Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) (32 page)

‘Gair? I should think so, after a decade at the Motherhouse. Whatever else I may think of the Suvaeon, they turn out fine swordsmen.’

‘That is not quite what I meant.’ N’ril tore off another piece of bread and ate it. ‘He did not need my help today, Alderan. He could have stood his ground against those Cultists, all three of them. The way he fights – not reckless, but . . . We call it
qalen al jinn
. I do not know the word for it in your tongue.’

The phrase was unfamiliar, so Alderan translated it literally, word by word. ‘Heart of the dragon?’

‘Close enough. It means to put one’s whole self into a task, to commit to it absolutely, holding nothing back.’ The desertman paused. ‘Or perhaps with nothing left to lose?’

In a practice yard in Alderan’s memory, bright blades rang together, over and over, and sweat pocked the earth floor like tears. ‘You have a shrewd eye for a situation, N’ril.’

‘Ah. Much now becomes clear.’ N’ril helped himself to some of the darkly spiced mutton
tajani
, scooped up on another piece of flatbread. ‘Someone close?’

‘He won’t thank me for telling you, but yes.’ Alderan swirled a mouthful of wine around his teeth, remembering, then let it trickle down his throat. The memories were not so easily swallowed. ‘Chapterhouse lost some good people to Savin’s creatures that day.’

‘Mmm. He needs to grieve, I think.’

‘We don’t mourn the way your people do, with blood,’ said Alderan. ‘Gair just needs some time.’

In all his visits to the desert, he had seen the grieving ritual only once. He’d climbed a stony hill and found a kneeling woman on the far side, rocking at the foot of a freshly filled grave. Seeing her slice open her own arm and daub the blood on her face, watching it drip from her chin with her tears . . . he’d had to walk away.

N’ril shook his head. ‘Let a wound fester for too long and it will need to be drained. Better to cleanse it now, though it is painful, before the infection takes hold.’

‘He just needs time,’ Alderan said again. He hoped with all his heart that was true, and tried to ignore the voice at the back of his mind insisting he was wrong. ‘He’ll heal or else he’ll learn to live with the hurt, like the rest of us.’

18

A BARGAIN

Gair turned his shoulder towards the looking-glass. The cut was as neat as a surgical incision, oozing a little bloody fluid and stinging from the soap he had washed with. He dabbed it carefully with a washcloth. It was shallow enough that it should heal without stitching, unlike his shirt, which was only fit for rags. He eyed the bloody clothes by his feet, then abruptly kicked them across the tiled floor out of his sight.

Leaning on the washstand, he closed his eyes. Saints, he was exhausted. Once the battle-blood had cooled, the heat and food had done their work and left him ready to crawl into his bed. Not that it helped these days. It didn’t matter how much or how little he slept, he always felt the same: hollowed out, like old bones.

I miss you, carianh
.

‘You’ve lost some weight.’ Alderan’s voice sounded from the doorway.

Gair glanced up, then looked away. ‘Food’s too good at Chapterhouse. I was getting fat.’

‘Gair,’ the old man said gently, ‘if I rendered you down for lard right now there wouldn’t be enough to grease a skillet. Saaron could use you as an illustration to teach first-year anatomy.’

‘So?’

‘Sit down and I’ll see to your shoulder.’

‘It’s fine.’

Alderan said nothing, just shrugged off his scrip and nodded to the stool beside the washstand.

‘I said it’s
fine
. Leave me alone, Alderan.’

The old man hooked the stool with his foot, dragged it over to where the light was best and pointed. Gair’s jaw tightened, but he wrapped the towel more tightly around his waist and sat down. Maybe if he submitted to the unwelcome ministrations he would be left in peace.

Alderan took his time setting out jars from his scrip on the edge of the washstand, carefully scrubbing and drying his hands. A brief tug at the Song summoned a glim to supplement the light from the oil-lamps on the wall whilst he examined the wound.

‘It could use stitching,’ he mused.

‘Just put some salve on it, it’ll close overnight.’

‘And as soon as you lift your arm over your head to put your shirt on it’ll open right up again.’ Eyebrows raised, the old man peered at him as if over the top of spectacles. ‘I’ve been patching folk up for a long time, lad. I know what I’m doing.’

‘Fine, stitch it, then.’ Gair didn’t even try to keep the irritation from his voice.

He felt Alderan’s gaze linger on him but didn’t turn his head to meet it. Instead he stared at the tiled floor, plucking at the thin gold ring piercing his left earlobe. Something else that irked him: the stupid thing snagged his comb and collected soap when he shaved – he still hadn’t become accustomed to it, and in his present mood he didn’t want to.

Behind him he heard Alderan moving about, the plink of a needle into a saucer, the gurgle of liquid being poured. Then the old man said, ‘I know you don’t want to be here, Gair.’

That was an understatement. ‘So why did you make me come?’

‘It was necessary.’

Gair snorted. ‘But you won’t even tell me what I’m supposed to be doing! All I know is that you told me to pack my things and go and see Saaron to get my ear pierced – the reason for which still escapes me, by the way.’ Gair winced as the needle penetrated his skin. ‘Damn it, warn me first!’

‘That ring is a sign of a Gimraeli male’s passage into manhood.’ Alderan tied off the stitch and snipped the thread with scissors. ‘There’s deep desertmen with paler skin and lighter eyes than most Gimraelis and some of them married into the Feqqin, so we’ll pass you off as a distant cousin. N’ril’s going to provide us with house colours, but we might have to dye your hair.’

Now Gair looked around. ‘Dye my— Blood and stones!’ Another stitch had caught him off guard. ‘
Dye my hair?
Why are we going to such lengths to pass as desertmen, Alderan? How long are we going to be here?’

‘I don’t know, exactly,’ the old man said calmly. ‘Maybe weeks, maybe longer. It depends what I find in El Maqqam, so until I do know, it’s best we stay as unobtrusive as possible. Now sit still, I don’t want to stitch you crooked.’

‘Why can’t you just Heal it?’

‘I’ve told you, that’s not my gift.’

‘Neither is sharing information,’ Gair muttered.

Curved needle poised for the next stitch, Alderan frowned at him. ‘You gave me your word freely, remember? Rather unseemly now to complain about having to keep it.’

‘That was before I knew what you would ask of me in return!’ Gair snapped back.

‘It’s for your own good.’ The needle bit into his skin again.

‘That’s why Goran wanted to burn me, as I recall.’

The scissors clattered into the washbasin. Leaving the needle bedded in Gair’s shoulder, Alderan cocked his fists on his hips and glared at him, blue eyes glinting beneath the rampart of a ferocious scowl. ‘Would you rather I’d let you go north? When it would almost certainly have killed you?’

‘Yes!’ Gair thrust himself to his feet and began prowling the small room. ‘At least then I would have felt I was doing something useful instead of dragging my arse around here.’

‘I know you won’t believe me, but I understand what you’re feeling.’ Given Alderan’s expression, the words were unexpectedly soft. ‘I understand better than you will ever know. But it’s too soon.’

‘It’s never too soon for justice.’

‘Is that what you think you’d be doing? Seeing justice served? For the love of the saints, lad, think with your head instead of your pain. If you go after Savin now you’ll lose, and then your life will have been wasted just as surely as Darin’s or Donata’s or anyone else who died that day. Is that what you want?’

‘I want him to pay for what he did.’ Gair’s voice trembled with the rage baying inside him. It leapt and slavered like a hound at a gate and it was all he could do to hold on to its chain.

‘I want that too, believe me, and my vengeance has been brewing for a lot longer than yours,’ said Alderan. ‘But there’s nothing to be gained by rushing into it and far too much to lose. If you want to be useful, come with me to El Maqqam. Help me in the archive. If we find what we’re looking for and it leads us to the starseed, we can pull Savin’s teeth for good.’

‘I won’t rest until he’s cold in the ground, Alderan. I swear it.’

‘And I’d like to be there to see you finish him, but what’s more important? Killing one man, or saving the thousands of others who’ll die when the Veil comes down?’

‘But if Savin’s dead, the Veil remains intact and we can save ourselves all this sneaking around!’

‘Maybe,’ the old man said, reaching for his scissors. ‘But if you take him on and fail, he will tear the Veil apart and open up the Hidden Kingdom. Then there’ll be even more work to do, one fewer Guardian to help me do it and Savin will still be here.’ He spread his hands. ‘Remember what happened the last time you faced him, at the Five Sisters? Do you really want to go through that again?’

Yes!
the rage roared.
I’d do it a hundred times, a thousand, if it meant he paid his debt!

Vengeance was beating its drums, pounding in Gair’s ears with the rush of his blood, and he could hardly think for the din. His hands clenched into fists. The muscles knotted in his arms, his shoulders, until the sword-cut began to throb around the needle.

When Alderan touched his arm, he all but flinched.

‘Come on, lad – sit down,’ the old man said. ‘There’re still a couple more stitches to do and I can’t reach all the way up there.’

Gair stared at him.
When I think of something you can do for me, I’ll ask, and then we’ll be square
, the old man had said, in the inn in Dremen. And he had agreed, given his word. Now his honour shackled him as surely as forged steel.

Alderan’s head tilted, eyes twinkling. ‘Or shall I fetch a stepladder?’

The gentle humour had an effect, allowing some of the tension to drain out of Gair’s limbs. Raking his hands through his hair, he returned to the stool, then sat in silence whilst Alderan finished stitching his shoulder. He barely flinched at each stab of the needle, the odd tugging sensation of silk thread drawn through flesh. But the rage still chewed at his gut and he had to grind his teeth together to keep it from bursting out.

Finally the old man snipped the thread on the last stitch and dropped his scissors back into his scrip and the needle into its saucer. Then he dabbed some salve from a small jar onto the cut.

‘How long?’ Gair asked.

‘Hmm? The stitches can come out in about a week. Leave your shirt off for an hour or so if you can – let that salve soak in.’

He should have been clearer. ‘How long have you been waiting?’

‘Oh. About twenty years, give or take.’

It was almost as long as Gair had been alive. He flinched, eyes fluttering closed. Only six weeks, and he was burning up inside. ‘Does it get any better?’

‘It gets easier with time,’ Alderan said, wiping his hands. ‘Whether it gets better is up to you.’

Six stalls were arranged around two sides of the yard at the back of N’ril’s house. The sound of Gair’s boots on the cobbles was enough to bring five heads out over the stable doors, five pairs of ears flicking inquisitively. He walked slowly from stall to stall, scratching whiskery chins and tugging satiny ears through his fingers as the horses nudged his pockets for treats.

He had always loved horses, the warm sweet reek of the stable-yard. They made such easy companions, both trusting and trustworthy. They didn’t care what he said as long as his tone was kindly, and if he said nothing at all they didn’t sulk or flounce away. They judged a man by his actions alone. He could think of worse creatures with which to spend his time.

The sixth stall appeared to be empty. Certainly there was no response when he clicked his tongue. He leaned on the door to peer into the gloom and a shadow surged towards him. Ivory teeth snapped at him, then the horse whirled and crashed two steel-shod hooves into the stable door hard enough to bounce it on its hinges.

Gair ducked to one side. ‘Whoa there!’

The seething shadow in the stall glared back at him and stamped a warning.

‘It’s all right, I’m not here to hurt you.’ He held out his hand.

The horse did not approach. Its feet shifted restlessly in the straw and its head tossed again and again, but it came no closer. Maybe he should have brought an apple from the kitchen. This animal would not easily be won over.

‘Are you always such an early riser?’ called N’ril.

Gair looked around as his host crossed the yard towards him. ‘It’s a habit I can’t seem to break,’ he said.

‘The early hours are the best part of the day here, before the worst of the heat.’ Leaning on the wall by the door, N’ril tipped his head towards the stall’s occupant. ‘I see you have met the she-demon.’

‘I went to say hello and she tried to kick the door down.’

N’ril grinned. ‘That is how Shahe says good morning. Would you like to see her?’

When Gair nodded, he shot the bolts on the stall door and swung it wide. The mare leapt out into the sunshine with a furious whinny, kicking and bucking her way around the yard. She was a shard of midnight, with the dancing feet and wide, dished face of a pure-bred
sulqa
. Fragments of straw flew from her wavy mane as she tossed her head.