Godless World 1 - Winterbirth

by Brian Ruckley

  The crashing of the rain receded; Orisian's vision tightened upon the man standing before him.

  Kanin took a single, long step into the room. He straightened up, lifted the point of his sword until it was level with Orisian's chest. Orisian edged towards the window. Kanin surged forwards. Orisian hurled himself at the window, launching himself up and out into the rainstorm. He cleared the walkway and sprawled in the road. Mud filled his mouth and nose. He rolled, spitting, in time to see Kanin oc Horin-Gyre putting a foot on the window sill, pulling himself up into the aperture. Ess'yr was standing to one side, and as the Thane emerged she swung her bow like a club and smashed it into his face. There was a spray of blood and Kanin fell backwards into the house with a cry of shock and pain. The impact broke the bow's back, and Ess'yr cast it away as she sprang down into the roadway.

  'No sitting around,' muttered Yvane as she pulled Orisian to his feet.

  They flew down the street and around an acute corner. They cut between houses and came out within sight of the sea. Orisian recognised where they were. Hammarn's hut was there, the door open, Hammarn himself peering out with wide and frightened eyes.

  'Is it you? Is it you?' he shouted as they rushed up.

  'Yes,' Yvane said. 'Time to come with us, friend.'

  The old na'kyrim looked startled.

  'Can't you hear?' Yvane asked him. 'This town's no place to be.'

  Hammarn cocked his head. Cries and screams were still rising up through the rain.

  'Perhaps so,' Hammarn grunted. 'Maybe so. Better gather myself.' He ducked back inside.

  'Hammarn . . .' Yvane started to say.

  'Let him get what he wants,' Orisian said. 'We'll wait for Rothe as long as we can. And for Varryn.'

  Yvane looked back the way they had come.

  'That would not be wise,' she said.

  Orisian faced her without a moment's uncertainty. 'Wise or not, I will give them the chance.'

  He darted around the side of the house, hunching his shoulders fruitlessly against the downpour. The sea was a great shiver of ripples and impacts beneath the rain's assault. Edryn Delyne's ship had its sails set. Figures were moving about on the deck. Orisian waved and shouted, but there was no sign that anyone saw him. He glanced along the storm-swept, muddy shore. There was a long, low rowboat tied up at the nearest of the crude jetties. He returned to the others. They were gathered just inside the doorway. Hammarn was rummaging deep in a pile of driftwood, muttering softly to himself.

  'There's a boat we can take,' Orisian reported, 'but we don't have much time. Delyne's making ready to sail.'

  He looked at Ess'yr. An unfocused glaze had settled over her eyes. A blurring sheen of rainwater overlay her tattoos, making them seem damaged, impotent.

  'What of the vo'an?' he asked her.

  She gave the slightest shake of her head. 'The enemy have come. Many of them.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  Orisian felt a hand upon his arm. Anyara was at his side. Her face was mournful. He tried to smile for her.

  'I know,' he said. 'No more time. We can't wait.'

  Hammarn had collected nothing but woodtwines. He bound a scrap of cloth around the little bundle of carvings and clutched them to his chest like a baby.

  'Got it,' he said to no one.

  Orisian led the way out and made for the shore. He had gone only a few paces when he saw Rothe and Varryn burst out from a side street and come running towards them. The Kyrinin was limping a fraction. Rothe's left arm hung with an ominous looseness. It had taken no mere numbing blow this time: there was blood sluicing away in the rain.

  Orisian felt a tremendous surge of relief rush through him.

  'Is it bad?' he asked as the shieldman came up to him.

  'Not as bad as it could have been,' Rothe said with a lopsided smile. 'Lucky there's plenty of places too narrow for horses in this dismal town.'

  When they reached the shore, water running out from the town was cutting channels for itself down the beach. Shells and stones were appearing, eroded out of the mud by the hard rain. They slipped and slithered to the jetty and ran out along its uneven length. The boarding felt treacherous.

  Two ropes held the boat. Yvane went to one, Orisian the other. The swollen knot felt huge and solid beneath his numb fingers. He could not get any purchase. He pulled the knife out from where he had tucked it into his belt and began to saw at the sodden fibres. He shot a glance at the ship. Men had gathered at its rail and were gesturing towards them.

  'Let me cut it,' Rothe said, raising his sword. 'Blade's not the sharpest, but it'll do.'

  Orisian backed away. Rothe's first blow went partway through the rope.

  'We go now,' Varryn said quietly.

  Orisian turned to him. The Kyrinin warrior was impassive, looking not at Orisian but Ess'yr. She did not reply at once. Orisian sought for the words he needed. This once, this one time, he wanted to say the right thing to her.

  'Kanin!' Anyara cried. 'It's Kanin.'

  There were riders pounding along the shore, ten or twelve of them. Orisian wiped rain from his eyes. Kanin was to the fore, driving his horse on with wild energy. Orisian heard the chop of another sword blow from behind him.

  'It's free,' Rothe said. 'I'll cut the other.'

  Yvane gave up her unequal struggle with the second rope. She stood at Orisian's side. The Black Road warriors were close. Fountains of mud and sand erupted at their horses' feet. Orisian could hear the wet thumps of the hoofs.

  'Quickly, Rothe,' he said.

  He watched Kanin coming. He could see the fury in the man's face now, and the great bloody wound Ess'yr had put there with her bow. Orisian was strangely aware of the leaden weight of his soaking clothes. He squeezed the hilt of the knife. Rothe's sword smacked against the rope. The shieldman cursed. Kanin hauled at his reins. His horse came to a ragged halt at the base of the jetty.

  The other riders gathered around him. They looked as if they had ridden out of the rain-riven sky itself, a wild expression of the storm. Kanin held out his sword, pointing it at Orisian.

  'Hold,' he cried. 'Hold there.'

  Warriors were dismounting. Orisian could see crossbows being readied.

  'Rothe?' asked Orisian without looking round.

  'Done!'

  A crossbow bolt snapped out, flashing darkly through the rain and past them, out over the sea. An answering arrow sprang from Varryn's bow. It darted past Kanin, thudded into the warrior behind him.

  'Get into the boat,' said Orisian. 'Everyone.'

  'Oh dear, oh dear,' Hammarn was muttering over and over again.

  He and Yvane, then Anyara scrambled into the boat. A flurry of bolts hissed down the length of the jetty. Orisian flung himself at the rowboat. Rothe, there beside him, gasped as one quarrel found his shoulder. The boat rocked as the shieldman slumped into it. Orisian struggled to his feet. Yvane was fumbling with an oar; she was staring, as if in surprise, at the crossbow bolt transfixing her upper arm. Varryn, still standing with Ess'yr on the end of the jetty, loosed another arrow.

  'Come on,' Orisian shouted at the Kyrinin. 'Get in.'

  'Pull, pull,' Anyara was screaming at Hammarn as the two of them hauled at oars. The boat jerked away from the jetty. Orisian reached for Ess'yr.

  'Don't be stupid,' he shouted. 'You can't stay here.' Kanin was rushing down the jetty, his warriors coming behind him like a dark flock of crows stooping out of the rain-lashed sky. Orisian heard Kanin's inarticulate scream of fury. Varryn and Ess'yr looked silently at one another for an instant and then leapt from the jetty. They landed together in the rowboat's stern, so lightly and precisely that it hardly bucked.

  Orisian scrambled over Rothe's prostrate form. The warrior was moaning softly. Orisian saw the blood soaking through his shieldman's shirt, but would not allow the sight to touch him. Not yet. There were four oars. Hammarn and Anyara were pulling at two, Yvane struggling with a third.

  'No,' Kanin was shouting as the boat took another unsteady l
unge away from the shore.

  More bolts: dark flickers darting out to the boat, slicing through the rain.

  'Get down,' shouted Orisian, and hunched over his oar. A couple of the quarrels thudded into the hull, the stern; another flew over their heads. He felt his oar shiver and saw a bolt stuck in it, next to his hand. Then nothing. The warriors on the jetty were hurrying to reload. Kanin stood at the furthest point, arms and sword upraised as if to threaten the thick, grey sky itself.

  Waves, dragged up by the storm, were slapping at the rowboat's prow. Water sluiced over the sides and around their feet. Spray misted around their heads.

  Gasping, spitting salt water from his mouth, Orisian hauled at the oar with all the strength he had left. As they drew clear of Koldihrve he could see, through the teeming rain, the vague shape of Kanin standing impotent and dark over the water, staring out. The Horin-Gyre Thane watched them all the way.

  They rode the tide out to the Tal Dyreen ship. The sailors, laughing and shouting excitedly, threw ladders over the side. As they tied ropes about Rothe so that he could be hauled aboard, the huge shieldman fainted away.

  Epilogue

  I once saw a fragment of a manuscript, found in the ruins of one of Dun AyglI's palaces. It may be truth, it may not, but this is the meat of what it said:

  Minon, who was to be the Torturer, and was to cast a dark shadow across his times, gave no sign of what he was to become in his childhood. He had woken only dimly to the Shared, had no talents in its use of any substance, and lived a quiet and gentle life in the woods of the Far Dyne hills.

  His father was a man of wicked inclinations, though, and from the cottage where he dwelled with his Kyrinin wife and his na'kyrim son, this man went forth at night to practise murder and thievery. In time his deeds cast a shroud of fear upon those parts and an unnamed lord sent his warriors to rid the country of the bandit. They came one eve upon the cottage of Minon's father. The wife they slew before the hearth, the husband in the stable where he kept his horse. Minon put a knife into the heart of one of the attackers before they bore him to the ground.

  Then, such was their anger at his slaying of one of their number, the warriors resolved to put Minon to a cruel death. They bestowed upon that child terrible tortures. But in the extremity of his suffering, there arose in Minon an unsuspected power. Fleeing from the pain and horror of his senses, he found some doorway into the deeper reaches of the Shared that until that moment had been hidden from him, and up out of those deep places there flowed an awful, potent river. All the cruelties his captors had practised upon him were then revisited tenfold upon them, for Minon broke his bonds and unveiled a terrible visage.

  He alone walked away from that cottage and he left nothing but blood behind him. He went alone into the world and fear and foreboding ran before him like fell hounds.

  from Secret Tales of the Na'kyrim

  collected by A'var of Highfast

  I

  THE HARBOUR OF Kolkyre was thronged with boats great and small. The whole city, and the harbour district in particular, was filled with warriors: not just those of Kilkry but also remnants of the army of Lannis-Haig and advance companies of Ayth, Taral and Haig. There were, as well, hundreds of fugitives from the fighting in the Glas valley. Never in living memory had the city been so overflowing with humanity.

  Taim Narran pushed his way through the crowds on the waterfront. So great was the press of bodies that he was in danger of losing track of Roaric nan Kilkry-Haig, who was guiding him on his way. Amidst all the grim rumour swirling around Kolkyre, today Roaric was the bearer of only good tidings. The message he brought to Taim in his borrowed chambers in the Tower of Thrones had been so unlooked-for, so joyous, that Taim hardly dared allow his weary heart to believe it.

  'Where are they?' Taim shouted above the din.

  'At the harbourmaster's house,' came the reply. 'They were on a Tal Dyreen ship that came in an hour ago. They tried for Kolglas, but the captain found out what had happened at Glasbridge from some fishermen and he wouldn't take them up the estuary after that. So he brought them here. They wished to bathe and change their garments before presenting themselves to my father.'

  When they came to the house Taim could not contain himself, and brushed past the servant who guarded the door. He cast about, his heart thudding, in search of those he had never thought to see again. In the dining hall he found a stranger group than any he might have imagined. Anyara, the niece of his dead Thane, was at a table with two na'kyrim: one a small, dishevelled old man who looked to be asleep where he sat, the other a woman who turned and fixed him with a penetrating glare. Beyond them, by the fire that roared in the grate, stood two tall Kyrinin - a man and a woman - clad for the forest. They glanced up when he entered and he met their flinty eyes. The woman cast her gaze down again but the man did not, and the ferocious spirals of tattoos upon his face lent his glare a wild edge. Taim found that his voice had fled from his throat.

  There were heavy footsteps upon the stairway behind him and Taim turned. Two figures were descending. Rothe Corlyn he knew at once, though his fellow warrior was a changed man: leaner, greyer of face and hair, with one arm bound up in a sling. The shieldman came unsteadily down the stairs, leaning on his companion. It was that companion - a youth, slight of build and tired of countenance -- who seized Taim's attention. A youth whose eyes met the old warrior's with a mixture of sadness and resilience, leavened by a spark of recognition. A youth before whom Taim could only fall to one knee and bow his head.

  'Orisian,' he said. 'My Thane. My sword, and my life, are yours.'

  II

  THE NA'KYRIM HAD been upon the Breaking Stone for a full night. Two White Owl warriors sat upon grassy hummocks, watching him. Through their vigil they would neither eat nor sleep nor speak; they would simply wait for the Stone to break the man. They had watched others meet the same end. It seldom took a long time. A mere body could not resist the strength of this boulder, this ancient cage of souls.

  Waterskins lay by their sides, along with the fur cloaks they had needed in the coldest depths of the night. Their bows and spears rested against their shoulders. They had barely moved all through the long hours of darkness. The man on the Stone had stirred only briefly in the night, groaning despite the gag that remained in his mouth.

  Grey clouds had mustered to stifle the rising sun. The wind fell away. The treetops grew still and a heavy silence descended. The man's blood dried in crusted black rivulets where it had run down from the wounds in his wrists. His head hung forwards. He had not moved now for many hours, but still the Kyrinin watched, their eyes caught upon the hook of his naked form. He looked half-dead already.

  A buzzard drifted across the sky. It circled, slipping lower and lower by degrees. At length, it glided in towards the Breaking Stone. One of the watchers stretched a leg out and took his bow in his hand. It was not time for the eaters of the dead yet. The bird gave a couple of flaps with its broad wings and lifted itself upwards again. It circled a few times more and then headed out over the wide expanse of Antyryn Hyr, searching for unguarded prey.

  Time passed. The na'kyrim moaned but did not wake.

  The day moved sluggishly towards night. The grey light faded until the trees and stones lost their shape and detail. Somewhere far away, an owl was calling. It was answered by another, still more distant, and their duet persisted for long minutes. The clouds began to part and through each break in them, starlight shone. The part-moon appeared, spreading a white glow around itself.

  The Breaking Stone was bathed in colourless light. The watching Kyrinin saw that the man on the Stone had raised his head. His eyes were unfocused, as if his gaze was fixed upon something far beyond them. A convulsion ran through his chest and upper body, pulling his arms against the stakes that pinned them. His head fell forwards again. The watchers unfolded their fur capes, spread them over their shoulders and waited.

  In the coldest hour before dawn, the hour when the world was as close to death
as it came, the na'kyrim began to weep. With their night-tuned sight, the Kyrinin could see the tears coursing down his face, the feverish tremors shivering through his frame. Spittle was foaming around the cloth-wrapped stone that blocked his mouth. The White Owls glanced at one another. It would not be long now.

  Yet when the muted, half-hearted daybreak came, the na'kyrim still lived. The flow of tears had stopped. He regarded his Kyrinin guards, his eyes bleak and despairing. The White Owls returned his gaze impassively, unflinching.

  By the time the day had turned again, falling back towards night, the na'kyrim had lived longer than any victim of the Breaking Stone in many years. The clouds scattered in the evening and an orange-yellow light fell upon the great boulder and its burden. Death came stalking across the grass, and breathed upon the na'kyrim. Air rattled in his clotted lungs, the muscles in his impaled arms slackened, his head lolled loosely. The two Kyrinin rose and stepped forwards to witness the end.

  But the end that was coming was not what they thought. The rattle in the na'kyrim's chest stilled. An immense silence fell, and with it the darkness. Tears once more began to fall, but they were of blood, not water. The gaunt head was slowly raised, as if struggling against some awful weight. As the sun slipped away and shadows massed all around, the na'kyrim opened his bloody eyes and fixed the Kyrinin with a gaze that spoke no longer of despair, but of a terrible, revelatory horror.

  From the balcony on the west face of Highfast, Cerys and Amonyn could see the peaks of the Karkyre Mountains starkly silhouetted by the last vestiges of the fire-red dusk. They stood together, wrapped in a single woollen blanket, snow swirling lightly about them. The heat that Amonyn had woven out of the Shared warded both of them against the elements. It was the faltering of that heat, the sudden intrusion of the winter's biting chill, that warned Cerys. In the next moment she had the lurching sense of the world slipping away from her and but for Amonyn's strong arms holding her up she might have fallen.