To his left, in the snow beside the wall, the sound of movement stopped. It wasn’t an uneasy pause, when one might shuffle their feet and wonder which way to go next. It was a dead stop, as if it had found exactly what it was looking for.
The thing outside drew a deep breath through its nose, sucking in the scent of everything around it. It came closer to the wall, sniffing and breathing heavily, following a trail no eye could see. Then Ran remembered the sound from a hazy place in his memory. He’d heard it before: at the bottom of the mine shaft where he’d fallen not so long ago.
Sweat beaded on Ran’s forehead; his palms were clammy, and his fingers itched for his knife. He didn’t dare move to grab it, his heart and lungs already working hard as he tried to minimise his breath in case the creature heard.
Sniffing and shuffling steps moved from near his feet towards his head, quicker and more insistent as it approached then stopped again. It drew another long, deep breath and exhaled with a satisfied sigh that sent a cold shiver through every bone in Ran’s body. A wet splattering sound pattered against the wall of the barn, and the snow hissed as hot liquid hit the ground.
It can’t seriously be taking a piss?
He screwed up his nose at the acrid stink wafting up through the panels of the wall, stinging his nostrils and turning his stomach. The creature finished relieving itself and shuffled away quickly, retreating across the snow until Ran’s ears lost the sound of its awkward steps to the night, a howling scream echoing along the valley to signal its departure. Not for the first time, he thanked the gods that Sasha remained asleep.
It took a moment for the creature’s behaviour to make sense despite his fear. With the foul stench of the urine still burning his nose, Ran’s heart skipped before thumping back into a frantic beat.
Whatever the creature was, it had marked its territory like a dog, claiming the place and sending a clear message to any others who might pass this way.
This barn, and whatever lay inside, belonged to it. Its territory. Its property.
Its food.
Chapter Thirty-two
Namjin Range, the South Lands
The ngaru found the convoy a few days out from Hummel and tracked it across the Tolak Range, keeping pace through the trees and shadows. At times the creatures retreated out of earshot, sometimes for a few days, sometimes only for several hours. When the creatures did retreat, the relief among the travellers was palpable, but their respite always ended with an echoing howl as the ngaru returned. Lidan knew their sound as well as her own voice, the howls shaking the hide covers of the wagons and the resolve of the rangers. One hand went to her knife by instinct, squeezing the handle, while the other held tight to the reins, waiting for the moment the monsters leapt from the trees to snatch her from the saddle.
She waited, but they never came.
At night the rangers set fires at the edge of the camp after the Namjin messenger suggested the creatures disliked the flames. From Lidan’s experience, ngaru paid no mind to light or warmth. She’d seen them attack in the day when the sun was high in the southern sky, so she doubted the effectiveness of the fire pits and torches carried by the perimeter patrols.
In her gut she knew it was something else that kept the ngaru at bay—some sort of wariness or uncertainty that she didn’t understand. She heard them off in the bush, scuffling around in the under-growth and yowling to one another. She closed her eyes and tried to shut them out, her hands shivering at the effort, but nothing kept the sound from her ears. With Loge nearby, always within reach and never out of sight, she felt safe enough, but it was a false sense of security. If those creatures wanted to take the camp, no fire or ranger could stop them.
The question remained: why didn’t they?
Each evening when the convoy set camp, Lidan and Loge found a place to train with their knives. The sound of metal ringing and clashing, a quickly uttered encouragement or correction, punctuated with the shuffling of boots and grunts of exertion, filled the air in the camp and forced back the noise of the ngaru among the trees. The exercise pushed Lidan’s muscles until they burned beneath her skin and her blood thumped in her head, and at night when she curled into a bedroll beside her sisters, exhaustion swept through her, dragging her down into a heavy sleep that not even the ngaru’s calls could disturb.
As night fell, Loge stepped back from sparring and bowed, breathless and sweating. ‘That’s enough for tonight. Well done.’
Lidan grinned. ‘Have I worn you out?’
The young ranger laughed and shook his head as they walked back to the fires near the wagons. ‘No, but you are getting faster and stronger.’
They stowed their weapons and took a drink from a bladder of water.
‘Nights are getting warmer,’ Loge said quietly. He was a good sight taller than Lidan, and his hazel brown eyes seemed to shine when he laughed.
‘Days are longer too,’ she agreed and glanced at the sky between the trees, the stars blinking through the long leaves.
They’d spent close to a month on the move, pushing through the foothills of the tablelands in a northwesterly direction, the sunrise at their back and the mountains to their right. The days were increasingly warmer, signalling an end to the winter and the coming wet season.
‘Still no rain,’ she observed and squeezed a stopper into the mouth of the water bladder.
By the coming full moon, they would be at the base of the hills where the Namjin clan made their home and in the relative safety of the Corron. Her father said the ngaru wouldn’t dare attack such a gathering, reassuring his family and rangers that succour was near. Lidan had no faith in the idea of safety in numbers, but she hoped for her father’s sake his word would hold true.
The ngaru in the distance howled again, screeching and screaming and sending a shudder of disgust through Lidan’s core.
‘What are they doing out there?’ she demanded through clenched teeth, the noise of their hunters grating against her nerves like splintered wood on soft, exposed skin.
‘Who knows?’ Loge flicked a piece of bark at the fire and it flared bright before dying to ash. ‘The one who attacked me tracked us for days. It’s like they have to make sure they can kill you before they attack. They don’t want to risk losing the fight.’ His eyes scanned the trees. ‘I thought they would have tried by now.’
‘Maybe they decided we’re too dangerous?’ she suggested without a hint of hope, her words twisted by the sourness of sarcasm.
‘Ha!’ Loge laughed, a harsh sound in the tense clearing. A few rangers glanced their way before turning back to their meals and hushed conversations. ‘Maybe, but I doubt it,’ muttered Loge, as bitter and frustrated as Lidan.
The hide curtain at the rear of a wagon opened, and Lidan watched her mother climb down on shaking legs. Sellan carried a pail to the edge of the camp and tipped the contents into the bushes, the light of the fires showing her apron soiled with dirt and streaks of vomit for the first time in recent memory. With only a few tine-women travelling in the convoy, the bulk of Farah’s care fell to her sister-wives, including Sellan. Her mother’s face was as pale and drawn as Lidan had ever seen it and a jolt of shock ran along her spine.
Her mothers rarely ventured outside the wagons, fear and fatigue keeping them behind the hide walls with the children. More cries echoed between the trees and an unseen child began to wail. Someone tried to soothe her tears with whispers and a song, but they died away as the little girl’s cries rang louder. The ngaru responded with their own howling song, as if calling to each other and asking what the noise meant. But it wasn’t long before they were back to crashing through the bush, and by the sound of it, chasing some small animal and making it scream in vain for its life before cutting it short and snarling loudly over the scraps.
Lidan watched the dana in the shadow of the wagon, hidden from the camp. She dropped the pail and leaned against the side rail of the carriage, her auburn hair falling from its tail and into her face. She’d never seen
her mother so unkempt and ragged. Even when Lidan’s baby sisters kept the hall awake crying for milk and their mother’s arms, the dana turned herself out in pristine fashion; not a hair out of place or a smudge of fatigue on her face.
The woman straightened, her hands on her hips, and drew a deep breath through her nose while her eyes remained tightly closed. Her lips moved without uttering a sound, whispering silent words into the night.
What is she doing? Lidan frowned. Her mother’s fingers paled around her knuckles. Her arms shook and her face creased with effort, as if concentrating her will on blocking the sounds of the ngaru from her mind.
The racket finally eased and the dana opened her eyes to stare at the side of the wagon, her shoulders sagging as if a weight had been lifted. Then the dana turned and their gazes met. Had her mother sensed her presence?
It wasn’t her unwavering stare that sent a shiver down Lidan’s spine, or even the fact that her mother’s mutterings seemed to have quelled the ngaru’s snarling that turned her blood to ice. In the dark green of Sellan’s eyes, she saw fear, and for the first time in thirteen years, she knew her mother was truly afraid.
*
The vision of her mother’s pale face and wide eyes haunted every mile until the convoy broke the cover of the trees and a grassy plain stretched out before them. The sounds of the ngaru fell behind the riders as the wagons crossed into open ground, making their way to the dark, snaking line of a river and the track running along its bank. The sound of the world without the constant howl of their pursuers was nothing short of blissful.
For the first time in a month Lidan heard birds and insects and lily drakes chirping in the reeds and grass along the riverbank, the water rushing away to the south, lured by the sea. It whispered over stones and fallen branches, lapping in little coves and bubbling past, drawing the horses into the riverbed to drink. Starved by the dry season, it seemed too small for the width of the banks and awkward, like a child wearing her father’s boots. Even so, it ran wider than the creek in the valley of the Caine and Lidan marvelled at the clear water and shimmering eddies, a smile spreading across her face.
She dismounted and jogged with Theus across the sandy riverbed, the rangers following slowly, their eyes on the line of sparse trees shading the gully. Lidan glanced back at her father, atop Titon on the bank, standing guard at the wagons as the women and children climbed out with expressions of relief. He nodded and waved his hand and the travelling party broke into an excited frenzy.
They stripped off their boots and waded into the cold pools, splashing their faces and laughing at each other for the first time in weeks. The horses hardly raised their heads from drinking while their riders rubbed them down. At least half the rangers kept watch, then swapped with their fellows for a turn in the water and a chance to rest their horses’ backs.
Lidan closed her eyes and lay back on the warm, coarse sand, allowing her mind to rest and the joyful sounds of her family to wash her clean of the anxiety that had accumulated under the threat of the ngaru and the unsettling memory of her mother’s unease. Perhaps the Namjin messenger was right and the ngaru were fearful of light and warmth, keeping their distance, never sure if it was safe to pounce. For now, by the rushing river in the peace of the gully, she didn’t care. She was thankful she’d had no cause to use her knives for more than practice and relieved to have made it to the Namjin range alive.
A high whistle broke her tranquillity and she sat bolt upright, spinning to look at her father as rangers hurried to respond to the signal. She stood quickly and followed their gaze, catching sight of riders approaching from the north. Many carried spears, which was hardly considered polite for a simple welcoming party.
Until a month ago, the Tolak and the Namjin had been teetering on all out war along the border. Now her family had been invited to cross it under the pretence of a Corron, and Lidan began to wonder if perhaps it had all been an elaborate ruse to draw her father out into the open. Her heart rate rose, her pulse thudding hard as her throat tightened.
The Tolak group collected itself in a rush as the riders neared; her mothers and Moyra herding startled children up the bank and into the wagons with whispers of comfort. Her sisters stared wide-eyed at the commotion, never uttering a word of complaint. After a month living in fear of the ngaru, they didn’t need any encouragement when ordered to hide.
Lidan scrambled to her boots and shoved them on, ignoring wet socks and sand, and snatched Theus’s reins. Either she’d grown on the journey or become more flexible, as she was now able to reach her foot to the stirrup and swing onto the horse’s back without Loge’s help. As if summoned by the thought, the ranger appeared at her side and moved Striker in front of Theus, putting himself between Lidan and any danger the riders might present.
The man at the head of the group raised his hand and his companions slowed to a halt. Keen to hear their exchange with her father, Lidan pulled at the reins and turned Theus up the bank, but they both jerked to a stop. Loge’s hand held the horse’s bridle firmly and his stern hazel eyes told her without words that she would not be moving.
‘Greetings, Daari!’ The lead rider called, lifting his hand high then bringing it to his chest. ‘Daari Yorrell Namjin bids you welcome.’
Lidan narrowed her eyes. By his clipped tone and clear words, the man sounded unlike any ranger she had ever heard. Though his clothes were scruffy and worn, covered in dust and more than a little mud, his horse was by far the most magnificent of the group. The glint of fine stones in a bone ring around his wrist caught Lidan’s eye, and she wondered what game the man was playing at. He was no ranger, or advisor to a daari, nor a tradesman or master. Only a clan leader displayed his status with such finery.
‘Greetings to you,’ Erlon replied, mimicking the hand gesture and adding a slight bow of his head. ‘We have travelled from Tolak to attend the Corron.’
The lead rider nodded and swept his hand to the side. ‘Allow us to escort you.’
No one moved; Tolak rangers waiting on their daari’s signal and the Namjin riders pausing for a response.
‘You think you can fool me with that poor disguise?’ Erlon asked the rider.
The other man turned his hands up and shrugged. ‘It was worth a bloody try, wasn’t it?’
Erlon smirked. ‘It may have been a few years, Yorrell, but you haven’t changed that much. You are going grey, though. Too many wives will do that to a man.’
Loge slowly released Theus’s bridle and Lidan gave the horse some rein, guiding him up the bank and around the wagons with Loge close behind.
‘I wish my nagging wives and your bloody rangers harrying my border were the extent of my problems.’ Yorrell smiled, but it did not reach his eyes.
There was a shadow there that would not budge, a twin to the darkness haunting her father. Erlon sighed and nodded, a glance of understanding passing between them.
‘Who is this strapping young lad?’ Yorrell asked, changing the subject.
Lidan baulked and looked down at herself. Her breasts weren’t exactly what she would have called prominent, especially under layers of riding leathers and her coat, but her long hair and finer facial features were surely enough to hint that she was in fact a girl. Then she looked to her right and her face flushed hot with embarrassment. Daari Yorrell was referring to Loge. The ranger stared at the Namjin leader with unveiled shock, unsure what to do or say.
‘That joke was old the last time I saw you,’ Erlon countered. ‘You know I don’t have any sons.’
A lump formed in Lidan’s throat as Yorrell laughed at his jest.
‘Still makes me laugh!’ He turned to her with a smile and bowed his head. ‘Lidan; you have grown since I last saw you. I almost didn’t recognise the woman you’re becoming.’
There was a sting in the way he said woman, the word rolling slyly from his tongue. She bowed her head instinctively, knowing her mother surely watched from the wagon and would slap her black and blue if she offended the Namjin
daari.
‘Thank you, sir,’ Lidan murmured, hoping to appease him so he might take his attention elsewhere. Her strategy failed.
Yorrell urged his horse forwards and took her chin gently between his fingers, lifting her face to the sun. In the corner of her vision, Lidan saw Loge stiffen, his hands tightening around his reins and his lips pressing into a line. Striker sensed the tension and shied with a snort. There was nothing Lidan could do except meet the daari’s eyes.
They were deep brown like his hair, framed with dark brows in a broad face with strong prominent cheekbones and skin only a touch darker than her father’s. His jaw was square and his neck was a thick trunk of a thing that hardly tapered at all from the shoulders to the head. He seemed square, without any soft edges to speak of; like a brick of stone atop a horse.
His lips, however, were strange: too full for a man of his build, and the way he ran his tongue across them made Lidan want to slap his large hand away. Yorrell eyed her, his gaze wandering from her face, down her chest, to her legs, and back again before the grip on her chin tightened ever so slightly.
‘She has her mother’s colour, but the look of her father is there for certain,’ he said, his riders watching with blank expressions while her father’s rangers shifted uncomfortably in their saddles.
‘That’s because she is mine,’ Erlon replied between clenched teeth and Yorrell’s hand fell away. Yorrell shrugged and turned his horse back to his men.
‘We will arrange for her to meet my son during the Corron. She and Cole will have much in common.’ Daari Yorrell waved and continued past his companions along the riverbank. ‘Come, you’ve had a hard ride. There is time to rest before the Corron begins in the morning.’
Lidan’s hands shook where they gripped the reins between her fingers. Her entire body was rigid, her muscles bunched so tightly they began to ache. In all the times her mother had beaten and screamed at her, Lidan had never felt fouler or more used than she did right now, sitting on her horse among the very people meant to protect her. Her skin crawled where Yorrell had held her, burning as if his fingers had been made of fire and had somehow branded her. The thought of his wide lips, and his tongue running across them made her shudder, and the idea of meeting his son turned her stomach.
Blood of Heirs Page 28
