Dying of the Light

Vikary inspected the body, which lay sprawled in front of the tubes, then returned to the car. 'Roseph high-Braith Kelcek,' he said curtly.

'High-Larteyn,' Dirk reminded him.

'In truth,' he acknowledged, frowning. 'High-Larteyn. He has been dead several hours, I would estimate. Approximately half of his chest has been blown away by a projectile weapon. His own sidearm is holstered.'

'A projectile weapon?' Dirk said.

Vikary nodded. 'Bretan Braith Lantry has been known to use such a weapon in duel. He is a noted duelist, but I believe he has chosen his projectile gun only twice, rare times when he was not content to win by wounding. A dueling laser is a clean precise instrument. Not so this sidearm of Bretan Braith's. Such a weapon is designed to kill, even with a near miss. It is a great sloppy savage thing, and it makes for short deadly duels.'

Gwen was staring out to where Roseph lay like a pile of rags. His clothing had the dirty dust color of the roof, and it flapped erratically in the wind. 'This was no duel,' she said.. 'No,' Vikary agreed.

'But why?' Dirk asked. 'Roseph was no threat to Bretan Braith, was he? Besides, the code duello-

Bretan is still a Braith, isn't he? So isn't he still bound?'

'Bretan is indeed yet a Braith, and that is your 'why' for you, Dirk t'Larien,' Vikary said. 'This is no duel. This is highwar, Braith against Larteyn. There are very few rules in highwar; any adult male of the enemy holdfast is fair prey, until a peace comes.'

'A crusade,' Gwen said, chuckling. 'That doesn't sound much like Bretan, Jaan.'

'It sounds a great deal like old Chell, however,' Vikary replied. 'I suspect that his teyn swore him to this course as he lay dying. If this is truth, Bretan kills under a pledge, not simply in grief. He will have very little mercy.'

In the back seat, Arkin Ruark leaned forward eagerly. 'But this is all to the best!' he exclaimed. 'Yes, listen to me, this is fine. Gwen, Dirk, Jaan my friend, listen. Bretan will kill them all for us, will he not? Kill them one and all, yes. He is enemy of our enemies, best hope we have, utter truth.'

'Your Kimdissi proverb is misleading in this case,' Vikary said. 'The highwar between Bretan Braith and the Larteyns makes him no friend of ours, except by chance. Blood and high grievance are not forgotten so easily, Arkin.'

'Yes,' Gwen added. 'It wasn't Lorimaar that he suspected of hiding in Kryne Lamiya, you know. He burned that city in an effort to get us.'

'A guess, a mere guess,' Ruark muttered. 'Perhaps he had other reasons, his own, who can know? Perhaps he was mad, crazed with grief, yes.'

'Tell you what, Arkin,' Dirk said. 'We'll drop you off in the open, and if Bretan comes along, you can ask him.'

The Kimdissi flinched and looked at him strangely. 'No,' he said. 'No, safer to stay with you, my friends, you will protect me.'

'We will protect you,' Jaan Vikary said. 'You have done as much for us.' Dirk and Gwen exchanged glances.

Vikary threw their aircar into sudden motion. They rose and flitted away from the roof over the dawn-dim streets of Larteyn.

'Where…?' Dirk asked.

'Roseph is dead,' Vikary said. 'Yet he was not the only hunter. We shall take a census, friends, we shall take a census.'

The building that.Roseph high-Braith Kelcek had shared with his teyn was located not too far from the Ironjade residence and very close to the undertubes. It was a large square structure with a domed metallic roof and a portico supported by black iron columns. They landed nearby and approached it stealthily.

Two Braith hounds had been chained to the pillars in front of the house. Both of them were dead. Vikary looked them over. 'Their throats were burned out with a hunting laser fired from some distance,' he reported. 'A safe, silent kill.'

He remained outside, laser rifle in hand, wary, standing guard. Ruark stayed close at his side. Gwen and Dirk were sent in to search the building.

They found numerous empty chambers, and a small trophy room with four heads in it; three of them were old and dried, the skin tight and leathery, the features almost bestial. The fourth, Gwen said, was a Blackwiner jelly child, fresh-taken, from its look. Dirk touched the leather coverings on some of the furniture suspiciously, but Gwen shook her head no.

Another room, close by, was full of miniature figurines: banshees and wolf packs, soldiers struggling with knife and sword, men facing grotesque monsters in strange combat. All of the scenes were finely executed in iron and copper and bronze. 'Roseph's work,' Gwen said tersely when Dirk paused despite himself and lifted one figure for inspection. She beckoned him to move on.

Roseph's teyn had been eating. They found him in the dining chamber. His meal-a thick stew of meat and vegetables in a bloody broth, with hunks of black bread on the side-was cold and half consumed. A pewter mug full of brown beer stood next to it on the long wooden table. The Kavalar's body was almost a meter away, still in its chair, but the chair lay flat on the floor and there was a dark stain on the wall behind it. The man no longer had a face.

Gwen stood over him frowning, her rifle slung casually beneath one arm and pointing at the floor. She picked up his beer and took a sip before passing it to Dirk. It was tepid and stale, its head long gone.

'Lorimaar and Saanel?' Gwen asked when they stood outside again, under the iron pillars.

'I doubt that they have returned from the forest yet,' Vikary said. 'Perhaps Bretan Braith is somewhere in Larteyn waiting for them. No doubt he saw Roseph and Chaalyn fly in yesterday. Perhaps he is lurking somewhere close at hand, hoping to pick off his enemies one by one as they return to the city. Yes I think not.'

'Why?' That was Dirk.

'Remember, t'Larien, we flew in at dawn, and in an unarmored aircar. He did not attack. Either he was sleeping, or he is no longer about.'

'Where do you think he is?'

'In the wild, hunting our hunters,' Vikary said. 'Only two of the Larteyns remain alive to face him, but Bretan Braith has no way of knowing that. At his last knowledge, Pyr and Arris and even ancient Raymaar One-Hand were all living, and forces to be reckoned with. I would guess that he has flown off to take them by surprise, perhaps in the fear that otherwise they might return to the city in a group, discover their kethi slain, and thus be warned of his intentions.'

'We should run then, yes, before he gets back,' Arkin Ruark said. 'Go somewhere safe, away from this Kavalar madness. Twelfth Dream, yes, to Twelfth Dream. Or Musquel, or Challenge, anywhere. There will be a ship soon, then we will be safe. What do you say?'

'I say no,' Dirk replied. 'Bretan would find us. Remember the almost supernatural way he found Gwen and me in Challenge?' He looked pointedly at Ruark. To his credit, the Kimdissi remained admirably blank-faced.

'We will stay in Larteyn,' Vikary said decisively. 'Bretan Braith Lantry is one man. We are four, and three of us are armed. If we stay together, we are safe. We will post guards. We will be ready.'

Gwen nodded and slipped her. arm through Jaan's. 'I agree,' she said. 'Bretan may not even survive Lorimaar.'

'No,' the Kavalar said to her. 'No, Gwen. I think you are wrong. Bretan Braith will outlive Lorimaar. That much I am sure of.'

At Vikary's insistence they searched the great subterranean garage before leaving the vicinity of Roseph's residence. His guess paid off. With their own aircar stolen in Challenge and subsequently destroyed, Roseph and his teyn had borrowed Pyr's flyer to return from the hunt in the wilderness; it was parked below. Jaan appropriated it. While it was not Janacek's massive olive-green war relic by any means, it was still a good deal more formidable than Ruark's little car.

Afterwards they found quarters. Along the city walls of Larteyn, overlooking the steep sheer cliff that frowned down on the distant Common, were a series of guard towers with slit-windowed sentry posts above and living quarters below, within the walls themselves. The towers, each with a great stone gargoyle roosting on top,