In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1)

by Ballintyne, Ciara

  “He’s also an ass, and in bed with the prince.” Lyram grimaced. “Traeburhn thinks he can ride the prince’s coattails to power. While the king listens to Traeburhn, he makes his own mind up, but Drault isn’t that smart. As things stand, when the king dies, Traeburhn will run this country, even if Drault sits on the throne.”

  “Traeburhn is also, if I remember correctly, your second cousin, and fifth in line after the prince and your family.”

  “My grandfather’s sister married the then Duke of Everglasshey.” He nodded, flashing her an appreciative grin.

  Galdron groaned and turned away, and Lyram’s smile died. Everard’s expression turned painfully neutral.

  Ignoring them, Ellaeva leaned forward onto the wall in interest, peering out towards the gate. Had Lyram really seen the viscount out there? Or it could be a fabrication, or—her eyes flicked to the flask on his hip—a delusion. He’d tossed that mulled wine back entirely too easily.

  Lyram shifted around until his back was to his captain and aide-de-camp. “You think quick. Call it paranoia, or whatever you like, but the fact remains that Traeburhn could support the prince long enough to eliminate me and my sister, and then...” He shrugged. “I’m not saying he is, only that if he did, it would leave him in a very favourable position.”

  Ellaeva nodded. “Every possibility and counter-strategy should be considered.” Coming here was as close to as impulsive as she ever got, and already she was filing away each slip of the tongue, nuance and undercurrent in the people around her for later examination and planning. “Prepare for every eventuality.”

  “Bradlin doesn’t scratch his arse without Traeburhn’s say-so, so if he’s here...”

  She stifled a smile into a bare twitch of her lips at his casual crudity. A soldier more than a lord, this one.

  He cleared his throat. “Ahem. Sorry. Suffice to say, Bradlin is Traeburhn’s man, through and through, and known for cleaning up the duke’s messes—or, more often, the prince’s messes on Traeburhn’s orders.”

  “What you’re saying is that if he’s here, he’s here at Traeburhn’s behest, which may or may not involve the prince, and which may or may not have been precipitated by—”

  “Ahem, yes.” Lyram nodded. “The trick is to discover if he really is here.”

  She watched him through narrowed eyes. That he wasn’t ready to share news of a Rahmyrrim publicly was unsurprising, but Everard and Galdron were his closest advisers—or so she’d been led to believe.

  He shoved his drying hair away from his face again, but it ignored him, crackling against his fingers and catching in his unkempt beard. Ellaeva pulled a leather thong from inside her robes and passed it to him.

  “Ahura’s sword!” The words burst from Galdron’s lips. “You can’t be taking this seriously?” His oft-broken nose was red, and the flush spread across his face and up his balding pate, clashing against his ginger beard.

  Lyram turned to face him, lips compressed.

  Galdron waved one gauntleted hand vigorously. “Those Velenese whoresons are trying to go back on their word—as anyone with right sense in their head should have known—and you’re spinning fairy tales about a conspiracy by the prince and the chancellor to kill you?”

  Everard placed a restraining hand on Galdron’s arm and murmured something Ellaeva didn’t hear, but the captain shook him off.

  “It’s nothing but a delusion to explain away his exile from court, rather than admit it’s because he was a dangerously drunk incompetent,” he said, looking from Everard to Ellaeva. He turned and pointed at Lyram. “You punched the prince! Bloodied his nose in front of the whole court, including that bastard Velenese ambassador! Those muck-raking scum are likely rubbing their hands in glee at their chance to do away with the Butcher of Invergahr.... Sir.”

  Ellaeva arched one eyebrow. A great many of those details had bubbled through the gossip circulating the continent, but she’d dismissed most of them as exaggerations. Could there be truth, then, in the rumour that Lyram Aharris had killed his own wife?

  What if Ahura hadn’t sent her here to stop the Rahmyrrim killing Aharris, but to prevent the dark goddess from enlisting him to her cause?

  Lyram leaned on a merlon, watching another stone crest the old wall and sail through the sky. It landed west of the moat and ploughed a furrow in the grass. Riders milled in the gateway again, but a quick glance through the spyglass confirmed that none were the man that might be Bradlin.

  Behind him, Ellaeva had towed Galdron farther down the wall and away from him. Did she see the look on my face? Was that why she took him away? He’d been on the verge of exploding at Galdron, the sheer fury at his captain’s audacity bubbling up and threatening to overflow. Unfortunately, they hadn’t gone quite far enough to be out of earshot.

  “If it is the viscount Bradlin,” Ellaeva said, moving Galdron a little further around the tower wall. “What explanation would you offer for his presence?”

  Everard lingered halfway between Ellaeva and Lyram, uncertainty plastered across his features. Curious about what the priestess might say, no doubt. Well, Lyram wouldn’t stop him listening.

  “Well, uh, I don’t know.” Galdron fumbled over the admission.

  Moving a little away, Lyram shook Ellaeva’s thong out and began pulling his hair back. His fingers tangled clumsily in the mess. Everard usually managed this for him, but his aide listened with rapt attention to Ellaeva and Galdron. Perhaps best to just pull it back out of his face.

  “Would the duke commit treason?” Ellaeva said.

  Galdron paused again, indecision writ large on his face. “Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Caught up in his own thoughts, some of the conversation had passed him by unnoticed. Probably better not to listen anyway; he didn’t care to learn how much those closest to him had lost faith.

  Gentle hands took the thong from Lyram and began tidying his hair. He nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden contact. An attempt to look over his shoulder earned him a gentle tug on his hair to keep his head straight, but he nevertheless caught a glimpse of Leinahre. Schooling himself to stillness, he tried to ignore the sudden fresh wash of anguish. Zaheva had always done his hair, before....

  “Why are you up here?” he asked.

  “To speak with you, my lord.”

  When her hands released his hair, he turned, and stiffened at the sight.

  Leinahre wore a butcher’s apron over the blue-and-green tartan of her kirtle, tied tight around her narrow waist and emphasising her hips. It was too big for her, and splattered with the shocking red of fresh blood. The gore struck a sharp contrast to the sweet innocence of her face. More blood painted her billowing white sleeves from where they fastened tight at her wrists all the way up to her shoulders.

  “What’s happened?”

  She shook her head, her mouth set in a grim line. Her huge blue eyes, usually sparkling with carefree good-humour, were dark-ringed, a detail he’d missed in last night’s shadows. “A few men wounded by flying pieces of stone. One poor boy died... the shrapnel severed his carotid.”

  Another one dead. Grief surged in him, and he stamped it down. Later. Now was for those souls he could save. “You’re tending the wounded? Why?”

  She shrugged, but if anything the grim set of her features hardened. “We’ve no surgeon, my lord.”

  The words struck him hard. With no serious injuries since their arrival at Caisteal Aingeal, he hadn’t noted the absence—but it was one that could yet cost them dearly. No scouts, no surgeon, and he’d effectively trapped them in the castle when he burned the bridge. The portable bridge would only support few men crossing at a time, and then at a slow walk. There’d be no fast sally or quick evacuation that way.

  “I’ve some skill, my lord, but I won’t be able to save many, and I am only one pair of hands. None of the serving women admit to any knowledge. A woman in the hills served as herbalist and midwife when they needed one, and the man who usually dealt with basic inju
ries was himself in the hills with the herds when the army arrived.”

  Bad luck, that. The news made him itch like a man with a crossbow quarrel trained on his back—no way to stop it coming, and no way to know when it would be loosed. Without a surgeon, the death toll would be higher than he’d hoped, and some men might be maimed, and there would be fewer able-bodied men to man the walls. He’d precious few anyway, only a bare two hundred if he combined his men and the regular castle guard.

  Leinahre stood straighter, the movement emphasising the curve of her breast beneath the apron. He averted his gaze. It was completely inappropriate for him to look at a girl under his care in that way, not to mention the wrong time to be distracted.

  “The sisters know something of the human body,” Ellaeva said.

  Lyram jumped. She’d appeared at his shoulder without him noticing her approach. Again. The woman was half-cat, honestly.

  She regarded them with her even gaze, her features smoothed to her accustomed impassivity.

  “Speak to the sisters,” he told Leinahre. “Enlist their aid if you can.”

  “We’ll need somewhere to treat the wounded,” she said. “The sisters’ catacombs won’t serve.”

  “Use the banqueting hall. We won’t be feasting anytime soon.”

  Leinahre sketched a tiny curtsy and headed for the stairwell, casting a look over her shoulder through thick black lashes as she began the descent. He turned to follow the arc of another boulder over the ruined outer wall. The stone landed with a tremendous splash in the moat, and water sloshed up the wall a good few feet, spray pluming out into the air. The cool breeze caught it, blowing the fine mist against the skin of his face. He shivered.

  “They’ll attack tonight,” he said, mostly to himself.

  The words were uttered so softly as to be barely audible, but Ellaeva switched her gaze from the stairwell where Leinahre had vanished. “What do you see?”

  “Nothing. It’s more a feeling..., a tension in the air. They don’t know how well-provisioned we are, and they must fear help will arrive, by design or fortune. Quite simply, they cannot afford to wait. Bless Ahura they don’t know we lack a surgeon or they’d press us harder.”

  “The castle’s defences are strong.”

  “But they are nothing without men.”

  “Agreed, but our attackers must be brave to attack this place, and their morale may yet be broken. The castle is well-named.”

  “Castle of the Angels?”

  Her lips twitched, but her eyes showed no mirth. Whatever the joke, it was bleak. “The shrine was here first, you know? They built the castle over the shrine, and over the ruins of an earlier building. The castle’s full name is Caisteal Aingeal an Bhais.”

  “Castle of the Angel of Death.” As Lyram uttered the words, another shiver swept his frame, though he fought to suppress it. The wind still carried the bite of winter, but it wasn’t that making him cold.

  Death is among us.

  But was he sensing the goddess—the unsettling presence of her avatar beside him—or just the prickling fear of an unknown enemy?

  Or was it what lay below their feet? He’d always made it a habit to steer clear of the catacombs and the shrine, preferring to leave them to the priestesses, but nevertheless they lay below their feet like fat poisonous toads.

  Ellaeva nodded, staring towards the enemy encampment, as if trying to pierce through the wall and the old hill to see the enemy themselves. “Death is comfortable here, but I think you’re right. They will attack tonight.”

  Ahura’s tits, did anything make Ellaeva blink? Well, perhaps that epithet...

  “Bradlin is a canny man,” he said. “If it’s even him.”

  A memory niggled, somewhere in the dim recesses of his mind—something about the man’s face, seen in profile. Yet he hadn’t crossed paths with Bradlin for more than two years. The viscount didn’t come to court two seasons ago, and nearly a year had passed since Lyram’s exile. Despite that, a vague memory of Bradlin formed, his visage framed by the snowy branches of the winter woods that surrounded the capital.

  When would he have ever seen Bradlin in winter? The viscount never lingered in the capital over winter; he preferred to retire to his estates in the highlands, else he’d be cut off from his lands for the entire cold season. Could he have seen Bradlin at the beginning of last winter, just before his exile began? There had been an early snowfall, but he’d spent so much time sunk in a whisky bottle after Zaheva’s death that it was difficult to recall much at all. Only a few events stood out, like punching Drault..., and the moment his exile was declared.

  “Something bothers you.”

  Lyram flashed a surprised look at her. Though she appeared barely twenty, she was observant and astute.

  “A memory. No, not even that. Something half-remembered, as if from a dream disturbed. It’s fuzzy around the edges. Something to do with Bradlin, but I recall nothing except an image of him in a place I never saw him.” He cast a restless look in the direction of the enemy camp. “I should go rest. I’ll want to be here when the attack comes.”

  Ellaeva nodded, as austere as a crow in her black garb, eased only by the silver sword. “I will go pray.”

  She entered the stair turret ahead of him, and he looked back again, unable to explain the unease plaguing him at this memory he couldn’t quite pin down, of Bradlin, in the snow. The leaves fallen from the trees. Something about the colour red.

  And Zaheva.

  Around Lyram, the archers finally lowered their bows, and his men slumped against merlons and leaned on unneeded pikes, their faces etched with bone-deep weariness. Clinging to the giant claymore with one hand, more to be seen than because he had any use for the blade right now, he limped across the battlements. He pulled off his helm and peered over the edge. Bodies floated in the moat below, and pitch and naphtha still burned in fitful patches atop the water. One dead enemy soldier washed up against the bridge footings.

  Lyram pointed at him. “Someone go down and bring that man in.”

  A pair of soldiers nodded and hauled themselves away with heavy steps to attend the task.

  In the distance, a cat rumbled away with the retreating soldiers, arrows still protruding from its hide-covered housing. Lyram glanced down at the moat again. How deep was the water? Whatever debris the enemy soldiers had dumped in under cover of the cat had disappeared into the depths. How long until they filled in the moat, and how long to make more cats? They must’ve quickly assembled the one they had in the day since their arrival, and it wasn’t sufficient to make a serious bid against the castle, but the fact they attacked at all spoke volumes.

  As he suspected, the enemy would not be content to starve them out.

  Near the old gate, the soldiers fled as fast as their legs could carry them through a tunnel of shields protecting them from the danger of a wild arrow from the castle walls. Only one or two of the castle archers sent a desultory arrow their way. The tunnel was ingenuous, really, and the only way to get the bulk of the army inside the outer wall without losing a hideous number of men to an arrow storm. The bows weren’t accurate at that distance, but with soldiers backed up at the gate, they didn’t need to be.

  Now most of the defenders sat with their backs to the crenels, resting while they had the chance. Blood splattered the clothes and armour of the soldiers. The low moan of the wounded formed a permanent part of the background noise.

  A few of his warriors lay in unmoving heaps. Lyram stopped and checked the pulse of the one nearest. The man’s heart beat strong and steady, but he was unconscious. Down the wall, several black-robed priestesses of Ahura already worked under Leinahre’s direction to help move the wounded onto stretchers and carry them to the banquet hall. One paused to touch her brow, lips and breast in benediction over an arrow-shot man who would never move again.

  Ellaeva strode down the wall, casting a disinterested glance at her sisters. Each hooded head paused to follow her as she passed, then returned to its t
ask. None of them spoke, not them to her, nor she to them. Lyram lifted an eyebrow. What was all that about?

  “A surprisingly hard first attack,” she said, drawing near.

  Lyram nodded. “I doubt they’re well-supplied, and they can’t hope to maintain supply lines unnoticed.”

  Ellaeva’s gaze flicked from him, to the disappearing cat, and back again. “You’re worried they know some other way into this castle?”

  “They need one. They can’t sustain this siege long enough to starve us out. They’ll run out of food and supplies first, or risk drawing the wrong kind of notice. If the garrisons in the border castles get word of this, they’ll march to lift the siege. Only the isolation of this place is working in their favour, but that won’t last.” He licked his lips, glancing up and down the wall before lowering his voice. “Could the... Rahmyrrim be working with them?”

  She stared into the distance for a long time before answering. “We have no evidence of it, but it is possible. Rahmyrrim do sometimes hire out their services, to fund their activities—much like the rogue frictionnaires do, offering up their power for use on the battlefield—but they stay hidden in the shadows, using magic to pluck their payment from the hands of their employers, who rarely know with whom they truly deal.”

  Lyram grimaced. He wouldn’t turn down a few frictionnaires himself; the constant generation of energy in battle gave them a ready source of power for their spells. “So the necromancer might bring things into the castle? What kinds of things?”

  “Small things only—coins, jewellery, a knife perhaps, messages. Certainly not a person, if you’re worried about a security breach.”

  That was some consolation. If the necromancer could bring enemy soldiers inside the walls, even just to sow chaos, it would be bad news indeed. But what other powers did a Rahmyrrim possess? What resources could Ellaeva offer to counter the priest?