Age of Myth (The Legends of the First Empire #1)

“Looks as if Petragar missed a few rats,” Gryndal said.

He walked his mount around the debris, peering with a slight squint. His eyes shifted left and then right. A grin filled his face as he trotted forward around a collapsed pile of stone and blackened logs. With a wave of his hand, the logs flung themselves end-over-end, revealing five huddled people.

Rhunes!

They were so caked with soot, dirt, and ash that Mawyndul? could hardly make out their features. They looked nothing like the paintings. Their hair was long and filthy and not just on their heads. Dirty mats also grew on the cheeks and chins of the males. All were dressed in tattered rags, the original color of which Mawyndul? couldn’t begin to guess. They were barefoot, unless mud counted as a covering. Primitive knives and hatchets made from sticks and stones were stuck in strips of animal hide tied around their waists.

“Like rats,” Gryndal said. The sound of his voice caused the cowering Rhunes to wail and quiver. “They just come back. Look at them already building their little dens in which to breed.”

Gryndal walked to Mawyndul?’s side, turning his back to the Rhunes, who whimpered and huddled together with arms wrapped around one another.

“And oh, my prince, do they ever breed. They spit out a new litter of offspring in less than a year—less than a year! This group, even as small as it is, could become twenty-five in five years. In twenty years…well, in twenty years, who knows? Depends on how many of the offspring are female, but easily a hundred. In a mere century…” He shook his head in disgust. “Before your first centennial feast, this little nest of rodents would outnumber any tribe in Estramnadon, even the Nilyndd.”

“How many Rhunes are there?”

Gryndal shrugged. “Ferrol knows. Tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands. Too many for the land to feed. By denying them the fertile fields beyond the Bern River we’ve been able to keep their numbers down.” He indicated the horizon. “Contained, they exhaust the ground they live on and create a wasteland. They end up starving or eating one another. Either way their numbers are controlled to some degree.”

“They do that? Eat their own kind?” The prince grimaced.

“Just like your goldfish.”

Mawyndul? looked at the little cluster of dirty creatures with newfound revulsion. The feelings of pity he’d initially experienced faded.

“Honestly, I’d prefer rats. They’re cleaner. My greatest fear is that some of these”—he nodded in the direction of the Rhunes—“would cross the Bern or, worse, the Urum River. It’s a vast country out here, and only two need to slip over. The horde that would result would blanket the world. Then they would breach the Nidwalden en masse. Once inside Erivan, they would act like locusts. All of Elan would be devoured. Nothing would be left except a world like this—a world of dirt, rock, and rubble. This is the sort of trouble I spoke of, the peril your father toys with because he lacks your imagination and vision. It makes me fearful, so very fearful.”

Gryndal stared. “The Instarya and a few Asendwayr live among the Rhunes. They think of them as pets and in some cases even more than that. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those stationed out here have taken Rhune females to their beds.”

Mawyndul? recoiled. He looked at the filthy, hairy, bony females in the dirt and ash. He shivered. “That’s not possible. No one would—”

“Don’t be so na?ve; of course they would. You need to understand that the lesser tribes have more in common with the Rhunes now than they do with us.”

Mawyndul? couldn’t help glancing at the soldiers behind them and wondering if they could hear. Gryndal made no effort to speak quietly, but if they heard, they showed no sign of offense. They were the personal guard to the fane and probably had heard worse. Mawyndul? felt awkward.

What must they think?

“The two groups share the same limitations, the same subjection to the dominance of nature,” Gryndal went on. “What we use for our delight, they are slaves to. We can tell the sun when to shine and grant the sky permission to rain, but the non-Miralyith Fhrey freeze to death when it gets cold—just like the Rhunes, Dherg, goldfish, and locusts. They are all the same. It’s time we understood this. We Miralyith aren’t just another tribe, but another being altogether.”

A new thought poked into Mawyndul?’s mind as once more he looked at the soldiers. What if the reason they don’t take offense is because they don’t think the same way I do?

Mawyndul? looked over at Alon Rhist, only a short distance away now. The fortress appeared different, less majestic, less heroic. The buildings had been hewn from rock, chiseled from stone by hundreds of workers. If Mawyndul? had wanted to, he could have made a better fortress by himself. The whole of Rhulyn, he realized, wasn’t grand or glorious at all. It was nothing but abject desolation.

“Compared with everyone else,” Gryndal told him, “we are gods.”

The prince’s teacher glanced over his shoulder and flicked his fingers. The five huddled Rhunes died in a burst of blood.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


The Full Moon




I swear, the reason for full moons is so the gods can more clearly see the mischief they create.

—THE BOOK OF BRIN





Nights were warmer. Leaves were full. Fireflies streaked the forest. This was Suri’s calendar, her chronological list of things needing attention. The stars announced the time for gathering wildflowers on the high ridge and collecting winter’s deadwood. She should have had a large bowl of dandelions soaking already. Tura had always liked the early batch the best. Spring edged toward summer and Suri was behind, but she had more important things to deal with—the moon was just shy of round.

Suri climbed the steps and entered the Great Hall of the lodge. Doing so at night made her think of death. Tura hadn’t said much on the subject of dying. Whenever they found a lifeless bird or fox, they’d buried it. “Replenishes the world,” Tura always said. But when the old mystic had become ill, she’d told Suri, “When I’m gone, heave my carcass on a pile of wood and set it aflame. Then let the wind scatter my ashes to the forest and field. I want to fly like dandelion tufts.”

The part Suri had latched onto was when I’m gone. It begged the question of where she was going. Suri asked a few times, but Tura’s answers were always vague. The woman knew how many veins were in the average maple leaf and insisted on following an insanely precise recipe for apple butter, but she talked of her death in imprecise generalities. She spoke of Phyre, the afterlife. According to her, it was divided into three sections: Rel, Nifrel, and Alysin. Rel was an indifferent place where most went after they died; Alysin welcomed only the greatest of heroes, and Nifrel took the truly evil. When pressed for specifics such as exactly where Phyre was or how she planned to get there, Tura changed the subject. Suri figured the old woman didn’t know. She found this frightening because Tura knew everything. After burning Tura’s body in a shallow hole, Suri pictured death not as a mystical place called Phyre but as a fiery pit. She was reminded of that each time she went to watch over the Miralyith.

Entering the dark hall—that pile of deadwood with its eternal fire—was like dying.

Firelight danced on the walls as the mystic crossed the big room, carefully avoiding the furs and refusing to look at the mounted heads in fear she’d see a friend.

That’s probably why Tura had me burn her. So these strange people of the dahl couldn’t hang parts of her body in their lodge.