‘Storm!’ yelled Corban, running to the path’s edge.
He couldn’t see anything, just the glimmer of water here and there, a fast-flowing stream by the sound of it.
‘Storm,’ he shouted again, thought he saw a flash of something white moving fast — in the stream’s grip. There was no way down so he turned, began running along the bank’s edge, following what he thought, hoped, had been Storm carried in the flow of the stream. He left Ventos lying in a pool of his own blood, didn’t even know if the man was alive or dead.
He ran in the dark, tripped and fell, pushed himself back up, feeling panic growing in his gut, a pressure building.
He heard something — the scuff of feet? He looked about wildly — had he been heard from the camp, missed? Then he heard a sniffing, the whine of dogs, more than one, and figures were appearing out of the darkness. Two, three, more movement at the edge of his vision. A man strode towards him, tall, a scar running down his face. Memories flared, of the Darkwood.
Braith.
Then hands were grabbing him.
Corban felt a sharp pain in his ribs. He jerked his hands, but they were bound tight and there was a cloth over his head.
‘I’m going to take your hood off now. Make a sound and it’ll be the last thing you do. Feel that?’ Whoever it was poked him harder with the blade in his ribs.
‘Yes,’ he said inside the sack.
The sack was pulled off and Corban blinked in the light. It was early, the sun weak and pale, but it still made his eyes water.
He had been walking half the night, it seemed, or stumbling, hands before and behind pulling, dragging, steering him onwards.
Braith stood before him, leaner than Corban remembered him, deep lines in his face, around his mouth and eyes, almost matching the silver of his long scar. Around them men were sitting, drinking from water skins, chewing on biscuit or strips of meat. A few hounds sat close to Braith’s feet.
‘I know you,’ Corban said, his voice a croak.
‘And I you. You’ve grown up a bit since the well at Dun Carreg.’
‘Last time I saw you, you were running away,’ Corban said. ‘In the Darkwood.’
‘Oh aye,’ Braith said. ‘Are you sure you want to be reminding me of that? Angering me, right now?’
Corban shrugged. He felt angry himself, more than anything else right now. His journey through the night had been filled with other things — panic, worry, fear. For Storm, for the people he’d left behind.
‘Was it you that shot Queen Alona in the back?’ He took a deep breath, hearing Gar’s voice in his mind. Control your emotions. Use them; don’t let them use you. That’s a quick way to getting killed. Could he rouse Braith enough to get him to make a mistake?
Braith stepped closer, twisted his knife a little. ‘That’s enough, now. Think I’ll put that sack back on your head.’
‘Camlin told me about you,’ Corban said.
‘Did he now? How is Cam?’
‘He’s well. A good man.’
‘Good? He was a thief and murderer, last time I saw him. And a turncoat.’
‘He chose to do the right thing. He still does, unlike you,’ Corban said.
‘Right has a habit of changing, depending on who’s paying your wages,’ Braith said with a frown. ‘Eat this. You’ll need your strength.’ He put a biscuit in Corban’s bound hands.
‘Where are you taking me?’ Corban said.
‘Someone wants to see you,’ Braith said.
‘The same that Ventos spoke of.’
‘Ventos? The man you left for dead. No, I believe he worked for another.’
‘And you work for Rhin, unless you’ve changed masters since the Darkwood.’
Braith just smiled at him. A humourless thing.
Cywen is Rhin’s prisoner. Maybe we’ll end up in a cell together. He thought of his mam and Gar, all the others, waking to find him gone.
‘They’ll find you, and when they do, they’ll kill you,’ Corban said, loud, for the others to hear.
‘I don’t think so. We’ve a good start on them, and I know these mountains well. Grew up in them as a bairn. Think I know a few paths that your pretty guide doesn’t.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ Corban said. ‘Storm will find me, and lead the others.’
‘She’s dead, lad. We saw her fall. There’s no way she’s coming out of that water. Too cold, too fast. Lots of sharp rocks.’
‘No.’ Corban refused to think on that.
‘I’ll leave the bag off, see if you can behave.’
You need me to go faster, you mean.
Braith organized his men, a dozen that Corban could see, though then some others joined them from further down the trail — scouts, he supposed. Braith prodded Corban and they set off. Just then a sound rang out, distant but clear. It echoed against the cliffs, long and mournful. A wolven’s howl.
Muttering spread amongst the men, and Corban saw Braith scowling, looking back over his shoulder.
Corban smiled. ‘Dead, is she?’
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
CYWEN
Cywen looked forward into the distance. A snow-capped mountain loomed on the horizon, dominating the range they had been following steadily north. Lower down its slopes she could just make out the walls of Dun Vaner, where torchlight flickered from battlements and windows, little more than pinpricks in the distance. Queen Rhin’s stronghold and, originally, the seat of power of the Benothi giants. She could not help but look at the slopes and plains before her, imagining what it had been like for her ancestors to battle the gathered strength of the Benothi here. And her ancestors had won, Cambros striking down Ruad, the giant king. A memory sprang to life in her mind, of old Heb telling the tale of that battle to a crowd gathered on the meadows below Dun Carreg, on the day Marrock had been handbound. She could see herself, sitting on the grass with her mam and da, Corban and Gar, all of them entranced by Heb’s story. And now Heb was dead, so Veradis had said. From nowhere she felt emotion swell in her chest, her vision blurring with tears.
‘Time to stop, child,’ Alcyon said from beside her. He’d appointed himself her guardian. I preferred Veradis. At least I could have a conversation with him. It had been over a ten-night since they had left Veradis at the giants’ road, and she had spoken only a few sentences since then, to the reluctant giant or the Jehar Akar.
She climbed from Shield’s back and led him to the makeshift paddocks that the Jehar built every night, unbuckled his girth and took his saddle and rug from his back, then rubbed him down and checked his hooves, all the while under the watchful eye of the giant. When she was finished he led her to the edge of the camp, looking for a spot to make their camp. They passed the draig paddock, where Cywen glimpsed Nathair climbing from the back of his long-tailed mount. Soon after, she heard the bellows of an auroch as the draig ripped into it. The same happened every night, Nathair leading an auroch into the draig paddock for it to hunt and eat. By morning there would be little left but patches of fur and some bone.
Alcyon found a spot to his liking, beneath a copse of withered hawthorns. He set about making a fire, hanging a pot over it and boiling up some water. This had been their routine every night, Alcyon reluctant to share a place round a fire with any others.
That suited her just fine. They sat in silence, Cywen stroking Buddai.
‘Here,’ Alcyon said, handing her a bowl of porridge. She let it warm her hands first, then blew on it as she spooned some into her mouth.
‘Of all the things the tale-tellers say about you giants, they never mention how good your porridge is,’ she said.
Footsteps thudded and she looked up to see the other three giants walking by. Alcyon’s dark eyes tracked them.
‘Why don’t you like them?’ Cywen asked.
‘They should be with their clan, not here.’
‘But you’re here.’
‘They have a choice. I do not.’