Blood of Heirs

by Alicia Wanstall-Burke

  Jac bellowed and pointed, Rick sprinted off and Behn followed two steps behind. Four men lifted Erlon on a stretcher and bile burned the back of Lidan’s mouth. He wore a black stain across his chest and the thick armour of lacquered wood and leather hung in splinters from his neck to waist, the shirt and skin beneath was torn and covered in old blood and flies. The flies lifted away in a buzzing swarm, revealing a gaping wound and exposed muscle.

  ‘Father!’ Lidan screamed and suddenly her feet were running. She shoved at the people blocking her way as if they were reeds by the creek. ‘Da!’

  A pair of strong arms caught her waist and pulled her from the path of the stretcher-bearers.

  ‘Oi, Liddy, stay back now, eh?’ Jac held her and she gave in to the force of his hands. Her father’s skin was pale and slick with sweat, his lips cracked and bloodied. He looked close enough to death to hear the ancestors calling, though his chest still rose and fell with breath. The sight turned Lidan’s blood to ice. The stretcher-bearers reached the top of the hall’s stairs and Jac whispered, ‘Get your mothers.’

  *

  ‘Mam! Kelill! Da’s back, come quick!’ Her cries echoed down the corridor at the rear of the hall. Heads peered out from doorways, brows furrowed with concern. ‘Where’s Raeh?’ Lidan demanded, ripping aside curtains and frantically searching each room. No one was ever where she needed them to be!

  ‘By the ancestors, Lidan, what’s happened?’ Kelill emerged from a doorway. ‘You’re so pale…’

  Lidan didn’t stop to answer. She spun back to the kitchens and saw Raeh dash across the corridor and into the hall quick as a namorra on the wind. She stumbled after her half-mother and greeted chaos with no idea what to do.

  The hall, usually brimming with laughing women, drinking men and playing children, stank like the butcher’s slaughter shed and sounded just as bad. The rangers staggered in from the grasslands in varying states of injury and consciousness, their groans and screams shaking the ceiling beams, while others lay as still as stones on tables built for feasting, not bleeding.

  Grent, the clan’s bonesetter, hurried between the tables with a board and a thin sheet of parchment, marking it as he went and shouting orders. She’d never heard Grent say as many words in an entire month, let alone in five short minutes, and he was as loud as a thunderclap. At Lidan’s back her mother gasped and Kelill swore. The gravity and horrified awe in their voices brought tears to her eyes, suppressed sobs catching in her tightening throat.

  This was bad.

  ‘Grent, how many?’ called Dana Sellan.

  ‘Five, Dana, and two dead in the common,’ Grent didn’t look up or stop moving. ‘Seven from a party of twenty…’

  Only five survivors? Lidan pressed her hand to her mouth to steady her quivering lips. Her mother couldn’t abide weeping.

  Raeh turned and buried her face against Kelill’s shoulder, but the fabric of Kelill’s shirt did little to muffle Raeh’s sobs as they rose to join the rest of the noise echoing between the rafters. Lidan couldn’t stand the sound a moment longer and fled deeper into the commotion to escape her half-mother’s grief. Her father’s stretcher appeared between rushing attendants, perched atop his massive ash-wood feasting table and her body slowed.

  No one noticed her.

  She was barely tall enough to see over their shoulders and so svelte she slipped through the smallest fissures in the crowd without bother. She blocked her ears to the adults, their yelling and rushed conversations. Her father filled her vision, still and pale, laid low by a wound greater than any she’d ever seen.

  An arrow hadn’t done it, nor a spear or a flint axe or knife. Rangers never bore such wounds. It was too big, and too deep, stretching from his right shoulder across the thick muscle of his chest down to the bone, carving to the left and halting just shy of the soft tissue of the belly. His armour, built to stop stone arrowheads and spear tips, hadn’t stood a chance. At his side, Lidan sank to a stool and stared.

  Rangers survived battle wounds. They grew strong again, despite the damage, but this was different. This was something altogether more horrific than anything rangers usually suffered, even when the border disputes were at their worst. Was it the work of a neighbouring clan? Surely not the Namjin… They didn’t have the weapons to cause such carnage…

  By the mercy of the ancestors, Erlon’s chest still rose and fell and Lidan sighed with cautious relief. He was alive, albeit barely, his heart still beating in his barrel chest and shallow rasping breaths filled his lungs. He had hope, if only a sliver against the mounting odds of death. While the daari lived, nothing changed. The clan wasn’t ready for their leader to die. Lidan wasn’t ready.

  Grent strode over, big hands scribbling deftly across the paper, recording what he saw for each of the wounded. The midwife, Moyra, appeared and they exchanged hushed words before she hurried again into the press of anxious relatives and attendants.

  ‘Search me what could’ve done this… None of them remember. They keep muttering about screaming shadows,’ the bonesetter murmured. He pressed his fingers on the angry flesh beside the darkened tear of Erlon’s wound and clicked his tongue. He didn’t like what he saw.

  ‘I know,’ Lidan replied, blinking away the fog of grief. Grent’s brown eyes met hers and Lidan nodded to the wall behind her father’s empty audience chair. ‘One of those could rip a gash this deep.’

  Hanging above the audience chair for all the clan to see, was the fire-forged blade of iron. The long edges shone with sharp intent, and carried enough weight to split flesh from bone in one swing.

  ‘Shit… But, who…?’ whispered Grent, frowning as his hand fell away from the daari’s chest.

  Lidan held tight to her father’s calloused hand and shrugged. Forged blades came from the north, but the Malapa was impassable except for a very small window of time every few years in the height of summer. None of it made sense. Moyra called for Grent and he rushed to oblige, his brow furrowed.

  *

  Thankfully the commotion died away as Grent and his helpers moved the injured to the treatment rooms behind his home. One by one they carried the prone bodies, calmed with a tonic to ease their pain and dull their senses, until the only man remaining in the hall was the daari. Lidan didn’t move from his side, her small hand wrapped around his filthy fingers, his dogs curled at her feet, the brindle one whimpering whenever she stopped rubbing his back with her foot.

  Her mothers scurried back and forth, organising the family’s tine-women to assist Grent and Moyra, and sending the small children to play with the older girls away from the mess and blood. The last thing anyone needed was a sleepless night with little ones who had nightmares of bloodied monsters and screaming corpses. At one point, Raeh hurried in, searching the hall for Abbi. Lidan shrugged and shook her head—she had no idea where the little girl had gone. Abbi was known to vanish into a quiet corner when the chaos and noise became too much to bear, but she never wandered far. Raeh did not linger, and hurried out to search the stables, leaving Lidan with her whirling thoughts.

  She didn’t want to think on what might happen if her father succumbed to his wounds. She didn’t want to think what it might mean, given that she was only twelve and far too young to inherit in her own right. The power would likely fall to her mother, and the idea made Lidan shudder. The woman wielded enough authority in the clan as it was, and swung it around like a blunt instrument at the best of times. What she might do given full reign over the place made Lidan’s stomach clench.

  As if summoned by the very thought, her solitude ended with the rustling of fine woven skirts and the scent of the flowers the dana sprinkled in her washing water. For a time, her mother did not speak and Lidan did not turn. She didn’t want to invite her into this moment alone with her father; she wasn’t ready to give it up.

  ‘What is Grent going to do with this?’ Sellan muttered. Lidan heard her sigh as one might over spilt ale or a broken pot. ‘I’m going to get Thanie.’

  Th
e statement snapped through Lidan’s daze and she scrambled to follow the dana.

  ‘Mam, no!’ she caught her mother in the corridor and ducked around her. She spread her arms wide and pressed a palm on either wall to block the way. Her father had ordered the Crone gone from Hummel by the time he returned. She was the last person whose help he would appreciate or accept. She braced for the violence of her mother’s reaction.

  ‘What?’ Sellan’s face twisted with indignation, her voice a low hiss. ‘You want him to die?’

  ‘No, he’d want Grent to treat him, not the Crone. He said he wanted her gone!’

  The words were out before Lidan realised what she said. The bitter argument she and Behn had overhead echoed in her head and she shuddered. What had she done? Her mother leaned forwards and narrowed her eyes, her pristine hands with their perfectly shaped nails cupping Lidan’s face as she made a soft tsk sound.

  ‘How could you possibly know he said that?’ The dana’s fingers stroked her daughter’s cheek and curled a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Understanding rippled across Sellan’s features and her hand grew still.

  Lidan knew the Crone was still in her decrepit hut, defying the order given by the daari before he departed for the hunt. Lidan knew her mother hadn’t made any effort to remove the woman. What she didn’t know was how to explain how she knew of her father’s order. She flinched away from her mother’s touch on instinct, but too slowly.

  Sellan snatched a handful of Lidan’s hair and pulled her close with savage force. ‘How in the name of the Dead Sisters could you know he said that?’

  ‘I don’t!’ Lidan squealed her denial and staggered as her mother twisted her hair around her arm and dragged her to the door. She bit down on a pained cry as her scalp ignited with stinging fire, tearing until blood dribbled across her eyes. ‘Mam, I don’t know anything! I just thought—’

  Sellan ignored Lidan’s begging and forced her up the stony path from the base of the Caine, unmoved by the whimpering and struggling. Lidan cursed her stupid mouth for speaking such ill-thought words. She knew better. Her mother never made threats…

  Chapter Nine

  Hummel, Tolak Range, the South Lands

  There was no pause to knock on the Crone’s door, no standing on ceremony. The dana shouldered the rickety timber panel and shoved Lidan through the tiny dark entry. Lidan’s boot caught on a step and she toppled forwards to hit the floor, scraping her hands and arms as she slid into the opposite wall.

  ‘You’ve brought her, finally,’ a disembodied voice observed from the hut’s gloomy interior. Despite the sun passing noon, the room encased in packed earth and stone was nearly as black as night. Lidan curled into a ball, too afraid to glance at the shadows. ‘I’m surprised it took you so long…’

  ‘The little trollop has been spying on me! Weren’t you, you little cunt? What did you hear?’ The dana kicked and slapped at her daughter. Lidan waved her hands wildly in defence, and yelped as boots hit her ribs but it did nothing to deter Sellan. She was in a rage, eyes wide and wild, teeth bared in a snarl.

  ‘Sellan, calm yourself,’ the voice commanded and Lidan’s mother paced away reluctantly to collect her composure and correct her hair. ‘Remember your lessons. Keep your head.’

  Lidan’s chest burned, desperate for air and her head spun, dots dancing before her eyes. She blinked to clear them and peered over her bloodied arm and torn sleeve to see Dana Sellan glaring from beside the door.

  Sellan rushed forwards again and Lidan scrambled back against an unlit hearth. Her mother’s face came within an inch of hers and she shuddered at the proximity of such rage, the woman’s full lips curled in an ugly sneer. ‘I won’t ask you again, Lidan Tolak. What did you hear?’

  She knew the punishment for lying. Her mother never made threats, only promises. If she told the truth, she might gain some mercy. Her mother raised a hand to hit her again and Lidan surrendered.

  ‘Father said you were to send the Crone away! That’s all! I swear, I didn’t hear anything else.’

  Sellan slapped Lidan harder than she’d ever been struck. Pain exploded across her face and she cried out, the metallic tang of blood filling her mouth, her lip burst and bleeding. Her ears rang so loudly she didn’t hear her mother stalk away.

  ‘Is that true, Daughter Lidan?’ the Crone’s question floated from the darkest corner of the hut.

  Unable to stand the sight of her mother, Lidan locked her gaze on the gloom and nodded. ‘He did, before he went ranging.’

  ‘Did he say anything else?’ the voice asked with casual curiosity.

  Lidan shook her head and swallowed bloody saliva. ‘No, just that he wanted you off his range before he returned.’

  For a moment, there was no reply. Blood dripped from her scalp to her cheek and beat a steady rhythm while she stared at the darkness and waited for its judgement.

  ‘What do you want done with her?’ the Crone asked Sellan.

  Her mother approached and a shiver of fear rolled across Lidan’s skin, bile boiling up in her throat. She recoiled as Sellan crouched and tenderly stroked her tangled hair, a gesture in complete opposition to her mood a moment before. The shift rocked Lidan as if she’d been kicked, such tenderness so soon after a frenzy shifting the ground beneath her feet. But it was too perfect, too pleasant to be real. Backed against a wall, in the most avoided and reviled corner of Hummel, Lidan knew there was no one to save her from what was coming.

  Sellan smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. They remained steady and cold in the dim light of the hut. ‘The pit.’

  Lidan’s heart thumped to a stop, paralysed by fear. The pit? What was the pit?

  ‘Very well…’

  *

  Lidan screamed, but it was a waste of breath. Her mother dragged her through the hut’s rear door, past a stinking midden to a small timber trap door set in the ground beside an enormous cluster of boulders. When the door swung up, Lidan staggered back as far as her mother’s cold hands allowed. Below the door was a pit of utter darkness, its depth lost in an ink black abyss. Sellan did not hesitate. She shoved Lidan into the gloom and slammed the door.

  Something sharp tore Lidan’s hand from knuckles to wrist as she fell, and she cried out, gripping the wound as she hit the floor of the pit and the light of the world above vanished. Stunned, she scrambled backwards until her back hit a hard earth wall and she froze at the sound of a heavy locking bolt scraping home.

  A lock?

  She’d been locked down here?

  She curled into a tiny ball on the floor, blood seeping through her fingers, and cursed her foolishness through her shuddering sobs.

  She prayed in the darkness, begging her ancestors for help, but received no answer. If they didn’t see fit to rescue her, what chance was there of anyone else coming to her aid? In the commotion and anxiety of the village, it was unlikely anyone noticed her absence. It was not unusual for her mother to keep her indoors for days at a time, forcing her through lessons she hated. But she would have taken a hundred days of tedious sewing over this. She knew better than to challenge her mother. There was no one to save her; no one at all.

  *

  Hours crawled past and, in the distance, a wild dog howled to announce nightfall with its drawn-out call, echoing answers rippling along the valley and raising bumps on Lidan’s skin. The chill of the night seeped through the soil and coiled around her, squeezing hard like an icy snake. Her arms and legs cramped after hours in the same position, her feet completely numb, the temperature and the confines of the pit conspiring in tandem to cripple her small body.

  If fortune saw to grant her some mercy, frost would not creep through the valley tonight and she might make it to morning intact. At least in the dark she was spared the sight of her wounded hand. It would turn foul if not seen to soon, and then the cold would be the least of her worries.

  She lay in the inky blackness and wondered about her father. She wondered if anyone had noticed she was gone or if anyone
thought to ask. She wondered what excuse her mother gave them and how easily they accepted it as the truth. Sellan could fabricate a story that no one would question for days, maybe weeks. No one was coming for her, and she was utterly alone.

  Lidan shivered and tried to hold in another sob. Her eyes burned from the tears and her bones ached, but there was nothing to do but hold still and hope. She hoped her mother might find some sympathy for her and come back to save her from the cold. She hoped her father might recover and break apart the door above her head with his bare hands, but she cried because she knew neither of those things would happen and it crushed her heart.

  *

  The door to the pit creaked open.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been there. Long enough to soil herself from fear and need, long enough to wonder if her fingers and toes would survive the chill. Her eyes and nose streamed and her lips cracked, burnt by the dry air and lack of water. It might have been a night, or perhaps two, and she had passed the threshold of desperate hunger to resigned sorrow some time ago.

  ‘Get out and walk,’ ordered the Crone. Above the old woman’s head, stars sparkled in the night sky.

  What?

  Lidan tried to shrink into the ground, sure she’d heard the husky command incorrectly. Perhaps the woman was insensible. Lidan couldn’t walk. She couldn’t move at all. She couldn’t feel her limbs, let alone animate them in an action that even resembled walking. She twitched her head from side to side; she wasn’t getting up and she wasn’t walking anywhere. She’d rather stay here and die.

  A wrinkled hand appeared from within layers of furs and woven shawls and thin fingers flexed. A crack of lightning snapped through the air and slammed into Lidan’s shoulder, shuddering her bones and searing flesh. Her jaw locked tight and, unable to scream, her body jerked against the hard stone and earth with the force of the lightning.

  The lightning stopped and left a breathless silence in its wake.