'Don't leave me,' he whispered once, and then all was dark.
When he woke it was with the feel of the faintest touch upon his face. As his eyes focused, he found his gaze returned by the young Kyrinin woman looking down at him. She smelled of the forest, of warmth. Soft fine strands of her hair were brushing his cheek. He moved his lips soundlessly.
'Be at ease,' she said in her wondrous voice as she straightened up. 'The worst is past.'
'The worst,' he repeated.
'You saw death and came back.'
The dull pain in his flank registered upon his still-cloudy thoughts then, as if to confirm the truth of her words. He stirred, trying to ease aside the furs that lay over him. She laid a restraining hand on his, gentle but firm. Her clear eyes fixed him with a constant stare. There was no imperfection in them, he saw, no flaw in the pure field that surrounded her tiny pupils like a ring of polished flint. Inurian's eyes had not been so perfect. They had had a touch of the human in them. Many things came back to Orisian then, too many to gather and shape. There was a flicker of panic in his breast as if a slumbering bird had woken.
'Where's Rothe?' he asked.
'Rothe?'
'My shieldman. He was with me when ... he put me in the boat.'
'The big man. He is here. He lives.'
She was examining the features of his face. He felt uncomfortable, sensing the touch of her gaze.
'Where is he?' he asked.
'Here,' she repeated.
'I want to see him.'
She rose, towering above him. 'Wait. I will ask.'
Orisian slid a hand across his stomach. It felt empty, partly from hunger, partly from the bitter, violent memories that were grasping at his thoughts. One took his attention for a moment.
'Fariel,' he breathed.
She turned, almost out of the tent. She looked back at him.
'I did not hear,' she said.
'I dreamed of Fariel,' he murmured.
'Your brother,' she said.
Orisian made to ask how she knew his brother's name, but the flap of deerskin was already settling back into place behind her.
Rothe came, and Orisian had to hide the surprise that surged up within him. His shieldman looked different. Some of the bulk had gone from his frame; his face was thinner; his eyes, in the instant before they lit up at the sight of Orisian, were burdened. Orisian caught sight of tall figures outside as Rothe entered. They did not follow him in.
Rothe laid a broad hand upon Orisian's shoulder.
'It is good to see you again,' the older man said softly. 'I feared...'
Orisian struggled to sit up, but Rothe pressed him down.
'Lie still,' he said. 'Don't tire yourself.'
'I'm all right,' said Orisian.
'Perhaps, perhaps. Still, it was a bad wound you took, and it would be better not to test it yet. Who knows what harm the wights' meddling might have done?'
Orisian fingered the bandaging around his chest. 'They put this poultice on me,' he said.
'Best not to wonder what may be in it, then,' grimaced Rothe.
'How long has it been?'
'Seven days, Orisian.'
'Seven days! I thought two or three, perhaps. I can hardly remember any of it.'
'Seven. And moving much of the time. We only arrived here three days ago. They would not tell me what was happening, all the while. Not once have they let me see you. And they took my sword away, my sword I've had for half my life.'
Orisian noticed for the first time that there were bruises, almost faded now, upon Rothe's cheek and brow, and a thin red line where some wound across the bridge of his nose had started to heal. He could guess how hard the man had tried to come to his side.
'Well,' he said, 'at least we are together again now.'
'Together as prisoners in a woodwight camp. I tried to get us to Glasbridge, I truly did, but I've no skill with boats and the currents were too strong. They carried us to the Car Anagais. The wights took us almost the moment we landed.' A pained expression passed across the shieldman's face. 'Forgive me, Orisian, for bringing you away against your will. I had no choice. I could not let you go to your father.'
'You're my shieldman, and you saved my life. Should I forgive you that? I was . . . well, let's leave it. Do you know where we are now?'
'Hard to say. There was no break in the forest all the way we walked. I would say somewhere in the Car Anagais still. Perhaps the southern slopes of the Car Criagar, but I don't think we covered that much ground.'
Orisian thought on that for a few moments. 'What are we going to do?' he wondered.
'Wait until you are a little more healed. Hope these creatures do not take it into their heads to kill us before we have a chance to escape.'
'These must be the Fox clan, though,' said Orisian. 'They would have no real reason to harm us. They're not like the White Owls...'
'The thoughts of a woodwight are no more human than his eyes. Never trust them, Orisian. We must guard one another here.'
Orisian wanted to say that it would be all right, that this was the clan of Inurian's father, but he knew it would make no difference to Rothe. The shieldman had been a fighter in the service of the Lannis Blood all his life, and throughout that time there had been two constant stars to steer by: the threat of the Gyre Bloods in the north, and that of the Kyrinin who filled the forests around the valley. Even Orisian, knowing that Fox and White Owl were not one and the same, could not keep the tales of massacred woodsmen and of families burned in forest huts wholly from his mind.
The Kyrinin woman came back then. Tension snapped into Rothe's eyes and arms at the sound of her entry, though he did not turn round.
'Enough talk,' she said. 'Both come out.'
'He should rest,' said Rothe, still refusing to look at the woman.
To Orisian's surprise, she laughed: a rich, musical laugh like none he had heard before save perhaps, in a way, from Inurian. Rothe was scowling.
'Enough rest,' she said. 'He is well.'
As she came forwards to help Orisian rise, Rothe interposed himself. He wrapped a powerful arm around Orisian and eased him up and out of the bed. The woman held out a cape of thick dark fur. Rothe snatched the cape and laid it around Orisian's shoulders.
'Are you strong enough?' he asked.
Orisian thought about it. Although he felt weak and rather frail, there was not so much pain and his body seemed to agree with the Kyrinin woman that he had rested enough. His muscles were stale and ready to stretch themselves.
'Yes,' he said.
Still resting much of his weight on Rothe's encircling arm, Orisian followed the woman out into daylight. His eyes had forgotten its feel and he had to squint against the glare, but the instant touch of a breeze upon his face and of the cold air upon his skin was like diving into a cool pool on a hot day. It woke him. He blinked and inhaled deeply, shaking his head a little. The woman was watching him with an amused smile upon her lips.
The sunlight was coming in low and clear from the west. A dog bounded past, yelping as it crossed from light to shade and back again. A small gang of children were in close pursuit, laughing and shouting. When they caught sight of Orisian and Rothe standing outside the tent, they stumbled to a halt and stood in a tight knot, staring at them. Orisian's eyes followed the dog as it ran on and vanished between some huts.
He was in a great camp of the Fox Kyrinin. Domed tents made of hides and skins dotted the forest floor, spreading as far as he could see amidst the trees. Kyrinin were moving amongst them. There were dogs, and a few goats wandered through the camp idly picking at grass or bushes. It was a bright, brisk winter's day, and the scene had a peaceful feel to it.
Then he saw the object standing not far from the hut he had rested in. It was shaped of intertwined twigs and grasses supported on a frame of poles: an intricate weaving which suggested, rather than portrayed, the image of a face. He remembered it from his ill dreams.
'What is that?' he asked.
<
br /> The woman followed his gaze, but did not respond.
Kyrinin were gathering now. They drifted up as if in answer to some silent summons to stand in a wide semi-circle, watching Orisian and Rothe. Many of them carried spears. Rothe shifted uneasily. The woman said something in her own tongue, and there were a few slight nods amongst the crowd. The children's view of the strange visitors to their camp had been obscured by the arriving adults and they slipped through the forest of legs to the front once more.
'Hungry?' asked the woman.
Orisian nodded. The crowd parted without a sound. As they passed through the ranks of Kyrinin, Orisian felt unease filling him, as if it had leapt the gap from Rothe's body to his own. Intense grey eyes were fixed upon him. These people, so close he could touch one simply by reaching out, were not as he had imagined they would be. He had thought, when he pictured them in his daydreams, that they would be delicate, almost frail. For all the grace in their lean frames, there was a muscular strength and confidence too. Even their silence was more presence than absence. He was glad of Rothe's arm about him, which seemed then as much protection as support.
Beyond the ring of Kyrinin, the woman brought them to a small fire. A girl was turning a hare on a spit. Fat fell into the flames, hissing and snapping. The girl danced away as they approached.
'Eat,' said the woman.
Orisian lowered himself to the ground and sat cross-legged. The scent of the meat woke a ravenous hunger in him. Rothe lifted the hare from over the fire and laid it on a stone. They picked scraps of meat from its carcass. Orisian could hardly eat fast enough to meet the need within him. Food had seldom tasted so sweet, and with the warm cloak about him and the air so sharp and fresh he felt, for the first time since he had woken, something like himself. Only when the hare had been reduced to a pile of greasy bones did he pause. He tried to wipe away the juices from around his mouth. They clung to him.
He looked up at the woman standing to one side.
'How do you know my brother was called Fariel?' he asked.
There was no reaction in the Kyrinin's expression. 'Inurian spoke of him,' she said, then turned away.
'You know Inurian?' he called after her.
She went to the watching crowd and began speaking to some of them. A skinny dog came and made a grab for one of the bones. Rothe waved it away. It growled balefully at him before sitting down just out of reach and fixing the remains of the meal with an obsessive stare. Orisian looked into the centre of the fire. He had asked Inurian to let him come on his journeys into these hills many times. And now here he was, amongst the people the na'kyrim had known and visited. He had strayed, through a nightmare, into the secret part of Inurian's life he had always been so curious about, and Inurian was not here with him. Nothing was as he had hoped it would be.
'She's coming back,' muttered Rothe.
'You must go in again,' the woman said.
Rothe and Orisian were parted. The enforced separation brought a thunderous rage to Rothe's face.
'It's all right,' Orisian called after his shieldman, though he was not certain of the truth of that. To his surprise, the woman followed him into the tent, and watched as he lowered himself on to the sleeping mat once more. She squatted at his side.
'Do you know Inurian well?' he asked her.
'You must speak with In'hynyr tomorrow,' she said.
Orisian looked blank.
'The vo'arityr. The . . .' She grimaced, apparently frustrated in her search for the right words. 'She is the will of the vo'an.'
'I see,' said Orisian dully.
'Some wish to send you to the willow.'
'What does that mean?'
'To take your lives.'
'Why?' asked Orisian.
'You are Huanin. Perhaps not friends to the Fox. Some say you should not be here.'
'But we were brought here,' protested Orisian. 'We did not choose to come.'
'You would be dead if I did not bring you. The needed medicine was here.'
Orisian pressed his hands into his eyes. Perhaps Rothe had been right. There was nothing but danger here. The woodwights were savages after all, their thoughts twisted in strange patterns.
'The vo'an'tyr will send for you.' She rose and made to leave the tent.
'Wait,' he said. 'Will you be there tomorrow?'
The woman shook her head.
'Will they speak my tongue?' asked Orisian.
'In'hynyr has often wintered at Koldihrve.'
For a moment Orisian was puzzled, then he understood. Koldihrve: the settlement of masterless men at the mouth of the Dihrve River beyond the Car Criagar. It had the reputation of being a wild, dangerous town, all the more so because the Fox Kyrinin had a winter camp on its edge. It was the one place Orisian had heard of where Huanin and Kyrinin still lived side by side.
'That is where you learned it as well?' he asked.
'Enough questions.' She made for the doorway.
'What is your name, at least?' Orisian said.
'Ess'yr,' she said.
With that she was gone and Orisian was left alone. After a time - a dead space in which thoughts ran unhindered and chaotic around his head - for no one reason that he could name, but for all of them, he found there were tears in his eyes.
They came for him early in the morning. He had been awake a little while. The sound of dogs barking outside had woken him before dawn, and dark thoughts had kept him from sleep once roused. When the Kyrinin entered the tent he was examining his wound, having peeled away the dressing. There was an angry red weal, but it seemed to be healing. He had no time to replace the poultice. Silent Kyrinin warriors led him out of the tent.
A wetting drizzle was falling, as much a heavy mist as rain. Beneath its veil, the vo'an was a silent, muffled place of indistinct shapes. They crossed through a part of the camp he had not seen before, rising up a slope to a grove of trees where one shelter stood apart from the others. There was a patch of bare earth before it, into which tall poles were driven. One had a column of deer skulls attached to it, another the pelts of beavers, a third was twined around with boughs of holly. They sent him inside alone.
The air within had a cloying, herbal intensity that was almost tangible, as if someone had pressed a cloth dripping with scent across his nose and mouth. He wrestled with a sudden wave of nausea. A bright fire burned in the centre of the tent, and a crowd of Kyrinin were seated around it. As he stepped in, all turned to look at him. One of the women rose and reached for him. He shrank away from the touch. She grasped his shoulder and pressed him down. He sank to the ground. The oppressiveness of the air seemed a little less, and his head ceased to spin. The woman put a small wooden bowl into his hands.
'Drink,' she said.
He lifted the bowl to his lips, and winced as he tasted the hot, bitter liquid it contained. He did not dare to put it aside, since he had no idea what had significance here and what did not. Somewhere inside him, not as far beneath the surface as he would have wished, there was a small boy shivering with fear and loneliness. He knew a time had now come, perhaps the first time, when he could not allow that boy to be a part of his thoughts. He rested the bowl on his knees and looked around with what he hoped would pass for composure.
There were perhaps twenty Kyrinin crammed into the tent, facing and flanking him in tight ranks. Here and there, on the faces of both men and women, he could make out the fine, curling facial tattoos that he thought were supposed to mark out warriors or leaders. In the War of the Tainted, he had heard, the Kings' warriors had cut the skin bearing such brands from the faces of dead Kyrinin, to prove what dangerous enemies they had slain.
Opposite him, across the shimmering flames, was a small woman, older than most of the others. She was wrapped in a cloak of some roughly woven material decorated with black and blue swirls. There were bold streaks of red slashed through the silvery hair that fell across her shoulders. Her features were sharp but there was a furrowing in the skin at the corner of her eyes and mout
h that betrayed the passage of years. Her flat grey eyes were fixed upon Orisian.
'I am In'hynyr. I am the vo'an'tyr,' she said, her voice a light, reedy sound that had a thread of iron within it.
Orisian nodded. The liquid he had swallowed had left a burning track down his throat and into his chest.
"We will talk,' said In'hynyr.
'As you wish,' replied Orisian faintly. He was at a loss to know what else to say, or whether he should be saying anything at all.
'There are five vo'ans of the Fox clan this season,' In'hynyr said, 'which is a good number. This place we are in now is a good one. The Sun-facing slope with rich forests. There is food to be gathered here. The forest is generous. This season is the first we have had a vo'an here since my first child was carried on my back. She has many children of her own now. It has been a long wait for the Fox to return. When there was a vo'an in this place before, Huanin from the valley saw our fires and came to seek us out. We led them over rough ground and steep valleys. We traded killings with them and they went away. You are from the valley, thicklegs and heavyfoot?'
'I ... I am from Kolglas,' stammered Orisian, caught unawares by the sudden question. In'hynyr's voice had a rhythmic, lulling quality to it that distracted him from the meaning of the words being spoken.
'Why have you come to this vo'an?' asked In'hynyr.
'I was wounded. I was brought here. Ess'yr said . . .' Orisian replied. He tried to continue, but In'hynyr gave a sharp sniff and spoke over him.
'It was known in the Fox clan that there would be war in the valley this season. Our spear a'ans in the summer returned from the lands of the enemy with word of a Huanin army. They said the White Owl, who are carrion-eaters, would make war upon the people of the valley alongside this army. The White Owl, who have no memory, make themselves the servants of the Huanin. That is good. They shall suffer for it. It is good, too, that there is war in the valley. If there is war in the valley, we shall be left in peace. So we returned to this vo'an after many years.'
Orisian was struggling to follow all that was being said. If the White Owls had given aid to the Inkallim, it might explain how they had reached Kolglas. With Kyrinin guides they might have come undetected through Anlane. Yet it seemed an impossible alliance. The White Owls were no friends of humans, and the Bloods of the Black Road certainly none of Kyrinin.
Godless World 1 - Winterbirth Page 17
