The Damaran held her gaze a long while, then seemed to tear away with great difficulty to stare at the younglings, each in turn. His eyes hardened as he fixed upon the eldest son, his knife in hand. He glanced quickly over the other male child, only a head shorter than his brother. But when he saw the little one clinging to his mother’s left leg-another son, only five summers old-something changed in Mandan’s countenance. His eyes closed once in a slow blink, and when they opened again, they glistened with moisture.
He looked away, staring at the ground.
“Your … mate,” he said. “I … I did not mean to kill him.” But as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized he didn’t believe them; even he could smell the lie there. When the fury was upon him, little else mattered but satisfying the bloodlust inside him. Not only had he meant to kill those hobgoblin warriors, he had enjoyed it. Now, though … seeing Duur’s children before him …
Would they be fed through the winter?
Would their mother be able to care for them?
Would she have to take another mate into her bed, and would he care for the children? Or would they be cast out into the snow?
He didn’t know. He had heard awful tales of the hobgoblin tribes and their ways, but he did not know the truth of them. If they were true, then not only was the death of a warrior on his soul but that of his family.
“He was trying to kill me,” he said, knowing that he was doing his best to convince himself as much as them. “I was only defending myself and my companions, as any knight should.”
“Tonight,” said Ruuket, “you think on that. Tonight, my children and I will chant Duur’s soul to the Fire of the High Chieftain. We will feast. When the sun comes, we will sleep. When the sun goes, we will come back. For you. Think on that.”
She turned and left, taking her children with her.
Rhan had not slept. He spent the day in his chamber with Ghir of Orlung’s brood. She had proved herself most exertive, and after their third bout, he was giving serious consideration to taking her as a mate. She was beautiful, and all her older sisters had borne strong children-except for Vuurl and Gorueg, who had sworn off the cave in favor of wielding steel in battle. Once the gunhin wore off, if nothing else happened to change his mind, he would ask her and prepare the proper price to Orlung.
His ears occasionally still caught the sound of revelry. None had dared to come down the tunnel to his chamber, but at least some of the celebration had made its way to the outer halls. Rhan felt no desire to join them. They would press food and drink into his hand and slap his arms, congratulating him on his victory over the Hand.
Still … it felt like no victory.
He was glad to be alive. No mistake. Rhan hoped to die in glorious battle-perhaps thirty or forty years from now. But something about the fight with the girl stuck in his throat. Her prowess had both surprised and pleased him. She had not flinched when he pushed her back, insulting and taunting her. She had taken it once, then twice, then struck back and come at him with a smile. If only half the humans had her mettle, then Rhan suspected his people would not be long for the world. But he knew that killers like the human girl-and like himself-were as rare as blue tigers. Perhaps it was the gods’ way of keeping the peoples of the world in their place.
But she had gone down too easily. He had hit her with all he had-and he had cracked the skulls of many warriors with far less strength behind his fist. But he had also felt the power behind her first kick. It had taken all his strength not to fall on his arse in front of the entire clan-yet he knew, instinctively, as one warrior knows another-that she had been holding back, playing with him.
He reached up and touched the soft new skin near his neck. That one strike of her knife had been the closest he had ever come to dying. And it hadn’t even hurt all that much. Sharp and quick, it had almost been pleasant-a moment of cold, followed by flowing warmth. He was even a little disappointed that the gunhin had healed it completely, that he would bear no scar. A good scar could serve a warrior well, to remind him of the nearness of death.
“I should be dead,” he said to himself.
Ghir mumbled something in her sleep and burrowed deeper into the blankets. The fire in the pit had burned low, and a chill had returned to his chamber.
Rhan threw off the fur coverlets, climbed back into his trousers, and pulled on his boots. He hadn’t worn them in the fight, but he would want them where he was going.
“Rhan …?” Ghir leaned up on one elbow and looked at him.
“Sleep,” he said. “I will be back.”
“Where’re y’going?” she said, sleep tugging at her words.
“Sleep,” he told her again. Then he grabbed his sword, snatched up Hweilan’s knife, and left the chamber.
The outer hall was stiflingly warm from all the fires burning there. Warriors gnawed on haunches of meat and passed around skins as they entertained each other with tales of past battles and current gossip. Catching sight of Rhan, they hailed him.
But he ignored them and stomped into the dark tunnel. The gunhin had still not worn off, and the cooler air was a relief upon his bare skin.
He walked outside, his breath steaming in the night cold. He could see the orange glow of fires burning throughout the fortress. He passed many groups of hobgoblins, some celebrating, some fighting, some halfway in between. Rhan ignored them all and kept on his way to the High Place.
Once he left the celebration behind, he hung his scabbard on his back to free his hands. He knew a smoother way up the mountainside on more level paths with well-cut steps, but it was three times the distance. Instead, he took shorter paths that required a certain amount of climbing. His fingers and palms were bloody by the time he reached the final stretch of path, but he did not care.
A high haze hid all but the moon and brightest of stars, and yet Rhan’s sharp night sight served him well. He listened intently for the sound of ravens or other carrion feeders.
There were none. Strange, but not unexpected.
He rounded the final bend in the path, topped the last rise and stared. He clenched his jaw so tightly that he heard his teeth grinding.
Only one body. And the cloak he had laid over it was missing.
Hweilan was gone.
Rhan cursed. Surely even that old meddler Kaad was not foolish enough to thwart Rhan’s will and disobey a direct order from Maaqua. If he had done something to her …
No.
Rhan ran forward and kneeled beside the body. Even in the dark, he could see that the soil beside it had been disturbed, and there was even a small amount of blood staining the ground. Another body had been here. Then what-?
There. He saw it only a few paces away. He walked over to it, kneeled, and picked it up. A small vial, cut from a young ram’s horn. Rhan brought it under his nose and sniffed.
“Gunhin,” he said, then his eyes narrowed. “Kaad. That med-”
A rattle-the sound of soil falling down the lip of the bowl. Rhan looked up, and there, on the rim of stone, was a large shape, pale in the dim light. But its eyes shone with more than reflected moonlight. Hweilan’s wolf. It made no move to approach. Other than the slight whisper of its footfall, it still hadn’t made a sound. Very slowly, Rhan’s hand moved toward the hilt of his sword.
A leg erupted out of the dirt and swept his own legs out from under him. Rhan went down and rolled away. It was the wrong choice.
A weight came down on him, stopping him from rolling further. His sword would do him little good in this position. He grabbed the knife. As he lifted his legs, hoping to buck off the attacker, he swept backward with the knife.