Full Circle (34 page)

“My adviser, the Well of Secrets,” Arvid said.

A stir went through the people assembled, and Martine saw someone slip out the door to the hall to spread the news.

Ranny smiled, a genuine smile of relief. “We are glad indeed to see you here, my lady,” she said.

“Lady?” Safred said, her freckles standing out against her pale face. “I think not.”

Martine winced. The whole of the Domains knew that Safred, Well of Secrets, had refused her heritage as a warlord’s daughter;
refused to be part of the ruling elite.

Ranny realised she had misspoken, but she carried on with the aplomb of the seasoned diplomat. “Please, enter.”

The others walked on, but Martine lingered, moving closer to Ranny. “Two weeks after mid-summer, twenty-three years from now,
here in Turvite,” Martine said softly, ensuring no one else could hear.

Ranny stared at her, instantly suspicious. “What?”

“I swear to you, that is what the stones told me,” Martine said.

Safred had returned and overheard. “That was an old fate,” she said gently, “cast before the enchanter arose with his army.
All fates have been broken by that — it was outside the gods’ control. No fate cast is certain, now.”

Shocked, they both stared at her. Then Ranny smiled. “So you do
not
know. No one knows when I will die.” Tension went out of her shoulders and her head lifted. “Good. That’s as it should be.”

“Are you ready?” Arvid asked reprovingly. He had come back to collect them.

Inside the hall the servants had taken the tables up and set one large, long table in the middle. The Turvite councillors
were at one end, the titular head of the Council, Garham the wine merchant, in the centre. Garham had been a customer of Martine’s
— a blustering but not stupid man, he rarely listened to anyone other than Ranny, who stood beside him.

Warlords and their men stood around, eyeing each other and the table, working out precedence and who would sit where.

Martine recognised a few of them: old Coeuf was there with his son, Eolbert. She smiled to herself when she saw that he had
inherited his father’s nose. Merroc from Far South was easily picked out, too, as he was famous for his bright red hair. He
was in his fifties but still robust. He’d outlived three wives; two dead in childbirth and the other from a fever. They said
he was cursed: even as a warlord, he’d had trouble finding a fourth wife.

Some others: Eni from Three Rivers, so stout he could hardly walk; Berden from Western Mountains, it must be, he was supposed
to be very tall and despite the stoop of age he towered over them all still. Then a young man, younger even than Arvid, with
reddish-blond hair. Would that be Gabra, who held Cliff Domain for his father, Thegan? But not all the eleven were represented.
Some would still be travelling, she figured, and Henist from Northern Mountains might not come at all; he ran his domain as
though it were separate from all the rest.

Garham called out, “My lords! Councillors! Please take a seat.”

She moved towards the wall with Cael, certain she didn’t belong at that table. “Let’s find you somewhere to sit down,” she
said to him, taking his arm.

He nodded with effort and they walked slowly towards the door.

After some initial jostling, the warlords sat at the table, their officers standing behind. The councillors were grouped at
the head of the table, Ranny on Garham’s left hand. Safred sat at his right, her spine straight and her head high. But Martine
could tell she was unhappy about being there.

Garham cleared his throat. “This council was called by the Lord Thegan —”

“And it was a warlords’ council!” Merroc snarled. “What do you think
you’re
doing here, merchants?”

Garham paused, trying to control his temper.

Martine and Cael had almost reached the door when it slammed back and a man strode into the room, followed by several officers
and a woman. The leader was tall and blond and ridiculously good looking, and he moved like he owned the world. He wore Central
Domain’s colours, as did the officers. The woman was auburn haired and graceful, but looked tired and drawn. Thegan and Sorn?
Martine wondered. It seemed likely.

Thegan walked to the foot of the table and suddenly, like a picture turned upside down, it became the head, simply because
he stood there. Everyone there turned subtly to look at him.

He stared down the table challengingly — not at the warlords or the councillors, but at Safred. “Are you satisfied?” he asked
her. “If you had done your duty by our family we would have had warning of this before it happened!” He slammed his fist down
on the table. Safred winced, but recovered.

Cael was already halfway to the table. Martine followed helplessly, sure this was going to end badly.

“Well?”

“Don’t blame her for your own incompetence,” Cael said.

Thegan whirled on him, hand going to his sword. He was unshaven and tired, Martine saw, and deeply, vigorously angry.

He checked when he saw it wasn’t an officer insulting him, and looked to his officers as though expecting them to drag Cael
away. Then he realised that they were in Turvite, a free town, and Cael had the right to say anything he wanted. That no warlord
had power within the city bounds. Martine could see it happen, because his face went very calm, and behind her the woman drew
in a sharp breath, as though frightened.

“You look a bit like your brother,” Cael went on casually. “I suppose we’re some kind of relation, since my sister married
your brother.”

It took the wind out of Thegan’s sails as nothing else could. Martine smiled.

“Your brother couldn’t capture her, and you have no right to even try,” Cael said, the amiable tone at odds with his sharp
gaze.

Safred stood up. She still looked pale to Martine’s eye, but she spoke firmly enough. “Thank you, uncle,” she said formally.
“But I am sure this council has more pressing things to discuss than our family disagreements.”

“She’s right!” Merroc snarled. “What can you tell us, Well of Secrets? Can we stand against this enchanter and his dead?”

Thegan and Cael still glared at each other, but Thegan turned away after a moment, preserving dignity by pretending to discount
Cael. Martine saw him flick a glance at one of his officers, and saw the man nod in return. Cael’s life wouldn’t last long
if that man got near him.

Martine forced herself to approach Cael. “Come,” she said. “Leave her to explain.”

Safred nodded, and Cael turned to go, all his energy deserting him so that he had to lean heavily on Martine’s arm to make
it out of the hall.

Behind them, as the door closed, they heard Safred’s warning, “The gods have provided a way of defeating the ghost army, but
it will not be easy, and we must not kill the enchanter before it is done. That would be the worst folly…”

The woman who had accompanied Thegan followed them out and sat on a bench in the corner, collapsing the last few inches onto
the seat as though exhausted. Martine helped Cael onto the bench beside her.

“I am Sorn,” the woman said, gathering herself.

“My lady,” Martine acknowledged, and Cael echoed her.

“No lady now, I think,” she said bitterly. “Sendat is taken by the enchanter.”

“Then he’ll come here soon,” Martine said.

“They will have axes,” Sorn said. “Many of them.”

Martine considered the possibilities. “The stonecasters of Turvite bespell their doors against ghosts,” she said slowly. “Is
it possible, do you think, to bespell a whole city?”

S
AKER ADDRESSED
each new group of allies the same way. “There’s no need to steal. No need to loot. Everything will belong to us, by the time
we have finished. Just take what you need now and decide which house you want later, after we have conquered. There will be
enough for everyone.”

They cheered him, each time, and joined him, more every day. Whenever they were sighted, Acton’s people ran for their lives
and the Travellers came out to meet them. The warlords further south hadn’t been as efficient as Thegan at gathering up the
Travellers. Or massacring them. But there were no more towns like Wooding; no Travellers asked them to just pass by.

“No safety being Settled, not any more,” one old man said to him in a small, prosperous town. “Is there? We might as well
fight.”

Saker clapped him on the shoulder and smiled as his people gathered whatever they needed from the market square. They didn’t
linger and didn’t loot, but finding enough food for their growing army always took some time.

His father and Owl were impatient with the needs of the living.

“These people are our future,” Saker reminded them. “Once the invaders are destroyed, these are the ones who will build our
new land.”

Alder and Owl shared a glance that Saker could not read. Then, almost reluctantly, Alder nodded.

They took over that village for the night. All of Acton’s people had vanished, except for the innkeeper, who pretended to
be glad to see them. “Welcome, welcome, come in!” he babbled, clutching at his apron.

He had the same brownish hair as Saker himself, but Owl shook his head when Saker asked if the man had Traveller blood, and
used him as one of the evening sacrifices. Oddly enough, his family had old blood in plenty, and the wife served them with
tears running down her cheeks, two young childer hiding in her skirts.

“You’re safe now,” Saker told her, but he could see that only fear stopped her spitting in his face. Fear for her children.
“Your children will grow up able to look anyone in the eye,” he said earnestly. It was important that she understand why they
fought. “No more warlords. No more Generation Laws. No more injustice.”

“My husband was a good man. Where’s the justice in his death?” she demanded, her voice breaking into sobs.

“We all have to make some sacrifices to bring the future into being,” he said, but his words sounded hollow even to himself,
and he wondered if they should have spared the man, for the sake of his children.

Each night and morning, Alder and Owl conducted the blood ceremony. Saker had nothing to do with it, but by this time he was
glad. The shrilling sound grew stronger in his ears each time, until he could hardly bear it. On the third day, as he watched
his father slit the arm of a young woman, a blonde-haired woman much the same age as the girl Thegan had killed at Sendat,
he realised something. The sound was not the yearning of spirits beyond the grave who wished to join them. It was the keening
of those they had killed and sent to the darkness beyond death, calling out for revenge. No one else seemed to hear it, and
Saker accepted the sound, and the shapes he saw, writhing in the corner of his vision, as part of the price he had to pay
to secure their victory. He was haunted by the dead — that was fitting. He would bear that alone, so that none of his people,
alive or dead, would feel the burden. After each ceremony, exhausted by pretending to be unaffected by the deafening shrill,
by controlling his reactions to the horrible, distorted shapes which clambered at the corner of his eyes, he sat down and
found some consolation in that thought. He was protecting his people, as he should, from evil.

B
RAMBLE RODE
through the day half-expecting Swith himself to descend from the clouds. Anything might happen, she felt. Beck, hated for
as long as she could remember, was an ally. Acton, despoiler and invader, was her — well, call it friend. Wind wraiths were
abroad in settled land. Ash, whom she had thought of as a younger brother to be looked after, had stood on the warlord’s steps
and made a speech that had stirred an entire town to cooperation and action.

And here she was, riding to Turvite to confront an enchanter who was capable of the darkest betrayal in all human history.
To confront him, and make him powerless, and then kill him. The peace she had felt in the forest with the hunter was so far
away she could barely remember it.

Acton ran at her side like a young deer, tireless and oddly comforting. Occasionally he would grin up at her, and although
she grinned back she felt there was something false about it, as though he were forcing himself.

Close to twilight, deep in South Domain, they entered a long stretch of woodland, to Bramble’s relief. The summer green of
the trees, the rustle of life, bird calls, everything was a blessing.

After an hour’s riding, they found a clearing with a stream that crossed the road, and decided to camp there.

Bramble was grooming the bay when the hair on the back of her neck stood up. The bird calls were all wrong. She could hear
woodpeckers’
ki-ki-ki-ki
alarm calls from some way ahead.

“Ware,” she said. “Someone’s coming.”

They drew off behind an enormous holly bush and waited. A few moments later a band of Travellers came into view, but Travellers
like she had never seen before. A big group — far larger than the Generation Laws allowed. Twenty, maybe, mostly men and a
few young women, although there was one family with a small child and a babe in arms. They walked warily, carrying hatchets
and knives like weapons.

Bramble stepped out and raised a hand in greeting. They stopped and scanned the trees for anyone else, then relaxed a little
as they noticed her colouring.

“Fire and water,” she greeted them, remembering her grandfather’s lessons in Traveller ways.

“Fire and water and a roof in the rain,” the man in front replied. “Are you alone?”

She shook her head and the others came out of hiding. The Travellers gripped their weapons more tightly at the sight of Baluch,
smiled as they saw Ash, and seemed excited when Acton finally appeared.

“Are you with the enchanter?” a young man asked eagerly.

“No,” Bramble said. “Why?”

“We’re going to join him,” the leader said. “We’ve had enough.”

“Enough of what?” Baluch asked.

The leader glared at him. “Enough of being murdered in our beds! Do you know what’s been happening?”