David Drake - The Gods Return

"I'd rather die than have you touch me again!" the girl cried. "I'd rather die! I'd rather-" Nivers stabbed. Anone belched blood, blinding him again. The hot, black smoke of the pyre wrapped and raised Nivers, filling him with the immanence of godhead. Smoke and the thunderheads lowering above Palomir merged into a mighty figure in the sky. His beard streamed with storm clouds, His fingers crackled with the lightning. He turned and strode purposefully to the west. No eyes but those of ratmen were present to watch Him go.

Chapter 16 Cashel took two steps out from the castle door, far enough that the women could follow him, and then stopped to take stock. Three or maybe four double-paces away, a man sat on the stoop of a log cabin; he had one foot up on the railing. There wasn't anything unusual about the cabin or him either one, save that they were a bit outsized: the man was easily two hand's-breadths taller than Cashel, and the cabin was built to its owner. There was a door in the middle of the front wall and a window to either side of it. The roof was board underneath from the ends sticking out at the eaves, but it'd been sodded over; buttercups now grew in the grass. Pines with chestnuts and a smattering of other hardwoods spread toward the distant mountains behind the cabin, and the usual little trees-sweet gums, dogwoods, and the like-filled in the spaces. Behind Cashel and the women was a lake; he could see across, but it stretched out of sight to right and left. A dugout canoe was drawn up on the mud shoreline; the pair of milk cows standing knee-deep in the shallow water looked back at him. The castle and the door Cashel had come out of were nowhere to be seen. A loon called from the invisible distance.

You might think it was a lost soul if you'd never heard the real thing. Cashel laid the quarterstaff into the crook of his left arm instead of holding it ready for use. He smiled and called, "Hello the house!" "Hello yourself," the big man said, lifting himself from the puncheon bench he'd been sitting on. He was taller than he was broad, but his shoulders were pretty impressive. "I don't get many visitors here." He paused for a moment, clearly considering his next words.

"Come and set," he said at last. "You and your friends." Cashel walked up slow and easy, keeping the smile. The man wore a leather tunic with no weapons in sight. As big as he was, the bench itself would make a club if he thought he needed anything. Cashel hadn't any wish to make the fellow think that. "My name's Cashel or-Kenset," he said, stopping at the edge of the stoop. He nodded to the women. "This is Lady Liane, and that's Rasile. She's a Corl." The cows had gone back to drinking.

They were in milk so there must be a bull around somewhere; maybe it was corralled in a clearing deeper into the forest. "Rasile," the big man said, letting the syllables roll on his tongue. He wasn't a giant, but even Garric would have to look up to meet his eyes. "I haven't met a Corl before." Returning to Cashel-a man talking to a man, not presuming to talk directly to the other fellow's women-he said, "Can I offer you anything? I've got milk cooling in the springhouse, and water of course." "Sir," said Cashel, fishing in his sash. "We were told to give you this. We've been sent here to release a man named Gorand. He's a hero and he's needed back in Dariada." He held the coin out in the palm of his right hand. The silver had joined perfectly, like it had never been broken. The big man took the coin between thumb and forefinger; he held it up to view one side, then the other. He spun it in the air, caught it, and said, "I don't have much to do with money now." He quirked a smile at all his visitors, not just Cashel.

"Well, I never did," he said. "I was a warrior, not a merchant." He spun the coin again, then squeezed it in his left hand. His face hardened in appraisal. "I'm Gorand," he said, "and now you've released me. Why?" "Master Cashel?" Liane said quietly. "Would you like me to join the discussion?" "Yes, ma'am," Cashel said, feeling enormous relief. "Master Gorand, I'm a shepherd. Liane, ah, Lady Liane's able to tell you about all this better than I ever could." He stepped aside gratefully. Gorand looked him up and down, then grinned. "It seems to me that you might be just be able to tell me something, boy. Might."

Cashel spread his stance a little without thinking about it. He kept the staff as it was, though, looking about as innocent as a solid, iron-shod length of hickory could. "Sir," he said and paused to clear his throat. His voice had gotten thick; the words sort of growled out.

"Sir, I've got business to take care of right now. Afterwards if you want to look me up, sure. If that's what you want." Gorand laughed.

"No, that's not what I want, boy," he said. "At least not with a quarterstaff. Did you ever use a sword?" "No sir," Cashel said. He hated swords, always had. Given the choice he'd pick a round iron bar before he would a sword. "But if that's what you want, we can try swords." Rasile gave a ripping snarl. "Males posturing!" she said.

"Are we not all the same clan today? Stop this!" "Sorry ma'am," Gorand muttered at pretty much the same moment as Cashel was saying, "Sorry, Rasile," with his face turned toward the hard-tramped ground at his side. "Yes," said Liane firmly. "Lord Gorand, the city of Dariada is being menaced by an army of pirates." "And?" said Gorand. "For in my day, Dariada had walls that no mob of masterless men could threaten."

"There are still walls," Liane said, giving Gorand a little nod to show she appreciated his mind. "But the pirates have a Worm. They would say they control a Worm, I suspect, but you know better than anyone else that no one controls a Worm." Gorand laughed long and savagely, waking a smile from Cashel's lips. Cashel had met big men and strong men in the past, but this fellow was aman, right enough.

"Icontrolled one!" he said. "The Shepherd knows I did, lady!" "Yes," said Liane. "And the Tree Oracle of Dariada said that we must release you to save the city this time also." "Ah, the Tree Oracle," Gorand said, chuckling without the fierce passion of a moment ago. He gestured to the bench and added, "Won't you sit, milady?" "Thank you, no," Liane said primly. "Milord, will you return with us to Dariada now?" "The citizens of Dariada sent me here after I settled the Worm the first time," Gorand said, letting his eyes rove over the forest on the other side of the lake. "They were supposed to leave me with this-" He tossed the silver coin and caught it by the edges as it spun, a neat trick. "-so that I could return when I pleased. But they didn't." He met Cashel's eyes. "They gave it to you instead," he said.

Cashel didn't speak; he'd put this in Liane's hands. If there was something for him to deal with, well, he'd do that. "The coin was in the hands of a pair of wizards," Liane said, just as coolly as before.

"We don't know how they came by it. One of them took me prisoner.

Master Cashel-" She nodded at him. "-freed me and took the coin from them." "Did he, now?" Gorand said, flipping the coin and looking at Cashel. "So, Cashel… do you think the good people of Dariada didn't mean to strand me here? That it was all just an accident?"

Cashel shrugged. "Sir," he said, "I don't know. I didn't much take to the folk of Dariada when I was there, but it's not the same ones as in your time, not by a long ways. And anyhow, I'm not from a city myself.

I don't like any any city I've been in, and I don't generally warm to the people who live in them." Liane was looking at him with no expression at all. She wanted to break in, but she was afraid to.

Gorand had asked Cashel, not her. Cashel knew how she felt, but he was going to tell this his own way. He and Gorand were both men, and they didn't see things the way women-and city folk-did. "But none of that matters, sir," Cashel said. "We're shepherds, you and me. Not because we like the ones we're looking after, maybe, but because we're the ones whocan look after them. Right?" Gorand chuckled. "That's so, isn't it?" he said. He tossed the coin from one hand to the other, then stepped forward and clasped Cashel, right arm to right arm. "All right, Cashel. I'll go back to Dariada." They leaned back and parted hands. "Warrior Gorand," said Rasile. "Take us with you, if you will."