“Can’t say for sure, but he’s the one the dead man and the others deferred to. His most vivid memory, besides Snowdance bearing down on him, was of this man talking. They were on a dock somewhere, about to board ship.”
Vaelin stared at both sketches for a long time, hoping for a note from the song, hearing nothing.
“Shall I show master Marken to the meal tent?” Alornis said, breaking his concentration.
“Yes, of course.” Vaelin offered a smile of gratitude to Marken. “My thanks sir.”
“We are here to help, my lord.” The big man got to his feet with a groan, rubbing his back. “Though I wish this war had come a few years earlier.”
He found Nortah at the butts they had arrayed along the riverbank. He had brought his own bow, an Eorhil weapon similar to their old Order strongbows. It seemed his skill had actually increased since their service, the shafts flying towards the target with unerring speed and precision, the other archers pausing to watch the spectacle.
“You’ve drawn an audience,” Vaelin observed.
Nortah glanced at the onlookers and sent his last arrow into the centre of the butt. “A small one. You don’t have many archers in this little army.”
“Mostly hunters and a few veteran Realm Guard from the settlements,” Vaelin acceded. “How would you like to be their captain? Perhaps pick out some likely extra hands from the recruits.”
“As my lord commands.”
“I don’t command anything from you, brother. In fact I’m sorely tempted to send you home.”
Nortah’s expression became sombre, upending his bow and resting his hands on the tip. “It wasn’t only Lohren who had a dream, brother. She just dreamt of you fighting many men with bows. She thought it so exciting. Sella . . . Sella dreamt she watched us die. Me, Lohren and Artis, and the twins yet to be born. All of us, taken, tortured and slaughtered before her eyes, as Nehrin’s Point burned. If you had heard her screams, you would know why she sent me and why I came, though I relish no part of what we are about to do.”
“Can you . . .” Vaelin hesitated then made himself say it. “Do you think you’ll still be able to kill?”
Nortah raised an eyebrow and for an instant the bearded teacher disappeared, replaced by the caustic youth with the bitter tongue. “Do you? I have a shiny new sword. Yours seems to be wrapped up and hidden from the world.”
Maybe I’m worried unsheathing it will loose something worse than an invading army. He left the thought unsaid and changed the subject. “These companions of yours. I know Weaver’s power, and I’ve seen what Marken can do. What of the other two?”
“Cara can call the rains, though you’ll want to think long and hard before asking her to do so. The effect is . . . dramatic, but the consequences unpredictable.”
“And the boy?”
“Lorkan can’t be seen.”
Vaelin frowned. “I can see him.”
Nortah just smiled. “It’s . . . difficult to explain. No doubt, before this is over there’ll be plenty of opportunity for a demonstration.”
“No doubt.” Vaelin reached out to clasp his brother’s hand, finding the grip strong, and warm. “I’m glad you’re here, brother. Be quick about picking your men. Tomorrow we march for the Realm.”
CHAPTER THREE
Lyrna
Water . . . Falling . . . A slow, regular liquid beat, birthing an echo.
Am I in a cave? Later, she would remember this as her first coherent thought as Queen of the Unified Realm. Her second being the fact that she was now queen. Her third would be a silent wail of despair at the agony searing its way into her mind, summoning horror and making her thrash and scream . . . The flames spouting from the Volarian woman’s hands, Malcius, Ordella, Janus, little Dirna, the stench of her skin and hair as it burned . . . She choked as the scream spluttered to silence. There was something in her mouth, something hard and unyielding clamped between her teeth. She tried to pull it free but found her hands unwilling to respond, restrained somehow. It occurred to her that she should open her eyes.
Darkness, broken by a dim shaft of light, hazy shapes huddled in catacombs. A cave after all. But why is it swaying so? And why do chains dangle from the ceiling?
A jerking movement from one of the huddled shapes commanded her eye, a loud retching reaching her ears along with the spatter of vomit. Silence returned, save for a faint whimpering, the occasional jangle of linked metal, and the creak of protesting wood.
Not a cave. A ship.
“So,” a soft, gravelled voice muttered in the shadows to her left. “The screamer’s awake again.”
Her eyes peered into the shadows, seeking a face, seeing only the dim outline of a shaven head, blocky and gleaming from the light above. A grunt as the blocky head tilted. “Don’t look so mad now. Pity, you’ll soon wish you were.”
Lyrna tried to speak, but found the words caged by whatever was clamped into her mouth, secured in place by leather straps about her head. She looked down at her hands, seeing a faint glint of old metal on her wrists. She gave a tug, chains snapping taught, the shackles chafing her skin.
“Overseer thought you were a nuisance,” the voice said. “Wanted to toss you overboard. The master wouldn’t have it. My Volarian isn’t good, but I think he said something about breeding stock.”
Lyrna heard no malice in the voice, just indifferent observation. She grimaced as the pain returned, closing her eyes as tears seeped forth, the agony sweeping across her scalp and face in waves. Her skin, her hair, burning . . .
She abandoned herself to the sobs that wracked her, collapsed to the damp wooden planking, shuddering in sorrow, drool flowing around the gag. It could have been hours, or days even, before exhaustion took her. She was always grateful there were no dreams lurking in the void that claimed her.
She jerked awake as something hauled on the gag, straining her neck as she was dragged to her knees, staring up at a very large man in a black leather jerkin. He leaned close, eyes staring into hers in appraisal, grunting in satisfaction then reaching behind her, undoing the straps and removing the gag. Lyrna coughed, retching and gasping, then choking off as the large man enclosed her face with his hand, pulling her eyes back to his. “No . . . screaming,” he said in broken Realm Tongue. “You. No more screaming. Or.” He raised something in his other hand, something long and coiled with an iron handle. “Understanding?”
Lyrna managed to move her head in a fractional nod.
The large man grunted again and released her, moving away, boots splashing in the bilge water. He paused to nudge a huddled shape with the handle of his whip, voicing a tired curse, leaning down to unlock the shackles with the key hanging around his neck then barking something over his shoulder. Two men, not quite so large, appeared from the shadows to lift the shape between them, carrying it towards the steps above Lyrna’s head, the only feature of the hold to be fully bathed in the light from above. Lyrna glimpsed a face through the gaps in the steps as they took the body aloft, a woman, her features slack and pale in death, but Lyrna had a sense she had been pretty.
The overseer, as Lyrna had intuited him to be, found two more bodies amongst the host of huddled shapes, both also dragged aloft, presumably to be cast overboard. She couldn’t tell how many others were shackled here, the furthest reaches of the hold were too shrouded in shadow, but counted over twenty within view. A space of ten yards square, holding twenty. The average Volarian slave ship is eighty yards long. There are perhaps one hundred and fifty people in this hold.
Off in the gloom the key rattled anew followed by a fearful sob. The overseer appeared again, pulling a stumbling figure behind him, a girl, slender, young, dark hair veiling her face, tears audible as she was led aloft.