He dismissed them shortly afterwards, Dahrena waiting with a bundle of papers in her arms.
“Petitions?” he asked.
She gave an apologetic smile. “More every day.”
“I’ll happily defer to your judgement if you’ll set aside those requiring my signature.”
“These are those requiring your signature.”
He groaned as she placed the bundle on the map table. “Did your father really do all this himself?”
“He would read every petition personally. When his eyes started to fail him he’d have me read them aloud.” Her fingers played on the papers. “I . . . could do the same for you.”
He sighed and met her gaze. “I can’t read, my lady. As I assume you deduced at our first meeting.”
“I do not seek to criticise. Only to help.”
He reached out and took the topmost scroll, unfurling it to reveal the jumble of symbols on the page. “Mother tried to teach me, but I was always such a restless child, unable to sit in a chair for more than a few moments, even then only if there was food on offer. When she did force me to try I just couldn’t make sense of the letters. What she saw as poetry or history was a meaningless scrawl to me, the letters seeming to jump about on the page. She kept at it for a while, until eventually I could write my name, then the sickness took her, and the Order took me. Little need for letters in the Order.”
“I have read of others with similar difficulty,” Dahrena said. “I believe it can be overcome, with sufficient effort. I should be glad to help.”
He was tempted to refuse, he had little time for lessons after all, but the sincerity in her voice gave him pause. I have won her regard, he realised. What does she see? An echo of her father? Her fallen Seordah husband? But she doesn’t see it all. His gaze was drawn to the canvas bundle in the corner of the tent, still unwrapped despite all the woeful tidings. Every time his fingers touched the string he found his reluctance surging anew. She has yet to see me kill.
“Perhaps for an hour a night,” he said. “You could tutor me. A welcome diversion after the day’s march.”
She smiled and nodded, taking the scroll from him. “‘The Honourable Guild of Weavers,’” she read. “‘Begs to inform the Tower Lord of the scandalous prices being charged by crofters on the western shore to maintain the supply of wool . . .’”
◆ ◆ ◆
An encampment at night was always the same, regardless of the army or the war. Be it desert, forest or mountainside, the sights, smells and sounds never altered. Music rose from amongst the canvas city, for every army had its quota of musicians, and voices lifted in laughter or anger as men came together to gamble. Here and there the quieter knots of close friends clustered to talk of home and missed loved ones. Vaelin felt a certain comfort in the familiarity of it all, a reassurance. They become an army, he decided, walking alone along the fringes of the camp, beyond the glow of the many fires. Will they fight as one?
He halted after a few moments, turning to regard the saw-toothed outline of the tree-line a short distance away. Skilled with a blade, but not so light on his feet, he thought as the blood-song’s note of warning began to rise. “Do you have something to discuss with me, Master Davern?” he called into the shadows.
There was a pause then a muffled curse, Davern the shipwright appearing out of the gloom a moment later. He wore his sword at his side, hand tight on the handle. Vaelin could see a faint sheen of sweat on his upper lip, however his voice was even as he spoke. “I see you continue to go about unarmed, my lord.”
Vaelin ignored the comment. “Have you rehearsed this moment?”
Davern’s composure suffered a visible jolt. “I do not understand . . .”
“You intend to tell me your father was a good man. That when I killed him I shattered your mother’s life. How is she, by the way?”
Davern’s mouth twitched as he fought down a snarl. The moment stretched, Vaelin sensing the man’s desire to abandon pretence. “She burned with hatred for you until the day she died,” the shipwright said finally. “Gave herself to the sea when I was twelve years old.”
The memory returned in a rush of unwelcome sensation. The rain, beating down in chilled sheets, the sand streaked with blood, a dying man’s whisper, “My wife . . .”
“I didn’t know that,” he told Davern. “I’m sorry . . .”
“I do not come for your apology!” The young man took a step forward, his snarl unleashed.
“Then what do you come for?” Vaelin asked. “My blood to wash away all the grief? Remake those shattered lives? Do you really imagine that’s what you’ll earn here, rather than just the noose?”
“I come for justice . . .” Davern advanced further, placing his free hand on the scabbard, ready to draw, halting as Vaelin voiced a laugh.
“Justice?” he said as the mirth faded. “I looked for justice once, from a scheming old man. He gave it to me, and all I had to give him was my soul. All that I did for you and your mother. Didn’t Erlin tell you?”
“Mother said he lied.” There was a faint note of uncertainty in Davern’s tone, but his snarl remained in place, the note of warning taking on a deeper pitch. A lifetime’s hatred can’t be dispelled with a few words.
“Erlin sought to soften her anger, with lies,” Davern went on. “To deflect me from my cause, and my cause is just.”
“Then you should kill me now and have done.” Vaelin spread his hands. “Your cause being just.”
“Where is your sword?” Davern demanded. “Fetch your sword and we’ll settle this.”
“My sword isn’t for the likes of you.”
“Curse you! Fetch your sw—”
There came a faint snapping sound from the tree-line, no louder than a breaking twig.
Vaelin charged Davern, catching him about the waist, his sword half-free of the scabbard as they tumbled to the earth. The air made a groaning sigh a foot above their heads.
Davern thrashed, kicking out as Vaelin rolled away. More snaps from the tree-line. “Roll to the right!” he barked at the shipwright, jerking himself to the left as at least ten arrows thudded into the earth about them.
“What?” Davern shouted in confusion, stumbling to his feet.
“Down!” Vaelin commanded in a fierce hiss. “We are attacked.”
Another snap and Davern threw himself flat, the arrow a black streak against the dim sky.
Not him, Vaelin realised, eyes fixed on the infinite void of the trees. The song’s warning wasn’t for him.
“Run for the camp,” Vaelin told Davern, removing his cloak. “Raise the alarm.”
“I . . .” Davern looked about wildly, still hugging the ground. “Who?”
“Longbowmen, if I’m any judge.” Vaelin tossed his cloak into the air, seeing it dance as the shafts tore through it. “Run for the camp!”
He surged to his feet and ran towards the trees, counting to three then dropping as another volley whistled overhead, rising and charging again, weaving from side to side until the first of them came in sight, a hooded figure rising from the long grass no more than ten feet away, bow half-drawn. Vaelin darted towards him, dropping and rolling, the arrow missing by inches. He surged to his feet, delivering an open-handed blow to the archer’s chin, felling him instantly. Another charged from the left, bow abandoned for a long-bladed knife. Vaelin snatched up the fallen man’s bow and brought it round in a wide arc, the stave connecting with the attacker’s head as he closed. The man stumbled back, slashing wildly. Vaelin stood, remaining still for a heartbeat then diving to the side as an arrow flew past to bury itself in the stumbling man’s chest.
Another archer rose before him as he ran to the right, bow fully drawn. Fifteen feet, Vaelin judged. Too far and too close. A shadow appeared behind the archer, a silver flash of metal cutting him down with a single stroke. Davern turned from the corpse a
s a hooded figure came for him, raising a crescent-bladed axe. Davern ducked the blow and slashed at the man’s side but he was clearly no amateur and blocked the stroke with the haft of his axe, catching the shipwright with a backhanded blow that sent him sprawling.
Too far, Vaelin thought again, sprinting towards the hooded figure as he raised his axe for the killing blow.
Something inhuman growled in the darkness, a great shadow flicking across Vaelin’s path and the man with the hatchet was gone. Hooves drummed the earth and a rider came from the shadows, the long staff in his hand whirling as he sent another hooded figure senseless to the earth. More growls, yells of terror and running feet . . . then screams, mercifully short, five of them, one after the other.
“Brother,” Nortah said, reining in beside him, eyes wide with concern and blond hair trailing in the wind. “Lohren had a dream.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Davern was emerging from the healing tent when Vaelin arrived the next morning, a large bandage covering his nose and a spectacular bruise colouring the surrounding flesh.
“Broken then?” Vaelin asked.
Davern glowered at him and gave no response.
“I owe you thanks,” Vaelin went on. “Or did you save me so you could kill me later?”
“Dis changesh noddin,” Davern stated.
“Pardon?”
Davern flushed, licked his lips and tried again with slow deliberation. “Thish changes nothing.”
“Ah.” Vaelin nodded and moved past him. “Good to know. You have men to train, Sergeant.”
Inside he found his sister applying a poultice to the face of a well-built man with a shock of black hair and a bruise on his jaw that made Davern’s seem positively dull. He sat on a stool, flanked by Captain Adal and one of his North Guard, wrists and ankles constrained by shackles, the chains jangling as he twisted towards Vaelin, face full of hate, spittle coming from his mouth as he tried to voice his threats. Alornis took a backward step, wincing from the fury on display.
“His jaw’s broken,” Brother Kehlan said from the other side of the tent where he was grinding herbs in a pestle. “Who knew the teacher had such a strong arm?”
“I did.” Vaelin moved to Alornis’s side, touching her arm in reassurance. “You frighten my sister, sir,” he told the shackled man.
The man grunted something at him, spouting more spittle, a bead of it finding Vaelin’s face. “Quiet!” Adal barked, cuffing the man on the back of the head.
“Enough of that!” Kehlan said. “I’ll have no torture in this tent.”
“Torture, brother?” Adal scoffed, then leaned down to whisper in the shackled man’s ear. “I think I’ll wait for him to heal first. Wouldn’t want it over too soon.”
“Secure him to the main post and leave us,” Vaelin said. Adal gave a reluctant nod and did as he was bade, roping the man to the post and leaving with his comrade. “And you, brother,” Vaelin told Kehlan.
“I said no torture,” the old brother insisted.
“Come along, brother.” Alornis went to his side and tugged him towards the tent flap. “His Lordship is above such things.” She raised a questioning eyebrow at Vaelin. He nodded back and she gave a grim smile before leaving.
“You’re the only one to survive,” Vaelin told the shackled man, placing the stool before him and sitting down. “The fellow I hit would probably have lived also, but my brother’s war-cat is not always easily restrained.”
The man just maintained his baleful glare. Some fear, mostly hate, Vaelin surmised from the song.
“Ten Cumbraelins arrive on a ship three weeks ago,” he said. “Hunters by trade, hence their bows. Come to the Reaches in search of bear, the furs and the claws fetch a high price and they’re increasingly scarce in the Realm. It was a good story.”
Same fear, same hate, a little grim amusement.
“So,” Vaelin went on. “Gold or god?”
More fear mingling with uncertainty. The man’s brows furrowed, his emotions a jumble for a second then settling on a sense of contempt.
“God then,” Vaelin concluded. “Servants of the World Father come north for the glory of killing the Darkblade.”
The confusion deepening, fear building . . . and something more, an echo . . . no, a scent, faint but acrid, foul and familiar, buried deep in this man’s memory, so deep he doesn’t even know it’s there.
“Where is he?” Vaelin demanded, moving closer, staring into the archer’s eyes. “Where is the witch’s bastard?”
Bafflement, more contempt. He thinks me mad, but also . . . suspicion, an unwelcome memory.
“A man who is not a man,” Vaelin went on, voice soft. “Something that wears other men like masks. I can smell him on you.”
A surge of fear mixed with recognition.
“You know him. You’ve seen him. What is he now? An archer like you?”
Fear only.
“A soldier?”
Fear only.
“A priest?”
Terror, swelling like oil poured on flame . . . A priest then . . . No, no note of recognition. Not a priest. But he knows a priest, he answers to a priest.
“Your priest sent you here. You must have known he was sending you to your death. You and your brothers.”
Anger, coloured by acceptance. They knew.
Vaelin sighed, getting to his feet. “I’m not overly familiar with the Ten Books, as you might imagine. But I do have a friend who could recite them at length. Let’s see if I have it right.” He closed his eyes, trying to remember one of Reva’s many quotations. “‘Of the Dark there can be no toleration amongst the loved. A man cannot know the Father and know the Dark. In knowing the Dark he forsakes his soul.’”
He stared down at the bound man, sensing what he had hoped to sense. Shame.
“You looked into his eyes and saw a stranger,” he said. “What was he before?”
The man looked away, eyes dulling, his emotions quieter now. Shame and acceptance. He grunted, head bobbing as he forced sound through his crippled mouth, spittle flying as he repeated the same garbled word, unknowable at first but gaining meaning with repetition. “Lord.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Put him on a barge to the settlements on the northern coast,” Vaelin told Adal outside. “He’s to be taken far into the forest and released with his bow and a quiver of arrows.”
“What for?” Adal said in bafflement.
Vaelin moved off towards his tent. “He’s a hunter. Perhaps he’ll find a bear.”
Nortah was waiting with Snowdance and Alornis when he got to the tent, the great cat’s purr a contented rumble as she ran a hand over the thick fur on her belly. “She’s so beautiful.”
“Yes,” Nortah agreed. “Pity there are no boy cats for her to make beautiful babies with.”
“There must be, somewhere,” Alornis said. “Her kind would have been bred from a wild ancestor.”
“In which case they’ll be far beyond the ice,” Vaelin said, accepting the cup of water Nortah passed him.
“Did he tell you anything?” his brother asked.
“More than he wanted to, less than I would have liked.” He glanced at the pack Nortah had brought, noting the sword propped against it.
“Lady Dahrena’s gift,” Nortah explained. “One I asked for. A man should have a weapon if he’s to ride to war.”
“War is no longer your province, brother. I sent no recruiters to Nehrin’s Point for a reason. You belong with your family.”
“My wife believes my family will only be safe if we lend our aid to your cause.”
“We?”
“Come.” Nortah clapped him on the shoulder. “There are some people you should meet.”
He led Vaelin to where four people waited on the outskirts of the camp, one of whom Vaelin already knew. Weaver stood
staring at the ground, his usually bland but affable expression replaced by one of deep discontent, his hands constantly twitching at his sides. “Why did you bring him?” Vaelin asked Nortah. “He’s not made for this.”
“I didn’t bring him. He just came, deaf to all entreaties to go home. He’d like some flax, or twine. Anything he can weave really.”
“I’ll see to it.”
“This is Cara,” Nortah introduced the slight girl at Weaver’s side. She was perhaps sixteen with wide dark eyes, stirring a memory of a little girl peering out from behind her father’s cloak at the fallen city.
“My lord,” the girl said in a small voice, eyes continually darting about the camp. Despite her timidity, the blood-song’s greeting was strong. Whatever her gift, Vaelin decided, it has power.
“And Lorkan.” Nortah’s voice held a note of reluctance as he gestured at the young man standing nearby. He was a few years older than the girl and also slim of stature, but had none of her reticence.
“A considerable honour, my lord!” He greeted Vaelin with a deep bow and a bright smile. “Never would I have thought such a lowly soul as I could count himself a comrade to the great Vaelin Al Sorna. Why, my dearest mother would weep with pride . . .”
“All right,” Nortah said, cutting him off. “Talks too much but he has his uses.”
He moved on to the final member of the group, and the most imposing, a large, bearlike man with an extensive beard and a mass of grey-black hair.
“Marken, my lord,” the big man introduced himself in a Nilsaelin accent.
“He may be able to help,” Nortah said. “With your want of intelligence.”
◆ ◆ ◆
The bodies had been placed in a tent on the edge of camp, the few valuables they possessed handed out as payment to the soldiers who would do the grim work of burying them in accordance with Cumbraelin custom. Marken moved to the closest one, a stocky man, as archers often were, his final grimace of terror frozen and incomplete, half his face having been torn away by the war-cat’s claws. Marken seemed untroubled by the gory sight, kneeling and touching his palm to the corpse’s forehead, eyes closed for a second, then shaking his head. “All a jumble. This one was half-mad long before Snowdance got to him.”