Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) (23 page)

The
uisca
went down the chief’s throat in a single swallow. ‘I’d ask if you were joking except I don’t think you are.’ He looked away, into the glowing embers in the fire-pit. ‘How many clans?’

‘We saw two for sure, but the Nimrothi we questioned was certain it would be all seventeen, and that they’d swear to this Drwyn’s spear at the Scattering. There hasn’t been a battle chief in a thousand years, my lord. This cannot bode well.’

‘Another Gwlach.’ Aradhrim shook his head. ‘And you’re sure?’

‘I don’t know how I could be more sure,’ said Duncan.

‘And what were you doing so far west at this time of year?’

‘You heard from the Eldannar rangers?’ A nod. ‘We were tracking the beast that tore into the herds. It almost killed one of our men, but he survived and followed it into Whistler’s Pass. It was headed east of north when Kael lost track of it. We were coming back to Fleet when he picked up another trail near Saardost.’ Duncan swallowed the last of the spirit for courage. ‘Kael’s a seeker, my lord. He says the beasts are Maegern’s Hounds. Two of them, headed north into the Broken Land.’

Frowning, Aradhrim rolled his empty cup back and forth between his hands. ‘Brindling Fall?’

‘The keep was empty both times we passed it. They’re not likely to come down through Whistler’s Pass – not willingly, anyway. Too many ghosts for them.’

‘What about King’s Gate?’

‘Snowbound. We couldn’t have checked it even if we’d wanted to. It’s always the last to thaw.’

The chief sucked his teeth. ‘Not much evidence,’ he said, ‘but it’s compelling.’

‘I don’t think we can ignore it, my lord.’ Duncan sat forward. ‘If they’re summoning the Hunt again—’

‘I agree. I’ll have to re-garrison all three forts until we know which way the Nimrothi will jump. There’s a full legion here in Fleet which is enough to make a start. I’ll send south for reinforcements, but it’ll be a hard march for them in winter.’

‘Will the Emperor agree?’

Aradhrim shrugged. ‘Theodegrance appointed me Warlord so he didn’t have to make these decisions. He doesn’t really have to agree, though it helps.’ He stood up and tossed Duncan the half-empty flask. ‘Here – you’ve more than earned it. I’ll have my steward find a bed for you.’

‘There’s one more thing,’ Duncan said. ‘At the beginning of winter, we met a Guardian called Masen at Brindling Fall. He said he was Gatekeeper to the Order of the Veil.’

‘I’ve heard of him.’

‘He told us that the Veil is weakening. Take that with the Hounds and what the Nimrothi told us . . .’ Duncan spread his hands and saw the high chief’s face harden, the shadows sharpening his features until he resembled one of the stone warriors that flanked Endirion’s Gate.

‘It makes this news all the more troubling.’ Aradhrim cocked his fists on his hips and stared down at the floor between his feet. ‘I need to speak to Maera,’ he muttered, then scrubbed a hand across his face, palm rasping over his stubbled chin. ‘This is a bad business, Duncan. A thousand years ago, the Founding divided the clans. We made our peace with the new Empire rather than fight on. The Nimrothi have never forgiven us.’

‘If they come south, Arennor will bear the first blood.’

‘Exactly. And we have no passes to choke them, no forts to block their path, only leagues of empty plains between the mountains and Mesarild.’

Arms folded, the chief began to pace the width of the fire-pit. Duncan watched him, his dragging exhaustion replaced by an awful tension. The silver cup in his fist gave suddenly and he looked down to see his grip had crushed it to an oval.

All at once the chief swung to face him. ‘Rouse that steward of mine, cousin. We must raise the clans for war.’

14

PLANS

Like most men, Drwyn was hard on clothes. Teia’s pile of mending never seemed to grow any smaller; there were always buttons to be replaced, burst seams to be closed. When the men’s heads had cleared from their Firstmoon celebrations and they rode out to hunt again a few days later – with Drwyn at their head; the chief enjoyed the chase far too much only to stand his turn – she was glad of the opportunity to catch up on her needlework.

The week’s tally of mending consisted of a couple of shirts, a fur-lined jerkin that the moths had got to during the summer’s storage and a pair of trews that would have had years of wear left in them were it not for the long tear down the side of one knee. Incredulous, Teia poked her hand through the rent. How under heaven had he managed that?

The shirts were easily repaired, needing only a frayed seam stitched and a loose button re-attached. When she was done and the mended garments had been returned to Drwyn’s clothes chest, she picked up the trews again to assess the tear.

Even if she stitched it up, a rent at the knee would likely give again in short order, but the woollen cloth was far too good to throw away. Maybe she could make something for the baby from it later, when her other chores were done. She shook the garment straight and held it against herself to fold, and was reminded again that her legs were only a little shorter than Drwyn’s.

Her heart lurched. Could she . . .?

Carefully, she arranged the trews with the band where her waist used to be and kicked out the legs. Close enough. Better, if she took them in to suit her more slender limbs, re-making the seam would cut out the tear and yield enough fabric that she could gusset the trunk, let out the waist . . . And that jerkin, whilst cut for a man and far too broad in the shoulder, would still be perfectly warm and more than roomy enough to accommodate a swelling belly.

A feeling that was one part excitement to two parts naked fear crashed over her. Her skin turned cold, her stomach dropping down to her toes whilst her heart began to race. This was possible. She could make it work. The larders were well stocked; she could secrete provisions, hide extra winter clothes in readiness – clothes like these, Drwyn’s cast-offs that he wouldn’t even notice were missing. If she could convince Ytha of the folly of her pact with the Eldest, all well and good, but if not . . . she could leave.

Macha. The very idea was dizzying. She tried not to think about leaving her family or the anguish would paralyse her into inaction, too afraid to stand up to Ytha, and then the whole clan would suffer. And then other clans, maybe all of them, when the Hunt was unleashed. Images of an ashen plain filled her thoughts and she shuddered.

No. There was no time to dwell on that, either.

She focused on the good woollen cloth in her hands. Pins. She needed pins. Quickly, she hunted through her sewing bag for the roll of felt that held the good steel pins she’d traded for at the Scattering last year. Then she hiked up her skirt, stepped into Drwyn’s trews and began to mark up the lines of new seams.

For the rest of the day she cut and stitched, working feverishly fast to be sure she was done by the time the hunters – and her chief – returned. At the finish her fingertips were numb, but it was done. She slipped out the last pins and stowed them away carefully in her sewing bag. Then, her hands trembling with more than just the effort of all the stitching, she tried them on.

They fitted. There was give at the knees and seat for riding, and two hands’-worth of room at the waist into which her baby belly could grow.

Yes. I can do this
.

The enormity of what she was planning struck her anew, and she had to sit down before her knees folded underneath her. Her thoughts bolted in all directions like panicked rabbits. Dear Macha preserve her. Leaving the clan, leaving her family, in the heart of winter . . . surely her wits had deserted her. She shut her eyes, pressed the heels of her hands into them. She might as well take up a spear and go and hunt the white stag – she had as much chance of success.

Teia raked her fingers through her hair and squeezed her palms against the back of her skull, as if she could press some order into her whirling thoughts. She had little time, and none to spare for uncertainty. If a job was to be done, it was best done with a whole heart.

Near drunk with elation and anxiety in equal measure, she slipped off the trews and hid them with the jerkin at the bottom of a basket, covering them with a sack. If she carried it down to the stores and came back with some provisions, no one who saw her would be any the wiser. As long as she was careful where she hid everything, and didn’t take too much of anything that might be missed . . .

I can do this. I know I can
.

Before her courage could desert her, she hoisted the basket onto her hip and headed down to the stores. On the way she had to pass the smoke-room, where a handful of women were cleaning and preparing it for the hunters’ catch. They paused as she approached and leaned on their brooms, their sweating faces smudged with ash. The flickering lamplight was unkind, flattening the contours of their features and emphasising the lines and creases, so women who would have been comely in daylight had instead the pinched look of kobolds, their eyes colourless and glittering like glass.

Teia felt their stares from yards away and her steps faltered. When word had spread throughout the caves that she was carrying the chief’s child, it had softened the attitudes of many of the women, but some had hardened against her completely: younger women, mostly, those who’d hoped to catch Drwyn’s eye themselves – or those who’d shared his bed before her.

Throat suddenly dry, Teia hitched her basket onto her other hip so that it was away from the watching women. She had to pass them; there was no other way through to the stores. Taking a deep breath, she tilted her head up. Let them stare.

I can do this
.

Walking briskly, but not fast enough to let on that she was anxious, she passed the smoke-room. A hard stare or two followed her; though nothing was said, the sheer intensity of their gazes was enough to set her magic to prickling. When a bend in the passage finally took her out of their sight she sighed with relief, and only then realised that her hands were shaking.

The stores were rarely empty, even when they weren’t being replenished, so Teia took her time selecting this and that for her basket until the other women left. In the gloom at the back of the cavern, behind the sacks and bushels, there were hiding places aplenty where some long-ago water had scoured odd scoops and whorls into the stone. Ears straining for the sound of approaching footsteps, she stuffed two pounds of purloined meal and some dried meat and fruit into her sack with the jerkin and trews, and pushed the lot into one of the cyst-like apertures.

There. It was well out of sight at the back, and even if the stores became so depleted over the winter that it was exposed, it would look like any other sack of supplies. By the time that happened, her fate would have been decided. Either she would have left the clan – she flinched at the thought of her parents’ faces – or she would be past the point at which anyone would care about a stolen bag of meal.

Hefting her fresh-laden basket onto her hip again, she turned to leave. She’d walked barely ten paces up the passageway towards the smoke-room when she heard a susurrus of voices ahead, distorted by the water-worn rock walls. Teia quickened her steps, straining to make out more words than the
what is it what’s happening
buzz of confusion.

The women were gone from the smoke-room entrance, their abandoned rakes and brooms scattered about. A basket of cinders had been tipped up and its contents left strewn across the passage amongst the tools. Whatever they’d heard had sent them running.

The hunters, it had to be. She hurried on. Now the timbre of the voices was one of alarm; ahead women were streaming up the passage towards the great arching cavern of the meeting place, and amongst the jumbled shouts and anxious pleas to know what was happening, Teia heard a man moaning in pain.

She dropped her basket and ran. Despite the close warmth of underground, her skin grew cold. Heart drumming, she wormed her way through the crowd of women milling at the passage mouth, not caring who tutted at her. She had to know who was hurt. In her haste she trod on someone’s toes and got a curse and a shove for it, but she made it through to the front of the group.

Flickering torches lit the cavern, wedged in wall-cracks and held aloft by hunters in snow-dusted furs. Two of them were carrying a rough litter fashioned from saplings on which lay a young man. Teia hardly recognised him as Joren, the youngest of Drwyn’s war band. His eyes were black pits of pain in a waxy-pale face and his bloody hands shone wetly in the sooty light as they clutched at his belly.

‘Please,’ he sobbed. ‘It hurts!’

His head rolled from side to side on the blanket and her stomach turned over when she saw the gleam of bone through his torn scalp. Even Ytha might be hard-pressed to save him.

On the far side of the cavern, a commotion in the crowd of clansfolk dragged her eyes away. Someone cried, ‘Make way! Make way for the Speaker!’ and Ytha swept out of the shadows with her fur mantle billowing after her.

The other hunters fell back, exchanging anxious looks. With a snap of her fingers, the Speaker summoned one of her pearly lights and gestured it close to the young man’s face, then over his ripped scalp.