Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [30]
“Well, the design runs in circles, and one’s like when you braid a horse’s tail, three strands, and then there’s one that’s like a lot of knots, like someone did tie all these sheepshank knots in a long rope but then never did pull them tight.”
Meer shrieked.
“Slaver work, may the gods all help us! Can you bear to lift the shield, lad?”
Gagging profoundly, Jahdo used the broken arrow to hook the shield rim and shove it to one side. At the motion it broke in half, the pieces sliding apart. All puffed with heat rot a huge distorted face looked up with eyes glazed and milky. His mane of coarse black hair lay tangled and clotted with dried blood, which also streaked one tattooed cheek.
“Meer, I be sorry. He be Gel da’Thae.”
Meer tossed back his head and howled, a cry of such pulsating agony that all round the ravens flew, flapping indignantly in circles overhead as the bard shrieked again and again, clutching his staff in both hands and raising it high as if to lay his plaint before the very gods themselves. Thanks to Meer’s teaching of the tore, Jahdo knew that the charms and amulets braided into Thavrae’s hair were for his protection in the Deathworld and had to remain with him. The cluster of talismans on the thong round his neck, however, needed to go back to his kin. On the edge of vomiting Jahdo drew the knife his grandfather had given him, knelt down, and cut the thong while Meer’s rage and grief swirled round him like a storm. When Jahdo yanked the talismans free, the head flopped to one side. Retching and gagging, he stood up fast, shoving the charms into his pocket.
“Meer, Meer!” He grabbed the bard’s arm. “It’s needful for us to get out of here. We don’t know where the enemies are. What if they’re still close by?”
Meer wailed once more, then let the sound die away with a rattle in his throat.
“True spoken, lad. It behooves us to head west as fast as we can travel.”
Leaning on his stick, Meer let Jahdo lead him away, but doubled with grief the bard moved slowly. Once they were back at their camp, Jahdo sat Meer down by the pack-saddles, handed him one of the waterskins for a drink, then tore off the mask and threw it onto the ground. He rushed to the river, knelt, and plunged his head and shoulders into the water. Gasping and crying, he flailed round with his arms until his entire upper body was soaked and free of the smell. He sat back on his heels and wondered if he should vomit, but by then the gut horror had faded, leaving him with memories that nothing would ever purge.
Meer began keening again, more softly, this time, but he was rocking back and forth, hands clasped round his drawn-up knees, rocking and moaning in a ghastly kind of music that had a certain beauty to it. Jahdo walked back and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Meer, can you travel? We’ve got to get moving, Meer. I be so scared.”
The Gel da’Thae never heard him, merely keened and rocked, all knotted with grief. Jahdo grabbed his shoulders and shook him.
“Meer, Meer! Listen to me, Meer!”
“Go on without me, lad. Let my house die here. Thavrae was the last hope of our house, a warrior who might win the right to claim a daughter as his own and hand over our name to her like a treasure chest. No daughters has my mother birthed, and woe, woe unto our clan and kin, that the gods would wipe our name from the face of the earth. Leave me, Jahdo, and let me die with the name of our house,”
“I’m not going to do anything of the sort. If you stay I’ll stay with you, and then I’ll, die, too, and here you did promise my mother that you’d look after me.”
Meer whimpered and trembled.
“Well, you did,” Jahdo snapped, “You promised.”
Meer fell silent for a long while, then all at once laughed, a hysterical sort of rumble.
“Jahdo, lad, one day you’ll no doubt be a great man among your people, the chief speaker, I’d say, wielding power with words as your people do. Very well. Bring Baki over. I’ll saddle him up first. All day we shall travel, and in the night I’ll mourn.”
Yet they made only a few pitiful miles that afternoon, Meer was