Wereblood Part 4

"Praise Dyaus for that! The last time I was here I spent three days cooling my heels before I got so much as a look at the Sibyl. I was still too young to know the world runs on cash."

"Was the wench worth looking at, once you finally saw her?"

"Scarcely. She was a wrinkled old crone. I wonder if she still lives."

"Why have hags to give prophesies? It seems to me they'd hardly be fitting mates for whatever G.o.d runs the shrine here. Give me a juicy la.s.s every time," Van added, drawing a sniff from Elise.

"Biton has spoken through her since she was chosen for him when she was still a child," Gerin explained. "Whenever a Sibyl dies the priests search among the families of the old race; this valley has always been their stronghold. When they find a girl-child with a certain mark-what it is they keep secret, but it has been Biton's sign for ages beyond count-she becomes the new Sibyl as long as she remains a maiden: and her chast.i.ty is guarded, I a.s.sure you."

The tumult behind them faded under the trees. Images of all-seeing Biton were everywhere in the grove, half of them turned to show the two eyes in the back of his head. Another priest was leading the Trokmoi along a different a path; far from being struck by the holiness of the wood, they argued loudly in their own language.

High walls of gleaming white marble warded the outer courtyard of Biton's temple. The gates were flung wide, but spear-carrying temple guardsmen stood ready to slam them shut in seconds should trouble threaten. Here and there the s.h.i.+ning stone was chipped and discolored, a mute reminder of the great invasion of the Trokmoi two hundred sixty years before, when Biton himself, the priests maintained, had appeared to drive the barbarians from his shrine.

Before they could go in, Falfarun summoned a green-robed underpriest. The fat priest said, "It is not permitted to enter the courtyard save on foot; Arcarola here will take your wagon to its proper place. Fear not, for there is no theft on the grounds of the temple. A loathsome plague unfailingly smites any miscreant daring to attempt such rapine."

"How many are thus stricken?" Gerin asked skeptically.

The body of the latest is one of the curiosities within the outer walls. Poor wretch, may he edify the others."

Sobered, Gerin descended from the wagon, followed by Elise and Van. When Arcarola climbed up the horses rolled their eyes and tried to rear, feeling the unfamiliar touch at the reins. Van put a heavy hand on each one's muzzle and growled, "Don't be stupid, now," following that with an oath in the harsh tongue Gerin guessed was his own. The beasts subsided and let themselves be led away.

About that time the Trokmoi came up; more green-robes took their chariots away. The priest who was leading them drew Falfarun aside and spoke softly with him. The Trokmoi were talking too, and not softly: the argument they had begun under the trees of the sacred grove was still in full swing. Gerin was about to greet them in their own tongue until he heard what they were quarreling about.

One of the northerners looked suspiciously at the baron and his comrades. "Not so loud should you be making it, Catuvolcus," he said. He sounded worried, and his scarred hands made shus.h.i.+ng motions.

Catuvolcus was not going to be hushed. Gerin guessed he was a bit drunk. His eyes were shot with red, and his speech was slurred. He toyed with his gruesome necklace. "Divico," he said, "you can take a flying futter at fast Fomor." He used the northern word for the inner moon. "What's the likelihood we would be finding someone this far south who might be speaking the real language?"

"There's no need to be taking a chance with no purpose."

"But what I'm saying is that it's no chance at all. And if you will be remembering, 'twas your scheme to be coming here. What was the why of it, now? Just to have the privacy we could scarce be getting from our own oracles?"

"And a proper notion it was, too. I'd liefer not have that Balamung omadhaun know it's less than full faith I have in him. Who is the spalpeen, anyhow, and why should we be fighting for him? If I go hunting with a bear, why, I want to be sure he'll not save me for the main course."

Listening as hard as he could without seeming to, Gerin barely noticed Falfarun's return. He was trailed by the other priest, who was even fatter than he. Falfarun coughed and said, "Good sir, my colleague, Saspir" he indicated his companion, whose smooth eunuch's face belied the years claimed by his graying hair and sagging jowls "and I have decided that these northern gentlemen should precede you to the Sibyl, as their journey has been longer than yours and they have urgent business in their own land, which requires them to make haste."

"You are trying to tell me they have paid you more," Gerin said without much rancor.

Falfarun's chins quivered. His voice was hurt as he answered, "I would not put it so cra.s.sly-"

"-But it's still true," Gerin finished for him. "Be it so, then, if we can follow them directly."

"But of course," Falfarun said, relieved to find him so agreeable. Saspir gave the Trokmoi the good news and took them into the courtyard of the temple. Falfarun followed, his reedy voice loud in the ears of Gerin, who would much rather have listened to the barbarians. Another golden-robed hierarch conducted a toga-clad n.o.ble from the holy precinct; the man's thin, pale face bore a troubled expression. The nomads from the plains of Shanda came up just as Gerin entered the courtyard, and he heard a priest calmly overriding their loud objections to being separated from their chariot.

Even the Trokmoi fell silent in the temple forecourt; they gawked, necks craning every which way, trying to see everything at once and looking like nothing so much as hungry hounds licking their chops.in front of a butchershop. Gerin did not blame them much, for the sight of so much treasure affected him the same way. The would-be thief's corpse, covered with hideous raw-edged lesions and bloated and stinking after some days in the open, did little to dampen his enthusiasm. Beside him Van whistled, soft and low.

Only the gauds were on display; most of the riches Biton's shrine had acc.u.mulated over the centuries were stored away in strong-walled vaults behind the temple or in caves below it. What was visible was more than enough to rouse a plunderer's l.u.s.ts. Chief among the marvels were twin ten-foot statues of gold and ivory, one of the Emperor Oren II, who had built the temple in the ancient grove, the other of his father, Ros the Fierce, who drove the Trokmoi north of the River Niffet and won the lands between the Niffet and the Kirs for Elabon. Oren wore the toga and held in his upraised right hand the orb of empire; Ros, mailed, had a javelin ready to cast and leaned upon a narrow-waisted s.h.i.+eld of antique design. His stern, craggy face, with its thrusting nose and lines carved deep on weathered cheeks, still had the power to awe though four hundred years had pa.s.sed. Gerin s.h.i.+vered when he looked up into those cold eyes of jet. Both images were protected from the elements and the indignities of pa.s.sing birds by a cloth-of-gold awning and two un-derpriests armed with long-handled fans.

A huge golden mixing-bowl celebrated Biton's triumph over the Trokmoi. Wider even than Van's outstretched arms, it was set upon a claw-footed tripod of bronze, and held the images of barbarians fleeing the G.o.d's just wrath and the prostrate bodies of those his arrows had struck down. On a pedestal of purple marble next to it was a splendid statue of a dying Trokme". The naked warrior was on his right side, propping himself up with his right arm, its hand still grasping swordhilt. His left hand clutched a gaping gash in his right side; the red-painted blood streamed down his flank to form a puddle at his hip. His face was turned up to stare at his conqueror, and its grimace showed agony and defiance, but not a hint of fear. It's features were blunter than usual among the long-faced, thin-nosed Trokmoi. Probably the sculptor, himself a Sithonian, had used a countryman as a model, adding only long hair and mustaches to make clear the statue's race.

There was much else to see: the silver-and-gold longtooth, its leap onto an aurochs frozen by a master artisan of long ago; the chalices and urns of precious metals, alabaster, cinnabar, and multicolored jades; the stacks of ingots and bars of gold and silver, each with a plaque telling which accurate prophesy it commemorated . . . but Falfaran was conducting them up to the steps of the temple, and that was a sight in itself.

Oren's architect had tried to harmonize the sparely elegant columned shrines the Sithonians loved with the native brickwork fanes of Elabon, and the effort was a n.o.ble one. The sides of Biton's shrine were marble blocks; s.p.a.cious glazed windows helped illuminate the interior. The front wall was pure Sithonian, with its triangular entablature supported by delicately fluted columns of whitest stone, the ends of each drum so perfectly flat no dagger could have found lodging between any two of them. Between architrave and overhanging eaves the frieze, carved by a team of workmen from drawings by the creator of the dying Trokme showed Biton, hand outstretched, guiding an imperial column against a disorderly horde of Trokmoi. Ros, harsh features easy to recognize, was in the lead chariot. His men had a kind of tough uniformity in striking contrast to the irregular foe they battled-and also to the barons who came after them.

Up the seven marble steps they went, Falfarun chattering all the while. When Elise heard that statue and frieze sprang from the same man's mind, she asked his name. Falfarun looked shocked and shook his head. "I have no idea," he said. "The work is far too holy to be polluted by such mundanities."

It took Gerin's eyes a few moments to adjust to the inside of the Biton's shrine, accustomed as they were to bright suns.h.i.+ne. They went wide as he saw the splendor within, for its magnificance had faded in his memory.

Limiting himself to simple white stone for the exterior of the building, its designer had let color run riot within. Twin rows of crimson granite columns, polished mirror-bright, led the eye to the altar. That was of sandalwood overlaid with gold and encrusted with all kinds of precious stones, and threw back in coruscating sheets the light cast on it by dozens of fat tapers in three arabesqued silver chandeliers overhead. The temple's inner walls were faced with rare green marble shot with gold; that stone came only from one quarry near Siphnos in Sithonia, and the Fox could but marvel at the sweat and gold needed to haul it here, a journey of several hundred miles over the Greater Inner Sea and the royal roads of Elabon. Like the columns, it was buffed until it gleamed, and it tinged niche-set gold and silver statues with its own color.

Chanting acolytes paced here and there, intent on Biton's rituals. Their slippers swished over the floor mosaics, their swinging censers filled the air with the fragrances of aloes, myrrh, and other costly incenses. Folk who wanted Biton's aid but needed no sight of the future knelt and prayed in the pews flanking the granite columns. Some kept their heads lowered, others raised them to the ceiling frescoes, as if seeking inspiration from the scenes of the G.o.d's begetting by Dyaus on a princess and his subsequent adventures, most of them caused by the jealously of the heavenly queen Darza.

Only in two respects was Biton's shrine unlike many even more superb temples in the lands south of the mountains. One was the image of the G.o.d behind the altar; here he was no graceful youth. A square column of rough black stone stood there, drinking in the light and giving back none. Immeasurably old, it could have been a natural pillar save for the faint images of eyes round its top and a jutting phallus stabbing forward from its middle. Biton's priests had only smiled when Oren proclaimed their deity a son of Dyaus; in their hearts they knew whose G.o.d was the elder and, seeing that image, Gerin was not inclined to doubt them. Biton's power was rooted in the earth, and in a square of bare earth to the left of the altar was a rift leading down below the roots of the sacred "rove to the Sibyl's cave, a rift whose like was unknown in the tamer south.

The Trokmoi were making their obeisances before Biton's altar, the three chieftains on their knees and their drivers flat on their bellies. The rose, dusted themselves off, and followed their guide into the cave's yawning mouth. One of the drivers, a freckled youth with face tight-set against fear, flexed the fingers of hand hand in a sign to avert evil. His other hand was tight on the hilt of his blade.

Falfarun brought up his charges to take the barbarians' place. All bent the knee before Biton, Falfarun panting as he eased his bulk to the floor. Gerin looked up at the dateless idol; for an instant he thought he saw eyes as brown as his own looking back at him, but when he looked again they were only scratches on stone.

Rising, Falfaran asked, "Would it please you to take more comfortable seats while waiting to meet the Sibyl?" Gerin lowered himself into the foremost pew. He ignored the puffing Falfaran, who dabbed at his forehead with a square of blue silk. His thoughts were on the Trokmoi: if these barbarians, men from so deep in the forests he knew nothing of them, had allied their clans with Balamung, how many more had done the same? Fox Keep, it seemed, was in the way of an onslaught more terrible than the attack whose scars still showed on the forecourt's walls, and had not much more chance of standing than battlements of sand against the flowing tide.

He grew more and more jittery until the Trokmoi finally emerged from the cavemouth. They had no liking for what they had heard; all were grim-faced and the young driver who had made the wardsign was white as a temple column, the freckles on his nose and cheeks standing out like splatters of dried blood.

The two chief who had been quarreling outside the temple forecourt were still at it. Divico, even more worried than before, waved a hand in Catuvolcus' face. "Is it not glad you are now we came?" he asked. "Plain as day the witch-woman told us there'd be nought but a fox gnawing at our middles if we join Balamung, plain as day."

"Ox ordure," Catuvolcus said. "The old gammer has no more wits than teeth, the count of which is none. On all the border there's but one southron called the Fox, and were you not listening when himself told us the kern'd be ravens' meat in no more days? It must be done by now, so where's your worry?"

Gerin stood and gave the Trokmoi his politest bow. "Begging your pardons," he said, using their tongue with a borderer's ease, "but a wizard's word's a coin I'd bite or ever I pocketed it. But if you're after seeking the Fox, it's him I am, and I tell you this: the raven who'll pick my bones is not yet hatched, no, nor his grandfather either."

He had hoped his sudden appearance would show the barbarians the folly of their ways, but instead he saw the rashness of his, for Catuvolcus bellowed an oath, rasped sword from scabbard, and rushed, followed close by his five comrades.

Leaping to his feet, Van heaved Falfarun over his head as easily as if the fat eunuch had been stuffed with down. He pitched him into the Trokmoi, bowling over two of them and giving himself and Gerin time to free their blades. At the same instant Elise hurled a dagger and skipped back to safety. The freckled driver fell, his throat pumping a torrent of blood round the hilt suddenly flowering there and his brand slipping from nerveless fingers.

Catuvolcus ducked under the hurtling priest, swung up his two-handed sword, and brought it down in a cut to cleave Gerin from crown to chin. Sparks flew as the Fox blocked the stroke; his arm felt numb to the elbow. He ducked under another wild slash, edged bronze whizzing bare inches above his head. His own sword leaped forth, biting into the Trokme's belly; he ripped it free to parry the lunge of one of the drivers. The northerner seemed confused at facing a lefthanded swordsman. Gerin beat down another tentative thrust, feinted at his enemy's throat, and guided his sword into the barbarian's heart. More surprise than pain on his face, the Trokme" swayed and fell. He gasped for the air he could not breathe and tried to speak, but only blood gushed from between his lips.

The Fox cleared his sword and looked around for more fight, but there was none. Van leaned on his blade and puffed, watching the shrilling, scrambling eunuchs with distaste. Half the proud crest of his helm was sheared away and his armor was drenched in gore, but none was his. Red hair matted by redder blood, the head of one barbarian stared gla.s.sily at its body. The ghastly corpse lay atop another, whose entrails and pouring blood befouled the gentle meadow of the mosaic floor.

A look of horror on her face, Elise came up to survey the carnage. With a flourish Van plucked her dagger from its victim's throat and handed the dripping weapon to her. "As fine a throw as ever I've seen, and as timely, too," he said. She held it for a moment, then threw it to the floor as hard as she could and gagged, reeling back against the pews.

Gerin put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her; she clung to him and sobbed. He murmured wordless rea.s.surances. He was nearly as much an accidental warrior as was she, and recalled only too well puking up his guts in a clump of bushes after his first kill. Now he felt only gladness that he was still among the living and tried not to think of the ruined humanity at his feet.

He offered his canteen to Elise so she could rinse her mouth. She took it with a m.u.f.fled word of thanks.

A squad of temple guardsmen rushed down the main aisle, brus.h.i.+ng aside the plainsmen (who had watched the fight with interest) and their guide. The guard captain, his cuira.s.s gilded to show his rank, shook his head when he heard Gerin's story, even though Saspir confirmed it. Tugging at his beard, the officer, whose name was Etchebar, said. "To slay a priest of the G.o.d, even to save your own lives, is foully done. Surprised am I Briton did not smite you dead."

"Slay?" Van shouted. "Who in the five h.e.l.ls said anything about slaying a priest, you jounce-brained lump of dung?" Etchebar's spearmen bristled at that, but restrained themselves at his gesture. "The great tun is no more slain than you, as you'll find if you flip water in his fat face. Likely less-if we'd waited for your aid, it'd be the Trokmoi you were jabbering with here!" He spat into a pool of red. "Look!" As smoothly as before, he lifted Falfarun from the inert Divico, whom he still covered, and set the priest on his feet, blood dribbling from the hem of his robe. Van slapped him gently once or twice. He groaned and clutched his head but did not seem hurt, however shaken he was.

Gerin turned all his powers of persuasion on the guard captain and the priest, who had one eye already beginning to blacken. He broke off in mid-sentance when he saw Van stooping over Divico, plainly intending to finish off the unconscious man. He made a quick grab for his friend's arm. "Captain, are you daft?" Van demanded.

"I hope not." Gerin took Van's place over the fallen Trokme and shook him.

Divico came to himself with a thunderstorm in his head. He groaned and opened his eyes; that accursed Fox was bending over him, the scar over his eye white against his tan and his square face hard. The Trokme gathered himself for a spring and felt the cold kiss of a blade at his throat. He rolled his eyes down until he could see its upper edge, still smeared with blood. Impotent rage flashed across his face. "I willna beg for my life, if it's that you're after," he said. "Slit my weasand and have done."

"A warrior's answer," Gerin nodded, still speaking in the forest tongue with a fluency Divico found d.a.m.nable. "Can it be you're wise as well?" He sheathed his sword and helped the bewildered Trokme" sit. The chieftain hissed when he saw his slaughtered comrades. Gerin waved at them and went on, "You and your friends heard the Sibyl's words, but did they heed them? Not a bit, and see what's become of them now. Sure as sure the same'll befall you and your clansmen if you go following Balamung's war-trumpets. Should I give you your life, would you go and tell them that, aye, and others you meet on your way?"

Divico's red brows came together as he thought. At last he said, "Fox, I like you not, but I will. By Taranis, Teutates, and Esus I swear it." That was the strongest oath the Trokmoi knew: if it would not bind him to his word, nothing would.

"Good man!" Gerin said, clasping his hand and helping him to his feet. He almost told the Trokme" he thought like an Elabonian, but judged the proud chieftan would think it an insult.

"A moment," Etchebar said dryly. "You have not the only claim on this man. Because of him blood was shed in the holy precinct, which is abhorrent to our lord Biton." He touched his eyes and the back of his head in reverance. Falfarun nodded vigorous agreement. The guardsmen leveled their spears at Divico, who shrugged and relaxed but kept his hand near his sword.

"I am sure we can come to some sort of understanding," Gerin said, propelling the guard captain and priest into a quiet corner. There they argued for some minutes. The Fox reminded them the Divico had opposed Catuvolcus, who had started the unholy combat. Furthermore, he pointed out, Biton was quite capable of dealing with those who offended him, as he had proved on the thief whose luckless body was displayed in the forecourt. Etchebar growled a curt order and Divico was set free. The Trokme" bowed to Gerin and left, one hand still clutched to his aching skull.

Black-robed temple servitors dragged away the dead Trokmoi and began to mop up their spilled gore, which had already attracted a few droning flies. Eyes still unhappy under bushy eyebrows, Etchebar gathered up his men and led them back to the forecourt. "And now, gentles, to the Sibyl at last," Falfarun said, with quite as much solemn aplomb as he had had before he was tossed about and his gleaming robe befouled.

The mouth of the Sibyl's cave was a black, grinning slit. Elise, still wan, took Gerin's hand; looking down into the inky unknown, he was glad of its pressure. Van fumed blasphemously as he tried to scrub sticky drying blood from his corselet. Falfarun vanished down the cavemouth. "You need have no fear for your footing," he called. "Since the unhappy day a century ago when the cousin of the Emperor Forenz (the second of that name, I believe) tumbled and broke an ankle, it was thought wise to construct regular steps and flooring to replace dirt and rocks. Such is life," he sighed, a bit unhappy at tradition flouted.

The subterranean corridor to the Sibyl's cave went down and down, twisting until Gerin lost all idea of the direction of his travel. A few dim candles set in brackets of immemorial antiquity gave a pale and fitful light; in it the flapping shadow of Falfarun's robe was a monstrous thing. Cross-branches of the caverns were holes of deeper blackness in the gloom. Elise's grip on Gerin's hand tightened.

Most of the cavewall was left in its natural state, and now and again a bit of rock crystal would gleam for a moment in the candlelight and then fade. A few stretches were walled off by brickwork of a most antique mode.

When Gerin asked the reason for the brickwork, Falfarun answered with a s.h.i.+ver. He said, "behind the bricks are charms of great fellness, for not all the branches of these caves are safe for men. As you have seen, some we use for armories, others to store grain or treasure. But in some branches dread things dwell, and those who tried to explore them never returned. Those ways were stopped, as you see, to prevent such tragedies. More than that I cannot tell you, for it was done ages ago."

Imagining the pallid monsters that could inhabit such dismal gloom, Gerin s.h.i.+vered himself. He tried not to think of the tons of rock and earth over his head. Van muttered something which might have been prayer or curse and hitched his swordbelt higher on his hip.

An ancient statue of Biton smiled its secret smile at them as they neared the Sibyl. The candles gave way to brighter torches, and the corridor widened to form a small chamber. A gust of cool, damp wind blew past Gerin's face, and heard the deep mutter of a great Stygian river far below. He started when Falfarun touched his elbow. "Your gifts ent.i.tle you to privacy with the Sibyl, if such is your desire,'' the priest said.

Gerin thought, then nodded.

Surprisingly, Falfarun's bruised face crinkled into a half-smile. "Good," he said. "Did the answer you received please you not, belike your brawny friend would undertake to pitch me through a wall." Van sputtered in embarra.s.sment. Falfarun went on, "Good fortune attend you, gentles, and I leave you with the Sibyl." He waved at the throne set against the rear wall of the chamber and was gone.

"By my sword," Van said softly, "if I didn't know better I'd say it was carved from one black pearl." Taller than a man, the high seat glimmered nacreously in the torchlight, crowns of silver s.h.i.+ning on its two back posts.

The throne's splendor made the bundle of rags sitting upon it almost invisible. Though the Trokmoi had called the Sibyl a crone, Gerin had not been able to believe the withered body through which the G.o.ds had spoken ten years before still held life. But it was she, one eye dim, the other whitened by cataract. Her face was a badlands of wrinkles; her scalp shone through thinning strands of yellowish hair.

The mind behind that ruined countenance was still sharp, though. She raised one withered claw in gesture of command. "Step forward, la.s.s, lads," she said, her voice a dry rustle. Gerin knew she would have called his father "lad" had it been him before her, and she would have been as right.

"What would you know of my master Biton?" she asked.

For some days Gerin had been mulling over the question he would put. Still, in that place his tongue stumbled as he asked, "How best may I save myself and my lands and destroy the wizard who threatens them?"

Thinking she had not heard, the baron opened his mouth to ask his question once more. But with no warning, her eyes rolled back, showing only vein-tracked whites. Her scrawny fists clenched; her body shook and trembled, throwing her robe off one dry shoulder and revealing an empty dug. Her face twisted, and when she spoke it was not in her own voice, but that of a powerful man in the first flush of his strength. Hearing the G.o.d, Gerin and his companions went to their knees as his words washed over them: "Buildings fall in flame and fire: Against you even G.o.ds conspire. Bow before the mage of the north When all his power is put forth To crush you down, to lay you low: For his grave no man will know."

The G.o.d's voice and power gone, the Sibyl slumped forward in a faint.

Chapter 5.

Evening came with gray clouds scudding across the sky and the wet-dust smell of rain in the air. Grim and silent, Gerin began to help Van make camp. Elise, worry in her voice and on her face, said, "Not three words have you said since we left the temple."

All the rage and helplessness the baron had confined since he stalked frozen-faced past Falfarun to reclaim the wagon came boiling up now in a torrent of bile. He slammed his helmet to the ground; it rolled spinning into the undergrowth. "What difference does it make?" he demanded bitterly. "I might as well cut my own throat and save that perambulating corpse the work. The Sibyl told me just what he did, though from him I hadn't believed it. 1 was a fool to go to her; advice is what I wanted, not a death sentence. A plague take all oracles!"

At that Van looked up. While Gerin was storming he had quietly gone on with the business of setting up camp, starting a fire and draining the blood of a purchased fowl into a trench to propitiate the ghosts. "I knew a man who said something like that once, Captain," he said.

"Is there a story to go with the knowing?" Elise asked, seemingly searching for any means to draw Gerin out of his inner darkness.

"Aye, so there is," Van agreed. He understood well enough what she was after, and pitched his words toward the Fox. Elise settled herself by the fire to listen. "Captain, you know-or you've heard me say-the world is round, no matter what any priest may blabber. I know. I should; I've been all the way around it. Maybe ten years back, it was, when I was at the far eastern edge of this continent, that I hired on as a man-at-arms under a merchant named Zairin, who was moving a s.h.i.+pment of jade, silk, and spices from a place called Ban Yarang to Selat, a couple of hundred miles southeastward. The folk are funny round those parts, little yellow-skins with slanting eyes like the Shanda nomads. It looks better on the women, I must say. Still, that's no part of the yarn.

"Zairin was one of those people who has no truck with the G.o.ds. Now, in those parts it's a customary thing to check the omens by watching the way the sacred peac.o.c.ks peck at grain. If they eat well, the journey will be a good one; if not, it's thought wiser to try again some other time.

"There we were, all ready to set out, and Zairin's right-hand man, a fat little fellow named Tzem, brought us a bird from the shrine. He poured out the grain, but the peac.o.c.k, who probably hadn't much liked traveling slung under his arm for more than a mile, just looked at it. He wouldn't touch it for anything, not that bird.

"Zairin sat watching this, getting madder and madder. Finally the old bandit had himself a gutful. He got up on his feet and roared out, 'If he won't eat, let him drink!' and, may my beard fall out if I lie, he picked up that peac.o.c.k, chucked it into the Kemlong river (which runs through Ban Yarang) and started off regardless."

Gerin was caught up in spite of himself. "Dyaus! It's not a chance I'd like to take," he said.

"And you the fellow who curses oracles? You can imagine what we were thinking, but most of the way things went well enough. The road was only a bare-dirt track through the thickest jungle I've ever seen, and we lost a couple of porters to venomous snakes the poor barefoot fools stepped on, and one more to a blood-sucking demon that left him no more than a withered husk when we found him the next morning. But when you make a trip like that, you learn to expect such things, and Zairin was mightily pleased with himself. He was always laughing and telling anyone who'd listen what a lot of twaddle it was to pay any attention to a fool bird.

"Well, it couldn't have been more than a day and a half before we would have made Selat and proved the old croaker right when everything came unraveled at once. A dam broke upstream from where we were fording a river and drowned five men and half our donkeys. The customs man Zairin knew at the border had been transferred, and I shudder to think of the silver his replacement gouged out of us. Half the men got a b.l.o.o.d.y flux; it bothered me for two years. And just to top everything off, old Zairin came down with the crabs. From ,then on, Captain, he was a believer, I can tell you!"

"Go howl!" Gerin said. "I was hoping you'd cheer me with a yarn where a prophesy was shown wrong. I know enough of the other sort myself. For that you can stand first watch."

"Can I, now? Well, you can-" the outlander scorched Gerin in more tongues than the Fox knew. Finally he said, "Captain, fair is fair: I'll wrestle you for it."

"Aren't you the bloodthirsty one? I thought you'd had enough fighting for one day," Gerin sighed, pulling off his tunic. He helped Van undo the leather laces of his back-and-breast; his friend sighed as the weight came off. In kilt and sandals Van seemed more a war-G.o.d than ever. As he stretched, his bulging thews rippled and flexed like crus.h.i.+ng snakes and the forest of golden hair on his chest and belly flashed in the firelight. Only his scars told of his humanity and his turbulent past. One terrible gash ran right armpit to navel; every time he saw it, Gerin wondered how the outlander had lived.

Not that he was unmarked himself: sword, spear, knife and arrow had left their signatures on his skin, and the cut Viredorix had given him was not much more than half-healed. He saw Elise's eyes travel from Van's enormous frame to him and knew he seemed almost a stripling beside his mountainous companion, though he was a well-made man of better than average size. But the Fox had a name as a wrestler on both sides of the Niffet. He had learned more tricks from masters south of the Kirs than his neighbors had ever imagined, and thrown men much bigger than himself. For all that, though, Van's raw strength was enough to flatten him as often as he could finesse his way to victory. When the word went out that they would tussle, even Trokmoi came to watch and bet.

Embarra.s.sed that her look had been seen and understood, Elise dropped her eyes. Gerin grinned at her. "He won't chuck me through a tree, girl. At least, I hope he won't."

"Who says I won't?" Van bellowed, and charged like an avalanche. Gerin sprang to meet him. Ducking under the thick arms which would quickly have squeezed the breath from him, he hooked his own left arm behind Van's right knee and rammed a shoulder into his hard-muscled middle. Van grunted and went down, but a meaty paw dragged Gerin after him. They rolled, thrashed, and grappled in the dirt, but when the dust cleared Gerin rode Van's broad back, his arms slid under his friend's shoulders and hands clasped behind his neck. Van slapped the ground and Gerin let him up. He shook his head and rubbed his eye to rout out a speck of dust. "You'll have to show me that one again, Gerin," he said. "Another fall?"

The baron shrugged. "All right, but that last one was for the watch." Van nodded, and in mid-nod he leaped. There was no chance for Gerin to use any of his feints or traps; he was seized, lifted, and slammed to earth with rib-jarring force. Van sprang on him like a starving lion onto a fat sheep.

Thoroughly pinned, Gerin grumbled, "Get off me, you pile of suet!" Van snorted and pulled him to his feet. They both swore as they swabbed each other's scratches with beer-soaked rags; the stuff stung foully.

After supper Gerin began to regret not having the first watch. He was sure he was too full of troubles to sleep, despite the day's exertions. He tossed, wriggled until a small stone no longer gouged his back, wished the crickets were not so loud . . .

Van watched his friend's face relax as slumber overtook him. He was not too worried about the baron's dejection, for he had seen him downhearted before, and knew he recovered rapidly. But the Fox felt his responsibilities deeply; if anything, a menace to his lands. .h.i.t him harder than a threat against himself.

More and more clouds blew in from the west, pale against the dark blue dome of the sky. Math, a day past first quarter, and mottled Tiwaz, now nearly full, jumped in and out of sight, and a couple of hours before midnight dim Nothos' waning gibbous disc joined them. The wind carried a faint salt tang from the Orynian Ocean far away. Van scrubbed dried gore from his armor and helm and patiently waited until it was time to wake Gerin.

Rain threatened all through the Fox's watch; it was still dark when the first spatters came. Elise jumped when a drop splashed her cheek; she woke as quickly and fully as any soldier. She smiled at Gerin and said, " 'The G.o.ds in the heaven send dripping-tressed rain/ To nourish sweet hope in a desert of pain'-or so the poet says, anyway."