Raif
cried, pressing his thumb and fingers into the sinews of the man’s
neck. “How many?”
As he spoke Raif
heard the retort of the bolt being pulled back on the other side of
the door. A shout sounded. Footsteps followed. Raif increased his
pressure on the man’s throat. He was old and almost bald and his
skin had the patchy dullness of a Trenchlander. “How many marks
have you covered?”
The man’s eyes were
wide. Spittle foamed at the corner of his mouth. Muscles in his
neck strained as he tried to shake his head. Furious, Raif threw
him across the chamber. Old bones cracked with the soft snap of wet
twigs. Air wheezed from a punctured lung. Raif stood upright. He
was breathing hard. The door burst open and three armored Sull
rushed the room. Two held him a swordpoint while the third dragged
the body from the chamber.
Raif felt hate so
powerful he might have taken them on, swords and all, if it hadn’t
been for two words circling in his head.
Addie. Faster.
He could die here and
he could not say that would matter much at this moment, but his
friend’s life depended on him carrying on. And getting
faster.
Raif let the Sull
direct him, allowed them to force him back onto the bed. By the
time he lay down, the one who had removed the body returned. It was
the Sull with copper skin. He had a needle dart in his hand, the
kind they used in their blowguns. Raif knew what was coming. He
braced himself.
Addie. Faster, he repeated, determined to retain
possession of the words as whatever substance coating the point of
the dart was jabbed into his veins.
He dreamed he was
back at the Hailhold. Drey and Effie were walking up the stairs
toward him. They were smiling. Effie was talking in her fast
excited way, telling Drey some complicated story involving the
Shankshounds, the remnants of her supper and Anwyn Bird. Drey was
trying his best to keep up. Raif waited for them, his heart aching
with love and joy. Drey looked older than he remembered. His brown
eyes were darker and there were lines on his brow.
“Brother,” Raif
called to him, unable to wait any longer. “I’m here.” Raif awoke. A
tightness in his chest made it difficult to breathe. Opening his
eyes and looking up he saw the ceiling of the chamber, stonework
carved with stars. Despair threatened to swallow him but he could
not say why. He rose and relieved his body in the bucket provided
for the purpose. As he went to drink, he caught sight of a small
pot on the far side of the chamber. He set down the bucket and
retrieved the pot. It was the size of a duck egg and made of brass.
Something dark and greasy was drying to a cake inside. Raif smelled
it. Linseed oil. He dipped a finger into the pot and looked at the
substance. It was the exact same color as the chamber
walls.
A memory slid into
place. They had been covering up his marks, erasing them so that he
had no record of the days he’d been imprisoned. As he tried to make
sense of this, his gaze rested on the wall close to where the pot
hand landed. The chamber was belowground and water was dripping
through the cracks. Raif saw that one of the leaks had made a small
puddle of water on the floor. Thrusting his hand in the brass
container, he scooped out the contents and threw them in the waste
bucket. He unraveled the bandage from his wrist, looked at it,
decided that although it was not exactly clean it would do, and
then used it to wipe the last of the pigment from the bottom of the
pot. Carefully, he centered the empty pot on the drip. Satisfied he
sat and watched it. It was going to take a while to fill, days
probably, and even then it would only provide a single drink of
water.
Still. It was
something. It was a start.
Thirst made him rise
and drink from the water bucket. It was strange swallowing
something he knew was tainted, but it didn’t make him take any
less. He had a strong memory of what it felt like to collapse from
thirst. It was worse than any wound inflicted by the Sull. As he
finished drinking, the bolt was retracted and the door opened. Food
was pushed a short distance into the chamber and then the door was
drawn closed. A loaf of bread and a whole roasted ptarmigan rested
on the stone floor. The ptarmigan was still hot and leaking juice.
Raif sat and ate it methodically, gnawing all the meat from one
bone before starting on the next. He didn’t know whether or not he
was hungry but he knew his body was hurting and needed fuel. When
he was done he pushed the carcass and its loose bones into a pile
against the door.
Feeling his thoughts
getting softer, he repeated his two words. Addie. Faster. He knew what they meant. They meant
he had to get faster for Addie. He had to start winning
fights.
He began moving
through his forms, darting into empty air, twisting to avoid
imagined blows, and searching for the perfect line of strike. The
stars on the domed ceiling and walls were his targets and he picked
a quadrant and began slaying every star within it. As he moved he
realized his body knew how to do this. It had done it before,
practiced before. It made him understand he was losing his
mind.
Later, when he lay
aching and winded on the bed, he tried to string together his
thoughts. Addie. Fights. Drugged water. The effort required was
staggering. It was as if each thought came with a thousand-pound
weight. Closing his eyes, he let himself drift. Briefly he touched
Moonsnake. She was dormant while her body performed the great work
of digesting a whole deer. The deepness of her languor affected him
and he fell into a peaceful and dreamless sleep.
Even before he was
fully awake he knew they were preparing him for a fight. Hands
touched his body with firm efficiency, strapping felt padding in
place before they armored him. The bruising on his ribs and wrist
was taped, hinge and chafe-points were greased. He watched the two
Sull moving above him and knew what it was to be a
corpse.
When he was ready and
standing, they opened the door. It seemed a change in routine, that
closed door. Hadn’t they kept it open when they’d prepped him
before? Did that mean they were more wary of him now?
Three Sull, two armed
with swords, one with a spear, walked him up the stairs and into
the forest. It was dusk—it was always dusk—and a cold snap was
crisping the air. The trees were giants and the moon breaking over
the horizon sent their shadows racing to infinity. Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum. Sull drums were beating.
Their achingly hollow notes were filled with loss.
Raif wondered when he
would lose the part of his mind that felt fear. The heat of burning
torches distorted the air, turning the Sull who waited for him in
silence around the fight circle into horrors from another world. No
one who saw them in this light could mistake them for human. Their
skin, their eyes, the shape of their heads and the very
weight of the space they occupied
marked them as inconceivably different to men. Raif realized then
that even if he possessed a whole mind he would never understand
them.
Unprompted he entered
the ring. Green torches circled him and it took him minutes to grow
accustomed to the light. He searched out and found the figure of
Yiselle No Knife, clothed in silver tissue like a
queen.
“Mor Drakka,” she named him.
A line of fresh blood
underscored her left eye like war paint. She spoke some words in
Sull and then said, “Pick up the sword.”
Raif could see the
sword on the ground before him. It lay on a circle of blue cloth to
protect it from frost. The blade did not possess the blue-white
brilliance of meteor steel, but it was patterned in the design
known as ‘heron walks on sand’ and was beautiful in every way. His
fingers twitched at the sight of it.
“Where’s
Addie?”
No Knife raised an
eyebrow and the new wound below her eye expelled a perfect tear of
blood. She waited, allowing him time to understand that she could
not be commanded, and then made a small gesture with her gloved and
misformed left hand. Raif spotted movement in the crowd and tracked
it. He could see Sull but not Addie. It gave him a sickening
feeling in his gut.
Two Sull approached
the low and broken wall of the fight circle. After a moment Raif
understood they were carrying something between them . . . a
stretcher. He spotted the sandy-grayness of Addie’s hair as an
armed figure in a greathelm entered the ring. Raif took a step
forward, desperate to see Addie’s face.
The cragsman turned
toward him.
Oh gods.
Addie’s skin was gray
and slick with sweat. The fat had gone from his cheeks and lips and
he looked an old man. He was covered with a blanket but it had
fallen down around his chest. His right arm was gone.
Slowly, Addie’s gaze
rose to meet Raif’s. The gray eyes were dull with pain but
comprehension still lived behind them. Raif looked into them and
saw he was known. The cragsman knew all his names and the acts he
had done to earn them. Addie Gunn knew Raif Sevrance and still
loved him like one of his sheep. Raif’s one hope then was that
Addie knew he was loved back.
Yiselle No Knife’s
smile was knowing as Raif bent at the knees and took possession of
the sword. He ignored her. An armed figure was moving toward him
and he needed those handful of seconds to read the weight and
balance of the blade. It was surprisingly heavy, as if there was
tang of pig iron as its core. Were they training him up? Providing
a heavier sword for each fight? He did not pursue the thought. For
the first time in what seemed like months, he perceived the raven
lore at his throat. Plate armor was pressing the small black piece
of bird ivory into his collarbone. He was glad of it. It reminded
him of who he was.
Watcher of the Dead
greeted his opponent with a set of blistering strikes. Sparks flew
as steel smashed steel. The Sull was wearing the same
diamond-reinforced breastplate that other opponents had worn and it
sprayed a glittering spectrum of light. Raif knew that if he were
wise he would keep his blade away from it, but he was not wise. He
was furious. The Sull were killing his friend.
The Sull’s heart was
large in his sights. Every line of strike led straight to it and
the sword homed along the line. The
Sull’s blocks were surprising in their speed and savageness. To
have your forward momentum stopped by one was like being slammed
against a wall. Raif absorbed blow after blow. Diamonds filed his
sword. He was beginning to see a pattern, to understand that his
opponent’s blocks fell into three categories and he, Raif, could
dictate which one his opponent deployed by shifting the angle of
his heart-strikes. He began testing, sending out his sword but
cutting each blow short. Raif saw the open space below his
opponent’s two-handed forward block as an opportunity. He just had
to calculate the right line, hit just below the diamond
reinforcement, on an angle to reach the heart.
Let us feed.
Raif feinted forward
and withdrew ahead of the Sull’s block. Stabbing his toes into the
stone floor of the fight circle, he rebounded forward, sword in
motion, and claimed the open space and the heart beating behind
it.
The Sull’s eyes
widened as air and blood pumped through the hole in his chestplate.
Even before his eyes dimmed, his legs gave way and Raif was left
holding the body upright with his sword. Raif threw the sword and
the Sull away.
The crowd gathered
around the circle were quiet and still. A hundred drawn swords
glittered in the moonlight. Somewhere beyond them the drummer
changed his rhythm, slowing the tempo so that each beat existed
alone. Raif searched for Addie, but could not see him or the Sull
who had carried him away.
Yiselle No Knife
stepped into the space he searched. “Mor
Drakka. Pick up your sword.”
Raif was shaking in
violent bursts. He didn’t understand what she meant. The sword was
in his opponent. He’d won.
Spotting movement out
of the corner of his eye, he turned. Two figures armored in
matte-black plate and greathelms entered the ring. One was armed
with meteor steel. The other carried a six foot spear and a
shield.
“Pick up your sword,”
No Knife said quietly. “You do not want to fail your
friend.”
Hatred for the Sull
entered Watcher of the Dead’s soul.
He picked up the
sword and fought.