Frostfell

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Akhrasut Neth

After washing in the pool, Gyaidun returned, dressed without saying a word to either of them, gathered his weapons, and proceeded to leave again. But he stopped and turned. "You are really going to do this?" He was looking to the belkagen, but the old elf did not answer, instead looking to Amira. "Yes," she said. Gyaidun stood there, tense with anger and… something else. Uncertainty? Amira wondered. "Why?" he asked. "Why… honored Belkagen?" "Why what, yastehanye?" said the elf. "I called you Belkagen." "Your words. Not your heart." The big man and the old elf stared at one another, neither gaze wavering or blinking. The anger was still there, Amira knew, but the heat was gone. In a way, this was worse, this cold tension that Amira sensed was born of hurt and loss from both of them. There was a slight curl to Gyaidun's lip that spoke to Amira of derision. The perfect calm of the belkagen's face, so obviously a tight mask, had an air of deep disappointment. "Why what?" the belkagen said softly. "Why help this"-he shot Amira an apologetic glance- "outlander seek Hro'nyewachu? For twelve years I have walked every horizon, sniffed every trail, and followed every track to find Erun. Not once did you give me this counsel. Why?" "You are a hunter, Gyaidun." Was that tenderness in the old elf's tone? If so, it was slight. "A warrior.

You are not…" The belkagen looked to Amira as he struggled for the word. "You have not studied the discipline of magic, nor sought the communion or made the sacrifices to the divine. Some of those taken by Hro'nyewachu spent years doing so. Hro'nyewachu might give you the answers you seek, but she would devour you. It is folly." "The omahet are not priests or wizards. They are warriors. Like me. And they have survived the Mother's Heart." "They are Vil Adanrath," said the belkagen. "You are not. The Mother's Heart, we call her. But she is not your mother. Her jealousy protects our people." Our people.

Gyaidun stared at the belkagen for a long moment, gave Amira a considering look, then turned and walked off. Durja cawed after him, and when the big man showed no sign of stopping or slowing, the raven took to wing after him. Both disappeared into the trees, and the sound of their passage was soon gone, leaving Amira and the belkagen only with the sound of the wind in the branches and the meat beginning to sizzle over the fire. "Where is he going?" Amira asked. "He must hunt." "Now? We have food. I don't understand." "There is much you do not understand," said the belkagen, and he sounded both tired and annoyed. "No more questions for now. Please. I will tend the fire. You should rest. You have a long night ahead of you."

Though it rankled her to be ordered about, Amira lay down under the small lean-to of branches and brush that Gyaidun had made. She used her pack as a pillow and wrapped herself in the elkhide. Though her breath steamed in the cold, she was quite warm in the thick hide, and she lay listening to the wind as it came around the Mother's Bed and set the trees to rattling. The belkagen muttered to himself as he tended the fire and food. His muttering fell into a half-whispered, half-sung chant, soothing in its rhythm. Jalan… Amira thought, and the next thing she knew the sky was darker, the shadows among the trees thicker, and Gyaidun was walking into camp with a dead deer-a young buck-draped over his shoulders. She could not even remember closing her eyes-or opening them, for that matter. One moment she'd been listening to the belkagen and thinking of Jalan, and the next moment half the day had seemingly passed. Had the old meddler placed some sort of enchantment on her? Whether he had or not, Amira realized as she sat up, she did feel rested. Gyaidun knelt and dropped the deer well away from the fire. Aside from two arrow wounds to its throat, the carcass was uncut. "Why didn't you butcher it?" Amira asked as she emerged from the shadows under the lean-to and came to the fire. "It would've been easier to carry." Gyaidun didn't answer. The belkagen, who still sat next to the fire, spoke up. "Hro'nyewachu will be hungry. If you have no gift…" "What?" "Feed Hro'nyewachu or she will feed on you," Gyaidun said, though he did not look at her.

Instead he gave the belkagen a hard look and continued, "That much I know." "What kind of oracle is this?" asked Amira. "I told you," said the belkagen. "She is a being of need-both in fulfilling and needing to be fulfilled. Nothing comes free. Blood for blood." A flutter passed through Amira's stomach. The war wizards had their own rituals, many of which were dangerous, but she was beginning to regret agreeing to this. Confronting a danger for which she was prepared was one thing. Trusting the word of these foreigners with their strange ways and walking in unprepared to who knew what was something else. "You are a foreigner here," said the belkagen, and Amira flinched at hearing some of her own thoughts spoken back to her. "I will help you prepare, but you must trust us." There were a hundred questions she probably should have asked, but she said, "Your oracle doesn't like horses? We have two that Gyaidun says we can't ride. Why go hunting?"

"Hro'nyewachu is… akai'ye," said the belkagen. "There is no good word in your tongue. Ancient. Primal. Tame blood will not sate her.

She needs the blood of the wild." "Ah, Azuth," Amira grumbled. "I hate the Wastes."

As late afternoon deepened to evening, Amira saw the sun for the last time for many days. Still wrapped in the elk-hide blanket against the cold, she stood just inside the edge of the copse. The glowing rim of the sun dropped out of the edge of the farthest clouds and was two fingers' width from touching the horizon when Amira heard howling.

First she thought it was the wind, but then she caught the mournful melody, rising and falling off the south. Others answered it. Wolves were coming. Many wolves. She turned and made the short walk back into camp. The two remaining horses were skittish, their ears flicking, their feet stamping, and the whites of their eyes showing as they tossed their heads. The belkagen still sat beside the fire. He was gnawing on a bit of horseflesh-a raw piece, Amira noticed, and turned away. Gyaidun was sitting on the very edge of camp, his back against a tree, Durja nestled in his lap. He was staring off into nothing and did not so much as glance her way. The open hostility between the two men was gone, but there was still a palpable tension in camp. It had been a large reason for her decision to take a walk. "I heard wolves," she said. "The Vil Adanrath," said the belkagen. "Haerul is coming."

"Why do they howl?" The belkagen glanced at Gyaidun. "They announce their presence. They wish us to know they are here, but they will not share fire with Gyaidun." "It is the omah nin's way of telling me to get back to my camp and stay there," said Gyaidun. More howls drifted off the southern steppe, and both horses gave a nervous whicker. Amira remembered Gyaidun telling her that horses could not abide the presence of the Vil Adanrath, and something occurred to her.

"Belkagen," she said. "Why do the horses not fear you? You are Vil Adanrath, are you not?" "Yes," said the belkagen, "and no. The calling of the belkagen leaves us… changed." "I don't understand." Gyaidun snorted. The belkagen gave him a dark look, then stood up. "I should lead the horses away. Lendri will likely be arriving soon." "What will you do with them?" she asked. "Gifts for Haerul and his pack," the belkagen said as he untied the horses' hobbles. "They will be hungry after such a long journey, and a little hospitality might soften the mood of the omah nin." Amira found a place by the fire as the belkagen disappeared off into the trees with the two frightened horses. The strips of horseflesh-now cooked-hung from a small rack near the fire.

Her stomach rumbled but she winced. "Not hungry?" said Gyaidun. "I'm starving." "Then eat." "My family raises horses. Some of the finest in Cormyr-the finest anywhere. Horses are for riding, not eating." In the distance, Amira heard the sudden scream of the horses followed by the sound of galloping hooves. "Not in the Wastes," said Gyaidun. At first, she thought he was mocking her "outlander ways" again, but his voice held no scorn as he continued. "Even the Tuigan, who care for their horses more than any people I've ever known, eat horseflesh.

There is no shame in it." "Would you eat Durja?" The raven looked at her, his head twisting sideways, and cawed at her as if he understood.

"Durja is a friend," said Gyaidun. "When I was a little girl, horses were my friends." "You're not a little girl anymore." The breeze slackened, and as the boughs and dry leaves settled, Amira heard another distant whinny, harsh and terrified, almost like the scream of a woman, and behind it she thought she caught the sound of growling.

She shuddered. Amira took a deep breath and looked to Gyaidun. The gloom of evening was deepening, and seated as he was under the tree, she could not tell if he was looking at her or not. "Gyaidun?" she said. "Yes?" "Tonight when I… seek the oracle, you know I am trying to help my son?" "Yes." His voice was flat. "But if… if there is anything I can do to help your son, I will." He said nothing for a long time. She was about to decide she'd offended him again, trespassed on some fragment of eastern manners that she didn't know, when he spoke again. "It's been twelve years since Erun was stolen."

"Then you've given up hope?" Gyaidun said nothing. Durja set to cawing again, and at the sound a sudden image, a memory, filled Amira's mind.

The field after battle. The sun gone in the west but an angry light still burning in the sky. The air thick with the buzzing of flies and the call of ravens. The stench was the worst. Blood she could handle.

But in dying, stomachs were cut open, skulls split, bowels emptied, and spells burned both grass and flesh. For once Amira did not push the image away. "Despair is for the dead," Amira said. "You are still alive, Yastehanye." "As is your son," said Gyaidun, though there was no offer of comfort in his voice. Only bitterness. "What of my son?"

"I don't know. But if there is no hope for him, there is always vengeance."