Winterbirth (5 page)

'The woodwights can hardly threaten a Blood as versed in the arts of war as yours. Kyrinin bows and spears are no match for the swords of Lannis-Haig. And as for the Bloods of the Black Road , I am certain that if they were to come against you, your strength would turn them back as it has always done, Thane.'

'Oh, spare me your flattery, Steward,' said Croesan in exasperation. 'This is not Vaymouth. You can save your velvet tongue for Gryvan's court. I'd hate for you to wear it out for my benefit.'

Behomun's manner changed. That sneer was close, testing its leash. 'As you wish. Perhaps a different response will find more favour: that your troubles are not to be laid at the door of Gryvan oc Haig. The White Owl Kyrinin hunt your woodcutters and herders because you set your people to clear the forests of Anlane. You must have known that would stir up trouble as surely as a stick poked into a wasp nest.

'And if your northern borders are less well guarded against the Black Road than you would wish, you should have agreed to the High Thane's requests for land to settle his veterans upon. An army of proven warriors would now fill the very farms that the Fever emptied, if you had found a place for them. In any case, if you believed there was a serious threat, you would surely not have allowed Taim Narran and the others to go south at all. It would not be the first time you defied a command of your High Thane.'

'The warriors Gryvan wanted to settle here would take no oath of loyalty to me. To my Blood,' Croesan snapped.

The Steward snorted and waved a hand. 'Every one of them loyal to the Haig Bloods, already bound to Gryvan oc Haig himself. As are you and your Blood, lest you have forgotten. Why put them through your old rituals?'

Croesan paused, his ga2e lifting for a moment from the Steward's face to the tapestry on the wall behind him. Sirian was there, riding down the fleeing forces of the Gyre Bloods. Croesan felt old, almost too tired to engage in futile arguments with this man who cared nothing for the past. When the tapestry was made, little more than a century ago, none would have questioned the worth of oaths. None would have thought them to be empty rituals. But Kilkry had been the highest amongst the True Bloods in those days, and many things had been different. Now Lheanor, the Kilkry Thane, bent the knee to Gryvan oc Haig as the rest of them did.

'Had I known,' Croesan said at length, 'that Gryvan would punish my refusal by taking the lives of my men, I might have thought longer.' Behomun started to protest, spreading his hands in denial of what Croesan said. The Thane spoke over him. 'But my answer would not have changed. Any man who would be a warrior for the Lannis Blood must swear fealty. It is not so long since the same law was kept in Haig lands, Behomun, though your master seems to have forgotten it.'

'Times change.'

Croesan sighed. 'They do, though there are few truly new things in the world. We had Kings once before. Rats and dogs have inherited their palaces in Dun Aygll. I am told the new mansions in Vaymouth rival that lost glory.'

'The High Thane has no wish to make himself a king.'

'As you say. But it is of no matter now. I am sending word south to Taim Narran that he is to return with those of my men who still live as soon as Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig is taken. I wished only to tell you that.

I would not want a hurried departure to be taken amiss.'

The Steward nodded. 'Narran is yours to command, of course. I am sure the High Thane will not wish to delay his return.'

'I hope he will neither wish it nor do it,' replied Croesan.

Behomun smiled.

The road south from Anduran was a well-travelled one. Orisian, Rothe and Kylane passed cattle herders and farmers, as well as carts carrying fleeces, furs and carved furniture from Anduran's workshops down to the harbour at Glasbridge. Late in the morning they overtook a line of half a dozen timber-laden wagons, the gigantic workhorses raised by Lannis woodsmen labouring in their harnesses.

They had crossed the Glas River not long after leaving Anduran, and the road now followed close by its northern bank, protected by a low dyke. Though the river was high, fed by rains in the uplands beyond Lannis-Haig's borders, it was still a long way from over-topping the bund and threatening the road. The open fields to its south had no such protection and they were patterned with pools, the harbingers of winter floods.

After a time the track began to skirt round to the north of the Glas Water. The great wetland swallowed the river, hiding its course amidst a maze of pools, channels and marshes. In a month or two, there would be an unbroken sheet of pale water covering a great sweep of the valley floor. Riding along the fringes of this wild place, Orisian could see, faint in its misty heart, the ruined towers of old Kan Avor. The broken turrets and spires of the drowned city rose above the waters like a ghostly ship on the sea's horizon. The sight, as it always did, stirred a faint unease in him. He had gone there once, as a child, with his brother Fariel. It had been high summer, exceptionally dry, and the waters were low enough for them to ride through some of the city's desolate streets. The muck and weed-crusted ruins loomed over them, obscuring the sun. Orisian had thought it a haunted, ugly place and he had not been back, for all Fariel's good-natured taunts at his fearfulness. Fariel had never been one to pay much heed to fear.

'They should tear it down,' said Kylane, seeing the line of Orisian's gaze. 'Does no good to have that foul place rotting there. And fine farmland sunk along with it, too.'

'People need reminding,' muttered Rothe. 'The Black Road is still there, in the north. Without those ruins to remind them, how soon would people forget? There's too many have done that already.'

Kylane shrugged. 'You can't fault people for enjoying peace. It's better than thirty years since the last battle.'

'You can fault them if they start to believe peace is forever. Every day, those beyond the Vale of Stones wake up thinking the Gods will return if only they could subject us all to their precious creed. You don't imagine they've stopped wanting to get these lands back just because they haven't tried in the last thirty years, do you?'

Here, close upon the edge of the Glas Water, the road was in poorer repair and stretches of deeply rutted mud often blocked their way. As they worked around one such obstruction Kylane gave a cry of surprise and reached precariously down from his saddle. When he hauled himself upright again, he was brandishing a trophy: a human jaw bone.

'One of the Glas Water's treasures,' he grinned at Orisian. 'You know some of the farmers say it's good fortune to unearth one of these?'

Orisian grimaced. 'I've heard it,' he acknowledged. 'I don't think we need good fortune that badly at the moment, though.'

The ancient bone was pitted and stained the colour of soil. Kylane examined it with mock curiosity.

'Hero or villain, do you think?' he asked.

Beneath the mists and sullen pools of the Glas Water lay the graves of thousands who had died on Kan Avor Field, the final battle in the war that drove the followers of the Black Road - led by the Gyre Blood, whose stronghold Kan Avor had been in those days - north beyond the Stone Vale. The fires had burned day and night across this land afterwards, yet still had not been enough to consume all the corpses.

After the exile of Gyre, Kan Avor had slowly declined under uncaring masters but its final ruin came later, when the Lannis Blood was created and granted rule over the Glas Valley . One of the first commands of Sirian, the new Thane, had been for the burning and flooding of the city. Kan Avor's slow, waterlogged decay was a permanent reminder of his determination to stamp his authority upon his new domain.

'Villain, I say,' decided Kylane in answer to his own question. 'Black Road through and through, this one.' He sent the bone spinning away with a flick of his wrist. 'No fit travelling companion for the nephew to the Lannis Thane.'

Daylight was fading as they came towards the Glas Water's southern end. A clutch of low houses came in sight through the thin drizzle that was beginning to fall.

'We'll pass the night at Sirian's Dyke?' Kylane asked.

'Why not?' agreed Orisian. 'It'll be a short day to Glasbridge tomorrow. Try not to lose too much sleep in the name of drink and dice, though.'

Kylane laid a hand upon his chest. 'Why, Orisian, you know I'm not one to surrender to such temptations.'

Rothe, riding a little ahead of them, snorted in derision but said nothing.

Sirian's Dyke, Orisian had always thought, was a gloomy village. Thirty or forty small cottages clustered together, surrounded by dank stands of spindly trees. The only structure of any size was the resthouse.

The lights at its windows provided at least some promise of warmth and cheer. Its outbuildings - stable, smithy and wheelwright's shop - clung to its walls like children seeking protection at the skirt of a nursemaid. All was dominated by the great, harsh line of Sirian's Dyke itself. The massive dam of timber, stone and earth, standing higher than a man, stretched out from the edge of the village and vanished into the twilight. Here was the means by which Sirian had drowned Kan Avor. In all the years since its construction, most of the village's inhabitants had worked in the pay of successive Lannis Thanes to maintain this bulwark against the will of the river and keep Kan Avor bound in its watery chains.

With their horses stabled for the night, Orisian, Rothe and Kylane entered the inn. The landlord appeared at their side before they had even found a table. He bowed to Orisian.

'Welcome, welcome. It is an honour to have you as a guest, my lord.'

The inn was half-full with a mixture of villagers and travellers. A hush fell across the room as Orisian and his shieldmen settled at a table, but it did not last: the Thane's kinsfolk were not such a rare sight in this place.

Orisian slumped in his seat, savouring the warm air upon his skin and the rich smell, of food. He pulled his boots off and flexed his feet. He was trying unsuccessfully to remember what he had eaten the last time he stayed in this inn - it had been good, and he was hungry - when a serving girl came over and bobbed in front of him. She gave him a smile as warm as a thick bed. He smiled back and waited for her to ask him what he wanted. She said nothing, and for a couple of seconds the two of them regarded one another thus. Her smile grew only more expansive, her eyes more liquid as she stood there. Kylane laughed.

'Ale and food,' said Rothe firmly, 'whatever you have that is good.'

The girl looked at him as if puzzled by his words, and her smile slipped a fraction without quite losing its hold upon her mouth.

'Yes, sire,' she said, and departed with another nod of her head to Orisian.

'And wine and water, please,' he called after her, and was granted another glimpse of her radiant face over her shoulder.

Kylane was still chuckling. 'Terrible effect you have on women,' the shieldman observed.

Rothe glowered at his younger comrade in arms. His disapproval was wasted, since Kylane was already casting around the inn, seeking a game or perhaps a companionable-looking woman of his own.

Orisian kicked amiably at Kylane's shin. 'It's not me,' he said, 'it's whose nephew I am.'

'You give yourself too little of your due,' said Kylane distractedly. 'No tavern girl would think you ugly, even if you'd a goatherd for an uncle.'

Orisian smiled, as much at the furrowing of Rothe's brow as anything. The older man often gave the impression that he despaired of Kylane's levity, but Orisian knew the two of them shared a deep-rooted mutual respect. Rothe had been his shieldman since his tenth birthday. Kylane had only taken up the task this last summer - an ominous sign, Orisian suspected, that the ageing Rothe was grooming a successor - but even so it earned him the right to a familiarity few others would dare. Being shieldman to a nephew of the Thane did not bring with it the responsibilities of guarding Croesan himself, but still it was no mere ceremonial role. Kylane had made a promise, just like Rothe before him, that set Orisian's life at a higher value than his own.

They drank and ate well, the landlord accepting payment from Rothe only after a show of reluctance.

They were given the best rooms in the house. Former residents, Orisian guiltily suspected, had been evicted at short notice. As his thoughts flirted with slumber Orisian found them, to his vague surprise, drifting toward Kolglas. In his mind's eye he gazed upon the castle in the sea and realised that he would be happier to be back home than he had expected. Sleep came quickly and he could not linger upon the realisation.

Lekan Tirane dar Lannis-Haig was running faster than he had ever run before. Terror drove his pounding legs. He flew through the forest as if a pack of wolfenkind were on his trail. He bounded over the uneven ground, staggering but never quite losing his footing. He thrashed through bushes, bramble stems tearing at his clothes. Some large animal, startled by his careering approach, crashed away. He barely noticed.

The fear of what was behind him beat down upon his back like a hammer.

The light was failing. Soon darkness would swallow the forest and then he would be finished, for those who came after him needed the light less than he. Still there was a sliver of hope. He was not certain where he was, or how far he had come, but the track from Kolglas to Drinan could not be much further.

If he could reach that road there might be travellers to give him aid. Failing that perhaps he could still make the safety of Kolglas, flying down a clear and known path. The town must be no more than a few miles to the north. And that, in its way, was a part of his terror: that his pursuers should be so keen for human blood that they would come this close to the garrison of Kolglas. The woodwights had not been this brave, or foolhardy, in many years.

It had never crossed Lekan's mind, as he set out the day before in search of forest meat for his family's Winterbirth celebration, that anything more dangerous than boar or bear could be awaiting him. There had been no Kyrinin in the lands around Kolglas since before his father's days, and though it was common knowledge that the White Owls were raiding in strength through the woods of Anlane further to the east, there had been no strife here save a few horses stolen from hamlets near Drinan.