The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [83]
“Why haven’t you buried him, then?” Winna exploded behind him. “Answer me that? If you’re so sure he’s dead, why haven’t you given him one of your holter’s burials?”
Aspar turned slowly to face her across the fire. “Because I want him there when we find the Briar King,” he said softly. “I want him there when I kill the bastard.” He reached down to touch the arrow case he’d thrust through his belt.
Winna quieted at that, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She just shook her head and closed her eyes.
“How will you find him?” Ehawk asked.
“The trail of thorns will lead us to him.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I feel it,” Aspar said, realizing how ridiculous it sounded, how he would scoff at anyone else who said such a thing.
“What about the Sefry’s trail?”
“What about it?” Aspar asked. “We haven’t come to find the Sefry.”
“Asp,” Winna said, “you said the Sefry was letting us follow him. Why would he do that?”
Aspar nodded at Stephen’s body. “You have to ask that question?”
“Yes, I do. What if the Sefry just wanted us to see the fane? What if he wanted us to know that someone is building an evil faneway?”
“We don’t know what kind of faneway they’re building,” Aspar said. “We don’t even know if that’s what they’re doing.”
“But Stephen said—”
“Yah. Do you think Stephen would have walked into the fane if he reckoned this was going to happen to him? He was wrong about something, for once, yah?”
“Maybe. Or maybe there was someone—or something—inside the fane we couldn’t see.”
“He looked fine when he went into the fane, and he didn’t look hurt when he walked out. Wasn’t until he left the mound that he collapsed.”
“Still—”
“Winna.” He tried to keep his voice gentle, but he felt the harshness creeping into it, like a burr caught in his throat.
He sighed. “Winna, I’m a holter. I know nothing of fanes or saints or shinecraft. That was Stephen. All I know is how to track things, find things, and kill things. That’s what I’m supposed to do. That’s what I will do.”
“That’s what the praifec ordered you to do,” Winna said. “But it’s not like you to be so obedient.”
“He’s destroying my forest, Winn. And I’ll tell you, if I do know anything about greffyns and utins and evil fanes and what’s happened to Stephen, it’s this—things like this didn’t happen before the Briar King stopped being a boygshin story and started walkin’ around. When I stop him walkin’ around, I reckon everything will go back to the way it was.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll find whoever built that shrine and kill them, too.”
“I know you, Asp,” Winna said. “You aren’t made of death.”
“Maybe not,” he said, “but she follows me close.” He put his head down then raised it back up. “Winna, here’s what we’ll do. You and Ehawk, you go back to Eslen. Tell the praifec what we saw here, and what Stephen said about it. I’m going on.”
Winna snorted. “Not likely. You’re going to drag poor Stephen around this forest by yourself?”
“He’ll stay on Angel. Maunt this—I almost lost you to the utin. I’ve had Black Marys about it ever since. I can’t think straight, not really, not with you in danger.
“There’s only one arrow, you know. When we meet him, there’s nothing anyone can do but me, and I’ll do that best without any distractions. And you’re right—Stephen thought there was something about that fane that needed dealing with. None of us kann enough to know what to do, and if we all find our ends out here, the praifec will never know what we’ve learned.”
Winna’s lips compressed. “No,” she said. “That doesn’t make nearly the sense you think it does. You think you can do everything by yourself? You think the rest of us do nothing but drag you down? Well, you were by yourself when you came stumbling down to the monastery d’Ef, weren’t you? If Stephen hadn’t found you, you’d have died. If he hadn’t stood for you against the other monks, you’d have died. How are you going to feed yourself? If you leave Stephen to hunt, something will come gnaw on him.”
“Winn—”
“Stop it. I made the same promise to