Full Circle (43 page)

The headland grazing area ended on a high knoll. Beyond it on one side were market gardens stretching down to the river. Lilac,
rosemary, lavender and dung from the gardens mixed in Bramble’s nose. Down the hill, the road west cut through a mixture of
houses and vegetable patches.

It was strange to see her enemy, finally, coming down the road towards Turvite. It had been months for her since that day
in Oakmere when Safred had told her that a man named Saker had killed Maryrose, and offered her the chance to stop him.

They needed Acton, right now. “We have to try again,” she said.

But Baluch shook his head. “It won’t work. I could feel it — something is missing in the spell. I’m not sure if it’s the brooch
or Ash, but we can’t do it as things stand.”

“Then we have to find Ash.”

“Battle is about to be joined,” he said, flexing his right hand as though a sword might appear there. “And Ash is in the middle
of the city, somewhere. I don’t know where.”

“But he’s alive?”

Baluch nodded, and she felt a surge of relief. It wasn’t hopeless, then. Risky, but not impossible.

She grinned and hoisted her bag of bones onto her shoulder. “If they’re coming in the front way, let’s you and I go in the
back, round the harbour.”

They retraced their steps to where the path began to lead down towards the water, but Baluch put out a hand and stopped her.
“Look,” he said.

There was a fight at the barricade leading to the harbour. People were panicking, trying to reach the few ships in port. The
guards at the barricade were letting people through one by one, closing the gate after each one, but it wasn’t fast enough
to satisfy the crowd. Some leapt over the barriers, others climbed up inside the houses that formed part of the city’s defence,
and jumped from their windows. The ones who made it through rushed to the ships, all of which had pulled up their boarding
planks and were making ready to sail.

It didn’t stop the crowd. They pulled on the mooring ropes until the ships were crammed up against the dock, then swarmed
up the sides. The sailors fought them off with belaying pins and knives. Bodies dropped back onto the dock — some sailors,
but most Turviters.

“Don’t go down,” Baluch said. “Please, Bramble. I can’t protect you down there.”

She spared a flick of a smile for the idea that he had to protect her — that came from his old life, for sure — but the scene
below was sobering enough. Going down into that mob was too foolhardy even for her. She had Acton’s bones, and they could
not be risked.

The desperate Turviters had almost overwhelmed the ships when a horn blasted out from the top of the hill.

“The ghost attack!” Baluch said.

They ran back to the knoll in time to see the ghosts retreat, confused, leaving a welter of dark-haired bodies in front of
the barrier.

“More deaths,” Bramble said.

“More will come, unless we do our job,” Baluch said.

H
E CALLED
his people back in horror, and they died as they came, bodies falling, pierced by spears or arrows; some screamed as they
lay in the dust of the road, their blood coating themselves and their colleagues.

Blood.

He could smell blood, and the stench of guts cut open.

Blood and memory.

“Arise!” he cried, putting all his grief and terror into the call. “Arise, comrades-in-arms! Oak and Ber and Eldwin and Fox,
arise! We seek justice for you, my friends. Arise!” He called, and kept on calling, as long as their blood flowed.

It was easier, this spell, than any other had been, fuelled by his pain, strengthened by his sorrow.

They rose as they died, one by one, the ghosts forming quickly, their weapons still in their hands. There was no confusion
— they knew what had happened, they had died hearing him call. Their ghosts moved with purpose as soon as they formed, gathering
with the others; they were the newest part of his army, the most valuable.

Zel had arrived, panting, at his elbow as he began the spell, and she supported him as it ended, when his legs gave way and
his head spun. She was stalwart; he gave thanks to the gods that she was still alive.

Saker turned to his ghosts again, and whispered, “Try the barrier again.”

Owl and his father looked sceptical, but they went, all the same. The bigger group overwhelmed the road and spilt off into
the yards on either side. Saker could feel the spell again as they approached the barricade: just like last time, its strength
rose as his army came nearer. But this time, this time, it was almost not enough. He closed his eyes so he could sense it
better. The spell only just held, now that there were more ghosts trying to break it.

Saker opened his eyes. His father looked furious, storming back to him, brandishing his sword. Owl followed, just as angry,
and the others came behind, disappointed, frustrated.

“We almost had it,” Saker said to them. “With the new ghosts, we were almost enough to break it. I need to think. I need somewhere
quiet to think.”

“Up on the headland,” Zel said, pointing. “It’s quiet up there.”

She was right. The headland was deserted.

The wagons were no good up there. He left them with the few living allies in the yard of an inn halfway down the slope. Zel
organised guards, shifts, rosters — he had needed someone like her. Then they walked up to the headland together, near the
river, the ghosts trailing behind. His father brushed past them, impatiently, and Owl followed him. They climbed to the highest
point and stood, looking down at the city.

When Saker turned away and sat by the stream, Zel followed. He didn’t think that his father saw Turvite as he did, as a jewel
to present to their people, a symbol of everything they had lost. His father, he suspected, just wanted to destroy it and
everyone in it.

They needed more ghosts. That was the key. Those just arisen had almost been enough. But to get more… Travellers had
to die. Or else he had to find more bones.

He outlined the problem to Zel, relieved to have someone to talk to, someone to share with. “If only I didn’t need the bones!”
he said despairingly.

She patted his hand as it lay on the grass, and he flushed. He turned his hand over quickly, so that her hand came down on
his palm, and he curled his fingers around hers. It was the first time he could remember welcoming a human touch. It was so
different from all the times he had taken a hand wet with spit and stiff with excitement. Zel’s hand was gentle, although
rough with calluses from her tumbling.

He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

A hand came down on her shoulder and pulled her roughly away, sending her sprawling almost into the water. His father.

Alder grabbed him by the shirt and shook him like a terrier shakes a rat, pointing in rage at Zel, frothing that he couldn’t
shout, couldn’t berate him. Saker knew why his father was angry — because he had taken a moment, just a moment, to be simply
Saker, a Traveller man, sitting with a Traveller woman in peace, instead of being committed, heart and soul, every moment,
to their cause.

Unforgivable.

His father threw him down and hit him across the face, the shoulders, the back, as he curled into a ball to protect himself.

There had been many beatings in his childhood. Alder was known for having a hard hand. One family had even cut off all contact
with his because Alder had beaten their daughter for lying.

Saker was vaguely aware that Zel had scrambled up and pulled Alder away, shouting insults at him. Alder shrugged her off,
but he stopped and moved back a pace.

Saker forced himself to hands and knees, panting with pain. So much pain, all his life, from his father, from Freite…

Anger bloomed in him. Wild anger, so huge it seemed about to split him in two. He seemed to swell larger than any human, as
vast as the sea, as vast as the sky. His sight was red, as though his very eyes were bleeding pain. He could kill his father
easily, just by removing the spell from him. He’d
never
have to see him again, never see the look of disdain on his face, never… No! No, that wasn’t right. Couldn’t be right.
His anger was for the invaders. If his father had lived, seen him grow to be a man, surely they would have found mutual respect,
understanding…

It was the invaders’ fault, all of it. Acton’s fault. All over the Domains, people lay in shallow graves and burial caves
because of him. The invaders had to be crushed. His father was right. But the anger… the anger was still there, still
building. He felt as though his eyes were going to break open; his heart was beating too fast, it would burst itself and there
was no one to bring him back, no one to call
his
spirit back from the darkness beyond death… He felt like a wind was rushing through him, lifting him to his feet.

His father backed up a step as he rose, and Saker was glad to see it. Glad to see alarm on his face.

Blood and memory.

He remembered them all. All the songs that Rowan had taught him, all the names he had conned over the months of collecting
bones, all the faces, the places, the pain, the death… He remembered them all.

Blood and memory and anger would bring them all back.

He took out his knife and slashed his palm wildly, and the anger swelled as he cut and cut, the blood swirling out as he began
to spin, so that all the Domains would be touched by it, south and north and west and east — all corners blessed by his blood.

He called them: “Arise, brothers and sisters! Arise, all of you. All who have died who would not have died without Acton;
all who have died untimely and unjustly; all who have been murdered, had the life ripped from them because of Acton’s invasion;
come to me, all of you, all my brothers and sisters, all the dead who rage; all whose lives were shorter because the invaders
came through Death Pass. Arise and come! Come! Come now! Come and be given all my strength!”

And as the spell grew, as the power grew, the terrible singing in his head returned, louder than ever, but he ignored it.
Let them rage, those he had killed! Let them shriek against the barrier of death for revenge. No one would call them back.
He didn’t care if the ululation split his head wide open, he would not stop. He would call them all, all his kin.

The anger and the pain and the loneliness spun out of him and spread out across the Eleven Domains. He could feel it go, feel
it spread, feel it fly across the landscape like clouds before a gale. It spread like night, like shadow, like sunlight. As
fast as dawn.

He felt it hit the nearest burial caves, felt the spirits stir within. Felt it go further, further, travelling as a dove flies,
straight and quick. It was huge, growing no weaker as it spread, pushing all other enchantments before it. Something about
that troubled him, but he did not know what it was.

The high whining in his head began to pulse and move, as though whoever made it was looking for a weak spot in him, a chink
they could use to climb through, to come back like his kin was coming. But he was too strong, too fearless. He resisted, thrust
it away from him.

Then he felt the first of the new ghosts moving up the hill, faster than anyone could walk, faster than a chaser; and the
whining died away. They were invisible: flying, swimming through time and air to be with him. They only firmed to visible
shapes when they came near enough, and they kept moving until they stood before Saker, dazed and wondering.

A young girl was in front, holding a knife with comfortable familiarity. She looked around and blinked, then tilted her head
to the side as though assessing the situation. She looked Saker up and down, then Alder. Owl. Then she saw Zel, and relaxed
a little, as though the presence of a young woman reassured her. The others were a mixture: old and young, men and women,
clothes of different fashions and quality.

Saker saw that his father, at last, was looking at him with some respect. But somehow it mattered less, now. He could not
turn aside for Alder. He had to stay here, until the spell was complete.

They were coming with the speed of dawn light. And when they were assembled, nothing would stand against them.

B
RAMBLE COULD
hear shouting from the other side of the headland, a rhythmic shouting. The bones in the bag on her shoulder seemed to move
in time to it. A half-familiar noise rang in her head — the same noise she’d heard when they raised Acton’s ghost. It was
the sound of the dead being brought back. She dropped the bag and watched, in a mixture of relief and consternation, as Acton’s
ghost rapidly formed.

He seemed to be fighting against something that was pulling him towards the top of the headland. He was being dragged up towards
the shouting. She reached out to help him, but her hand went through. He was a real ghost, then. She moved closer to him,
desperate to help but helpless, barely able to think through the ear-splitting noise in her head. And then the shouting above
stopped.

His hand clasped hers with the chill of the burial caves.

She almost let him slip from her grasp, but grabbed hold with her other hand as the whining howl subsided. The enchanter had
called up more ghosts, she realised, and Acton had been in the ambit of his spell.

“Hold on to him!” she called breathlessly to Baluch. The pull up the hill was very strong. “We have to keep him here!” She
dug in her heels and despite Acton fighting it, too, with all his massive strength, they were dragged up a yard or so before
Baluch added his weight, coming around and leaning against Acton from higher up the slope.

From the harbour below, ghosts appeared and rushed past them: sailors, city people, all the recent dead.

Acton shook his head as if to clear it, set his jaw in that look she knew so well, and simply stopped. Immovable, like a mountain.

Bramble exchanged glances with Baluch, and they both smiled, very slightly. If this were a battle of wills, they had no doubt
who would win it.