Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) (58 page)

‘Do you see these markings?’ she asked.

Ailric peered over her shoulder. ‘Is it language of some kind?’

She traced one of the flowing shapes with her fingertips. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t recognise it at all, but something tells me it’s not purely decorative either.’

There was meaning in those symbols, she was sure of it. Whoever had carved them had intended them to endure, so their message must be significant. A warning, perhaps? A marker, like the milestones alongside the imperial highways, showing the distance to the next town?

Across the clearing, Owyn finished hobbling the horses and straightened up. ‘Please, you must rest,’ he said. ‘Light no fires in this place and do not leave the clearing. I will return shortly with water for the beasts.’

Before Tanith could ask him about the stones, he’d loped off into the trees, the silence closing after him like a heavy curtain.

Woodland was rarely so still. There was always something rustling or chirping, but in that strange clearing she and Ailric were the only creatures stirring. Not even a biteme. To distract herself from the unsettling quiet, she laid out her bedroll then fed the horses and fetched some provisions from the saddlebags. When she returned, Ailric had laid his own bed close by, but not so near that she felt compelled to move hers. After a cold meal washed down with water from their canteens, they settled themselves to sleep.

The air remained close and still, for all the centre of the clearing was open to the sky. Ailric kicked off his blanket irritably. ‘Too warm for spring,’ he grumbled, settling himself again only to sit up a minute later and shrug off his jacket as well. ‘Too warm for leathers!’

Hiding a smile, her own blanket folded under her head as a pillow, Tanith lay on her back and watched the first stars appear in the deepening blue. By her reckoning Lumiel would be rising soon, though she suspected the trees around them were too dense to see the second moon until it was well up in the sky. They hid the Evenlight, too, it appeared. Miriel should be over there in the west, beneath the Dragon. Except the Dragon constellation wasn’t there.

She sat up, alarmed. ‘Ailric, look at the stars.’

He sighed and turned over, his shirt pale as silver in the dark. ‘Yes. Very pretty.’

Tanith thumped his shoulder. ‘They’re wrong!’ She pointed. ‘No Dragon. No Huntsman. That could be Amarada, but it looks stretched somehow, out of proportion. Where
are
we?’

Ailric stood up and walked to the centre of the clearing, near the stones. Hands on hips he stared up at the sky, turning in a slow circle. ‘A better question might be
when
are we,’ he said, then looked back at her. ‘Time flows differently here, correct? Perhaps we are only now beginning to appreciate how differently.’

That made sense. Storybooks were full of tales of the Bregorinnen guides and how they found short cuts through the wildwood. Why had she come looking for one herself, if not to hasten the journey to Mesarild? She should have expected this, or something like it.

‘Of course,’ she said, lying down again. ‘I didn’t think.’

Ailric returned to his bed and sat, supporting himself on one arm. His pale hair gleamed, silvery like his shirt. ‘You need not fear, love. You have your guide and I will keep you safe.’ He lifted one hand as if to touch her then thought better of it. ‘Sleep well.’

‘And you.’ Tanith took one last look at the unfamiliar stars, then turned on her side and closed her eyes.

35

REPROOFS

‘Idiot!’

Gair winced. He lay naked but for a towel on the Daughterhouse infirmary table as Alderan fumed and clattered through the bottles on the shelves. Dust-motes glowed in the afternoon light slanting through the shuttered windows.

‘What were you thinking? I told you to stay out of sight and what did you do? Chopped four Cult warriors into pieces in the middle of the square. You’re an
idiot
!’

‘I heard you the first time,’ Gair muttered, turning his head aside.

Alderan thumped a bottle down on the table and bent over to glare at him, only inches from his face. ‘Idiot,’ he repeated, slowly and precisely.

‘The sisters were determined. I couldn’t let them go alone.’

‘Then they’re idiots, too!’

Unstopping the bottle, Alderan poured the contents directly onto Gair’s wound. The liquid scoured his raw flesh and he convulsed.

‘Sweet saints, what is that stuff?’

‘Spirits of iodine.’

‘Ow!’

‘You’ll get no sympathy from me, not after your actions today. We had little enough time here as it was and there’s still half the books to sort. Now you’ve brought the Cult down on us and the sisters, too. You’re an—’

‘Idiot, yes. You said.’

Alderan scowled and thumped the stopper back into the bottle.

Using a curved needle he closed the gash with crisp, angry stitches. Gair made himself lie still for the duration but had to bite the inside of his cheek at each stab of the needle. The spirits of iodine had left his side excruciatingly sensitive – even a breath of air across the wound felt like a nettle-sting – and Alderan was not being particularly gentle.

When he was done, the old man snipped out the stitches in Gair’s shoulder, then hooked a thumb to indicate he should sit up. He did so, carefully, and held his arms folded over his head whilst the latest wound was salved and dressed.

‘I don’t know what you were thinking,’ Alderan muttered as he tied off the bandage. ‘Not thinking at all, most like. I swear, the Goddess created Leahns to teach the rest of us the meaning of stubborn.’

Gair eased himself down from the table. ‘You heard what Sister Sofi said – I couldn’t leave the nuns unprotected in the city, not after what happened to Resa.’

He fetched his clothes from a stool by the wall and began to dress. The old man washed his hands, drying them on the discarded towel.

‘You might not have sworn the vows,’ he said, without looking up from his hands, ‘but you are a Knight in your heart, true as any who stood vigil for his spurs.’

‘A Knight needs to have faith in the Goddess.’ Gair pulled a clean shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. ‘I only did what any man would have done in the same circumstances.’

For the first time Alderan’s expression softened a little, though it was a long way from a smile. ‘What any idiot would have done.’

Gair made a face but said nothing. He fastened his trousers, tied his sash about his waist and sat down on the stool to put on his boots. The bending and tugging did his wound no favours, but he gritted his teeth against the pain.

‘First three, now five,’ the old man said quietly. ‘How many will it take, Gair?’

‘I didn’t know how many there would be. My only concern was protecting the sisters.’

Alderan didn’t answer. When Gair stood up, he was alone.

The stringy-haired guard outside the chief’s tent swallowed nervously, gaze flicking from Ytha’s face to the carved whitewood half-spear cradled in her arms. ‘Um.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Is there a problem, Harl?’

‘The chief is not alone,’ he blurted. ‘He told us he was not to be disturbed.’

She stared. Harl wilted, his pocked face twisting. ‘Um.’

‘Macha’s ears!’ Rolling her eyes, Ytha pushed past the discomfited warrior and into the tent.

Upended cups and
uisca
flasks littered the carpets. Discarded clothes added their own earthy odour to the air, already thick with drink and sweat and rut. Shadowy figures moved behind the hanging that screened Drwyn’s sleeping quarters. Growled words and a girl yelped.

‘No, please!’

The silhouette of an arm rose, fell. An open palm cracked onto skin. ‘Get back here, bitch.’

Sobs. A groan of pleasure, then the rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh. The girl wailed, the sound abruptly stifled, either by a cushion or a large palm.

Ytha’s nostrils flared. This was her Chief of Chiefs? Slaking himself with a girl when the chiefs of sixteen other clans were waiting on him? He was grunting now, nearing his completion, which came with a roar like a bull elk.

‘You’re done,’ he panted, pushing the girl away. ‘Get out.’

Schooling her face to stillness, Ytha waited. A shadow crept past the lamp and ducked when something was flung at it.

‘I said get out!’

A skinny girl stumbled through the hangings with her clothes in her arms. Bruises were already blooming on her shoulders, red teethmarks on her barely budded breasts. Ytha glimpsed a tear-streaked face and bloody lip before the girl fled out into the night with a moan.

She frowned. The fourth in as many days. All young, all with their buttocks spanked crimson, their maidenhood no more than a smear on Drwyn’s cushions. The Scattering’s wedding fair would do a brisk trade.

‘Get dressed, Drwyn,’ she said. ‘The chiefs are waiting.’

Moments later he jerked the hanging aside. He was dressed in just a pair of trews, and those only buttoned enough to stay up around his hips. Sweat gleamed on his thick arms and darkly furred chest. Resting on his collarbones, the wolf-heads on his torc glittered in the lamplight with every breath.

‘Ytha.’

With a glimmer of amusement in his dark eyes he watched her, as if waiting for her reaction. She ground her teeth. By the Eldest, he tried her patience at times!

‘No one but your guards has seen you for almost a week. Now the other chiefs are here – they will expect you to greet them.’

He picked up the one
uisca
flask still standing and emptied it in great gulping swallows, then dragged the back of his arm across his mouth. ‘I’ve been busy.’

‘Amusing yourself with those girls?’ Catching his scent, she wrinkled her nose. ‘Faugh! You need a bath.’

‘It’s sweaty work, getting an heir.’ He scratched the line of hair that plunged down his belly from his navel and grinned. ‘Don’t you care for the smell of a man, Ytha?’

His insolence knew no bounds. ‘I care about not turning the stomachs of the other Speakers!’ she snapped. ‘The Scattering is already day old – this is not a good way to garner support from the other clans.’

Drwyn nodded at the spear she held. ‘Is that it? The battle-chief’s spear?’

Imbecile!
‘No. Gwlach’s spear was lost with him, centuries ago. I had this made for you over the winter from the same wood used to make a Speaker’s staff.’

She held it out and he took it, examining it from the rune-carved shaft to the gleaming bronze head with its intricate engraving. He fingered the point and jerked back his hand when it cut him. ‘It’s sharp.’

Ytha suppressed a smile.
Serves the whelp right
.

‘Of course. What use is a blunt spear?’ She folded her hands at her waist. ‘Whitewood holds a charm the best of any wood. There is protection for the bearer spelled out in those runes. As long as you carry that spear, no harm should come to you.’

He traced the deeply incised symbols with his fingertip. ‘Magic?’

‘Of a sort. It will turn a killing stroke to one that only wounds and diminish a wounding one to almost nothing. Enough to preserve your life in battle, though it cannot deflect a blow entirely.’

What a working that had been. She had carved the runes herself, using her sky-iron knife in the clear light of the silver moon’s waxing. She had tied the white cords that bound it with sacred knots and woven her power into every one. All she hoped now was that her efforts had not been in vain.

‘You cannot become Chief of Chiefs until you are acclaimed so by the other clans,’ she said softly, slowly.

Drwyn turned the spear over and over in his hands and its point’s reflection winked in his eyes. He didn’t appear to be listening, his head no doubt stuffed with
uisca
-fumes and dreams of glory.

She grasped the shaft between his hands and held it still. ‘Hear me, Drwyn.’

He glanced up. ‘I hear you, Ytha. One hour.’

‘Eirdubh and the others grow impatient.’

‘One hour,’ he repeated and made to jerk the spear from her grasp. In a blink she had called her magic and strengthened her grip with air, and however hard he tugged he could not take it from her. He scowled, like a child denied a favourite toy.