The combination of intimacy and callousness left Leof not knowing what to say. Thegan threw the knife down onto the table so that the blade stuck in.
“Get my fort ready for war, Leof. You know what we’ll need.”
Leof nodded. “Train them how to cut off someone’s arms while they’re trying to kill you,” he said dryly.
“Exactly,” Thegan said and smiled the miraculous smile. He handed Leof a sheaf of papers. “Take the list of the dead with you and inform the families. Ride well.”
Leof hesitated. “Do you have any word for me to take to the Lady Sorn?”
“No time. Just tell her the truth, and that I think of her.”
Leof saluted and left; gathered Thistle, his two remounts, his groom and their gear and was on the road before the last of the tents had been struck.
Riding out of camp, he couldn’t stop himself wondering why he had been chosen to guard Sendat. Thegan was on his way to give aid to a free town. To protect it. From inside its gates, no doubt. How long would it need that protection? Forever? Carlion’s days as a free town were over, it seemed to Leof, and he wondered if he had been dispatched to Sendat in case he developed any inconvenient scruples about taking over a free town.
The only free town with a harbor near the Central Domain.
“From cliff to cove,” he said aloud, and encouraged Thistle to a canter as they passed the last of Thegan’s pickets. “He’ll have it all.”
Part of him was proud of his lord’s success, his intelligence and strategy. That was the loyal part, the part that believed that Thegan’s plan to unite the Domains would bring lawful prosperity to everyone. He concentrated on that part, on thinking those thoughts. Because that’s who he was, even if he had let Bramble go against Thegan’s orders. He was Lord Thegan’s man, or he was no one.
Bramble
THE SWORD IN her hand was heavy, but it was the smell that roused her: the acrid smell of fear-sweat on her own body. That smell was so unfamiliar to her that she reached out her other senses urgently, only to recoil when she found herself in a man’s body, full grown. Full grown, but with only one arm. Elric? He was standing on a ledge a small way from the steading, looking out over the undulating landscape. She judged it was summer, and there was a band of men riding toward him, appearing and disappearing as they rode over the ridges and into the dales. They were moving fast. Elric was trying to still his quick breath, so he could shout. He turned half toward the steading.
“They’re coming!”
An indistinct shout of acknowledgment came from the hall, and men with shields and spears ran out. They threw themselves flat on the ground, taking cover behind rocks and wedging shields in front of them. They held one spear in one hand and a couple more in the other, and waited, staring intently toward the riders.
A raiding party. A war party. Bramble didn’t want to live through a raid. If Elric lived through it. She didn’t want to die again. If Elric died while she was with him, what would happen to her? Don’t think about it, she thought. There’s nothing you can do, so forget it. Where is Acton?
Then she realized that Acton was one of the men — the very young, or old men — who were readying their spears. He was still only around thirteen or so, and he was smiling. There were other boys, who looked even younger. One of them was probably Baluch, but she had no idea which one. It was a strange thought, that she could know someone so deeply from the inside but have no idea what he looked like. The boys were all so young. Bramble supposed that most of the men were off raiding someone else’s steading, and felt a stab of contempt for them.
Elric cleared his throat. “Wait,” he ordered. “Make every shot count.”
The band approaching them numbered about twenty men, all riding the short, stocky ponies Bramble had seen before. They wore leather fighting gear, with helmets of what looked like dark wood but which was probably leather. Oddly, they carried no shields. She was used to seeing the warlord’s men riding, as Thegan’s men had done, with shield on the left arm and right hand free for the sword. As though her thought had sparked the action, each rider reached for something slung across his back. A bow, short, curved, lethal-looking. They nocked arrows in unison and let fly. Elric dropped to the ground and Bramble heard the arrows whistle over, heard some thuds and swearing from his left. Someone had been hit. Elric lifted his face from the ground.
“Shields, ho!” he shouted, and jumped to his feet, letting go his sword and picking up a spear in one movement. Unlike the other men, he had no shield to cover him. He knew it; it was why he was sweating fear, she realized. He threw the spear, aiming not at the men, but at the horses. Of course, Bramble thought bitterly. They always suffer first.
Elric had no time to see if his spear had gone home. The raiders let loose another flight of arrows and one took him in the shoulder, a sudden thud followed by burning pain. She heard Acton shout, “Elric!” and then the waters came up and tumbled her away.
“There’ll be more before they’ve finished,” Asa’s voice roused her. Bramble was back in a woman’s body, thank the gods, looking down at Elric this time, swabbing blood away from his shoulder in the hall next to the fire. He looked very pale. With his shirt off, Bramble could see the scars of earlier fights, and the seared stump of his arm, the skin shiny with the burn marks of cauterization.
“You were lucky,” the woman she looked through scolded him. It was old Ragni’s voice. “You shouldn’t have been out there at all, with no shield and jumping up just so they could get a good shot at you.”
Elric bore it silently. “How many?”
Ragni quietened for a moment, spreading leaves — comfrey, from the smell — on the wound. “Two,” she said softly. “Old Weoulf and that boy of Dati’s. A few wounded.”
“Baluch?”
“He’s fine, he’s fine,” Ragni said, her voice back to normal. “He’s off with Acton and Sebbi, burying the villains. No fire for them. They can rot in the cold hells.”
A groan interrupted her. She looked over and spat on the floor next to a man lying flat, with no pillows or blankets under him as there were under Elric. He was bleeding slowly from a stomach wound. The enemy, Bramble presumed. He looked much like the people from the second wave of the invasion of the Domains, with Merrick’s coloring, auburn hair and hazel eyes. Just another one of Acton’s people, as far as Bramble was concerned. But not for Acton.
Acton then came in, followed by Asa and a stocky boy with wiry blond hair — Baluch? Bramble wondered — and stood staring at the man on the floor.
“Water,” the man begged. Bramble understood him, but saw that neither Acton nor Asa did. The gods’ gift worked for this man’s language too, it seemed. But Ragni had seen a lot of men die in her time, and she knew what he needed.
“Wants water,” she said, her voice cold.
“Give it to him,” Acton commanded.
“Won’t make any difference,” Ragni said. “Gut wound like that, he’s not got long.”
“I want to talk to him,” Acton said, his jaw set. “Give it to him.”
She grumbled under her breath but she filled a drinking horn and handed it to Acton.
He squatted next to the man and lifted his head enough so that the man could drink. Half the water dribbled out the corners of his mouth. Bramble, too, had seen enough people die to know that Lady Death was standing close by.
“Why do you come?” Acton demanded. “Why do you attack us?”
The man understood. He smiled thinly and muttered three words, “The Ice King.”
His speech was gibberish to everyone except Elric, who twitched on his blanket. “That was my father’s tongue,” he said. “It means the Ice King.”
“Your king sends you?” Asa asked. “Why?”
The man smiled again, bitterly. He had to force the words out. “Ice King takes everything.” That was all. His face paled and his eyes closed. Acton eased his head back onto the floor and turned away to talk to his mother. The stocky boy lingered a
little longer, staring at the dying man.
“Don’t waste your pity on him, Sebbi,” Ragni said, venom in her voice. “Dati’s boy is dead, and it might have been you.”
Sebbi looked at her with shock but the waters came in a wave, a breaking wave, and threw Bramble backward into the dark, so she didn’t hear his response.
The water trickled away and kept trickling, an intrusive and yet pleasant noise, a small stream over rocks. She was dabbling her fingers in it, sitting on grass beside the water and looking up. For a moment, that was all she knew: the sound and the feel; then her sight cleared and she found herself looking up at Acton. Not her, of course. Baluch. This time she recognized him immediately, the feel of his mind, with a faint pipe music interplaying with the sound of the water under his thoughts, the feel even of his body, was familiar.
Acton was standing by a small cliff where a spring issued from the rock and trickled down past Baluch. The contrast to the last time they were on the mountainside was striking. Now it was summer, warm and fragrant, the sky blue, the sun mid-morning high. The grass Baluch sat on was springy and bright green. Almost too green. Bramble smelled flowers — lilies of the valley, she thought, but she couldn’t see them because Baluch was staring at Acton.
“Can you tell us now?” he said, his voice half-amused and half-exasperated. He glanced to his left where the stocky boy — Sebbi, Bramble remembered — was sitting. They exchanged looks of exasperation.
Acton grinned at them. He had grown a bit, was maybe a year older, fourteen or fifteen, as big as most men already, but she could see he hadn’t come into his full growth.
“All right. We are going —” he paused for effect, but he looked a little hesitant as well “— to the Ice King.”
“What? Are you insane?” Baluch jumped to his feet. Sebbi followed.
Acton grinned more widely, then sobered. “You remember that man who died? He said the Ice King had sent them.”
“Of course I remember, but —” Sebbi said.
“We don’t know enough! We don’t know if they come willingly, what he wants, why he attacks us — we just don’t know enough.” Baluch regarded Acton. Bramble could tell that he was measuring him, weighing his words.
“So this doesn’t have anything to do with Harald refusing to take you on the trading expedition?”
Acton scowled, for once looking like a typical boy. “I’m bigger than most of the men already!” he complained.
“Yes, yes, we all know that,” Sebbi said, his tone mocking. “You’re bigger and stronger and a better fighter, too.”
“Well, aren’t I?” Acton challenged him.
Sebbi paused and Baluch held his breath. Bramble realized that there seemed to be some tension between Acton and Sebbi which made Baluch uneasy. But neither of the others was tense, just concentrated. “In the practice yard, yes,” Sebbi said. “You’re good. But there is more to battle than skill. You’ve never killed.”
“I have. I threw my spears. They fell.”
Shrugging, Sebbi replied, “The horses fell. The men — some were killed by the fall, the hooves. Some by the second flight of spears. But who killed whom . . .” His tone was challenging.
Acton smiled, rejecting the challenge. “Only the gods know.”
Sebbi laughed bitterly. “You’re not the only one who missed out. They wouldn’t let me go because it wouldn’t have been fair to you. Even though I’m a year older. Even though my spear took one of them down cleanly.”
“That’s true. It was a fine cast,” Baluch said quietly.
Acton nodded and the strain went out of Sebbi’s face. Baluch sat again and plucked at the grass, avoiding Acton’s eyes. Acton sat down beside him, hands hanging between his raised knees.
“We’re ready, Bal. You know it.”
“You’re Harald’s only heir. He doesn’t want to risk you when things are so uncertain.”
“I want to go to sea!” Acton said, yearning naked in his voice. “I’ve always wanted to.”
“There may not be battle. It’s just a trading journey.”
Acton laughed. “Oh, yes, just trading. How many times have they come back from trading without having fought? Once, maybe, in our lifetimes? There are brigands on the dragon’s road as well as on land. Besides, it’s the sea itself I want, not just the fighting.”
“The dragon’s road itself is as dangerous as any battle,” Sebbi remarked.
“Exactly!” Acton said, eyes shining.
“So if Harald won’t let you risk your life there, you’ll do it here?” Baluch’s tone was dry.
Acton looked sideways at him, smiling, mischief in his eyes. “We do really need to know more, Bal. I’m not planning for us to fight. Just to scout. To see what we can see of this Ice King’s country and his people. We’ve traded with them for generations and now suddenly they have nothing to trade and begin to attack us. This Ice King is driving them, but we don’t know why. If we knew more, we might be able to make a truce. But right now, we’re snowblind.”
“Why now, when the men are away? Why not stay and help protect the steading?”
“This is more important.” Acton had a stubborn look, but there was something underneath it. “The chieftains will meet at the autumn Moot.”
“That’s what you’re planning! You’re going to stand up in front of everyone and boast —” Sebbi accused.
“Not boast!” Acton protested. “Report back. To everyone, not just Harald. All of us.” He avoided Baluch’s eyes. “Decisions must be made by all the chieftains, not just my grandfather.”
“What does your mother think of this?”
“Well, she said she’d leave our packs behind this rock . . .” Acton said, getting up and ferreting out three packs as he spoke. He dangled them from his hands, his eyes alight with mischief and excitement. “So I suppose she thinks it’s a good idea!”
“Hmm,” Baluch said, taking his own pack.
“Sebbi’s mother helped. And if your mother objects,” Acton added to Baluch, “she would have told the gods and they would tell you. But they haven’t, have they?” There was a note of real anxiety in his voice.
Baluch shook his head.
“No. They haven’t told me anything,” he said reluctantly. Bramble could feel the gods listening, watching, but they exerted no pressure on either her or Baluch. For a moment, she seemed to catch one of Baluch’s thoughts, a memory of his mother, dead in childbirth with him. The memory was sharp with long regret. She pulled away from it, not wanting to share his mind anymore deeply than she did already.
Acton whooped exuberantly, sounding much younger than he actually was. “So let’s go!”
Despite themselves, the other boys smiled with excitement. “We’re not in this for adventure,” Baluch cautioned. “If we get caught . . .”
“No,” Acton agreed immediately. “We mustn’t be caught.” His face became determined, and much older. “The chieftains need to know.”
“So which way do we go?” Sebbi asked, settling his pack.
Acton shot Baluch a mischief-look. “I was hoping the gods might guide us.”
“So that’s why you brought me!”
Acton clouted him on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t have gone without you, you know that!” They smiled at each other. “But it would be helpful if the gods —”
Baluch shook his head. Bramble could feel no pressure from the gods in either his mind or hers. “We’ll have to make our own way.” Almost in apology, he added, “They don’t talk often, you know.”
“Mmm. Well, I did bring a map, just in case you weren’t feeling holy.”
Baluch threw a pebble at him and they laughed. The trickle of the water became a flood and moved Bramble, tumbling, through the darkness.
She was singing, a kind of singing, a kind of calling out, calling something. Her throat tightened and relaxed rhythmically and the notes came out, not words but sounds, clear like bells, and underneath it a clicking sound, rhythmic too but uncoordinated with
her calling. It was both musical and very irritating at the same time. Her sight cleared as the waters subsided, and she saw what she was calling. Goats. Goats with small blocks of wood tied around their neck, which clicked together as they moved. In Wooding, which seemed further than a thousand years away to Bramble, they had bells for their goats, at least for the lead wether and a couple of others. She wouldn’t have thought the wooden blocks would make enough noise to keep track of the flock if they got lost in the forest.
Then she saw that they were on a steep hillside, with no trees, just low bushes and grasses covered with low-growing flowers. The girl stopped her singing–calling as the goats crowded around her, nuzzling at her hands and sides, one of them trying to eat her apron. She laughed and pushed the animal away. Bramble felt herself relaxing. This was known territory, at last. Animals, womanhood, the smell of goats and wild thyme, the bright blue of crane’s-bill peeping from the rocks, all of it was familiar. Her mother used crane’s-bill to make a blue dye. Bramble relaxed a little, but wondered why the gods had brought her here.
The girl clucked to the goats and sat down on the grass as they wandered nearby to graze. She pulled an apple and some cheese from her apron pocket and began to eat, her fingers teasing the blue crane’s-bill flowers. From her hand and bare arm, she was quite young, and red-headed with freckles. Bramble was reminded of Safred jamming her old hat on her head. This girl apparently accepted her freckles.
The black nanny goat which had tried to eat her apron came over to see if she could cadge come of the girl’s lunch, but the girl laughed and pushed the goat’s inquisitive head away.
“Not enough for me, let alone you, too, Snowdrop,” she said. “At least you can eat grass.”
Bramble wondered at that. The season was high summer; there should have been enough crops ripe by now.
The girl plucked a flower and threaded it into her hair by her ear.
“You know, Snowdrop, they say if you sleep naked, wearing crane’s-bill in your hair, on Mid-Summer’s Eve, the Wise One will send you a dream of your future husband. Do you think it’s worth a try?” Laughing, the girl lay back on the grass and closed her eyes. Taking advantage of her inattention, the goat came closer and stretched its neck to reach the cheese inside its cloth. The girl sat up, still laughing.
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