Daughter of Blood

by Helen Lowe

  “You should tell young Khar,” Tawrin drawled. “Oh, that’s right, I keep forgetting. Blood don’t believe in darkspawn anymore.”

  “They call them Wallspawn these days.” Kelyr ignored a snort from one of his comrades. “And they rely too much on wyr hounds, rather than their warrior instincts.”

  “That’s because they think hunting ’spawn’s like tracking their renegade priest-kind.” Malar cleared his throat, then spat.

  Interesting, Kalan thought—but Tawrin was speaking again. “Perhaps we should show these Sea Keepers what hunting ’spawn is really all about.”

  Kalan recalled the battered warships in his dream and doubted the mariners needed help with that. “I thought we were going to lay low. But if a dark minion has got on board . . .” Kalan could hear the shrug in Kelyr’s voice. “Besides, I’m always up for a good hunt.”

  “Show these ship scum why they still need warrior kind,” Malar muttered. As if, Kalan thought, the marines are anything else—but he was already swinging out of his bunk as their footsteps moved away. Even if Che’Ryl-g-Raham had someone monitoring the Sword warriors, the dream had mentioned need, and they were heading toward the hold and his horses. Cursing inwardly, he reached for his boots, leather hauberk, and sword belt, but in the interests of speed and stealth left the rest of his armor behind. He would have to rely on his hearing and night vision to avoid being ambushed; besides, it would only take a shout to bring those on watch running.

  As he came on deck, Kalan saw a shifting glimmer near the hold, but both the light and the Sword warriors had disappeared before he reached the hatch. They had left the cover open, so he flattened himself to one side and peered into the swaying shadows below, that were suggestive of a lantern being shone from one side of the hold to the other. A moment later Malar cursed as someone stepped on a chain, although the expletive was immediately bitten off. The swing of the lantern stilled.

  The Sword warriors were listening, Kalan guessed, as he was. Mostly, he could hear Madder and Tercel’s restlessness, disturbed by both the jumping lanternlight, with its associated threat of fire, and the warriors’ stealth. He only hoped the Sword warriors had seen enough of warhorses in the south to stay clear of the stalls.

  “I can’t see anything here at all.” Tawrin’s voice was pitched just above a whisper.

  “There’s a pack of cards back in our cabin,” Kelyr murmured. “And a few good bottles . . .”

  Malar cursed him, but beneath his breath. “When is Orth ever wrong?”

  “I can think of a few times,” Kelyr muttered back, as the lantern swung again.

  “All this tells us is that the ’spawn’s good at hiding.” When Orth stepped into Kalan’s view, his sword was drawn. “There’s vermin here all right. I don’t need to see it to be sure.”

  “If we skewer every shadow, we’ll flush it out. If we don’t, then we go through every coop and crate until we find it.” Malar’s tone made it clear what would happen then, but Kalan was imagining Che’Ryl-g-Raham’s reaction to all the hold’s goods being opened or run through with swords. Orth was already stabbing methodically as he moved along the bulkhead, and the play of shadows suggested another warrior was doing the same on the hold’s opposite side.

  “What’s that?” Tawrin exclaimed. “There, by the horses!” Shadows leapt and Madder screamed, not in terror, but a warhorse’s cry of defiance and rage. That war cry would rouse the dead, let alone the ship, Kalan thought, catapulting down the ladder as Tawrin backed away from Madder’s stall. The destrier half reared, his hooves striking at the wooden barrier between them before he lunged forward, his ears well back and his teeth snapping at the Sword warrior. Beside him, Tercel tossed up his head and stamped, snorting his own readiness to defend their territory.

  “Who needs a warhorse on the Wall anyway?” Orth’s sword arm drew back as Madder trumpeted out both warning and challenge.

  “Keep away, all of you!” Kalan shouted. “Madder, stand down!” he commanded in Emerian, as whistles shrilled and feet pounded overhead. He countered Malar’s attempted intercept with a stiff-armed shove, thrusting him into Kelyr. Tawrin jumped clear of Kalan’s elbow to his throat, opening a path to Orth. Kalan closed the intervening gap in a single stride, drawing his sword and beating Orth’s blade aside as the Sword warrior turned on him.

  Marines thundered down both the fore and aft ladders into the hold. Peripherally, Kalan was aware of steel caps and crossbows, but kept his focus on Orth. Footsteps scuffed, followed almost instantly by a thud and a groan as Che’Ryl-g-Raham strode forward. “What in the Nine’s name is going on?” she demanded.

  “I need to calm my horses.” Kalan spoke to her, but did not look away from Orth—or Madder as the roan’s head snaked forward again, more in warning than threat this time. Orth’s expression was ugly, a red gleam very like the warhorse’s in his eyes, but he stayed where he was.

  “Orth says there’s ’spawn in there.” Kelyr was terse. “Khar’s horse is protecting it.”

  “The horse is still contained by the stall.” Che’Ryl-g-Raham sounded remarkably calm given the situation. “And we have crossbows here, so you two can put your swords away.”

  She had not drawn her own weapon, Kalan realized. Then again, she must realize they didn’t need any more blades in the mix. Slowly, he sheathed his sword.

  “Orth,” Kelyr said, and the giant warrior finally did the same, moving a reluctant half step away as Madder rolled an ill-intentioned eye in his direction.

  “Whatever’s in there,” Kalan said, matching the navigator’s composure, “can’t be darkspawn. Madder would have killed it if it was.”

  “We already know it’s not darkspawn.” Now Kalan detected the anger beneath Che’Ryl-g-Raham’s surface calm. “We’ve been aware for some time that we have a stowaway, but that’s ship’s business to deal with, not an excuse for a bunch of warrior kind to run amok.”

  Kalan flushed, but Orth glowered at her. “It’s ’spawn,” he insisted. “I know the vermin taint.”

  “Orth,” Kelyr warned again, while Tawrin shifted uneasily.

  “Let me settle Madder down,” Kalan said, striving for reasonableness. “Then we can see what, if anything, he’s protecting.”

  Che’Ryl-g-Raham regarded him a moment longer before she nodded. The marines with her lowered their crossbows as the Sword warriors shifted back—all except Malar, who Kalan now saw was sprawled facedown with Temorn’s boot on his back. That must have been the scuff and thud, he realized. He wondered who Malar had swung at, but spoke soothingly in Emerian, employing the language both horses were most familiar with. “Well done, my bold hearts. Bravely done, my beauties, but the danger’s past now. All’s well, my valiants.”

  Finally, he placed his hand on Madder’s halter and studied the rumpled hay at the rear of the stall. Nothing moved, but he could see no escape route, except for a creature small enough to squeeze through the narrow gap between stall divide and bulkhead, and into Tercel’s space. Carefully, he scrutinized the bay’s stall.

  “Can he see it?” a marine behind him muttered.

  Orth scowled. “Why all this waiting? Let me run my sword through the straw.”

  The hay beneath Tercel’s manger stirred, then immediately stilled. Both horses turned toward the movement, their ears pricked at an identical angle of interest. Definitely not darkspawn, Kalan thought, surveying the narrow gap, but something—or someone—small. Suspicion hardened closer to certainty as he recalled Orth’s observation about the ’spawn being good at hiding. Keeping his voice even, Kalan switched to Derai. “There’s nowhere left for you to go, so give yourself up or we’ll beat the straw. Be wise, Faro: show yourself.”

  The hay beneath the manger whispered, then rustled, and finally heaved aside. Faro stood, his expression a mix of fear, defiance, and a sullenness that matched Orth’s. “Vermin!” the Sword warrior snarled. “I told you!”

  “Even if it’s a Grayharbor louse rather than darkspawn,” Tawri
n added smoothly. “Hiding with Khar’s horses, though . . . That suggests he smuggled the boy on board.”

  “For his own good reasons, no doubt.” Kelyr’s tone implied that Kalan’s motivation could only be dark.

  Under the circumstances, Kalan reflected grimly, their insinuations must seem plausible. Yet Che’Ryl-g-Raham was shaking her head with a certainty that surprised him.

  “I’m confident Khar knew nothing of this until now.” Her gaze traveled from Kalan to the Sword warriors as she signaled Temorn to let Malar rise. “Stowaways are ship’s business, but regardless, passengers do not take any shipboard matter into their own hands. You’re all confined to quarters until I say otherwise. You, Faro, must come with me.”

  The Sword warriors all began protesting, both against her assessment of Kalan’s involvement and being confined to quarters. Faro shot forward and flung his arms around Kalan’s knees, clinging to him like a spar in a storm. “Don’t let them steal me,” he begged. “If you tell them I’m yours, they can’t take me away.”

  “He is right, Kalan-hamar.” The voice from Kalan’s dream whispered in his mind. “Stowaways are ship’s business, but if you claim him as yours then he becomes Blood business, even on a Sea House ship.”

  How would a Grayharbor brat know that? Kalan wondered. However extensive the dealings between the Sea House and the port town, he doubted that level of lore was common knowledge, if known at all. He was also reasonably sure that no harm would come to the boy at Che’Ryl-g-Raham’s hands. Most likely, Faro would just be shipped back to Grayharbor. On the other hand, Kalan could not be certain of that. He also felt responsible, because he should have made sure Faro’s future was settled before leaving Grayharbor, not left the business to others. Remembering the boy’s warning against the Sea Keepers, Kalan could only imagine the desperation that had led him to stow away—and now surrendered to what had begun to feel like the inevitable. “I didn’t smuggle him on board,” he told Che’Ryl-g-Raham, “but now he’s here, I feel a duty toward him. By your leave, Navigator, I claim Faro as mine: the House of Blood’s responsibility from now on, not yours or the ship’s.”

  “By my leave,” she said, as though examining the words. When she smiled, her expression held as much steel as humor. “I think you already know that you don’t need my leave.” She held his gaze, her own impossible to read, then nodded. “So be it. Faro is yours, Khar of House Blood, to do with as you will, subject to the laws of the Derai.”

  Said like that, the formal words were a judgment—but both Orth and Kelyr protested at once. The giant’s shout was pure outrage: “A Haarth louse can’t be taken into the Derai!”

  Kelyr was cooler. “With respect, Navigator, I question your wisdom regarding Khar, as well as his right to sponsor anyone. Let alone”—his lip curled—“introducing Grayharbor dregs into an honorable House.”

  Che’Ryl-g-Raham’s brows rose. “You question my judgment, do you, Kelyr of House Swords? On the ship whose name I bear?”

  Kelyr swallowed, but he must, Kalan thought, be a brave man in his way. “With all proper respect for you and your ship, Navigator, but this Khar—He bears a Blood name and wears their harness, yet he has not only come from the Southern Realms, along with horses of the kind we don’t use on the Wall, but speaks to them in some southern tongue. You all heard him, just now. Also,” the Sword warrior’s tone suggested this was the most compelling reason for misgiving, “he shows a most un-Bloodlike kindness for vermin like this boy.”

  Kalan’s heart thudded, wondering if he was about to fail in his mission without even setting foot on the Wall of Night. Che’Ryl-g-Raham’s expression, however, was dry rather than doubting. “I’ve observed the kindness. But neither Khar, nor you and your comrades, are the first Derai to have sought return passage from the Southern Realms in recent years. Nor is there any law that precludes outsiders dwelling among the Derai. The Earl of Night himself has an outsider minstrel, and had an outsider consort, too, before she was murdered.”

  Malar looked as though he would like to spit again, but Kelyr shook his head, his expression dark. “Yet who is he, Navigator? Khar of House Blood, yes: but what is his lineage? Who are his clan and kin?” Now he spoke directly to Kalan. “What device should be blazoned on that Blood harness of yours?”

  It was a fair question, one any Derai should be able to answer. Faro’s upturned face was worried now, as if realizing that a failure to respond satisfactorily would place him back in Sea House hands. Kalan hesitated, because giving his family name and lineage might avoid immediate disaster, but would only result in a worse fate if he tried to enter Blood territory under his true colors. Yet a lie would not only stain his honor in both Derai and Emerian eyes, but could easily be investigated and proven false.

  “See,” Kelyr said, and Kalan saw triumph in all the Sword faces, a counter to the flicker of doubt in Che’Ryl-g-Raham’s expression, and the trouble in Temorn’s, standing behind her.

  “We know who he is. We recognize the lineage he brings back into the ranks of the Derai.” For a moment Kalan thought it was the dream voice, clear and inflectionless, that had spoken aloud—but Che’Ryl-g-Raham and the marines were looking toward Laer and the Luck, standing by the aft ladder. Laer’s face was almost as impassive as the Luck’s emotionless countenance, but the marines’ dumbfounded expressions confirmed that it was she who had spoken, not the weatherworker. The Sword warriors just stared, puzzled and hostile at the same time.

  The Luck pressed her palms together in the ancient salute she had made to Kalan two dawns before. “Honor to you and to your House, scion of Blood, son of the line of Tavaral, the Faithkeeper, of the fellowship of the Storm Spears. Light and safety on your road to the Red Keep.”

  11

  Storm Spear

  Storm Spear, Storm Spear, Storm Spear . . . Hours later, when Kalan lay awake in the cabin that was rightly Temorn’s, as the ship’s captain of marines—but given over to him now that Faro must be accommodated as well—the whisper still seemed to echo through the ship. The reference to the fellowship had obviously meant something positive to the ship’s crew, since they treated the Luck’s greeting as both settling Kelyr’s challenge and sufficient explanation for Kalan’s reluctance to identify himself. But I’ll undo everything she achieved, he thought now, if I ask questions—the largest of which has to be why she intervened at all.

  He was aware, too, that the Luck had never used his name, only spoken in epithets: scion, son, warrior . . . In fact, she had not actually said he was a Storm Spear. Her words could equally well have meant that Tavaral had been of the fellowship of the Storm Spears. Everyone present had just assumed she meant Kalan. And I keep saying she, he reflected, when what the Luck said was we. Probably, she had been referring to herself and the weatherworker . . . Regardless, Kalan was a scion of the House of Blood, and his clan name, before his exile, had been Tavar. So it was possible his family line went back to a Tavaral, somewhere in the mists of Derai history. But he had never heard of the Storm Spears before, let alone being one himself—which brought him back to the mystery of what the Luck had been about.

  Frowning, Kalan watched the darkness beyond the cabin’s porthole until the sky began to gray and Faro stirred in the hammock Temorn had slung for him. Earlier, the boy had tossed and turned, crying out warnings in his sleep. As well he might, Kalan thought, given his second encounter with the Sword warriors. For now, though, Faro’s expression was peaceful, and although his limbs twitched again, he did not wake.

  Kalan shook his head, but let his thoughts drift into the rhythm of the sea until the ship’s bell rang the change of watch. Boots tramped overhead, followed by a clatter down the nearest companionway, and Kalan swung to his feet as brisk footsteps started toward his cabin. He was already opening the door as the marine outside raised her hand to knock.

  Rin, he reminded himself. Like Temorn, she had been with Che’Ryl-g-Raham that first day on the Grayharbor dock. Briefly, she glanced past him into the
cabin, before stepping back. “The navigator requests that you take breakfast with her in the great cabin, at your earliest convenience.” Rin kept her voice low. “I’m to stand watch here while you’re away.”

  “Whatever the Sword warriors may say about Matters of Kin and Blood, they were effectively banished into the Southern Realms.” Che’Ryl-g-Raham spoke starkly, one hand resting on the charts that littered the main table in her great cabin. “They betrayed the honor of Earl and House, letting darkspawn slay the Keep of Bells’ priests they were supposed to be escorting.” Her lips pursed. “The report we heard named Orth as the ringleader in that endeavor.”

  An account that fits, Kalan thought, with their oath breaking in Emer. But Che’Ryl-g-Raham had resumed speaking. “Although you would say Wallspawn these days, in the House of Blood.” Her manner was noncommittal. “The official Red Keep line is that the Swarm is a myth designed to keep us from the pleasanter realms of Haarth.” The Sword warriors had alluded to the same thing, Kalan recalled, although clearly it was not a view they shared. But then Blood was the rearguard of the warrior Houses, while Swords was the farthest forward of all the Derai Houses except Night and Stars. “Not,” Che’Ryl-g-Raham said, “that one would expect a Storm Spear to share that view.”

  Wouldn’t you? Kalan thought. Inwardly, he cursed his ignorance, particularly since the navigator’s intent gaze belied her neutral manner—although she let the pause when he might have answered pass. “We shouldn’t let the food get cold,” she said instead, and joined him at the cabin’s smaller table. They both sat, and she lifted the cover off the tureen between them. “Please, eat.”

  The dish, Kalan thought, savoring the first hot mouthful, was remarkably good, with eggs and some kind of grain mixed in with smoked fish. As he ate, he studied his surroundings: not just the size of the cabin or the line of square windows along the ship’s stern, but the mellow woodwork and a star chart engraved in silver along one wall. His eyes kept returning to the chart, impressed by the detail but puzzled because all the constellations were unfamiliar. Eventually, Che’Ryl-g-Raham’s gaze followed his. “Do you recognize them?”