It was not long, though, before Anselm was snoring, Ceatha forgotten to him. Little came between Anselm and sleep. Unless it happened to be between a woman’s legs, of course, though Ceatha wasn’t offering such a distraction. She was sat quietly, facing away from Harlin, stoking the fire with small twigs and branches she fiddled with uncomfortably.
She took him by surprise when she suddenly spoke in the clan tongue.
‘Where are you going?’
Harlin hesitated. It was not often he had the chance to use his mother tongue with someone else. The words were still there, though, slumbering within, and they came back slowly, as the fingers of his mind pushed away thick dust from their immortally etched lines.
‘To the west,’ he said vaguely. She looked over her shoulder at him.
‘Me too.’
‘Quite the coincidence. So, you’re truthful at last.’
She turned to face him, hugging her knees again, shrugging gently. Looking at her now, it was hard to believe she had been a whore. She looked… too lacking in the confidence it took to flaunt one’s wares, the way she held herself now, at least. Slump-shouldered, nervous, anxious-looking. He wondered whether or not that day in Haverlon had broken her. She wouldn’t be the first of his people the Marchers had broken. Nor the last.
‘Why do you head west,’ he asked her, still speaking in their mother tongue. ‘What is there for you that just so happens to be on the same path as ours?’
‘I want to go home,’ she sighed. Harlin chewed his tongue for a moment, considering.
‘As do I,’ he said, deciding there was no harm in telling her.
She looked up at him suddenly, eyes wide. ‘You do?’
‘I have business on the island,’ he said with a nod.
‘Oh,’ she said, seemingly crestfallen. ‘I’m not going back to Luah Fáil.’
‘I thought you said that you want to go home?’
‘I did.’
‘Then where else but Luah Fáil?’
She looked away. ‘There’s nothing there anymore,’ she said. ‘What’s the point in going back?’
Harlin felt his stomach sink unpleasantly. Nothing there? ‘What do you mean?’
‘We all know what happened there,’ Ceatha sighed. Her face held an odd expression. One almost of shame.
‘What are you talking about,’ he snapped at her. She looked confused.
‘Surely you know?’ she said, brow furrowed.
‘Know what,’ Harlin said through clenched teeth, anger rising again.
Ceatha’s mouth fell open.
‘How long have you been gone from island?’ she asked cautiously, edging closer to him.
‘Twelve years,’ he answered her, not needing to consider that particular answer. Twelve long years. She looked at him, mouth agape in shock, a trace almost of pity in her stare.
‘There’s nothing left there anymore, Harlin. There’s no home for us to go back too.’
He felt the pit of his stomach drop over a mountaintop, horrid anxieties raising their heads within him as it fell, showing him wasted efforts, a search proven barren and fruitless before it had even begun, his answers lost forever.
‘How,’ he snarled. Again, Ceatha looked almost ashamed as she hesitated to answer. Why did she look so strange when asked that question? Painful memories, perhaps, he thought. Women are strange things.
‘The Marchers,’ she said eventually.
Of course, Harlin thought, feeling his lip curl, it would be the fucking Marchers. There was no end to the atrocities they spawned. He wondered what he would do if he found that they had lost him the answers he needed, destroyed them, maybe, and found he did not know. Defeated before he had even began – such a thing couldn’t befall him. Could it?
‘What did they do?’ he said, unable to contain his anger, voice cracking. Ceatha hugged her knees tighter.
‘They came for us like they always did,’ she said, eyes distant, remembering. ‘Only worse this time. There was a great battle in the Tiar Valley, some seven or eight years ago.’
‘The Marchers went so far inland?’ It seemed unbelievable, they always stuck to raiding the coast, they were too scared of the wilder parts of Luah Fáil or being cut off from their ships and escape across the sea. The Tiar Valley was near the heartland of Luah Fáil, a great basin in the earth, made by two mountains the clans called Moírdhan and Morbha – or na Deifúrcha, the Sisters. What have driven the Marchers to venture so far inland? They had never done anything of the like before, it had even been the surest way of throwing them off during their raids.
‘The island was nearly empty by that time,’ Ceatha was saying. ‘We were already dying. There weren’t many of us left because of the raids. They came marching, driving us from our homes, thousands and thousands of them. There were so many. I still remember them coming for us down over the hills, through the trees, like trickles of silver in the distance, all in their steel armour.’
Harlin felt cold. He rose, and put more wood on the fire. He would not sleep this night, not now. His heart beat fiercely in his chest, like a caged animal beating furiously against its bars. He sat before the flames and held his head in his hands.
Luah Fáil. Home. Gone. He could not believe it. He would not, it couldn’t be true. Was this some twisted lie from the mouth of this girl? Did she come here just to torment him with this?
‘I watched the battle,’ Ceatha said, sitting next to him. ‘What was left of most of the clans’ warriors were gathered there that day. And they fought, and fought, and…’ she trailed off, eyes faraway and sorrowful.
‘Something happened,’ she said at length. ‘Something wrong. We were losing. Their riders were cutting our warriors down like they were nothing. The earth was like a swamp of blood, there were so many dead, you could smell it from where I was standing, taste it even.’ She shuddered, even in the warmth of the fire. She wiped her eyes on the back of a filthy hand.
‘Something woke in the land,’ she said through a sob. ‘Something… I don’t even know what to call it. I think it was all the blood that drew it out, there were bodies everywhere you could see, and the land felt sick before it came. It came creeping down from the Sisters, slinking amongst the warriors as they fought. It moved like ghosts, or shadows. Some said they saw grey demons made of mist. I saw dark shadows and twisted things that shouldn’t be, dragging men down into the earth, jamming claws into their eyes… The clansmen and the Marchers alike, they took any they touched. They left a carpet of dead men behind them. They just came onwards, like a silent plague, and we fled. All of us. The Marchers too. All that was left after they were gone was that swampland of blood, and it never went away. It just lingered, and festered.
‘A sickness fell over the island, it became ill and… bleak. The few of us that were left started to hear strange things in the night, and see creatures that shouldn’t be. They would come for us in the night, the things from the mountains, and take away any of us they could get their hands on. So we abandoned the island, and came here. I don’t think there are any of us left there. Not now. There couldn’t be. Harlin… we don’t even call the island Luah Fáil, anymore. We call it Hathad Camoraigh, now.’
It was as though someone had run ice down Harlin’s spine. He saw his answers, already weak and formless as morning mist, vanish in the light of a grim sun over his distant home. It would have been easy for him to accept futility then, to turn from his path and embrace the despair nipping at the back of his consciousness.
He knew though, in some part of him, that he would never settle, never draw a line under it, until he had tried. Until he done what he had set out to. Luah Fáil’s ending made no difference. Bráodhaír had been sucked dry of life that day, there wouldn’t be anyone left that could have told him anything of use. The earth remembers what men forget, though. There would be something there for him, some clue, amidst whatever ruins and bones was left of the place. He had to try. Ceatha’s revelation meant nothing.
Harlin
was unaware of Ceatha getting so close until her hand brushed his own and made him jump. ‘Why do you want to go back to the island?’ she asked.
‘I need answers,’ said Harlin, flatly, his placid face not reflecting the storm beneath its surface.
‘To what?’
‘Things that should never have happened.’
He felt her looking at him gently, the soft weight of her gaze upon him like a feather touch. He looked back at her after a moment and she did not flinch as she had before. Green eyes, he thought, big, gently crafted to compliment her features. They were captivating, despite her battered face.
‘Maybe you don’t have to go back to the island to find your answers,’ she said. Harlin frowned.
‘What do you mean?’
‘When we knew Luah Fáil was dying, the clans began to leave, one by one. We took to our ships and fled. How do you think I ended up here?’ She smiled kindly at him. ‘I didn’t choose to come the Marchers’ land, nor did any of us that left. We had to. But what I mean is… we’re not all scattered and lost. There is a place, far to the west, a town upon the coast.’ She edged closer to him, her beaten face filling his vision. ‘Tásúil.’
Tásúil.
Hope.
Harlin narrowed his eyes at her, cynical. ‘And what would I find there, should I go?’ She shrugged.
‘Your people?’ she said. ‘Friends, a new life? Maybe even others of your clan.’
Harlin snorted.
‘I am the last of my clan, and I have no interest in such things.’
Ceatha sighed, moving away. ‘Do you want to know why I followed you, Harlin?’
‘I do, enlighten me.’ He felt his annoyance and distrust rankle once again.
‘I dreamt of gods the night before you came to Haverlon,’ she whispered.
Harlin raised an eyebrow. Was she mad, or just stupid?
‘I thought they had fallen silent, the dreams, when I came here,’ Ceatha sighed, ‘but that night they started again, as if they’d never left me.’
For the briefest of moments her bruised face blanched, and she shuddered, as if she’d roused a memory she’d have rather left sleeping.
Despite himself, Harlin laughed aloud and shook his head. Ceatha gave him a slightly hurt look, turning her eyes away from him to the fire.
‘I dreamed of Béchu,’ she said, hugging her knees again. ‘And Cu Náith. And Ancu.’ She hugged her knees tighter as she spoke that last name, eyes wide and rabbit-like, as though she remembered something dreadful. Harlin huffed, unimpressed.
‘And what did they say,’ he asked with undisguised disdain.
‘They spoke of Hathad Camoraigh,’ Ceatha said, voice dropping almost to a whisper, Harlin struggling to hear her over the sounds of the campfire. ‘And a wolf all of black.’ Her eyes flicked quickly to his braid rings then back to the fire. ‘Ancu said it wore his face. And then you came to the inn, with your helm, with your braid rings etched with wolves, and told me you are of the Wolf Clan.’
Ceatha shifted and moved before him on her knees, staring strangely into his eyes. Her hair was matted and wild, unkempt and filthy. She looked insane. ‘And your eyes,’ she whispered to him. ‘They almost burn at times, just like Ancu’s.’
‘You are mad, Ceatha,’ Harlin muttered, going to push her away from him. How had Anselm and he been tracked down by a madwoman?
Suddenly she grasped his hand. ‘No, Harlin,’ she whispered. And he felt something upon her fingertips. A tingling. A movement, like heat, or vibration, moving from her to him. It felt almost like she was bonding with him, becoming one with him, though he could still see her kneeling, clasping his hand in hers. He felt her push on the very inside of him – not his body, but his mind, his soul perhaps. Somewhere deep within, he felt her search, look, feel for doors to his being. Pressure built at his temples, sharp claws forcing their way into his skull. He fought back images of the Marrwood.
‘Sí Druí,’ he breathed, mouth falling open, lost for words. She smiled, her eyes not leaving his.
It made sense now how she had tracked them, and so efficiently. He remembered the clanfolk talking of them as a boy. They said that the Sí Druí were almost a part of the earth itself, that something in the land ran through them as well, binding the two. He’d never met one himself, thought them fable, forgotten about them like so many other things of Luah Fáil. Yet the one before him, and inside him, was as real anything he’d ever felt.
Harlin could feel her inside him, his body, his mind, almost as if she was wearing his skin. She tugged at doors kept locked for long years, prying, seeking secrets and answers of her own.
Show me, he heard her whisper in the back of his mind.
Be gone, he whispered back, and kept his doors locked.
Still she probed, turning down corridors long and ancient in the channels of his mind. Snippets she saw, flash images of things even he had forgotten. Times with family. As a boy at his mother’s knee. Chasing his elder sisters with his training sword, as they feigned fear and laughed as they ran from him. His father teaching him to fight barehanded.
Be gone from me! He couldn’t move.
Show me, Harlin, she whispered.
Show you what?
Everything.
Ceatha came to a stop at something. A door. A great one, ancient as time itself. Black as midnight, frame, door and handle. The fingers of her mind graced it gently, almost a lover’s caress, yet the power Harlin felt behind them terrified him. She found it locked, like all the others. She pulled at it, almost ferociously. With each attempt it locked itself tighter, and tighter, till blackened chains wrapped themselves around the handles, around the door itself, around its frame, their rattling drowning all other sound.
Show me, Harlin, she whispered again. I can help you.
No one can help me.
I can show you which path to walk. I can lead you, guide you in your cause.
No one leads me, Weaver.
And Harlin flung that door open wide for her, black links shattering, timbers creaking as they swung to let her through. He felt her rush inside, inquisitive, seeking, curious.
But inside there was only darkness waiting for her.
Ceatha’s fear burned with a pale shade as she saw what lay there, in the dark corners of Harlin’s mind. Memories of the day he was taken. The auction house. The fighting pits. The children who died at his hand. Faces of men, their names forgotten, the way he had killed them still vivid. Khureg. Easthold. Athelmer. Athella. Visions of revenge, bloody and merciless, upon a man with no face – his own stained red, laughing, laughing, ever laughing.
She withdrew in an instant and tried to move. Yet suddenly it was not her who held his hand, it was he who held hers. And he held her captive in the pit of his being, the way out sealed. All doors locked once more, all corridors leading to dead ends.
And it twisted in him. That black thing, that cold thing. Unleashed, unchained and furious at being drawn from its lair. It rushed down the corridors of his mind, seeking the one who had roused it, as he stood, clutching her wrist, cowering on the ground before him, trying to prise herself free.
It rushed, it felt, tendrils slinking, seeking, feeling, touching, a ball of hatred and rage made solid, yet like liquid as it moved through the dark channels of him, sniffing, tasting, hungering. It cornered her at last, and came for her, all tendrils and teeth, all hate, malice and contempt, all pain and excruciation.
See me, Ceatha, he whispered. See me now, Harlin the Black Wolf.
He let go as the first black tendril graced her. She fell onto her back, eyes watering, face a mask of fear. He stood over her, breathing slowly.
‘You have no answers for me, Weaver.’ She looked up at him, rubbing her wrist. ‘You never will.’ She mouthed wordlessly as he moved away.
Harlin sat in thought, watching the fire die again, dimly aware that Ceatha was staring at him from where she sat quietly. He didn’t know what the girl had expected to find, or why she had even
tried. Perhaps she had sought some kind of hero, some champion for their people in this new town of theirs. He smiled grimly at that thought. The only heroes the clans had were in the tales they told their children and the sagas they told around their fires. Things must be truly bleak there, he reckoned, if that was what she looked for. A thought came to him, then.
Tásúil… perhaps there was something there for him after all.
‘We will go with you,’ Harlin said at great length, not looking at her. ‘To this Tásúil.’
‘If you wish,’ she said quietly. There was that fearful tremor in her voice again.
Harlin nodded. ‘We leave at dawn.’
Chapter 10
The Southward Road
Rebuild. Restore. Reclaim. Those three words had kept Arnulf moving forward the last handful of weeks since Farrifax and the Marrwood. Rebuild, restore, reclaim. Those words had kept him clinging to a fool’s hope when most others would have turned and fled screaming when faced with the task ahead of him. A man can always rebuild from nothing, he can always restore what is broken, and he can always reclaim that which is lost. As long as he remains true. They’d done it before. They’d do it again. He could already see the fruits of those efforts, though they were far from ripe.
They had come far and the land was different here, unfamiliar to most. The Shalefells, men called the place. Great swathes of barren rock led them ever southwards, ridges rising and falling sharply as though the land had been splintered from above. Tough grass was all their mounts had to chew as they rode on, sprouting from between sharp-edged boulders and crags of angled grey stone.
Onwards. Southwards. They crept on as a trickle of black, running steadily between the stones of the harsh land beneath a white disc of a sun. He rode ahead of their winding column, climbing a ridge, and watched his men ride on beneath his banners, the white dog’s head snarling and flapping in the wind.
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