Bitter Moon Saga Read online

  Their eyes met, and they both shivered. “Then why,” Ellyot murmured, “did that smile look so mean?” Without looking over their shoulders for the unrepentant Yarri, both boys took off running behind the homestead for the stables to tell Ellyot’s father.

  Moon, a black-haired giant of a man, with a reddish beard and wide shoulders, was truly alarmed. His alarm was terrifying. “You told him we were gone?” he asked his son for the thousandth time. “And you made him happy he came?” He looked at Torrant, who was beginning to feel sick, and not just in the aftermath of using his gift.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, wobbling on his feet. “Triane’s travels, Moon—I didn’t mean to get us into trouble….” Moon gave him a grim smile and a fortifying clasp of the shoulder.

  “Go rest, boy,” he said kindly. “You were trying to allay trouble, that was all, and it was a good aim. You didn’t count on the evil in Consort Rath. The one thing that would make him happy in all the world is to find me guilty of treason, you understand?”

  “But, Dad, you’re a Regent!” Ellyot was saying, just as Torrant’s unusually pale face blanched green, and without ceremony he sank to his knees and vomited in the clean straw. Moon bent and held his head, then wiped his mouth with a cloth. Torrant was exceptionally gifted—as his name might imply—but gifts never came without cost. The Moon family understood that. With little protest, Torrant was ushered to a bale of hay in the corner of the barn, covered with a horse blanket, and told to sleep.

  “I should help,” he murmured as Ellyot tucked him in. Moon was already making plans to gather the whole family and the workers off the land by sundown—Torrant could tell by his booming orders and the hard edge of command in his voice.

  Ellyot rolled his eyes. “You’re no good to us now….” He grinned wickedly, his blue eyes twinkling. The dimple in his cheek deepened, and Torrant thought bemusedly that it was a good thing he’d known his brother all his life, or he might be made as foolish by that smile as girls were around Qir and boys around Tal. “Besides,” Ellyot continued, “we might need to hunt, and you know that’s not your thing.”

  “Piss off—my aim is better than yours and you know it!” Torrant yawned, and his shoulders hunched as his body prepared to protect itself in sleep.

  “Yeah—it’s hitting flesh and blood that balks you, you poor, sensitive thing,” Ellyot teased without mercy. “It’s a good thing you talk pretty, or we would have pasted the barn with you.”

  “Piss off…,” Torrant mumbled again, and was rewarded by his brother’s laughter as his dark, curly head bobbed away among the hay bales. He would think about that later, because they had been telling each other to “piss off” since they were old enough to say it without adults present. He would hope, later, that “piss off” had come to mean, in the language of the fourteen-year-old boy, the same thing that “I love you” did to a full-grown man. As he drifted off, he was dimly aware that the family made ready to take a hasty holiday with cousins in the north.

  The sun had traveled a bit when Torrant opened his eyes, and late afternoon shadows dappled the barn. It was autumn, so the heat was not too intense, but Torrant still sweated a bit as he made to turn in his nest in the hay. It was then that he met a somber pair of frightened brown eyes in a fair, piquant little face with a halo of reddish-gold hair caught back in a very frazzled braid.

  “’llo, Yar…,” he mumbled, fighting to keep his eyes open. Torrant’s mother had been the midwife at Yarri’s birth, and Torrant had helped her. His mother had placed that perfect, red, wriggling body in his arms and he had heard, far off and ringing in his heart, the sound of great bells that tolled from the soles of his feet to the soul in his chest. Every time Yarri smiled at him from that moment on, Torrant heard the far-off sound of bells.

  “Ellyot hollered at me,” she told him now, unhappily. Yarri was six, and she adored her older brothers—Torrant included—fiercely.

  “You flew off the handle, Yar,” Torrant told her gently. “It made things difficult.”

  She shook her head, brown eyes welling with tears. “I’m why we have to leave,” she quavered, and he opened the horse blanket so she could come in and snuggle. Usually Yarri was petted beyond words, every tear caught and soothed before it could hit the ground. But the family was packing for a flight from a bitter enemy, and she had probably been overlooked in the chaos. Torrant felt stirrings of guilt—he should be helping, but his body, overexerted by his gift, was not going to cooperate with that imperative.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Father’s brother, Moon in the next country,” she said softly, and Torrant grimaced—that wasn’t a help. Their little kingdom was an island surrounded by mountains; outside of the mountains were at least four kingdoms that could be termed “next country.”

  “We’re going to the sea,” Yarri said next. “Mama said I could see a whale.” And Torrant had a better idea—they were headed northwest, to Eiran. Good, he thought, it should have been long before.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” he told Yarri belatedly. “I’m the one who told the silly sot he was happy. Your rock on the head wouldn’t have done much harm if I hadn’t butted my big head into it.”

  “Can you really do that?” Yarri sniffled. “Can you really tell someone that they’re happy, and they believe it?”

  He knew what she was asking, but he’d known her since her first bath, and it wouldn’t take his gift to help. “Yes, Littlest, I can. Would you like me to make you happy now?”

  “Oh yes…,” she sighed, wiggling down some more into in her big brother’s embrace. “Make me happy.”

  Torrant began to sing of whales and travel, of autumn leaves and sweetness. Yarri’s eyes closed, and happily, she fell asleep.

  A few moments later, his mother came to check on him. She rolled her eyes when she saw Yarri’s fair head peeping out of the blanket and bent to kiss her son’s own tousled, brown hair.

  “How’re you feeling, sweetheart?” she asked gently. Myrla Shadow was always gentle, Torrant thought fondly. His mother was a pretty woman, even with the silver that shot her dark hair in other places than her temple and the lines at her hazel eyes from her deep and quiet smile.

  “I’m feeling stupid, mama,” he confessed with a pained sigh, careful not to wake Yarri. “I can’t think of what else I should have done, though. I didn’t want him to get mad at Yarri.”

  Myrla shook her head in mock exasperation. “The world is not all about Yarri, you know.”

  “He would have hurt Ellyot too—”

  “Or Ellyot!” she overrode, and then sighed. “I can’t blame you really, darling. They’re your family. I’m proud of that. But someday you’re going to need to see bigger than Yarri and Ellyot. We’re going to Eiran, you know.”

  He nodded. “I heard—I’m sorry I can’t help.” Just raising his head made him dizzy and weak, and he was a little worried. “I’ve done… bigger things… with my gift. It’s never made me feel like this.” He had spun illusions for Yarri out of the air when he was singing and engraved paper with those same images when he’d held the paper and sung.

  “You forced your will on someone else, son. That’s the biggest, hardest, most painful thing any human can do. It should have a bigger backlash, don’t you think?” He nodded, and his mother went on. “Going to Eiran will be good for you. You’ll see a bigger world than this hold.”

  Torrant, as weak as he was, was shocked. “I love my home!” he said, although he knew, he always knew, that his heartbeat had never thumped in time to the hoofbeats of horses in the way of his brothers of the heart and their father. Clough was horse country, and Torrant loved it because his family loved it, but he’d never thought beyond that to the things he loved himself.

  “So do I, Torrant.” Myrla laughed a little. “Of course we love our home. But it will be good for you to see the world beyond it, so you know what it is you love. Your father wanted the wide world for you. It will be good to see some of it
.” He was going to protest, but she forestalled him with a kiss on the forehead. “Now sleep, baby—you and Yarri just stay out of the way and rest. We’re not leaving until dark of night, so you can get in plenty of sleep in the meantime.” She bent and kissed him again, and at first Torrant took the gesture for granted, as do all children who are loved, and then, feeling childish like Yarri but needing to say it just the same, he said, “I love you, mama.”

  “I love you too, sweetheart.” She laughed outright. “And I love you too, Yarri,” she murmured, and Torrant realized the sleeping child in his arms was giggling and not altogether asleep. Myrla gave Yarri a hug and smoothed back the hair from her small face, then turned and left. Yarri settled down and actually slept, and Torrant found it easy to follow her.

  When they awoke hours later, it was to the smell of smoke and the sound of screams.

  Torrant knew instantly that something was wrong, and, well rested, without the muzz in his head, he knew enough to be still. He clapped his hand over Yarri’s mouth and peered out from the blanket that hid them both from view. Soldiers had herded the family into the barn, and the family was fighting bitterly. Ellyot had an arm twisted behind his back and a knee wedged against his knee, and Moon was on the ground with a boot on his head. Torrant’s mother had a gauntleted arm around her waist, and cruel fingers gripping her breast. That alone would have made Torrant bound out of the haystack, death to the wind, but against him he could feel Yarri, small and trembling, eyes wild under the blanket. The King’s guardsman was saying something to Moon, so all eyes were on the helpless, proud landowner, when Ellyot’s blue eyes caught Torrant’s attention. Ellyot knew what to look for and imperceptibly nodded at the hidden Yarri. Torrant felt his heart thud in his stomach and fought the urge to weep.

  Under the haystack, in the back corner of the barn, sat a trapdoor. It was used at night so the barn cats could come and go, and in the summer so they could move the haystack and flush out the barn. It swung on hinges, both in and out, and was the size of a smallish man. Or a fourteen-year-old boy. Yarri, the family’s pride and joy, would slide out easily. Torrant, her adopted older brother, was the only one left to lead her to safety. Torrant gave Ellyot an anguished look. This was his family, in word and deed—leave them? But he felt Yarri trembling beneath his hand, and he knew, more importantly, what his priority should be. But it wouldn’t be easy.

  Ellyot was growing tense for them. He glowered at Torrant, and Torrant shot him an annoyed look—yes, everyone was looking at Moon, but….

  He shifted, just a little, and dug the two of them deeper into the straw. Damn! A guard saw the movement and began to wander in their direction. Ellyot shifted his stance, as though to create a diversion, but Myrla Shadow beat him to it. In the center of their frightened tableaux, of Tal and Qir straining against their own captors, of Myrla and Kes fighting an obscene embrace of evil men, and of the King’s captain with his foot perilously near Moon’s neck, a phantasm appeared.

  It was ferocious and female, a wolf the size of a horse, standing upright and snarling, reaching out with a phantom paw and razored claws to rip the heart out, through metal and all, of the knight who had moved toward the corner. Blood flew everywhere, and the soldiers, dragging their victims, bolted about in confusion. Torrant saw his mother slump to the ground unconscious and took his chance to wriggle down into the straw with the wall at his back. When he felt the latch, he reached around and pushed, sliding backward as the straw slithered with him and pulling Yarri out at the same time.

  They slid out into the rear of the courtyard, and Torrant tumbled wildly for a moment to get his bearings. When he came to his feet, his head swiveled toward the source of the smoke, and he felt his throat constrict with grief. His home. Their home. The Moon house, gracious, white-boarded, with its two stories and graceful willow trees flanking the wings… was ablaze, and the trees were catching. He heard Yarri’s outraged screech and barely caught her before she went running across the yard to the inferno.

  “Yarri, no!” he thundered in her ear and caught the squirming body in a hard grip. She was surprisingly strong.

  “But Anye!” she wailed, and he realized she was talking about the skittish calico fluff ball that sat on her bed.

  “Anye’s a smart cat,” he told her, and to his relief she relaxed a bit. “She’ll get out… and we need to as well.”

  Yarri came to her senses. “But Mama… Daddy…,” she realized and looked back to the barn from where they had come. Then she looked into his eyes and a totally adult look of understanding passed her pointed features. “You need to save them, don’t you?” His throat caught at her faith. He was fourteen, more child than man, and she had no doubts.

  “I’ll try, pigeon,” he told her seriously. “But you need to be safe, or they’ll never forgive me for leaving you.” And with that, he swept her up and, hiding in the shadows of night, ventured to the west of the house, to where the road curved around. Across the road were the workers’ quarters, set on public lands where, Moon said, his people could know they were free men. He and Myrla had been the exceptions, because for the last ten years, they had been family. He could see soldiers, most of them in ranks, a few sent to set fire to the house, and only a few others, he was sure, in the barn itself. With desperate haste and a tensely still Yarri in his arms, he ran through the orchard and across the road to the workers’ quarters. He snuck in through the back, where he and his mother often came with meals. As the door closed and he accustomed himself to the darkness, his knees almost buckled into the blood coating the floor.

  “Oh Goddess and moons,” he gasped and pushed Yarri’s head against his shoulder before using the same hand to open the door and let himself back out.

  “Torrant…,” Yarri mewed, aware of the shaking of his usually sturdy body.

  “No one’s there,” he lied.

  “But Ginny and Arel—they could keep me safe.”

  “No one’s there,” he lied again, keeping his face from crumpling. Oh merciful Dueant, please, let that be the truth. Let their souls be with you, if their bodies are that wreckage in the room. “We’ve got to find somewhere else.”

  “But….” He clapped his hand over her mouth, listening. The soldiers were coming back. The center of the Moon property was near the river and thick with trees, and the servants’ homes were no exception. He looked at the frightened child in his arms and then up to the fierce tangle of oak and birch trees above him. Yarri’s eyes met his, and she nodded. In a fluid movement, he threw her in the air, catching her feet in his hands and catapulting her to the branches above. He didn’t wait to see her scramble aside. They had been playing together since her birth, and they had practiced this maneuver often in the sibling skirmishes they delighted in. In a mighty leap, he caught the branch Yarri had just alighted on, swung perpendicular to it, then caught the next branch up with his knees as he released from the first. Yarri watched his swing, then scrambled into position below him, throwing her hands up and letting him loft her to the branch above him. Her hands nearly slipped from his before she landed, and as they stilled and allowed the tree to stop shaking with the force of their acrobatics, she looked unhappily at the blood that had smeared on the branches with his shredded skin.

  “Oh, Torrant, ouchie,” she quavered, her lip trembling as their eyes met.

  “No gloves.” He shrugged. He didn’t need to add that the backs of his knees were shredded as well. They usually practiced acrobatics in the barn, with the hay below them and the smooth metal fixtures above their heads. Suddenly, the guards had moved up the hill and were under their tree.

  “Torch the place?”

  “Aye—but be careful of the trees and the grounds. Rath wants these grounds perfect—the better to show off the blood on the barn.”

  “Wonderful. Artwork!” The guard shrugged ironically. Torrant could hear the tone of his voice and knew that this was distasteful work. He didn’t like the slaughtering of innocents. In that moment, at the disgust in the
man’s voice and the memory of the carnage in the workers’ quarters, Torrant learned to hate that most of all. There was nothing, he raged, worse than a good man who could do nothing.

  And then he caught Yarri’s anxious look and the full import of the man’s words hit him. Whether the guards stopped the blaze before it hit the trees or sacrificed a few for safety, the two of them were in the line of fire.

  Anxiously, Torrant looked around, but there were only the two guards. He could probably knock them out, he surmised, because he was stronger and had surprise on his side, but he couldn’t risk leaving Yarri so vulnerable. With a quiet finger to his lips, he lay across the tree and began to inch his way to within hand distance of the next branch. Yarri, seeing his intent, moved into position behind him. After waiting until the armor-coated guards had moved on, checking for survivors, he let his bottom fall into the darkness, held his body on the limb with the bloody backs of his knees, and waited for Yarri’s practiced jump into his hands. This time he compensated for the blood and released her in perfect time to land in the next tree. After a painful backward swing, he caught the next branch of the tree, and they scuttled to its heart. In this way, scrambling, tumbling, and swinging, they moved from tree to tree along the outside of the orchard, to the borders of the Moon lands. They saw soldiers, periodically, riding back and forth across the way that ran parallel to their own course, and finally, they saw them riding only one way—away from the homestead itself. They stopped to rest every so often, not speaking, but nursing trembling, scratched limbs and pressing anguished faces together in comfort. As they neared their destination, they saw the lightening of the sky that indicated dawn.

  In the last tree they crouched, their hearts beating, and listened for soldiers, knowing they were too exhausted to run if they saw any.

  “We’re safe,” Torrant breathed at last and swung Yarri down to crouch near the bole of the tree. As he stumbled to a rest beside her, he caught her in a fall and settled her down. It was an old tree, and the season was early autumn. There were enough leaves piled near the cleft in the roots to cover her trembling body and assure she would be hidden.