Winterbirth (56 page)

Rothe surged to his feet, spilling both Orisian and the hound's corpse as he rose. The shieldman clasped a hand about his bloodstained wrist, and took a lurching step towards the Inkallim.

Varryn hissed: an inhuman, piercing sound. The Inkallim flicked his head round. Varryn was motionless.

He was perfectly poised in the still moment a hunter would seek: unbreathing, feet firmly planted, bowstring taut, the fletching of the arrow brushing his face. The Inkallim began to move. The arrow was released. In an instant it crossed the space between Kyrinin and human, and cracked into the Inkallim's cheek. The moment the bowstring snapped out of his hand, Varryn was rushing to Ess'yr.

'My sword,' Rothe cried.

'I can't see it,' Orisian heard Anyara shout.

The Hunt Inkallim turned unsteadily back towards the shield-man. Varryn's arrow stood rigid in his face, rooted in a nest of blood and bone. A mad, desperate grin split the man's face. Blood was spilling out over his lips. Orisian threw his knife: he was unskilled in the art, but it was made for throwing and it found a home high on the Inkallim's chest.

Rothe stretched out his uninjured arm towards Anyara.

'Your staff,' he said.

She passed it to him in silence. The Inkallim made to raise his own weapon, but all his strength and grace were gone. He was rocking on his feet. He watched limply as Rothe came up and struck him a great blow on the side of the head. The Inkallim fell. His legs kicked feebly as he lay face-down in the snow.

'Leave him, leave him!' Yvane was shouting. Already, she was heading off, straight down the slope. 'He wasn't alone.'

Varryn slung his sister's bow across his shoulders with his own and lifted Ess'yr. Her arms and legs dangled limply. Carrying both her and his spear, Varryn began to run after Yvane.

Rothe was scrabbling clumsily in the snow. Blood falling from his wounds left pinpricks of red in the whiteness.

"Where's my sword?' he cried, sounding grief-struck.

'Leave it,' shouted Orisian, hauling at his shieldman's arm. Rothe resisted for a moment.

'Rothe! Do as I say. Leave it.' Even to his own ears, Orisian's voice had an arresting edge of command to it.

Yvane cried, 'We must go!' back over her shoulder.

They took great leaping strides through the snow. Rothe held himself at the back, even though he had nothing now save a knife with which to defend Orisian and Anyara.

Their flight was wild, uncontrolled, but the attack they feared never came. When they broke free of the cloud's embrace they found themselves rushing down towards a distant dark line of trees. The snow was thinning, the ground more even.

Though he could hardly raise his eyes from the point of his next footfall, Orisian was aware of a great vista spread out before them. They had come out on to the northern flank of the Car Criagar and the Dihrve valley lay ahead and below. Beyond that broad plain, like a magnified reflection of the mountains behind them, the immense heights of the Car Dine rose up.

At last, coming to the first scrawny trees, Yvane allowed them to pause. Even Varryn was breathing hard as he knelt and laid Ess'yr down. A look of concern emerged through the fierce tattoos on his face as he leaned over his sister and listened to her breathing. Delicately, he ran his fingers over her side, feeling for injuries. Then he sat back and gently brushed strands of hair from her forehead.

'How is she?' Orisian panted.

'Broken,' Varryn said. He gestured at his own ribcage. 'Here.'

'Lammanroot would be best,' said Yvane distractedly. She was looking back up the slope, her eyes narrowed. 'But we do not have the time to search for it now.'

Rothe was at her side, surveying the higher slopes just as she did. The distant banks of cloud that still cloaked the mountains were a blank, impenetrable wall. There was no hint of movement.

'Perhaps they will give up the chase now we have bloodied them,' he said.

'Perhaps,' murmured Yvane. 'Will you allow a
na'kyrim
to bind that wrist for you?'

Rothe nodded in agreement. He turned and watched Varryn as Yvane began rooting somewhere beneath her cloak for bandage materials. 'You have a keen aim,' he said.

'Kyrinin aim,' was Varryn's brusque reply, but after a moment he seemed to think better of his curtness, and he looked up at the shieldman. 'Not so keen. I went for the eye.'

'A good try, still,' replied Rothe. 'That arrow saved us a lot of trouble.'

Varryn shrugged; it was not as cold a gesture as once might have passed between the two. They rested only for a minute or two, and then resumed a more cautious descent. Ess'yr woke, grimacing in pain, her face whiter than ever it had been before. Varryn supported her as she hobbled down through the woods.

These forests were different to those of the Glas valley. Pines dominated them. Mostly they were small, cold- and wind-bent things, but in places they crowded so close together that they cast a black shade.

The earth was carpeted with browned needles and wiry grass. Here and there tree roots had been forced to the surface by hidden rocks or stone faces. The place had a foreign feel, fit for the old tales of savage Kyrinin, watchful Anain or even the wolfish Whreinin.

They had crossed into a land where only masterless humans roamed, where the bloodoath or the concerns of Lannis and Horin meant nothing. Now more than ever, Orisian thought, they were in the hands of their inhuman companions. This was their land.

In the gathering dusk they made a camp of sorts amidst the trees. Varryn laid a fire against the foot of a sloping rock and then, once Ess'yr was settled by the flames, disappeared into the forest without a word of explanation. Orisian guessed he had gone to search for the root he needed to ease his sister's pain.

There was a great dormant ant hill a few yards from their resting place, a smooth mound of pine needles that bulbed up from the ground. Yvane was crouched beside it, probing it with a thin twig. The image was strangely familiar to Orisian. It was some time before he could recall why: the last time he had been alone with Inurian, the
na'kyrim
had been searching for sea urchins beside Castle Kolglas with a long stick.

"What are you doing?' he asked her, as he had asked Inurian then.

'Distracting myself from our difficulties. Ants make good food if you are hungry enough.' She smiled at his involuntary grimace. 'Though I suppose we're not that hungry yet.' She set aside the twig and rose a little stiffly to her feet.

'I have not stretched my legs so vigorously for a long time,' she muttered. There was a touch of irritation in her voice. She disliked her own weakness.

'Mine are getting used to running,' he said.

'Well , we may be clear of trouble for now,' said Yvane as she led him back towards the fire. 'Hopefully we can walk the rest of the way to Koldihrve.'

Rothe was sitting on a stone, his unsheathed knife resting on his thigh, gazing into the fire. Orisian felt a twinge of sympathy for his shieldman. It would be a torment to Rothe to be without his sword; unable, as he would see it, to properly protect Orisian. And Orisian had, he glumly reflected, left his own knife — the Inkallim blade — behind, resting in the chest of their pursuer.

Anyara was already dozing, sitting against a tree trunk with her patchy fur jacket draped over her like a blanket. Her head nodded on her chest and every now and again she made a soft murmuring sound.

'We all need some rest,' said Yvane softly.

Orisian stretched out close to the fire. He should be afraid, he knew, of what might come in the night. It seemed he was too tired for fear, though, since he soon drifted off towards sleep with the soft crackling of the flames in his ears.

He came briefly to befuddled wakefulness in the depths of the night, roused by some sound. The fire still blazed and he could see nothing beyond its glare. From somewhere in the darkness, muted voices were coming. Drowsy apprehension had just begun to rise in his breast when he recognised them: Rothe and Varryn, deep in conversation. In the few moments before sleep reclaimed him, Orisian recognised that fact for the small wonder it was.

They woke to rain. It was a miserable morning. The fire died quickly. Varryn kicked earth over the embers and then spread them out with his foot. The rain grew heavier as they descended through the forest, but it was at least better than snow and biting wind. They found a rocky stream and drank from it.

Ess'yr could not bend to drink, and Varryn raised water to her lips in his cupped palms. Orisian could well imagine the pain each step must bring her. The wound in his own side still made itself known every now and then, not by pain exactly, but a taut tenderness. To see Ess'yr struggling with her own injury brought home how graceful she had been before. He had almost stopped noticing her poise and precision; now that it was stripped from her its absence was glaring, like a bird that could not fly.

The rain eased off towards midday, and the going became easier as the slope flattened out. At last, there came a moment when the gradient disappeared altogether, and for the first time in what seemed an age there was only flat ground beneath their feet and before their eyes. Anyara gave a heartfelt sigh of relief and even Rothe could not keep a slight smile from his lips.

'Welcome to the valley of the Dihrve,' said Yvane. 'Some call it the Vale of Tears, but we may hope for rather happier times here perhaps.'

Varryn exchanged a few words with Ess'yr. They seemed to agree something.

'There is a
vo'an,'
said Ess'yr. 'One or two hours. We can rest there.'

Nobody disagreed, though Orisian caught a surprised, perhaps even shocked, expression on Anyara's face. It was easy to forget she had not been where he had.

'It'll be fine,' he said to her, and tried to put strength into his smile.

Aged willows covered the damp ground. The trees were too uniformly old and thinly spaced to be a
dyn hane,
but still the place had a haunted, wild feel to it, as if it had a life of its own upon which Orisian and the others were intruding. Fallen trunks lay all around, being slowly sucked into the earth by swathes of moss and fungus.

They halted in a clearing and sat on a hummock that was the closest thing to dry ground.

'We are close,' Ess'yr said. Her words were breathy, each one costing her some pain. It made Orisian wince in sympathy. 'We will go in, ask leave for you to come. Wait here.'

'Be certain,' said Orisian softly. 'No arguments about being sent to the willow this time.'

'No,' agreed Ess'yr.

'Leave us a spear, at least,' said Rothe to Varryn. 'We've no weapons save my knife and these walking staffs.'

The words seemed to wash straight over the Kyrinin. He and Ess'yr disappeared to the north, leaving the others to sit and watch the clouds scudding overhead. Tiny brown birds were hopping around amongst the undergrowth.

'Are we sure this is safe?' asked Anyara.

'Not entirely,' replied Rothe before Orisian could draw breath.

'They wouldn't have brought us here if it wasn't safe,' Orisian said.

'That's true enough,' said Yvane quietly. 'They think we've rid ourselves of hunters, at least for now, or they'd not have left us. Ess'yr certainly would do nothing to put you at risk.' She looked from Orisian to Anyara. 'Do you understand the
ra'tyn?
The pledge she has made?'

Orisian frowned, not understanding. The word
ra'tyn
was vaguely familiar, but at first he could not say where he had heard it before. Then it came to him that Inurian had spoken it, when he lay by the Falls of Sarn. It had been a part of what he had said to Ess'yr; and Ess'yr had said something, in the moments before Yvane found them in Criagar Vyne, about having sworn an oath of some sort. He had forgotten about it.

'I didn't think so,' mused Yvane. 'She'll not tell you herself, that's certain. I overheard them talking - arguing would be more precise, I suppose - about it back in the ruins. In any case, you can rest easy that she will not put you in danger.'

'But they cannot speak for the wights in this camp,' muttered Rothe.

'Things go a little differently in the Dihrve valley,' said Yvane. 'Huanin and Kyrinin share much of the land here. It's a rough kind of peace but it's peace nevertheless, so I'll give you a word of advice; two, in fact.

Do not speak of "wights" too freely here. It is something you would call an enemy, and as I say, things go a little differently here. Second, no Kyrinin will be willingly parted from spear or bow while they are outside a camp. For a Huanin to be asking for it . . . Varryn bears the full
kin'thyn,
and he didn't get that by being shy about spilling blood. He must like you, or he'd have given you the spear point first.'

Rothe lapsed into glum silence after that. Once, Orisian thought, the shieldman might have had something to say about Kyrinin pride.

Time slipped by. They ate and drank. Orisian and Anyara dozed. There was a rustling amongst the trees to the west of them that had Rothe springing upright and clutching his dagger. For a few moments they were all poised, listening intently for any other sound. Then there was a sharp, grunting bark and the sound of some animal bounding off through the woods.

'Marsh deer,' said Yvane.

Varryn returned alone. He had been gone no more than a couple of hours.

'Come,' was all he said.

This was a very different
vo'an
to the one Orisian had seen before. Emerging from the dense woodland they arrived upon the brink of a lake fringed with vast swathes of reeds and rushes. The winter camp reached out over the marsh and water on stilted platforms and jetties of wood. There were many huts made of animal hides stretched across wooden frames, more permanent structures than the domed tents he had seen in In'hynyr's camp. At the edge of the platforms were tethered rafts of logs which supported more shelters. A powerful scent spilled from sheds where racks of fish hung over smoking fires. The whole place had a settled feel that suggested it had been here for many years; there were probably twice as many Kyrinin here as in the
vo'an
on the southern flanks of the Car Criagar. A few children stopped what they were doing to watch the strange party as Varryn led them up on to one of the platforms, but the adults largely ignored them.