Chapter 19

The Dreaming Green, Northern Hosk

Hult dreaded little in the world. He mistrusted much—every Uigan did—even feared a few things, though he kept such feelings hidden. Only the mad didn't feel the hot flash of terror in the moments before riding into battle, or when the ghost-fingers descended from summer storms to tear great furrows in the plains… or the walls of cities. But true dread, the coldness of the soul, was not something he'd felt often.

Only once before had he experienced anything that made his knees weak and his sword arm heavy. It had been on his name-quest, a dragonhunt on the frozen Panak in the bleak winter. He and five others: boys out seeking the cold-drakes that dwelt there, to prove themselves men. Every Uigan warrior had to hunt some great beast and make a necklace of its remains, thus proving himself a man in the eyes of the tribe. He and his friends had decided to hunt the small, white dragonlings that stalked the snowy plains. The elders still told tales of Chovuk's quest to slay the same monster—and there wasn't a young warrior in the White Sky clan who didn't want to grow up to be Chovuk.

The idea turned out to be a bad one. Of the six who had gone north, only three returned, and Hult alone carried the skull and talons of a dragon to show for it. There, in the freezing wind, they had disturbed something other than the drakes. Something older and angrier. He still didn't know what it was. He had only ever seen it as a hulking shape through the snow, with eyes that burned a soulless blue. It had hunted them for three days and nights, silent and patient, until a violent winter storm descended upon them. They made camp in a cave to wait out the blizzard. Then the deaths began. Each night it took one of his friends away, with no warning at all. It left nothing of its victims for them to bury—not even blood. Only screams, soon swallowed by the wind. On the fourth day they abandoned the cave and made south through the storm, the wintry wraith in silent pursuit. When the weather finally broke, it was nowhere to be found. They had found no sign of it since.

But Hult still saw it, sometimes, in his dreams.

Not since that time had he felt true horror, not even in the caverns beneath Mount Xagal, when he and Chovuk fought the goblins' serpentine king. That night, though… it was back, a dull glimmer in the back of his mind, a shadow beginning to move. They had crossed the borders into the elf-lands.

The hosk'i imou merkitsa, the elves of the Tamire, were creatures spoken of only in hushed tones around the campfires, long after sensible folk had gone to sleep. Few men claimed to have seen them, and most of those were liars. The tales of the elves' powers varied with the telling. They were shapeshifters, some said, or they stole Uigan children to sacrifice to their gods. Their songs could cause a man to forget all he had ever known—even his own name—and leave him in a dreamless sleep that lasted centuries. To kiss one of their unspeakably beautiful women was death. And they were fiercely protective of their lands, the river-rich woods and lush, green lands where they had dwelt since long before humans came to the plains. No matter who told the tale, that was the common thread: those who entered elvish lands seldom came out again.

And there they were, he and Chovuk alone, two weeks' hard riding north of the Tiderun. The horde would be at Rudil by now, driving the minotaurs before their horses with spear and bow, leaving their stone halls smashed and burnt and spattered with blood. Other villages would be ashes behind them, destroyed as they swept west along the coast. It was where he and Chovuk should have been, it was their place—not in elf lands, in the night, surrounded by evergreens and eerie sounds.

The Dreaming Green was a strange land, a long, deep valley among the foothills of the Ring Mountains, north of the Kazar Lands, where winter snows blanketed the land for much of the year. During the short summers—as now—the land became a riot of greenery, all swaying firs and bristling spruce, cut through by white-foaming streams of meltwater that ran down from the mountains. The scents of sap and wildflowers filled the air, which danced with clots of pollen that gleamed crimson-gold in the moonlight. It was so strong that it made the eyes burn and breath come shallow and hoarse. There was noise everywhere, the melody of nature—the groan of the trees as the wind shifted them, the twitter and croak of birds, the splash of water over stones. And something deeper, something that made the hairs on Huit's arms stand tall—music, so distant and muted it seemed to disappear when he concentrated on it. Drums, and flutes, and a strange, skirling wail, playing in a scale alien to Uigan ears. This was the song of the merkitsa, and its message was clear: the elves knew they were there. Were watching, waiting. Perhaps laughing at them, making a game of it, not striking until they tired of the chase.

He hadn't seen the elves yet, though now and then he caught a glimpse of something—movement in the undergrowth, a shadow where there shouldn't have been one, a shimmering like warm air on the steppes—always out of the corner of his eye. When he looked directly, the shadow was gone. In a way, he was glad the merkitsa hadn't revealed themselves yet. He was half-certain the sight of one would drive him mad.

The worst part of it, though, was not knowing why they had come. Chovuk had spoken of making a bond with the elves, but hadn't said why or how, or much else on the matter. Hult had asked several times, always wary of arousing the Boyla's ire, but he received no answer. Finally, he'd given up, riding in silence beside Chovuk to the crest of the great ridge that made the south edge of the Green, then down a narrow, wending path into the woods. There had been totems at the forest edge, strings of feathers, stones, and bones tied from one gnarlbranched oak to the next, red whorls and handprints painted on the bark. Warnings all, and all ignored. They had ridden on, with the woods closing around them, swallowing the sunlight so that only slanting rays found their way between the overhanging boughs.

Night came. Chovuk had taken first watch, and Hult took the second. They had no fire to warm them and the bloody gleam of Lunis was the only light. Hult sat on a tall boulder draped in moss, sticking at an angle out of the vine-tangled ground above their camp. He kept his shuk unsheathed and across his knees. He didn't bother with his bow. The things that stalked him were much better archers than he could ever hope to be.

"Harm nothing here," the Boyla had warned before dozing off. "Even if wolves drag off our horses, do not draw blood. The merkitsa will be insulted."

Hult thought of the elves and of what they did to those who displeased them. They did not feel pain as men did, the elders claimed, so pain fascinated them. They would slit an intruder open and study his face as his entrails spilled out upon the ground. They would slice the flesh off a man's hands in tiny slivers and bet on how many cuts he could stand before he passed out. They would seal a man in a clay jug with a nest of fire-wasps, just to hear the music of his screams.

In the dark, he imagined merkitsa all around. They were out there, watching him, just out of sight. He could feel their arrows trained on him, aiming to cripple but not kill. If they loosed their shafts, he would never see them coming; only feel the contact as they flashed out of nowhere and buried themselves in his breast. That was what made dread rime his heart: the knowledge that something was watching him, stalking him and marking his every move.

Foolish, he told himself. These are just woods. You only think they're a threat because that's what the elders told you when you were a boy. You are like a soft southerner, fearing things you can't sec. Afraid of strange songs and shapes in the dark.

A twig snapped. It was a near thing, but he kept from yelling at the noise. He scowled, shaking his head at himself. "Stupid," he muttered, reaching for a flask at his side.

The kumiss was sour and burned his throat, but it warmed him and made the fear recede a little. He wished they had brought more. If they were in these woods too long, they would run out, and he would have to get his courage elsewhere. Putting the stopper back in the flask's neck, he glanced down at the foot of the rock, at the hollow where they had camped, and sucked in a startled breath.

The camp was empty, Chovuk's blanket a bundled heap among the bushes. The Boyla was gone.

"Master?" Hult hissed, twisting to his feet. Raising his shuk, he looked one way, then the other, seeking some sign of Chovuk. He was alone here, as near as he could tell. Nothing but him and the shadows. "Boyla?"

No answer came. Hult clambered down from the rock, landed in a crouch, and stayed there as he checked the ground. There was no blood and no sign of struggle. Had the merkitsa been there while his head had been turned? Had they taken Chovuk without waking him? Could they be so quick? No—the Boyla was a light sleeper, and Hult felt certain there had been no magic. That meant Chovuk had left of his own accord.

Luckily, it was easy to find his trail: the earth of the Green was soft and moist. Chovuk had left footprints, a faint path through the brush. It wove away into the dark and at once Hult knew where it led. They'd stopped at a pool shortly before making camp, to water their horses before seeking shelter for the night. He hesitated a moment to check on the animals; they were quiet. His was sleeping and Chovuk's was watching him calmly from where it was tethered.

He followed the trail, feeling eyes on his every move. The path wound among the trees, then over the rim of an embankment and down toward the pool's edge. He stopped atop the bluff, his scalp prickling. There was something down there: voices speaking spidery words and an eldritch green light. He recognized the light, and the voices as well. They were the same as he'd seen and heard through the flap of the Boyla's yurt, all those nights on the Tamire while the horde was gathering. One of the voices, indeed, was Chovuk. The other was strange. Together they were like two voices coming from the same mouth, one low and sonorous, the other raspy and thin. He froze, listening as the other voice spoke words in a tongue he didn't know, and the Boyla answered.

He felt a presence he'd encountered once before, on the eve of the attack on Khal. There was the same chill in the air, the same disquiet. Whatever was down there with Chovuk, it didn't sound friendly. Taking a deep breath, he offered a prayer to Jijin, asking for bravery and strength. Then, blade clasped tight in his right hand, he peered over the bank's edge, down toward the pool.

The water was broad, glistening like blood in Lunis's light. Blue-white motes danced above its surface: glow-flies mating. On the far side, a series of low cataracts babbled over stones. To his left, a narrow creek led away, carrying the water on into the Green. Three tall rocks stood in the pool's midst, columns of pink granite asparkle with embedded crystals. Bands of black and white paint ran round them, some straight, some in waves, some in jagged lightning bolt shapes. His skin prickled at the sight of the stones, as it had when they first saw them the day before. There was power pent up in them, some magic as old as the elves themselves. It was a sacred place, and the spirits who dwelt there were not welcoming. He could feel the merkitsa, all around.

But that wasn't the horrifying part.

Chovuk knelt by the side of the water, naked to the waist, the long scars upon his tattoo-covered body glistening like fresh wounds in the red moonlight. Beyond him, green flames danced and raced across the pond's surface, rising into pillars that coiled and writhed more like serpents than like flames. The fire made no sound and gave off no smoke—nor heat, it seemed. If anything, the breeze blowing off the water was cool.

And there, in its midst, stood the presence.

It was difficult to make the figure out, through the fire. Hult was aware of darkness in the form of a robed man, standing on the pool's surface as though it were solid stone. He saw neither its face nor hands, for the darkness that cloaked the presence hid them from view. The robed figure did not look up at him, keeping its attention on Chovuk, but Hult knew it had seen him. A thought formed in his mind that did not seem his own: STAY WHERE YOU ARE.

The dread in Hult's bowels gnawed deeper. There was sorcery in the glade, strong, rich, and dark. Like all Uigan, down through the centuries, he had learned to despise magic at an early age. He still had uncomfortable thoughts about the spells Chovuk had cast at the Mourning-stone, at Xagal, in the Kazar lands, and before the walls of Malton. It wasn't right, relying on the demons that dwelt within the moons for power. A warrior should live by the strength of his sword arm, the pull of his bow, and the speed of the horse beneath him. That was the way of the Tamire clans.

But Chovuk was Boyla, and Hult—along with most of his fellow riders—told himself that if the Boyla used magic, it must be for a noble purpose. The blood of the hated Kazar and the plunder of the minotaurs had helped persuade them.

This, however… this was different. Chovuk wasn't the one with the power here, obviously. It was the shadow upon the water that held the magic, and the Boyla was helpless before it, half-naked and unarmed. Years of training, of life as a tenach, took hold. Hult was sworn to protect his master even if it meant his death. For a long moment, that instinct warred with the alien voice in his head, the one that compelled his body not to move.

Warred, and won. With a shout, he leaped up and vaulted over the embankment, throwing himself down a slope slick with fallen needles, his sword held high. The shadow looked up and away from Chovuk. Toward him. The Boyla turned too, and Hult knew he had been right to move: Chovuk's eyes showed nothing but white. They were rolled back in their sockets like a dead man's. His mouth hung slack and a rope of drool dangled from his lower lip. There was no recognition in that face, none of the familiar fierceness. It was a dead man's visage, and the shock of it spurred Hult downhill even faster.

He skidded to the bottom, dashing out into the pool without hesitation, and into the fire. He expected to burn and gritted his teeth against it, but the flames were like ice instead, chilling him as they licked over his flesh. He barely noticed. His rage, his need to protect his master, was too great. He bellowed, letting loose an ululating warcry the Uigan used to frighten steppe-wolves from their goats and horses. His saber whipped around and above his head as he splashed out, knee-deep, then waist-deep, on toward the shadow.

The presence looked down upon him, not seeming to care. It was tall, perhaps two heads taller than he was, and it stood on the water, not in it A notion formed in Hult's mind: this thing wasn't paying him any mind because he was no kind of threat. The elders' tales abounded with spirits who were invulnerable to good steel, who could take a sword through the neck and not die. Was this such a phantom?

If I die here, he thought, at least it will not be said that Hult, son of Holar, failed as the Boyla's tenach.

The presence loomed before him, and the voice in his mind began to laugh. Not a happy sound. The strange laughter made his heart blossom with hate. "Begone, fiend!" he cried. "Leave my master forever!"

He raised his shuk high with both hands. Then something heavy hit him from behind, knocking him down. He went under the water, swallowed, and began to choke. He lost his sword, somewhere. The weight bore down on him, hands catching around his wrists as he fought. He kicked and struck something, which fell back. With a roar he pushed himself up out of the water, spat and gagged, black spots whirling before his eyes.

The flames were gone. There was mist on the pool now, ruddy in Lunis's glow. It was a warm late summer night, and the chill that had blown off the water was gone. Hult turned, looking this way and that. The shadow was gone. As for his attacker… when he saw the Boyla standing in the water a few paces away, doubled over and breathing hard, he knew.

"Master?" he asked.

Chovuk looked up, pale, in pain. He grinned. "You fight like a lion, boy," he said. "A lion with the strength of a dragon."

Hult stared. "Why did you stop me?" he demanded. "Why did you protect that… thing?"

The Boyla raised a hand, straightening up slowly, pain in his eyes. "Be still, tenach. There is much you don't understand. Nor need you. Only trust me when I say that what you saw is not as it seemed."

"No?" Hult shot back, his voice quavering. "It looked to me that you were under a spell of darkness and evil."

"It may seem so," Chovuk replied, calm in the face of his tenach's anger. "It seemed so to me, the first time it happened. It was not long before Krogan Boyla died and I was afraid as never before. But the Teacher has shown me many things… the shape of the tiger, the way to control the goblins, how to call the storm to wreck strong, stone walls. All that I have done for our people, I would never have accomplished without his help."

Hult remained silent, thinking about this. He had felt the evil of the thing, as sure as he felt the beating of his own heart. But if it had helped Chovuk, helped his people… was that not good? In the end, weren't the Uigan stronger for it?

"Tenach," said Chovuk, the word full of weight. He held out a hand. "You are sworn to trust me, whatever that may be. Will you not abide by your oath?"

Hult hesitated, staring at the proffered hand. All his training told him to accept it, to clasp his master's arm, but what he'd seen that night made him stand still, trembling.

That was when the first arrow hit the water in front of Chovuk, barely a pace away. It dived out of the darkness and plunged into the water, its black-fletched end sticking out above the pool's surface. Both men stared in surprise. The nock was meticulously carved to resemble a dragon's mouth.

Elven work.

Instinct and training took over again. Hult threw himself at Chovuk, hoping to knock him down and to shield him with his own body. As he took his first step, however, two more arrows darted out of nowhere and hit him in the chest and thigh. They bit deep, bright blooms of pain erupting within him. He didn't scream, but instead made a growling sound deep in his throat. Then he splashed down into the pool again. The water went red with moonlight and blood, then all was dark.