Ian Esslemont - Assail

They kept to the forest as they fled upland, though as they climbed higher the woods thinned. Spruce now predominated, and those thin and scraggly. Fisher and Jethiss stayed with Kyle, while the remaining Crimson Guard spread out about them. No one had formally set out the marching order. Kyle wondered whether it was to protect him — he who least needed protection. Stalker and Badlands ranged widely, sometimes scouting ahead, other times keeping an eye on the rear.

At least they travelled through the constant cover of the dense clouds that hugged these high slopes of the Salt range. Eventually, during the morning — if he judged aright the diffuse yellow glow of the sky — Cal-Brinn called a halt and they collapsed where they stopped to lie panting, sucking in great shuddering breaths of the frigid air. Water skins made the rounds.

The Crimson Guard captain came to where Kyle, Fisher and Jethiss sat leaning against the backrest of a toppled fir. ‘Sleep,’ he told them. ‘We will keep watch.’ He moved on. Kyle did not argue, and neither did his companions. They rolled themselves into whatever cloaks or blankets they had managed to salvage or pack. In Kyle’s case, it was an untanned bear hide he’d rolled and roped over his back before the fight. He lay down and his thoughts went to the lowlands, to the shores of the Sea of Gold. What was happening there? Were Lyan and Dorinn safe? Of course she might not even be there — she might have accompanied the army north. But somehow he did not think so; these Lether officers and soldiers were claiming the north for themselves. To them, she and her Genabackans were outsiders. Perhaps even a threat.

Some time later he was woken by the poke of a spear-butt and he sat up, shivering, bleary and coughing. The sun was a smoky, silvery orb among the clouds. Tendrils of steam rose in wisps all about, and a clawing cold wind slithered down across them from the heights.

‘The weather is strange,’ he commented to Fisher.

The bard did not appear pleased; in fact, he had been in an uncharacteristically grim mood since they fled the Greathall. ‘It is no weather,’ he replied.

By now Kyle was accustomed to having to draw information from this man the way one must shake coins from a miser. A strange manner for a bard. ‘Then what is it?’

Fisher drew a hard breath as if he would rather not say, but then he allowed: ‘It is power coiling and tensing. Preparing itself for an unleashing. An invocation of Omtose.’

Kyle noted Jethiss paying close attention. ‘What will come?’ the Andii asked.

‘I do not know for certain what form it will take,’ Fisher admitted. ‘But I fear the worst it might.’

Stalker and Badlands emerged from the dense fogs. ‘They are with us still,’ Badlands announced.

When he was younger, Kyle might have expressed his confusion: they’d pushed them out — the Holding was theirs. Why pursue? But he was older now, hard truths of the world had been beaten into him, and so he merely shook his head at the inevitability of it. Of course they were coming. What else would they do? To ensure their grip on the land these new rulers had to eliminate all last vestiges of any prior claim. Any survivors would be a potential menace: they might raid, or form alliances and return some day to try to reclaim their ancestral holdings. In this Marshal Teal had no choice. Usurpers — claim-jumpers — had to be thorough.

Stalker stopped before Kyle. ‘Far enough north for you?’ he asked.

Kyle laughed. ‘Aye. Perhaps for them as well.’

The Iceblood’s hazel eyes held amusement. ‘Well, I’ve never been up much higher. No call for it. From here, though, we can descend into the Sayer or Heel Holding if we would. I only wish I knew the best route.’

‘Our line is good for now,’ said Fisher. He shook out his cloak. ‘Straight on.’

Everyone eyed the bard as he clipped the cloak tightly about his shoulders. Stalker studied the man as he drew his thumb and forefinger down his long moustache, smoothing it. Fisher, for his part, said no more.

It seemed to Kyle that the man had left the role of bard behind. He was something else now and Kyle wasn’t certain just what that might be. Then, unexpectedly, he remembered the instrument the man had been strumming … the way he had held it. Like a treasure. ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said.

The bard turned a puzzled frown upon him. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘That old stringed instrument at the Greathall. We had to flee. There was nothing you could have done.’

Understanding blossomed in rising brows and a broad smile broke through the man’s dark mood. He squeezed Kyle’s shoulder. ‘Thank you for your thoughts, Whiteblade. But not to worry.’ He raised the shoulder bag at his side. ‘Such a rare thing should not be left to destruction.’

‘So there is hope yet, then,’ Kyle said.

The bard appeared startled. His gaze went to the shrouded heights. ‘You are right, of course. The skein of our fates is unknown. Or at least is not for me to say.’

Badlands slumped on the fallen trunk. ‘Now that that’s settled — did anyone think to bring any food?’

It turned out that Cal-Brinn and the Guard always carried pouches with a few days’ worth of dried rations pressed into bricks. It was hardly edible, but Kyle found that if one kept a knot of it tucked into the cheek, it slowly softened into something resembling food.

Cal-Brinn signed that they should get going, so they packed up their gear and set off jogging upland once more. They trotted through the rest of the day, as the light through the black clouds deepened to a silvery pewter. Kyle knew he would freezing if it weren’t for the heat of his exertions. His breath steamed and plumes of mist rose through his armour from his sweat-soaked tunic beneath.

Stalker ran with him and Fisher and Jethiss for a time. He gestured ahead where the valley slope rose in a steep ridge of naked rock. ‘We are nearing the top of the Lost Holding. Beyond that ridge lies a wide run-off stream, the Stonewash. Past that are the ice-rivers that descend out of the frozen wastes above.’

‘Will they follow us?’ Kyle asked.

He gave a non-committal shrug. ‘They may send a party to dog us.’ He eyed Jethiss. ‘You are intent upon continuing?’

‘I am.’

‘There may be no one there.’

‘In which case we are all free to choose whichever direction we wish.’

Stalker drew off his conical iron helmet and rubbed a hand through his matted hair. ‘Well, I have to admit to being rather curious myself.’

‘Not a good enough reason,’ Fisher muttered.

‘And you a bard,’ Stalker remarked. He pulled the helmet on once again and turned his attention to Kyle. ‘You still wear it, I see,’ he said.

Kyle’s brows drew down. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘The stone you’re always fingering.’

He realized he was rubbing the amber pendant at his neck, as he often did. He dropped the hand. ‘Yes.’

Stalker nodded solemn agreement. ‘He was a good friend, Ereko. We miss him too.’

Kyle cleared his throat. It still pained him to hear the Thelomen-kind, Thel-Akai as he had it, mentioned. He’d forgotten that Stalker had spent as much time with the giant as he. He answered the Lost’s nod. ‘Yes.’

‘I know that name,’ Fisher said, his eyes narrowing in thought. ‘He was said to have been one of the oldest of those raised up by the earth.’ He studied Kyle anew. ‘You travelled with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘I would have that tale.’

Stalker flashed his teeth in a smile. ‘Now you’re sounding like a bard.’ He jogged ahead to start climbing the slope.

From the knife’s edge of the ridge-top they could see nothing. The mists enveloped them. Stunted long-needle pine and juniper clung to the rocks here, damp with fog. Stalker and Badlands started down into the vale, which promised to lead higher up this shoulder of the Salt range.