Part 7 (2/2)
Darak shoved his way through the crowd. Only when people moved aside, did she see Nionik and Gortin behind him. Gortin used his blackthorn staff to clear a path; Nionik's air of command was enough to make his kinfolk back away.
The shouting died down as the three men strode toward Jurl and Rothisar. Jurl turned to face them without releasing his grip on the boy's hair. ”We found him trying to steal a coracle.”
”Let me kill him, Oak-Chief,” Rothisar begged. ”Let me avenge the deaths of my father and grandmother.”
Nionik raised his hands, silencing the roar of approval. ”We have all lost family this day.” Grim-faced, the chief turned to Gortin. ”Is it fitting to sacrifice an unbeliever at the heart-oak?”
”Nay. His blood would pollute our sacred tree. Nor will I have it shed here to mingle with the blood of our people. On the morrow, we will burn our dead. But before-”
Howls of protest rose from the crowd. Gortin raised his staff, demanding silence. ”Would you allow your loved ones to lie in the Death Hut, stacked like . . . like peat bricks?” he asked, outraged. ”Nay, we will construct a pyre on the beach. I will go with the men to the forest this afternoon so that I might make the appropriate offerings to the spirits of the trees we must injure. As for this monster . . .” He gestured to the kneeling boy with his staff. ”Let him be taken to the standing stones. Let him watch us honor our kinfolk. After the fire has consumed their bodies, let each family exact retribution for their dead from his living flesh.”
The tribe cheered, howling like wolves.
Darak leaned close to Nionik. After a brief exchange, the chief nodded. He held up his hand and waited for the cheering to die down. ”The Memory-Keeper has requested that the council of elders question this man before he is killed.”
”You can't even understand his barbarous tongue,” Jurl said.
Again, Darak whispered something to Nionik, although his gaze remained fastened on the prisoner. The dazed look had vanished. Now his face was as cold and hard as stone.
Nionik said, ”Urkiat-our guest from the south-will translate.”
At his words, Urkiat squeezed through the press of onlookers to stand beside Darak. With all that had happened, she'd had no time to learn much about him. Had Urkiat been stolen by the raiders? Is that how he came to know their language?
”But what's the point?” Jurl persisted.
”The point,” Nionik said in a sharper tone, ”is that this man may have information.” The chief said something in an undertone to Darak who stared at the prisoner, his eyes glittering. Nionik spoke again, more urgently. Without taking his gaze from the kneeling boy, Darak gave a curt nod.
Jurl scowled and spat. ”Just you remember, Darak. I want him alive on the morrow.”
”He'll be alive,” Darak said in a calm, terrible voice.
She had to run to match Darak's long stride, but she caught up with him and Urkiat at the edge of the village.
”Urkiat. Give us a moment.”
He hesitated, glancing toward Darak for instruction, but quickly retreated when she turned on him in a fury. Darak stared up at the lone oak on the hilltop.
”You mean to torture him, then?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. ”I mean to do whatever is necessary.”
”He's just a boy.”
His head jerked toward her, eyes blazing. ”So is my son.”
”He's my son, too!”
”Then you should worry more about him and less about that murdering raider.”
She drew back her arm and struck him as hard as she could across the face. His breath hissed in, but he barely flinched. She struck him again and yet a third time, and still he stood there. Only when she raised her hand for another blow did he grab her wrist.
”Enough.”
She kicked him in the s.h.i.+n and gasped, wondering if she'd broken a toe. He jerked her toward him, pinioning her against his bare chest.
”Griane.”
She struggled futilely, heedless of Urkiat's shocked stare.
”Stop. Please.”
It was the ”please” that caught her. She went still, the sound of her panting loud in her ears. A tremor shuddered through her body; only when she looked up did she realize it came from Darak.
”Don't do this.”
His expression hardened. ”You still plead for him?”
”Nay. For you.” The mask slipped ever so slightly, enough to show her a glimmer of the man she had loved for so many years. ”I would not have you do to him what Morgath did to you.”
His head snapped back as if she had slapped him again. ”You think this is the same? That I do this for my pleasure?”
”Don't you? What can he possibly tell you? The raiders will come or they won't. Knowing the number of men on one of their boats or how fast they travel cannot help us.”
And then she realized. Darak didn't care about that. He wanted to know where they had taken Keirith. He meant to go after him. What a fool not to have realized it immediately.
”I must go,” Darak said.
”Please. If he must be tortured, let it be someone else. I can't bear to see you do this.”
”Then don't watch.”
With Urkiat at his heels, he splashed across the stream. Sanok pa.s.sed her, supported by Nionik and Gortin. When she felt a light touch on her shoulder, Griane turned to discover Muina beside her. She would not have thought it possible for the Grain-Grandmother to look any older, but the meager flesh on her cheeks sagged and grief had carved deeper grooves around her mouth.
”The elders mean to question him at the oak,” Muina said. ”Will you come?”
Griane hesitated. If she couldn't stop the torture, she could make sure the boy didn't bleed to death. But perhaps it would be more merciful if he did. It would spare him the lingering death that awaited him on the morrow.
They stole my son. They killed my kin. Why should I care how he dies or what he suffers?
But she did care. She had never killed a man, although she had been prepared to do so this morning. But it was one thing to kill someone who threatened her children, another to slice flesh off a helpless man and listen to his screams. That would not bring back Keirith. Or Owan. Or any of their dead.
”Will you come?” Muina repeated.
Could she watch the torture? Aye. She was strong enough for that. But she could not watch her husband wreak the same vengeance on the body of this nameless boy that Morgath had wreaked on him all those years ago.
Slowly, Griane shook her head.
<script>