Chapter 26

The Lost Road, the Tamire

In the end, when all the questions were asked, three other Tegins were found to have plotted with Hoch and Sugai to usurp the Boyla. They died begging for mercy, killed by their own tenachai at Chovuk's order—tenachai who then ran their sabers through their own breasts, a final duty they were sworn to carry out. The horsemen honored the tenachai with a proper burning, but dragged the rebellious Tegins' bodies out of the camp to the place where Sugai and Hoch still lay. There, the lords who remained loyal to Chovuk took turns riding over the bodies, their horses' hooves trampling them into the ground. After riding over the traitors three times, the lords spat upon the remains and galloped back to camp, leaving the carrion for the vultures.

Only then, when justice was done, did Eldako appear. At a signal from the Boyla, he came down from where he had been concealed, among the ruined pillars on the cliff. The Uigan stared in amazement and fear as he came, tall and wild, his long braids dyed bright red, his face painted with woad and moss and berry juice, and his longbow—nearly seven feet from tip to tip—cradled in the crook of his arm. Only when Chovuk stepped forward and embraced him—and was embraced in turn—did the horsemen relax. Even then, when the Boyla wasn't looking, some bit the heels of their hands, to ward against evil.

Hult didn't blame them. He wasn't the only one who had been raised to dread the hosk'i imou merkitsa. And children's stories aside, the two great nations of the Tamire had never been friendly. For all Eldako's cool diffidence, he showed signs of unease, as well. He shifted nervously and bared his teeth when the Uigan came too close, like a cat ready to pounce. Hult knew, instinctively, that the alliance would not last long. If they were lucky, Eldako would remain until the end of the great raid across the Tiderun. No longer.

"Why did we need him?" he asked Chovuk on the third night after their return—the eve of the coming battle. "What does he give us that we do not have already?"

"It is already given," the Boyla replied. He finished a horn of kumiss and tossed it away. "Hoch and Sugai had been plotting from the start, from the very day I became Boyla. They were patient, waited for their chance, and took it when it came. If I had not left the horde, they would have killed me in the fighting when we crossed the Run. Because I did go north, they chose to act sooner… to their folly.

"The elf does not matter. He will help in the coming Fight—he will shoot the commander of our enemies, as he did those two faithless dogs. But even if he leaves today, he has served his purpose. Eldako was a chance for me to force Hoch's hand, and nothing more."

"And you knew all this?" Hult asked, amazed. "How?"

"It was shown to me."

Hult opened his mouth and closed it again, his lips pursing.

"You are discontented," Chovuk noted. "I do not blame you. This has been a strange time, and I have kept much hidden from you. Tell me what you fear, tenach."

"Evil," Hult said. He glanced around, making sure no one was near. "I fear that you have cast your lot with darkness, master."

Just like that, it was said. He could hardly believe he'd spoken the words—they'd come out of him almost unbidden, like a river overrunning its banks at floodtime. He knew a tenach who accused his lord of evil merited only death. Chovuk was silent for a moment, leaving Hult to wonder if he would soon join Hoch and Sugai and the other traitors. It would have been just, by Uigan law, for Chovuk to put his shuk through him.

Instead, though, the Boyla stared at him with a face that might have been carved of stone. "Evil? I have led our people to glory we have never known. We have united the tribes, crushed the Kazar, and driven the bull-men from our shores! Tomorrow, we will cross the Run and bring woe upon our enemies in their own homes! No Boyla has done this, not even the great princes of old."

"Pardon, lord," Hult said, bowing his head. "What I speak, it is out of love for you. I fear the designs of he who aids you. The good of our people may cloak some greater darkness, one you do not see."

Chovuk stood very still, his eyes hooded in the dusk. Behind him, the moons hung fat above the horizon. Beyond the camp, the waters were rising to swamp the lowest parts of the plain. The men were shouting in the camp, boasts and curses and laughter. Farther away, strange music, windpipes that sounded like a widow's keening, rose from the ruins, where Eldako had gone to rest. Hult raised his gaze to meet the Boyla's.

Chovuk struck him.

Fast as a scorpion's tail, the punch caught him unprepared, right in the middle of his chest. The wind went out of him with a roar, and he sagged first to his knees, then onto his side, where he lay trying to draw a breath that wouldn't come. Chovuk towered over him, his face white with rage, as he writhed and vomited on the grass.

"Disloyalty I expected from Hoch," the Boyla said. "Even from Sugai, though it pained me greatly, for the old crow had gone soft. But you, tenach? I have brought you through dangers and victories that would make the talespeakers know your name until the world's ending! And you repay me by telling me I am guided by evil?"

Spittle flecked his lips. His eyes showed white all around. It was the visage of a rabid animal. Hult turned his head away, so he wouldn't have to look at him. With effort, he got some air into his burning lungs. Sourness filled his mouth.

"I'm… sorry," he wheezed.

He lay still, waiting for the ring of the Boyla's saber leaving its scabbard and the hot kiss of steel, oblivion. But it did not come. Instead there was silence, then a hand grabbed his ankle and pulled. He opened his eyes and saw that Chovuk had a hold of him and was dragging him toward his yurt. His master thrust the flap aside with a broad sweep of his arm.

"I will show you, then," Chovuk said. "You will see with your eyes, this thing you call evil."

Then they were inside the tent which was dark save for the dull red glow of a brazier. The smells of leather and sweat and oiled steel were close and thick. War smells. Chovuk let him go, moved away into the shadows, got a lamp going, and set it on a table laden with maps. The inside of the yurt was a mess: furniture overturned, empty flasks and gnawed bones scattered on the floor, and flies buzzing over the refuse. It was like an animal's lair, not the dwelling of a prince. Hult lay upon a woven rug that had once been fine, looted from the Kazar. Now it was stained, frayed, and burned in places by fallen embers. It stank. Hult had never seen the Boyla's dwelling like this.

"Master?" he wheezed." What… happened here?"

Chovuk said nothing, only knelt on the floor before a wide-open space. He reached beneath his vest and pulled out something Hult had never seen before: a talisman, hung on a leather thong. It was made of bones, some still sheathed in dry, gristly flesh, with teeth as well. Hult didn't need to look closely to know they came from no beast or goblin. They were human. He shuddered.

"Come to me," murmured the Boyla, pressing the horrid charm to his lips. "Come, and be heard."

He began to sway back and forth, chanting words Hult didn't understand, that skittered over his mind like dung beetles. A look of rapture came into Chovuk's face, ruddy in the lamp's dim light His eyes seemed to gleam, like a wolfs at night—or a tiger's. Indeed, his whole body rippled, as if he might change into the great steppe-cat, as he'd done at the Mourning-stone, Xagal, and the Kazar lands. His teeth lengthened to feline points… then clamped down on the talisman and tore away a strip of desiccated flesh. With a satisfied growl, Chovuk gulped down the man-flesh, shuddered, then threw back his head and roared at the yurt's ceiling.

Jijin help me, Hult thought, it is worse than I thought. He is mad.

The next thing he knew, the air began to change. It grew warm and damp, as if the tent stood in the middle of a marsh at midsummer. A fetid smell came with it, like something recently buried but unearthed again by a rainstorm. Even the light changed, turning from Abyssal red to noxious brown-green. The color of rot and putrescence. Bile rose again in Hult's throat and his breath came in short, shallow gasps; he felt as if a great, invisible hand were pressing down on him, pushing him into the filthy rugs.

Chovuk stood smiling, swaying and intoning the same words over and over. He was caught between forms, half-man, half-tiger. There were even stripes on his skin, faint but unmistakable. A musky stink hung around him, strong and thick. Far off, almost too far to be heard, the camp dogs had begun to bay and howl. The bone charm dangled from his fingers, spinning slowly, a ghastly sight. For a long moment, Hult couldn't take his eyes off it. Then something else appeared and drew his gaze away.

It began as a flickering, a new-kindled flame rising to life between him and Chovuk. It was the same rancid hue as the lamplight, throwing wild shadows on the yurt's walls as it rose and took form. Before long it became a sinuous column of olive flame, twisting and writhing like a serpent. Hult shied back from it with tears in his eyes, his heart thundering. Sorcery, gods-cursed sorcery… and his master was the conjurer! Had it been any other Uigan, the punishment for magery would have been quick and final. It involved ropes, four horses, and a great deal of screaming. But the Boyla made the rules for others, not for himself.

Chovuk's voice rose to a shout and his hands lifted in exultation. Hult stared in amazement. Then the fire flared bright, and the presence, the one Chovuk called the Teacher, was in the tent: dark and cloaked, stepping from the flames as they guttered and died. Hult could see nothing except black cloth, folded and gathered and draped to hide what was beneath. He wondered if the thing were even a man, or if it were something worse.

Its voice, raspy as a rusty blade scraping against stone, gave him no clue. "I have come, Chovuk Boyla, tiger of the plains," it said. "What tidings do—why is he here?"

The cowled head turned toward Hult, its gaze boring into him, unseen eyes driving through his flesh like lances.

"All is well, Teacher," said Chovuk, smiling. "There is nothing to fear."

"Fear?" The cloaked thing reached out a gloved hand, a bony finger, pointing. Chovuk dropped to his knees as though he'd been struck with an axe. "I fear nothing, horseman. Others fear me. I told you, none must be present when you summon me."

"Hult is my tenach," Chovuk replied. "He doubted me, thinking I had fallen to evil. I wanted to show him he was wrong."

The dark being paused, then made a sound that was all razors and glass. It took Hult a moment to realize the noise was the thing's idea of laughter. "Oh, he is very wrong, isn't he?" it asked. "Evil. Such a quaint idea."

"What are you, then?" Hult dared to ask in a quavering voice.

"I am," said the being. "Just as you are. Good and evil have no meaning. I serve something greater than either—time, history, and memory. So docs your master, boy—as do you, if you are faithful. Are you faithful, Hult son of Holar?"

Hult stared at the stranger, catching no glimpse of what lay within the shadows. But in his heart, he knew the Teacher was no beast, no fiend from the Abyss. The Teacher was a man, just a man, no different from him… save for the power to flay the flesh from his bones by moving a finger.

"I ought to kill this wretch, Chovuk," said the Teacher. "No—I ought to make you do it. Another time, I might have done just that. But not today, not on the eve of battle. Perhaps, when the fighting is done… if he still lives… I will ask for his blood."

The Boyla bowed his head. "If that is your wish."

The words hit Hult hard, despair now mingling with terror.

"Now, boy," the Teacher said, "you will sleep, and forget. When you wake, it will be time for battle."

He waved his hand.

Hult bit his lip and clenched his fists so his nails dug into his palms, determined to resist the spell. It did him no good. Drowsiness settled over him like midwinter snow. His vision began to swim, the stranger and his master blurring in the green light. Sounds came from the bottom of a yawning, deep chasm.

"That is done," said the Teacher. "Now let us speak of the morrow… ."

Hult heard no more, only the rushing of wind through the grasses in his dreams.

He woke outside the yurt, rested and alert. His head snapped up with a start, and he glanced around, getting his bearings. He was sitting in his usual spot, outside the tent, his shuk across his knees. The red and silver moons peered full over the western hills as they sank into day. The stars had dimmed, and the sky was the color of a bruise, brightening in the east. There were no clouds. It was a beautiful autumn morning.

The camp was already springing awake, though dawn was an hour off. Half the warriors hadn't slept at all, kept awake by the anticipation of battle. They had stayed by the fires, drinking and dicing and boasting of how many minotaur heads they would cleave, and of how much gold they would bring back across the Tiderun. Now they were dousing fires, sharpening blades, and saddling horses. Farther off, the goblins burned offerings to their primitive gods. Eldako stood nearby, silent and unreadable, his bow at the ready.

The Tegins gathered before long, and Gharmu of the Wretched Ones as well. They came to the Boyla's tent and waited, the sky brightening to scarlet above them.

Hult glanced over his shoulder. The yurt stood dark and quiet. A strange feeling came over him—a prickling at his mind, like there was something he should remember, but didn't. Strange images flashed through his mind: green flame, a man in a black cloak, and his master grinning like a lunatic… .

He shook his head. Bad dreams, he told himself. It happened sometimes, the night before battle. He spat to ward off evil spirits.

Behind him, the flap opened.

The Tegins gasped. Gharmu cried out, throwing himself prostrate. Even Eldako raised his eyebrows, though the rest of his painted face remained emotionless. Hult turned, his blood running cold, and saw Chovuk Boyla.

The man appeared to have aged thirty years overnight. His hair and beard, once as black as a raven's wing, were snowy white. Deep wrinkles creased his face. One eye had gone milky-blind. His teeth and nails were long and yellow.

"Master…" Hult blurted, horrified.

"Be still, tenach," Chovuk snapped. "I am stronger now!"

With that, he strode out of the tent, to stand before the lords of his army. Reaching across, he yanked his shuk from its sheath.

"Let the crows gather," he declared. "We will give them a feast ere the night comes. We attack when the water falls!"