Winterbirth (44 page)

'Criagar Vyne? I've heard of it.'

'Ess'yr can show you the way. There is a woman there: Yvane, a
na'kyrim.
She can give you shelter. I don't think the White Owls will go so far into Fox lands. Perhaps the Black Road won't either.' He clasped a hand to his mouth to smother a racking cough. When he lowered it again there were flecks of blood on the palm.

'But we have to get to Glasbridge, or to Kolglas. We must…' Orisian fell silent as Inurian seized his arm in a vice-like grip.

'No, Orisian,' the
na'kyrim
said raspingly. 'Think. It won't take the White Owls more than a few hours to run you down. You're not in the valley now: you're in the forest, and that's Kyrinin territory.' Inurian's grey eyes held Orisian fast. They burned with an intensity unlike anything Orisian had seen there before.

'Anduran's gone, perhaps Tanwrye as well. Glasbridge will be next. Get Anyara to safety, Orisian. Yvane can get you to Koldihrve, on to a boat there. Both of you.'

Orisian found tears in his eyes. He was barely listening to what Inurian said. 'You will come with us,' he said defiantly, though he could not keep a tremor from his voice.

Inurian closed his eyes. 'No,' he said. His strength was failing. His hand fell away from Orisian's arm.

'Yes!' Orisian shouted, taking hold of Inurian. The others turned at the sudden outburst. Ess'yr came up on his shoulder. Inurian murmured something to her in the Fox tongue. She reached down and began to prise Orisian's hands away from the
na'kyrim.

'He cannot come,' she said in a level tone.

Orisian pushed her away. 'He comes with us!' he cried. He looked from face to face. 'He comes with us,' he insisted once more.

Anyara was crying without a sound, tears leaving tracks through the dirt upon her cheeks. Ess'yr and Varryn said nothing. Their eyes met his with a steadfast gaze. Only Rothe looked away. The shieldman bowed his head.

'Rothe,' Orisian said, 'you have carried him this far.'

Rothe cleared his throat and gave an uneasy flick of his head, as if shying away from his thoughts.

'He will stay,' said Varryn. 'We cannot carry him. The climb...'

'Climb?' shouted Orisian, driven by some deep instinct to turn his anger upon Ess'yr. 'Why did we come this way if you knew we could not take him with us? We should have gone some other way.'

The pain he saw in the delicate, normally impassive face of the Kyrinin woman was more than he expected. Its depth took the heat out of him. She said nothing.

'He knows,' Varryn was saying. 'His idea. There is no other way.'

Orisian hung his head. There was a desolate impotence in him he had felt only once before, five years ago, watching a black-sailed boat sail out from Kolglas for The Grave, bearing bodies wrapped in white winding sheets.

'You should have told me,' he said in a broken voice. In that moment he felt a fluttering touch upon his hand. Inurian's long fingers were brushing his skin.

'Be still, Orisian,' the
na'kyrim
murmured. His eyelids were fluttering. 'Be still,' he breathed again. 'Be strong. I will rest here a while. You must go on.'

'I won't leave you here,' Orisian groaned.

'You will, because I ask you to. You have always trusted me and you must trust me in this. Aeglyss is coming for me. I can hear him, inside my head. That is why I have come with you this far, to draw him in to this place where he can go no further. His Kyrinin will not willingly go beyond the
dyn ham,
and neither will Aeglyss if he has me. But you must keep going. Others might come: Horin-Gyre or worse.

This only delays them. You cannot tarry.'

Orisian shook his head.

'Where is Ess'yr?' Inurian asked, and she moved forwards and knelt down.

Orisian followed nothing of what passed between them. It was murmured, in the fluid language of the Fox, but his mind was numb in any case and he could not tear his gaze from Inurian's elegant hand that lay still beside his own. He sensed from Inurian's tone that he was asking Ess'yr a question. She did not reply at once. Varryn took a few quick steps closer and snapped something. He was angry. Ess'yr gave an answer, and her brother spun away and strode towards the
dyn hane.
Inurian was smiling. Ess'yr bent and laid a kiss upon his lips.

'Go,' whispered Inurian.

It was a moment before Orisian realised the command was meant for him. He shook his head again.

'Take him, Rothe,' said Inurian. Ess'yr had risen and was walking away. Her shoulders were rigid, as if only their strength contained something within her.

Rothe took hold of Orisian's arm. 'Come away,' he said.

Anyara knelt down and embraced the
na'kyrim.
'Goodbye,' she whispered, then she stood up and followed after the Kyrinin.

'Orisian...' Rothe said, but Orisian shook his hand off and held Inurian as his sister had done. He tried to enclose his body, to gather it to himself. He could feel Inurian's ribcage rising and falling, hear his faltering breath.

'Go,' said Inurian in his ear. 'He is close. Go, Orisian. I will not forget you.'

'I will see you again,' said Orisian, and he let Rothe pull him gently to his feet and lead him away.

THE FOREST BREATHED its soft, even breath. Twigs stirred in the faintest of breezes. An owl roosting high against the trunk of an oak blinked and peered down as fleet-footed shapes sped beneath.

On a rocky knoll, a black bear nosing for insects in mulch-packed crannies raised its head and turned this way and that, teasing a scent out of the air. Snuffling in irritation, it scrambled down from the rocks and padded away. Bounding forms swept past the knoll, emerging from and disappearing into the forest in the space of a few moments. Mice cowered amidst the springy turf as silent foot-falls shook their domain. A single dead leaf, one of the last vestiges of autumn, spiralled down and was tumbled in the wake of a rushing figure before it resumed its descent.

Inurian stood by the river. The
dyn bane
was at his back. The sound of the falls filled his ears. The winter sun had broken through and was lighting the highest parts of the cliffs. The bitter edge was gone from the air. It was very beautiful, he thought. This had always been his favourite time of year.

A face drifted before his inner eye, that of Ess'yr. It bore with it more pain than he could countenance.

He set it aside and looked to the still forest downstream. He waited; for how long, he could not say.

How strange it is, he thought, to come to such an ending. I am not done with life. Can it really all be so easily ended? Of course it can, he told himself. It had been a path woven of a thousand small chances, the intersection of countless other lives: one wandering
na'kyrim
happening upon a good man in a castle in the sea; another eaten away by anger and bitterness; a fevered woman long ago sowing the seed of a cult, her garbled words reaching out over all the years to set Thane against Thane; an arrow in the darkness. Just one arrow.

He saw shapes moving amongst the trees. There was no sound to mark their coming. He knew them for what they were. They emerged at first one by one, then a score. A wide arc of Kyrinin stood facing him.

And still there was no sound save the rushing water.

Inurian swayed a little. It had been a terrible struggle to rise to his feet. Although the pain had all but gone now, he thought the effort had sundered something deep inside him. He had the sense of his thoughts trying to lift away and drift upwards. He had to fight to hold them to him. He glanced up. The sky was a field of pure blue. The light seemed to have such clarity that he could have seen to the end of the world had the rock walls not pressed in so close about this place. For a moment he was rising, floating towards that blue expanse. He caught himself and drew his gaze back to the clearing.

Aeglyss was there now, sitting astride a brown horse. He had passed through the line of Kyrinin and was watching Inurian. The horse was breathing hard and jinking around, breaking up the soft, wet earth.

Aeglyss passed his reins to one of the Kyrinin and swung out of the saddle. He patted the horse's neck as he stepped forwards. He came up to Inurian.

'You look weary,' he said, tilting his head a little to one side.

'I am tired,' agreed Inurian. In his mind the words were clear, yet they sounded heavy and slurred in the wintry air.

Aeglyss was removing his riding gloves now, folding them over his belt and flexing his fingers. The horse behind him was still shifting about, shaking its head.

'Are you dying?' he asked.

Inurian closed his eyes for a moment. 'I am,' he said.

'Come back with me. The White Owls have good healers. Perhaps we can keep you alive.'

Inurian shook his head with care, fearful of dizziness. 'No,' he said.

'But this is foolish,' said Aeglyss. 'Why die such a wasteful death? Come back with me. Teach me what you know. Stand with me.'

Inurian was silent. Something was rising from the pit of his stomach, drifting up through his chest. His legs, which had felt so heavy not long before, were now weightless. He could hear the feeble beating of his heart.

'Do not leave me. I need you,' said Aeglyss softly. 'Please.' He was imploring, grief-stricken almost.

Inurian pitied the other man in that moment.

'I cannot stay,' Inurian said. He struggled to focus on the face before him. A fine network of thin red lines was strung across Aeglyss' eyes. He had the skin of a corpse. An angry wound marred his lower lip.

There were other, deeper marks that only Inurian could have sensed.

'You've over-reached yourself, haven't you?' he said. 'Attempted something that was almost beyond you.'

Aeglyss flicked a hand dismissively, though Inurian felt the irritation in the gesture as well.

'Some woman, spying, eavesdropping. I chased her off.' He looked over Inurian's shoulder. 'Clever, to put the
dyn bane
across the trail. Whose idea was that? The White Owls're hungry for Fox blood, but this will turn them aside. For now. It doesn't matter, of course. You're the one I came for.'

'I may be dying,' Inurian said, 'but your sickness is the greater, Aeglyss. It will destroy you. You must know that.' He coughed, and felt salty fluid in the back of his mouth. His throat was burning.

'Please,' whispered Aeglyss again, and this time his voice was a caress. Inurian felt the other's will laying its dark fingers upon his thoughts. He hungered to do as Aeglyss asked: to free himself of his suffering, to cling to precious life. This is how it happens, he thought. He shook his head.

'You've not the strength to bind me to your will. Not the skill, certainly.'

For long moments Aeglyss stood there, as immobile as his Kyrinin followers, staring. Inurian blinked.

There was a cloudiness spreading across his vision, bleeding in from the edges like a fog, and he could see little but Aeglyss' face. He thought he saw many things there: the old anger and hunger, but also something in the eyes and the set of the brow that spoke of puzzlement and pain, like a child who did not understand why he was being punished.

'Last chance,' Aeglyss said. 'I will forgive you all your insults, if you come back with me. Teach me.'

'No.'

Aeglyss turned on his heel and walked away. Inurian felt a strange surge of release.

'Aeglyss, wait,' he said.

Aeglyss glanced back.

'They will kill you sooner or later,' Inurian said. 'The White Owls, or the Black Road , or the Haig Bloods. You think you can play their games, be a part of it all. But you can't, Aeglyss. They'll not love you for seeking to be one of them.'

Aeglyss seized a spear from the hand of the nearest White Owl. His teeth were bared in a grimace of fury. He strode up to Inurian and drove the spear through his midriff, impaling him upon its shaft.

'No games, little man,' hissed Aeglyss.

Inurian slumped. Aeglyss held him up.

'You once called me a dog that thought it was a wolf. Tell me now, Inurian. Which am I now? Dog or wolf?'

'You have a dog's heart.'

'Very well. But it beats more strongly than yours.'

'I've made my choice,' murmured Inurian and felt his last strength passing out between his lips and into the sharp air. It was easier than he had expected to let go.

Aeglyss spat upon his cheek and released the spear. Inurian fell on to his side. Aeglyss stepped back.

'I'm sorry,' Inurian murmured.

'Finish him,' Aeglyss said in the White Owl tongue. The Shared sang in the words, put a core of command and insistence into them that could not be denied. The Kyrinin poured forwards. They crowded around Inurian and he disappeared beneath a frenzy of stabbing spears and stamping feet.

Aeglyss stood and watched for a while, then went back to his horse. He gave one sharp cry, of some kind of pain or anger, as he swept up into the saddle.

Riding away, Aeglyss was hunched low. He did not look back. The Kyrinin fell in behind him and were soon swallowed by the woods. The bloodied corpse of the
na'kyrim
from Castle Kolglas lay alone on the damp grass, waiting for the carrion birds. The sound of the falls rolled on.

Car Criagar

FROM THE TOWERING heights of the Tan Dihrin - the World Mountains - spill chains of lesser peaks like arms reaching out across the earth. Of these the longest is the Car Criagar. Less fierce than the Car Dine to its north but still wild and rugged enough, the Car Criagar is a great wall of mountain tops stretched between the valleys of the Dihrve and the Glas. Its lower slopes are clothed in forest, but wind-scoured moors and rockfields drape its peaks. All through summer, snow clings to bowls and slopes that never see the sun. When the season turns and the nights grow longer, the Tan Dihrin sends its breath down from the roof of the world, and the high Car Criagar is lost in shifting snow and storm. Yet in this heart - and soul-breaking place, that has no love for life, there are the carcasses of ancient cities and fortresses. These, it is said, were the dwelling places of a people who lived and ruled long before the Gods departed this world.