Reckoning of Fallen Gods Read online

Three swings, just three, and it was not a thin branch.

  He broke it apart into small pieces, then tossed them on a small pile of wood beside a flat stone, with several fish lying atop the rock.

  Too much wood to start the cooking fire, Talmadge thought, and the pieces were too large. He considered showing himself and helping Bryan to collect some more appropriate starter kindling, but then the surprising man surprised him again. He began to glow as if limned in some white light, then thrust his sword down into the piled wood and ignited the weapon’s gleaming blade!

  Flames danced from the shining metal, curling about the wood, and within a few heartbeats, gray smoke began rising from the wet wood.

  Bryan didn’t seem to care about the smoke. And not about the flames, either, as it began to catch, for he reached down with his free hand, wearing no gauntlet, and rearranged the now-burning wood without so much as a flinch.

  Talmadge spent a moment catching his breath and considering how he might approach this strange man, whom he had met only once, and only briefly.

  “There’s enough fish for two,” Bryan called out then.

  Talmadge put his face down and sighed. He wasn’t really surprised that this particular man had noted him. He pushed up to his knees, then stood and started down the other side of the bluff and onto the meadow.

  “Well met again, Mister Talmadge,” Bryan greeted.

  “And to you, Bryan Marrawee of Dundalis,” he replied, and the man stared at him curiously for a few moments, his hesitation reminding Talmadge of the fact that Bryan Marrawee was not really his name, not his given name, at least, as he had admitted in their earlier meeting.

  “The fish is fresh,” Bryan replied at length. “Join me for a fine meal and finer talk?”

  “What are you doing up here?” Talmadge asked, approaching.

  “What are you doing up here?” Bryan replied.

  Talmadge stopped short and stared at him. “You know.”

  Bryan flashed a disarming smile and nodded. “You intrigued me. Did you slay your monster?”

  Talmadge tried to sort that out for a bit, then started in surprise. “No,” he stuttered. “No, I could not dare try. It is no … truly, it is a monster, and beyond any man…”

  Bryan was patting the air with his hands to calm Talmadge.

  “The monster in your heart,” he clarified. “Did returning to this place you so love slay the monster of fear that lived within you for the woman you lost?”

  “Aye,” Talmadge started to answer, but he stopped and admitted, “I do’no know.”

  Bryan replied with a “hmm,” spitted a fish on a stick, and tossed it across to Talmadge.

  * * *

  From up on th’Way, Aghmor noted the pause of the procession, and was encouraged to watch the Usgar-righinn and Ahn’Namay conversing with Elder Raibert. Perhaps Raibert would put an end to this madness, he dared hope.

  His hope was short-lived, though, for it became clear that Raibert was going to come along with the group up the trail to the sacrificial chasm. He would slow them, and that would give Aghmor some extra time at least.

  “For what purpose?” the warrior quietly asked himself. What exactly did he think he might do up here? What could he possibly do up here against a dozen witches and three warriors?

  Those thoughts perfectly relayed to Aghmor the futility of his journey. Why was he even up here? If Mairen meant to throw Aoleyn into Craos’a’diad, there was nothing he could do to stop it. There were no words he could say to change any minds here.

  He put his face in his hands in frustration, wondering why he would even want to stop the sacrifice if there was a way to do so. Why would he even care?

  He thought then that he should quietly slip away into the shadows and get back to the summer camp, and he stood up tall and looked all around, seeking the best route.

  Only then did he realize that something was missing here on th’Way. Where was the uamhas worker? Why hadn’t he heard the young slave’s hammering?

  “Aoleyn,” he mouthed, and now his tone was more suspicious and even angry. She had been here with the uamhas on the morning after that fateful night a few days previous. If the uamhas had run off, then maybe Aoleyn deserved to be thrown into the chasm!

  Aghmor started up the trail, hoping to find the slave, and thinking that if he did, he would be acting on the side of mercy to get the young man off the trail and out of the way, that he wouldn’t witness this sacrifice. He would probably do something stupid and get himself thrown in beside her—in beside them, if the other slave, this one’s mother, was to be fed to the Crystal God as well.

  His focus was on the trail, his thoughts questioning why he wasn’t hearing the uamhas at his work, and so he didn’t even notice when the young man slipped onto the trail behind him, a huge rock in hand, and lifted high, ready to crash down upon Aghmor’s head.

  * * *

  “Why aren’t your hands burned?” Talmadge asked his host.

  The armored man looked at him curiously.

  “You grabbed the flaming logs. I watched you. And why are you wearing that armor?”

  In response, Bryan drew out his sword.

  Talmadge’s eyes went wide and he reflexively leaned back, fearing that he had possibly gone too far here with his questions. But Bryan quickly flipped the weapon over to show him the hilt, the red gemstones, rubies, then the milky white gem set into weapon’s crosspiece.

  “The blade flames,” Bryan explained.

  “I saw.”

  “Well, it would do its wielder no good if it burned him with its own fire,” the other man laughed, against indicating the crosspiece. “It is all the magic of the ring stones, of course. Like the monks perform.”

  Talmadge nodded. He hadn’t witnessed such displays in a long time, but he remembered when the monks had come to his plague-ravaged village … and had failed.

  “These red gems, rubies, create the fire,” Bryan explained. “This one on the crosspiece, serpentine, shielded me to protect me from that fire.”

  “And those on your chest plate? Are they magical?”

  “Oh, indeed,” said Bryan. “They aid in defense, in turning blades, and make the suit lighter—it is no more encumbering than a heavy vest. And some are there to heal me, even in the midst of battle.” He winked at Talmadge. “I’m a tough one to kill.”

  Talmadge stuttered over a few words, trying to make sense of it all. He had never heard of such things, and couldn’t even imagine the workmanship and magic involved, or the cost. He fumbled trying to ask a few questions, finally settling on how Bryan kept the plate so polished out here in the wild lands.

  “Lizards,” the man said, which confused Talmadge.

  “You polish your armor with lizards?”

  That brought a laugh. “Your earlier question,” he explained. “I’m wearing it because there are many large lizards about. They seem formidable.”

  “They are,” said Talmadge, who had battled one and didn’t really want to think about it.

  “And there’s no need to polish it,” Bryan added. “Or the sword.”

  “Silver?”

  “Silverel,” the man corrected. “Elvish silver. It will never lose its shine, or edge, or strength, and there is no greater metal in all the world.”

  He bent over and retrieved his helm then, and plopped it over his head. It was bowl-shaped, tapering down the back of Bryan’s head, and closed in front only to just below his eyes, where a strip of gold crossed under his eyes, temple to temple.

  It looked like a mask and simple hood as much as a helm, Talmadge thought, for there was an added ridge of metal, almost like the brim of a hat, running around the helm from behind Bryan’s eyes, and upon that ridge were set yet more gray stones.

  “What?” Bryan asked, smiling, at the man’s dumbfounded expression.

  “I have never seen such a thing,” Talmadge said.

  “Few have, and none beyond those who have seen it on me,” said Bryan.

&nbs
p; “But how? Who are you?”

  The other man laughed, then sighed. “It is a long story.”

  Talmadge started to respond, but noted Bryan looking past him, then, and upward.

  “What?” Talmadge asked, and followed the gaze, looking up into the sky on this day, the autumnal equinox, to see the bright sun, not a cloud near it.

  But it was not round, and an arc of blackness had stolen the bottom edge of the brilliant circle.

  Talmadge climbed to his feet. Bryan was already up, moving beside him.

  “What is it?” the frontiersman asked.

  The armored man had no immediate answer.

  * * *

  When Aghmor spun around, he saw the most horrified expression he had ever viewed. The slave he had always called Thump stood mouth agape, eyes wide in shock and terror, and with his arm up high.

  Looking up at that lifted hand had Aghmor falling back fast with a gasp, for the young uamhas was holding a stone, heavy and tapered on the end he was apparently about to smash down upon Aghmor’s head!

  The Usgar warrior leveled his spear, but the uamhas flung the rock to the ground and began flapping his hands and shaking his head in complete denial, and fortunately for Bahdlahn, Aghmor realized then that the uamhas was as surprised as he by the truth of the encounter. He noticed, too, that the young uamhas carried a vicious wound in his shoulder.

  “What are you about?” Aghmor demanded.

  “Thump, no,” came the reply, the slave lowering his gaze deferentially.

  “You meant to kill me!”

  Thump shook his head vigorously.

  “Then explain!” Aghmor demanded.

  The slave looked up at him sheepishly, winced and grimaced and shrugged helplessly.

  “You do not fool me,” Aghmor said.

  The slave glanced all around, held up his hands helplessly, as if he couldn’t understand, but then swallowed hard, a clear tell.

  “I heard you speaking with Aoleyn,” Aghmor stated bluntly, and when the uamhas didn’t answer, he mimicked Bahdlahn’s voice and said, as Bahdlahn had said to Aoleyn, “You should go to my mother. She will give you new clothes.”

  He didn’t think the uamhas’s eyes could get any wider, but he was wrong.

  “And now you wish you had just hit me with the rock and killed me,” Aghmor said.

  The uamhas seemed frozen with fear for another couple of heartbeats, but then shook his head again.

  “Who did you think I was?” Aghmor demanded. “I know you can speak. Who were you going to kill, slave?”

  Bahdlahn slave pointed to the wound in his shoulder. “The golden man,” he said. “The monster.”

  “Golden man? Monster?” Aghmor quietly repeated. “A goblin? A sidhe?”

  Bahdlahn nodded, but paused and shook his head again. “I thought…” he stammered. “Yes, sidhe. Maybe. But no, not like I have ever seen.”

  Aghmor rocked back on his heels. Yes, he knew this supposedly simple slave could talk, but the sophistication in his words and inflections rocked Aghmor back on his heels.

  “Its face,” Bahdlahn began, fumbling for words. “Colors. Red, bright red, on a huge nose.” He ran his hand down the center of his face, brow to upper lip. “And blue, like the lake in the sun, on the sides.”

  “What do you mean? What are you babbling about, fool uamhas?”

  “Too bright! All of it!”

  “Its skin?”

  Bahdlahn nodded vehemently.

  “Painted?” Aghmor asked, making a motion in front of his face like he was rubbing war paint on, as the Usgar sometimes did. But the slave was shaking his head.

  “Just skin,” the uamhas explained. Bahdlahn turned quickly and rushed across the path, pointing back to a sheltered tree and bush that served as his home. “It was in there, and stabbed me. It would kill me.”

  “The sidhe?”

  Bahdlahn shrugged. “Its spear … Fine and smooth and strong. Not like an Usgar spear, but fine. Its clothes…”

  “It wore clothes?”

  “Fine,” Bahdlahn insisted. “Finer than Usgar clothes. Finer than lakeman clothes.”

  Aghmor was shaking his head, having a hard time deciphering any of this jumble.

  “But you ran away?” he asked.

  Bahdlahn slave picked up a rock and flung it hard against a larger stone. “I hit it. I hit it again.” He motioned repeatedly as if throwing a rock.

  “You chased it off?” Aghmor asked, and before he had even finished the question, Bahdlahn was running up the trail, waving for him to follow. They came to a place where the brush at the edge of the path had been bent and broken, and blood showed on the last stone at the edge, right before the ground gave way for a long and fairly steep fall.

  “You chased it off and it fell down there?”

  The slave nodded.

  Aghmor leaned over and looked down the slope, but could see no sign of anyone. He had no reason to doubt the story, and the man’s wound looked like a spear stab, and there was blood here on the edge of th’Way. That would have been a grand concoction of a story, he thought, and one that would have required a lot of preparation. And for what? Obviously, Thump hadn’t meant to kill an Usgar, or Aghmor would be lying back down the trail with his head caved in.

  Or perhaps, Thump had meant to kill another Usgar. Aghmor glanced down the slope, and thought about Tay Aillig, who, as far as he knew, was still out of the summer encampment below.

  Perhaps Thump had already killed an Usgar.

  As he considered the possibilities, Aghmor thought this a fortunate turn of events. He didn’t want the uamhas up here to witness the passing of Mairen’s column …

  The Usgar sucked in his breath, a distant memory coming back to him. “You told Aoleyn to go to your mother,” he said. “Who is your mother?”

  Thump swallowed hard.

  “Tell me!”

  “Innevah,” the man admitted.

  Aghmor rubbed his face at the confirmation. No good would come of this one witnessing the procession. Mairen was going to kill Aoleyn, his friend, and it seemed to him very likely that the slave woman, this one’s mother, would also find herself cast into Craos’a’diad.

  “Come,” Aghmor said, starting over the edge of th’Way. He paused, though, and looked back. “What is your name?”

  “Thump!” came the predictable response, in the same phony and goofy simplicity Aghmor had heard from this one for years and years now.

  “No,” he snapped back, frightening the uamhas. “What is your name? What does Aoleyn call you?”

  The slave moved from foot to foot and cast his gaze down.

  “I know she doesn’t call you Thump,” Aghmor scolded. “Just tell me your name, because I don’t want to call you that, either.”

  The slave looked up at him, clearly overwhelmed. “Bahdlahn,” he said softly.

  “Bahdlahn,” Aghmor repeated, nodding, and as he considered the meaning of the word, a less insulting synonym of the word “thump,” it made sense and brought a smile to him.

  Aoleyn was ever the clever one.

  Too clever.

  “Come, Bahdlahn,” he bade the young man. “Let’s go see this sidhe you slew.”

  They moved carefully down the hill and searched around for a body. They didn’t find one, but there was enough evidence—broken branches and crushed shrubs, along with some blood—for Aghmor to believe the basics of the uamhas’s tale.

  He found a trail, as well, uneven footprints which suggested a man, or a sidhe, staggering away to the southeast around the mountainside.

  Off the two went, with Aghmor now determined to keep this uamhas away from Mairen’s procession. The trail wound around, then down into a vale, but right back up, along a broken stone path. Aghmor, for all of his time on the mountain, did not know. It meandered this way and that, but not far enough from th’Way, the Usgar warrior only realized when he, and his uamhas companion, heard the singing of the witches.

  Bahdlahn looked at him cu
riously.

  “The Coven, I’d guess,” Aghmor said with a shrug.

  “What do you know?” Bahdlahn asked, his voice thick with suspicion.

  Aghmor just shrugged again, and Bahdlahn looked at him for just a few heartbeats before turning about and rushing up the side of the hill, up toward th’Way, toward Craos’a’diad, Aghmor believed, and feared.

  The Usgar warrior rushed to keep up, calling out softly for Bahdlahn to wait, then, when that didn’t work, ordering the slave to stop.

  Bahdlahn did pause, but only long enough to look back at the pursuing Usgar, shaking his head, his expression twisted in confusion.

  Aghmor realized that his own reaction had tipped the young man off that something was amiss here, and no doubt, Aghmor knew, Bahdlahn had connected it to the one Usgar about whom he cared: Aoleyn.

  “Don’t,” Aghmor warned, but quietly, for the singing was not that far away. “On pain of death, I warn you, slave, come back down.”

  Bahdlahn’s face seemed to melt, then, with conflicting emotions. But again, he shook his head, turned, and scrambled up the mountainside, a steep grade that had him using his hands as much as his feet.

  Aghmor pursued, cursing under his breath. He saw a better route and rushed ahead, soon paralleling the uamhas. He might catch Bahdlahn in time, he thought.

  But only briefly, because as he came back around to intercept at the top of Bahdlahn’s climb, Aghmor discovered that he was up above the sacrificial chasm, and with Craos’a’diad in view, along with the Coven, their guests, and their prisoners!

  He dropped low behind a stone and motioned frantically for Bahdlahn to come to him, tapping his finger across his pursed lips, demanding the slave be silent.

  It occurred to the warrior then that if they were caught, Bahdlahn probably wouldn’t be punished—he belonged here—but Aghmor surely would.

  Bahdlahn joined him at the stony ridge and together they peeked over.

  The uamhas sucked in his breath at the sight, and Aghmor slapped his hand over Bahdlahn’s mouth, whispering, begging, him to be silent.

  Down below, the witches danced a semicircle around Aoleyn, and with the gaping chasm behind the young woman.