Full Circle (44 page)

Acton seemed to send down roots into the ground, so that his feet were planted as solidly as an oak tree. Still, it was not
only will, but power, being used against him, and even an oak tree may be pushed over by a strong enough wind.

It brought out the best and the worst in him. When strength of will faltered, stubbornness took over. She saw it happen, saw
the mulish set to his mouth, the same expression he had worn when he set himself to explore the Ice King’s realm.

Her hands, on his cold, cold arms, were going numb. She would reach a point where she couldn’t grasp, and then what? “Gods
of field and stream,” she hissed, holding on. “Gods of sky and wind, gods of earth and stone, help us!”

Her shoulders and legs were alight, burning with effort. She looked at him and laughed to herself — this was not how she had
imagined touching him, that moment back on the hillside when he and she had been alive. He grinned at her as if catching the
thought, and mimed a kiss. They both laughed silently, Bramble gasping for air, hearing only her own heartbeat and Baluch’s
panting breath.

Bramble was suddenly aware of noise above them. It wasn’t talking, but a
shush
, like the sound of people moving silently over grass.

And Acton seemed to be planted solidly now, as though the spell were running thin.

She released Acton’s arms and waited a moment to make sure he was firmly set, then put a finger to her lips and climbed the
hill half-crouched, hands steadying her against the high slope. She lay down before she reached the top, and slithered up
to peer over the edge.

Ghosts. Hundreds.

They were many, many more than had attacked the city that morning. Thousands, maybe.

Silent. Roaming the headland in small bands. More arriving, dragged to the spot by the spell, just as Acton was being pulled.
They flew, it seemed, or came through the ground itself, and formed on the hillside in front of a man, the enchanter. Saker.

It was her first close sight of him, and she was disappointed. He was just a man. Not old, not handsome, not ugly, not tall
or short or anything unusual. Just a man that she might have passed in the street.

How could this…
nothing
be responsible for so much grief?

He looked exhausted, and when the arrival of ghosts slowed and then stopped, he slumped to the ground. Good. Acton should
be free. But she didn’t go back immediately, because something was happening.

The few humans and some of the ghosts which were already there were organising the new ghosts into lines, as if they were
assembling for inspection. Then Bramble saw that at the head of each line was a person, hogtied. Scared. Next to each prisoner
was a ghost with a knife. Two ghosts, a big man and a small one with the beaded hair of Hawk’s people, seemed to measure how
far the sun had to go in the sky, then nodded to the ghosts at the heads of the lines. They bent as one and cut the arm of
the person kneeling in front of them, and tasted the blood that welled up.

Bramble scanned the scene and her stomach clenched as she registered the ceremony unfolding before her. Blood was part of
the spell. Blood to keep the ghosts there, blood to give them strength. Some of the new ghosts were hanging back, reluctant
to taste the blood of a living sacrifice.

The enchanter came to address them, supported by one of the Travellers. A girl. Zel.

Bramble stared, uncomprehending. How could Zel?
Why
would she? Some plot of the Well of Secrets? It had to be. Zel was probably feeding information back to the city. That could
be useful. And it meant that Safred and Martine were here, which had to be good.

“Take some blood before sunset,” the enchanter called to the ghosts. “It will keep you from fading. But it is not only blood
you need, but memory. Blood and memory will keep you here, to take your revenge.” Some seemed confused, and his voice sharpened.
“You will fade without it, back to the darkness beyond death.”

Bramble didn’t wait to see if they were convinced. Acton needed blood, right now.

She scrambled down the hill, fumbling for her belt knife. Acton was free, standing, moving his shoulders as if to get the
kinks out of them.

Cutting her arm just above the wrist, she offered it to him. He stared at her, puzzled.

“Blood and memory will keep you from fading at sunset,” she said. “The enchanter is feeding all his ghosts blood, and you
have to drink, too, like in a quickening ceremony.”

His people hadn’t had quickenings. They happened only in the Domains, like stonecasting. He didn’t understand, and shook his
head.

Baluch put a hand on his arm. “Take the blood, Acton. We need you.”

It was a hard thing for him to do, she could see, and she was filled with a familiar impatience with him. Why couldn’t he
see
what was happening? “Just drink the blood, idiot!” she snapped.

His eyes lit with laughter at that, and he bent obediently, his tongue flicking out to her skin. She shivered violently as
the death-cold hit her, but at the same time was pierced with sudden desire; heat and cold striking through her with equal
force, leaving her trembling. His eyes were no longer laughing; he swallowed her blood down and stared at her with matching
need. Baluch turned away.

Acton put his hand out to stroke her cheek, but instead of touching her, he curved his palm so that his fingers followed the
line of her jaw without contact. Slowly, sadly, he shook his head.

Her chest was tight with desire, but he was right. There would be no surcease for them, not in this life. Not in any, may
be. She turned away, fighting tears.

“Acton can face the ghosts and acknowledge his guilt,” Baluch said thoughtfully, looking at the cut on her wrist. “But the
quickening ceremony needs blood, as well.”

He and Acton exchanged glances. Bramble didn’t trust that look; she knew it too well. “What?” she demanded.

“I think,” Baluch said slowly, “I think if we are offering acknowledgment of the landtaken, I should be the one to offer blood.”

Bramble badly wanted to argue against him. Let the warlords do it! They’re the real criminals. But she had to accept that
he was right. He had been there. He had killed, and more than once. He owed blood.

“There are a lot of ghosts,” she said. “That much blood might kill you.”

Baluch grinned at her, a familiar gleam in his eyes. The music in his head would be horns and drums, she thought.

“I have to die
some
time,” he said.

S
ORN WALKED
into the hall without considering etiquette, Safred, Martine and Cael behind her. She was gaining in authority with every
passing hour, Martine thought, as though the free air of Turvite was feeding some part of her that had been starved all her
life.

The council was consulting with the warlords, Merroc included. Thegan looked up and anger flashed across his face so quickly
that probably only they had seen it. Then he smiled. “My lady! Come to join our celebrations?”

“Celebration is premature,” Sorn said, standing stiffly in front of the council table. “The enchanter has let loose another
spell. The Well of Secrets tells me that he has begun calling for reinforcements; that there will be more ghosts arriving,
from all over the Domains.”

A buzz arose as the warlords turned back to their map, reassessing the defences.

Martine spoke reluctantly. “With this number of ghosts against it, I don’t think the protective spell will survive.”

“It’s time to negotiate,” Ranny said.

“I’m not negotiating with that piece of filth!” Merroc snarled.

“I will negotiate with him, if none of you will,” Arvid cut in.

Martine wanted to smile at him, to give him support, but she forced herself to look at Sorn instead. It would do him no good
in the warlords’ eyes to get encouragement from her.

Ranny dismissed one of her people to find a set of antlers, the sign of parley across the Domains. In Turvite, so far from
the nearest forest, they weren’t common.

“I will take your spell workers with me, my dear,” Thegan said to Sorn. “We might have need of them.”

“I will take them with me,” Sorn said, staring him straight in the eyes as she had never done before. She saw fury flare up
in him, and she nodded calmly before walking away to join Martine and Safred.

“It’s a fine line you’re walking,” Martine murmured to her.

“It’s necessary. There has to be someone in that parley who respects the gods.”

“One thing more,” Safred said to Ranny. “I believe you have a young man arrested. Ash. A safeguarder.”

Martine’s gut clenched. Safred hadn’t mentioned this — how long had she known? And who had told her? Were the gods talking
to her again?

“A murderer!” Garham said. Martine flinched. What had Ash done?

“Even so,” Safred said. “We need him.”

“If the Well of Secrets needs him, Garham, I think we have more to worry about than a single death,” Ranny intervened smoothly.
Seeing Garham’s slow nodding agreement, Ranny turned to one of the Moot staff. “Get him.”

As the parley group gathered and bickered over precedence, until it was established that Ranny was the least threatening person
to hold the antlers, they brought Ash in.

His shoulders were hunched, hands in pockets. He looked profoundly unhappy. But his expression lightened as he saw Safred,
and even more when he saw Martine.

She smiled as easily as she could. “In trouble again, are you?”

He tried to grin, but couldn’t. “I killed Doronit,” he said baldly, as if he wanted to get the worst over with immediately.

Martine paused, her breath stilled. Without willing it, her gaze flicked to Arvid, for support, but she looked back at Ash
immediately. This was no business of Arvid’s. Ash was watching her as if waiting for a sentence of death. Martine remembered
the night he had refused to kill her on Doronit’s orders — he had given up everything so that he would not have to murder.
Only extreme need would have pushed him to killing Doronit.

“No doubt you had good reason,” Martine said gently. Ash’s shoulders relaxed.

Safred turned to him. “It’s time to meet the enchanter.”

T
HE WIND
wraiths were circling, over the sea, as though they were waiting for something. Saker watched them with unease. They had
said they could not come close to Turvite. Why had they appeared now? He remembered, with a twist in his stomach, the feeling
that some other spell had weakened when he called in the spirits.

But the wraiths were offshore, a league or so away, so he didn’t have to think about it now. It was time to address the new
ghosts. There were so many of them. And such a variety. He now knew that Traveller blood existed in the most unlikely people,
but even so, some of these new arrivals seemed strange to him. A beautiful woman in modern dress, her shawl held by a brooch,
looking around with calculating eyes. A scraggy old woman dressed in fur skins. She had laughed and refused the blood, but
Owl had taken some and smeared it across her face. Saker wondered if they had known each other.

Owl had then soaked a rag in blood and unceremoniously dabbed blood on the cheek of each new ghost. It was much more efficient;
the sacrifice hadn’t even died.

So many. There was even one who seemed not quite human, who was hard to see, except out of the corner of Saker’s eye. It moved
like a cat instead of a person, with hawk’s feathers in its hair.

He could feel that the spell was still subtly working — the last of the ghosts had not yet arrived.

He moved to higher ground and clapped his hands to draw their attention. What language should he use? The old or the new?
He decided to start with the old and then repeat himself.

The ghosts gathered around. His heart was breaking, there were so many untimely dead. He found the words he needed in the
old tongue and pieced them together in his mind before he spoke. He could wait no longer.

“Welcome!” he shouted. “I called you so we can take back the land that was stolen from us.”

Some of the ghosts nodded and clapped their hands together, but others looked blank. The old woman in skins shook her head
in dismay. He didn’t understand, but he kept on.

“The invaders are in fear of us, because we can overcome them. We will attack the city —” he swept his arm towards Turvite
— “take back what was ours.”

When he repeated the words in his own language, and saw with astonishment that some ghosts shook their fists at him, or turned
their backs. His father and Owl seemed as puzzled by the dissent as he was.

Zel came up behind him. “Not all of them are Travellers, Saker,” she said. “Her, for example.” She pointed to a young woman
dressed in current fashion, not like an officer’s daughter, but better than most. The woman had an arrow in her breast and
was kneeling, praying. “She’s one of Acton’s people, sure and certain.”

He recognised the woman. It was the maid, the warlord’s wife’s maid, from Sendat. He had never expected this. Brothers and
sisters, he had called for, the ones cut down before their time by the invasion.

“Your spell were broad,” Zel went on. “I reckon it called
everyone
who died because of the invasion. Including the ones you’ve killed.”

Saker searched the crowd more carefully and recognised the tall red-headed woman from Carlion who had thrown herself in the
way of Owl’s blow. She had been of the old blood, but she was standing next to the husband she had tried to protect, and he
had been one of Acton’s people. He saw some others from Sendat. Not many, because the wind wraiths had feasted there. Those
spirits were truly dead. But there were some soldiers, and there — the first sacrifice, the young officer they had bled to
keep the ghosts alive. He was standing, arms folded, staring at Saker as though calculating the best way to kill him.

And there was a young man coming towards them, looking excited. Zel stared as though she couldn’t believe it.