Honor among thieves

Chapter One Hundred One

The wailing of Morgain’s female warriors set Morget’s teeth on edge. For six hours they had sat outside the dead Great Chieftain’s tent, tearing their hair and howling at the sky. They followed an ancient custom that hadn’t been practiced in a hundred years, making that horrible noise to drive away the hungry ghosts that might come and snatch Morg’s soul before Death could claim it. Some of them beat on tabrets, while others clashed swords together to add to the din.

Alone among them Morgain was silent. She sat in the snow outside the blood-splashed tent, Fangbreaker naked across her knees. She kept her eyes closed-everyone knew you couldn’t see the ghosts when they came, you had to hear them dragging their bloody feet along the ground-and the paint on her face had never looked more like a real skull.

“She thinks to sway the chieftains by this show of loyalty to a dead man,” Morget said, brooding in his tent. He got up frequently to peek through an opening in the flap and see if his sister had moved at all. She had not.

“She’s trying to make you look bad,” Balint agreed. “Stop letting the cold in, will you? I could cut my meat with these nipples already.”

“You think she does this to shame me? I did nothing wrong. I acted on the will of the clans,” Morget insisted.

“You told me this ritual is never used for warriors who die in battle.”

“No, of course not. Everyone knows Death comes directly for such. After all, she’s already on the battlefield, walking with her children.”

Balint sighed. “You easterners are so transparent, yet you always think your motives are so well hidden. What she’s doing is as plain as your mother’s face. Your sister’s claiming you cheated Morg out of a proper death, by slaughtering him when he wasn’t ready for you. She’s trying to ruin your chances of being chosen as the next Great Chieftain by insinuation.” The dwarf shook her head. “You just don’t understand women at all, do you?” She got up and put another knot of wood on the stove. It was one of the last pieces on the pile-fuel was getting scarce. If Morget didn’t take the city soon, frostbite would start mutilating the clans camped outside.

He stared at his dwarven scold for a while. “Shouldn’t you be digging a tunnel right now?”

“I have a team of twenty of your best men doing it for me. They had nothing else to do.”

Morget’s blood surged in his veins. He jumped up and grabbed Dawnbringer and his axe. “Damn you. And damn her. If she thinks she’ll be chosen instead of me-”

“She has a chance at it,” Balint interrupted. “Half the clans are loyal to her, and she’ll have all the chieftains who remained loyal to Morg.”

Morget narrowed his eyes. “Not if she’s dead. They can’t choose her if she’s dead.”

He did not like the look on Balint’s face then. It was far too smug. Was he really that predictable? He thought of what Morg had said about him, right before he died. That he was under the influence of a wyrd. Such a fate could drive a man headlong, like a horse wearing blinders, until his bloodlust took him right over a cliff.

It could also drive him to everlasting glory. Often at the same time. He stormed out of the tent and across the camp toward where his sister sat vigil. “Get up,” he told her.

“Brother,” she said without opening her eyes. “I heard your feet dragging in the snow. Have you come to sit in my place and protect our father’s soul?”

“You know damned well I have not,” Morget told her. “It can wander the world forever, for all I care. Let him haunt me if he feels I acted wrongly. No real man would agree with him. I said, get up.”

“I am quite comfortable. This snow is soft as any pillow in a westerner’s bedchamber. And my grief keeps me warm.”

Morget growled. “You and I need to talk. Alone. If it comes to an election between us, the clans will never be properly united again, no matter who wins. We need to choose for ourselves.”

“You mean, we two must choose you.” She opened her eyes and stared up at him. Her pupils were two different sizes. He realized she must have been drinking black mead until she could feel nothing at all. Yet her voice had none of the manic pitch associated with the delirium-inducing drink. “I am not done yet with my vigil. Nor is this the place to talk. Do you know the place a mile from here, where a gallows stands at the crossing of two roads?”

“We tore the gallows down for firewood a week ago,” Morget told her.

She watched him without blinking.

“Yes, I know the place,” he told her.

“I will meet you there in three hours,” she said.

Morget looked for the sun. It was already low in the sky, a bright patch behind roiling clouds. The time she’d chosen would be well after dark. Perfect.

He turned and left without another word. Then he went to the blacksmith’s tent and had a new edge put on his sword.

When the time Morgain chose for the meeting came, he was at the place she’d named, ready for anything. Perhaps she thought to ambush him with her cadre of woman warriors. Perhaps she wanted only to talk, as she’d suggested. Regardless, he intended to bury her there, and say she had run off because she knew she could not bear losing to him.

Yet when she came, he did not see her arrive. Nor did she reveal herself so he could strike her down. He only heard her voice, carried along by the wind.

“Brother,” she called. “I would know-what did he say to you, before you slew him? Or did you strike fast, so as not to give him a chance to defend himself?”

Morget turned around slowly, looking for her. If she wanted to kill him, she’d picked the right place. He could see no farther than the blade in his hand by the little moonlight that cut its way through the clouds. The wind made it impossible to tell what direction her voice came from. There was even a good hiding place, a cluster of rocks at the exact intersection of the crossroads.

He faced the rocks and lied to her. “He said I should be the next Great Chieftain. And that I should think of some great reward for you, as compensation.”

Morgain laughed, a noise like funeral bells chiming.

“I know what he said to you,” Morget announced. He took a slow step toward the rocks. Was that hiding place too obvious? “He said he loved you.” He put as much scorn in his voice as he could muster. “What did you make of that?”

“I thought to slay him myself for the affront. And to steal your glory.”

“You didn’t, though,” Morget said. Another step closer.

“In the end I decided to do him honor, in a way he would understand. So I swallowed my bile and told him I loved him, too. It was what he wanted to hear.”

Morget grinned wickedly. “It is good for a woman to think of what a man wants, and give it to him.”

Morgain laughed again. “Let us speak of what you’ll give me, in exchange for my chieftains. A great reward, you said.”

“Yes,” Morget replied. “What will you have? You asked me for dwarven steel once. And gold.”

“I can have those things now for the effort of stooping to pick them up,” she told him. “You’ll have to do better.”

Where was she? He was close enough to see the rocks as more than shadows now, and to realize they weren’t rocks at all. They were tombstones. None of them bore names or dates, but they had the round-topped shape of western grave markers. He recalled that in Skrae, suicides and traitors were buried at the crossroads so their ghosts could not find their way back to haunt the living. Another subtle message, Morget thought, that Balint would make much of.

“I have another gift I can give you. I can give you all of the East. The land where we were born. Be a great chieftess there, while I rule Skrae.”

That was enough to shut Morgain’s mouth. Morget cursed silently. He had hoped to shock her into showing herself.

“That land is not yours to give. It belongs to the chieftains.”

“You think they will gainsay me?”

“No,” she said. “They would never dare. They are afraid of you. But I know you, brother. You would never give up so much power.”

“Unless I know I cannot hold it. When this war is won, when Ness is taken and Skrae belongs to us, the clans will be spread too thin. No one man-or woman-could rule it all. I’ll share it with you-if you bow to me now.”

That made her laugh.

Was she hiding behind the tombstones? Morget knew if he stepped in between them, she would have him at a disadvantage. He would be too aware of the danger of tripping over one of the stones to be sure of his footing. Interesting.

“So you do not want power. Then tell me yourself! What do you want? In exchange for not opposing my candidacy as Great Chieftain, what will you take?”

He struck Dawnbringer across the top of a gravestone, a ringing blow with the flat. The blade lit up as if it were white hot, light searing through the darkness for a moment. It was enough to show him that Morgain was nowhere among the stones.

Then she answered him, her voice coming from close by. Even before she finished talking he felt her presence. She’d been behind him the whole time, throwing her voice on the wind.

“Vengeance for the only man I ever loved,” she said. He had time to see she’d darkened her furs and face with soot to make herself nearly invisible in the dark. Then Fangbreaker came up and glinted in the paltry light, distracting him.

By Mother Death she was fast with that blade.

Before Morget could even raise Dawnbringer, she slashed a line across his throat. Blood spewed from the wound, dark venous blood, and he knew she’d cut his jugular.

It was a hasty stroke and the sword failed to bite very deep-yet it was placed perfectly, and any other man would have fallen on the spot. Morget was not just any man, however. Surprised, hurt, even with Mother Death’s hand on his shoulder he still had the strength to bring his axe down with one of the mightiest blows he’d ever struck.

The weight of the axe drove down hard and bit through old iron. Morget’s bones rattled but he did not flinch.

For the third time he cut right through one of the Ancient Blades, and sent half of Fangbreaker’s forte spinning into the snow.

He turned, intending to stab Morgain through the heart with Dawnbringer.

But she was already gone. As fleet of foot as a deer, was Morgain.

“Coward!” he called after her, his voice full of bubbles.

Once that word would have burned her heart and forced her to turn back and finish the fight. But he knew she had no need to prove herself to him now. Not when he was going to die in a few seconds. He found the broken piece of Fangbreaker lying at his feet. In its polished surface he could see the wound across the front of his neck and the blood that was pouring down his cloak. He was bleeding to death.

He dropped to his knees in the snow.

You will not be able to stop yourself, Morg had told him. You are too weak to defeat your own strength. Someone else must stop you, and you should hope they do it soon.

His own strength-strength Morgain shared. So this was what the old man meant, he thought. This is my ending. I found the foe I could not beat, and she was there all along. His wyrd was complete.

So why did he still seethe for more death, for another chance to prove himself?

“You’re a mess, boy,” Balint said, hurrying out of the darkness. She had a piece of cloth in her hands, and a needle, and some thread. He had not known she’d followed him. Now he stared at her as if she were a ghost come for his soul.

“Don’t try to thank me,” she told him. “If you do, your head will probably fall off, and while even that probably wouldn’t kill someone as stubborn as you, I don’t carry enough thread to go all the way ’round.” Then she started mopping at his wound and digging her needle into his flesh. “Don’t ask me why I’m doing this either, because it’s pure folly. I’d be leagues better off without you.”

But Morget thought he knew. The dwarf had her own wyrd, didn’t she? She needed to make mischief in this world, wherever she could. It was what she lived for. And he would give her every chance to do it.

He started to laugh, and didn’t care that it made dark blood jet outward from his veins.