Winterbirth

by Brian Ruckley

  Somewhere out in the gathering gloom a seabird screeched. The cry was not one Orisian recognised from Kolglas. It sounded like the voice of a deserted land. The small boats lying on the mud, and tied to decrepit little jetties, had an abandoned air about them.

  'No sign of Ess'yr yet,' Orisian said. 'Or Varryn. I thought they might have come to find us by now.'

  'They might have problems of their own, now the White Owls — maybe even the Black Road — are loose in their lands. Anyway, there'll be time enough in the morning, if they've not come to us by then.

  You said the ship sails in the afternoon?'

  Orisian nodded. Yvane was digging at her fingernails with greater vigour. It was obvious she had more to say, and he did not have to wait long to hear it.

  'You understand something of the weight the Kyrinin place upon death and the dead?'

  'Something.'

  'They feel the eyes of the dead upon them. They put food out to keep away the restless dead, and have their soulcatchers to snare the ones they can't put off. This ra'tyn that Ess'yr has taken on is an oath that may not be broken, because it is given to someone on the brink of death. If she failed that promise, the failure would keep the dead one from his rest and shake him into such anger that no amount of food,.or chanting, or drumming would keep him from her. No matter how much he loved her when he lived. It's a serious matter.'

  'And Varryn doesn't approve,' murmured Orisian.

  'No. He never liked Inurian in the first place, I would guess. Most Kyrinin think little better of na'kyrim than they do of Huanin; I expect Varryn was. . . distressed at his sister's involvement with one of them.'

  'Still, he's helped her to see her promise through.'

  'He loves her. And she must have loved Inurian to make it in the first place.' She cast aside the stick and scratched at her upper arm. 'You understand, then. Ess'yr will die for you if need be, because of that promise. For no other reason. That is the beginning and end of why she has come so far with you, why she has stayed close.'

  Orisian looked intently at the na'kyrim. She pretended not to notice his gaze.

  'No other reason,' he said, and Yvane gave a quick, emphatic nod.

  'None,' she said. 'It's enough, isn't it?'

  'It's enough.'

  'Good. Tomorrow, then. In the morning, you can say your farewells.'

  Orisian knew perfectly well that he might never see Ess'yr again once Koldihrve was behind him, and he would be lying to himself if he pretended that thought mattered not at all. Her presence — however distant it might sometimes be - had woken, and now nourished, something deep inside him.

  'It won't go well for them, will it? If the White Owls come this far, and the Black Road ?' he said.

  Yvane folded her hands into her lap.

  'It may not. The Fox has never been a large clan. Not many warriors. The townsfolk might help them, but you can never be sure with Koldihrvers. They're not usually the kind of people to put themselves at risk on another's account. But who knows? It's only those Black Road brutes who think the future's carved in stone.'

  'This is madness,' muttered Orisian with sudden bitterness. 'None of this would've happened if we hadn't come here.'

  Yvane's hand twitched, as if she wanted to swat away his thought, but it stayed in her lap.

  'Be careful,' she said. 'Guilt's a dangerous thing. Whoever's fault this is, it's not yours, or your sister's.

  Fox and White Owl, True Bloods and Black Road : these are old battles. They began long before you were born. Most likely, they'll still be raging long after we're all gone.'

  A faint shout from the Tal Dyreen vessel drew his eyes up, but there was nothing to see. It was getting darker all the time; the shipboard torches stood out more brightly than ever. One moment he longed to be back at Kolglas or Glasbridge, hungered for the chance to do something more than run from his enemies; the next he was afraid of what he would find there, of what it would mean to be Thane at a time of war. It could have been Fariel; but for the Heart Fever, it could have been Fariel who had to face this.

  That would have been better for the Blood.

  He sighed. He had no wish to dwell on such things.

  'You are coming with us, then. On the ship?' he asked.

  Yvane wrinkled her nose. It was a sharp, uncharacteristic gesture.

  'Seems the wisest course. Much as I like my solitude, I'm no fool. Neither the Vale of Tears nor the Car Criagar seem the most appealing of places at the moment. Can't say I'm overjoyed at the prospect. I've never met a Tal Dyreen, but from what I've heard of them I doubt I'll find them pleasant company.'

  'What will you do afterwards?'

  'Thank my good fortune that I've made it out of all this,' she said with a shrug. 'Curse Inurian for sending you in my direction. Perhaps go to Highfast, which is what he wanted of me all along. Inurian often got his way in the end, I seem to recall.'

  'Can't you just . . . visit them as you did Hammarn, though?' Orisian asked. 'If all Inurian wanted was that they should be told about Aeglyss, about what was happening, can't you do it that way?'

  Yvane laughed. She gazed out towards the horizon.

  'If I turned up like that in the Elect's chambers, I'd be slapped away and cast out before she even bothered to find out who it was. I've no wish to repeat my experience of trying to eavesdrop on Aeglyss.

  They're more than a little protective of their privacy in Highfast: uninvited guests, even other na'kyrim, don't get a warm welcome. They're frightened, Orisian. All of us are, deep down. You pure-blooded folk have made sure of that, over the centuries.

  'Anyway, even if I was given the chance to announce myself, the mere mention of my name . . . well, let's just say I didn't leave there on the best of terms. Oh, they loved Inurian, of course. When he took his leave, it was all kind words, reluctant partings. When I went, it was arguments and ill wishes.'

  'You didn't like Inurian very much, did you?'

  'Ha! There's some precious youthful innocence. To imagine that it's all as simple as like or dislike; love or hate. Inurian and I never did decide which side of the line we fell upon.'

  Sudden noise from Hammarn's hut had both of them rising sharply and turning. There was shouting, the pounding of a fist on wood. Orisian went first, around to the front of the shack. Three men stood in the roadway: two of them torchbearers, the third a red-faced man with a dented iron helm on his head and a spear in his hand. This third was facing Hammarn, who was struggling to block the doorway with his slight frame. The old na'kyrim was agitated, hopping from foot to foot.

  'Not a way to treat guests,' Hammarn was spluttering, 'not at all. Cracking at doors in the dark.'

  His sideways glance in response to Orisian's appearance made the red-faced man turn around. He had a patchy beard spread sparsely over a scabbed chin. The glare he fixed on Orisian was almost contemptuous.

  'This one?' he demanded.

  'A guest,' Hammarn said irritably before anyone else could reply. 'This is Ame,' he told Orisian.

  The leaden glumness which he put into the phrase, as if he was announcing the arrival of an unpleasant affliction, might have made Orisian smile at another time, but he was tired and had a heavy heart.

  'Second Watchman,' Ame said gravely. If he had hoped Orisian would be impressed he was disappointed.

  'What's happening?' Rothe snapped from over Hammarn's shoulder. The shieldman's abrupt, and bulky, emergence from the shadows within the hut had the two torchbearers taking a nervous step back. Even Ame looked momentarily alarmed before he snapped his attention back to Orisian. He jabbed at him with a stubby finger.

  'You're wanted at the Tower,' he said.

  'Tower?'

  'Where Tomas holds court,' muttered Yvane.

  'He's wanted, you're not,' Ame growled at her. 'You'll keep out of sight, unless you're a fool.'

  'My pleasure,' Yvane said acidly.

  Rothe had pushed past Hammarn and stepped on to the road. He was a good head taller than A
me, and leaned uncomfortably close to the Second Watchman.

  'Not clever to throw orders around without knowing who you're talking to,' he said.

  'It's all right, Rothe,' Orisian said quickly. 'There's no point in starting arguments. Not now. You and I'll go with them.'

  He was worried for a moment that they would insist that Anyara came — they must know she was inside, as they'd been watching so closely — but Ame seemed satisfied. He was trying to stretch himself, Orisian noticed, to close the gap a little on Rothe's height.

  They went through the dark town in silence. There was nothing left of the day now; the only light was that seeping out between window shutters. Koldihrve was quiet. The air bore the faint smell of meat cooking over a fire.

  Ame walked ahead of them, a hint of ungainly swagger in his stride. The First Watchman's abode was the only stone-built structure in the whole town: an old, fragile-looking round tower that stood all of three storeys high. A wooden hall and house had been built around it at some time, leaving the tower like a stubby stone finger jabbed up through their midst.

  Orisian and Rothe were left to wait in a small, musty room. Voices leaked through from the adjoining hall; Koldihrve's Watch ate and drank well, from the sound of it. Rothe had the look of a man with only a small store of patience left.

  'I'll talk to this Tomas and we'll get back to the others,' Orisian said. 'It won't take long.'

  His shieldman gave his beard a distracted scratch. 'It's not right to have masterless men dragging us this way and that as they like,' he muttered.

  'We only have to keep them happy until tomorrow. Nothing else matters but getting safely on that ship.'

  Ame returned. He had shed his helmet and swapped his spear for a hunk of fat-soaked bread. He gestured at Orisian with it. 'The First Watchman'll see you.'

  Rothe rose as well, but Ame waved him back. 'The guard dog can stay here, I'd say.'

  'I don't think so,' said Rothe.

  'I'll talk to him,' Orisian told him. He was surprised at the still calm he felt within. This all felt unimportant, a small detail in the journey to Delyne's ship; just something that had to be shuffled aside to clear their path. 'Wait for me here.'

  Rothe looked doubtful, but settled back on to the bench.

  The First Watchman's chamber was simple and sparsely furnished. Tomas himself was a wiry, knotted man who sat low in his chair and regarded Orisian with a sharp eye. There was a wolf's pelt stretched on the wall behind him. Tomas pointed at a stool.

  'Way I hear it, there's trouble in the mountains,' Tomas said as Orisian was sitting down. His breathing had an uneven edge to it, the air pushed out from his lungs through bubbling phlegm. 'White Owl and Fox at each other like stoats. That's no great surprise, but what I hear is it's different this time. Humans up there, too. Now the Fox don't know much about such things, but I'm First Watchman, and I know a thing or two. So when they tell me there's Huanin out there, with women marching alongside men, I think Black Road to myself. Strange times, that the lords of Kan Dredar are wandering in the Car

  Criagar, seems to me.'

  'We fled from them,' said Orisian, unwilling to say any more than he had to. 'It's only luck and chance have brought us here. Some Fox Kyrinin guided us. We would have been finished without them.'

  He added the last as an afterthought, hoping that it might carry some weight here, where Huanin and Kyrinin lived with only a river between them. The First Watchman ignored it.

  'You've the voice of a Lannis boy.'

  'My name is Orisian. I'm from Kolglas.'

  Tomas nodded slowly, as if he had already known as much. It was bluff, Orisian decided; a self-important gesture. It seemed very unlikely that Tomas would know the name of Croesan's nephew.

  'Not just Kyrinin you travel with,' the First Watchman continued. 'Yvane, my Watch tells me.'

  'We met her in the mountains,' Orisian said.

  'Poor company you keep. But I always say the oathbound're short on judgement.'

  Orisian started to reply, but Tomas ignored him and continued.

  'So who else? Fox, na'kyrim; what about the others? A girl, I heard, and a man big enough to be half bear.'

  'My sister,' Orisian said. 'And the man's a woodcutter. He was working for my father.' With each passing moment he was less inclined to tell Tomas exactly who he was; the worst of the man's hostility was kept just out of sight, but Orisian could see more than enough of it to make him cautious.

  'Oh, yes? Well, if you say so. We keep out of other folk's business here. No one'll trouble you if you give us no cause.'

  He coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  'Each of your Thanes, when he's fresh come into his rule, sends messengers trying to persuade us to take his oath. We pay them little heed, and they don't stay long. One sent gifts a while ago; Tavan, if I remember right. I've still got the sword my great-uncle had from his men. Pretty enough on the wall, though I'd have more use for a good bear trap, truth be told. Man who brought it went away with a ringing in his ears. My great-uncle wasn't a man to play pretty with words.'

  Tomas chuckled, then hawked and spat into a battered tin pot at his feet. The mess accumulated there suggested it had never been cleaned.

  'Oaths make men slaves, I reckon,' said Tomas. 'No place for 'em here.'

  'You might find a use for that sword, though, if the Black Road comes this way,' said Orisian.

  Tomas shrugged at that and drummed his fingers on the tabletop.

  'We can bend with the wind,' he said. 'Black Roador your lot makes little odds to us. It's the oath, and what comes with it, that takes a man's freedom. What difference who he's given it to? You're all the same deep down. Oaths like yours only lead to killing and the like, one way or the other.'

  Orisian bit his lip rather than respond.

  'So it's war, is it?' Tomas asked. 'On the Glas? Must be, if you've the Black Road up in the hills.'

  'Fighting, yes. It won't last.'

  'If you say so,' said Tomas with a crooked smile. He was missing at least a couple of teeth. 'Bound to run out of people to kill sooner or later, I suppose. I'd not want your troubles in Koldihrve, though.'

  'There'll be no trouble,' Orisian said firmly. 'We're taking ship with the Tal Dyreens tomorrow and you'll not see us again.'

  'Not short of coin, if you've tempted that one into carrying you around. You taking the na'kyrim with you?' His voice was thickening all the time, the words rattling in his throat.

  'Yvane? Yes, she's coming with us.'

  'Good enough,' Tomas said. 'I find you, or her, still here after that boat's gone and I'll want to know why, mind. I look after this town, and I've plenty men'll help me do it. We don't want Lannis folk here any time, but doubly not if the Black Road 's rooting around.'

  'We're gone tomorrow. You won't have to worry about that.'

  Tomas nodded. He was shaken by a liquid-sounding cough even as he waved Orisian away. Orisian retreated, as if the sound itself might carry disease into his own chest. As soon as he was outside, breathing the cold night air, he set to forgetting the conversation. It did not matter that Tomas seemed a fraction more threatening - perhaps even dangerous — than he had expected. Soon, soon they would be away from this town, and Orisian was confident he would never return.

  They slept in Hammarn's hut, all crammed together on the floor with furs and cloth spread over them.

  The boards were rough on the back, but Orisian slept well. Even when Rothe began to snore - a rumbling, rasping sound vigorous enough to rouse half the town — Orisian woke no more than was needed to prod at his shieldman's shoulder. Rothe shuffled on to his side with an irritated mutter, and the snoring stopped.

  Once or twice more, Orisian brushed against the surface of wakefulness. The sighing of tiny waves on the beach infiltrated his sleep, and later the patter of rain on the roof. He heard boat timbers creak, and he heard the breathing of his companions, and pressed in tight in that small hut he was warm. He rest
ed, and though his dreams were troubled they did not disturb him, and in the morning they sank away and he forgot them.

  In that half-hearted dawn, Kanin could see the lights of Koldihrve. They flickered in the grey blur of land, sea and cloud, a feeble and fragile cluster beneath the rain that was starting to fall. The Horin-Gyre Thane glanced upwards. An immense host of fat, dark clouds was massing there. A downpour was coming.

  He and five of his Shield had outpaced the rest of his company. They waited here, within sight of the town, for the others to catch them up. They should be here, Kanin thought angrily. It would still take a good two hours to reach Koldihrve. The going had been slower than he hoped, across this sodden, empty landscape. Every moment of delay cut at him, plunging him deeper and deeper into a black mood.

  His mount could sense his temper, and shook its mane uneasily. There was a boggy stream a few paces away; Kanin nudged the horse over to it and loosened the reins to allow it to drink. He patted its neck. It was not the same animal he had picked from his stables all those months ago. But then, none of them could be the same, after such a journey: through Anlane, to Anduran, across the Car Criagar. Its coat had lost its lustre, the definition of its muscles had faded. He remembered how it had tossed its head and stamped its feet that morning when he rode out from Hakkan's gate, with Wain at his side. That magnificent arrogance was all but gone now.

  'We're not what we were, are we?' he whispered to it.

  Igris eased his own mount up alongside the Thane.

  'The others are here, lord,' the shieldman said.

  Kanin glanced around. The remaining forty or so of his warriors were indeed arriving, one by one. They came in an extended line, all looking drained and damp. Their horses were exhausted.

  'No sign of that messenger we sent ahead?' Kanin asked.

  'Not yet. But he cannot be more than an hour or two ahead of us.'

  'Very well. We'll pause here, but only long enough to feed and water the horses. We can rest once we've got what we came here for.'

  Igris nodded curtly.

  Kanin dismounted and led his horse gently to a patch of lush grass. They had run out of the oats they had brought as feed the day before, just as they had almost exhausted their own food supplies. Whatever happened in the day now begun, Koldihrve was going to have to provide everything they needed to return over the Car Criagar. And what would they find when they got back to Anduran, Kanin wondered. He spared himself only that one moment to think of Wain. He would see her soon enough.