“You’re right,” Krugen said, rubbing his rings. “Nothing I could offer would appease them.”
“There’s always Alward,” Tegan went on, casting a hand out to the new leader of Nadak. They all turned their attention to the willowy man in rags who blinked back at them as his mouth formed an appalled and fearful O. “Perhaps not,” Tegan agreed.
“You seem capable enough,” Raithe told him. “Smart, even.”
“You’re right; I’m very smart, smart enough to know I’m not the man for this. I’ve never seen a Gula-Rhune until this moment. My ignorance could be our undoing, but the little I do know about these northern men is that they are fighters, and the one thing that a warrior respects is another warrior.”
Raithe squared himself in front of the Warric chieftain, fixing Tegan with a steady stare. “I’m not the keenig.”
Tegan sighed. “I don’t care, not right now. Look out there!” He waved his arm at the ant army creeping down the hill. “You don’t have to be keenig, but if you don’t make them think twice about marching on these walls, we won’t need one.”
This brought a small moan from Lipit, who by then had resorted to mopping his head with a sleeve.
Once more, Raithe noted the three banners rising above the approaching horde: Erling, Strom, and Dunn. These were the three Gula clans, violent sons of continual warfare. Raithe had more in common with them than with those beside him on the wall. That’s what Tegan was saying, but Raithe wondered if the chieftain of Warric knew that.
“Okay,” Raithe said. “I’ll go, but I want to point out, it was your idea to send me. Whatever happens is your fault, not mine.”
“What could be worse than them attacking?” Tegan said, prompting another chirp from Lipit.
Raithe shrugged. “Who knows? But I once met a Fhrey named Shegon, and look where we are now.”
This raised Tegan’s brows, and he nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll go with you.”
—
At midafternoon, Raithe walked uphill through the tall meadow grass. The waist-high shoots, with green tops and straw-brown stems, had gone to seed. The whole of the field lay over, brushed to a permanent western lean by a tireless ocean wind. True to his word, Tegan walked alongside. Malcolm joined them as well, along with Tesh, who was treating his responsibility as Shield with the excessive seriousness of a boy tasked with his first adult duty. None of them wore weapons. This was Raithe’s decision. He’d heard his father speak of battlefield meetings, and how weapons were left behind to indicate a peaceful talk. He hoped this practice would be honored and wasn’t just one of Herkimer’s tall tales.
They walked to the top of a small rise halfway between the walls of Tirre and the vast horde that was the Gula encampment. The four waited on the windswept knoll.
The Gula-Rhunes had spread out on the high ground, taking each major hill in a half circle around Dahl Tirre. Raithe could hear the clang of metal, the thump of wood, the shouts of orders in their odd dialect, and laughter. The Gula laughed well—deep hearty howls and hoots, the sort only men who’d faced death on a regular basis managed without sounding insane. And yet, a few of the laughs went on too long, were too high, and Raithe suspected some of the Gula—maybe a lot of them—were just like his eldest brother.
Heim had grown to love the killing. Hegel and Didan reported that he had taken to bathing in the blood of his adversaries. Heim said it made him stronger, but his father insisted his oldest son just liked wallowing in death and relished the killing. For Heim the carnage was always over too soon. Maybe that wasn’t considered crazy in a band of men who repeatedly charged into walls of spears. His father certainly never forbade the practice, never even chided Heim as far as Raithe knew. Herkimer considered it unusual, but what passed for normal in the lives of soldiers would horrify the likes of Farmer Wedon or Heath Coswall. Once more, Raithe wondered if they had a clue what Persephone and her talk of war was getting them into.
The Gula-Rhunes made them wait.
The sun passed the midpoint and slipped down toward the west, crafting shadows that elongated the dahl as if it were melting. Seabirds’ shadows skimmed in circles on the grass. Bees droned; wind blew; gulls cried.
“Maybe they don’t know we’re here,” Malcolm suggested.
“They know,” Raithe said.
“What makes you so sure?” Tegan asked.
While not tall, Tegan was a big man, and he had the look of a stone that was heavier than mere size suggested. He was also dark: dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, his black curly beard just making the turn toward gray. Another foot shorter and Tegan could have passed as a Dherg.
“They’ve taken position on every hill but this one,” Raithe answered.
“It’s not much of a hill,” Malcolm pointed out.
“It’s closest to the dahl.” Raithe stared at the Gula horde. “They haven’t taken it because they left it for just this purpose.”
“They’re like locusts, aren’t they?” Malcolm said.
Tesh raised his arm and pointed.
They followed his gesture and saw that a band of three had separated from the crowd and was walking their way. Each wore only a leigh mor, swept up and pinned over one shoulder, each garment a different color and pattern. Raithe was more interested in what they weren’t wearing—no paint, no shields. None of the three held a spear or an ax. Raithe’s father had been right; the old man was far wiser in death than he’d ever seemed in life.
If Raithe hadn’t already met Grygor, and his less cordial relatives, he would have described the one out in front as a giant. It wasn’t just that the man was tall—he had to be a full foot taller than Raithe—but he also looked Grenmorian. His red hair was a wilderness of ratted curls that joined seamlessly with an even wilder beard. Bushy brows shaded fierce eyes. Thick hair, more akin to fur, covered his shoulders, his arms, and the backs of his hands. Across his face lay an ugly scar that ran at an angle from his left cheek to the right of his chin. The wound had taken off the lower part of his nose, giving him a ghoulish appearance. Another injury left a long gash across his chest from shoulder to nipple, lined by holes where the wound had once been stitched.
Each of his companions was smaller, but equally scarred. The one on the right was missing an eye, the one on the left lacked a hand. In its place was a beaten copper spike.
Raithe had never considered himself civilized. He’d lived most of his life in a dirt hut, breathing the smoke of a dung fire, but he felt conspicuously cultured in comparison to the Gula.
“I am Udgar, son of Holt, chieftain of Clan Erling,” the redhead declared with all the musical eloquence of chopping wood. “We received an invitation to a council to be held here.”
“I am Siegel, son of Siegmar, chieftain of Clan Dunn,” said the pale one with the gaping eye socket. Now that they were closer, Raithe noted that a serpent tattoo curled up the man’s right forearm. The serpent was well done, despite the burn mark across its middle. “It is said that this council will pick a keenig for all the tribes.”
“I am Wortman, son of Rothwell, chieftain of Clan Strom,” said the one with the spike for a hand, who spoke with an odd softness. “This keenig…it is said…will bring war upon the Fhrey.”