"I will," Aracus said simply. "I do."
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of horses shifting, stamping restless hooves, cropping at foliage. It didn't seem right, Lilias thought. There should have been a vast noise; a shuddering crash such as there had been when Calandor fell, an endless keening wail of Oronin's Horn. Not this simple quietude. She wanted to weep, but there were no tears left in her, only a dry wasteland of grief.
"So be it." Phraotes closed his eyes. "Oronin has wrought this and the Were consent. With my death, it is sealed. Draw out the arrow, King of the West."
Aracus knelt on one knee beside the crumpled figure, placing his left hand on the Were's narrow chest. With his right, he grasped the arrow's shaft. Murmuring a prayer to Haomane, he pulled, tearing out the arrow in one hard yank. Blood flowed, dark and red, from the hole left by the sharp barbs. Phraotes hissed, tried to cough, and failed. His lids flickered once and, with a long shudder, he died.
"All right." Aracus Altorus climbed to his feet, looking weary. He rubbed at his brow with one hand, leaving a smear of blood alongside the Soumanië. "Give him… give him a proper burial," he said, nodding at the still figure. "If the Were keep their word, we'll owe him that much, at least."
There was grumbling among the Borderguard; the Ellylon made no complaint, assuming that the order was not intended for them. But it was Lilias who found her voice and said, "No."
Aracus stared at her. "Why?"
"The Were do not bury their dead," she said harshly. "Leave him for the scavengers of the forest if you would do him honor. It is their way."
He stared at her some more. "All right." Turning away, he accepted his reins from a waiting Borderguardsman and swung into the saddle. "Blaise, send a rider to Kranac to notify Martinek of this bargain. Tell him I mean to keep my word, and do any of the Regents of Pelmar break it, I will consider it an act of enmity. By the same token, do the Were break it, they will be hunted like dogs, until the last is slain. Let it be known."
"Aye, sir." Blaise moved to obey. In a few short minutes a rider was dispatched and the remainder of the company was remounted, preparing to depart. There was barely time for Lilias to take one last glance at Phraotes. It was hard to remember the Were ambassador as he had been; a keen-eyed grey shadow, gliding like smoke into the halls of Beshtanag. Dead, he was diminished, shrunken and hairy. His eyes were half slitted, gazing blankly at the trees. His muzzle was frozen in the rictus of death, wrinkled as if at a bad scent or a bad joke. Phraotes did not look like what he had been, one of the direst hunters ever to touch the soil of Urulat.
We shall dwindle, and pass into legend.
Lilias shuddered. "I'm sorry," she whispered, horribly aware that if she had not given counsel to Aracus, the bargain might never have been struck. "I didn't know what he would ask. Phraotes, I'm sorry!"
There was no answer, only the Were's dead, sharp-toothed grin.
If it were a bad joke, she hoped it was on Haomane's Allies.
* * *
THIRTY-ONE
« ^ »
A HALF DOZEN RAVENS PERCHED in the green shadows of the outermost edges of the Delta, drowsy in the midday sun. Beneath them, Ushahin Dreamspinner crouched, watching horses grazing on sedge grass.
He had been raised by the Grey Dam Sorash and, outcast or not, a part him would always be kindred to the Were. He knew the paths the Were trod; the dark paths of the forest, the dark paths of the pack mind. Although his path had diverged, he heard the echoes of their thoughts. When Oronin's Bow was raised against one of his Brethren, he felt it, and shuddered at the killing impact. When a dire bargain was struck, he bowed his head and grieved.
"You are too hasty, Mother," was all he whispered.
It was her right, the Grey Dam Vashuka. And he understood, oh yes, the thought behind it. Oronin's Children had never sought anything but solitude; the right to hunt, the right to be left alone. Still, he thought, she had surrendered too much, too soon. Perhaps it was a trick; yes, perhaps. The bargain held only as long as the Grey Dam lived. And she might live many hundreds of years upon the hoarded years her brethren sacrificed to her. His dam, the Grey Dam Sorash, had done so.
Or she might not. It was yet to see.
Ushahin watched the horses.
They did not care for him, horses. Although he was of the blood of two races, Lesser Shapers whose mastery of the lower orders of being went unquestioned, it was his years among the Were that had shaped him the most. Horses sensed it as if it were an odor on his skin. Ushahin, the predator. They carried him reluctantly at best, and when all was said and done, he preferred to travel on his own two feet. It had been a fine arrangement, until his Lordship had closed the Ways. Now, Ushahin had need of speed. Darkhaven was waiting; and the horses of Darkhaven lay to hand.