“I will need boots, Ram, if we are to follow her.”
Ram wanted to hug her. He remembered her sword then and held it out to her mutely, the silver hilt glinting. Her dark eyes went wide with amazement. Behind them the battle had swept past, not a battle so much now as a mopping up of unhorsed soldiers trying to flee on foot, stumbling over their dead brothers and pursued by wolves and by Hermeth’s riders. Ram said, “I took it off a dead Herebian at the foot of Tala-charen.”
She ran her finger down the flat of the blade, then sheathed the sword in a quiet ritual, discarding the heavy Herebian one she had used. When she looked up at him, her eyes were deep. “I missed it, Ram. I missed it quite a lot.”
*
The battle was ended. Hermeth’s soldiers stripped the bodies of valuables and dragged them to a common grave scraped out of the loose loam of the woods. Skeelie’s image-wolves were gone. Only the real wolves remained, licking their wounds from battle. Five wolves were dead, lost to the battling armies. They will live again, Fawdref said, ignoring Ram’s grief for them. They will live again, Ramad, in the progression of souls. Perhaps as men—or perhaps they will be luckier, he said dryly, nudging Ram. Ram cuffed him on the shoulder.
“Those dead ones fought for Hermeth, for the stone, Fawdref. Your wolves fought bravely.”
We fought for all of us, Ramad, just as we fought at the Castle of Hape. Just as we fought for Macmen. Never forget, Ramad; it is our battle too. Men are not the only sufferers when the dark grows strong upon Ere.
Ram knelt suddenly and pressed his face against Fawdref’s rough shoulder, reassured by Fawdref’s warm, solid presence.
The old wolf was silent for a few moments. Then he looked away across the wood. Those who have been buried in the common grave, who came from the time of NilokEm, are gone now, Ramad. Only traces of dry, rotting bones remain in the earth where, a moment ago, they lay still warm from recent life. And look behind you at NilokEm’s skeleton. His hand still holds the lifeless gray stone that is also a skeleton, lifeless body of the runestone. That stone will vanish too, as, in his own time, the live jade is lifted from his bloody palm to be passed on to his heir who was NilokDal, and to come at long last down to Hermeth’s hand—that jade that lies now in your tunic, Ramad.
Part Three: The Lake of Caves
From the Fourth Book of Zandour, Writer unknown.
Dark mysteries surround the history of Hermeth and surround his victory in the wood of the dark tower south of Dal. Time-flung raiders died in that wood and turned to bone ages old, crumbling before Hermeth’s eyes. And a Seer of light came out of a spell-casting to fight by Hermeth’s side. Some said the Seer was Ramad of wolves, as the song of that battle tells. Most folk say that could not be. But surely that Seer led wolves: two score great wolves fought by his side to defeat the street-bred rabble and to defeat mysterious warriors. Some say that Hermeth defeated on that battlefield his long-dead ancestor, NilokEm.
Surely Hermeth returned victorious to Zandour with a dark-eyed Seer riding beside him and surrounded by running wolves. And there was celebration in Zandour for the victory of free men. But then in Zandour came tragedy to Hermeth. A tragedy no Seer could undo.
EIGHT
It was a rare good night of feasting and singing. The hall of Hermeth’s rough stone villa was crowded with tables laden nearly to overflowing with meats and breads and delicacies brought from all around the city by the townsfolk: shellfish from Zandour’s coast baked in leaves of tammi; breads of mawzee grain and whitebarley and wild grass seed; and great custards of tervil and vetchpea and dill. A huge fire blazed on the hearth, roasting chicken and chidrack and wild pig from out the marshes and haunches of deer and sheep. Folk heaped their plates high and carried them to the courtyard, where singing and gay music stirred the night, and the dancing was wild and fast, celebrating Zandour’s victory.
How long they had awaited this day; how eagerly they had anticipated the time when they could tend their flocks on Zandour’s green hills without fear of Herebian raiders, could sleep at night beneath the peaceful silence of Ere’s cool moons, not listening every moment for the sounds of raiders descending from dark hills to burn and steal and kill. There would still be danger. Zandour must still maintain guards and patrols, and the army must train as ever. But not danger as it had been. The street-rabble Seers were slaughtered. Neither Hermeth or Ram could sense any lingering taint of them. The only evil that threatened now was the common strain of straggling raiders never caught up in the Pellian warring, small Herebian pilferers that Zandour could easily deal with.
Zandour showed its pleasure in joyful celebration. The songs sung were mostly the old songs, “Smallsinger Tell Me,” “Jajun Jajun,” “The Goosetree of Madoc,” songs from the coastal lands. Then a young bard made a song about the war in the dark wood, sang the words amidst a sudden stillness as Zandour’s people went hushed; and long would it be sung in Zandour. It told of the two stones that were one stone, of Ramad of wolves come out of Time to fight by Hermeth’s side; of NilokEm, the dark ancestor, and of Telien, who was mother to Hermeth’s grandfather, come suddenly into that wood. It did not speak of the wraith, for only a few had seen that shadow and understood what it was. The song did not tell where Telien had gone, once she disappeared from the wood.
Ram did not join the festivities. He took supper alone beside the hearth in the great hall, his back to the crowds that came to load their plates. He ignored Skeelie, who lurked by a window watching him. He wished she would go away, wanted only his own lonely company. He ate quickly, hardly tasting the deer meat and the carefully prepared dishes, then wandered out of the hall and through the crowds, unaware of the music and jostling. It was to the quiet dark beyond the stables and outbuildings that he was driven by his taut, violent agitation.
Skeelie wanted to follow him and knew he would not tolerate that. He was utterly closed to her in a remoteness that not even friendship could bridge; so awash with suffering for Telien, so deeply grieving. She saw him disappear into shadow and stood in the courtyard for a long time alone after he had gone. Like him, she was unaware of the crowds around her, of the gaiety; and at last she found her way to the room Hermeth had given her.
She shut the door, stood with her back to it, letting the tension ease, letting the sense of isolation, the emptiness of the big square room soothe her. A bathing tub had been brought in, which steamed invitingly. She sat for a while in a deep chair beside the fire, admiring the tapestries and the bright Zandourian rugs, thinking of Ram and of Telien, too lazy even to get into the bath, then began at last to strip off her boots and her borrowed dirty leathers.
The steaming tub felt so good; the aches of battle and the tired stiffness were slowly eased away. She took up the thick sponge, then the ball of perrisax soap, sniffing it with delight, and in a pleasant fog began to scrub off the blood and dirt of battle. When finally she dozed, the water in the tub grew cold and the low fire burned to embers.