At first the nightmares did not come. She floated in darkness, insu-lated. Something sissed softly. Laughter tinkled then faded away. Mistressss.
The word roused her and she swung away from it. Far in the distance water lapped against rock.
A massive and unknowable presence turned in the darkness, watchful, cunning, waiting. It had bided in the shadows for hundreds of years, and its time was drawing close.
Wake.
Ash inhaled deeply, opened her eyes. All was dark and still Memories slid into place and she realized she was in water. The sun had set and the sky holes let in no light. "Lan?" she called, not expecting an answer. Kicking, she propelled herself to the edge of the bowl. The stone felt cool against her palm. Cool and good. She waited a moment, gathering her strength, and then pulled herself out of the pool.
Water streamed down her body. Her legs felt like wet sticks, barely able to take her weight. Tentatively, she took a step across the stone in the direction of the entrance, seeking a flat surface with the pad of her toe. She knew the direction of the stairs, but she and Lan had been bathing in one of the middle wells and that meant that other wells stood between her and a way out. Crouching, she felt her way along the rim. The pressure on her knees made them shake in spasms, and she doubted if she could hold her weight this way for long. The hot water had robbed her strength.
Slowly, she edged between the pools. Mist purled under her chin. Water bubbled. The blackness was absolute, but she found she wasn't afraid of it. She just wanted to be gone from the wells. An enchantment had been practiced here. Twelve of the thirteen wells: Lan had tricked her with a spell to make her sleep.
Finally her toes and fingers detected a broad shelf of rock. Collapsing onto her butt she just sat for a while to think She decided she had been very stupid. After seeing what was wrapped around the tang of Lan's arrowhead she should not have entered the water. She should have been afraid, not flattered.
The thick lock of hair she had given to the Far Rider had been divided in two, and half of it had been bound to the arrow. And she thought she knew what had happened to the other half.
It had made a creature of the Blind explode. There had been no heart-kill. Lan's second and third arrows had penetrated shoulder flesh. She had made the mistake of assuming that his first shot, the one she had not seen, had hit the creature's heart. She had been dead wrong. Lan Fallstar was no Raif Sevrance.
He had been experimenting that night in the woods, testing to see if the girl he had stumbled upon on the south bank of the Flow could really be what he suspected: the Reach. He had never been interested in her safe passage to the Heart Fires. The only thing he cared about was whether or not she was useful. And he had wanted to keep her isolated until he knew for sure.
Now what?
Ash rose to standing. Her body was cooling and she felt some of her physical strength returning. She would not think about their love-making, the betrayal of her flesh. I initiated it, she reminded herself sharply. The fault was mine.
Casting around in the darkness, she attempted to locate her clothes and weapons. Nothing was there. Not even her boots or dress. This had been carefully planned, she realized. Right down to the dark of moon. He might have been planning it from that very first night, when he had paid a terrible toll in burned flesh. Ark Veinsplitter and Mal Naysayer had never put red-hot knives to their arms—and they'd had many costly tolls to pay.
The burned flesh was the price of killing a Reach. The hair on her head alone had to be worth five hundred Unmade deaths.
Do not come here in the flesh. The creatures themselves had warned her. She was rakhar dan, Reachflesh, and they loved and feared her above all things. Ark Veinsplitter had predicted that Sull would come after her. Now she understood why. Her flesh destroyed maer dan. It was the other side of the double-edged sword. She brought them into the world by creating a breach in the Blindwall. She could send them back.
They had never attacked her directly. Not the unmade wolves on the bridge, nor the carrion feeder in the woods. Why had she not realized that until now? Perhaps their swords of voided steel could harm her, but she no longer believed their flesh could.
Was she worth more dead then alive? How many Unmade could her blood, teeth, hair, and nails destroy? She did not know the answer. Ark Veinsplitter and Mal Naysayer could have slain her, yet they had chosen to protect her instead. Daughter, Ark had called her. It was not the word of a man who wanted her dead.
Ash crossed toward the stairs. Hands and feet probing the darkness, she searched for edges, walls, the risers of steps. A leathery shuffling sound came from above; the bats were taking flight. They did not touch her as they flew up the stairs, though she felt the air they displaced riffle against her naked body. Their silent calls pricked the membranes in her ears.
As she reached the top step, she became aware of a slight increase in light. She was on the ground floor of the fortress now and her eyes could make out the dim and blocky forms of walls. No moon may have risen but the stars provided a thin blue veil of light. When she looked up she could see streaks of cloud and constellations, and the strange, leaflike forms of the bats.
Her nipples hardened in the raw air and every hair on her body rose upright. The snow beneath her feet did not seem cold and she walked easily upon it, barely making a sound. She was moving along a corridor framed by tall walls. When the side of her foot hit a fallen stone, she crouched and pried the square piece of rock out of the snow. Her thoughts were oddly calm and disconnected. He will try to slay me. He is probably watching as I walk along this corridor. All the advantages are his.
Yet she was a Reach and she was just beginning to understand that was something to be feared. She, Ash March, was something to be feared.
Could she call them forth, the creatures of the Blind? What could she do that would make the Sull fear her?
Weighing the rock in her fist, she stepped into the open space of Fort Defeat's inner ward. Nothing moved in the blue-black darkness. No wind penetrated the double walls. No mist snaked across the ground. The snow glowed dully as it froze. Ash cut toward the gate that led to the outer ward. Nothing within her wanted to stand still.
The gate was a black hole in the wall. As she passed through it her gaze searched for the place where Lan had made camp. He had cleared the snow earlier and the patch of dark ground caught her eye. The horses were gone. The packs were gone. Lan Fallstar was nowhere to be seen.
Her body was growing cold now. Water in her hair was stiffening to Ice, and she could feel the gooseflesh tightening her skin. Slowly she walked toward thdjteircle of cleared ground. Something was happening m her stomach; muscles were contracting and relaxing in strange ways. Her left arm began to feel light, as if it were still in water. The right one was weighed down by the rock. Two men stepped from the shadows to meet her. Metal slithered against leather as they drew longswords. They were silhouettes in the darkness. She could not see their faces or details of their weapons and dress. Two men. Two swords. This was a ceremonial slaying.
Neither warrior was Lan Fallstar; she knew it for a certainty. He had summoned others to do what he would not do himself. Had he invoked them that first night? Or the other morning when he returned to camp with the coati?
No matter, Ash said to herself, feeling her left hand begin to float from her body. I will destroy them all
They stepped to meet her: pack shadows armed with two-handed swords. Starlight ran along the edges of their blades. Breath fogged. Ash felt a muscle high in her right arm spasm as it fought the weight of the rock.