Blood Song: The First Book of Lharmell

by Rhiannon Hart

  ‘Thanks,’ I muttered.

  He was screwing the cap back on the flask, regarding me warily. ‘You’re, ah . . . welcome.’

  I licked my lips and frowned. Laudanum sure had a funny taste. Sort of thick and tangy, not unpleasant but faintly . . . metallic. My eyes widened. I rubbed the back of my hand across my mouth and looked at it in the dim light. There was a dark red smear on my hand. That wasn’t laudanum. That was blood.

  My head snapped up. ‘You gave me blood?’

  ‘Yes. It’s what you needed. You’d die otherwise. What did you think I gave you?’

  ‘Laudanum!’

  ‘That stuff ’s practically useless. It can only mask the pain for a while, not make it go away.’ He was so cool, so logical.

  I flew at him and beat him with my fists. ‘I don’t want to drink blood! Do you hear me? It’s vile! It’s inhuman!’

  He grabbed my wrists and pushed me back. ‘You need to keep your voice down,’ he growled. ‘There’ll be dozens of Lharmellins in the area.’

  ‘I don’t care!’ I hollered. ‘I’d rather be dead than live like this.’

  He clamped a hand over my mouth. ‘If they catch us they will torture your cat and your bird to death. So shut the hell up.’

  I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth about Leap and Griffin, but the look in his eye made me fall silent.

  He grabbed his bow and quiver and stood up. ‘Stay here.’ After five minutes he came back. ‘There’s nothing out there. But you need to keep quiet, because they’ll be coming.’

  I watched Leap and Griffin, so perfect in the lamplight. Their eyes shone like stars, one pair green, one pair gold. So vivid and alive. I loved them dearly. If Rodden hadn’t needed them to track me down they would be safely in Pergamia right now. I hoped they weren’t going to die because of me.

  ‘It wasn’t human blood, was it?’ I asked as he sat down opposite me.

  ‘No. Rabbit.’ He stretched his legs out, his left thigh warm against my own.

  I remembered the hutch in his room. ‘The ones in your turret?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Oh.’ I couldn’t help the small cry of dismay, remembering how sweet they were.

  He sighed. ‘Yes, I know. They’re hideously cute and trusting. I’m a monster.’

  ‘No, they’re . . . it’s not – it’s okay,’ I finished lamely. Why on earth was I trying to comfort him? It was monstrous.

  ‘I’m glad you think so. You’ll need your own set-up like that when we get back. Rabbits are the best. They breed like, well, rabbits, and the turnover is quick so you don’t have enough time to get attached to them. And one is just the right amount of blood.’

  I grimaced, wondering how many small creatures he’d gone through in his quest to find one that was ‘just right’. ‘Before, you said this place was only poisonous to humans. So if I’m human why would I need blood?’

  ‘Because you’re not all human. You’re a part-harming. You’ve tasted Lharmellin blood but you haven’t gone through the Turning. That’s what you’re being drawn northwards for.’

  ‘What’s a Turning?’

  ‘It’s a ceremony. It makes you into a full harming. After, you don’t feel the pain any more if you try to go south.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But Lharmell will become your home. The Lharmellins your masters. You won’t be Zera- phina any more, but something wicked. Without conscience.’

  I shuddered. ‘I don’t think I want to go to a Turning. Is that what you are, a full harming?’

  He snorted. ‘I am not. I’m a part-harming, like you are.’

  ‘Oh. But you are wicked and unconscionable?’

  ‘I have made a good impression,’ he muttered.

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘I notice you don’t deny the charges.’

  He put his hand on his heart. ‘Any wickedness or lack of conscience that I possess can be attributed only to my flaws of character. I swear.’

  ‘Drat. I was looking forward to the day you would be tried for treason.’

  He laughed.

  ‘But I have no recollection of meeting one of these creatures,’ I said, turning back to the matter at hand. ‘How did this happen to me?’

  He considered this. ‘I think you should ask your mother.’

  I remembered Renata’s white face when I’d mentioned Lharmell. The odd story about the sickness. There was something she wasn’t telling me. Had she known what I was all along, and kept it from me? How could she do such a thing?

  ‘Do all harmings have pale eyes and black hair?’

  He nodded. ‘We also need blood to survive and have uncontrollable urges to return “home”. I was hoping you were going to overcome yours and get in that damned carriage, but here you are.’

  I was indignant at that. ‘If you wanted me to go home so badly, why did you draw me here in the first place? I know you’re the phantom.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The thing in my room. All I could see was your eyes. You stole my ring.’

  ‘I took the ring to track you. I wanted to be sure that if you were coming to Pergamia that you would actually get there. There are harmings all over Brivora keeping an eye out for little lost souls like you.’

  ‘So you didn’t actually draw me northwards?’

  ‘No. That was the Lharmellins.’

  ‘But why pretend you did?’ I asked, exasperated.

  He smiled. ‘You were just so convinced I was the bad guy. If you wasted time spying on me I thought it would keep you distracted from Lharmell until it was time for you to go home.’

  ‘And the archery tournament?’

  ‘I was curious about how good you were with that bow and arrow. We rate skilled archers very highly in Pergamia. They’re our best defence against the harmings that come to steal our people for blood. And again, it was to distract you from Lharmell. And to see the look on your face when I threw in the bit about marrying me.’ He laughed.

  ‘You laugh now, but hasn’t your plan rather . . . backfired? You had me so convinced you were the bad guy I had to jump on a giant bird to get away from you.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps I did lay it on a bit thick.’ He looked at his hands. ‘I admit I was rather enjoying myself.’ A smile quirked the corners of his mouth. ‘I was so angry when I found you in my room, but you should have seen your face when you told me you would be watching me from then on. I knew what you were the minute I saw you, that you were like me, and you seemed so fierce, so . . . human, that it gave me hope. It’s lonely when you think you’re the only person like you in the world. I thought if I could get you far enough away without finding out anything about harmings, then you might not need the blood. You might not feel like a monster for the rest of your life. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.’

  ‘Oh Rodden,’ I muttered. ‘I already did feel like a monster – do feel like one. Telling me would have helped, don’t you see?’

  He nodded. ‘It was stupid of me. But I wanted to give you the chance that I never –’ He stopped himself, shaking his head. ‘When you collapsed after the tournament I thought I might just tell you the nice things. The one nice thing. The mind commun- ication with Leap and Griffin. You’ll get better at it with time. Because you’re so close you’ll be able to sense what they’re thinking.’

  I looked at them both, watching us intently as if they really were following the conversation. Being able to talk to them, as it were; that would be a great comfort.

  ‘The man at the tournament. Was he a harming?’

  Rodden’s face grew hard. ‘Yes. I wanted to kill him as soon as I saw him. I couldn’t believe his audacity, competing right there in front of everybody. Harmings are usually more secretive. And you! Running off by yourself. I couldn’t believe how stupid you were.’

  ‘Maybe if someone hadn’t kept me in the dark for so long I would have known better.’

  ‘Touché.’

  ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘I told him to back
off. That you were with me. It’s sort of an honour to guide one of our kind home.’

  I grimaced. ‘I wish you’d stop saying home.’

  ‘To Lharmell, then.’

  ‘How did you find me in Amentia?’ I was afraid that if he stopped talking I might never get him to start again.

  ‘You are full of questions. Don’t you want to get some rest?’

  I shook my head. It was amazing how quickly I’d recovered. My senses felt sharp and I wasn’t sleepy in the least, or hungry. I realised it was because of the blood and tried to feel dismayed, but the intoxication obliterated any guilt. ‘Tell me how you found me,’ I insisted.

  He looked at me from beneath his lashes. ‘I heard you.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You were making such a racket, for months on end. I’d never heard anything like it. All the resistance you were putting up to the Lharmellins, the blood-hunger. I heard it all the way in Pergamia, and I was curious. I can travel out of my body. I was taught to do it a long time ago. It’s useful for travelling long distances.’

  I imagined him sitting in his turret room, hearing me rail against the hunger. I’d thought the whole time I’d been alone. ‘How long ago did you hear me? How many times did you visit?’

  ‘Oh . . . Once or twice . . .’

  He’d known my name. He’d spoken it like it was as familiar as his own. At least, I thought he had. But it was too intimate to put into words. So I changed the subject. ‘Tell me what you’re doing in Pergamia.’

  ‘You know what I’m doing. Fighting the Lharmellins.’

  ‘But what specifically? What’s with all the equipment in your room?’

  He gave me a long look.

  ‘Well, come on!’ I said. ‘We can’t have any secrets now.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. I’m just choosing my words. Trying to be tactful.’

  ‘That’s not like you.’

  ‘How true. Have you ever wondered why such a big, glorious nation like Pergamia would form an alliance with a tin-pot country like yours?’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘You Pergamians are so full of yourselves. And what happened to being tactful?’

  ‘As you said, not in my nature. And I’m not Pergam- ian. When the king showed me the letter from your mother, the one outlining a possible alliance with Amentia, there was something in it that caught my interest.’

  ‘The harming sister?’

  ‘It’s not always about you, Zeraphina.’

  I scowled. ‘I was kidding. You’re always so serious.’

  ‘And you’re always so –’

  ‘All right, all right. The letter. What was in it?’

  ‘Your mother mentioned the Teripsiin Mountains. They’re full of metals: tin, iron, copper and so on.’

  ‘Yes, Renata told us that would interest Pergamia.’

  ‘Not those metals.’ Rodden picked up the lamp that was giving off the orange glow. ‘This is yelbar. It’s an alloy of yelinate and bennium. Both are extremely rare elements and are never found together in nature. But when you artificially fuse them you get a metal that, while innocuous to humans, is lethal to Lharmellins and harmings.’ He picked up an arrow. I saw that its tip was glowing faintly too. ‘These have yelbar in the tip, hence the disintegration of our little friends out there. As we have Lharmellin blood they’re toxic to you and me, so don’t touch them with your bare hands, and for heaven’s sake be careful where you fire them. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, for instance, because you’ll crumple up like a burning leaf. You’d be wise to keep your gloves on at all times.’

  ‘So we can be killed the same way as a Lharmellin, but Lharmell is still poisonous to us?’ I held up my hands, reddened by contact with the dirt.

  Rodden pulled a small pot of salve out of his pack and gave it to me. ‘Here, use this on your burns. A human in Lharmell would be dead in hours. But as you’ve seen, they don’t last that long.’

  I grimaced, thinking of the Lharmellins clicking to each other as they hunted. I rubbed the salve on and the burning subsided. ‘And if we’re not in Lharmell we get driven crazy by the urge to come here,’ I continued. ‘Bit of a paradox, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’d never really thought about it that way. But you’re right.’

  ‘Can’t we reverse it somehow?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ve searched for a way ever since I came to Pergamia. I’ve collected every book with even the vaguest mention of Lharmell, but I’ve never found a way to free myself. I’m still looking, but . . .’

  ‘You’re not hopeful,’ I finished.

  ‘No.’

  There was no way out. No way to go back to being a normal human girl, the way I was before the hunger started.

  I pressed my face into my hands. ‘Then what the hell is the point?’

  ‘Part-harmings don’t last long in the wild, so to speak. The urge to go north is so strong they can’t ignore it. You’re the first one I’ve met, other than myself, who’s been able to resist.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I gave a short laugh. Able to resist? ‘Haven’t you realised where we are? Look around. This is Lharmell. Some resistance.’

  He waved my comment away. ‘You were drunk, and you thought you had to get away from me. And then you called down that blasted brant.’

  ‘Brant?’

  ‘That huge bird of prey. It’s a rider-brant, trained by the Lharmellins. They breed them in the tors.’

  ‘How did I call it down?’

  ‘You were giving off all these need-to-get-away signals, so it helpfully obliged.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Quite. Lharmellins don’t use words, they use thought-patterns. Pictures. Yours are quite strong for a part-harming and you let them go zipping off in all directions.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  ‘No. I was trained. Anyway, I was telling you about that letter. The Teripsiin Mountains, as I subsequently discovered, are a rich source of yelinate, which is why your country is suffering so much. The Lharmellins can sense it and they’re trying to freeze out anyone who attempts to mine it. All the chanting they do, it’s to call the harmings home, but it’s also to draw the ice down from the sky. They thrive in the cold.’

  I interrupted. ‘The Lharmellins are the reason my country is freezing?’ I thought of the empty granar- ies, the famine that could easily seize my country and the cold that had been going for decades. They had caused this? I grew angry. Why was no one doing anything to stop this? A whole country full of people could die. Rodden said he was fighting them, but what had he really done?

  ‘I’m afraid so. Amentia has always had hard winters, but there’s something strange happening. The Lharmellins seem to be getting stronger. I can’t be sure, but I think they have a new leader. A smart one. The cold is spreading. Soon the Lharmellins will be able to travel out of Lharmell instead of needing the harmings to do their legwork. The harmings carry vials of Lharmellin blood about the countryside, infecting humans. They also kidnap people for their blood, taking them home to Lharmell, like that boy you saw. Then they dump the bodies back where they came from. You were right about something happening on the morning of Lilith’s wedding. A dozen bodies were found at the docks, all bloodless.’

  I shuddered. ‘But why are they doing this?’

  ‘They’re our natural predators and they want to expand their territory. I can’t be sure exactly because the records are sketchy, but once, a long time ago, the world was colder and I think the Lharmellins existed outside Lharmell. They want that territory back. There are already more harmings than ever, and places like Amentia are getting dangerously cold. As soon as the Lharmellins can leave Lharmell, we’re pretty much done for.’ He got up and went to check the cave mouth.

  I didn’t want to live in pain and hunger for the rest of my life – which might not be very long, according to Rodden – and I certainly didn’t want to become a harming. I thought of Lilith, not far away across the stra
its, with brants circling over the keep every night. How long until something happened to her?

  When he came back he said, ‘It will be dawn in about an hour. We’ll go then.’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘Pergamia, of course. We’ll call a brant down and make our escape. It’s safer when it’s light. The slightly warmer air makes the Lharmellins sluggish.’

  ‘We’re just going to leave? We need to do something. Kill that leader that’s getting things organised. Buy ourselves some time.’

  ‘No,’ he said, with exaggerated patience. ‘I need to get you across the straits so your mother can take you home.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that!’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like I’m a child. You’re always ordering me around. What gives you the right?’

  ‘Age and experience.’

  ‘You mean arrogance,’ I threw back. ‘So you’re just going to go back to fiddling around in your little turret room until you can’t stand it any longer? Because if they’re getting stronger, how long will it be until you’re begging a brant to take you to Lharmell, just to make it all stop? And what about me? My people? They’re freezing, Rodden. They’re all going to die.’

  ‘I know. But it’s not your responsibility to deal with this.’

  ‘How can you say that? They’re my people’

  ‘This problem is everyone’s, not just Amentia’s.’

  ‘Then why haven’t you done anything?’ I was fighting to keep my voice down and the words came out in a growl.

  ‘Because I’m not ready yet. The mines haven’t been set up in Amentia and this is almost all the yelbar I have.’

  ‘Listen to yourself! Making excuses. You’re just scared.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about me,’ he snarled.