Brian Ruckley - Fall of Thanes

“Enough, I said.”

The man spun about, his face contorted by rage. He shrugged off the Thane’s grasp and stumbled back a few paces as if unbalanced by the ferocity of his emotions. Such ire burned in his eyes that Kanin could see nothing beyond it: there was no spark of recognition, no glimmer of anything other than animal fury. The man came forward. He raised his arm, the whip quivering with all the anger it inherited from its bearer.

Kanin arched his eyebrows in disbelief, but did not move aside or raise any defence against the imminent blow. Igris, his shieldman, was quicker. The warrior stepped in front of his Thane and, even as the whip began to snap forward, put his sword deep into the overseer’s belly. The man fell to his knees. The whip snaked out feebly across the white snow. Igris pushed, tipping the man onto his back, then set a foot on his chest and pulled his blade free. The overseer gently placed his hands across the wound in his stomach, interlacing the fingers almost as if he were settling himself to sleep on a soft bed. He blinked and panted. Tears ran from the corners of his eyes. His blood trickled into the snow and stained it.

Kanin turned and walked away. The column had shuffled to a halt, both guards and bearers watching. Their interest was desultory, remote. Kanin ignored them. Igris came hurrying after him.

“Did you see his eyes?” Kanin asked.

“Yes, sire,” Igris answered.

“Nothing in him but bloodlust. Didn’t even know me; blinded by it. That’s what we’ve come to. We turn on each other, like starving dogs.”

“Perhaps you’ve some ale you could offer me, Thane?”

Kanin looked up from the platter of goat stew he was hunched over. Cannek was standing in the doorway of the farmhouse. Over the Hunt Inkallim’s shoulder, Kanin could see snow falling. Cannek’s cloak-a heavy, rustic garment more suited to an impoverished farmer-was smeared with melting flakes. The Inkallim was smiling. He smiled too much, Kanin thought, and without good reason.

“Or if not ale, a seat at least?”

Kanin nodded at the bench opposite his own. He took another mouthful of tasteless stew.

“No ale, though,” he said through it.

Cannek wrinkled his nose in disappointment as he shrugged the cloak from his shoulders. He spread it to dry on the floor in front of the fire.

“I looked for you down by the city.” He sat at the table, facing Kanin. “You wearied of the siege, it seems.”

Kanin glared at the Inkallim from under a creased brow, and then returned his attention to the bowl of stew. But his appetite, meagre at the best of times, was gone.

“If so, I sympathise,” Cannek said. He unbuckled the knives that were always strapped to his forearms and laid them down on the uneven tabletop. Their dark wooden handles, Kanin noticed for the first time, had tiny ravens carved into them. Cannek rolled his shoulders and flexed his arms back. It was a lazy movement, like a wolf stretching.

“It’s unpleasant down there,” the Inkallim said. “A shortage of food, an excess of foul tempers and ready blades. The dead go unburied and unburned. Some of the Gyre levies have taken to Tarbain customs, by all accounts: making cups from the skulls of dead Kilkry farmers and suchlike. I am not surprised you took your leave.”

“There’s a sickness abroad. Everything is falling into ruin. I want no part of it. Anyway, nothing will come of the siege.”

Cannek nodded. “Kolkyre can’t be starved into submission, since we’ve not got the ships to close their harbour. And it can’t be stormed. Not unless Shraeve recalled every spear that’s gone off south beyond Donnish.”

“Would they come?” Kanin asked darkly, pushing aside his plate. “If Shraeve summoned them?”

Cannek scratched the side of his nose. “Probably. The issue of command remains a little… unclear. There are plenty of companies from Gyre and the other Bloods milling about now, trying to assert themselves. Not wanting to miss out on all the glory to be won. But the Battle dominates, on the whole; and Shraeve is their Banner-captain. So yes, the armies might come and go at her call. Or that of Aeglyss, which amounts to the same thing. The masses seem willing to put a good deal of trust in him.”

“You are remarkably at ease with the thought.”

“I find our faith a great comfort in troubled times.” Cannek smiled again, sharp and fleeting. “Things are as they are. If there’s one thing the creed teaches us, it’s that a man gains nothing by worrying about it. Not even when he hopes to be the agent of change.” The Inkallim looked pointedly around the empty room. “I’d heard you’d developed a liking for solitude. Are we truly alone? No prying ears?”

“None,” said Kanin. He insisted that his meals and his rest were undisturbed these days. Barring immediate need, not even his Shield were permitted to attend him. He and his thoughts occupied a world that every day seemed more distant from that inhabited by others; the two domains, he found, did not mix well.

Cannek nodded, satisfied. “There’s a council called at Hommen. The Battle, the Lore, some of the Captains from the Bloods. Aeglyss is coming down from Kan Avor.”

Kanin grimaced in surprise. “I’d not heard.”

“You were not invited, Thane. You’re thought to have… what’s the phrase? Retired from the fray, I suppose. You’ve shown no great interest in the broad course of events. And it’s Shraeve who is calling us together; she-or the halfbreed, I suppose we should say-is no great admirer of your talents. Or your preoccupations.”

“You’re going?” Kanin asked.

“I, and one or two of my fellows.”

“You’ll kill him?” said Kanin. The excitement he felt was not an elevating sentiment; there was nothing bright or warming about it.

“The opportunity may arise. It seems likely.” Cannek shrugged. “What the outcome will be, I cannot say. That’s for forces greater than you or I to determine.”

“How will you do it?” Kanin asked.

“Oh, best not to enquire too deeply into such things for now. We must preserve your innocence in these matters as far as we can, don’t you think? Half the point of this is to protect you, and your Blood, from the consequences of what is happening. Comfort yourself with the thought that our reach was long enough to put an end to a Thane in his own feasting hall. Aeglyss is a good deal nearer at hand than Lheanor ever was.”

There was a dull thump from outside one of the shuttered windows. Cannek’s eyes were drawn by the sound. His hand went to one of his knives, and had it halfway out of its sheath before Kanin could even draw breath.

“Snow,” the Thane said. “It falls from the roof.”

“Of course.” Cannek relaxed a trifle, though his hand remained on the knife.

Kanin pushed back the bench on which he sat from the table, and rose. He began to stride back and forth. A rare vigour, such as he seldom felt now except when in battle, had taken hold of him.

“It’s as well you came to tell me. I could not have waited much longer, whatever promises you dangled before me. It’s eating me from the inside out. What must be done, must be done.”

“Patience is a virtue often rewarded by fate, Thane. Your restraint has been commendable, I’m sure. Still, I told you the Hunt would take this burden from you, and so we will, if fortune permits us. The Hunt does not make empty promises.”

“Does it not?” growled Kanin. He could think of more than one occasion when the Hunt Inkall had failed in its avowed intent-not least when the children of Kennet nan Lannis-Haig had slipped through its grasp in the Car Criagar-but now was not the time to pick fights with the one ally he had against Aeglyss. And there was as clear a sign as there could be of how misshapen everything had become: that he should look to the ranks of the Hunt for allies.