A scribe sat to one side of the bed. The man was leafing through papers. He rose as the Elect entered. He had the look of a man who longed to trade his place with another.
'Elect,' he whispered, 'I think I have it all, but he spoke only briefly . . . and so fast.'
'Spoke of what?' Cerys asked. She leaned over the frail figure in the bed. Beneath almost translucent lids, Tyn's eyes rolled this way and that like beetles struggling under a silken cloth. What sights he must see, she thought to herself. Does he even remember that the rest of us are still out here, in this other place?
'M-most confused, Elect,' the scribe said. 'You may comprehend more clearly than I...'
He held out the sheets of parchment. Cerys took them without examining them.
'The gist?' she insisted gently.
'Mention of Inurian, I think. Perhaps ... I think perhaps death, Elect. His death. But something - someone - else, as well. A man, though the Dreamer spoke as if it were a beast: a black-hearted beast, loose in the Shared.'
Cerys nodded. It was as she had anticipated. Tyn's words were seldom obvious in their meaning - how could they be, having travelled so far and across such strange territory - but this message was clear enough, and it fitted with what the Shared whispered in her own mind. Inurian was gone, then. She would not be the only one at Highfast to feel that loss keenly. But what of the other part? This other man? Cerys had the deep, instinctive sense that change was in the wind. For a waking na'kyrim such instincts were seldom to be ignored, and now they whispered to her that if change was coming it would not be of a gentle kind.
With worry etched upon her brow she went to find Olyn. The keeper of crows was the one to whom the Elect always turned in matters of the deep Shared, since Inurian had left Highfast.
*
As Orisian and the others drew closer, more details became visible amongst the mass of ruins. Most of them stood no taller than a man. In places the city was nothing more than a jumble of stone and rock, gathering snow in its crannies, but here and there the rough outline of walls, of doorways and chambers emerged out of the rubble. They came up to the first crumbling wall and passed through a breach into the dead streets beyond. The wind at once fell away a little. Orisian puffed his cheeks out and rubbed at his face. There was no feeling in his skin. Rothe laid his hand upon a massive stone block. Its dark, ancient surface was crusted with overlaid growths of lichen.
'They must have been very great buildings once,' he said, glancing round at Orisian.
They picked their way through the bones of the city, as cautious in their steps as if it were the bones of its ages-dead inhabitants they were treading upon. Ess'yr and Varryn were tense, moving like deer that sensed but could not see the hunter. Instinctively, all of them crouched a little to keep their heads below the horizon. The wind howled above them. The daylight would fade soon, and the thought of night casting its cloak over these ruins was unsettling.
A space opened out before them, where snow had piled up in drifts. They paused on its threshold. Looking from face to face, Orisian drew some comfort from the evidence that the unease was not his alone. Even Ess'yr and Varryn were on edge here, far from their protective forests. The two were muttering to one another in clipped sentences.
'We could wander here for hours,' said Rothe. 'We should find somewhere to pass the night.'
'Agreed,' said Varryn.
They found a place, in the corner of what had been a small house, where the wind and snow did not reach. A few strips of dried meat were passed around, and they took sips of water from skins that were almost empty. They crowded together, all of them except for Varryn. He sat erect with his back against the wall.
'I will take watch for the first part of the night,' Rothe said to him. At first the Kyrinin did not seem to have heard, but then he gave a slight nod.
Orisian, pressed close against his sister, felt her hand reaching for his. Whether it was for his comfort or her own he did not know, but he held tight. Hunger pinched at his stomach. When he closed his eyes sleep seemed a distant hope.
Unprompted, the image of Ess'yr's white, naked back came into his mind. He stirred uneasily. It was followed by the sight of Inurian, alone in the clearing where they had left him. Orisian had watched his mother die. He had seen her lips part and the breath rattle out from her chest for the last time, and her eyes lose in a single instant the undefined lustre of life. He imagined the light in Inurian's slate-grey eyes going out. Unconsciously he tightened his grip upon his sister's hand.
'Sleep,' whispered Anyara.
He wished he could.
In the darkness of that night the wind moaned without pause over and through the skeletal city. After a time there was no more snow. The temperature fell as the hours went by. Orisian heard Varryn rising and taking Rothe's watchful place. The two said nothing to each other.
Dawn amidst the mists and clouds was a muted thing. The light that came was watery and lifeless. Though the wind had fallen away the sky was an ocean of grey, merging with the snow-dusted peaks and slopes. The cliffs to the west loomed over the city, watching over its corpse just as they must have observed its life. The five of them could have been alone in all the world.
Anyara flexed her arms and legs. 'I'll never be warm again,' she said.
Ess'yr passed out a small handful of hazelnuts. As the others cracked them open on stones, Varryn scooped up some snow and crushed it against his face, pressing it into his eyes. They sat in a small circle, eating in silence.
'What do we do now?' asked Anyara eventually.
'As Inurian said. Find the na'kyrim,' said Orisian.
'If she's here at all,' said Rothe disconsolately.
'She is here,' Varryn said.
'But the word of a dying...' Rothe caught himself and glanced at Orisian. 'Forgive me,' he said.
Orisian smiled weakly. 'Inurian was sure we would find her here.'
'We will look for sign. There will be tracks,' said Ess'yr.
'Why not just shout for her? She'll hear us from miles away up here,' suggested Anyara.
'And others will,' said Varryn, with an edge of contempt in his voice. The Kyrinin turned his attention to one of the ties on his hide boots, which had come loose.
Ess'yr opened a pouch at her belt and produced some browned scraps of some kind of food. She passed one to each of Orisian, Anyara and Rothe and replaced the rest in the pouch. 'Chew, not swallow,' she said. 'It is huuryn root.' Rothe eyed the unappealing chunk of wizened root in the palm of his hand. Anyara had already slipped hers into her mouth and was chewing vigorously, and after only a moment's hesitation Orisian followed suit. The shieldman did the same with a show of reluctance. A bitter taste flooded Orisian's mouth as soon as he bit down. It reminded him of the drink he had been given in In'hynyr's tent, but whether it was quite the same he could not be sure. At first he felt no effects, then a strange, blurred feeling developed behind his eyes. The cold seemed to recede a little from his hands and arms and feet and his weariness was blunted. He poked the root mto the side of his mouth and held it there between jaw and lip. Its sharp juices sent tingles running through his gums.
They moved methodically through the ruins. The two Kyrinin kept their eyes on the ground, and occasionally they would stoop and examine some patch of snow, rock or earth. Each time they quickly moved on. In the flat light, with the sun invisible behind banks of cloud, Orisian would have lost all sense of direction but for the towering craggy cliffs that stood above the city. Wisps of snow were trailing from the heights. Once, Orisian caught sight of a pair of great black birds flashing across the face of the cliffs. He lost them against the background of the dark rocks. There was no other sign of life.
As time went by, and the eye grew more accustomed to the patterns in the stone, some of the city that had once been here began to reveal itself. They found what must have been a bakery. Its walls were almost gone, but there was still a cracked and broken oven. They saw a stretch of roadway, a few strides of perfect
paving slabs that looked as fresh as if they had never felt a foot. In another area the buildings had been reduced to nothing but a featureless field of jumbled brick and stone, much of it blackened by some ancient fire. Varryn prised a little fragment of pitted bone from the crack between two rocks.
'Skull,' he said. 'Huanin.'
They covered almost half of the city without finding anything to suggest that they were not alone. The invigorating effects of the huuryn faded after a few hours and the cold exulted in its reclamation of their bodies. Strength drained away; eyes and spirits alike flagged. Even Ess'yr and Varryn grew progressively more subdued and slow. They found a place to rest. A few mouthfuls of biscuit were all there was to eat, and Ess'yr did not offer any more huuryn. Orisian was desperately thirsty, and gulped at a water pouch until Ess'yr gently pulled it away from his lips.
'Slow, and little,' she said.
'Sorry,' Orisian murmured, though there had been no reprimand in her tone.
Rothe was massaging his left calf, grinding at the flesh with his great fingers.
'How much longer must we keep this up?' he asked of no one in particular. 'We could search this place for a lifetime and find nothing. We should be making fires and shouting out at the top of our lungs, as Anyara said, to draw the woman to us.'
Varryn, seated a little away from the others, made a soft noise and ran a hand through his hair but said nothing.
'Varryn spoke truth,' Ess'yr said. 'Enemy might still be on our trail. And if we make noise, perhaps this woman goes away. The Fox say she is mad. She does not want visitors.'
'It would make little difference if she did run away and hide,' said Rothe. 'At this rate we'll all be ice before we find her, anyway.'
'The boy and the girl will not die here. I have sworn.'
'You have sworn?' snapped Rothe in incredulity. 'You have sworn? My life is pledged to Orisian. Neither he nor Anyara have any need of the protection of woodwights to...'
'Enough, enough,' said Orisian, spreading his arms out. 'I am sure Ess'yr does not mean any insult, Rothe. And, Ess'yr, I don't know what it is you think you have..'
He saw that neither of the Kyrinin were paying him any heed. As one, their heads had lifted and their faces become fixed masks of concentration.
'What is it?' Anyara asked, but Varryn silenced her with a fierce look. Beneath the fine web of tattoos there was a grim, intense expression. Ess'yr laid a hand upon her brother's arm.
'Sound,' she whispered.
Rothe shifted into a crouch, grasping the hilt of his sword. Orisian fumbled for the blade at his belt, hampered by numb and clumsy fingers.
'Where?' hissed Rothe.
'Coming,' was Ess'yr's hushed reply.
Anyara shifted on to the balls of her feet. Varryn half-turned and his fingers flashed a terse message to his sister. Ess'yr gave a grunt of assent, and picked up her spear. Varryn began to rise. Even as he came to his feet, he was crouching again, hissing through his teeth.
A figure emerged from behind the crumbled remains of a wall. It was a woman, cloaked in hides, her face all but hidden by a fur hood. She halted and cast her eyes over them.
'You are noisy,' she said. Her voice was rough and harsh, as if the mountain frosts had got into it and cracked it just as they had the rocks of this lost city. Still, as soon as he heard her speak Orisian detected the residue of that lilting tone Inurian had. Na'kyrim, he thought.
Ess'yr said something cautiously in her own tongue. The woman gave a terse reply.
'Yvane,' Ess'yr said, and her usually level voice held a hint of relief.
'Noisy and stupid, to be camped out here in weather like this,' Yvane said, switching out of the Kyrinin tongue once more with ease.
'Inurian told us to come here,' said Orisian. 'He said you would help us.'
The old na'kyrim fixed him with a glare that made him fear for a moment that they had made a terrible mistake in coming here. Then she turned on her heel and strode away.
'Come then,' she snapped as she went. 'I can give you food and fire. But do not presume it is anything other than an offer of brief shelter for those in need.'
III
NYVE, FIRST OF the Battle Inkall, had only one ear. Where the other should have been there was a sprawling scar with a hole at its centre. Every Inkallim knew the story. When Nyve was young, freshly admitted to the lowest ranks of the Battle, he had been one of five tasked with guarding a group of Lore Inkallim walking from Kan Dredar to Effen, a remote town in Wyn-Gyre lands. Deep in the broken lands east of Effen they had come across a large band of Tarbain hunters: wild Tarbains, of a tribe then unyoked by the Gyre Bloods, unsaved by the true creed. Ignorant perhaps of what kind of warriors they faced, the Tarbains attacked. They had many hunting dogs with them, and Nyve lost his ear to one of those before he broke its back. Only Nyve and two of the Lore Inkallim survived, the bodies of more than a score of Tarbains heaped up around them.
They went on to Effen and there Nyve gathered fifty men of the town. He was young, but he was one of the Children of the Hundred and he had a fire burning in his eyes; no one dared to refuse him. He brought them to the scene of the battle, and followed the tracks of the Tarbain hunters back to their source. On the second evening, they found the village. They burned it and Nyve himself decapitated the skull-crowned chieftain and sent his head back to Effen. Then he returned, alone, to Kan Dredar.
Nyve was fifty-five now, and walked with a stoop. His fingers had gnarled with age, the joints swollen and locked. It had been some years since he could hold a sword, yet no one had tried to depose him as First. The mind housed within that faltering body was unblunted. Theor, First of the Lore, liked Nyve. He trusted him. They had risen together through the ranks of their respective Inkalls, and been installed as Firsts within a few months of each other.
They shared a bowl of fermented milk in Nyve's chambers. It was narqan, a Tarbain drink adopted long ago by some of the northern Bloods; it had been the traditional liquor of the Battle Inkall for a hundred years. The First of the Battle had to hold his cup between his crippled knuckles. He set it down with practised precision and licked his lips as he watched Theor draining his own cup.
'That was well done,' Nyve said as Theor swallowed the last of it. 'You drink it like one of the Battle. Better than you used to, at least.'
Theor gave a friendly grimace. He had little liking for narqan, but he was the guest here and was prepared to observe the customs of his host.
'It does a man good to overcome his dislikes,' chuckled Nyve.
'I am grateful, as ever, for the opportunity to improve myself. How are your joints?'
Nyve regarded his hands as though they belonged to someone else. 'They're never at their best at this time of year. I think the wet and cold get into them, though no one seems to believe me; as if I'm not the best judge of it. Who's to say what my own bones are doing better than I am?'
A serving boy came to remove the empty vessels. Nyve watched as he walked away. 'That one's second cousin to Lakkan oc Gaven-Gyre, you know. Or third, is it? His name's Calum. I think there's a certain family resemblance, don't you?'
'Poisonous ambition and arrogance are not often visible to the eye. They always think it'll do them good to have one of their own inside,' smiled Theor. 'They do like to think there are some bonds even we cannot cut.'
'Indeed. His parents were horrified when he told them he wanted to enter training, I believe. Lakkan insisted they let him follow his hope -- because he wants his eyes and ears here, of course, rather than out of any concern for the boy's desires. He shows some promise. He might even live to join the Battle.'
'You keep him close, I am sure.'
'Certainly. I wouldn't want Lakkan to worry. And I sleep a little easier myself, knowing what he's about. Just in case, you understand.'
The clash of arms rose from outside: candidates training in the yard. Nyve cocked his head to listen, contentment passing across his face like the track of a fond memory moving beneath
the surface.
'Has there been any word from the south?' Theor asked.
'Nothing new, since the victory at Grive. I'd thought it would have come to an end by now. The Book's been far kinder to Kanin than I would have guessed.'
'His faith gives him strength.'
'That and the White Owls. By Shraeve's account, they'd all likely be dead if that halfbreed hadn't turned up with hundreds of woodwights at his back. Makes you wonder if we shouldn't have taken a closer look at the na'kyrim when he was in Hakkan, while all of this was being planned.'
Theor nodded. The same notion had occurred to him when he heard the last reports from the Glas valley. 'We thought we'd seen all we needed to see. The Hunt watched him closely. He spoke in his sleep, brooded alone; their judgement was that there was little to him but bitterness and the desires of a child. If he can get the White Owls running around at his beck and call they may have underestimated him, though.'
'They may. Fate seems to be smiling upon Kanin's adventure in a number of ways. I think Shraeve is starting to believe a great deal might be possible.'
'Yes. That was how I understood her last message, too.' Theor allowed his tone of voice to convey his meaning.
'You doubt her judgement?' Nyve asked.
'Do you?'
The First of the Battle smiled. His teeth were yellowed and worn. 'Perhaps I should send for more narqan, old friend, if you want to discuss Battle business.'
Theor raised his hands in mock horror. 'There is no need for threats,' he said.
'Shraeve has served well since she came to us,' Nyve said. 'It would have taken more strength than I've left in this carcass to hold her back once she got wind of what Horin-Gyre was attempting. She's never been one to take the smoothest path, but she's proved her mettle. Her Road is one bounded by endeavour, and by strife. So be it.'
Godless World 1 - Winterbirth Page 36
