A Time of Blood, page 35
Byrne looked into his eyes and nodded.
“Then pledge it to me. Not the Oath. That is for another time, for your sword-brothers and sisters to hear, for you to declare to the world. But pledge to me, now, as kin, that you will stand with me, and fight the darkness until your last breath.”
“I swear it,” Drem whispered.
Byrne drew a knife from her belt and sliced it across her forearm. Blood welled. She offered the knife to Drem.
“Then seal it in blood,” she said.
He took the knife, looked at the bloodied blade, then pulled the sleeve of his woollen tunic up and cut a red line along his arm.
He offered his arm to Byrne and she grasped it in the warrior grip, blood on their forearms mingling.
When it was done, Byrne stepped away.
“We should go,” she said and returned to the tunnel that led back to her chamber.
Drem looked at his arm, a sense of weight upon him. He knew deep in his bones that he had committed to something for life, and it felt… good. He rolled down his sleeve, blood seeping into the linen, and followed Byrne. As he strode across the chamber he felt something above him, a turbulence in the air. He stopped and stared up, searching the shadows, but could see nothing, no sign of movement.
“What is it?” Byrne called back to him.
“I thought I felt something?” Drem said.
“There are strange draughts down here,” Byrne said, “from vents in the rock, or seeping up from the river.”
Drem grunted and walked on. As he did so something floated down from above, landing just in front of his feet.
A feather.
He knelt and picked it up.
It was a dark brown, speckled with white.
Not a crow, then, and besides, it is far too big.
He looked up again.
An eagle, or hawk? One of the guardians that Byrne spoke of?
He tucked the feather in his belt and hurried after Byrne.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
BLEDA
Bleda heard the call to halt trickling down from the front of their column and reined in. He was riding rearguard today, the fifth day since they had set out from Drassil.
Where are they? he thought.
The sun was dipping into the west, a red glow above the trees of Forn. They were upon a wide road, broad enough for twenty riders abreast, and still more besides on the cleared fringe to each side. Not that the Sirak and Cheren were proceeding in that kind formation. They rode in neat, orderly columns, four ranks wide, spread out along the road over half a league or so.
After he was attacked, Uldin said he rode hard for five days to reach Drassil. Granted, we have been riding much slower than Uldin’s galloping dash for safety, but still. If the Kadoshim were moving on Drassil, we should have met them by now.
His eyes drifted to the skies, a dazzle of blue through the lattice of branches that arched over the road, as he remembered that night in Drassil, Kadoshim flying over the walls, carrying warriors and Ferals in their arms.
He raised a fist, Ruga behind him sounding her horn, his hundred-strong rearguard reining to a halt. Bleda’s eyes scoured the forest to either side. It was mostly thick-trunked oaks, their roots drinking the ground too dry for shrubs and thorn, and their branches were high, so the ground was clear; Bleda could see for a good way into the forest.
Good ground and passage for riders.
The drum of hooves, and Bleda saw a rider cantering down the column to him: Jin, looking fine in her war gear.
“We are making camp for the night,” she said. Bleda already knew that, knew that she didn’t have to come and tell him. She seemed to make reasons to come and see him, to spend time in his company. It made him feel uncomfortable.
Bleda nodded a thanks to her.
“Any sign?” he asked her, more concerned right now about Kadoshim and Ferals than an amorous Jin.
“Nothing.” Jin shook her head. She gave him a long, lingering look as she turned her mount, came out of the turn with a spray of dirt and set her horse galloping back to the head of the column. It was a fine display of horsemanship, gaining some approving nods from Bleda’s Sirak warriors.
“For a Cheren, she is a fair rider,” Tuld said beside him.
Old Ellac gave Tuld a flat look.
Riders began to dismount, setting to the task of making camp for the night.
Bleda inspected the defences of his section of their camp, Ellac, Tuld, Mirim and Ruga around him. All of their horses were picketed within a defensive line on the road, safe from the ordinary predators of Forn Forest, and Bleda paced wider onto the turf between the road and forest, found pairs of guards every thirty paces, torches burning at the mid-point between them. The guards stood in the shadowed point between the reach of each torch.
“Are you satisfied?” Ellac asked him.
“I am,” Bleda said, pleased with the discipline and vigilance amongst his hundred. He looked at Ellac and the other three.
“I have something to do, to ask,” he said. “I would like you to accompany me and bear witness.”
Ellac and the others nodded, and Bleda turned on his heel and strode along the perimeter of their camp, deeper into their warband, into his mother’s section. He found her sitting on a field chair at a fire-pit, her boots off, warming her feet before the fire. Yul her first-sword stood a few paces away, fire and shadow flickering across his face.
“Mother,” Bleda said, dipping his head to her.
“Aye?” she said.
“You gave me my brother’s mail, called me a Sirak prince.”
“I did,” Erdene said, “because you are.”
“Then to me it would seem fitting that I wore the Sirak warrior braid.” He drew a knife from his belt. “Would you honour me?”
He offered Erdene his knife, held it out, glinting in the firelight as she looked from it to Bleda.
“I will,” Erdene said. She pulled on her boots and stood, taking Bleda’s knife and ushering him into her chair.
“Leave us,” Erdene said to them all, “I would have this time with my son.”
There was some hesitation, especially from Yul and Tuld, but Erdene’s word was iron, so they retreated and disappeared into the shadows.
“The Sirak braid is the mark of a warrior,” Erdene said as she stood behind Bleda, unbinding the knot he’d tied his hair in. “Are you a Sirak warrior, Bleda?”
“I am,” Bleda breathed.
“Have you faced another warrior in battle, looked in their eyes and known that one of you would live, and one of you would die?”
Bleda’s mind raced back to the clearing at the woodsman’s hut, when he had fought the Ben-Elim. And before that, to the Kadoshim and Ferals in Drassil.
“I have,” he said. It was a solemn burden, knowing that you had taken another’s life, that you had stolen all the years they might have had and reduced them to a sack of skin and bone.
But better than the alternative, as Ellac had said to him after his first kill, when tears had blurred his eyes and his hands would not stop shaking.
Erdene took a fistful of hair from the side of Bleda’s head and cut it away, shortening the sides, then began to shave the stubble and tufts that remained. She worked around his head in silence, just the rasp of Bleda’s knife against his skin. When she had shaved his head, leaving only the portion that would be used for his warrior braid, she placed the knife on the ground and began to braid his hair. Bleda sat quietly, memories sifting through his mind, of his youth as a Sirak prince, living happy and free in Arcona. Of the day the Ben-Elim came, when Kol had thrown his brother’s head at Erdene’s feet. When he had been taken, torn from his family to become a ward of the Ben-Elim.
“I have always been faithful,” Bleda whispered. “In here.” He placed the palm of his hand over his heart.
Erdene said nothing, continued to braid his hair, finally tying it with a leather cord. She came and knelt before him, placing a hand upon his.
“I know you have,” she said, meeting his gaze with her sea-grey eyes. “I will say things to you now that have long been unsaid. We Sirak, we guard our feelings like treasure, and we wear the cold-face like a shield, but there is also a time to speak from the heart.” She looked around, probing the darkness. “This is for your ears only, and who knows if we will ever get a chance to talk like this again.”
Erdene took a deep breath, holding his gaze. “It broke my heart, the day you were taken from me,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “And my heart has ached every moment from that day to this.”
Bleda opened his mouth to say something but she held up a finger.
“Ellac has reported to me through the years, and what he told me has made my heart soar. What a man you have become. You have a rare balance inside you, my Bleda, of courage and wisdom. You stood against the Kadoshim when Jin would not. You took your own counsel and stood for your friend, Riv, against the Ben-Elim, and against Ellac’s advice. I know you… feel for the half-breed, and yet you would sacrifice yourself. You would do your duty in wedding Jin to ensure peace for your Clan.”
Bleda blinked, knowing that he could not go through with the wedding.
But now is not the time to talk about that.
She lifted his hand and kissed it. “I am proud to call you my son and feel glad in the knowledge that the Sirak will have a good king after I am gone.”
Five years of worry evaporated at Erdene’s words. Bleda had been so scared that Erdene would think him unworthy and a traitor to the Clan, because he had been raised as a ward by the Ben-Elim. There was so much that he wanted to say to his mother, so many things that he had practised saying in an imagined moment like this, and yet it was all like mist, now, fading in the sun. Instead he smiled at her, deep and heartfelt, and she smiled in return.
“There is one last thing I wanted to say to you. You remember when I visited Drassil last year, and I spoke to you on the weapons-field? Do you remember my words to you?”
Bleda did, he had been so filled with a need to please his mother, to earn her respect. For the whole visit Erdene had been under the watchful eye of Israfil and his Ben-Elim, but for a few moments they had been distracted and Erdene had leaned close to Bleda, whispering in his ear.
“I do,” Bleda said.
“Never forget them,” Erdene said.
“But, surely things are different now?” Bleda said, puzzled.
Erdene opened her mouth to speak, then paused, cocking her head.
There was the whisper of wings above them; Bleda looked up to see shadows flitting across the moon and suddenly Bleda and Erdene were on their feet, swords hissing into their fists. Horns started blaring, Yul, Ellac, Tuld and Ruga appeared, bows in their fists, the camp suddenly alive, like a kicked hornets’ nest.
“Friend,” a voice called down from above, and Bleda glimpsed white-feathered wings.
A Ben-Elim dropped low over them, hovering, wings making the fire flicker.
“The Lord Protector is here,” he said, “you are summoned to a council of war.”
Bleda rubbed his shaved head, feeling the warrior braid that his mother had woven for him. It felt wonderful finally to wear the symbol of his Clan.
And cold.
He was sitting in a circle around a fire-pit, his mother beside him, Uldin and Jin there also, as well as the Ben-Elim captain, Hadran. Kol sat before them all, and Riv sat beside him. Bleda was trying to stay focused on what Kol was saying, but his eyes kept drifting to Riv, thinking about when he had seen her last…
Riv’s eyes were shining in the firelight, and Bleda could not be sure, but he thought that she was looking at him.
“Where are these Kadoshim and their followers, then?” Kol was saying.
Uldin shrugged. “We have only covered half of the distance to the site where I was attacked,” he said. “But if they are moving on Drassil, they should be close.” He looked left and right. “But this is a big forest and a small road.”
“Yes, I agree,” Kol said. “Galloping along this road with no ground support is dangerous.”
“Your Ben-Elim stressed that speed was important.” Uldin shrugged.
“It is,” Kol agreed, “but not at the risk of ambush and annihilation.”
“We will not be the ones that are annihilated,” Erdene said.
“I stopped at Drassil first,” Kol said, “and ordered a dozen units of our scouts and huntsmen to work towards us, scouring the forest as they go. And Lorina is marching up the east way with five hundred White-Wings. A rearguard support in case we need more ground troops.”
Bleda nodded to himself, thinking that was wise. The speed of the Sirak and Cheren was crucial in meeting this threat, but they were not best suited for combat beneath the trees of Forn Forest.
“What if this is a trick?” Riv said, speaking out for the first time. “An ambush? Or like before, when we marched to Oriens, lured out to empty and weaken Drassil?”
“I have thought that, too,” Kol said. “Drassil is safe, over two thousand Ben-Elim still there, with Aphra’s five hundred White-Wings and more besides. The danger is here. We are at risk of an ambush here, and the Kadoshim have done it before, at Varan’s Fall. Which is why we will move more slowly, and if we find them, we will only meet them in battle upon the road, and hold them until the White-Wings arrive.”
Bleda bridled at that, as did Uldin, by the look of him.
“If we bring our enemy to battle, there will be nothing left of them by the time the White-Wings have arrived,” Uldin said.
“The Cheren did not do so well against this enemy when they attacked you on the road,” Kol pointed out.
“We were heavily outnumbered, and taken by surprise,” Uldin growled. “But with our Sirak kin beside us, victory is certain.”
“We will move slowly, scout the land around us and hold our enemy unless they engage us,” Kol said. “That is my last word on it. Now, sleep, and we will move at dawn.”
Bleda stood in the starlight of a forest glade, waiting. Mirim and Ruga were close by, bows in their fists and arrows loosely nocked.
Not that we can see more than a dozen paces to shoot anything.
They were standing within the trees of Forn Forest, a few hundred paces away from the camp. Bleda could see the flicker of torchlight from the road.
Tuld, Ruga and Mirim had expressed their feelings about him doing this, sneaking out past the picket lines when there were possible enemies in the forest, besides the normal unpleasant predators of Forn.
But Bleda could not stop himself. He had to see her.
And then there was a whisper of movement, soft footfalls, and Tuld was approaching through the trees. He carried something in his arms, and a figure followed behind him.
Riv.
Tuld led her to Bleda, then he put the item in his arms down upon the forest litter.
“Leave us,” Bleda said to Tuld, Ruga and Mirim.
They did not move.
“Guard me, but not so close,” Bleda allowed, and the three guards slipped into the shadows.
And then Riv was in his arms, her lips upon his, her wings enfolding him.
“I have missed you, thought of you every waking moment,” he whispered when they parted.
Riv smiled and caressed his cheek, dappled starlight dancing across her wings.
“There is something about you, Bleda, that calms the storm that is ever raging in my blood,” she breathed.
“There is something about you, Riv, that stirs my blood into a storm,” he replied. Her smile grew wider.
“You have a new coat,” she said.
“Aye. My mother gave it to me,” Bleda said.
“It looks fine on you,” Riv grinned. “And a new haircut.”
Bleda rubbed his shaven head, the skin stubbled in places, smooth in others. The unaccustomed weight of his warrior braid hung across his neck and shoulder. It felt strange.
“It suits you,” Riv said.
Bleda drew in a deep breath. “I have something for you.” He looked down at the chest, bent and unbolted it, then carefully opened the lid. He stood, letting Riv see the Sirak bow within.
Riv bent and picked it up, turning it in her hands. It was unstrung, the layers of wood, horn and tendon shimmering in the starlight.
“Here, let me show you how to string it,” Bleda said, reaching inside his surcoat to pull a wax-rolled string from a pouch. Effortlessly he strung the bow and handed it back to Riv.
“Thank you,” she said. “Did you… make this, for me?”
“I did,” Bleda said. “I would like to test it, but now would not be a good idea.”
“No,” Riv agreed. “Who knows what I would shoot?”
“Exactly,” Bleda said seriously, though Riv was smiling.
“And there is this,” Bleda said, crouching. He lifted a weapons-belt from the chest, a bow-case threaded onto it, and a quiver full of goose-fletched arrows.
Riv had an expression of joy on her face.
Bleda buckled the belt around her waist.
“I have added some straps,” he said, “that buckle around your thigh, to keep the quiver and case in place if you are, you know, flying upside-down, or something. And there is a clip, to hold your arrows in place. Unflick it, like this.”
“You will need to teach me how to use this,” she said.
“I will,” Bleda promised. “Though you are good enough to use it now. Just at big targets. Or close ones. Better if they are standing still and I am standing behind you.”
Riv snorted laughter at that. “Ah, but it is good to see you, Bleda. The world is too dark and serious a place when you are not around.”
A crackle of forest litter and Tuld was appearing, pointing into the woods. A hint of movement, shadows within shadows. Bleda reached for his bow, staring into the darkness, and with a beating of wings Riv was in the air, rising and disappearing into the darkness.
Bleda paced to where he thought he’d seen movement, but there was nothing there, and it was too dark to check the ground for tracks.
Tuld, Mirim and Ruga materialized out of the gloom, shaking their heads, and then Riv was returning, landing in a swirl of leaves.
