by Alex Bentley
I struggle to sleep that night. Not because of talk of the Hollow and the Dead City, even though both things trouble me. I struggle to sleep because I keep seeing the Leccans, Two Axes and Battle Axe, the life leaving them. They are the first men I have killed. And even though there had been no choice, it weighs on me more than I would have thought possible.
When, eventually, I do drift into sleep, I dream I am my father again. He is sitting on the foot of my bed in our roundhouse, holding the ragged blanket I could not be without when I was a toddler. He is thinking it is a good thing there has been a possible sighting of me west of the Forest of Leccan because that means his little Alys is still alive. But it also means Slek Mydra is one step closer to his prey. And Mydra’s failure to find Alys these last three months has put him in a mood so foul his normally quiet voice has dropped to a little less than a whisper. It is said that Mydra speaks quietly so that to hear him speak, you are forced to move within his grasp.
I awaken to the sound of rain. It is not too heavy, not like the night Aunty Elsam found me, but it is unpleasant enough. It doesn’t stop us, though. We are up, fed and astride Skep within the hour. The horse is strong enough to carry us both, but El recommends we give her a break every couple of hours. El has also clothed us against the rain, with hooded cloaks that have been treated with waterproofing oils.
“I will not try to change your mind,” says El. “But if you change it yourself, there is no shame in that. And when you are done, you are welcome back here. Even Glystless.”
“Thank you, El,” I say. “Please do not think my decision reflects badly on you.”
Her eyes widen.
“It reflects badly on the composition of your brain, child,” she says. She turns and walks back into her roundhouse and closes the door.
“What are you waiting for?” says Ethra. “Let’s go.”
I do not know. I do not know what I am waiting for. But for a good few seconds, I am unable to do anything but sit there, staring out at the road ahead and the rain. Then I give Skep a light squeeze with my calves and she begins to walk.
The rain stops after about an hour and we take down our hoods. We make good progress, even though the road—largely disused since the Abundance—is poor. I smile when I think that if I’d travelled this road in the opposite direction, I would likely be back at the bridge now with its straggis wasp nests and Eftas Hilder’s arrows still spiking the soil near where I hid in the red caitlins.
That seems such a long time ago now. And yet so very recent. Time is like the ground, the old saying goes: unnoticed till we fall.
“Where are you from?” I ask Ethra.
“Mella,” she replies. “Between the Forest of Leccan and the mountains.”
I’ve heard of it, I think.
“Where the apples come from?” I ask.
“The orchards are what the town’s known for, I suppose. The smell of apples makes me sick if I’m being honest. I prefer a big strawberry. Or yellowberries.”
The mention of yellowberries makes me think of Dwynan Furral, of the time we kissed, and of the time I last saw him, being chased by a near-dead scabwolf. I am certain he must have got away. I hope so. He might not have spoken to me after we kissed, but that hardly warrants the death penalty.
We spend the next hour, Ethra and I, talking about favourite foods, and then the rough road we are riding along merges with the wide South Road.
I have never seen a road so big. Fifteen horses could ride abreast on it with ease.
Before the sun begins to set, we pass several people heading north and are overtaken by several heading south at a brisker pace than us. As El had given us to expect, none of them show the least interest in us.
Before the sun sinks below the horizon, I take Skep off the road, down a short slope and into a copse of trees.
“We’ll stay here for the night,” I tell Ethra, climbing down from the horse then helping her do likewise. We lay out our bedrolls and place sprigs of drifan at the four corners of our camp, to repel biting and stinging insects. The food El gave us is largely flavourless—dried meat and fish, pipnuts and berries—but we are both hungrier than we would have thought possible after an uneventful day of sitting.
Ethra yawns and lies back on her bedroll, pulling her cloak over her as a blanket. I do the same, suddenly exhausted.
Ethra points up at the sky.
“Look,” she says. “There is Fryth, God of Peace.”
I just see stars. Thousands of them. Some like candlebugs, others like a faintly luminous dust.
“And there, right next to Fryth,” she continues, “is Guth, God of War. Some say they are one and the same. They say Fryth is simply Guth exhausted from battle, and Guth is Fryth driven mad by inactivity and boredom.” She points again. “And there is—” She sits bolt upright, eyes wide with fear. “Do you hear that?” she whispers.
I sit up and shake my head.
“I hear nothing.”
“There,” she says.
I shake my head again.
“What?” I ask.
“Whistling,” she says.
And then I hear it—faint or distant—the whistling of a grefa stone.
Chapter 13
A Coin on My Head
I hear the words of my Aunty Elsam.
You have two options when you hear the whistling of a grefa stone. Move away from it quickly until you are out of its sight. Or go to it and seize it by any means necessary. Flee it, or silence it. No other choices.
But El also told us not to travel by night. So fleeing is not an option.
Which leaves going to the source of the sound and silencing it.
I get out from under my blanket and grab my sword.
“Stay here,” I say to Ethra.
I turn slowly on the spot, trying to get a sense of the direction from which the whistling is coming. North, I think. Back the way we came.
A chill grips my spine and pulls my skin tight to my bones.
Could it be Slek Mydra? My stomach turns at the thought, and I swallow so hard my throat clicks like snapped fingers.
My stomach turns again when I realise the whistling is getting closer. The urge to decamp and move in the opposite direction as fast as we can is so tempting I almost relent. But if we flee by road, we will be out in the open and exposed. If we travel off-road, in the dark, we will likely get lost or hurt.
A third option presents itself. I do not have to go to the source of the whistling. I could wait for it to come to me. I could set an ambush. I sheath my sword, grab my bow and quiver and head up the slope to the roadside. I find a clump of caitlins, flowerless this time of year, but still leafy at the stem. Kneeling, I nock an arrow and wait. I can see perhaps a hundred yards before the road melts into blackness.
The whistling is getting louder, closer, but only by slow degrees. A cramp begins to prod at my left thigh and there is an ache in my lower back that is almost a burning.
And then I can’t tell if the whistling is getting closer.
I listen for a full minute, turning all my attention to the sound of the grefa stone, trying to block out all other sounds—insects, night birds and, somewhere, the shrill bark of a fox.
The whistling is steady. The stone is no longer on the move. I am certain.
Have I been seen? Is someone with better eyesight than I standing just beyond the range of my own vision, there where the road pinches into darkness? And what if he has a longbow, this nighthawk? I am well within range of such a weapon. I might, if I am very alert, hear the snap of the bowstring the instant before the arrow finds its mark.
I try to will myself smaller, less visible.
And suddenly I am furious at myself.
Three months ago, I was hiding in a cluster of caitlins, willing myself smaller, shrinking from the inexpert arrows of the idiot Hilder brothers. Am I no better now than I was then? Have all the aches and pains and harsh blows with the flat of Aunty Elsam’s blade been for nothing?
The grefa stone continues to issue its unfaltering whistle.
Seize it by any means necessary, I hear Aunty Elsam say. And I see her in my mind’s eye, nodding with very slight approval. Not bad. Not bad.
I ease myself out of my hiding placing and head back down the slope. But instead of heading back to the camp and Ethra, I make my way north alongside the road, weaving through saplings and clusters of caitlins. After about fifty yards, I head back up to the road in a half-crouch, emerging by another bunch of caitlins.
I listen. The whistling is closer now. I listen for a minute more. The stone is still motionless. I stare into what looks like the same patch of darkness I’d scrutinised fifty yards back.
I scuttle back down the slope and progress another fifty yards, then head back up to the road. Still no sign of the stone’s owner. But the whistling is so loud now he must be in sight. The stone cannot be more than ten yards away at that volume. A brief panic seizes me, and I have to stop myself from randomly loosing arrows into the darkness ahead of me in the hope that one or two might find their target.
Then I see it.
The grefa stone.
In the middle of the road. Just lying there as if dropped, like a lost object.
Only while it would be possible to lose a silent grefa stone—as it would be to lose any stone—it would not be possible, surely, to lose a whistling grefa stone.
Too late, I hear footfalls behind me, approaching fast. I know from my training with El that every instinct will tell me to turn and face the threat, to shield myself from whatever blow might fall.
But that is not the way it is done, I hear her say.
I drop to my right, loose as if in a swoon, and I hear a weapon cutting the air where I was crouching just a moment ago. Still loose—like a chatta puppet with its strings cut, El says—I let myself flop down the slope, away from the road. I lose my bow, but when I reach level ground, I spring up and draw my sword.
My attacker is already striding toward me.
He is not Slek Mydra.
He looks to be about my age, maybe a year or two older. He has the black hair of the Scur, those people who dwell at the far northern tip of Abegan. But they are supposed to be a sturdy folk, and this boy is lean, his face a little drawn.
As he approaches, he draws his sword. In his other hand is a leather sap. So, he wasn’t trying to kill me, just render me unconscious.
“Look,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt you.” There is a lilt to his voice that confirms he is of Scur blood despite his build.
I say nothing.
Do not indulge in fighting talk, I hear El say. It is a waste of breath and you will tire sooner. Let your opponent talk all they want.
“Put the sword down, girl. You’ll hurt yourself.”
He lunges forward and jabs the tip of his blade at me. I knock it away easily with my own. And he swipes with the sap. He is tall—half a foot taller than me—and his reach is long. I feel the wind from the sap as it passes an inch from my nose. When it has passed, I jab with my own blade. He skips back and swings the sap again, a wide arc. I meet it with my sword, splitting the leather. Stones spill from it, scattering about the ground, a few bouncing from my legs.
He drops what is now a useless scrap of leather and swaps his sword from his left to his right hand. I take advantage of the manoeuvre to swing at him. He manages—just—to parry. I press, giving him no opportunity to counterattack.
He is a reasonable swordsman. He parries using the minimum effort possible. He is waiting for me to tire, to slow. He keeps moving back, forcing me to stretch, to use more energy. If we go on like this, I will give him the opening he is looking for. I need to finish him quickly. I slash at him and when he parries, I jab hard. The tip of my sword strikes his gut, but a backward leap and his leather tunic prevent any penetration. I hear him grunt, though, as some of the wind goes out of him.
He swipes at me, but it is a move borne of panic or anger, and I knock it aside with ease. My counterattack strikes the shoulder of his right arm. It cuts him deep enough that the arm weakens and he almost loses his sword. He attempts to pass it back to his left hand, but I catch the weapon in flight, knocking it to the ground.
He steps back, hands raised in surrender.
“Okay, okay,” he says, catching his breath. “I yield. The coin on your head is not worth a gutting.”
“What coin?”
“The Jarl of Gafol has placed a bounty on your head,” he says. “Shame, I have to say. It’s a very nice head.”
“Who is it you think I am?”
“Alys Clainh. Daughter and son of Aryc Clainh. Alys Clainh, who endured the Ritual of the Seven Cuts and the Seven Cups. Alys Clainh, Glyster.” He lowers his hands. “But none of that matters to me. I’ll be on my way. It will be as if we never met.”
“I can’t allow that.”
“Look. No harm done. Well…” He glances at his shoulder. I can see fresh blood. It gleams wetly in the moonlight. “I’ll just be on my way. Penniless, but alive. As always.”
“I can’t allow that. If the Jarl finds out my father lied, he will…”
I will cut off your hands and put out your eyes and send you down to the Woever where the scabwolves skulk.
“Look,” says the Scur. “I’ll tell the Jarl I approached you, but the grefa stone was silent. Then I’ll say you got away. This is just about the coin to me. I’ll find another way to earn it.”
“I cannot trust a man who would creep up behind someone with a sap in hand.”
I step toward him, sword raised. He reaches for a dagger sheathed on his belt, but I know he will not have the opportunity to use it.
And then I see the Leccans, Two Axes and Battle Axe, the look on their faces as the life bled from them. Bled from them through the wounds I had inflicted. And then it is the Ritual of the Seven Cuts and the Seven Cups once more, and the Jarl is dragging the whetted flint from my hairline to the nape of my neck. I feel light-headed. The periphery of my vision darkens. My sword feels heavy in my hands. It droops.
I see the hilt of the Scur’s dagger come at me through the growing darkness. It is a pretty thing, white bone, carved in the shape of one of the Sea Ladies that are said to swim off the coast at Leax, with tail and scales where legs should be.
And then I see nothing, and the whistling of the Scur’s grefa stone out on the road pursues me into unconsciousness.
Chapter 14
Casmel Durn
It seems like my eyes are shut for only a moment, for a little more than a blink. But that can’t be right because my hands and feet are bound, and the Scur is sitting opposite me on a blanket, tending his wound. The wound I gave him.
Mine is not his only wound. He has removed his tunic and shirt and I can count ten scars from where I am lying in the dirt. He catches me looking and grins.
“Don’t covet what you can’t afford, lass,” he says. “I see you admiring my battle scars and more besides.”
Embarrassment turns to anger as I see my bow, quiver and sword at his feet.
“That is my father’s sword,” I say. “Lift it from the dirt.”
“It’s just metal,” he says. “Just metal sharpened to a blade and a point. It’s just a tool.”
But he picks it up and puts it on the blanket next to him.
“For what it’s worth, I am sorry,” he says. “But coin is coin. And my… I am in need of it. You would do the same in my place.”
“The Jarl will kill me. And he will kill my father.”
The Scur busies himself putting on his shirt and tunic. He does not meet my eye. Then he goes to his horse and makes an unnecessary task of adjusting the nosebag from which it is eating. It is a poor man’s horse, small and plain, but it looks well cared for.
“As I say, I am sorry for it.” He still refuses to look at me. “But if I do not bring you in, Slek Mydra will. At least I will take you in alive. You could plead for clemency for your father.”
“You have ged for tho
ughts if you believe such a thing. You’re an idiot as well as a coward.”
“Coward?” He turns now and not only looks at me, but glares at me. “Think of the risk I’m taking keeping you alive. You are as a beacon fire to the Cwalee. If I were a coward, I’d gut you where you lay.”
“Perhaps you lack the stomach for butchery,” I say. “Perhaps you are squeamish.”
“Squeamish?” He slides his dagger from his belt and walks toward me. “Would you have me gut you? Would you have me open you up from collar to girdle? I have no fear of a little blood and gristle.”
But his face is suddenly a rigid mask of fear.
He is staring past me. I twist and turn so I am facing the way he is looking.
Ethra Kell is standing at the edge of the clearing where the Scur has made camp. At least part of her is. The glistening, red part. Her skin is nowhere to be seen. She is aiming an arrow at the Scur’s chest. She appears to be grinning, but that is probably due to the absence of lips.
“In the name of Memynd,” the Scur mutters. “In the name of Memynd, God of Madness.”
Then, out of the darkness just beyond Ethra’s fleshless form, her skin appears, gliding, billowing. One arm is held out, the empty glove of a hand wrapped about a knife.
“Drop the blade,” says Ethra’s undulating skin, in that wispy, wind-through-a-keyhole voice.
“Dro’ the lade,” says the skin’s lipless counterpart.
I hear the dagger strike the ground with a gritty thud behind me.
“In the name of Memynd,” the Scur mutters again, so little strength in his voice he sounds on the verge of fainting.
“Now turn about and kneel,” says Ethra’s skin. “And put your hands on top of your head.”
“Turn a’out and kneel,” says Ethra’s body. “And ’ut your hands on your head.”
I hear scuffling as the Scur follows Ethra’s instructions. Both Ethras’ instructions.
Ethra’s skin glides toward me and settles on the ground at my side, her legs like discarded trousers. She puts the knife to work on the Scur’s bonds and, in a few seconds, I am free. I rub my wrists and ankles, even though I had not been bound so tight as to leave a mark. It is more the memory of the bonds I am trying to erase. It reminds me too much of the Ritual, of hanging like a foorstig. I stand and pain fills my head.
