Bloodheir

by Brian Ruckley

  “He will not go,” Aeglyss said when Wain pressed the issue.

  “You could make him, if you wanted to.”

  “I probably could. I’m not minded to do so.”

  It was typical of the halfbreed’s manner, ever since Wain had found him at the ruins of Kan Avor: an easy arrogance, and a reticence about his intent and his standing with the woodwights. But she had consented to Hothyn’s presence. She had seen enough to know that there might be bargaining to be done, here in Anduran. There was a question, unresolved, of control and influence. The Battle Inkall was clearly present in numbers, but where were the warriors of Gyre, and the other Bloods? Who commanded the masses of commonfolk? The army that their dead father had given to her and to Kanin to lead was now a broken, exhausted thing. If they hoped to make their voice heard in whatever was to follow, making it clear they still had hold of the White Owl Kyrinin would do no harm.

  Wain left most of her warriors in the great square at Anduran’s heart, and went on towards the castle with only her Shield, and with Aeglyss and Hothyn.

  The courtyard of Castle Anduran was crowded. There were Gyre warriors scattered across it, tending to horses, cleaning weapons, or just sitting in silent groups on the cobbles. The figures that caught Wain’s attention, though, were the Inkallim: twenty or thirty of them, standing by the front of the main keep.

  Shraeve was there, of course. She looked up as Wain drew near, staring, giving no sign of welcome.

  Two men stood apart from the others, deep in conversation. One was clad in the dark leather of the Battle Inkall, his black-dyed hair hanging down over his shoulders. The other, older and broader, with a weather-roughened face and a rather battered chain-mail jerkin, had hide boots with long brown feathers sewn on at the calfs. Wain knew them both, though neither well, and their presence told her most of what she needed to know about how things stood, both here in Anduran and back beyond the Vale of Stones.

  Fiallic, the Inkallim, was Banner-captain of the Battle. He was second only to Nyve in the hierarchy of that Inkall, and was assumed to be the First’s most likely successor. It was said that he was the greatest warrior the Battle had produced in a hundred years. He had, if Wain remembered rightly, won the rank of Banner-captain in the shortest, most one-sided trial of combat the Battle had witnessed in half a century. The other man was Temegrin nan Gyre, a cousin of Ragnor’s and Third Captain in the High Thane’s standing army. He was widely called – at his own insistence – the Eagle, but his reputation hardly merited such a noble association. Wain had never heard of him winning any victory, save for the slaughter twenty years ago of some Tarbain villagers who had abandoned their homes and set out to march into the east rather than adopt the creed of the Black Road.

  As she strode towards the two men, brushing past Shraeve without acknowledging her, Wain had to suppress a twinge of disappointment. If Temegrin was the best that Ragnor oc Gyre would offer in support of this war, the High Thane was making little effort to conceal his lack of enthusiasm. Unless the Eagle had been improbably elevated in status, he would be commanding at most a couple of thousand Gyre warriors: not much more than a token force. For the Banner-captain himself to be here, by contrast, spoke of total commitment on the part of the Battle. Such a divergence of intent between the Gyre Blood and the Inkallim did not bode well. And it did – as Shraeve had implied before she left Glasbridge –

  suggest that the ravens meant to make this war their own.

  Temegrin glanced up as she drew near. He looked to be in poor humour.

  “Greetings, lady,” he rumbled.

  She gave him a curt nod, then straightened her back and lifted her chin a fraction. She was almost as tall as Temegrin, and did not intend to appear anything other than his equal. In the last few weeks she had, she suspected, seen more fighting than he had in his whole life.

  Fiallic the Inkallim faced her with a more welcoming expression. He had surprisingly gentle eyes. They gave a misleading impression of his nature, she was certain.

  “Banner-captain,” she said. “We never thought to see the Battle field such strength. I am pleased to find you here.”

  “I imagine you are,” Fiallic said with a faint smile. “Shraeve tells me your own strength is all but spent.”

  “It is.” Wain saw no point in denying it. “But we hold Glasbridge still. Much remains possible, if fate smiles upon us.”

  “Yes. Shraeve told me that as well.”

  “We’ll save talk of what’s possible for later,” muttered Temegrin irritably. “We’ve enough to worry about in the now without turning to the hereafter. The High Thane’s command was to raze Tanwrye, and that’s done. I’ll not consent to any discussion of further adventures until I know more of what we face.”

  “I doubt our enemies will grant us much time for discussion,” said Fiallic in a soft voice.

  “We expect an assault on Glasbridge at any time . . .” Wain began, but Temegrin cut her short, chopping the air with his hand.

  “Enough. We’ll not discuss this out in a courtyard for every ear to listen. And why is your brother not here, anyway? I’d thought he would be the one to deal with these matters.”

  Wain ignored the implied insult, shedding it with a twitch of her shoulders. “I share the burden of command with him. You can be assured that I speak with his authority as well as my own. And, as I said, there is likely to be bloodshed in the next few days. One of us had to remain.”

  Temegrin grunted, apparently unconvinced.

  “I had heard your alliance with the White Owls was a thing of the past,” murmured Fiallic.

  Wain glanced at him, and found him looking beyond her. She turned her head, and saw Aeglyss and Hothyn standing there amidst her Shield. Many of the other warriors gathered in the courtyard were watching them, though the na’kyrim and Kyrinin themselves seemed unperturbed by this hostile attention.

  Aeglyss, Wain saw, had his eyes fixed upon her. She felt a tingle, like the brush of invisible fingertips, run down her neck.

  Temegrin followed the line of Fiallic’s gaze and made a thick, deep sound of disapproval.

  “That alliance should be a thing of the past,” the Eagle said. “What were you thinking, to bring a woodwight and a halfbreed here?”

  Wain set her back to Aeglyss once more. Both Temegrin and Fiallic continued to stare at the silent na’kyrim and his inhuman companion. She wondered what they saw there. Did they, like her, feel Aeglyss’s presence as an almost physical weight bearing down on their senses?

  “That’s another matter best discussed elsewhere,” was all she said.

  “Now, then,” growled Temegrin. “Come.”

  He stamped up into the keep, his feet punishing the steps for his foul mood. Fiallic followed. Wain glanced at Aeglyss, and was caught on the hook of his eyes. Not so much as a tremor disturbed the immobility of his lips, yet she knew what he wanted; what he required of her. She gave a single, sharp nod to summon him and Hothyn after her.

  “I didn’t mean for these . . . these to join us,” protested the Eagle as he, Wain and Fiallic settled into chairs around a fine circular table. The walls were partly panelled with dark wood. It might have been one of Croesan’s private chambers once.

  “You question their presence in my company,” Wain muttered. “You can see for yourself. Judge for yourself.” She could not keep a trace of irritation from her voice, though it was directed at herself as much as anyone. She should not have brought Aeglyss in here. It was the act of a fool, no better than jabbing a sleeping bear – or eagle – with a stick. Yet she had done it, and matters would fall out now as fate saw fit.

  “I don’t need to judge anything. A woodwight and a halfbreed? They’ve no place in this room, and no place in the company of the faithful.”

  “Oh, that’s an old song,” whispered Aeglyss. He was standing behind Wain. She half-turned, meaning to tell him to be silent, but somehow the words stuck in her throat.

  “You know . . .” the na’kyrim cocke
d his head as he spoke, his interest plainly caught by the thought he meant to express, “everything I see, everyone I meet, it seems to me that I have seen it, met them, before. I do not understand it, but everything, and everyone, tastes . . . familiar.”

  “I will not have our time wasted by some half-wight who—” Temegrin growled menacingly.

  “You, for example,” Aeglyss interrupted him. “The Eagle. I know nothing of you, yet I know this: your heart does not burn with hunger for the remade world. You find this world, this life, more to your liking than one true to the creed should, perhaps.”

  Wain could clearly see the storm of fury that rose within Temegrin. It blushed his cheeks, knotted his brow, bared his teeth. But before that storm broke, Aeglyss laughed.

  “Do you deny it?” he demanded of the Eagle through his laughter, and the words were like corded whips that lashed from him to Temegrin and coiled about the warrior’s throat, his chest. The air quivered at the sound of them and Wain flinched despite herself. Even impassive Fiallic narrowed his eyes and winced.

  Temegrin was straining, yearning to pull back from whatever it was that burned in the na’kyrim ’s grey eyes. But he was held. Beads of sweat were on his forehead. Wain could hear his teeth grinding together.

  Her skin was crawling, her mouth dry. She felt only the side eddies of whatever torrential flow Aeglyss had turned upon Temegrin, yet her head spun, her mind tumbled out of her grasp.

  Then Aeglyss grunted and turned away, dropping his gaze to the floor.

  “No, you do not,” he murmured.

  Temegrin the Eagle slumped in his chair. His chest heaved – a few wild breaths – and then slowed. He regained his composure.

  “What . . . what monstrosity is this you’ve brought into our midst, Wain?” he rasped.

  “Wait,” said Fiallic. His tone admitted no possibility of dissent or disobedience. He was watching Aeglyss, though the na’kyrim had drifted away from the table now, and was examining some wooden panelling on the wall. “There will be no more talk, no more discussion of any kind, in this room until the halfbreed has removed himself. Or is removed. The wight, too.”

  And there, Wain thought, is the true face of the Banner-captain of the Battle Inkall. There was more threat, more danger, in the Inkallim’s cold, level voice than Temegrin could ever imbue his bluster with.

  Yet Aeglyss kept his back to them. It was if he had been struck deaf, or was some open-eyed sleepwalker. He laid his spidery fingers, with their long, clouded nails, on a dark, scratched panel, caressing it. Hothyn was staring at Wain. It was an empty gaze, without threat, without even comprehension as far as she could tell.

  “Aeglyss,” Wain said, and he straightened and turned to her. He regarded her with raised, questioning eyebrows, like some willing servant awaiting instruction.

  “Leave us,” she said. “Wait outside with my Shield.”

  He nodded, and left the room without a word. Hothyn went too: a great, lithe hound at the heels of his master, Wain thought. Only then, as it slowed, did she realise how fast her heart had been beating. Only as she unfolded her hand in her lap did she realise she had made a fist of it. She began to rub and turn the ring on her index finger.

  “You will have to explain the company you keep,” said Fiallic to her with an incongruous smile. “My ignorance of his kind is vast in its scale, but your halfbreed is . . . disturbing.”

  “My Blood was short of allies in this undertaking” – she shot a pointed glance in Temegrin’s direction –

  “so we had to find them where we could. Through Aeglyss, we have bent the White Owls to the service of the Black Road. They have proved useful, and may do so again. Aeglyss has pledged hundreds of their spears to our cause. And you have seen for yourself that he has certain other talents. I cannot explain them, or him, but I am disinclined to set aside such possible advantage merely because you – any of us – find one man unsettling.”

  “I understand. But I was told your brother had already disavowed this alliance. Something has changed, apparently. Or is this a decision you have made without him?”

  “Never mind disavowing,” Temegrin snapped before Wain could reply. “He attacked me. I’ll see him dead for that. I want him . . .”

  “I saw no attack,” Fiallic murmured.

  “What?” the Eagle cried. “The man’s a . . . a mongrel. Unnatural! Not fit to serve the creed no matter what his uses. I will have —”

  “You will have the wisdom to leave to the Lore the determination of what, or who, is fit to serve the creed,” the Inkallim said flatly. “Theor sent Goedellin with us for just such purposes.”

  Temegrin’s eyes narrowed, and Wain detected hatred in that fierce expression. The Eagle had been humiliated by Aeglyss. It left him with a blister of anger on his heart that might be dangerous. Anger, Wain had always been taught, was an emotion to be resisted. It could too easily become bitterness or resentment at fate’s inevitable course.

  “Goedellin?” she asked, eager to tease out the threads of power and influence, and to avoid discussion of Aeglyss if she could.

  “An Inner Servant of the Lore,” Fiallic said. “The First esteems him highly. He accompanied the Battle on our march, with a number of his colleagues.”

  Wain nodded. Whether Temegrin – or his distant master, Ragnor oc Gyre – liked it or not, the Inkallim meant to be masters of this war, then. The Battle would lay claim to its muscles, the Lore to its heart.

  “The Lore has no place in the conduct of wars,” Temegrin muttered, though his voice betrayed the fact that it was an old argument, already lost. “I carry the High Thane’s authority here.”

  “You should spend more time amongst the host gathered outside this city,” said Fiallic. “If you did, you would know that we none of us carry the authority that matters here. All those people out there follow the commands of their hearts, of their faith, not those of any captain. This is a righteous war. That is the only authority the thousands acknowledge; the only command that drives them.”

  Temegrin snorted in contempt. “You ravens, always spouting pieties. If there’s no authority to be claimed, your own actions are a mystery. You think I don’t know you’ve got your captains out there organising the commonfolk into companies? That you’ve been doing it ever since Tanwrye? Hundreds, isn’t it? One Inkallim to command each hundred?”

  Fiallic shrugged. “There must be some structure. I can spare the warriors to lead such companies; perhaps if Ragnor had given you more spears to bring south, you could have done the same.”

  Temegrin hammered the table with his fist. “Enough! I bear a warrant of authority from Ragnor oc Gyre, that he put into my hands himself. You will not mock that. And you will not question the High Thane’s intent in my presence.”

  Fiallic scratched his cheek, meeting Temegrin’s furious glare with calmness. The Inkallim pushed his chair back and rose. “I meant neither to mock nor question. You hear more than I speak. Perhaps this discussion is best postponed until a time when tempers run less hot. I imagine Wain would appreciate some food after her journey.”

  Wain got to her feet as quickly as she could without appearing over-eager. Though she was not hungry, she welcomed any excuse to leave the Eagle’s company. It was, in any case, clear that whatever Temegrin might hope or imagine, the Children of the Hundred held the rudder of this war. Until she knew more of their intent, Wain would gladly postpone further argument.

  Her Shield were waiting outside. Aeglyss and Hothyn were with them. The na’kyrim had sat down on the cobblestones, resting his back against the wall. His eyes were closed. Hothyn stood staring up at the castle’s battlements, or perhaps at the clouds beyond.

  “Come,” Wain said. “There’s food in the hall.”

  The hall in Castle Anduran’s keep was in a state of some disorder. In one corner was a pile of wreckage

  – the shattered remains of tables – that was being used as firewood. Several of the windows had been smashed in during the final assau
lt on the castle; blankets had been tied over them. One of the walls bore a great black smear of grimy soot. The few intact tables and benches were crowded, but most of the warriors in the hall were sitting on the floor. Some, Wain saw as she picked her way between them, were even asleep, curled up under jackets or capes. All of them looked to be of the Gyre Blood; there were certainly no Inkallim here, and none of the few Horin warriors she and her brother had left here as garrison.

  Children hurried back and forth, carrying food and drink for the castle’s new masters. They were orphans or captives, Wain guessed: Lannis waifs put to work. She looked about her while her Shield cleared some benches to make space for her. The Gyre warriors looked tired, lethargic. Perhaps Temegrin had imagined that whoever held this castle would hold the entire valley. If so, Fiallic’s Inkallim were evidently out in the streets of the town and the fields beyond, proving him wrong.

  The food the children brought for them was simple and sparse. Wain watched Aeglyss as she tore at a slab of almost stale bread. The na’kyrim seemed to have little appetite. Hothyn refused even to touch what was offered him. Dozens of stares were upon them, Wain knew, most of them no doubt hostile or suspicious. She did not care. Her Blood, not Gyre, had paid the death-price that fate demanded for this castle. She had been out there in the courtyard, sword in hand, to see the Lannis-Haig Thane cut down; she had herself slain his daughter-in-law and grandson high in this very keep. She had more right to sit and eat in this hall than any of the Eagle’s lackeys.

  She stared down at the surface of the table.

  “You will not interfere in any discussion of mine again,” she murmured.

  Aeglyss glanced at her. “Will not? Am I one of your followers, then, Thane’s sister? To be ordered this way and that at your whim?”

  He spoke softly. As far as Wain could tell, no one – not even her Shield packed in along the opposite side of the table – would hear what they were saying. No one, she corrected herself, save perhaps Hothyn with his keen Kyrinin ears; but she had seen no sign that the woodwight understood the language of the Bloods.