Ширли Мерфи - The Shattered Stone [calibre]

She found the man at once, lying mangled beside the horses, his body nearly hidden by torn hindquarters. She looked more closely and saw the red roots along his hairline. His tunic and the amulet he wore were those of an apprentice Seer of Pelli. There were coarse animal hairs caught in his belt. She found the tracks of the great wolves among the gore and glanced toward the path. The cursed women would be coming.

Quickly she stripped the Seer’s tunic and amulet from his body and buried them in leaves, then applied the dye to his hair. That finished, she began to search downriver for the second man but found only the hoofprints of a third and smaller horse going away at a gallop, the marks very deep as if the animal carried a heavy weight.

She returned to the girl and child and the mangled body, to find the three women staring as uncertainly as she had expected. She put them to work stripping the dead horses of packs and saddles, of bridles. No sense leaving good leather for wolves to chew.

When she knelt to lift the child, she felt a hard lump beneath him. It was a bronze bell; she shielded it instinctively from the three women until she could look at it more closely. The rearing bitch-wolf made her stare and shiver. Suddenly and wildly the old fables from Pelli and Zandour filled her head, making her catch her breath.

What was this child, to carry such magic? Or had the older Seer carried it and the boy simply fallen where it lay? But, she thought puzzling, the wolves had attacked only the two men. They had not touched the girl or the child. That was a sword wound in the girl’s side, not the jagged tear a wolf makes.

Surely the wolves had moved to the call of this bell. Why had a Seer of Pelli been traveling here with such a boy? And why did the Seer lie dead? She knelt there staring at the boy in her arms. What sort of child was this that she held so close to her? And what havoc would he create if she brought him to Burgdeeth?

Dlos touched the child’s soft cheek, shadowed by dark lashes, looked at the bloody, swollen bruise on his forehead. She raised her eyes and summoned the other women. She would need help.

*

Ram felt himself carried, saw bare branches swing close above his face; then suddenly he fell away from the light sky into darkness again and was dropping down and down. There were voices fading. Once lightness blazed, and he saw his mother’s face close to him, rocking; the falling came again, tumbling him. He was so dizzy. He fell deep down beneath the earth into a cave so black. A man lay there. He lifted his head and whispered, and his face was thin and pale. The walls of the cave were painted with pictures of wolves leaping and snarling, bloodthirsty wolves that made Ram cry out in fear. He whispered, “Fawdref!” And didn’t know what he said, or why. The man held up his hands, and they had turned to white bone. He shouted, “Bastard! A bastard born. . . .” And he was a skeleton, white bone lying in rags. His skull gleamed. The wolves on the cave walls waited.

Ram felt hands lift him, felt himself covered, relaxed into warmth. But something pulled and lifted him away from the hands, lifted his very soul and plunged it back into the blackness so he was torn away, his mind torn from his body.

He was in the cave again, and a man in silver sat high on a dais looking down at him and laughing. The painted wolves crouched, slavering. Ram pushed past them into the very stone with all his strength, searching for the real wolf’s body, saw Fawdref leap snarling at the painted wolves as they came off the walls to slash and tear. Ram cried out, saw light come. The wolves all disappeared.

There was a plain stone wall beside him, low rafters overhead, the smell of mawzee grain. He could see the arch of a door. He came awake at last and clear in his mind and felt himself laid down and the cover drawn up over him. He stared up at a face, a wrinkled old woman.

Then the man in silver pulled at him insistently. Ram cried out, felt hands soothe him, heard a voice trying to reach him. He saw a child’s face close to him and wanted to touch her, then fell away and all was terror, the painted wolves leaping again and the man in silver striking out at him so he clung to Fawdref. He saw blood on the wolf and was dizzy, so dizzy. . . .

THREE

Tayba woke. She ached, every bone ached. She was in a dim room cluttered with objects she could only slowly make out. Kegs and tools, a loom. Cobwebs hung thick from the low rafters. The room smelled of dust and of grain. The one small window showed dull gray sky, whether of morning or evening she could not tell. Her mouth tasted stale. She tried to sit up and gasped at the pain, remembered EnDwyl’s sword ripping her side, blood flowing; she touched her side carefully and felt bandages. Then she remembered EnDwyl standing over her, his sword at her throat, and Ram— where was Ram? EnDwyl had hit him, had. . . . Swept with panic, she pulled herself up so pain tore through her side and stared around the room. She could not see Ram, could see nothing but the jumble of kegs and tools.

Had EnDwyl taken Ram? Had EnDwyl escaped the wolves with Ram held captive? Her thoughts were dizzy and confused. She pulled herself out of the cot, leaned against the stone wall until the pain became bearable.

She was naked, her garment not in sight. She shivered in spite of the warmth of the room and pulled the blanket around her, staring dumbly at the clutter and at the iron stove in the far corner with its low blaze. Her cot was rough-split timbers, a root bin with straw hastily stuffed in to make a bed. Her blanket was thick and soft, though, and well-made. She recalled Ram again, shook her head to drive out the fuzziness, and began to search the room for him.

He was lying in a little boxlike bed wedged next to the mawzee thresher, a bed so like a child’s coffin she gasped. She knelt beside him, her stomach heaving with pain, and could feel oozing as if blood flowed from her wound. The swollen purple lump on his forehead made her feel sick. He was so pale, so very still. She laid her face against his chest and, finally, could feel the faint, welcome beating.

When she stood up she saw a square little woman poised in the doorway watching her. Tayba started to speak, then found she was unaccountably lying on the floor, the woman trying to lift her.

When she was back in bed at last, the woman held a mug for her. Tayba studied the leathery face bent over her, then drank. The taste was bitter, the liquid dark and hot. She thought she remembered that she had been given some before. By a child, perhaps? There was no one else in the room. Her pain began to subside almost at once. She felt sleepy, deliriously floating.

Morning sounds brought her awake again, the clank of buckets, a stove being stoked. Her head ached, her side was sore. She thought longingly of a tub of hot water. The little window was bright with sun now, and she could hear milk cows and the screams of chidrack fowl, the creak of wagons. A man’s voice spoke beside the window, a shadow crossed it, then some steady pounding began and she could hear the harsh shouts of men giving orders.

She must have dozed, woke feeling dizzy as if she were falling, had to pull herself fully awake with a great effort, terrified suddenly of falling into sleep again. It was quite dark, though a few faint stars showed through the little window.

What had awakened her? She lay there confused and fearful, wondering if Ram had cried out for her. She slept and woke again and was being bathed, the square old woman leaning over her. The soap was perrisax, smelled spicy. She lay enjoying the warmth and luxury of the soapy cloth washing her body, felt the bandage removed, and opened her eyes to watch the woman binding fresh cloth around her, nudging her to move now and then. She did not want to look at the wound, the thought of it made her weak.