Full Circle (16 page)

He led them further down the track and tied them to a gatepost. The “wait” whistle was long and soothing, and even the two
horses who didn’t know it seemed to settle when he tried it on them. Then, trying to move like Ash did in the dark, like a
shadow himself, he crept back to where he had tethered Cam.

This was the big problem.

He could move silently, but Cam was much too big and heavy footed to pass the camp in silence.

He saddled her up and took her in a wide circle, thankful for the crescent moon as it showed itself above the hills as he
threaded his way through the first field, trying not to damage too much — or leave a trail that could be easily followed.

Cam seemed to enjoy the ramble, walking quite confidently across the shadowy fields. He brought her back to the road well
down from the other horses, then tethered her and began to run back the way he had come. Time was passing too fast. The moon
had climbed from the horizon already, seeming to shrink as she swam higher, becoming colder and less welcome.

Flax threaded through the trees again as quietly as he could, to where Rowan and Swallow were lying.

He reached out and touched Rowan’s shoulder. Immediately, they got up, slid their packs on and followed him behind the hedge
and down the road to the horses; only then did they make a noise.

Rowan gasped as the big shapes loomed up in the darkness, but Swallow hissed. “Are you mad?” she demanded. “Horse stealing’s
a killing offence!”

“We’re not stealing theirs!” Flax said, shocked. “I’m not stupid. We’re just leaving them here so they can’t come after us
easily. Although, if we took just one, we’d each have a mount…”

Swallow considered it. “They’re telling us they’re here to protect us from massacres but it doesn’t mean they won’t stage
one of their own when it suits them. No warlord ever cared about Travellers and none ever will.” Her voice was bitter.

Rowan touched her arm. “Come, we must go.”

Fumbling in the dark, Flax saddled Mud and a steady black cob he’d marked out during the day as the most sensible of the others.
Then he helped Swallow and Rowan to mount, and they headed off towards Sendat.

“The one way they won’t expect us to go,” Rowan said. “We can turn off to the right before Garvay, I’m pretty sure.”

“It’s a long time since we walked those roads,” Swallow said, and Flax couldn’t tell if she were doubtful or nostalgic.

Rowan smiled at his wife reassuringly, “The road is long…”

Flax clicked his tongue to Mud and they moved off, the other horses trying to come with them at first and them settling, complaining,
when their tethers held.

Under the cold moon, the Road looked very long.

“If we’re lucky,” Flax said to himself.

T
HE SQUADS
went out the next day, but Thegan kept Leof back at the fort, organising the Travellers into work groups.

“We might as well get some use out of them,” he said over breakfast. “They’ll be working for their own defence, after all.”

When Leof went out to the big barn he was surprised at how much at home their guests had made themselves: cooking fires in
a row outside, privies off behind the barn, each family’s area marked off with rope. Alston had been very busy, it was clear.

The Travellers crowded towards Leof, and Alston motioned them back to give him room to speak. “As you know,” he began, “we
are fortifying against the enchanter’s ghosts. You will be staying here until the menace is gone and there is no more reason
for you to be afraid. That means that the fort’s defences are your defences, and we would like your help in the work.”

Some nodded, some looked sceptical; they probably thought Thegan had organised this to save himself the cost of a workforce.
Well, let them. It would stop them from thinking darker thoughts.

Each of the masons and carpenters was assigned helpers from the mob in the barn.

“Keep them together with their own people, if you can,” Leof told Alston. “The dry-stone waller, that big man from up north
who is working on the rampart — give him a group of ten or so. Most of his time is being spent carrying the stones.”

Alston nodded, but hesitated before he moved away. “My lord… I wanted to thank you. Faina and I, we wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“The house…”

He had no idea what the man was talking about, and he didn’t have time to find out now. A house in the town, married quarters?
Probably something Sorn had organised. “I don’t know anything about a house,” he said. “Get to work.”

As though the words had been a secret message, Alston grinned. “Of course, my lord. Of course!”

With an extra sixty people, the fort reminded Leof of home during a campaign against the Ice King’s people. Cliffhold had
been like this: always ringing with hammer blows from the smithy, horses whinnying to each other in the muster yards, the
oath men drilling to their sergeants’ shouts, children running, screaming, laughing. As he approached to inspect the fortification,
he noticed there were lots of children today, most of them dark-haired, which was curiously disconcerting.

The waller — what was his name… ? Oak, that was it — didn’t look pleased when Alston spoke to him, but then he hadn’t
looked pleased for weeks. He looked exhausted, in fact. The work near the gate was almost finished but Leof felt he had been
remiss in not giving the man help earlier.

On his way back he saw Sorn and her maid Faina gathering the children into the barn. Probably lesson time, he thought, and
wondered how many of these children had any schooling. Well, he knew Sorn would sort it out. Some of these Travellers were
perhaps even better off for staying at the fort for a time. Maybe.

It was a curious pleasure to watch her while she was unaware of him. She would be a lovely mother, he thought, seeing her
cradle a toddler in her arms, smiling at him and tickling him under his arm.
If Thegan can’t sire children, she’ll never be a mother
. The thought slid treacherously under his guard, and he turned abruptly and headed for the smiths. They needed boar spears.
Lots of them. Pin the bastard ghosts to the ground and see them fight then!

That evening Thegan and Leof spent an hour working out the details for the fortifications, provisioning, guard duties, night
soil collection and the common meals. Sorn joined them for that part of the planning, and Leof marvelled again at her quiet
competence. She seemed to have anticipated all of Thegan’s questions, and found solutions to problems they had not imagined,
like how to wash the babies’ loincloths. She smiled a little at their blank faces.

“We’re not accustomed to worrying about children on a battlefield,” Leof said.

“Let us pray we never have to,” Sorn replied, and it was a true prayer; he could hear it in her voice.

Thegan was oblivious to it, simply pleased with their combined efficiency. “Good. Good. Put all this in action.”

A messenger knocked at the door and Thegan called him inside.

“Baluchston is refusing to give up its Travellers,” he said. “Tomorrow go and get them. I’ve sent messengers warning them
of your coming. If they will not surrender them, you will bring the town council back here to me.”

That was all. Thegan turned immediately to Gard, who was waiting with a list of supplies commandeered from the various towns
where they had collected Travellers. Thegan nodded dismissal to them both, and they rose together and walked back into the
hall, which was silent and empty now that the meal was over and the cleaning done.

Leof could think of nothing to say that would be safe, so he bowed and left her without a word, casting a quick glance at
her face. But he could read nothing there except her normal serenity, which he knew now was a sham. She was so beautiful.

That beauty tightened his chest into an insistent pain, so that he had to stop outside the hall doors to breathe and compose
himself before attending to the next task.

Baluchston was not — yet — part of Central Domain. Except in Thegan’s eyes, apparently. Leof wanted Alston for this, not Hodge.
Someone he could count on to do the gods’ will.

He tried not to think about what that might be.

Leof checked the saddlebags his groom, Bandy, had packed for him. Never trust anyone with the necessities of life, his father
had taught him, and it was just as well, because Bandy had forgotten parchment and inkstone for sending messages.

He came with many apologies and rechecked everything himself, worried that Leof would leave him behind.

“Come on then,” Leof said. “Mount up.”

They set out very early, Leof riding a horse from the common herd, a bay gelding with two white socks. There was no way he’d
risk Arrow or Thistle near the Lake, and besides, they had both worked hard this last week and needed the rest. This was one
of the horses Bramble and Gorham had trained and, though it had an odd trick of tossing its head whenever another horse came
near, it didn’t bite or kick, so he counted his blessings. He led his men out, twenty of them, to escort the Travellers or
Town Council of Baluchston back to Sendat, and thereby proclaim to the world at large that Baluchston was part of Central
Domain now, like it or not.

Leof didn’t think the people of Baluchston would like either option, which was why there were twenty horsemen instead of four,
as there had been with the other collecting parties.

It was a relief to be out of the fort.

The rain was holding off, just, although the clouds were thickening and the wind rising slowly. Everyone who could be spared
was out in the fields, gathering in the hay before the storm struck and the crop was ruined. His instinct was to go and help,
knowing what a difference twenty workers would make; but Thegan’s orders didn’t allow for delays.

He sent a prayer to the local gods, to hold off the rain, and thought that the farmers’ families in the fields were surely
doing the same.

T
HE FARM
was heavily shuttered, like every building in Central Domain now. Even though the farm dogs were barking madly from the end
of their chains, lunging at his scent, the farmer and his brood stayed cautiously, safely behind solid wood. Saker smiled
grimly. It was a kind of victory, to make them cower behind their doors. But it made finding food harder.

He wished he had learnt to fish, or forage, or learnt any other way of feeding himself from the land; but that had not been
part of Freite’s skills. She knew only enchantment, so that was all he knew.

He could eat the dogs, he supposed. He knew how to kill dogs. Knew how to kill just about anything that was tied up, thanks
to her. But he preferred something else.

The dairy was the best place. He made for it boldly, certain that the more noise he made the less likely the farmer was to
come out and confront him. The dairy was shuttered, too, but it couldn’t be bolted from inside, so he had no trouble forcing
the door latch.

He set the door ajar so that the moonlight streamed in. Inside, there wasn’t as much as he’d hoped, but there was enough:
curds and whey, but no hard cheese that he could take away with him, milk in settling pans, the cream like clouds. There were
stirring spoons on the drying rack, so he sat down on a churning stool and helped himself. Fatty cream, sharp curds, bland
whey… He hated the smell of curds on the turn. He couldn’t bring himself to take the rennet, which was soaking in a bucket.
Goat’s stomach
could
be eaten, he knew, but even roasting it to cinders wouldn’t take away that smell.

He’d kill for a loaf of bread.

For a moment, he paused, realising that the idle thought was true. He would kill for a loaf of bread, or a handful of strawberries,
or even a mouthful of hard cheese. Why not kill for that, when they had to die anyway?

He teetered for a moment between dismay and exhilaration at the thought but it was exhilaration that led him out to see what
was growing in the kitchen garden. Strawberries
would
be nice. He kept his knife in his hand, just in case.

Action was what he needed now. He had sat, hour upon hour, racking his mind for memories, for theory, for any hint as to how
he might amend the spell. Blood was the key to prevent the ghosts from fading, but how it was tied to the sun’s rhythm he
did not know.

He found, by touch, peas twining around cones of sticks, and snapped off the almost full pods to stuff in his scrip. The leaves
were soft and pleasantly furry, but his fingers, questing, poked their way into a fat caterpillar, which squelched.

He jerked his hand back and left the peas alone to venture further along the rows.

Didn’t carrots have these plumy tops? He knew that if he’d spent any time at all on a farm, he’d have a better idea. He pulled
experimentally and when the noise came he thought it was the carrot screaming as it was wrenched from the ground. His guts
clenched and he jumped back, dropping the carrot.

But it was just a carrot, and it lay there, seeming to mock his fear. The scream came again. A wind wraith, coiling and curling
just above him. He felt a strong urge to void his bowels, but fought it back.

“Master!” it hissed in his ear. “What do you seek?”

He wasn’t going to say he was foraging. Gods alone knew what food they’d offer him.

“I seek ingredients for a spell,” he said. “A spell to allow the ghosts to stay in this world past the setting of the sun.”

He could see the wraith now, almost invisible in the moonlight. The moon was only a sliver and it lit the creature from behind,
so that it seemed he was looking at the crescent through a curtain of impossibly fine fabric. Finer than silk, and silver-grey.
For a moment, he simply looked at it, without fear, and recognised its beauty. Freite had been beautiful too, in her own way.
It seemed to him that evil often was.

“Ingredients?” the wraith said. “What more do you need, than blood?”

Freite had received many of her spells from the wraiths. There was no such thing as human spells, she’d told him once, on
a day when he’d pleased her by giving her all the power from him she needed. He’d lain, exhausted, on a couch, while she strolled
the room full of vitality, younger than the day before, lightly touching her collection of precious glass, piece by piece.