Full Circle (12 page)

W
E’LL BE
safe in Baluchston,” Rowan said.

Flax grimaced and stared forward, down the long, winding, overgrown track that led north and west, eventually.

“Are you sure? They’re Acton’s people, even if they do live with the Lake.”

Rowan smiled. “The Lake is more than water, lad, remember? She will keep us safe. She always has kept her people safe.”

“I thought that were only the Lake people themselves, the ones that set their roots down there.”

“Old blood is known,” Rowan sang, in a light, clear tenor.

Flax turned more towards him in excitement. “I don’t know that song,” he said. He hadn’t thought about that — the chance to
learn new songs. With luck, whole new cycles of songs… His heart lifted and he smiled. “Teach me,” he said.

A shadow went over Rowan’s face as though the words brought back a difficult memory, but he fished out a little pipe — the
sort of thing shepherds whittled while they watched their flocks — and began to play a simple melody. It sounded old. Flax
hummed along as Rowan repeated the refrain.

“One of the oldest we have,” Rowan said. “From before the land-taken. I’ll teach you the new words, the translation, first,
and then the old words, so you’ll know what you’re singing.”

“Does Ash know many of the old songs?” Flax asked.

“Aye,” Rowan said. “He knows them all, now.”

They camped for the night in a tiny, tight space under two big willows — one for them and one for the animals. Once they were
settled and he had groomed the horses, Flax crept out and foraged in a nearby field of oats for horse feed, trying to take
a little from each row so that the farmer wouldn’t raise the alarm in the morning. He had been brought up to buy, not steal,
but that didn’t worry him. We’s owed a little fodder, he thought, after all that stravaging.

He came back with his arms full, and Mud and Cam nosed at him eagerly, so that he almost dropped it all. He carefully divided
his booty into two equal piles, and then stood between them so that Mud, who ate faster than Cam, wouldn’t steal her portion
too.

“They need more than grass, if we’re going to keep riding each day,” he explained when Rowan asked. “These are just ripe —
they’re early, but it’s protected down here in the valley and that far slope’s a sun trap.”

Rowan was a good campfire cook, even with the meagre rations they had left. After they’d eaten, he pulled a fishing line from
his pack and baited the hook with the last bit of cheese, then edged out over the stream on a willow root and tied the line
off.

“Never know your luck,” he said.

The River might have been looking after them, because there was a nice sized pike on the hook the next morning, and pike weren’t
known for liking cheese.

Rowan built a small, almost smokeless fire and cooked it quickly, dousing the embers straight afterwards. It was delicious,
even without salt, which they’d run out of the day before. Flax could have eaten two more.

The day that followed was one of constant tension and boredom. Keeping a lookout became Flax’s obsession. Sweat trickled down
his back, and he had to remember to relax his hands so that Cam wouldn’t get nervous. The memory of that axe whistling through
the air past their ears, the memory of the hate in the red-head’s face came rushing back, over and over again, every time
he heard a noise or saw a distant figure across the fields.

Nothing happened when he did. There was no shout of “Traveller!”. At this distance, they looked respectable, as people did
on horseback. Flax raised his hand genially as they passed, and no one even looked twice at them.

By the time Baluchston rose up across the water he was exhausted. He hoped that Rowan was right about the Lake protecting
them, because he didn’t think he could.

They caught the ferry across the narrow end of the Lake, and they were the only passengers. The ferry man looked sharply at
them, but said nothing except to name the fare. Rowan handed over some coppers and they led the horses onto the flat-bottomed
boat. There were ferries of many different sizes, depending on what had to be taken across; they had boarded the large one,
which could take horses and wagons and dogs.

Flax expected Mud and Cam to be nervous, but although they snuffled at the side of the ferry, they stood calmly, as though
they were used to boats. He wondered just where Bramble had been, and what she had done there.

There was a man waiting for the ferry on the other side; a man with a tight mouth, greying hair and a wonderfully decorated
tan leather belt cinching in his spreading waist. Flax eyed it enviously.

Rowan noticed his glance, and smiled. “My friend likes your work, Reed. He’s a singer, like Swallow,” he said, looking over
at Flax. “Reed’s the leatherworker in these parts.”

Flax blushed a little. He wasn’t greedy, but the belt was truly beautiful, covered with intricate scrollwork, and it was nice
to be distracted by something attractive after the last few days. He said so, a little defensively, and Reed laughed, the
lines around his mouth loosening.

“My shop’s in the main square,” he said. “I’ll give you a discount, same as I give Rowan, if you’ll give me a song.”

“One of Reed’s belts’ll last you a lifetime,” the ferryman confirmed.

“I wish I could,” Flax said honestly. The idea of doing something as simple as shopping appealed to him greatly.

As Reed climbed in the ferry they waved goodbye and walked towards the town square. Flax had been more reassured by the conversation
than he would have believed.

Baluchston was a normal free town, it seemed. People in the streets, maybe more with dark hair than was usual, all of them
busy about their daily tasks. A few glances came their way; each time, Flax tensed.

“Calm down, lad,” Rowan said. “We’re safe here.”

Rowan led the way straight to a small cottage on the outskirts, near the road that wound south towards Sendat. It belonged
to Swallow’s cousin, the man Skink who had been with them in the Deep. Swallow always stayed there when Rowan was away.

And there was Swallow, laying clothes out to dry on the lavender bushes along one side of the cottage. Would she take him
as a pupil?

He could feel his stomach trying to climb up his throat with nerves, and his mouth was dry. She looked him up and down, a
question in her eyes, not moving to greet Rowan until the question had been answered.

“This is Flax, a singer for you to train,” Rowan said, and he looked around as if to check whether anyone was listening.

She noticed, and then walked over to Rowan and kissed him. It were an act, put on for whoever were watching, Flax thought,
and yet it weren’t an act. She loved him. Had missed him. But she went through the motions of greeting her man with her eyes
watchful and her mind alert.

As they passed through the door into the main room of the cottage — kitchen, eating and sitting room combined — Rowan whispered,
“Ash sent him.”

Swallow’s steps halted for a moment, a tiny heartbeat while her hands tightened to white knuckles at her side, and then she
loosened her fingers and kept going as if she hadn’t heard.

“I’ll take the horses round the back,” he said, wanting to leave them to their hellos in private. “Best to get them out of
sight.”

“There’s a shed,” Swallow replied. Even in those few words, Flax could hear the flexibility and control of her voice. The
muscles along her cheeks and jaw were strong, and she carried her shoulders well back, to keep her breath clear. She was aware
of him assessing her and smiled, amused. “Get on with you,” she said. “Do your tasks and come back here for food.”

“Aye, my lady,” he said, half mocking and half serious, and she took it as he intended, with a smile, so that he left the
house with a jaunty step, feeling welcomed.

Over supper of cheese melted on toast with salted fish for flavour, Rowan told Swallow a carefully edited account of what
had happened. It was hard to leave out the Deep and the River, but Flax realised that he — that all Traveller men — had lots
of practice at it. Years. The story was disturbing enough, likewise that her son was about to raise the dead.

“Those songs are forbidden!” Swallow said, her voice sharp.

“For a reason,” Rowan agreed mildly. “Time to set that reason aside when the need arises.”

S
AKER RAN
his hand through the stones in his pouch, feeling their familiar tingle and click.

He knew that casting the stones for himself was a fool’s task, but he had nowhere else to turn for counsel. If only his father
could talk! But although he could bring his father back, solid and real, he could not give him a voice.

Right now, he had several problems.

They knew what he looked like, and they would be searching for him.

His army needed weapons — and tools, particularly steel axes, to hack their way into the houses where the invaders cowered
away from them.

The ghosts faded. That was his main problem.

He knew where to get the weapons he needed — Sendat, the warlord’s fort. All reports said that Thegan had been stockpiling
weapons and goods against a war with the Lake People. If the ghosts could take the fort, they would have all the weapons they
needed.

But reports also said that Thegan had strengthened the town’s defences. It might take longer than a day or a night to storm
the fort to defeat him. And if the ghosts faded in the middle of that — the siege could stretch on for days, months even,
with his army attacking by day and the fortifications being rebuilt at night. He would win, eventually, but… each night
he would be left defenceless, in the middle of the warlord’s territory.

This whole great enterprise rested on his shoulders, and he must
not
let himself be killed. He told himself he wasn’t afraid.

His first task was to make the ghosts perpetual. He did not need to cast the stones after all. The decision made him more
cheerful. This was a matter of skill.

He tucked his pouch into his belt and sat with his back against the mill loft wall. He was tired of this hiding place. Tired
of hiding. If he could just craft a spell to give the ghosts continuance…

Somehow the ghosts were tied to the sun’s rhythms, but how? The only thing they were tied to was his blood.

The blood dried out… The ghosts faded exactly at sunset or sunrise. But blood… Was
that
tied to the sun; or to time?

He couldn’t work out how.

As the day waned, he set himself to remember everything his teacher, Freite, had said about blood spells. To remember every
time she had used one.

The memories were unpleasant, and made him shake. But he forced himself on, remembering day by day, night by night, every
time Freite had raised that black stone knife and used his blood, or a cat’s blood, or someone else’s… those were the
worst memories. One made him stagger outside to puke. He had puked back then, too, when he’d seen what she was doing to an
old man she’d bought from a Wind Cities trader, a slave who couldn’t work any more. The man wasn’t even drugged, as they usually
were, so his eyes were wide open, pleading with Saker to intervene. To save him. She put those eyes out with her bare hands,
and when he vomited, she laughed at him, said he was weak.

“We are power itself, boy,” she hissed. “Blood is breath, pain is strength, death is the wind in our sails.”

“Other people’s death,” he muttered.

“Well, ours wouldn’t be much use, would it!” She cuffed him on the back of the head so that his ears rang. “You remember,
boy. Death is the wind in our sails.”

Then she brought the knife down across the old man’s throat, and he felt the surge of power go through her.

Was that what his ghosts needed? Other people’s blood?

Saker was filled with excitement. Was it, could it be, that simple? There was always blood on the battlefield. If that was
all, it would have worked already. There must be another ingredient…

He washed his mouth out and sat back down to sift through his memories once again. This time, he would control his gorge.
And he would find the missing piece.

T
HEY STARTED
in Sendat, and that was easy. Leof simply sent messengers to the town to announce that Lord Thegan wanted all Travellers
to report to the fort. He knew that the Travellers would assume that the warlord was putting restrictions on their movements,
as had often happened in the past, that they would be forbidden to enter towns, for example, or forced to pay extra taxes.
They would grumble among themselves, but they would come, and Alston would put them in the barn when they did, to wait for
Thegan. The masons and carpenters who were working on the fortifications would join them. Minus their tools.

He had the harder job of collecting people from the outlying villages.

“Don’t you worry, sir, it’ll be just like requisitioning horses,” Hodge said comfortably, as their squad rode down the hill
from the fort. The first Travellers were walking up the road, and stood aside to let them pass, bowing and bobbing their heads
in respect. Leof nodded his thanks to them and raised a hand in greeting to a family with a small boy who stared openly at
the horses. The father, who had been moving to cuff the boy for disrespect, stared at Leof instead, doubt and gratitude warring
on his face. It was curiously disturbing. What had he expected? Reprisal against the boy for staring? What treatment did these
people get from warlords’ men usually?

“People aren’t horses, sergeants.”

Hodge looked sceptical. “Some may as well be, sir.”

Leof let it pass. They were facing a huge job. “I want scouts on messenger horses sent to the outlying villages to find our
people,” he said. “Then small squads — four men should be plenty — to go out and bring them in. They should bring their goods,
too, and any food they have. No sense us feeding them if they can feed themselves.”

Hodge nodded. “What if they won’t come?”