Dart nodded vigorously. “Do not let your guard down, Castellan Vail. Better to be few and true of heart than legion and corrupt.”
Rogger chuckled. “From the mouths of babes come the simplest wisdoms.”
Kathryn sagged back into her seat, but she nodded. “I’ve been too long in this tower.”
“But you’re not alone-never alone,” Rogger said. “And Tylar will be here in another day or so.”
These last words only seemed to wound more than heal. Dart had known the castellan long enough to recognize the pained narrowing of her lips, the tightening at the corners of her eyes. Matters between Kathryn and her former betrothed were even more complicated than between castellan and warden.
Rogger seemed blind to all this. “Once Tylar is here, all will be clearer.”
Dart sensed nothing could be further from the truth.
But this time she stayed silent.
Much later, as the sun sank and the first evening bell rang, Dart closed the door to her private room. Sore and tired, she shed her half cloak and wooden sword and pulled out of her boots. She could hardly think.
After Rogger left, Dart had found the rest of the day a blur of errands for the castellan. It seemed as each bell rang, bringing them only that much closer to the day of Tylar’s ceremony, more duties befell them all. Dart also had to attend a class explaining proper horse grooming and the care of riding tack, where a surly gelding had stepped on her toe. She still limped. It made the final climb up to the top of Stormwatch all that much harder.
But here her room waited. The room was really a closet, formerly a maid’s chamber adjacent to the castellan’s hermitage, but it was gloriously all her own. She even had a slitted window that looked out on the giant wyrmwood tree that graced the central courtyard.
As Dart limped to the window in her stockings, Pupp stretched, circled a few times at the foot of her bed, then settled to the floor.
Dart stared at the lesser moon, a sickle slicing slowly through the leafless limbs of the great wyrmwood. A few stars shone with cold light. She stared, lost in her own bleary thoughts of things she had to remember for the following morning. Another two retinues would arrive tomorrow-from Five Forks and Nevering.
Finally, her warm breath fogged the cold pane and she turned away.
With her thoughts on those arriving, her mind drifted to another worry, one she had been shying away from over the past half-moon since she had traveled with Castellan Vail to Oldenbrook. Dart again pictured the bronze boy, formerly a fellow student at Chrismferry, now a handservant of Jessup. She recalled how his emerald eyes had sparked when she’d last seen him, half-crouched in the High Wing.
Would he come? Would he be one of the emissaries Lord Jessup sent to witness the knighting here?
Dart found the possibility unsettling. He had recognized her, knew her from their days at the school. It would be dangerous to associate with him. Still…a part of her warmed at the thought.
Sighing, she shook her head.
She crossed back to her bed, but left the blankets where they were tucked. Her day was not quite over. She took up her sword again.
Alone in her room, she lifted the sword, shifted her knee, and began pacing through all the forms. With no one watching her every turn and twist, she relaxed into the rhythm, at first haltingly, then with more confidence. She sensed for the first time how one form flowed into another. Again and again she ran the paces, slowly coming to realize that it wasn’t the sword that defended and attacked-it was one’s own body, one’s own heart.
Deaf to the ringing of the evening bells, Dart continued, long into the night, dancing with her sword.
Alone.
Still, a small part of her wondered.
Would he come?
A WINTER’S CLOAK
Brantscowled at the finery draped over his form. Arms out, he stood perched on a stool as a gaggle of women tucked and folded, pinched and pinned. A slim-waisted tailor in a peaked cap strode in a tight circle around them all, calling out final measurements and instructions.
Finally, the man clapped his hands. “Perfect! But we’ll raise the collar just a bit to hide that scar on your neck.”
Brant gratefully lowered his arms.
He was dressed in shades of blue, from navy leggings to a ruffled azure shirt, the hues of Oldenbrook. But his position as Hand of blood was also represented in his dressings: a piping of crimson down the leggings, with matching sash to be pinned at the shoulder with a clip of gold, along with gold buttons for the shirt. It was all topped by a navy half cloak, tasseled with crimson.
“Off with it! We’ll make the final adjustments and have it all ready for packing by the morning.” A sound escaped the man, a mix of exasperation and satisfaction. “Hurry now! We have another three Hands to fit!”
Brant climbed from the stool, shed the clothes, and ushered everyone out of his rooms. Once alone, he pulled on his usual worn leathers and boots. He caught a reflection in the mirror that the tailor had hauled up here. He lifted his chin. One hand rose to touch the scar, mapping it with a finger, then dropped away.
A reminder of another life-one best forgotten.
He turned away. A loud sigh flowed from him as he grabbed his unstrung bow. It would be good to escape the city for the rest of the day.
All of the High Wing was in an excited flurry. Half the Hands were readying themselves for the flight to Tashijan the day after tomorrow. The others would remain to attend Lord Jessup, who, of course, could not leave his realm. The selected Hands would represent his Lordship and the entire realm at the knighting of the new regent.
After the long winter, the festivities had the entire castillion aflutter, a bit of pomp and color after the perpetual drab.
Brant shook his head at the foolishness.
The coming ceremony at Tashijan was plainly a symbolic gesture of unification and healing for the First Land. Brant would have been happy to forgo such posturing, but he had his reasons for not refusing Jessup’s request that he join the outgoing retinue. First, he respected Lord Jessup and could hardly refuse anyway, but also he wished to investigate further into the mystery of the castellan’s new page.
Brant’s fingers traced the stone around his neck.
A sharp squeal drew his attention toward the door to his room. It came from the outer hall. Now what? He shouldered his quiver of freshly fletched arrows and hurried to the door.
As he pulled it open, he heard Liannora, Mistress of Tears, let out another delighted exclamation. “I must have it before we leave! The fur will make the perfect winter cloak!”
Brant stepped out as Liannora graced a tall man with a kiss to the cheek. Brant recognized the head of the castillion guards, a fellow with flowing blond hair, braided back from an angular face, and flint-hard dark eyes. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, half-bowed to accept her kiss. There were few who didn’t know how the man favored the lithe Mistress of Tears.
“Thank you, Sten. Your gift could not be more opportune.” She clapped her hands in her excitement.
One other didn’t share her mood. The tailor stood to one side, face clouded with worry. “As fresh as this hide is, it will take much Grace and alchemy to tan this much skin in time.”
“I don’t care how much it costs,” Liannora said. “It can come out of my own purse.”
Brant had no interest and tried to sidestep the others, but his motion drew Liannora’s attention. She glanced him up and down, her smile hardening to distaste.
“Off on your hunt for a few scrawny rabbits and frozen birds, are we, Master Brant?” she asked.
Brant shrugged. “Best to be out of the way.”
“Perhaps you should take Sten with you. It seems he could teach you a thing or two about hunting these woods.”
“I’ll manage. Thank you.” He stepped away.
Liannora blocked him and revealed her gift from the guardsman. She motioned with her hand. “Here is the work of a true hunter.”
&
nbsp; Brant glanced at the floor, where a fresh hide lay draped and spread.
Liannora turned away, missing Brant’s shocked expression.
“The snowy fur will match my new dress perfectly,” she said, too excited even to toy with Brant any longer. Her full attention was with the tailor. She pointed to the hide. “And we must keep the gray tufts at the ear tips for the hood. Everyone must know it’s not just an ordinary wolf cloak. The tufts will let everyone know it came from a Fell wolf!”
Brant stumbled back. He knew where the hide had come from. He pictured the gaunt and starving Fell wolf that had hunted his track in the icy woods, begging for bloody scraps.
Dried blood still stained the hide. It was a fresh kill, no older than half a day. He noted the ragged tear of the hide at the rear ankle. No skinning knife had done that. It was the work of a razor snare, a cruel trap. How long had she been snared, the wire slicing to bone as she struggled?
Brant eyed the leader of the castillion guard. The man continued to drink up Liannora’s attention like fine wine. He was no hunter-only a butcher. Brant would remember.
Brant headed toward the back of the High Wing, toward the tower that would lead down and out. He had another duty now before he set off for Tashijan.
He was a hunter. As one who followed and respected the Way, he knew why the she-wolf had come to him in the winter wood-and what pain had dulled the cunning of such a great beast to allow it to be snared.
It was more than hunger.
Brant remembered the smaller eyes that had glowed from the deeper forest as he had departed: a pair of cubbies, the children of the she-wolf.
She had only been protecting her whelpings, driven to extremes, far from home. And according to the path of the Way, such children were now his responsibility.
He had no choice.
He had to hunt them down.
The stilted city creaked and moaned as Brant stepped farther out onto the ice. Though the skies were still achingly blue, the winds had already begun to gust. The air smelled of storm. Snow was coming. Heavy snow. The northern skies were already lowering with dark clouds. Ice fog lay across the frozen lake as the day grew colder with almost every breath.
Brant returned his attention to the pair of loam-giants who stood guard at the foot of the tower. The massive twins huddled from the worst of the wind, buried in their furred long-coats, leaning on pikes.
“The scabbers came from that direction,” Malthumalbaen said, raising a stout arm. “Should’ve seen ’em. All singing and pounding their round shields, like they had wrested a wyrm with their own bared hands.”
Dralmarfillneer nodded his head, scowling his agreement with his twin brother. “Mal speaks true. Stinking of ale, too. Could smell them long before you could see ’em.”
Brant circled off in the direction Malthumalbaen had indicated. He easily found the tracks of Sten and his men. It would not be hard to follow their trail back to the frozen forest.
“Mayhap you should stay in Oldenbrook’s shadow,” Malthumalbaen said. “Skies turning. Best not challenge on foot. Leave your hunt for another day.”
Brant shook his head. It could not wait. “I will return by the first evening bell.”
Dralmarfillneer shrugged, his eyes rolling at Brant’s foolishnesss.
“Ock!” his twin called to Brant as he set out. “If you should come across any scrawny bits of snowhare, I could use some new gloves!”
Brant pulled up his hood and lifted an arm in acknowledgment. As he trudged across the snow-swept ice field, he heard the brothers arguing about who needed the gloves more. When he was a good half a league off, he still heard a barked laugh echoing out to him from the pair.
Shortly after that, as he followed the trampled tread of Sten’s hunting party, his only companion was the wind. It whistled and moaned, kicking up. It was easy to grow weary, especially with the sun reflecting in a blinding glare. The only relief was found in the patches of fog in sheltered gullies between upended cliffs of ice.
As he crossed through one patch, Brant was reminded of the mists of his homeland, of the cloud forests of Saysh Mal. Unlike the cold here, the mists of Saysh Mal were all dripping leaves and steaming heat. He allowed the memory to warm him now-despite the pain that came with it.
He could still remember the day he’d heard of his father’s death; he’d been killed by a she-panther. It had marked the beginning of the end of Brant’s life. His mother had died giving birth to him. But the Way extended to the people of Saysh Mal as well as to the forest. No child was left to starve or beg. The god-realm was a rich one. The forest fostered an endless bounty, with a prosperous trade in wood, fur, and incenses.
Brant had been taken in by the school in the shadow of the Huntress’s own castillion. It had been a good life: surrounded by friends, challenged by his schooling, and always near the forest, ready to hone eye, ear, and nose. It was out in the forest that Brant’s father came alive for him again. Sometimes he swore he could see his father’s shadow shifting through the bower. More than anything, the forest helped him both mourn and heal.
It was also the Way.
And as time passed like a panther through a dark wood, Brant was discovered to be quick of mind, especially for one so young. He rose to the attention of many of the learned masters and mistresses, and eventually to the Huntress herself.
Then it all ended.
Brant had to stop his hand even now from clutching at his throat, at the stone buried under his leather and furs. If only he hadn’t been so dull…if only he hadn’t found himself bowing a knee before the Huntress…if only he had kicked that cursed stone away when it had been rolled to his toes by a burning god.
But he had bowed his knee. He had threaded the stone and made a necklace out of it. How could he toss it away? The stone was as much a talisman of his father as any rogue god. They had come upon it together. It was their secret. Brant had carried it with pride.
Then he had met the Huntress, god and mistress of Saysh Mal.
And his life had truly ended.
A new noise intruded on this painful memory. It came from ahead, cutting through the drone of the wind. A sharp popping, like breaking bones, along with a dry rattle. The forest. The gusting winds were shaking the trees, crackling ice and frozen limbs.
Rounding a tall shelf of ice, Brant spotted the dark line at the edge of the lake, thick with clinging fog. Even the rising winds seemed unable to shred the mists away.
Brant followed the tracks toward the forest. He welcomed reaching the shadowed bower. His eyes had begun to sting and water from the glare of the sun off the ice. He hurried toward the shore of the lake.
The mists ahead lay thick, as if the winds were some storm-driven sea and the fog were a tall surf, pounded and driven into the forest.
Brant tossed back his hood, despite the cold. He wanted nothing muffling his ears. He knelt a moment to string his bow, bending the taut wood with practiced ease.
Within steps, the lake vanished behind him, the sun became no more than a glare above, and even the trees seemed to fall away and disappear. He could barely see more than a handful of steps ahead of him.
Still, he had a well-beaten trail to follow-both into the forest and eventually out again. He was careful from here to step where Sten’s men had trod. That hid his own trail and was easier than crunching fresh tracks into the ankle-deep and icecrusted snowfields.
He moved silently, ears straining.
Once he was away from the edge of the forest, the winds died. The rattle and pop slowly faded. A dread quiet settled as thick as the mists.
Brant continued onward. The only sign of the larger world was the track of Sten’s hunting party. But even this trail shortened as visibility shrank. The fog continued to grow thicker and higher, shielding the sun into a twilight pall.
And the silence seemed to grow even deeper.
He smelled the blood first. A loamy ripeness to the air. He followed the tracks to the slaughter.
It appeared like some fetid bloom in a snowy field. A glade opened, slightly brighter with the open sky above. In the middle, blood splashed in frozen streaks, as far as the treeline.
Brant paused at the edge.
She had fought. The first blow had not been a killing strike, whether done for the cruelty or merely drunken aim. Brant bristled at the pain.
In the center, blood had pooled and iced around the abandoned and frost-rimmed carcass. They had not even taken the meat, only the hide. They had skinned her here. Off to the side, they had scraped and trimmed the hide. Brant leaned down and shifted a pile of scrap. They had cut away her belly skin, too thin of fur to be of value. He spotted the abandoned heavy teats. Brant’s jaw muscles tightened. Sten’s butchers must have noted the same, known she was nursing whelpings.
But to them, all that had mattered was her pelt.
Brant slipped out his own skinning knife, cut two of the heaviest teats away, and gently slipped them into deep pockets in his heavy coat. He would bury them later. The rest of the bruised and frost-blackened flesh he would leave to the hungry forest. While Sten’s men might waste good meat, it would fill the bellies of other scavengers.
Straightening, Brant continued on. He suspected it was only the scent of men that had kept the hungry denizens of the winter wood away so far. Brant had noted the unburied shite and piss left by the drunken men. And in another spot, a pile of upturned stomach, smelling still of ale.
Had it been the ale or the slaughter that turned the man’s belly?
As he had suspected earlier, a glint of metal trailed from a rear ankle of the carcass. Razor snare. The trapped ankle was twisted at an unnatural angle.
Brant took a deep breath through his nose. There was nothing he could do to lessen her pain now. Sten’s butchers knew nothing of the Way, of honor and responsibility between hunter and prey.
But Brant did.
As he circled, he noted the smaller paw prints, mere scratches in the crusted snow. They were too small to leave true tracks. Except for a few bloody prints, bright against the snow.
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