“The longer the better,” Taim murmured. “I doubt they’ve got the patience for that, though. Black Road’s never been famous for patience.”
He ventured a snatched glance over the top of the sheltering boulder and saw three or four riders advancing at a walk, many more coming on foot after them. Another quarrel hissed over his head.
“No patience at all,” he observed as he ducked back down.
Hoofs on the road, picking up their pace. Cries of bloody intent. Feet running. Taim shifted onto the balls of his feet, crouched down, waiting.
“The horses mustn’t get through,” he called out. “Take them, if nothing else.”
The sun was on his back now. He could feel it through his jerkin. It was almost possible to believe that it was not winter at all.
He surged up, sword already back, two-handed. He cut the lead rider out of his saddle. The jarring impact shivered through his arms and down through his ribcage and he cried out in pain. Another horse flashed past. He tried to cut at its hindquarters but missed. He was out in the road now, and as he steadied himself he saw a score of Black Roaders descending upon him.
The first ran at Taim with a spear. He ducked under it and let the woman tumble over him, then sprang up and knocked another aside with a backhanded stroke against her shield. They came on like a swarm of wolves. One of his warriors, and then two, were at his side, fending off attacks. They hacked and swung. Taim could feel sweat beading across his forehead. He barely saw those he fought, those he killed. Body after body appeared before him and he cut them down, barged them aside, and each of them was only a shape, a danger. The pain in his flank soared but it was nothing that could reach him.
The man on his left went down, speared in the belly. Taim took a glancing blow on his hip that staggered him for a moment. A sword came darting in to pounce on his weakness. He turned it aside, and snapped his own blade round and up fast enough to open a wrist to the bone. He felt almost light, as if his feet could glide weightless over the cobbles of the road.
And then people were running. Fleeing. Someone hit him from behind and knocked him to his knees. Men came past him and the Black Roaders were falling away, going down beneath swords. He looked up, bleary-eyed, and saw a riderless horse galloping back, pounding down the road. And Torcaill. He saw Torcaill running, and tripping a Black Road warrior, standing on the man’s back and driving a swordpoint down into his spine.
Taim did not hear fighting all around him now. It was moving away, fading. Someone had their hand on his elbow and was hauling him up. He was unsteady on his feet. He had to hunch over a little to protect his ribs.
“Taim,” said Orisian.
Taim laughed, not wholly certain at that moment whether he could trust his eyes, and not caring.
“Sire. Can I lean on you, sire? I am not sure I can walk too well.”
He put his arm around Orisian’s shoulder and hobbled to the side of the road, where he could sit on a flat-topped rock. Those Black Roaders still alive were scattering, some back the way they had come, others out over the scrubby ground. Orisian’s two Kyrinin were standing in the roadway, methodically sending arrow after arrow skimming out, straight and true. Taim shook his head, trying to rid himself of the strange blurry feeling that was settling inside his skull. He looked at his Thane, and saw a small warrior: shield on one arm, sword in hand, a raw scar across the breadth of his cheek. And hard eyes.
There were bodies thick on the road. A hand was reaching up, opening and closing. Someone was whimpering, like a beaten child. A woman was crawling along on her hands and knees. She spilled blood from her stomach as she went. Torcaill and two of his men moved amongst the human debris. They stood over the woman. She put a hand on Torcaill’s boot. He looked over towards Taim and Orisian.
“We can’t care for them,” Taim heard Orisian say, and was surprised at the coldness of his voice. But he did not watch Torcaill killing the woman, Taim noted. Nor did he flinch at the sound of the blow falling.
“We will have to move on, sire,” Taim murmured. “There will be more of them before long.”
“I know. Is Aewult beaten, then?”
Taim nodded, wincing and pressing an arm against his chest.
“Where’s Anyara? Do you know?”
And Taim had to tell him, and that was perhaps the hardest thing he had done that day.
Epilogue
I
White Owl Kyrinin carried the na’kyrim on a litter made of birch saplings. His hand trailed over the side, brushing the grass for a little distance until someone noticed and lifted it and laid it across his stomach. A hundred woodwights walked in procession before and behind the litter. Battle Inkallim rode on either side of it. Like an honour guard, Kanin oc Horin-Gyre thought in disgust. Hundreds of warriors lined the path along which Aeglyss was borne. The silence was heavy.
Kanin watched from a distance, looking down on the scene from higher ground. The skin of the halfbreed’s hands and face almost shone, even at that remove. Ivory plaques, of the purest white, shining. It could have been a corpse that was carried with such reverential care through the serried ranks of the Black Road; a Thane being taken to his resting place. But it was not, and Kanin watched with attentive loathing. He wanted Aeglyss to live a little longer. Long enough to ensure that it could be Kanin’s own hand that ended his life, and that the ending was fittingly painful and prolonged.
Kolkyre was within sight, a grey bulk far off to the south. It was almost obscured by the greasy smoke of the many pyres burning between here and there: the meat and bone of the fallen smeared across the sky in vast grainy slicks. What breeze there was came from the south, and it carried the smell of the corpse fires on it. It filled Kanin’s nostrils with its noisome texture, and he did not find that unfitting. There was a truth in the conjoining of Aeglyss and that vile stench, a coincidental expression of the halfbreed’s essential nature. Kanin did not know, and did not care, whether he was the only one to recognise it. That he did was enough. It only took one man to kill another.
His Shield were about him, watching in silence as he did. He could not even be certain of them, he suspected. Their silence might be one of contempt, or fascination, or even awe. He could not tell. The litter and its foul burden drifted on. In its wake, the crowd of warriors closed up. Many stood gazing after it. Fools, one and all, Kanin thought. They think they see a sign of fate’s favour, and for that one delusion they’ll forgive all sins, any corruption. That was the flaw in the creed. That was the crack in its armour that Aeglyss would hammer his wedge into, and split open.
A movement at his feet caught Kanin’s eye. A great black dog loped past him, so close as to almost brush against his leg. It went out onto the grass and sat, its muscular back to him. He could hear it panting.
“They’re taking him back to Kan Avor, by all accounts.”
Kanin looked round at Cannek. The Inkallim’s approach had been soundless, but that was no great surprise for one of the Hunt.
“He’s spent, I gather,” Cannek continued. “Whatever influence he exerted on the battle has cost him almost his whole strength.”
“Influence? We don’t know that. Shraeve and her acolytes claim the victory for him, but we can’t know the truth of it.”
Cannek shrugged. “I saw the Haig lines crumble. I saw their thousands flee, wailing in terror, long before their losses justified it. And I felt… I do not know what I felt, Thane. But there was something. Did you feel nothing?”
Kanin frowned and looked away. Of course he had felt something. On the day of the battle there had been a hunger and a fury abroad surpassing anything he had seen before. He had witnessed acts of unflinching self-sacrifice and bloody determination beyond all expectation, even by the standards of the Black Road. The faithful had thrown themselves onto the spears of the enemy with utter abandon. There had been an almost delirious, ecstatic embracing of death. But Kanin would acknowledge nothing. He would deny the presence of the halfbreed in the very air, and
in his heart, on the day of that battle, for if he spoke of it he would make it real. And how could he hope to oppose someone with such capabilities?
“True or not, the conviction is spreading that he had a hand in our triumph,” Cannek said. “I have heard many speaking of it. Some are calling him the herald of the Kall. Minon, Orlane, Dorthyn reborn in the service of the creed. Bloodheir to Amanath, the Fisherwoman; inheritor of her mantle.”
“Bloodheir?” Kanin barked. “Let them call him what they like. It means nothing. He clouds minds. He makes every thought deceptive, traitorous to the skull that holds it.”
“Indeed. The victory has not convinced you of his right to a place amongst us, then?”
Kanin scowled at the Inkallim.
“Send your Shield away for a moment, Thane,” Cannek said.
Kanin sighed. Trust was no longer an element in his being. Wain’s death had expunged it. Nothing in the world, and no one, seemed worthy of it to him any more. Not even the creed. Not fate. And even before that he would have called any man a fool who claimed that he could trust the Hunt. But still, he had no enemies save one now. He nodded at Igris, and when the shieldman hesitated, he snapped at him, “Move away. All of you.”
Cannek watched them go, with the wry, self-satisfied smile that so often adorned his features.
“Goedellin is troubled,” the Inkallim murmured. “And that means the Lore is troubled. I am troubled, Thane.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
“It was always our hope, from the very beginning of this, that your Blood would emerge stronger. The Children of the Hundred have long attached importance to the fidelity that your line has shown for the creed.”
“A pity Shraeve did not share your concern, since she was there in Kan Avor when my sister was slain.”
There was the slightest flicker of discomfort in Cannek’s face at that. Once, Kanin would have drawn some satisfaction from it. Now, he hardly cared.
“Shraeve is a matter for us to consider,” the Inkallim grunted. “To deal with, if necessary. You are my greatest concern now, Thane.”
“Me?”
“Your Blood dies with you, unless you have an heir you’ve kept secret from us all.”
Kanin snorted and looked back towards the great throng below them. Aeglyss was almost out of sight, passing beyond the edge of the host.
“Nobody would profit from your demise, and that of your Blood, save Ragnor,” Cannek said. “And the other Thanes, perhaps, picking over the carcass of your lands. None of which would serve to strengthen the creed. Your people would suffer for your vengeance, if you lose your life in the attempt.”
“I was always taught that it was a weakness to fear consequences,” Kanin murmured. “The creed would surely say the suffering of my people, my suffering, is of no import. If suffering is written in the Last God’s Book, we must embrace it.”
“It would be better to talk with Goedellin if you wish to debate such things,” Cannek said, “though he is a trifle… distracted these days. The Hunt deals in more practical matters, so I’ll ask what I came to ask: stay your hand, Thane. For a time, at least. Do not rush into some hasty assault on the halfbreed. We would regret your loss.”
“Ha. I am touched by your concern. But I will do as I see fit. Why should I not?”
The huge dog stood up and looked round, its wet eyes on Kanin. It stretched, elongating itself.
“Because the Hunt will accept this burden,” hissed Cannek. “We will test what protection fate sees fit to set about the half-wight.”
“You will set the Hunt against the Battle?” Kanin asked.
Cannek shrugged and smiled again. “Fate always follows a surprising course, in my experience. We are all striding towards our deaths. The only question is when we will reach the end of the Road.”
Kanin stared at the hound. He watched spittle creeping across its jowls.
“Soon, I think,” he said. “All of us. Soon.”
II
Thirty men from the Nar Vay shore — hard men once, who had been born to fishermen and strand gleaners, grown up with the salt smell of the sea and the feel of a boat beneath them — were huddled together on hard ground. They were shoremen no longer, but warriors, and defeated ones at that. They were cold, for it was night, it had been snowing for some time and their captors would not allow them to make a fire, or even to move around. They sat, wrapped in whatever cloaks or banners or tent canvas they had managed to scavenge from the wasteland of corpses that now surrounded Kolkyre, and the snow built up on their shoulders and their backs. They crowded close together, a hot press of bodies, so close that they breathed on one another’s faces. One man, wounded in the battle they had lost, had already died this night, in the midst of that huddle. They had pushed and passed the dead man out to the edge and he lay there still, stiff, disappearing incrementally beneath snowflakes. Their guards showed no more interest in the corpse than they would in a long-fallen tree or a rock.
These Haig men had been taken soon after the battle was done. Fleeing south, racing for Kolkyre even though they knew that city was no friend to their Blood, they were encircled by mounted spearmen, who killed a few of them and herded the rest back northwards, made chattels of them. They expected to die in time, for that was what they had always been told to expect of the Black Road. The lethargic apathy of the humbled kept them docile. They had surrendered much of their pride and their resilience in those moments of panic when they broke and scattered from the battle line, undone by a strange, compulsive terror that none of them now spoke of, for they did not understand it, and were ashamed of it. They spoke of nothing at all. There was nothing to say. They merely waited. They did not know whether it was the cold they waited for, or a spear, or starvation, but they believed it was one of those.
Horses came out of the darkness, soft and slow. One or two of the prisoners looked up. They turned away again at once, hid their faces. Inkallim had come, black-haired, grim, astride huge horses that blew gouts of steam from their noses. Guards drifted from their fires to speak with these newcomers. Few words were exchanged.
One of the Inkallim — a sinewy woman with two swords sheathed across her back — jumped down, thumping into the deepening snow. She walked, limping slightly, to the cluster of captives and stood over them. She surveyed them with contempt. They made themselves small, hoping to avoid her gaze.
“Fate smiles upon you tonight,” she said, and her voice made some of them shiver. “A task falls to you that will earn you the gratitude of your Thane. Stand up.”
No one moved.
“Stand up!” the Inkallim shouted, and they did, one by one. They rose clumsily. Some had to hold their neighbours to keep them from falling. One man dropped the threadbare cloak from his shoulders and bent to pick it up again.
The Inkallim turned and beckoned someone forwards from amongst the riders. A horse stepped carefully over the snow. It bore a hunched figure, enclosed in a hooded cape. The horse came close. Some of the prisoners shuffled back, intimidated by its dark size.
“Let them see you,” the Inkallim said quietly.
The rider straightened a little, not enough to take the bend entirely out of his spine, and slipped back his hood with one hand. The revealed face was pale and angular. He stared down at the Nar Vay men. There was silence and then, haltingly, a few murmurs of surprise, of recognition.
“Some of you know him,” the Inkallim said, and smiled bleakly. “Those who do not: this is your High Thane’s Chancellor. This is Mordyn Jerain. And you are his escort. We give you your freedom, that you may return this man to Vaymouth, and to his place at the side of Gryvan oc Haig.”
The prisoners looked at one another, uncertain and hesitant. This was too out of line with the fatalism that had mastered them, too unexpected. They thought they had misheard her.
“You will be renowned,” she said, “as the men who brought back the Shadowhand.”
They looked up at the sickly, bent figure on the horse.
And Mordyn Jerain smiled down at them. It was an unnerving, lifeless smile.
“Take me to Vaymouth. There are many things I must discuss with the Thane of Thanes. Many things.”
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