Watcher of the Dead

by J. V. Jones

  The queen’s smile widened. “Now you’ve gone and made things more difficult, Mor Drakka.” With a wave of her hand she directed one of her den mates to pick up Heron Walks on Sand and throw it at his feet. Its point was chipped, sheared by the wall. “You’ve gone and damaged your sword. It’ll be so much harder to pierce armor now. I’d make an early start if I were you.”

  Her glance darted behind his back. “Addie was screaming last night. We would have liked to give him something for the pain . . .” She sighed. “But you lost and our hands were tied.”

  Watcher felt hate so pure it narrowed the edges of his vision. He was aware of an opponent closing in from the far side of the fight circle but it did not concern him. He had calculated the opponent’s trajectory and speed and knew when the enemy would strike and what he, Watcher, would do to counter it.

  “Show me Addie,” he said to the queen. The voice was low and hoarse and hardly seemed to belong to him. Dimly he knew that he had not always sounded like this. Once he had had been younger and less harmed. Once he had lived in a world where one tried to understand people and their motives, tried to find sense in terrible things. That illusion had gone. There was just predator and prey.

  Feed or be fed on.

  It was simple and it governed everything, and the only question you had to ask yourself was: What do I have to do to stay alive?

  Watcher exploded into motion, dipping to seize the sword and at the same time pivoting on the balls of his feet. His opponent had been in the process of delivering a high blow to Watcher’s back and that momentum carried forward into vacant air, throwing the opponent off balance and opening a cone of space around his core. Watcher rose into it, searched for and found the break between his opponent’s chest and skirt piece, and powered the blunt sword through his heart.

  Sull around the fight circle caught their breath and stirred. Watcher released his grip on Heron Walks on Sand, leaving it in his opponent, and took his opponent’s sword as his own. It was heavy and cheap-looking but at least it had a point. The opponent had not been Sull.

  The Sull had stopped sending their own to die. Instead they sent Trenchlanders: part Sull, part something else. They varied in skill, size and willingness to fight. Watcher had slices of memory, disconnected images that showed him some of those he had fought. Three figures moving in concert, their big cross-and-hook-bladed halberds boxing him in. A man with mottled skin, no helmet or body armor, jumping like a demon on his back. Something, some kind of giant man, who had hugged the fight wall and not wanted to move to the center. Watcher recalled the extra chamber in its heart. Fight after fight, always more than one in a night. Had there been one time where he’d stumbled from exhaustion and two armed figures, perfectly twinned, had each put swords to his ears? And had the only thing that had saved him been a stay from the queen?

  Watcher said to her, “Show me Addie.”

  The queen looked at the body at his feet. The force of the heart-kill had sent blood through the man’s nostrils and mouth. Her gaze stayed on the black wetness and after a time she nodded an assent.

  Den mates left to do her bidding. Watcher saw and noted the big warrior with the cheekbones like undercut cliffs and the purest, bluest sword. The consort. He was the most dangerous Sull of the hundred. Watcher knew that to feed on the queen he would have to kill the consort first. Watcher calculated the probability of bringing him down, running sequences of events in his head. None achieved the desired outcome of Watcher alive, consort dead, so he sent his mind elsewhere as he waited.

  Two Sull carrying a stretcher made their made to the front of the crowd. When they reached the fight circle, they maneuvered to align the stretcher with the wall. Watcher took a step forward.

  Light cracked like lightning as dozens of swords rose as one to form a defensive barrier around the queen.

  The queen said, “Drop your weapon and you may approach.”

  Watcher dropped his weapon and approached.

  There was a smell that all hunters knew. It was not present during the hunt or the butchering but would rise later, on the journey home, if the carcass had not been properly prepared. Smell it and the hunter knew the meat had turned and had to be discarded. There was no other odor like it on earth.

  Watcher told himself he did not smell it. Watcher told himself many things as he approached the stretcher and when he reached the wall he was calm.

  Addie Gunn’s slight and unwhole form was cradled in the center of the stretcher. He was on his left side, his knees tucked close to his chest. A large and clean white bandage capped the shoulder where his right arm had once been attached. He was dressed in a loose linen shift, also clean. Where the fabric ended at his neck you could see the swollen fever veins. His breathing was quick and shallow, his chest quivering like a bird’s.

  Watcher waited for the gray eyes to find him and focus.

  Around him, Watcher was aware of a semicircle of swords tracking his movements. Sull were silent. No wind stirred the forest and its owls and night creatures were still. Moonsnake slept.

  The gray eyes, their gaze, rose to meet Watcher. The cost of that movement, of the sheer expenditure of willpower, would remain with Watcher for the rest of his life.

  When he looked into the gray eyes he saw that nothing stood between him and Addie’s soul. It was there, all of him. Maimed Man, cragsman, eweman, clansman. Son. Friend. All the goodness, all the hurts and losses, heartbreaks and hopes were present. Watcher knew this man had hoped for very little, wanted so very little. A few sheep, a scrap of land, a wife.

  The gaze held until it could be sustained no longer. Dimming as it withdrew, its owner, Addie Gunn, sent out a final message.

  Watcher received the message, locked it away, locked it deep.

  With swords swirling around him like long grass, Watcher bent and kissed his friend. Addie was sleeping now, resting. Watcher wanted to stay and keep him safe until the end.

  It was an impossibility. The queen signaled the stretcher-bearers and the two Sull raised Addie and began to move him away. Watcher pressed forward and the wall of swords pressed back. Their points clinked against his chest armor. One touched the space between his nose and mouth.

  Watcher watched as his friend was borne way. Watcher told himself again he hadn’t smelled the hunter’s smell. He told himself that if he fought hard enough and long enough Addie Gunn could be saved.

  Almost belief was not belief . . . but it was not disbelief either.

  It would do.

  Watcher watched until his eyes could no longer perceive the H-shaped form of the three figures. Then he watched the darkness left behind.

  The queen spread her fingers as if she were sowing seeds. Movement occurred behind Watcher’s back. Watcher turned, assessed the opponents the queen had summoned into the fight circle, and went to retrieve his sword. Three men, slight and quick and wielding longknives, fanned out in formation as they moved toward him. Watcher had not thought it possible to be glad when faced with three enemies armed with blades. He was wrong. Something in him sparked. Swiftly he made the calculations, and then moved to take out the strongest man first.

  He killed and kept killing through the long night. Opponents fell and bloodied him. Some ran, some begged for their lives. All died quickly, Watcher gave them that. It had become easy. Opponents attacked in predictable ways, creating patterns of open space. Watcher tracked the open space. Anticipated it, and used it to create a line between the point of his sword and the center of his opponents’ hearts. As the killings mounted he wondered why he felt no relief. The answer came to him as he pulled his sword from a poorly armored Trenchlander chest.

  He was not killing Sull.

  Suddenly, the queen, who had barely moved during the killings, raised a fist. Watcher saw one of her den mates raise a blow gun to his lips. A soft thuc sounded and Watcher felt a sting on his neck. The night blurred. Haloes formed around the lamps. Watcher staggered, fell to his knees. Puzzled, he tried to stand. He had to k
eep fighting—for Addie—but his legs were no longer working. He tried to force them, but they gave even more and he slid onto his butt. His right hand released his sword and it clattered onto the ground between him and the Trenchlander. He looked from the weapon to the face of man he had just killed as his vision began to fade.

  “He’s ready for God’s Sword,” the queen said in Sull.

  Sul Ji.

  They were the last words he heard before he joined Moonsnake and slept the deepest sleep of the year, the one before the brightest full moon.

  CHAPTER 27

  The Phage

  WHEN HEW MALLIN came for him in the morning Bram was ready. It was an hour before dawn but he had already been awake for hours. He wasn’t certain he’d slept, and he was sure that if he had slept he hadn’t enjoyed it or found it restful.

  A night in an enemy clan was not conducive to rest.

  “Plans change,” Mallin had warned yesterday as they crossed the open ground between the northern woods and Blackhail roundhouse. Bram realized later that Mallin had already identified the two women archers by the creek and meant to use this chance meeting to his advantage. Bram also realized later that in some subtle and shaming way he had been a small part of Mallin’s plans.

  “Would the young sir like a spot of breakfast?” A voice spoke over Bram’s thoughts. “I can hop over to the kitchens and have you fried bread and a sausage in a minute.”

  Bram’s stomach grumbled. He was standing in the Blackhail stables where he’d spent the night sleeping in the hayloft—with the bats. Dinner had been trailmeat and carrots and he would dearly have liked something hot. Looking at the kindly and well-meaning man who offered this luxury, Bram Cormac shook his head. “Thank you, but my master and I need to be on our way.”

  The man, who was as far as Bram could tell some kind of senior groomsman, was quick to nod in understanding. “Master Mallin, he’s a busy man. Always going more than coming.”

  “The road’s my home, Jebb,” Mallin said, stepping from the box stall and leading out his horse. “It’s what you get for being a ranger.”

  Jebb pulled down Mallin’s saddle from one of the tack hooks. As he handed the oiled and supple tan leather saddle to Mallin he cleared his throat. “You wouldn’t happen to have word of Angus Lok, would you? He’s a ranger, just like yourself. Fine man. Promised me he’d be round this spring to check the foals.”

  Mallin sucked air through his teeth. “I recall the name but . . .” He shook his head. “Can’t say that I know anything about him.”

  “Aye.” Jebb’s nod was soft and deflated. “Big world. Don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Bram,” Mallin said briskly. “Saddle Gabbie and get the bags. I’ll meet you out front.”

  Bram did as he was told, climbing up the ladder to the loft to retrieve the packs and then bridling and saddling Gabbie. Jebb helped. Gabbie liked the groomsman a lot and even picked up his hoofs for Jebb’s inspection.

  “You’ve got a beauty in this one,” Jebb told Bram as he filed Gabbie’s heel. “He’s got the look of the Castle about him.”

  Bram made no reply. He reminded himself that horses were traded across the clanholds and just because a horse had the look of Castlemilk about it didn’t mean that it belonged to a Castleman. Or a Dhoonesman. “Could you help with the belly strap while I center the packs?”

  Jebb was quick to do his bidding, crouching below Gabbie’s belly to fasten the cinches. “Done.”

  Bram’s hand was already on the reins. “Thanks for your help, Jebb.” Looking around, he thought for a moment. “It’s a fine stable.” Bram could feel Jebb beaming against his back as he walked through the stable doors and onto the horse court.

  The predawn air was chill and Gabbie’s breath blew in clouds. An orange line above the headland known as the Wedge predicted the sunrise and to the north the ptarmigan were calling, staking early claims. Mallin was already ahorse and his stallion was lively and kicking, spoiling for a run. Bram mounted and they trotted the horses south around the massive dome of the Hailhouse.

  He was glad to be gone. Of all the things he had imagined upon waking up yesterday morning, spending the night in the Hailhouse had not been one of them. Right now, hundreds of leagues to the south, Dhoone was preparing to face Blackhail at Ganmiddich. Robbie wanted to take the Ganmiddich roundhouse from Bludd. Before he could do so he had to contend with the Hail armies camped on Bannen Field. That meant he, Bram Cormac half-brother to Robbie Dun Dhoone, had just accepted the hospitality of the enemy.

  They did not feed me, Bram told himself as he and Mallin cut across the Blackhail greatcourt and onto the southern road. And he had slept not in the Hailhouse itself but in the stables along with the horses.

  It had probably saved his neck. If he had supped and slept in the Great Hearth with Mallin and the Blackhail warriors, someone at some point would have recognized either his face or his name. Cormac? Wasn’t that Robbie’s name before he plucked a grander one from his mother’s side of the family? Or, You have the look of that mad swordsman from Dhoone, Mabb Cormac. What was your name again, boy? Bram imagined that both questions were equally likely. What he couldn’t imagine was how he would have answered them. To be uncloaked as a Dhoonesman in the heart of Blackhail; Bram wasn’t sure he would have lived out the night.

  Mallin had been no help, of course. The ranger had warned early on he wasn’t Bram’s keeper and Bram now had a pretty good idea what that meant. Bram Cormac’s neck, keeping it whole and above water, was entirely Bram Cormac’s affair. Mallin took care of his own business, allowing Bram the privilege of tagging along and sometimes even helping him, but Bram better expect nothing in return. They were the rules of the game, take them or leave them. Bram took them. He was learning. How to stay alive in an enemy clan when you’ve been introduced to the chief’s wife by your real name was a lesson more or less worth receiving.

  Keep your mouth shut, your head low, and duck out of sight when no one is looking: that’s what Bram had learned last night. The only moment he wished he could have taken back was the moment when Raina Blackhail asked him a direct question and looked him straight in the eye as he answered.

  Where are you headed to next?

  Bramfelt his cheeks heat so he kicked Gabbie’s ribs, commanding the stallion to gallop, so he could generate some air to cool them. Mallin had already left the path and was was riding for the woods in the southwest. Bram followed.

  Trouble was he had liked Raina Blackhail. She was beautiful, like a queen. When she smiled at him he had felt it all the way down to the bones on his face. Her words, “We don’t bite,” were the first kindness he had received in months. When it came to it he had not been able to lie to her. His answer about where he was heading was the truth.

  Lady, I do not know.

  He didn’t know now. Sometimes he didn’t think Hew Mallin knew either, though the ranger appeared to have something in mind today as he had found a path leading west through the grazeland. Bram knew better than to ask. Direct questions to Mallin rarely yielded the truth. Mallin had lied outright to the groomsman. The first time Bram had met Mallin, the ranger had claimed friendship with Angus Lok. Today he had denied that friendship.

  Bram didn’t understand, but he was watching and he was learning to emulate. He just hoped Mallin hadn’t overheard his reply to Raina Blackhail. I do not know, was hardly an answer worthy of the Phage.

  Seeing that Mallin had slowed to a trot, Bram reined Gabbie. The rising sun sliced light through the grass and found all the standing water for leagues. Bram spotted a lake to the north, and for a wonder Mallin actually volunteered information about it. “That’s Cold Lake,” he said. “One of these days we’ll have to go and see old Mad Binny who lives on it.”

  Mallin knew a lot of women. For some reason, not yet apparent to Bram, females liked him. Bram was no expert but he thought Mallin was a bit old. He was still wondering what the ranger’s relation was to the young Hailswoman Chella Gloyal. Som
ething had passed between them. As they had entered the stables yesterday evening while Raina Blackhail was walking ahead, Mallin had slipped something into Chella’s hand. It was gone in an instant, lost so quickly to the folds of Chella’s gray cloak that someone watching may have doubted its existence, but Bram had good eyes. He knew what he saw.

  Sometimes Bram thought he’d never get to know the secrets of the Phage. Other times he thought they were being revealed right in front of his eyes and all he had to do was watch.

  Glancing at Mallin, who was buffing his fingernails with a shammy as he rode, Bram decided to risk a question. “Do most rangers work for the Phage?”

  Mallin didn’t look up. “Rangers are rangers. They trade, trap, do day work.” He held his fingers to the light to inspect them. “They travel, get to know people. Mobility like that can be useful.”

  Especially in the clans, Bram added. Was that what he was becoming then, a ranger?

  Satisfied with his fingernails, Mallin tucked the shammy in his saddle pouch and regained the reins. “Let’s go find some weasel,” he said.

  Bram followed Mallin’s stallion off the trail and through the brush. Last night, lying on his bedroll in the straw as the bats began to stir, Bram had listened to the stablemen talk. He guessed where they were headed now.

  They followed an old trapping path that was soft with mud onto an open field that backed against a dense forest of hardwoods. Before they got twenty feet into the field, they were challenged and forced to dismount. Two Scarpe hatchetmen demanded their weapons for ransom. Bram looked to Mallin. The ranger was calm, offering both his sword and knife freely so Bram did the same. The weapons were stowed unceremoniously in a sack. Mallin appeared unmoved by this fact . . . but Mallin was not a clansman. He did not feel the insult of having one’s ransomed weapons removed from one’s sight.

  “What have we got here?” The smaller of the two hatchetmen pushed open the flap on one of Bram’s saddlebags. He was pale-skinned and black haired with part shavings above both ears. Casually he picked out items, sniffed them, tasted them, threw them away. Bram could not recall which pack contained the Dhoone cloak.