Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) (13 page)

On the far side of the bailey, the watchman thumped the bar back across the gate and trudged to the guardhouse, blowing on his hands. The movement snagged Savin’s eye for a second before he dismissed it and settled back into his thoughts.

No, there was something hidden there, at Chapterhouse. A miser didn’t mount a guard if the vault was empty. The more precious the contents, the stronger the guard would be, the more subtle and skilful the wards. These were skilful indeed – they had kept Savin from setting foot in his birthplace since he was fifteen years old. He allowed himself a thin, bitter smile. They were some of Alderan’s finest work.

And what of that other precious commodity, the Leahn whelp? Sprung from the Church’s grasp and travelling west with none other than the Guardian himself – that could not be a coincidence. A new Corlainn Fellbane, perhaps; was that what Alderan had in mind for him? Certainly his gift was strong enough that the magnification offered by the starseed would make him potent enough to become . . . problematic. If only there’d been more time in Mesarild to question him: the truth could eventually have been shucked out of his head like a boiled egg from its shell, whether he was willing to be read or not.

Still, there’d be time enough once Chapterhouse had fallen, and the Guardians were scattered or dead. Then, once the starseed was in his hands, it all became moot.

Savin studied the chessboard in his mind, seeing the pieces converge on a square he had labelled ‘Chapterhouse’. Amused himself envisaging Alderan’s face beneath the king’s ebony crown and the Leahn’s on the knight as they executed their moves. He had always possessed the knack of reading the board, the ability to follow the subtle currents of the game and predict the outcome ten or even twenty moves ahead. It was more than simply knowing the rules or being able to play against himself. It was about understanding his opponent: his attitude to risk over reward, his willingness to make sacrifices in the short term to ensure eventual success.

The smile became a curve of genuine mirth. And what he simply would not do under any circumstances.

Queen’s knight to lector, pawn takes lector, rook takes pawn. The knight wheels back in defence and the rook
. . . He began to laugh softly.
Rook takes knight
.

Checkmate in three.

9

NO WAY OUT

The dogs were gaining on her. They had no shape, no colour; they existed only as a howl, as a flash of teeth in the dark, but they were gaining on her. No matter how fast Teia ran through the warren of stifling caves, she heard them on her trail and the sound spurred her on.

Her breathing rasped and resonated around the narrow tunnels, punctuated by the baying of the dogs. Each time she heard it, it sounded closer. For each step she took they took two, bounding after her with relentless, terrifying speed.

There was no way out. Every turn she took led only to another. Upslope led only to down, downslope led only to up, twisting and doubling back so abruptly that she cannoned into the rough rock walls and reeled away scraped and bleeding. Each time she lost her footing she heard the dogs gain a little more ground. She ran and ran until her lungs burned in her chest and her throat was raw, somehow maintaining her momentum through the endless dark.

Someone called her name. The voice came faintly from deep inside her head, almost inaudible through the fear that gripped her. It called again and Teia staggered to a halt to listen. Silence, then the bay of a hound catching fresh scent. Moaning with terror, she shambled up to a run again, then heard the voice a third time. While it was not friendly, it was firm and familiar and brooked no disobedience.

She opened her eyes. Ytha’s face swam out of the lamp glow and into focus, and Teia screamed. Pain lanced through her side, turning the cry into a gasp and hiccoughing sobs.

‘Easy, child,’ the Speaker said. Her smile was less than reassuring, cold and predatory. ‘No harm will come to you here.’

‘The dogs . . .’ Teia’s voice was thick, her tongue too large for her dry mouth. A flicker disturbed the Speaker’s expression, then all was calm again.

‘There are no dogs. You were dreaming.’

‘I— I heard them. Chasing me.’

‘As I said, you were dreaming. There are no dogs. You were caught up in our weaving, that is all.’ Ytha stared at her. ‘You must have something of the Talent.’

‘The Talent? Me?’
Macha protect me, she knows
. Teia’s hands clutched the fur cover over her.
Ytha knows!
She had to close her eyes for a few seconds before she lost the feeling that she was spiralling down into a pit.

‘All is well, child,’ the Speaker said briskly. ‘We can talk about it later, when you are rested. The idea can strike some people awry.’ She laid a cool hand on Teia’s brow. ‘At least you are not running a fever like some of the others.’

‘The others?’

‘There were six of you in all – children, mostly. It takes some girls that way, fever, chills. Nightmares. But such things can be overcome, with time.’ A genuine smile twitched the corners of the Speaker’s mouth, relieving some of the severity of her features. ‘It was a rare day for the clan, finding so many of you at once.’

Teia bit her lip, willing the pain in her side to ebb. For two years she had worried that Ytha might suspect she had a gift. Now the Speaker knew, but she had six new gifts to think about. Perhaps, amongst so many, she would pay less attention to one.

‘Speaker, what happened?’ she asked timorously. By changing the subject, she might learn something. ‘My head aches and I don’t remember very much.’

‘It was a powerful weaving. We called upon one of the Elder Gods to guide us. You must have been pulled into the web, like the others, and it drew you to its centre. You were found unconscious on the ground, just outside the circle.’ She paused. ‘What do you remember?’

Teia frowned, trying to make herself look uncertain. ‘There was a terrible voice, scraping inside my head, and a shield . . . It stared at me.’

‘Did you hear any words?’

‘I don’t remember any. I was so frightened.’ She looked up at Ytha with wide eyes and hoped the Speaker would take the bait.

Ytha stared back, then nodded abruptly. ‘You need to rest,’ she said. ‘I shall fetch you a draught and then you should sleep. We ride south tomorrow, but Drwyn’s men will take care of you until you can sit a horse.’

With that she stood and left in a swirl of snow-fox fur. Teia allowed herself a small sigh of relief. Looking up at the roof and the hangings, she realised she was in Drwyn’s tent – her tent. The day was well advanced: she smelled woodsmoke and cooking, and heard children at play. She must have been unconscious for hours.

Ytha returned in a few minutes carrying a tea-bowl of warmed milk and honey, which she held out to Teia. ‘This will help you sleep,’ she said.

Pushing up on one elbow, Teia raised the drink to her lips. She’d had one of Ytha’s sleeping draughts before and knew that the Speaker put the juice of the white poppy in it; the honey disguised the taste. It would ease her various discomforts, but it would also make her sleep deeply. How deeply and for how long would depend on the strength of the brew.

About to drink, she hesitated. If she slept, the nightmare might return, throw her back into that desperate race. Suddenly afraid, Teia darted a glance a the Speaker. Ytha was watching her, one eyebrow raised interrogatively, and she made herself take a sip of the drink. There was a good chance the Speaker meant to wait until she had drained the bowl dry. To buy time she blew on the milk to cool it, hoping the older woman would lose patience.

Drwyn himself proved an unlikely benefactor, choosing that moment to put his head around the hanging. Ytha shot him an irritated glance and held up her hand, indicating that he should wait.

‘Make sure you drink it all,’ she admonished. ‘It will do you good.’

Teia dipped her head dutifully. ‘Yes, Speaker.’

Ytha’s lips pursed momentarily, then she drew her robe around her and walked into the other half of the tent.

‘Is she all right?’ Drwyn asked at once.

‘She’s had a nasty fright and some bad dreams, but that’s all. Nothing that sleep won’t mend,’ Ytha told him. ‘Now, what news do you have for me from the chiefs?’

Their footsteps and voices faded outside, soon lost in the general bustle of breaking camp. Everywhere people were shouting and animals complaining. With the Moot over, it was time for the clans to make their way to their winter quarters in the caves and sheltered valleys at the foot of the mountains, to wait out the snows until the spring.

Teia set the still-full bowl down on the floor. So Ytha knew about her gift. It was a wonder she’d managed to conceal it as long as she had, since that day she’d first looked into the waters and seen something other than her own reflection. Then Drw had offered for her and she’d begun to see the boy with the chief’s torc, but instead of pleasing her the vision had left her so alarmed she’d gone out of her way to avoid drawing Ytha’s eye down on her. The Speaker had ways of rooting out secrets, ways of knowing what a man had told to no one but the wind.

It was only a matter of time before Ytha found out about the child, too. She fingered her still-flat belly. Then, if she was lucky, she’d be wedded to the chief and would live out her life in this tent, warming his bed and taking his blows.

Macha’s mercy, that was no kind of luck. Tears filled her eyes. Hugging her knees to her chest, despite the discomfort in her side, she buried her face in her arms.

And what if Drwyn did not wed her, or put her aside as he had his first wife when she bore him only a daughter and proved unable to carry another child to term? What then? Perhaps Ytha would take her for an apprentice, and all she’d seen in the waters would come tumbling out like stillborn kids, staring and ugly – the boy chief, the dark warrior, the hundred other images she’d seen and couldn’t explain—

Despite the thick furs covering her, Teia began to shiver. She was at a fork in the trail, with no way back and neither of the forward paths leading anywhere she wanted to go. Whichever she picked, there were storm clouds on the horizon.

Or she could make her own path, and run. Flee the Crainnh and become one of the Maenardh, the Lost Ones. She would never be welcome at a clan fire again, but at least she would be free.

She screwed her eyes shut. Free to be alone, free to starve, free to freeze. She might as well kneel down beside the widow’s rock and dash out her own brains. The plains’ short autumn was all but over and winter was coming hard on its heels; already the mountains to the south were white-mantled like Speakers. And fleeing would mean leaving the mother who’d raised her, the father who’d taught her to use a bow and a knife – never mind the rest of her family.

Misery twisted up her throat.
Oh, Macha, no
.

Beside her bed, a last thread of steam curling up from its surface, Ytha’s sleeping draught waited. Its sweet baby-sick smell promised a few hours’ rest, a place to hide. From the dogs, or so she hoped, from Drwyn, from thought itself.

No, she had no real alternatives. She picked up the bowl and, in three big swallows, drained it to the dregs.

Teia drifted awake to a slow rocking as of a cradle. Opening her eyes, she saw the edge of a blanket and beyond it the roof of a tent. No, not a tent; it was too grey and heavy for leather. Sky? Tiny coldnesses stung her cheeks, her lips, like pinpricks. She frowned. Too cold. Shutting her eyes again, she burrowed back into the warmth that enveloped her and dreamed of horses. Long lines of them, walking, walking, and in the distance the land’s white teeth tore into the belly of the clouds.

When she opened her eyes next, she saw a man’s arm and shoulder past the blanket, and beyond that a frosty plain, its grasses bowed by the ceaseless wind. Mountains loured along the horizon, closer now, starkly white against a sky the colour of lead. Now the rocking made sense: the clan was on the move into the snows, and she was being carried on horseback.

Ytha’s draught had been potent: it had carried her clean through one day and well into the next. She blinked, trying to shake off the poppy-fog that clung to her thoughts, and peered up at the man with his arm round her. He smelled of greasy furs and sweat, and the stringy, drooping moustache looked familiar. One of Drwyn’s warriors. The one who picked his nose on guard duty and liked to find reasons to brush past her as she went about her chores. Harl, she remembered dully, and closed her eyes again. Perhaps he would not notice that she had stirred.

Soon she was dozing, until the drumming of another set of hooves alongside woke her again.

‘I’m going ahead a ways,’ said Drwyn’s voice. ‘The Speaker has asked for me. If I’m not back by sunset, take care of her when we camp.’

‘Of course, my chief,’ Harl answered. Drwyn chirruped and his horse cantered away.

Teia tried to doze off again, but could not. They had begun to climb up into the foothills of the mountains and the stony track made for a jolting ride, jabbing at her broken rib. Nonetheless she kept her eyes closed. She was not in the mood for Harl’s attempts at flirtation.