Winterbirth

by Brian Ruckley

  After a time the track began to skirt round to the north of the Glas Water. The great wetland swallowed the river, hiding its course amidst a maze of pools, channels and marshes. In a month or two, there would be an unbroken sheet of pale water covering a great sweep of the valley floor. Riding along the fringes of this wild place, Orisian could see, faint in its misty heart, the ruined towers of old Kan Avor. The broken turrets and spires of the drowned city rose above the waters like a ghostly ship on the sea's horizon. The sight, as it always did, stirred a faint unease in him. He had gone there once, as a child, with his brother Fariel. It had been high summer, exceptionally dry, and the waters were low enough for them to ride through some of the city's desolate streets. The muck and weed-crusted ruins loomed over them, obscuring the sun. Orisian had thought it a haunted, ugly place and he had not been back, for all Fariel's good-natured taunts at his fearfulness. Fariel had never been one to pay much heed to fear.

  'They should tear it down,' said Kylane, seeing the line of Orisian's gaze. 'Does no good to have that foul place rotting there. And fine farmland sunk along with it, too.'

  'People need reminding,' muttered Rothe. 'The Black Road is still there, in the north. Without those ruins to remind them, how soon would people forget? There's too many have done that already.'

  Kylane shrugged. 'You can't fault people for enjoying peace. It's better than thirty years since the last battle.'

  'You can fault them if they start to believe peace is forever. Every day, those beyond the Vale of Stones wake up thinking the Gods will return if only they could subject us all to their precious creed. You don't imagine they've stopped wanting to get these lands back just because they haven't tried in the last thirty years, do you?'

  Here, close upon the edge of the Glas Water, the road was in poorer repair and stretches of deeply rutted mud often blocked their way. As they worked around one such obstruction Kylane gave a cry of surprise and reached precariously down from his saddle. When he hauled himself upright again, he was brandishing a trophy: a human jaw bone.

  'One of the Glas Water's treasures,' he grinned at Orisian. 'You know some of the farmers say it's good fortune to unearth one of these?'

  Orisian grimaced. 'I've heard it,' he acknowledged. 'I don't think we need good fortune that badly at the moment, though.'

  The ancient bone was pitted and stained the colour of soil. Kylane examined it with mock curiosity.

  'Hero or villain, do you think?' he asked.

  Beneath the mists and sullen pools of the Glas Water lay the graves of thousands who had died on Kan Avor Field, the final battle in the war that drove the followers of the Black Road - led by the Gyre Blood, whose stronghold Kan Avor had been in those days - north beyond the Stone Vale. The fires had burned day and night across this land afterwards, yet still had not been enough to consume all the corpses.

  After the exile of Gyre, Kan Avor had slowly declined under uncaring masters but its final ruin came later, when the Lannis Blood was created and granted rule over the Glas Valley . One of the first commands of Sirian, the new Thane, had been for the burning and flooding of the city. Kan Avor's slow, waterlogged decay was a permanent reminder of his determination to stamp his authority upon his new domain.

  'Villain, I say,' decided Kylane in answer to his own question. 'Black Road through and through, this one.' He sent the bone spinning away with a flick of his wrist. 'No fit travelling companion for the nephew to the Lannis Thane.'

  Daylight was fading as they came towards the Glas Water's southern end. A clutch of low houses came in sight through the thin drizzle that was beginning to fall.

  'We'll pass the night at Sirian's Dyke?' Kylane asked.

  'Why not?' agreed Orisian. 'It'll be a short day to Glasbridge tomorrow. Try not to lose too much sleep in the name of drink and dice, though.'

  Kylane laid a hand upon his chest. 'Why, Orisian, you know I'm not one to surrender to such temptations.'

  Rothe, riding a little ahead of them, snorted in derision but said nothing.

  Sirian's Dyke, Orisian had always thought, was a gloomy village. Thirty or forty small cottages clustered together, surrounded by dank stands of spindly trees. The only structure of any size was the resthouse.

  The lights at its windows provided at least some promise of warmth and cheer. Its outbuildings - stable, smithy and wheelwright's shop - clung to its walls like children seeking protection at the skirt of a nursemaid. All was dominated by the great, harsh line of Sirian's Dyke itself. The massive dam of timber, stone and earth, standing higher than a man, stretched out from the edge of the village and vanished into the twilight. Here was the means by which Sirian had drowned Kan Avor. In all the years since its construction, most of the village's inhabitants had worked in the pay of successive Lannis Thanes to maintain this bulwark against the will of the river and keep Kan Avor bound in its watery chains.

  With their horses stabled for the night, Orisian, Rothe and Kylane entered the inn. The landlord appeared at their side before they had even found a table. He bowed to Orisian.

  'Welcome, welcome. It is an honour to have you as a guest, my lord.'

  The inn was half-full with a mixture of villagers and travellers. A hush fell across the room as Orisian and his shieldmen settled at a table, but it did not last: the Thane's kinsfolk were not such a rare sight in this place.

  Orisian slumped in his seat, savouring the warm air upon his skin and the rich smell, of food. He pulled his boots off and flexed his feet. He was trying unsuccessfully to remember what he had eaten the last time he stayed in this inn - it had been good, and he was hungry - when a serving girl came over and bobbed in front of him. She gave him a smile as warm as a thick bed. He smiled back and waited for her to ask him what he wanted. She said nothing, and for a couple of seconds the two of them regarded one another thus. Her smile grew only more expansive, her eyes more liquid as she stood there. Kylane laughed.

  'Ale and food,' said Rothe firmly, 'whatever you have that is good.'

  The girl looked at him as if puzzled by his words, and her smile slipped a fraction without quite losing its hold upon her mouth.

  'Yes, sire,' she said, and departed with another nod of her head to Orisian.

  'And wine and water, please,' he called after her, and was granted another glimpse of her radiant face over her shoulder.

  Kylane was still chuckling. 'Terrible effect you have on women,' the shieldman observed.

  Rothe glowered at his younger comrade in arms. His disapproval was wasted, since Kylane was already casting around the inn, seeking a game or perhaps a companionable-looking woman of his own.

  Orisian kicked amiably at Kylane's shin. 'It's not me,' he said, 'it's whose nephew I am.'

  'You give yourself too little of your due,' said Kylane distractedly. 'No tavern girl would think you ugly, even if you'd a goatherd for an uncle.'

  Orisian smiled, as much at the furrowing of Rothe's brow as anything. The older man often gave the impression that he despaired of Kylane's levity, but Orisian knew the two of them shared a deep-rooted mutual respect. Rothe had been his shieldman since his tenth birthday. Kylane had only taken up the task this last summer - an ominous sign, Orisian suspected, that the ageing Rothe was grooming a successor - but even so it earned him the right to a familiarity few others would dare. Being shieldman to a nephew of the Thane did not bring with it the responsibilities of guarding Croesan himself, but still it was no mere ceremonial role. Kylane had made a promise, just like Rothe before him, that set Orisian's life at a higher value than his own.

  They drank and ate well, the landlord accepting payment from Rothe only after a show of reluctance.

  They were given the best rooms in the house. Former residents, Orisian guiltily suspected, had been evicted at short notice. As his thoughts flirted with slumber Orisian found them, to his vague surprise, drifting toward Kolglas. In his mind's eye he gazed upon the castle in the sea and realised that he would be happier to be back home than he had
expected. Sleep came quickly and he could not linger upon the realisation.

  Lekan Tirane dar Lannis-Haig was running faster than he had ever run before. Terror drove his pounding legs. He flew through the forest as if a pack of wolfenkind were on his trail. He bounded over the uneven ground, staggering but never quite losing his footing. He thrashed through bushes, bramble stems tearing at his clothes. Some large animal, startled by his careering approach, crashed away. He barely noticed.

  The fear of what was behind him beat down upon his back like a hammer.

  The light was failing. Soon darkness would swallow the forest and then he would be finished, for those who came after him needed the light less than he. Still there was a sliver of hope. He was not certain where he was, or how far he had come, but the track from Kolglas to Drinan could not be much further.

  If he could reach that road there might be travellers to give him aid. Failing that perhaps he could still make the safety of Kolglas, flying down a clear and known path. The town must be no more than a few miles to the north. And that, in its way, was a part of his terror: that his pursuers should be so keen for human blood that they would come this close to the garrison of Kolglas. The woodwights had not been this brave, or foolhardy, in many years.

  It had never crossed Lekan's mind, as he set out the day before in search of forest meat for his family's Winterbirth celebration, that anything more dangerous than boar or bear could be awaiting him. There had been no Kyrinin in the lands around Kolglas since before his father's days, and though it was common knowledge that the White Owls were raiding in strength through the woods of Anlane further to the east, there had been no strife here save a few horses stolen from hamlets near Drinan.

  He had been standing beneath a great ash tree, unbreathing and still as he searched for sign of the deer he had tracked through half a mile of thickets and groves. A mark in the earth, perhaps the faintest imprint of a hind's foot, caught his eye and he bent to look more closely. The sound was so sudden and unexpected that at first he could not put a cause to it, and when he saw the arrow shivering in the tree trunk his incredulous mind instinctively denied its meaning. Yet it was, beyond doubting, a Kyrinin shaft.

  And then he was off, casting bow and quiver aside, flinging his backpack away to lend speed to his flight.

  There had been no sign save the arrow itself, no sound but its hissing flight and sharp crack into the wood. Still he knew they were behind him, and close, and that he had no hope save the strength of his legs.

  He swept past a tree, a great gnarled oak that seemed familiar. He had not been this way for a long time but it was, he was sure, a tree he had climbed in as a child. If he was right, the track, the longed for path that might carry him to safety, was only two or three hundred paces further on. The thought lent new life to his tiring muscles and he leapt forwards with still greater urgency. The hope burned stronger.

  He felt no pain, just a solid blow in the square of his back as if someone had thrown a stone. No pain, yet his legs were no longer his own and he sprawled face-down into the damp leaf litter. He clawed at the earth, struggling to rise. His legs would not obey him. He reached behind to finger the arrow buried in his back. He felt something rising in his throat.

  Then there was a powerful grip upon his arm and he was turned over. The arrow snapped and sent a lance of pain clean through him, transfixing sternum and spine. He cried out and crushed his eyes tight shut against it. When he opened them again, blinking through the mist of tears, there was one last surprise. It was not into the pale face of a Kyrinin that he looked, as he had expected. Instead, he met the gaze of one of his own kind: a black-haired woman, clad in dark leather, with a sword sheathed crossways on her back.

  'The woodwights have brought you down, but it is fitting that the killing blow should come from a truer enemy,' she said in a harsh, rough-edged accent Lekan did not recognise.

  There were other figures gathering behind her. Lekan could not see them clearly. The warrior languidly drew her sword over her shoulder. She saw the confusion in Lekan's eyes.

  'You should know why you die,' she said, 'so know this: the Children of the Hundred have come for you, for all of you. The Bloods of the Black Road will take back that which is ours, and where you go now, all of Lannis-Haig will follow.'

  Lekan's mouth moved. There was no sound. The blow fell, and he plunged towards the Sleeping Dark.

  II

  THE SECOND DAY'S ride was easy going and Orisian and his shieldmen made good time. From the Dyke down to Glasbridge the road was well maintained. The flat ground close by the river was good cropland, and there were countless small farms. A chilling rain that fell for most of the day kept all save a few people off the road, though. Two or three riverboats drifted by. Orisian and the others could easily have found a boat to carry them down to Glasbridge, but few horses tolerated such a journey with equanimity and Orisian preferred, in any case, to stay in the saddle.

  By mid-afternoon they were approaching the northern gate of Glasbridge, Lannis-Haig's second town. It was a bustling port, and the scent of the sea and the screeching of gulls filled the air as they rode down towards the harbour. The quayside was swarming with people. Kylane grew animated at the sight of the largest of the dozen boats berthed along its length: a long, fat sailship riding high in the water.

  'Look,' he said, patting Orisian on the arm. 'She's a merchant-man out of Tal Dyre.'

  The young shieldman had once told Orisian, when somewhat the worse for drink, that he had dreamed as a boy of taking service with the ships of Tal Dyre. Fanciful tales were told of the exploits of that island's sea captains and of the wealth of its merchant lords. Orisian was disinclined to believe such stories now, but three or four years ago they had stirred in him the same yearnings Kylane described.

  There had been times when he would have given anything to escape the confines of Castle Kolglas and the memories it embodied. Then, as he had looked out over the great expanse of the estuary from his high bedchamber, to ride the waves as the Tal Dyreens did, to leave everything behind, had seemed an enticing prospect.

  'The harbourmaster is waving to us,' Rothe said with a touch of despondency.

  Orisian looked towards the harbourmaster's rather ostentatious residence a short way down the waterfront. Renairan Tair dar Lannis-Haig was indeed leaning - somewhat recklessly, given his girth — over the edge of a balcony, waving vigorously and hailing them. Passing through Glasbridge on his way to Anduran a fortnight before, Orisian had promised to visit with the harbourmaster on his return. He would have preferred to pass the night quietly in the fine house Croesan kept here, but the harbourmaster was a difficult man to refuse. Given time, his remorseless jollity could have ground down the most obstinately doleful rock.

  'Orisian!' Renairan was shouting. 'Here, here!'

  'I suppose we cannot pretend we did not hear him,' murmured Rothe as scores of heads amongst the crowds turned towards the harbourmaster.

  'This'll be a long evening,' said Kylane under his breath.

  Kylane's prediction turned out to be accurate, though not for him and Rothe. Orisian was respectfully paraded before the guests Renairan had invited to dine with them, like a trophy from some polite hunt.

  The harbourmaster hardly needed to prove his importance - his line had long carried great influence in Glasbridge - but the presence of a member of the Thane's family in his house had been too great a temptation to resist. Orisian's two shieldmen, much to their relief, had not been expected to attend. There was a trace of vanity in Renairan that excluded mere fighting men - even the guardians of his Thane's nephew — from a gathering such as this. Rothe had protested, but even he could not credibly claim that Orisian might be in danger amidst the great and good of Glasbridge.

  The dining hall was decked out with holly, juniper and sprigs of pine: traditional decorations for the coming Winterbirth celebrations. In the grate at one end of the hall, pine logs were burning, filling the air with their sharp scent. The sme
ll touched upon raw memories for Orisian, and cast a shadow across his mood. Some of his clearest recollections of his mother Lairis were of her glowing presence at the Winterbirth feasts in Castle Kolglas. Those images were wreathed about in his mind with the poignant scent of pine. She had been the heart of those festivals, her voice their sweetest music.

  Orisian did his best to play the honoured guest. He gave a report of the festivities surrounding the birth of the Thane's grandson, and Naradin's killing of his boar. Curiosity satisfied, the conversation drifted to the sort of matters that always preoccupied the people of Glasbridge: the fishermen's catches in the last week, the promise of storms on the season's breath, and the prices obtained by the last merchant to sail south to Kolkyre. They were things, in the main, that Orisian knew little about. He had to concentrate to avoid overlooking any of the moments when a smile, a nod or some approving remark was required of him. Before long he was wishing he was with Rothe and Kylane, hidden away in the kitchens or wherever they had found themselves.

  As the evening progressed Orisian became convinced that Renairan's wife, Carienna, and his young daughter were talking about him. Now and again, across the landscape of wine jugs and meat and bread, he noticed Carienna watching him with an unguarded, penetrating gaze. For no reason he could name, it made him uncomfortable and he tried to keep his eyes on other things.

  The one guest who caught Orisian's interest was the captain of the Tal Dyre merchant ship, Edryn Delyne. He had met Tal Dyreens before, when they stopped off at Kolglas and paid courtesy visits to his father, but this man was the most impressive of the breed he had ever seen. He was tall and fair-haired and boasted the short, pointed beard that, in the tales at least, was the mark of every Tal Dyre adventurer.

  Delyne regaled the party with stories of the fighting far away in the south. Many men of Lannis were there, fighting under Gryvan oc Haig's command against the rebellious Dargannan Blood, and the interest around the table was keen. Delyne assured his audience that the fighting would soon be over and Igryn, the recalcitrant Thane, dead or taken. Renairan and his guests, Orisian included, received this news with only muted enthusiasm. There was no love lost between the Lannis Blood and that of Haig. Orisian had heard it said more than once that the two thousand men Taim Narran had led south in answer to the High Thane's summons would be doing better service if they were marching against Gryvan's palace in Vaymouth, rather than the mountain forts of Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig.