Godsdamnit, he thought again. Godsdamn winter and commanders and bloody soldiering too. The wind blew wet snow in his face. ‘You motherfuc— Your Highness. Er, we’ll have the tent up in no time, Sire. The men are lighting a fire just over there if you’d care to warm yourself.’
Janis nodded. ‘Need a hand?’ he asked instead, and before Crys could fumble a reply, took an end of the tent and shook it open, held it against the wind while Crys put the frame together. They slung the material over the top and started pegging it down. ‘It’s bloody freezing, isn’t it?’ Janis said when they were done. ‘Bit of exercise warms the blood, eh?’
‘Yes, Your Highness,’ Crys said. ‘Allow me to get the rugs and bedding from the wagon.’
‘Come on, Rivil,’ Janis called, breaking the intense conversation his brother was having with Galtas. They both looked over, identical expressions of guilt quickly masked. ‘Lend us a hand and we can all get warm that much quicker.’
Flustered, Crys led Janis to the wagon and jumped inside. He began handing the prince the rugs to lay on the tent floor against the chill. Rivil and Galtas wandered over a moment later and Crys noticed Rivil’s unconcealed irritation, but he took the proffered bedding and carried it to the pavilion, dropping it inside. The pair disappeared soon after and Crys called a few men to spread the rugs out and fetch the three cots for the princes and Galtas. He lit the brazier and set it in the centre, beneath the smoke hole; then he laid out the bedding.
‘Thank you, Captain,’ Janis said as he sat on his cot with his portable writing desk. ‘Let me know when supper’s ready.’
‘Yes, Your Highness,’ Crys said and made his escape. The wind tugged at him as soon as he was outside, but Crys ignored it now. They might still be in the Cattle Lands, but the mountains loomed black in the blackness, feet covered with thick, concealing forest. Just because an attack by men or wild beasts was unlikely didn’t mean Crys wouldn’t prepare for it. He did the rounds of the sentries already walking the perimeter in pairs.
The princes had an honour guard of twenty men, men he hadn’t known well before this assignment. They were amiable enough, he supposed, but there was a clear division between those who served Janis and those with Rivil. Am I Rivil’s, too? Or am I captain of the honour guard and without bias, as I should be? He followed the perimeter trail silently, looking for fault and unable to answer his own question.
Mac and Joe were bickering again. He ghosted out of the darkness and got within two paces before Mac spun, startled, his hand dropping to his sword. ‘Too late for a sword now, Mac,’ Crys said, making his voice harsh. ‘By the time you’ve drawn it your guts’ll be tangling around your knees. You should have dropped me with an arrow twenty paces back.’
Mac licked his teeth and scuffed at the snow, silent.
‘Mac doesn’t like first watch,’ Joe supplied with friendly malice.
Crys eyed the pair of them. ‘That so?’ he said, and Joe realised his mistake. ‘Then you can have the third watch.’ Third watch was the darkest, coldest and most miserable of the watches, in the small hours before dawn when it was hardest to wake and to stay alert. ‘But that leaves me short of a pair of guards now, doesn’t it? So you should probably take first watch as well. The others are already settling down with supper and some warm blankets, after all. I wouldn’t want to disturb them.’
Mac was still silent, but Joe’s mouth opened in protest. Crys stepped very close. ‘Yes, soldier?’
‘I, ah, so that means a pair gets the night off?’
Crys winked. ‘Well done, soldier, yes it does. Who do you think that pair will be? Well, I can tell you, one of them will be me,’ he added before Joe could speak. ‘I plan on sleeping all night long, warm and cosy and full of supper. My first full night’s sleep since we set out. Ah, lads, I can’t wait,’ he said, slinging his arms around both of them and steering them along the perimeter. ‘And it’s not even one of the privileges of rank. It’s a privilege of not being a silly twat like you two.’
He dragged them to a sudden halt and turned them to face him. ‘If I hear one more argument or angry word between you, I’ll have General Koridam flog you both when we get to the West Forts. We have charge of the safety of the princes of this land. They are our only concern. I don’t care if one of you screwed the other’s wife, daughter, mistress, sister or mother. I don’t care if you owe money, stole or killed someone’s grandma. Do I make myself clear? Whatever this disagreement is, it is done. Understand? Done. Now do your fucking jobs or I will make you live to regret the honour of being chosen for this posting.’
‘He said Prince Janis was—’ Mac blurted and Crys’s fist buried itself in his gut. Mac doubled over, gagging.
‘What did I just say?’ Crys demanded. He glanced at the rest of the camp, scanning the perimeter, trying to see through the darkness for threat. ‘You are endangering the princes. I’m an easy-going sort, but I will not stand for that. I will not.’ He paused to make sure they got the message.
‘Now, I don’t give a runny shit for who said what. Next man to say anything at all gets a beating now and a flogging at the forts. Do not test me on this.’
Joe’s mouth closed on whatever retort he had, and Mac pushed against his knees and forced himself to stand straight. He glared into the darkness, wheezing.
Looks like my warm and cosy bed will have to wait, despite the boast, Crys told himself. Lead by example, Durdil had said, don’t make them do anything you wouldn’t do yourself. He pulled his cloak tighter around himself and took a single pace back, leaving the pair ostensibly in charge of the perimeter, but staying close enough to make them uncomfortable, backs of their necks prickling with his gaze. He counted off the seconds until one of them would cast him an anxious glance, betting on it being Mac. Still, I’d love to know what it was Joe said about Janis.
RILLIRIN
Twelfth moon, seventeenth year of the reign of King Rastoth
Watchtown, Western Plain
Dom and Rillirin approached Watchtown’s main gate across a vast white plain and Rillirin slowed. High wooden walls, thick gates barred with iron, and the scents of woodsmoke and cooking.
The nest of vipers, Liris had called it, home of their enemies. Watchers and Wolves and devils, prophets and killers, Watchtown was the centre of all that was evil. According to the Mireces.
But Rillirin had shared a tent with a Wolf, walked with a Wolf, for five days and nights now. She’d listened to him breathe in the dark, had woken from nightmares of Liris’s corpse coming to claim her and Dom had been there, asking if she was all right. Seeming to care.
Liris lied about so much. Of course he lied about this too. But still Rillirin stopped and Dom left her behind, oblivious, his stride eager. Walk into the nest of vipers, or wait for Corvus to find me. She looked across the blanket of snow. She could see the temple grounds a mile or so from the town, and a copse of trees. Everything else was white, as far as she could see, under a sky as blue as a robin’s egg.
‘I’m not a slave any more,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘I don’t have to do what they tell me. I don’t.’ She faltered and turned to stare northeast, as best she could reckon it. ‘I could go home.’
Rillirin had heard the others talking about her before the village was attacked, heard Dom refer to her as a messenger, but whatever message she was supposed to give was hidden from her. Unless it was death – if so she’d delivered that one already. Maybe that was why Dom watched her all the time, not with lust, or hate even, which she deserved for the catastrophe she’d brought on him, but with an intense curiosity and something she’d swear was fear.
Liris is dead too, though, she reminded herself. I did that. I killed him and I did it on purpose this time. I wanted him dead and he is. And I’d have killed the Blessed One too if she’d been there.
That was bravado, though, and Rillirin knew it. The Blessed One terrified her in a way Liris never had. The Blessed One could condemn her soul to the Afterworld as easily as look at her. R
aising a hand against the Voice of the Gods was the surest way she knew to forfeit her soul and her life.
‘Are you all right?’
Rillirin jumped. Dom was standing a few paces away. She had no idea how long he’d been there. ‘Forgive me, honoured,’ she whispered.
Dom clicked his tongue. ‘Come on, let’s get into town. There’s a storeroom just past the gate; we can leave the gear there.’ He led off and then slowed his pace to match hers.
‘Watchtown is the home of my people, the birthplace of the Wolves. We’ve been here for a thousand years, you know, descended from the warriors who defeated the walkers on the Dark Path and freed all Gilgoras from the tyranny of the Red Gods. Full of history, full of strength, this place. If there’s anywhere you can be safe from Their hateful influence, it’s here.’
It was the cleanest-smelling town she’d ever been in. Just smoke and food, and the hint of hops when they passed a tavern. The wide roads were packed earth cleared of snow, river stones forming paths along the shop fronts where customers stamped their boots free of mud. In the centre of the street was a long mound of snow, shovelled there to keep the rest of the road clear for wagons and horses. Rillirin watched a group of children on the mound, running up and down it, shrieking laughter and hurling snowballs.
Her mouth curved in an approximation of a smile and then she saw the crowds of Watchers strolling the streets, talking, shopping. She gulped, her stomach clenching. But Dom walked at her side, pointing out alehouses and fletchers, butchers and tailors, with such enthusiasm and pride Rillirin began to relax. It’s pretty. And everyone’s so friendly with each other.
They passed a shop squeezed in between a wool-seller and a wood-carver, the table in the window stacked with golden loaves of all sizes. The baker, an old woman who leant on a spear in the doorway, smiled and gestured. ‘Fresh baked today, my dear, still warm from the oven. Only a copper for two.’
Rillirin’s mouth flooded with saliva, but she’d no money. She shook her head and stepped back, bumped into someone and turned. ‘Forgive me, honoured,’ she said automatically and the stranger’s face hardened. He squinted down at her and she looked away fast, heart leaping like a salmon.
‘Say that again,’ he demanded.
‘Forgive me, honoured,’ she whispered as the baker grabbed her spear, all hint of welcome gone from her features.
‘Mireces,’ the man said loudly and everyone on the street turned to look. ‘Listen to her. Uses that fucking “honoured” thing to address people. Mireces, I tell you, right in fucking town.’ He grabbed her by the shoulder and wrapped his other hand in her hair.
Rillirin thrashed and then fell still, a rabbit before a stoat, waiting for the end. Time to die.
‘Morning, everyone, and isn’t it grand to be back in town?’ Dom strolled into the gathering mob and pulled Rillirin out of the man’s hands, draping an arm across her shoulders. The man was so shocked he let her go. The muscles in Dom’s neck tensed but his smile was easy.
‘Hello, Stott. I’d like you all to meet Rillirin Fisher of Rilpor, a young lady who escaped from slavery in Eagle Height itself and made her way alone down the Sky Path to our scout camp. We took her in and I’ve brought her here to speak to the council of elders and be cleansed in the temple.’
There was a rustle of noise, a few smiles sent in her direction. He was making her sound clever and resourceful, as though she’d planned it all. She darted a glance at him, confused. Wasn’t this his opportunity for revenge?
‘You vouch for her, Dom Calestar?’ Stott asked and Dom turned a hard grin in his direction.
‘I do, yes. Rillirin is no threat.’ His fingers tightened on her shoulder, digging hard into the muscle. ‘Lydya, two loaves for our guest, please,’ Dom said and flipped a copper through the air. The old woman caught it and selected the bread, passing it back to him with a wary glare.
Dom had one arm around her and the bread in the crook of the other, but Rillirin sensed the danger lurking beneath his skin. Stott must have seen it too, for he grunted and moved out of their way. Dom smiled for the crowd a last time. ‘Dancer’s grace upon you all.’
That seemed to do it; the men and women began to disperse, muttering and huddling into knots, casting hostile glares at her despite Dom’s words. They hate me because I was a slave, because I aided the Mireces. They’ll never trust me; I’ll never be welcome. And once the news about the village reaches them … She swallowed past the constriction in her throat, feeling as though she was breathing through a reed, not enough air, her head light, stomach heavy.
Dom’s arm slipped from her shoulders and he shook himself like a dog. ‘Here, eat some of this while it’s still warm,’ he said and tore a chunk from a loaf, his voice strained. ‘Give Lydya another copper – here you are – and you can smear that with as much honey as you want.’ Rillirin did as she was told. The old woman gave her another smile, and if this one wasn’t so genuine Rillirin didn’t blame her. She couldn’t taste the bread, the honey thick as hate in her throat.
‘We’ll see Elder Rachelle now. She’ll have questions for you, and I’d advise you to answer them well. After that I have a few things to buy, and then I think we need a cup or two of ale, don’t you?’ Dom said as they resumed their walk. She didn’t answer, watching as he flexed the fingers of the arm that had been around her shoulders.
‘Thank you for saving me. I know it must have been hard to go against your people for the sake of a Mireces. Here and – and back at the village.’ Rillirin didn’t want to talk, didn’t like talking, talking was dangerous, but he deserved her thanks.
She gulped ale. She’d answered Rachelle the way she did the Blessed One, eyes down and with absolute honesty. Anything else and she could tell the woman would sense it and kill her. Afterwards, they’d left her alone in Rachelle’s big kitchen while Dom gave the names of the dead.
When he came out he was hollow and he hadn’t spoken a word as he led her through town to buy what he needed. They’d all stared at her, everywhere she went eyes on her and all of them hostile. At least in Eagle Height they ignored me when they didn’t need anything. I didn’t exist to them.
Dom looked up from rubbing his hand and gave her a brief smile, his eyes preoccupied. ‘My pleasure,’ he said and she felt a loosening in her chest. Was forgiveness that easy with these people? Or with him, anyway? ‘Though you shouldn’t name yourself Mireces. It’s not your fault you were captured.’
She exhaled a tiny snort and stirred the froth on her ale with a fingertip. ‘It took them three years to make me stop calling myself Rilporian. I suppose now I have to relearn it all over again.’
‘How did they make you stop?’ he asked and Rillirin cursed, but it was too late: his question dredged up the memory and before she could distract herself it flooded over her.
Liris’s hand on the back of her head, his awful strength as he forced her face into the barrel of water. Fresh from a mountain stream and cold as knives, cold enough to scorch as it flooded into her eyes and nose. Lungs burning as above her they chanted the count and laughed at her struggles until she started to drown. Then they’d pulled her out, given her a couple of seconds, and back in she’d gone. Again. And again.
Rillirin took another swig of ale. Her hand shook. ‘Every time I said I was Rilporian they beat me and held my head under the water ’til I thought I’d die. Some days it went on for hours, even after I’d said I was Mireces. It was a sport. They used to bet on me, on when I’d break. When I’d start to beg.’ Her mug was empty and she pushed it away, wiping her hand over her mouth.
‘Another?’ He pointed and signalled before she could respond. ‘Two,’ he called. ‘How old were you?’
She swallowed. ‘Eleven.’ Though by fourteen, they had other uses for me.
‘I’m sorry they did that to you, Rillirin.’
‘You don’t need to be sorry, you weren’t the one who did it.’ She dared to look him in the eye. ‘I’m the one who’s sorry. So sorry for every
thing that happened, all those deaths. You should hate me – everyone else does. You should never have saved me.’
Dom watched her over the rim of his cup as he drank. ‘I will always save you,’ he said and then cleared his throat, spoke on before she could ask what he meant. ‘The scouts up by the Final Falls gave us a few hours’ warning of the attack. That meant we could decide what to do. We decided to fight, though most of us were already here or in our small family settlements throughout the foothills. It was our decision. We could have scattered; we could have fled. We could have given you back to them.’
He put his cup down to rub his right hand and then shake out his arm. ‘But we fought. Yes, it was a battle we hadn’t expected to fight, but that changes little. I could’ve let you run, and they’d have hunted you down. Maybe you’d have got as far as the plain, and then there are hamlets and farmhouses in danger. Better to fight them on our ground, contain them there, force them back rather than let them in.’
‘But you lost,’ she whispered.
Dom’s mouth turned down and he plucked at the week-old beard on his cheek. ‘They lost more than we did, and they lost you too. That’s enough.’ He looked away and his voice dropped to a whisper. ‘It has to be enough. And it’ll be Yule soon. Lim and the others will come from the village; the whole town will try and squeeze into the temple. It’ll be a new year, a new start. For us all.’
She scratched a dirty fingernail into the knife grooves on the table top, flicking looks out into the tavern. The glares she received were mainly hostile, but the tavern’s bustle unwound another knot in her chest. The noise and movement were comforting somehow. And the colours. In Eagle Height they wore blue and black, or blue and brown. But here there were men and women in shirts of red, yellow, green, orange. Grey trousers, green trousers, brown jerkins over pink shirts. One woman in a scarlet gown with a black shawl over it.
The place was so alive, so full of laughter. Rillirin couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard so many people laughing without it sounding cruel or being directed at another’s suffering.
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