Watcher of the Dead

by J. V. Jones

  I am outmatched, the Dog Lord realized. It was the first time in his fifty-three years he had experienced such a revelation. It filled him with something that—if he allowed it—could instantly ignite into panic. He’d been head-to-head against opponents faster than him before now. He hadn’t liked it but he’d survived. Always he had managed to be something more than his opponent. More experienced. More brutal. More lawless. This thing, though, this weighted shadow with knowledge of its own destruction in its eyes, was more relentless. And relentless beat everything else hands down.

  The Unmade gathered itself above him like ink poured into a glass of water. Vaylo lost track of the voided steel as it moved with speed, black against black. Down the line to the west he could hear soft exhalations gentled by surprise. The sound of men receiving blades through organs.

  “To the water!” someone screamed. It might have been Hammie Faa.

  It was a good instinct, but Vaylo doubted it would help. The Unmade were too fast. Turn your back on them and you were dead. His hope lay in the block of twelve around Nan and the bairns. They had space to move their weapons and the chance to learn from their fellow warriors’ mistakes.

  Vaylo thought he heard hoof beats as he swung his sword to vertical, barring his face and heart. He did not have time to wonder what that meant as the Unmade flexed for a strike. Ice cold air riffled the Dog Lord’s skin, and then time itself appeared to contract for Kil Ji was suddenly there at his chest and although he had watched and paid attention he had not witnessed its journey.

  It did not find him unready though. On his knees with his swordhilt braced against his thighs, he had detached his right hand from the grip and pulled out his handknife. He was an old dog and he knew a few tricks, and he had guessed the Unmade would come at him from the side. The instant he saw the Unmade flex, he’d raised the knife to his chest, angling it parallel to the ground so that it formed a cross with the sword. The Kil Ji had been aimed at the exact space now occupied by the point of the handknife. The force at contact drove the flat of the handknife’s blade deep into Vaylo’s ribcage. He heard the soft crack of cartilage, felt a bolt of pain in his heart. His buttocks made contact with the forest floor as he felt a second riffle of cold air. The Kil Ji had been withdrawn, but the air meant it was returning and Vaylo was out of plans and luck.

  We are chosen by the Stone Gods to guards their borders. A life long-lived is our reward. The Bludd boast, was that what he would remember at the last? An unfulfilled promise by the gods.

  This was not a life long-lived.

  Lacking the breath and coordination to wield the sword, he let it drop. The knife was his only friend now. Scooting backward on his butt, he braced the handknife against his heart, blade out. The Unmade moved like a cracked whip above him, and for one terrible instant the Dog Lord saw Kil Ji point-on.

  It was the eye of an Endlord. The cold and black oblivion at the end of all things.

  Vaylo knew for himself then what the boy in his vision had known. This was the worst way to die.

  I should have guarded the borders.

  Thuc. Thuc. Thuc.

  Vaylo heard three shots, saw a line of black smoke shoot from the Unmade’s torso. The creature rippled as if were made of water. For a moment Vaylo could see through it, see the sumac in the woods beyond. Its hand sprung open and the Kil Ji dropped from its grip. No thud marked the knife’s landing. The Dog Lord heard a soft hissing crackle as voided steel began its journey into the earth.

  Above him the Unmade failed. It wavered and shrank, smoke venting from its wounds as it lost form. Vaylo dug his heels into the ground and willed himself to standing. He didn’t have the stomach to watch that thing’s final moments. All around him men were still as shots continued to blast across the clearing from the south. Vaylo did not need to turn to know who fired them. In a night of mistakes, this perhaps had been his worst.

  The path they had taken hadn’t been cleared by Dhoonesmen or Bluddsmen.

  That path belonged to the Sull.

  Filled with deep ambivalence and many kinds of fear and pain, Vaylo Bludd went to greet his saviors.

  CHAPTER 15

  Names

  ASH STRIPPED OFF her dress and waded into the lake. Underfoot the lake bed was muddy and each step raised a swirl of brown muck. When the water reached her thighs, she sucked in a breath and dove. Kicking hard, she swam submerged toward the center of the lake. It felt good, icy and shocking, the water filling spaces around her body that nothing but air and clothing ever touched. Something brushed against her leg and she opened her eyes. Pondweed floated in the murk. An ancient cannon-shaped catfish fled ahead of her into the depths. The lake bed dropped sharply and the catfish disappeared from sight. Ash was tempted to follow, swim into the place where deep water and darkness met, into that coolly shadowed world and never come back.

  She floated a moment on the marchlands, her thoughts slowing to in-comprehension as the freezing water closed down her mind. A spark of life-force firing deep within her core roused her, and pushing her toes into the mud she propelled herself toward the light.

  March, that was the name her foster father had given her. Not his own name, Iss, but something he’d made up. A march was a border, neither in one land nor the other. She had been named in anticipation of her abilities. She could move between worlds, or that’s what the broken man in Ille Glaive had told her. The Blind, the place where the Endlords and their Unmade bided in the darkness, was hers to enter. She still didn’t really understand. In the Blind they wanted to touch her, to be chosen and summoned by her, but in this world she could destroy them with a single touch. One hair from her head was enough.

  Enough, she told herself, breaking the surface. A name is just a name.

  Her body felt heavy as she waded back to shore. Afternoon light filtering through the cedars dappled her skin. The air smelled milky and damp. As she toweled herself dry, she could hear mosquitoes humming. She did not hurry to get dressed. Insects never bit her.

  Green sheep bones and shards of egg shells littered the bank. The Naysayer said moonsnakes fed here. They were solitary feeders, he told her, except on nights where there was a full moon when they formed covens to hunt large game. Ash shivered and slipped on her dress. She had once seen a stuffed and mounted moonsnake in her foster father’s collection: a thirty-foot-long monster with pale iridescent scales.

  I wonder if it’s mine now. Should I march back to Spire Vanis and claim everything Iss owned?

  Frowning at herself, she tied her laces. The linen and whalebone bodice that cinched her dress was deteriorating. Stitches had come unraveled and one of the eyelets had torn. Continual washing had shrunk the fabric and it was tight around her belly and chest. Securing the final knot forced her breasts toward her chin.

  Ash’s frown deepened. Katia would have approved.

  If Katia hadn’t been dead.

  Katia. Ark Veinsplitter. And now Penthero Iss. Dead.

  Snatching up her lynx fur, Ash headed for the trees. The Naysayer had chosen a site in the woods. He would not set camp near open water. Cedars as big as watch towers instantly cut down the light. Walls of wet snow circled the trees, and Ash kicked them down with her boots. Her foster father was dead and there was a hollow place in her chest where feelings should have been. Not numbness, she decided. Absence.

  When the Naysayer returned from his ride this morning he had told her the news. “The Surlord is dead. Another has been made.”

  You did not question the Naysayer. If he had wanted to say more he would have done so. Ash had nodded. She found she could not be still, and had made her way to the water. That was six hours ago, and as she returned to the camp now she was grateful to Mal Naysayer for not following her down to the lake. For most of her life she had been alone in a room. Sometimes, for her peace of mind, she needed to return to that state.

  She could smell the Naysayer’s cookery as she approached the camp, and guessed he had laid fresh meat across the hot stones in ex
pectation of her return. The thought shrunk the hollow spaces in her chest, and she broke into a run.

  The first indication that something was different was the third horse. Mal’s blue was standing nose-to-nose with a glossy chestnut stallion. Ash’s gaze darted to the center of the camp. Two figures stood with their backs to the campfire. One was the Naysayer. The other was a stranger. He had a shortbow up and drawn and pointed right at her.

  Ash froze. Her first thought was Lan Fallstar, but the silhouette did not match. This man was leaner, and there was something in his stance—a kind of settled awareness—that suggested the experience of age. Slowly, the man lowered his bow arm, easing the tension on the string. As the bow relaxed, the wings of its recurve popped into relief. Even though Ash could not see the man’s face she knew he was Sull. All Sull bows at rest issued the same perfectly phrased threat.

  The man tipped his head in greeting. He was standing close to the fire. Cold air kept the smoke at his heels. Mal Naysayer stood to the side. He too held a bow, though Ash did not think he had drawn it. Meeting Ash’s gaze, he nodded an encouragement. Come.

  Ash did not move. She realized that both men had been startled by her approach, uncertain of her identity until she cleared the last of the trees. But still. It did not make a girl feel welcome. It made whatever had shrunk in her chest spring back to its original size. There was no family here. Some Sull wanted to protect her. Some wanted her dead. The trick was telling one from another.

  “I am Mors Stormwielder, Son of the Sull and Son of the Longwalker.” The stranger pitched his voice in the low range men used to calm horses. He rocked the bow in his grip as he spoke, presenting the string toward her in the Sull sign of truce. “This Sull asks pardon for drawing his weapon against you.”

  Hadn’t she heard that before, from Lan Fallstar? Ash decided the only thing that mattered here was the Naysayer’s presence. He wouldn’t allow anyone to harm her.

  She stalled her response, a technique she had learned from watching her foster father deal with the grangelords. The longer Iss made them wait upon his word the more anxious they were to hear what he had to say. “I am Ash March, Daughter of the Sull. I’ve ridden one of your horses across breaking ice.”

  Stormwielder barely blinked, but she could tell she had surprised him. Vertebrae aligned in his upper spine. “Did she serve you well?”

  “He did.”

  Ash understood then how her foster father must have felt during those long tense meetings when superior knowledge allowed him to score a point. It gave her confidence. The Sull might not be human but you could still better them.

  And he knew it. Raising his eyebrows, he smiled softly and said, “A friend of Angus Lok’s is a friend of mine.”

  So Mors Stormwielder had given away only one stallion. Ash remembered the beautiful bay horse that had belonged to Angus. That horse had saved her life. After she fled from Spire Vanis with Angus and Raif, Iss had sent Marafice Eye to pursue her. When Eye and his sept finally closed in on them at the Black Spill, Angus had sent Ash and the bay onto the fragile shore ice to escape. “Trust him,” Angus had told her. “He’ll lead you a fine dance. When all is quiet I’ll call you back.” Ash had trusted Angus completely. There had been something in his face. He had not been prepared to lose her.

  She took a step towards Mors Stormwielder. “Do you have news of Angus?”

  The Stormwielder’s eyes were the last color gray could be before it lapsed into black. His skin was deeply pigmented with metallic ores, and his cheek bones were so prominent they created undercuts all the way down to his jaw. A vertical scar sliced the length of his nose, perfectly centered like a seam. The scar was cured silver with age. Ash wondered if it was Dras Xaxu, the First Cut.

  “Angus is xalla nul.”

  Xalla nul. Ash knew the phrase, it meant cast adrift. Orphaned. Suddenly aware that her hair was a wet sheet around her neck, she shivered. “His family?”

  “Mor n’ura.”

  Ash had to think about the words. Mor meant dead. Ura, peace or rest. Dead without rest.

  “They were murdered?” She couldn’t keep the horror from her voice. She knew Angus Lok’s family. His wife Darra had welcomed her into their home. Ash knew how his daughters looked when they ate their dinner, how they sounded when they teased one another and laughed. She had wanted to be one of them. She had wanted a piece of that life.

  Mors Stormwielder did not speak his reply. He pushed back the cuff of his dark green saddle coat and bared the skin on his wrist. Four partially healed wounds cut lengthwise down his lower arm. Letting scars. The Sull paid for what they valued in blood.

  Ash shuddered. She recalled the journey to Angus’s house, the caution the ranger had taken along the way, the paths he had abandoned and the false trails he had laid. Angus Lok’s greatest fear had been leading an enemy to his gate.

  “Who killed them?”

  Mors slid back his cuff. “This Sull does not know.”

  Ash heard the words as a warning. Do not ask more. She wondered if she already knew the answer. Marafice Eye had tracked her and Angus as far as Ille Glaive. Sarga Veys had been riding with Eye’s sept, and Veys was capable of all kinds of inhuman acts. It was possible her foster father’s sorcerer had tracked her all the way to Angus’ door.

  The setting sun made long shadows for the cedars. Mal Naysayer had said the largest trees were over a thousand years old. Ash was aware of the weight of them. A dark mass pressing down on the earth. “Where is Angus now?”

  “Emori.”

  The name, spoken by Mors Stormwielder, caused Mal Naysayer to lower his head. Both men held themselves still for a moment and Ash had the sense of comradeship between them. These men had knowledge of this place.

  “Angus grieves,” Mors explained.

  Ash nodded slowly in comprehension. To the Sull grief was a location as much as a state of mind.

  “Come. Eat,” Mors said, stepping aside to make room by the fire. “The moon rises and we are three. Let us keep company in its light.”

  Ash crossed the clearing and sat on one of the rugs laid out before the fire. She was weary, and found herself content to let the Sull warriors tend the fire and feed the horses. Mors groomed the white with a bone comb. The little gelding whickered and nuzzled his neck. Mal Naysayer built up the fire, feeding it splinters of translucent coal. Ash wondered where he had been this morning. She had not seen any sign of habitation since they left the Fortress of the Hard Gate. Something must be close though. The Naysayer had possessed no such fuel last night.

  The Sull were silent as they worked, their movements efficient and well practiced. A split and gutted deer carcass had been set to freeze on a snowbank. When Mors was done with the gelding, he pressed the carcass to test its lividity. Dissatisfied, he turned it over.

  Ash tried to recall what else Angus had told her about Mors Stormwielder. She knew the stallion had been payment for a debt, and that meant Mors had owed a lot to Angus Lok. Blood and stallions were the highest currency of the Sull.

  “You are not a Far Rider?” she asked as he returned to the fire.

  Mors exchanged a glance with the Naysayer, and Ash guessed she had asked an impertinent question. When he spoke displeasure showed in his voice. “Dralku are called to different paths.”

  Dralu meant warrior, or something close to it. Drakka meant one who watches. Dralku, Ash decided, must be one who both watches and protects.

  Accepting a cup of broth from the Naysayer, she tried another question. “Who is the Longwalker?”

  Again, there was a glance between him and the Naysayer. Muscles in the Naysayer’s left arm—his letting arm—twitched.

  “She gave birth to this Sull,” Stormwielder said quietly. “And the One Who Leads.” Squatting by the fire, he turned his acutely-angled face toward the flames. Seeing his features this close, Ash had the sense that he was more alien, more wholly Sull than the Naysayer and Lan Fallstar. His pupils were fully dilated and something inhumanly
intricate was visible at the back of his eyes. “The Longwalker accepted Dras Morthu at the Lake of Many Minks. The lake is far from our paths and we did not find her . . . remains for many days.”

  Several things struck Ash as he spoke. Although Mors had chosen the words remains for her benefit, she guessed the information about the lake and the body was not meant for her, but for Mal Naysayer. It was possibly his first time hearing the details. Second, Stormwielder spoke Common with an ease that the Naysayer lacked. He’d almost certainly spent more time in the West. Third, in most places in the Known Lands, Mors Stormwielder would be considered a prince. He was brother to the leader . . . which made the woman who had died mother to a king.

  Ash finished the broth. It was rich with blood and liver juices and her body craved it. “I am sorry for your loss.”

  “Xhalia ex nihl.”

  All becomes nothing. They were silent after that, eating organ meat seasoned with cardamom, and mushrooms fried in deer fat. The temperature dropped and ice mist sizzled as it drifted across the flames. Ash thought she tasted salt in the air and wondered if they were close to the coast. She knew so little. No Sull she had ever met liked to talk. To them, to speak of something was to reduce it. As she watched the moonlight turn the mist into silver haze Ash understood that mostly they were right.

  They had not served her well, though. She had risked her life to become one of them—her human blood drained from her body to make way for Sull blood—but they had not helped her understand what it meant to be Sull.

  “Your mother,” she said to Mors Stormwielder, “will she go to the Far Shore?”