“That is in the Western Mountains Domain, near the Sharp River,” Sorn said.
Leof was surprised that she knew the Domains so well, and it showed in his face. She smiled wryly.
“I was courted by quite a few warlords and their sons and for a while studied the other Domains with a great deal of interest.”
He laughed. “No doubt you did!”
She smiled back and laughed a little herself, her green eyes shining, then sobered quickly. “Spritford,” she said. He sobered, too, indicating the door where the woman from the town had appeared, arm-in-arm with a slighter, shorter woman with strikingly similar features.
Sorn rose immediately and went to greet them. They bowed low, but she raised them up by the arms and led them to seats. Fortune hid behind Sorn’s chair from the strangers.
“Come,” she invited them. “Tell us about these ghosts.”
The shorter woman, Ulma, was as stern-faced as her sister, and stoic. Not the wailing widow Leof had expected, but the grief was real enough. She told the story: ghosts appearing out of nowhere, solid, armed, angry. Seven dead in Spritford, she said, including her husband, struck down by a small man wielding a scythe, in the full light of the sun. That was unwelcome news; more welcome was the fact that they had faded at sunset.
“So I came here,” she said finally, “thinking to find safety, but it seems maybe there’s no safety anywhere.”
Sorn nodded sympathetically, asked a few tactful questions about finances and ways she could help, and eased the women out the door having charmed them thoroughly. No, Leof corrected himself, watching as Sorn bid them farewell at the door, they’re not charmed. That’s respect in their faces, and not simply because she’s the Lady. They are strong women and they recognize strength when they see it in others.
That was a striking thought, because strength was not a quality he had associated with Sorn. His own mother was strong, but in a very different way — decisive, outspoken, like many of the women in Cliff Domain, where the men were away fighting so often that the women had had to learn how to do without them. Sorn was another vintage entirely.
“That news is not good,” she said seriously, coming back to where he stood, resting her hands on the back of her tall chair. “Fighting in broad sun. They are not restricted to the night, it seems.”
“But they faded at sunset,” he replied. “Perhaps they may have a night or a day, but not both?”
“It has been months since Spritford. Perhaps there have been other quickenings that we have not heard of?”
Leof shrugged. They just didn’t know enough. “I’ll send news of this to my lord,” he said. “Do you have any message for him? I would be happy to include a letter in the package . . .”
Sorn considered, then shook her head. “My lord is involved in men’s business. The only news I have is about women’s work, and would not interest him.” She said it simply, without resentment, but her reply sent a pang through Leof. It spoke of loneliness. She had no real friends among her ladies, he realized. Her maid, Faina, was devoted, but hardly a friend. There was no nearby officer’s estate with its complement of wives and daughters who might provide companionship — only Fortune.
Difficult for her, he thought. Well, perhaps he could provide some friendly company while her lord was away. Impulsively, he reached out and touched the back of her hand.
“Anything about you must interest him,” he said. Too late, he heard the note of sincerity in his voice. In that moment Leof felt the softness of her skin. Warmth and silk moving swiftly under his fingers. He felt a flood tide of desire sweep through him, overwhelm him as surely as the Lake had done. He was just as helpless as he had been then, tossed on a wave too big for him.
Sorn flushed and pulled her hand away. She half-turned, as though to leave, then stopped herself.
Leof spoke quickly. He couldn’t bear to see her force herself to look at him. “I will send your regards in my letter, my lady.”
Then he turned and left the hall, breaking etiquette by not waiting for her dismissal; not daring to wait for it.
Ash
COMING TO THE Deep set Ash’s hair prickling on the back of his neck.
From the bluff outside Gabriston, they could see the wilds that lay to the north of the Hidden River. On the other side of the water was a simple cliff, but on this side the soft sandstone had been eroded by countless streams into a nightmare maze of canyons and crevasses, impossible to map. In the middle of the maze was the Deep, a series of caves and canyons which led to the heart of the demons’ mysteries. Each man who came to the deep found something different there, but each man also found the same thing: the truth about himself. Which was why Ash’s heart was pounding.
They paused at the beginning, at the bottom of the bluff, where the canyons started and the sound of the river swelled into a chorus that filled his head. He must make Flax swear the oath. He remembered the words easily enough. He spat in his hand and offered it to Flax, who copied him and grasped firmly.
“This is the oath we ask of you: will you give it? To be silent to death of what you see, of what you hear, of what you do?”
Flax had picked up on his mood and was uncharacteristically solemn. “I swear,” he said.
“Do you swear upon pain of shunning, never to speak of this place outside of this place?”
“I swear.”
“Do you swear upon pain of death never to guide another to this place who has not the blood right?”
Flax swallowed. “I swear.”
“Do you swear upon pain beyond death, the pain of never being reborn, to keep the secrets of this place with your honor, with your strength, with your life?”
This time, Flax had to work his mouth for enough spit to form the words. “I swear.”
There was sweat on Flax’s forehead. Ash was glad to see it.
He let go of the boy’s hand.
Ash led Flax down one narrow defile after another, the fern-covered walls of red sandstone rising higher as they went, until they moved in a green gloom. Water seeping through the stone made it glisten in the shadows, as though the hills were bleeding. Ash always felt that he should have smelt blood here, and death, instead of the clear scent of water, the must of leaf mold, and the occasional waft of early jasmine. His nose told him it was safe, but his ears strained past the endless trickle of water and the wind moaning through the rocks, waiting to hear the demons.
He checked on Flax regularly, knowing the lad was nervous and knowing he should be. The Deep was dangerous, and not just because of the demons. Vipers, spiders, scorpions lurked beneath every rock, every leaf. Poison tainted the beauty; he was reminded of Doronit.
The outsiders, Acton’s people, thought the stones were a maze, difficult to find the way through because of their complexity. But that was just the wilds, the outside skin of the Deep, where the River allowed the fair-haired ones to penetrate. Further in, the truth was stranger. Ash had been here six years running with his father, the years between his voice breaking and his apprenticeship to Doronit, and it had never been the same twice. No one could penetrate the Deep unless the River willed it. Rock walls shifted; streams bubbled up where there had been solid rock the day before; bogs appeared that could suck a man down in three heartbeats, too quick even for a scream. Ash had seen that, once, when he was fourteen.
“Turn away,” his father had said. “He came here with treachery; the River claimed him.”
Ash found a clearing, a place with good water and grass, where they could leave the horses. They watered and groomed them and hung nosebags from the cliff wall as temporary mangers. By that time it was dark.
“Do we light a fire?” Flax asked hopefully.
Ash shook his head. “Follow me. Your eyes will adjust.”
This was his favorite time in the Deep, just after sunset when the enchantment started. At least it had seemed enchantment, the first time, and every time afterward, too, even when he understood how it happened. As they walked furthe
r into the difficult passageways of stone, the walls began to acquire stars. Small, green, they glowed so faintly that it seemed like a trick of the eyes. Then, as the darkness gathered and his eyes adjusted, they became brighter, casual constellations scattered across the rock walls, clumped together in shining clusters, lighting their way.
Ash looked back at Flax, and was satisfied by the wonder on his face.
“What are they?” Flax asked.
Ash contemplated telling him the truth: little glowing insects. Glow-worms. But he’d always hated that name. It diminished the beauty.
“The stars of the Deep,” he said. “Come on.”
They turned a corner and found themselves in a larger defile, with a stream pelting down the middle, splashing and leaping, throwing small pebbles and grit into the air. The edges of the defile were covered with fallen rocks and the way out was blocked by them, except for the stream, which launched itself from a small gap between the rock walls into the darkness. If they tried to wade through the stream and edge through the gap, they would be thrown helpless as dolls against the sharp rocks, or over the edge, to where they could hear the water plummet down to smash on rocks far below.
“Careful,” Ash said. “From here, the demons watch.”
He stood up straight and said clearly, “I am Ash, son of Rowan. I am known to this place. My blood is known. I give it again, that this place may know me afresh.”
He took his belt knife and moved to the stream, then pricked his finger and let three drops of blood fall into the water. The stream quietened immediately. The water still flowed fast, but it no longer leaped and challenged.
Ash beckoned Flax toward him. As he approached, the stream again became wild, leaping high in menace. Ash took Flax’s hand and held it over the stream.
“This is Flax, son of Gorham, come to meet his blood in the Deep.” He pricked Flax’s finger and let the blood drop into the water. It calmed immediately.
“Come on,” Ash said. “Now.”
Quickly he led Flax into the stream, stumbling a little on the rocky bottom, but striding as fast as he dared through the gap in the rocks. The stream pushed against his boots, but it didn’t thrust him hard enough to make him fall; it didn’t suddenly spring up when they were halfway through. He had seen that happen, too, to a scrawny friend of his father’s, a storyteller. The man’s body was never found.
“The River protects itself, and us,” his father had said, as though trying to convince himself. But no one had said what the River was protecting itself from that day.
They had to turn at the very edge of the waterfall and sidle along a ledge. The ledge was narrow and there were rocks underfoot. It led along a sheer cliff wall to another gap in the rocks, and another canyon beyond. They stepped carefully through the gap and made their way down the canyon, and from there onto another high ledge. Ash could hear Flax breathing hard. He remembered the first time he had done this, or something like it, because it was never the same twice. The physical danger hadn’t been as bad as the threat of the unknown, the demons waiting out in the darkness.
As though the thought had called them — and maybe it had — they heard the demons howling. The sound wasn’t exactly like the howling of wolves, but it wasn’t human. Flax stumbled as the first long wail reached them and Ash put out a hand to push him safely against the cliff face. They stopped for a moment, listening to the grief and hunger in the demon howl. Both of them were shivering.
Beyond this canyon was another one, and then another one after that. They twisted and turned and Ash knew it was useless to try to remember them, but he tried anyway. His safeguarder training was no use here, but he had been trained so long that he couldn’t just abandon it.
Finally, they came into a large space ringed with cliff walls that were broken by caves and cracks. Inside one of the caves, a fire blazed just out of sight. Shadows flickered on the cave walls and out onto the beaten earth floor of the clearing. The sudden gold and orange of its light was almost too much for their dark-adjusted eyes.
Flax gasped. From behind rocks, from fissures and caves, figures emerged from the darkness. Naked, male, thin and solid, and tall and short, all with dark hair across their arms and bodies. The bodies seemed to be striped with blood. But it was their faces which had scared him, Ash knew. He remembered the first time he had been confronted by those snarling snouts, the sharp teeth, the animal eyes. Each man had the head of an animal: badger or otter or fox or deer, varied but all wild animals. There were no cows or pigs or sheep. A wildcat, but no cats; a wolf, but no dogs.
He knew what Flax was thinking: masks, surely they were masks? But they were not. Of course not. What would be the point of pretending? Dressing up in silly clothes, painting their bodies — that would not be work for men.
The demons closed toward them, slowly, and in their hands were stones; flint, sharp as knives. Flax’s breathing was faster and shallower. He was getting ready to run. Ash put a hand on his arm, to calm him.
“We are members of the blood,” he called to the demons. “I am Ash, son of Rowan, whose blood has calmed the waters.” He nudged Flax. Flax had to clear his throat before he could talk.
“I am Flax, son of Gorham… whose blood has calmed the waters.”
The hands holding the stones lowered to the men’s sides. One of them, a badger, came forward to place his hands on Ash’s shoulders. Ash looked deep into the dark eyes which glinted orange in the firelight and breathed in the sharp badger scent. He felt a swirl of emotions: anger, happiness, resentment, love.
“Fire and water, Father,” he said.
Bramble
THERE WAS A marching song playing at a dirge pace in her head — in Baluch’s head. Bramble felt relief at being back with Baluch, despite the severe cold. Vision came back with a rush of white, dazzling. Snow, everywhere. Rough ground underfoot, invisible under the snow. Cliffs on one side, a high, rocky white slope on the other. Oh gods, Bramble thought. We’re in Death Pass again! On the slope lay tons of snow which would crash down to bury them all at the slightest sound. Even though Bramble knew that the raiders — the invaders — had made it through unscathed, the sight of that burden of snow made her nervous, threatening with the same kind of impartial animosity as the Ice King. The silence was intense; the men pushed through the snow so slowly that even Baluch’s sharp ears could only just catch a faint susurration at each step.
Acton was in front of Baluch, his gold head shrouded in hat and scarf, his shield slung over his shoulder, but his back unmistakable as he waded slowly through the breast-high snow. For a moment, hysteria flickered in Bramble. How had she become so shagging familiar with Acton’s back? But she was, or Baluch was, or both. Baluch could see the profile of the man next to Acton — it was Asgarn, which vaguely surprised Bramble. Asgarn hadn’t seemed the type to volunteer for something as chancy as this. Perhaps, she thought, the lord of war picked his men. Part of Bramble found that amusing; that Asgarn might have been caught in his own snare, and then she wondered why she assumed Asgarn had been laying traps, why she just plain didn’t like him.
Acton and Asgarn led, just as in all the ballads, the two thickset men ploughing gradually, silently, toward the gap between cliff and slope, toward the triangle of ridiculously blue sky. Bramble had always imagined this day as being cloudy and gray, but it was a beautiful day, crisp and sunny.
The man next to Baluch stumbled and flung out a hand. Baluch grabbed it and hauled him back up. The man’s gasp sounded overly loud and the entire band paused, terrified, in mid-step. A thin trickle of snow slid off a rock on the lower slope. They froze in place, waiting. Baluch was praying, Bramble realized, opening himself to the gods, but the gods refused to come. There was only a long moment of fear before the trickle of snow stopped.
They began moving again, slower than before despite the cold. Baluch’s hands and feet were numb but his cheeks burnt and his mouth ached every time he drew a breath. For a while it seemed that the end of the pass was as far aw
ay as ever, that they would trudge through burning cold forever. But gradually, inevitably, the triangle of blue grew larger. Then the snow was not breast-high, but waist-high. Then thigh-high. Knee-high. Then the triangle of blue stretched to cover the whole sky, and they were out of the pass, standing on a lip of ground looking down into the valley, slapping each other on the back in congratulation, but silent still.
Silent, because below them in the morning light lay Hawk’s steading. Smoke rose from its chimneys, but no one was about yet. There were no guards. The steading was undefended in early spring, because Death Pass was its defense. Silently, Acton drew his sword and settled his shield onto his left arm. The others did the same. Acton nodded to them, all fifty of them, and slapped Baluch on the arm. For a moment his face was serious, then he grinned at them, the joy of battle alight on his face. Baluch smiled involuntarily and hefted his sword. Bramble could feel the tension in him but also the excitement and, with it this time, a sense of grim purpose. Acton saw it in his face and nodded, a darker expression in his eyes.
“Let us take our revenge,” he said so quietly that the others had to strain to hear. “Make them regret their treachery.”
“Yes,” Asgarn said. “Kill them all.”
Baluch raised his sword high in acknowledgment, and the others copied him. The sun shimmered off their blades and blinded Baluch; and for a moment it became morning sunlight on water and the water rose to blind Bramble in its turn.
Blood in her mouth. Blood trickling down from her lip onto her chin. Her back was against a wall, and her legs were unsteady. The woman — yes, this was definitely a woman, a young woman clutching a blanket to her naked chest — lifted a hand to wipe away the blood. The movement brought back sight, and Bramble wished it hadn’t. They were inside, in a small wooden room with a shuttered window and a bed. It smelled of woodsmoke and sex and fear.
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