'I am cold,' Inurian whispered.
'We have no furs,' said Ess'yr, letting her hand fall away from his throat.
'Forgiven,' murmured Inurian.
Idrin hopped closer and pecked at the sleeve of Inurian's tunic.
'Ah,' Inurian said. 'Still loitering around.' He smoothed the glossy feathers on the crow's back. 'Go home, friend. Back to your brothers, Idrin.'
The great black bird looked quizzically at the na'kyrim, head angling this way and that. Then, without warning, he sprang up into the air and with a few strong sweeps of his wings Idrin was gone, climbing up between the trees and heading out into the wide grey sky to the south. Ess'yr whispered something in her own tongue, and Inurian gave a slight shake of his head in response. He closed his eyes. When he spoke, he caught Orisian by surprise.
'I was sure you still lived, Orisian. It is good to be proved right, for once.'
'You are always right,' Orisian said, fearing that his voice might crack.
That brought a smile back to the na'kyrim's face, but still he did not open his eyes. 'Is Anyara here?' he asked.
'I am,' she replied.
'Good.'
Orisian saw that Ess'yr had placed her hand over Inurian's. She did not squeeze it, merely resting her skin against his. It was impossible to tell whether he felt the touch.
'Tell me where we are,' Inurian said.
Orisian expected one of the Kyrinin to reply, but Ess'yr barely seemed to be breathing and Varryn held himself some distance away. He was facing out towards the silent forest. He gave no sign of having heard Inurian.
'We are on the southern edge of the Car Criagar,' Orisian said. 'Rothe is here as well. He has been carrying you.'
'Thank him for me,' whispered Inurian. Orisian glanced at his shieldman, and the big man inclined his head in acknowledgement.
'Where are we heading?' Inurian asked.
Orisian hesitated at that. Still neither Varryn nor Ess'yr showed any inclination to respond to Inurian's questions.
'We were going down towards Glasbridge. There are White Owls pursuing us, but now Varryn says they...'
Inurian lifted his head from the ground. His eyes flicked open once more. 'Varryn?' he said.
'Yes,' said Orisian. 'Ess'yr's brother.' He could see that Inurian was no longer listening. The na'kyrim looked around, and his gaze settled upon the tall Kyrinin warrior standing with his back to them. He clearly knew who Varryn was, but his expression was unreadable. With a wince, Inurian let his head sink back.
'You are in good hands,' he breathed, though his voice was toneless and flat.
'He says the White Owls are ahead of us now. He wants us to go up, away from the valley,' Orisian continued.
He thought at first that Inurian had not heard him, or had fallen once more into unconsciousness. A moment later those grey eyes met his own. There was a cargo of meaning in the gaze that Orisian could not quite grasp, but it lasted for no more than a second and it was to Ess'yr that Inurian spoke. He said something to her in the Fox language. Ess'yr tensed at his words. Her hand flinched where it lay upon Inurian's. Varryn turned to face them. Orisian realised that some decision had been made; whatever Inurian's words had been, they had changed the future for the Kyrinin.
'Follow them,' Inurian said to Orisian. 'They know where to go.'
Within a minute, they were moving once more.
*
They climbed higher and the air grew colder with each hour that passed. They no longer ran; Rothes strength had at last reached its limit. For once, the Kyrinin did not show any sign of urgency, as if speed was no longer what mattered.
They came to a river, much larger than any of the other streams they had crossed, and turned to follow its course upwards. Orisian began to feel a nagging sense of familiarity. For the first time since they had begun their flight, he felt he ought to know where he was.
'It must be the Snow River,' said Anyara.
She was right. There was no other watercourse of any size that flowed from the Car Criagar in these parts.
'It must be,' he agreed. 'I can't see why we're following it, though.'
Their exchange roused Rothe from his trance-like exhaustion. He lifted his head and looked around without breaking his stride.
'It is the Snow,' he said. 'It'll only lead us into a trap if we keep going.'
Orisian realised at once what he meant. He had never seen it with his own eyes, but his uncle's hunters had talked of the gorge through which the upper reaches of the Snow passed. At its head it grew sheer-sided and narrow, ending in a high waterfall where the Snow spilled from the crags. The hunters called those falls Sarn's Leap, and called them cursed as well. Few went there. When a man reached the falls there was nowhere to go but back the way he had come. Already the land to either side of them was rising in rocky ridges like the funnel of a wildfowler's nets.
'Ess'yr,' Orisian called, 'there's no way through here. We can't get past the falls.'
She ignored him.
Inurian murmured something. Rothe slowed and looked down at the na'kyrim he bore, as if surprised that he was still alive.
'Trust her,' Inurian was saying.
*
Cliffs towered above them when they at last came to a halt. The Snow River was sunk deep in a gigantic furrow of stone. They rested beside it and drank. The sound of Sarn's Leap came from somewhere up ahead, a continuous hiss of cascading water. It was hidden around a curve in the gorge.
'What now, then?' demanded Rothe.
Orisian was staring at the thick stand of willows that lay between them and the waterfall. The trees thronged the floor of the gorge. There was no way round them. He knew what they were.
'We go on,' Ess'yr said to Rothe. 'They will not follow.'
'There's nowhere to go,' muttered Rothe. 'This is a cursed place. Sarn had no luck here. No one does. Why shouldn't they follow, and trap us at the falls?'
Ess'yr turned her back on him.
'It's a dyn ham,' explained Orisian. 'A burial ground. It must be an old one; abandoned. The Kyrinin dead are in the trees.'
His shieldman looked doubtful. 'So that'll keep the White Owls off us? Fine, but what do we do once we're at the falls? Fly? They only have to wait. There's no way out of here, Orisian.'
'There is,' said Varryn.
Orisian felt a sharp premonition of something awful. The Kyrinin's voice had a dead finality about it. The decision had been made some time ago. This was the crux of it.
Inurian was lying on the ground. He raised himself on one elbow and beckoned Orisian.
'Listen to me, Orisian. In the mountains above us there is a ruined city. You know it?'
'Criagar Vyne? I've heard of it.'
'Ess'yr can show you the way. There is a woman there: Yvane, a na'kyrim. She can give you shelter. I don't think the White Owls will go so far into Fox lands. Perhaps the Black Road won't either.' He clasped a hand to his mouth to smother a racking cough. When he lowered it again there were flecks of blood on the palm.
'But we have to get to Glasbridge, or to Kolglas. We must...' Orisian fell silent as Inurian seized his arm in a vice-like grip.
'No, Orisian,' the na'kyrim said raspingly. 'Think. It won't take the White Owls more than a few hours to run you down. You're not in the valley now: you're in the forest, and that's Kyrinin territory.' Inurian's grey eyes held Orisian fast. They burned with an intensity unlike anything Orisian had seen there before. 'Anduran's gone, perhaps Tanwrye as well. Glasbridge will be next. Get Anyara to safety, Orisian. Yvane can get you to Koldihrve, on to a boat there. Both of you.'
Orisian found tears in his eyes. He was barely listening to what Inurian said. 'You will come with us,' he said defiantly, though he could not keep a tremor from his voice.
Inurian closed his eyes. 'No,' he said. His strength was failing. His hand fell away from Orisian's arm.
'Yes!' Orisian shouted, taking hold of Inurian. The others turned at the sudden outburst. Ess'yr came up on his shoulder
. Inurian murmured something to her in the Fox tongue. She reached down and began to prise Orisian's hands away from the na'kyrim.
'He cannot come,' she said in a level tone.
Orisian pushed her away. 'He comes with us!' he cried. He looked from face to face. 'He comes with us,' he insisted once more.
Anyara was crying without a sound, tears leaving tracks through the dirt upon her cheeks. Ess'yr and Varryn said nothing. Their eyes met his with a steadfast gaze. Only Rothe looked away. The shieldman bowed his head.
'Rothe,' Orisian said, 'you have carried him this far.'
Rothe cleared his throat and gave an uneasy flick of his head, as if shying away from his thoughts.
'He will stay,' said Varryn. 'We cannot carry him. The climb...'
'Climb?' shouted Orisian, driven by some deep instinct to turn his anger upon Ess'yr. 'Why did we come this way if you knew we could not take him with us? We should have gone some other way.'
The pain he saw in the delicate, normally impassive face of the Kyrinin woman was more than he expected. Its depth took the heat out of him. She said nothing.
'He knows,' Varryn was saying. 'His idea. There is no other way.'
Orisian hung his head. There was a desolate impotence in him he had felt only once before, five years ago, watching a black-sailed boat sail out from Kolglas for The Grave, bearing bodies wrapped in white winding sheets.
'You should have told me,' he said in a broken voice. In that moment he felt a fluttering touch upon his hand. Inurian's long fingers were brushing his skin.
'Be still, Orisian,' the na'kyrim murmured. His eyelids were fluttering. 'Be still,' he breathed again. 'Be strong. I will rest here a while. You must go on.'
'I won't leave you here,' Orisian groaned.
'You will, because I ask you to. You have always trusted me and you must trust me in this. Aeglyss is coming for me. I can hear him, inside my head. That is why I have come with you this far, to draw him in to this place where he can go no further. His Kyrinin will not willingly go beyond the dyn ham, and neither will Aeglyss if he has me. But you must keep going. Others might come: Horin-Gyre or worse. This only delays them. You cannot tarry.'
Orisian shook his head.
'Where is Ess'yr?' Inurian asked, and she moved forwards and knelt down.
Orisian followed nothing of what passed between them. It was murmured, in the fluid language of the Fox, but his mind was numb in any case and he could not tear his gaze from Inurian's elegant hand that lay still beside his own. He sensed from Inurian's tone that he was asking Ess'yr a question. She did not reply at once. Varryn took a few quick steps closer and snapped something. He was angry. Ess'yr gave an answer, and her brother spun away and strode towards the dyn hane. Inurian was smiling. Ess'yr bent and laid a kiss upon his lips.
'Go,' whispered Inurian.
It was a moment before Orisian realised the command was meant for him. He shook his head again.
'Take him, Rothe,' said Inurian. Ess'yr had risen and was walking away. Her shoulders were rigid, as if only their strength contained something within her.
Rothe took hold of Orisian's arm. 'Come away,' he said.
Anyara knelt down and embraced the na'kyrim. 'Goodbye,' she whispered, then she stood up and followed after the Kyrinin.
'Orisian...' Rothe said, but Orisian shook his hand off and held Inurian as his sister had done. He tried to enclose his body, to gather it to himself. He could feel Inurian's ribcage rising and falling, hear his faltering breath.
'Go,' said Inurian in his ear. 'He is close. Go, Orisian. I will not forget you.'
'I will see you again,' said Orisian, and he let Rothe pull him gently to his feet and lead him away.
X
THE FOREST BREATHED its soft, even breath. Twigs stirred in the faintest of breezes. An owl roosting high against the trunk of an oak blinked and peered down as fleet-footed shapes sped beneath. On a rocky knoll, a black bear nosing for insects in mulch-packed crannies raised its head and turned this way and that, teasing a scent out of the air. Snuffling in irritation, it scrambled down from the rocks and padded away. Bounding forms swept past the knoll, emerging from and disappearing into the forest in the space of a few moments. Mice cowered amidst the springy turf as silent footfalls shook their domain. A single dead leaf, one of the last vestiges of autumn, spiralled down and was tumbled in the wake of a rushing figure before it resumed its descent.
Inurian stood by the river. The dyn bane was at his back. The sound of the falls filled his ears. The winter sun had broken through and was lighting the highest parts of the cliffs. The bitter edge was gone from the air. It was very beautiful, he thought. This had always been his favourite time of year.
A face drifted before his inner eye, that of Ess'yr. It bore with it more pain than he could countenance. He set it aside and looked to the still forest downstream. He waited; for how long, he could not say.
How strange it is, he thought, to come to such an ending. I am not done with life. Can it really all be so easily ended? Of course it can, he told himself. It had been a path woven of a thousand small chances, the intersection of countless other lives: one wandering na'kyrim happening upon a good man in a castle in the sea; another eaten away by anger and bitterness; a fevered woman long ago sowing the seed of a cult, her garbled words reaching out over all the years to set Thane against Thane; an arrow in the darkness. Just one arrow.
He saw shapes moving amongst the trees. There was no sound to mark their coming. He knew them for what they were. They emerged at first one by one, then a score. A wide arc of Kyrinin stood facing him. And still there was no sound save the rushing water.
Inurian swayed a little. It had been a terrible struggle to rise to his feet. Although the pain had all but gone now, he thought the effort had sundered something deep inside him. He had the sense of his thoughts trying to lift away and drift upwards. He had to fight to hold them to him. He glanced up. The sky was a field of pure blue. The light seemed to have such clarity that he could have seen to the end of the world had the rock walls not pressed in so close about this place. For a moment he was rising, floating towards that blue expanse. He caught himself and drew his gaze back to the clearing.
Aeglyss was there now, sitting astride a brown horse. He had passed through the line of Kyrinin and was watching Inurian. The horse was breathing hard and jinking around, breaking up the soft, wet earth.
Aeglyss passed his reins to one of the Kyrinin and swung out of the saddle. He patted the horse's neck as he stepped forwards. He came up to Inurian.
'You look weary,' he said, tilting his head a little to one side.
'I am tired,' agreed Inurian. In his mind the words were clear, yet they sounded heavy and slurred in the wintry air.
Aeglyss was removing his riding gloves now, folding them over his belt and flexing his fingers. The horse behind him was still shifting about, shaking its head.
'Are you dying?' he asked.
Inurian closed his eyes for a moment. 'I am,' he said.
'Come back with me. The White Owls have good healers. Perhaps we can keep you alive.'
Inurian shook his head with care, fearful of dizziness. 'No,' he said.
'But this is foolish,' said Aeglyss. 'Why die such a wasteful death? Come back with me. Teach me what you know. Stand with me.'
Inurian was silent. Something was rising from the pit of his stomach, drifting up through his chest. His legs, which had felt so heavy not long before, were now weightless. He could hear the feeble beating of his heart.
'Do not leave me. I need you,' said Aeglyss softly. 'Please.' He was imploring, grief-stricken almost. Inurian pitied the other man in that moment.
'I cannot stay,' Inurian said. He struggled to focus on the face before him. A fine network of thin red lines was strung across Aeglyss' eyes. He had the skin of a corpse. An angry wound marred his lower lip. There were other, deeper marks that only Inurian could have sensed.
'You've over-reached yourself, ha
ven't you?' he said. 'Attempted something that was almost beyond you.'
Aeglyss flicked a hand dismissively, though Inurian felt the irritation in the gesture as well.
'Some woman, spying, eavesdropping. I chased her off.' He looked over Inurian's shoulder. 'Clever, to put the dyn bane across the trail. Whose idea was that? The White Owls're hungry for Fox blood, but this will turn them aside. For now. It doesn't matter, of course. You're the one I came for.'
'I may be dying,' Inurian said, 'but your sickness is the greater, Aeglyss. It will destroy you. You must know that.' He coughed, and felt salty fluid in the back of his mouth. His throat was burning.
'Please,' whispered Aeglyss again, and this time his voice was a caress. Inurian felt the other's will laying its dark fingers upon his thoughts. He hungered to do as Aeglyss asked: to free himself of his suffering, to cling to precious life. This is how it happens, he thought. He shook his head.
'You've not the strength to bind me to your will. Not the skill, certainly.'
For long moments Aeglyss stood there, as immobile as his Kyrinin followers, staring. Inurian blinked. There was a cloudiness spreading across his vision, bleeding in from the edges like a fog, and he could see little but Aeglyss' face. He thought he saw many things there: the old anger and hunger, but also something in the eyes and the set of the brow that spoke of puzzlement and pain, like a child who did not understand why he was being punished.
'Last chance,' Aeglyss said. 'I will forgive you all your insults, if you come back with me. Teach me.'
'No.'
Aeglyss turned on his heel and walked away. Inurian felt a strange surge of release.
Godless World 1 - Winterbirth Page 33