Blood Song: The First Book of Lharmell

by Rhiannon Hart

  I wished it would stop.

  I would make it stop. It was him. I would stop him, I would kill him. I would crunch his bones with my bare hands and lap at the rivers of blood that would run down my arms.

  The pain stopped abruptly.

  My arms.

  With a swift movement I shook down the arrows that I’d slipped into my sleeves. There was no time for my bow, and no space to draw. My eyes were blurred with tears.

  I will be free.

  Break the skin, let the poison in.

  Break the skin.

  A face flashed before me, angered, familiar, then the Lharmellin’s. My eyes cleared and I saw my love standing before me. My love. Though it shredded my heart I knew what I had to do to make it stop.

  I gripped the shafts of the arrows and thrust upwards with all the strength in my arms, plunging the points into the leader’s belly. Brackish blood flowed over my fingers.

  The Lharmellin’s grin faltered and it looked to its stomach with something like surprise. It opened its mouth to shriek, its clawed hands rising to strike me. I pressed the shafts deeper, up into its ribcage, feeling the crackle of bone and gristle. The icy light in the Lharmellin’s eyes turned a sickly orange as the yelbar coursed through its system. I waited for the creature’s dying revenge, the claws to swipe at my throat. But its flesh began to blacken and smoke, and then its body disinteg- rated inside its robe.

  I felt sweet release, the poisonous frenzy ebbing away with the blood that ran like venomous rivers down my arms. There was a tug on my insides, the familiar thrum of the tall man’s thread, he of the arrows and the watchful eyes, whispering my name over and over in fury and relief.

  The crowd staggered, stared, and then let rip with a mighty roar of outrage. The remaining two Lharmellins turned on me with a shriek and I fumbled for another arrow. Then they were shrieking in pain, arrows sprouting from their chests and I knew Rodden had found the space to fire.

  I leapt off the back of the rock, hit the ground running and pelted away with all the strength I had in my legs. I cast a desperate thought for Leap and Griffin to follow me, hoping the harmings wouldn’t hear me.

  I was headed straight into the unknown, away from Rodden and the mountain pass, perhaps directly into the path of more Lharmellins. I had to get away from the baying mob behind me. They wanted my blood. They wanted to rip the flesh from my bones. I could hear them wanting it, screaming for it.

  As I ran my eyes scanned the forest. It was thick, which gave me cover, but it also made it difficult to negotiate. One slip-up and they would be on me. I’d had a small head-start while the harmings were still reeling, but they were gaining on me now. The tors were lit up by the full moon and I made them my aim.

  Griffin, a pass! I called to her. Find a pass. I felt her wheel away to the mountains. I desperately wanted to send a thought-pattern to Rodden but I didn’t trust myself to cast it with accuracy. He was within the crowd of harmings and if I sent anything I might blanket the lot with my whereabouts. I hoped that he would locate Leap, who was making a beeline for me.

  Griffin flashed a thought-picture to me: it was an unguarded pass to the north-west, roughly the direction I was headed, but miles off. I would never make it on foot. My lungs were burning with the need for air. The frenzied harmings would overtake me before long. I looked to the sky. Brants were flapping erratically overhead, unsettled by the commotion below. I had ten arrows, the quiver tucked inside my robe with my bow. There was a break in the trees up ahead and I made for it, hurling a command at the closest brant. I notched an arrow and aimed as the enormous bird descended, ready for anything that might be on its back.

  The wind whipped up, and on it I heard the voices of the Lharmellins, their singing frantic now and purposeful. How could they sing at a time like this?

  A harming broke through the trees, saw me and screamed in anger. He was un-Turned, practically human. Except for his face, which was contorted into a mask of rage and frustrated blood-lust. I re-aimed and loosed the arrow, striking the thing through its neck. It crumpled to the ground. I hoped I had killed it before it could summon any others.

  I heard a rumbling overhead. Great banks of greenish clouds were appearing over the tors. Lightning flashed. The brant overhead baulked and tried to fly away but I grabbed it with my mind and yanked it down. It was riderless. I held it in place and searched around me for Leap.

  Where were the harmings? They should have caught up with me by now.

  The moon disappeared, obliterated by the encroaching clouds, and I realised why the harmings had scattered: the Lharmellins were calling down an acid storm. Fear shot through me. There was no cover anywhere near me, and where was Rodden?

  Leap burst out of a bush and I snatched him up. I climbed onto the brant’s back, settled my cat in front of me and flung an up command at the bird. As we rose into the air I sent frantic thought-patterns to Rodden, not caring now what might hear me. The clouds above the valley were thickening. I couldn’t tell how long until the acid started to rain down on us, but it wouldn’t be long.

  I guided the brant back to where the Turning had been, scanning the ground with my eyes and mind. A hiss from Leap made my head snap up. A brant being ridden by a Lharmellin was bearing down on us, talons first. I brought up my bow, wavering between the brant and the rider for an instant, and then shot the bird in the neck. As I fumbled for another arrow the raptor tipped off balance and tumbled to the ground, taking the Lharmellin with it.

  The sky cleared of brants. The storm was going to break at any moment. I hollered Rodden’s name with thought-patterns before remembering the cord between us. I wiped the other threads from my mind, found his and yanked with all my might. There! I grasped the reins as we dove through the trees. The brant struck the ground at speed and I tumbled off. The impact winded me but I struggled up, bow drawn. Rodden was fighting off a group of harmings, using his bow as a staff. I had eight arrows left and used four to pick the harmings off before they knew I was there. A remaining three glanced at the sky and sprinted off.

  Rodden spotted me and ran over. ‘Acid storm,’ he gasped. ‘Make for the dolmen.’

  We climbed onto the brant. It was getting stroppy having to carry two people and a cat, and the thunder overhead was unsettling it. It flapped its wings, rising up on the tips of its talons to shake us off. I sent an urgent flee picture to it that carried all my terror of the approaching storm. It got the message and shot into the air, fear overcoming its stubbornness. To Griffin I cast a picture of the dolmen. We would have to fly through the pass we had traversed earlier. It would take too long to fly over the tors. I prayed the brant would be able to navigate the narrow space in the agitated state it was in.

  The night had grown dark and the tors rushed towards us out of nowhere. The brant dipped a wing towards the ground, flying at an angle to narrow its broad span. Its wingtips skimmed the parallel rock faces as we hurtled through at breakneck speed. The wind whistled in my ears. Rodden tugged my hood firmly over my head and reached his arms around me to grip the saddle. I folded Leap into my cloak and cast about for Griffin. She was behind us, but I couldn’t tell how far. As we burst out of the pass the first drops of rain began to fall and I heard them sizzle on my cloak. I steered the brant down the tors, hoping that I was aiming for the dolmen. A lightning bolt lit up the sky brighter than day and I spotted it.

  The brant screamed and shook its head frantic- ally. It had acid in its eyes. I plunged the bird into the ground and we skidded over the scree, coming to a halt about ten yards from the shelter. I half-fell, half-dismounted, felt Rodden haul me up by my arms and we stumbled over the uneven ground. Spots of acid fell on my arms and they burned like fire. We flung ourselves under the dolmen as the rain began to beat down.

  ‘Griffin!’ I screamed her name with my mind and my mouth. She’d been right behind us, I was sure of it. I waited for her to come hurtling out of the sky. She didn’t. Outside, the brant was caught in the storm. It was screaming in p
ain, desperately flapping its wings. One looked to be broken. The rain began to strip the feathers from its body, the flesh beneath turning an angry red.

  I turned to Rodden. ‘You said the acid was only poisonous to humans.’

  ‘After it’s fallen, yes. Apparently not before.’

  I gripped his arms. ‘Then Griffin’s out in it somewhere. Where is she? I can’t find her. I can’t hear her.’

  Rodden looked out into the night, searching for the eagle. He shook his head. ‘The rain’s throwing up too much interference. I can’t trace her. She’ll have found shelter, don’t worry.’ He kept a grip on my arm, as if worried that I was going to go back out in the storm to look for her.

  I bit my lip hard, feeling tears begin to brim in my eyes. It could be the interference from the rain. Or she could be dead, stripped and burning in the storm. ‘I should have warned her earlier. I sent her miles off to the north-west, looking for a pass. There was no way she was going to make it back here in time.’ I looked down at Leap, checking for burns. He was unharmed, but his eyes were large and terrified.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Rodden. ‘As soon as the storm stops we’ll find her.’

  I slumped against rock and closed my eyes. There was nothing to do except listen to the hiss of the rain and the screams of the dying brant.

  ––

  The rain eased just before dawn. I had fallen into a fitful doze a few hours earlier, fatigue finally overcoming me.

  I awoke to an alien world. Everything had either been bleached white or burnt black. The brant was a wreck of twisted, smoking bones. It looked too much like the fears I held for Griffin and I felt my stomach twist with nausea. I was about to loose a mental yell to her when Rodden stopped me.

  ‘Let me do it. We want the Lharmellins to think we’re dead. You’re too upset to channel your thoughts.’

  I reluctantly put my wall back up and scanned the sky with my eyes. Before Rodden could begin I saw a speck with beating wings come hurtling off the tors.

  ‘There!’ I cried. It was Griffin. I gave a triumph- ant, ear-splitting whistle and raised my wrist to her. She dived for us, pulled up and settled on my arm, making a clicking noise in her throat and ruffling her feathers. She was just as upset as I had been. I checked her over, but there wasn’t a mark on her. Amazed, I asked her where she’d been. She showed me an image of the brant nest we had passed going into the mountain. She’d spent the night in the nest with the chick. I laughed with delight. ‘Did you get that?’ I asked Rodden.

  ‘Loud and clear. Clever girl.’

  He didn’t seem as happy about Griffin’s safety as I was. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘How many arrows do you have?’ he asked.

  I checked my quiver. ‘Four.’

  ‘I have none and I lost my bow.’

  ‘Then let’s call a brant and get out of here.’

  Rodden shook his head. ‘It’s too dangerous. They’ll have a tight watch on them now they know we can control them. If we call one down we’ll bring a whole army of harmings down on our heads too.’

  ‘But there’s no other way to get home. Unless we walk.’

  ‘We have no supplies. There’s nothing to hunt. Everything will have been killed by the acid storm. We don’t have our packs so we have no water, either. We won’t make it.’

  ‘Then what? We need to get out of here.’

  Rodden clenched his jaw and looked back at the tors.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No way. I’m not going back in there. You heard them, they want to kill us. We’ll call a brant.’

  ‘It’s too dangerous to do from here. If we get closer, they might not notice until it’s too late. The Lharmellins won’t be active right now, so there’ll just be harmings on guard. Plus, they’ll be disorganised. They have a whole valley full of frustrated part-harmings clamouring for Lharmellin blood.’

  I considered this. Every fibre of my being was adamant that I didn’t want to go back in there. But he was right. It was our only chance to get home. I sighed. ‘Let’s get going then.’

  It was easier to scale the tors without our packs, though it was thirsty work. We had no food, no water and no blood. Griffin scouted ahead, flying back to us before sending any thought-pictures to keep our mind activity to a minimum. For the moment, the pass was clear. It would have been safer to find another entrance but we didn’t have the time. We had to get a brant before the Lharmellins could regroup and begin their hunt. I thought of the blue flashes among the trees, the clicking noises they made as they closed in on their prey. To be hunted in that way – the idea was terrifying. This time going in, there was no joking, no laughs. Our mouths were set in grim lines.

  ‘You could have warned me,’ Rodden said as we climbed, his voice tight with anger. ‘At the Turning. I thought you were going to become one of them right before my eyes.’

  ‘There wasn’t time,’ I muttered. I remembered the urge to kill, my confusion. The truth was I hadn’t been sure what I was about to do. Someone had to die, and I was sick at the thought that I might have turned on Rodden, or even myself.

  ‘I felt you hating me,’ he said, his voice flat, colourless. ‘I felt you wanting to kill me.’

  I shook my head, unable to speak. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

  ‘I felt you wanting to kill yourself.’ His voice came from behind me.

  I felt tears burn my eyes, as if they were made of acid. I was too tired to hold them back and they left searing trails down my face. The ground blurred in front of me and I had to stop or risk my footing. I swiped at my face, angry that a few drops of salt- water had hobbled me.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t help it.’

  I had hated him, loathed him, wanted to kill him, and he had heard it all.

  He cursed, and caught my arm and turned me. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Don’t cry, I’m an idiot.’

  I fumbled for a piece of sleeve that wasn’t filthy so I could wipe my face.

  With a moderately clean corner of his cloak he dabbed at my tears. I closed my eyes, avoiding his gaze.

  ‘He of the arrows and the watchful eyes,’ he murmured.

  I opened my eyes in surprise, and he was smiling at me.

  ‘You were only gone a few seconds, and that was your first thought when you came out of the frenzy. Do you remember?’

  ‘I’d forgotten your name,’ I said thickly.

  He ran his eyes over my tear-stained face. ‘I have to say, you were rather magnificent up there. Scary as hell, too. I think I was pulling at you so hard it was no wonder you wanted to kill me. It must have hurt.’

  ‘It hurt,’ I agreed. ‘It hurt a lot. But I think it kept me on this side of sanity, so . . .’ The words felt strange and inadequate in my mouth, dwarfed by the mountainside, the sheer size of the sky. ‘. . . thank you.’

  His hand was still on my sleeve, which was spotted with holes from the acid rain. The air about us crackled with tension. He was looking at me the way he had in the ballroom, but this time there truly wasn’t another soul around.

  After three seconds had dragged by, I punched him on the shoulder. ‘And don’t be such a bully, or you’ll make me cry again.’

  ––

  We reached the pass. Griffin gave the all-clear and we started through. I felt sick with worry. It was all wrong, going back into a place where everything wanted us dead. But Rodden was right – we didn’t have a great deal of choice. We would soon be hunted down or die of exposure if we stayed in the forest. I tried to comfort myself with all the things I was going to do when I got back to the palace. It would be before nightfall. We would get home by moonrise tonight, or we would die here.

  ‘A bath,’ I whispered to Rodden. ‘That’s the first thing I’m going to do when I get back to Pergamia: have a bath. I’ll probably need ten baths to soak all this grime off me.’

  He nodded. ‘I’m going to shave.’ He scratched his chin. ‘And then I’m going to burn these cloth
es.’

  ‘Burn mine, too. But not the boots. I quite like the boots.’

  We approached the entrance to the valley with caution. The morning light showed that the valley had been stripped of greenery. All the trees were blackened and bare. The acid had killed everything. Nothing moved on the ground or in the sky. I realised how much of a miracle it was that we were still alive.

  ‘Where will the brants be? They’re not all dead, are they?’

  Rodden shook his head. ‘No, they would never risk that. There must be an overhang or a cave somewhere. We could go looking for them, but it’s too dangerous. We’ll just have to wait and watch the sky. They’ll have to feed their chicks soon. There’ll be undisturbed land somewhere for them.’

  ‘That nest in the pass. We could stake it out.’

  ‘We could. It’s risky, though. There are only two exits and they could be so easily blocked off.’

  ‘What if I watch the inside entrance, you watch the outside entrance and Griffin watches the nest? Leap can be our go-between.’

  ‘All right, but let me take the inside entrance.’

  ‘Because it’s more dangerous?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I have the bow and arrows.’

  ‘Give them to me then.’

  ‘I’m a better shot and you know it. Everyone in Xallentaria knows it.’

  ‘By the tiniest fraction of an inch! It barely counts.’

  ‘If the wind gets up and you don’t correct for it properly . . .’

  ‘Oh, shut up. Fine, take the inside entrance. Keep Leap walking between us. The pass is only five hundred yards long so he shouldn’t be absent for more than fifteen minutes at a time. If he’s gone longer than that, come running. Tell Griffin to alert us as soon as the brant comes back.’