“That castle used to be Fengbald‘s,” said Miriamele. “And to think my father would have had me marry him! I wonder which of his family lords it there now.” Her mouth tightened. “If the new master is anything like the old one, I hope the whole thing falls down on him.”
Simon peered into the diffuse western light that made the castle seem only an oddly-shaped black crag, then pointed to the city below to distract her attention. “We can be in Falshire-town before nightfall. We can have a true meal tonight.”
“Men always think of their stomachs.”
Simon thought the assertion unfair, but was pleased enough to be called a man that he smiled. “How about a dry night in a warm inn, then?”
Miriamele shook her head. “We have been lucky, Simon, but we are getting closer to the Hayholt every day. I have been in Falshire many times. There is too good a chance someone might recognize me.”
Simon sighed. “Very well. But you don’t mind if I go in somewhere and get us something to eat like I did in Stanshire, do you?”
“As long as you don’t leave me waiting all night. It’s bad enough being a poor traveling chandler’s wife without having to stand in the rain while the husband’s inside slurruping down ale by a hot fire.”
Simon’s smile became a grin. “Poor chandler’s wife.”
Miriamele looked at him dourly. “Poor chandler if he makes her angry.”
The inn called The Tarbox was brightly torchlit, as if for some festive holiday, but as Simon peered in through the doorway he thought the mood inside seemed far from merry. It was crowded enough, with perhaps two or three dozen people scattered around the wide common room, but the talk among them was so quiet that Simon could hear the rainwater dripping off the cloaks that hung beside the door.
Simon made his way between the crowded benches to the far side of the common room. He was aware of many heads turning to watch him pass, and a slight increase in the buzz of conversation, but he kept his eyes to himself. The landlord, a thin, tuft-haired fellow whose face sparkled with the sweat of the roasting oven, looked up as he approached.
“Yes? D‘you need a room?” He looked at Simon’s tattered clothes. “Two quinis the night.”
“Just a few slices of that mutton and some bread. And perhaps some ale as well. My wife’s waiting outside. We’ve far to go.”
The landlord shouted at someone across the room to have patience, then glared at Simon suspiciously. “You’ll need your own jug, for none of mine’s walking out the door.” Simon lifted his jug and the man nodded. “Six cintis for all. Pay now.”
A little nettled, Simon dropped the coins on the table. The landlord picked them up and examined them, then pocketed the lot and scurried off.
Simon turned to survey the room. Most of the denizens seemed to be Falshire-folk, humble in garb and settled in their residence: there were very few who looked as though they might be travelers, despite the fact that this was one of the closest inns to the city gates and the River Road. A few returned his gaze, but he saw little malice or even curiosity. The people of Falshire, if this room was any indication, seemed to have much in common with the sheep they raised and sheared.
Simon had just turned back to look for the landlord when he sensed a sudden stirring in the room. He wondered if the Falshire-folk had indeed had more of a reaction to him than he’d realized. Then a chill breeze touched the back of his neck.
The door of the inn was open again. Standing before a curtain of water sluicing down from the roof outside, a trio of white-robed figures calmly surveyed the room. It was not Simon’s imagination that all the other folk in the common room shrank back a little into themselves. Furtive glances were darted, conversations grew quieter or louder, and some of the patrons nearest the door sidled slowly away.
Simon felt a similar urge. Those must be Fire Dancers, he thought. His heartbeat had grown swifter. Had they seen Miriamele? But what would she have meant to them in any case?
Slowly Simon leaned back against the long table, putting on an air of mild interest as he watched the newcomers. Two of the three were large, as muscled as the dockers who worked the Hayholt’s sea gate, and carried blunt-ended walking staves that looked more useful for skull-cracking than hiking. The third, the leader by his position in front, was small, thick, and bull-necked, and also carried one of the long cudgels. As he lowered his rain-soaked hood, his squarish, balding head glinted in the lamplight. He was older than the other two and had clever, piggy eyes.
The hum of conversation had now reached something like its normal level once more, but as the three Fire Dancers moved slowly into the common room they still received many covert stares. The robed men seemed to be openly searching the room for something or somebody; Simon had a moment of helpless fear as the leader’s dark eyes lighted on him for a moment, but the man only lifted an amused eyebrow at Simon’s sword, then shifted his attention to someone else.
Relief swept over Simon. Whatever they wanted, it was apparently not him. Sensing a presence at his shoulder, he turned quickly and found the inn’s proprietor standing behind him with a pitted wooden platter. The man gave Simon the mutton and bread, which Simon wrapped in his kerchief, then poured an appropriate measure of ale into the jug. Despite the attention these tasks required, the landlord’s eyes scarcely left the three newcomers, and his reply to Simon’s courteous thanks was distracted and incomplete. Simon was glad to be going.
As he opened the door, he caught a quick glimpse of Miriamele’s pale, worried face in the shadows across the street. A loud, mocking voice cut through the room behind him.
“You didn’t really think that you could leave without our noticing, did you?”
Simon went rigid in the doorway, then slowly turned. He had a parcel in one hand and a jug in the other, his sword hand. Should he drop the ale and draw the blade, or make the jug useful somehow—perhaps he could throw it? Haestan had taught him a little about tavern brawls, although the guardsman’s main recommendation had been to avoid them.
He completed his pivot, expecting to confront a sea of faces and the threatening Fire Dancers, but found to his astonishment that no one was even looking in his direction. Instead, the three robed men stood before a bench in the comer farthest from the fire. The two seated there, a man and woman of middle years, looked up at them helplessly, faces slack with terror.
The leader of the Fire Dancers leaned forward, bringing his catapult-stone of a head almost to the level of the tabletop, but though his position suggested discretion, his voice was pitched to carry through the room. “Come, now. You didn’t really think that you could just walk away, did you?”
“M-Maefwaru,” the man stuttered, “we, we could not ... we thought that ...”
The Fire Dancer laid a thick hand on the table, silencing him. “That is not the loyalty that the Storm King expects.” He seemed to speak quietly, but Simon could hear every word from the doorway. The rest of the room watched in sickly fascinated silence. “We owe Him our lives, because He has graced us with a vision of how things will be and a chance to be part of it. You cannot turn your back on Him.”
The man’s mouth moved, but no words came out. His wife was equally silent, but tears ran down her face and her shoulders twitched. This was obviously a meeting much feared.
“Simon!”
He turned to look back out the inn’s door. Miriamele was only a few paces away in the middle of the muddy road. “What are you doing?” she demanded in a loud whisper.
“Wait.”
“Simon, there are Fire Dancers in there! Didn’t you see them?!”
He raised his hand to stay her, then wheeled to face the interior. The two large Fire Dancers were forcing the man and woman up from their bench, dragging the woman across the rough wood when her legs would not support her. She was crying in earnest now; her companion, pinioned, could only stare at the ground and murmur miserably.
Simon felt anger flame within him. Why didn’t anyone in this place help them? There must
be two dozen seated here and only three Fire Dancers.
Miriamele tugged at his sleeve. “Is there trouble? Come, Simon, let’s go!”
“I can‘t,” he said, quietly but urgently. “They’re taking those two people somewhere.”
“We can’t afford to be caught, Simon. This is not a time for heroes.”
“I can’t just let them take those people, Miriamele.” He prayed that someone else in the crowded room would stand up, that some general movement of resistance would begin. Miriamele was right: they couldn’t afford to do anything foolish. But no one did more than whisper and watch.
Cursing himself for his stupidity, and God or Fate for putting him in this position, Simon pulled his sleeve from Miriamele’s grasp and took a step back into the common room. He carefully set the supper parcel and jug down beside the wall, then curled his hand around the hilt of the sword Josua had given him.
“Stop!” he said loudly.
“Simon!”
Now all heads did turn toward him. The last to swivel around was that of the leader. Although he was only a little shorter than an average man, there was something curiously dwarflike in his large, cleft-chinned head. His tiny eyes flicked Simon up and down. This time there was no amusement.
“What? Stop, you say? Stop what?”
“I don’t think those people want to go with you.” Simon addressed the male captive, who was struggling weakly in the grip of one of the large Fire Dancers. “Do you?”
The man’s eyes flicked back and forth between Simon and his chief captor. At last, miserably, he shook his head. Simon knew then that what the man feared must be truly terrible, that he would risk making this situation worse in the desperate—and unlikely—hope that Simon could save him from it.
“You see?” Simon tried, with mixed results, to keep his voice firm and calm. “They do not wish to accompany you. Set them free.” His heart was pounding. His own words sounded curiously formal, even deliberately high-flown, as if this were a Tallistro story or some other chronicle of imaginary heroism.
The bald man looked around the room as if to judge how many might be prepared to join Simon in resistance. No one else was moving; the entire room seemed to share a single held breath. The Fire Dancer turned back to Simon, a grin curling his thick lips. “These folk betrayed their oath to the Master. This is no concern of yours.”
Simon felt an immense fury wash over him. He had seen all the bullying he had the stomach for, from the countrywide misdeeds of the king to the precisely pointed cruelties of Pryrates. He tightened his grip on the hilt. “I am making it my concern. Take your hands from them and get out.”
Without further argument, the leader spat out a word and the follower who held the woman let her go—she slumped against the table, knocking a bowl onto the floor—and leaped toward Simon, his blunt-headed staff swinging in a wide arc. A few people shouted in fear or excitement. Simon was frozen for an instant, his sword only halfway out of his scabbard.
Idiot! Mooncalf!
He dropped to the floor and the staff whistled over his head, knocking several cloaks from the wall and becoming entangled in one of them. Simon seized the moment and threw himself forward into the man’s legs. They both fell, tumbling, and Simon’s sword came free of the scabbard and thumped into the floor rushes. He had hurt his shoulder—his attacker was heavy and solidly-built-and as he disentangled himself and pulled free, the Fire Dancer managed to catch him with a cudgel blow to his leg which stung cold as a knife wound. Simon rolled toward his lost sword and was hugely grateful when he felt it beneath his fingers. His attacker was up and moving toward him, his cudgel darting out like a striking snake. From the comer of his eye, Simon could see that the second big man was coming toward him as well.
First things first, was the inane thought that ran through his head, the same thing Rachel had always told him about doing his chores when he wanted to go climb or play a game. He rose to a standing crouch, his sword held before him, and deflected a blow from his first attacker. It was impossible to remember all the things he had been taught in the muddle of noise and movement and panic, but he was relieved to find that as long as he could keep his sword between himself and the Fire Dancer, he could keep the man at bay. But what would he do when the second arrived?
He received an answer of sorts a moment later, when a blur of movement at the edge of his vision warned him to duck. The second man’s staff whickered past and clacked against the first man’s. Simon took a step backward without turning and then whirled and swung his blade around as hard as he could. He caught the man behind him across the arm, drawing an angry shriek. The Fire Dancer dropped his staff and stumbled back toward the doorway, clutching his forearm. Simon returned his attention to the man in front of him, hoping that the second man was, if not defeated, at least out of the battle for a few desperately-needed moments. The first attacker had learned the lesson of not getting too close, and was now using the length of his club to keep Simon on the defensive.
There was a crash from behind; Simon, startled, almost lost sight of the foe before him. Seeing this, the man aimed another whirling blow at his head. Simon managed to get his blade up in time to deflect it; then, as the Fire Dancer raised the staff once more, Simon brought his sword up, sweeping the cudgel even farther upward so that it struck the low timbers of the roof and caught in the netting below the thatch. The Fire Dancer stared up for a moment in surprise; in that instant, Simon took a step forward, lodged the sword against the man’s midsection and pushed it home. He struggled to pull the blade free, conscious that at any moment the other attacker, or even the leader, might be upon him.
Something struck him from the side, flinging him against a table. For a moment, he was staring into the alarmed face of one of the common-room drinkers. He whirled to see that the person who had shoved him, the bald man Maefwaru, was pushing his way between the tables, headed toward the door; he did not pause to look down at either of his minions, the one Simon had slain or the other, who lay in a curious position near the doorway.
“It will not be so easy,” Maefwaru shouted as he vanished through the door and into the rainy night.
A moment later Miriamele stepped back into the room. She looked down at the Fire Dancer laying there, the one Simon had wounded on the arm. “I’ve broken our jug on his head,” she said, excited and breathless. “But I think the one who just ran out is going to come back with more of his friends. Curse my luck! I couldn’t find anything to hit him with. We’ll have to run.”
“The horses,” Simon panted. “Are they... ?”
“A few steps away,” replied Miriamele. “Come.”
Simon bent and snatched up the supper sack he had left on the floor. The kerchief was wet, soaked by the ale that had splashed from the jug which lay in pieces around the limp Fire Dancer. He looked around the room. The man and woman that Maefwaru and his henchmen had threatened were cringing against the far wall, staring as bewil deredly as any of the inn’s other customers.
“You had better get out of here, too,” he called to them. “That bald one will bring back more. Go on—run!”
Everyone was looking at him. Simon wanted to say something clever or brave—heroes usually did—but he couldn’t think of anything. Also, there was real blood on his sword and his stomach seemed to have crawled up into his throat. He followed Miriamele out the door, leaving behind two bodies and a room full of wide eyes and open, speechless mouths.
6
The Circle Narrows
The swirl of snow had lessened, but the wind still moved angrily across the hillside beneath Naglimund, fluting in the teeth of the broken wall. Count Eolair nudged his horse toward Maegwin’s mount, wishing he .could shield her somehow, not just from the cold but also from the horror of the naked stone towers, the windows now flickering with light.
Yizashi Grayspear rode forward from the ranks of the Sithi, his lance couched beneath one arm. He lifted the other and waved something that looked like a silver baton. His hand
flashed in a wide arc, making a loud musical noise which had something of the metallic in it; the silver thing in his hand opened like a lady’s fan, spreading into a glittering, semicircular shield.
“A y‘ei g’eisu!” he shouted up at the blankly staring keep. “Yas‘a pripurna jo-shoi!”
The lights in Naglimund’s windows seemed to waver like wind-fluttered candles as shadows moved in their depths. Eolair felt himself almost overwhelmed with the urge to turn and ride away. This was no longer a human place, and the poisonous terror he was feeling was nothing like the anticipatory fear before any human battle. He turned to Maegwin. Her eyes were closed and her mouth moved in silent speech. Isorn seemed similarly unnerved, and when Eolair turned in his saddle and looked back, the pale faces of his fellow Hernystiri were as gape-mouthed and hollow-eyed as a row of corpses.
Brynioch preserve us, the count thought desperately, we do not belong in this. They will bolt in a moment if I do the wrong thing.
Deliberately, he tugged his sword from its scabbard and showed it to his men, then held it high over his head for a moment before dropping it to his side. It was only a small show of bravery, but it was something.
Now Jiriki and his mother Likimeya rode forward, halting on either side of Yizashi. After a moment’s whispered conversation, Likimeya spurred her horse a few paces ahead. Then, startlingly, she began to sing.
Her voice, thin at first against the rude piping of the wind, grew slowly stronger. The impenetrable Sithi tongue flowed out, slurring and clicking yet somehow as smooth as warm oil poured from a jar. The song rose and fell, pulsed, then rose again, each time growing more powerful. Although Eolair understood nothing of the words, there was something clearly denunciatory to the roll and swoop of it, something challenging in the cadence. Likimeya’s voice chimed like a herald’s brazen horn, and as with the call of a horn, there was a ring of cold metal beneath the music.