Winterbirth (35 page)

There was nothing in his world to match the perfect, complex texture of such a moment.

He laid a soft kiss upon the back of her neck, felt the oil on his lips. She made an appreciative sound. He touched his tongue to her skin.

'I saw you looking at me in the Great Hall this morning,' she whispered.

'How could I not?' he asked.

He drizzled more oil over her skin and began to massage her neck. Her head eased forwards a little, and she lifted her hair out of his way.

'You must be tired,' she said.

'Not yet.'

'Did Gryvan give you what you wanted?'

'Oh, yes. It was not so much to ask. Mere sense.'

'So there will be war in the north soon? The ladies of the court twitter like a flock of birds. There has not been so much excitement for a long time. War against the Black Road would be so much more... traditional than the crushing of a rebellious Thane. There is nothing quite like the toing and froing of armies and reports of distant victories to spice up their lives.'

'Distant victories are the best kind,' said Mordyn softly. He pressed his ear against her back, listening for her heart. 'One or two more of them and we shall have the best-loved Thane the Haig Blood has ever seen.' He could hear it. He imagined that his own heart beat in time with hers.

'Yes,' she said as she turned to take him in her arms. 'Keep the blood and the strife safely distant and we need only concern ourselves with better things.'

IN ANDURAN, A great catapult was being hauled across the square by a team of mules. The machine looked like an angular creature from another land, intruding upon the order of the town.

'They're moving the second engine up,' Kanin said. Wain peered over his shoulder. They were standing at a high window in their commandeered house.

'Let us hope its workmanship is better than the first,' she said. The throwing arm of the first to be put to use had split when it was tensioned. The man who missed the flaw in the wood lost half the skin from his back for the oversight.

'How long before more are ready?' Kanin asked.

'We should have three or four of them by the morning.' He knew her well enough to detect the undercurrent of detachment.

'Not enough, you think?' he pressed.

'Who knows? We were granted some time by the victory at Grive, but not much of it. Perhaps they will come out of their own accord once we start throwing heads inside. They might be hungry, or sick, already. Our chances would be better if it was high summer.'

'Perhaps,' agreed Kanin. Now that the elation of their victory was receding, he knew as well as Wain did that their position was as dangerously fragile as ever. There would be more armies marching up the valley before long. They had sent word commanding part of the army besieging Tanwrye to come south.

It may or may not be possible: the Lannis garrison there would sally at the slightest sign of weakness.

Other messengers had gone further, making for Kan Dredar. They would plead with Ragnor oc Gyre to unleash his own mighty army, now that Horin-Gyre's daring had brought such a rich harvest within reach.

Whether or not the High Thane would respond, Kanin had no idea.

A commotion outside turned him back to the window. Below, a band of Tarbains were driving a bullock along. The animal was recalcitrant, pulling against its halter and lowing in protest. The excited tribesmen jabbed at it with spears and shouted at one another. Points of blood speckled the bullock's haunches.

'Where have they got that from?' snapped Kanin. 'Igris!'

His shieldman came in at once and joined him at the window.

'Find out where they've brought that animal from,' commanded the Bloodheir. 'If it's within an hour's walk have them whipped. They know that all goods near the city are to be handed over and recorded, don't they?'

'They do, but Tarbains are like children. They can't hold a thought in their heads.'

'Why should I care?' snapped Kanin. 'I don't need you to tell me that they are children. I need you to enforce my orders.'

The anger in Kanin's voice straightened his shieldman's back and put an expression of rigid obedience on to his face. Kanin almost said something to dilute the harshness of his words. He chose not to.

Igris went out. Kanin could hear him shouting as he descended the stairs. It was in the nature of anger to be handed on and grow, and it would travel out to the tribesmen on the square.

'The Tarbains will be ungovernable soon,' Wain said. 'Scores of them have scattered through the valley already. Almost all of the wild ones have gone; even some of the Saved.'

'Let them go. We knew it would happen, and they'll give Lannis and Kilkry a little more to worry about.

The city and the nearest farms must feed the army, though. If Gyre had given us all the swords we asked for, we wouldn't have to rely on these barbarians.'

Below, Igris emerged with a couple of other men and strode towards the Tarbains. He began to berate them loudly and they shouted back, gesticulating with their spears. The bullock, relieved of its captors' harsh attentions, stood quite still and hung its head as if searching for grass among the inhospitable cobblestones.

'I'm going to the castle,' Wain said.

Kanin nodded. He did not turn as she left the room. Instead he watched as Igris knocked down one of the tribesmen with a back-handed blow. The bullock wandered off. A brawl developed.

Figures were moving on the battlements of Castle Anduran. From the safe vantage point of one of the houses fronting the castle, Wain could just make them out, although the light was too poor for her to see them clearly. Others were better placed: a few crossbow bolts lanced up from amongst the crude earthworks and wicker shields on the open ground beneath the castle walls. The shapes on the wall disappeared. She was sure none of them had been struck. She had been watching for an hour, awaiting the arrival of the siege engine.

The Bloodheir's sister muttered a soft curse. As she strode back towards the centre of Anduran, she was oblivious of the groups of weary, dishevelled warriors she brushed past. The slow attrition of the siege filled her with frustration. She knew she must accept whatever fate decreed, and would do so; but the faith permitted - advocated, even - hope. The most unlikely victories could sometimes be won, for nothing mattered but what tales the Last God had told, and fate seldom took account of what seemed likely in the minds of mortals. The arrival of Aeglyss and his White Owls had proved that, if nothing else.

A liquescent cough from some invalid registered upon her thoughts. Signs of disease had begun to appear in the ranks of the Horin-Gyre army. Wounds festered in the wet and the dirt. Hot and cold fevers stalked the streets. The weakest had been culled before they even reached the city; dozens had died on the journey through Anlane. Now a fresh winnowing was under way.

The atmosphere amongst the besiegers was not helped by the presence of a huge Kyrinin warband encamped beyond the semi-derelict city walls. Despite their part in the battle, no one trusted the woodwights, or really understood what had brought them out from their forest lair in such numbers. To her irritation, Wain found Aeglyss in her head once more. Her brother refused to meet with the
na'kyrim,
and had insisted that the White Owls remain out of bowshot of the city.

Wain shared her brother's contempt for all
na'kyrim.
Their very existence was a symptom of that wilful disregard for the world's natural order which had led to the Gods' despair. Nevertheless, she could not free herself of the sense that Aeglyss meant something. He had proved his value more than once now.

Kanin might refuse to accept it, but fate could use the strangest tools in weaving its pattern.

She found the catapult becalmed on the street outside the gaol like a sea monster thrown helpless on a hard shore. One of its axles had broken. Workmen were trying to mend it, and at her approach they bent furiously to the task, each trying to outdo the other in the urgency of his efforts. For a few minutes she watched the repairs. The leader of the group kept glancing at her. Every back was tensed, expecting the lash of her tongue at any moment. It did not come. She no longer truly believed that siege engines were the key to this lock. She left the men to their labours and walked on.

She went to the outer wall of the city. Climbing up on to the rubble of the ramshackle defences, she stared out over the fields beyond. The tents and fires of the Kyrinin were there, the camp as silent as ever. She stood and watched for some time. She had no idea what it was she was looking for. There was nothing she had not seen before.

She looked down at the stones beneath her feet. They had been great building blocks once, scales of the town's armour. Now they were eroded and chipped, jumbled in a heap and already embarked upon the centuries-long journey to dust. Time and fate paid no heed to the intent of mere mortals.

'Wain.'

The soft voice at her shoulder startled her and she almost lost her footing on the loose stonework. His hand was there in an instant, upon her elbow, keeping her steady. She snatched her arm away.

'Do not touch me, halfbreed,' she hissed.

'As you wish,' Aeglyss said, unconcerned. He glanced out towards the White Owl encampment. 'You were watching the camp. What do you see?'

'Savages.' His closeness made her skin crawl.

'They would say the same of you. A mistake, to always see only what it is easiest to see.'

The urge to turn away from him, from his grey eyes and his corpse-pale skin, was powerful. Yet his voice held her.

'Why is it you and your brother turn me away?' His hand was back upon her arm, and this time she did not withdraw. 'I only want to help you achieve what you desire.'

'What is it that you think I desire?' she asked tightly.

'The same things as your father, and your brother: vengeance for past defeats, the triumph of the Black Road , honour for your Blood. The end of this world. The Kall. But it burns more fiercely in you than in them, Wain. I can feel it in you as if you carried the sun itself in your breast.'

Carefully, she took a step away from him, easing her arm from his grip. She had never feared anyone in her life, yet this
na'kyrim
brought that emotion close. For all that she could break his neck or snap his wrist in a moment, some part of her believed she was the weaker. And his unflinching gaze and his calm, entrancing voice told her that he really might be able to give her what she wanted. He is more than he appears, she reminded herself. He can twist your thoughts, cloud your mind, with that voice.

'You move away from me,' he said. 'Are you afraid?'

'Not of you,' she said. 'But I mistrust your voice. What is it that you want?'

'Speak with Kanin. Persuade him to look with favour upon me again. Persuade him to allow me to help you, in whatever way I can.'

She hesitated. Hesitation was no more in her nature than was fear.

'I did what I promised before,' Aeglyss whispered. 'I bent the White Owls to your will. Your father trusted me to aid you. Learn that trust from him, Wain. Teach it to your brother.'

A terrible tension was building in Wain, knotting the muscles of her stomach and shoulders, setting her pulse thudding in her head. She could not bear it.

'Very well,' she said, without knowing quite why she said it. 'I will speak to my brother. Come to us tomorrow morning. We will be holding a council in the hall on the square.' She made to climb down from the wall.

'Wait,' he said, and she found herself turning back to him. 'Why do you despise me so, Wain?' His voice was different now. She thought she heard need. She refused to trust that thought.

'You are what you are,' she told him, 'and I am as I am. I do not despise you, but you are not of the Road. And you are not of my kind.'

'My father was, though. He had the same blood in him that you do. That should mean something. But it's not enough, is it? Not for you. I do not understand what I have done to earn your — and your brother's

— contempt. I did nothing but what you wished. I sought only favour in your eyes.'

'Fools look for reasons,' Wain said softly. 'What has been and what will be are one. They are the Road, and happen because they must.'

'Will you see me differently if I give you what you want?' He smiled and it was a smile that shook her.

'Am I really so terrible in your eyes? You seem so fair in mine. You are not like the others. All I want is for you to trust me, to let me be a part of this with you.'

Her breath was light, fluttering in her throat. He reached out towards her. She felt as if she stood upon some towering precipice and the world was rushing away beneath her. Then she saw his fingernails, and they were clouded. She remembered who, and what, he was. She spun away and vaulted down over the great stone blocks to the street below.

'Please...' she perhaps heard him say, almost inaudibly.

She forced herself not to run as she strode into the city, and did not look back although she could feel his eyes upon her back like twin embers.

* * *

Inurian did not even hear the other entering this time. He felt his presence, and that was enough to wake him. It was like a breath upon the back of his head; a stone dropped into the Shared. Inurian rolled over.

Aeglyss was sitting with his back against the wall, his knees drawn up to his chest and enfolded by his arms. His face was in shadow. There was a silence such as comes in the very heart of the night, when all the world and all its inhabitants are still. Inurian said nothing. He watched his visitor and waited.

Aeglyss spoke. 'I never knew my father's name. They killed him before I was born, as soon as they realised I was there in my mother's womb. She would never tell me what they did to him, but they are cruel, the White Owl. For a Huanin, and a captive at that, who had dared to take one of their own as a lover... Well. They might easily have taken her life, too. Stilled me before I had drawn my first breath.'

Inurian dared not stir. He could almost see the emotion that was coiling and uncoiling itself within the other's frame, like a snake in a fire.