Fall of Thanes

V

The dead came down the River Vay, drifting in lazy fleets, turning in the current. They bumped along the hulls of the barges and ran up onto the mudbanks where the river’s bends robbed the waters of their force. Seagulls came up from the sea, sculling across the sky, flocking down to loiter around any grounded corpse and wait for it to be opened by dogs. There were the corpses of men and women and children from the masterless villages on the Vaywater; Kyrinin corpses from the river’s distant marshy headwaters, where the Snake had fallen into strife with the Taral-Haig Marchlords; corpses from the vast flat cattle lands north of Drandar, where nobles long settled in wary peace now openly feuded, and Heron Kyrinin crossed the river to prey on the displaced or undefended.

In Hoke, capital of the Thaneless Dargannan Blood, half the city burned while its garrison of Haig warriors was besieged in its barracks. Those men too burned, in time. Along the shore, a Dornach ship landed raiders who razed a village and then fell to fighting amongst themselves over the loot.

In the Far Dyne Hills, west of Dun Aygll, where once Kings mined for precious metals and woodsmen mined timber from forests they thought inexhaustible, gangs of youths hunted tithe-collectors. Punitive bands of warriors-Haig men and Ayth men alike-hunted youths and their families. Wandering companies of Black Road scavengers and pillagers roamed the bare hillsides, brutally aimless in their destruction. Many villagers, despairing of all order, drove their flocks south into the immense vale of the Blackwater River, where the lowlanders defended their lands with ambushes and pit traps.

Far beyond the Vale of Stones, in the still snow-cloaked lands of the Black Road, Battle Inkallim-few of them now but ferocious still-warred with the High Thane’s companies. Townsfolk rose on one side or the other. One night, when the moon was stark and full, warriors broke into the Sanctuary of the Lore, dragged many of its youngest Inkallim out into the snow and killed them beneath the watchful pine trees.

In Dyrkyrnon-secret Dyrkyrnon, secluded by both choice and by the trackless wetlands in which it nestled-na’kyrim walked in fear of the Shared, of shadows in the mind, of each other. Some became deranged and fled into the marshes, there to drown or die on the spears of the increasingly untrusting Heron clan. Some lapsed into uncommunicative despair and began to waste slowly away. One tore her own eyes out and plunged a fish knife into her own neck.

The world reeled and staggered, and with the rising and setting of each sun it descended deeper into the morass from which it could not pull free. And though the days grew longer, as winter withdrew slowly into the north, it seemed to all its inhabitants that there was a diminishing of light, an overthrowing of it by ever more profound darkness.

Anyara watched Coinach’s face. In the dim light of a single candle he was trying to slip some heavy thread through the eye of a huge needle. His intense concentration, and the not infrequent winces of frustration, amused her. She turned her attention back to the pot of broth simmering over a low fire. It smelled tolerable if not good. It would be warming at least, and there would be enough left to be reheated at dawn tomorrow, to fortify themselves against the long and likely uncomfortable journey that awaited them.

The cottage was cramped but secure and dry. They had no idea whose it was. Tara Jerain had simply told them they would be met at a certain place on the road towards the docks outside Vaymouth and provided with shelter. And so they had been. Tara was, as had become clear, a resourceful and knowledgeable woman. She had provided them with horses and suitably worn and moth-eaten clothing to conceal their status. She had found them the Tal Dyreen captain who meant to run the first ship into Kolkyre, now that the blockade of that city was at the very least unlikely to be strictly enforced and quite probably abandoned altogether. Anyara could think of nowhere else to go. She wanted to be as close to the Glas Valley as she could, and to be amongst at least a few of the people of her own Blood. The dangers of the journey and the destination, such as they were, seemed to her no greater than remaining in Vaymouth.

The city was lit by fires every night, as competing factions fought blindly, wildly for control. The slightest rumour, of any kind, was enough to send vengeful mobs raging through the streets. No one knew who ruled. Stravan oc Haig, notionally Thane since the death of his father and elder brother, had not been seen for days. Dead of a pox, some said; poisoned by his mad mother, claimed others. Merely drunk and asleep, most insisted.

It was no place to be, especially for those present at the death of Chancellor, High Thane and Bloodheir. Tara had assiduously spread word that Kale had been the killer: a Hunt Inkallim incredibly waiting all these years for the most opportune moment. It was impossible to say how many believed such a wild tale. But Lheanor had died in his Tower of Thrones at the hand of an ageing woman, and in such a world who was to say what might happen?

Tara had not spoken a word to Anyara about what had happened. The vacant look that was often in her eyes, her subdued manner, the shaking that often took hold of her hands, so violent she could not hold a cup steady, all suggested its effects. But she would not speak of it, and Anyara had not forced her.

There was a shuffling outside the door, and Coinach at once dropped the still-unthreaded needle and reached for his sword. Then a tapping and a whisper.

“My lady, it’s Torcaill. Your brother sent me.”

Coinach was still cautious as he opened the door just a fraction and peered out into the night, but he saw a face he knew, and the tension fell out of his frame.

“There were three of us, but the other two…” Torcaill looked ashen, even in the yellow light of the candle. Like a man who had been without food or sleep for days on end. His clothing was filthy and frayed.

“It was difficult,” he said. “And when I reached Vaymouth, I heard you’d been in the Chancellor’s palace. I went there, and his wife… Tara, is it? She told me where to find you. Once I had convinced her I was who I claimed to be, and that wasn’t easy. Is it true… what they say happened?”

“It depends what you’ve heard,” muttered Coinach.

“We’ll tell you soon enough,” Anyara said. “Orisian sent you? Where is he? How is he?”

She could hear the impatience in her own voice, but it was only excitement, eagerness, and it pleased her. She revelled in it.

“I have a message from him,” Torcaill said, and proffered a canvas tube.

Anyara took it and unfurled the parchment from within. She leaned closer to the candle to read it. The handwriting was crude and a little clumsy. Her brother had never been the most gifted with a quill.

She read it quickly, thinking she would read it again more slowly once she had its gist. But a single reading was enough for her. She put it aside. The parchment, so long trained to the shape of that tube, rolled itself up again and hid the words.

Anyara felt she might cry and blinked into the embers of the fire a few times. But tears did not come. They were not quite ready. She found, after a few moments, that she was embracing Coinach instead.