The Irda: Children Of The Stars

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The sound of the four horses, galloping tbrough the dry grass, pounding the earth, sounded across the plain for a long time.

“We have to go after them!”

Tenaj was in favor of pursuit. Several others standing nearby rumbled agreement.

Lyrralt shook his head. “If you chase them in the darkness, they’ll kill their hostages for sure. Or you. It would be easy to set an ambush.”

Tenaj’s hand dropped from its customary set on the pommel of her sword. “Why did they take Khal-layne and Jelindra?”

“I don’t know.”

Igraine, shoulders drooping, turned slowly back toward camp, but Bakrell blocked his way.

“Lord, please.” Bakrell fell to his knees before the older Ogre, hung his head in shame. “I must confess what I’ve done. I must tell you all that I know.”

Those who had been drifting back toward camp stopped. Lyrralt and Tenaj moved in closer. Igraine put a hand on Bakrell’s shoulder and nodded.

Bakrell swallowed. He began with his gaze fastened on the ground at Igraine’s feet. “My sister and I are of the last of the Tallees Clan, the clan of the Keeper of the History of the Ogre.”

Lyrralt gasped.

“My sister and I joined you partly because she thought someone here knew about what happened to the History.”

“I don’t understand,” Igraine said solemnly. “I thought the Keeper died a natural death.”

“That is what the council allowed everyone to believe. But Kaede believes there was a conspiracy. And she believes the Song is still alive. For our family, the Song has its own special… music. She hears it, still.”

Bakrell paused, cocking his head as if he, too, were listening to something far off. “I haven’t her abilities, but I must say, I agree with her. I think, if the Song were truly gone, there would be a… silence.”

“Go on,” Igraine prompted when Bakrell lapsed into silence.

“The Song drew Kaede here, to someone among us. But she wasn’t sure who. Two nights ago, she told me she thought Jyrbian was the culprit.”

“So you came here to find the Song,” Tenaj said coldly. “Is that all?”

“No. We also came…” He mumbled something.

“What?”

Igraine put his hand on Bakrell’s chin, tipping it back so he could see his face. “Don’t be afraid. No one is going to hurt you now. What is the other reason you joined us?”

Bakrell squared his shoulders. “We came on behalf of the Ruling Council.”

A gasp went up from the crowd, and there was a surge forward, but Igraine controlled everybody with a wave of his hand. “Continue.”

“Things are very bad in Takar,” Bakrell said. “The humans. Escaped slaves are everywhere in the mountains. When we left, there had already been three supply trains attacked and destroyed.

“There were many who didn’t approve of how the Ruling Council handled Igraine. They were incensed that an Ogre was punished for consolidating his profits. And they have become even angrier that the council seems powerless to stop the human attacks.”

“The council sent out troops to find you. You met the first, and the second, and destroyed them. What you don’t know is that they have continued to send reinforcements. As far as I know, from the last communication from our contact, every one of them has been attacked and harried or destroyed. By humans. They thought that you were using humans for soldiers, because there were so many attacks by the escaped slaves, so many coordinated, planned attacks.”

“And that’s why they sent you?” Igraine asked.

Bakrell nodded. “They wanted information. Kaede volunteered to come.”

“But we haven’t been in communication with any groups of slaves,” Tenaj protested. “Surely you discovered that weeks ago.”

Bakrell started to tell them what Kaede had discovered about Everlyn, and the slaves who’d been guarding their flanks, since after the attacks in the mountains, but he couldn’t. Igraine looked old, immensely tired. His eyes were swollen with grief. Bakrell couldn’t add to his misery.

“Yes, we did. We realized that immediately. We stayed on, hoping to discover the truth of the lost History. And-” He hesitated. “There’s one other thing. Kaede’s-that is, we’ve-been relaying messages for a courier, messages to the council, with maps and information on your whereabouts.”

There was no response this time, no emotion at all from the broken and grieving refugees. They were stunned.

“We don’t know if the messages got through,” he said hurriedly. “We don’t even know if they were picked up as they were intended to be. We’d just leave them behind, marked in the prearranged way.”

Bakrell clutched Igraine’s hand. “Please, Lord, the reason I’ve told you all this is because I have made a decision. I want to stay. The longer we dwelt among you, the more convinced I became that yours is the right way to live. I know I’ve committed transgressions against you, but I want to stay.”

Wearily, Igraine patted his hands. “I can’t make that determination, Bakrell. Everyone will have to decide. But for myself, I welcome you. We have all committed crimes and atrocities. We have all suffered.”

As if suddenly reminded that Igraine’s only child lay cold and dead within the tent, the assembly broke up without any other words, forming into smaller groups. They silently drifted back to the tent at the center of the camp. There they built a pyre for Everlyn’s body and sang their songs of sorrow for Igraine.

Bakrell moved among them. Although none spoke to him, none turned away as he helped with the sad tasks.

Lyrralt took his blankets and slipped away, alone, to the edge of the camp, past the lines of horses and the watchful eyes of the sentries.

Tonight. He knew it had to be tonight. Igraine would be left alone with his grief. And Lyrralt would be able to slip into his tent.

The runes throbbed on his shoulder, itched down his arm. He sat alone in the darkness and wished for a moment’s numbness, that he might be free of the urging of the runes. He searched for the constellation of Hiddukel in the night sky, but clouds had covered Solinari and blotted out the stars.

In the blackest hours of the morning, he slipped back into camp and into Igraine’s tent. The interior was dark; only a single candle was guttering in its own wax, almost dead.

Igraine sat on a mat of thick carpet, his legs crossed, his hands lying on his knees. He didn’t look up as Lyrralt entered, but said, “So you’ve come at last to kill me.”

Lyrralt was so surprised, his hand halted in the act of drawing his dagger from inside his robe. “Kill you, Lord?”

Igraine slowly raised his head.

Lyrralt gaped when he saw that Igraine’s silver eyes had gone gray.

“Isn’t that why you’ve come? Isn’t this what you’ve planned for, watched for, for weeks?”

Lyrralt shrugged and drew the dagger. So, Igraine knew. Soon he would be dead, and it wouldn’t matter anyway. And if he raised the alarm, it would be over before anyone could come. “Yes. That’s why I’ve come.”

“You won’t stop what is happening, you know. What I’ve begun is larger than me now. It’s larger than any single Ogre.”

Despite the tiredness, the defeat in Igraine’s voice, Lyrralt felt the pull of persuasion. The runes squirmed, reminding him of his duty. A calmness came over him. “I don’t care about what you’ve begun. Only you.”

Igraine nodded. He hadn’t made any move to defend himself. Lyrralt shifted the dagger to his left hand and wiped his sweaty palm on his tunic. The runes seemed to wriggle, wormlike, faster and faster. He struggled to maintain the objective in his mind.

“You know you don’t want to do it, though, don’t you?” Igraine asked. “You haven’t for some time now. If you had wanted to, you would have done it long ago.”

Lyrralt paused in the act of raising the dagger. It didn’t matter what Igraine thought. He would soon be dead. “There was never an opportunity. You’re always surrounded by admirers, by acolytes.”

“There have been plenty of opportunities. You’ve ignored every one of them until tonight.”

Until tonight. Lyrralt lifted the dagger over Igraine, meaning to plunge it downward into his skull. On his arm, the runes felt as if they had caught fire, as if they had grown roots, which were biting deep into his flesh, reaching into the marrow of his bones.

Lyrralt groaned in pain, reared back, and brought the dagger down with all his might! It thudded dully, vibrating as it lodged in the wooden post above Igraine’s head.

Pain ripped through his shoulder. He screamed and fell, writhing, spine contorted, onto the mat at Igraine’s feet.

Igraine touched his back, his hip, his aching shoulder, and the pain eased. He heard the sound of running feet, the flaps to the tent being shoved open, but he couldn’t move.

“Lord?” Tenaj’s voice sounded from the entrance. “We heard a scream.”

“It’s all right.” Igraine smiled down at Lyrralt. “It was just a muscle spasm.”

Lyrralt sat up slowly and saw several faces peering worriedly through the open flap.

Igraine waved them away. All but Tenaj and Bak-rell disappeared.

Those two entered. Bakrell stared at the dagger embedded in the post. He considered the weapon, Igraine, then Lyrralt, then wordlessly he pulled it free and offered it to Igraine.

Igraine took it and passed it back to Lyrralt.

Before Bakrell could comment, Tenaj said, “I want to go after Khallayne and Jelindra.”

“And I have told her it is I who should go.” Bakrell squatted on the mat beside Lyrralt, facing Igraine. “My sister is partly to blame.”

“And it is my friends they’ve taken.”

“They are just as much my friends, Tenaj, though I have not shown them the honor friends deserve,” Bakrell said.

“Why you instead of me?”

“Because we’ll need you to lead the warriors in Jyrbian’s place,” Lyrralt told her softly when his wits had returned. “If the council knows where we are, we will need you more than ever. Bakrell should be the one to go.” It was only after he’d spoken that he realized what he’d said. He looked to Igraine for permission or censure, but Igraine did as he’d always done when, before, Jyrbian had made some decision of which he approved. He merely smiled.

Bakrell was nodding agreement, too.

“I wouldn’t be too pleased,” Lyrralt said, rubbing his shoulder as the runes started to dance again. “You’re probably riding to certain death, whether you catch Jyrbian or not.”

“No. I’ll be careful. Maybe we can figure out some way to get a message to the humans who’re guarding us. And if I don’t catch them before they get to Takar, I can lose myself in the city, where I’ll be perfectly safe.”

Khallayne woke, groggy. Her neck and the back of her head ached. Her belly hurt, and someone was shaking her so hard, she thought she was going to be sick.

She opened her eyes, and the ground rushed past her eyes with sickening speed. Suddenly, she remembered.

Jyrbian had grabbed her and thrown her across his horse. Then darkness had descended, and she remembered nothing. Until now.

She struggled to hold her head up, to steady it against the horse’s bouncing. She pounded on his leg with her fist and was rewarded with laughter from above.

The horse slowed and broke into a trot, which almost tore her head from her shoulders, then slowed some more and stopped. Jyrbian dragged her up and over the horse until she was on her back, cradled in his strong arms.

“So you’re awake?” he asked.

“Where are we going?” Khallayne tried to ask, but her mouth felt as though it were filled with puffballs.

Jyrbian motioned for Kaede. He took the reins of Khallayne’s stallion.

“We’re riding, my love, into the night.” He pushed one of her legs over the saddle of her horse, then lifted her up onto the horse’s back. “And remember, if you get any ideas about not keeping up with us, or of getting lost, Jelindra will be staying with us, even if you do not.”

He grinned cruelly at her, then kicked his horse into a run. They stopped sometime in the wee hours of the morning, and Kaede tied her wrists and ankles together as she fell asleep, too exhausted, too sick with pain and heartache to resist.

The sun was up, shining in her eyes, when she regained consciousness. She rolled over and buried her face in the crook of her elbow, trying to shut out the sunlight. Darkness descended, and she realized she overheard Kaede talking to Jyrbian.

“Why, Jyrbian?” Kaede was demanding. “Why do we need them? They’re just slowing us down.”

“It’s my decision, that’s why,” Jyrbian’s voice answered.

Khallayne was very alert.

“You asked me to come with you! You want me to help you watch the girl. I think you owe me an explanation!”

“I didn’t ask you to come,” Jyrbian responded, still sounding bored. “And you’re free to leave anytime you choose.”

Kaede’s voice softened, lost its stridency. “I didn’t mean it that way. You know I want to be with you. But, I see why they have to come along with us. I don’t want-” Her voice died away.

“Well, I do want them with us.”

“Buy why?”

“Very well, I’ll tell you. If it will satisfy you and stop you from complaining.”

Khallayne heard crunching sounds, footsteps on dry grass.

When Jyrbian spoke next, his voice was right above her. “The girl I care nothing for, except to make this one behave. But this one…” The toe of his boot grazed her hip. “This one is going to teach me everything she knows about magic.”

He slipped his foot under her and shoved hard, turning her over. “Do you hear me, Khallayne? You’re going to make me the most powerful Ogre in allofTakar.”

He smiled and walked out of her range of vision.

Khallayne sat up slowly, shielding her eyes from the sun. “And what if I refuse?”

He was standing beside Jelindra, who was still asleep, wrapped in a blanket. He touched the girl’s head gently with the toe of his boot and looked back at Khallayne. “I don’t think you will.”

Lyrralt sat on a broken wall and stared around him. After several days of hard riding, they were camped in the ruins of a human city in a small range of low hills. They must be nearing the edge of the plains, he supposed, since the flatness was beginning to be broken by rolling land and small hills.

Bakrell was several days gone. He had ridden back the way they had come with a jaunty wave, leaving Lyrralt with the melancholy feeling that he would never see him again.

What was left of the city around him was sad. The crude, half-standing stone walls gave the impression that they had never stood straight and strong as intended. Perhaps they had been broken and leaning, even when new.

Lyrralt walked through the fallen rock, the piles of dust and rubble and wondered who had lived in the place, and why. There was something about it that reminded him of Bloten. Humans attempting to build an Ogre city? It made no sense. Humans were savages who eked their lives out of the plains. They barely had civilization. Or had they built their own cities and roads, before the Ogres had discovered their usefulness as animals of burden, of hard work?

He was standing on the highest place in the ruin, a small portion of a wall that ran along a ridge, when the rain began.

At first, the downpour was so heavy that it seemed like stars falling from the sky! Burning stars! Stars trailing fiery tails.

The first one hit, not far out on the plains, as he’d thought it would, but nearby, just feet from the sheer drop of the ledge. It was a rain of fire! Pebbles and dirt and rainbow flame exploded upward!

He looked up into the sky and saw more, thousands more fiery spots of light, trailing downward. He shouted a wordless warning to those several feet below him, poking through the ruins. As he pointed, more balls of light hit, sending up gouts of flame.

One of the older cousins of Igraine’s clan was standing nearby. A spout of fire curled up and slapped him down. He said, “It’s cold,” in an unsurprised voice. Then his flesh began to melt, like wax dripping from a candle, and the sound that came from him was an ululation of pain and despair.

As the Ogre fell, a dark, fused mass of flesh and bone, the real horror began. Great balls of the light, feet apart, inches apart, came down! Coldfire it was, sent from the heavens by the gods. Wherever it touched, it burned without flame, burned cold, but with a heat more intense than anything Lyrralt had ever experienced.

Lyrralt leapt down from the wall, landed on the side of his foot, and rolled on the hard ground. He came to his feet running. Where was Igraine? He had to find Igraine.

Another Ogre was hit by the coldfire, and another: Haleyn, who made such beautiful music with his flute, and Issil, who supervised the carrying of live coals from camp to camp, always making sure the Ogres had continued warmth.

One of the children of Igraine’s clan, the noisy one, fell. His sister screamed and grabbed him as the fiery ball crashed onto his back, and she, too, was consumed. And Celise, Jelindra’s mother, also died shrieking.

He saw Tenaj run, dodging the fiery explosions, dragging two of the children away before they could touch the melted body of their father and become part of his boiling flesh.

He stopped, looked about wildly, and ran again. As he ran, Ogres died all around him. But none of the deadly fire came near enough to touch him. He looked up at the sky. This was no attack of humans or Ogres! No attack even of any kind of magic he recognized.

Reaching inside his tunic, Lyrralt grabbed the medallion that hung around his neck and yanked it so hard that the chain cut into his skin and broke. He clasped it between his palms and shouted-sang! — screamed! — a prayer to the heavens. “Mighty Hid-dukel, Great Goddess Takhisis, why have you spared me? So that I might observe death all around me? Have mercy on your children! Show forgiveness and spare us-!”

The silver disc that bore the etched symbol of his god heated up so that he flung it away without thinking. The disc sailed up as he gasped, realizing what he had done.

He grabbed at it. But it exploded. Many-hued brightness erupted, searing his eyes and etching a line like a jagged glyph down his face from eyebrow to chin. He felt the runes on his arms writhe and burn even hotter than the metal.

He screamed and fell back, away from the unbearable pain, trying to escape the agony of his burning flesh. He tore the sleeve from his robe, scraped at his arms, his face.

The pain ended as suddenly as it had begun. The last thing he saw, before darkness overcame him, was the skin of his left arm, unmarked and dark indigo, as unblemished as the day he’d first appeared before his first clerical master.

A peacefulness came over him, covered him like a blanket, like nothing he’d ever known. This is what it is to die, he thought. This quiet, this dark…

Tenaj and Igraine found him. The fiery rain of stars had ended. The fire of the gods had left no wounded, only melted lumps of flesh, no longer recognizable as Ogres.

Lyrralt was sitting, his back against a broken wall of stone, legs crossed comfortably, his hands clasping his unmarked forearms.

His face, his beautiful, finely chiseled face, bore a craggy scar that began at his hairline, dipped to his heavy eyebrows, zagged across his high cheekbone, back across his cheek, and disappeared underneath his chin. It looked like a thunderbolt, molded of silver as bright as the color of his eyes. Except that his eyes were no longer bright silver. They were a shining, opalescent white with no sign of any pupils at all.

“Lyrralt?” Tenaj kneeled beside him, afraid almost to breathe his name, for fear that he would start to scream. Or that she would.

“Lyrralt, are you…” What she meant to ask seemed a stupid thing to inquire, with his face disfigured and his eyes so strange.

For a moment, Lyrralt continued to stare, then he stirred, slowly straightening. He reached out, obviously for her hand, but not in the right place.

Igraine took his hand tightly. Tenaj reached across and placed her palm on their joined hands.

Lyrralt fumbled for the linked hands and felt first her fingers, then Igraine’s beneath them. He said softly, “I can’t see you.” And he smiled.