The eaters of time, p.53
The Eaters of Time, page 53
Vlk accepted the touch, though he didn’t move or speak.
“Aehe, Laagi?” Maksu’s words were so much useless gibbering—right up until Laagi answered him in the Trade Tongue.
“Because I thought he was just another Venzene Fenlok… another Fennk bragging about the black blood he claimed to know. And I… You’re proof that I was wrong, Lakkrid.”
“Elf’s reach? Elf’s brother? I don’t… I don’t understand, Laagi. What do elves have to do with … anything? And also, I’m not Lakkrid. I’m Maksu. Lakkrid’s my… He’s my… um.”
“Kin? Your palrym?”
Maksu sounded as if he’d brightened. “Uhuh. We’re palrym.”
Laggi removed his hand from Vlk’s shoulder after a squeeze. “Maksu, you’re young, but you should ask your mother and father about the elves. The damned fen made the Empire… or at least helped the humans make it.” He paused. “It doesn’t matter. I need to find my father. I’m glad you lived, Vlk. Now that we’ve won, I’ll want you fighting beside me. If… if you won’t do that, I’ll do what I can to make certain you aren’t killed out of hand. You deserve better than that.”
“No! Laagi, Father says we must stay here until he gets back!”
“Maksu, my father’s waiting for me outside somewhere. And without me, there aren’t many who can act as his voice. Ed wrin ragzak.”
“Ohhhhh.”
Vlk lifted Edmund’s hand to his lips, placing a kiss on his knuckles, then drew in a deep breath and did the thing he feared doing the most. He reached down and closed the man’s empty eyes.
When it was done, he turned and stood. “Maksu,” he sniffled. “If he vants to go, let him go. Ve don’t need to hold him. Ebistian didn’t say ve had to keep him here. Only that ve had to stay till someone ve knew came to find us.”
Maksu considered, then nodded. “Ok, Vlk. Zgoda. Um, I mean, um… Souhlas!”
Laagi offered a good-natured smirk over Maksu’s head—two older boys sharing a knowing and universal sentiment. Smalls. What can you do?
Vlk gave a nod that served for both boys at once. Laagi turned and made it a single step before he grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Vait!” he hissed. He heard a sound outside the tent—voices, yes, but another sound he’d come to know very well. The twang of a crossbow.
-V-
“And vhere should I have taken him, Shepherd? Vhere else vould ve have found safety? Ve vere hunting near Haluzfeld vhen the Red Court attacked. They vere unnumbered and vell-organized. They used sorcery to move themselves and their engines, much as you do. So vhere vould you have had us go?” Rákos sounded incredulous, full of disgust. “Ve hid, then ve ran southeast.”
Lashjuk heard the county-clad guardsman draw breath several times as if he meant to speak, but no words came out. Everyone in the empire feared sorcery, but few feared it more than the armsmen who might be forced to contend with it.
Ebistian made a dismissive noise. “Sorcery. Well, Eoalunth sorcery be damned. That attack was weeks agone, Rákos. I applaud you for proving my faith in you well-founded. At the least, you did not stand frozen, waiting for the final blow to fall. Yet… why did you not make for Rosefort? You would have found allies there, and I would have had word perhaps a week sooner. Yet you elected to come here?”
“I vould never have risked taking him there. They came from the East! Given Rosefort ess so close to the Eodenth border? No, the risk vas too great.”
Lashjuk was certain the man atop the carriage was holding something back. She’d no idea what, but there was something. Ebistian seemed to have reached the same conclusion, for when he spoke next, his voice had grown low and somehow dangerous.
“What aren’t you telling me, Rákos? You are far too skilled in trail-craft to fear being caught by that rabble.”
“The Storm Queen ess more clever than you think, Shepherd. If it vere only her outriders, ve could likely have remained hidden. But I vould not risk Andrej against your old ally’s magic.”
Ahh, so it is the same Rákos! She’d met both him and his boy briefly as they’d trooped out of the northern gate… hells, a week agone? A fortnight? Regardless, there might well be more than one Rákos in the encampment. More than one with a boy named Andrej? She thought not.
“Honestly, Shepherd… Vhat could ve do against such might? You have sorcery. I do not. You may have taught some of your other folk those secret skills, but of all that you’ve taught me, you’ve kept that to your—”
The guard was moving now. He stepped back, his boots turning to face Ebistian. Lashjuk could hear him reposition his spear.
“Lord? Does this man speak truth? Are you a… a kouzelník? You cannot be in league with the Eoalunth witch who sent those horse humpers to kill our wives and chil—”
“Drae ny dur, xu lal.” Ebistian’s voice was a dismissive slide, a sighed tone which sounded like a long-suffering parent yielding to a wheedling child. As Ebistian finished speaking in that strange tongue, the guard dropped his spear, shrieked like a ryś—what the highborn call a lynx—and ran off. Ebistian caught the weapon on the top of his foot, then bounced it up to his hands. It was a deft maneuver for a man his age.
Lashjuk’s palms were pressed against the cold ground. She had been about to spring up and reveal herself, azhkast at the ready. She’d stopped herself in the very nick. Now, for what seemed like the hundredth time, she waited.
“Vell, I’ve made you act in anger, Shepherd. That’s a small victory.” Rákos sounded both pleased and disappointed all at a go.
“Not at all, Rákos. I simply grew tired of his useless company. You pose me no threat, despite your childish attempts to undo me.” He sighed through this last, sounding more than a trifle bored. “I suppose I could’ve killed him or forced him into my thrall, but it would’ve been to no purpose. No, far simpler to frighten him off and have done.”
“He vill come back to himself, though. And vhen he does, you’ll have to answer to hess accusations. You and your closies.”
Ebistian laughed. The sound was so unaffected that Lashjuk found herself beginning to grin.
“Rákos, it is over. None of our plans matter anymore. The way is open. The King returns. I sent that man off, yes, but even now, the culling has begun in preparation for the—”
“—The Keening. Opravdu? The King ess truly returning?” Rákos didn’t sound hopeful. He sounded terrified.
“Ohhhh yes. I have given you truth. Now you must return the courtesy. Why did you bring the boy here?”
“I vanted to bring him before Alojz.” At first, Rákos spoke in a small, embarrassed tone. Yet his voice seemed to gain a cold surety as he pressed on. “He, at least, vould hear me—vould hear us. Andrej ess mine, Shepherd. I vill not let your intrigues rob me of him. I’ll not let you rob him! Not of hess life, and not of hess future! He deserves to make hess own choices, vithout you moving him around like a piece on a king’s var board.”
Ebistian listened to this in silence. After a pause, he asked a question in a quite ordinary tone. “And what did the Lord Alojz tell you?”
“He… he bade me seek a vay into the good graces of the Count’s scouts. It vould serve all purposes. Their commander loves Edmund, Andrej vould gain both training and a better view of the land Edmund rules, and a chance to earn reputation. And ve vould have a force to keep him safe.”
“All the while being close to the true seat of the county. A clever plan, in its way. But—and hear me now, Rákos—bauth puav zeteek gilk.”
Silence met this odd string of words. Then Ebistian sighed.
“Why are you dead, Rákos? You’re dead, yet you look very much alive…” The question of how may not have been spoken aloud, but its implication was impossible to miss.
“The Storm Queen’s outriders took me. Then they voke me again. I saw your coach riding into camp and knew you vould be here. So I fed before I came to find you. I vanted to be at my clearest vhen ve spoke. Vanted to be able to enjoy that very look on your face vhen you tried to own my soul again.”
“Ahh. And how many of your brothers did you kill in order to ready yourself, then?”
“Only one. A young footman of yours I’d not seen before. Two, if ve count that boy vith my quarrel in his back. The rest vere all of the Red Court. I have done you that service, at least.”
“And so you’ve taken as much shadow as your new body needs. For now, at any rate. Well played, child. Puehv ka jhoaz zeteek ka, mavkan. Now, put that crossbow aside and come down here. I would have you stand before me … ere the end.”
The carriage shook above her. She heard a dull tap, then saw a pair of pale boots drop down to where the guard had stood a moment before.
Ebistian stepped back, turning to face the man. “You began your second life and thought yourself beyond my reach. Mavken—free of fear and the weakness of mortal flesh, just as we taught you. Brave, but foolish, Rákos. You’ve wasted your one advantage. I did indeed think you still lived. Had you attacked me rather than scratching the itch of self-indulgence… But no. No, you needed to—how did you put it?—see that look on my face when I tried to own your soul?”
He stabbed his scavenged spear into the grey ground behind him, then drew the sword that hung on his right hip.
“Ah well. Rákos of Měsíční Prst, you are a traitor. Given you entered my service by way of betrayal, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” He widened his stance. “Neither you nor the boy much matter now, but rest assured, hunter… I shall take excellent care of him.” His voice dropped into a low and dangerous purr for this final, terrible stave.
It was enough. Lashjuk uncoiled from beneath the carriage. She came up behind Ebistian with an azhkast in her fists and drove it forward. At the same moment, the old man’s blade hurtled toward the hunter’s neck at an unnatural speed. She saw the look of blissful satisfaction cross Rákos’s face as he marked her movement, but it was short-lived. Ebistian’s sword took the man’s head just as Lashjuk’s short spear plunged through his back and out through his chest.
He exhaled a thin puff of air, then collapsed against her. His sword slipped from his hand, clanging against the carriage’s dark wooden side. His hands wrapped around the weapon’s haft below the spear’s bloody head.
Lashjuk growled from over his shoulder, feeling a sense of satisfaction she hadn’t anticipated. She shook, then drew in a breath, before yanking the weapon back. She sidestepped as Ebistian stumbled and tripped over the small stack of dead or unconscious bodies—the driver, Sau, and the woman. As he fell backward, she turned her body to follow his progress.
The next few beats were a blur. She was stabbing her azhkast into him again and again, growling as she worked. Her palms were hot, her back and arms sore. Before her rage could fly from her altogether, she leaned her face down over his. She was panting, mouth dry and stomach clenched, but her eyes were quite clear.
“Maksu is my son… Shepherd. You will never lay eye or hand on him again.”
He was trying to say something. His eyes were enormous and quite beautiful…
She snapped her own closed, then turned away. “I know what your kind can do, zajh. You won’t work your will on I or mine ever again.” She was remembering Geatbern-Kuba that never was. He had been a zajh—a shaman whose power had come close to killing Eobum and his folk.
But this time, the battle is utterly mine. Eobum wasn’t here to help me. Nobody was here to help me. She laughed to herself. My huntress’s heart, Eobum. Aye and aye. My huntress’s heart and this monster is its first real prey. A kill to be proud of, if ever there was such a thing.
She heard him gurgling behind her, still trying to say … something. It was so much gibberish to her ear.
She opened her eyes, meaning to turn back—perhaps to find and pierce what passed for his blackened heart. Standing a few feet in front of her, just past the now headless body of the hunter, she saw Andrej. The blond boy stood with a massive red hound at his side. He surveyed the scene with a thin layer of self-control painted on his face. The hound looked at her, then wagged its tail in a hopeful sort of way.
“F-father,” he managed, then sniffled. “You killed… killed him.”
Lashjuk was starting to shake her head when she saw where he was looking. His eyes were fixed on the still form of Ebistian. She replaced her now-bloody azhkast in her brace and offered Andrej an unguarded smile. “I did,” said she. And before she could offer more, he flung himself into her arms, weeping.
“Over… It’s… He’s…” But he had no words. He was shaking with such obvious relief that for a moment, all she could do was hold him, stroking his hair and making soft shushing noises.
“Andrej? Is… Štít?” A woman’s voice from somewhere behind her. Andrej loosened the hoop of his arms from Lashjuk’s waist, though he was unwilling to sever all contact. He looked at the red hound as it walked up beside him and barked a single time. The tone was warm, not quite playful… Satisfied? Well, no matter.
Lashjuk kept a protective arm around Andrej’s shoulders as she turned to find the voice’s owner. Nobody had come up behind her… A thing she realized she hadn’t been prepared for. She mentally chastised herself to be more aware of her surroundings.
“Ha… We finally meet, little cousin. I’m… I’m pleased.” The voice came from Vlk’s mother. Came from it, yes, but it didn’t belong to Vlk’s mother. This voice sounded cultured—of highborn education. It sounded as if it had barely been kissed by old Kovalunth. The woman in question had a Kovalunth accent an inch thick when she’d first called to Sau.
“I… I don’t…”
“Understand. I know, cousin. There won’t be time for me to explain it to you. This woman’s body is badly broken. I cannot borrow it for long.”
Lashjuk expected Andrej to be at least as taken aback by this strange pronouncement as she was. On the contrary, the boy appeared untroubled, overall.
“Who are you, then? Do… do you work for Father?”
The woman spat. “He is not your father, boy. But nevermind. Sink down to Štít’s level. Meet her eyes.”
Lashjuk looked between woman, boy, and dog and found she had no idea what to think, or who to trust. Still, at least the woman didn’t appear to think much of Ebistian. That was something.
Andrej disentangled himself the rest of the way. Before he could do more, Lashjuk’s hand caught his shoulder.
“Are you certain?” Certain of what? She herself had no idea. She felt a strong urge to ask the question, and that was enough for her.
Andrej offered a grateful grin. He sniffled again, wiping the back of his hand beneath his nose. “Of whoever she is? No. Of Štít? Yes.” With that, he dropped to one knee and met the great red beast’s bright gaze. He raised his voice enough for it to carry. “Now what, cousin?”
“Hold her gaze, and h-h-hold your fingers deep into her fur.”
“Alright…” Andrej’s tone was one part acceptance and one part report that he’d done as bidden.
“F-f-fi-ine. Štít? Andrej nier ad, nier iddor… nier trae lam. N… nier seh?”
The hound gave a throaty bark in seeming reply.
The woman’s breath was shallow, now. Her unaccented voice came out a dry, cracked thing as if she were fighting to stay awake. “An… Andrej. Štít nier trand, nier talp, nee… yer bweh… bweh… buedh. Nier s-s-she?”
“I don’t…”
“Do you accept… do you agree?”
“To what?”
“To… to Štít. I called her f-for you, Andrej. She was brought here for… for…”
But Štít had begun to growl. Her eyes were flitting to the side, back over the boy’s shoulder. Then came the sound of wood and metal scraping the stony ground.
Lashjuk turned her head away from Andrej and the great red creature before him. Her movements were slow, as if she were locked in some terrible dream. What she saw next filled her insides with sharpened shards of ice. Ebistian, bloody and gaunt, was leaning on the departed guard’s spear with both hands. He was standing over the woman’s pinned form, mouth moving in a sluggish, red-lipped mockery of speech.
After her initial feeling of horrified revulsion, Lashjuk came to a dark and lovely realization. Ebistian was a man she would gladly kill a second time.
She reached back to pull a fresh azhkast, took aim, and threw. The weapon sailed true, striking him in his chest and knocking him asprawl. The impact came just as he’d lowered the point of his makeshift prop down to the woman’s throat. A red rush ran out across the grey ground from where spearpoint met skin.
The dying woman called Andrej’s name through a sickening, blood-choked gurgle. Then she fell silent.
“I agree!” Andrej’s voice was strangled and desperate. “I accept! N-nier seh! Nier seh!”
Lashjuk laid her hand on his shoulder, saying nothing. A beat went by in silence. Then she walked over to Ebistian’s miserable body. She knelt down… felt for a pulse… smiled. She wrapped her bright hand around the haft of her weapon, placed a foot on the devil’s bloody chest and belly, and stood. She kept that foot there, bracing her as she pulled the weapon free. When it was done, she spat in the fiend’s sightless, open eye.
“What?”
Lashjuk snapped her head back toward Andrej, then took a final glance at Ebistian as she spoke. “I didn’t speak.”
Andrej laughed with surprised delight. Satisfied that the zajh was indeed dead, Lashjuk turned and walked back to the boy’s side.
“No! I had no idea!”
He was speaking to the hound. At first, she thought this was strange—that perhaps he’d suffered a shock and grown addled. Then she realized how foolish she was being.
“Is she speaking to you, Andrej?”
“I… How did you… Oh. I was speaking back to her out loud, wasn’t I.” It was a sheepish non-question. She answered it anyway.
