Lidan tried not to wear her embarrassment on her face but her cheeks flushed and she looked down, training her eyes on the table. It wasn’t her fault she was a girl, and certainly not her fault there had been no brothers after her. It was hardly something any living man had control over. Such things were the will of the ancestors.
‘An occasion to be celebrated,’ Yorrell repeated, drawing the last word out with a nod and a smile. ‘I’ve consulted and decided to offer three tine-women, ten mares, two stallions and a hog as my son’s matching gift to your family.’
A murmur of astonishment rippled around the table, eyebrows arched and heads nodded, all impressed with the daari’s offer. Air left Lidan’s lungs in a rush, as if she’d been kicked, and her eyes widened at the staggering value of the gift. The stallions alone were worth their weight in precious stones and would fetch a price much higher than her hand if traded to the convoys from beyond the South Lands. The addition of the tine-women gave her father increased status and would almost certainly mean her half-mothers might never lift a hand in work again.
Had Yorrell just handed her father an offer he couldn’t refuse?
Chapter Forty
The Corron, Namjin Range, the South Lands
Erlon took a breath and placed a hand on the table. ‘I’m sorry, but I must decline your gift and the offer to match your son to my daughter.’
The silence was only broken by the creaking of chairs as men leaned away and crossed their arms. From their frowns, Lidan suspected this was not the response any of them anticipated. Lidan’s mouth ran dry as she scanned the gathering. There was no way this ended well, no way the previous conflicts between the Namjin and the Tolak wouldn’t surge to the surface and threaten to swamp them all. As relieved as she was to hear her father’s refusal, the darkness descending over Yorrell’s face chilled her to her core.
‘I’m not sure I understand,’ said Yorrell quietly, his head leaning to one side. ‘This is an offer well within the value of Lidan’s status.’
‘That may be so,’ Erlon conceded, nodding slowly. ‘But it is not the value I take issue with. Lidan is only thirteen. She is too young for matching, even if she were a minor daughter. As First Daughter, she is to be matched only after the age of eighteen. The Law is very clear on this.’
Yorrell’s chest began to heave a little more with each breath. ‘Of course, she and Cole will not be matched officially until she has turned eighteen—’
‘Then there is no reason for my daughter to remain here.’ Erlon’s fingers flicked as though they itched to take the axe handle, even just for the comfort of the shaft in his hand. Lidan felt the same tingle in her fingers, her hands begging for the knives she had laid on the table. ‘When she is old enough, by the Law, we can revisit—’
‘Hang the fucking Law!’ Yorrell leapt to his feet and swiped an arm in Lidan’s direction. His Second, a man with long ratty hair, sprang into action and came striding towards Lidan.
He covered the distance in a blink with nothing between them but open floor.
Lidan snatched her knives and tucked the blades against her forearms, launching away from the table and clearing her chair with a kick. The Second reached with his long arms and Lidan turned into his circle, putting her back to his chest and driving both knives under her arms. They found the soft tissue under his ribs and he roared beside her ear. She turned under his arm and twisted, ripping the knives out as she went. A rooster-tail of blood splattered across the table and the Second staggered, flailing an arm backwards to grab her collar.
Cole hefted his own axe and seemed ready to come to the Second’s aid, but his father took him by the shoulders and held him back. Lidan ignored them and went slack in the fabric of her shirt. The shirt slipped over her head and she dropped to her knees, crouching in a chest-wrap of white fabric and her trouser-skirt. She spun and kicked the Second in the back of the knees, stealing his balance as his blood poured onto the floor.
She stood up behind the Second as he slipped in the slick of blood, flapping his arms vainly to regain balance he’d long since lost. As he turned towards her, Lidan’s left knife plunged into his chest, driving him to the floor, where the other slashed through his throat. He twitched a few times while she crouched over his head, knives held ready, unwilling to move until she was sure he wasn’t getting up again.
She sucked breath into her lungs as the last wheeze escaped the Second and his body grew still as stone.
To her right, Yorrell stood with his son, holding him with straining knuckles, both of them stiff as boards and staring with shock. To her left, her father straightened from a ready stance and placed his axe back on the table, careful to turn the handle back to the fire pit. It was a signal to Yorrell that the fight was over if he let it be, and Siman followed suit, stowing his knife and axe.
Lidan stood and let the Second’s blood drip from her face and hands. Her hands shook and her muscles sang under her skin, blood pumping through her veins and throbbing through her ears. Had Loge not taught her the way of the knives, she would have been dragged screaming into the back rooms of Yorrell’s hall before her father could do anything to stop them. The ensuing fight would have been a bloodbath. At least for now only one man lay dead while the rest stood stunned. Trenor, Daari Allin’s heir, nodded approvingly with a small smile but it vanished under his father’s glare. Clearly the clans had wagered on Yorrell as the dominant force, not expecting Lidan or her father to react the way they had.
‘As I was saying,’ Erlon continued, as if the fight hadn’t happened. ‘When Lidan is old enough by Law, we will revisit the matter of matching. Until then, I will not discuss this, or any other proposal for my daughters’ hands.’
‘Any of them?’ Daari Allin shouted across the table. ‘We’ve all agreed to match our children to make this alliance! You can’t withdraw your family just because—’
‘None of my girls are old enough, Allin; and neither are most of yours. We all know the Law and why it exists. If we can’t find a way to make the alliance work without bartering our children like horses, then we have greater problems than the ngaru!’ Erlon’s voice rang under the hall’s roof and silenced everyone within earshot.
Yorrell shook with rage where he stood, letting go of Cole and taking a step towards Erlon. Lidan stiffened, her arms tensing as he approached, but her father raised a finger—a signal that he had things in hand.
‘You have brought shame on my hall and my clan, Daari.’ Yorrell’s voice wavered, his hands clenching and unfurling as if they yearned to strangle her father. He’d be lucky to get close enough to try—even then, his hands wouldn’t make it around the muscle. Yorrell was a big man, but not superior to her father’s strength. Equal, perhaps, but not superior. Yorrell spat at Erlon. ‘You bring insult on all our clans.’
Allin nodded fervently, but Merk and Horice merely watched. Both daari’s lands neighboured the Tolak range and they knew her father well. Horice’s clan, being the furthest to the south, hardly had anything to do with the Namjin in everyday dealings, and held his alliance with Tolak close. It was the first thing her father taught her when reading maps—know where your allies are and the holes where your enemies hide.
‘No, Yorrell. You insult me by offering me your minor son as my stand-by heir. You insult my wife, so pregnant she can hardly move, by accusing her of failing to provide me heirs.’ Her father jabbed a finger into the surface of the table. ‘And you insult our ancestors and our Laws by demanding we match our children before they are old enough.’
‘What, then, can we do to rescue this alliance?’ Horice held his hands up and nodded at the warring daaris.
‘I want them.’ Yorrell’s hand came up to point at Lidan and the eyes of the men turned to regard her. ‘I want those knives.’
Lidan tightened her grip on the bone handles. She’d be dead before they prised them from her fingers, before she willingly gave them to anyone. Yorrell most of all. There was no way she was handing them over.
‘What?’ Erlon barked a laugh. ‘You can’t be serious! You’re lucky we don’t try you before a Hearing for conspiring to break the Law!’
‘I am owed compensation for what you have done here! If you will not ally yourself against the ngaru through matching, then you will allow us to arm ourselves with weapons such as yours.’ Yorrell’s eyes were wild now, glistening and wide. ‘You will pay for what you have done here.’
Daari Erlon straightened and took his axe from the table. With a nod and a pointed finger, he indicated to Lidan to grab her bloodied shirt and stand beside Siman. She hurried to comply as the rest of the daaris leaned back, watching and waiting for Erlon’s next move.
Erlon pointed at Horice, Merk and Allin. ‘My alliance with you stands regardless of the proposed matchings. Should you ever call on me, I will come to your aid with whatever I can spare. The Tolak clan will not abandon its fellows to the darkness of the ngaru. Should you choose to do the same for us, we will be forever grateful.’ His gaze fell on Yorrell and the tone in his voice dropped.
‘As for the Namjin… while I would not leave you to suffer, I will not arm you with weapons you do not understand, or know how to wield. I would sooner trust my axe in the hands of a child. My own rangers do not ride with weapons of metal, and this—’ He hefted the bronze axe ‘—I save for special occasions, like showing off in front of fools like you. I suggest you don’t give me a reason to use it.’
Her father nodded his head at the door and Lidan moved with Siman, slipping the bloodied shirt over her chest wrap and jogging to keep pace with him. Erlon turned more slowly and followed, taunting Yorrell with the sight of his back.
‘Is that a threat, Tolak?’ Yorrell spat in their wake.
Erlon spun in the doorway and pointed the head of the axe at Yorrell. ‘You bet your arse it’s a threat! You come after me and mine and you’ll feel more than the bite of this axe in your neck. There’ll be flames, and nothing you recognise as yours will be left standing.’
There was a rush from inside the hall and Siman practically threw Lidan into Theus’s saddle before swinging into his own beside Erlon and Titon. Yorrell appeared from the darkness to stand in the doorway, steaming with impotent rage. There was very little he could do—the Law protected Lidan and her father, and Yorrell knew it. Unless the three other daaris sided with him, there was nothing to be done to change matters.
She watched as Merk and Horice shouldered past Yorrell and whistled for stable hands to bring their horses, but Yorrell hardly seemed to notice. He only had eyes for Erlon. He pointed a thick-fingered hand at Lidan’s father and his lip curled as they turned their horses for the gate.
‘You get off my land! If I see you or any of your cunt brats at dawn, I’ll see they are shown how a stone axe can split a skull,’ he bellowed at their backs. ‘The Marsaw and Daylin too—all of you! Get the fuck off my land!’
Chapter Forty-one
The Southern Reaches, Orthia
It frustrated Ran how often he had to admit that the ghost girl was right. She’d been right about the scroll, and she’d been right about the difficulty of carrying Sasha across the snowy hills and fields and into a narrow valley. According to his map and the cryptic hints the ghost gave him every few miles, the keep lay at the head of the valley, nestled against the mountains with a stream at the foot of the wall.
When daylight began to fade and still the keep hadn’t appeared in the distance, Ran began to panic. The ghost said he had until nightfall, and then the others would come. She said he had to get to the keep before they found them because this time, there wasn’t one creature, but many. He hoped she was wrong. He hoped she was exaggerating and making a fuss, but to date he had no reason to doubt her.
Just as she had told him, he did regret not opening the scroll sooner. Heck, he regretted not opening it the first night away from Usmein. It was his own stupid pride that had stopped him, and perhaps a deep and unshakable fear of what it revealed about how Orthia treated those born with magic in their souls.
The knowledge of the keep and the succour it provided for magic-weaving children might have saved him a whole heap of trouble and pain. He might have bypassed Graupen altogether and never have met Sasha, but that would have saved her the gruesome injuries she now suffered.
As things stood, they’d be lucky to make it to the keep alive. Ran carried Sasha across his shoulders, his arm looped through her legs and behind her knee, her right arm cradled against his chest. He’d seen soldiers carry their unconscious comrades from the Territory in such a manner, but never thought he would ever have reason to use the method himself. Her head bobbed against his shoulder with every heavy step and he cringed whenever he slipped on the uneven ground. It was a faint track, and seemed undisturbed, so it was unlikely anyone had been this way in some time. Over his shoulder, sunlight faded from the valley. There had been no fresh snowfall overnight and the snow beneath his feet was slushy; and Ran left a set of distinct footprints that a blind man could follow.
Ahead, the ghost girl waited on a rock beside the road. The boulder was as high as his shoulder and she crouched atop it like a mountain cat, watching his approach with a blank blue stare. Ran rolled his eyes and wondered what she wanted this time, thankful only for an excuse to pause and rest his legs.
‘Almost nightfall,’ she murmured when he grunted to a stop and eased Sasha to the ground. He covered her with a blanket he’d kept from their packs and leaned back to stretch his legs. The ghost tilted her head at Sasha. ‘She’s fading with the light.’
‘Shut up,’ Ran snapped.
‘Pardon?’ The ghost glared at him, incredulous.
‘I said shut up! I know she’s fading and I can see that the sun is setting. I don’t need your constant commentary.’
‘Without my “constant commentary”, you’d be dead!’ she snarled back at him.
‘I’d have a moment’s peace beforehand,’ Ran countered. He turned to look down the valley. ‘Feels like I’ve walked a thousand miles.’
‘If only.’ The ghost slipped silently from the rock and moved around it.
Annoyed but curious, Ran followed her. The track circled the rock, and on the other side, the valley lengthened between two soaring mountains. Down to his right, a river bubbled over stone and whispered in eddies, thawed snow running away from the mountains as the surest sign spring had arrived. The track paralleled the river, following it up the valley and disappearing around a bend.
‘Up there,’ the ghost said, lifting her chin. ‘Follow the river.’
‘How much further?’
‘The distance doesn’t matter, Ranoth,’ she replied, and began walking up the track, leaving him in her wake. ‘It only matters that you cross it.’
He collected Sasha and somehow managed to settle her on his shoulders without dropping her on her head. As much as he hated the cryptic riddles of his ghost and her habit of never telling him what he needed to know before it was too late, he agreed with her. It didn’t matter how far ahead the keep was. He needed to travel the distance if he hoped to survive, or the whole effort would be for naught.
*
The first howl echoed up the valley at Ran’s back as the sun’s last rays faded to indigo and black. He and the ghost spun around, scanning the trees and low shrubs for movement. A chill raced up his spine.
‘I thought they didn’t travel by day? How can they be so close?’ He whirled to confront the ghost and her form began to wane.
‘An easy mistake to make,’ she said. Her eyes stared past him as if she saw right through the trees and hillsides to the creatures themselves.
‘You said they didn’t travel by day!’
‘You assumed they didn’t! I told you to reach the keep by nightfall. I told you they were coming. I said nothing about how or when they hunted!’
‘But the other one—’ He los
t his protest in the sound of a barking call, two distinct replies following in the silence left behind.
‘Ranoth!’ The ghost was in front of him in an instant, as opaque and human as she had ever been. ‘Curse you for a fool! Fucking run!’
He ran.
Sasha bounced on his shoulders, her dead weight dragging him down with every step, but he ran. He put one foot in front of the other and ignored the screams of the creatures. He silenced the voice of dissent in his head and reasoned against its warnings.
He would make it to the keep before the creatures found him. He would make it or die trying.
A glimmer of hope lit the falling twilight as he staggered around a bend in the track. Ahead, torches flickered in a line that could only mark the top of a wall. Through the sweat and tears of exertion, he couldn’t see much of the structure, but the light was enough to set a fire in his heart.
The keep was there, just a few more steps, just a little further. It was as real as the skin on his hands and it was right there, waiting for him with light from torches to guide his way. The creatures howled and barked, three distinct voices echoing in his wake. He couldn’t tell how far they were, or how fast they moved.
It didn’t matter.
He was going to make it to the keep.
Black walls loomed from the trees, rising several stories up the face of the mountain. Within the grounds, three thick towers stood in defiance of the elements, their roofs capped by snowfall, tiny slivers of light escaping into the night from behind curtains and shutters. Only along the wall and its shorter intermittent towers did torches burn bright.
The track widened, then spread into a clearing. The keep wall loomed on the opposite side and his heart leapt at the sight. The clearing was several hundred feet across, and empty. Not a building or a shack stood in the space, no wagons or awnings; it was clear of snow and grass, and the trees at the edges leaned back as though they’d long ago decided it was a fool’s errand to put down roots in that soil.
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