Tower Lord

CHAPTER TWO

Lyrna

She awoke to find a little girl sitting on her bed, staring at her with wide blue eyes. Her head felt as if it were being pummelled from within by a tiny man with a large mallet and her mouth was so dry she could only croak a hello in Lonak at the girl. She angled her head and kept staring.

“It’s your hair, Queen.” Davoka was sitting on a neighbouring bed, naked save for a loincloth. “No Lonak with gold hair.”

Lyrna pulled back the furs that covered her and swung her legs off the bed, sitting up with a groan provoked by the multiple aches rippling from her back to her toes. Davoka rose and poured water into a wooden cup, holding it to Lyrna’s lips. Shorn of clothing, Davoka was an even more impressive sight, her body an epic of muscle, scars and tattooed flesh. She put the cup aside when Lyrna had drained it, holding a hand to her forehead. “Fever gone. Good.”

“How long have we been here?”

“Three days.”

Lyrna cast her gaze about the room, seeing walls of stone covered in decorated goatskins and complex hangings fashioned from strips of leather and wood carvings, some depictions of animals and men, others so unfamiliar as to be abstract.

“This is the woman’s hall,” Davoka told her, slipping into her own tongue. “Used for birthing. Men are not allowed here.”

Lyrna felt something teasing her hair and looked up to see the little girl tracing her fingers through the gold tresses, eyes still wide with fascination. “What’s your name?” she asked her in Lonak, smiling.

The little girl cocked her head. “Anehla ser Alturk,” she said. Alturk’s daughter.

“She doesn’t have a name yet,” Davoka explained. She shooed the girl away with a flick of her hand. She scampered to a corner and sat on the floor, still staring at Lyrna.

Davoka took a flask from her pack and handed it to Lyrna. “Redflower,” she recognised, sniffing it.

“Take your pain away.”

Lyrna shook her head and handed it back. “Redflower makes a slave of those who drink it.”

Davoka frowned at her then laughed, taking a small sip from the flask. “Queen makes things hard for herself. I see this.”

Lyrna rose from the bed, taking a few experimental steps. The slight chill to the air made for a not-unpleasant tingle over her naked flesh. “Brother Sollis and the others?” she asked.

“Unhurt but kept apart from the village. Only Alturk speaks to them, and no more than he has to.”

“He’s the leader of these people?”

“Clan Chief of the Grey Hawks. He holds dominion over twenty villages and their war-bands. No other save the Mahlessa can command so many.”

“You trust his loyalty?”

“He has never questioned the word from the Mountain.”

Lyrna detected a slight hesitancy to Davoka’s tone. “But will he continue to do so?”

“He has led many raids against your people, lost blood and kin to your gods-hating brothers. My people are taught to hate you from the day they are born.” She nodded at the little girl in the corner. “You think she doesn’t hate you? She’s probably only here so she can tell her father what words we speak.”

“And yet the Mahlessa wants peace. Even though it threatens to break your nation apart.”

“Words from the Mountain are not to be questioned.” Davoka threw a clay pot at the little girl, making her flee the hall. “Tell your father that!” she called after her.

She turned back to Lyrna, eyes surveying her nakedness. “Too thin, Queen. Need to eat.”

The next three days were spent in isolation at the woman’s hall, eating the food Davoka prepared and slowly rebuilding her strength. She was allowed to wander a few steps from the entrance where two Lonak warriors stood, regarding her in scowling silence and ignoring whatever greetings she offered. Davoka was never more than six feet from her side, and always armed. She caught a glimpse of Sollis at the far end of the village, practising a sword scale with Brother Ivern outside a small stone hut ringed with ten more warriors. She waved and the Brother Commander stopped, pausing for a moment then raising his sword in a brief salute. Brother Ivern followed suit, albeit with more of a flourish to the flash of his blade. She laughed and bowed in return.

Despite being repeatedly chased away by Davoka, Alturk’s daughter continued to return, her wide blue-eyed stare unwavering. Lyrna showed her how to work poor Nersa’s tortoise-shell comb through her hair, an activity she seemed to find tirelessly engaging.

“You have brothers and sisters?” Lyrna asked her, sitting on her bed with her back to the girl, whose small hands were guiding the comb through the long mane, still damp from washing.

“Kermana,” the girl replied. Any large number not easily counted. “And ten mothers.”

“That’s a lot of mothers,” Lyrna observed.

“Used to be eleven, but one joined the Sentar so Alturk killed her.”

“That’s . . . very sad.”

“No it’s not. She beat me more than the others.”

“Must’ve been her blood mother,” Davoka commented. “They always beat you more.”

“How many mothers for you, Queen?” the girl asked Lyrna. Like Davoka she was unable to comprehend the difference between a queen and a princess.

“Just one.”

“Did she beat you?”

“No. She died when I was very young. I have little memory of her.”

“Was it on the hunt or in battle?”

“Neither. She just got sick.” Like my father, although she died too soon whilst he died too late.

A woman appeared at the entrance, young in years but no less fierce in aspect than the warriors outside. Davoka had marked her as Alturk’s eldest daughter, charged with bringing them food and fuel, a task she usually performed in stern-faced silence. “You are to bring the Merim Her to the Tahlessa’s fire tonight,” she told Davoka. Her gaze tracked to Lyrna, taking in the sight of her younger sister tending hair. She barked a harsh command, beckoning to the girl who grimaced in annoyance but obediently slid off the bed to trot to her side.

“Leave that,” the young woman commanded, seeing the comb she still held in her hand.

“She can have it,” Lyrna said. “A . . . queen’s gift.”

“The blood of Alturk need no gifts from you,” the woman snarled back, twisting the comb from the girl’s grasp, drawing a pained sob.

“I said let her keep it!” Lyrna got to her feet, meeting the woman’s gaze.

The Lonak woman was almost shaking in rage, her hands inching towards the antler-handled knife in her belt.

“Mind the word of the Mountain,” Davoka told her in a quiet voice.

The woman seethed for a moment more then tossed the comb back to her sister, her furious gaze never leaving Lyrna. The little girl looked at the comb in her hand then threw it on the floor and stamped on it. “Merim Her are weak!” she hissed at Lyrna then ran from the hall.

The young woman gave Lyrna a final sneer of disdain before following.

“You are not queen here,” Davoka said. “Never forget they hate you.”

Lyrna looked down at the fragments of tortoise-shell. “They do,” she agreed, then turned to Davoka, smiling faintly. “But you don’t, sister.”

Predictably, Alturk’s dwelling proved the largest in the village, a stone-walled circle some twenty paces in diameter with a slanted roof of slate. Night had fallen by the time Davoka led Lyrna inside, finding the clan chief seated before a raging fire, the flames rising from coals heaped into a pit in the centre of the floor. He was alone save for a young man who stood at his shoulder, arms crossed and favouring Lyrna with the customary glower, and a large hound which sat at his feet gnawing on an elk bone.

“I understand,” Alturk began in Realm Tongue, apparently finding the offer of a greeting a pointless affectation. “My first daughter gave offence to the queen.”

“It was nothing,” Lyrna told him.

“Nothing or not, she showed weakness in failing to properly mind the Mahlessa’s command. I whipped her myself.”

“We are grateful for your consideration,” Davoka told him in Lonak before Lyrna could say anything.

He accepted the words with a nod, looking Lyrna up and down. “You are strong enough to travel.” There was no question in his tone.

“We will depart on the north-eastern trail come the dawn,” Davoka said. “I require ponies and an escort. A full war-band should be enough.”

The young man standing at Alturk’s shoulder gave a scornful laugh, falling to silence at a glare from the clan chief. “You can have the ponies, but there is no war-band to send with you,” Alturk said. “The hunt for the Sentar has taken all my warriors save the few I can spare to guard the villages.”

Davoka’s jaws bunched and her response was edged with suppressed anger. “I have counted over two hundred warriors in this village.”

Alturk shrugged. “The Sentar are many, and your sister’s blood-thirst insatiable. The Grey Hawks look to their Tahlessa for protection, I will not deny them.”

“But you would deny the word from the Mountain.”

Alturk got to his feet. He wore no weapons but the power evident in him was threat enough. “The Mahlessa sends no command for me to muster arms for your onward journey. I have honoured the word of the Mountain by providing succour to this gold-haired quim you fuss over like a nesting she-ape.”

Davoka gave a shout of fury, hefting her spear, a war club appearing in the hand of the young Lonak as she did so.

“NO!” Lyrna said, raising a hand and stepping in front of Davoka. “No, sister. This will do no good.”

The Lonak woman looked away, nostrils flared as she fought the desire for battle, then slowly lowered her spear. Lyrna turned to Alturk. “Tahlessa, I thank you for your hospitality. I, Princess Lyrna Al Nieren of the Unified Realm, am in your debt. We shall be on our way come morning.”

The pony they gave her made Lyrna pine for poor slaughtered Sable. It was an ill-tempered beast, prone to unbidden trotting and likely to rear in protest at the slightest provocation. It also had the boniest back she had ever encountered, the thin goatskin saddles the Lonak used offering little protection for her behind which now perched on what felt like a jumble of rocks covered with a thin blanket. Smolen seemed similarly discomfited by his mount, squirming somewhat as they trekked away from the Grey Hawk village, whilst Sollis and Ivern were fairly at ease on their ponies and Davoka, of course, rode hers as if she had known it for years. She led them on at a brisk trot, keen to cover as much distance as possible before nightfall. Lyrna glanced back at the village before they crested a rise at the north end of the valley, wondering if Alturk’s daughter would find the lock of golden hair she had hidden in the women’s hall, deep in a gap in the stone walls, only reachable by small hands.

“I trust you were not mistreated, good sirs,” Lyrna said to the three men as they traversed a shallow stream.

“Only if silence is a form of torture, Highness,” Ivern replied.

“For you it usually is,” Sollis muttered.

“No time for talk,” Davoka told them. “Need to be at the rapids by sun fall.” She kicked her pony to a canter, obliging them to follow suit.

As always, Lyrna found the relentless hours in the saddle irksome, but not quite so miserable an experience as before. Her back and legs didn’t ache so much and her thighs seemed to have become more resistant to chafing. She was also aware her ability as a rider had improved, where before she had struggled constantly to stay in the saddle at the gallop, now she moved in concert with the horse, even experiencing a small thrill in the exhilaration of speed as her hair trailed in the wind and the pony’s hooves drummed on the earth. Perhaps I’m becoming Lonak, she thought with a grin.

They came to the rapids by late evening, a raging torrent some fifty paces wide, stretching away on either side as far as they could see. Davoka led them eastward, following the course of the river until they found a deeper stretch where the current was not so fierce.

“This is not a ford,” Sollis observed.

“Ponies can swim,” Davoka said. “So can we.”

“Erm,” said Lyrna in a small voice.

“The current’s too swift,” Sollis insisted. “We should press on, find a better spot.”

“No time,” Davoka said, dismounting and leading her pony to the riverbank. “Sentar will already have our trail. We swim.”

“I can’t,” Lyrna said, eyeing the swirling eddies churning the river’s surface.

“No choice, Queen,” Davoka said, making ready to leap into the water.

“I said I can’t!” Lyrna shouted.

The Lonak woman turned with a quizzical expression.

“I can’t swim,” Lyrna went on, unable to keep the sullen defensiveness from her voice.

“Not even a little, Highness?” Ivern enquired.

“Forgive me for not spending my childhood in your order, brother!” she rounded on him. “My tutors were clearly remiss to the point of treason in not teaching me to swim, for it’s well-known such a skill is of great value to a princess.”

He winced a little under the tirade, but was unable to fully suppress a smirk. “Well, it is now.”

“Mind your tongue, brother!” Sollis snapped.

“We must cross,” Davoka stated.

“Well, I agree with Brother Sollis,” Lyrna replied, crossing her arms and forcing all the regal authority into her voice she could muster. “We should find a better spot, somewhere not so deep . . .”

She trailed off as Davoka approached her with a purposeful stride. “Don’t!” Lyrna cautioned her.

Davoka ducked down and lifted Lyrna over her shoulder, turning back to the river. “Rock apes can swim, no-one teaches them. So can you.”

“Brother Sollis, I command you . . .” Lyrna had time to sputter before finding herself in the air. The chill of the water was shocking, numbing her from head to toe in an instant. There was a moment of deafness, her vision crowded with bubbles, before she bobbed to the surface, dragging air into her lungs with a shout. As Sollis had predicted, the current was swift, carrying her downriver a good twenty paces before she managed to scramble to the bank, flailing and kicking until her feet found purchase on the rocky shallows. She crawled from the water, shivering and retching. Smolen appeared at her side, helping her up with careful hands. “You insult the person of our princess!” he raged at Davoka as she strode to join them.

“See,” she said to Lyrna, ignoring Smolen’s outburst. “You swim well eno-”

Lyrna punched her in the face. She put all her strength into the blow but it rebounded from the Lonak woman’s jaw without any obvious effect, whilst provoking an instant flare of agony in her fist.

There was a moment’s silence as Smolen put a hand on his sword hilt, Lyrna shook the pain from her hand and Davoka rubbed the small bruise on her jaw. She grunted and a smile ghosted across her lips. “Hold on to the pony’s neck,” she told Lyrna, turning away. “You be fine.”

In the event the crossing was less hazardous than Sollis feared, although Smolen came adrift from his pony halfway across and had to be rescued by Ivern before the current took him away, the young brother managing to snare the Lord Marshal’s tunic as he swept past. Lyrna clamped her arms around her pony’s neck and hung on as the animal kicked through the torrent. It seemed unafraid of the water, though its snorts indicated it found her an unwelcome burden. It was done in the space of an hour, all five of them safely making the opposite bank in varying stages of bedraggled exhaustion.

“Can’t rest,” Davoka said, climbing onto her pony’s back and spurring towards the north.

They trailed after her until they made it to the cover of a thick pine forest some ten miles from the river. Davoka discovered a shallow cave in a ravine where they took turns to sleep until morning. Lyrna found herself chilled to the point of shaking once more but there was no return of the sickness that laid her low beneath the Mouth of Nishak and she woke with the dawn, aching but refreshed enough to continue.

She moved to Davoka’s side as she crouched at the mouth of the cave, eyes scanning the walls of the ravine. “Any sign?” Lyrna asked her.

Davoka shook her head. “No sign, no scent. They hunt for us, but not in this forest.” Her tone indicated this wasn’t necessarily good news.

“I’m sorry I hit you,” Lyrna said.

Davoka turned to her with a puzzled frown. “Sorree?”

Lyrna searched for the Lonak equivalent, finding there wasn’t one. “Illeha,” she said. Regret or guilt, depending on the inflection.

“Lonakhim hit each other all the time,” Davoka replied with a shrug. “If you’d tried to knife me, things would be different.” She rose and moved back into the cave, kicking at the feet of the sleeping men. “Rouse yourselves, limp-pricks. Time to go.”

They cleared the forest by midmorning, riding hard to the north-east. The country here was less mountainous than they had experienced so far, distinguished by numerous broad grassy plains between the peaks. Lyrna’s new-found skill in the saddle allowed her to match Davoka’s speed and they rode side by side for a time until Davoka reined to an abrupt halt, her eyes alighting on something to the west. Lyrna followed her gaze, picking out a dust-cloud rising above the horizon. “Sentar?” she asked.

“Who else?” Ivern said.

“Highness!” Smolen stood in his stirrups, pointing to the south where another dust cloud was rising.

Lyrna turned to Davoka, finding her looking ahead at the mountain range to the north, no doubt calculating the distance.

“It’s too far,” Sollis said, unhitching his bow. There was no particular alarm to his voice, just a faint note of resignation.

“Queen can go,” Davoka said. “We hold them back.”

Lyrna looked at the cloud to the west, picking out the dark smudges appearing out of the haze. She stopped counting at fifty. “There are too many, sister,” she said. “But thank you.”

Davoka met her eyes, and for the first time there was a sense of confusion there, a reluctance to comprehend the finality of the moment. Lyrna supposed she had never tasted defeat before. “I’m . . . sorree, Lerhnah,” Davoka said.

Lyrna surprised herself by responding with an unforced and genuine smile. “It was my choice,” she said, then surveyed the three men now arranged in a circle around her, Ivern and Sollis with their bows ready, Smolen with his sword drawn. “Good sirs, I thank you for your service and express my sincere regret for leading you on this mad enterprise.”

Sollis just grunted, Smolen offered a grave bow of respect and Ivern said, “Highness, I believe a kiss from you would see me into the Beyond with no regrets at all.”

She stared at him and was gratified when he actually blushed. “My apologies, Highness . . .” he stammered.

She moved her pony alongside his and leaned over to plant a kiss on his lips, letting it linger a while before drawing back. “Good enough?” she asked.

For once it seemed words were beyond him.

“Sekhara ke Lessa Ilvar!” Davoka shouted, drawing Lyrna’s attention away from the dumbfounded brother. We live in the sight of the gods. An expression of thanks for godly blessings, usually unexpected.

The Lonak woman was staring at the dust-cloud to the south, the riders now clearly visible. Riding in front was a large man in a bearskin vest, a massive war club in his hand. Alturk!

For a moment Lyrna thought the clan chief had come to join in their imminent slaughter, which seemed strange considering he had already enjoyed ample opportunity to do them all the harm he wished. But instead Alturk led his band towards the west, at least five hundred warriors riding at full gallop, placing themselves between Lyrna’s party and the onrushing Sentar.

The two war-bands met in a headlong clash some two hundred paces distant. The wind was brisk, dispelling the dust to afford a clear view of the battle, Lonak warriors assailing each other with club, hatchet and spear in a ferocious melee, accompanied by a continuous chorus of war cries and the screams of their ponies. She saw Alturk in the thickest part of the fight, laying about with his club and hatchet, foe after foe falling before him.

Davoka gave a shout and kicked her pony into motion, soon becoming lost in the swirl of combat, Lyrna catching brief glimpses of her spear whirling and stabbing amongst the confusion.

Three Sentar emerged from the melee to charge at them, war cries high and shrill. The brothers’ arrows plucked two from their saddles in quick succession and Smolen rode out to confront the third, ducking under the warrior’s spear and hacking his pony from under him with a slash to the flank. Ivern finished the rider with an arrow as he rolled on the ground.

The battle seemed to end as quickly as it had begun, the surviving riders coming to a halt, Grey Hawk warriors dismounting to finish the wounded. Alturk trotted towards them, a bloody hatchet in his belt and a gore-encrusted war club in his hand. The young man who had stood at his shoulder at their last meeting rode at his side.

“Queen,” Alturk greeted her with a nod. “You are hurt?”

She shook her head. “It seems I am in your debt once more, Tahlessa. Though it might have been polite if you had shared your plan before we set off.”

Alturk’s only expression was a slight curl of his lip. She couldn’t tell if he was amused or disdainful. “A trap is not a trap without bait.”

There was a shout of fury from behind him and Lyrna looked to see Davoka leading a captive from the corpse-strewn aftermath of the battle. She had bound the girl’s hands and dragged her along with a rope lashed around her neck.

“You take her to the Mountain?” Alturk asked as Davoka sent her sister sprawling with a jerk of the rope. Lyrna was surprised by the note she detected in the Tahlessa’s voice: concern, albeit reluctant.

“She will be judged by the Mahlessa,” Davoka replied.

“I saw her kill five of my men.” Alturk’s gaze remained fixed on the scarred girl. “I claim her by right of blood-”

“A claim made far too late,” Davoka cut in, glancing towards the young man at Alturk’s side, then back at the clan chief. “And you have judgement of your own to make.”

Alturk’s face clouded and he gave a sombre nod. “True enough.”

The young man frowned. “Father . . . ?”

Alturk’s war club caught him on the side of the head, sending him senseless to the ground. The clan chief beckoned two of his warriors closer. “Bind this varnish. We judge him tonight.”

Davoka had earned a deep cut on her shoulder which Sollis cleaned and stitched with practised hands, the Lonak woman sipping redflower and gritting her teeth against the pain as he worked. They were encamped on the plain amongst the Grey Hawk war-band. They seemed subdued in the shadow of victory, their fires untouched by song or noises of celebration. The reason was no mystery; he knelt, arms bound and head bowed before Alturk’s fire, a son awaiting his father’s judgement. He had raged for hours, as the sun waxed and the shadows grew, screaming scorn and insults at his former clansmen. “You betray the Lonakhim . . . you will make us slaves to the Merim Her . . . throw our borders wide so they can take all we have fought to defend . . . they will defile us . . . make us weak . . . make us like them . . . The Mahlessa is false, her word is not the word of the gods . . .”

There was no attempt to silence him, no punishment meted out for his blasphemy. They let him rant himself to exhaustion, refusing to acknowledge any sound he made. Varnish, Lyrna thought.

“How did you know he had betrayed us?” she asked Davoka when Sollis had finished tending to her wound.

“Same way his father did. No other ears to hear of our route.” She glanced at their own captive, secured with strong rope to an iron stake thrust deep into the ground, the chin-to-brow scar Lyrna had given her red and angry in the fire’s glow. She had said nothing since her capture, slumping onto whatever patch of ground she was led to, her expression one of vague annoyance, untroubled by fear.

When the moon rose high Alturk stood up, war club in hand, and walked to his son’s side. The Grey Hawks gathered round as he raised his arms. “I call you, my brothers in war, to witness judgement,” the clan chief said. “This wretched thing that was once my son kneels in disgrace. He has shunned the word of the Mountain, he has spoken false words. These are not the actions of the Lonakhim. And so he will be judged.”

There was a murmur of assent from the gathered warriors, a tense expectation stealing over them as Alturk moved closer to his son. But instead of striking the man down he tossed his war club aside and knelt beside him. “But as he is judged, so must you judge me, for it is my weakness that has led us to this. My weakness that made me beg for this wretch’s life years ago when he lay defeated by the worst of the Merim Her. My weakness that made me return to our clan with no word of his transgression or the shame that shrouded my heart. I begged like the weakest of men for his life and this is my reward, the only reward such weakness deserves. I, Alturk, Tahlessa of the Grey Hawks, ask for your judgement.”

For a moment Lyrna suspected this was merely pantomime, a show of contrite humility by a noble leader, but the rising murmur of confusion and anger from the band told her there was no theatre here; Alturk’s words were sincere. He wanted judgement.

A man emerged from the ranks of the war-band, a veteran warrior judging by his age, whip thin and short of stature but commanding enough respect to still the rising babble with a raised war club. He regarded the kneeling clan chief with an expression of sombre regret. “Our Tahlessa asks for judgement,” he said. “And by the truth of his own his words, judgement is warranted. I, Mastek, have been this man’s brother in war since he was old enough to climb onto his pony. Never have I seen him flinch from battle. Never have I seen him turn his sight from a hard choice or a hard road. Never have I seen him weak . . . until now.” The old warrior closed his eyes for a second, swallowing, forcing his next words out: “I judge him weak. I judge him no longer fit to be our Tahlessa. I judge that he should share the same fate as the varnish that kneels at his side.” He surveyed the band. “Are there any who would speak against this?”

There was no response. Lyrna could see no anger on their faces, just grim acceptance. She understood what was happening now, these men were as bound by their customs as any Realm subject was bound by law. This was no vengeful mob, it was a court, and judgement had been passed.

A harsh peal of laughter cut through the silence, loud enough to echo across the plains. Kiral’s gaze was bright with glee as she regarded the doomed clan chief, teeth bared as she laughed, shaking with amusement. Davoka rose, rushing over to slap the girl to silence. It did no good, the laughter raging on and on, seeming to increase with every slap. Finally Davoka jammed a gag in her sister’s mouth, tying it off tight at the base of the skull. It muted the laughter but failed to stop it completely, Kiral rolling on the ground, tears of mirth streaming from her eyes. She caught sight of Lyrna, eyes gleaming in the firelight, and winked.

Lyrna turned back to the war-band, seeing Mastek step towards his former Tahlessa, war club ready in a two-handed grip. “I offer you the knife, Alturk,” he said. “In remembrance of the battles we have fought together.”

Alturk shook his head. “Kill me but don’t insult me, Mastek.”

The warrior gave a nod, raising the club.

“WAIT!” Lyrna was on her feet, striding through the knot of warriors, stepping between Alturk and the advancing Mastek.

The old warrior stared at her, eyes wide in astonished fury. “You have no voice here,” he breathed.

“I am Queen of the Merim Her,” she told him, voice raised so they could all hear. “Called to parley by the Mahlessa herself, granted safe passage and all respect due my rank.”

Davoka appeared at her side, eyes scanning the crowd with considerable anxiety. “This is unwise, Queen,” she murmured to Lyrna in Realm Tongue. “This is not your realm.”

Lyrna ignored her, fixing Mastek with a harsh glare. “The Grey Hawks have spilled blood and lost warriors in my defence, they have honoured the word from the Mountain.” She pointed at the kneeling Alturk. “All at this man’s order. This places me in his debt. Amongst my people an unbalanced debt is the greatest dishonour. If you kill him without a reckoning, you dishonour me, and you dishonour the Mahlessa’s word.”

“I need no words from you, woman,” Alturk grated, head bowed, his large hands gouging into the earth. “Is the well of my shame not deep enough?”

“He is varnish,” Lyrna told Mastek. “Judged as such by his own war-band. His words no longer have meaning for the Lonakhim.”

Mastek slowly lowered his war club, fury still shining in his eyes but the slump of his shoulders told of something more-relief. “What would you have us do?”

“Give him to me,” she said. “I will present him to the Mahlessa. Only she can balance the debt I owe him.”

“And this one?” Mastek pointed his club at Alturk’s son.

Lyrna looked down at the young man, at the hatred in his face. He spat at her, wrestling against his bonds and trying to rise before swiftly being forced back to his knees by the surrounding warriors. “Weak!” he snarled at them. “This Merim Her bitch makes you her dogs!”

Lyrna turned back to Mastek. “I am not in his debt.”

He sang his death song as they looped a rope about his already bound hands and lashed it to the saddle of Mastek’s pony. Turning to face the rising sun, Alturk’s doomed son sang a dirge in lilting Lonak, most of the words archaic and unknown to Lyrna but she noted the phrase “vengeance of the gods” repeated several times. He was jerked from his feet in mid-song as Mastek spurred his mount into motion, dragging him away at the gallop, the rest of the band closing in around as they rode hard for the south. Davoka commented she had once seen a man last a whole day being dragged behind a pony. Alturk watched his former clansmen disappear from view and said nothing.

Lyrna felt Sollis’s eyes on her as she went to her pony, checking his hooves for signs of injury and working the worst of the knots from his mane. “Do you have something to say, brother?” she asked.

Sollis’s expression was as unreadable as ever but there was a new tone in his voice, the suppressed anger she usually detected replaced by what might have been respect. “I was just thinking, Highness, that the Lonak may have it right,” he said. “We are riding with a queen after all.” He gave a small bow before going to see to his own mount.

The mountains closed in again as they journeyed north, the peaks broader and higher even than those found around the Skellan Pass, the summits shrouded in perpetual cloud. The tracks they followed became ever more narrow, winding around hill-side and mountain in increasingly treacherous spirals. The first night out from the scene of the Sentar’s defeat they camped on a precipice above a drop Ivern judged at near five hundred feet, a damp blanket of mist descending as night came.

Alturk sat apart from them, still and silent at the edge of the precipice, not troubling to eat or make a fire. Lyrna had begun to approach him but stopped at an emphatic shake of the head from Davoka. Instead she went to sit opposite Kiral. Davoka had positioned the girl beside a smaller fire, as far from their own as was practicable, both legs bound together since there was no soft ground to stake her to. She regarded Lyrna with an incurious glance, reclining against a rock, every inch a bored adolescent.

“Does it hurt?” Lyrna asked her, gesturing at her scar.

Kiral frowned. “I don’t speak your dog tongue, Merim Her bitch.”

Not all gambits work, Lyrna thought with a rueful grimace. “The scar I left you with,” she said. “Does it pain you?”

The girl shrugged. “Pain is a warrior’s lot.”

Lyrna glanced at Davoka, seeing the wariness in her eyes as she watched their conversation. “My friend thinks you are no longer her sister,” she said. “She thinks her sister has been claimed by you, that what lives behind your eyes is no longer the girl she cared for.”

“My sister is blind in her devotion to the false Mahlessa. She sees lies where she should see truth.” Lyrna could see no particular emotion in the girl’s face, finding her tone flat, like a child reciting one of the catechisms of the Faith.

“And what is this truth?” she asked.

“The false Mahlessa seeks to slay the spirit of the Lonakhim, to turn the sight of the gods from us, to leave us with no stories for our fires or our death songs. Peace with you, then peace even with the Seordah. What will that make us? Will we grub in the earth as you do? Make slaves of our women as you do? Labour in service to the dead, as you do?” Again the same flat tone, fanatical invective delivered without a hint of passion.

Lyrna nodded at the hulking form of Alturk, dim and forlorn in the mist. “Do you know why I saved him?”

“Merim Her are weak. Your heart is soft, you imagine a debt where there is none. He followed the false Mahlessa’s word, you owe him nothing.”

Lyrna shook her head, eyes searching the girl’s face. “No, I saved him because I saw that you wanted him dead. Why is that?”

Nothing, not even a flicker of concern or a sign of deceit when she replied, “He has ever been the Sentar’s persecutor. Why would I not wish him dead?”

There’s no evidence here, Lyrna decided. The girl was strange indeed, quite possibly insane, but that was hardly proof of Davoka’s conviction. She got up to return to her place by the main fire.

“I heard a strange thing about Merim Her women,” Kiral said as she rose.

“And what is that?”

For the first time there was some animation in the girl’s face, a malicious curl to her lips. “Custom forbids them a man until they are joined. And after that they are only allowed their one husband. Is that true?”

Lyrna gave a small nod.

“But you, Queen, are not joined.” Her gaze ranged over Lyrna, it was not the gaze of any adolescent girl, Lonak or no. “You’ve never known a man.”

Lyrna said nothing, watching the girl’s features as she laughed, soft mocking rasps. “I’ll make you a bargain, Queen,” she said. “I’ll answer any question you have with an honest tongue, and all I ask is a taste of that unsullied peach between your legs.”

Is this it? Lyrna wondered. Is this finally my evidence? “What are you?” she asked.

The girl’s laughter subsided after a moment and she lay back against the rock with the same bored expression as before. “I am Kiral of the Black River Clan and true Mahlessa to the Lonakhim.” She looked away, staring into the fire, still and indifferent, her face blank of all expression.

Lyrna returned to the larger fire, sitting down at Davoka’s side. The Lonak woman seemed reluctant to meet her gaze. “I can’t kill her, Lerhnah,” she said after a moment, a note of apology in her tone.

Lyrna patted her hand and settled down to sleep. “I know.”

Two more days brought them within sight of the Mountain, the home of the Mahlessa. It rose from the floor of a small valley nestling between two of the tallest mountains, a circular spike of stone, curving up from a wide base to a needle-sharp point at least three hundred feet in the air. It seemed to shimmer in the sunlight, but as they drew nearer Lyrna saw it was honeycombed from base to top with balconies and windows, all hewn out of the rock. From the weathering of the surface she judged this a truly ancient structure, the architecture so unfamiliar as to appear alien, like something from a distant land never visited by modern eyes.

“The Lonakhim built this?” she asked Davoka.

She shook her head. “It was waiting for us at the end of the great travail. Proof that the gods had not turned their sight from the Lonakhim. For who else could craft such a gift?”

They entered via a tunnel, the walls ascending to meet overhead in an elegant arch of stone. There were no guards at the mouth of the tunnel and they proceeded unchallenged into the Mountain’s interior. After a hundred paces the tunnel opened out into a broad courtyard, ringed by balconied walkways bathed in sunlight shafting through the many circular windows. A number of women were waiting there, some armed and wearing similar garb to Davoka, others dressed more simply in robes of black or grey. Their age ranged from young to old and none seemed perturbed by their appearance, although the sight of Kiral provoked some hard stares from the women bearing arms.

“I see you had an interesting journey,” a short, blunt-faced warrior said, coming forward to take the reins of Davoka’s pony. “I trust you have a story for the fire.”

“More than one.” Davoka dismounted, favouring the blunt-faced woman with a warm grin. “We need rooms, Nestal.”

“Ready and waiting.” Nestal’s gaze roamed their company, settling on Lyrna. “Queen,” she said, with an incline of her head. “The Mahlessa asked that you be brought to her as soon as you arrived.” She turned to Kiral, her expression hardening. “Together with this one.”

Lyrna had expected the Mahlessa to make her home on one of the Mountain’s upper floors but Davoka led her to a stairwell in the centre of the chamber, the spiral course descending into shadow.

“No!” she barked when Smolen and the two brothers attempted to follow. “Stay here. Men do not look upon her.”

Smolen seemed about to protest but Lyrna held up a hand. “I doubt your sword would aid me here, Lord Marshal. Wait for me.”

He bowed and stepped back, standing stiffly at attention, every inch the loyal guards officer, albeit one without armour or any vestige of his former finery save his sword and the boots he had contrived to retain, and even they had lost their previous mirrorlike sheen. For the first time in days it occurred to her that her own appearance was hardly more edifying. No more ermine robes or finely tailored riding gowns, just sturdy leather garb and hardy boots, scuffed and dusted from the trail. But for her hair she might well have been taken for Lonak.

“Please, sister!”

She looked round to see Kiral resisting Davoka’s tug on her leash. Her once-passive features now so riven with fear it almost seemed she wore a mask. “Please,” she begged in a terrorised rasp. “Please if you ever thought me your sister, kill me! Do not take me to her!”

She continued to beg and struggle as Davoka took hold of her and forced her to walk down the stairwell, her pleas becoming plaintive shrieks as they descended into the shadows. No fear of death, Lyrna thought. What awaits her below is worse.

She smoothed her hands over her dusty, trail-marked clothing and followed them down.