RILLIRIN
Yule eve, seventeenth year of the reign of King Rastoth
Dancer’s temple, Watchtown, Western Plain
People trickled in from Watchtown throughout the day, bringing firewood and food, ale and wine. Elder Rachelle smiled at Rillirin as she set up the trestles and began organising the jugs and bottles and barrels, though she was one of the few who did. Once news of the attack on the village had reached Watchtown, any ground Rillirin had gained with them was lost.
Rillirin might not be able to heal the rift with the townsfolk, but there was one thing she could do. She’d spent days working on it in her hiding place around the back of the temple, where she spent most of her time to keep out of the way of the others. She’d known the first time she’d seen Sarilla’s hand what to do. Now, she screwed up all the courage she’d learnt in the last few weeks, every kind word Gilda and Dom had had for her, and headed into the crowd, searching.
Sarilla’s fiery ginger hair was too easy to spot, and Rillirin faltered for a second. ‘Come on, come on, give it to her and run,’ she muttered. She followed Sarilla and Lim towards the temple; they heard footsteps and looked back to see who it was. Lim’s eyes narrowed and he planted himself between the two women.
‘Please, this is for you,’ Rillirin said, looking past Lim and into green eyes blazing with hate. ‘Sarilla Archer.’
Sarilla’s eyes flared with pain. ‘You use my warrior name when it’s your fault I’m no more than a cripple?’ she demanded. ‘You make fucking mock of me?’
‘No,’ Rillirin croaked as sweat dribbled down her ribs, ‘you’re still a warrior. Just take it. Please.’
Lim snatched the fabric-wrapped package from Rillirin’s hand and passed it to Sarilla. As soon as she had it, Rillirin backed away to the temple door and stood in its shadow. Holy Dancer, let me have done it right. Please let it work. The rest of the townsfolk were oblivious, snatches of song drifting from all corners of the temple grounds, children running and squealing around the bonfire, boars and sheep roasting over spits.
The sun was setting in a blaze of pinks and oranges, surely a good omen for the coming year. ‘Lady clothed in sunlight,’ Rillirin whispered, and the words steadied her heart.
Sarilla unwrapped the gift: a contraption of wood and leather straps, it crouched in her palm like a spider. They bent close to examine it and Sarilla turned it over, scowling, and then placed it against the stumps of her missing fingers. She gasped and her expression melted into wonder. Three pieces of curved wood became fingers curled just enough to draw a bowstring.
Sarilla held out her hands to her husband and he fitted the leather loops over her thumb and forefinger, tied the thongs securely around her wrist and threaded them between the wooden fingers, pulling it tight. She hissed as they pressed into the raw flesh, but tossed her head when he would have stopped.
‘Where’s Ash?’ she demanded when it was secure.
‘Your hand is still—’
‘Don’t even try,’ she warned and Lim subsided.
‘Ash,’ Lim called when he spotted the tall archer in the throng. ‘May Sarilla borrow your bow?’
Ash paused, uncomfortable, and Rillirin held her breath. Sarilla raised her right hand and the bowman’s eyes widened. Wordlessly, he unslung it from his back and passed it over. ‘The draw’s heavy,’ he warned.
‘Good.’ Sarilla flexed meaty shoulders and the men took a couple of steps back. She found clear space and took her stance, placing her forefinger and the carved wooden fingers on the string. If Rillirin had done it right, their curve was shallow enough to slip free when Sarilla’s forefinger released the string.
Eyes narrow with concentration, Sarilla aimed the empty bow at Rillirin and began to draw. Her breath hissed, but the bow bent and she brought the string to her lips for a second before releasing. Rillirin flinched but the others stood still, listening as the bowstring thrummed, and then Dalli approached and held out a long bundle covered in oilskin.
‘You left your bow in camp,’ she murmured. ‘I brought it along, just in case. You’ll have to look at the crack in the stock, though. Won’t last long without repair.’
‘How did you—’ Lim began.
‘I didn’t. But a warrior should never be unarmed.’ She grinned. ‘Happy Yule.’
Sarilla gave Ash back his bow and unwrapped her own. She wept, clutching it to her chest, and Ash handed Lim his quiver and pointed out through the gate.
‘There’s a target set up there already. Go on, lass, go and work on your aim before you lose the light.’
Rillirin shuddered out the breath she’d been holding as the pair wove through the crowd towards the gate. She followed them with her eyes, and when they’d gone she noticed Dalli was watching her and so was Ash. They nodded, and Dalli grinned.
Rillirin nodded back, tentatively, and Dalli beckoned her with one hand, miming drinking with the other. Rillirin nodded again, more firmly this time. A drink. Gods yes, a drink. She took a deep breath and left the protective shelter of the temple.
Dalli slung her arm around her. ‘Well done,’ she said. ‘Sarilla scares the life out of me, so just watching you do that made me thirsty. In which case, you must be parched. Ale or wine?’
TARA
Yule eve, seventeenth year of the reign of King Rastoth
The River Gil, Cattle Lands
Tara slid between the trees, stepping in the footprints left by the man she was following. He didn’t form part of her orders, but he was heading her way and Tara was curious. She felt a momentary flash of guilt at disobeying the general again, but only momentary. Mace hadn’t sent any couriers from the forts to the river, and it was unlikely to be a farmer out on his own this close to Yule and this far from habitation.
No patrols out this way, and Wolves don’t normally come this far into the plain. So who are you?
Distracted, it took her precious seconds to realise the prints led her in a circle around a dense stand of holly a hundred strides from the river, and then he was leaping out from behind her.
Tara got halfway round and her sword drawn before he slammed into her and they both hit the snow. Flat of her blade between them and the tip practically up her fucking nostril, Tara went straight for his eyes, fingers hooked. Instead of lunging back like she wanted, he whipped his head sideways and forwards. She caught an ear with her little finger and nearly dislocated it, and then he had his head in the crook of her neck and she couldn’t bite, gouge or punch he was so close. The sword was cold and sharp against her cheek.
‘Ranker, Ranker, Ranker,’ he panted in her ear. ‘Palace Rank. Captain. Please stop trying to kill me.’
That voice. And she’d noticed something about his eyes just before she tried to pull them out. ‘Captain Tailorson? Crys?’
He’d managed to grab one of her wrists in the fight and she noted he didn’t release the pressure at her words. Instead he jammed his free hand under her jaw and his index finger into the pressure point just below her ear. She squealed and let him push her face up and sideways, trying to relieve the pain.
What the fuck is going on here? He knows me; we spent the better part of a week answering our respective masters’ calls in the fort. Went hunting together. Drilled together.
Crys was studying her eyes as though he’d never seen her before.
‘You’re not in uniform,’ Tara grunted through the pain in her jaw and ear, ‘but I am. West Rank insignia, captain’s stripes. Tara Carter, adjutant to General Mace Koridam. You last saw me less than a week ago.’ Nothing. ‘Care to let go? Captain?’
‘Who’s with you?’ he demanded, his voice hoarse.
‘Nobody. I’m taking Yuletide greetings to our friends in Watchtown and requesting a report on the slave girl they captured. Who’s with you?’
Crys shook his head hard and then stared around the copse with open fear. ‘No one, I hope.’
‘What do you mean, no one? Where are the princes?’
Some of the wildn
ess left Crys’s eyes, to be replaced with sudden grief, and finally he let her go, sliding to the side so she could get out from under him. Tara rolled once, came to one knee, levelled her sword at his throat and then stood. ‘What have you done?’
‘I haven’t done anything,’ Crys said, uncaring of the blade inches from his flesh. He was whiter than the scuffed snow around them. ‘But Prince Janis is dead.’
Tara’s sword tip drooped and then steadied. She swallowed. ‘Is this a joke?’
‘Does it sound like it? Prince Janis Evendoom walks into a bar and gets killed. Ha-motherfucking-ha.’
‘All right, calm down.’ He was twitching, his eyes roving the landscape behind her, barely aware of what he was saying. ‘Are you in danger?’
‘You could say that,’ Crys said. ‘Seeing as I had to fake my own death to escape. I have no idea if they’re tracking me, but they can’t let me live. If they suspect I’m alive, then yes, they’re coming. They can’t risk me telling the king what I’ve seen.’
‘Who can’t?’ she asked, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. He’s not with his men. He’s not with Prince Rivil. But he can’t be running from them. Why would he be?
Crys snorted without a hint of humour. ‘You won’t believe me when I tell you,’ he said.
Tara stepped back and then lowered her sword. ‘I’ll take you back to the fort. You can report to the general.’
Crys lurched to his feet, both hands out, imploring. ‘No! Please, Tara, please – not the fort. If they are looking for me, that’s the first place they’ll check. I’m going to Watchtown and then to Rilporin.’
Tara shifted from foot to foot, working her jaw to loosen the pain while she thought. ‘No, we go to the fort. If what you say is true—’
‘I’m sorry,’ Crys said and drew his sword. Tara gaped, bringing her own weapon up to guard even as her mind fought the evidence of her eyes. ‘I can’t go back that way. I won’t. But I can tell you what I know and you can tell Koridam, all right?’
There was nothing but utter sincerity in Crys’s face and Tara knew it’d be a fight to the death if she insisted. No point me dragging a corpse back to the forts. And second-hand news is better than no news.
Tara held up her left hand and sheathed her sword with her right. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Tell me. And then make sure you go to Watchtown and bloody well stay there until Mace decides what to do.’
DOM
Yule eve, seventeenth year of the reign of King Rastoth
Dancer’s temple, Watchtown, Western Plain
She was nearby. He could feel her, an itch in his brain that flared to pain. It had been getting worse all day, all this most sacred of days. He could be thirty paces away from her and still feel it.
‘You should go with Lim and Sarilla,’ Ash said and passed him the jug. Dom drank. ‘You need to clear the air.’
‘Do we need to clear the air, Ash?’
‘No. I don’t like the stance you took, but I respect you taking it. What’s done is done, and we’ve all made mistakes.’ He slung an arm around Dom’s shoulders and ruffled his hair. ‘I mean really, how could you know they’d be chasing her? We all thought she was just an escaped slave.’
Dom felt a softening of the hard ball of tension in his belly and found a smile for the taller man. ‘You thought she was a spy, if I remember correctly.’
‘Pfft, a mere whim. A spy? Impossible. I don’t know why you even thought it.’ He gestured at Rillirin, sitting with Dalli and laughing, and pain shot through Dom’s head. She’s laughing. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen her laugh, and it hurts. He screwed shut his right eye.
‘Your gift?’ Ash asked, noting the grimace.
‘It’s getting stronger. Just being near her hurts. And the dreams are getting worse. She’s pulling something – or someone – through.’
Ash stopped, pulling Dom to a halt with him. Snow dusted his curly hair, and despite the haze of ale in his eyes, his words were clear. ‘You’ve never been able to delay a knowing before. Why this one?’
‘It only comes when I touch her, I don’t know why, and it wasn’t like this when we found her. And then everything happened and you sent us away, and I didn’t think there was any point doing it then. I thought the Mireces coming for her was the knowing and I’d missed it. By the time we got here I knew there was something else.’ He rubbed his face with both hands. ‘It’s going to be bad. This one’s going to be really bad.’ He hesitated and then looked up at Ash. ‘I’m scared.’
‘We’re all here now,’ Ash said. ‘And we’ll be right there with you. Lim and Sarilla will come around, don’t worry about that, and we’ll all make an effort to welcome her if you need us to. Do it tomorrow, first day of the new year. Do it then, when the Dancer’s still close.’
Easy for you to say, Dom thought. He heaved a breath. ‘All right, tomorrow. But for now, I think I’m going to get drunk. Horribly, hideously drunk.’
‘Too fucking right. And I’ll help.’
Dom staggered from the guest quarters, groaning at the horror of being upright. The noon sun stung tears from his eyes. They’d been up all night, celebrating the turn to the light, the young and the old woken in time for the sunrise. A new year.
He weaved towards Rillirin’s small tent and gave the side a hearty kick, cursed as he overbalanced and flailed wild arms to stay on his feet. If he was up and feeling like shit, someone else should be too. He heard a grunt from inside, but the tent flaps remained shut.
‘Hey,’ he hissed, slapping the canvas, ‘come out. It’s me.’
‘No.’
‘Come on, I want to talk to you.’
‘Talk to someone else.’
‘It’s important.’
Rillirin groaned and dragged herself from the tent, shivering beneath a blanket. Snow drifted around her tired face and settled in her hair.
‘Do you know any good hangover cures?’ Dom asked.
‘Is that why you woke me up?’ she demanded in a voice groggy with exhaustion.
He shrugged. ‘One of the reasons,’ he conceded. ‘I remember mixing Father’s whisky with Ash’s elderberry wine, and I know there was ale at some point, and now I think I’m going to die.’ He noted the glint of amusement in her face.
‘Only cure I know is to roll naked in the snow,’ she said and then yawned wide enough to swallow a chicken.
‘All right,’ Dom said and began pulling at his boot. ‘Well, are you coming too or just watching?’
Rillirin’s mouth opened in shock and then curved into a smile. She giggled.
‘Now that,’ Dom said without a hint of insobriety, ‘makes me feel much better. Come on, breakfast’s cooking.’
The smile vanished. ‘I’m not going in there,’ she whispered, backing away and tripping over the tent pole. It collapsed with a soft whoosh of air and they stared at it in silence.
‘Have to now. Come on, lass, it’s going to be different. I promise,’ he added, smiling his most winning smile. The knowing pressed at his mind like a fist.
‘I – I can’t,’ she whispered, and Dom reached out to put an arm around her. She flinched. He flinched.
‘You must. It’s the day of my knowing. You’re needed.’
‘What does that mean?’ she asked, voice panicky. Dom’s smile cracked but he gestured again, unspeaking, and this time she moved towards the house.
Rillirin balked again at the door, but Dom pushed her in the back and she moved into the long, low room. Lim and Sarilla were sitting on a cot, heads close together as they whispered. Ash was lying beneath a mound of furs on the opposite side. He deigned to raise a finger in greeting.
‘Rillirin’s here,’ Dom said, stilling the conversation. Lim and Sarilla stood, fast, awkwardly. The girl tried to run but Dom blocked the exit, more by accident than design. She trod heavily on his foot and he grunted. She froze, a rabbit confronted with a stoat, and then tensed as Sarilla approached. Dom could hear her breathing, shallow pants as thou
gh she’d run miles or was preparing for pain.
‘Rillirin, we won’t lie – your coming has been difficult for us, marred with violence and death. But Gilda has told us some of your story, and – and that you have been cleansed and claimed as family.’ Sarilla’s eyes met Dom’s with a promise that they would discuss that later.
Shit.
‘I will not pretend that we can be friends,’ Sarilla added, ‘but your fear is something we can understand. We made no pretence of trusting you, yet expected you to tell us what you knew. In hindsight, that was foolish.’ She raised her right hand. ‘Whatever else you have done, your gift has given me back to myself, and for that I thank you.’
Rillirin chewed her lip, her face unreadable, flushed. ‘I know you do not trust me,’ she said, low and clear and in a rush as Ash sat up in bed to listen, ‘and that I do not deserve your friendship or to be a part of your family. I’m grateful that Dom made that promise, more than I can say, but it was wrong of him. I know how much death I have caused.’
She hesitated and Dom could sense her fear, and the kernel of determination that had forced so many words out of her. ‘I accept punishment that it might prove my loyalty to you. But I do not know how it is done in your tribe.’ She dropped her blanket and pulled back the sleeve on her right arm. ‘You saved my life at the expense of too many of your own. It belongs to you now. The Mireces flay or brand.’ She swallowed hard. ‘If you find me unfit to trust afterwards, I will leave. I will leave anyway, if you desire. Your will, honoured.’
Lim reached out and Rillirin inhaled through flared nostrils. He pulled her sleeve back down and gripped her fist. ‘While my feelings are the same as my wife’s, I also trust that Dom had his reasons for saying what he did. He knows things the rest of us can’t, and while it would ease my heart for a moment if I hurt you, it would not last and guilt would soon take its place. So there will be no brands or knives. And my name is Lim, not honoured and not chief – not to you. You’re not a Wolf, so I’m not your chief. Understand?’
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