by J. V. Jones
Ash didn’t know what she would have done without him these past six days. He knew the way home. With a loose hand on his reins he headed east, following a subtle path along the rivershore that Ash could only occasionally discern. Together they had passed vast beds of ice-rotted bulrushes humming with black flies, sulfurous tributaries that dumped mustard-colored ore into the Flow, hedges of spiny bushes that formed defensive walls around beachheads, salt ponds ringed with game paths, and long stretches of shoreline where ghostly forests of needle-thin birches grew from the frozen mud.
She wasn’t sure how far she’d traveled from the Floating Bridge. Sometimes she rode, but more often she chose to walk. Awake before the first cock crow each morning, she was on the trail before dawn. It was easier to keep going than stop. If she had been traveling alone she would have walked all day, swigging from her water bladder as she wove between the trees, only halting to catch her breath and pee. The gelding needed to graze though, and she was forced to stand and wait for long intervals as he cropped last year’s grass.
Waiting was a kind of torture. It gave her time to think. Katia, her little wild-haired maid, dead. Ark dead. Raif gone. All three had risked their lives to help her, and she had not paid them back. Ash filled her lungs with night air, punishing herself with its icy sharpness. She lived in a world where she had not paid them back.
Camp was little more than a circular patch of kick-cleared ground twenty feet north of the treeline. Out of habit Ash had raised a guidepost, and now began laying stones for a fire ring. She had no tent hides and feared lighting a fire in this strange land, but it gave her something to do. The river stone was green traprock reefed with fool’s gold, and it was cold and sharp. Ash had lost her gloves along with her supplies so she had to lay it bare-handed. Darkness rose as she worked, snuffing the wind and pulling up mist.
Intent on building the fire ring, stacking the stones in overlapping layers as Ark had taught her, she did not hear the gelding approach. When it pushed its nose against her back in way of greeting, she jumped in fright.
“Bad horse,” she scolded, feeling foolish. Suddenly everything seemed foolish: the guidepost and the fire ring. Traveling alone to the Heart of the Sull without even knowing why.
“What am I doing here?” she asked aloud, hearing the tremble in her voice and not liking it. “What am I good for except getting people killed?”
Nothing answered. Along the treeline the cedars swayed in long, rolling waves. The gelding watched her, its head cocked, straining to read her mood. Abruptly Ash sat. She was tired and hungry and quite possibly going insane. Frowning, she glanced at the near-perfect circle of rocks, thought about it for a moment, and then leaned forward and knocked it over with her fist. Feeling a bit better, she spoke a command to the horse.
The gelding moved closer, swinging about to present its flank. Ash reached into her coat, located her gear belt, and drew her knife. Two weapons Ark had given her: a sickle blade with a weighted nine-foot chain attached; and a slender handknife made of the rare white alloy that was more precious to the Sull than gold. Platinum. Case-hardened with arsenic and other strange metals, the blade was so fiercely edged that when it first sliced your skin you felt no pain. Angus Lok had possessed a similar weapon, also Sull-wrought, that he lovingly called his “mercy blade.” Ash had never seen him use it, for although it had both the form and dimensions of a standard handknife it was not the sort of blade that lent itself to spearing meat or picking dirt from fingernails. It was too formal and deadly for that.
Ash held the knife as she had been taught; thumb on the riser, index finger on the dimple, edge out. The handle was lightly hollowed for balance, and a crosshatch pattern of overlapping flight feathers had been etched into its surface to form a grip. The metal was shockingly cold, and she waited for her body heat to warm it before she spoke.
“Ish’I xalla tannan.”
I know the value of that which I take. Ark Veinsplitter had taught her the words: the first of the Sull prayers.
With a swift and practiced movement she ran the knife’s edge across the short hair of the gelding’s flank until she encountered the faint resistance of a surface vein. Tendons jerked in her wrist as she sliced through the vessel. The horse shuddered briefly, then stilled as blood jetted from its belly. Kneeling forward, Ash opened her mouth to catch the flow. Blood gushed between her teeth, hot and winy and smelling of grass. She swallowed, filled her mouth and then swallowed again. Massaging the flesh around the cut to keep the vessel open, she drank until her stomach was full. Satiated, she clamped her palm against the wound. The gelding stepped into her, increasing the pressure. They both waited. Once the flow had decreased, Ash pinched the horseskin together and removed her hand.
As she sealed the wound with the purified wolf grease she kept in a pouch at her waist, a twig snapped with force beyond the treeline. Ash sprang to her feet. The cedars were a trap for shadows, black and suddenly still. The only thing that moved was mist venting from their roots. Ash listened, watched, smelled, and then slowly unhooked the sickle knife from her belt.
When the second sound came it was not from where she was expecting it. This time it came from the river shore. The wet plunk of something dropping into water. Without thinking she spun about to face it, and even before the scythe’s chain stopped swinging, she realized her mistake. Anyone, anywhere could throw a stone into water.
“Drop your weapon.” The order came from directly behind her. It was spoken mildly, but Ash wasn’t fooled. Her foster father was the Surlord of Spire Vanis: she knew how power sounded.
Without turning she opened her fist and let the sickle knife drop to the ground. The silver letting knife was back in its deerhide sheath attached to her gear belt and she slid her left hand into her coat opening to draw it. A whirring sound and a shot of cool air against her ear stopped her dead.
“Place both hands by your sides and turn around. You do not want me to fire again.”
No she did not. Instantly, she dropped both hands. The arrow had passed so close to her face the stiff feathers of its fletchings had scratched her cheek. This man is Sull, she decided as she turned to face him.
Yet when she saw him he was not clad in Sull furs and Sull hornmail. He was dressed in simple deerskins collared with marten, and cross-belted with tanned leather. The belts were buckled in brass, not silver. His hair, and any ornaments that might proclaim his race, was concealed beneath a marten-fur cap. Yet how could he not be Sull? The precision of his voice. His height. The deep shadows beneath his cheekbones. That shot.
Ridiculously, as she stood there facing him, the hair on the left side of her head floated upward, suddenly weightless. The arrow must have charged the strands as it passed.
The stranger inspected her for some time, his eared longbow resting easy in his grip. A hard-sided arrowcase made of overlapping disks of horn was suspended, ranger-style, at a cross angle from his waist. Ash wondered how long he had been spying on her before he’d made his move.
“Who are you and what is your business on this path?” Again there was that voice: firm, resonant, its owner sure of his own worth.
Ash raised her chin. “My business is my own to keep. My name I give you freely. Ash.”
It was full dark now and the stranger had his back to the moon. She could not see his eyes. “You are not Sull.”
Pitched in the dangerous area between question and statement, the words were a trap. All possible replies damned her. Deny being Sull and she was a trespasser. Claim it and risk being tested and fail. Ash took a breath, stealing extra seconds before answering. She was in Sull territory, south of the Flow and southeast of Bludd. That much she knew. Her foster father had possessed maps of this place. Onionskin scrolls, brown with age and dry as hay, that could only be unrolled when it rained. She had seen them once or twice, peering over Iss’ shoulder as he studied them. Blanks, that was what she mostly remembered. Unfilled spaces that in other maps would be crisscrossed with mountains, rivers,
place names. Even so, her foster father had found something within them that held his interest: the oxbow curve of a coastline; a border illustrated with the footprint pattern of a wolf; a warning spelled out in High Hand, “Here Be Where Sull Are Most Fierce.”
Ash thought about that before she spoke.
“I am Ash March, Daughter of the Sull.”
The stranger’s chest expanded, sucking in the words. A long moment passed. Then another. Up until then Ash had not realized she was afraid. She had thought the looseness in her gut was just the horse blood finding its level.
No living, breathing Sull will let you live . . .
The river flowing behind them created drag, sucking the ice mist east. Abruptly, the stranger rested his bow. “I am Lan Fallstar, Son of the Sull and Chosen Far Rider.” He bowed deeply at the waist and Ash finally saw his face. Acutely angled, golden-toned, with that faint alien sheen that meant Sull. “This Sull asks that you forgive his trespass.”
Ash gave some of his silence right back to him. She didn’t have any idea how to react, was unsure about the nature of his trespass, and was, if she were honest, disconcerted by his age. Ark and Mal had been mature men, their faces lined with experience, their gestures dignified and weighted, yet this person standing before her looked to be less than ten years older than she herself. He was young, and that confused her.
Unsure what to do, Ash found herself mimicking her foster father. Take control of the conversation: she could almost hear his voice. “Do you travel alone, Lan Fallstar?”
An eyebrow was raised at that. “I do.”
“How long have you been watching me?”
The Sull Far Rider shrugged, raising slender, finely muscled shoulders. “It is not important.”
Ash thought it was—she did not like the idea of him watching her as she bled the horse—yet there was exactly nothing she could do about that. Her instinct was to continue questioning him anyway; leave him no chance to question her. “Where do you travel?”
He began moving toward her, and something told her she had made a mistake. With a series of movements so swift Ash could barely follow them, the stranger reached behind her back, crouched, snatched the sickle blade and its chain from the ground and sprang away. “Far Riders answer to no one except He Who Leads. If you were Sull you would know that.” With a snap of his wrist he sent the chain into motion. The metal links rustled crisply as the chain wrapped itself in perfect order around the sickle’s handle.
Not even Mal Naysayer had done that.
The chain was weighted with a teardrop of metal studded with peridots. The stranger studied this for a moment, cupping it in his free hand and turning it toward the light. Without looking up he fired off a command in Sull.
The looseness in her belly shifted downward. She had only a few words of Sull and she did not know what he wanted.
“I said show me Dras Xathu.” The stranger’s voice turned sharp, and when he spoke something unpleasant happened to his mouth. “Now!”
The word hit Ash like a slap to the face. The only other person who had spoken to her in that way was her foster father, and she was surprised by the strong instinct to “be a good girl.” Confused, she struggled to comprehend what the stranger meant. Dras Xathu? The First Cut? When understanding finally came she felt no relief. Just more confusion.
Taking a step forward, she tilted her face and raised her chin. The wound inflicted upon her many weeks ago by Ark Veinsplitter was now a rough scar. It had been an initiation of sorts, part of becoming Sull. “Before a child comes to manhood or womanhood,” Ark had told her, “blood must be drawn in friendly combat. We wound ourselves so that we might deprive our enemies of the satisfaction of delivering the First Cut.”
As the stranger moved forward to inspect it, Ash held herself still. She could not let him know he had upset her. A hand gloved in lizard skin grasped her chin, and suddenly she could smell him: pungent and powerfully alien. Immediately, something primeval at the base of her brain responded with a warning: You will never be one of them.
With careless force he thrust her chin up and back. A finger slid across the roof of her lower jaw, halted, then pushed up at the exact point where bone ended and soft tissue began. Ash coughed in panic. He was closing off her windpipe.
Abruptly the pressure stopped. Turning away from her, he slid the sickle knife into his buckskin tunic. “You will travel with me from now on, Ash March. Stow your equipment and saddle the horse. We do not sleep here this night.”
Ash fingered her throat. She had never seen the wound Ark had inflicted, and for the first time it struck her that the scar felt strange. The raised tissue seemed to form a shape. Briefly, she traced it with her thumbnail but couldn’t work it out.
Her attention shifted when a muscular black stallion trotted into view. The animal came at Lan’s command, emerging from the darkness of the cedars. Tossing its head and kicking its skirted heels high, it moved with some knowledge of its own worth. It was trapped and harnessed for a long journey, with wide belly and rump straps for hauling camp gear and a leather hood to protect its eyes. Ash had spent time with Sull horses and thought she knew them . . . but this one. This was one fit for a king.
“Do not touch him.”
She had been in the process of reaching out her hand to let the horse sniff her, and she halted awkwardly midway. Her horse trotted past her as she stood there, its head lowered in shy submission, eager to greet this splendid new creature. Was that why he hadn’t alerted her to the stranger’s presence? Did Sull never warn against Sull?
“Pack your equipment.”
Ash rounded on the stranger. He wasn’t her foster father, she told herself. She didn’t have to obey him. “I choose to travel alone, Lan Fallstar. Do not trouble yourself with me any longer.” The words were a mistake—she knew that—but the stranger rattled her. His hot and cold behavior reminded her too much of Iss. Clicking her tongue she beckoned her traitorous horse. Raise camp and depart, that’s what I’ll do. The best direction didn’t seem immediately clear, but she’d think about that later.
The Far Rider’s dark eyes glittered strangely. “This Sull believes you are owed a second apology. Sull do not command other Sull.” A calculated smile revealed white, even teeth. “But we are all possessive of our mounts.”
He wanted her to smile with him, and even though she knew it she smiled anyway. Angus Lok, Mal Naysayer, Ark Veinsplitter: good men all of them, but god help you if you harmed their horses.
“In my father’s house we have a saying. A poor beginning is no excuse for a poor end. So forgive me, Ash March. This Sull has been on the road too long and needs to relearn good manners.”
In my father’s house we lie and lock people up, she wanted to reply. But didn’t. Before she could form a proper response, Lan spoke again.
“Come. We must break bread before the journey.” Without waiting for a reply he unbuckled a road-beaten saddlebag from the stallion’s rump. Resting it on the ground, he pulled out a rolled-up carpet and an ivory box. Woven from midnight-blue silk, the carpet was old and very fine. A design of five-pointed stars and denuded trees was worked in silver thread. Ash had seen such Sull carpets before—both Ark and the Naysayer had possessed them—but she had never seen one as intricately worked as this. When she blinked the design stayed before her eyes, temporarily burned into her retinas like a light source.
“It is the skin of gods.” Lan gestured to the carpet. “Sit.”
Suddenly Ash felt very tired. Even her foster father hadn’t switched from coldness to civility so quickly, and she placed the chance of Lan switching back as pretty high. Uncertainty is draining, she decided, sitting. At least by staying she didn’t have to head off into the night, hungry and alone, with only a horse to guide her. Plus it knocked at least one uncertainty on the head: she no longer had to worry about an arrow in her back.
Kneeling, Lan unfastened the wrought-silver clasp on the ivory box and opened it. As he drew forth items he spoke, rev
ealing that he had marked her interest in the rug. “The carpet is very old, woven by the last of the great threadsingers. It comes from Maygi Horo, the Time of Mages, when threadsingers were blinded once they had served their apprenticeships. A spool boy would prime the loom and block the colors, following the threadsinger’s orders. It is said that without eyes they saw farther, though this Sull does not know about that.”
As Lan spoke the word Sull he struck a light. One of the items he had taken from the box was a small pewter lamp, and as he adjusted the valve at its base the light shifted from yellow to blue. Unguarded, the flame ripped fiercely, burning mist. Peeling off his gloves, Lan bared long, well-shaped hands. A bowman’s callus on the middle finger of his left hand revealed him to be left-handed. On the middle finger of his right hand he wore what Ash first assumed to be two separate silver rings, but when he turned his palms upward, she saw that the rings were fused at the back by a gristled lump of solder.
He gestured toward the lamp. “This Sull asks if you will join him in paying the toll.”
Ash looked from the flame to Lan’s face. The Far Rider’s expression was coolly neutral, but she suspected his motives. Her gaze flicked back to the flame. An icy violet corona shivered around a core of blue fire. She had once witnessed Mal Naysayer put his bare hand into a flame and hold it there for many seconds. It had frightened her, but at least she had understood his motives. The Naysayer had been demonstrating the power of Rhal, the perfect state of fearlessness that Sull sought in times of uncertainty and war. He had not been priming a trap.
Ash shook her head. “This Sull believes this is not her toll to pay.”
Lan’s cold clear gaze pinned her, searching for weakness. Ash stared right back, silently praying her eyes wouldn’t give her away. She didn’t fully understand what was happening—neither Mal nor Ark had ever paid a toll with burned flesh—but instinct told her she had been challenged. And when challenged it was best to challenge back.
