The lines of his face softened and his brows arched in fleeting plea. ‘Liddy, please, come with me. I’ll explain everything.’ He hadn’t given up on her yet.
‘It’s too late, Erlon. She knows too much. Your lies are a waste of breath and time. You’re going to forget us all when that whore whelps a boy—’
The back of Erlon’s massive hand struck the side of Sellan’s fine-featured face with a crack and Lidan sprinted into the gloom of the common, desperate to escape their fiery bickering. Their shouts and screams shattered the night and the wheeling music of pipes and drums stopped hard.
Ahead, the forge stood empty, the glow of the hearth fire illuminating enough of the workshop for her to slip through without unseating Rick’s tools and benches. In a corner behind the hearth, she collapsed on a pile of coal sacks and stayed there, her head buried in her hands and her legs curled against her chest.
Never in her life had she felt so entirely lost despite knowing exactly where she was. Never had she felt so alone while still at the centre of her ancestral lands. Never had she questioned so deeply her place in her family, her home, her people, than the night her father lifted his cup to thank the ancestors for his unborn child. Never had she thought she would grant her mother sanction to murder her brother. Never had she known so keenly that she would fail miserably and everything she held dear would be stripped away.
‘Lidan?’ Behn asked from beside the hearth.
She snapped up and scrambled backwards into the icy darkness, blinking tears from her eyes as her skin cried out for the warmth of the glowing coals.
‘Oh, hey… It’s only me…’ The small taper in his hand cast a glow a little further than the hearth and Lidan paused at its edge. ‘What are you doing in here?’
‘Don’t pretend you didn’t hear…’ she croaked, her voice worn by sobs.
‘I did hear something. It didn’t sound great…’
Lidan turned away and curled into a ball on the floor of the forge. ‘Leave me alone, Behn.’
‘Liddy… What’s happened?’
‘Why do you care?’ said Lidan from beneath the shield of her arms.
Her friend failed to answer, and his footsteps receded into the night beyond the forge hearth. Lidan’s heart sank, and if it were at all possible, broke a little more. He wouldn’t come back. She wouldn’t have, not if he spoke to her the way she had. He would be within his rights to never speak to her again, and she would deserve it.
Footsteps returned from the common, but Lidan didn’t look up. A shovel began to shift the coals in the hearth and timber crunched down among the embers and ash. At this she lifted her head and opened one eye to glance over her arm.
Behn stood at the hearth side, stoking the fire with dry timber. At his feet lay a pile of blankets and furs, unfolded and crumpled in a heap. They weren’t spare bed covers, but his very own, hastily gathered from his room at the back of the workshop. He nodded at the fire as if satisfied with his work and collected the blankets, fashioning a nest at the hearth-side with his back to the clay bricks that ran in a circle around it.
‘You came back?’ she said, as if he might be about to change his mind.
‘You’re my friend, Lidan.’ Behn shrugged. ‘I can’t say I understood all that yelling, and I can’t say I really want to know what was said, but if it’s anything like the fight they had in the hall, I wouldn’t want to go back over there either. So, if you can’t go home, you have to stay here, and I won’t let my friend sleep in the cold.’
Their eyes met and for the first time in days, Lidan felt a wave of peace wash over her heart.
*
The dreams came thick and fast, one after another, then all at once, then none at all. The time of empty limbo was the worst, no sky overhead and no earth underfoot. That was the time of true nightmares—the time the darkness and the shadows morphed into something altogether awful and slithered out from the crevices of Lidan’s mind to taunt and torment. She’d had strange dreams before, some that made sense and others that were completely bizarre, but never as vivid as this.
In brief moments of respite, she saw old dreams, harsh and broken as though time had corroded the memory to a shuddering series of still images flashing one after another to give the impression of movement.
They weren’t her memories—of this she was certain.
She had never seen a structure so massive, soaring above the height of the tallest tree, wrought entirely of stone and glimmering, capped with brilliant snow. Walls thicker than four men shoulder to shoulder kept some things in and others out, but it was impossible to tell which applied when.
She followed other children, some taller but most at her height, none with a face of their own. The memory let their features fade, holding only critical information in place rather than losing the whole thing to the ravages of time.
There were flashes and children lay twisted on the ground, mortal wounds torn in their small bodies. She felt sick and jolted. Her body refused to wake, and her mind became frantic. More flashes and flame. This time hot blood showered her face and her hands dripped with the stuff. The nausea redoubled and she shivered under the strain. Her body sought to purge the interloping memories but they played on.
Now a hand dragged her through dark passages, her chest burned and her legs pumped hard. The hand belonged to someone bigger, but not full grown. It was soft but strong, and it led her with purpose. The fear driving her down the corridor was unyielding and physical—it rippled up and down her limbs like wavelets on a lake, lacking any obvious beginning or end and increasing in pace.
When they broke free of the darkness, the leader turned and threw something powerful over their shoulder at a target Lidan couldn’t see. The leader’s clear eyes startled her to a stop.
She knew those eyes. She’d sat under their scrutiny too often to mistake them for another’s, though the face was older now, wrinkled and weathered almost beyond recognition. But the eyes were the same—clear and grey, the colour of cloud before rain.
Realisation hit her in the chest with the force of a charging boar and threw her screaming from the dream. Behn’s hand held tight to hers as it had when they closed their eyes, and he slept on as if nothing had happened. He grunted where he lay on the furs and rolled away, taking his cover with him and leaving her with the thickest among them. Behn was that sort of friend—he gave up the best of what he had.
Reluctantly, Lidan returned to the fur and put her back against his. Despite the warmth of their bodies trapped under the covers and the fire still feeding greedily on the timber among the coals, she lay shivering with her eyes wide and her teeth chattering. If she shut them, would the dreams return? Her head wanted to see more, to delve deeper, but her heart paled at the idea. She couldn’t bear to see the Crone’s eyes again…
Chapter Eighteen
Hummel, Tolak Range, the South Lands
Dawn broke and sliced through the restless sleep Lidan managed to glean from the remains of the night. At least the forge had been quiet, which could not be said for her room in the rear of the hall. She rose and found Behn had abandoned his post sometime in the early morning, probably to see to chores for Master Rick. His absence made her morning easier to swallow. She didn’t fancy facing any questions he might have thought up in the night.
She folded Behn’s blankets away, and found a warm place to sit beside the forge bellows and watch the village wake as the sun cleared the darkness from the sky. Her eyes were heavy from the lack of rest and Rick nodded at her as he went about his business, unperturbed by her quiet presence, common enough before she made her way to Grent’s treatment rooms to begin her tasks.
By the way the clan folk groaned and dragged their feet across the common’s dusty paths, last night’s ale had hit them hard. Their eyes narrowed as though the sun shone a hundred times brighter and to a man, they spoke with hoarse, overused voices. A pair of boots attached to motionless legs poked through the pig pen’s open gate, the pigs happily snuffl
ing around, enjoying rare freedom in the common, trotting about unhindered. If it weren’t for the low fences around the clan’s small garden plots, the precious few things still growing in the harsh light of the dry season would have been swilling through the swine’s bellies by day break.
A deep growl rolled through Lidan’s stomach, which she ignored with animosity. Her insides enjoyed playing out her weaknesses—this time of the flesh rather than of the mind. She didn’t need a reminder that she was hungry. The events of the previous evening left her without a meal and gave nothing in return except a terrible night’s sleep. She knew breakfast was on the table in the hall, but she’d be damned if she was about to wander in and sit down as though the world were right again. Even by the light of a new day, she wasn’t ready to face her parents. It was too high a price to pay for porridge and toasted bread.
To her left, Rick cleared his throat and handed her an earthenware mug of tea, steam coiling up in the cool morning air. He said nothing and wandered away to inspect his tools and stoke the fire to a crackling blaze. Her fingers closed around the belly of the mug and settled into the ridges baked across its surface, the bellow’s huge leather lungs drawing deep before exhaling in a long wheezing breath.
Had Rick heard the screams and name-calling after the moon rose? Surely half the South Lands heard the argument echoing off the face of the Caine, the awful cacophony of her parents tearing their matching apart. The only people oblivious to the noise were either dead or deaf, yet Rick made no mention of it.
He was a quiet man, never keen to commit to one side of an argument too soon, if at all. He wasn’t known to pass comment on rumours and gossip, though he might utter a word of advice from his homeland in the north. Rick swung a hammer for a living, a tradesman in a world where hunters and rangers reigned, yet Lidan’s father trusted his counsel. Lidan suspected there was much more to Rick Anvail than anyone knew.
She thought Rick to be more mystery than man, and a source of quiet wisdom in a clan of hotheads who attacked their problems with spears rather than reason. Rick was the judicious, cautious type, unlikely to stand before unstoppable forces, and while she wished it otherwise, her parents’ conflict had become relentless. This man from north of the Malapa would not be fool enough to throw his weight behind either side.
The sun crested Hummel’s timber battlement, a bright white orb glaring down on a village full of weary revellers, and painted the common with the colours of day. She shaded her eyes and felt the ache of her pupils contracting to block out the harsh light. Men skulked into the shade around houses, sheds and the buildings set at the foot of the wall, muttering thin excuses for continuing their work where the sun’s rays did not yet reach.
Gateman Jac wandered from the hut at the top of the wall and lifted his face to the sun, soaking it in with the peaceful expression of a hound lying lazily in a warm corner; eyes almost closed, nostrils flaring to draw cool air deep into his chest. He was among a small group of gatemen and rangers who stood watch last night and had no reason to curse the sun and the daari’s ale this morning. With a glance at the boots of the sorry soul snoring in the pig pen, Lidan wondered if Jac begrudged spending the night sober.
The gateman turned, leaned folded arms on the rampart and lifted two fingers to Lidan in a silent greeting. He’d been with Siman when she returned riding Theus. How many rangers and tradesmen had he told? Had word already reached her father before night fell, before their argument in the dark, behind the hall?
She nodded back and crossed the common with her eyes cast to the ground and her mug hugged to her chest. She prayed no one would notice her. If they couldn’t catch her eye, they might not realise she slipped by. If she kept to herself, they might not recognise her, despite inheriting her father’s unmistakable height and charcoal black hair. If someone called her name, everyone would stop and stare, whisper and mutter. Shewas the reason her parents fought and howled in the darkness. She was the reason the daari’s wife rebelled against him. They knew. They all knew…
Lidan smacked her forehead against the gatehouse door.
‘Damn it!’ she cursed and kicked until the door shook against the hinges. Staring at the ground was effective for avoiding eye contact, but a guaranteed way to slam into inanimate objects. Her hot tea dribbled over her fingers and she bit her lip to distract from the scald. A few people nearby looked up at the disturbance, then quickly averted their eyes when they saw the furious scowl etched on her face. On any other day, they’d offer a witty joke or a greeting. Not today. Not in the state they were in, and not after last night.
Lidan heaved the door open and gave it a swift flick as she came through the threshold. It picked up speed and slammed into the frame. The impact shook years of accumulated dust from the ceiling and walls, light brown trails and puffs of fine dirt raining down. She wished she could see the pained grimaces of those nearby, the sound echoing through their fatigued, ale-shrivelled brains. The thought was enough to dampen most of the heat in her anger.
The heavier weight of disappointment quickly replaced her anger, increasing with each step up the creaking stairs. By the landing at the parapet it pulled so insistently at her shoulders that she paused, closed her eyes and sighed, willing the feeling to disperse. It stubbornly refused, and introduced its stable-mate, utter desperation, to her heart. Together, the disappointment and desperation put a shoulder to the little hope and happiness she had left and thrust them off a cliff into a miserable abyss.
Oh, how she wanted to leave this place; despite the homely scent of baking, the familiar clang of the forge and snorting of horses in the yards. Not for the first time, she glanced at the sky and wondered if the ancestors might show her a way out.
‘Why is it, when the older folk drink all night, the young ones wake before the sky is full blue?’ Jac asked, cracking her reverie with unwelcome precision. He sat with his back to the rampart wall, feet up on a chair, his arms crossed and sharp eyes scanning the valley. More at ease with the sun than those nursing sore heads, he made the most of the warming rays rather than keeping to the chilly shadows.
‘Revenge, mostly,’ she replied and Jac raised a brow. She put her mug on a table, leaned a shoulder against the wall of the landing and tried to rub the gooseflesh from her cold arms. Hidden from sight under an awning on the rampart, Lidan watched the eastern side of the common and the wide expanse of land at the far end of the valley awash with the rising sun’s light. Only Jac could see her here.
‘They do say a little revenge is good for the soul,’ he turned back to the valley.
‘And for the mind…’
He didn’t answer but Lidan didn’t worry. She didn’t keep company with Jac and the gatemen because they were good at conversation. She came here because they were exactly the opposite. They kept quiet, only muttering amongst themselves and doing their jobs with the fierce concentration it required. Up here, the clamour of the common dulled, stripped away by the breeze blowing across the wall. The smell of horse manure diminished to something a little earthier and a whole lot more pleasant, and the chances were close to nil of being disturbed by her family. When she wasn’t assisting Grent or tending to Theus, this was her favourite place in the world.
Thinking of Theus, she opened her mouth to ask Jac who knew about her breaking in the horse.
His voice cut her off before the words formed on her tongue.
‘Liddy, throw me the looking glass?’ Jac extended his hand and sat forward, brow furrowed and jaw set.
From a shelf inside the awning, Lidan snatched a metal tube full of fine glass disks aligned with magical accuracy—the product of another northern horse trade. There was only one looking glass on the Tolak range and Jac guarded it jealously. He snapped it open and held it to his eye. ‘Fuck your mother backwards, not again!’
The big man rushed under the awning, shoving the looking glass at Lidan and pushing her aside. Mystified, she spun out to the rampart and mimicked Jac’s action with the tube, the smaller end
of the cylinder pressed against her eye.
Nothing but brown grass blurred across the end of the tube, then a smudge appeared that might be a line of trees. She slowed her hand and looked again. The tree line on the far side of the valley, close to the foot of the steep tablelands and hills, became clear and Lidan slowed further, concentrating, watching.
The smudge moved, a black shape jerking from the trees, struggling to break free from the tangled undergrowth. The tube turned in Lidan’s hand, incrementally, and the image sharpened, clear as day. A man staggered and stumbled, arms waving in a weak attempt to attract attention. He tripped and pitched forward, his face thumping into the dry earth with such force his head bounced. Then nothing.
Any warmth Lidan felt from the morning sun vanished in a fresh wave of gooseflesh prickling across her skin. If it wasn’t for the wind shifting through the tinder dry grass, she could have sworn time itself stopped.
A long box strung end to end with a leather strap hit her in the stomach and she gasped, clutching it and fumbling the looking glass between her hands.
‘You’re coming with me,’ Jac snatched the tube and hurried down the stairs.
The box in her hands was familiar—Grent handed her one when rangers needed attention as they staggered through the gates, his own box bigger and with two thick straps. Boxes like it littered the village, stored away for emergencies then appearing as if from nowhere in moments of need, like when her father returned from his ill-fated hunt.
‘Lidan! Come on!’ Jac bellowed up the stairs.
She scrambled down and exited the stairwell as Jac hit a bank of tight ropes on the wall with the business end of an axe. The cords severed and the ends snapped up through holes in the roof. A violent, deafening whir filled the gate’s housing and an almighty creak shuddered through the walls.
Lidan sprinted after Jac. Nearby, horses saddled and ready for any emergency, pawed the ground, sensing Jac’s tension and Lidan’s utter confusion. ‘You need Grent, not me!’
Blood of Heirs Page 17