Watcher of the Dead

by J. V. Jones

  Raina had passed the messages to Jebb Onnachre for distribution. Next time perhaps she would open then. Stop at nothing, commanded the oath.

  Now it was time to see if Chella had learned anything else from either Grim or Croser or her blue-inked city friend. “Glynn thinks Dun Dhoone will march straight to Ganmiddich without first returning to Dhoone.”

  “It seems likely. Robbie Dhoone is on winning streak, though things have fallen in his favor so far.”

  “How so?”

  “When he took Dhoone from the Dog Lord he only had to battle a force of forty men. Withy was harder—they say its house is built like a sealed tomb—but somehow he managed to locate and break a secret door.”

  Glynn had mentioned nothing about this. Raina began a circuit of the kaleyard. It was only noon, she noticed. She’d felt as if she’d lived a year in half a day.

  “What do you think will happen at Ganmiddich?”

  Chella, who was keeping abreast of her, shrugged. “Bludd will lose it for a certainty. Pengo is a fool. It’s a wonder he’s held out for so long. As for what happens when Blackhail meets Dhoone . . . who knows? One thing’s for certain: When it’s over things will be settled in the clanholds for a very long time.”

  Raina shivered. Suddenly she did not feel like walking and stopped. “Because of the losses?”

  “Because of the losses,” Chella repeated.

  The Hailstone burned in Raina’s gut.

  Stone Gods save us.

  To Chella she said, “Why did you fire on Yelma Scarpe?”

  The Croserwoman had either the sense or decency not to deny it. She had been the marksman on the roof that day; Raina was certain of it.

  “When I heard the Scarpe chief was arriving, I anticipated a problem.”

  I bet you did. “Go on.”

  “At Croser we know the value of a well-placed bowman. I didn’t think there was much to lose by slipping on the roof and keeping watch.”

  “You shot at a chief.”

  “I aimed to miss.”

  “You took my authority from me.”

  “I did not. I backed it up.”

  “What is the truth of you, Chella Gloyal? You come here and start pushing me—why?”

  The Croserwoman took a breath. She was vibrating at a high frequency, like a rung bell. “You do not know how great you are. I see it. Others see it. There is no one else like you, Raina Blackhail. Hundreds and hundreds of clansmen and clanswomen would follow you with full hearts to their deaths.”

  Tears stung Raina’s eyes as she looked at Chella’s strong and beautiful face. Could what she said be true?

  No. No.

  I am coping, just trying to get from one day to the next and not think about what happened in the Oldwood or fall apart when I remember Dagro’s face. There’s no greatness here, just struggle. Any woman in this clan could have done a better job.

  Chella’s eyes were fierce, her chin high. “Why do you think it was so easy to clear the Scarpes out of the Hailhouse after Yelma withdrew?”

  Raina was surprised at the question. “Hailsmen and women were eager to have them gone.”

  Chella shook her head. “No, Raina. They watched you on the greatcourt, standing up for their clan and sending off an enemy chief, and it stirred them. They were filled with pride for Blackhail and love for its chief’s wife. They would have ridden into battle for you that day.”

  No.

  “Blackhail loves you that much.”

  Stupid tears rolled down Raina’s cheeks. This was not true. It could not be.

  “I’m doing what everyone here wants to do: comfort you, help you. Follow you.”

  The cold wind of treason dried tears on Raina’s cheeks. It did not cancel out Chella’s words as much as weigh them down so they fell to earth. Raina looked at Chella, saw that the young woman was now wearing the silver-and-black of Blackhail at her waist and throat. Raina thought she could almost trust her.

  Chella waited. She was very young and she thought the future was something to be seized.

  Raina knew you could seize something and still have it slip away. The Hailstone, as if in agreement, sent an ache through her gut.

  Steadying herself, Raina thought about the future, how it could unfold in many ways. She made a decision.

  “Teach me how to use a bow.”

  CHAPTER 21

  He Picked Up the Sword and Fought

  THEY BROUGHT HIM in. Pain was like a wild animal, tearing at the soft sections of his body, pulling him apart. He did not understand how he could bear it. Anticipating blacking out, he suspended most forms of thought. They dropped him on the bed. He blinked at the ceiling and it began to turn like a giant millwheel, slowly at first as it juddered into motion, then more quickly as it gained momentum.

  He was dazzled by the sight. It was the night sky, rendered in perfect moving form, wheeling clockwise as it should, turning around the pole star. This must be what the Sull had intended when they carved the constellations into the chamber’s ceiling, this instant when a world of pain and loss could be soothed by a world of stars.

  Like sorcerers they paid no heed to their enchantment. They moved above him, unfastening buckles and latches, not ungently stripping him of armor and clothes. White hot pain burst across his rib cage as they peeled off the breastplate. It had an indentation as big as a fist, and the cartilage of his ribs had collapsed around it. Words were exchanged. Beautiful Sull words that sounded like spells.

  He lost time.

  Moonsnake bided in the darkness, her pale and massive form curled around itself forming a solid disk of snake. She waited for him now, he’d noticed. At some point in their acquaintance he had ceased to be extra weight. Let us hunt, she bid in language so primal he had to translate it into words. Images and tastes flashed across his eyes and tongue. A deer shivering as it died. A longbone snapping in two. The sugar-sweet spray of bone marrow.

  No, he told her. Something, some half remembered promise to himself, warned him to resist.

  She hissed.

  He opened his eyes. The stars had stopped turning and the pain returned. Night air descending through the moonholes chilled him. They were working on his naked body, stitching flaps of skin together with black thread, smearing yellow-red ointment on open wounds, bandaging his ribs and wrist. Did I lose another fight?

  Memories of swordfights floated in his head. There was no order to them, no way to be sure which one had occurred most recently, just a procession of beatings and stabbings and slicing where steel points came at him from all sides. Slowly, over the course of an hour, one of the memories settled into place.

  “Addie.”

  The figures tending him stopped to look at his face, and he realized he had spoken out loud. Saddles of muscle in his lower back and thighs fired as he tried to sit up. Sull pressed him down. One of them put a hand on the damaged cartilage of his ribs. Pain seared him.

  He lost more time.

  Voices lured him back. A woman was speaking, and even though he did not fully comprehend what she said he could tell from the tone of her voice that she was speaking about him. Keeping his eyes closed, he listened. She spoke Sull and he could not understand all the words.

  “He grows faster.”

  A male voice said something in response.

  “It is not important. He heals well.”

  “Sul Ji?”

  “Not yet.”

  He shivered, and the voices fell quiet. He could feel their owners inspecting him. He ignored them. Something the woman said had pushed a thought adrift in his mind. Faster. Suddenly hands seized his jaw and yanked it apart. Liquid flooded his mouth. Head snapping in panic, he coughed up the liquid, choking and spluttering. The hands grabbed him again. One slapped against the back of his head, the other cupped his lower jaw. More liquid was forced in his mouth.

  “Drink.”

  He drank. Aware that he was about to black out, he fixed together his two words and repeated them as he spiraled into darkn
ess. Addie. Faster. Addie. Faster. Addie. Faster.

  Moonsnake was waiting for him. All it took was a loosening of will to enter her heart. She acknowledged him with the slightest delay between breaths and then they were one. Uncurling the great length of their body they struck north for the hunt. A half-moon hung low in the western sky. Time was short. Rich scents filled the air, but one stirred them more than the rest: fresh blood. The snow was melting to water beneath them as they cut toward the scent. As they drew nearer they tasted something unexpected in the air. Fresh blood meant a predator feeding on prey and they had been prepared to send off a rival . . . but this. This was an affront to their being. It was a half-moon, not a full one, and another of their kind should not be in their territory this night. They flicked out their tongue. Thrice. Tasted the creature’s age and size and sex. It was female and inferior to them in every way. They increased their speed in proportion to the deficit.

  Righteous fury filled them. They knew the instant their rival perceived them—the strong musk of snake fear spored the air—and knew an instant later their rival was helpless. She was gorging. Her prey, a newborn deer, was part-in and part-out of her body. The fawn’s head and neck had been consumed but its legs and abdomen lay quivering on the snow. Its chest was in the snake’s mouth. Immediately she began disgorging, contracting muscles in a wave from abdomen to head, forcing out the meal. Her milk blue eyes tracked the threat. Her scales mirrored in defense, making her instantly more difficult to perceive. It was not a strategy that worked when you were attached at the mouth to a deer.

  They struck, their fangs fastening onto her abdomen and yanking her and her prey furiously through the snow.

  Coven Mother. The rival begged in terror and pain. Spare me.

  They yanked her again, but their fangs sunk no deeper. The taste of snake blood did not please them.

  I beg you. The force on her abdomen had aided the disgorgement and as the rival pleaded for her life, the deer’s head popped from free from her jaw. It was encased in a sheath of saliva.

  Take it, Coven Mother.

  Deer scent charmed them. It was late and dawn was coming and this snake had been taught a lesson in precedence. Withdrawing their fangs, they warned it, Do not enter this territory again unless you come with your sisters at full moon.

  Yesss, Mother, the rival replied as she sidewinded away from the kill. Bleeding and in terrible pain, she headed for the sheltering darkness of the forest.

  They did not spare her another thought and fed.

  Raif awoke. Mist and soft morning light poured through the moonholes. Something was making a scratching noise in the corner of the chamber. Rat. He was pleased to find an appropriate name. Turning his head, he looked toward the source of the noise. A figure dressed in gray was crouched close to the chamber’s oak door, smearing dirt on the wall. Raif watched him. He had a small pot and kept dipping his finger in it and dabbing the stonework. Raif calculated the distance between the figure and the bed, and then struck.

  He had not accounted for the drag caused by pain but he still managed to reach the figure before the figure could form a defense. Hissing, Raif grabbed him by the throat and yanked him away from the wall. The pot he held went skittering across the chamber.

  “How many?” Raif cried, pressing his thumb and fingers into the sinews of the man’s neck. “How many?”

  As he spoke Raif heard the retort of the bolt being pulled back on the other side of the door. A shout sounded. Footsteps followed. Raif increased his pressure on the man’s throat. He was old and almost bald and his skin had the patchy dullness of a Trenchlander. “How many marks have you covered?”

  The man’s eyes were wide. Spittle foamed at the corner of his mouth. Muscles in his neck strained as he tried to shake his head. Furious, Raif threw him across the chamber. Old bones cracked with the soft snap of wet twigs. Air wheezed from a punctured lung. Raif stood upright. He was breathing hard. The door burst open and three armored Sull rushed the room. Two held him a swordpoint while the third dragged the body from the chamber.

  Raif felt hate so powerful he might have taken them on, swords and all, if it hadn’t been for two words circling in his head.

  Addie. Faster.

  He could die here and he could not say that would matter much at this moment, but his friend’s life depended on him carrying on. And getting faster.

  Raif let the Sull direct him, allowed them to force him back onto the bed. By the time he lay down, the one who had removed the body returned. It was the Sull with copper skin. He had a needle dart in his hand, the kind they used in their blowguns. Raif knew what was coming. He braced himself.

  Addie. Faster, he repeated, determined to retain possession of the words as whatever substance coating the point of the dart was jabbed into his veins.

  He dreamed he was back at the Hailhold. Drey and Effie were walking up the stairs toward him. They were smiling. Effie was talking in her fast excited way, telling Drey some complicated story involving the Shankshounds, the remnants of her supper and Anwyn Bird. Drey was trying his best to keep up. Raif waited for them, his heart aching with love and joy. Drey looked older than he remembered. His brown eyes were darker and there were lines on his brow.

  “Brother,” Raif called to him, unable to wait any longer. “I’m here.” Raif awoke. A tightness in his chest made it difficult to breathe. Opening his eyes and looking up he saw the ceiling of the chamber, stonework carved with stars. Despair threatened to swallow him but he could not say why. He rose and relieved his body in the bucket provided for the purpose. As he went to drink, he caught sight of a small pot on the far side of the chamber. He set down the bucket and retrieved the pot. It was the size of a duck egg and made of brass. Something dark and greasy was drying to a cake inside. Raif smelled it. Linseed oil. He dipped a finger into the pot and looked at the substance. It was the exact same color as the chamber walls.

  A memory slid into place. They had been covering up his marks, erasing them so that he had no record of the days he’d been imprisoned. As he tried to make sense of this, his gaze rested on the wall close to where the pot hand landed. The chamber was belowground and water was dripping through the cracks. Raif saw that one of the leaks had made a small puddle of water on the floor. Thrusting his hand in the brass container, he scooped out the contents and threw them in the waste bucket. He unraveled the bandage from his wrist, looked at it, decided that although it was not exactly clean it would do, and then used it to wipe the last of the pigment from the bottom of the pot. Carefully, he centered the empty pot on the drip. Satisfied he sat and watched it. It was going to take a while to fill, days probably, and even then it would only provide a single drink of water.

  Still. It was something. It was a start.

  Thirst made him rise and drink from the water bucket. It was strange swallowing something he knew was tainted, but it didn’t make him take any less. He had a strong memory of what it felt like to collapse from thirst. It was worse than any wound inflicted by the Sull. As he finished drinking, the bolt was retracted and the door opened. Food was pushed a short distance into the chamber and then the door was drawn closed. A loaf of bread and a whole roasted ptarmigan rested on the stone floor. The ptarmigan was still hot and leaking juice. Raif sat and ate it methodically, gnawing all the meat from one bone before starting on the next. He didn’t know whether or not he was hungry but he knew his body was hurting and needed fuel. When he was done he pushed the carcass and its loose bones into a pile against the door.

  Feeling his thoughts getting softer, he repeated his two words. Addie. Faster. He knew what they meant. They meant he had to get faster for Addie. He had to start winning fights.

  He began moving through his forms, darting into empty air, twisting to avoid imagined blows, and searching for the perfect line of strike. The stars on the domed ceiling and walls were his targets and he picked a quadrant and began slaying every star within it. As he moved he realized his body knew how to do this. It had done it
before, practiced before. It made him understand he was losing his mind.

  Later, when he lay aching and winded on the bed, he tried to string together his thoughts. Addie. Fights. Drugged water. The effort required was staggering. It was as if each thought came with a thousand-pound weight. Closing his eyes, he let himself drift. Briefly he touched Moonsnake. She was dormant while her body performed the great work of digesting a whole deer. The deepness of her languor affected him and he fell into a peaceful and dreamless sleep.

  Even before he was fully awake he knew they were preparing him for a fight. Hands touched his body with firm efficiency, strapping felt padding in place before they armored him. The bruising on his ribs and wrist was taped, hinge and chafe-points were greased. He watched the two Sull moving above him and knew what it was to be a corpse.

  When he was ready and standing, they opened the door. It seemed a change in routine, that closed door. Hadn’t they kept it open when they’d prepped him before? Did that mean they were more wary of him now?

  Three Sull, two armed with swords, one with a spear, walked him up the stairs and into the forest. It was dusk—it was always dusk—and a cold snap was crisping the air. The trees were giants and the moon breaking over the horizon sent their shadows racing to infinity. Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum. Sull drums were beating. Their achingly hollow notes were filled with loss.

  Raif wondered when he would lose the part of his mind that felt fear. The heat of burning torches distorted the air, turning the Sull who waited for him in silence around the fight circle into horrors from another world. No one who saw them in this light could mistake them for human. Their skin, their eyes, the shape of their heads and the very weight of the space they occupied marked them as inconceivably different to men. Raif realized then that even if he possessed a whole mind he would never understand them.