Watcher of the Dead

by J. V. Jones

  “Xaxu ull,” the Sull murmured as he slid the point of his blade a third of an inch into the meat between Raif’s third and fourth rib. First blood.

  It took a moment for Raif to realize the blade wasn’t going any deeper. There were rules here he didn’t understand. Dropping to his knees, he waited for the pain to register. His body was working—blood was seeping through his undershirt—but although he was aware of the site of the cut he didn’t feel any sharpness or sting.

  “Into the ring.” The Sull had cleaned his blade of blood and he used it to point the way forward. Raif didn’t understand the rules but he understood that by tagging his opponent’s heart the Sull had regained what had been lost when his spear was forced from his grip. Sull pride and clan pride were identical in this.

  It seemed an important thought and Raif tried to hold on to it as he took up position in the center of the ring. A sword had been laid on the ground for him, its blade aligned with true north. Again he had the sense that he had done this before, fought here before, but the memory wouldn’t dislodge. Night was falling and the surrounding forest was as deep and vast as the Rift. Impurities in the tar made the torches burn green. As Raif picked up the sword he caught sight of something on the blade. With a shock he realized it was his own reflection. The face plate made him a monster. The armor was thickly segmented like dragonhide and the person living behind it looked trapped. For the briefest instant Raif recalled Raven Lord. Armed and armored for thousands of years, dead beneath the ice.

  Raif shuddered

  “You failed last time, Clansman,” Yiselle No Knife said quietly from just beyond the circle. “Failed yourself and your friend.” She stepped to the side, revealing a small huddled figure behind her. Addie Gunn.

  “Fuck them, Raif,” he shouted. He was shivering and he no longer had a right hand.

  Raif took a step back. Disorientation and horror hit him like a blast. What had he done? Addie’s hand was gone. That was real—he could see the bandages at the stump of the cragsman’s arm—but he couldn’t remember how it had happened.

  “You lost,” No Knife told him. With a small movement of her gloved hand she ordered Addie to be removed. Raif’s gaze jumped to the cragsman’s face as he was pulled away. Addie Gunn was waiting for him. There was water in Addie’s eyes but the gaze behind it was clear and searching. He was a sheepman, Raif understood instantly, watching out for his sheep.

  Who would watch out for him?

  I will. Watcher of the Dead.

  You didn’t have to understand the rules of a game to win it. Raif weighed the sword, and cut air to get its balance. Addie’s face was no longer visible but Raif tracked the cragsman’s silhouette as he was escorted away from the fight circle. A second silhouette caught his eye and he tracked that also as it moved in the opposite direction. His night vision was up and running and his body felt wholly his own. Even pain was returning to him. The wound on his side tingled unpleasantly. He welcomed it. It was unnerving not to know when you were hurt.

  The Sull were silent as the figure who Raif now realized was his opponent entered the circle. He was a Sull warrior armed with meteor steel. His chest armor had been reinforced above the heart with a raised plate embedded with diamonds. Raif had never seen one before but he’d heard clansmen speak of them. Steel eaters, they were called. Even a passing glance could ruin a sword.

  The Sull glittered like a form emerging from water. His gaze rose to meet Raif’s as he drew closer, and information passed between them.

  “Xhalia ex nihl,” the Sull murmured. All becomes nothing. It sounded like a promise, not a prayer.

  Straightaway he struck, wedging his sword into the space below Raif’s gut. Raif raised his guard. As steel chopped into steel, he leaned back. The Sull drove forward, pressing the advantage. Unwilling to use time retracting his sword for a full strike, the Sull needle-jabbed at Raif’s thigh. He was low and he was off balance and his head and shoulders were wide open. Raif saw the angle. His jaw sprung apart. Wheeling his sword behind his back and over his shoulder, he sent it axing into the Sull’s right shoulder blade. The Sull was in the process of darting back and the blow caught him a fraction of a second too late. Power was lost. His shoulder plate bowed, instantly distributing the force across the bone. Raif dislodged the sword as the Sull worked to keep his footing.

  As Raif’s muscles shortened for a second strike, the Sull found his balance and raised his sword. He was strong and he was fast and his armor was superior to anything cast in the clans. Raif registered a flicker in the Sull’s iron gray eyes and anticipated the line he would take. Raif perceived the available space as a series of hollow shapes waiting to be occupied. I’ve seen this before; done this before. Did I fail?

  Raif scanned the crowd, looking for sign of Addie. The Sull launched a series of brutal attacks, sending weight into the final foot of meteor steel and driving it into Raif’s sword. Raif struggled to hold his guard. Each of his blocks was a split second too late and his body took a beating as it absorbed the full power of each blow. He could see what he had to do, but he didn’t have the speed to do it. The heart was in his sights—red and close—and even with the diamond plate it was vulnerable. Every time he struck, the Sull exposed space above, below and to the side of his heart.

  A better swordsman could have finished this by now. Frustrated, Raif swiped at the Sull’s ribcage. A high-pitched screech sounded as a jagged edge of diamond peeled a curl of steel from Raif’s sword. Raif smelled hot metal. As he pulled back his sword, he saw the brilliant flash of meteor steel. It was closer than it should be, he thought stupidly. Cold air whipped against his upper arm. He felt warm wetness . . . waited for the pain.

  A single jab at the back of his neck made his knees buckle under him. He hit the ground. Hard. It occurred to him as he blacked out that he still waiting for the pain.

  Moonsnake wound through the darkness. She was close—closer than she’d ever been to the settlement. The Sull were away from their tents and livestock. Fires smoked, unattended. Solitary figures armed with bows patrolled the perimeter. They were alert and watchful but it was easy to avoid them. She tasted horse sweat in the air but her appetite didn’t rise in response to it. Land fowl caged in a pen were more to her taste tonight.

  Raif slid into her heart and she flexed in welcome. The cool and muscular substance of her body had become a familiar place. They were old friends now, co-conspirators and hunters. Without missing a beat of their shared heart they glided downwind of the camp.

  Others were alert to the absences in the camp. Creatures with more reason to be wary of the Sull were testing the boundaries. Tasting fox and wolf on the night currents, they opened a gland in their underbelly and smeared a warning onto the snow. Ours. Keep away. The horse corral was a square mass ahead of them and they knew it would be easy to enter. In anticipation of moon snakes, Sull had hammered wood planks a foot into the ground. That did not concern them. With only one Sull guarding the corral, they could climb the fence and rip off a mare’s leg before detection. Panicking horses—the need to release them and shoot around them—would aid their escape.

  As they approached the bird pen, they read the wind and adjusted their line of strike. They, the Sull, placed high value on their horses and watched them even when the camp was deserted. The land fowl they valued only as food and the pen, though secured, was unguarded. A wolf was close, ghosting the same vector, staying behind the wind. It would not approach but would wait and see if anything could be scavenged once they were done.

  Ignoring it, they hunted.

  And fed.

  Raif came to, blinking water from his eyes. A Sull with copper skin and cheekbones as blunt as shields, stood over him with an empty bucket. A second Sull, younger and more golden, stood in the open doorway. He was armed with a razor-edge spear.

  “Up,” commanded the Copper One.

  Raif swung his feet off the pallet. His vision blurred as he moved and he sat still for a moment before standing. His
clothes were soaking, and there was an uncomfortable tightness in his left arm. A thick layer of bandages prevented him from seeing what was wrong. As he gathered strength to stand a voice called from beyond the door.

  “Xhi hal.” Leave him

  The Copper One exchanged glances with the younger Sull and nodded. They left and bolted the door.

  Raif sat on the pallet and waited. He had a bad feeling. Light traveling through the moonholes told him it was after midday. Suddenly he recalled that he had made thumb marks in the stone—one for every day he’d spent here—and he stood and searched the walls of the chamber. Nothing. Crouching close to the bloodwood door, he scraped a mark in the traprock with his thumbnail, exposing a line of lighter-colored stone. He looked at it a long time, thinking. Fixing its position in his head, he stood.

  Two leather buckets stood on the opposite side of the door. One was empty, the other full of water. He pissed in the empty bucket and drank from the full one. He wasn’t hungry. It seemed his stomach was working on digesting something. He searched for a recent memory of eating, came up blank.

  “Raif Sevrance of Clan Blackhail.” He spoke so he wouldn’t forget. “Drey. Effie. Da. Ash.”

  Inhaling softly, he remembered another name. “Addie.”

  You failed last time, Clansman. Failed yourself and your friend.

  “No.” Seizing his left arm, Raif tore off the bandage. A dark red wound, perfectly straight and expertly stitched with horse gut, ran along the muscle at the top of his arm.

  No.

  Small, jagged bits of memory returned to him. Addie’s right hand. Gone. Barium-rich tar burning green. A swordfight. Lost.

  Raif shook his head. He hadn’t been fast enough.

  Instinctively he began to move, pacing at first and then dashing the short distance across the chamber. If he leapt high enough, he could brush the stars on the dome ceiling with his fingertips. He picked one as he ran and jumped to touch it. His body ached and trembled, but he ignored it.

  He hadn’t been fast enough. And he couldn’t bear to think what that meant to Addie Gunn.

  CHAPTER 17

  The Lost Clan

  “THAT’S THE SITE of the old roundhouse.”

  Bram Cormac didn’t need to follow Hew Mallin’s direction to recognize the spot where the Lost Clan’s roundhouse had once stood. A perfect circle of white heather marked the spot. So the legend was true then. Dhoone had raised it to the ground and then salted the earth to prevent anything from growing on the site. The white heather, it was told, had seeded three hundred years later. A blessing from Hammada, mother of the gods.

  “What say we camp there?” Hew Mallin’s hard, weathered face gave away nothing, but Bram suspected a test.

  To spend the night sleeping on the white heather of the Lost Clan was the last thing any sane clansmen would want to do. Bram took a breath, exhaled. Ever since he had forsaken his oath to Castlemilk, he’d had the sensation he was falling.

  A month later and he still hadn’t come to land.

  “I’ll get some firewood.” His voice sounded a bit strange so he covered it by sliding from his horse. “I’ll meet you at the camp.”

  Nothing got by Mallin, but often it suited the ranger to act otherwise. Taking Gabbie’s reins from Bram, he said only, “Take your weapon.”

  It was a struggle to free the big two-handed sword from its mounting across Gabbie’s rump. Suspecting that another struggle would be necessary to cross-mount it against his back, Bram tucked the sheathed blade under his arm and quickly turned away.

  He was beginning to hate Rob’s sword.

  The Lost Clan was in the highlands northeast of Dhoone and west of Bludd. They were on the northern edge of the clanholds with only a stretch of Copper Hills separating them from the Rift. The wind was high and fresh and half of the snow had melted. Needle-thin streams and glint ponds flashed in the late day sun. Bram was glad to be afoot, though the weight and bulk of the greatsword slowed him. Any time spent delaying camp on one of the most haunted and hallowed spots in the clanholds was just fine with him.

  The ground was soft underfoot and most of the fallen wood was slimy. Tall, upright trees didn’t grow in this part of the highlands; Bram had to make do with pieces of wind-stunted yew and white pine. Lines of smoke rose in the hills just to the east. He wondered if they marked the site of one of the settlements that had sprung up in the disputed territory of the Lost Clan. He liked the idea of new clans forming, though he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be long before Robbie sent bluecloaks to wipe them out. They know the risks, Bram told himself. The question was: How would their removal change the game?

  Bram thrust a length of yew with the needles still attached into his pack. Every day he was sounding a little less like clan and a little more like the Phage.

  He glanced north toward the campsite. Mallin had set up his tent dead center of the ring. Instantly aware that Bram’s gaze was upon him, the ranger turned and tipped his bearskin hat. Knowing he was outmatched, Bram raised his hand in response.

  Hew Mallin was breaking him, and he, Bram Cormac, had no choice but to be broken. He’d agreed to it. It wasn’t enough that his oath and ties to the clanholds were severed. Old loyalties and ways of thinking had to be destroyed along with them too. Camping on the site of the Lost Clan’s roundhouse was part of that destruction.

  Strange how you could agree to something, know it was coming, and still be unprepared when it came. Stuffing the last space in his daypack with pine-cones, Bram headed for the camp.

  The Lost Clan’s roundhouse had been built on high meadowland with the River Sigh guarding its southeastern approach and the Copper Hills like a fortress to the north. Bram wondered how it had been broken. Surely it would have been difficult to take by surprise?

  Mallin was skinning an ice hare as Bram approached. They’d been camping out for the past four nights and Bram fell into the routine of building the fire, setting water to boil and brushing down the horses. Both Gabbie and Mallin’s stallion were grazing on the sacred heather. Bram frowned, but they ignored him. He hoped it would grow back.

  Mallin was a good cook and once the fire was settled he laid the spiced and quartered hare on the hot rocks. Bram’s mouth watered as the fat began to sizzle and the sweet aroma of thyme and wild garlic was released with the steam.

  “Keep your bow at hand,” Mallin said, leaning back against his bedroll.

  Bram rose to fetch his bow and arrow case from his saddlebag. The sun was failing in the west, sending out a blaze of red light. He wondered what they were doing here, on the edge of the clanholds. When he had accepted Mallin’s offer to join the Phage he had imagined they would travel to the mountain cities—Trance Vor, Morning Star, Spire Vanis, Ille Glaive—places that were worlds apart from the clans. Instead they had traveled through the very places he knew best: Dhoone, Wellhouse and Castlemilk.

  It had been at Wellhouse where Mallin had made the decision to head north. They had been working their way east from Dhoone when they met a group of tied Wellmen on the Bluddroad. They were miners, heading west to look for work. Mallin had spoken to them at length. He was a good listener and he knew how to make people talk. Bram couldn’t tell what piece of information had caught Mallin’s interest—the ranger always held his cards close to his chest—but Bram did know that something Mallin learned from one of the old miners had been enough to change his course. Before the miners were out of sight, Mallin had turned north.

  They’d spent the next five days and nights at Ebb’s stovehouse on the River Ebb, north of the Wellhold. Hannie May, the stovemaster, had welcomed Mallin like an old friend. She’d turfed a Croserman from his quarters to make room for him, and always gave him the best table at supper—the one closest to her stove. Hannie kept a rookery above her stables and Mallin had taken Bram up there the first evening and showed him how the Phage sent messages by bird.

  “That’s my beauty there,” Mallin said, pointing to a raven with glossy blue-black plumage and
yellow claws and toes that was perched in a large bamboo cage with other corvids. “Take her out.”

  Bram had hesitated. The bird looked mean.

  “Take her firmly by the breast. Talk to her. Don’t hesitate.”

  Bram unhooked the little brass catch that held the cage door closed. He had no idea how to talk to a bird so he talked to her like a horse instead. “Easy, girl. Want some treats? How about some carrots, eh?” To reach the raven he had to slide his hand past a magpie and a blue jay. The blue jay looked ready to peck him so he quickly grabbed the raven.

  “That’s her throat.”

  Bram adjusted his grip. The bird was was lively and surprisingly light in his hand. She chuffed as he stroked her head.

  “See the collar on her left foot. That’s where the message goes. Here.” Mallin slipped Bram a slender roll of paper. “Push it in.”

  Bram was aware he had not been asked to read it. The collar was made of a metal he wasn’t familiar with; ash gray and very light. He molded the paper to fit the hollow ring and with a little bit of jiggling managed to slot it in place.

  “Now we seal it with resin.” Mallin took a small vial from one of the pouches in his saddle coat, uncorked it, and handed it to Bram. “Work quickly. It hardens on contact with air.”

  Pressing the bird’s body against his lap to still her, Bram poured a line of resin onto the ring. It was yellow-red and smelled strongly of pine. Some got onto the bird’s foot and onto his fingers. It tingled as it hardened, pulling on his skin.

  “Wipe it off.” Mallin handed him a strip of linen soaked in alcohol. “Otherwise she’ll peck it and might damage the load.”

  “Won’t she peck the collar anyway?”