Bloodheir

by Brian Ruckley

  Ammen Lyre dar Kilkry-Haig had learned many things from his father, Ochan. He had learned that a clever man need not be subject to the same rules and restrictions as others; that the weak made themselves victims by virtue of their shortcomings; that a father might love daughters easily but would only love a son who fought for, and earned, that affection.

  A year ago, not long after Ammen’s thirteenth birthday, he had been cornered in a Kolkyre alleyway by two youths. They had good cause. While out that night carrying messages for Ochan, Ammen had found a man sprawled in the middle of a narrow, dark street. The reek of drink was as strong as he had ever smelled. Groping through the man’s clothes, Ammen was disappointed to find not a single coin, but the sot did wear a fine little knife on his belt, a blade with a horn handle and a decorated scabbard of good leather. Ammen unbuckled the belt and slid the knife off, complete with sheath. As he straightened, glancing up and down the silent street, the drunken man suddenly cried out and grabbed at Ammen’s sleeve.

  Surprised rather than alarmed, Ammen tried to pull away, but the man’s grip was much stronger than seemed reasonable. He rolled onto his side, shouting incoherently, pulling so hard at Ammen’s arm that the boy almost fell to his knees. Ammen kicked him as hard as he could in the face. The man wailed and relinquished his hold. Ammen wasted another moment in stamping ineffectually on his hand and then walked away. This was one of the many small pieces of advice – all of it seeming the greatest, fiercest wisdom to Ammen – that his father had imparted: a running man is more obvious than a painted dancing girl in a room full of fishwives. So if you want to avoid notice, walk.

  On that night a year ago, the advice had failed. Ammen had covered less than two dozen paces before he’d heard angry shouts behind him. Two young men had come out from one of the shabby houses that lined the street, leaving its door open to spill feeble lamplight into the night. One crouched by the drunken, groaning figure on the ground; the other was staring after Ammen. The two youths exchanged a few curt words – enough to tell Ammen that the man he had robbed was their father – and then the chase was on.

  Ammen knew the streets around Kolkyre’s harbour as well as anyone. It was his father’s territory, and thus his. But his pursuers had longer legs, and they were driven by powerful indignation. They ran him down in no time, and he turned at bay in a tight, lightless alley that stank of fish guts. Afterwards, turning the treasured memory of those moments over and over in his mind, he was proud that even then, with the two burly youths bearing down on him and shouting their fury in his face, he had not felt fear. Their anger made them careless: in the deep darkness of that alleyway they did not see Ammen draw their own father’s knife from its scabbard. He slashed the first one across the face and was rewarded with a piercing howl of shock and the sight of his assailant reeling away. There was no time to savour the victory, for the second closed and Ammen took a stunning blow to his head. The crunching sound and the splash of blood over his lips told him that his nose was broken, but he was so dazed by the impact that he felt only a numbness that spread across his cheeks. He fell, and his attacker threw himself down on top of him, fumbling for the hand that held the knife. Ammen never could remember exactly what happened then, but he knew that he stabbed the young man more than once. He might not have killed him, for the blade was short and his strength faltering. It was enough, though. Ammen staggered to his feet and ran, rather unsteadily, for home.

  Ochan’s pleasure on hearing of the incident lit a glow of pride and joy in Ammen’s heart.

  “Keep that blade close by you,” his father had laughed. “It’d be wrong to sell something that’s served you so well. We’ll call you Ammen Sharp now, shall we? The little boy who grew a tooth.”

  So Ammen became Ammen Sharp, and treasured the name. Having borne it for a year now, it felt as much his true name as any other. Only Ochan called him by it; his mother and sisters remained ignorant of its origins. Being a secret shared only by Ammen and his father, it had become that much more precious to the boy.

  He was with Ochan, watching as his father sorted through a pile of trinkets, when his cousin Malachoir –

  one of the numerous distant relatives who served Ochan as thieves, runners, watchers, guards – poked his head nervously around the door. Ochan was engrossed, minutely examining each bauble and bracelet for any sign that it might have some true value.

  Ammen had no idea where this little hoard had come from, and the question had not occurred to him.

  From his earliest years he had understood and accepted that goods and materials of every imaginable kind appeared in his father’s possession and then, just as abruptly and inexplicably, disappeared once more.

  Malachoir cleared his throat.

  “What?” snapped Ochan without looking up. He disliked interruption.

  “Urik’s here,” the cousin reported. “He wants to see you.”

  “What does that mudhead want?”

  “He won’t tell us. Says he needs to talk to you. Says there’ll not be another chance if you won’t talk to him now.”

  With a snarl of displeasure Ochan let a copper brooch fall from his hands.

  “I pay that man so I never have to see him, not so that he can visit me in my house. It looks bad to have a Wardcaptain of the Guard showing up on my doorstep. Attracts attention.”

  “Well, he was hooded when he came. And he did come to the kitchen door, not—”

  “Enough, enough,” Ochan grunted. “Get him in here.”

  The man who entered was short and broad-shouldered, a stocky little bull. He wore a voluminous rain-cape that concealed any hint of his standing as a member of Kolkyre’s Guard. Narrow, dark eyes darted from side to side as he edged into Ochan’s presence.

  “Look at that, look at that,” said Ochan to his son. “Our very own Wardcaptain come to test our hospitality.”

  Ammen smiled, and then tried to fill the gaze he turned on Urik with suitable contempt. He knew this man was useful – important, even – to his father, but knew as well that he merited nothing in the way of respect.

  “Don’t puff yourself up too much, Ochan,” Urik growled. “I’ve come here to warn you, not amuse you.”

  “Warn me? Warn me?” Ammen felt a shiver of anticipation at the tone in his father’s voice. He knew it well. It presaged anger, danger, violence. When he was younger, Ammen had soon learned its perilous implications. Urik evidently did not recognise it, or did not care.

  “Yes, warn you,” he snapped. “And I needn’t have come, so don’t think you can—”

  Ochan was up and out of his seat in a single smooth movement, lashing a long arm across the table to seize the collar of Urik’s cape. He pulled the Guardsman’s face close to his own.

  “I think I can do as I like in my own house, don’t you, Urik?”

  Urik hesitated for only a moment before nodding. Ochan released him and sank back into his chair. He had knocked some of his piled trinkets to the ground, and flicked a finger at them.

  “Pick ’em up, boy,” he said to Ammen, who obeyed at once, going down beneath the table on his hands and knees.

  “What is it you think you’re warning me about, then?” he heard his father asking.

  “That your luck’s run out, that’s what. You’ve been named for taking. The Guard’ll be looking for you tomorrow. It’ll be me, as like as not.”

  “You?” roared Ochan. He sprang to his feet once more. His chair tumbled backwards, one of the legs rapping Ammen’s hip as it went. “You? Is it that I’m not paying you enough, Urik? Is that it? You’ve got yourself a hunger for more of my hard-won coin. That’s what this is about, is it?”

  Ammen stuck his head up above the level of the table, not wanting to miss such excitement. Urik had shrunk back towards the door, holding up both his hands as if he could fend off Ochan’s anger.

  “No, no,” the Wardcaptain insisted. “It’s nothing to do with that. I don’t want a thing more from you, Ochan. Not now, not ever. You don�
��t understand. This isn’t us, it’s not the Guard. The word’s come down from higher places, from the Tower of Thrones itself. You’re to be taken and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Nothing.”

  “Then what use are you to me?” hissed Ochan as he edged around the table. “I’ll have back every coin I’ve passed into your stinking, fat little hands all these years.”

  “But I’m here, I’m here, aren’t I? I’m here to give you the chance to disappear.”

  “Oh, yes, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? If they take me, your name’ll be the first to spill from these lips, Urik. You’ll join me in whatever cell they’ve got in mind for me, or under the headtaker’s axe.”

  “Ochan, please . . .” Ammen grinned to hear such a note of pleading in the voice of this man who held high office in the city’s Guard. “Please don’t think such things. I’ve taken my life in my hands just coming here to warn you. If I could turn them aside from your trail, don’t you think I’d do it? Haven’t I done it often enough before? No, this is beyond me, far beyond me. Your only chance is to take yourself off somewhere you’ll not be found.”

  Ochan the Cook rushed forward and drove the Wardcaptain back against the wall. He pinned the small man’s shoulders to the stone.

  “It’s the Shadowhand,” Urik cried. “They say it’s his command that you be taken. Sweet Gods, what could I do in the face of that? Nothing! Nothing!”

  Ammen rose quietly to his feet. His father was silent and still, staring into Urik’s fearful face. Ammen had heard of the Shadowhand, of course: the Tal Dyreen who whispered in the High Thane’s ear.

  Ochan released his grip on Urik’s shoulders and stepped back, deep in thought. The Wardcaptain shook himself and resettled his cape about him.

  “You must find a hiding place, Ochan. Take yourself away from here. You’ve family in Ive, haven’t you?

  Or better yet, you could take to the Vare: no one would find you there.”

  “You want me to hide away amongst masterless men like some common cutpurse?” Ochan growled.

  “Don’t insult me. You must be wrong, anyway. Why would the Shadowhand care about me?”

  “How would I know?” snapped Urik in exasperation. “I’m only telling you what I’ve been told. The order came through the High Thane’s Steward, but I heard he used the Shadowhand’s name to nail it in place. That’s all I know, and if you’ve any sense it’ll be enough. Disappear, for a while at least. Maybe the clouds will clear once all this trouble with the Black Road is done and the Shadowhand is back in Vaymouth.”

  “Get out,” muttered Ochan, turning his back on the Wardcaptain. Urik did not hesitate to obey.

  Ochan righted his chair and slumped back onto it, his eyes fixed on the knotted surface of the table. He ignored his son, and the heap of baubles that had so recently been the subject of such close scrutiny.

  Ammen drifted towards the door on soft feet.

  “Time to visit your cousins in Skeil Anchor, perhaps,” Ochan said quietly. “Better there than anywhere Urik might think of. But the Shadowhand can’t truly be after my blood, can he? I can’t have trodden on feet big enough to set him after me.”

  He beckoned Ammen closer. He draped a strong, long arm around the boy’s shoulders.

  “A miserable place, Skeil Anchor; wet and windy. But we’d not be looked for there. Not for a while, anyway. You’ll come with me, boy.”

  Ammen grinned.

  “But you tell everyone we’re going to Ive,” warned Ochan, jabbing a wet finger at him. “Your mother, your sisters, anyone who asks. You understand?”

  Ammen nodded eagerly.

  “The Shadowhand?” Ochan muttered. “Can’t be right. I’ll have that Urik’s guts if he’s lying about this.

  But then . . . there was . . . what was his name? Can’t remember. The one I got Urik to pick up. He was from Vaymouth, wasn’t he?” He looked up abruptly, his stare fixing on the wall in front of him. His arm fell away from Ochan’s shoulder. “Gods, he couldn’t have been Torquentine’s man, could he? It couldn’t be that fat slug who’s . . .” He lapsed into a pensive silence.

  “Are we going now?” Ammen asked cautiously.

  “Tomorrow, early. There’s one or two men I’ll need to talk to before we go. No telling how long we might be gone. But we’ll not stay here tonight. I know the watchmen on Polochain’s warehouse by the quay. You head down there after dark. Tell them I sent you. I’ll find you there, once I’ve done what needs doing.”

  Ammen Sharp packed a travelling bag, and while he did so a smile broke unbidden across his face again and again. Tomorrow he and his father would be on the road together. Ammen was pleased and proud: his sisters would never be invited to share in this part of Ochan’s life. When his mother asked what was happening, Ammen told her they were going to Ive, and thought nothing of the lie.

  He put his precious knife on his belt; crammed his wooden whistle into the pack, and his steel and flint, waterskin, stubby candles and the little crossbow he used to shoot seagulls from the rooftops.

  It would be at least a full day’s journey to Skeil Anchor, more likely two now that the nights were stretching. If he was lucky, there might be bad weather to delay them, force them to hole up in a wayside inn; give him more time to be alone with his father, his sole companion in adventure.

  V

  Glasbridge was a carcass of a town, its heart torn out by the flood waters of the Glas. The river had shrunk back into its old channel many days ago but there were still slicks of filthy water, knee-deep mud and piles of debris all through the once-busy streets. Most of the houses closest to the river had been cast down by the torrent; only a few that had been built of stone survived and even they were gutted and crumbling. The waves along the seafront lapped heavily, burdened by the flotsam that had been spewed out into the sea by the flood. And by bodies. Even now, the sea was still returning a few corpses each day to the city. They bobbed like bloated sacks along the harbour, pale and putrid.

  Most of what the waters had not ruined, fire had claimed. Everywhere the black shells of buildings and their smoke-stained walls told a tale of destruction. The Black Road conquerors of Glasbridge had been too few in number to control the inferno once they had set it loose, and had been disinclined to make the effort. The town could be rebuilt if fate and fortune allowed them the opportunity. For now, all that mattered was that the remnants of the Lannis Blood’s warriors could not gather here, and the other Haig Bloods could not use the harbour to bring spear-forested ships ashore.

  Few people – the old, the very young, the sick and infirm – could be seen out on the ravaged streets, scrabbling amidst the rubble in search of food, clothing or lost relatives. They shared their search with the dogs and seagulls and crows that fought over every scrap of food. Many bodies were still hidden beneath the wreckage. Packs of dogs dug them out; they and the carrion birds and rats consumed them.

  It was snowing as Kanin oc Horin-Gyre rode into Glasbridge. Big, fat flakes drifted like the seed-heads of countless winter flowers. They were blanketing the whole Glas valley, concealing its scars. Without any wind to drive them the flakes bobbed down in a lazy dance.

  Kanin’s horse trod carefully along the city street, stepping over the shattered remains of a trader’s barrow. Like every one of the forty warriors who rode behind him, the Horin-Gyre Thane was hunched down against the weather. He wore a thick woollen cloak, looted from Koldihrve. The snow had piled up on his shoulders. Only his hands, protected by thick gauntlets, emerged from beneath the cloak to clutch the reins. The band of warriors came into Glasbridge silently. This had been the home of their Horin forebears before the Black Road’s exile, yet they showed no jubilation at its recapture after so long. Kanin’s mood defined that of those who followed him, and his had been grim for many days now.

  The riders came to the place where a fine stone bridge had, until the town’s ruin, vaulted across the broad channel of the Glas. Now only the stubs of the bridge remained, jutting out
from either bank. The water flowing between those banks was turbid and dark. The river was still carrying vast amounts of soil that it had stripped from the fields upstream of Glasbridge. Workers had already thrown a makeshift crossing over it, laying rows of planks across a series of small, flat barges.

  Half a dozen spearmen appeared from out of the snow. They challenged the riders. Kanin shrugged back the hood of his cloak, scattering snowflakes, and scowled at them.

  “Do you not know your own Thane?” he growled.

  The spearmen bowed their heads, begged forgiveness.

  “Where is my sister?” Kanin asked.

  Reunion with Wain lifted Kanin’s spirits for a time at least. He embraced her, held her shoulders with his great gloved hands. Around them, in the yard of a wheelwright’s abandoned workshop, his weary band dismounted and stood by their horses. The thick snow was crusting the animals’ manes.

  “I’d not thought to see you for a time yet,” Wain said to her brother.

  “We rode hard,” he replied, examining her features with a keen eye. “I looked for you at Sirian’s Dyke.

  I did not think you would be camped in Glasbridge already.”

  Wain glanced away. “The Dyke was broken. That eased our path.”

  Kanin already knew the tale of the breaking of Sirian’s Dyke, and the flood that had swept the road to Glasbridge clean of Lannis warriors and cracked open the town’s defences; it had been on the lips of everyone they had met since they had descended out of the Car Criagar. He did not need to hear Wain say it to know that she resented the glory Shraeve and her Inkallim had won for themselves by destroying that great dam. Horin-Gyre and the Battle Inkall would never be the easiest of allies, and in the case of Wain and Shraeve mistrust was sharpened to active dislike.

  “Let’s get out of this,” Kanin said, gesturing towards the snow-filled sky. “It’s been snowing or raining on me from the moment I left Koldihrve. I’ve had enough of it.”