There in the boat though, wanting the truth, wanting for perhaps the first time in my life to know myself, I would rather have been sat beside a woman who could see right through me.
“Please,” I said, widening my eyes. “I know this will help me to be a better man.”
And like that she fell for it. “If you’re sure, Jalan.” She started to rummage in the covered space beneath the bench.
“I am.” I wasn’t sure of much except that the experience was damned unlikely to make me a better man. I was sure though that it was what I wanted, and getting what I want has always been my main priority. Aslaug says it shows strength of character. I forget what Baraqel called it.
“Here!” She pulled out a long case of polished bone from the locker and sat up. A single rune had been burned into the front of the box. It looked familiar.
“Thorns.” Kara set a finger to the rune in answer to the query in my raised eyebrow. “The first thing we’ll be needing is some blood. And for that-a thorn.” She clicked the case open to reveal the longest needle I’d ever seen.
“Ah,” I said, making to get up. “Perhaps we could do this later.” But Snorri and Tuttugu had crowded around now, both snorting as though I were play-acting for their amusement.
The weight of their expectation pressed me back into my seat. “Ha. As if I were scared of a little needle.” I managed a dry laugh. “Have at me, madam witch.”
“I have to say the incantations first.” She offered a small smile and all of a sudden despite the foot-long needle that sat between us, and the fact she’d promised to meet my next advance with a knife to the balls, I found myself wanting her. She hadn’t Astrid’s voluptuousness or Edda’s slender form, or the prettiness of either. . maybe it was just being forbidden that sparked my lust, but more than that it was the strength in her. Old witches aside, like Skilfar and my grandmother, I’d never met a woman more capable. Like Snorri she had something about her that made it impossible to believe she would ever let you down, ever be afraid, ever run.
Kara lit a lantern. Speaking in the old tongue of the north, she dipped the needle into the sea, then ran it through the flame. She spoke my name in the mix. More than once. It sounded well upon her lips.
“When the needle is blooded you must taste it. Then whatever is to be revealed will come.”
“I’ve tasted my blood before. It didn’t tell me much.” I must have swallowed a gallon of the stuff when Astrid punched me. Once my nose starts bleeding it never wants to stop.
“This will be different.” Again that smile. “Hold out your hand.”
So I did. I wasn’t sure how deep the needle would prick but I steeled myself. Squealing like a little girl probably wouldn’t help me in my new quest to bed her.
Kara took my hand, fingers probing, as if to find the ideal spot. I sat still, content to have her hold my hand, feeling a heat build between us.
“Now. .” She circled the needle over my palm as if searching.
“Ow! Dear God! Sweet Jesu! The bitch stabbed me!” I yanked my hand away, transfixed by the needle that Kara had driven entirely through it in one smooth motion. “Jesu!” Six inches of crimson-beaded steel protruded from the back of my hand.
“Quick! Taste it. The longer you delay the further back the memories!” Kara grabbed my wrist and tried to steer the hand toward my mouth.
“You fucking stabbed me!” I couldn’t quite believe it. Blackness crowded my vision and I felt faint with shock. Curiously there wasn’t much pain.
“Help me with him.” Kara glanced at Snorri and used both hands on my wrist. The bloody needle lurched toward my face. Damned if I was letting her do it though. She’d stab the thing through my mouth given half a chance! I pushed back. “Stop fighting me, Jalan. There’s not much time.”
Snorri lent his strength to the task and a moment later the needle wiped the complaint off my tongue. Kara pulled the steel free then. That’s when it started to hurt-as the needle grated across the small bones in my palm.
“Concentrate now, Jalan! This bit is important.” She clamped my face between her treacherous stabby hands. She probably said some other stuff after that, but by then I’d fainted clean away.
• • •
I’m flying. Or I’m the sky. These things are equal. The day is ending and far below me the land folds, falls, and rises. The mountains still catch the sun, forests sweep out in shadow, rivers run, or dawdle, each according to their nature, but all bound for the sea. The ocean lies distant, crinkled with the dying light.
• • •
Lower.
• • •
The country below runs from plains, green with growing, toward arid hills, stone crested. Trails of smoke lace the air like threads, twisted by the wind. Fields lie blackened where the fire has consumed them. A wood, acres wide, stands ablaze.
• • •
Lower.
• • •
A castle sprawls across a high ridge, commanding views into two valleys that run toward the garden lands. A huge castle, its outer wall thick as a house, taller than trees, punctuated by seven round towers. Enclosed within this perimeter, a small town in stone and Builder-brick, then a second wall, yards thick and higher than the first, and within that, barracks, armouries, a well-house, and a keep tower. The keep I recognize-or think I do. It reminds me of the Ameroth Tower that stands on the edge of the Scorpions, a range of hills straddling the region where Red March, Slov, and Florence meet. I visited the tower once. I must have been ten. Father had sent Martus to be squired to Lord Marsden who keeps his household there. Darin and I tagged along as part of our education. The tower had been the tallest building I’d ever seen. It still is. A work of the Builders. An ugly rectangular structure, fashioned from poured stone, without windows or ornament. I recall that it had been surrounded by rubble and the village lay a mile off, the locals too fearful of ghosts to dwell any closer. Darin and I had ridden the surrounding hills, being still young enough to explore and play. I remember that the rocks thereabouts sported peculiar scorch marks. Geometric patterns fractured into them in ways I couldn’t explain.
• • •
Lower.
• • •
An army stands camped about the castle, arrayed for siege. An army so numerous that the tents of the different units colour the ground like crops in great fields. The horses for their cavalry are corralled in herds thousands strong. Forests have been felled to build the machinery that waits at the foremost edge of the host. Rocks are piled beside each in pyramids ten, twenty, thirty feet high. The throwing arms of trebuchet, catapults and mangols are drawn back, loaded, ready to unleash.
• • •
Lower.
• • •
The stink and the cacophony of the horde are intolerable. Such a press of humanity and animals in such close confines. On the higher ground pavilions stand, decked with crests of arms. The great houses of Slov are there. The high and the mighty have come with their knights and levies. Among the forests of standards are the arms of nobles from Zagre, Sudriech, even Mayar. There cannot be less than thirty thousand men here. Perhaps fifty thousand.
• • •
I’m falling. Falling. Toward the outer wall. Unseen I descend among the troops that crowd the top of the east-most wall tower. There are a hundred archers here, smooth iron skullcaps fluted across the neck, chain-mail coifs, leather jerkins set with iron plates, skirts of overlapping leather strips, iron-studded. I have seen such armour on stands along the long gallery of Roma Hall. As a child I used to hide behind one suit in particular, by the west stair, and leap out to shock the maids.
A scorpion bolt-lobber stands at the front of the tower, aimed out between the crenulations at the distant foe. The operating crew are holding back a respectful distance whilst gathered immediately behind the engine a small group of nobility debate some issue.