The fringes of the forest were open, kept clear of undergrowth by the town’s stock. As they went on the wildwood closed in about them. Twigs and tendrils clawed at Anyara’s cheeks. She pressed her face into the horse’s neck, feeling the massive muscles working rhythmically beneath its skin. In the last instant before she sealed her eyes, shutting out the horrors of the night if not those within her own mind, she caught sight of half-hidden figures running alongside them; no Inkallim these—lither, paler—but they moved too fast and the night-bound forest was too dark for her to tell quite what new piece of nightmare had risen up to join their flight.
That first night in the Forest of Anlane seemed to last an eternity. After an age, they paused and Anyara was set upright on the horse. Her bonds had torn tracks of stinging pain around her wrists. It was too dark for her to see clearly. The wind was rising, shivering through the leafless canopy of the forest above her. She looked around for Inurian, and saw a hunched figure seated in front of a rider a few yards away. Then the massive arms of her Inkallim captor embraced her as he took up the reins once more and nudged the horse on. She felt his chest pressing against her shoulders and tried to ease herself forwards. As the horse got into its stride she slid back and could not help but rest her weight against the warrior. They kept a steady pace, weaving through the ever-thickening forest. To Anyara, peering out over the horse’s bobbing head, it seemed that they were travelling blind. Trees loomed up out of the darkness, boughs leapt at her. Now and again at the very edge of her vision she saw people running ahead. Some were Inkallim, judging by their bulk. Others, more distant, were those same less substantial figures she had noticed before, lean and rangy shapes that ghosted silently through the woods. The realisation came that these were Kyrinin: woodwights of the White Owl clan were guiding the Inkallim through Anlane. Perhaps they too had set the fires in Kolglas that kept help from coming to the castle. The thought put an icy needle into her heart. She was in the hands not only of the enemies of her Blood, but of her very race.
As dawn’s first light began to bleed through the roof of the forest, the trees solidified out of darkness. They sloughed the night and gradually took on form and substance. Anyara’s thoughts had run off on pathways all their own, and she came to herself with a start as if roused from a waking sleep. She swayed on the horse. Her eyes, her back, her throat all ached and she feared she might fall at any moment. She looked about her. They were following a narrow, almost overgrown trail. Ahead of her, Inkallim were running in single file, keeping a steady, careful pace. She could see no sign of the Kyrinin. She craned her neck to try to see behind, and glimpsed other horses and riders before her captor slapped at her face.
After an hour or so, when the grey shades of dawn had become the clear light of day, the relentless pace slowed a little. The path widened. Anyara felt exhaustion and cold settled deep inside her. Although it was warmer now, the night’s chill had taken root in her body and would not relinquish its hold.
Another horse came up beside her and she turned to see Inurian seated in front of a smoke-blackened warrior. He looked pale and drawn. Blood had crusted his forehead and laid dark stains down his left cheek. Anyara started to say something, then bit her lip at the sound of a third horse coming up behind them. It drew level and she recognised the na’kyrim who had appeared after the fighting in the castle was over. He was a good deal younger than Inurian and to Anyara’s eyes his skin had a hungry pallor about it. His pale hair hung lifelessly to his shoulders.
There was excitement in the newcomer’s face as he leaned towards Inurian, as if the dawn, the flight and the warriors all around brought forth in him a feral joy.
‘My name is Aeglyss,’ he said.
Inurian fixed his eyes upon the path ahead.
‘You did not sense me, did you?’ Aeglyss said. ‘Nor did you get inside the minds of those Inkallim. I wasn’t certain I could hide their intent from you, you know. You, the great na’kyrim who can see a man’s thoughts. I promised the ravens I would do it, let them play out their little charade, but in my heart I didn’t know. But, see! I was the stronger, was I not? My gifts proved the greater.’
Still Inurian ignored him. Aeglyss seemed to relax a little, sinking back into his saddle and adjusting his hands upon the reins.
‘How old are you?’ he asked after a moment or two, his voice calmer now, more measured.
‘Old enough to have seen your kind before,’ Inurian responded. There was ice in his voice.
‘And what kind is that?’
‘Dogs that think they are wolves.’
Aeglyss laughed at that. There was a ragged edge to the sound, as of a man laughing at word of some disaster.
‘They would have killed you but for me, little man. The Children of the Hundred have no great liking for na’kyrim. They tolerate me only because they know I can help them. I saved you from their tender mercies, and you should not forget it. We will have much to discuss later.’
He glanced dismissively at Anyara, then kicked at his horse. It lurched forwards, trotting up the trail to the head of the column.
‘What a . . .’ Anyara started to say, but a sudden tensing of her guard’s arm warned her to hold her tongue. She looked across to Inurian and he had time to nod before the horses parted once more and he was carried ahead and out of sight.
They followed paths that Anyara often could not make out. The tracks wove through what seemed to be impenetrable undergrowth. They went fast, the Inkallim jogging along, the horses grouped in the middle of the column. The Kyrinin reappeared in the mid-morning. They drifted in and out of sight, running figures passing amongst the trees on either side without a rustle or a footfall. Haunting birdcalls, which Anyara did not think were made by any bird, ran through the forest every so often.
They stopped without warning, in early afternoon as far as Anyara could tell from the sun’s angled rays, beside a forest stream close-fringed by willows and alder. She and Inurian sat against rocks while their Inkallim guards drank from the stream. The warriors who had been acrobats bowed their heads into the water and rinsed the dye from their hair. It made Anyara think, absurdly, of villagers washing clothes by a mill-stream. Eddying clouds of amber and red swirled away down the current. Then began the meticulous task of re-dyeing. The warriors produced packets of powder from their belts and pouches. Mixed with water, it made a thick paste that they worked through their hair. It took some time. When they straightened, every man and woman had sleek black locks. Anyara looked away. The Inkallim, she remembered being told, wore their hair black in token of the birds that once accompanied the God called The Raven: Death.
A few Kyrinin came in and squatted with Aeglyss and some of the Inkallim, talking in hushed tones. Anyara could not help but catch her breath at their closeness. She had only seen Kyrinin once before, and they had been dead, brought out of the forest by the warriors her father had sent to hunt them down. The skin of these strange, fearful figures was so colourless it seemed almost translucent to her. The characteristics that Inurian had inherited from his Kyrinin ancestors were here before her in their purest form: fingers long and precise, tipped by uniform white nails; eyes of a flat, unnerving grey; fine, sharp-featured faces; pale hair that had an almost luminous sheen. Two of them bore markings she had heard described in stories. Thin blue lines ran in great, whorling spirals and curves across their faces like ferocious masks. If the tales were true, these were the tattoos worn as badges of honour by the most savage warriors of the Kyrinin. Only now, seeing them in soft conversation just a few yards away, did Anyara understand how truly unhuman these people were. As much as anything, the difference resided in their air of detachment and self-assured grace; the way in which they held themselves and the unspoken language of their movements and gestures.