“I heard you had a disagreement with Aewult’s whore.” Roaric nan Kilkry-Haig had an unpleasant, bitter smile on his face as he spoke.
Anyara avoided his gaze. “I thought she was a singer or something,” she said.
“A dancer, once upon a time I think. Still, she loves his wealth, his glory, not him,” Roaric said with a shrug. “Makes her something of a whore, doesn’t it?”
Lheanor’s son made Anyara uncomfortable. He meant well, she knew. He thought himself a friend and ally of her Blood, and no doubt she could trust him in that. His anger was so raw, though, his character so veined with hostility, that it coloured his every conversation. Anyara suspected that what she saw in him was a distorted reflection of herself as she might have been, had she not learned to hold back bitterness and sorrow by strength of will. She found it ugly.
They rode together down towards the harbour. Coinach was, as always now, at Anyara’s side. Roaric’s Shield boasted half a dozen burly members, and they had taken the lead, barging a path through the crowds of Sea Street. A sealer’s boat had arrived that morning, carrying sick and exhausted survivors of the fall of Glasbridge. Their own flimsy vessel had been driven ashore on Il Anaron’s bleak northern coastline, after drifting, without stores of food or water, for a long time. Roaric meant to see to their care himself, and had invited Anyara to come with him.
“Anyway, I was pleased to hear you had put her in her place,” the Bloodheir continued. “She imagines herself untouchable merely because she shares Aewult’s bed. As if such things counted for anything here. She’d do well to learn a little discretion.”
“I was told Aewult is leaving, in any case,” said Anyara. She had no wish to dwell on her encounter with Ishbel. Even the memory of it made her angry, at both Ishbel and herself. It had been an act of weakness to so deliberately pick an argument with the woman.
“It’s true,” Roaric said, and his pleasure was obvious. “The advance companies of his army have already marched. He’s out at the camp himself, trying to herd the rest into some kind of order. I’ve not seen such a mess of an army in a long time. At least Gryvan knows how to command a host. He didn’t see fit to share that wisdom with his heir, apparently.”
“I don’t envy Taim Narran, when Aewult catches up with him.”
Roaric laughed. “Oh, he can look after himself, your Captain. I’d count myself lucky if I was half the man Taim is. If it’s true, as I heard, that the Shadowhand has gone off on the trail of your brother, it’s him you should be concerned for.”
“Orisian can take care of himself as well,” Anyara said, hoping it was true. The news that Mordyn Jerain had left at dawn, taking only a small company with him up the old Kyre road, had taken everyone by surprise. In truth, she suspected that Orisian would be distinctly unsettled should the Shadowhand catch up with him. “Some of my brother’s companions would probably enjoy the opportunity to tell the Chancellor a thing or two, anyway.”
The Bloodheir looked at her questioningly, and Anyara smiled.
“Yvane. I don’t think you’ve met her.”
Sea Street was broader and longer than any thoroughfare Anyara knew from the Glas valley. There were several grand houses – the homes of rich merchants and Craftsmen, she guessed – but much of its length was lined by shops and yards and stables. Though the day was cold and the air damp, the street was busy. She might be imagining it, but Anyara thought she could detect a certain boisterousness about the crowds that she had not seen before. Nobody here would mourn the departure of the Haig army. One of the Tower’s maids had whispered to her as she prepared to ride out that, only last night, a Taral-Haig spearman who had got drunk in the wrong tavern had been badly beaten. He was found in an alleyway, battered, bruised and stripped naked. The maid had been simmering with excitement as she recounted the rumour.
The quayside itself was, if anything, even busier than Sea Street. Seagulls swept in tight circles above, at least as noisy as the humans below. Anyara had never seen so many vessels: the whole length of the waterfront was lined with everything from fat cargo ships to tiny rowboats. Life and trade continued here in all their variety, no matter what shadows threatened. The crowds were such that people pressed close to the horses. Anyara could sense how uneasy Coinach was becoming. If he was ashamed to have been given the task of standing as shieldman to a woman, it did not show. He was, Anyara was coming to recognise, almost obsessively alert to the slightest hint – invariably imagined, as far as she was concerned – of threat to her.
“The harbour master’s taken your cast-ashores into his own house,” Roaric told her. “They can’t stay there, though. He doesn’t have the space.”
Anyara remembered that house from when she had arrived here with Orisian and the others: the first real warmth and welcome they had experienced since the night of Winterbirth.
“You can almost smell the relief that we’re to see the back of Aewult and his army, can’t you?” said Roaric, gazing out over the lively crowds. “The news has gone around the city faster than a plague of sneezes.”
“It’s good to see more happy faces,” Anyara agreed. “I don’t look forward to Aewult’s return, though. It seems unlikely that he’ll be any more pleasant once he’s got a victory behind him.”
“Oh, I don’t think we’ll see much of him after the fighting’s done. He hates it here. He hates us. Even his desire to gloat, and to grind our faces into the dirt of his triumph, won’t be enough to keep him here. That’ll be a still happier day for us all, when we’re watching his back disappear off down the road to Vaymouth.”
“He’ll be High Thane one day,” Anyara said distantly. “My brother’s master.”
“Perhaps the Black Road will do us a favour and kill him,” Roaric said with a grim smile. “Failing that, we can only wish his father a long life. And that’s not something I’ve said before.”
The people the harbour master had taken into his house were desperate folk: destitute, hungry, half of them sick. Anyara listened to their tales, and offered what comfort she could. She felt more anger than pity. Glasbridge had been a fine town, prosperous and bustling. The Black Road had ruined it, and all of the lives that centred upon it, just as they had ruined so much else. In seeing these shattered people, Anyara saw afresh all the loss and suffering that had been inflicted on her Blood; it was embodied in their thin frames, in their fearful, exhausted faces.
She did not stay long. She promised them that they would be helped, and fed, and have the attention of healers. Roaric assured her they would be given shelter in Kolkyre’s northern quarter, where so many Lannis folk had already congregated. And then she left, taking her anger and distress away lest it should show itself too clearly. It would not help these people, she thought, to see that the sister of their Thane was just as helplessly distraught as they were.
Coinach escorted her back along the harbour and up Sea Street. The Tower of Thrones stood ahead of them, like the last pillar of some immense edifice long ago crumbled away.
“I’d hate to have to live all my life in a place like that,” Anyara said.
Coinach looked up at the soaring tower, but said nothing.
“It’s too old, too… unlike everything else,” Anyara went on. “It feels cold to me.”
“You miss your own home,” Coinach said, turning his attention back to the crowds filling the street. “There’s nothing strange in that.”
“I do miss it. I don’t know how much of a home it’ll be when I return, though. The castle burned. My father – half the people I knew – won’t be there any more. Where’s your home?”
“Now? I don’t know. Wherever you go, my lady. I’m your shieldman.”
Anyara watched him for a moment or two. He did not look at her, but at the dozens of faces that they passed. His eyes ranged over the street scene like a hunter seeking birds in a field.
“Where did you leave from when you marched south with Taim Narran, though?” she insisted.
“Anduran.”
“Were your family still there? When the Black Road came, I mean.”
Coinach shook his head, gave her a short, inexpressive glance. “I have no family to speak of, lady. My father died when I was very young, drowned on the river. My mother, and my sister, died of the Heart Fever.”
“Oh.”
They rode a little further in silence, ascending the long, slow rise of Sea Street. Two men were arguing, facing each other over a broken barrel from which a slick of some dark liquid had spread. They jabbed fingers at each other, spat accusations. Nobody paid them any attention. Anyara took her right hand from the reins and flexed it. There was a bruise across her knuckles. Coinach had taken his task of training her seriously, and it had not been an easy or painless experience.
“You’ll have to stop calling me ‘lady’,” Anyara murmured. “It doesn’t seem right, coming from someone who’s going to be beating bruises into me with a training blade.”
In the dimming light of that dusk, Anyara was on Kolkyre’s northern wall, by the Skeil Gate, to see the last of Aewult nan Haig’s army disappearing up the road that would lead them to Kolglas and beyond. The long column of supply wagons had been out of sight for some time. Now only the rearguard – a couple of hundred mounted Taral-Haig spearmen – could be seen, and they would soon vanish into the distant gloom.
“It’s taken them all day to get themselves out of that camp,” Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig said at her side. “You’d think none of them know that the days grow shorter in winter.”
“They’ll have to stop for the night before they’ve even had a chance to get tired,” Roaric agreed.
Seeing the Thane and his Bloodheir side by side, Anyara was struck by how alike they were in appearance. They were almost precisely the same height, and shared the same wide, firm stance. Lheanor was an old man, Roaric still a relatively young one, but the likeness of their faces would have been enough to tell any observer that they were father and son.
“Aewult’s a fool,” Lheanor sighed. “Still, he should have four or five swords to match against each one of the Black Road’s, so no doubt he’ll have his victory.”
“Unless Taim Narran has already won it by the time Aewult reaches Kolglas,” Roaric said. His amusement at the thought was undisguised. Lheanor shot his son a vaguely disapproving glance. The Bloodheir did not seem to notice it.
“You should have more care what you wish for,” the Thane said. “Or learn to read the currents rather better. If Orisian and Taim Narran cheat Aewult of his glory, we’ll all pay a price, I can promise you. It’s no part of the High Thane’s intent – or that of the Shadowhand – that any Blood but Haig should come out of all this stronger than it went in.”
“I know that well enough,” Roaric muttered. He stared at his feet.
“Come,” Lheanor said, turning to Anyara. “Let us retire to the Tower. This is one night at least when I mean to set aside worries about the past or the future. Whatever perils remain, today we are relieved of the burden of hosting uncomfortable guests. Those who remain are welcome, and we can feast amongst friends.”
They walked together back towards the Tower of Thrones, the three of them surrounded by more than a score of shieldmen and attendants. The streets were emptying out with the approach of night, but those who were still abroad stood aside without protest as the Thane processed through his city. Lheanor walked slowly – whether through age or weariness, Anyara was not sure. She matched her pace to his. For all his talk of setting aside worries, his demeanour was not that of a man with a light heart.
“Do you really think there will be trouble, if Aewult feels my brother’s cheated him of something?” Anyara asked him.
“There might be,” Lheanor said softly. “It’s not so much Aewult’s anger that concerns me, as what channel the Shadowhand might dig for it. The Chancellor and the High Thane are not well known for resigning themselves to disappointment.”
“You didn’t tell Orisian to stay here, though, did you?”
“No. I’m an old man, and one with more than a trace of fear clouding his eyes. I have no right to try to dissuade a young Thane whose Blood is fighting for its life from whatever course of action he chooses. Anyway, we – your Blood and mine – have an army of quarrels with Haig already. One more will make little difference.”
“He would have listened to your advice, I’m sure.”
Lheanor gave her a kindly smile. “I did give him some, though not on the matter of staying here. But whatever the subject, he needs it less than he – or you – might imagine. He’s no fool, your brother. He gave me some advice of his own, and it was welcome. And wise.”
The Thane hung his head then, and watched the cobblestones flowing beneath his feet as he walked. He appeared disinclined to expand upon what had passed between him and Orisian. Anyara restrained her curiosity. She could not guess what advice her brother had seen fit to give this powerful old, man. But then, she reflected with a touch of sadness, Orisian was Thane now. He had ceased to be just her younger brother, who she could by turns tease and protect. Now, he stood at the head of the Blood. He could march away into strife and leave her behind; he could exchange advice with Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig; he could choose to risk the enmity of the High Thane himself. Everything, all the world in all its smallest details, had changed since the night of Winterbirth. Even Orisian.
They followed the flagstone path up the mound, through the wintry gardens, and into the Tower of Thrones.
Lagair Haldyn sat with his wife, both of them sullen and uncommunicative. They formed a cold island in the lapping water of merriment, their eyes resolutely downcast. Roaric was glowering at the Steward.
“I don’t know why they don’t just leave, since they make their boredom so obvious,” the Bloodheir muttered under his breath.
Anyara glanced over at Lagair. He had a slab of meat impaled on his knife, and took a bite from it as she watched. He caught her eye and flicked her an unconvincing smile before turning to his wife. An air of disapproval hung about the two of them, Anyara thought. Perhaps they were offended by the way the departure of the Haig army was being marked. If so, their stubbornly glum presence at this feast served as an effective reminder that Gryvan oc Haig was never truly absent; the High Thane’s shadow was not removed merely because his warriors had marched on.
“I don’t suppose they’ll stay much longer,” Anyara said to Roaric. “Just long enough to remind you they’re still here.”
“No, no,” Lheanor was crying in exasperation. “I want wine, more wine.”
A harassed girl, her efforts to fill the Thane’s beaker with ale thus rebuffed, hurried away. She looked, to Anyara, as though she was close to tears. Lheanor rattled his empty cup on the table and cast about for someone who could give him what he wanted. Ilessa, his wife, laid a gently restraining hand on his arm. He calmed at once.
“Some sickness, a disturbance of the guts, has sent half the kitchen girls to their beds,” he explained to Anyara. “We’ve had to borrow hands from everywhere else. There’s stable boys carving meat and washerwomen baking bread. Most of them have no idea what they’re doing.”
Now that it was pointed out to her, Anyara could see that the servants rushing about the hall did not have the usual air of proficiency. She could see old women and red-faced men, boys carrying overladen plates. As she watched, two of them almost collided in their haste to keep the supply of food and drink flowing.
“It’s bad luck to have so many fall sick,” she murmured.
Lheanor grunted. “Life’s way of reminding us that no day is ever so sunny that a little cloud may not appear. Still, it’s no great trial. There’ll be a few sore feet and aching backs by the end of the night, that’s all.”
Coinach was sitting at the near end of the table running down the length of the hall. Anyara watched him trying to fish something out of a flagon of ale that stood before him. He had half-risen from his bench, and wore a frown of concentration as he chased whatever had fallen in there with a finger. He looked, Anyara thought, like some ordinary village boy just then.
Someone further down the table was picking out a tune on a whistle. The melody danced its shrill way up and up, accompanied by shouts and laughs of encouragement, then collapsed in a flurry of missed notes. There was mocking applause.
“Ah, here we are,” Lheanor said. An old woman – short and a little hunch-shouldered – had brought a jug of wine and was refilling his cup.
“Do you see, Anyara?” the Thane said with as broad a smile as Anyara had seen on him since she arrived in Kolkyre. “Us old folk have our uses still. It took an old, wise head to find me my wine. How long since you’ve served at table here, Cailla?”
The woman edged away from the table, clearly unwelcoming of such attention.
“Many years, sire. I keep to the kitchens these days.”
“Yes. You served me when I first ate in this hall as Thane, though. I remember.”
Cailla nodded and headed off with the empty jug. Someone set a fresh loaf of bread down on the table in front of Anyara and she caught the rich, hot smell of it. It was a smell she loved, but it carried some bitter memories with it now: the kitchens in Castle Kolglas, where rows of loaves would stand cooling; the hall there, where her father would never again feast as Lheanor did now. She was not even certain if that hall survived. Everyone said that the castle in the sea had burned, but how much of it was ruined she did not know.
Those thoughts occupied Anyara for a time. She ate sparingly, watching all that happened and feeling very much alone. She almost wished that she could sit alongside Coinach on the benches of the long table. However warm and welcoming Lheanor and the others might be, Coinach was the only one of her Blood who was here. No matter how little she knew of him, that one fact was enough to mean that they shared something important.
The meat and bread were cleared away. It was a messy, clumsy process, since so many of the servants were new to it. Eventually, though, the platters of sweet cakes and dried fruits, honey and oatbreads, began to emerge from the kitchens. The mood of the hall softened. Thoughts were drifting towards sleep. Anyara could feel weariness settling over her, and wondered whether tonight she might be granted a dreamless, gentle slumber.
She heard Lheanor make a contented, approving noise in his throat, and turned to look. Cailla, the aged kitchen maid, was leaning over the Thane’s shoulder, setting down a bowl of stewed apples. She did it carefully, with a deftness that belied her years. Anyara’s head began to turn away. Her eyes lingered for only an instant, but it was long enough to see – if not, at first, to understand – what happened next.
Cailla was straightening. Her right hand slipped smoothly beneath the cuff of her left sleeve and drew something out. Lheanor was glancing up at her, smiling, even as he reached for his cup of wine. The thing that Cailla was holding caught a spark of yellow light from the torches. She made a sudden movement. Lheanor jerked in his chair; his cup went flying. Roaric turned to look. Beyond the Thane, Anyara saw Ilessa’s old, kind face as she too glanced round. Anyara was frozen, paralysed by incomprehension. Her mind stumbled over what her eyes told her. Ilessa’s features were stretching themselves into a mask of horror.
Roaric was starting to move, surging up. Cailla was reaching, thrusting her knife at the Bloodheir’s face. Roaric dodged the blow. Ilessa’s mouth was open, screaming or wailing. Roaric bore Cailla backwards and down. Anyara’s stare swung back onto Lheanor, and stayed there.
The grey-haired Thane of the Kilkry Blood was slumped limply, sinking. His head lolled to one side. He was looking at Anyara, his eyes quite still and clear. And his blood was pumping out of the wound in his neck, spilling on his shoulder and down his chest and onto the table, a terrible dark red flood that did not stop.
There was a cacophony then. An eruption of sound and movement that overwhelmed the senses. Within it, distinct amongst the welter of noise, Anyara could hear a rhythmic pulse, like the slow, wet beat of a drum. It was Roaric, hammering Cailla’s head against the stone floor.
V
Anduran was seething, boiling with the masses of the Black Road. They had filled the half-ruined city, spilled out over the walls and sprawled across the surrounding fields. In their thousands, they swarmed like flies drawn to the remains of a great dead beast. Half the city had been burned, but even the gutted shells of buildings had been occupied if they offered so much as a fragment of shelter. Hundreds of tents had sprung up in the fields outside the walls. Every farmhouse within sight of the city had become the heart of a new canvas settlement; every barn held more men and women than horses.
Coming up towards the city from the direction of Grive, Wain nan Horin-Gyre was struck by the impression of disorder. She saw little sign of discipline or organisation. Most of the camps she passed had no banners to proclaim their Blood, no real warriors at all. The tents had been pitched apparently at random. She saw several that would be thrown down by the first severe wind; others that would soak their occupants in a finger’s depth of water as soon as any heavy rains came. Dozens of campfires were burning, but there was no evidence that there had been much collection of firewood. People had gathered what they could from abandoned houses or the little clumps of trees and now preferred to savour the warmth rather than lay in the stocks to last them all through the night.
There were exceptions to the general air of carelessness. Wain led her warriors past one squat grey farmhouse that had been taken over by the Children of the Hundred. A raven-feathered banner was planted outside it. Smoke was rising from the chimney, and horses were being watered at a trough. A pair of Inkallim were standing outside sheds, guarding precious cattle to judge by the lowing that emanated from within. Their expressions blank, they watched Wain and her company pass.
She knew how strange – alarming even – her companions would appear to these observers. Aeglyss and his White Owls walked behind her own Horin-Gyre warriors. It was those Kyrinin that drew every eye as they came closer to Anduran itself, and Wain could see the hostility in every face. People came to the side of the road, scowling. She heard mutterings of contempt, anger. These were the ordinary folk of the creed, she reminded herself, drawn from all the Bloods of the Black Road: farmers, fishermen, hunters and craftsmen. Their faith was burning hot, or they would never have left their distant homes to come and fight here. And their hatred of woodwights was ingrained, unquestioning.
Wain turned her horse, ready to tell Aeglyss that his inhuman companions should wait out of sight. Even as she did so, someone threw a stone. It fell amongst the White Owl warriors. Another followed almost at once, and then a third. A thick crowd jostled itself closer on either side of the road, pressing up towards the fifty or so Kyrinin. There were angry shouts. The White Owls reacted quickly, silently. They backed into a tight clump, facing outwards, Aeglyss safe in its heart. Spearpoints bristled like the quills of a porcupine.
“Get back!” Wain cried as she urged her horse on, but the noise from the mob perhaps drowned her voice out.
A stout, pale man of middle years hacked at one of the Kyrinin spears with a little axe. The shaft of the spear dipped, swung and jabbed out in a single fluid movement. The point punched into the man’s shoulder. He howled and stumbled back into the press of bodies.
“Scatter them,” Wain shouted to her Shield, and drove her own horse into the midst of the crowd. She slipped one foot from a stirrup and kicked out. The warriors of her Shield, ploughing through the throng, were less restrained. She glimpsed swords rising and falling.
“They are under our protection,” she cried at the backs of the fleeing figures that were suddenly all around.
She set her own warriors around the knot of Kyrinin: a wall of horseflesh and iron. Aeglyss looked up at her and smiled.
“A warm welcome,” he murmured.
There was something so profoundly arrogant in the casual smile, the almost dismissive tone, that Wain’s hand tightened on the reins. Even now, after hours of turning the question over in her mind, she did not understand what held her back. Why not reach down and strike this halfbreed creature? Why not just kill him and all his woodwights? And yet, and yet… There was a bright, fierce intensity in his half-human eyes. His air of powerful intent, firm will, was like a protective cloak thrown over his shoulders. When he made her the object of his full attention, when he held his penetrating gaze fast upon her, she could feel it on her, inside her. Sometimes, vanishingly faint, she thought she could hear, within her mind, the sound of what raged in him: a muted roar, as of an immense cataract muffled by distance. However nagging her misgivings, however persistent the undercurrent of fear, when she looked at him she saw opportunity; possibility. He had served a purpose before, when he had opened the way through White Owl lands for the Horin-Gyre army. Now, clearly, he had changed. He had become… more. Therefore what greater purpose might he now serve, in the remorseless unveiling of fate’s course?
“Wain?” Aeglyss said. “Are you all right?”
She shook herself, uncertain how much time she had lost to thought. Uncertain, for a moment, whether all of the thoughts that ran through her head were wholly her own. Was it her imagination, or did confusion, distraction, surround Aeglyss like a miasma of the mind?
“Your White Owls are liable to be cut to pieces before we reach the city,” she said. “Send them away. They can surely find some woods to hide in until you return.”
Aeglyss raised an eyebrow and looked at the Kyrinin warriors gathered around him.
“But this is my spear a’an, commanded by their Voice to remain at my side. It is no light duty. They take it most seriously.”
“You’re the one who claims to wield such great power,” Wain muttered, hauling her horse around and away. “Persuade them to accept the parting. I can’t protect them, or you, if they come further with us.”
The scene inside Anduran was very different to that beyond the walls. The city had been claimed by the Inkallim, and by their quiet purposefulness. Riding through its streets, Wain saw more of the dour ravens than she had ever seen in one place before. The last time anything more than a handful of Battle Inkallim had taken the field had been precisely thirty-three years ago, when hundreds of them had marched with the army that Wain’s doomed uncle had led through the Vale of Stones to die beneath the walls of Tanwrye. Marched, but not fought. The warriors of Horin-Gyre had been slaughtered while that company of Inkallim looked on. The cruel reversal fate had worked was not lost on Wain: her Blood’s betrayers then might be its saviours now.
Aeglyss was walking a little way behind her. Wain’s Shield rode, at her command, on either side of him; whether to protect him or her, she had not been sure even as she gave the order. In the halfbreed’s footsteps came the one White Owl Kyrinin who had refused to be parted from him. It was the powerful, elaborately tattooed man that Aeglyss had identified as the son of the White Owl Voice. Hothyn, Wain now knew he was called. All of the other woodwights had departed, after an extended and – to Wain’s ears – rather agitated appeal from Aeglyss. She had sent a few of her own warriors to escort them, in the hope of preventing any further disturbances. Hothyn, though, had simply stood there, watching Aeglyss in silence.
“He will not go,” Aeglyss said when Wain pressed the issue.
“You could make him, if you wanted to.”
“I probably could. I’m not minded to do so.”
It was typical of the halfbreed’s manner, ever since Wain had found him at the ruins of Kan Avor: an easy arrogance, and a reticence about his intent and his standing with the woodwights. But she had consented to Hothyn’s presence. She had seen enough to know that there might be bargaining to be done, here in Anduran. There was a question, unresolved, of control and influence. The Battle Inkall was clearly present in numbers, but where were the warriors of Gyre, and the other Bloods? Who commanded the masses of commonfolk? The army that their dead father had given to her and to Kanin to lead was now a broken, exhausted thing. If they hoped to make their voice heard in whatever was to follow, making it clear they still had hold of the White Owl Kyrinin would do no harm.
Wain left most of her warriors in the great square at Anduran’s heart, and went on towards the castle with only her Shield, and with Aeglyss and Hothyn.
The courtyard of Castle Anduran was crowded. There were Gyre warriors scattered across it, tending to horses, cleaning weapons, or just sitting in silent groups on the cobbles. The figures that caught Wain’s attention, though, were the Inkallim: twenty or thirty of them, standing by the front of the main keep. Shraeve was there, of course. She looked up as Wain drew near, staring, giving no sign of welcome.
Two men stood apart from the others, deep in conversation. One was clad in the dark leather of the Battle Inkall, his black-dyed hair hanging down over his shoulders. The other, older and broader, with a weather-roughened face and a rather battered chain-mail jerkin, had hide boots with long brown feathers sewn on at the calfs. Wain knew them both, though neither well, and their presence told her most of what she needed to know about how things stood, both here in Anduran and back beyond the Vale of Stones.
Fiallic, the Inkallim, was Banner-captain of the Battle. He was second only to Nyve in the hierarchy of that Inkall, and was assumed to be the First’s most likely successor. It was said that he was the greatest warrior the Battle had produced in a hundred years. He had, if Wain remembered rightly, won the rank of Banner-captain in the shortest, most one-sided trial of combat the Battle had witnessed in half a century. The other man was Temegrin nan Gyre, a cousin of Ragnor’s and Third Captain in the High Thane’s standing army. He was widely called – at his own insistence – the Eagle, but his reputation hardly merited such a noble association. Wain had never heard of him winning any victory, save for the slaughter twenty years ago of some Tarbain villagers who had abandoned their homes and set out to march into the east rather than adopt the creed of the Black Road.
As she strode towards the two men, brushing past Shraeve without acknowledging her, Wain had to suppress a twinge of disappointment. If Temegrin was the best that Ragnor oc Gyre would offer in support of this war, the High Thane was making little effort to conceal his lack of enthusiasm. Unless the Eagle had been improbably elevated in status, he would be commanding at most a couple of thousand Gyre warriors: not much more than a token force. For the Banner-captain himself to be here, by contrast, spoke of total commitment on the part of the Battle. Such a divergence of intent between the Gyre Blood and the Inkallim did not bode well. And it did – as Shraeve had implied before she left Glasbridge – suggest that the ravens meant to make this war their own.
Temegrin glanced up as she drew near. He looked to be in poor humour.
“Greetings, lady,” he rumbled.
She gave him a curt nod, then straightened her back and lifted her chin a fraction. She was almost as tall as Temegrin, and did not intend to appear anything other than his equal. In the last few weeks she had, she suspected, seen more fighting than he had in his whole life.
Fiallic the Inkallim faced her with a more welcoming expression. He had surprisingly gentle eyes. They gave a misleading impression of his nature, she was certain.
“Banner-captain,” she said. “We never thought to see the Battle field such strength. I am pleased to find you here.”
“I imagine you are,” Fiallic said with a faint smile. “Shraeve tells me your own strength is all but spent.”
“It is.” Wain saw no point in denying it. “But we hold Glasbridge still. Much remains possible, if fate smiles upon us.”
“Yes. Shraeve told me that as well.”
“We’ll save talk of what’s possible for later,” muttered Temegrin irritably. “We’ve enough to worry about in the now without turning to the hereafter. The High Thane’s command was to raze Tanwrye, and that’s done. I’ll not consent to any discussion of further adventures until I know more of what we face.”
“I doubt our enemies will grant us much time for discussion,” said Fiallic in a soft voice.
“We expect an assault on Glasbridge at any time…” Wain began, but Temegrin cut her short, chopping the air with his hand.
“Enough. We’ll not discuss this out in a courtyard for every ear to listen. And why is your brother not here, anyway? I’d thought he would be the one to deal with these matters.”
Wain ignored the implied insult, shedding it with a twitch of her shoulders. “I share the burden of command with him. You can be assured that I speak with his authority as well as my own. And, as I said, there is likely to be bloodshed in the next few days. One of us had to remain.”
Temegrin grunted, apparently unconvinced.
“I had heard your alliance with the White Owls was a thing of the past,” murmured Fiallic.
Wain glanced at him, and found him looking beyond her. She turned her head, and saw Aeglyss and Hothyn standing there amidst her Shield. Many of the other warriors gathered in the courtyard were watching them, though the na’kyrim and Kyrinin themselves seemed unperturbed by this hostile attention. Aeglyss, Wain saw, had his eyes fixed upon her. She felt a tingle, like the brush of invisible fingertips, run down her neck.
Temegrin followed the line of Fiallic’s gaze and made a thick, deep sound of disapproval.
“That alliance should be a thing of the past,” the Eagle said. “What were you thinking, to bring a woodwight and a halfbreed here?”
Wain set her back to Aeglyss once more. Both Temegrin and Fiallic continued to stare at the silent na’kyrim and his inhuman companion. She wondered what they saw there. Did they, like her, feel Aeglyss’s presence as an almost physical weight bearing down on their senses?
“That’s another matter best discussed elsewhere,” was all she said.
“Now, then,” growled Temegrin. “Come.”
He stamped up into the keep, his feet punishing the steps for his foul mood. Fiallic followed. Wain glanced at Aeglyss, and was caught on the hook of his eyes. Not so much as a tremor disturbed the immobility of his lips, yet she knew what he wanted; what he required of her. She gave a single, sharp nod to summon him and Hothyn after her.
“I didn’t mean for these… these to join us,” protested the Eagle as he, Wain and Fiallic settled into chairs around a fine circular table. The walls were partly panelled with dark wood. It might have been one of Croesan’s private chambers once.
“You question their presence in my company,” Wain muttered. “You can see for yourself. Judge for yourself.” She could not keep a trace of irritation from her voice, though it was directed at herself as much as anyone. She should not have brought Aeglyss in here. It was the act of a fool, no better than jabbing a sleeping bear – or eagle – with a stick. Yet she had done it, and matters would fall out now as fate saw fit.
“I don’t need to judge anything. A woodwight and a halfbreed? They’ve no place in this room, and no place in the company of the faithful.”
“Oh, that’s an old song,” whispered Aeglyss. He was standing behind Wain. She half-turned, meaning to tell him to be silent, but somehow the words stuck in her throat.
“You know…” the na’kyrim cocked his head as he spoke, his interest plainly caught by the thought he meant to express, “everything I see, everyone I meet, it seems to me that I have seen it, met them, before. I do not understand it, but everything, and everyone, tastes… familiar.”
“I will not have our time wasted by some half-wight who-” Temegrin growled menacingly.
“You, for example,” Aeglyss interrupted him. “The Eagle. I know nothing of you, yet I know this: your heart does not burn with hunger for the remade world. You find this world, this life, more to your liking than one true to the creed should, perhaps.”
Wain could clearly see the storm of fury that rose within Temegrin. It blushed his cheeks, knotted his brow, bared his teeth. But before that storm broke, Aeglyss laughed.
“Do you deny it?” he demanded of the Eagle through his laughter, and the words were like corded whips that lashed from him to Temegrin and coiled about the warrior’s throat, his chest. The air quivered at the sound of them and Wain flinched despite herself. Even impassive Fiallic narrowed his eyes and winced.
Temegrin was straining, yearning to pull back from whatever it was that burned in the na’kyrim ’s grey eyes. But he was held. Beads of sweat were on his forehead. Wain could hear his teeth grinding together. Her skin was crawling, her mouth dry. She felt only the side eddies of whatever torrential flow Aeglyss had turned upon Temegrin, yet her head spun, her mind tumbled out of her grasp.
Then Aeglyss grunted and turned away, dropping his gaze to the floor.
“No, you do not,” he murmured.
Temegrin the Eagle slumped in his chair. His chest heaved – a few wild breaths – and then slowed. He regained his composure.
“What… what monstrosity is this you’ve brought into our midst, Wain?” he rasped.
“Wait,” said Fiallic. His tone admitted no possibility of dissent or disobedience. He was watching Aeglyss, though the na’kyrim had drifted away from the table now, and was examining some wooden panelling on the wall. “There will be no more talk, no more discussion of any kind, in this room until the halfbreed has removed himself. Or is removed. The wight, too.”
And there, Wain thought, is the true face of the Banner-captain of the Battle Inkall. There was more threat, more danger, in the Inkallim’s cold, level voice than Temegrin could ever imbue his bluster with.
Yet Aeglyss kept his back to them. It was if he had been struck deaf, or was some open-eyed sleepwalker. He laid his spidery fingers, with their long, clouded nails, on a dark, scratched panel, caressing it. Hothyn was staring at Wain. It was an empty gaze, without threat, without even comprehension as far as she could tell.
“Aeglyss,” Wain said, and he straightened and turned to her. He regarded her with raised, questioning eyebrows, like some willing servant awaiting instruction.
“Leave us,” she said. “Wait outside with my Shield.”
He nodded, and left the room without a word. Hothyn went too: a great, lithe hound at the heels of his master, Wain thought. Only then, as it slowed, did she realise how fast her heart had been beating. Only as she unfolded her hand in her lap did she realise she had made a fist of it. She began to rub and turn the ring on her index finger.
“You will have to explain the company you keep,” said Fiallic to her with an incongruous smile. “My ignorance of his kind is vast in its scale, but your halfbreed is… disturbing.”
“My Blood was short of allies in this undertaking” – she shot a pointed glance in Temegrin’s direction – “so we had to find them where we could. Through Aeglyss, we have bent the White Owls to the service of the Black Road. They have proved useful, and may do so again. Aeglyss has pledged hundreds of their spears to our cause. And you have seen for yourself that he has certain other talents. I cannot explain them, or him, but I am disinclined to set aside such possible advantage merely because you – any of us – find one man unsettling.”
“I understand. But I was told your brother had already disavowed this alliance. Something has changed, apparently. Or is this a decision you have made without him?”
“Never mind disavowing,” Temegrin snapped before Wain could reply. “He attacked me. I’ll see him dead for that. I want him…”
“I saw no attack,” Fiallic murmured.
“What?” the Eagle cried. “The man’s a… a mongrel. Unnatural! Not fit to serve the creed no matter what his uses. I will have -”
“You will have the wisdom to leave to the Lore the determination of what, or who, is fit to serve the creed,” the Inkallim said flatly. “Theor sent Goedellin with us for just such purposes.”
Temegrin’s eyes narrowed, and Wain detected hatred in that fierce expression. The Eagle had been humiliated by Aeglyss. It left him with a blister of anger on his heart that might be dangerous. Anger, Wain had always been taught, was an emotion to be resisted. It could too easily become bitterness or resentment at fate’s inevitable course.
“Goedellin?” she asked, eager to tease out the threads of power and influence, and to avoid discussion of Aeglyss if she could.
“An Inner Servant of the Lore,” Fiallic said. “The First esteems him highly. He accompanied the Battle on our march, with a number of his colleagues.”
Wain nodded. Whether Temegrin – or his distant master, Ragnor oc Gyre – liked it or not, the Inkallim meant to be masters of this war, then. The Battle would lay claim to its muscles, the Lore to its heart.
“The Lore has no place in the conduct of wars,” Temegrin muttered, though his voice betrayed the fact that it was an old argument, already lost. “I carry the High Thane’s authority here.”
“You should spend more time amongst the host gathered outside this city,” said Fiallic. “If you did, you would know that we none of us carry the authority that matters here. All those people out there follow the commands of their hearts, of their faith, not those of any captain. This is a righteous war. That is the only authority the thousands acknowledge; the only command that drives them.”
Temegrin snorted in contempt. “You ravens, always spouting pieties. If there’s no authority to be claimed, your own actions are a mystery. You think I don’t know you’ve got your captains out there organising the commonfolk into companies? That you’ve been doing it ever since Tanwrye? Hundreds, isn’t it? One Inkallim to command each hundred?”
Fiallic shrugged. “There must be some structure. I can spare the warriors to lead such companies; perhaps if Ragnor had given you more spears to bring south, you could have done the same.”
Temegrin hammered the table with his fist. “Enough! I bear a warrant of authority from Ragnor oc Gyre, that he put into my hands himself. You will not mock that. And you will not question the High Thane’s intent in my presence.”
Fiallic scratched his cheek, meeting Temegrin’s furious glare with calmness. The Inkallim pushed his chair back and rose. “I meant neither to mock nor question. You hear more than I speak. Perhaps this discussion is best postponed until a time when tempers run less hot. I imagine Wain would appreciate some food after her journey.”
Wain got to her feet as quickly as she could without appearing over-eager. Though she was not hungry, she welcomed any excuse to leave the Eagle’s company. It was, in any case, clear that whatever Temegrin might hope or imagine, the Children of the Hundred held the rudder of this war. Until she knew more of their intent, Wain would gladly postpone further argument.
Her Shield were waiting outside. Aeglyss and Hothyn were with them. The na’kyrim had sat down on the cobblestones, resting his back against the wall. His eyes were closed. Hothyn stood staring up at the castle’s battlements, or perhaps at the clouds beyond.
“Come,” Wain said. “There’s food in the hall.”
The hall in Castle Anduran’s keep was in a state of some disorder. In one corner was a pile of wreckage – the shattered remains of tables – that was being used as firewood. Several of the windows had been smashed in during the final assault on the castle; blankets had been tied over them. One of the walls bore a great black smear of grimy soot. The few intact tables and benches were crowded, but most of the warriors in the hall were sitting on the floor. Some, Wain saw as she picked her way between them, were even asleep, curled up under jackets or capes. All of them looked to be of the Gyre Blood; there were certainly no Inkallim here, and none of the few Horin warriors she and her brother had left here as garrison.
Children hurried back and forth, carrying food and drink for the castle’s new masters. They were orphans or captives, Wain guessed: Lannis waifs put to work. She looked about her while her Shield cleared some benches to make space for her. The Gyre warriors looked tired, lethargic. Perhaps Temegrin had imagined that whoever held this castle would hold the entire valley. If so, Fiallic’s Inkallim were evidently out in the streets of the town and the fields beyond, proving him wrong.
The food the children brought for them was simple and sparse. Wain watched Aeglyss as she tore at a slab of almost stale bread. The na’kyrim seemed to have little appetite. Hothyn refused even to touch what was offered him. Dozens of stares were upon them, Wain knew, most of them no doubt hostile or suspicious. She did not care. Her Blood, not Gyre, had paid the death-price that fate demanded for this castle. She had been out there in the courtyard, sword in hand, to see the Lannis-Haig Thane cut down; she had herself slain his daughter-in-law and grandson high in this very keep. She had more right to sit and eat in this hall than any of the Eagle’s lackeys.
She stared down at the surface of the table.
“You will not interfere in any discussion of mine again,” she murmured.
Aeglyss glanced at her. “Will not? Am I one of your followers, then, Thane’s sister? To be ordered this way and that at your whim?”
He spoke softly. As far as Wain could tell, no one – not even her Shield packed in along the opposite side of the table – would hear what they were saying. No one, she corrected herself, save perhaps Hothyn with his keen Kyrinin ears; but she had seen no sign that the woodwight understood the language of the Bloods.
“You think yourself more than that?” she muttered angrily.
Aeglyss pushed away the platter that had been placed before him.
“Whatever I’m following, it’s no warrior maiden. And it won’t be the ravens or Ragnor’s tame eagle, either. You’ll see. Your eyes will open.”
“Your arrogance outruns your importance,” Wain hissed, struggling to keep her voice down, “Already I regret not killing you at Kan Avor. Is that what you want?”
Only now did she look at the na’kyrim, fixing him with the glare that had cowed so many others before him. But he met her eyes with his own: grey, implacable. His slender hand slipped over hers, and though she meant to push him away, her arm was no longer subject to her will. There were shadows moving in his eyes, or perhaps behind them.
“Ignorance excuses all failings,” he whispered, “in the greatest and most noble just as in the most lowly.”
Wain could feel warmth inside her hand. It spread as if from some gentle ember buried deep in her flesh.
“You mistake past truths for those of the present, Thane’s sister. It is easy to forgive, for you were not there when the world changed. You did not see me upon the Stone.”
Heat tingled beneath the skin of her forearm, winding its tendrils over her muscles, crawling up and around her elbow. She imagined herself pulling away from this creature who wore the semblance of a man, yet she did not – could not – move. She was distantly aware of the drone of surrounding conversations, of the clatter of plates and tankards, but it was those stone-coloured eyes that seemed in that moment to contain all the world. And they held her, drew her close, even as her mind sought to deny them.
“I am a gift to you,” Aeglyss said. “Call it fate if you like, or fortune, but never imagine that nothing has changed. You needn’t fear men like Temegrin. Not now. He has been… exceeded. There is no strength – of arms, of will, of authority – that cannot be exceeded.”
“I never feared him,” murmured Wain. The sounds she made were so faint, more like breaths than words. The warmth was in her neck, blushing up, cupping her chin, reaching for her lips, her cheeks.
And then Aeglyss withdrew his hand from hers, and the warmth was gone. She fought a wave of dizziness. She could suddenly hear the babble of voices that filled the hall, feel the grain of the table top beneath her fingers. She brought her hands together, searching for the reassuring solidity of her rings. Aeglyss was looking over his shoulder now. Wain turned her head, and found Fiallic standing there.
“I thought we might have a quiet word,” the Inkallim said. He was ignoring Aeglyss. The na’kyrim turned back to the table.
“If you wish,” said Wain.
Fiallic gestured to the open door of the hall. “Will you walk with me? Just for a moment or two.”
Wain hesitated, and silently cursed herself for doing so. She hated uncertainty, despised those who allowed it to gain a foothold in their thoughts, yet found herself more and more afflicted by it. She rose and strode away from the table, away from Aeglyss. Fiallic walked at her side.
“You seem distracted,” the Inkallim said. “Does what you have found here in Anduran displease you?”
“I am fine,” Wain snapped.
“Very well.”
They threaded a path through the warriors scattered across the hall’s floor. Gyre spearmen shuffled aside to let them pass, but did so grudgingly. Wain was tempted to kick one of them, or tread on a tardy hand.
Fiallic ushered her out into the courtyard. It was quieter now than it had been before. A wagon loaded with sacks of horse feed was rumbling in through the castle gate.
“You saw that Temegrin mislikes the path that fate is following,” Fiallic said. He watched the wagon drawing to a halt. Men began to haul the sacks off.
“So much was obvious,” Wain said.
“You are aware that the High Thane would not even have sent his Third Captain if the Battle Inkall had not marched to your aid? He made no move until the commonfolk began to follow us across the Stone Vale.”
Wain had no intention of being drawn so easily into criticism of Ragnor oc Gyre. That a Banner-captain of the Battle should tread upon such ground was in itself worrying: it spoke of dangerous, unpredictable times.
“How many swords does Temegrin command?” she asked.
“A thousand and a half. Five hundred of them are Tarbains. Well-trained and disciplined, by the standards of Tarbains, but Tarbains nevertheless. It was we Inkallim, and the army of farmers and herdsmen and fishermen, that took Tanwrye, not the swords of Gyre.”
Wain grunted non-committally.
“My advice to you would be to have a care in your dealings with the Eagle,” Fiallic continued. “His master in Kan Dredar does not like this war. We do not know what orders Temegrin was given, but it is unlikely they were the same as those I received from the First of the Battle.”
“And they were?” asked Wain. She strove to sound only mildly interested. There was something unsettling about one of the ravens being so forthcoming. She had never known there to be anything other than unity of purpose between the Inkallim and the Gyre Blood; not in her lifetime, at least.
“To pursue this conflict as far, and as fiercely, as fate will allow. To make myself an ally of your Blood. To oppose any effort – from whatever quarter – to deny the full expression of whatever outcome fate has in mind for us.”
“And what outcome is it that you expect? What do the Children of the Hundred hope for?”
Fiallic smiled. The wagon, now empty, was being slowly wheeled around. The huge horse that drew it looked weary; its head was hanging low. Little birds were already dropping down from the battlements to scavenge feed that had leaked out from the sacks.
“I expect nothing,” Fiallic said. “I wait to be shown what the Black Road has in store for us. We have the beast by the tail now. It will either turn upon us, and consume us, or drag us in its wake to glory.”
“The beast?”
“War. There is no surer way to test fate.”
“No,” said Wain quietly.
“You should speak with Goedellin.”
Wain hung her head for a moment. Those strange, intense moments with Aeglyss had left her inexplicably tired. Her arms and shoulders felt slack, lifeless; her thoughts were sluggish.
“Be assured that the Children of the Hundred are your friends,” Fiallic said with measured precision. “The Horin-Gyre Blood has earned the gratitude of all in whom the faith burns brightly. If there are others whose gratitude is more… grudging, well, all the more reason to secure whatever bonds of friendship are offered. Goedellin represents the First of the Lore here. Whatever Temegrin may think, there is none more central to matters than Goedellin. There is none whose friendship could do more to secure your Blood’s position.”
“Very well. Very well.”