The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [61]
“I’d heard that.” Jantalaber looked Hwilli’s way. “Had you?”
“Yes,” Hwilli said. “Rhodorix told me. The leader of the Mountain axemen had talked to him on the way here. He thinks that the Meradan have made a winter camp somewhere up in the wild mountains. Rhodorix says that the princes don’t have enough men to go attack it, even if they could find it.”
“Alas, that’s true.” Vela abruptly shuddered. “I wonder, though, if they’ll go back to Lin Rej. Even in ruins, it’s warmer than the wild hills.”
“If you could bring yourself to scry into Lin Rej—” Jantalaber said.
“Eventually.” Vela moved uneasily in her chair. “Not yet.”
They ate in silence for some moments.
“But to go back to your question.” Vela nodded at Jantalaber. “Some months ago the council in Lin Rej decided we should strike back instead of sitting in our tunnels like rabbits in their warren. They sent a fighting force against those Meradan who lived in—well, I suppose you’d call that mess of theirs a city. It was really a lot of villages more or less joined together around a harbor.”
“Was?” Master Jantalaber interrupted her. “Was a city?”
“Just that,” Vela said with a grim smile. “Messengers came back with the tale. The place had been burnt to the ground. Skeletons lay all over in pieces, pulled around by the ravens and foxes. The axemen never found any heads or skulls, though.”
Jantalaber pressed a hand over his mouth. Hwilli laid her spoon down in her bowl. She could no longer eat.
“Oh, it was horrible, all right,” Vela went on. “A survivor told our men that a horde of strangers had come out of the sea. A god brought them, he said, in great big ships bound around with iron chains.”
“But that’s ridiculous!” Jantalaber said. “No one puts chains on their ships.”
“I suppose the disaster had driven the survivors mad.” Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. “I can understand now how such could happen.”
“One of those ghastly Meradan feuds, I suppose,” Jantalaber considered for a moment. “Some stronger tribe probably rode in and took revenge on them for some reason. Maybe they did come by sea, for all we know. I’ll wager the trouble has spread from there, tribe turning upon tribe, and now the losers are fleeing south.”
“I agree.” Vela nodded. “It’s the only reasonable explanation.”
Vela continued talking, telling of the destruction the Lin Rej men had found all across the Meradan territory, like the swing of an enormous scythe by a reaper from the hells. Hwilli wrapped her hands together and deliberately drove a thumbnail into the opposite palm. She hovered close to fainting, but the pain brought her round. She knew who those strangers from the sea were. Rhodorix had mentioned how the Devetii bound their ships to keep them from breaking up in storms. For a moment she considered telling the truth—but what would happen to Rhoddo and his brother, if the People realized who had actually brought ruin upon them?
“Hwilli?” Jantalaber said. “You don’t need to listen to all of this, if you’d like to leave us. You look quite pale, poor child.”
“My thanks, Master,” Hwilli said. “It’s just all so horrible.”
“It is that,” Vela said. “Get yourself a little spiced wine. It should help.”
“Thank you. I will.”
Hwilli hurried out and closed the door behind her. She stood trembling in the corridor until her legs steadied under her then went along to the refectory. At the door she paused, looking in, then gasped for breath as the smell of so many terrified and unwashed people swept over her. Somehow she’d never realized that tragedy could stink. Sweat and excreta, dried blood, sour herbs all mingled together into a scent like that of death itself.
The Mountain Folk had moved the tables over by the walls and piled the chairs on them as well, hiding the beautiful frescoes. On the elaborately tiled floors they’d spread out their blankets and little heaps of rags and trinkets, whatever they’d managed to save as the hordes rushed down the tunnel streets of Lin Rej. Babies wailed, children wept or screamed in nightmare, women chattered at them to “Sleep, please sleep!” as if