Icefall (27 page)

But I had to stop. I forced out a last, choked, scratch of a whimper, and I crouched there, frozen. I had to inhale, that was the thing. I took my arms down from my eyes, and filled my lungs, and waited to die of fright.

There were two little corpses in the corner, nothing more. Two long dead children, and not a twitch of motion or a whisper of sound from either of them. Why would there be? They were dead.

I started to shake, then. My whole body juddered so violently I was afraid the rotten planks would give way beneath me and I'd fall through and break my wretched neck, and oh God, then I would have to see the children again and hear them accuse me. Because only the dead could hear the dead; not the living.
Not the living.

What have I done?
I screamed in my own head.
What have I woken? What have I done? You stupid, stupid bitch. You stupid witch. What have you done?

I crawled to the rickety wooden steps and stumbled down them, and I ran out of the barn. I tripped and fell at least twice; might have been more. I was bruised and bleeding and gasping for breath by the time I raced into the village square.

‘Finn!' Seth turned and stared at me. He was standing with the rest of the clann, and they were all holding naked weapons. They looked confused and angry, and not on my account. Seth left them, striding across to seize my arm. ‘Where were you? What is it?'

I clutched my side, trying to kill the agonising stitch, and for the first time since the horror in the barn, my brain clicked into some kind of working order. ‘Nothing,' I panted. ‘Nothing. Panicked. Nothing.'

He chewed his lip, narrowed his eyes. ‘Nothing?'

‘Sorry. Nothing.' I creased my mouth into a smile. ‘Biggest. Spider. Ever.'

He laughed, a sort of strained gasp. ‘Fine. You're creeped out. No wonder. I think we all are. Could you tell where they were coming from this time?'

I raked my fingers through my tangled hair. ‘Who?'

‘The horses. The hoofbeats. Didn't you hear them?'

I shook my head.

He creased his brow. ‘They were loud. Thought they were attacking us, that they'd pinned us in the village. You didn't
hear
them?'

I didn't hear them, Seth.
I wanted to say that, but I was afraid to. If I hadn't heard a pack of fighters riding down on us, it was because I'd been sealed in a bubble of witchcraft, or worse, and listening to the dead talk. I didn't want to say it and I didn't want him to hear it. I didn't want to know.

‘Well. They disappeared again.' Seth scratched at his neck. ‘I don't know why they're playing with us. But they've gone.'

The clann were indeed sheathing their weapons. Their faces were grim, their hands filthy with soot; they must have ransacked the whole place. The unseen riders were clearly not top of their list of concerns right now.

Jed flung down a charred bow and a rusty sword with a badly nicked blade. ‘There's the contents of the weapons store,' he said bitterly. ‘I'm guessing Howedale said no to a decent trade agreement and a plantation of dule trees.'

I glanced at Grian. His face was pallid and sickly. ‘Are you okay?' I whispered.

‘Bastards,' he whispered back, not particularly to me and not to anyone else. ‘Bastards.'

I reached out to squeeze his stiff fingers again. He had a crap job. But not having a need to do it must have been a lot worse.

‘Well, well.' Jed's voice was suddenly loud in the silence. ‘One of them's decided to come out of the burnt woodwork. Bags I kill her.'

Everybody turned and stared. A rider approached down Howedale's main drag, such as it was: a woman on a bay gelding. Her choppy-short brown hair was flicked out by the sea breeze, she wore a leather jacket and a longsword, and her eyes sparked with something like aggression. She didn't seem in a hurry, though; she didn't even seem afraid. A green rag fluttered from her horse's mane.

‘If that's a flag of truce,' called Jed, running a finger down the flat of his blade, ‘you can stick it right up your—'

Seth seized his arm to shut him up. ‘Alainn.'

‘Murlainn.' She reined in the bay gelding.

I had to rack my bruised brain.
Alainn?
I knew he'd had a captain once, when he was Kate's henchman and he killed for her. There had been an Alainn then. It might be the same one: the captain who wasn't so bad, the one who wasn't his direct commander. I'd heard all his stories from those days …
Orach
, I remembered suddenly: Alainn had been Orach's Captain. I glanced over my shoulder at the blonde fighter. She'd come forward three or four paces and a look of torment crossed her face. She was probably hoping her old commander wasn't going to get impaled on her old lover's sword. Gods, I thought, did the Sithe have to be so few? Did we all have to know the people we killed; the people who killed our friends? It was all so hideously intimate.

Seth folded his arms. ‘Where are the others, Alainn?'

She looked genuinely taken aback. ‘What others? I'm alone.'

‘You're lying.'

‘Try me.'

‘Fine. Get off the horse.'

She hesitated, but she must have known she didn't have a choice. She was encircled by forty cold-eyed Sithe who were just looking for an excuse for a brawl, especially with someone who might well have been in Howedale on its last day of existence.

Her feet had no sooner touched the ground than the point of Jed's sword was in the small of her back. She froze, then twisted her head to flash a tight smile at Seth.

‘I realise you're all nervous,' she began.

‘I don't have a sentimental attachment to you,' said Jed in her ear. He slid her dagger from its sheath and tossed it to me. ‘Give us the sword.'

Very slowly she drew the blade from its scabbard and held it at arm's length. Iolaire took it delicately and turned it, examining it.

‘Haven't you seen a sword before?' she said testily.

‘Just checking for scorch marks.' Iolaire gave her a dazzling smile of promise.

‘That,' said Alainn, with a brief glance towards the village houses, ‘was a long time ago.'

‘We know,' sighed Jed with a roll of his eyes. ‘He's just kind of joking. And he kind of isn't.' Alainn winced as his sword tip dug in.

‘I've got something else to give you, if you're not too homicidally snotty to take it.' She glared at him over her shoulder as her hand slipped inside her leather jacket.

Forty hands went to their blades this time.

‘Oh, grow up,' she muttered. ‘Like I've got a death wish.' She pulled something small and rectangular from her inside pocket and tossed it to Seth.

He caught the phone, turned it in his hands, rubbed his thumb across the touchscreen. Nothing happened, of course, since the battery was dead. ‘Hannah's,' he told me, and placed it in my hand.

‘She's alive,' said Alainn. ‘Sionnach too, for now.'

‘So you say.' He took back the phone from me and thrust it in her face. ‘This proves what?'

She shrugged. ‘Nothing. Token of good faith, you can call it.'

‘Oh, I need more than that.' Seth crooked a finger at me, but he didn't take his eyes off Alainn.

Alainn eyed me warily. ‘Just how malevolent a witch is she?'

‘Want to find out?' I gave her a Iolaire-style smile.

She huffed a strained laugh. ‘Fine. I don't suppose Murlainn will trust me without a scan anyway.'

‘Trust you how? You're not seriously saying you're on my side.'

She sighed and jerked a thumb at the ghost village. ‘Somebody has to be. You'll get a choice of two results wherever you ask. This, or Faragaig-style.'

A few of the fighters behind us shifted uneasily, shared glances. I wanted to give them a death-glare but I had a feeling that would be tactically bad.

‘Kate's left you no constituency, Murlainn. You might pick up a few fighters here and there, but nothing like an army. This land's devastated by Lammyr and militia and politics, and I don't know which has done most damage.'

Seth looked genuinely mystified. ‘And the point of telling me this?'

She shrugged. ‘Just a warning. I thought you might like to go home, and then I can go back to Kate and live out my shrunken life.' Her tone was acid. ‘Otherwise I'm with you, Murlainn. May the gods have mercy on my soul.'

There were a few more murmurs behind me. I thought, this time, they sounded a little more optimistic.

‘Alainn. If my lover can read your motives,' said Seth silkily, ‘so can your queen.'

‘That's a chance I'll take.' Alainn nodded curtly at me. ‘Kate's afraid of Caorann. That's no small thing. It means that at the very least, Caorann can tell my motives without me dropping my block.'

‘I can take a good guess,' I said flatly. ‘So can Kate.'

‘Kate has more to think about than me. And she's complacent. Always has been. Can't help herself.'

‘She has reason to be.' Seth smirked. ‘Go on.'

‘I may be a fool. My lieutenants too. But I wish you well, Murlainn. And you really have to trust me.' Alainn lifted a shoulder. ‘You don't have much of a choice.'

‘I have the choice of killing you,' Seth pointed out. ‘Finn?'

I stepped close to Alainn and put my hand against her forehead, studying her eyes. Faramach hopped to the ground and stalked round the woman, cocking his head to give her an insolent stare.

‘That's a good block you have,' I murmured.

‘You bet it bloody is.' Alainn gave a derisive laugh. ‘So would yours be, if you were me and you lived where I live.'

‘No.' I smiled thinly. ‘Mine would be so much better.'

Alainn's smile died, and she swallowed reflexively.

I pushed her away. ‘You're not a captain any more, are you?'

‘No.'

‘What happened? Express an opinion?'

‘Not one she liked.' Alainn glowered.

‘Your lieutenants?'

‘Demoted along with me. They'll turn with me, once you're in and if things go well for you.'

‘Not entirely altruistic, are you?'

‘So? I was her captain for five centuries. I balk at a hanging, on the grounds of the offender's youth, and wham-bam, I'm a bottom-rank fighter again and Raib MacRothe captains
my
fighters.' She spat, as if the name had caused her physical pain. ‘Bitter? You bet I am, Caorann. I probably have sounder motives than half these airy-fairy idealists of yours.'

Folding my arms, I turned and walked back to Seth.

‘She's for real.'

‘Sure?'

I shrugged. ‘Far as I can make out. Can you pass up the chance?'

He shook his head. ‘Alainn. Tell me Kate's thoughts.'

‘She wants you in the tunnels. She won't meet you outside, where you'd have room to manoeuvre. Well, she'd be mad to meet you in the open, with the advantage she's got. On the other hand she knows you can't afford a long siege, because she has more supplies than you do.' She added snarkily, ‘Or should I say, any supplies at all
.
'

‘So she wants us in the caverns.'

‘Of course. She won't come out. She wants her fighters in front defending her, and Langfank coming at you from behind. Like stoats in a rabbit warren, and you bunnies will have nowhere to go.'

I was watching the back of Seth's neck. He must have felt it, because he scratched at it with a fingertip, but he didn't turn to me. And still he wouldn't tell me.

~
Seth?

~
Later. I'll explain later.

~
You'd better.

He shivered, shaking me off. ‘If all this is true, Alainn, you're backing the wrong horse. Late in the race and all.'

‘I'm backing the horse I want to win, the only time it'll ever have a chance. How long have you been gone, Murlainn? And then your brother died and screwed everything? Come on. I'd have been pissing my life away. But
now
I think you have a chance.'

‘Murlainn,' hissed Iolaire. ‘She's been Kate's captain for five centuries. Kill her.'

‘Aye, right. Like I killed you when you came to me?'

Glowering, Iolaire turned away.

Alainn reached a hand to her horse's wither, rubbing it absently. ‘Go find what fighters you can, Murlainn. You don't have all the time in the world. I'll be in touch again.' She glowered at Jed. ‘Assuming your attack dog isn't going to stick me in the ribs.'

Seth gave Jed a brusque nod. Jed, somewhat reluctantly, stepped a pace back and let Alainn mount her horse. But before she could turn its head back towards Kate's lands, Seth reached forward and seized the cheekpiece of its bridle. It shied, its eyes rolling to show the whites, but at a word from Seth it quietened. Alainn gave it a filthy look.

‘And the others?' asked Seth. ‘The troops we keep hearing?'

‘What others? There are no troops, unless Cuthag's grown an extra stupid.' Anger ignited in her eyes. ‘I told you, I came alone, or I'd be dead already.'

Seth shot me a questioning look. I twisted my mouth. ~
She's not lying.

‘You find them out there?' he told her, releasing her horse and slapping its neck. ‘Make sure you tell them I will too.'

‘I'll be keeping my mouth shut,' she said. ‘And you can go rootle up weapons and horses. And some more supporters. Good luck with that, Murlainn.' She nudged her horse around. ‘I'd say you're going to need it, but that'd be too much stating the bleeding obvious.'

*   *   *

Seth was walking towards the cluster of blown pines that had protected Howedale's northern border, albeit not very efficiently. I felt him go, or I might have missed him; the rest of the clann were busying themselves to leave the dead settlement, and only Branndair loped after Seth, claw-scrabbling across a stone dyke after him. I saw Seth glance down, smile, and ruffle his neck fur, but he strode on swiftly into the woods as if he wanted no company but his wolf.