Daughter of Blood

by Helen Lowe

  The crow had warned him that the spear came at a price. I just assumed I would be the one to pay, Kalan thought. It should have been me. He could have wept, except the wind from the plain gusted, a grit-laden susurration to the futility of blame and might-have-beens. Dry-eyed, he stared into it, but felt as bleak as Taly had looked, keeping her vigil for the young woman she had called Lady Mouse. The ensign had insisted on honoring Myr with the rites of Hurulth, dismissing the New Blood’s ritual of Kharalth—and Kalan could not bring himself to tell her both would be equally vain so long as Myr’s spirit was bound into the Web of Mayanne.

  On the far side of the camp someone was playing a flute. The sound was mournful, suiting his mood and the silence of those crouched around the fires. So many lost, Kalan thought: Palla and Dain, together with Jaras and Nhal from his exiled company; Reith and Yelme among so many other marines; and Sarr and Nai from the caravan. Baris, too, had fallen sometime before the end, and Orth was dead.

  Kalan had seen the Sword warrior’s body as he turned Madder to answer Murn’s summons, cast up a few yards past the high-tide line of the final assault with a storm wrack of enemies about him. All Kalan’s focus had been on Myr, so he had not fully assimilated the details absorbed at that time, including Orth’s death, until much later. He might not mourn the Sword warrior as he did others, but could and would acknowledge that Orth had fought ferociously to the end—and cut down the support for Arcolin’s offer to the camp as effectively as he had swung his poleaxe. Not from any change of heart toward Faro, but from his understanding of Arcolin’s game and a hatred of the Swarm that outweighed other animosities.

  The rat-fox barked again, and Kalan frowned, studying the shadow of Malian and Raven’s warriors, keeping guard in the darkness beyond the camp. The main force of around six hundred horse, commanded by someone called Valadan, was still pursuing the besiegers. Almost inevitably, Kalan knew, their superior numbers would whittle the Darksworn cavalry away until the infantry were at their mercy. In the meantime, Malian’s escort had been reinforced from the original vanguard, so now several hundred warriors guarded the camp.

  All drawn from Raven’s personal guard, apparently—yet try though he might, Kalan could not recall any Southern Realms’ mercenary company of comparable size to the force that had rescued the camp. The warrior he had observed in the tent was subtly altered, too, from the hedge knight he had known in Emer. The old Ser Raven had also kept in the background until need demanded, but this man was . . . Less rough-edged, Kalan decided finally, and more assured. If that’s possible, he added wryly, remembering the hill fort and Caer Argent.

  He felt confident Malian would explain more fully as soon as circumstances allowed. Meanwhile, the strengthened guard meant he need not fear either a surprise assault or harassment from the lower-level ’spawn infestation that had accompanied the legion. With Malian and her force present, he could even say that his job was done and walk away from the camp, losing himself and his grief in the vastness of the night . . .

  The respite, Kalan decided after a few moments, lay in contemplating such a course, but without any serious intention of pursuing it. Especially since he was still the Honor Captain Myr had appointed, and would retain responsibility for the camp until alternate provision could be made. Still frowning, he turned back to the camp, and recognized Aiv, crouched by one of the fires with the remnant of Palla’s company. Together with Rigan, who was still in the infirmary, she was the last of those who had helped Sarr secure the camp after Kolthis abandoned it.

  Instead of passing unseen in the dark between the fires, Kalan turned aside and sank onto his heels beside her. Checking Aiv’s move to rise, he held out his hands to the flames. “Where’s Darrar?” he asked.

  Aiv cleared her throat. “All the companies chose one of their number to keep the second honor watch for Lady Myrathis, and Darrar stands for us. The Sea company will keep the third watch, and Lord Tirael’s knights will see the vigil out. The camp agreed while you were with the other captains.” She hesitated. “We’re all glad to see you unscathed, Captain Khar.”

  “And I you,” Kalan replied as a series of murmurs endorsed Aiv’s comment.

  The groom glanced away, clearly uncomfortable in her role as spokesperson, but one of the others gestured her to continue. “I mean, we all know that none of us would be here if it weren’t for you. Sir.”

  “Ay,” an older man agreed. “Even this Heir of Night, the one they say is the new Chosen of Mhaelanar, only came to our rescue because of her friendship with you.”

  Nods greeted this, and Kalan saw the association with Malian had enhanced, not diminished, him in their eyes. No question, though, how quickly word got about. As if to confirm it, Aiv spoke again, very low. “Is it true what they say, that your page is a long-lost Heir of Blood?”

  “He has ties to the old line of Blood,” Kalan temporized. “That much is true.” If that implied anything more was not the case, he would have to live with the stain on his honor—but Aiv’s query had stirred fear to life, highlighting the danger of Faro’s heritage. Tirael had implied it, with his remark about loosing a wyr pack in Blood’s halls, while Nimor’s response had anticipated the way current alignments within the Alliance would shift as Earls and their advisors scented advantage. Kalan had known the revelation of Pha’Rho-l-Ynor would cause a furor, but now realized that grief and other preoccupations had blinded him to what Tirael had seen at once: that the ruling kin’s most likely response would be to seek Faro’s death.

  And I can’t rule out Liankhara and others still having viable agents in the camp, he thought grimly. “The defense would not have held without each and every one of you,” he told Aiv and her companions, deliberately returning to the previous subject. “Your stand here honors Blood.”

  Kalan noted the lift in their expressions as they murmured acknowledgment, and all those about the fire rose to their feet as he left. On reaching the inner camp, he saw the lamp inside Myr’s tent had been relit—and since Malian and Raven’s escort still waited, was unsurprised to find the two of them inside. Malian was seated on a folding stool, studying an ornate scroll with Ise’s walking stick propped beside her, while Faro lay close by, fast asleep amid the wyr hounds.

  “He wanted to keep the vigil,” Malian said, following his gaze, “but fell asleep almost at once. I thought it best to bring him with us when we left.”

  “At least one of us is thinking clearly,” Kalan said, relieved, then glanced from the walking stick to the scroll, his raised brows a question.

  “It’s the marriage contract,” Malian told him.

  Kalan’s brows rose higher—until he reminded himself that as Heir of Night she had every right to look at it, now that Myr was gone. To cover his flash of disapproval, and subsequent surge of grief, he studied The Lovers again. “I hate the cursed thing,” he said finally, turning back to Malian and Raven, “but I intend to keep it very safe.” Settling into a camp chair, he told them all he knew or suspected of the tapestry’s part in events.

  “A complex weaving,” Malian observed, then paused. “Honor and duty may count for a great deal, but I can see Lady Myrathis meant more to you.”

  Raven remained by the entrance, but Kalan could feel the shimmer of Nhenir’s power as well, warding the tent and their conversation. “More than I realized. And it was my job to keep her alive.” His voice roughened. “I failed in that.”

  Gentleness was not a quality he primarily associated with Malian, but Kalan heard it in her voice now. “I doubt she would see it that way.”

  He met her eyes. “But I do. And I’m still her champion, so I have to find a way to free her spirit, if I can. But you needn’t fear,” he added quietly, “that I’ll fail you by turning away from immediate events to pursue a personal quest.”

  Malian shook her head. “From the beginning, we’ve been friends, not Heir and retainer. And friends come and go as they wish, choosing their own paths as need and wisdom dictate. So, the question of failing
me does not arise.”

  Which is both freedom and a burden, Kalan thought wryly, since it leaves me with no one else to blame if my decisions go awry. His gaze returned to The Lovers and the young woman who stood alone, weeping—although he rather thought the symbolism might depict Faro’s fate as much as Myr’s. He met Malian’s gaze again. “In terms of where I go from here, my dreams keep showing me Dread Pass, above the Towers of Morning.”

  She nodded. “I’ve detected that, through my visions. I also met Garan of Night and his eight-guard by Rowan Birchmoon’s tomb. From what he told me, Morning and the pass are both dangerously vulnerable.”

  Garan had said the same thing to Asantir in the Red Keep, Kalan reflected. “In light of what’s happened here, the pass must be secured.”

  “I agree.” Malian was thoughtful, though. “But how sure are you of your dreams’ truth? We know Nindorith manipulates both dreams and foreseeing, and the Darksworn might well try misdirection regarding their plans.”

  “So far, the other dreams around it have proven true.” Kalan glanced toward Raven, watchful by the tent entrance, then back to Faro. “Including one that may be his great storm. ‘Do it,’” he quoted. “‘Live.’ I believe I dreamed Ammaran saying those words, presumably telling Taierin to use the Luck’s binding. And there was another power loose in that storm.” Kalan described the behemoth and the sky riven by more than lightning. “But how Pha’Rho-l-Ynor’s wreckage washed up four hundred years later, I still don’t understand.”

  “I may, from what you describe.” Raven spoke quietly from his place by the entrance. “Do you recall,” he said to Malian, “my telling you how Amaliannarath brought us here, and that our few remaining adepts with any sort of talent for gates all died, shoring up her power at the last? And that even then we almost didn’t make it?”

  Amaliannarath, Kalan thought, cudgeling his tired brain to recall . . . But Malian was nodding. “She never intended bringing us back into time at all,” Raven continued. “She had foreseen that we must sleep outside it and waken only when the circumstances were right. But she had expended too much of herself at the end and was already dying. She came out of the Gate of Dreams inadvertently, tearing a gap between it and Haarth, which is when our adepts died, joining their power to hers to rectify the error. That breach,” he told Kalan, “is what you saw in your dream.”

  “‘I move between worlds and time,’” Malian said softly. “Amaliannarath really did have that ability—but she came out of the gate after the time when she foresaw Fire waking. Before that could be corrected and the tear closed again, Pha’Rho-l-Ynor must have sailed through the anomaly and into our current time.”

  It does fit, Kalan thought. But Raven’s reference to sleeping outside of time had prompted his recollection of Amaliannarath. “The Cavern of Sleepers and the warrior with the sword,” he said. “Is that who you are?” Before Raven could reply, another realization made him swing back to Malian. “And the sword—was it the frost-fire blade all along?”

  “It was,” Malian agreed. “I found the Lost, too, but they were not inclined to return to the Wall.” Her tone was wry, while her look said that she knew Kalan would appreciate their sentiment, which he did. He was fascinated by the rest of the story she proceeded to relate, supplemented by the occasional clarification or elaboration from Raven. At the end, he shook his head—although their tale of the frost-fire sword’s path to reach Malian was no stranger than his own experience of a spear that had awaited him for what could have been aeons, in a tomb that had manifested on Haarth after having been raised in another place and time.

  But still, Kalan thought, with another careful glance at Raven, who met his gaze levelly: Darksworn. That took considerable mental adjustment, and Kalan didn’t know if he could have managed it without having known Raven in Emer first. “You had the sword all that time,” he said, unable to keep the wonder from his voice. He frowned, though, reflecting on the rest of their story, because Malian could only have rendezvoused with the Patrol and Fire—Kalan shook his head again—around the time he was leaving the Red Keep. “There’s no way,” he said slowly, “you could have marched overland in that time.”

  Malian and Raven exchanged a glance. “No.” Malian set the scroll aside. “By the time I reached the River, I knew events were moving more swiftly than we had hoped, and that I needed to reach the Wall sooner than the planned muster and march north would have allowed. But even once I understood that Rowan Birchmoon’s grave provided a bridge between the Wall and the rest of Haarth, a portal would not have allowed the passage of sufficient numbers. Especially since,” she added, with a flicker of the former hedge knight’s own sardonic humor as she glanced at Raven, “you had extracted a promise that I would take your personal guard with me.”

  Two hundred horse, Kalan thought, appreciating Raven’s old, imperturbable look. Or three hundred, if the entire vanguard comprised his personal guard . . . “But,” Malian went on, “I reflected more deeply on the way the Wall-Haarth divide exists in both the daylight realm and the Gate of Dreams. I also recalled Yorindesarinen’s path through the white mists, and what we know of how the siren worm infiltrated the Keep of Winds, six years ago. I thought further, too, on how I had used the Gate of Dreams to thwart Nindorith in Caer Argent. That it was possible to use the Gate in that way,” she explained, meeting Kalan’s gaze. “As well as the fact that you and I can pass the Gate in our physical bodies—while Fire has cadres dedicated to turning aside unwelcome attention. I also have Nhenir.”

  “So you opened up a way through the Gate of Dreams,” Kalan said slowly, “and crossed over using the bridge provided by Rowan Birchmoon’s power?”

  Malian nodded. “The way was shaped from the fabric of the Gate, so I did not have to sustain it out of my own power in the same way I would a portal. That meant far greater numbers could pass through.”

  “Persuading the Gate to retain that shape,” Raven observed, “still took its toll on you.”

  Persuading the Gate, thought Kalan. He cleared his throat. “I can see how that might be if it allowed the passage of your total force.”

  “That would have been a feat!” Malian shook her head. “No, only two hundred accompanied me through the Gate of Dreams. And you’re right”—she glanced toward Raven—“even that pushed me to my limit. It was sufficient numbers, though, to fulfill my promise.” Her gaze returned to Kalan. “The two hundred also ensured we’d have a fighting chance if our attempt at stealth failed, or we met a welcoming party on the Wall side.” Briefly, the ghost of the excitement she must have felt on first working out the Gate of Dreams solution illuminated her face. “Rowan Birchmoon’s bridge also meant Fire didn’t have to wake on the Haarth side of the divide and then march north. We could wake them from this side.”

  She paused, growing sober again. “But Wolf was waiting for us near the cairn, and when he told us of the Darkswarm build up and how they were trailing the caravan, we sent out long-range scouts. Once their reports came in we knew we dared not delay, so only roused sufficient of Fire’s strength to effect a rescue before we marched. And we had to march.” Malian’s expression, meeting Kalan’s, conveyed both apology and regret. “The first crossing came close to exhausting me, and I could not have opened another way through the Gate so soon, let alone for a significantly larger force.”

  They came as soon as they could, Kalan told himself, despite the grief and bitterness that flared through his fatigue. He was all too aware that power could be exhausted as easily as physical strength, and what Malian had done . . . Shaking his head, he tried to encompass its magnitude. “But if only you could pass the Gate of Dreams in your physical body, how did the two hundred follow you?”

  Malian’s eyes narrowed—on recollection, he thought, seeing her absorption. “I’ve managed to take one or more with me at least twice before, most recently with Raven and his horses outside Aeris. So the process of opening up this way included persuading the Gate to allow the others through as well
. It helped that Fire still has a handful of adepts with some dreaming ability,” she admitted. “They were able to provide support.”

  Limited support, Kalan suspected, frowning. “If we’re to believe Faro’s memories, your ability to create such openings must come from your mother.” Masquerading as Ilai, he thought soberly, remembering both the wounded attendant and the faceless woman from his predawn vision. He stiffened. “If she can do the same thing—”

  Malian shook her head. “If she could have, I think she would by now. But her ability appears to be grounded in the physical realm—like the way she’s supposed to have opened through the Wall, twenty-odd years ago.”

  The ability to pass the Gate of Dreams in one’s physical body is extremely rare, Kalan reminded himself. And it was rarer still to be able to take others with you. He was still thinking about that when the clip of an approaching horse, followed by brisk footsteps entering the inner camp, made him turn. At the same time, Raven lifted the tent flap aside. “It’s Aithe,” the knight said, looking back at Malian. “She’ll have brought dispatches from Valadan, but I’ll deal with them by the escort’s fire.” His nod included Kalan, and then he was gone, the heavy canvas falling behind him.

  For a moment they were both silent. Kalan listened to Raven’s retreating footsteps, and then his voice, greeting the newly-arrived officer, while Malian appeared absorbed by the soldered phoenix. Her expression was so noncommittal that Kalan knew she was expecting all the questions about Raven, and her alliance with Fire, that he couldn’t ask while the knight—or prince, he corrected himself—was present. Only I’m too tired for that, Kalan thought. Besides, he already knew the most important fact about Malian’s new alliance, which was that it had saved the camp. And, he decided, realizing it was true, I trust her judgment.

  He spread his hands, flexing fingers that were still stiff from grasping spear and sword. “Tell me about Wolf. You said he was drawn out of the Winter Country by Rowan Birchmoon’s death?”