Winterbirth

by Brian Ruckley

  'It is best to leave the Hunt to their own devices,' she murmured. 'However good your scouts are, Cannek's are better. If there was only a single mouse in a field of oats, the Hunt could find it.'

  'Yet they cannot tell me what has become of Aeglyss, can they? Or is it will not?'

  Shraeve gave a disinterested shrug of her shoulders. She was not looking at Wain; her eyes drifted idly over the crowds that filled the inn. Faces were reddening, now that the wine and ale were flowing, and voices grew louder.

  'He slipped by all of us,' the Inkallim said. 'The woodwights are cunning enough to test even the Hunt's skills. Anyway, does it matter? Your brother made it clear he had no further use for him, or for the White Owls.'

  'It matters little,' Wain replied. She was careful to keep her tone flat, unrevealing. In truth, she was uneasy that the na'kyrim had disappeared, and with him the alliance - however illusory — he had forged on Horin-Gyre's behalf with the White Owls. Her father had always seen Aeglyss as nothing more than a key to unlock the door to Lannis-Haig, to be discarded once his usefulness was at an end. Now that the breach had come, though, Wain suspected it would have been better had they killed him. As it was, he was wandering around somewhere, out of their sight and out of their reach. However useful he had proved, he had also proven himself unpredictable, perhaps dangerously so.

  'I only regret that we don't know where he is,' she said, 'and what he's doing. I would not want him to turn up again unexpectedly, interfering.'

  Shraeve gave her a sudden, bleak smile.

  'There is no wrong or right on the Black Road , only the unfolding of its inevitable course. You know that as well as I.' Then she would say nothing else.

  Wain took to her own room not long after. The evening had left a sour, unsettling twist in her thoughts. It did not overly concern her. The Black Road always went its own way; always confounded the expectations of those who walked it. Learning and accepting that was at the root of the creed. Yet . . . given their astonishing success in the last few weeks, it was strange that there was so little room in her mind for joy, for exultation. There were too many things casting small shadows across her to allow for that: Kanin pursuing his own, personal fate in the Car Criagar; Aeglyss and the White Owls off the leash; the Inkallim watching everything with their cold eyes. Wain was no longer sure this was the same war her dead father had set in motion.

  * * *

  Deep in the heart of the forest that the Huanin called Anlane, but they knew as Antyryn Hyr - the Thousand Tree-clad Valleys - the small band of White Owl Kyrinin paused in a glade. They had been walking for two days and two nights, following one of the First Tracks made by the God Who Laughed in the dawn of the five races. Ever since leaving the city in the valley, they had not paused: no sleep, food eaten on the move, no slackening of their steady, remorseless pace southward through the forests that were their home.

  Only one of the faithless Huanin had managed to track their departure from the valley. They had killed her, and her hound, on the second day. It would not be fitting for one of the Huanin to follow where they were going. They had stripped her body and left it on open ground where the eaters of the dead would quickly find it.

  The na'kyrim had remained bound all this time. They kept his arms lashed behind him, and kept him gagged, for they knew that he had a deceitful voice. The lies he told had the power to twist the hearer's mind; the promises he made might put a hunger in the heart, but they had no more substance than the dew glistening on a spider's web. It was in answer to promises broken, to hopes unfulfilled, that they had brought him all this way while their brothers and sisters hunted the enemy in the mountains beyond the valley. Every one of them would prefer to be amongst those making war upon the Fox, for they knew that this would be a war unlike anything that had gone before. The hated Huanin had ruled in the valley for hundreds of years, putting such a barrier between Fox and White Owl that only small raiding parties could make the crossing; now, with the strife between the Huanin tribes, the gate had been thrown open.

  The Black Road Huanin might have proved no more true to their word, no more trust-worthy, than any others of their kind, but they had at least allowed hundreds of White Owls to march across the valley and into the enemy's lands. It would be a bathing of spears to break the hearts of the Fox.

  Still, all the promises of friendship, of alliance and benefit, that this na'kyrim had brought to the White Owls those many months ago had melted away like snow in the season of breaking buds. These warriors had seen with their own eyes the lord of the Huanin strike down the na'kyrim, curse him and cast him out from his councils and confidence. Where were the cattle, the iron that had been promised? Why were there still Huanin villages and huts standing on the naked ground that had been carved out of the Antyryn Hyr's northern flanks? Why had the Huanin lords turned against the White Owls, after so much aid had been given? For all of this, there must be an answering. The na'kyrim was the child of a White Owl mother. They had made honest agreements with him, and held fast to them as they would with one of their people. He must answer for the ruin of those agreements.

  They were within a day's journey of their destination now. The First Track which they followed would run straight and true - and invisible to all save Kyrinin eyes - down into a great bowl of trees, across the wet, low land beneath that canopy and on to the very heart of their clan, the oldest and greatest vo'an of the White Owls. The camp lay upon the shallow, south-facing slope of a vale of oak and ash trees. Each winter for many lifetimes, hundreds had gathered there to see out the cold months. Their tents would be scattered across the valleyside, half-hidden by the venerable trees that sheltered and guarded them.

  The Voice of the White Owl, as always, would have been amongst the first to arrive at those wintering grounds. The great domed tent of many-layered deerskins that was the Voice's winter lodge would have been set up and formed the hub of the sprawling community that grew over the days and weeks. She slept there, and ate there, and gave her judgements. She listened to the songs that were sung on the bare ground before her lodge, and watched the kakyrin making their bone poles and weaving the anhyne there out of hazel and willow. When she dreamed, her predecessors whispered into her mind, for they knew where to find her. Sometimes, filled with their wisdom, she donned the white-feathered cape and mask and walked amongst her people as something other than herself. At winter's end, when the black ash buds broke, a new Voice for the clan might be chosen, but nothing would change. Next year the Voice, whether old or new, would again be in that valley, in the same tent on the same patch of ground.

  And it was to the Voice that they had resolved to take the na'kyrim. It was with her he had spoken when he came on behalf of the Black Road Huanin; it was to her he had given false promises. It would be she who passed judgement upon him.

  * * *

  Wain pushed open the window and leaned out into the dull, cold early morning. The fresh air cut through the stuffy atmosphere of the room and made her shiver. She had slept badly, disturbed as much by her own unsettled spirits as by the noise rising from the inn below.

  There were many warriors in the yard, cleaning weapons, grooming their horses, tending cauldrons of steaming broth, dozing. Some stood around in quiet groups, arms folded and feet shifting against the chill.

  A few wore capes or coats they had looted from Anduran. It made them look a ragged collection.

  Shraeve and a handful of her ravens came striding through the assembly. From her high vantage point Wain could see the uneasy glances, the sharp looks, that followed the Inkallim like a wake.

  Conversations paused as they drew near, then restarted once they had passed.

  Shraeve looked up and nodded at Wain. I'm sister to the Thane, Wain thought, and still the Children of the Hundred think themselves my equal; or my better. She withdrew from the window. A bowl of icy water stood on the table at the foot of the bed. She plunged her face into it. It chased the last remnants of sleep from her.

  S
hraeve was waiting for her downstairs, feeding logs to the fire that had burned all night. Wain looked about for her own captains, but saw only a couple of them, silently breaking their fasts on bowls of oatmeal.

  'Cannek sent word before dawn,' Shraeve said. She kicked the fire with a booted foot, sending sparks spinning up the chimney and out across the flagstones.

  'He did?' said Wain, casting about irritably for something to eat. Seeing nothing, she snapped at the seated Horin-Gyre warriors. 'Find me some bread.'

  One of the men rose and disappeared in the direction of the kitchens.

  'He did,' said Shraeve. 'There's another company gathered outside Glasbridge. What's left of the Lannis-Haig fighting strength, and half the hale men of the town from the sound of it. Enough to test us, perhaps.'

  Wain shot an irritated glare at the captain who emerged from the kitchens bearing a platter of bread and cheese for her. She snatched it from his hands.

  'Where are my scouts?' she demanded of the startled man. 'Why have I had no reports? Go and find someone who can tell me where they are.'

  The warrior left without hesitation, leaving his companion to hunch a little lower over his bowl of oatmeal and hope to avoid the wrath of the Thane's sister.

  'They'll tell you the same as Cannek told me,' Shraeve said.

  'And why did he not tell me himself?' Wain demanded.

  'I have come to tell you. What does it matter who bears the message?'

  Wain sat down and began to tear at the bread. She did not like the Glas valley bread; it was not the same as the rich, coarse loaves they made north of the Stone Vale. Shraeve sat down opposite her without waiting for an invitation. The twinned swords strapped across her back loomed on the edge of Wain's vision like upraised fists.

  'Very well,' Wain said. 'How many?'

  'We cannot be certain, but Cannek's guess is a thousand Lannis fighting men and at least as many again townsfolk. And a few hundred Kilkry-Haig warriors: the survivors from Grive and a scattering of new arrivals.'

  Wain began to turn the thick band of gold on the second finger of her left hand. She frowned in concentration, her food forgotten now.

  'Fewer than we met at Grive,' she mused, 'but then, we are far fewer now as well.'

  She had perhaps a thousand warriors within reach of Sirian's Dyke and fit to take the field. Another three hundred or so were back in Anduran, and must remain there to ensure the town and castle stayed secure. More than a thousand still besieged Tanwrye, along with hundreds from the other Bloods of the Black Road . They could not come to her aid until that obstinate town's garrison was broken. So, to face whatever threat might march up the road from Glasbridge she had at best a thousand swords, and the fifty or so of Shraeve's Battle Inkallim who remained alive and capable of wielding a blade. If Ragnor oc Gyre had answered their calls for aid, if he had sent just a fraction of his strength south . . . but the Black Road did not deal in ifs.

  "We can make our stand here as well as anywhere else,' she said. 'If we take refuge inside Anduran we will only delay matters a little, until they can bring up enough strength to crush us there.'

  'Indeed,' Shraeve agreed. She leaned forwards, lowering her voice. 'Perhaps we can hope for more than merely making a stand, though. Does your heart not hunger for Glasbridge? It's the last great town of Lannis-Haig . If we break it they'll be cast back all the way to Kolglas; we would hold the entire valley, from the Stone Vale to the sea.'

  'Of course I hunger for it. It was the home of my forefathers.'

  Shraeve sank back in her chair. 'Your hunger might be sated yet, given the willing sacrifice of a few lives.'

  Wain sighed. 'Whatever you have in mind, Shraeve, just tell me. My belly's too empty for talking in circles.'

  The Inkallim drove the four great horses past the inn. The beasts were massive, but bedraggled and cowed by the switches the ravens beat them with. Wain watched not the animals, but her own warriors who stood silently watching this strange procession. Wherever the ravens had found these horses — some farm outside Sirian's Dyke, no doubt — they knew how to make them into a spectacle. They herded them right through the village, through the Black Road army, and every curious eye followed their progress. Chains, scavenged from the smithy by the inn, dragged behind the horses, cutting ruts into the mud road.

  A crowd followed the Inkallim and their horses to the edge of the village. The Inkallim went on, out on to the marshes that lay along the foot of the Dyke itself. Shraeve stood at Wain's side.

  'It will give our people something to remember until their last day dawns,' Shraeve murmured.

  Wain did not reply. She knew that what Shraeve wanted all these watching warriors to remember was that it was the Inkallim who had done this. What was about to happen would be a rich and nourishing symbol for the faithful, another story to add to the legends of the Children of the Hundred.

  Out on the wettest ground, where sluices and pipes fed water over and through the huge dam and into the reborn Glas below it, some of the Inkallim turned back. Just six of their number remained with the uneasy, dishevelled horses. One of them climbed to the top of the dam and stood there for a moment or two, looking north. The breeze stirred his black hair. Wain could imagine the sight that greeted him: the great expanse of listless water and perhaps far out, at the edge of his vision on this cloud-bleared day, the broken remnants of Kan Avor standing proud of the lake. Satisfied, he went back down to the horses, and the great task began.

  The Inkallim dug away the earth and turf from the face of the dam; bound chains about the great logs that ran through it; whipped the horses until they put all their huge strength into the effort to pull the structure apart. As time passed, many of the watchers drifted away. The horses laboured on, the Inkallim never paused. Timbers and rocks were scattered around the dam's foot. Water trickled through until the ravens were up to their knees. An hour passed, and then a second.

  The sound began softly. A seething, hissing, heaving rumble, it built over long seconds. To Wain it was the sound and feel of sun-loosened snow crashing down some far-away mountain slope. Pebbles and clumps of earth were shaken loose from the sloping dam wall. Like blood spurting from myriad tiny wounds, water was flowing through the dyke. The four great horses began to whinny in fear. They struggled against their chains; one bolted free and went pounding through the marshes in plumes of spray.

  The six Inkallim stood, gazing up at Sirian's Dyke. One turned towards Wain, Shraeve and the score or so of remaining watchers and raised her arm in silent salute.

  And then all thought, all senses, were submerged beneath a great roar as the fabric of Sirian's Dyke began tearing itself apart. The seat of the rupture was deep and low in the dam, and it burst from its base, flicking rocks into the air and releasing jets and cascades of water. Billowing clouds of mist soared up and there was thunder as the centre of the dyke disintegrated and the river, freed of restraint for the first time in more than a century, burst in full, tumultuous flood down towards Glasbridge and the sea, bearing Inkallim and horses away in an instant.

  Chapter 5

  Vale of Tears

  FEW STORIES ARE now told of the time before the Huanin and Kyrinin, the Whreinin and the Saolin walked the world; the time when the One Race was alone upon the face of the earth, before they went to war with the Gods and were unmade. One that is remembered in some places is the tale of how the valley of the Dihrve came to be called the Vale of Tears.

  Harigaig kept a herd of great cattle by the mouth of the River Dihrve. One day a daughter of his was keeping watch over the cattle as they grazed at the river's edge. She lay down to rest beneath the Sun's gaze, and the voice of the water sang her to sleep. Then Dunkane, an enemy of Harigaig's from the north, rose up out of the river. He had walked along its bed from its source in the high mountains and come thus secretly to the heart of Harigaig's lands. His had been the soothing voice of the river.

  Dunkane stole the cattle and drove them away to the north. When Harigaig discov
ered the theft, he took up his club and his staff and set out to follow the thief. Dunkane had hidden his tracks, but Harigaig knew many words that were charms, for he had run with the Wildling's Hunt as a child. He spoke to the rocks and the trees and the water, and they told him of his enemy's path. Thus Harigaig found his cattle walled up in a valley in the Tan Dihrin, and Dunkane feasting upon them there. The two faced one another, and grew into giants whose feet broke cliffs and split boulders open. For a day and a night they fought back and forth across the mountains, until at the dawn of the second day Harigaig crushed Dunkane's head with his club and slew him. He freed his cattle and turned to go south once more, but he had taken grave wounds and as he walked his life began to flow out from his body.

  Now his family - his wife and his three daughters who would one day be the brides of the Gatekeeper - had followed after him, and they took him up and carried him south through the mountains and down the valley, and as they went they wept, for they could see that he would not keep hold of life. When they came to the sea, Harigaig was already dead. They took his body to a headland and cast it into the waves, where it turned to stone and became the island called Il Dromnone, which is, in a tongue long forgotten by all save a few tellers of tales, Isle of Mourning. And the tears shed on the journey of Harigaig's wife and daughters had been so plentiful that the valley down which they had borne him was filled up with them, in great lakes and pools that lie there still. And that is how the valley of the Dihrve found its true name.

  from First Tales

  transcribed by Quenquane the Simple

  I

  IN THE HEART of Kolkyre, atop a mound ringed by a crenellated wall, rose the Tower of Thrones. A bleak grey spike of stone, it dominated the city that lay around it. For two hundred and fifty years this had been the seat of the Kilkry Thanes and from its chambers and council rooms they had, for much of that time, ruled over all the Bloods. The greater power now lay in Vaymouth, but the tower kept its name and the Thanes still dwelled within it.