Ravens Shadow 02 - Tower Lord (36 page)

A flash of anger lit his eyes. “She must never know of my part in this . . . enterprise. My survival, and elevation, will be portrayed as merely the wise actions of a pragmatic man.”

The woman smiled and Frentis thought,
Slow death.
“Yet more stipulations, my lord. But fear not, it will all be as you say.” She guided him back to the door, her face a perfect representation of servile respect, the face a servant shows to a kindly master. “The ship should arrive in the next day or two. Word will be sent when it’s time for you to discover Brother Frentis.”

She held the door open for him with a deferential nod. The lord seemed about to speak again, no doubt earning himself an even slower demise, but thought better of it and made a hasty departure.

“What do you think, my love?” the woman asked Frentis, returning to his side. “Burning or flaying?”

“The traditional death for traitors to the Realm is hanging,” he replied. “But I think burning would suit that one better.”

◆ ◆ ◆

That night he watched her sleep and implored the Departed to return the itch to his side with every ounce of will he could summon. When they failed to respond he asked their forgiveness and prayed to all the Alpiran gods he could recall, the Nameless Seer the old man had served, Olbiss, the sea god, Martual, the god of courage Vaelin’s mason friend had carved in Linesh. They gave no answer and so he abandoned all hope of ever being accepted into the Beyond and turned to the Cumbraelin World Father.
If you’re there, release me, bring back the pain. I will forsake the Faith, I will leave the Order and serve you all my days. JUST SET ME FREE!

But the World Father, it seemed, was as deaf as every other god or departed soul.

For the next two mornings they climbed to the roof of the warehouse as the tide swelled the harbour waters. Ships put out to sea whilst others arrived and all the while the woman’s eyes scanned the horizon.

“My bargain is still offered,” Frentis told her on the second day, hating the desperation in his voice, knowing he was finally a beggar. “Please.”

She kept her gaze fixed out to sea and said nothing.

The sail appeared shortly after the tenth bell, the ship resolving through the mist into a medium-sized trading vessel, Volarian colours flying from the mainmast. It had a somewhat drab appearance, sails and wood darkened with age and use, sitting low in the water, carrying a heavy load.

“Plea—” Frentis began but stopped as she flared the binding.

“No more words, my love.” She turned away from the sea and went to the ladder propped against the warehouse roof. “It’s time.”

◆ ◆ ◆

They dressed as stevedores, faces shadowed beneath broad-brimmed hats, going to the harbour and waiting for the ship to berth. The gangplank was duly lowered and they went aboard without preamble, attracting no attention from the sailors on deck as they went below. A well-built man of middle years awaited them in the hold, his black jerkin marking him as the owner and captain of this vessel. He gave the woman a deep bow. “Most honoured citizen.”

The woman’s gaze went past him to the contents of the hold, ranks of seated men, silent, waiting. Perhaps three hundred, all Kuritai. “The fleet?” she asked.

“Waiting beyond the horizon,” the captain said. “They attack at nightfall. All other vessels we met on the sea were taken and burned, the crews with them. These ghost-worshippers have no knowledge of our approach.”

She began to undress. “We need clothes, the kind worn by the lowliest of the crew.”

They exchanged their ragged garb for thin cotton trews and shirts which made them look only slightly less beggared than before. “No need for restraint,” the woman told the captain.

“Off my ship, you worthless bitch!” he railed at them, hounding them across the deck, brandishing a whip. “Go and take your Realm dog with you!”

The woman cowered away from him, sheltering beneath Frentis’s protective arm. They hurried to the gangplank and fled to the wharf. “Count y’selves lucky you’re not feeding the sharks!” the captain called after them. “That’s the proper reward for stowaways.”

They stood on the wharf, clutching each other, a few onlookers having paused to watch the spectacle announced by the captain’s tirade. Frentis stared about in amazement. “Varinshold!” he breathed.

The woman embraced him, tears of joy shining her eyes. “We’re truly here, Frentis! After so long.”

A tall man in a sable-trimmed cloak stepped from the small crowd, a frown of recognition on his smooth brow. “Are you . . .” His eyes widened in amazement as he drew closer and he bowed low in grave respect. “Brother Frentis!” He straightened, turning to the crowd. “Brother Frentis is returned to the Realm!” He beckoned a man to him, one of his servants from the way the man scurried to his side. “Run to the palace. Give word to the guard that I will bring Brother Frentis before the King with all dispatch.”

The man bobbed his head. “I shall, Lord Al Telnar.”

The crowd chattered as Al Telnar led them away, their faces joyous, a few even awed.
They think me a hero,
Frentis realised, offering a tight smile in return as some called out to him, deaf to his silent plea:
Kill me!

T
hey stayed with the Bear People for another three weeks, the first days spent dispelling their hunger with the steady stream of supplies coming from the south, and also the occasional delivery of elk meat from Eorhil hunting parties. Despite their deliverance, the mood of the Bear People remained largely joyless, though some of the children were more given to laughter as the days passed. Others continued to perish from the depredations of their trek across the ice, mostly the old, and a few dozen fur-wrapped bundles were left out on the plain in that first week. The Bear People did not burn or bury their dead, knowing the wild would reclaim any flesh left to it soon enough.

The shaman’s name was far beyond the ability of Vaelin’s tongue to pronounce, but from the visions he divined it as some concordance of bearlike ferocity and great knowledge, so took to calling him Wise Bear. They communicated mainly through visions but Vaelin found it too taxing to share his own with any regularity, so began to teach the old man Realm Tongue, with Dahrena’s help.

“Bear!” he said, thumping a hand to his bone-staff when she had managed to communicate a desire to know what animal it derived from.

“And these?” she asked, her fingers playing over the many symbols carved into the bone. “Words?”

The old shaman frowned, seemingly surprised by her ignorance. Vaelin was beginning to understand that the knowledge of the Dark possessed by this man far exceeded their own. He never seemed to tire from the use of his gift, despite his age, and his facility with Realm Tongue grew rapidly thanks to his ability to share visions of the words they conveyed. This time, however, Dahrena’s question seemed to have stumped him.

“Writing,” Vaelin said, singing a little, a small sensation of words captured in text.

“Ahhh.” Wise Bear nodded in understanding then shook his head. “No . . . words.” His hand smoothed over the myriad markings on the bone-staff. “Power.”

They were ready to move on by the second week, Dahrena leading them on a south-westerly course. “There’s an inlet some fifty miles along the coast,” she explained. “The forest has game and the waters offer good fishing. There was a settlement there many years ago but it was abandoned when the bluestone mine proved too poor to sustain the effort of surviving the winter. I doubt these people will have that problem though.”

During the journey Vaelin was able to piece together a clearer picture of the events which had driven these people from their home. Wise Bear told of countless years on the ice, warring with the Cat People to the west or trading with the Wolf People to the north. Life remained unchanged until the Cat People grew ambitious. It seemed a new shaman had arisen amongst them, great and powerful in his command of beasts. Under his hand the Cat People became ever more discontented, looking with envious eyes on the vast hunting grounds enjoyed by their neighbours. They couldn’t hope to defeat them alone, of course, for all the war-cats and spear-hawks they bred, and so sought alliance with the iron-shapers south of the ice. Traditionally they had been looked on with a mixture of bafflement and contempt, living in the same dwelling all year round, shutting themselves away when the snows fell, valued only for the iron tools they fashioned and traded for furs. But recent centuries had seen them change, seen them range further and further north, and not always with the intent of trade. Children were taken, later seen dragged away south in chains. The Bear People exacted vengeance of course, for a feud cannot be turned from on the ice, many iron-shapers were killed, but there were always more, and the Cat People’s shaman saw an opportunity for alliance.

“But you defeated them,” Vaelin said, recalling the vision of the great clash between cat and bear. “Drove them into these lands where they perished.”

“Lost . . . many men,” Wise Bear said. “Many bears. Too many.”

Their victory had been no more than a respite, and a costly one. When the Volarians came north in force they were too weak in number to stand against them. The Wolf People fled east, the Bear People west, and the ice was lost to them forever.

◆ ◆ ◆

The inlet was known as the Mirror Sound for the placidity of its waters which offered a clear reflection of the tall-forested slopes rising on either side. Dahrena guided them to the site of the former settlement, now a ramshackle stockade on the eastern shore, the wooden dwellings overgrown with creepers and moss. Wise Bear gave it only the most cursory of glances before turning his attention to the water. “Boats,” he said.

“I can have some brought here,” Vaelin offered but the shaman shook his head.

“Make boats.”

He disappeared into the forest with a group of the younger men and women and soon the sound of chopping wood was echoing through the trees. They returned some hours later with a number of midsize tree trunks and set about stripping the bark. When the trunks were bared they were split with some well-placed axe blows and the ice folk began hollowing them out and shaping the rounded sides into hulls. Within two days the Bear People had a fleet of ten boats with ever more being fashioned on the shoreline. They had also begun to pull a regular supply of fish from the inlet, mostly cod and a few salmon.

They made no effort to repair the settlement, even pulling some of the huts down for firewood. Their own shelters were easily collapsible rounded structures of twisted branches covered with skins or foliage. “We move,” the shaman said in response to Vaelin’s query about where they intended to make their home. “People are home . . . not place.”

The first child was born that night, a girl, brought to term by a combination of her mother’s will and the sacrifice of her family, who starved so she would eat. The shaman emerged from the shelter holding the child aloft as she squirmed and cried towards the heavens, calling out his unfathomable blessing, raising the ice folk to their feet in hushed reverence. Vaelin felt it lift then, the pall of despair that had covered these people since he met them, seeing smiles on some faces, tears on others. They may have lost their name but they were alive again.

He took his leave the next morning, having agreed to return in two months with fresh supplies, although, given the Bear People’s proficiency as hunters he doubted they would need any. Wise Bear’s mood was warm with gratitude as Vaelin clasped his hand in farewell, but also held a note of foreboding. “Volariaanns,” he said. “Won’t stop.”

“They can’t reach you here,” Vaelin said. “If they come, we’ll fight them together.”

The shaman’s expression was sorrowful, a deep sense of apology colouring the vision he sent:
an army, dark ranks of infantry and cavalry, stretched out across a frozen plain, more than could be easily counted, heading south towards a distant port.
“Not coming . . . for us,” he said. “For you.”

◆ ◆ ◆

He rode in silence for much of the day, the old man’s vision stuck in his mind, unwelcome but compelling.

“They called the baby Dark Eyes,” Dahrena told him, riding alongside. “In honour of you.”

He nodded, still distracted.
He tells of an army marching on the Realm, but the blood-song has no note of warning. And Volaria is an ocean away.

“I shall be glad to get home,” Dahrena said. “It’s been a few years since I spent so long in the saddle. I’m afraid I’ve grown too fond of comfort.”

“I should like to call on my friends before we return to the tower,” he said. “If you would care to accompany me.”

“I would, my lord.” She lapsed into silence for a moment, then gave a small laugh.

“My lady?”

“Just a thought, something Brother Kehlan said, ‘They’re sending us a warmonger.’ In fact they sent a peacemaker.”

That night he sat apart from the fire where Dahrena kept company with Captain Orven and the Eorhil woman, far enough away to escape the distraction of voices, and began to sing. He found his sister first, dabbing paint onto a canvas in her room at the tower, a rendering of the harbour, the ships and sailors depicted with her usual unnerving precision. She seemed rapt by her work, content, but it pained him to see her alone.

Reva was next, the first time he had sought her out. The relief at seeing her safe was palpable as he watched her offering a much-missed scowl to a buxom woman holding a scroll. They appeared to be in a library of some kind and he could see the twin spires of the Alltor cathedral through the window. It was strange to see Reva in a dress, squirming in discomfort and boredom as she listened to the woman, who seemed vaguely familiar. He saw Reva’s scowl deepen before she voiced a no-doubt-biting insult. However, the woman just laughed and reached for another scroll.

He found Caenis encamped with the Realm Guard, sitting in council with the other Wolfrunner officers. Their expressions had a uniform tension he knew well; the faces of men sent to war.
More discord in the Realm?
he wondered as his unease deepened.
Or something worse?

Caenis himself seemed as unconcerned as ever in the face of impending battle, issuing orders with the unhesitant surety Vaelin remembered. But the song carried a sorrowful note as he watched his brother and he knew their last words weighed on him.

He moved on, feeling the creeping chill that would soon force a halt to his song, spending his remaining strength on a final effort to find Frentis, but as ever it proved hopeless. The song became discordant, the images fragmented, a cluster of rocks in a scrub desert, a burning house, a ship approaching a harbour . . . This last proved the most compelling, even though it lasted barely a few seconds, the tune becoming more ominous as the ship ploughed through the waves, hull and sails dark from age . . .

The chill lurched, dragging heat from his body, and he knew it was time to stop. He started to open his eyes, seeking to quiet the song but it kept on unbidden, the vision shifting, fixing on a road tracking through the Urlish Forest, a young woman with golden hair riding a pony at the head of a cavalry regiment, a tall Lonak woman at her side.
Lyrna . . .
The princess had grown yet more beautiful in the intervening years, but whatever recent trials she had endured seemed to have brought a change in her that went beyond beauty. There was an ease to her manner that hadn’t been there before, the way she laughed with the Lonak woman spoke of genuine friendship. Also the fierce intellect she had hidden so well now shone in her eyes, unbound and unsettling. The song’s tone deepened as the vision lingered, Lyrna’s face filling his mind as the ominous note heralded by the sight of the aged ship stretched then built until it was almost like a scream . . .

He coughed, feeling blood spatter onto his chin. He was on his back, retching, the chill so intense he trembled from head to foot. “Lie still, my lord.” Dahrena’s voice was a whisper, her hands warm on his face, brow furrowed in concern. “I fear you have been somewhat foolish.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“When I lived with the Seordah, I met a woman. Very small, very old, but every soul in her tribe afforded her the greatest respect.” Dahrena added more fuel to the fire as she spoke, Vaelin huddling in his cloak, as close to the flames as he dared. The chill had lessened somewhat but still he trembled.

“I sensed her gift,” Dahrena continued. “And she sensed mine. The Seordah are not like us, they speak openly of the Dark, discuss it, try to understand it, even though true understanding still eludes even the wisest amongst them. She told me something about the nature of gifts, she told me that the greater the gift the greater the price it exacts. For this reason she rarely used her own, for it was great indeed, but every instant of its use brought death one step closer, and she wished to see her grandchildren grow. I only saw her use it once, when the summer came. Fires are common in the great forest during the summer months, the tinder grows dry and it only takes a single bolt of lightning to set whole swathes alight. The Seordah do not fear the fires of summer, in fact they welcome them, for they thin the forest where it grows too thick to hunt, and bring forth stronger trees from the cindered ground. But sometimes the fires grow large, and when two or more fires meet they birth an inferno that destroys more than it renews. And that summer was very hot.

“When it came it moved so fast there was no outrunning it, the way it leapt from tree to tree, as if it were some great hungry beast, and we were its next meal. It surrounded the camp on all sides, we huddled in the centre and my brothers and sisters sang their death songs. Then this small, old woman stepped forward. She spoke no incantations, made no gestures, just stood and stared at the fire. And the sky . . . the sky became black. The wind came down, chill and cold, bearing rain, a rain so heavy it bore us to the ground with the weight of its waters, so much I feared I had been saved from burning only to drown. Steam billowed as it met the fire, covering us all in a dense mist, and when it faded the fire had gone, leaving damp, blackened stumps, and an old woman lying on the ground, bleeding as you bled just now.”

Vaelin rubbed his hands together, trying to keep the chatter from his teeth. “D-did she live?”