Brian Ruckley - Bloodheir

“Indeed. The victory has not convinced you of his right to a place amongst us, then?”

Kanin scowled at the Inkallim.

“Send your Shield away for a moment, Thane,” Cannek said.

Kanin sighed. Trust was no longer an element in his being. Wain’s death had expunged it. Nothing in the world, and no one, seemed worthy of it to him any more. Not even the creed. Not fate. And even before that he would have called any man a fool who claimed that he could trust the Hunt. But still, he had no enemies save one now. He nodded at Igris, and when the shieldman hesitated, he snapped at him, “Move away. All of you.”

Cannek watched them go, with the wry, self-satisfied smile that so often adorned his features.

“Goedellin is troubled,” the Inkallim murmured. “And that means the Lore is troubled. I am troubled, Thane.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“It was always our hope, from the very beginning of this, that your Blood would emerge stronger. The Children of the Hundred have long attached importance to the fidelity that your line has shown for the creed.”

“A pity Shraeve did not share your concern, since she was there in Kan Avor when my sister was slain.”

There was the slightest flicker of discomfort in Cannek’s face at that. Once, Kanin would have drawn some satisfaction from it. Now, he hardly cared.

“Shraeve is a matter for us to consider,” the Inkallim grunted. “To deal with, if necessary. You are my greatest concern now, Thane.”

“Me?”

“Your Blood dies with you, unless you have an heir you’ve kept secret from us all.”

Kanin snorted and looked back towards the great throng below them. Aeglyss was almost out of sight, passing beyond the edge of the host.

“Nobody would profit from your demise, and that of your Blood, save Ragnor,” Cannek said. “And the other Thanes, perhaps, picking over the carcass of your lands. None of which would serve to strengthen the creed. Your people would suffer for your vengeance, if you lose your life in the attempt.”

“I was always taught that it was a weakness to fear consequences,” Kanin murmured. “The creed would surely say the suffering of my people, my suffering, is of no import. If suffering is written in the Last God’s Book, we must embrace it.”

“It would be better to talk with Goedellin if you wish to debate such things,” Cannek said, “though he is a trifle… distracted these days. The Hunt deals in more practical matters, so I’ll ask what I came to ask: stay your hand, Thane. For a time, at least. Do not rush into some hasty assault on the halfbreed. We would regret your loss.”

“Ha. I am touched by your concern. But I will do as I see fit. Why should I not?”

The huge dog stood up and looked round, its wet eyes on Kanin. It stretched, elongating itself.

“Because the Hunt will accept this burden,” hissed Cannek. “We will test what protection fate sees fit to set about the half-wight.”

“You will set the Hunt against the Battle?” Kanin asked.

Cannek shrugged and smiled again. “Fate always follows a surprising course, in my experience. We are all striding towards our deaths. The only question is when we will reach the end of the Road.”

Kanin stared at the hound. He watched spittle creeping across its jowls.

“Soon, I think,” he said. “All of us. Soon.”

Thirty men from the Nar Vay shore — hard men once, who had been born to fishermen and strand gleaners, grown up with the salt smell of the sea and the feel of a boat beneath them — were huddled together on hard ground. They were shoremen no longer, but warriors, and defeated ones at that. They were cold, for it was night, it had been snowing for some time and their captors would not allow them to make a fire, or even to move around. They sat, wrapped in whatever cloaks or banners or tent canvas they had managed to scavenge from the wasteland of corpses that now surrounded Kolkyre, and the snow built up on their shoulders and their backs. They crowded close together, a hot press of bodies, so close that they breathed on one another’s faces. One man, wounded in the battle they had lost, had already died this night, in the midst of that huddle. They had pushed and passed the dead man out to the edge and he lay there still, stiff, disappearing incrementally beneath snowflakes. Their guards showed no more interest in the corpse than they would in a long-fallen tree or a rock.

These Haig men had been taken soon after the battle was done. Fleeing south, racing for Kolkyre even though they knew that city was no friend to their Blood, they were encircled by mounted spearmen, who killed a few of them and herded the rest back northwards, made chattels of them. They expected to die in time, for that was what they had always been told to expect of the Black Road. The lethargic apathy of the humbled kept them docile. They had surrendered much of their pride and their resilience in those moments of panic when they broke and scattered from the battle line, undone by a strange, compulsive terror that none of them now spoke of, for they did not understand it, and were ashamed of it. They spoke of nothing at all. There was nothing to say. They merely waited. They did not know whether it was the cold they waited for, or a spear, or starvation, but they believed it was one of those.

Horses came out of the darkness, soft and slow. One or two of the prisoners looked up. They turned away again at once, hid their faces. Inkallim had come, black-haired, grim, astride huge horses that blew gouts of steam from their noses. Guards drifted from their fires to speak with these newcomers. Few words were exchanged.

One of the Inkallim — a sinewy woman with two swords sheathed across her back — jumped down, thumping into the deepening snow. She walked, limping slightly, to the cluster of captives and stood over them. She surveyed them with contempt. They made themselves small, hoping to avoid her gaze.

“Fate smiles upon you tonight,” she said, and her voice made some of them shiver. “A task falls to you that will earn you the gratitude of your Thane. Stand up.”

No one moved.

“Stand up!” the Inkallim shouted, and they did, one by one. They rose clumsily. Some had to hold their neighbours to keep them from falling. One man dropped the threadbare cloak from his shoulders and bent to pick it up again.

The Inkallim turned and beckoned someone forwards from amongst the riders. A horse stepped carefully over the snow. It bore a hunched figure, enclosed in a hooded cape. The horse came close. Some of the prisoners shuffled back, intimidated by its dark size.

“Let them see you,” the Inkallim said quietly.

The rider straightened a little, not enough to take the bend entirely out of his spine, and slipped back his hood with one hand. The revealed face was pale and angular. He stared down at the Nar Vay men. There was silence and then, haltingly, a few murmurs of surprise, of recognition.

“Some of you know him,” the Inkallim said, and smiled bleakly. “Those who do not: this is your High Thane’s Chancellor. This is Mordyn Jerain. And you are his escort. We give you your freedom, that you may return this man to Vaymouth, and to his place at the side of Gryvan oc Haig.”

The prisoners looked at one another, uncertain and hesitant. This was too out of line with the fatalism that had mastered them, too unexpected. They thought they had misheard her.

“You will be renowned,” she said, “as the men who brought back the Shadowhand.”

They looked up at the sickly, bent figure on the horse. And Mordyn Jerain smiled down at them. It was an unnerving, lifeless smile.

“Take me to Vaymouth. There are many things I must discuss with the Thane of Thanes. Many things.”