by Adrian Selby
“Thornsen’ll be pleased to know yer not dead,” says Leyden. “We all are.”
“I remember you come to see me when I got back from my clan up at Keppel-Kaise, when they buried my da,” says Cherry. “Thought I was in trouble when you walked into the Truin shed asking after me as we were prepping the van into the Moors.”
“I sent your ma something, I think. I don’t remember so much.”
“You came up to Truin just to see me. I’ll never forget what you did.”
“Cherry, you vanners risk your lives for a tally. I know, I been one. Least a master can do is recognise that it matters. Leyden, your brother back working now?”
“Course. You had Thad ride out to Linsback. He mended his arm fierce quick. He even stopped to help with the harvest or we’d have lost much of it.”
“He said your sister’s kiss was payment enough. I’m glad he’s well.”
“Now you should get away, Master Amondsen, we can take the duts downriver. Thornsen will be delighted to know you’re alive, but you can’t really come back,” says Leyden.
“I know, he’s right. But do this for me: take these instructions to Thornsen. Tell him and Tarrigsen I’m sorry, sorry for Aude and Mosa, sorry even for Crogan and all the others. Tell him to pull everyone out of Faldon Ridge outpost if Othbutter isn’t putting at least a few hundred men there or at Elder Hill; I won’t have our families or any more people still in my employ dying for me. Get them back to Tapper’s Way. If Othbutter don’t defend the Braeg river and get those Crutter and Warrens dogs to put up some men, then Hillfast belongs to Khiese.”
“Can’t be, Master, he can’t have that many, this Khiese.”
“I been months up in the mountains over winter, left for dead by him, and all the clans in the Circle are his. He’s no cave worm, Khiese; he wins hearts as well as hands and he’s building an army can’t be bought off him. You have to get back to Thornsen and Othbutter with this as fast as you can or many more’ll die than what these poor duts have seen this last few days. Cherry, get our birds at Ablitch Fort going up to Faldon Ridge and over to deliver the message to Hillfast. Leyden, you’ll come with me to the port and get yourself on a boat, you’ll make sure the message gets there if the birds don’t. You’ll take this with you and all.” I give him the bag with the shirt in. “Tell Thornsen to put it in the house. Tell him I wanted something of us to get home.”
“I will, Master. But I’m concerned that you’ll be spotted if you don’t lie low, because if the posters and criers are out, that scar on your lips is as easy to describe as to see.”
“First and last time I kissed an axe. Look, I won’t leave these duts, not now. I’ll take my chances. I can’t do much for them after getting them to port. I got no way to feed them and I’ll be arrested the moment someone figures who I am. I have to hope I can find them alms before that, then I don’t give a fuck what happens to me. Tell Thornsen the company belongs to him, he’s earned it a thousand times over, what he’s done for me these past few years.”
“Don’t do this, Master, please. What could have happened since you left that …?” but Cherry stopped Leyden from continuing.
“I went too fucking far is what happened, Leyden. I didn’t think Khiese was much more than a thug that could be sorted out. But … but no, it wasn’t that was it; it was me thinking that I just decide something has to be how I want it and it’ll happen. I had a dream and saw it becoming real and I wouldn’t let it go no matter what. Now everyone’s dead, and I was happy to die and all but my heart kept beating, and when it stopped the fucking Oskoro made it start again.”
They was quiet for a bit, sorting this out in their heads.
“So why does your heart keep beating?” says Cherry. “Must be some reason you can’t figure just yet, Master Amondsen, something it’s not telling you.” She smiled and put her arm around me.
“Might be. But I’m going to find somewhere quiet, if I can escape, so I can let those heartbeats just get to the end. I’ve done enough harm.”
Chapter 6
Then
“Wake up, my love.” Aude kissed my ear. He was curled in behind me. I opened my eyes. Mosa was gone.
“Where is he?”
“He’s safe.”
I found his hand with mine and pulled his arm about me. The cussing and coughing about us told me the camp was rising, Eirin clapping her crew up as usual for their drills.
“I should do my Forms,” I said.
“Or you can lie here with me a bit longer,” he said.
“Wouldn’t that be nice.”
“Maybe once we reach your clan we can get a few days’ rest.” He rolled the furs back off himself. “I’ll help set the wagons, save us some time setting off.”
“I’d love that. I want Thad running the Forms with me, and I don’t trust anyone else to do it. I want the others to see that we’re doing it. I’m not having Sanger or Yalle asking questions of me any more.”
“Mosa’ll want to join in when he sees you.”
“I know, should wear him out a bit anyway. We’ve got a long day and I doubt we’ll find much in the way of trails for the wagons once we’re out in the plain.”
“How far to the Almet?”
“We’ll get there the day after, Offering Stone is this side of it, thank Sillindar.”
“Been there before?”
“Twice, mostly my brother Thruun went there with my da. Auksens was the last clan to have families go there as far as I know,” I said.
“What for? Well, to make an offering, I suppose, but you know.”
“Didn’t make any sort of difference I could see. You’d meet travellers there, pilgrims of a sort, looking for healing or to see the Oskoro. Once a king came, before I was born, from Handar, over the Sar. Most of all you’d see drudhas because the Oskoro do things with plant you can’t believe, knit it into themselves, their bodies, heads. Our clan fathers taught us from the old scrolls how the Oskoro walked with magists, even Sillindar and Halfussen, and to me it seemed like something more than worth the little effort we made, on the chance that our own pilgrimage might be met by a magist.”
“You think we’ll see a magist tomorrow?”
“Like fuck. But, this gift of mine, I know how dearly they seek it.”
“What is it?”
I unclasped my hand from his, which predictably strayed to my bab, and I lifted from out of my shirt a thick leather necklace with a waxed pouch the size of a thumb, which had been stitched shut.
“It’s in here.”
“Doesn’t look like a fortune.”
“For what I must ask of them, no lesser gift than this would do.”
“Keep your secrets then, Master Amondsen. I have what I want here.”
“You do, but you can’t keep it.” With that I threw back the furs and he cussed at me, for it was a bitter dawn, night fleeing west.
“Get us the inventory and we’ll have a few of those belets Skallern put aside for us last night; we can save the fish for later.” I stood up and reached a hand out for him. Mosa come over then.
“Hey, bluebell. I’m going to do some Forms with Thad. You want to join us, build up your strength?”
“Please!”
Thad was waiting, cracking his bones and rolling his joints before smiling as I walked up to him. He kept his shape good, and he went through our first sets, his eyes shut, cutting no corners, unsparing of his muscle and bones.
I was stiff and couldn’t move properly, or else was trembling through them as we went through the drill. Can’t say my Forms would have impressed the others much even if they was more advanced than what Eirin’s crew was doing. We was sweating and heaving by the end of them, and we laughed about how old we felt. Paid for it later in the day mind, whole body ached from the drill.
The day kept dry and it warmed up as well, perfect for seeing the plain as I’d described to Mosa. We had crested a slope of crumbling stones and grass flushing with late spring. It had been a few days s
ince we left Seikkerson land. Everyone stopped for a smoke at the top of the slope, for it was a wonderful sight. The grasses spread out like an ocean before us, a fierce wind curling over them. Thad put a bit of luta in and found some trails might make the going a bit easier for wheels and we pushed on, Jinsy sending our scouts out ahead and each side a league or so off.
We got to late afternoon when we heard one of our own horns, to the east. I rode out with Eirin and Sanger and a couple of Jinsy’s bowmen. The scout was circling four people shouting at him, one waving a knife.
“Leave us! Get away!”
This was a boy of about twenty years, girl cowering behind him. There was a younger boy there, no more than twelve or fifteen years, and he had his arm around an older woman, must have been his mother to judge by their faces. She was whimpering and he was trying to shush her, not looking at us surrounding them.
“Who are you?” I said.
“Don’t matter. What’s it matter when you’re all dead? We’re dead already and they’re coming. You’re going to be dead you don’t turn back.”
“Whiteboys.”
“Course it is.” He pointed to the two behind them. “They stole our horses and our food and killed her keep, his da. They were making fun of us. They could kill us when they wanted. They’ll get you and all with your wagons.”
“Go scout another league, I don’t see anything,” said Eirin to our outrider.
The boy with the knife started to walk on, pulling the girl behind him.
“What’s the matter with you,” I said. “We can feed you, let us help. The woman there’s wounded.” The mother had a shirt fashioned as a sling holding her arm to her.
“She fell off her horse. They took our horses and watched us run. There’s horns tonight. Screaming horns. They don’t let us sleep.”
I got down off my own horse. He held the knife up. The girl with him put her hands over her face, trembling like she had the betony shakes. There was a black patch on the side of her head, must have been a scab, her ear black with what must have bled out of it.
“I’m Teyr, Teyr Amondsen. Where’s your theit, your clan?” I had to stand in his way. “We’re not here to hurt you. We come from Hillfast, from Othbutter himself.” This didn’t get an answer.
The older woman was keening now, crying proper. I could see blood and scratches on all of them, woollens torn, all consistent with running through briar, burrs, mud and buffalo dung all over their leggings and tunics.
“Eirin, put her on your horse and lead her to the van. Let the boy have the reins if he needs them. You two, come on, let’s walk you to our van. You need to drink. We’ve got a bit of ale somewhere, and some water, cheese and bisks as well.”
I was looking at the girl as I said these things, and she looked up at me for the first time. They was dazed. The boy held the knife out unsteadily in front of him. Even Mosa could have knocked it aside, so I did, and as I did the boy fell to his knees, head bowed, leaving his sister stood there staring at me with no look speaking of anything at all. It felt like it didn’t matter to her what come next, except that she could sleep somewhere, for she wavered on her feet without him to hold her.
“They’re about dead,” said Eirin. “We can’t bring them with us. We have enough trouble and looks like we’ll have a posse of whiteboys dropping into camp tomorrow if this lad’s right.”
It was only then I noticed that the boy was scratching his arm. Same arm as the other one’s ma. They needed a drudha.
I pulled him up and got my arm around him, while Sanger did the same for her. He was sour with the sweat of days, smelled of his own shit, kept looking about for the girl, who did the same for him. We walked them back to camp, the older woman wailing all the while, calling out “Rebs,” which must have been her keep’s name.
Our outriders come back an hour later saying there was nobody else they could see. By then we’d got their names: Dyl and Eirl was brother and sister, while Yelsie and Kuri was mother and son. Turned out the arms they’d been scratching had been branded, not a few days before from the looks of the wounds, and it was the same symbol as on the Khiese banner we saw at Crimore. We’d set up camp earlier than we’d planned, but the van was unsettled and being out on the plains give us an advantage against ambush.
“Are you from the Liskersen theit?” I asked when they’d had some water and rinds. Steyning and Thad could not get near the older woman, who wailed when they tried, though the others give in easy enough.
Dyl give a brief nod. “We have to go now,” he said. He’d given his sister most of his rinds. “There’s something wrong with her head, like she don’t recognise me since she got hit with a club.”
“You should stay with us,” said Sanger, whose voice was almost as calming as kannab. He always made what he said sound like it was the only and right thing to do.
“You going back to Hillfast?” said Dyl.
Sanger looked at me.
“Sorry, Dyl. No, we’re going north to the Almet.”
“What for? If the whiteboys don’t hunt you down those fucking treeheads will. They took Brukken’s boy not three months ago. Five summers he was.”
“They don’t take duts, that’s not right, Dyl,” I said.
“How would you know, coming from Hillfast.”
“Shouldn’t have stopped putting out the blueheart, should we,” said Kuri. “It isn’t just a rhyme. My da said, ‘A tenth of blue and a tenth of grey or the Almet king sings a child away.’”
“You’re trying to civilise this lot, Amondsen?” said Yalle, who was stood behind Steyning while she worked on Eirl’s head.
“You should know better, Yalle,” I said.
“And so should you, leaving gifts for monsters in dutsy tales.”
“Shush, Yalle, they might be listening,” said Steyning, looking about her in mock fear.
“You won’t come out of the Almet if you go in there,” said Dyl. “No better than taking our chances west across the plain, so we’ll be going. Maybe the whiteboys’ll come for you instead.” Dyl stood. As he did, Kuri did too, at which both Yelsie and Eirl got up almost like puppets.
The horns sounded then, the high shriek carrying from far off. It was dark in the east as night took over. Kuri started crying and his ma held him, shaking. Eirl put her hands to her ears and began mumbling. She kicked at Dyl to move.
“Leave at first light, the plain’s treacherous at night, specially as ground’s softening,” I said.
“I’m not waiting for them. I hope you fare better, you and these riches about you. You’re all a welcome sight but you’re mad as a pack of Frenzies. Come on, Eirl.”
I wanted to stop them, but Yalle and Sanger was shaking their heads at me. Thad was looking for my word—he’d stood back with Steyning, the latter still mashing some roots with a pestle in a bowl.
“Sillindar watch you,” said Kuri. He put a spare cloak that had belonged to one of our dead on his ma’s shoulders and they followed after.
“Head for the Crith, Faldon Ridge outpost. Tell Omar I sent you for alms.”
“We’re grateful,” said Dyl, who took his sister’s hand and kissed her cheek, a touch that she seemed to welcome as she was peacefully led away.
“Nothing right with any of them,” said Yalle.
“Something to ease their nerves and we might have got them to come with us,” said Thad.
“For fuck’s sake, Thad,” said Eirin, “we got enough to feed. I actually agree with Yalle, there’s going to be refugees all over before we’re done and we only got what’s here.”
“Teyr, they’re practically Auksen,” said Thad.
I was going to correct him on their clan affiliation but in doing so I’d not be giving a good reason for letting them go, for they were going to die. Eirin was right: the Circle was worse than I could have thought. It wasn’t politics and treaties any more, it was Othbutter losing control over the south of Hillfast to a warlord.
“Eirin’s right, Thad. Many more
people hereabouts are under the heel of this Khiese. Our duty is to the greater number, to get Khiese to a Walk or otherwise stop him if we can.”
“If we can stop those horns I’ll be happy,” said Aude, who’d joined us after seeing them leave.
“Double watch, Eirin,” said Sanger, “if whiteboys are hunting.”
“I’ll see to it, Master Amondsen.” She resented being ordered, but it was wisdom and she probably already knew what to do.
I left the group to go back to Chalky’s wagon, where Mosa would sleep tonight with the girls.
“Hard to see them go, I’ll bet,” said Aude, who walked with me.
“I need a pipe,” I said. He stood behind me and put his hands on my shoulders, working out the knots while I packed the bowl and put the jumpcrick’s legbones to it to get it lit.
“Course it was hard. On the one hand Thad was right, but on the other we’d have been fighting them for days trying to get that boy’s sister right, and she wasn’t coming right, I seen that look before. That other boy’s ma, she was no more than a dut. Kannab gets someone so far, but all the while I got this van to run. Eirin and Yalle was right. My first duty is to us. And to you and Mosa most of all.”
“I know.”
“I know you know. You was just getting me to say it, weren’t you, knowing I needed to get it off my chest.”
He come in and put his arms about my belly, cutching in close.
“I think you know me a bit too well,” he said. “We do need you more than they did. The magists watch them.”
“Or they don’t,” I said, finishing the well-worn saying.
“You on watch?”
“No, Aude, and I need to sleep; tomorrow’ll be a hard day.” I turned about and put the pipe in his mouth. He coughed a bit but left it there. He looked odd with a pipe, not being one for the bacca, but he did his impression of Tarrigsen gesturing with the bit and how he stood with his hand on his hip as he took his puffs, like the old man himself was here.