The Long War 02 - The Dark Blood (59 page)

‘Er, I’d rather just wait, if that’s okay,’ replied the young man.

‘Suit yourself.’ Nanon was trying to be jovial, but there was a limit to the flippancy he could sustain.

With no one to play a game with, he sat back on the wooden terrace and joined the others waiting for Vithar Xaris to speak.

Across the way, sat on wooden chairs of twisted design, were a dozen Vithar. Each had their heads bowed and their eyes closed, sitting in silent meditation. Nanon knew they found him frustrating, but impossible to ignore. The old Tyr hoped that his reputation and age would be enough to force the stolid Fell Walkers into something approaching swift action.

‘Wait here,’ he said to Utha and Randall. ‘I need to speak with Rham Jas.’ The name elicited an angry growl from both men.

Nanon stood quietly and made his way down the terraces of wooden seating that framed the auditorium. Once on the flat ground in the centre, he paused for a moment to take in the spectacle. The auditorium was raised from the forest floor and hung between two great tree trunks, with thick branches weaving around solid pillars and providing support. The Heart, far to the north, used vines and moving platforms to traverse the trees, whereas the Fell Walk consisted of beautifully constructed staircases and ornate arches, linking together the open spaces between the trees. It was impressive, even to an old Tyr like Nanon, and he empathized with the men and the awe they must be feeling. It had no comparison in the lands of men, where the spires of Ro Tiris and the cathedrals of Ro Arnon were clumsily built and ugly in comparison.

Nanon was largely ignored by the Dokkalfar as he walked across the open space. A few Tyr nodded in acknowledgement and a few more looked at him with something approaching reverent fear, but he was not impeded as he made his way up the opposite line of seating to where the other men sat.

Rham Jas was between Dalian Thief Taker and Kale Glenwood. The Karesian refused to be cowed by the strange spectacle before him, and the lowly criminal tried not to stare at things he did not understand. Nanon directed his warmest and most reassuring smile at the three men and sat down in front of them.

‘Hello there, pointy ears,’ said Rham Jas, offering his hand to his old friend.

‘I hope this isn’t boring you, Kirin man,’ replied the Dokkalfar, shaking his hand enthusiastically, before offering the same greeting to Dalian and Glenwood.

‘I won’t, if you don’t mind,’ replied the Karesian, maintaining his ice-cold demeanour.

Nanon smiled and thought again that he liked the wind claw. The forger from Leith did shake the forest-dweller’s hand, but seemed to do so without really thinking about it.

‘Don’t worry, Ro man,’ he said to Glenwood. ‘Strange things broaden the mind... you’ll get the hang of it.’

‘What?’ he replied, a look of abject confusion on his face.

Rham Jas put a reassuring hand on his companion’s shoulder. ‘Just ignore him, Kale, you’ll never get used to it. You’re better off just accepting it.’

‘Can I get drunk?’ asked the Ro.

Rham Jas shook his head. The Kirin had frequently lamented the fact that the Dokkalfar did not understand alcohol.

‘They have tea,’ said the assassin. ‘It’s not the same, but we could pretend.’

Dalian Thief Taker, less fond of small talk than Rham Jas, leant forward and interjected. ‘I am becoming tired of this waiting,’ he said seriously. ‘We are wasting time. We have agreed that this man...’ he gestured at the assassin, ‘needs to be taken to Ro Weir so he can kill Saara the Mistress of Pain.’

‘I
am
still here, Dalian,’ said Rham Jas quietly, offended at being referred to as
this man
.

‘Quiet, boy,’ spat the Karesian, and the Kirin shrank under the glare of the older man.

‘Sorry, Dalian,’ replied Rham Jas, like a scolded child.

The Thief Taker turned back to Nanon. ‘What are they waiting for? Their forest is being destroyed by hounds.’

Nanon smiled in as human a fashion as he could manage. ‘They’re meditating on the presence of the Shadow – him.’ He gestured towards Utha, who was sitting quietly, oblivious to the effect he was having on the forest-dwellers. ‘He’s even more important than the Kirin man here.’

Dalian let his dark eyes play over Nanon’s face and the forest-dweller felt awkward, realizing he’d spent little time with the faithful of Jaa during the course of his long life. They seemed to live constantly in fear, trying to achieve the kind of divine terror that the Fire Giant demanded.

‘I don’t care about the old-blood,’ replied Dalian. ‘I care about Karesia and Jaa... and I care about killing the Mistress of Pain.’

Nanon met the wind claw’s stare and tilted his head, confused by Dalian’s evident need to appear intimidating all the time. ‘Everyone here reveres Jaa almost as much as you. He gave us the gift of immolation that we would never again birth the Dark Young.’ They were sincere words, and the Thief Taker appreciated that fact.

‘But you are not Jaa’s people,’ replied the wind claw.

Nanon stared at the obstinate man of Karesia, endeavouring to identify some common ground between them. The old Tyr knew that he would need more time in his company truly to understand Dalian. What he
did
know was that all five of the humans were important – some more so than others, but all had a role in the Long War. Even the near-catatonic forger from Leith had a purpose, though Nanon did not yet know what it was.

Behind him, the assembled Dokkalfar began to stand, signalling that their long meditation was coming to an end. Nanon held a finger up to his lips to indicate to the humans that they should remain quiet. Across the auditorium, Utha and Randall were eagerly awaiting the Vithar’s words. Rham Jas and his two companions were more laid-back, and Dalian and Glenwood took their cue from the blasé Kirin.

Vithar Xaris was the first to speak, though he was not the oldest, or the wisest, shaman present. Sitting behind him was Vithar Loth, a Dokkalfar almost as old as Nanon, who was also known as the Tree Father. He claimed to have planted the first shrub of the Fell Walk. It probably wasn’t true, but few of the forest-dwellers would deign to question the old shaman.

Xaris took a step away from his wooden throne and spoke in a deep and commanding voice. ‘We welcome the children of men to the Fell Walk... we ask that they respect our forever as we respect their now.’ He thrust out his chin and raised himself up to his full height. The Vithar was over seven feet tall and more slender than any man. ‘We sit in the presence of the one we loved and in the embrace of the shadows provided for us.’ His words were formal and dry.

Vithar Xaris spoke slowly, and his long, drawn-out sentences echoed around the auditorium. He droned on about the maleficent witches, though he lacked any practical knowledge concerning them. He spoke of the need to challenge the Dead God, but his words carried no conviction. By the time he addressed the old-blood in their midst, Nanon was becoming annoyed. He rarely felt the emotion and found it deeply uncomfortable now.

‘The Shadow,’ he said, motioning towards Utha, ‘is our greatest weapon and he should be protected in the Fell for as long as possible... he will endure as we will endure.’ Another long pause and Xaris resumed his seat. ‘We will now meditate on how to answer the coming threat.’

The Dokkalfar all bowed their heads and followed the Vithar’s instructions. Nanon puffed out his cheeks in frustration and the men turned towards him with questioning looks.

‘I’m a patient man, Nanon,’ said Rham Jas in a whisper, ‘but this is getting dangerous.’

The old Tyr couldn’t disagree and a glance at Utha told him that the old-blood thought the same. Reluctantly, Nanon stood up and prepared to interrupt the meditation.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Rham Jas, aware of how rude Nanon’s intervention would seem.

‘I don’t want to pin my life on
we will endure
,’ replied the Dokkalfar, cheerfully slapping the Kirin on the shoulder. ‘I’m going to offend some of my people.’

When he stood up he had been uncomfortably reminded how short he was compared with the other forest-dwellers. He was over six feet tall, taller than all of the humans except for Dalian, but slight for a Tyr. The guards standing before the humans were all well over seven feet in height, and several significantly more, and they towered over Nanon. They grasped their heavy leaf swords in ceremonial position.

Taking a few strides down the stepped seating, Nanon coughed in mimicry of the human method of attracting people’s attention. As one, the seated Dokkalfar slowly tilted their heads at the interruption.

‘Nanon, you may not speak yet,’ said Vithar Loth, the Tree Father, in a gravelly croak of a voice.

‘I wasn’t asking for permission,’ replied Nanon. He nudged his way past the guards and stepped into the centre of the auditorium. ‘I will speak.’

Vithar Xaris looked offended, but he was stopped from speaking by a raised hand from Loth. The Tree Father peered at Nanon through narrow, black eyes. His head was not tilted and he appeared to be assessing the short Tyr standing in front of him. Nanon could not sense the Vithar’s thoughts and he knew that the restriction was mutual. They were the oldest two beings in the Fell Walk and they would have to rely on words alone. Their usual gifts of perception and premonition would not work on each other.

‘When did we last meet, Shape Taker?’ asked Loth. ‘And how is your mate?’

Nanon stepped to the front, feeling only slightly naked under the gaze of so many tilted heads and black eyes. ‘I haven’t seen Jasn in many years. I hope she is well,’ he replied, silently pleased that he’d remembered her name a few months ago. ‘And I believe we met three... or maybe four hundred years ago.’

The humans whispered incredulously as Nanon revealed his age to be much greater than they had believed possible. Rham Jas merely smiled. Nanon winked at him across the auditorium.

‘And now you are a soldier of the Long War,’ continued the old Vithar, leaning forward to observe Nanon’s human clothing and Ro longsword. ‘In the lands of men... Have you abandoned your forever so easily?’

Nanon chuckled and glanced around. A hundred Dokkalfar appeared to agree with Loth’s barbed comment.

‘You’re an old fool,’ he said cheerfully, causing dozens of other Tyr to grasp their leaf swords and stand more upright. ‘And if we sit here and meditate, we’ll be meditating on our own deaths in a few days.’ He stopped smiling and thrust out his chest, reminding them who he was.

‘Wake up!’ he shouted. ‘You’ve been asleep too long.’ He turned away from the seated Vithar and addressed the other forest-dwellers. There were a hundred Tyr, and many more Dokkalfar watched from below.

‘We will
not
endure... not like this... we will die, and from our bodies will grow new Dark Young. Our forests will burn and the Dead God will rise.’

‘Silence, Tyr Nanon,’ ordered Vithar Xaris.

‘Make me,’ replied the old Tyr, growing suddenly very angry. ‘Rham Jas, come here.’ He gestured to the seated Kirin who, a little awkwardly, got up and made his way to the centre.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, looking up into the implacable face of an eight-foot Tyr warrior.

Nanon grabbed the Kirin by the shoulder and pulled him to stand at his side in the middle of the open space. ‘This is Rham Jas Rami Dark Blood. He can kill the maleficent witches.’ Nanon then gestured to the muscular albino sitting to his left. ‘Utha, here please.’

The old-blood was less compliant than the dark-blood and glanced across at his young squire before slowly standing up. Utha had not taken his eyes off the Kirin assassin.

Utha the Shadow didn’t need to ask anyone to move. They all got out of his way without comment, and he sauntered over warily to where Nanon and Rham Jas were standing.

‘Make it quick or Randall and I are going to find somewhere else to sleep this evening,’ said Utha. ‘And I’ll break that Kirin’s neck before I go.’

‘
Me
? What have
I
done?’ asked Rham Jas, with an exaggerated look of innocence on his face.

‘Enough!’ interrupted Nanon, through gritted teeth. ‘This is Utha the Shadow, last old-blood of the Shadow Giants.’ He paused. ‘You might not like me and you might want your safe little world to endure... but these two men are soldiers of the Long War and we are wasting their time.’

‘We will endure,’ stated Vithar Loth, placing his hand on his chest and ceremonially bowing his head. ‘And meditate on the ones we loved.’

‘Then I defy you,’ said Nanon. ‘I go to fight the invaders... I go to fight the Dark Young... Maybe I’ll kill some of them before they kill me, maybe I won’t.’ He gave Rham Jas and Utha a weak smile, before adding more quietly, ‘But I won’t endure any longer. I will wait one hour so that anyone who wishes to join me can make themselves known.’ With a snarl, Nanon turned from the Vithar shamans and strode from the auditorium.

* * *

Nanon was not human and it took him time to calm down. When Dokkalfar became genuinely angry it was with a stubborn and persistent anger that refused to abate until its object had been eliminated or reconciled. As neither had yet occurred, he chose simply to sit on a high tree branch and wait.

The hour he had given his people was a kind of ultimatum to which the forest-dwellers were not accustomed. Even those Tyr who wished to accompany him found the concept of a time limit a strange one.

Beneath him, down a winding wooden staircase, several dozen Dokkalfar warriors stood in impassive silence. Each had leaf blades and black wart strapped to their wooden scale armour. All of them were young, and they had all agreed that meditation was merely going to see their people killed and their forests destroyed. This had calmed Nanon somewhat, but he still scowled whenever a new recruit came to him asking to join the fight.

Rham Jas and the other humans had been confined to a high balcony. Much to Utha’s annoyance, they had not been allowed to leave. Nanon had no intention of permitting them to join him in repulsing the hounds and the Dark Young. The old-blood and the dark-blood were far too valuable to be thrown away defending the Fell. When he led his host west, Utha would go south and Rham Jas north. With luck, that would reduce the risk that they would have to kill each other. Dalian was going to return to Ro Weir and lay the groundwork for the assassination of Saara the Mistress of Pain. Randall and Glenwood were to accompany Utha and Rham Jas, respectively.