Chapter Excerpt

Chapter 1

Winterbirth

The Third Age: Year 1102

There are rites and rituals sunk so deeply into the fabric of a race that their roots are long forgotten. In the northern lands, where the fierce cycle of the seasons rules life with a snow-bound fist, the Huanin have marked the arrival of winter since before there was a written medium to record the means of that marking. Across countless centuries the ceremonies have changed, remaking themselves according to the temper of the peoples who performed them, and the thread linking each to its predecessors has been forgotten. But the ancient theme lives on.

Before there were kingships, the cruel tribes of the Tan Dihrin practiced bloody rites to win the protection of the Gods against ice and storm. When the Kings rose in Dun Aygll, their subjects in the north kept to the old ways though they forgot what they meant, and though there were no Gods left to witness their rituals. The kingdom fell, as the works of mortals do, but through all the chaos that came after, through the turbulent birthing of the Bloods, the seasons turned as they always had and the people of the north remembered that the turning must be marked.

Thus, to the Kilkry and Lannis Bloods, and to the Bloods of the Black Road in the farther north, there is a night late in the year that stands, more than any other, for the passage of time. On that night the world passes into cold and darkness to await its reawakening in the following spring. It is a night of mourning, but it is a celebration also, for in the slumbering of the world that is winter lies the promise of light and life's return.

from Hallantyr's Sojourn

I

A horn sounded clear and sharp across the blue autumnal sky. The baying of hounds wound itself around the note like ivy on a tree. Orisian nan Lannis-Haig turned his head this way and that, trying to fix the source of the summons. His cousin Naradin was ahead of him.

"That way," Naradin said, twisting in his saddle and pointing east. "They have something."

"Some distance away," Orisian said.

Naradin's horse was stirring beneath him, stepping sideways and stretching its neck. It knew what the sound meant. It was bred to the hunt, and the horn pulled at it. Naradin jabbed the butt of his boar spear at the ground in frustration.

"Where are the cursed dogs we were following?" he demanded. "Those useless beasts have led us nowhere."

"They must have had some scent to bring us this way," said Rothe placidly. The elder of Orisian's two shieldmen was the only one to have kept pace with him and his cousin over the last mile or so. The forest of Anlane was open in these parts — good hunting country — but still it was forest enough to scatter a party once the chase was on.

If the hounds had stayed on a single course it would have been different, Orisian reflected. Instead, the pack had divided. It was only bad luck that he and Naradin had followed the wrong dogs. Orisian could not summon up much regret. He knew his cousin would feel otherwise, though. As of four days ago Naradin was a father, and tradition said he must put meat killed with his own hand on the table on the occasion of the baby's first Winterbirth. For a farmer or herder that might mean killing one of his stock. For Naradin, heir to the Thane of the Lannis-Haig Blood, something more was called for.

"Well, let's answer the call," Naradin said, tightening his horse's reins. "They might keep the quarry for me, if we can get there quickly."

Orisian started to turn his mount, struggling to couch the huge spear he had been given for the hunt. The Lannis boar spear was a weapon for a grown man, and though he was sixteen he did not yet quite have the strength to handle it as deftly as did Rothe or his cousin.

"A moment," said Rothe. Naradin glanced at the aging warrior with something approaching irritation. "We must be off," he insisted.

"I thought I heard something, sire," the shieldman said.

The Bloodheir did not look inclined to pay any heed, but before he could reply there came the distinct cry of a hound from the south. It was a cry of sighting, not scenting.

"It's closer than the others," Orisian observed.

Naradin looked at him for a moment or two, wrestling to control his horse. Then he gave a quick nod and dug his heels into the beast's flank. Orisian and Rothe went after him.

The turf flowed beneath them. The fallen leaves clothing the ground shivered and shook. Birds burst from the treetops: crows, a raucous clamber into the sky. Orisian trusted his horse to find its own way through the maze of trees. It was a hunter, trained in the stables of his uncle, the Thane, and it knew more than he did of this kind of business. Over the crashing of their progress he could hear the hounds up ahead, not just one now but several.

They found the dogs at a thicket of hazel and holly. The animals were gathered where the undergrowth was thickest, jostling and snapping in feverish excitement. They bounded this way and that, lunging sometimes toward the bushes without ever venturing too close. Naradin gave a cry of delight.

"They have something, for certain," he shouted.

"Sound your horn," Rothe called to him. "We need more spears."

"They'll have answered the other call. We can't wait or we might lose it."

Rothe scratched at his dark beard and shot a glare at Orisian, who in his turn felt a twist of unease. Naradin's enthusiasm could get the better of his judgment at times. Boars did not come small or meek in Anlane.

"You hold here," Naradin said. "Give me a couple of minutes to work around and then set the dogs in. And if something comes out this side, don't kill it. It's mine today!"

He urged his horse onward without waiting for an answer.

The boar came through the dogs like a hawk flashing through a flock of pigeons. It scattered them, some leaping high and twisting from its path, others darting aside. The beast was huge, its forequarters great grinding slabs of muscle, its tusks yellow-white blades the length of a man's hand. It plowed after one of the hounds as the others snatched at its haunches.

Naradin spun his horse. "Mine!" he cried.

The point of his spear swung toward the boar as it shook itself free of dogs and came toward him. It was an old, forest-wise creature and turned at the last minute, going for the horse's belly. The spear blade skidded off its shoulder, slicing through hide to bone. Naradin's mount sprang over the boar's head. It almost made the leap. A tusk brushed its leg and it reeled on the soft ground. It kept its feet, but Naradin was snapped forward. He lost his left stirrup and was thrown around the horse's neck. He hauled on the reins, the strength of his arms the only thing keeping him from falling. His weight twisted the horse's head around and it began to stagger sideways. It would go to ground in a moment. The boar closed again. The dogs were coming, furious and bloodthirsty, but too late.

Orisian and Rothe were side by side as they charged in. It was impossible to say which of their spears struck home first, Orisian's on the beast's hip, Rothe's parting its ribs. The impact jarred the spear out of Orisian's inexpert grasp. Rothe was better prepared. His lance knocked the boar onto its side and he put his own and his horse's weight behind it. For a few breaths he held it there, grimacing with exertion as the haft of the spear bucked in his hands.

Naradin had slipped out of his saddle. He drew a long knife from his belt.

"Quickly," Rothe said through gritted teeth.

The Bloodheir did not hesitate. The boar reached for him. Its great, desperate jaws almost had his arm as he drove the knife into its barrel chest. He sought, and found, its heart.

Afterward, as they sat on the ground beside the huge corpse with the hounds dancing around them, Naradin laughed. Orisian could see the joy in his cousin's eyes, and it made him laugh as well.

"That's one to remember," Naradin said. "See its tusks. That's an old master, that one. A lord of the forest."

"I thought we were in trouble for a moment," said Orisian.

"I would have been, if you two had not been here." Naradin drank from his waterskin, then spilled a little on his hands to wash the boar's blood from them. He offered the skin to Orisian. The water was cold and sharp, drawn from a forest stream only an hour or two ago. It had all the chilled clarity of the autumn day in it.

"Luck rode with us all today," said Rothe. Orisian knew his shieldman well enough — they had been together for six years — to hear the words Rothe did not speak. The warrior would not presume to tell the Bloodheir what he thought of taking on an old boar with too few dogs and only three spears.

"We should call the others," Orisian said. "They'll want to see this."

"In a moment, in a moment," Naradin said as he got to his feet. The dogs milled about him. He went over to the boar and knelt. He laid a hand, in near-reverence, upon its flank. Something took his eye then.

"Look here. There's another wound. None of us put this mark on it, did we?"

Rothe and Orisian knelt beside him. There was a puncture wound in the boar's side, behind its shoulder. Blood was caked on the rigid hairs around it. Rothe crumbled some away between his fingers.

"That's a day or two old, I'd say."

"I thought it strange it should stand and fight like that," Naradin mused.

Orisian leaned closer. He could see something nestled there in the flesh. He slipped a knife into the wound and twisted, feeling the resistance of something harder than muscle. Another turn of the knife brought it close to the surface, where he could draw it out and drop it into his palm: an arrowhead, flat and sleek.

"It was in deep," he said.

"Can I see that?" Rothe asked, and when Orisian nodded he took the little piece of metal and held it up, frowning as he turned it. The lines crossing the backs of the shieldman's fingers were a first premonition of old age, but he held the arrowhead precisely, delicately.

Naradin looked a touch disappointed. "It's not quite the same, to know he was carrying that in him already," he said.

Rothe returned it to Orisian.

"That," he said, "is Kyrinin-made. It's a woodwight's arrow."

"Woodwights?" exclaimed Naradin. "Hunting here?"

Rothe only nodded. He looked around, surveying the silent trees, the still undergrowth. His mood had changed. He stood up. "The White Owls have been causing trouble this last year, haven't they?" Orisian said to his cousin.

"Yes, but we're not a day's ride from Anduran. They would not dare to come so close." He examined the arrowhead himself. "He's right, though. That's White Owl."

Orisian had not doubted it. Rothe had fought the Kyrinin of Anlane often enough to know their weapons. He looked up at his shieldman. There was a rare tension in the big man's stance.

"Time for the horn, I think," Rothe said without breaking the roving passage of his eyes across the forest. "We should not stay here any longer than we must."

Naradin did not demur. He put the horn to his lips and sent out a long, low call, summoning the hunters to the kill.

* * *

The next morning Orisian gazed out from the battlements of Castle Anduran, watching the grey clouds gather around the Car Criagar to the northwest. The great mountain ridge loomed over the valley of the Glas River, though it was but foothills to the vast uplands that lay invisibly beyond. There were the remnants of ancient towns up there, long abandoned by their forgotten inhabitants. Now no one lived amongst the rocks and the clouds.

He had been here in his uncle's castle for a fortnight, and the weather had changed even in that short time. The sky had grown heavier. The land, the fields and forests, had darkened beneath it. The earth and the sky knew what was coming and eased themselves into it, shedding the gentle sentiments of autumn. There would be snow, even here on the valley floor, in a few weeks. Winterbirth was close.

It was not the most auspicious time for a birth, but that had not dimmed the celebrations attendant upon the arrival of the Thane's first grandson. They had lasted for days, capped by the hunt to find Naradin his boar. Now that all was done, an air of contented exhaustion had settled over the castle and the town that lay beside it. It was a lull between storms, for the imminent revels of Winterbirth would match those just gone in intensity, if not in duration.

With the approach of that festival the time had come for Orisian to go home to Kolglas, to the castle in the waves. A flight of geese passed over, honking to one another as they tracked the valley seaward, preceding Orisian on his way. His gaze followed them for a while. He had come to this high place for a last look at the broad vista, with the valley his uncle ruled stretching out beyond his eye's reach. Kolglas had more limited horizons, in more ways than one.

The sound of footsteps drew his attention back. Rothe emerged from the narrow stairwell beside him.

"The horses are ready," said the shieldman in his ever-gruff voice. It always made Orisian imagine that stones were grinding together somewhere in his throat. "Your uncle is in the courtyard to bid you farewell."

"Time to go, then," said Orisian. "It will be a cold ride back to Kolglas."

Rothe smiled. "Just as well that fire and food await us on the way."

They descended the spiraling stairway and emerged onto a wide, cobbled courtyard. By the gatehouse on the far side, grooms held three horses that blew out clouds of steaming breath into the morning air. Kylane, Orisian's second shieldman, was meticulously checking the horses' hoofs, oblivious of any offense the implied lack of faith might cause to the grooms. Orisian's uncle, the Thane Croesan oc Lannis-Haig, stood close by.

Croesan took Orisian's hand in his. He was more than a head taller than the youth and grinned down at him.

"Two weeks is too short a visit, Orisian."

"I'd gladly stay, but I must be back at Kolglas for Winterbirth. My father should be out of his sickbed soon."

Croesan's smile faltered for a moment and he nodded.

"Doom and gloom are deep-rooted in my brother's guts. Still, Winterbirth may lift his mood. In any case, do not let Kennet's ills cloud the festival for you, Orisian."

"I won't," Orisian said, knowing that it was a promise he might not be able to keep.

Croesan clapped him on the back. "Good. And tell him to visit us soon. It might light a fire under him to see how things are changing here."

"I will tell him. Where's Naradin?"

The question brought a broad grin back to Croesan's face in an instant, and the grand and grave Thane of the Blood was nothing but a proud father and grandfather.

"He will be here in a moment. He told me to keep you here until they come, to make sure my grandson has the chance to say farewell."

"Well, I am glad we found him his boar," Orisian smiled. "I hope the baby appreciates it."

"Indeed. Naradin will bore the boy with tales of its killing when he's old enough to understand, I'm sure. He'll grow up thinking you and Naradin great heroes, and the finest hunters the Glas valley has ever seen."

The thought made Orisian laugh. "He'll be disappointed, then, if he ever sees me at the hunt."

Croesan shrugged. "Don't be so sure. By the time he's old enough to know the difference, you'll be a match for most of my huntsmen. Anyway, you'll return for the child's Naming, since you were here for the birth?"

"If I can," said Orisian, and meant it sincerely. The Naming of an infant destined one day to be Thane was an event that would embody all the history, all the bonds that made the Lannis Blood what it was. Nothing could more strongly signify a long history and a hopeful future, and after the depredations of the Heart Fever and the sufferings of his father, Orisian was learning to value both of those.

Naradin and his wife Eilan emerged from the keep. The Bloodheir was carrying his baby son in his arms, and walked with almost comical care and precision. He had not yet learned how to relax around a life that seemed so fragile.

Croesan leaned close to Orisian and murmured conspiratorially, "Can you believe they have made me a grandfather, Orisian? A grandfather!"

"I can hardly believe Naradin is a father, let alone you a grandfather," smiled Orisian. That, he reflected, was a half-truth, though an innocent one. Naradin had, for as long as he could remember, seemed ready and hungry for fatherhood. Nothing less was expected of one who bore the future of the Blood upon his shoulders.

Eilan embraced Orisian. She was a beautiful woman, but it was for her gentle and generous spirit that he loved her; and for the way those attributes reminded him of his own mother.

"Journey well, Orisian," she murmured in his ear. "Take my love to your sister."

Naradin inclined the baby toward Orisian.

"Now, little one," the Bloodheir said, "say goodbye to Orisian."

The tiny face gazed blankly out from the nest of thick blankets, lips working moistly and soundlessly. A pink tongue gestured vaguely in Orisian's direction.

"There," said Naradin with satisfaction. "I could not have said it better myself."

"Probably not," agreed Orisian. "Look after him well, and salt some of his boar for me. I will see you at the Naming."

Orisian swung up into his saddle, patting the horse's muscular neck in greeting. Rothe and Kylane flanked him as he rode out through the massive gatehouse. When Orisian glanced back over his shoulder, Croesan, Naradin and Eilan still stood together, each one raising a hand in farewell. With a last wave, Orisian and his shieldmen turned south through Anduran's crowded streets toward the road that would carry them down the valley and on to Kolglas and home.

By the time the three riders were beyond the city's edge, almost vanished into the distance, Croesan oc Lannis-Haig was watching them go from one of the highest windows of Castle Anduran's keep. As he often did, he felt a twinge of sorrow for Orisian, and that brought forth the familiar mixture of feelings for the boy's father, Kennet: the bond of love that brotherhood instilled, colored by frustration and pain. The sadness in Kennet's heart seemed only to have deepened and grown blacker in the five years since the fevered deaths of Lairis and Fariel, his wife and elder son. It kept Kolglas and all who lived there under a burden of loss. Croesan had lost his own wife many years ago, and thus knew something of what afflicted Kennet, but he had given up any hope of salving the grief that sometimes made itself his brother's master, and it pained him that the past weighed so upon those he loved. Orisian and his sister Anyara had, after all, lost as much as Kennet, and still found the strength to bear that loss upon shoulders much younger and less sturdy than those of the lord of Castle Kolglas. The Thane sighed and set those thoughts aside as he turned away from the window.

A manservant was waiting by the door. Croesan glanced at him.

"Find the Steward," he said, unable to keep a hint of weariness out of his voice. "Ask him to come."

The servant nodded and left the chamber. Croesan ran a hand through his thick hair. He gazed around the room. A huge table, made in one of Anduran's finest woodshops fifty years ago by order of his great-uncle Gahan, ran most of its length. The walls bore three broad tapestries. Time and sunlight had faded them somewhat, but they still showed the delicacy of touch that marked them as the work of Kolkyre craftsmen. They had been commissioned by Sirian the Great himself, the first Lannis Thane, and showed scenes from the battle that forged the Blood. Croesan regarded the images for a little while. They were, perhaps, not inappropriate as a backdrop for the conversation he was about to have.

Hard upon the heels of the servant trying to announce his arrival, the Steward swept in: Behomun Tole dar Haig, emissary of the Thane of Thanes within Croesan's lands. He gave a casual bow and Croesan gestured him toward a chair, simultaneously dismissing the servant with a curt nod. Behomun's sharp, clever features and ill-concealed arrogance never failed to aggravate Croesan. The man had the satisfied air of one who knew things others did not. A sneer lived surreptitiously at the corner of his mouth, eagerly awaiting any opportunity to creep out of hiding and cavort upon his lips. He was, however, the eyes and ears of Gryvan oc Haig, the High Thane, to whom Croesan had pledged allegiance, and as such he had to be treated with a degree of care. He was like an itch Croesan could reach but was not permitted to scratch.

"I gather young Orisian has left," said Behomun, his tone solicitous. "It was remiss of me . . . I meant to inquire after his father's health. Have you heard how your brother fares?"

"I had word from the south yesterday," Croesan said levelly. "I am told the battles have not gone well for Igryn; that the Dargannan Blood will soon be subdued."

"I have had the same word," agreed Behomun, unperturbed by Croesan's disregard for his question. "It seems the rebels will be brought to heel before winter is far advanced, and the Haig Bloods will be united once more."

"I am also told," continued Croesan, "that the men of Lannis have acquitted themselves with honor in those battles. So much honor, I believe, that barely a handful will return to their homes."

"Your Blood has always produced warriors of the greatest courage, sire."

Croesan arched an eyebrow and stared at Gryvan oc Haig's envoy. "Honor and courage will not feed the orphans of Anduran or Glasbridge through the coming winter. They will not guard my lands from the woodwights or from the Gyre Bloods. I have near one in six of all my people dead from the Heart Fever just five years ago, and the best quarter of the fighting strength I had left taken south, on the High Thane's command, to die so bravely.

"The last time we sent so many men south we had the armies of Horin-Gyre marching on our frontier within weeks. We won then. Who is to say what will happen if the Black Road comes across the Vale of Stones again? You know as well as I, Behomun, that there has been more skirmishing in the Vale these last few weeks than for many a year. And my own son killed a boar with a woodwight arrow in it not a day's ride from this castle. When have the White Owls strayed so far into my lands before?"

"The woodwights can hardly threaten a Blood as versed in the arts of war as yours. Kyrinin bows and spears are no match for the swords of Lannis-Haig. And as for the Bloods of the Black Road, I am certain that if they were to come against you, your strength would turn them back as it has always done, Thane."

"Oh, spare me your flattery, Steward," said Croesan in exasperation. "This is not Vaymouth. You can save your velvet tongue for Gryvan's court. I'd hate for you to wear it out for my benefit."

Behomun's manner changed. That sneer was close, testing its leash. "As you wish. Perhaps a different response will find more favor: that your troubles are not to be laid at the door of Gryvan oc Haig. The White Owl Kyrinin hunt your woodcutters and herders because you set your people to clear the forests of Anlane. You must have known that would stir up trouble as surely as a stick poked into a wasp nest.

"And if your northern borders are less well guarded against the Black Road than you would wish, you should have agreed to the High Thane's requests for land to settle his veterans upon. An army of proven warriors would now fill the very farms that the Fever emptied, if you had found a place for them. In any case, if you believed there was a serious threat, you would surely not have allowed Taim Narran and the others to go south at all. It would not be the first time you defied a command of your High Thane."

"The warriors Gryvan wanted to settle here would take no oath of loyalty to me. To my Blood," Croesan snapped.

The Steward snorted and waved a hand. "Every one of them loyal to the Haig Bloods, already bound to Gryvan oc Haig himself. As are you and your Blood, lest you have forgotten. Why put them through your old rituals?"

Croesan paused, his gaze lifting for a moment from the Steward's face to the tapestry on the wall behind him. Sirian was there, riding down the fleeing forces of the Gyre Bloods. Croesan felt old, almost too tired to engage in futile arguments with this man who cared nothing for the past. When the tapestry was made, little more than a century ago, none would have questioned the worth of oaths. None would have thought them to be empty rituals. But Kilkry had been the highest amongst the True Bloods in those days, and many things had been different. Now Lheanor, the Kilkry Thane, bent the knee to Gryvan oc Haig as the rest of them did.

"Had I known," Croesan said at length, "that Gryvan would punish my refusal by taking the lives of my men, I might have thought longer." Behomun started to protest, spreading his hands in denial of what Croesan said. The Thane spoke over him. "But my answer would not have changed. Any man who would be a warrior for the Lannis Blood must swear fealty. It is not so long since the same law was kept in Haig lands, Behomun, though your master seems to have forgotten it."

"Times change."

Croesan sighed. "They do, though there are few truly new things in the world. We had Kings once before. Rats and dogs have inherited their palaces in Dun Aygll. I am told the new mansions in Vaymouth rival that lost glory."

"The High Thane has no wish to make himself a king."

"As you say. But it is of no matter now. I am sending word south to Taim Narran that he is to return with those of my men who still live as soon as Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig is taken. I wished only to tell you that. I would not want a hurried departure to be taken amiss."

The Steward nodded. "Narran is yours to command, of course. I am sure the High Thane will not wish to delay his return."

"I hope he will neither wish it nor do it," replied Croesan. Behomun smiled.

* * *

The road south from Anduran was a well-traveled one. Orisian, Rothe and Kylane passed cattle herders and farmers, as well as carts carrying fleeces, furs and carved furniture from Anduran's workshops down to the harbor at Glasbridge. Late in the morning they overtook a line of half a dozen timber-laden wagons, the gigantic workhorses raised by Lannis woodsmen laboring in their harnesses.

They had crossed the Glas River not long after leaving Anduran, and the road now followed close by its northern bank, protected by a low dyke. Though the river was high, fed by rains in the uplands beyond Lannis-Haig's borders, it was still a long way from over-topping the bund and threatening the road. The open fields to its south had no such protection and they were patterned with pools, the harbingers of winter floods.

After a time the track began to skirt round to the north of the Glas Water. The great wetland swallowed the river, hiding its course amidst a maze of pools, channels and marshes. In a month or two, there would be an unbroken sheet of pale water covering a great sweep of the valley floor. Riding along the fringes of this wild place, Orisian could see, faint in its misty heart, the ruined towers of old Kan Avor. The broken turrets and spires of the drowned city rose above the waters like a ghostly ship on the sea's horizon. The sight, as it always did, stirred a faint unease in him. He had gone there once, as a child, with his brother Fariel. It had been high summer, exceptionally dry, and the waters were low enough for them to ride through some of the city's desolate streets. The muck- and weed-crusted ruins loomed over them, obscuring the sun. Orisian had thought it a haunted, ugly place and he had not been back, for all Fariel's good-natured taunts at his fearfulness. Fariel had never been one to pay much heed to fear.

"They should tear it down," said Kylane, seeing the line of Orisian's gaze. "Does no good to have that foul place rotting there. And fine farmland sunk along with it, too."

"People need reminding," muttered Rothe. "The Black Road is still there, in the north. Without those ruins to remind them, how soon would people forget? There's too many have done that already."

Kylane shrugged. "You can't fault people for enjoying peace. It's better than thirty years since the last battle."

"You can fault them if they start to believe peace is forever. Every day, those beyond the Vale of Stones wake up thinking the Gods will return if only they could subject us all to their precious creed. You don't imagine they've stopped wanting to get these lands back just because they haven't tried in the last thirty years, do you?"

Here, close upon the edge of the Glas Water, the road was in poorer repair and stretches of deeply rutted mud often blocked their way. As they worked around one such obstruction Kylane gave a cry of surprise and reached precariously down from his saddle. When he hauled himself upright again, he was brandishing a trophy: a human jawbone.

"One of the Glas Water's treasures," he grinned at Orisian. "You know some of the farmers say it's good fortune to unearth one of these?"

Orisian grimaced. "I've heard it," he acknowledged. "I don't think we need good fortune that badly at the moment, though."

The ancient bone was pitted and stained the color of soil. Kylane examined it with mock curiosity.

"Hero or villain, do you think?" he asked.

Beneath the mists and sullen pools of the Glas Water lay the graves of thousands who had died on Kan Avor Field, the final battle in the war that drove the followers of the Black Road — led by the Gyre Blood, whose stronghold Kan Avor had been in those days — north beyond the Stone Vale. The fires had burned day and night across this land afterward, yet still had not been enough to consume all the corpses.

After the exile of Gyre, Kan Avor had slowly declined under uncaring masters but its final ruin came later, when the Lannis Blood was created and granted rule over the Glas Valley. One of the first commands of Sirian, the new Thane, had been for the burning and flooding of the city. Kan Avor's slow, waterlogged decay was a permanent reminder of his determination to stamp his authority upon his new domain.

"Villain, I say," decided Kylane in answer to his own question. "Black Road through and through, this one." He sent the bone spinning away with a flick of his wrist. "No fit traveling companion for the nephew to the Lannis Thane."

Daylight was fading as they came toward the Glas Water's southern end. A clutch of low houses came in sight through the thin drizzle that was beginning to fall.

"We'll pass the night at Sirian's Dyke?" Kylane asked.

"Why not?" agreed Orisian. "It'll be a short day to Glasbridge tomorrow. Try not to lose too much sleep in the name of drink and dice, though."

Kylane laid a hand upon his chest. "Why, Orisian, you know I'm not one to surrender to such temptations."

Rothe, riding a little ahead of them, snorted in derision but said nothing.

Sirian's Dyke, Orisian had always thought, was a gloomy village. Thirty or forty small cottages clustered together, surrounded by dank stands of spindly trees. The only structure of any size was the resthouse. The lights at its windows provided at least some promise of warmth and cheer. Its outbuildings — stable, smithy and wheelwright's shop — clung to its walls like children seeking protection at the skirt of a nursemaid. All was dominated by the great, harsh line of Sirian's Dyke itself. The massive dam of timber, stone and earth, standing higher than a man, stretched out from the edge of the village and vanished into the twilight. Here was the means by which Sirian had drowned Kan Avor. In all the years since its construction, most of the village's inhabitants had worked in the pay of successive Lannis Thanes to maintain this bulwark against the will of the river and keep Kan Avor bound in its watery chains.

With their horses stabled for the night, Orisian, Rothe and Kylane entered the inn. The landlord appeared at their side before they had even found a table. He bowed to Orisian.

"Welcome, welcome. It is an honor to have you as a guest, my lord."

The inn was half-full with a mixture of villagers and travelers. A hush fell across the room as Orisian and his shieldmen settled at a table, but it did not last: the Thane's kinsfolk were not such a rare sight in this place.

Orisian slumped in his seat, savoring the warm air upon his skin and the rich smell of food. He pulled his boots off and flexed his feet. He was trying unsuccessfully to remember what he had eaten the last time he stayed in this inn— it had been good, and he was hungry — when a serving girl came over and bobbed in front of him. She gave him a smile as warm as a thick bed. He smiled back and waited for her to ask him what he wanted. She said nothing, and for a couple of seconds the two of them regarded one another thus. Her smile grew only more expansive, her eyes more liquid as she stood there. Kylane laughed.

"Ale and food," said Rothe firmly, "whatever you have that is good."

The girl looked at him as if puzzled by his words, and her smile slipped a fraction without quite losing its hold upon her mouth.

"Yes, sire," she said, and departed with another nod of her head to Orisian.

"And wine and water, please," he called after her, and was granted another glimpse of her radiant face over her shoulder.

Kylane was still chuckling. "Terrible effect you have on women," the shieldman observed.

Rothe glowered at his younger comrade in arms. His disapproval was wasted, since Kylane was already casting around the inn, seeking a game or perhaps a companionable-looking woman of his own.

Orisian kicked amiably at Kylane's shin. "It's not me," he said, "it's whose nephew I am."

"You give yourself too little of your due," said Kylane distractedly. "No tavern girl would think you ugly, even if you'd a goatherd for an uncle."

Orisian smiled, as much at the furrowing of Rothe's brow as anything. The older man often gave the impression that he despaired of Kylane's levity, but Orisian knew the two of them shared a deep-rooted mutual respect. Rothe had been his shieldman since his tenth birthday. Kylane had only taken up the task this last summer — an ominous sign, Orisian suspected, that the aging Rothe was grooming a successor — but even so it earned him the right to a familiarity few others would dare. Being shieldman to a nephew of the Thane did not bring with it the responsibilities of guarding Croesan himself, but still it was no mere ceremonial role. Kylane had made a promise, just like Rothe before him, that set Orisian's life at a higher value than his own.

They drank and ate well, the landlord accepting payment from Rothe only after a show of reluctance. They were given the best rooms in the house. Former residents, Orisian guiltily suspected, had been evicted at short notice. As his thoughts flirted with slumber Orisian found them, to his vague surprise, drifting toward Kolglas. In his mind's eye he gazed upon the castle in the sea and realized that he would be happier to be back home than he had expected. Sleep came quickly and he could not linger upon the realization.

* * *

Lekan Tirane dar Lannis-Haig was running faster than he had ever run before. Terror drove his pounding legs. He flew through the forest as if a pack of wolfenkind were on his trail. He bounded over the uneven ground, staggering but never quite losing his footing. He thrashed through bushes, bramble stems tearing at his clothes. Some large animal, startled by his careering approach, crashed away. He barely noticed. The fear of what was behind him beat down upon his back like a hammer.

The light was failing. Soon darkness would swallow the forest and then he would be finished, for those who came after him needed the light less than he. Still there was a sliver of hope. He was not certain where he was, or how far he had come, but the track from Kolglas to Drinan could not be much further. If he could reach that road there might be travelers to give him aid. Failing that perhaps he could still make the safety of Kolglas, flying down a clear and known path. The town must be no more than a few miles to the north. And that, in its way, was a part of his terror: that his pursuers should be so keen for human blood that they would come this close to the garrison of Kolglas. The woodwights had not been this brave, or foolhardy, in many years.

It had never crossed Lekan's mind, as he set out the day before in search of forest meat for his family's Winterbirth celebration, that anything more dangerous than boar or bear could be awaiting him. There had been no Kyrinin in the lands around Kolglas since before his father's days, and though it was common knowledge that the White Owls were raiding in strength through the woods of Anlane further to the east, there had been no strife here save a few horses stolen from hamlets near Drinan.

He had been standing beneath a great ash tree, unbreathing and still as he searched for sign of the deer he had tracked through half a mile of thickets and groves. A mark in the earth, perhaps the faintest imprint of a hind's foot, caught his eye and he bent to look more closely. The sound was so sudden and unexpected that at first he could not put a cause to it, and when he saw the arrow shivering in the tree trunk his incredulous mind instinctively denied its meaning. Yet it was, beyond doubting, a Kyrinin shaft. And then he was off, casting bow and quiver aside, flinging his backpack away to lend speed to his flight. There had been no sign save the arrow itself, no sound but its hissing flight and sharp crack into the wood. Still he knew they were behind him, and close, and that he had no hope save the strength of his legs.

He swept past a tree, a great gnarled oak that seemed familiar. He had not been this way for a long time but it was, he was sure, a tree he had climbed in as a child. If he was right, the track, the longed-for path that might carry him to safety, was only two or three hundred paces further on. The thought lent new life to his tiring muscles and he leapt forward with still greater urgency. The hope burned stronger.

He felt no pain, just a solid blow in the square of his back as if someone had thrown a stone. No pain, yet his legs were no longer his own and he sprawled face-down into the damp leaf litter. He clawed at the earth, struggling to rise. His legs would not obey him. He reached behind to finger the arrow buried in his back. He felt something rising in his throat.

Then there was a powerful grip upon his arm and he was turned over. The arrow snapped and sent a lance of pain clean through him, transfixing sternum and spine. He cried out and crushed his eyes tight shut against it. When he opened them again, blinking through the mist of tears, there was one last surprise. It was not into the pale face of a Kyrinin that he looked, as he had expected. Instead, he met the gaze of one of his own kind: a black-haired woman, clad in dark leather, with a sword sheathed crossways on her back.

"The woodwights have brought you down, but it is fitting that the killing blow should come from a truer enemy," she said in a harsh, rough-edged accent Lekan did not recognize.

There were other figures gathering behind her. Lekan could not see them clearly. The warrior languidly drew her sword over her shoulder. She saw the confusion in Lekan's eyes.

"You should know why you die," she said, "so know this: the Children of the Hundred have come for you, for all of you. The Bloods of the Black Road will take back that which is ours, and where you go now, all of Lannis-Haig will follow."

Lekan's mouth moved. There was no sound. The blow fell, and he plunged toward the Sleeping Dark.

Copyright © 2006 by Brian Ruckley