Others had died since, good friends and brothers-in-arms. He had learned, and learned, and learned-to stifle emotions till the smoke had cleared, till the dust had settled, till the enemy had been put away.
He knelt by the dead man in the hallway, opening his clothing. "Here." He tapped the man over his heart.
"What?" Valther asked. "He has the tattoo. They always do."
"Look closer," Ragnarson growled.
Valther peered intently at a tricolor tattoo, three cursiveletters intertwined. They meant "Beloved of God." Their bearer was guaranteed entry into Paradise. "What?"
"You see it?"
"Of course."
"Why?"
Valther didn't reply.
"He's dead, Valther. They fade with the spirit."
"Oh. Yes."
So they did, with a genuine Harish assassin, supposedly to indicate that the soul had ascended. Some cynics, though, claimed they vanished to avoid an admission that a Cultist had failed.
"Somebody went to a lot of trouble here," Bragi observed. "But for that, the frame would've worked." It should have. Not many men outside the Harish knew that secret. Most of those were associates of Haroun bin Yousif.
Ragnarson's mysterious friend had researched the Cult thoroughly. He'd had to. He had been its top target for a generation.
And he was still alive.
"There's a trap here," said Bragi.
"What now?" Valther demanded.
"You've got the mind for this. Suppose these are part of the plan? If they failed, and we didn't jump to the conclusion that El Murid was responsible? Who would you suspect then?"
"Considering their apparent origins...."
"Haroun. Of course. There're other folks like them, but who else would be interested?"
"A double frame?"
"Levels. Always there're these levels. Direct attack is too unsubtle...."
"Is something beginning?"
"Something has begun. We've been into it for a long time. Too many impossible things have happened already."
Bragi rose, kicked the corpse, growled, "Get this out of my house." Then he dropped to a knee beside Haaken. He slid an arm around his brother's shoulders, crushed him to his chest. "Haaken, Haaken, it was an evil day when we came south."
Tears still rolled down into the wild dark tangle of Haaken's beard.
He sniffed. "We should've stood and died." He sniffed again, wrapped both arms around Bragi. "Bragi, let me get the kids andwe just go home. Now, and the hell with everything. Forget it all. Just you and me and Reskird and the kids, and leave these damned southrons to their own mercies."
"Haaken...."
"Bragi, it's bad. It's cruel. Please. Let's just go. They can have everything I've got. Just take me home. I can't take it anymore."
"Haaken...." He rose.
"Don't go in. Bragi, please."
"Haaken, I have to." There were tears in his own eyes. He knew part of it now. Elana. She was a loss more dire than his father. Mad Ragnar had chosen his death. Elana.... She was a victim of his profession.
Blackfang wouldn't move. And now the younger children, Ainjar and Helga, clung to his legs, bawling, asking for Mama, and what was wrong with Inger and Soren?
Ragnarson asked a question with his eyes. Haaken nodded.
"My babies? No. Not them too?"
Haaken nodded again.
The tears faded. Ragnarson turned slowly, surveying the faces in the hall. Every eye turned from the flame raging in his. Hatred was too mild a word.
Blood would flow. Souls would spill shrieking into the outer darkness. And he wouldn't be gentle. He would be cruel.
"Move aside, Haaken."
"Bragi...."
"Move."
Haaken moved. "You lead, Bragi," he said. "I'll follow anywhere."
Ragnarson briefly rested a hand on his shoulder. "We're probably dead men, Haaken. But somebody will carry the torches to light our path into Hell." For an instant he was startled by his own words. Their father had said the same thing just before his death. "Valther! Find out who did this."
"Bragi...."
"Do it." He shoved into the bedroom.
Valther started to follow him. Mist seized his arm.
She had the Power. Once she had been a Princess of the Dread Empire. She knew what lay behind that door.
Ragnarson had his emotions under control again. He kept hand on sword hilt to remind himself. This was a battlefield. These had fallen in a war....
"Oh."
Haaken tried to pull him out.
"No. Valther. Come here."
The man with his pants half on was Valther's brother Turran.
Their eyes met over the corpse, and much went unsaid- words which couldn't be spoken lest blood be their price.
"Take care of him." Ragnarson moved round the bed to his wife. First he dropped to one knee, then he sat. He held her hand and remembered. Twenty years. Sixteen of them married. Hard times and good, fighting and loving.
That was a long time. Nearly half his life. There were a lot of memories.
Behind him, Valther shed tears on his brother's chest.
An hour passed before Bragi looked up.
Rolf Preshka, Captain of the Palace Guards, sat on the edge of the bed. His grief mirrored Ragnarson's.
Bragi had never known for sure, but he had suspected. Rolf had joined him when Elana had. They had been partners before.... But there hadn't been a moment's dishonor since. He knew Preshka that well.
There was that, beneath the grief, which said that Rolf, too, meant to extract payment in blood and pain.
But Preshka was in no shape for it. He had lost a lung in the war. He refused to die, but he was never healthy either. That was why he held the unstrenuous Palace command.
Later still, Nepanthe came. She cried some. Then she and Mist calmed the children and moved them to Valther's house.
"You are my hand that reaches beyond the grave," Bragi told Ragnar before he left, and went on to explain what he knew and felt. Things Ragnar should know in case the next band of assassins succeeded.
The boy had to grow up fast.
Throughout the night Michael Trebilcock observed in silence. Trebilcock remained an enigma. He was a sponge, soaking up others' pain and joy and never revealing any emotion himself.
Once, though, he came and rested a comforting hand on Bragi's shoulder. For Trebilcock that was a lot.
Before sunrise all Bragi's old comrades had come, except Reskird, whose regiment was on exercise around Lake Turntine.
Shortly before dawn, thunder rolled over the mountains. Lightning walked the cloudless night.
It was an omen.
SEVEN: The Old Dread Returns
The wind never ceased its howl and moan through the wild, angry mountains called The Dragon's Teeth. It tore at Castle Fangdred with talons of ice and teeth of winter. The stronghold was the only evidence that Man had ever braved these savage mountains. The furious wind seemed bent on eradication.
It was a lonely castle, far from any human habitation. Only two men dwelt there now, and but one of those could be called alive.
He was old, that man, yet young. Four centuries had he lived, yet he looked not a tenth of that. He stalked Fangdred's empty, dusty halls, alone and lonely, waiting.
Varthlokkur.
His name. The west's dread.
Varthlokkur. The Silent One Who Walks With Grief. Also called The Empire Destroyer.
This man, this wizard, could erase kingdoms as a student wipes a slate.
Or such was his reputation. He was powerful, and had engineered the downfall of Ilkazar, yet he was a man. He had his limitations.
He was tall and thin, with earth-toned skin and haunted mahogany eyes.
He was waiting. For a woman.
He wanted nothing to do with the world.
But sometimes the world assailed him and he had to react, to protect his place in it, to secure his own tomorrows.
The other man sat on a stone throne, before a mirror, in a chamber high atop a tower. Its only door was sealed by spells which even Varthlokkur couldn't fathom. He wasn't dead, but neither was he alive. He, too, waited.