‘Oaths make men slaves, I reckon,’ said Tomas. ‘No place for ‘em here.’
‘You might find a use for that sword, though, if the Black Road comes this way,’ said Orisian.
Tomas shrugged at that and drummed his fingers on the table-top.
‘We can bend with the wind,’ he said. ‘Black Road or your lot makes little odds to us. It’s the oath, and what comes with it, that takes a man’s freedom. What difference who he’s given it to? You’re all the same deep down. Oaths like yours only lead to killing and the like, one way or the other.’
Orisian bit his lip rather than respond.
‘So it’s war, is it?’ Tomas asked. ‘On the Glas? Must be, if you’ve the Black Road up in the hills.’
‘Fighting, yes. It won’t last.’
‘If you say so,’ said Tomas with a crooked smile. He was missing at least a couple of teeth. ‘Bound to run out of people to kill sooner or later, I suppose. I’d not want your troubles in Koldihrve, though.’
‘There’ll be no trouble,’ Orisian said firmly. ‘We’re taking ship with the Tal Dyreens tomorrow and you’ll not see us again.’
‘Not short of coin, if you’ve tempted that one into carrying you around. You taking the na’kyrim with you?’ His voice was thickening all the time, the words rattling in his throat.
‘Yvane? Yes, she’s coming with us.’
‘Good enough,’ Tomas said. ‘I find you, or her, still here after that boat’s gone and I’ll want to know why, mind. I look after this town, and I’ve plenty men’ll help me do it. We don’t want Lannis folk here any time, but doubly not if the Black Road ‘s rooting around.’
‘We’re gone tomorrow. You won’t have to worry about that.’
Tomas nodded. He was shaken by a liquid-sounding cough even as he waved Orisian away. Orisian retreated, as if the sound itself might carry disease into his own chest. As soon as he was outside, breathing the cold night air, he set to forgetting the conversation. It did not matter that Tomas seemed a fraction more threatening—perhaps even dangerous—than he had expected. Soon, soon they would be away from this town, and Orisian was confident he would never return.
They slept in Hammarn’s hut, all crammed together on the floor with furs and cloth spread over them. The boards were rough on the back, but Orisian slept well. Even when Rothe began to snore—a rumbling, rasping sound vigorous enough to rouse half the town—Orisian woke no more than was needed to prod at his shieldman’s shoulder. Rothe shuffled on to his side with an irritated mutter, and the snoring stopped.
Once or twice more, Orisian brushed against the surface of wakefulness. The sighing of tiny waves on the beach infiltrated his sleep, and later the patter of rain on the roof. He heard boat timbers creak, and he heard the breathing of his companions, and pressed in tight in that small hut he was warm. He rested, and though his dreams were troubled they did not disturb him, and in the morning they sank away and he forgot them.
In that half-hearted dawn, Kanin could see the lights of Koldihrve. They flickered in the grey blur of land, sea and cloud, a feeble and fragile cluster beneath the rain that was starting to fall. The Horin-Gyre Thane glanced upwards. An immense host of fat, dark clouds was massing there. A downpour was coming.
He and five of his Shield had outpaced the rest of his company. They waited here, within sight of the town, for the others to catch them up. They should be here, Kanin thought angrily. It would still take a good two hours to reach Koldihrve. The going had been slower than he hoped, across this sodden, empty landscape. Every moment of delay cut at him, plunging him deeper and deeper into a black mood.
His mount could sense his temper, and shook its mane uneasily. There was a boggy stream a few paces away; Kanin nudged the horse over to it and loosened the reins to allow it to drink. He patted its neck. It was not the same animal he had picked from his stables all those months ago. But then, none of them could be the same, after such a journey: through Anlane, to Anduran, across the Car Criagar. Its coat had lost its lustre, the definition of its muscles had faded. He remembered how it had tossed its head and stamped its feet that morning when he rode out from Hakkan’s gate, with Wain at his side. That magnificent arrogance was all but gone now.
‘We’re not what we were, are we?’ he whispered to it.
Igris eased his own mount up alongside the Thane.
‘The others are here, lord,’ the shieldman said.
Kanin glanced around. The remaining forty or so of his warriors were indeed arriving, one by one. They came in an extended line, all looking drained and damp. Their horses were exhausted.
‘No sign of that messenger we sent ahead?’ Kanin asked.
‘Not yet. But he cannot be more than an hour or two ahead of us.’
‘Very well. We’ll pause here, but only long enough to feed and water the horses. We can rest once we’ve got what we came here for.’
Igris nodded curtly.
Kanin dismounted and led his horse gently to a patch of lush grass. They had run out of the oats they had brought as feed the day before, just as they had almost exhausted their own food supplies. Whatever happened in the day now begun, Koldihrve was going to have to provide everything they needed to return over the Car Criagar. And what would they find when they got back to Anduran, Kanin wondered. He spared himself only that one moment to think of Wain. He would see her soon enough.
His horse tore at the grass. The rain was getting heavier; great fat drops pattered down upon them. Kanin shivered. He preferred the clean, dry snow of his homeland to this dank kind of winter.
‘Lord,’ someone shouted. ‘Wights.’
Kanin ducked around behind his horse and followed the pointing arm of the warrior.
There were Kyrinin moving, rushing out from a woodland and on to the flat fields and bogs of the valley. Dozens, then scores. They spilled out in a great wave that flowed over the rushes and through the scrub towards the great River Dihrve. Towards its mouth, and Koldihrve.
‘Is it White Owls, or Fox?’ Kanin demanded.
No one replied. At this distance, they could not tell.
‘Woodwights!’ cried Kanin in frustration. Even now, when he had thought himself rid of them, the petty games that Aeglyss and his savages had set in motion were plaguing him.
‘It must be the White Owls,’ suggested Igris, peering through the sheets of rain now crashing down. ‘They’re making for that Fox camp by the river mouth.’
Kanin swung up into the saddle. Rain pelted his head and back. Everyone was rushing, filling the air with cries and the clatter of weapons. He did not hear it. He turned his horse in the direction of Koldihrve. The future was there, waiting for him, and he could only advance into it. His sword was naked in his hand.
‘The slaughterhouse calls us,’ he shouted. ‘We ride!’
Behind the tent where the Voice of the White Owls dwelled, in a stone-lined pit beneath a roof of oak beams that had been turned hard as rock by time and smoke and heat, the torkyr burned. Through day and night, snow and wind, the clan fire would burn all winter long, tended by the chosen guardians who fed it and watched over it. When spring came, and the Voice had chanted over the flames, and the people began to disperse, each a’an would take away a single burning brand, so that in all the campfires of their summer wanderings through the furthest reaches of Anlane they carried with them a fraction of the clan’s bright soul.
It was to the Voice’s tent that the band of warriors brought Aeglyss the na’kyrim, bound and gagged by thongs of leather. They tied him to a song staff rising from the ground outside the Voice’s tent, and sat cross-legged to wait. They waited for many hours. The sun walked across the sky. Clouds, the scattered raiment of the Walking God, came and went. The na’kyrim moaned and bled from his wrists and from the corners of his mouth where the gag had cut his skin. At length a small child, her hair dyed berry-red and holes pierced in her cheeks, came out from the tent and beckoned one of the warriors to come inside. After an hour he re-emerged and gave a slow nod. The na’kyrim was untied and ungagged and brought into the presence of the Voice.