Winterbirth (18 page)

They were quiet for a little time.

'Inurian . . .' Anyara said after a while, 'my father...'

His arms tugged the bonds that held them, and she thought he wanted to reach out to her. The cords would not yield.

'I am sorry, Anyara. We tried to guard him, but there were too many.'

'Orisian?'

'I don't know. I would have given anything to prevent this, but I was too slow, too mistrusting of my own instincts. What gifts I have were not enough. I knew something was amiss, but. . . somehow Aeglyss blunted the edge of my perceptions. I've never before wished for a greater, or different, strength in the Shared, Anyara. Now I wish for nothing else.'

He hung his head. Anyara almost wanted to turn away, so clear an echo did his pain find in her.

'And it is only days ago that I warned your brother against wishing for what is not,' Inurian said quietly.

They sat together in silence, each of them longing in their own way for the world to be other than it was.

They slept that night in a narrow clearing, stopping long after dusk had fallen. Anyara and Inurian were kept apart. She huddled down, resting her head against a grassy tussock. Grief and despair were writhing in her and she felt close to tears. That she would lock in. They would not hear her cry. A coarse blanket was thrown over her, but it did little to obstruct the mounting cold. She thought that the numbing pain in her wrists and hands, the hard ground and damp grass, the creaking of the trees all around, would keep her from sleep. Instead, her exhaustion flooded up from within and carried her off in minutes.

Time and again she came partway awake, shifting to ease some building pain in her back or arms.

Strange sounds, filtered through the veil of drowsiness, reached her: the plaintive call of an owl; the flap of wings above the trees, and once the lilt of soft, unintelligible voices whispering close by. When someone kicked her awake, before dawn had even begun to erode the darkness, the blanket had slid away from her and she could hardly move, so stiff and sore was her body. She felt as if she had closed her eyes mere moments ago.

They made Anyara and Inurian walk for a while that morning. A rider - one of the female Inkallim - went before them, leading them by ropes. Whenever they tried to talk to one another she would tug at their bonds. Anyara felt as weak as she had in the first days after the Fever had broken. They had been given nothing save water since being seized from the castle, and her head was light. She stumbled along, and fell now and again. Each time she was dragged along the trail a short distance and Inurian shouted at the rider ahead until she reined in her horse and allowed Anyara to struggle back to her feet.

Aeglyss came and rode behind them for a stretch.

'Did you sleep well?' he asked.

Inurian straightened his back and walked on. Anyara looked over her shoulder.

'I'm hungry,' she said.

'No doubt,' said Aeglyss, but his eyes were fixed upon Inurian. 'Did you sleep well, I asked.'

Still Inurian paid him no heed.

'I need some food,' insisted Anyara.

'Your hunger is not so bad,' said the
na'kyrim
at length, in a voice now gentle, slow and deep. The sound of his words soothed Anyara in some strange way. 'It is not as great as it was. A strong girl like you could go on without eating for hours yet, days even. Think instead of the fall of your feet. Let that rhythm be your only thought. Your legs are strong. Pay no heed to your hunger.'

Anyara felt her sense of herself shift a little. Aeglyss was right: there was an easing tempo in the rise and fall of her steps. They were steadier now. She did not stumble any more. She lost herself in the feeling of walking, and heard the rest of what was said distantly and without real understanding.

'She should be quiet for a time,' said Aeglyss. 'My voice has always been one of my better features. I can be very . . . persuasive, but she is particularly easy.'

'She is exhausted,' snapped Inurian, 'and weak from hunger, and shock. It is a childish trick, and one I doubt you could play upon someone wakeful and healthy.'

'Ah, but I can, I can. I am stronger than you think. But at least now you have something to say. I thought I would have to continue talking to myself.'

'I am sure you would not find that too great a burden.'

'Come now, Inurian. We should not bicker, you and I. We are
na'kyrim
together. Our kind has enough enemies without fighting amongst ourselves.'

'This is not a fight I started, and I would rather not be reminded that we are of the same kind.'

'But we are,' said Aeglyss urgently, 'we are. I saved you, did I not? Kept the ravens from killing you?

The girl they were content to take alive, but you they would have killed in a moment if not for me.

Na'kyrim
must stand by one another, for no one else will.'

'Forgive me if I do not thank you for saving me from murderers you brought with you.'

Aeglyss gave an exasperated sigh. 'I wish only your friendship, Inurian,' he said. 'You have seen what I can do. The Shared wakes strongly in me, you can see that. But I am still young; I have more to learn. I have heard there is no one with greater knowledge of the Shared than you. Some people speak highly of you. That is why I came to Kolglas, you know. The Inkallim came for the Thane's family. I came for you.'

When Inurian did not reply, Aeglyss went on, now quietly insistent.

'You could teach me. And I could lend you my strength. How many have you known who could oppose your own insights as I did? I could raise us both up. And I have powerful friends. Without me, the White Owls would never have agreed to help the Gyre Bloods. None of this would have been possible without that help. Horin-Gyre is in my debt. When all of this is done, I will be one of the powerful myself. You could be a part of that.'

'Leave me be,' said Inurian.

Aeglyss said nothing for a few moments, then, 'Very well. You will think differently in time. Girl. Anyara!'

The sudden sharpness of his voice jolted Anyara. She lifted her head, which had grown heavy. Her eyes were clear, as clouds she had not been aware of until that moment parted.

'Are you hungry, girl?' Aeglyss asked.

And in that instant, the hunger was back, gnawing more than ever at the pit of her stomach and sucking the strength out of her limbs. She almost lost her footing and fell. Inurian was looking at her, concern and some kind of pain in his face. She tried to smile, but could not be sure whether she managed it. She risked a brief glance behind. Aeglyss was gone, fallen back out of sight.

'I was almost asleep,' she said.

'Not exactly,' replied Inurian gloomily before a harsh tug on the ropes reminded them of the wisdom of silence.

They marched on over ever rougher terrain. Long, low ridges ran through the forest, and the company followed trails up and over them. They crossed tiny streams and wove around the great boulders that dotted the slopes. The forest was open, a mixture of birch, pine and lichen-armoured oak. Anyara was sure they must still be within the lands of her Blood, but she saw no sign of either stock or men. Herders would only come so far into the wild lands in the summer, and then only if they could find no grazing closer to home.

Some time after noon they did come across some men of Lannis-Haig. It brought no cheer. They were angling down a slope towards a brook that Anyara could hear gurgling over rocks ahead. When they came to the stream, she saw that there had been a hunters' camp here. It was ruined now, the tents cast down, the cooking fire doused. The three men who had made it lay there, all dead. Anyara stared at them as they walked past. One of them lay on his back, his blank face upturned, his tongue poking out from between his lips. He was young, perhaps sixteen. Orisian's age. She felt a tightening in her throat and looked away.

Not long afterwards they were hauled up on to horses once again, and the company increased its pace.

Anyara's stomach was by now growling with such insistence that it was almost painful. She found herself struggling to keep at bay tendrils of sleep. The enclosing arms of the Inkallim rider kept her from slumping to the ground. She was drowsily aware that they were climbing, rising up some steady slope.

Later, only half-conscious, she felt a breeze on her face and strong hands pulling her from the horse. She was thrown to the ground, unable to move. Her leaden eyes opened and she saw clouds scudding across a dimming sky. For the first time in what seemed an age, no branches hemmed in her view. Far, far above, an unbridgeable distance from the patch of rough ground upon which she lay, an eagle glided serenely over the forest. She fixed her eyes on it for a time, and could almost imagine her thoughts riding its great wings away into the stillness.

Around her, the Inkallim were making camp for the night. They had halted in a high clearing near the crest of a ridge. The land rose, for this short space, above its mantle of trees like the back of a whale breaching the surface of the sea.

Then Aeglyss was kneeling beside her. He leaned over, his face filling her vision. She stared into his grey eyes and saw nothing there. He rolled her and cut her bonds with a knife. Sudden pain and waves of heat pulsed through her hands. The skin had gone from her wrists.

'Stand up,' said Aeglyss, hauling her erect.

She staggered. A supporting arm appeared around her waist, and she found Inurian at her side.

'Look,' said Aeglyss.

She did not understand what he meant and in her utter exhaustion she stood there, letting her weight fall against Inurian. His arm tightened about her and held her up. Then Aeglyss laid a hand upon her shoulder and squeezed.

'Look,' he hissed, pointing.

She followed the line of his outstretched arm. The forest fell away beneath them, sweeping off down a long slope and out over the flatter ground beyond. She was looking across the roof of Anlane, and felt dizzy at the sight. The trees stretched almost to the limit of what she could see, but there was, far off to the north, the grey suggestion of open ground and still further out, so faint it was more a shading in the light than anything else, there was a line of mountains towering above the earth: the Car Criagar, looming over the Glas valley.

'What?' she asked, hearing the word as if it had been uttered by someone else.

Inurian's arm tightened again, and she wondered why.

'See the smoke,' said Aeglyss.

Again, she looked. And she could just make out, rising from somewhere in the space between the forest and the mountains, a black smudge of smoke climbing up. It occurred to her that there must be a very great fire somewhere by the river.

'I don't understand,' she muttered.

'You will,' Aeglyss laughed, and walked away.

She looked up at Inurian's face. He was staring northwards, then he sighed and bowed his head.

'I think I know where we are going, now. It is Anduran, Anyara. Anduran is burning.'

THE AIR WAS filled with the stench of acrid smoke. The wind gathered it up from the town and danced it around the castle. The sun was a pale disc behind a veil of grey. Croesan oc Lannis-Haig gazed up towards it, watching the ashes of Anduran spiralling into the sky.

He was standing atop the castle's main keep. Somewhere beneath, in the hall, his advisers and officials held council. All of them had climbed to this vantage point when they first smelled the smoke. He had sent the others back after a few minutes. He alone stayed, held fast by the sight of his city burning. There were flames here and there, spouting up from amongst the buildings. Mostly, there was just the smoke. It seethed like an immense exhalation of the earth itself. Strangely, there was hardly a sound save the distant crackle of fires and the occasional groaning roar as some building surrendered. No screams, no cries, no pounding of feet along the alleyways. That eerie absence put an extra morbid twist into Croesan's sadness. It was as if the city had already been dead, and this was just the cremation of its corpse.

They had been in the grand new hall upon the square when the messenger arrived. Croesan had been as happy as he could remember for a long time, filled with a lightness of spirit, an anticipatory excitement, that belonged more properly to children. The hall was filling with hundreds of people, all laughing, all chattering as they awaited the start of the great feast of Winterbirth. Then the messenger had come and turned it all to dust.

The man had ridden without pause from Tanwrye, bringing word of an army coming down through the Stone Vale, of the renewal of the bloody dance between the Black Road and the True Bloods. It had been more than thirty years since the armies had last marched. Then, aged seventeen, Croesan's own first taste of battle had been beneath the walls of Tanwrye, riding with his father and brother to drive back the forces of Horin-Gyre. As he heard the words of the haggard messenger, surrounded by the luxurious accoutrements of a feast that would never now happen, Croesan was returned for an instant into the skin of that youth he had been. Nothing had changed, in all the years that had passed. The Thane must once more ride out from Anduran and face his Blood's old foe.

Within an hour of the messenger's arrival, two hundred men - half of those garrisoned in the city - had marched out from Anduran's northern gate and Croesan's riders were spreading through the farmland around the city, raising his people to arms. In a couple of days, he could have another half a thousand men ready to make for Tanwrye. But it was not to be.

In the depth of the night, one of his shieldmen had come to find the Thane. He was shut in a high room of the keep, talking with Naradin and with his captains. They were making plans that would never be enacted.

'There is a farmer outside, my lord,' the shieldman said gravely. 'We sent him away at first but he came back, and has others with him now, telling the same story. Otherwise we would not have…'

'What are you talking about?' Croesan demanded. His earlier good humour was long gone, swept away.

A dishevelled man with matted hair and a scrawny beard pushed partway through the door, restrained by shieldmen.