Warrior of the Altaii Page 6

  “And that is?”

  “That we ride against Lanta.” He hurried on as if fearing being stopped. “If we do, can I ride with the lances? You yourself have said I’m as good with my weapons as any man half again my age. I wouldn’t embarrass you, I promise.”

  “Rolf, I know you wouldn’t embarrass me, but are you so eager for your brand that—”

  Suddenly his eyes widened. “Look out, my lord.” Dropping his cup he leaped forward and pushed me from my chair.

  As though time had slowed I watched a crossbow bolt slice through the back of my seat and take the boy, still leaning as he had pushed me aside, in the shoulder. He fell, his hand going to the bolt, and I rolled to my feet, hand fumbling in the cushions on the floor for my sword belt.

  “The back of the tent,” Rolf cried. “A killer from the shadows.”

  The slit the killer had made to use his weapon still quivered at the back of the tent.

  “A killer,” I shouted. “An outsider!”

  Tearing the slit open to the ground, I ducked through into the night. The cry of “killer” spread through the tents, and men on horseback began to circle with torches.

  Near a tent across from me I thought I saw something move. The lights passed by, and it moved again. I also moved. In pursuit.

  Almost at once the killer became aware that I followed. He redoubled his speed to get away. That alone proved that he was not of the Altaii. If one had reason to kill me, he would have stood and taken the chance. I raised the cry again.

  Horsemen began to gather in behind me. Ahead, warriors with torches moved to cut his escape. He had quietly moved from shadow to shadow, working his way ever closer until he could open the slit in my tent and make his shot. Now the shadows were denied to him. Now he must run to escape. But there was no escape.

  Swiftly the circle closed around him, cutting him off, closing him in. He was surrounded by men. Men with lights. Men on horseback. And me.

  He turned to face me and waited calmly. From head to foot he was dressed in tight-fitting, dull black leather. It was dress designed for skulking through shadows, for killing from darkness. Over his shoulder, hanging across his back, was a long, two-handed sword. The crossbow lay at his feet.

  “Do you seek me, killer from the shadows?” I called. “Do you seek Wulfgar? If so, you have found him.”

  He stood, making no sound, watching like a dril hovering over the dying. My blades slid smoothly from their scabbards, and the sword belt dropped to the ground.

  “You’ve found me,” I said softly. “Let’s see if you can kill me.”

  Still he made no sound as he drew the sword over his shoulder and attacked. It was one smooth, swift motion, the draw and charge. One moment he was standing, the next he was on me, his blade gleaming in the torchlight.

  He had no chance to live and knew it was so. An assassin would not be allowed to walk away, no matter the outcome of our battle. Still, though, he might accomplish what he had come for, kill the man he sought. In that first rush he nearly did it.

  Barely did I block his whirling blade with one of my short swords. The other I swung for his side, and he leaped back in midswing to avoid a backhand slash that would have removed his head.

  He stood facing me, his sword held high, hilt beside his head, blade pointing at the sky. There was no sound save for the quiet rasp of our breathing, the stamping of the horses and the creak of saddle leather. I held my swords in front of my body, a little above waist high, the points raised slightly upward, aimed toward him. Slowly I circled around him, stepping carefully, placing my feet by feel on the uneven ground. I faked a thrust, and again, harder, but he made no move except to keep turning, to keep that leather-masked face toward me.

  Without warning his blade flickered toward my arm. I moved to block it, and he changed direction in midswing, down and under to strike at my side. I twisted, sword swinging down to catch his, my other blade striking at his chest.

  Barely did my blade catch his as it sliced into my chest. My own point cut through leather and skittered off chain mail below. Thrusting my blades up to cross above my head I just caught his downward blow. My knee rose to smash into his crotch, and I struck at his face with fisted hilt, feeling bone crunch beneath my blow. He staggered back, but recovered on the instant. And still he made no sound.

  The blood seemed cold where it trickled down my side, and the hair rose on the back of my neck. In the stillness I could hear warriors mutter charms. Close was the need in me to mutter a charm myself.

  What manner of man was this? It’s been said that the Most High can bring men back from the dead to do their bidding. Mayra said this is foolish, at least in the way men speak of. But in some other way? She didn’t speak of that. Was this such a one, this man who made no sound, showed no reaction to injury? Had they come to regret releasing me that morning? If it was so, or if it was not so, I would end it now. In one fashion or another.

  I advanced on him singing my death song. My swords sang the song in the air. I advanced, caring only that it ended, and he stepped back. With that first step came a second and then a third, until he moved only backward.

  Now I began to break through his guard. Knowing that the mail was there I took care that my blows struck square on, and they struck hard enough to pierce the steel net. At each blow he dodged back, so that none struck deep, but patches of blood began to soak through the slashes in his tunic. They gleamed blackly on the leather in the torchlight.

  Suddenly he kicked, his boot smashing into my chest. What breath remained in me went rushing out when I struck the ground with a thud that made my bones shiver. A moan spread through the lances, and I knew they would avenge me.

  Silently the assassin moved in, raising his sword for the death stroke. At the last instant, even as his blade fell, I gathered my strength one last time. One foot hooked around his ankle, the other slammed into his knee, and the crack sounded like the splintering of a tomb. He went over backward, and, teeth bared, I forced myself up to follow, diving under his descending sword. His arms struck my shoulders, and his blade fell uselessly across my back, but my steel, in the full force of my arm and weight of my body behind it, slashed through the chain mail below his ribs, sought upward for his heart, and found it.

  Pulling my sword loose I got to my feet to find myself surrounded by cheering warriors. “Remove the mask,” I said over the tumult. “Let me see his face.”

  Bartu knelt and cut away the mask. He took a fistful of hair and lifted the killer’s head. He was an ordinary-looking man, except for a burn that marked his cheek. I wondered if another of his victims had fought back, and had also managed to survive.

  “Has anyone here seen him before?”

  I was answered with a chorus, but all the answers were the same. No one had ever seen him before. Bartu pried open his mouth, searching for the secret of his silence.

  “My lord,” he said, “he has no tongue.”

  It was an answer that should have come to me. In some lands it is the custom to so mutilate men who kill for hire. It’s not punishment. It’s to keep them from being able to betray those who hire them, even under torture. At least, though, I no longer had to fear the Most High. Whatever they could do with the dead, they didn’t hire assassins. It didn’t take much effort, however, to think of someone who would. Two someones.

  “Foul business,” I said, “to cut a man so, then send him out to murder.”

  Bartu nodded. “It’s that and more, my lord.” He looked at me shrewdly. “You have an idea of who sent him?”

  “I do. Just the same, take the head around the tents. See if there’s anyone who’s seen him before, or knows anything about him. Then send a rider to Lord Harald.” I handed him one of my messenger scarves, a square of red silk with a wind serpent from the mountains to the west picked out on it in gold. The scarf would confirm the rider as coming from me. “If I’m right about the source of this vermin, then one may try for him, also. Tell the man to ride his horse into
the ground, and hope that there’s been no attempt made before he gets there.”

  “Aye, Lord Wulfgar. We can only hope.” With one stroke he severed the head and stood. He nudged the body with his toe. “And what of this?”

  “Throw it in the waste pits,” I said.

  All the way back to my tent I mulled the new card in the game. If the Most High and the Twin Thrones did indeed conspire to some end, they would have consulted on any move against me, unless the Most High made it on their own, in which case an inhuman agency would have been used, not a hired assassin. If they had consulted, the Most High would have insisted on their own agent. That left only an attack by the Twin Thrones without the knowledge of the Most High, and the Most High could deal harshly with those who altered their plans, queens or not. Unless, of course, another player had entered the game.

  Inside the tent the girls were huddled against the side. Elspeth sat quietly with her head on her knees, but the others were weeping. By the table lay a figure covered by a cloak.

  Dreading what I knew I must find, I lifted the edge. It was Rolf. “How? How could it happen? He was hit in the arm only, a light hit, a scratch.”

  Sara spoke with a quaver. “The shaft must have been poisoned, my lord. Almost as soon as you left the tent he gasped and fell to the ground. We went to him, but there wasn’t even time to send for a healer. He shivered once and died.”

  “There wasn’t any time, my lord. We tried, but it was no use,” said Elnora.

  “I know,” I said sadly. I dropped the cloak back over him. “Go to the healers, Elnora. Tell them there will be a funeral fire in the morning.”

  She ran into the darkness, but I still stood there. I seemed rooted to the spot. “I chose him,” I said to no one. “Five years ago, when he won the manhood brand in the first year he was eligible. He was quick, with his mind, with his weapons, quicker than any other I saw that year. And he had three kinds of courage. The kind that makes a man brave in battle. The kind that makes a man say or do the thing that must be said or done. The kind that makes a man do what other men say can’t be done. That was why I chose him, as I was chosen, as Harald was chosen, as Bohemund and my father were chosen. He would have commanded warriors. He would have been a great leader.”

  It wasn’t much as such things counted. I am not a speaker. It would serve, however, to introduce the boy to those who waited beyond.

  A hand touched my arm, trembling, and drew me back to the tents from the dark place I had been. Elspeth watched me strangely, with tremors going through her body as if she stood in the wind.

  “I am sorry about your friend. I know you cared for—” Her voice faded away. “This isn’t a dream,” she said haltingly. She choked back a sob. “It isn’t.”

  “What was it made you decide this wasn’t a dream? Rolf?”

  “That, yes. That and the other. I looked outside after you ran out. I saw what happened, or some of it anyway. It wasn’t clear, but I saw enough. Those men on horses, ringed around you with torches. You and that other man, fighting. And he died out there. A man died, and another one in here. That doesn’t happen in dreams, or if it does, you wake up.” She shivered again. “So, this must be real.”

  As I started to speak the healer arrived. I let him in with his apprentices, and gave them the instructions for the funeral fire in the morning. As they cared for us in life, so they cared for us in death.

  “The bolt was meant for me,” I told them. “Rolf pushed me aside and took it in my stead. He earned his warrior brand. I’ll come in the morning to put it on his arm.”

  They left with their shrouded burden, and it seemed as if the future of the Altaii left with them. We’d fight. No Altaii ever surrendered to anything. Yet now it all seemed hopeless. The Plain grew harsher day by day, and even if we survived that there were still the Most High, the Lantans and the Morassa.

  “Leave me,” I said, and the girls scurried away. All but Elspeth. “I said to go.”

  “You, you spoke of a warrior brand,” she said. “I saw the brands on your arms. What are they?”

  I dropped to a pile of cushions while I spoke. “The Altaii way of life is hard. To live it, to survive the Plain, takes a hard man. So, from the time a boy is big enough to walk, he begins to train. He learns to fight, with nothing but his hands and feet, first, then later with sword, dagger, lance, bow, with every weapon the Altaii have ever encountered. He learns to ride, until a horse is near a part of his body, until guiding his mount is as much an instinct as breathing.

  “Possibly even more important than those lessons is the lesson of survival. The Plain is harsh, and that is a mild word to describe it. This isn’t the Plain here, despite what the Lantans say. This place is lush compared to the Plain. No Lantan could live a week on the Plain unprotected.

  “An Altaii must be able to live there, though. It is his home. The boy learns to survive where there doesn’t seem to be anything for him to survive on, to find food where there is none, to a city man’s eyes, to find water where there’s only sand and rock. And he has to be able to find his way, to locate waterholes without maps or guides, for a man can live anywhere, but the herds must have the waterholes.

  “If he learns all of this, and survives that long, he will receive a manhood brand sometime between his twelfth and fourteenth years.”

  “Which is it?” she asked. “The manhood brand?”

  I touched the brand on my left arm. “This one. A bull’s head. The one on the right arm is the warrior brand, the head of the tussat, the great cat of the north. It fears nothing, and a single one can pull down a tusk-beast. This brand is even harder to win than the other. I spoke to a general from Caselle once. He had served the Empire through a long career, and he was proud that he’d fought in twenty battles in its service. Before an Altaii youth wins the warrior brand, he’s fought a hundred battles, some as large as any that Caselle general ever saw. That’s the way it’s earned. Just as the other comes from proving that he’s learned enough to survive, this one proves he’s learned enough to be accepted by the lances.”

  “Do all of your boys become warriors? What about the healer?”

  “Almost all. There are other paths, of course, healer, scribe, smith and the like, but most become warriors. We are a warrior people. There’s no other way for us.”

  VIII

  THE SHELLS

  The day dawned gloomily. Clouds hung low in the sky, and there was no sunrise as such. Gradually there was a lightening of the sky, but the heavy clouds made it a morbid light. It was a fit morning for what must be done.

  The healer and his apprentices had built a low mound out of the oil-rich branches of the shagara. Rolf lay on the mound. Now on his right arm was the head of the tussat.

  I motioned, and the healer touched a torch to the pyre. In an instant flames leaped toward the sky, and a billow of smoke rose to the clouds. The heat was painful against my face, but I didn’t move back.

  Hooves came pounding from the distance. Orne, Bartu and some of the lances had come to say farewell. Back and forth they rode, making a display for Rolf’s leave-taking. Orne went past standing on the back of his horse at full gallop. Bartu slipped down beside his running horse, his feet slapping the ground to throw him back up into the air and over his horse to slap at the ground again. Another slid off the back of his mount and followed it at a dead run, holding on to the tail.

  I had my own leave-taking to make, the ceremonial words of long parting. “Fare you well, warrior. We will drink together in the Lands of the Dead. We will eat lamb in the Tents of Death.”

  I stood there until the fire burned itself out. The healer’s apprentice moved to the ashes to gather what remained, a piece of bone, some ash. This would be saved until it could be scattered on the Plain. It is the beginning of the Altaii, and it receives our ending.

  Orne rode to me and dismounted to walk back to the tents with me. “It’s bitter, Orne, bitter as gall. He had the seeds of greatness in him. Not just the makings of
a commander, but the makings of a leader, the extra something that makes men follow, not because they must, but because they want to. It’s hard to find that in a man.”

  “I found it in you, my lord.”

  “If you think to cheer me with flattery,” I said, “I fear it won’t work this morning.”

  “My lord, the rider you sent to Lord Harald returned before dawn. He rode straight through to get here.”

  “And?”

  “There was no attack on Lord Harald, nor any sign that anyone had tried to enter the tents to make one.” He paused. “My lord, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “That it doesn’t, Orne. I thought it was part of whatever the Twin Thrones plot, but it looks as if someone else has entered the picture. Only, who is it? And why?”

  “I couldn’t say, my lord.” He walked a moment before speaking again. “My lord, Mirim’s run away. The horse guards heard someone trying to steal a horse early this morning. They found no one, but this was in the grass near where the sounds were heard.”

  It was a necklet I had bought her at the festival at Chadra. Her name was worked into it in gold wire and rubies.

  “She’s not been seen by anyone since your girls went to sleep last night. I can have her tracked by the dogs. The necklet’s enough for them to get a scent. My lord?”

  What had made her run, I wondered. Not a desire for freedom, that much was certain. A woman alone, with no family or friends or guild to protect her, would be considered fair game by any slaver who saw her. Even a man would be if he had no weapons about him. No, something else had sent her on her way.

  “My lord?”

  “Yes, Orne, the dogs. But see that she is not hurt.”

  “She’ll be as unhurt as possible, Lord Wulfgar. I promise it. There’s something else about this you should know, though. This makes six girls of Talva’s training who’ve run in the last five tendays.”

  I stopped and turned to face him. “You’re suggesting there’s something wrong with the way Talva’s carrying out her duties, that that’s the reason for the running?”