He thought of the face of the Anain that watched over In'hynyr's vo'an. Ess'yr had said that the Anain were here, even if they did not show themselves. Orisian found himself glancing at flickering shadows, and at the movement of branches stirred by the wind. He started at the clattering eruption of pigeons out of the trees. The sharp barking of foxes in the dusk took on a shivery quality in his ear.
His unease was reinforced by the small rituals Ess'yr and Varryn followed. They never made a fire until darkness had fallen, and then only a small one that they ringed with a makeshift low screen of branches to muffle the light. When the time came, as her brother was decanting the embers of the previous night's fire from the birch bark container he carried and sustained them in, Ess'yr would find a flat stone. She set it at the new fire's side and placed a few scraps of food on it. In an almost inaudible voice, she murmured a few words. After she was done, Varryn would bow his head over the food and whisper the same incantation. In the morning they left the food behind them as they made their way onwards.
Orisian hesitated to ask Ess'yr what the act signified. His curiosity must have been poorly concealed, for on the third evening Ess'yr sat beside him at the fire.
'The food is for restless dead. Those who walk. No anhyne to guard us here. If one of the restless comes in the night, they will take the food. Leave us.'
'The restless dead,' echoed Orisian, feeling the stirring of the darkness beyond the reach of the fire's frail light. The unburied dead.
'You fear the dead,' he murmured.
'Not fear. Pity. Only those who do not rest.'
Orisian was not sure how to behave with Ess'yr. He felt she was less at ease with him now than when they had been in the vo'an. It might be because of Varryn's presence, or the fact that she was no longer his healer but his guard, guide and escort. Still, she did not mock him as Varryn did. She would talk to him and tell him things, if not with as much freedom as she had on occasion back in the camp. More often than her brother, she would wait for him and Rothe to catch up when they fell behind.
They came to a stream that bubbled along between moss-covered rocks. There was a pool where the water paused, gathering itself before rushing on down towards the valley that summoned it. While Varryn and Rothe sat in silence, Ess'yr took Orisian to the water's edge and made him kneel down beside her. He did so gingerly, trying to protect his side. The wound had been hurting more for the last day or so.
She pulled up the sleeve of her hide jacket, exposing the pale, sculpted length of her forearm. He watched as she flexed her long fingers. She slipped her hand into the water with seamless delicacy, leaving barely a hint of its passing upon the surface. As she reached beneath the lip of the bank, she looked not at the water or at her arm but at Orisian. He could not look away from those utterly grey eyes.
Her face betrayed nothing: no expectation, no concentration. Its surface was no more ruffled than that of the pool. Her hand emerged, and cupped in it was a small, glistening fish. It was a mountain trout, its flanks speckled with red dots. Orisian laughed, and for a moment there was a smile on Ess'yr's lips as if the sun had touched her.
'You,' she said.
He obeyed, sinking his hand into the water. He moved his hand along the bank, feeling the earth, brushing his fingertips over pebbles. He touched something alive and cold and smooth. Closing his hand with all the care he could muster, he raised the fish. As soon as he brought it within a breath of the air it gave a single, contemptuous twist and flicked out of his grasp and away.
His disappointment showed. Ess'yr smiled again.
They caught no more fish, and shared the meagre flesh of the one between the four of them. It was enough to make it the best meal they had eaten since leaving the vo'an.
Rothe pursed his lips as he peered at the wound in Orisian's flank. Orisian was lying on the ground, his jacket hitched up.
'How does it look?' he asked.
Rothe gave a non-committal shrug. 'It matters more how it feels.'
'Not bad. It itches sometimes. Is it healed?'
'Will be soon, if you treat it gentle. Still red.' He sniffed at the paste-smeared bandage he had removed from over the wound. 'Wish I knew what it was they've used on it, though.'
'Whatever it is, it's worked. I'll settle for that.'
Rothe grunted and straightened.
Orisian pulled his jacket down and carefully righted himself, still wary of jarring the muscles in his side. 'I'm sure they knew what they were doing,' he said. 'They are Kyrinin cures, all those medicines Inurian has. He never did anyone any harm with them, did he?'
'No, but he didn't cure all the ones he tried, either,' said Rothe.
'Well, anyway, this has worked.'
Rothe frowned at the poultice in his hand. Orisian glanced over to where Ess'yr sat further up the slope with her back to them. She had said it would be all right to take the dressing off, but shown no further interest. Varryn had disappeared some little while ago: scouting ahead, or hunting. As usual, he had not seen fit to explain what he was doing.
Rothe leaned close, fixing Orisian with a serious gaze.
'We should go,' the shieldman whispered. 'Leave them. We are not their prisoners now, whatever they may think.'
Orisian shook his head, but Rothe was insistent. 'This is taking too long. Anduran cannot be far. If we go straight downhill we would surely be in the valley in an hour or two. Orisian, these wights are no friends of ours. We don't need them.'
Orisian shot a nervous look towards Ess'yr, afraid that she would hear what Rothe was saying. She had not moved.
'They were told to take us, Rothe. I would get there faster if I could, but their vo'an'tyr told them to escort us, to see us out of their lands. They won't let us go off on our own.'
'We don't need their permission,' hissed Rothe urgently. 'And this isn't their land. It's ours; yours. Now is the time to do it. You're almost healed. Her brother isn't here. She can't deal with both of us alone.'
Again, Orisian shot a worried glance towards Ess'yr. Her head and shoulders remained as motionless and relaxed as ever. Yet he saw that her right hand rested upon her spear where it lay beside her, and he could not remember if it had been there before. He had a sudden taste of fear and a glimpse of something awful waiting a few paces into the future.
'No, Rothe,' he insisted as quietly as he could. 'No. Stop now. We stay with them.'
The words felt unfamiliar and ungainly on his tongue as he uttered them. He knew why: he had never, in any sense that mattered, commanded Rothe before. He had never had to. His shieldman blinked, and for just a moment Orisian saw in his eyes the instinct to keep arguing. It was snuffed out. The tension vanished from the warrior's face.
'As you say,' Rothe said, and Orisian could not hear in his voice a single trace of frustration or disagreement.
Shortly afterwards, Varryn returned and sat silently beside his sister. A squall of rain swept over them. It came down the valley from the north, drenching the forest and rattling the trees for half an hour. In the sodden aftermath, the Kyrinin shook their heads like animals to shed rainwater. Ess'yr leaned forwards so that her long hair hung in a curtain and ran tight fingers through it. Orisian watched her squeeze out droplets of water with a few long sweeps of her hand.
The child's body was twisted where it had fallen, one arm bent and pinned beneath the torso. Rothe laid his hand on the dead boy's shoulder and rolled him over. The limbs moved sluggishly. Death's grip had been on him for just a little while, stiffening his joints but not yet locking them. Orisian glimpsed a ruined face -- split skin flecked with fragments of tooth or bone, a lot of blood -- before Rothe, kneeling down, blocked his view.
The corpse was shod with crude hide slippers. The leggings were of undyed wool. It was the clothing of a poor household: shepherds, perhaps, or woodsmen. The boy lay in a slight hollow. Trees leaned over him. The grass was lushly green and wet from recent rain.
The two Kyrinin were standing back, resting on their spears. Th
ey watched as Rothe closed the child's eyes. He had to clean his hand on the grass afterwards. He turned the body over again to hide the face.
'Not long dead,' said the shieldman. He stood up. He looked tired, Orisian thought.
They could be no more than a day's walk from Anduran, in a fold of the hills that hid the Glas valley from sight. For the last couple of hours they had been walking through parts of the forest that had been well grazed in the summer. Most of the trees were young and spindly; only stumps remained of those that had offered good timber.
'This was in the wound,' Rothe said, holding out his hand. In his palm lay a thin piece of horn, worked to a sharp point.
'What is it?' asked Orisian.
'The Tarbains from the north set them into their clubs. That's who killed him: Tarbains.' He cast a glance towards Ess'yr and Varryn. 'Savages. They're barely human.'
'Tarbains,' said Orisian quietly. 'Then it's bad, isn't it?'
Rothe nodded. He flicked the sliver of horn away. It disappeared into the grass as if it had never been.
'Yes,' he said. 'If Tarbains are roaming free this far south, it's very bad. They could only have got here with a Black Road army. I'd not have believed it if it was any eyes but my own doing the seeing.'
'We should take care of the body,' Orisian said.
'The ones who did this cannot be far away. It's not safe to stay.'
Orisian looked at the dead boy. Once it had departed, life left no trace. The body had a shapeless quality. It was difficult to imagine it had ever been inhabited. As far as he could tell, all his family had come to this: certainly Fariel and Lairis, perhaps Kennet and Anyara. All of them. He wanted to look away, but could not lift his eyes from a patch on the back of the boy's jacket where some old tear had been carefully repaired.
'How old is he, do you think?'
'I couldn't be sure,' Rothe murmured.
'How old, though, do you think?' Orisian repeated, and heard the strange insistence in his voice as if it was someone else speaking.
'Perhaps twelve. Thirteen.'
'We should find the ones who did this,' Orisian said.
'I don't think...' began Rothe.
Orisian pointed to the lip of the hollow. The grass there was trodden flat. 'Even I can see the tracks,' he said.
'It would be better to pass around, and make for Anduran,' said Rothe.
'No. This boy wouldn't be out here on his own. His family, his home, can't be far away. His parents might be searching for him.'
'More likely they're dead and the Tarbains are feasting on their hearts, waiting for us.'
Orisian glared at his shieldman. Rothe looked back. His face was quite calm, quite firm.
'Then we will kill them,' Orisian said. 'I am going to follow this boy's trail, whether it's wise or not. These are our people. Should we pass by?'
Rothe stroked his beard.
'I will do it, Rothe. I am nephew to the Thane,' said Orisian quietly. Never before had he truly thought that his uncle's position made a difference to who he was, in his heart; perhaps it did, after all.
The shieldman held Orisian's gaze for a moment or two, then knelt and began to examine the ground. Orisian glanced over towards Ess'yr. She and her brother had not stirred. They showed no great interest in what was happening.
'We are going to find this boy's family,' he said to them. Ess'yr gave a slight nod. He had no idea what it meant, beyond the fact that she understood his words.
'There were three or four of them,' Rothe said. 'They ran him down and killed him with clubs and spears. It's easy to say, Orisian, but you understand that if they see us we have to kill them? All of them, if we can. If one escapes, he might come back with more.'
'Of course.' Orisian heard the coldness in his own voice.
Rothe stood up and faced Ess'yr and Varryn. When he spoke it was still to Orisian, though.
'You've only a knife. The few who did this might not be the only ones around. We may need help.'
Orisian looked to the Kyrinin. Both of them were watching him, not Rothe.
'Ess'yr, if there is a fight we may need your help. Please?'
It was Varryn who said, 'We have no quarrel here.'
'Perhaps not. I will understand if you do not come with us. But if the Tarbains have come this far, they can go further. They will kill Kyrinin as willingly as Huanin.'
'We will come,' Ess'yr said. 'We must take you to the forest edge. We are not there yet.'
As they set out along the trail left by the boy and his pursuers, Rothe muttered to Orisian, 'I am your shieldman, and you will allow me to keep you safe. Stay back if there is trouble. If you have to fight, show no fear. Whatever happens, do not run. Tarbains are dangerous but they're cowards, too. They're like wolves: quick to turn tail if they decide you have sharper teeth than they do. If you face one, let him see your teeth. And let's hope your friends know how to use those bows.'
The boy had not come far. He had crossed a little stream, run beneath the spreading branches of a huge oak that had been spared the axe for some reason, crossed a glade that must be full of flowers in the spring. Not far.
They lay in the damp grass atop a rise, looking down between scattered trees towards the cabin a few score paces away. It was the kind of dwelling hundreds of Lannis folk lived in: square, made of timber and stone, with a little woodshed close by. There were snares hanging on the wall, sheltered beneath the eaves. A pile of unsplit logs lay in front of the woodshed, as if at any moment a man might come out from the cabin with his axe. He might be a charcoal-burner or a fur trapper, or even a honey-maker with hives somewhere out of sight.
The door of the cottage hung open, leaning at a broken angle, and the voices that Orisian could hear were not those of a woodsman and his family. They were crude, abrasive, and shouting in a language he had never heard before. Orisian was tense. It had been so clear, standing over that body in the hollow, that this was the right thing to do; a brief moment of clarity, when things for once had seemed simple. Now, faced with the consequence of his will, he was not so certain. Rothe had been right, of course. It would be wiser to pass by. Yet he was the Thane's nephew, and those who lived here were people of his Blood. Orisian had taken the oath. The enemy of the Blood was his enemy. If it was to mean anything, surely it was this?
Then a figure came out of the cabin. It was a man, but one unlike any Orisian had seen before. He was tall, rangy like a lean dog. His heir was filthy and tangled in knots and mats. Dozens of splinters of bone were sewn into the fur jerkin he wore, a speckling of morbid ornament. His arms were naked but for two leather armlets, one at the wrist, one just below his shoulder. The great weapon he rested across his shoulder was vicious-looking: a long cudgel with a thick head from which five or six spikes protruded.
The man loitered in front of the doorway. He spat and scratched at his face. He looked around, and though his eyes drifted over the place where Orisian and the others lay he did not see them. He was relaxed, careless.
The Tarbain went inside again. There was a renewed chorus of loud voices, raised in what sounded like argument. Rothe eased himself back from the crest of the rise. The four of them squatted in a tight group once they were hidden from the cabin.
'Can't say how many are in there,' Rothe whispered. 'It doesn't sound to be more than four or five, though.'
'There's no sign of the boy's family,' said Orisian. 'They might be inside, do you think?'
Rothe shrugged. 'If they are, they're dead, or worse. Tarbains don't take prisoners, Orisian. They'll probably stay here a while, eat and drink as much as they can and then carry off everything else.'
'And maybe do the same to the next family they come across?'
'Maybe. Now that we're here, I'd be glad to see them dead. We need them outside, though. If we go rushing in, it's as likely to be us that's buzzard food as it is them.'
Varryn whispered to his sister. She nodded, and he was gone, running in a low crouch up the line of the ridge. Ess'yr took an
arrow from her quiver and ran its fletching between her lips, smoothing the feathers. It was a delicate, almost sensual, movement. Rothe looked alarmed.
'What's happening?' he demanded in a hiss.
'They must be under the sky, yes? To kill them?' Ess'yr said. She began to crawl up towards the spot from where they had been watching the cabin.
Rothe unsheathed his sword and raised his eyebrows at Orisian before following her.
The voices had quietened. The clearing around the cabin was quite still. A slight wind brushed the highest twigs in the trees. It touched the broken door and creaked it on its one surviving hinge. Orisian realised he was holding his breath.
'What's happening?' asked Rothe again. He was getting close to anger.
Ess'yr pointed. Varryn was there, crouched against the nearest wall of the cottage. Ess'yr rose to one knee and put the arrow to her bowstring. Rothe gave a low growl of irritation, but half-rose himself and hefted his sword. The Inkallim's knife was still in Orisian's belt. He fingered its hilt. As he set himself on his knees his side gave a twinge of protest and he winced.
Varryn stood and walked forwards. He carried his spear loosely. His bow was still across his back. He went out twenty paces into the space in front of the cabin.
'This is not how I'd do it,' muttered Rothe.
Varryn shot a quick glance up towards them. Ess'yr drew back the bowstring and held it. Varryn took a few steps sideways, and put himself in the line of sight from the open doorway. He rested the butt of his spear on the ground and stood there.
'Don't forget, stay back,' Rothe whispered in Orisian's ear.
There was a chorus of shouts from inside the cabin. Varryn sprinted towards Orisian and the others. The Tarbains spilled out behind him, howling and almost falling over one another in their haste. They saw only a single Kyrinin flying away, and they came after him. There were six of them. Orisian saw teeth bared, cudgels and spears flailing.
The arrow was gone and homed before Orisian even realised Ess'yr had released it. It took the rearmost Tarbain square in the chest. He tumbled over his own feet. Rothe sprang up and ran forwards, crying out like a madman, 'Lannis! Lannis!'
Godless World 1 - Winterbirth Page 29