The Windsingers Series: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Megan Lindholm

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СКАЧАТЬ reigned in his eyes, but his voice was cold.

      ‘Do you think you can make me sorry for my words, Mother?’ He nudged the heaped carcass at his feet. He voiced aloud the comparison that was in everyone’s mind. ‘They left more of Sven and the babies than they did of my bull!’ Again that brief eye-to-eye joining of Rufus and Ki. Cora seized his arm, shook it, but his body remained immobile. More folk were coming – young Kurt, with smaller Edward galloping behind him like a colt; Lydia, coming with flour on her hands up to her elbows, dust on her smock where she had wiped her hands – the whole family.

      ‘You have brought this upon yourselves!’ Nils’s voice rang out over them. Shorter he was than all of them, but he seemed to stand above them as he lectured them all in a patriarchal tone.

      ‘Your blasphemy has severed you from your Harpies, leaving them hungering for the tribute you were unfit to bring! Last night they smelled the stench of your evil thoughts, the depraved dreams you dreamed, when you should have dreamed of sharing and gratitude for the Harpies. Whence comes your anger, Rufus? Is it not a false pride? You would have kept back the best bull for yourself, when it was meet that he be offered to the Harpies! You have no right to anger. They have but claimed their just due! Look within your hearts and be ashamed! You are full of selfishness, forgetful of your dead and your duties to your ancestors and the Harpies. You are far, far from the reconciliation you seek. Your thoughts are evil within you, your minds infected with the poison Ki has spread here! Yes, Ki, I name you by name. Look about you! Do you rejoice in the wickedness you have done, the sorrow you have created?’

      Unwillingly, Ki looked about. Holland’s head was bowed, tears streaming from beneath her closed lashes. Kurt and Edward remained on the edge of the crowd, baffled by the discord among their elders, afraid to go to either father or mother. Lydia would not meet Ki’s eyes. Lars had turned his face from the scene. Many looked at her with eyes that focused all blame upon her. Cora looked at Ki, love and hurt and anger blended in a glance that pierced Ki like a sword. Worst of all, perhaps, was Rufus, who met her gaze squarely with empathy. Rufus stiffened himself in her sight and spoke, deliberately breaking Nils’s spell.

      ‘Fetch a shovel for me, Ki. And bring one for yourself. Let us together bury the bull that would have sired calves for us, sturdy ones that would not die in the spring of the shudders, but would have grown to hearty cows that give birth easily and live many a year. Help me bury my dreams, Ki. As deeply as you buried yours.’

      ‘Rufus has barred himself from our ceremonies! He is cast out among us, to be one of us only by his Human nature, never again to enlarge his spirits with his Harpy brethren.’

      Ki wondered if anyone else heard the frantic note in the old man’s voice. The elocutionary tones, his imperial stance among them, the hands that pointed accusingly and gestured commandingly; it was not enough to completely overcome the emotion of Rufus’s simple words. A few began to drift away from the scene. Ki could feel them slipping out of control, avoiding the unpleasantness, but not swayed to the old man’s words.

      ‘In the names of your dead!’ The people stopped moving, turned to Nils again. His eyes were starting from his head. His raised hands trembled. All were silent. Nils’s eyes worked steadily around the circle, pausing on each face. Some shifted uncomfortably as they met that gaze. Holland looked at him with hungry eyes. Marna bowed her head before it. Haftor returned it boldly, defiantly. The old man continued to extend his scrutiny of the crowd, avoiding only Rufus and Ki. He finished by looking deeply into Cora’s eyes. She seemed to lose flesh and shrink in on herself as he looked. ‘I have walked through your dreams and found you wanting. The poison in you has worked deeper than I feared. If you had a hand that was diseased with rot, would not you cut it from your body? Is not the blighted plant pulled from the field and burned, lest it spread its disease? Do you not remove the afflicted animal from the pens, to be killed and burned lest you lose your whole flock? So must I do now. And those of you who are sound and well must be brave, to endure the knife that cuts away the oozing limb, the brand that cauterizes the festering wound.’ Nils’s eyes stabbed out.

      ‘Lydia!’ he accused. She started, gave a half sob. Her thin hands rose to the front of her smock, clung there like tiny animals seeking refuge. ‘Leave our circle. Your pride and selfish independence have doomed you. Be alone, then! So, your dreams have told me, is your wish. Take no more counsel from your parents. They are lost to you. Go to your home and think on that!’

      Dazed and shaken, Lydia stumbled away from the group. Ki glared at Nils. Like a wolf, he had cut out the weakest of the herd first. Lydia’s staggering feet stumbled over the tufts of meadow grass. Her hands clung to her throat.

      ‘Haftor!’ Marna gasped as her brother raised his head. He gave her shoulder a quick and gentle squeeze, an odd half-smile on his face. Nils scowled. ‘You grin, do you? You smirk at the poison that sours your soul? Of small importance to you is your sister’s pain at this sundering! You are little better than an animal in your desire to follow only your own will. Go!’

      Haftor gently freed himself from Marna’s hand that clung to his arm. He set her hand gently aside from him. Head up, he strode from the group to catch up with Lydia and gravely take her arm. Her head fell onto his shoulder, and he took the weight of her body. He did not look back.

      ‘Kurt!’

      Cora gave a gasp of agony. Holland cried aloud. But the boy stood straight and defiant, as if to mime Haftor’s example. Rufus turned slow, amazed eyes to his boy who suddenly stood as a man.

      ‘You are young, boy!’ Nils scoffed at his brave show. ‘No one would suspect it from your face, but I have seen the evil in your dreams. You follow your father. You love your flocks and herds as he does, evilly, as if they were your children instead of mere beasts. When you looked on the dead bull, the flames of your anger flared and blossomed. You love your father and hate the Harpies. Go.’

      Bravely, Kurt stepped away from the group. He took a hand of paces. Then his squared shoulders began to tremble. Rufus, his hands red with the blood of his bull, looked as if his heart were breaking for his child. Kurt turned. Tears had begun a shining path down his face.

      ‘I am sorry, Mother. But only for how it pains you.’ He spoke softly, but his voice carried. Rufus stepped past the carcass of the bull, crossed to his son. His voice carried too. ‘Come, son. Today we shall bury our dreams with a shovel, you and I.’

      Holland crumpled sobbing to the earth. But she did not follow. Small Edward clung to her, afraid. Cora’s mouth opened. She croaked once, but it was no word she made. Old hands trembling, she reached out to the departing men. She took a tottering step. Nils seized both her outstretched hands.

      ‘Do not be weak now, Cora. The Harpies wish you to rejoin them. Have not they already come of their own will to take a tribute from your holdings? Their hidden ears hear our voiceless cries, our distress at separation. Purify your mind. Let go of that which holds you back. Open your mind to me, that I may lance that boil of poison you hide.’

      No one moved. Nils stared deep into the tortured woman’s eyes. She stared back at him, a bird gazing at a snake. Panic was on her face. All the hair on Ki’s body prickled up. She felt the danger swirl about her, begin to coalesce. No! she cried wordlessly and, knowing not how she did it, joined her strength to Cora’s. They stood together before the black door that Nils sought to open. Ki felt his eyes bore into her own; unseen hands plucked at her will. The buzzing in her ears drowned out all sound. Cora’s will began to slip away, to melt like fog in the sun. From deep in Ki’s throat rose an animal sound. Her hands hooked into claws. Ki stepped forward swiftly, silently.

      Suddenly Cora was gone. Her will had disappeared and taken with it the black door she guarded. Ki recoiled, as stunned as if she had walked into a solid wall. СКАЧАТЬ