by K J Taylor
Prydwen had sat down by his friend. He picked at his collar and settled down to listen, deliberately looking away from Arren.
Torc began. “Long ago,” he said, “hundreds of years ago, before your grandfather’s grandfather was born, the North was called Tara. Our people owned it; it was their land and their blood was in the soil. The clans lived there free—Deer and Wolf and Crow and Bear—and roamed wherever they chose. They made their houses from sticks and snow, and hunted wolf and deer and boar, and they herded black sheep and used their wool to make robes that would protect them from the cold. They called themselves the darkmen or the moon people, and they had healers and shamans who spoke with the voices of the gods and were given magic by the light of the moon. But one night, when the half-moon was out—the time when great things happen and the world turns—a boy was born. His name was Taranis, man of Tara, and he was born to the Wolf Clan. He grew up swift and strong, and cunning like a wolf, and some say he learnt to change his shape and become a wolf, with a wolf’s pelt and sharp teeth. His elders said that one day he would become leader of his clan, and he did, when he fought the old leader and killed him, which was the way of the darkmen.
“But Taranis was not content to lead just one clan, just one people. He had a brother, Taliesin, who was fierce and wise, but wild, and he and Taranis decided they would make themselves greater than any clan chieftain. Taranis called the other chiefs together at a gorge where there was a stone circle built by giants long ago. Now that gorge is called Taranis Gorge. When the chiefs came together, Taranis told them he would become master of their clans as well as his own, and they told him he must defeat them and their people in battle if he would. But Taliesin was too cunning. He wove his magic around the chiefs as they sat there within the circle, and all of them were turned to stone. Now they still sit there, a circle inside a circle.
“When the clans learnt of what Taliesin and Taranis had done they were very afraid. But they did not attack the Wolf Clan, because their chiefs were dead and they had no-one to lead them. And since Taranis and Taliesin had killed them, they must replace them. That was the law. So Taranis became master of all the tribes, and he told them, ‘You shall not be four clans, but one: the greatest clan, the Moon Clan. And I shall give you riches and glory such as you have never seen.’ And he led them south, toward the mountains of Y Castell, where the land was warm and rich. They passed through the mountains, a hundred thousand strong warriors, united. And Taranis led them against the people of the South, and he humbled them, and took their land and their wealth for his own. Even when the terrible griffin-lords united against him they could not win; the men of Tara stood strong and fought strongly and with courage, and even mighty griffins fell before them. It was said even the gods could not stand against them, certainly not the soft Southern god. And Taranis was strong and proud and said that he would live forever, and that one day all the land would be his.”
Arren had heard a version of this story before, but he listened anyway. It was close to its ending now.
Torc’s small face grew solemn. “But Taranis fell. Before he could have his glory, he fell. Taliesin grew jealous, and the two of them argued, and then Taliesin left and vowed he would not return. Taranis was too proud to turn back; he marched on with his people and fought the griffiners one last time. But in the midst of the battle an arrow struck him, and Taliesin was not there to heal him. And so Taranis died there alone, calling Taliesin’s name with his last breath. And as soon as he died, his men had no leader and could fight no more. The griffiners smashed them that day, and when the battle was done the Moon Clan was no more. They were Bear and Wolf and Crow and Deer once again, and they would no longer fight as one. Some fled, some stood and fought. But after that there was no more hope. The griffiners killed all those who fought, and chased the rest back through Y Castell and into Tara, and there they took it for themselves and broke the clans and made them all into slaves. And from then on there was never another leader to fight them and no more hope, and the moon itself wept as the snow turned red with Northern blood.”
The story ended there, and Torc fell silent.
“What happened to Taliesin?” said someone.
Torc shrugged. “Some say he killed himself when he found out that Taranis was dead; others say he turned himself to stone. And others say he never died.”
Arren sighed. “You’re a good storyteller, Torc. It’s not quite the same tale as the one I heard, though. In the one my father told, it was Taliesin who killed Taranis. And they weren’t brothers; they were father and son.”
“In the one I heard they were only friends,” Prydwen put in. “But still, a well-told story, boy. Well done.”
Torc looked nervous but pleased. “Thank you. It’s not my favourite story. It always makes me sad.”
“Well, why shouldn’t it?” said Olwydd. “It’s a story of our fall and our shame.”
“Your shame, maybe,” Annan muttered.
Olwydd glared at him. “Our shame,” he repeated. “We are all Northerners, and the story is ours.” He cast a quick glance at Arren as he said this. “All of ours,” he said again.
“Oh, quite,” said Arren, not liking how this was going. “But remember that stories are stories.”
“And what do ye mean by that?” said Prydwen. He sounded irritated.
“I mean that there’s no point in getting worked up about it,” said Arren. He put aside his empty bowl. “As for me, I’ve always liked stories, but I prefer the ones about real people.”
“Taranis is real,” said Olwydd.
“How do you know?” said Arren.
The older man laced his fingers together and looked down his nose at him. “It doesn’t matter if there was truly a man called Taranis,” he said. “At the heart, all stories are true.”
Arren nodded. “Yes, I suppose you’re right there. But tell me”—he took in a deep breath; this was going to be a big risk—“I don’t suppose there are any stories about real people that you’d care to tell?”
Olwydd gave him a look. “Which real people?”
Arren leant forward. It was now or never. “What do you know about the man called Arren Cardockson?” he asked softly.
Silence followed. The slaves around the fire shifted uneasily. Even Prydwen looked unsettled.
“Why d’you want to hear about him?” said Nolan.
Arren shrugged with forced casualness. “I’ve been hearing things. Not many things, but I’ve heard that name mentioned. I ran away months ago; I don’t have any idea of what’s going on in the world right now. All I know is that people have been mentioning someone called Arren Cardockson. Why?”
“Why d’you want to know?” said Annan.
“Idle curiosity,” said Arren. “What can you tell me about him?” He glanced around at them. “Anyone?”
There was more silence.
“Eagleholm’s destroyed,” Nolan said at last. “Did you know that?”
“Yes, of course,” said Arren.
“Well, Arren Cardockson’s the man what destroyed it.”
Arren blinked. “What? How?”
“No-one really knows—” Nolan began.
“I’ll tell ye what I heard,” said Olwydd. “Shall I?”
“Go on,” said Arren.
“Arren Cardockson lived at Eagleholm,” said Olwydd. “He was—is—a Northerner, like us.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” Nolan interrupted. “Man’s a griffiner; everyone knows that. One of their own, turned mad.”
“A Northerner,” Olwydd repeated. “I tell ye, he’s a Northerner. He was a slave to the Eyrie Mistress, Riona—”
“Shut up!” said Nolan. “You dunno what yer talkin’ about, you ignorant snow-blood. There are no slaves in Eagleholm. Don’t you know bloody anything? The Lady Riona sent them all away. While she was in the North she fell in love with a Northerner, but he broke her heart, and when she came home and became Mistress she couldn’t bear to look at a Northerner any more, so she rid
her lands of them all for good.”
“Well, she must have kept one behind, then,” said Olwydd, unmoved. “Just this one, Arren Cardockson, who she kept as her lover. But one day he went mad and decided he could be a griffiner like her, so he stole a griffin chick, and then he murdered Riona and set fire to the Eyrie and ran off, him and the griffin.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard!” Nolan stormed. “Listen, the man was a griffiner.”
“Oh?” said Olwydd, “Then ye can tell us what really happened, if ye’re that certain. Go on.”
“Fine, I will. Arren Cardockson was a griffiner, but his griffin was killed in an accident—”
“Because he killed it,” Torc put in. “He went mad and killed it.”
“Shut up, Torc. His griffin died, and he went insane and tried to steal another one, but he was caught and sentenced to death. But on the day of the execution he broke free and used magic to turn himself into a terrible black griffin, and he killed the Eyrie Mistress and her council and broke the Eyrie to pieces before he flew away. He’s still out there in the wild somewhere, mad and lusting for blood. They say he’ll be back to destroy the other Eyries some day.”
Arren groaned quietly. “So, that’s the story, is it?” he said, raising his voice. “Arren Cardockson is a Northerner who was a slave in lands where there aren’t any slaves any more, but he was also a griffiner, and he went insane and stole a griffin chick and then turned into a griffin and killed the Eyrie Mistress. Do I have that right?”
Olwydd and Nolan glared at each other.
“It’s not his fault, Taranis,” said Nolan, looking away. “He’s come straight from some peasant village over the mountains; how would he know anything about what’s goin’ on in the rest of the world?”
Olwydd half-rose at that, raising his fist. “Why ye little—”
Arren pushed him back. “Stop it! Do you want to get us all in trouble? Nolan, don’t talk to him like that.” He turned to Olwydd. “I’m afraid Nolan’s right about there being no slaves in Eagleholm. There haven’t been any there in about twenty years. But”—he couldn’t stop himself from giving Nolan a sour look—“it’s not because of some unrequited love story, I’m sorry to say. It’s because Eagleholm was nearly bankrupt, and they couldn’t afford to go on supporting a thousand-odd slaves, so Riona sold them all to refill the treasury. And I know that because I heard a griffiner say so. As for Arren Cardockson . . .” He shrugged. “Looks like nobody has any idea.”
“I do,” came a voice from the doorway.
It was Caedmon. The old man limped into the room. “So, there you are,” he said, looking pointedly at Olwydd and Prydwen. “I had a notion ye’d be in here, filling this poor lad’s head with yer nonsense. I warn ye right now, if yer lookin’ to talk him into another escape yer going to have me to answer to.”
Olwydd bowed his head toward him. “Not at all. We’re here for a little storytelling, that’s all.”
“He’s speaking the truth,” said Arren. “Right, Nolan?”
Nolan nodded a little sullenly. “I told ’em they shouldn’t be here, but they wouldn’t listen. But we’re just talkin’.”
“About Arren Cardockson,” said Caedmon.
“Well, I was hoping someone would be able to tell me who he is,” said Arren, affecting an air of slightly contemptuous frustration. “But I’m not having much luck.”
“And so it should be,” said Caedmon. “That’s not a thing we’re permitted to talk about.”
“And who is going to stop us, old man?” said Prydwen. “Yerself, maybe?”
“Don’t talk to him like that,” Arren snapped. He stood up. “Caedmon, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. Would you like to sit down? Something to drink?”
Caedmon inclined his head graciously. “I’d appreciate it. Thank you, Taranis.”
Several men moved aside to give the old man room to sit down, and Arren passed him a cup of water. “So,” he said once Caedmon was comfortable, “what’s this all about? Can you at least tell me who this person is and what he’s supposed to have done?”
Caedmon looked reflectively at the fire. “I s’pose there’s no harm tellin’ some of it. I heard the story up at the tower myself, so I know the tale the griffiners are telling.”
Arren tensed. “And what would that be?”
“This man,” said Caedmon, “Arren Cardockson—Olwydd was right. He is a Northerner. His true name is Arenadd Taranisäii, and he is one of the freed slaves of Eagleholm who stayed behind. But there’s more: Arren Cardockson was a griffiner.”
Several people made incredulous noises.
“Oh, come on,” said Annan. “One of us? A griffiner? Next thing you’ll be sayin’ he lives in a castle in the clouds.”
Caedmon shrugged. “That’s what I heard. A Northern griffiner. Not like to have been popular at the Eyrie, I’d say. He was a griffiner, and his griffin died. Some say he killed her; others say it was illness or an accident. But after that he lost his mind. He broke into the Eyrie late at night and murdered Lady Riona in her bed, along with most of her councillors, an’ then he set a fire and fled. No-one knows where he went, but most say it was northward, to kill Lady Elkin at Malvern.” He shook his head. “That’s all I know, but whatever else this Arenadd is, he’s a murderer.”
“No,” said Prydwen.
Everyone stared at him.
“No,” Prydwen repeated. “I tell ye, no. Arenadd Taranisäii is no murderer, and no madman. He’s a hero.”
Arren had taken the condemnation in Caedmon’s words like a physical blow, but even so he baulked at this. “Since when is a murderer a hero?” he snapped.
Prydwen gave him a look with more venom than a bag of snakes. “Shut that mouth of yers before I shut it for ye, yer soft-headed Southern slave. Ye know nothin’. What Arenadd did was for us, all of us.” He glanced appealingly at the others. “Don’t ye see? It was justice. Lady Riona was in the North, did ye know that? Her and her brother.” His face darkened. “I know of him. Rannagon. Lord Rannagon, the bloody bastard. My grandfather told me he destroyed three villages, all on his own. Sent his soldiers in, killed everyone and burned the buildings to the ground. But did he get called a murderer? No, an’ I’ll tell ye why. Because he was a griffiner, that’s why, an’ when the griffiners are the ones dolin’ out justice, what chance is there that they’d condemn one of their own? So it was left to Arenadd to do justice on him, an’ on the rest, too. Justice for the dead.”
Arren didn’t know which was worse: that he was being called a villain or that he was being called a hero.
The others were looking uncertain. “Well,” said Nolan, “I don’t see how it’s any of our business either way.”
“Of course it’s our business,” said Prydwen. “We’re his people, all of us. Even ye. What he did was for us.”
“I’ll bet,” Arren muttered.
Prydwen stood up. “Arenadd Taranisäii is a hero, an’ I name ye traitor if ye deny it.” He gave the assembled slaves a disgusted look, and spat. “I tell ye, ye make me ashamed to be a Northern man. Once I thought ye were my brothers, but ye’re too craven to even love yer own homeland. I’m glad ye’re in chains. Ye’re what ye make of yerselves, and I say ye deserve to be slaves. All of ye.”
14
Breaking Chain
Every day, Arren and his fellows were woken up at dawn by the screech of the griffin at the temple—heard but never seen—and marched out to the wall to resume their work. Arren spent the first few days mixing mortar, until the supervisors decided he was ready to move on to something more strenuous. He was re-assigned to the quarry, where he had to help cut and haul blocks of stone.
Soon he was longing to return to the buckets. Mixing mortar had been tedious and tiring, but quarry work was backbreaking. Every evening he returned to the slave-house bruised and sore, his fingernails broken and his robe covered in stone dust. His wounded back couldn’t take the strain; the lash marks opened and re-opened, becoming
encrusted with thick, dirt-filled scabs. Inevitably several of them became infected, and Nolan and Caedmon had to clean them out with a stinging paste of crushed griffin-tail, which eventually did its work. The infection cleared up and the wounds healed, little by little, until he could lie on his back again. But he knew, even without the benefit of mirrors, that the wounds had left deep scars behind.
His hand was little better. The branding iron had killed off a large patch of skin and destroyed the flesh underneath. It itched and burned appallingly and wept thin, watery blood. He didn’t dare scratch it, because that caused the kind of pain that made him think he was going to faint, but after a time the itching died down, and he lost all sensation in the back of his hand. That was when the worst part came. The dead skin had already sloughed off, and now the flesh underneath did the same. It stank of decay, and once it was all gone it left a deep, bloody wound behind. Arren did his best to keep it clean, packing the hole with griffin-tail and then covering it with a scrap of wet cloth, and fortunately it didn’t become infected. But it took a long time to begin healing.
By the end of a week or so—Arren had soon lost count of the days—the gap in the wall that he and his fellows had been working on was completely closed and the top levelled out. But there were other gaps elsewhere and other places where the wall needed reinforcing, so Arren’s squad was moved to a different spot, and the work continued.
A month dragged by. Arren worked without complaint and did as he was told; he never answered back, never looked a superior in the eye, never lagged or hesitated. He did his best to behave in the slave-house, too; when squabbles erupted he kept out of the way and never flared up or showed aggression toward anyone. It helped keep attention off him and stopped others from thinking of him as a troublemaker or untrustworthy. He hoped that the guards would notice and that, sooner or later, they would relent and take the irons off him. As for Olwydd and Prydwen, he stayed away from them as much as possible, knowing that being seen in their company would only raise suspicion. They obviously shared that view and made no attempt to talk with him again, but he knew they were watching him; they were waiting, like him, for a signal.