Godless World 1 - Winterbirth

by Brian Ruckley

  The rain eased off towards midday, and the going became easier as the slope flattened out. At last, there came a moment when the gradient disappeared altogether, and for the first time in what seemed an age there was only flat ground beneath their feet and before their eyes. Anyara gave a heartfelt sigh of relief and even Rothe could not keep a slight smile from his lips.

  'Welcome to the valley of the Dihrve,' said Yvane. 'Some call it the Vale of Tears, but we may hope for rather happier times here perhaps.'

  Varryn exchanged a few words with Ess'yr. They seemed to agree something.

  'There is a vo'an,' said Ess'yr. 'One or two hours. We can rest there.'

  Nobody disagreed, though Orisian caught a surprised, perhaps even shocked, expression on Anyara's face. It was easy to forget she had not been where he had.

  'It'll be fine,' he said to her, and tried to put strength into his smile.

  Aged willows covered the damp ground. The trees were too uniformly old and thinly spaced to be a dyn hane, but still the place had a haunted, wild feel to it, as if it had a life of its own upon which Orisian and the others were intruding. Fallen trunks lay all around, being slowly sucked into the earth by swathes of moss and fungus.

  They halted in a clearing and sat on a hummock that was the closest thing to dry ground.

  'We are close,' Ess'yr said. Her words were breathy, each one costing her some pain. It made Orisian wince in sympathy. 'We will go in, ask leave for you to come. Wait here.'

  'Be certain,' said Orisian softly. 'No arguments about being sent to the willow this time.'

  'No,' agreed Ess'yr.

  'Leave us a spear, at least,' said Rothe to Varryn. 'We've no weapons save my knife and these walking staffs.'

  The words seemed to wash straight over the Kyrinin. He and Ess'yr disappeared to the north, leaving the others to sit and watch the clouds scudding overhead. Tiny brown birds were hopping around amongst the undergrowth.

  'Are we sure this is safe?' asked Anyara.

  'Not entirely,' replied Rothe before Orisian could draw breath.

  'They wouldn't have brought us here if it wasn't safe,' Orisian said.

  'That's true enough,' said Yvane quietly. 'They think we've rid ourselves of hunters, at least for now, or they'd not have left us. Ess'yr certainly would do nothing to put you at risk.' She looked from Orisian to Anyara. 'Do you understand the ra'tyn? The pledge she has made?'

  Orisian frowned, not understanding. The word ra'tyn was vaguely familiar, but at first he could not say where he had heard it before. Then it came to him that Inurian had spoken it, when he lay by the Falls of Sarn. It had been a part of what he had said to Ess'yr; and Ess'yr had said something, in the moments before Yvane found them in Criagar Vyne, about having sworn an oath of some sort. He had forgotten about it.

  'I didn't think so,' mused Yvane. 'She'll not tell you herself, that's certain. I overheard them talking - arguing would be more precise, I suppose - about it back in the ruins. In any case, you can rest easy that she will not put you in danger.'

  'But they cannot speak for the wights in this camp,' muttered Rothe.

  'Things go a little differently in the Dihrve valley,' said Yvane. 'Huanin and Kyrinin share much of the land here. It's a rough kind of peace but it's peace nevertheless, so I'll give you a word of advice; two, in fact. Do not speak of "wights" too freely here. It is something you would call an enemy, and as I say, things go a little differently here. Second, no Kyrinin will be willingly parted from spear or bow while they are outside a camp. For a Huanin to be asking for it . . . Varryn bears the full kin'thyn, and he didn't get that by being shy about spilling blood. He must like you, or he'd have given you the spear point first.'

  Rothe lapsed into glum silence after that. Once, Orisian thought, the shieldman might have had something to say about Kyrinin pride.

  Time slipped by. They ate and drank. Orisian and Anyara dozed. There was a rustling amongst the trees to the west of them that had Rothe springing upright and clutching his dagger. For a few moments they were all poised, listening intently for any other sound. Then there was a sharp, grunting bark and the sound of some animal bounding off through the woods.

  'Marsh deer,' said Yvane.

  Varryn returned alone. He had been gone no more than a couple of hours.

  'Come,' was all he said.

  This was a very different vo'an to the one Orisian had seen before. Emerging from the dense woodland they arrived upon the brink of a lake fringed with vast swathes of reeds and rushes. The winter camp reached out over the marsh and water on stilted platforms and jetties of wood. There were many huts made of animal hides stretched across wooden frames, more permanent structures than the domed tents he had seen in In'hynyr's camp. At the edge of the platforms were tethered rafts of logs which supported more shelters. A powerful scent spilled from sheds where racks of fish hung over smoking fires. The whole place had a settled feel that suggested it had been here for many years; there were probably twice as many Kyrinin here as in the vo'an on the southern flanks of the Car Criagar. A few children stopped what they were doing to watch the strange party as Varryn led them up on to one of the platforms, but the adults largely ignored them.

  Varryn guided them to a hut out over the water.

  'Sleep here,' he said. 'I speak with the vo'an'tyr.'

  'Where's Ess'yr?' Orisian asked. 'Is she all right?'

  Varryn nodded. 'She will rest. You all rest.'

  'And tomorrow?'

  'Is tomorrow,' Varryn said, with the faintest shrug of his shoulders. 'No harm comes here.'

  VII

  THE BLACK ROAD had taken over the old inn at Sirian's Dyke. The inn's staff were dead or had taken flight, like all the inhabitants of the village. Shraeve's Inkallim had put a guard on the stores of ale and wine, but some of the food stocks had been shared out. In the hot, crowded room where weary travellers had rested and slaked their thirst, warriors now jostled for space in a constant hubbub of excited talk and shouts. The mood was good even without the encouragement of drink; almost all of them had been present at the fall of Castle Anduran, and that victory still intoxicated them.

  Their advance down the valley had been unopposed, until they came to Sirian's Dyke itself. Just outside the village they had routed a motley force of two hundred Lannis men - warriors and common folk mixed together - and they had done it by the strength of their arms alone. The woodwights had melted away, gone to wage their own war against the Fox; almost all of the Tarbains had scattered to plunder hamlets and farmsteads; nobody had seen the na'kyrim Aeglyss since Kanin had confronted him in the White Owl camp outside Anduran. It was a purer fight now, Blood against Blood, and tasted the better for it.

  Despite the press of bodies in the room, there was space around one table: the best table, close by the blazing fire. Wain, Shraeve and Cannek sat there, eating in silence. In the days since Kanin left for the Car Criagar, Wain and Shraeve had become the centre of all attention, the focus of the army's strength, the wellspring of its faith. And so everyone kept a respectful distance from the sister of the new Horin-Gyre Thane and the mistress of the Battle. Cannek of the Hunt passed almost unnoticed, which was as he would wish it.

  Shraeve disposed of the bread and meat in front of her methodically, without enthusiasm. One of her Inkallim came and placed a flagon of wine on the table.

  'I thought we should allow ourselves some celebration,' Shraeve said in response to Wain's questioning look. 'They deserve it.'

  Inkallim were coming out from the kitchens, distributing similar flagons around the room. They were met with roars and cheers that might have shaken loose the roof timbers. Cannek winced at the eruption of joy.

  'We agreed to keep it locked away,' Wain said.

  Shraeve smiled icily. 'There's not enough to cause any trouble, and they've fought hard enough to earn it, don't you think?'

  Wain glanced around, noting that none of the Inkallim were sharing in the bounty their leader thought they had earned. Shrae
ve had been more forward since Kanin had left. Before, she had been content to exert absolute power over her own Inkallim; now she was finding small ways to spread her net wider, as if she wanted to test Wain's patience. It might have to come to a head, but tonight was not the time.

  Cannek pushed away his plate, leaving half the food uneaten. He drained a cup of wine and rose.

  'I will leave you two fell ladies to your pleasantries,' he smiled. 'I've work to do tonight. We're going to take a look down the road to Glasbridge.'

  'I've a dozen scouts out that way already,' muttered Wain.

  Cannek shrugged. 'We of the Hunt like to feel useful,' he said lightly. 'You wouldn't want us loitering around here at a loose end, would you?'

  As her fellow Inkallim departed Shraeve laid down a chicken leg she had been gnawing. She pressed a cloth precisely against her hps, leaving small greasy stains on the material.

  'It is best to leave the Hunt to their own devices,' she murmured. 'However good your scouts are, Cannek's are better. If there was only a single mouse in a field of oats, the Hunt could find it.'

  'Yet they cannot tell me what has become of Aeglyss, can they? Or is it will not?'

  Shraeve gave a disinterested shrug of her shoulders. She was not looking at Wain; her eyes drifted idly over the crowds that filled the inn. Faces were reddening, now that the wine and ale were flowing, and voices grew louder.

  'He slipped by all of us,' the Inkallim said. 'The woodwights are cunning enough to test even the Hunt's skills. Anyway, does it matter? Your brother made it clear he had no further use for him, or for the White Owls.'

  'It matters little,' Wain replied. She was careful to keep her tone flat, unrevealing. In truth, she was uneasy that the na'kyrim had disappeared, and with him the alliance - however illusory -- he had forged on Horin-Gyre's behalf with the White Owls. Her father had always seen Aeglyss as nothing more than a key to unlock the door to Lannis-Haig, to be discarded once his usefulness was at an end. Now that the breach had come, though, Wain suspected it would have been better had they killed him. As it was, he was wandering around somewhere, out of their sight and out of their reach. However useful he had proved, he had also proven himself unpredictable, perhaps dangerously so.

  'I only regret that we don't know where he is,' she said, 'and what he's doing. I would not want him to turn up again unexpectedly, interfering.'

  Shraeve gave her a sudden, bleak smile.

  'There is no wrong or right on the Black Road, only the unfolding of its inevitable course. You know that as well as I.' Then she would say nothing else.

  Wain took to her own room not long after. The evening had left a sour, unsettling twist in her thoughts. It did not overly concern her. The Black Road always went its own way; always confounded the expectations of those who walked it. Learning and accepting that was at the root of the creed. Yet . . . given their astonishing success in the last few weeks, it was strange that there was so little room in her mind for joy, for exultation. There were too many things casting small shadows across her to allow for that: Kanin pursuing his own, personal fate in the Car Criagar; Aeglyss and the White Owls off the leash; the Inkallim watching everything with their cold eyes. Wain was no longer sure this was the same war her dead father had set in motion.

  *

  Deep in the heart of the forest that the Huanin called Anlane, but they knew as Antyryn Hyr - the Thousand Tree-clad Valleys - the small band of White Owl Kyrinin paused in a glade. They had been walking for two days and two nights, following one of the First Tracks made by the God Who Laughed in the dawn of the five races. Ever since leaving the city in the valley, they had not paused: no sleep, food eaten on the move, no slackening of their steady, remorseless pace southward through the forests that were their home.

  Only one of the faithless Huanin had managed to track their departure from the valley. They had killed her, and her hound, on the second day. It would not be fitting for one of the Huanin to follow where they were going. They had stripped her body and left it on open ground where the eaters of the dead would quickly find it.

  The na'kyrim had remained bound all this time. They kept his arms lashed behind him, and kept him gagged, for they knew that he had a deceitful voice. The lies he told had the power to twist the hearer's mind; the promises he made might put a hunger in the heart, but they had no more substance than the dew glistening on a spider's web. It was in answer to promises broken, to hopes unfulfilled, that they had brought him all this way while their brothers and sisters hunted the enemy in the mountains beyond the valley. Every one of them would prefer to be amongst those making war upon the Fox, for they knew that this would be a war unlike anything that had gone before. The hated Huanin had ruled in the valley for hundreds of years, putting such a barrier between Fox and White Owl that only small raiding parties could make the crossing; now, with the strife between the Huanin tribes, the gate had been thrown open. The Black Road Huanin might have proved no more true to their word, no more trustworthy, than any others of their kind, but they had at least allowed hundreds of White Owls to march across the valley and into the enemy's lands. It would be a bathing of spears to break the hearts of the Fox.

  Still, all the promises of friendship, of alliance and benefit, that this na'kyrim had brought to the White Owls those many months ago had melted away like snow in the season of breaking buds. These warriors had seen with their own eyes the lord of the Huanin strike down the na'kyrim, curse him and cast him out from his councils and confidence. Where were the cattle, the iron that had been promised? Why were there still Huanin villages and huts standing on the naked ground that had been carved out of the Antyryn Hyr's northern flanks? Why had the Huanin lords turned against the White Owls, after so much aid had been given? For all of this, there must be an answering. The na'kyrim was the child of a White Owl mother. They had made honest agreements with him, and held fast to them as they would with one of their people. He must answer for the ruin of those agreements.

  They were within a day's journey of their destination now. The First Track which they followed would run straight and true - and invisible to all save Kyrinin eyes - down into a great bowl of trees, across the wet, low land beneath that canopy and on to the very heart of their clan, the oldest and greatest vo'an of the White Owls. The camp lay upon the shallow, south-facing slope of a vale of oak and ash trees. Each winter for many lifetimes, hundreds had gathered there to see out the cold months. Their tents would be scattered across the valleyside, half-hidden by the venerable trees that sheltered and guarded them.

  The Voice of the White Owl, as always, would have been amongst the first to arrive at those wintering grounds. The great domed tent of many-layered deerskins that was the Voice's winter lodge would have been set up and formed the hub of the sprawling community that grew over the days and weeks. She slept there, and ate there, and gave her judgements. She listened to the songs that were sung on the bare ground before her lodge, and watched the kakyrin making their bone poles and weaving the anhyne there out of hazel and willow. When she dreamed, her predecessors whispered into her mind, for they knew where to find her. Sometimes, filled with their wisdom, she donned the white-feathered cape and mask and walked amongst her people as something other than herself. At winter's end, when the black ash buds broke, a new Voice for the clan might be chosen, but nothing would change. Next year the Voice, whether old or new, would again be in that valley, in the same tent on the same patch of ground.

  And it was to the Voice that they had resolved to take the na'kyrim. It was with her he had spoken when he came on behalf of the Black Road Huanin; it was to her he had given false promises. It would be she who passed judgement upon him.

  *

  Wain pushed open the window and leaned out into the dull, cold early morning. The fresh air cut through the stuffy atmosphere of the room and made her shiver. She had slept badly, disturbed as much by her own unsettled spirits as by the noise rising from the inn below.

  There were many wa
rriors in the yard, cleaning weapons, grooming their horses, tending cauldrons of steaming broth, dozing. Some stood around in quiet groups, arms folded and feet shifting against the chill. A few wore capes or coats they had looted from Anduran. It made them look a ragged collection.

  Shraeve and a handful of her ravens came striding through the assembly. From her high vantage point Wain could see the uneasy glances, the sharp looks, that followed the Inkallim like a wake. Conversations paused as they drew near, then restarted once they had passed.

  Shraeve looked up and nodded at Wain. I'm sister to the Thane, Wain thought, and still the Children of the Hundred think themselves my equal; or my better. She withdrew from the window. A bowl of icy water stood on the table at the foot of the bed. She plunged her face into it. It chased the last remnants of sleep from her.

  Shraeve was waiting for her downstairs, feeding logs to the fire that had burned all night. Wain looked about for her own captains, but saw only a couple of them, silently breaking their fasts on bowls of oatmeal.

  'Cannek sent word before dawn,' Shraeve said. She kicked the fire with a booted foot, sending sparks spinning up the chimney and out across the flagstones.

  'He did?' said Wain, casting about irritably for something to eat. Seeing nothing, she snapped at the seated Horin-Gyre warriors. 'Find me some bread.'

  One of the men rose and disappeared in the direction of the kitchens.

  'He did,' said Shraeve. 'There's another company gathered outside Glasbridge. What's left of the Lannis-Haig fighting strength, and half the hale men of the town from the sound of it. Enough to test us, perhaps.'