Brian Ruckley - Bloodheir

New companies were coming up from the south. The grim mood opened its arms as they arrived and drew them in. Every man here on the plain outside Kolkyre knew that there was a terrible battle moving towards them. As surely as the turning seasons, violence was coming. It was like a dark, roiling storm approaching from the horizon. None could see beyond it. That the army of the Black Road had mysteriously slowed to a crawl, lingering in the empty lands along the north coast of Kilkry territory, only made the waiting harder and gave the foreboding more time to sink its roots deep.

Whenever Taim’s gaze fell upon Kolkyre, with its ever-present seagulls circling above, and the Tower of Thrones defiantly punctuating its skyline, he feared that the future might be even bleaker than most imagined. The gates of the city were closed. Haig warriors were posted on each of the roads outside them. Nothing, and no one, came or went from Kolkyre save by sea. So, Aewult had pledged, it would remain, until Roaric oc Kilkry-Haig recovered his proper humility and complied with the demands made of him. And so, Roaric seemed to indicate by his mute refusal, he was content for it to remain. Neither man would earn respect or credit from this, Taim thought, but while he felt contempt for Aewult, he felt only pity for Roaric. The young Kilkry Thane had come into his power in evil times, and by evil circumstance, and his nature made him unsuited to facing the challenges of this moment. Perhaps he would learn, in time; perhaps, by the time he learned, it would be too late.

Taim wandered through the outskirts of the encampment, listless and dispirited. The men Aewult had set to watch him — surly, uncommunicative swordsmen — shadowed him at a few paces’ distance. Taim paused to watch a gang of camp followers slaughtering a pair of pigs. The animals screamed and struggled. They were scrawny, and not likely to make good eating, but fresh meat was growing rare and precious. A youth held one of the pigs down while a woman cut its throat and it bled.

The morning after Anyara’s departure, Taim discovered what her presence had meant to him personally. The whole camp was submerged beneath a miasma of steam and mist and smoke, through which sunlight shone in fragmentary rays, lighting frosted grass and iced puddles in the mud. Guards came to him and unceremoniously removed him from the tent in which he slept, herding him across the crunching ground.

There was a pile of barrels, some of them broken, and behind that a lopsided wagon that had lost a wheel and rested on the stub of its axle. Scattered around the wagon were a dozen or more men, sullen and gaunt. Each one of them was seated, or curled up, on the ground, wrapped in a blanket, and with a shackle running from his ankle to a spike hammered into the frozen soil. A pair of guards were sitting precariously on the elevated end of the wagon, muttering to each other.

As Taim silently allowed them to chain him down, and hobble his legs with cords, one of the guards leered at him from his lofty perch.

“The first time you try to pull up the spike, it’s a beating,” the man barked. “The second time it’s a killing.”

They gave him a blanket that smelled musty and old, and a platter of unidentifiable food. He pulled the blanket tight about his shoulders, closed his eyes and waited. And that was how he spent most of each day that followed.

Taim made no complaint to his guards, sought no gentler treatment, no finer food, no warmer cloak. He asked nothing of them, save one thing, and that one thing he requested every morning, every afternoon, every evening: he asked to be allowed to see his wife and his daughter.

There was no privation he could be subjected to that would disturb him, for he had been a warrior all his life, learned long ago that hunger, or cold, or discomfort could be set aside. But he was afraid now, acutely afraid, that he might die without seeing Jaen or Maira again, and that fear was almost intolerable. So he asked, every day, that they should be brought out from the city, and every day he was refused. And with each refusal, hatred for Aewult nan Haig and all his Blood gathered a little more of Taim’s heart within its ambit.

He became more and more acutely aware of a contradiction in his hopes. He wanted — needed — Aewult to emerge triumphant from the great confrontation with the Black Road that must now be imminent; at the same time, he longed for the Bloodheir to be humbled, sent scurrying back to Vaymouth with shame swarming about his head. It was a bitter, resentful strand in his thoughts that felt uncomfortable and unfamiliar. He was dismayed that it so preoccupied him.

One night, it snowed. Taim pulled his blanket over his head. He felt the snow piling up on it. He lay there shivering and wondered if the Haig Blood had so lost its collective mind that it would allow him to die here.

He heard footsteps coming over the hard ground. Someone kicked him in the back, and when he sat up, spilling snow, one of the guards thrust another, thicker blanket into his hands. A small fire was built, and the prisoners shuffled into a circle around it, as close as their chains would allow. One man did not stir. He remained curled up like a snow-covered boulder. The guards kicked him once, twice, before they realised he was dead. They levered up the spike securing his chain to the ground and carried the body away.

In the morning, Aewult nan Haig came and squatted down on his haunches in front of Taim. He stayed out of reach.

“Time to get you back on horseback, Captain,” the Bloodheir said, smiling.

Taim said nothing. Aewult stood up. He tapped the heel of one boot against the toe of the other to loosen snow from the sole.

“The Black Road is moving again. Seems they’ve found the courage to face us.”

“Let me go back to my men,” Taim said. He sat up straight, shrugging the blanket off his shoulders.

Aewult shook his head. “They’ll be fighting under Haig command this time. What’s left of them will, anyway. I’ve attached them to one of my father’s best companies, from Vaymouth. I’ll be keeping you as far away from them — as far away from everything of consequence — as possible. Oh, don’t look so disappointed. You can’t have expected me to do anything else, surely?”

“Despite everything, I will fight for you, Bloodheir. Against the Black Road, I will always fight. I only ask that you let me do that.”

“No.” The refusal was emphatic. “You stay a prisoner until this is done. Afterwards, we’ll see what’s to be done with you, but this is one battle you will watch with bound hands.”

Taim struggled to his feet. He was painfully stiff.

“What of Kilkry-Haig?” he asked. “You need Roaric’s strength at your side for this.”

Aewult’s face darkened, and he glared at Taim before spinning about and striding away.

“I’ll not ask that prideful whelp for anything,” he shouted over his shoulder. “If he chooses to come out and fight, all the better. But he’ll do it under my command, or not at all.”

Theor, First of the Lore, had spent a long and tedious day with his officials, seeing to the mundane trifles that kept the Inkall alive and functioning. Appointing tutors to see to the care of the Lore’s youngest recruits; agreeing the names of those to be sent amongst the Tarbains once winter was done, to ensure the survival of the creed in their savage hearts; deciding the process of interrogation and examination for those seeking elevation to the ranks of the Inner Servants.

Theor found it difficult to concentrate on such matters. They did not bore him — they were the stitches that held the Inkall together, and he valued them as such — but he was weary and distracted. At dusk he trudged across the snow-filled compound, pausing only to listen to the hooting of an owl somewhere amongst the pine trees. He was not in the mood for company and conversation, so ordered that he be brought food in his own chambers. He ate there alone.