Ian Esslemont - Assail

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Orman Bregin’s son considered himself lucky to be alive. He’d grown up outside Curl beneath the cold shadow of the Iceblood Holdings. Hardscrabble farming on rocky land was the sum of what he knew. He and all his relatives and neighbours, all the Curl townsfolk. Lowlanders, he knew he and his neighbours were called among the tall Greathalls of the high slopes, as they in turn scornfully named the coastal kingdoms. Those high forests and mountain valleys leading up to the Salt range were forbidden; the Iceblood clans guarded their holdings jealously and warred constantly among themselves over their boundaries. All trespassers, lowlanders such as he, were simply killed out of hand.

Of course, for generations he and his had been at war as well, trying to oust the damned Icebloods and wipe them from the face of the land.

And he and his were winning. Leastways that was what he heard from the benches of the White Hart. The townships were all steadily growing, and their local baron, P’tar Longarm, Baron Longarm, sat strong in his long hall.

At least, that was so before the last raid. Orman had almost joined that one. Most of his friends had. Longarm himself had led it. Nearly fifty armed men and women had set out to track down the Icebloods and burn their Greathalls to the ground.

Only twelve returned. Longarm was among them, though sorely wounded. None of Orman’s friends returned. There was much muted talk then round the White Hart of Iceblood magic. How they moved like ghosts through the woods and fought like cowards, attacking out of the night only to flee and disappear like will-o’-the-wisps.

The baron kept to his hall now and people named him Shortarm. Orman figured there’d be a new ruler soon enough. So it always was. Once the local king, or queen, or baron, weakened and could no longer hold what he had taken, others arose to take it from him.

Maybe King Ronal the Bastard out of Mantle town. Orman had heard Ronal crossed Hangman creek and cut a new settlement out of the tall pines of the Bain Holding. He also heard that Ronal kept the head of the Iceblood Shia Bain pickled in a jar at his table.

Once more, Orman congratulated himself on still being alive. Then over these last few seasons word had come spreading from town to town of rich gold strikes high up the river valleys of the Salt range — far into the Iceblood Holdings.

At first everyone he knew had been dismissive of it all. The lake to the south was called the Gold Sea and no doubt that was the cause of all the stir. The oldsters claimed it had happened before: some idiotic foreigner caught sight of that name on some old dusty map somewhere and before you knew it damned fools arrived thinking they just had to reach out to gather up great handfuls of the stuff.

But then came tales of foreigners arriving in the south. Just a trickle at first. A few tow-headed ignoramuses easily done away with. Then bands of them. Some even pushing upland, ignoring all the warnings. A few of them reappeared only as heads tossed across streams or left on stakes next to forest trails.

Now word was of shiploads arriving in the lowlander kingdoms. Two new towns had sprung up overnight along the shores of the Sea of Gold. He heard rumours of real warfare where the Bone Peninsula had been closed to these invaders.

Then late one night Gerrun Shortshanks came and sat down next to him among the benches of the Hart and started talking of this news of gold. Orman let him blather on for a time — too fond of his ale was Gerrun Shortshanks, with his gold earrings and felt shirts bought from traders up from the coastal kingdoms. So dismissive of the man was he that it took a while for the full significance of what he was whispering to sink in. He and the Reddin brothers heading out with Old Bear. And would he throw his lot in with them?

Any other night he would have brushed the fool’s talk aside. But the name of Old Bear gave him pause. One of the last of the high valley hunters. Seemed to come and go as he pleased from Blood Holdings. Rumours were that he’d served as a hired spear for the Heel clan years ago — back when he had both eyes. And the Reddin brothers, Keth and Kasson. They’d been among the eleven who’d returned with Longarm. Serious and quiet both of them. So quiet few knew which brother was which.

‘Why me?’ was Orman’s short answer, his forearms on the table, one to either side of his leather tankard.

Gerrun jerked his head, agreeing with the question. He took a quick sip, wiped his mouth. ‘Old Bear says he knew your father. That’s why. Says he even met you.’

Orman nodded. It was years ago. His father had been a sworn man to Longarm’s predecessor, Eusta. Eusta the Ill, she’d been known, as she’d always been sick with this or that. His father had been a borderman, had even slipped into the Blood Holdings now and then — and had taken Orman along a few times.

And had told him about the ghosts. The Iceblood Holdings were haunted, his father had explained the first night as they pressed close to their small fire. Haunted, he said, by the spirits of all the dead ancestors of the various clans: the Heel, the Bain, the Sayer, and all the others. And sometimes, his father whispered, leaning close, his great spear Boarstooth across his lap, if you listened very carefully you could hear them too.

And later he did hear them — or thought he did. Voices calling. It seemed as if the very land itself, the Iceblood Holding, was speaking to him. Now, thinking back some five years, he wondered whether he’d imagined it all. That perhaps he’d only heard things because his father had suggested it.

A joke played on an impressionable boy.

He did remember meeting Old Bear on one of those trips. The fellow had his name from the great brown shaggy hide he wore wrapped about himself, its head thrown up over his own like a hood. The rotting pelt had stunk even then — imagine how it must reek now. Unless the old fool had gotten himself a new one.

He thought he understood Bear’s real message now. He knew that his father had shown him around the lower vales of the Holdings. And he’d delivered the message all without leaving his mouthpiece, Gerrun, any the wiser.

He bought himself more time to think by taking a long slow pull at his tankard. He peered about the dark timbered hall of the White Hart. It was late; the fire was low in the stone hearth. Only the regulars remained: those few who paid for the privilege of passing the night on the floor among the straw and scavenging dogs. None was paying him and Gerrun any particular attention, so far as he could tell.

So. The Old Bear was pulling together a party to make a strike for the gold fields. Why a party, though? The veteran mountain man could pick it up by himself, surely. Maybe he already had collected some few nuggets here and there over the years … He must’ve found a rich bed — one worth digging up.

Then it came to him: Old Bear was expecting competition. He was betting that soon, perhaps by the end of this coming season, what with spring arriving, these hillsides would be crawling with lowlander and outlander fortune-hunters, raiders and outright thieves. All fighting over the claims or the sifted nuggets and dust itself.

Best to get in early before the rush arrived, then. And he and the Reddin brothers and Old Bear had all walked the Iceblood Holdings before — no coincidence, that. All of them but for Shortshanks here. Or was that so? He studied the man covertly while eyeing the mostly empty benches of the White Hart. Never short of coin for ale was Gerrun Shortshanks, though he worked no plot of land nor laboured for others. And what of his gold earrings? The thick band of twisted gold at his wrist? Thinking of it now, how came he to such wealth? Perhaps this man Gerrun was no stranger to certain high streams in the vales where it was said a few days’ panning could set a man up for years.