Bloodheir tgw-2

by Brian Ruckley

  “They took a risk, in sending Bannain to you,” Orisian murmured.

  “I like to think they trust me, as they have trusted my ancestors. Unfortunately, I fear they do not really understand how much power has leaked away from the Tower of Thrones.”

  Crows that had been strutting across the neat lawns in serried ranks flew off, cawing in irritation, as the two Thanes approached.

  “They believe it’s their garden more than mine,” Lheanor said as he watched them go. “You’re taking your Kyrinin with you, are you?”

  “I am. They expect to be killing White Owls soon, and that… pleases them.” He remembered well the smile that had burst from Ess’yr’s flawless face at the news: a rare prize.

  “I can’t say I’ll be sorry to see the back of them. I know they helped you, and that makes them friends of my Blood as much as yours, but word gets out, no matter how much care it’s guarded with. There’d be a mob at the door demanding their deaths before too much longer.”

  “I know. I’ve brought more problems with me than I would have wished.”

  “Not you. Horin-Gyre. Haig. They’re the ones who’ve crafted our troubles. And a foolish father, too ready to grant his son’s desire for battle.”

  There was such a weight of sadness in Lheanor’s voice that Orisian could almost feel its tug himself. He looked at the Thane of the Kilkry Blood and saw not a mighty leader but an old man, bowed by loss, beset by guilt.

  “I wake up every day,” Orisian said, “and… every morning I have to learn to believe it all over again: that they really are gone. A dozen times a day — no, more — I think of something I want to say to one of them, or ask. My father, my uncle, Inurian. My mother, even, and Fariel.”

  “There are a great many things I wish I could say to my son.”

  “You still have a son. Perhaps you should say them to him.”

  The Kilkry-Haig Thane glanced at him, and Orisian wondered if he should tread more carefully. But he did know something of this; in the matter of dead sons, of grieving fathers, he could claim some knowledge.

  “I don’t know you well, sire,” he went on, “so you must tell me if I speak out of turn. My father lost a son, and I lost him because of that. Grief took him away from me before the Inkallim did.”

  “I walked here sometimes with Croesan, you know,” Lheanor murmured. “And your father and mother once, perhaps more than once, years ago. We talked about… what?” A frown crumpled the old man’s face, and then passed. “I’m not sure. Nothings, probably. For ones such as us, Thane, there are too few people in whose company we can be

  … idle. You come to treasure those you do have, and therefore are wounded by their passing.”

  Lheanor paused, looking down at the path on which they walked. One of the flat stones had lifted a little, disturbing the smooth surface.

  “Look,” Lheanor muttered. “The frost’s got under that.”

  He made an irritated noise at the back of his throat and waved one of his shieldmen over. He pointed the stone out to the warrior.

  “Find one of the gardeners and get them to relay that.”

  The man trotted off to carry out the command. Lheanor led Orisian on around the Tower of Thrones. They walked in a great, slow circle while overhead the clouds flowed in from the west.

  “A man never speaks out of turn when he offers well-meant advice,” Lheanor said. “My loss — my loss I find to be unbearable. Yet it is less than yours, and you remain unbowed by it. Unbroken. Thus it seems you are made of better stuff than me.”

  “No, that’s not-” Orisian began, but Lheanor stilled him with an upraised hand.

  “I envy you your youth. It’s an armour against many things, youth. You refuse to play games with Aewult and the Shadowhand. I allow them to set fences about me, my Blood, my army. You do not. Whether what you intend is wise or not, I do not know; but I do know that I envy you the will to make the attempt.”

  The old Thane bent to snap a dead twig from a bush by the path. He pointed with it down towards a sweep of grass by the wall.

  “I think I want to plant trees down there. Something that flowers in the spring, with white blossom, perhaps. My wife likes white blossom. That’s one thing that does not change, isn’t it? Whoever dies — even if we die ourselves — there is always another year to come. Every winter ends eventually.”

  He laid a hand on Orisian’s shoulder.

  “You do as you see fit, Thane. If you do not wish to follow at Haig’s heels like some lady’s tame dog, so be it. You will hear no complaint from the Kilkry Blood so long as I live, and none when Roaric is Thane after me, I think.”

  “There’s one other thing I would ask of you,” Orisian said.

  “Ask it. If it’s within my power, I’ll grant it.”

  “Watch over Anyara for me. She’s angry that I want her to stay behind, but I won’t take her with me. I want her to be safe. I’d feel more sure of that knowing you — your family — are watching over her.”

  Lheanor smiled then, though the smile carried more regret than pleasure. “That is something I would willingly do even if you did not ask it of me. We will guard her as jealously as we would a daughter of our own. But do this for me in exchange, Orisian: do not give up your own life too easily. You go into danger, of one sort or another, and there are already too few good people left. Come and see, in years to come, whether the trees I plant have bloomed.”

  Jaen Narran was upset. She hid it, but the multitude of subtle signs did not escape Taim. Her lips were pressed tight together; she doled out the oatmeal gruel from the pot over the fire a little too fast, spilling wet lumps of it; she moved quickly from table to hearth and back again, taking small, sharp steps.

  She would never shame him, and herself, by asking him to stay here with her. He would never embarrass them both by seeking to justify his return to the battlefield, so soon after he had come back from what they had both hoped would be his last such absence. She knew as well as he did that this was a battle that had to be fought, a call it would be unthinkable to refuse. And she knew that it would break his heart a little to leave her.

  Taim stirred some salt into the grey sludge in his bowl. The quarters they had been given here in Kolkyre’s barracks were good: spacious and warm and dry. They were better than those that the warriors who followed Taim enjoyed, crushed into halls meant for half their number. For the sake of his family, he accepted that he could not share his men’s discomfort, but he could, and did, share their diet.

  Jaen sat down on the other side of the rough table.

  “I’ll mend what I can tonight, then,” she said. “There’s still a lot of holes and tears I’ve not had time to make right yet. The rocks down south must be sharper than they are here.”

  “There’re seamstresses here who can help.”

  Gobbets of gruel dripped from her spoon as Jaen held it poised halfway to her mouth. “I’ll do it. I’ve been doing it for better than thirty years. I’ll not stop now.”

  “No, I wouldn’t want you to.”

  They ate in silence for a little while. The fire crackled. The wind was rising outside, blustering around the squat stone mass of the barracks.

  “Where’re the young ones?” Taim asked at length.

  “Gone to the harbour. Achlinn’s trying to find work on a fishing boat. Maira went with him, looking for word of friends.”

  Taim nodded. He was proud of his daughter, and of her husband too. Their flight with Jaen from Glasbridge had been so rushed that they had been able to bring almost nothing away with them. Most likely, they had no home to return to. In the face of all this, they showed nothing but determination.

  Jaen was watching him, the way she did when she was pondering whether to say something. Taim raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  “She’d want to tell you herself,” Jaen murmured, “but perhaps the sooner you know, the better. Maira’s with child.”

  Taim leaped to his feet so carelessly that his thighs cracked the
edge of the table and set his bowl rocking.

  “Truly? You’re sure?”

  Jaen smiled up at him, joyful and sad in the same moment. “Truly,” she confirmed.

  Taim came to her and threw his arms around her. She dropped her spoon.

  “I didn’t think it possible,” he murmured in her ear.

  “None of us did, did we?” said Jaen as she pushed him away so that she could rise. She cupped his face in her hands. “We thought the Fever’d barrened her, as it did others. But not so. You’re to be a grandfather, Taim Narran.”

  The warrior laughed out loud and planted a firm kiss on his wife’s forehead.

  “Ha!” he cried to himself. “Ha!”

  “So you see,” Jaen said, sinking back into her seat, “you’ll be needed home and safe at the end of all this. There’s to be no doubts about it this time. No excuses, no delays. I want you at my side when our grandchild is born.”

  She gazed at him and Taim could feel her love, and his for her, in his chest like a beat, like another heart. Still so strong; as strong as it had ever been.

  “I will be there,” he said. “I will.”

  Old Cailla the kitchen maid had sharpened hundreds of knives in her life. No matter the purpose or value of the blade, she never did it with less than her full attention. In all things — choosing shellfish for the Thane’s table, sharpening a knife, seasoning a soup — she was precise, thorough.

  The particular knife on which she lavished all her care now was unremarkable, save in one respect: it belonged not to the kitchens of the Tower of Thrones, but to her alone. It had a short, thin blade set in a stubby wooden handle. Someone leaning over her shoulder and examining it might think it a peeling knife, or one for cutting fruit. In truth, it had never been used for any purpose. Aside from the very rare occasions on which she took it out to check its edge, and refresh it if needed, it never left its plain leather sheath.

  She was alone in the cramped quarters she shared with three other maids. She sat on the edge of the wooden cot where she slept, working by the light of a single whale-oil lamp. The blade of the knife rasped over the stone that rested on her knees. Her fingers were not as straight and strong as they had once been, nor as dexterous or quick. Still, they were skilled. When she was done, the blade would have as sharp an edge as it could ever hold.

  As she hunched over the whetstone, stroking the knife smoothly back and forth, Cailla’s old, soft lips moved. They did so almost soundlessly, but not quite. Far too faint to be heard by any save the God for whom it was meant, she repeated over and over again a few short sentences: “My feet are on the Road. I go without fear. I know not pride.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Highfast

  Next there is the mighty fortress Marain built amidst the Karkyre Peaks. No other Blood, nor even the Kingships of the far south, can claim such a stronghold as their own. The perdurable mountain itself, cut through by tunnels and chambers, is as much a part of the fastness as its walls and towers. Not Abremor, not the Red Hand of the Snake, not all the armies of Morvain’s Revolt could breach its defences, though each tried. Whatever use my lord may find for this great place, it will not fail through want of strength.

  What use that may be, I know not. The road this place was built to guard is a ruin, for since the great war against the Kyrinin none make the journey through the Peaks to Drandar. That way grew thick with bandits and with Snake raiders in the Storm Years. The cobblestones were torn up and used to build sheep pens, the drains clogged, the inns and way stations were burned or abandoned. Thus there is now no fit path beyond Highfast to either east or south, and none to the north save a mule-driver’s track across the mountains to Hent. There was a village of quarrymen and drovers close by the castle once, but it is empty now. The airs here are cold and carry wild rains; the earth is thin, the rock is hard. It is a place fit only for the hardy or forgotten, for outcasts and exiles.

  from A Survey of His Holdings for Kulkain oc Kilkry by Everrin Tosarch, Chancellor and Servant

  I

  Mar’athoin of the Heron Kyrinin sniffed at the feather. It had been tied to a twig on the stream-facing side of an alder tree. The path Mar’athoin and his two companions were following crossed the stream here, and the feather had been positioned so that no one — no Kyrinin, at least — could fail to see it as they made the crossing. It was a finger-feather, from the wing-tip of a forest hawk. A single thin strand of birch bark had been used to attach it.

  Mar’athoin made a guttural coughing sound in the back of his throat. It brought the other two drifting out of the undergrowth. He nodded at the feather and his fellow warriors examined it closely.

  “It must be ettanaryn, yes?” Mar’athoin said.

  Cynyn, the youngest of the three by only a few days, straightened and ran a finger along his upper lip. It was a gesture copied from his elders, Mar’athoin knew. Cynyn no doubt thought it signified careful consideration of a problem. He had always been over-keen to credit anyone more than a few summers older than him with great wisdom.

  “It must be,” Cynyn pronounced.

  Mar’athoin nodded. Like the other two, he had never seen Snake sign before, but there was nothing else this could be: ettanaryn, marking the furthermost extremity of the Snake clan’s range. The Snake, like most of the northern clans, kept to old ways of summer wandering, winter gathering. Some a’an had set this marker here at the furthest point of their journeys back when the sun was high and the days long. Mar’athoin’s own people, the Heron, were less wedded to the old cycle of a’an and vo’an, living as they did amidst the constant bounty of the marshes. Nevertheless, foraging bands did cover long distances in the height of summer, and they still sometimes left their own ettanaryn. Where the Snake used feathers, the Heron used split, notched bog-willow stakes.

  Sithvyr leaned closer and sniffed at the feather as Mar’athoin had done.

  “Not fresh,” she observed. “There is no hand-scent on it.”

  “I thought the same,” said Mar’athoin, relieved to be able to agree with her. He desired her, and would have been pained had she contradicted his own instincts.

  “Should we make pause, then?” Cynyn asked.

  “We should,” Mar’athoin confirmed. He set out back across the stream. The other two followed him without comment. He was pleased with the way they had so readily accepted him as the leader of their little band. Before they had set out, seven nights ago now, it had not been certain whether he or Sithvyr would have the greater authority. Mar’athoin had hoped it would be him from the start. He had, after all, won his first kin’thyn in the fighting with the Hawk clan two summers gone — the youngest of the clan’s warriors to have done so that year — and that was an honour Sithvyr could not yet boast.

  “Lacklaugh would understand,” Mar’athoin said as they retraced their steps a short way and squatted down to wait. “He carried spears with my father when they were younger. He knows our ways almost as well as we do.”

  He was almost certain he was right. Lacklaugh had urged them to keep a close watch on the other na’kyrim, the female whose mind was cracked, but he would understand the need to hesitate before crossing into Snake lands. It was an old rule, and not one to be lightly broken, that only a spear a’an offering battle would enter another clan’s homelands without first pausing and reflecting on their action. So the three of them would wait here until the sun had turned another quarter of the sky in its endless journey. Only then would they follow the wandering na’kyrim woman into the lands of the Snake Kyrinin.

  They went quickly through the evening, meaning to catch up with the na’kyrim before night fell. The darkness held no fears for them, but it would be harder to track her on a moonless night such as this promised to be. The forest path their quarry seemed to be following was far too obvious to be Kyrinin-made. Mar’athoin knew the Snake traded as well as fought with the Huanin lords to the south and west. It seemed likely to him that this was a traders’ way; there were a few old and st
ale signs of horse or mule.

  That she kept to such a clear trail made their task at once simple — the na’kyrim was clearly not trying to lose or conceal herself — and potentially harder. She was more likely to wander into trouble if she kept to what must be a well-used route. Mar’athoin and his companions had promised Lacklaugh only that they would follow her as far as seemed fit to them, and guard her against harm only if they could do so without endangering themselves or their people. Should the na’kyrim fall foul of the clan on whose domain she now trespassed, Mar’athoin could do nothing to protect her: the Heron had no quarrel with the Snake. Equally, if she stumbled across some rough Huanin trader who took against her, she would have to look after herself. Killing such a man within their territory, and without their permission, might well antagonise the Snake.

  The trackway was running along the side of a steep valley. It was only lightly wooded, and great stretches of bog were visible beside the river below them. After the first day and night of their journey, they had settled — by silent consent — on what the Heron called their trytavyr: their way of going. Mar’athoin ran ahead of the others because his eyes and ears and nose were a fraction sharper than theirs. Next came Cynyn, keeping a good two dozen strides behind Mar’athoin so that he would have time to react to any signal. Last, close on Cynyn’s heels, came Sithvyr. She had shown herself to be the fastest of all of them, at least over uneven ground. If Mar’athoin found trouble up ahead, she had the best chance of escaping to carry word back to their vo’an in the great marshes.