Higina told her that Anara had pledged her word to Jelgar she would not escape in return for being allowed the freedom of the meltwater basin. According to Higina, who had been stationed here far longer than Brutila, Anara had been in the Northern Wastes for years, ever since Thorlberd had given up trying to persuade her to become his consort. She had been confined to the rondavel until the deal with Jelgar. Yet instead of using her newfound freedom to escape, as anyone with any sense would have done, Anara used it to help her captors.
‘They’re late with your presents this year,’ Higina said with a hopeful glance south towards the Guardians, the two mountains that marked the entrance to the Wastes.
‘You’ve no need for treats,’ Brutila remarked, eyeing the folds of skin around Higina’s midriff.
‘The snowline is descending. If they delay much longer, they might not have time to return before the pass closes.’
‘I’d pity any poor flekk that got stuck here.’
‘Sympathy, Brutila?’ asked Anara with a smile. ‘I knew you had a spark of goodness somewhere inside you.’
‘I only mean that no one should be forced to listen to you and Higina prattle on for a whole winter,’ Brutila remarked icily.
‘Watching you scowl and glower isn’t anyone’s idea of entertainment,’ Higina responded.
‘I have plenty of tales I could tell,’ said Brutila with a glance at Anara. ‘I know everything the Kyrgs are forbidden to speak of.’ The one advantage that she held over Anara was her knowledge that her children were alive. Anara had been told they had died at the time of Thorlberd’s ascension. It amused Brutila to know that she had the means to bring Anara joy, but that she withheld that knowledge. One of Brutila’s few pleasures involved dropping regular hints about how unpleasantly Anara’s children had died, hoping to break her spirit, but Anara had proven stronger than Brutila had given her credit for. She would listen in silence and then turn the conversation.
‘If the supplies don’t arrive, perhaps we can open that crate of spiced wine you’ve been keeping, Brutila?’ Higina suggested.
‘I’d rather throw it away than give it to you.’
‘If they do not come then Thorlberd must be dead,’ said Anara. She placed the last piece of buckthorn on the ground and entered their rondavel, one of hundreds of roundhouses that sprouted across the valley floor like thick-stemmed mushrooms. The others followed her into the dim interior. Yellow animal hides stretched tight over the window frames filtered out most of the light. Higina hurried to their stores and began to rifle through them.
‘Dead? More likely he’s grown tired of wasting his efforts on someone so ungrateful.’ Yet Brutila wondered, all the same. After such a failure, Thorlberd’s grip on power would be weakened. Had there been a coup? The returning Kyrgs had known nothing about a change in Golmeira’s leadership. What would it mean for her if Thorlberd were dead?
‘Thorlberd would never give up. It is not in his nature,’ Anara said.
‘You sound almost as if you admire him. If anyone had made me suffer the way he made you…’ A memory of whispering, ravenous scrittals caused Brutila to break off. She shivered. Anara placed a couple of pellets in the stone fireplace and Brutila felt a spark of gratitude, one that she quickly extinguished. She refused to be taken in by Anara’s strange little tricks.
‘Our hosts will not be pleased that you waste pellets.’
‘I hope I’ve earned some license,’ said Anara, striking sparks against a firering. ‘We’ve doubled the buckthorn harvest since last year.’
Higina retrieved a burlap sack and pulled out a handful of candied halsa nuts.
‘If Thorlberd’s dead, then who’s in charge?’ she said, popping a couple of the nuts into her mouth.
‘Rastran, probably,’ said Brutila. It was Anara’s turn to shudder.
‘That would be truly awful.’
‘I don’t get it. You should be delighted at the idea of Thorlberd’s death. He killed your husband and if you knew what he’d done to your children, well…’
She broke off, hoping her prisoner would rise to the bait. Anara turned away.
‘Betraying his brother was an evil act, but that doesn’t mean Thorlberd is himself evil. I think he genuinely believed he was doing the best thing for Golmeira.’
‘How can you think him anything but your enemy?’
‘I believe everyone has a natural drive towards good. In all my life, I have only met two people who made me doubt that.’
Brutila’s lip curled as Anara glanced at her with a look of pity.
‘Your insults do not hurt me. I care nothing for your opinion.’
‘I don’t mean you, Brutila.’
Brutila’s prepared retort died on her lips.
‘Then who do you mean?’ asked Higina, popping another handful of nuts into her mouth.
‘Rastran, for one. That is why I do not celebrate the idea of Thorlberd’s death. If Rastran is grand marl, the people of Golmeira will suffer greatly.’
Tears glinted in Anara’s green eyes.
‘And the other?’ Brutila asked brusquely. Such shameless displays of emotion annoyed her.
‘Your father,’ Anara replied gently. The pity in her voice made Brutila hate her more than ever.
‘You dare—’
The cloth door to the rondavel was pulled aside and a Kyrginite woman entered. She was quite young, mid-twenties at most, but she carried herself with an air of authority. Her dark blonde hair was braided in narrow cornrows and she had a black tattoo in the shape of a bird above her left eye. She was accompanied by two female attendants, who kept their heads bowed.
‘Welcome, Guthene Lungrid,’ said Anara with a polite nod. The woman’s flat nose twitched as she glanced at the fireplace.
‘Lady Anara, you are an honoured guest. We owe you much for the work you have done here, but the scent of your fire spreads. How will our youngsters learn restraint if they see such an example of profligacy? The snows are still high.’
‘Of course.’ Anara moved quickly to smother the fire. ‘My apologies. I did not mean to disrespect your customs.’
Lungrid continued to make her point.
‘I know we have had an excellent buckthorn harvest this year but what if we are not so fortunate in future years? Our youngsters must not be cossetted in good times lest they become unable to face hard ones.’
‘Once again, I apologise,’ said Anara. Brutila’s lip curled at Anara’s capitulation, but Lungrid seemed appeased.
‘I hope you will attend the ceremony tonight,’ she said. Brutila’s pulse quickened.
‘There’s to be a Culling after all?’ she asked eagerly.
Lungrid’s eyes slid towards her.
‘The ceremony must be honoured, even if none are chosen for the sacrifice. Our brothers and sisters from the smaller clans have already begun to arrive. They will renew the bonds of obedience. This is also important.’
‘I will be honoured to attend,’ said Anara, ‘as will my companions.’
Brutila snorted as Lungrid and her escorts departed. She strode to the fireplace and warmed her gloved hands over the faint heat that was still emanating from the ash-covered embers.
‘Why start a fire if you are going to cave in so readily? That woman is young enough to be your daughter. If you still had one.’
‘I’m going to gather more buckthorn,’ said Anara. ‘Whilst there is still enough light.’
‘She lit the fire for you, you ungrateful idiot,’ Higina said, once Anara had left. ‘Why can’t you recognise kindness when you see it?’
Chapter Forty-nine
The icy wind whistling through the high mountain pass made Zastra’s ears ache, flecks of ice scouring her cheeks like blown sand. Her eyes were watering so much she could barely see, yet it was still only autumn. She didn’t like to think how cold it would be once winter truly set in. She pressed the sides of her fur-lined hood against her ears, but was unable to stop the wind snaking icy fingers around t
he back of her neck. Even the fellgryffs were struggling, shuffling forward at a slow walk, their thick coats clagged with ice crystals.
The sea journey to Sendor had been mercifully quiet. The tattered remnants of the Golmeiran fleet were stretched thin and they encountered no warships. Soon after they landed, Kylen rounded up four fellgryffs. Zastra, who had ridden the feisty creatures before, had no trouble persuading one to let her mount but Kastara and Ithgol did not find it so easy. Kastara had been too eager, trying to mount before her fellgryff had dipped its head in submission, and it had sprung away from her. None of the beasts would even dip their heads for Ithgol.
‘I’m afraid they don’t like Kyrgs,’ Findar remarked as the smallest of the fellgryffs knelt in front of him and let him mount with no sign of trying to throw him off. The watching Sendorans were astonished. Such behaviour was unprecedented.
‘I asked her nicely,’ Findar explained. He persuaded the remaining fellgryffs to accept Kastara and Ithgol and they were soon on their way. They travelled quickly, avoiding Ixendred’s patrols by going cross-country. The sure-footed fellgryffs had no need for tracks or roads. They had crossed the northern border and traversed the unclaimed arid lands to the Guardians, snow-capped peaks that formed the gateway to the Northern Wastes.
Ithgol rode up beside her and gestured towards a small cave, whose entrance was just wide enough for the fellgryffs to squeeze through. Once inside, Zastra dismounted, relieved to be out of the biting wind. Ithgol helped Findar and Kastara down. They were shivering, and their lips were purple.
‘Rub your faces,’ Ithgol said. ‘Or you get frostbite.’ He demonstrated. Slowly, Zastra’s skin tingled and fizzed back to life.
‘It is time to send the fellgryffs back,’ she said reluctantly.
Kastara gave a wail of protest. Zastra had some sympathy with her distress, but there was unlikely to be any more grazing, not with winter coming and it wasn’t fair to keep the fellgryffs with them any longer. They rested in the cave overnight and in the morning Findar released the fellgryffs. Three of them leapt away, heading south as fast as they could, but his own mount rubbed her nose against his armpit and refused to leave until he pushed her away with his hand as well as his mind. Reluctantly, she trotted after the others, although with many a backwards glance.
The wind eased as they came down from the high mountain pass and the air grew less chilly as they dropped onto a broken plain. As during their journey to Aliterra, Ithgol’s foraging skills impressed his companions. Apart from the arid lands, where neither plant nor animal lived, he managed to find food anywhere.
‘How do you know it isn’t poisonous?’ Kastara asked, eyeing a dark brown beetle that Ithgol offered her with intense suspicion.
‘Try a small amount and wait. If it is bad, you will soon know it.’ He snapped the head off another beetle and sucked out the flesh. Kastara did the same, puckering up her face in disgust. She craned her head to look at the snow-capped peaks that surrounded them.
‘Does anyone live up there?’
‘No.’
‘What’s that one called?’ Kastara pointed towards a giant mountain that rose head and shoulders above the rest.
‘That is the Warrior Mountain.’
‘Have you been there?’
‘Once.’ Ithgol plunged his arm into a hole and lifted out a squirming rodent with white fur that looked like a small scrittal. He snapped its neck and added it to another he had already stuck in his belt. The trail they followed was faint but every so often the ground softened and overlapping footprints could be seen. They seemed quite fresh.
‘Kyrg warriors,’ Ithgol remarked. ‘The Golmeirans do not want the expense of feeding them over the winter.’
They crossed the plain and followed a dried-up stream bed into a wide river basin. Thick-stemmed shrubs covered in small oval leaves spread out from a dry river bed of cracked grey mud. Ithgol stopped dead.
‘It looks different to how I remember.’ He began to snuffle the air.
‘Someone is coming,’ said Findar softly. Zastra crouched down to try and see beneath the interlocking branches of the shrubs.
‘I sense them too,’ said Kastara.
‘We have not come here to hide,’ said Zastra, cupping her hands and calling out a greeting. The dark green leaves of the bushes shivered and three Kyrgs emerged – two women and girl a few years younger than the twins. Their trousers and coats were made of patched furs. Each of the women carried a spear with a serrated blade.
‘Where are the gifts?’ the girl asked, leaning to look around them, as if expecting them to be followed by a baggage train.
‘What gifts?’ asked Kastara.
‘You were not sent by Thorlberd?’ The woman who spoke had a bird-shaped tattoo over her right eye. She tightened her grip on her spear and Zastra thought quickly.
‘I have a gift for Chief Guthan Jelgar, but it is too large to carry,’ she said. It was the truth, sort of. ‘I request an audience.’
The woman snorted.
‘Request? Unusually polite for a Golmeiran.’ She eyed Ithgol with suspicion.
‘What clan are you? What rank?’
Ithgol rolled up his left sleeve to reveal three round tattoos of different colours running up his forearm. Zastra knew the Kyrgs added one each year, at the Culling. Ithgol had run away and so did not have any recent tattoos. The woman sucked air through her teeth and her companions flinched as if they had been bitten by a snake.
‘Mordaka!’ cried the young girl in horror. The woman with the bird tattoo examined Ithgol closely.
‘Ithgol, of Clan Rasmuth,’ she said. ‘I remember you, although I was only a girl at the time. Your sister refused sacrifice.’
Ithgol thrust back his shoulders. ‘It was I who refused. She would have accepted her fate.’
‘We believed you had died.’
‘She did. I did not.’
‘You know the fate of Mordaka?’
‘I am ready.’
‘No,’ Zastra protested. ‘No one is to die. Not until I have spoken with Jelgar. I hope to obtain a pardon for Ithgol.’
‘There has never been clemency for Mordaka.’
‘Not every tradition is worth keeping,’ said Zastra, ‘particularly if we wish things to change for the better.’
The woman examined Zastra, her gaze as intense as that of a caralyx stalking her prey. Zastra returned her stare evenly.
‘I will take you to Jelgar,’ the Kyrg woman said at last, ‘but I know of no gift that can prevent the fate of Mordaka.’
Findar introduced himself to the young Kyrginite girl.
‘I am Megra, granddaughter of Jelgar,’ she said in response.
‘So, you’re like royalty around here?’
She laughed, a strangled guttural sound.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘That’s not how it works,’ she said. ‘Lungrid is Chief Guthene because she is the best hunter. She and Voghal are teaching me. Perhaps one day I will be good enough to succeed her, but it would not have anything to do with my grandfather.’
‘I thought Jelgar was in charge?
Megra rolled her eyes.
‘He is Chief Guthan. He rules the men.’
‘So Lungrid oversees the women?’
Megra nodded. ‘Only a woman can truly understand and judge another woman. For men it is the same.’
‘If anything happened to Jelgar, who would become chief? Your father?’
‘Don’t you Golmeirans ever listen?’
‘Um, I meant no offence,’ said Findar quickly. ‘I just want to understand.’
‘There would be a contest, open to any of our warriors. My father included.’
Findar continued to talk with Megra as Lungrid led them through the closely planted buckthorn. Ithgol lagged behind. Zastra dropped back to him.
‘I won’t let them execute you,’ she said.
‘You cannot understand my shame,’ he growled and refused to say anything more. They contin
ued until they reached the Kyrg settlement, where it was Zastra’s turn to be rendered speechless.
Chapter Fifty
Zastra sat stiffly on a mat of woven reeds, legs crossed and back upright. Facing her, also seated, was Chief Guthan Jelgar, his muscular arms bare to the shoulder. His expression was difficult to read, not least because the whole of his face was covered in tattoos. Chains of blue threaded between green and black swirls, his naturally red-hued skin peeping out only rarely between the patches of ink. His hair, so pale it was almost white, was tied loosely into a horsetail.
They were in the largest of the rondavels. Its circular wall was constructed of small stones packed together, the gaps between plugged with clay. A roof of thatched buckthorn domed above them. At either end lay fireplaces of rough-carved stone, both empty, even though it was cold enough for Zastra to see her own breath. The air felt damp and had a musky odour that reminded Zastra of Dalbric and Etta’s goat shed. The rondavel was packed with Kyrgs, seated shoulder to shoulder, those at the front so close that their damp breath mingled with hers. A warrior with his entire left cheek inked solid black had snarled vile threats in Zastra’s ear as she had walked past and he was not alone. Anger rose from the seated warriors like hot steam. Zastra suspected many had fought at Uden’s Teeth, judging by the recent scars and still-bandaged wounds. Such spectators would hardly help her cause, but she had been told that Kyrginite business was always conducted openly. At least Jelgar had agreed to listen to what she had to say rather than killing her on sight. Seated next to him at a place of equal prominence was Lungrid, her spear laid on the ground beside her. Zastra herself was flanked by Findar and Kastara. To their left, Ithgol knelt forlornly, his hands bound behind his back. Opposite him sat Higina and Brutila and between them, a slight figure that Zastra didn’t dare look at. She felt the warmth of her mother’s gaze upon her, but she could not allow herself to be distracted.
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