Read Online The Raven Warrior by Alice Borchardt - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alice Borchardt
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voices.
“Very well. I promise. But in return, I want your promise you will take Gwain and Cai with you when you ride to London. They are the best of the best. You can have no nobler companions.”
Uther nodded. “I will. Send them to me at sunset.”
“So soon?” Morgana said.
“The quicker the better. If anything is to be done, I must get to the powers that be in London before their minds are made up. Your promise, my lady.”
Morgana said, “Yes, I give you my word. Not even grass will grow where this army passes when the war horns blow retreat.”
What I was doing, or rather going to do, was dangerous. I didn’t know how dangerous. But even if I had clearly grasped the perils of calling up the dead, I don’t think I would have been turned aside by the risk. Because it was nothing to the physical risk we were running. All of us. If I couldn’t burn that fortress, we would likely die, if not in battle, then in that grove with the rest of the unfortunates the Saxon pirates devoted to their gods.
Those spirits weren’t loving, merciful, or compassionate. The Saxons primarily asked them for luck, and they drove a hard bargain. If the pirates got it, the spirits expected to claim their share of the spoils. And that included the prisoners and slaves.
Now the things crouching in the grove were glutted with blood and cries of terror and pain, and pale maggots crusted rotting flesh. So perhaps they would sleep while I worked my wiles. I hoped they would deem the two—no, three—we killed as simply another offering.
When I reached the village, or rather the posts that once held houses, I tried not to look to my right where the things hung in the trees. It gave me chills to think that my summoning the dead might make one of the bodies swinging from a rotted rope break free and try to seize me. But when I turned toward the house posts, I found the wind was to my face. I couldn’t smell them, and I could feel only an emptiness where they were.
And I understood whatever might happen, their spirits were free and gone up among the stars to follow what paths they would. Yes, even the woman Albe slew out of mercy for her plight.
Death by murderous sacrifice had sent them into the winds of heaven. I felt the peace, a strange peace that is the end of pain. A sense of absolute release.
But not on the side of the road by the village. Both water and air were unnaturally still, and I was sure some lingered.
Life is a fire. We all burn. That is the meaning of my fire hand.
But we burn slowly. You can feel the heat rising from the young newborns in their cradles, toddlers at their mothers’ breasts. How and why we burn I don’t know. And I wonder if our kind will ever know. But we do. And even in the old—the very old—you can see the darkening coals still glowing in the ashes.
I knelt facing the house posts. They were carven and some of the carvings survived even the fire that destroyed the houses. They twisted with things belonging to the marshland, serpents, serpentine long-necked waterbirds, sedges, cattails, pickerelweed, and wild water lilies, eels and fish, frogs, toads. And crowning the posts where the tops remained, the sea eagles, hooked beaks agape, talons clenched in birds, fish, frogs, or snakes, rearing proudly to cry defiance at the sky.
The birds are Her creatures and the priestesses who gather the clean bones of the dead wear bird masks. And the sea eagle is the most ancient guardian of the dead.
I put my hands, both hands, palms up, into the water and looked out over the still, silent mire beyond where the houses once stood. Not even a breath of breeze ruffled the perfectly calm surface. It mirrored the sky, scattered sprinkles of sunlight that touched the water. But the clouds were more like soot now and it looked to rain before nightfall, so the sparkles came and went. And I looked beyond time into eternity.
The first face that formed between the palms of my hands was a child’s. He—for it
“Very well. I promise. But in return, I want your promise you will take Gwain and Cai with you when you ride to London. They are the best of the best. You can have no nobler companions.”
Uther nodded. “I will. Send them to me at sunset.”
“So soon?” Morgana said.
“The quicker the better. If anything is to be done, I must get to the powers that be in London before their minds are made up. Your promise, my lady.”
Morgana said, “Yes, I give you my word. Not even grass will grow where this army passes when the war horns blow retreat.”
What I was doing, or rather going to do, was dangerous. I didn’t know how dangerous. But even if I had clearly grasped the perils of calling up the dead, I don’t think I would have been turned aside by the risk. Because it was nothing to the physical risk we were running. All of us. If I couldn’t burn that fortress, we would likely die, if not in battle, then in that grove with the rest of the unfortunates the Saxon pirates devoted to their gods.
Those spirits weren’t loving, merciful, or compassionate. The Saxons primarily asked them for luck, and they drove a hard bargain. If the pirates got it, the spirits expected to claim their share of the spoils. And that included the prisoners and slaves.
Now the things crouching in the grove were glutted with blood and cries of terror and pain, and pale maggots crusted rotting flesh. So perhaps they would sleep while I worked my wiles. I hoped they would deem the two—no, three—we killed as simply another offering.
When I reached the village, or rather the posts that once held houses, I tried not to look to my right where the things hung in the trees. It gave me chills to think that my summoning the dead might make one of the bodies swinging from a rotted rope break free and try to seize me. But when I turned toward the house posts, I found the wind was to my face. I couldn’t smell them, and I could feel only an emptiness where they were.
And I understood whatever might happen, their spirits were free and gone up among the stars to follow what paths they would. Yes, even the woman Albe slew out of mercy for her plight.
Death by murderous sacrifice had sent them into the winds of heaven. I felt the peace, a strange peace that is the end of pain. A sense of absolute release.
But not on the side of the road by the village. Both water and air were unnaturally still, and I was sure some lingered.
Life is a fire. We all burn. That is the meaning of my fire hand.
But we burn slowly. You can feel the heat rising from the young newborns in their cradles, toddlers at their mothers’ breasts. How and why we burn I don’t know. And I wonder if our kind will ever know. But we do. And even in the old—the very old—you can see the darkening coals still glowing in the ashes.
I knelt facing the house posts. They were carven and some of the carvings survived even the fire that destroyed the houses. They twisted with things belonging to the marshland, serpents, serpentine long-necked waterbirds, sedges, cattails, pickerelweed, and wild water lilies, eels and fish, frogs, toads. And crowning the posts where the tops remained, the sea eagles, hooked beaks agape, talons clenched in birds, fish, frogs, or snakes, rearing proudly to cry defiance at the sky.
The birds are Her creatures and the priestesses who gather the clean bones of the dead wear bird masks. And the sea eagle is the most ancient guardian of the dead.
I put my hands, both hands, palms up, into the water and looked out over the still, silent mire beyond where the houses once stood. Not even a breath of breeze ruffled the perfectly calm surface. It mirrored the sky, scattered sprinkles of sunlight that touched the water. But the clouds were more like soot now and it looked to rain before nightfall, so the sparkles came and went. And I looked beyond time into eternity.
The first face that formed between the palms of my hands was a child’s. He—for it
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