Cruhund stared down the scree hill and then swept his gaze across the ramparts of his keep. The wind whispered through the distant pines. The stench of the animals – the horses and goats and chickens in the courtyard – rose. He ran his hand over the cold stone of his keep. Even with the sun he could not imagine the stones being able to hold the heat.
Something was different. Something was missing.
“The crows,” said Cruhund. “They’re gone… Even the crows have gone.”
“They’ll be back,” said Griope, half his face twisted eternally. “Death eaters. They always come back.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
THE STENCH OF Little Boy’s charred corpse faded. Black trunks sealed Spear in from all sides. He rode his horse along a furrow beaten into the thick carpet of decaying pine needles.
Seana rode on the saddle behind him. But she did not touch him and had kept silent since they had left the bridge and rode towards the keep. He sniffed, trying to smell her, but only found the moldy decay of the ground. It was as if she did not exist.
His body ached. Too many days traveling, too much fighting, and the long night in the rains.
“Valda deserved better than she got,” said Seana, finally breaking her silence.
“We’ll get the last head for her.” He rubbed at one knee. A dull pain tracked along the outside and down his shin.
“Did she even want that?”
“More than anything. She went after them, and now we finish what we started.”
“No more gems.”
“There’ll be coin,” he said.
“The truth comes out. Now I understand why you are pushing for the keep.”
“I made a promise to take those five heads and I will. That’s the truth. But if by taking Cruhund’s head, I can lay claim to the keep and whatever coin might lie in its walls, I will.”
She let out a sharp breath of disgust.
“You haven’t walked in my shoes,” he said. “This is the chance I’ve been waiting for. What we’ve all been waiting for. All these years! I can matter again! All that was lost can be regained and from the bastard who stole it from me. I know he’s squirreled away bags of coin in the keep. With that, I can build an army! I can gather men! We can be more than just a ragtag band preying on pilgrims. We can lay claim to a territory. I can become a border lord, and you, Seana, can become my queen.”
She laughed. “I have no interest.”
“This again?”
“We will die here in the border lands.”
“True, we’ve been dying but now we’ll have a chance to survive. To rise above! To beat back everything that tears us down!”
“Even with a castle and coin we’ll die outsiders in this no-man’s land. The North calls.”
“For you,” he said. “Not for me.”
Her hand touched his shoulder and her lips came close to his ear. Her chest pressed against his back, and he could not contain the sudden gathering of his breath.
“I was hoping you would have changed. At least for me,” she said. “See the things in life that really matter. See that we matter. Did the death of Val not open your eyes?”
“To the things that really matter. Coin, food, safety, my rightful place. These are the things that matter.”
“So that’s what matters? Only that.”
“What else is there? With these things we can be happy. Without them what?”
“I don’t understand you, Spear. What happened to you? Why can’t you return to the North? Why can’t we return to our people? We’ve been away long enough.”
“If I return there, I’m accepting death and I’m not ready to do that.”
“What haven’t you told me?” she asked.
He listened to the forest, the underlying layers of birdsong, the settling of fallen wood. The youngest tips of the pines bobbed in a gentle breeze, their movement exaggerated by the contrast of light from the clear skies. Seana’s hand slipped from his shoulder and it was as if he rode alone, the others behind him forgotten. He almost said nothing but then he spoke.
“After Cullan, I knew I could never go back. I was right to burn that abomination to the ground. Burn what the Dhurmans tried to plant on our lands. A blight on the Black River. I put to flame all that could have been mine. But it had to be done. Not just for me, but for the North. Or at least, that’s what I thought at the time.
“After I burned the fortress, I crossed the river one last time and set the murdered clansmen free. Always heads, Seana, always. They wanted to send a message and I wanted to set them free. I suppose I hoped I could be reborn. From walking with Scyldmund and burning the outpost, to freeing the spirits of the men I killed.
“I rode north, alone, under the eternal dark clouds, the wind singing in the heather and grasses at my feet, the soft bog beneath my horse’s hooves. I was unencumbered. Dhurma had been purged from me. I was returning to my land, my people, my birthright.
“I wandered on my own for a few weeks, hunting, fishing, sleeping beneath the stars, the cold earth my bed. I stopped at a few small clan holdings. I should have seen it then. The distrust, the guarded looks, the hatred of the outsider. I thought it was the weak putting up their defenses. I should have known it was the blood of the North. The rule not the exception.
“My journeys led me north and east, following an unspoken desire. I needed to return to where it all began. I needed to return to Lake’s End, where the Hounds of the North had formed during those summer games. There, we proved our mettle among the clans. Masters of the bow, the horse and wrestling. We were untouchable. We were the promised sons; now, after all this time, I was returning – a changed man no doubt, but the promised son returning to the folds of the clans.
“Standing on the hill overlooking the clan holding, the lake, and the great endless forests beyond, it looked as if nothing had changed in all those passing years. It felt as if I had just left a week before and that the lost decades were a long dream from which I was waking.
“But right away I was challenged. Brash young spear-bearers looked me from head to toe, whispered behind cupped hands, and then finally escorted me with bared blades to the village where I had spent my youth.
“I sat with the elders, men not much older than me. They held their arms wide to me for they already had heard the story of the tower and the burning of Cullan. But each embrace was met with grim eyes.
“I tried to be who they wanted me to be. I tried to fit back into the life of the clan. I tried as hard as I could to return to the North.
“I rode with the patrols ranging far south to spy on the gathering Dhurman legions. I crept along the edge of the Dark Wood, bow in hand. But even though I had returned, I no longer belonged.
“The eyes of the Shield Maidens turned from me, not with shyness, but with pinch-lipped disgust. The cups came to me warm and sour, not even enough mead to wet my lips, and even if I tried to pass the cup to another sword brother I was met with shaking heads.
“I suppose I could have endured, been patient, trusted that with time, my sword and heart would prove myself. My deeds would erase my past. I would no longer be the traitorous Hound of the North. I would no longer be the iron hand of Cullan. And to some, I would no longer be the murderer of Fennewyn, the killer of the hope of the North. Already the tales had begun to twist.
“I could have endured but for that one morning. I rose earlier than the others, all exhausted from a long night before the fire celebrating the betrothal of one of the chieftain’s sons, a sallow-eyed youth whose only desire seemed to be to sleep in and get in his cups ahead of any of his companions.
“Lake’s End was quiet that morning, and I wandered down to the shore to watch the lapping of the waters on the mud and rock. A few of the camp dogs followed me but when they saw that I had no food, they turned back towards the smoke from the roundhouse. The dogs trotted to the clatter of wooden bowls and the chop of knives.
“I could have returned with the dogs but instead I s
kirted the edge of the lake towards the small shacks and lean-tos that butted up against the eastern shore. These were the homes of the tolerated: the old men and women without kin, the gleaners who picked through the midden pile, the shadows in the night that scavenged after the campfire had near died, the dogs scampering with their tails tucked between their legs.
“Eyes peered out of the shadows of their hovels, eyes buried in weathered flesh. I don’t know what drove me that morning to visit this camp of outcasts and I was already turning on my heel to head back to the warmth of the fires when I saw him.
“It was Grimbeard the Gray. I had thought him dead. For why else would a hero of old be trembling in the morning mists, alone, abandoned by the people he had saved from dark scourges? But it was him.
“His beard was ragged, thick with twig and old cord. A few greasy strands of gray hair clung to his balding head. His eyes glinted from a face so leathery it looked like a mask. His once hulking frame had been reduced to sharp shoulders and jutting joints. Even the tattered cloth in which he was cowled swallowed him.
“ ‘Grimbeard?’ I asked. ‘Why are you here? Do they forget everything you did for them? Holding the Eyrie’s Pass against the Demon-Spawned? Strangling the words out of the Warlock of the Winds? Why have they left you here?’
“His gaze wandered, to the rippling sparkles on the water, to the hopping sparrows in the mud, and then finally found me. But he was blind to the world. He stank of piss and shit. ‘Sword brother?’ he begged. ‘Darkness all around. Mercy on an old clansman.’ ”
“His upturned palms trembled before him, shaking uncontrollably. These same hands had slain the enemies of the clans. These same hands had held steady while armies bore down on him. These same hands lifted the clans. Now, trembling and begging.
“So I gave him mercy. I drove my sword through his heart. Then I lifted him into my arms, as light as if he were a child, the husk of a man who in my mind had always been a giant. I carried him back to Lake’s End. Any who saw me pretended they did not. I lay him in the finest boat I could find, the boat of one of the upstart chieftains. I blanketed him with kindling and hay, set the boat to fire, and pushed it out into the lake.
“The others had come now, screaming about the boat, cursing my affliction, swords drawing, but I simply walked past them, saddled my mount and rode. I only turned when I reached the top of the hill. The boat had drifted far and burnt well, orange flames and a spiraling black smoke and I knew Grimbeard rode that smoke, charging up it, released from this world, finally allowed to enter the hall of heroes, and take his long overdue place on the mead benches. Maybe I laughed, maybe I howled to the heavens, maybe I said nothing. I don’t really remember but what you need to know is that I rode from the North, from my clan, from my birth land, and I vowed never to return.”
The trees further up the slope, black clustering trunks, thinned and the scree field rose, a graveyard of white chalky stones. Spear squinted against the sudden glare. The sheer face of the keep lay before him.
“We are here,” he said. But as he turned, he saw that Seana was no longer there. Somehow she had slipped away while he told his tale. He had not even felt her leave. She walked at the rear of the party alongside Kiara.
“We leave the horses here,” he said, raising his voice. He wanted to look to Seana to see if she had heard his words, but he could not. “We’ll go by foot. And show them no mercy!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
SPEAR’S CREW WAS nearly to the top of the scree slope when the first wave of arrows blackened the sky.
“Take cover!” screamed Biroc.
Spear dodged to the right, wedged himself behind a boulder and created a roof over his head with his shield. The arrows skittered and broke against chalky white stones, small puffs of dust created by the impact.
The others had also taken cover.
“Bastards!” cursed Biroc with his back leaning against a large square stone. Broken arrows lay near him. “Think they can hit me!”
“You are the biggest target,” said Bones peeking around to the keep.
“They saw my bow. They fear me.”
“You’ll never make it up the hill.”
“No need to.” Biroc fitted an arrow and in a single motion drew the bow, turned to the keep and released. The arrow whistled out of his hands. A figure tumbled over the edge of the wall, making a quick somersault before cracking against stone.
“Lucky shot,” chided Bones.
Suddenly, a cluster of arrows screeched against the rocks behind which Biroc hid. Two pierced his shield.
“They’re grouping their shots,” hissed Kiara.
“Probably Longbeard,” said Bones. “He knows you can shoot. Never did trust that bastard. Does his head count for a gem?”
“Spear, what are we going to do?” Seana pressed behind the smallest of rocks.
Spear worried that she was too visible. Meanwhile, the keep was still another thirty yards away, up steep uneven ground that slid out from under foot; with every step, the bandits would be within the accurate range of Cruhund’s archers. Spear hoped none of the bloody-mouthed bastard’s mercenaries had more than a passing proficiency with the bow. As glad as he was to have Biroc on his side, they were still pinned down. What the hell had he been thinking? How did he expect them to get close enough to the wall? And then what? How could they get through the gates?
But rage boiled in him. The memory of Valda falling, of Little Boy butchered, of the bodies in the road. Cruhund needed to die.
“Won’t be an easy way up the slope,” said Spear.
“Only a bloody one,” said Bones.
Spear clenched his teeth. The morning mist had evaporated. Nothing hid them from the archers on the wall of the keep. If anything the bright sun made their armor and swords shine more brightly and made them easier targets for the archers.
“We should turn back,” said Bones.
The broken arrows lay another ten yards down the slope. The arrows could easily travel another twenty or thirty yards. Maybe not accurately but, if they shot in clusters, the archers only needed luck and time before their arrows would find flesh. If the bandits retreated, they would die.
“Turn back to what?” asked Kiara. “I’d rather walk into death. For what they did to Little Boy, they need to pay. No choice but to press forward.”
“We got lots of choices,” said Bones, “and I prefer the one that doesn’t lead to my death. Biroc, can’t you just pick them off one by one?”
The fat archer laughed. “Pretty sure if I poke my head over and take a look, I’ll return a porcupine.”
“How are you going to get us out of this, Spear?” asked Seana.
“When darkness falls, we can make for the walls.”
“All day here?” asked Bones. “We should have just waited for night before leaving the safety of the woods. Even when darkness comes, they’ll know we’re approaching. They’ll be waiting for it.”
“They knew we were coming,” said Night. The Hound crouched behind the same rock as Spear. He had not even seen his old companion approach, had not even remembered him even walking with them through the forest, but here he was, at Spear’s side.
“Can you get inside the keep?” asked Spear. “You? Your cloak?”
“I can’t walk through walls. Not yet.”
“He didn’t just say that, did he?” asked Bones.
“So then we wait for the sun to set.” Spear ignored looks of defeat on his companions’ faces.
“There is a crack in the keep wall,” said Night. “A man with heart could climb that crack and reach the catwalk above. He’d have to not be afraid because once he was over the wall, he would be alone against all the others inside the keep. But that same man, not afraid of dying, could also pull the chain and open the gate.”
Bones laughed. “A man not afraid of stupidity would be a pincushion for arrows before he was more than ten paces beyond one of these boulders.”
Night nodded. “Tru
e. Unless the man could not be seen.”
“So you’ll creep in your cloak to the wall?” asked Spear.
“No,” said Night, “but I will bring you to the wall of the keep unseen. The rest is for you to figure out. You will have to be the one who opens the gate.”
“This is foolish. We should just wait for night,” said Biroc.
“I’m right here,” said Night. “No need to wait a moment longer. So what do you want to do, Spear?”
They were trapped. Even as they heard Night’s proposal, another flurry of arrows descended on them, this time where Seana hid and even though she held her painted shield above her, an arrow slipped past and gashed open her leg. Damned painted flowers on her shield were a tempting target for the archers. If the archers kept this barrage, Spear and his crew would not last until dark.
He could not let any more of them die. He had already lost Little Boy and he had failed Valda as well. Both he had lost both by hesitating; now was the time to go right after Cruhund. One more head. That’s what he needed.
“What do I need to do?” asked Spear.
“You need to do nothing,” said Night. He opened his arms and his cloak floated as if he were tossing a wide fishing net. A veil of darkness fell over Spear.
Night’s voice sounded like a whisper from miles away. “We must hurry. You cannot stay within the cloak for long or else you will be hopelessly bound, and the cloak won’t tolerate the both of us.” A titter of nervous laughter escaped Night’s lips.
Beneath the cloak the world was shaded, the land veiled as if through a fine gray mesh. Seana and the others were smears of light against a dark landscape. Her skin burned blindingly white and her eyes and mouth smudged, stretched and distorted as if the pain she wore on the inside was no longer hidden. The others appeared the same: white exaggerations of their essences. Kiara, her eyes black holes of sorrow; Biroc, his mouth a thin grim line of black lips; Bones, exactly that, his skin seemingly melted away to reveal old bones as hard as stone.
Five Bloody Heads (The Hounds of the North Book 3) Page 17
