The Ember Blade

by Chris Wooding

  Nothing had gone well since Salt Fork. His detour to Suller’s Bluff had proved disastrous. His plan to seize the Ember Blade, audacious and reckless with eight of them, looked like fool’s thinking with three. Yet still he wouldn’t be swayed from his path. Even if Yarin came through with the information they needed, even if Mara was the genius he said she was, they were a pitifully small force. What had been admirable conviction now looked like idiocy.

  Her gaze found Aren amid a bundle of blankets. His face was still puffy and discoloured, but his bruises were fading already thanks to a salve provided by Vika. Bruises Garric had given him.

  Her da had been right. Never rely on anyone. They’d only let you down.

  She got to her feet, shucking off the blanket, and found her bow and pack. No sense sitting still; she’d warm up faster on the move. ‘Going to scout ahead,’ she told Garric as she passed him.

  Garric grunted in acknowledgement, and said no more than that. He’d spoken little since the incident and wouldn’t meet Aren’s eye. Reading people wasn’t her strong suit, but she guessed he knew he’d gone too far. There was angry shame in the set of his shoulders. Even Keel looked at him differently.

  She suspected he was just biding his time till they reached a safe place and he could offload his charge, his mysterious oath satisfied. Then Aren would leave, and Cade and Grub with him, and probably the druidess, too. After that they’d be back to three.

  It wasn’t enough.

  She set her course towards a ridge to the east, where the sunlight was turning the grey sky blue. With luck, it would give her a view of the way ahead, and at least she could watch the dawn from there. Her da used to call it ‘the daily miracle’, back when there was joy on his lips. In that, at least, she understood him. Nature was where she found her wonders, and dawn was her time for stillness and contemplation, when she was brought face to face with the scale of creation and her insignificant place within it. It made her feel small and alone and perfectly contained. In that moment, there was nothing in the world but herself and the sun, and that suited her fine.

  She should have left them all behind after Salt Fork. She should have gone her own way long before now. It was just that the world was so vast, the people so numerous. She knew nobody, and had no idea how she might come to know them. The only home she’d ever had was lost to her. She could survive well enough in the wide world, but she was ill equipped for living in it.

  The idea gnawed at her as she laboured up the channels between the rocks. She was almost at the top now and the way had steepened. The camp was out of sight somewhere below, and the breeze off the warming earth ran fingers along her cloak.

  Garric, Keel and her. Three of them, to take on the near-impossible task of stealing the Ember Blade. How long before they all ended up like Osman?

  She shut her eyes, seeing him snatched away by that foul tent­acle, lost to the burning light.

  Strike east, she thought. Strike east, and keep going. Forget them. Elsewise when they fall, you’ll fall with them.

  But she wasn’t sure she had the courage.

  She gained the crest of the ridge and crept to the edge on her belly. Only fools and heroes stood on clifftops where they could be seen for leagues, and she was acutely aware that the dreadknights might still be hunting them.

  The land fell away in layers before her, mountains tumbling into hills and onwards to a flat horizon. Rivers snaked in the distance, burnished gold by the rising sun. Peaks and ridges carved up the light, and a morning mist softened the hard edges of the world with a serene amber haze.

  Her heart lifted as sunlight fell on her face. A new dawn, a new start, and new hope. The daily miracle.

  She saw a winding road among the shadows of the hills and traced it with her gaze. Not far to the north was a building: a large inn, its windows lit and smoke rising in wisps from the chimneys.

  Hot food and a hot bath, strong ale and a warm bed. The very thought made her light-headed. They could be there by late afternoon if they set off soon. By tonight, all their hardships would be forgotten, and they could drink to their fallen in the Ossian way. Perhaps she’d leave Garric and Keel and set off on her own afterwards, but that was a decision for another day.

  Companions passed. Grief passed. Everything passed in time.

  Her belly growling in anticipation, she scrambled off the ridge and hurried down to tell the others the good news.

  47

  They reached the inn as afternoon was turning to evening, and a golden light lay on the mountains at their backs. Lattice windows reflected the sun from diamond-shaped panes. It was a rambling two-storey building of stone and wood, weatherworn and somewhat ramshackle, with a sign creaking in the cold breeze by the roadside: The Reaver’s Rest. Above the name, crossed swords were carved in relief, and a skull with two faces.

  ‘Well, that’s vaguely sinister,’ said Cade as they trudged up the road, footsore and tired.

  ‘Grub say it could be called “The Certain Death”, still wouldn’t stop him going inside,’ the Skarl declared thirstily.

  ‘No need to fear, eh?’ said Keel. ‘All the reavers are long gone now. It’s named for the Battle of the Red Hills, which went on hereabouts.’

  The name tickled a memory in Cade’s mind, but for once he didn’t have a story to put to it. ‘I don’t know that one.’

  The prospect of staying at an inn had put Keel in good spirits and he was happy to tell a tale. ‘It was back in the time of the Fall, after the Second Empire crumbled and barbarians ran wild. Madrach Stonetooth was the warlord of a Brunlander clan that used to raid eastern Ossia. One of these raids went badly wrong and two of Madrach’s sons were killed. He swore he’d take his whole clan and reave his way to the coast and back in vengeance.’

  They’d reached the turn-off from the road and headed up a stony drive that led through an archway into a galleried stable yard. Fen eyed the place suspiciously as they approached.

  ‘Thing is,’ Keel went on, ‘there were a lot of warlords about in those days, and in Ossia the most feared was Baggat the Crude. His lands were right in Madrach’s path, so when Baggat heard about this oath, he gathered his clan, and they marched to meet Madrach’s forces. No one knows who won, just that it was a bloody day all round, and neither Madrach nor Baggat was ever heard of again. They wiped each other out, or near enough so it made no difference.’ He waved a hand to indicate their surroundings. ‘Lot of bodies in the ground hereabouts.’

  ‘The Reaver’s Rest,’ said Cade. It made sense now. He was already composing a more lurid version of the story to tell later.

  ‘I did not reckon you a Lorekeeper, Keel,’ Vika said. ‘How do you know all that?’

  ‘Been here before,’ said Keel. ‘The innkeeper told me.’

  Vika laughed. She was much recovered from her encounter with the beast of Skavengard. Her coordination had improved day by day, and she no longer mumbled to herself. Hearing word of the inn that morning, she’d washed off her paint in a stream, removed her druidic charms and trinkets and wrapped her staff in rags. With her sturdy boots and patchwork cloak of pelts, she looked more like a wayfarer than a druid now, a ranger of the wilds.

  They entered the cobbled stable yard. Horses snorted in their stalls and the scent of hay and dung was in the air. A group of stable boys were hitching a cart to a grey mare while a few travellers leaned on the gallery banister, idly watching the activity below.

  A thickset young man with a face made for scowling came over, wiping his hands on his trousers. Garric drew out a gold half-falcon from a pouch. ‘We want rooms and hot bath for us all, and a meal fit for seven starving souls.’

  Ruck barked, annoyed.

  ‘Eight starving souls,’ Garric amended. ‘What’s left over, you can keep for your trouble.’

  The stable boy brightened. ‘Aye, Master. We have Krodan or Ossian baths—’

  ‘Ossian,’ said Garric. ‘It’s our country, isn’t it?’

  That was dangerously clo
se to sedition and it made the stable boy nervous. He glanced about as if the Iron Hand might spring out of nowhere. ‘I’ll see to it, Masters,’ he said, and hurried off.

  Keel raised an eyebrow at Garric’s generosity.

  ‘It’s been a difficult path we’ve travelled,’ he said. ‘Tonight we feast for the dead.’

  Aren groaned with joy as he sank into the bath, letting the warmth seep into his knotted and abused muscles. No pleasure had ever been so hard won; no kiss from Sora as sweet.

  ‘Nine, that’s good,’ Keel declared, lowering himself into the enormous wooden tub they all shared. ‘I thought I’d never be clean again.’

  Aren watched the Bitterbracker through the rising steam as he settled himself. A black kraken tattoo snaked its tentacles up the side of his taut and hairless torso. Garric, Cade and Grub were soaking nearby, sitting on the underwater bench that ran round the edge of the tub. He’d seen Cade naked a hundred times, but he was different now from the boy who’d hunted she-wargs with Aren in the early days of summer. His puppy fat had melted in the Krodan camp, though he’d always be broad in the shoulder. Garric, under his armour, was thickly furred and scarred with a dozen wounds, but none were as ugly as the puckered slash across his throat. Grub was squat and stocky with a hard, round belly, and the full extent of his tattoos was now revealed. He was a canvas, his body neatly divided into light and dark, the artistry marred only by the black swipe that had been drawn across his eyes.

  Krodans were prudish and bathed in private, but Ossians did most things in groups and were unashamed about their bodies. Nudity was unremarkable to them, and they found it strange that their neighbours worried about it so much. They bathed together as families, and communal bathhouses could be found in every Ossian town; indeed, older Ossians sometimes refused to do business anywhere else. They had a proverb: ‘You don’t know a person’s heart till you’ve seen their skin.’ Stripped of finery, everyone was equal there, and it was one of the diminishing number of places where you were unlikely ever to see a Krodan.

  The men occupied one side of the tub while Vika sat on the other, with Ruck curled up on the floor nearby. Baths were mixed more often than not, with a rope dividing the genders or – as here – a polite gap.

  Aren had been taught to think of the Ossian way of bathing as uncouth. In Kroda, only prostitutes and low women showed a lot of flesh. But as much as he’d admired Krodan ways, he always found bathing by himself lonely and boring, and it was hard to avoid communal bathing and swimming when most of your friends were Ossian and you lived by the sea. Now, as he soaked in water hot enough to boil an eel, sweat trickling across his scalp, he wondered why anyone would want to do it any other way. They’d won this respite together; it was only right they should enjoy it together, too.

  This is the first hour of the rest of my life, he thought.

  His face still hurt from the beating Garric had given him, but not enough to ruin his mood. He’d fulfilled his promise to Cade, seen him through horror and hardship to safety. The world had done its worst and he’d overcome it. He felt a deep calm, a new confidence in himself.

  There was a splash from behind him; Fen washing herself down. Bathers were expected to clean themselves before soaking in the tub, and for that purpose there was a sunken stone trench and a well, where buckets of mountain water from an underground stream had been drawn up ready. Aren averted his gaze as she padded over to the tub, but he was surprised by how readily his imagination filled in for his eyes. The girls he was drawn to had always been joyful, teasing and curvy, and Fen was the opposite; yet even though he mastered the urge to look at her, it took an effort of will to do it.

  He turned to Cade, seeking something to distract himself. ‘I think I might never get out of this bath,’ he said.

  ‘Uh?’ said Cade. He was mesmerised, his face slack, gawping at Fen as she slipped into the bath next to Vika.

  Aren shoved him on the shoulder. Cade jerked out of his trance, saw Aren grinning at him and blushed.

  ‘Lost you there for a minute,’ Aren said, then lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Anyone ever told you it’s bad manners to stare in a bathhouse?’

  Cade scowled and huffed. ‘I was thinking, that’s all.’

  ‘I bet you were. What happened to Astra, then? Remember her?’

  ‘What happened to Sora?’ Cade countered acidly. ‘Remember her? Squarehead pain in the arse who had you under her thumb, and nobody knew what you saw in her?’

  Aren laughed. ‘Fair enough. I suppose they’re both in the past now. Shoal Point’s in the past. The future’s what we’ve got to look forward to, and it’s as changeable as steam.’ He waved a hand in the air to illustrate his point, setting the haze over the water to billowing, but Cade’s attention had already drifted back to Fen.

  Aren gave up. He recognised the signs of infatuation. Cade was lost.

  Fen noticed Cade staring and met his gaze coolly. He responded with one of his extra-wide smiles he reserved for girls he’d set his heart on. It was a grin of such gormless width and surpassing idiocy that Aren feared the top of his head would fall off. Fen looked faintly startled by it.

  Keel, who was sitting with his elbows on the edge of the tub, threw back his head and began to sing. His voice was deep and surprisingly mellifluous, and it rang from the damp walls.

  Borek, he were a whalin’ sort,

  Sing hey-o! Hey-o!

  A lusty lad with an appetite

  And a keen shot with a harpoon.

  It was a shanty Aren was vaguely familiar with, having heard it drunkenly bellowed from the fishermen’s inns in Shoal Point more than once. Cade nudged him excitedly; being a dockside boy, he recognised it, too.

  A tale I’ll tell of a whale he sought,

  Sing hey-o! Hey-o!

  A tale of revenge and rage and spite

  And the journey that brung him to doom.

  Unexpectedly, Garric joined in then, his rough, phlegmy voice a salty accompaniment to Keel’s smooth bass.

  Hey-o! Hey-o! Stay abed, Borek.

  Hey-o! Hey-o! The seas are cold alright.

  Hey-o! Hey-o! Your maiden’s arms will warm you.

  Hey-o! Hey-o! Don’t you sail tonight.

  Cade began singing along uncertainly as they swung into the next verse, dredging the words up from his memory.

  Well, Borek he hunted a dreadful whale,

  Sing hey-o! Hey-o!

  A monstrous beast of terrible size

  And he swore to bring it to land.

  ’Twas ninety feet from nose to tail,

  Sing hey-o! Hey-o!

  Out of the water it did rise

  And its teeth went snap on his hand.

  Now Cade joined in, too, and Vika and Grub sang along to the ‘Hey-o!’s even though they didn’t know the rest of the words. The rhythm, the joyous pull of the song, was infectious. Aren found himself wanting to sing, though he’d never been able to hold a tune.

  Hey-o! Hey-o! Stay abed, Borek.

  Hey-o! Hey-o! The seas are cold alright.

  Hey-o! Hey-o! Your maiden’s arms will warm you.

  Hey-o! Hey-o! Don’t you sail tonight.

  Half a man he returned to port,

  Sing hey-o! Hey-o!

  He raised a toast to his missing paw

  And his mates drank a jar to his wound.

  ‘I’ll rest no more till that whale is caught.’

  Sing hey-o! Hey-o!

  His wife begged him to sail no more

  But he launched by the light of the moons.

  As the third chorus approached, Aren could hold back no longer. Even Fen got swept up in it. ‘Hey-o!’ they hollered and sang in raucous discord, with grins on their faces. Grub splashed the water with his hand and Garric thumped on the side of the tub with his fist. Ruck, who’d woken up, ran in circles and barked.

  A dreadful storm blew up that night,

  Sing hey-o! Hey-o!

  The wind did blow and the waves did crash

&nb
sp; And the whale, it breached to his aft.

  ’Twixt man and beast was a deadly fight,

  Sing hey-o! Hey-o!

  Then the whale flicked his tail with a mighty splash

  And Borek went down with his craft.

  ‘Hey-o!’ they roared again. Steam billowed and water slopped over the side. Aren sang at the top of his lungs, not caring who heard him or what they thought. A giddy sense of release swept over them: they were here, now, alive against all the odds. Naked, unguarded, they sang together, and Aren felt the barriers collapse between them. In that moment they were his companions, his friends, and they were all in it together.

  This tale I tell to caution ye,

  Sing hey-o! Hey-o!

  A vengin’ heart will see you dead

  And set your wife to weep.

  A foolish man to fight the sea,

  Sing hey-o! Hey-o!

  Now Borek’s found another bed

  Down in the watery deep.

  Hey-o! Hey-o! Stay abed, Borek.

  Hey-o! Hey-o! The seas are cold alright.

  Hey-o! Hey-o! Your maiden’s arms will warm you.

  Hey-o! Hey-o! Don’t you sail tonight!

  The last chorus was the loudest of all and ended with a cheer and laughter. Ruck barked at them, and even Garric was smiling.

  You don’t know a person’s heart till you’ve seen their skin, Aren thought; and for this brief time at least, all their hearts were happy.

  48

  ‘So the king summoned Josper to his castle and met him in his throne room, with all the nobles of the land assembled.’

  Cade took a bite from the chicken leg in his hand, swaying slightly as he surveyed his audience. Mouth still full, he raised his voice theatrically as he took on the role of the king.

  ‘“You’ve slain the draccen that has plagued my lands, restored my fortune and rid me of my treacherous half-brother! Ask, and I will grant you any boon! Titles! A castle! A chest of gold!”’

  Aren wiped his mouth on his sleeve, for lack of a napkin. His belly was full to bursting, he was nicely drunk and he was enjoying the show. The table before him was crowded with platters that had once held roasted birds, crackly bacon, fluffy potatoes with crunchy skins, warm bread and dripping, cheese and apples and pickles. There was little left of it now. The others lounged in their chairs, sated, jolly with ale and ready to be entertained with a story of Josper the Accidental Dawnwarden. Only Grub was distracted; he was devouring a marmalade-encrusted ham hock with terrifying industry.