Midnight Tides

  ‘You are winded, Trull,’ Binadas observed, ‘and I see distress once more upon your face.’

  ‘There are Letherii moored off the Calach beds.’

  Binadas frowned. ‘I shall not delay you, then.’

  ‘Will you be gone long, brother?’

  The man shrugged, then stepped past Trull, taking the westerly fork of the trail.

  Trull Sengar moved on, through the gate and into the village.

  Four smithies dominated this inland end of the vast walled interior, each surrounded by a deep sloping trench that drained into a buried channel that led away from the village and the surrounding fields. For what seemed years the forges had rung almost ceaselessly with the fashioning of weapons, and the stench of heavy, acrid fumes had filled the air, rising up to coat nearby trees in white-crusted soot. Now, as he passed, Trull saw that only two were occupied, and the dozen or so visible slaves were unhurried in their work.

  Beyond the smithies ran the elongated, brick-lined storage chambers, a row of segmented beehive-shaped buildings that held surplus grains, smoked fish and seal meat, whale oil and harvested fibre plants. Similar structures existed in the deep forest surrounding each village – most of which were empty at the moment, a consequence of the wars.

  The stone houses of the weavers, potters, carvers, lesser scribes, armourers and other assorted skilled citizens of the village rose round Trull once he was past the storage chambers. Voices called out in greeting, to which he made the minimal response that decorum allowed, such gestures signifying to his acquaintances that he could not pause for conversation.

  The Edur warrior now hurried through the residential streets. Letherii slaves called villages such as this one cities, but no citizen saw the need for changing their word usage – a village it had been at birth, thus a village it would always be, no matter that almost twenty thousand Edur and thrice that number of Letherii now resided within it.

  Shrines to the Father and his Favoured Daughter dominated the residential area, raised platforms ringed by living trees of the sacred Blackwood, the surface of the stone discs crowded with images and glyphs. Kurald Emurlahn played ceaselessly within the tree-ringed circle, rippling half-shapes dancing along the pictographs, the sorcerous emanations awakened by the propitiations that had accompanied the arrival of dusk.

  Trull Sengar emerged onto the Avenue of the Warlock, the sacred approach to the massive citadel that was both temple and palace, and the seat of the Warlock King, Hannan Mosag. Black-barked cedars lined the approach. The trees were a thousand years old, towering over the entire village. They were devoid of branches except for the uppermost reaches. Invested sorcery suffused every ring of their midnight wood, bleeding out to fill the entire avenue with a shroud of gloom.

  At the far end, a lesser palisade enclosed the citadel and its grounds, constructed of the same black wood, these boles crowded with carved wards. The main gate was a tunnel formed of living trees, a passage of unrelieved shadow leading to a footbridge spanning a canal in which sat a dozen K’orthan raider longboats. The footbridge opened out onto a broad flagstoned compound flanked by barracks and storehouses. Beyond stood the stone and timber longhouses of the noble families – those with blood-ties to Hannan Mosag’s own line – with their wood-shingled roofs and Blackwood ridgepoles, the array of residences neatly bisected by a resumption of the Avenue, across yet another footbridge to the citadel proper.

  There were warriors training in the compound, and Trull saw the tall, broad-shouldered figure of his elder brother, Fear, standing with a half-dozen of his assistants nearby, watching the weapons practice. A pang of sympathy for those young warriors flickered through Trull. He himself had suffered beneath his brother’s critical, unrelenting eye during the years of his own schooling.

  A voice hailed him and Trull glanced over to the other side of the compound, to see his youngest brother, Rhulad, and Midik Buhn. They had been doing their own sparring, it seemed, and a moment later Trull saw the source of their uncharacteristic diligence – Mayen, Fear’s betrothed, had appeared with four younger women in tow, probably on their way to the market, given the dozen slaves accompanying them. That they had stopped to watch the sudden, no doubt impromptu martial demonstration was of course obligatory, given the complex rules of courtship. Mayen was expected to treat all of Fear’s brothers with appropriate respect.

  Although there was nothing untoward in the scene Trull looked upon, he nevertheless felt a tremor of unease. Rhulad’s eagerness to strut before the woman who would be his eldest brother’s wife had crept to the very edge of proper conduct. Fear was, in Trull’s opinion, displaying far too much indulgence when it came to Rhulad.

  As have we all. Of course, there were reasons for that.

  Rhulad had clearly bested his childhood companion in the mock contest, given the flushed pride in his handsome face. ‘Trull!’ He waved his sword. ‘I have drawn blood once this day, and now thirst for more! Come, scrape the rust off that sword at your side!’

  ‘Some other time, brother,’ Trull called back. ‘I must speak with our father without delay.’

  Rhulad’s grin was amiable enough, but even from ten paces away Trull saw the flash of triumph in his clear grey eyes. ‘Another time, then,’ he said, with a final dismissive wave of his sword as he turned back to face the women.

  But Mayen had gestured to her companions and the party was already moving off.

  Rhulad opened his mouth to say something to her, but Trull spoke first. ‘Brother, I invite you to join me. The news I must give our father is of grave import, and I would that you are present, so that your words are woven into the discussion that will follow.’ An invitation that was normally made only to those warriors with years of battle on their belts, and Trull saw the sudden pride lighting his brother’s eyes.

  ‘I am honoured, Trull,’ he said, sheathing his sword.

  Leaving Midik standing alone and tending to a sword-cut on his wrist, Rhulad joined Trull and they strode to the family Ionghouse.

  Trophy shields cluttered the outside walls, many of them sun-faded by the centuries. Whale bones clung to the underside of the roof’s overhang. Totems stolen from rival tribes formed a chaotic arch over the doorway, the strips of fur, beaded hide, shells, talons and teeth looking like an elongated bird’s nest.

  They passed within.

  The air was cool, slightly acrid with woodsmoke. Oil lamps sat in niches along the walls, between tapestries and stretched furs. The traditional hearthstone in the centre of the chamber, where each family had once prepared its meals, remained stoked with tinder, although the slaves now worked in kitchens behind the Ionghouse proper, to reduce the risk of fires. Blackwood furniture marked out the various rooms, although no dividing walls were present. Hung from hooks on the crossbeams were scores of weapons, some from the earliest days, when the art of forging iron had been lost in the dark times immediately following Father Shadow’s disappearance, the rough bronze of these weapons pitted and warped.

  Just beyond the hearthstone rose the bole of a living Blackwood, from which the gleaming upper third of a longsword thrust upward and outward at just above head height: a true Emurlahn blade, the iron treated in some manner the smiths had yet to rediscover. The sword of the Sengar family, signifier of their noble bloodline; normally, these original weapons of the noble families, bound against the tree when it was but a sapling, were, after centuries, gone from sight, lying as they did along the heartwood. But some twist in this particular tree had pried the weapon away, thus revealing that black and silver blade. Uncommon, but not unique.

  Both brothers reached out and touched the iron as they passed.

  They saw their mother, Uruth, flanked by slaves as she worked on the bloodline’s tapestry, finishing the final scenes of the Sengar participation in the War of Unification. Intent on her work, she did not look up as her sons strode past.

  Tomad Sengar sat with three other noble-born patriarchs around a game board fashioned from a huge palmate an
tler, the playing pieces carved from ivory and jade.

  Trull halted at the edge of the circle. He settled his right hand over the pommel of his sword, signifying that the words he brought were both urgent and potentially dangerous. Behind him, he heard Rhulad’s quickly indrawn breath.

  Although none of the elders looked up, Tomad’s guests rose as one, while Tomad himself began putting away the game pieces. The three elders departed in silence, and a moment later Tomad set the game board to one side and settled back on his haunches.

  Trull settled down opposite him. ‘I greet you, Father. A Letherii fleet is harvesting the Calach beds. The herds have come early, and are now being slaughtered. I witnessed these things with my own eyes, and have not paused in my return.’

  Tomad nodded. ‘You have run for three days and two nights, then.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘And the Letherii harvest, it was well along?’

  ‘Father, by dawn this morning, Daughter Menandore will have witnessed the ships’ holds filled to bursting, and the sails filling with wind, the wake of every ship a crimson river.’

  ‘And new ships arriving to take their places!’ Rhulad hissed.

  Tomad frowned at his youngest son’s impropriety, and made his disapproval clear with his next words. ‘Rhulad, take this news to Hannan Mosag.’

  Trull sensed his brother’s flinch, but Rhulad nodded. ‘As you command, Father.’ He pivoted and marched away.

  Tomad’s frown deepened. ‘You invited an unblooded warrior to this exchange?’

  ‘I did, Father.’

  ‘Why?’

  Trull said nothing, as was his choice. He was not about to voice his concern over Rhulad’s undue attentions towards Fear’s betrothed.

  After a moment, Tomad sighed. He seemed to be studying his large, scarred hands where they rested on his thighs. ‘We have grown complacent,’ he rumbled.

  ‘Father, is it complacency to assume the ones with whom we treat are honourable?’

  ‘Yes, given the precedents.’

  ‘Then why has the Warlock King agreed to a Great Meeting with the Letherii?’

  Tomad’s dark eyes flicked up to pin Trull’s own. Of all Tomad’s sons, only Fear possessed a perfect, unwavering match to his father’s eyes, in hue and indurative regard. Despite himself, Trull felt himself wilt slightly beneath that scornful gaze.

  ‘I withdraw my foolish question,’ Trull said, breaking contact to disguise his dismay. A measuring of enemies. This contravention, no matter its original intent, will become a double-pointed blade, given the inevitable response to it by the Edur. A blade both peoples shall grasp. ‘The unblooded warriors will be pleased.’

  ‘The unblooded warriors shall one day sit in the council, Trull.’

  ‘Is that not the reward of peace, Father?’

  Tomad made no reply to that. ‘Hannan Mosag shall call the council. You must needs be present to relate what you witnessed. Further, the Warlock King has made a request of me, that I give my sons to him for a singular task. I do not think that decision will be affected by the news you deliver.’

  Trull worked through his surprise, then said, ‘I passed Binadas on the way into the village—’

  ‘He has been informed, and will return within a moon’s time.’

  ‘Does Rhulad know of this?’

  ‘No, although he will accompany you. An unblooded is an unblooded.’

  ‘As you say, Father.’

  ‘Now, rest. You shall be awakened in time for the council.’

  ****

  A white crow hopped down from a salt-bleached root and began picking through the midden. At first Trull had thought it to be a gull, lingering on the strand in the fast-fading light, but then it cackled and, mussel shell in its pallid beak, sidled down from the midden towards the waterline.

  Sleep had proved an impossibility. The council had been called for midnight. Restless, nerves jangling along his exhausted limbs, Trull had walked down to the pebble beach north of the village and the river mouth.

  And now, as darkness rolled in with the sleepy waves, he had found himself sharing the strand with a white crow. It had carried its prize down to the very edge, and with each whispering approach, the bird dipped the mussel shell into the water. Six times.

  A fastidious creature, Trull observed, watching as the crow hopped onto a nearby rock and began picking at the shell.

  White was evil, of course. Common enough knowledge. The blush of bone, Menandore’s hateful light at dawn. The sails of the Letherii were white, as well, which was not surprising. And the clear waters of Calach Bay would reveal the glimmer of white cluttering the sea bottom, from the bones of thousands of slaughtered seals.

  This season would have marked a return to surplus for the six tribes, beginning the replenishment of depleted reserves to guard against famine. Thoughts that led him to another way of seeing this illegal harvesting. A perfectly timed gesture to weaken the confederacy, a ploy intended to undermine the Edur position at the Great Meeting. The argument of inevitability. The same argument first thrown into our faces with the settlements on the Reach. ‘The kingdom of Lether is expanding, its needs growing. Your camps on the Reach were seasonal, after all, and with the war they had been all but abandoned.’

  It was inevitable that more and more independent ships would come to ply the rich waters of the north coast. One could not police them all. The Edur need only look at other tribes that had once dwelt beyond the Letherii borderlands, the vast rewards that came with swearing fealty to King Ezgara Diskanar of Lether.

  But we are not as other tribes.

  The crow cackled from atop its stone throne, flinging the mussel shell away with a toss of its head, then, spreading its ghostly wings, rose up into the night. A final drawn out cawl from the darkness. Trull made a warding gesture.

  Stones turned underfoot behind him and he swung about to see his elder brother approaching.

  ‘I greet you, Trull,’ Fear said in a quiet voice. ‘The words you delivered have roused the warriors.’

  ‘And the Warlock King?’

  ‘Has said nothing.’

  Trull returned to his study of the dark waves hissing on the strand. ‘Their eyes are fixed upon those ships,’ he said.

  ‘Hannan Mosag knows to look away, brother.’

  ‘He has asked for the sons of Tomad Sengar. What do you know of that?’

  Fear was at his side now, and Trull sensed his shrug. ‘Visions have guided the Warlock King since he was a child,’ Fear said after a moment. ‘He carries blood memories all the way back to the Dark Times. Father Shadow stretches before him with every stride he takes.’

  The notion of visions made Trull uneasy. He did not doubt their power – in fact, the very opposite. The Dark Times had come with the rivening of Tiste Edur, the assault of sorceries and strange armies and the disappearance of Father Shadow himself. And, although the magic of Kurald Emurlahn was not denied to the tribes, the warren was lost to them: shattered, the fragments ruled by false kings and gods. Trull suspected that Hannan Mosag possessed an ambition far vaster than simply unifying the six tribes.

  ‘There is reluctance in you, Trull. You hide it well enough, but I can see where others cannot. You are a warrior who would rather not fight.’

  ‘That is not a crime,’ Trull muttered, then he added: ‘Of all the Sengar, only you and Father carry more trophies.’

  ‘I was not questioning your bravery, brother. But courage is the least of that which binds us. We are Edur. We were masters of the Hounds, once. We held the throne of Kurald Emurlahn. And would hold it still, if not for betrayal, first by the kin of Scabandari Bloodeye, then by the Tiste Andii who came with us to this world. We are a beset people, Trull. The Letherii are but one enemy among many. The Warlock King understands this.’

  Trull studied the glimmer of starlight on the placid surface of the bay. ‘I will not hesitate in fighting those who would be our enemies, Fear.’

  ‘That is good, brother. It is
enough to keep Rhulad silent, then.’

  Trull stiffened. ‘He speaks against me? That unblooded… pup?’

  ‘Where he sees weakness…’

  ‘What he sees and what is true are different things,’ Trull said.

  ‘Then show him otherwise,’ Fear said in his low, calm voice.

  Trull was silent. He had been openly dismissive of Rhulad and his endless challenges and postures, as was his right given that Rhulad was unblooded. But more significantly, Trull’s reasons were raised like a protective wall around the maiden that Fear was to wed. Of course, to voice such things now would be unseemly, whispering as they would of spite and malice. After all, Mayen was Fear’s betrothed, not Trull’s, and her protection was Fear’s responsibility.

  Things would be simpler, he ruefully reflected, if he had a sense of Mayen herself. She did not invite Rhulad’s attention, but nor did she turn a shoulder to it. She walked the cliff-edge of propriety, as self-assured as any maiden would – and should – be when privileged to become the wife of the Hiroth’s Weapons Master. It was not, he told himself once again, any of his business. ‘I will not show Rhulad what he should already see,’ Trull growled. ‘He has done nothing to warrant the gift of my regard.’

  ‘Rhulad lacks the subtlety to see your reluctance as anything but weakness—’

  ‘His failing, not mine!’

  ‘Do you expect a blind elder to cross a stream’s stepping stones unaided, Trull? No, you guide him until in his mind’s eye he finally sees that which everyone else can see.’

  ‘If everyone else can see,’ Trull replied, ‘then Rhulad’s words against me are powerless, and so I am right to ignore them.’

  ‘Brother, Rhulad is not alone in lacking subtlety.’

  ‘Is it your wish, Fear, that there be enemies among the sons of Tomad Sengar?’

  ‘Rhulad is not an enemy, not of you nor of any other Edur. He is young and eager for blood. You once walked his path, so I ask that you remember yourself back then. This is not the time to deliver wounds sure to scar. And, to an unblooded warrior, disdain delivers the deepest wound of all.’