‘It’s nothing to worry about, anyway,’ Bos said. ‘Not for us. We’ve faced worse than wolven. Draig-slayers and giant-killers, we are.’
‘That we are,’ Veradis said. His hand dropped to the hilt of his sword and absently stroked it. ‘I’ll drink to that.’
Cheers and laughter rang out, all of them lifting skins of mead.
Cywen had stopped listening, only one thought swirling around her mind. Storm, she thought. It must have been Storm and Corban.
Rain dripped off Cywen’s nose. It had been raining since she woke, a soft, gentle drizzle that slowly seeped into everything, and now it was highsun, though it was hard to judge from the faint glow leaking through the low clouds. She was soaked through. A mist shrouded the land, reducing visibility to a score of paces all around. Veradis and the giant were on one side of her, Bos the other. She was not really paying them any attention, or the rain for that matter. She was consumed by a bubbling excitement mixed with worry, last night’s conversation still fresh in her mind. Storm, Corban, Mam, Gar, somewhere out there, and — best of all — these people, her enemy, were taking her to them. But were they still alive?
‘Why is your King so interested in Ban?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Eh?’ said Veradis, looking at her sharply.
‘Ban — Corban, my brother. Why is he the subject of a king’s attention?’
‘I am not going to discuss Nathair’s thoughts with you,’ Veradis said. ‘He is the High King of the Banished Lands.’
‘So?’ Cywen said. ‘He’s not my King, high or otherwise, and Ban’s my brother. What does he want with him?’
‘Tell me about your brother,’ Veradis said, and she noticed the giant walk a little closer.
‘Ban? What’s there to tell? He can work in the forge — our da was a blacksmith; he asks more questions than there are answers. He’s annoying. He could beat even you with a sword, given half the chance.’
Bos laughed at that. So everyone’s listening now.
‘He can make a poultice and cure an illness, he is loyal to the point of stupidity, his friends love him, I love him. .’ She felt sudden hot tears blur her vision. I’ve never told Ban that. Why am I telling Veradis? She looked at the warrior beside her and felt a sudden swell of suspicion — Is he trying to trick me? To give something away about Ban? — but he was looking at her so openly, no deceit or cunning written upon his face. He is not so old himself, and first-sword to a king. Such responsibility for one so young. She felt her misgiving melt and sighed. ‘He’s just Ban. My brother.’
Veradis nodded thoughtfully.
A mounted figure suddenly appeared — Calidus. He spoke quietly to Veradis and the giant, then turned and rode away, back into the mist.
Veradis and Bos followed after him, Bos snapping a short command back to Cywen to keep up with them.
‘What’s going on?’ Cywen asked.
He ignored her and rode after Veradis and the giant, a group of warriors peeling from the warband to join him. Cywen touched her heels to Shield and cantered after them.
Calidus stood beside Nathair on his draig with a handful of the Jehar surrounding them, and Rhin, accompanied by Conall, watching close by. They were all looking in the same direction. Then Cywen saw something out in the mist as three big figures appeared, wrapped in fur and leather. Giants. She saw some of the eagle-guard reach for their weapons.
‘Hold,’ Nathair snapped, raising a hand.
The giants came nearer, approaching Rhin and Nathair. Their leader held a long spear, whilst one of the two behind had an axe slung across his back. With shock Cywen realized that the third one was female, although really the only difference was that she did not have a long, drooping moustache like the other two. Cywen glanced between these newcomers and the giant with Veradis, saw that he regarded these arrivals with narrow eyes, ridges furrowing his broad forehead.
Then Rhin spoke.
‘Greetings, Uthas of the Benothi; you and your kin are welcome here.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
TUKUL
Tukul the Jehar blinked as he looked up. Light was breaking through the canopy above, more than he had seen in many moons.
They were almost out of Forn.
Meical’s arrival at Drassil and its resulting lurch into action had lit a spark in his slumbering heart: tension, excitement growing, the promise of resolution to a lifetime of waiting.
It felt strange, but he had grown fond of Drassil, and even of Forn Forest, and the thought of leaving, of moving into a world of open spaces and a sky that went on forever felt almost uncomfortable. He laughed at himself — this from a man who had been raised in an oasis in the desert.
He put the thoughts aside and marched on, following the tall frame of Meical, while inwardly complaining at the stiffness in his knees. The damp. I hate the damp here. All else I can cope with, but the damp. .
Behind him wound the long line of his sword-brothers and sisters, walking their holy pilgrimage in the name of All-Father Elyon. His, theirs, was a life of worship, devoted to the absent god. Soon it would become a pilgrimage drenched in blood, of that he had no doubt. The culmination of generations of devotion, of discipline.
I hope you are taking note of this, All-Father. Surely you watch, even if you no longer intervene. All I have done, my whole life, has been in the hope that you watch. That you would notice me.
They had left Drassil two days after Meical’s arrival and had made much quicker going of it than Meical’s journey into Forn. The central task at Drassil had been preparing the old fortress for what was to come: repairing it, making it defensible. During their explorations of the stronghold throughout the years tunnels had been discovered, initially bored by the roots of the giant tree, then extended by the giants. They ran for leagues upon leagues beneath the tangle of Forn, and they had made good use of one such tunnel to bring them close to the forest’s edge. He looked up to the heavens again, blinded for an instant by the glow seeping through the branches high above.
The trees about them now were spread widely, great-trunked monsters that stretched their roots wide, drinking deep of the earth. Soon they came to a space where trees had been felled, the round bases of the trunks white and leaking sap. Tukul ran his fingers over one — they came away sticky.
People. Tree-fellers, loggers. We are moving into another world indeed.
They moved through a field of stumps, came upon a wide river, roughly trimmed trunks stacked along the riverbank, the odd pier that struck out into the river’s black waters, but no sign of people. Yet.
Meical paused and waited for him.
‘We are nearly there,’ he said. ‘We are moving into Gramm’s land now. You remember him?’
‘I do,’ Tukul said. On their journey into Forn — fourteen, fifteen years ago? — Meical had led them to a hold built close to the outskirts of the forest. It had belonged to a man, Gramm. He had had a wife and two sons, youthful but old enough for some labour, and was full of boldness and dreams, his plan back then to trade timber along the river and to breed horses. By the looks of things he had made good on the timber trading, at least, and carved a life for himself out here, on the edge of the wild.
‘He’d better have looked after my horses,’ Tukul said.
‘You’ll see soon enough,’ Meical said.
They marched on, and in short time Tukul heard the sound of hooves on turf. Instinctively, his hand reached for the hilt of his sword, and without looking he knew his sword-kin were doing the same, all three score and ten of them. The Hundred, they were called, though they did not number that now. But a hundred had ridden out from Telassar all those long years ago, straight-backed and zealous.