Lyrec Page 19

  Faubus said nothing. He ate and drank while Cheybal called out for scribes. When they had gathered, the commander stood and paced behind his desk. “I want a proclamation drawn up,” he told them, “against the village of Trufege and all of its inhabitants. First, they are to be banned from attending the coronation ceremonies. Any who have come here will have a day to leave. The coronation will wait an extra day without any difficulties, I’m sure. The vendors will adore us. Secondly, the village is to be ostracized throughout the winter. No coaches are allowed there. Likewise, no food will be delivered to them should they have a shortage. Disobedience of this order will result in imprisonment, the length of sentence to be set by me alone upon hearing the circumstances of the offense. Note lastly that the above orders may be rescinded in part if the guilty parties give themselves over to me. That’s all. Draw it up properly, I’ll put my seal to it and you’ll have copies posted here and sent to Trufege by mid-morning.”

  As the scribes filed out, Cheybal muttered, “If they think the gods can frown on them, wait until they learn what an angry tyrant can do.”

  Faubus, feeling better after his meal, made the error of smiling.

  “You find that amusing, captain?” asked Cheybal coldly.

  Faubus cleared his throat. “No, sir. I find I cannot get over the brazen stupidity of that village.”

  “There’s nothing more dangerous than stupidity—ignorance and fanaticism being its most exhibited forms. And I tell you this coronation is girdled by both those most murderous aspects. Some of it I can suppress, but there are areas under your hand that you can control and I cannot. Like what those guards and your men will believe about what has happened.

  “Faubus, tell your story with carefully weighed words. Make the villains unquestionably villains—and, no, please don’t pretend to misunderstand. I have been part of Atlarma’s army for too long not to know what gets bandied about in barracks regarding Kobachs. I rely on you, captain. You’re quick and clever; just be careful of being glib—”

  He was interrupted by a knock at the door.

  At his call two soldiers came in, one of them bearing a small dark bundle. Faubus quickly stood. “Oh, sir,” he began, “I’d forgotten about the child. This is a little girl we rescued from Ukobachia.” He took the bundle from the soldier. “Actually, she rescued herself.”

  “Has someone called for a nurse?”

  One of the soldiers nodded.

  “What is her name?”

  “I’ve no idea,” said Faubus. “She has said only that she wants her father. I’m afraid he’s probably dead, sir.” He regretted instantly having said that. Cheybal admonished him with a look as the child began to squirm and cry in his arms. The platter of food on the table suddenly flipped into the air, spilling its contents. The captain’s mug poured mulcet across the floor and dashed itself to pieces against the wall. Cheybal leapt up as his chair began rocking back and forth. The door banged open like a loose shutter in a storm. Something grabbed hold of Cheybal and threw him back. He tripped over his chair and went sprawling. The two soldiers were tossed against the wall behind the door.

  Cheybal clawed his way back up to his table. Every loose object in the room was dancing, shaking, and in the center of it all Faubus and the girl stood untouched in the eye of the storm.

  The nurse, an old midwife with her head wrapped in a wimple, came in and gasped at what she found. She started to back out, but Cheybal yelled, “Don’t you dare leave, missus! It’s the child doing it. I want you to call to her, take her from the captain.” The woman held back fearfully. “Well, go on!” The nurse looked fearfully at the commander. He glowered back and gestured sharply with his head. Putting out her trembling arms, the nurse took tiny steps toward Faubus, poised to flee at any moment.

  “Call to her, damn you,” Cheybal snapped. A wax taper slid across the table and struck him between the eyes.

  “Dear,” the woman said, her voice fracturing. She cleared her throat timidly and tried again. “Child, you must stop this. Come now, listen to me, dear one, I’m going to take you from these horrible soldiers and show you where I live in the castle. Wouldn’t you like that? I’ll warrant you’d like a hot bath to soak in, eh? What would you say to that?”

  The child’s pale blue eyes focused on her for the first time. “I want my papa!”

  The nurse glanced at Faubus nervously, not knowing the full extent of where she was treading. “Oh, he’s probably out in the city, you know—celebrating the coronation of a boy not much older than you.”

  All of the objects hovering across the room began to plummet to the floor. “Can we see him?” the girl asked the nurse.

  “Well, yes, but later, I think, dear, if the commander doesn’t mind. There are many people in the city just now. But your papa would probably want you to clean up and sleep first, because it’s very late.”

  The child reached out and put her arms around the nurse’s neck, and she allowed herself to be taken from Faubus and carried out of the room.

  Cheybal crawled out from beneath the table, climbed up against his chair, then righted it. “Rescued herself, was it, Faubus?” he snarled. “Oh, go help out your men, there—get them drunk, just …” Unable to find the words, he turned his back and leaned on the chair. The three soldiers sneaked quietly out. As the door closed, Cheybal shouted, “And remember what I said to you, captain, about stupidity!”

  He started to sit down, but then surveying the destruction, changed his mind.

  He stepped out into the hall, told his servant to get someone into clean up the mess, then headed off to Bozadon Reket. If ever he needed two bottles of mulcet, it was now. He had never in his life witnessed anything like what had just happened. “She probably dealt with Trufege all by herself,” he muttered.

  Halfway up the stairs he began to laugh and continued laughing in disabling bursts until well after the sun had come up and he and Reket had lost the power of intelligible speech.

  *****

  Borregad sat in his accustomed position, slung across Lyrec’s shoulders. He was wondering exactly how large Maribus Wood was. He had thought of little else since he and Lyrec had left behind those uncommon people at dawn. The tavern inspired almost his every thought—he swore that he could taste the grynne on his dry and surely swollen tongue.

  Somewhere behind them, following the same trail but keeping well into the trees, the Kobachs came along at a snail’s pace. If he listened hard, Borregad could hear them like the distant roar of a waterfall, their separate words no longer distinguishable—just a constant, deep, breathy sound. He had liked the Kobachs well enough, but meeting them had made him all the more dissatisfied with his present incarnation. Some of the members of that group had aroused certain unique and zestful ideas in him; he could think of nothing better than to have the opportunity to submerge in pleasure, to forget Miradomon for a little while, and all the dead worlds they had chased him through. But his current form had certain limitations—just how many, he had barely begun to learn. He wondered vaguely how female cats behaved.

  He’d listened to Lyrec’s bemoaning of this mortal existence, of how he feared the conflicting emotions that seethed in him and dreaded what he’d become. Borregad shared none of these reservations; if anything, he wanted to have freer expression of all these elements. Having been nearly slain and left to hang in eternal semi-consciousness in a world of nothingness, he was all too happy to embrace any existence and its attendant foibles. Compared to eternal exile in the void, even death sounded preferable. Emotions—good or bad—were things to which he could easily reconcile himself. And he noted that Lyrec had not lodged a single protest against his tumultuous passions since that dark witch Nydien had gone to him last night. Although he wasn’t sure what had happened, Borregad was glad something had—he’d endured enough complaining of how terrible it was to be alive.

  The cat stretched out one leg and extended his claws, then turned his paw around and began to lick the rough pads.

&
nbsp; A shadow drifted across him.

  Borregad paused in his ablution; a rush of wind blew across his fur followed by a thump that sounded like the percussive burst of a sudden fire. He was about to say something, but a terrible stench choked him and the oppressive shadow smothered him.

  Lyrec!

  A green-gray monster swooped down, its shiny legs bent, it claws extended. It dove too fast for Lyrec to defend himself. He raised one arm instinctively to shield his face against the thing diving straight out of the sun, twisted so sharply that he flung Borregad off his shoulders. The cat tumbled into the brush, rolling and coming up alert and ready to attack.

  A terrible reek assaulted Lyrec, blinding him with tears. He choked.

  Shiny black claws knifed into his shoulders and tore him from his horse. The terrified horse took off at a wild gallop. Chasing after it, Borregad shouted, “Lyrec, Lyrec!” He didn’t know what else to do.

  His friend was fast becoming a speck against the clouds as a beast of legend carried him away.

  Within moments all trace of Lyrec vanished. The horse was gone, the sky was empty.

  Borregad concentrated as hard as he could to call out, but he received no answer. Not so much as a faint echo of his own cry.

  He sagged down to the ground. What should he do now? How could he carry on by himself?

  We must both survive, Lyrec had said.

  Only now, without any warning, it appeared that Lyrec was dead.

  Chapter 15.

  At first, his reviving senses lingered at half-consciousness. His head pounded in a blood-flecked darkness and he could barely feel his arms at all. Something nearby smelled fetid, and a thrumming wind rocked him, lit his body like a torch of pain. The pain stabbed him alert.

  Two black boots—his feet—swung free beneath him. Far below he saw trees and hills and occasional tilled fields. Some terrible clawed gallows held him swinging, hanging, this high.

  Lyrec raised his head and his neck burned as if rats had gnawed into it. He let his head back hang and strained to look up peripherally instead. The krykwyre held him with its legs bent. He could see the roundness of its scaly belly, its small tucked-up hands, and the crooked hook of its beak. The thing that had chased the Kobachs had been real. They had gone into the brush. He had ridden along, open, visible, inviting the attack. He couldn’t remember the moment now, but he could imagine how it had taken place.

  To either side of his head massive talons gripped his shoulders through his blood-soaked uniform, so close that he could see the cingula of lighter shades within the black nails.

  Where was it taking him? Did it nest? he wondered. He might well be on his way to feeding a hungry family of the stinking, oily things.

  His belt and Ladomantine sword still hung from his hip. Seeing them, he could hardly credit the monster with intelligence. When he tried to reach the sword, however, his numb arm barely twitched. His fingers flexed only slightly. They were stiff and cold. He tried working them, opening and closing, more movement each time, until he could make a fist. Then he bent his arm up. It began to tingle. He worked the other one, too, pumping it up and down. The return of sensations to his arms only extended his pain. He drew breath through clenched teeth. His movement alerted the monster, but it paid him no mind. Probably, thought Lyrec, no captive had ever managed to injure it.

  Slowly, he reached until he could place one hand on the hilt of his sword. The flapping of the huge leathery wings cloaked him an icy wind, but by the time his fingers closed on the sword, Lyrec was sweating. He brought his other hand to it and gripped tightly, squeezing his fists until the pain didn’t drown the feel of the hilt.

  Then, by torturous degrees, he withdrew the blade. Holding it against himself, he waited—waited until he had the strength to follow through after his actions. Otherwise he would succeed only in achieving death from a great height. Everything now depended upon timing.

  Again he brought his head up, trembling with the effort, neck muscles corded. He studied the belly, looking for lines of musculature and bone beneath the slick scales. He found a soft hollow that swelled with each breath. His eyes never left that spot, while he waited, breathed, and prepared.

  He jabbed the sword up into the monster’s belly, driving the blade in up to the hilt, screaming at the fiery agony this brought.

  The monster screamed, too—a shriek like cloth ripping. It twisted in flight and tried with its tiny useless arms to reach the sword. A thick yellow blood dribbled out of the wound. Again, Lyrec reached up. He grabbed the sticky sword and tugged it down, opening the belly wider. Viscous yellow fluid spattered and stung his face.

  The talons released him, but he had anticipated this. He clutched one of the feet and held on.

  The monster tried to kick him loose, then used its free foot to strike at him. He pulled himself up the monster’s leg as the kicking foot raked his side.

  His fingers slid down the oily skin, and he grabbed wildly for a solid purchase. The monster began to descend. Angrily, it doubled over and reached for him, round yellow eyes with one spot of pupil, its tusk-like teeth snapping at him. Its breath smelled like rotting meat. He climbed higher up its leg. The arms tried to reach back to get him. He lashed out with his foot. It was caught for an instant, but he pulled loose and kicked again, and felt something snap beneath his toe. The krykwyre shrieked and rolled in the air to dislodge him, but this put him on top for a moment and he climbed higher up the body. The monster dropped ever closer to the ground.

  Now Lyrec reached under its arms, found the sword and ripped it toward him. The creature’s bowels dangled out of the wound.

  The monster tried frantically to fling him off, tumbling again as it did, but he moved with it once more, using the sword hilt to push himself up, finding purchase on its back between the two great wings. They swatted him, the blows against his shoulders knocking him so hard that the sky lit up with sparks and he thought he would be crushed to knocked senseless. He pressed tightly against the foul-smelling skin. His whole being seemed composed of pain; his actions directed themselves. Taking his dagger, he stabbed the monster over and over, all along the spine. He shouted, “Die, will you not die!” Instead, the krykwyre bucked and rolled again, screeching constantly now, and he did not know how it was that he hung on.

  Suddenly, there were tree branches slapping at him, and cracking all around. The krykwyre crashed down through the smaller upper branches, and slammed against the trunk. Lyrec was thrown free.

  He fell spread-eagle onto a limb only an arm’s length below him, wrapped himself around it as he had around the monster and hastily inched his way along to where the branch became thicker. When his head struck the trunk, he stopped, and tried to catch enough breath to do what he had to next. Nothing came after him. Cautiously, he began to climb down.

  This proved hardest of all, for he had to hold himself on one branch while he probed with his feet for one below. His vision was blurry, his head on fire, and he feared the yellow blood might have harmed his eyes; but he had no strength left for panic, for fear, for anything but lowering himself, branch by branch, in dull, mechanical fashion. He could not have stopped. He lacked enough sense to stop, even to wonder if he was climbing down to his death.

  Before he had descended, however, he ran out of energy. He tried to draw upon his last resources only to find them depleted. For a moment he hung in place, wrapped around a branch, begging his body to give a little more, just one more branch, wheezing and nearly in tears, and too exhausted to see what lay below. He tried to lower himself again.

  His arms gave out. He teetered and fell.

  An instant later Lyrec struck the ground—he’d been dangling no more than his own height above it. He fought a roar of drowning darkness as he rolled over slowly and tried to get to his knees.

  A figure moved in front of him. He ordered his throbbing eyes to focus on the blood-red smear of the shape, but they could not obey. The figure loomed larger, coming toward him. He saw a gleam of somet
hing in its center—his sword!—and knew that the krykwyre still lived. It must have been waiting for him. He groped for his dagger, but the sheath was empty. It had been lost in the fall. He would not die on his back, though—the outrage of that produced one final burst of energy.

  Pushing, inching, whimpering in torment, Lyrec climbed to his knees. The figure hadn’t moved.

  Come for me! he thought he called to it. Come on!

  The figure moved into the air, as if it were walking up the side of the tree. It slid up the edge of his eyes, tilting; and he watched it, watched it, as he crashed down, unconscious, onto his side.

  Chapter 16.

  Grohd stepped out of his tavern and stood beneath the overhang of thatched roof to listen. He was not sure he had heard the sound, or heard it rightly. Probably a bird call that had become distorted as it penetrated his sleep. A faint tittering cry from somewhere off in the woods, a winter bird come back early—these were the more likely explanations.

  He heard birds all around him now, but none of them sounded anything like the strange whining that had awakened him.

  He yawned widely, spraying out a fountain of saliva, then walked back inside. The day was young and there was little at all to do. The kegs of grynne he had set to brewing outside beside the huts would go on bubbling for another day at least. The fires would need no tending for some time. Grohd returned to the keg on which he had been sleeping before, leaned back against the wall, sighed and closed his eyes.

  At the precise instant where consciousness fell away and sleep overcame him, he heard the whine again. He jolted upright. The sound faded into silence. It was not like a bird call at all, he decided: more like an axe being sharpened on a rotating whetstone—and even that failed to capture it.

  He returned to the yard, crossing over the coach ruts and into the trees. Beneath the high branches he began to walk in circles, searching for Voed knew what. The sound did not repeat, but he no longer anticipated it. He understood now that he couldn’t hear it while awake.