The Wyrd took a deep breath, then relaxed. She could feel the spirits of two Redeemers hovering near her. They hungered for her death, their minds overflowing with images of inflicted pain and suffering.
'You will not make me hate you,' she said aloud. However, even thinking of them brought anger to her heart. Best to think of nobler men, she told herself, turning her thoughts to Kaelin Ring.
The years since the death of Grymauch had been kind to him. Still in his early twenties he was admired by the Black Rigante, holding a position of honour in the council of their leader, Call Jace, and married to his daughter, Chara. Kaelin's first child had been born two years previously - a boy they had named Jaim. Life was good, and yet the black-haired young Rigante would often wander the lonely hills around Ironlatch Farm, camping out at nights in the woods, sometimes for days.
His need for solitude hurt his young wife, but she did not doubt his love for her. Had he not fought his way into the heart of an enemy castle to rescue her? Chara had spoken to the Wyrd about Kaelin's wanderings, on the day they had taken baby Jaim to Sorrow Bird Lake for the Blessing. While Kaelin sat holding the sleeping babe Chara and the Wyrd had strolled to Shrine Hollow and sat in the shafts of spring sunshine lancing through the trees.
'Sometimes he is so distant,' said Chara. 'His eyes get a faraway look, and then I know he will be gone. When he returns he is fine for a little while. I don't know what is wrong with him.'
The Wyrd had gazed affectionately at the slim, red-haired young woman. Even now she looked scarcely old enough to be a mother. Slight of build, and delicate of feature, she seemed almost childlike. 'His soul was pierced when Jaim died,' said the Wyrd. 'Grymauch was everything to him as a boy - a father, an older brother, a friend. He was the one constant in Kaelin's life. He was like a mountain. You could not imagine a day when he would not be there, filling the horizon.'
'Aye, I know he was a great man,' said Chara. The Wyrd laughed, the sound rich.
'Ah, Chara! He was a drunkard and he loved to go whoring. He was not stupid, but neither was he equipped for scholarship. Aye, he was a great man, but it was his humanity that made him great. Jaim was - believe it or not - ordinary. He was Rigante, and embodied the best and the worst of the clan. That is why he remains such an inspiration. Too many men are allowing his legend to grow out of proportion. He was not so much different from Rayster, Bael, or indeed Kaelin. Good men, strong men. Men to walk the mountains with.'
'I still do not see why Kaelin cannot let him go. He has his own family now.'
'Love carries burdens, Chara, my dear. And great love understands pain beyond bearing. As time passes Kaelin's grief will ease. It is not helped by the presence of Maev. She, I fear, will never recover from the loss.'
'Sometimes they sit in the evenings and talk about Grymauch,' said Chara. 'I can't contribute anything. I did not really know him. All I remember is that he was a big man who wore a strip of cloth over a blind eye. Why did Maev not wed him?'
'She was wedded to him,' said the Wyrd, 'only she did not know it. They shared everything except a bed. And, you know, that is not so important.'
As the two women talked the black-garbed Kaelin Ring came walking into the hollow, baby Jaim crying in his arms. 'If you two are finished gossiping,' he said, 'there's a little fellow here who needs his mother.' Chara took Jaim, opened her shirt and held him to her breast. The crying ceased immediately. Kaelin stood by, gazing fondly at his wife and son.
The Wyrd watched him, and felt pride swell in her. Kaelin Ring was all that a Rigante should be.
Taking his arm, the Wyrd led him back to the shores of Sorrow Bird Lake, and they stood together in the sunlight, gazing out over the mountains. 'You have done well, Ravenheart,' she told him. 'Jaim would be proud of you.'
'That is a good thought, Wyrd. Thank you for sharing it.'
'How is Maev?'
'Growing richer by the day. She deals now with the Moidart, sending cattle south to feed the Varlish armies.'
'I know she is rich, Kaelin, and you know that is not what I meant.'
Kaelin shrugged. 'What can I tell you, Wyrd? She talks of Grymauch endlessly.' He gave a wry smile. 'She seems to have forgotten all the times she lost her temper with him. He has become a golden man - almost a saint.'
'Understandable,' said the Wyrd. 'The man died for her.'
She saw a momentary spasm of pain cross his handsome features. 'Aye, he did that. Sometimes I dream of him, you know.
We'll be talking and laughing. Then I'll wake, and just for a heartbeat I think he's still here with us. It's like a wound that won't heal.'
'It will, Ravenheart. Trust me. Have you heard from Banny?'
Kaelin shook his head. 'There are few post riders now bringing mail from the south. I don't know what possessed him to join the army. He should have come here.'
'The war will come to the north, Ravenheart. When it does you must be ready for it.'
'We have had this conversation before, Wyrd. I listened then, and I am listening now. Call Jace has built new forges, making cannons, muskets and swords. We can do no more. If the Moidart comes north the Rigante will face him.'
A log in the fire cracked suddenly, jerking her mind back to the present. A burning cinder was smouldering upon the old rug. The Wyrd knelt down, pinched the cinder between her fingers and swiftly threw it back into the flames. Sitting upon the rug she stretched and yawned.
When would the Moidart and his army invade the highlands, she wondered? It had surprised her that the cruel and vengeful Lord of the North had not already joined the enemy. They were made for one another. They had approached him, she knew. The Moidart had requested time to consider their offer. The Wyrd shivered. He would be seeking a position of power among them. And he would get it.
Another face loomed in her mind - a handsome young man with golden hair and curious eyes, one gold, one green. The Moidart's son, Gaise Macon. The Stormrider. So much depended on him and his survival. She wished with all her heart that she could know just how much. It seemed sometimes that the Power had a mind of its own. On occasions - as with Jaim Grymauch - she had seen the future clear and bright. She had known what to do. The coming days of dread were like an awesome tapestry, ten thousand threads weaving in and out. Some she could see, some lines she could follow. But the whole was a mystery. In her spirit dreams she could see fragments. A hawk-faced Varlish lord - similar to the Moidart - and a skull within an ancient case, that burned with unholy light. Battles and deaths, some past and some still to come, raged in her visions.
All she knew, with grim certainty, was that the Stormrider was central to the survival of the Rigante, and that the Rigante were vital not only to the survival of the world she knew, but to the well-being of the world to come. Her eyes felt heavy with weariness and she pushed herself to her feet and once more ventured out into the night.
The Wyrd walked back through the trees to the remains of the old stone circle at the centre of the island. Only one golden column stood upright now, and this was cracked, the ancient runes worn away by wind and rain. The Wyrd shivered, and drew her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. The night wind whispered across the icy lake.
''Soon, witch,' came a voice in her mind. ''Soon your evil will be forever destroyed.'
The Wyrd took a deep, calming breath and whispered the Words of Power. A bright light blazed and the world shifted beneath her feet. She stumbled - and fell to the earth of the Wishing Tree woods, hundreds of miles south of Sorrow Bird Lake. The Redeemers would find her soon. They knew almost all her tricks now.
Rising, she looked around her at the ancient trees. 'I need you, Riamfada,' she said aloud, her voice breaking. 'Help me!'
A glowing light formed, like a tiny candle flame flickering a few feet above the snow-covered earth. Slowly it swelled into a shimmering globe, like moonlit mist trapped in glass.
'What is troubling you, child?' asked the voice from the light.
'It is long since I was a child, R
iamfada. Look at me. I am an old woman. My bones hurt and I can no longer - without a little magic - thread a needle.' The Wyrd sighed. 'It is forty years since first you took me into the Wishing Tree woods. Long years.'
'And that is what is troubling you?'
'No.' The Wyrd gazed at the globe of light floating some three feet away from her. For a moment her mind drifted away from her problems. 'Why do you not take human form these days?'
'This is what I am, child. I only take human form when I need to speak to humans who cannot understand my nature. It is tiring to do so, drawing particles from the air and shaping them like a sculptor. This is more comfortable for me. This is how I am when I am with friends. What is it that you fear to say to me?'
'I am frightened, Riamfada.'
'Of the demons hunting you?'
'They are not demons - nor spirits like you,' she said. 'They are living men who have found a way to soar free from the flesh. They whisper to me of their hatred, and they seek to kill me when I am in spirit form. Thus far I have escaped them, but they are growing in strength . . .' Her words tailed away.
'You wish to fight them, Caretha? To kill them?'
'Would it be so wrong?'
'A simple question, but one of rare complexity. Your gift is to heal, Caretha, to enhance the fading magic of the world. When healers yearn to kill then hope begins to die.'
'Then I must let them kill me?'
'Better that than to become like them. That is the real danger, Caretha. Evil cannot be overcome by evil. The Seidh - at the last -understood that.'
'Why did they leave us?' said the Wyrd. 'They could have helped us, guided us. Then there would have been no wars, no plagues, no disease.'
'Once they too believed that,' said Riamfada. 'For thousands of years they tried. They saw man relentlessly devouring the magic, sowing the seeds that would inevitably lead to destruction and an end to all life. And slowly it dawned upon some of them that they too were parasites. The Seidh also fed on the magic, and were part of the cycle of destruction. Then the Seidh too went to war, Caretha. Among themselves and among humans. The most powerful of them, a being known as Cernunnos, triumphed for a while. He took human form and became a king. He ruled for three hundred years, gathering massive human armies and waging wars across many lands. Then he was overthrown, his body destroyed. After that the Seidh slowly began to leave the world. The last to go was the Morrigu. I was with her when she passed - which pleased me greatly for she was the one who brought my spirit into the Seidh world, and I loved her.'
'Where did they go?'
'Far out among the stars. I do not know exactly what lies there.'
'Yet you remained.'
'I am an earthbound spirit, child. This is where I belong.'
Suddenly she sat upright, staring at the night sky above her. 'They are back,' she said.
'I see them. Stand between the stone pillars,' said the voice from the light.
The Wyrd pushed herself to her feet. Her shawl fell from her shoulders and she caught it and swung it back into place. Bright light blazed around her once more. For a time she floated weightless, spinning in the air. Then, with a lurch, she felt her body pressing down upon soft earth. The light did not diminish. Opening her eyes against the glare she saw that it was no longer night. The sun was low in a clear blue sky, and it shone down on a foreign landscape. All around her were trees of colossal size, their trunks red, their uppermost branches seeming to pierce the sky.
Beside her dust rose from the ground, swirling as if caught in a tiny whirlwind. Slowly it formed the shape of a man. Colours began to appear, blonding the hair, painting the eyes blue. A white-tipped eagle feather materialized on a shirt of painted buckskin. When the movement in the air had subsided Riamfada stood before her, dressed as she had never seen him. He wore a loincloth and soft moccasins, and there were painted symbols decorating his shirt - a handprint in red, and a series of circles in white, at the centre of which were depictions of birds and deer.
Before the Wyrd could speak she felt a ripple of earth magic flow across her, as if caught on a breeze. Dropping to her knees she stretched out her arms. The strength of the magic was awesome. It seemed to seep up from the ground, flowing out like mist.
'Is this paradise?' she whispered.
'It is at the moment,' he said. 'This is Uzamatte. You see that tree?' He pointed to her left. She looked round, and stared in disbelief at the redwood. It was ten times - perhaps twenty times - as thick as any tree she had ever seen. 'It is over two thousand years old,' Riamfada told her. 'This tree was ancient when Connavar fought the armies of Stone. The magic feeds it. There were trees like this in your world across the ocean, Caretha. No longer. Man has used up much of the magic there, burned it away in his wars, suffocated it with his greed. One day he will come here. He will look at these trees and will see no majesty. He will see timber. He will gaze upon the mountains and the waterfalls and he will see gold and silver. And far below the earth he will tunnel and burrow.' Riamfada sighed, and gave a small smile. 'But not yet.'
'There is still magic in my world,' said the Wyrd. 'Every day I try to summon more, to feed the land.'
'Yes, you do, child.'
'I know it is a losing battle,' she continued. 'In one day of war more harm is done than I can put right in ten lifetimes. It is said more than a hundred thousand have already died, and yet the war goes on. Gaise Macon is fighting in it now, and I fear for him. One day it will reach the north. I know this in my heart. It fills me with sorrow - and with terror.'
'You must rest now, Caretha. Absorb the magic. Strengthen your body and your spirit. You cannot stay here long. Sleep for a few hours, then I will return you to Sorrow Bird Lake. Once you are home you must find a way to reach the spirit of the white-haired swordsman. I do not have your gift for prophecy, but I sense he will be vital in the days ahead.'
'Could you not help us against this evil, Riamfada?'
'I am helping you, child. In the only way I can.'
Mulgrave the Swordsman trudged through the snow, a hood covering his prematurely white hair, a thick sheepskin jerkin and flowing cloak keeping the cold from his slender frame. He wandered through the market square. Most of the stalls were empty, but crowds were gathering around the few traders with food to sell. A brace of rabbits fetched a chailling - four times the usual price. The woman who bought them thrust them deep into a canvas sack and scurried away, her eyes fearful. Well she might be. Tempers were short now. Mulgrave wondered if all wars caused such a loss of simple humanity. Almost everyone seemed quicker to anger these days, and fights were commonplace among the citizens.
Armed guards were outside the bakery on the corner of Marrall Street, and a long queue of hungry people waited for the doors to open. There would not be enough loaves for all. It began to snow once more. The wind picked up, cold and searching. Mulgrave's grey cloak swirled up and he gathered it in, drawing it close around his chest. The raw chill caused his left shoulder to ache around the healing wound.
Despite the crowds in the square the small town was ominously quiet, footfalls dulled in the thick snow, whispered conversations swept away by the winds. Fear was everywhere. Not just from the threat of starvation, Mulgrave knew. The war was coming closer, and with it the terror. Only a few years ago the folk of Shelding would have argued in the taverns and meeting halls, debating the rights and wrongs of the Covenant. Some would have spoken up for the king's absolute right to rule. Others would have sided with the Covenanters, pointing out that every Varlish citizen should have equal rights under the law. Sometimes the debates would become heated, but mostly they were good-natured. At the close, the townsfolk would have gone back to their homes content.
After four years of war there were no more amiable debates.
Everyone knew of the fate of towns like Barstead, on the south coast. After one battle Covenant troops had entered the town, rooting out Royalist supporters. Sixty men were hanged. Three days later, the Covenant army in retreat, the R
oyalists had marched through Barstead. Three hundred and ten men with Covenant sympathies had been hanged. Then had come the Redeemers. Mulgrave shivered.
The town had been torched. No-one knew what had happened to all the women and children who had survived the murder of their men. But Mulgrave had heard from a scout who passed through the charred remains of Barstead. Blackened bodies were everywhere.
Pushing such thoughts from his mind Mulgrave continued on his way, cutting through alleyways and down narrow streets. A half-starved dog growled at him as he passed. Mulgrave ignored the beast, and the dog went back to chewing on the frozen carcass of a dead rat.
Crossing the curved bridge Mulgrave paused to stare down at the frozen stream. Some way along the bank, several men had cut holes in the ice, and were sitting, wrapped in blankets, their fishing lines bobbing.
Mulgrave walked on. The road was icy and treacherous, and he slithered as he reached the downward slope leading to the small church. It was an old building, with a crooked spire. For years there had been talk of repairing the spire, but Mulgrave liked it as it was. He paused in the cold to stare up at it. Some of the timbers had given way on the north side, causing it to lean precariously. It looked for all the world like a wizard's hat. Many of the townspeople predicted it would fall soon, but Mulgrave doubted it, though he did not know why. Gazing at the crooked spire lifted his spirits. It seemed to mock the straight, unbending Varlish values it had been built to commemorate.
A little way behind the church was Ermal Standfast's thatched cottage. Smoke was drifting up from the tall chimney. Mulgrave strolled to the front door and stepped inside, pushing the door shut against the swirling snow. The once portly priest was sitting by his fire, a black and white chequered blanket around his thin shoulders, a heavy red woollen cap upon his bald head. He glanced up and grinned as Mulgrave removed his cloak and stamped his booted feet upon the rush mat just inside the front door. 'It will get warmer soon,' said Ermal. 'Spring is coming.'
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