Queen of Fire
Page 52

Power sea. He sees the Dark as a sea of power. “You can see the power sea?”
Wise Bear barked a laugh. “None can see it all. Just feel storms, feel those touching it, hear songs if they sing. Felt the storm brewing, heard the girl’s song, followed it here with Flies High Woman.” His frown returned as they came to the great stone head Vaelin recalled from his first visit here, the bearded man with a troubled brow.
“The storm is coming here?” Vaelin asked, watching him tentatively touch the tip of his staff to the stone face.
“Storm came here before.” Wise Bear lowered his staff to place a hand on the bearded man’s forehead, closing his eyes. “Now just echo.”
“Of what?”
“What was, what will be.” The shaman removed his hand from the stone head, sadness dominating his wrinkled face.
“I thought he might be a king, a chief,” Vaelin said but Wise Bear shook his head.
“No, wise man, keeper of many stories.”
“But not wise enough to stop the city falling?”
“Some things nothing can stop. He build this place, shamans filled stone with power to sing its song.”
Filled stone with power? Vaelin recalled Wisdom’s tale of how she had gained her name, the stone given to her by the shade of Nersus Sil Nin, and she but a memory preserved in the stones in the Martishe and the Great Northern Forest. “They could place their memories in stone?” he asked.
Wise Bear nodded. “More than . . . memory. Feeling.” He raised his staff and swept it slowly around, tracking over the remnants of a city that must once have been wondrous. “This place, filled with power.”
He moved on, eyes bright with scrutiny, scanning the ruins with a near-predatory intensity. Vaelin followed him through the maze of rubble, past the rare intact building Brother Harlick had fancied a library and onto what appeared to have been some kind of raised platform. Vaelin judged it might have stood ten feet high when intact, but the supporting pillars were shattered and the stone surface had tumbled to be cracked from end to end. Wise Bear paused, his limbs betraying a spasm of discomfort before he stepped onto the platform, moving to the centre where he touched his staff to the bare stone.
“Something here,” he said. “Something . . . black.”
Vaelin found he didn’t like the confusion he saw on the shaman’s face, his features sagging a little, making him seem even more aged. “Something black?” he prompted as the old man crouched to touch a tentative hand to the stone. “You mean Dark? Something that had the power?”
“Black,” Wise Bear stated in an emphatic tone before straightening. “Gone now, far away. Taken.”
“By who?”
Wise Bear turned, meeting Vaelin’s gaze. “You know,” he said. “We go across ice to find him.”
• • •
“I left Ultin in charge,” Dahrena said, settling next to him and pulling the furs across them both. “I doubt he relished the honour but there wasn’t anyone else halfway capable.”
“The gold?” Vaelin enquired.
“The first shipload should dock in Frostport within the month, much to Lord Darvus’s delight I’m sure.”
“He won’t be the first or the last to profit from war.” He paused, enjoying the feel of her pressed against him, regretting the necessity for his next words. However, she evidently read his intent and spoke first.
“I’m not leaving.” She raised her head to press a kiss to his lips then settled back. “How is Alornis?”
He recalled Alornis’s rigid face the morning he left, her valiant attempt at holding back the tears, falling to ruin as she collapsed against him, only drawing back at Lyrna’s gentle but insistent tug. His final glimpse of her lingered like a guilty stain, her head on Lyrna’s shoulder as she turned her face, refusing to watch him ride away. “She does good service in the queen’s cause,” he told Dahrena. “Her talents are even greater than we knew.”
She shifted a little, turning her gaze to the sky, clear of cloud and offering a fine view of the stars. “It’s faded,” she murmured. He knew the star she spoke of; Avenshura, from which Sanesh Poltar had taken his Eorhil name. It’s said no wars can be fought under the light it brings. Now it was just a small pinprick of light amongst many others.
“We’ll see it shine again,” he told her. “We just have to live a very long time.”
She turned back to him, her voice sombre. “I do not like this place.”
“Terrible things were done here once. Wise Bear says the stone carries the memory.”
“Not the city. The mountains, the home of the people who birthed me . . .” She trailed off but he knew the words she left unsaid.
“And killed your husband.”
Her head moved in a faint nod.
“What was his name?”
“His people named him Leordah Nil Usril, Lives in Dreams. I just called him Usril. The Seordah thought him a quiet soul, seldom given to speech and often lost in thought. He rarely joined war parties against the Lonak though in the battle with the Horde he had proved himself brave and skillful. One summer the Lonak came in larger numbers than usual, raiding deeper than they had before. I was visiting with my father when word came of the raid. I flew to the forest, finding his body amongst many others, a dead Lonak lay atop him. I remember how peaceful they looked, as if they had fallen asleep together. I searched far and wide for his soul, but he was at least a day gone.”
She fell silent, her breath soft on his chest as he held her even tighter. When she spoke again her voice was barely above a whisper and coloured with suppressed fear, “I did my best to die that day, Vaelin. I hung above the forest and watched over his body, knowing my own would soon lose its warmth, hoping I could join his endless hunt in the shadows . . . Father brought me back, somehow I heard his voice pleading with me to return. I barely felt the chill when I slipped back into my body, in truth for weeks I barely felt anything. Then I went to the stone and sought counsel with Nersus Sil Nin. She told me something, something I didn’t want to believe.”
She rose, bringing her face level with his, staring into his eyes. “She told me I had much still to do. That great trials lay ahead and a lifetime of grief was not a luxury I would be permitted. And she said she had once gifted a Seordah name to a man, a man I would come to love.” She gave a laugh, her breath soft on his lips. “I thought she was mad. I was wrong.”
• • •
They returned to Orven’s company two days later, finding them all mounted and drawn up in battle formation. The reason was easily found, at least a hundred Lonak on their stout ponies plainly visible on the crest of a hill a quarter mile to the north.
“They appeared this morning, my lord,” Orven reported as Vaelin rode up, greeting Dahrena with a surprised bow. “Very good to see you again, my lady.”
“My lord. I hear congratulations are in order.”
Orven gave a small grin before casting a wary glance at the Lonak. “I fear they’ll have to wait.”
Vaelin raised an eyebrow at Kiral who looked upon her fellow Lonak with steady gaze. “They come at the Mahlessa’s bidding, though not without misgivings.”
“Then we’d best say hello.” He told Dahrena and the others to wait with Orven’s men and rode forward with Kiral. They approached to within a few yards of the base of the hill, halting when one of the Lonak spurred his pony down the slope, a hulking man with a bearskin vest and a mazelike tattoo covering his shaven head. His face provoked a rush of recognition as he halted his pony a few yards away, regarding Vaelin with a baleful glare and greeting Kiral in terse Lonak.
“This is Alturk,” she told Vaelin. “Tahlessa of the Mahlessa Sentar.”
“We’ve met,” Vaelin said, nodding at the big man. “Your son is well?”
Alturk’s face spasmed with anger and Vaelin resisted the urge to reach for his sword as Kiral tensed beside him.
“My son was varnish,” Alturk said in harsh Realm Tongue. “A worthless life well ended.”
Vaelin wondered if he should voice some word of sympathy but guessed it would only be taken as further insult. “The Mahlessa has granted us passage,” he said. “What is your purpose here?”
Alturk gritted his teeth, speaking in slow controlled tones as if worried his anger might choke him. “The Mahlessa commands one hundred of the Sentar follow you. The finest blood of the Lonakhim, to be spilled at your word.”
“You know our course? We travel across the ice to the lands of our enemy. The dangers are many.”
“Word from the Mountain is not questioned.” Alturk tugged on his reins, turning the pony. “Follow our track, do not stray from it. There are few here who welcome your coming and I give no promise of safety.”
• • •
They covered thirty miles by nightfall, the Sentar setting a punishing pace through myriad canyons and valleys. Vaelin noted they rode with weapons ready, many holding bows with arrows notched, eyes constantly scanning the surrounding hilltops. His eyes also picked out a few riderless ponies among them and noted some warriors sported recently bound wounds.