Tower Lord

CHAPTER FIVE

Vaelin

“Our patrol put their numbers at about four thousand. Crossing from the ice here.” Captain Adal’s finger picked out a point on the map unfurled on the table before them. “They were following a south-westerly course.”

“Last time they made straight for North Tower,” Dahrena said. “Killing everything in their path.”

“Four thousand,” Vaelin said. “A large force but hardly a horde.”

“Just a vanguard, no doubt,” Adal replied. “Seems they learned a lesson from their last attempt.”

“As I understood it, the Horde was destroyed in their last attempt.”

“There were some survivors,” Dahrena said. “A few hundred. Just women and children. Father let them go, though there were many who argued for their death. We always wondered if there were more, waiting beyond the ice to plague us again.”

Adal straightened, turning to Vaelin and speaking formally. “My lord, I request permission to sound the muster.”

“Muster?”

“Every man of fighting age in the Reaches will be called to arms. Within five days we will have six thousand men under arms plus the North Guard.”

“We’ll also send word to the Eorhil and the Seordah,” Dahrena added. “If they respond as they did before, the full army will number more than twenty thousand. But it will take weeks to marshal them. Enough time for the Horde to cross in strength whilst their vanguard wreaks havoc on the settlements to the north.”

Vaelin reclined in his chair, regarding the lines Adal had drawn on the map. They had ridden hard to be back at the tower before nightfall where Adal selected one of the more detailed maps of the Reaches from the collection in the Lord’s chamber. From outside came the tumult of men readying for war as North Guard and Captain Orven’s men sharpened their steel and saddled their horses. He had hoped the days of maps and battle plans were behind him, that here in the Reaches there would be no more need to orchestrate slaughter, but as ever, war contrived to find him. He took some solace from the fact that the blood-song was strangely muted, not entirely devoid of warning, but free of the strident urgency he recalled from when he had planned the attack at the Lehlun Oasis, the plan that cost Dentos his life.

“How strong was the Horde when it came before?” he asked.

“We can only guess, my lord,” Adal said. “They moved in a great mass and formed no ranks or regiments. Brother Hollun’s official history puts the figure at over one hundred thousand, including children and old folk. The Horde was not so much an army as a nation.”

“The northern settlements have been warned?”

Dahrena nodded. “Gallopers were sent as soon as the news reached us. They will be readying their own defences, but their numbers are small and without help they won’t last long.”

“Very well.” Vaelin rose. “Captain, sound your muster. Choose good men to take charge of the levies and secure the tower and the town against siege. We will lead the North Guard and the King’s men north to provide what aid we can to the settlers.”

“Over half my guardsmen are posted throughout the Reaches,” Adal pointed out, his gaze flicking to Dahrena. “That gives us barely fifteen hundred men.”

“All the better.” Vaelin lifted his canvas-wrapped bundle from the table and went to the stairwell. “We’ll ride so much faster. Lady Dahrena, I realise you may wish to remain here, but I must request that you accompany us.”

She frowned in surprise and he knew she had been preparing an argument against being left behind. “I . . . shall be glad to, my lord.”

They rode hard until the night grew dark, making camp in the foothills about twenty miles north of the tower. Alornis had been furious as he said good-bye at the tower steps, but he remained adamant. “Battle is no place for an artist, sister.”

“And what am I supposed to do?” she said. “Just sit around for days worrying over your fate?”

He took hold of her hands. “I doubt these are capable of remaining idle.” He pressed a kiss against her forehead and went to where a guardsman stood holding Flame’s reins. “Besides,” he said, climbing into the saddle, “I need you to be seen about the place. The presence of the Tower Lord’s sister will reassure the townsfolk. No doubt many will be asking for news. Tell them everything is well in hand.”

“And is it?”

He trotted closer, leaning down and speaking softly. “I have no idea.”

The North Guard demonstrated an effortless ability to form a camp within what seemed like moments, fires readied, horses tethered, saddles stacked and pickets posted with no shouted orders or instruction from Captain Adal. The King’s Guard made something of a contrast with their neatly aligned fires and tents, plus an end-of-day inspection from Captain Orven who fined two men for poorly polished breastplates.

“Makes a change from the desert, eh, my lord?” he said, joining Vaelin at the fire he shared with Dahrena and Adal. He had found a wolf fur from somewhere and tugged it about his shoulders before blowing into his hands.

“You were at the Bloody Hill?” Vaelin asked.

“I was. My first battle in fact. Took an Alpiran lance in the leg during the last charge, lucky for me. The healers took me to Untesh and put me on a ship back to the Realm. Otherwise, I’d’ve been at the King’s side when the city fell.”

“They killed everyone but him, didn’t they?” Dahrena asked.

“Indeed, my lady. I’m the only survivor from my entire regiment.”

“Seems Alpirans are just as savage as the Horde, then,” Adal commented. “My people have many stories of the oppression they suffered at the hands of the Emperors.”

“They weren’t savages,” Vaelin said. “Just angry. And not without good reason.” He turned to Dahrena. “I need to know more about the Horde. Who are they? What do they want?”

“Blood,” Adal said. “The blood of any not born into their Horde.”

“That’s their creed? Death to all outsiders?”

“It’s what they do. We never had any notion of their creed. The language they speak is an unfathomable babble of clicks and snarls, and any prisoners we took were too savage to keep alive long enough to get any sense from them.”

“I heard they fight with beasts,” Orven said. “Giant cats and hawks.”

“That they do,” Adal said. “We were fortunate they never had more than a few hundred of the cats. Not an easy thing to stand in ranks facing a charge from those monsters, I can tell you. The spear-hawks, though, they had those by the thousand, screaming out of the sky to tear at your eyes. Even today, you’ll see many a man in the Reaches sporting an eyepatch.”

“How did you beat them?” Vaelin asked.

“How is any battle won, my lord? Guts, steel and”-Adal glanced at Dahrena with a small grin-“good intelligence of the enemy’s dispositions.”

Vaelin raised his eyebrows at her. “Good intelligence?”

She gave a somewhat forced yawn and got to her feet. “If you gentlemen will excuse me. I should rest for the morrow’s journey.”

Two more days’ riding brought them to the first settlement, a stockaded clutch of dwellings in the shadow of a ridge-back mountain, the southern slopes marked by numerous mine-works. They were greeted at the gate by a North Guard sergeant and a greatly worried town factor.

“Any news, my lady?” the factor asked Dahrena, sweat-damp hands clasping and releasing. “How long before they fall upon us?”

“We’ve seen no sign of them yet, Idiss,” Dahrena assured him. There was a tightness to her voice that spoke of a palpable dislike. She gestured at Vaelin. “Do you have no greeting for your Tower Lord?”

“Oh, of course.” The man gave Vaelin a hurried bow. “My apologies, my lord. Welcome to Myrna’s Mount. We are very pleased to see you.”

“Any word from the other settlements?” Vaelin asked him.

“None, my lord. I fear for them.”

“Then we’d best not linger.” Vaelin turned Flame away from the gate, pausing as the factor reached out to clutch at his reins.

“But surely, my lord, you can’t leave us. We have just two hundred miners with swords, and only a dozen North Guard.”

Vaelin looked at the man’s hand on his reins until he removed it. “A good point, sir.” He raised his gaze to the North Guard sergeant. “Gather your men. You ride on with us.”

The sergeant glanced at Adal, receiving a nod in response, then marched off to collect his men.

“You leave us defenceless!” Idiss cried. “Naked before the Horde.”

“Then you have my leave to make for North Tower,” Vaelin told him. “The road behind us is clear. But if you care for this place and its people, perhaps you would prefer to stay and fight for them.”

Idiss, it transpired, had a fast horse, raising a sizeable cloud of dust in its wake as he galloped south.

“The head of the Miners Guild has agreed to take on the factorship,” Dahrena advised, emerging from the gate an hour later. “At my urging they’ve armed the womenfolk too, which gives them over three hundred and fifty swords to hold the wall.” She mounted her mare and met Vaelin’s gaze. “Idiss is a cowardly, greed-shrivelled soul, but he was right. If the Horde come, this place will fall in an hour, at most.”

“Then it rests with us to ensure they never get here.” He waved a command at the ranks of horsemen behind him and spurred towards the north.

They called at the three settlements north of Myrna’s Mount over the next two days, finding only fearful miners and no word of the Horde. Thankfully, these were led by hardier souls than Idiss and their defences were well prepared. Vaelin offered each the option of making for Myrna’s Mount where greater numbers might offer more protection, but they all refused.

“Been hewing stone from these hills near twenty years, m’lord,” the factor at Slade Hill told him, a burly Nilsaelin with a large axe strapped across his back. “Didn’t run from those frost-arses last time, not runnin’ now.”

They pressed on into the plains where the wind swept down with a chill that seemed to cut through clothing like a steel-tipped arrow cuts through armour.

“By the Faith!” Orven cursed through clenched teeth, blinking away tears as the wind lashed at his face. “Is it always like this?”

Adal laughed. “This is just a balmy summer day, Captain. You should try it in winter.”

“There are no more mountains between us and the ice,” Dahrena explained. “The Eorhil call it the black wind.”

They halted after ten miles and Vaelin ordered scouts sent east, west and north. They all returned by late evening, having found no trace of the Horde.

“This makes no sense,” Adal said. “They should be well into the mountains by now.”

Dahrena suddenly straightened, her gaze switching to the west, eyes bright with expectation.

“My lady?” Vaelin asked.

“It seems we have company, my lord.”

It came to him then, a faint rumble of thunder, but constant, and growing.

“Saddle up!” he barked striding to where Flame was tethered, sending men scrambling for their horses.

“There’s no need,” Dahrena called after him. “The Horde don’t ride. We have other visitors.”

The dust-cloud grew in the west, coming ever closer, the thunder rising as it neared. The first riders came into view, mounted on tall horses of varying colour, each carrying a lance with a horn bow strapped to every saddle, more and more resolving out of the dust until Vaelin lost count. They reined in a short distance away, the dust settling to reveal what must have been over two thousand riders, men and women. Their pale-skinned faces were an echo of the hawk-faced Seordah Vaelin had met years ago, their hair uniformly black and tied into braids. Their clothing was mostly of dark brown leather decorated with necklaces of bone or elk antler. They sat waiting in silence, not even a snort rising from their horses.

A lone rider trotted forward, making unbidden for Vaelin. He halted a few paces away, looking down on him in stern appraisal. He was not a tall man, but there was an evident strength to him, his face lined but possessed of the kind of leanness that made guessing his age difficult.

“What is your name?” the rider asked in harshly accented Realm Tongue.

“I have a few to choose from,” Vaelin replied. “But the Seordah call me Beral Shak Ur.”

“I know what the forest people call you, and why.” The man reclined in his saddle a little, his features taking on a frown. “Ravens are rarely seen on these plains. If you want a name from us, you must earn it.”

“I will, and gladly.”

The rider grunted, reversing the hold on his lance and throwing it into the ground at Vaelin’s feet. Despite the hardness of the earth the steel point was buried up to the hilt, the lance shuddering with the force of the throw. “I, Sanesh Poltar of the Eorhil Sil, bring my lance to answer Tower Lord’s call.”

“You are very welcome.”

Dahrena came forward to welcome the Eorhil chieftain with a broad smile. “I never doubted you would find us, plains-brother,” she said, reaching up to clasp his hand, their fingers entwining.

“We hoped to find the beast-people first,” he replied. “Make you a gift of their skulls. But they leave us no tracks to follow.”

“They elude us also.”

This seemed to puzzle the horseman. “Even you, forest-sister?”

She shot a guarded look at Vaelin. “Even me.”

That night they ate dried elk meat with the Eorhil. It was tough but tasty fare, improved by a few seconds over the fire, washed down with a thick white beverage possessed of a pungent aroma and a palpable kick of spirits.

“Faith!” Orven exclaimed, wincing after his first taste. “What is this?”

“Fermented elk milk,” Dahrena said.

Orven suppressed a disgusted shudder and handed the fur-covered skin back to the young Eorhil woman who had appeared at his side as they gathered round the fire. “Thank you, lady. But no.” She frowned then shrugged, saying something in her own language.

“She wants to know how many elk you’ve hunted,” Dahrena translated.

“Elk? None,” he replied, nodding and smiling at the young woman. “But many boar and deer. My family has a large estate.”

Dahrena relayed his reply, provoking a puzzled exchange.

“She doesn’t know what an estate is,” Dahrena explained. “The Eorhil have no understanding of how one can own land.”

“Or even that the plains they live on are owned by the crown,” Adal put in. “One of the reasons they saw no need to fight the first Realm settlers. You can’t claim something that can’t be owned, so why fight over it?”

“Insha ka Forna,” the young woman said to Orven, patting her chest.

“Steel in Moonlight,” Dahrena said with a small smile. “Her name.”

“Ah, Orven,” the captain said, patting his own chest. “Orrvennn.”

This provoked another exchange with Dahrena. “She wanted to know what it means. I told her it’s the name of a great hero from legend.”

“But it isn’t,” Orven said.

“Captain . . .” Dahrena paused to smother a chuckle. “When an Eorhil woman chooses to tell a man her given name, it’s a considerable compliment.”

“Oh.” The captain gave Insha ka Forna a broad smile, finding it returned. “Is there a suitable response?”

“I think you just gave it.”

A short while later Dahrena bade them good night and rose from the fire, making her way to the ingenious contrivance she had carried with her since leaving the tower. Seemingly little more than a bundle of elk-hide and wood, a few minutes’ work formed it into a small but serviceable shelter, equal to any of the tents used by the King’s Guard. Some of the North Guard carried similar items, though most were content to sleep in the open clad only in a wrapping of furs.

Vaelin waited for a time before going to speak to her. His questions had been mounting over the course of their journey and he had delayed long enough in seeking answers.

“My lady,” he greeted her as she sat outside her shelter.

She didn’t reply and he noticed her eyes were closed, her hair fluttering across her face in the chill wind with no sign she felt it.

“You can’t talk to her now, my lord.” Captain Adal appeared next to the shelter. His ebony features were outlined in red from the fires and tense in warning.

Vaelin looked again at Dahrena, seeing the absolute stillness of her face, the way her hands sat in her lap, absent of any twitch. The blood-song rose with a familiar note: recognition.

He gave the captain an affable nod and returned to the fire.

“Steel Water Creek,” Dahrena said the next morning. “It’s about forty miles north-east of here. It’s the only supply of freshwater large enough to service so many this far south of the ice. It seems reasonable to assume the Horde will be camped there since they don’t appear to be moving.”

“Just a reasonable assumption?” Vaelin asked. “Is there no other source for this intelligence, my lady?”

She avoided his gaze and bit back an angry retort. “None, my lord. You are of course free to discount my advice.”

“Oh, I think it would be churlish to ignore the words of my new First Counsel. Steel Water Creek it is.”

They rode in a three-group formation, Vaelin with the North Guard and Orven’s men in the centre and the Eorhil on both flanks. He had heard many tales of the horsemanship of the Eorhil and saw now they were well-founded, each rider moving in concert with their mount in an unconscious reflex, like a single animal forged to range across these plains. He was aware they were limiting their speed to keep pace with the Tower Lord’s men, and one had opted to join their company for the ride. Insha ka Forna rode at Orven’s side on a piebald stallion a hand taller than the captain’s own warhorse, her braids streaming back from a face wearing a faintly smug expression.

It was late in the afternoon by the time they came upon them, a large camp on the eastern bank of the creek, numerous fires seeping smoke into the ice-chilled wind. Vaelin called a halt two hundred paces from the camp, signalling for both flanks to spread out and ordering his own men into battle formation. He took the canvas bundle from where it was lashed to his saddle, placing a hand on the largest knot. One tug and it’s free. He knew it would shine very bright today, the sound it made as it cut the air would be another song of blood, one he sang so well. It had remained sheathed and bound since the day he faced the Shield of the Isles. He hadn’t liked the way it felt when he drew it that day, the way it fit in his hand . . . so comfortable.

“My lord!” Captain Adal’s shout brought his gaze back to the camp, seeing a solitary figure walking towards them. A cluster of people had gathered at the fringes of the camp, it may have been an illusion of the light and the distance but they all appeared thin to the point of emaciation: gaunt, flesh-denuded faces poking out from their furs, staring at their enemies with numb expectation free of any anger or hate.

“I see no weapons, my lord,” Orven said.

“A trick, no doubt,” Adal replied. “The Horde always had a thousand tricks.”

Vaelin watched the lone figure continue towards them. He was squat but thin, like the rest of his people, and considerably older, walking with a slow but purposeful gait, aided by what seemed to be a large gnarled stick but soon revealed itself as a long thighbone from some unknown beast, covered all over with intricate carvings and script.

“Shaman!” Adal hissed, unlimbering his bow. “My lord, I request the honour of first blood.”

“Shaman?” Vaelin asked.

“They command the war-beasts,” Dahrena explained. “Train them, lead them in war. We never learned how they did it.”

“He doesn’t appear to have any beasts,” Vaelin observed as the squat man came to a halt twenty yards away.

“More fool him,” Adal said, raising his bow.

“Stop that!” Vaelin commanded, his voice snapping through the ranks, absolute in its authority.

Adal gaped at him, his bow still drawn. “My lord?”

Vaelin didn’t look at him. “You are under my command. Obey my order or I’ll have you flogged and dismissed.”

He angled his head as he studied the squat man, ignoring Adal’s choking fury as Dahrena sought to restrain him. The shaman took hold of the bone in both hands and held it out before him, trembling and swaying in the black wind.

Vaelin felt it then, the blood-song’s note of greeting to a gifted soul. Dahrena stiffened in her saddle, her calming hand falling from Adal’s shoulder. Vaelin inclined his head at the shaman. “It seems we are called to parley, my lady.”

Fear made her eyes wide and her face white, but she nodded and they trotted forward, halting to dismount before the shaman. Up close his emaciation was a painful thing to see, the bones of his face white under skin that seemed no more than wet paper wrapping a butcher’s leavings. A black-and-grey tangle of hair grew from his head to his shoulders, a few talismans hanging unpolished in the unkempt tresses. The tremble was not just fear, Vaelin saw, but hunger, bringing a harsh realisation: They don’t come for war, they come to die.

“You have a name?” Vaelin asked him.

The shaman gave no response, planting the bone on the earth before him, both hands resting atop it, his gaze taking on owl-like focus as he stared into Vaelin’s eyes. The gaze fixed him, drew him closer. There was a moment of concern as something stirred in his mind. A trick, like Adal said. But the blood-song was unwavering in its welcome and he let the stirring continue. It was like a memory, a forgotten vision of another time, but it was not his.

People, clad in furs, and beasts. Bears, huge white-furred terrors, all labouring through a blizzard. Many are wounded, many are children. Riders appear out of the blizzard, dressed all in black, swords and lances stabbing and slashing . . . blood on the snow . . . so much blood . . . The riders wheel and turn, laughing as they kill, more and more charging out of the snow as the fur-clad people scatter. A man raises a great bone-staff and his bears turn on the riders, mauling and rending, killing many . . . but there are more . . . there are always more . . .

The vision faded, the shaman’s face still and unspeaking above the tip of his bone-staff.

Vaelin looked at Dahrena, noting the horror on her face. “You saw it?”

She nodded, hiding her trembling hands within her furs and drawing back a little. He could tell she wanted to flee, that this squat old man with no weapon save a length of bone, terrified her. But she stayed, drawing breath in gulps, refusing to look away.

Vaelin turned back to the shaman. “You flee these men, these riders?” It was clear from the man’s frown he didn’t understand a word. Vaelin sighed, glanced back at the ranks of guards and Eorhil, then sang. It was just a small note, unlikely to call forth any blood, conveying the sense of his query, coloured by his memory of the shaman’s vision.

The old man straightened, eyes widening, then nodded. He met Vaelin’s eyes again and soon another vision filled his mind.

A dark mass of people trekking across an ice field, the backs of their great white bears rising and falling amongst the throng as they flee, always westward, always away from the riders . . . no time to rest . . . no time to hunt . . . only time to flee . . . or fall out and die. The old people are first, then the younger children, the tribe bleeding its life away as it moves across the white expanse. The bears grow maddened by hunger, rending them from the shamans’ control. Hardy warriors weep as they cut them down and share out their meat, for without their bears, what are they? By the time the plains are in sight, they know their nation has died . . . They ask for nothing save a peaceful death.

Dahrena wept as the vision faded, gasping as tears streamed down her face. “What callous fools we are,” she whispered. Vaelin sang again, filling his song with the image of the battle tapestry from the tower; the Horde and its terrible beasts.

The shaman gave a disgusted grunt, replying with a vision of his own. The battle is fierce, no quarter is given, cats and bears tear at each other with mindless fury, the spear-hawks blacken the sky as they meet in a roiling cloud above, birthing a rain of blood and feathers, the warriors fight with spear and bone-club. When the red day is done the Bear People have shown the Cat People the folly of war on the ice. They see them no more, for they take themselves off to the southern plains, soft and cowardly in their desire for easier prey.

Bear People. Vaelin raised his gaze to the camp, seeing only starving men and women, a few children, no old folk, and no beasts at all. They lost their bears, they lost their name.

He looked again at the shaman, singing for the final time, recalling the image of the riders in black and ending the song with a questioning note, feeling the familiar wave of fatigue that told him he had sung enough for now.

For the first time the shaman spoke, his mouth twisting as it formed perhaps the only foreign word he knew. “Volarriahnsss.”

He ordered the North Guard to give up half their rations and sent all but a dozen back to their postings. Captain Adal, whose sullen fury was becoming more irksome by the second, was dispatched south to call an end to the muster and send riders informing the Seordah their warriors were not needed.

“Cat People, Bear People,” he hissed at Dahrena before leaving, just within Vaelin’s earshot. “They are still Horde. They cannot be trusted.”

“You didn’t see, Adal,” she whispered back, shaking her head. “The only thing we have to fear from them is the guilt of letting them die.”

“This won’t be popular,” he warned. “Many will still call for vengeance.”

“My father always took the right course, popular or not.” She fell silent and Vaelin sensed she was looking in his direction. “Things have not changed so much.”

The Eorhil took their leave in the evening, Sanesh Poltar raising a hand to Vaelin as his people took to their mounts. “Avensurha,” he said.

“My name?” Vaelin asked.

The Eorhil chieftain pointed to the north where a single bright star was rising above the horizon. “Only one month in a lifetime does it shine so bright. It’s said no wars can be fought under the light it brings.”

He raised his hand again and turned his horse towards the east, galloping away with his people, all save one.

“She won’t leave, my lord.” Captain Orven stood at rigid attention, avoiding his gaze. Nearby Insha ka Forna was handing out strips of dried elk meat to a clutch of children, using hand gestures to warn them against bolting it down too quickly. “I asked the Lady Dahrena why. She said I, ahem, already knew.”

“Do you want her to leave?”

The captain coughed, brows furrowing as he sought to formulate a reply.

“Congratulations, Captain.” Vaelin clapped him on the shoulder and went to find Dahrena.

She was with the shaman, crouched next to an old woman propped on a litter. She was even thinner than the other tribesfolk, her chest rising and falling in shallow heaves, mouth agape and eyes unfocused. The shaman stared down at her with such a depth of desolate sorrow Vaelin had no need of any visions to tell him this was a man watching his wife’s final moments.

Dahrena took a vial from her satchel and held it over the old woman’s mouth, a few clear drops falling onto her parched tongue. She stirred, frowning a little, mouth closing over the fresh moisture. Some light returned to her eyes and the shaman bent down to take her hand, speaking softly in his own language. The words sounded harsh to Vaelin’s ear, a guttural rush of noise, but even so, there was tenderness in it. He tells her they’re safe, he surmised. He tells her they have found refuge.

The old woman’s gaze tracked across her husband’s face, the corners of her mouth curling as she tried to smile, then freezing as the light faded from her eyes and her chest halted its labour. The shaman gave no reaction, remaining crouched at her side, holding her hand, near as still as she.

Dahrena rose from the old woman’s side and walked over to Vaelin. “I have something to tell you,” she said.

“My people call it spirit walking.” They sat together beside a fire on the periphery of the Bear People’s camp. It was quiet, the tribe consuming their new supplies in silence and tending to their sick with not a voice raised in celebration. They still think of themselves as dead, Vaelin thought. They lost their name.

“It’s difficult to describe,” Dahrena continued. “Not really walking, more like flying, high above everything, seeing great swathes of the earth all at once. But I have to leave my body to do it.”

“That’s how you found these people,” he said. “That’s how you found the Horde.”

She nodded. “Easier to plan a battle when you know the enemy’s line of march.”

“Does it hurt?” he asked, thinking of the blood that flowed whenever he sang for too long.

“No, not when I’m flying, but when I return . . . At first it was exhilarating, joyous. For who hasn’t dreamt of flying? I’d heard tales of the Dark, and knew it to be a thing to fear. But the flying was so wonderful, so intoxicating. I had just said farewell to my twelfth year when it happened. I was in my bed, awake but content, my thoughts calm, or as calm the thoughts of a thirteen-year-old girl can be. Then I was floating, looking down at a small girl in a large bed. I was fearful, thinking I had drifted into a nightmare. In my panic my thoughts turned to my father, and so I flew to him in his room, poring over papers late into the evening as he always did. He reached for his wineglass and knocked over an inkpot, staining his sleeve and cursing. I thought of Blueleaf, my horse, and flew to her in the stables. I thought of Kehlan and flew to him, where he was pounding herbs in his chamber with a mortar and pestle. What a wonderful dream this was, just think of something and I would fly to it, see them without their seeing me. And more, more than just them, the colour of them, the shine of their souls. My father was shrouded in a bright, pale blue, Blueleaf a soft brown and Kehlan seemed to flicker, red one minute, white the next. I flew high, as high as I dared, looking down at the entirety of the Reaches, all the shining souls, like the stars above reflected on a great mirror.

“But strangely, in this dream, I began to grow tired, and so I returned to my body. The bed felt a little chilly but not enough to prevent sleep. The next morning at breakfast father wore a shirt with an ink stain on the sleeve and I knew it had been no dream. It scared me, but not enough to stop me; the joy had been too great. And so I continued to fly, every spare moment, soaring out over the mountains and the plains, watching the Eorhil hunt the great elk, dancing in the storms that swept out of the ice. Then one day I flew out over the western ocean for miles and miles, hoping to glimpse the shore of the Far West. But the time grew long and I knew my father expected me at dinner, so I flew back to my body. It was like pulling on a skin made of ice, the shock of it made me scream and scream. My father found me, shaking on the floor of my room as if I’d just been pulled from an icy lake.

“That was when I told him. He wasn’t afraid, wasn’t shocked. He put me to bed, called for warm milk and stayed at my side until the chill had faded. Then he took my hand and told me, in great detail, what your people do to those with gifts such as mine. No-one was ever to know.”

“Then came the Horde?”

“Two summers later. I’d been careful, never flying for more than an hour at a time, and always at night, leaving my body seated before a well-stoked fire. I saw their first slaughter, a bluestone caravan making its way south from Silvervale. Twoscore drovers slain in a rush of war-cats and spear-hawks. The warriors wandered amongst the dead with knives, cutting off trophies, and their shine was a dark, dark red. I had never seen a soul snuffed out before. Mostly it was like wind blowing through a clutch of candles, but there was one, shining brighter than the others. It rose and the world seemed to bend around it, like a whirlpool, drawing it in, taking it somewhere . . .”

Vaelin leaned closer as she trailed off. “Where?”

“I know not. But for an instant I had a glimpse of what lay beyond the whirling. It was so very dark.” She fell silent and hugged herself for a moment, shivering. “I’m grateful it’s something I’ve only witnessed once.”

“Your gift brought enough warning for Lord Al Myrna to prepare a defence?”

She nodded. “I ran to him with the news, blurting it out in front of Adal and Kehlan. He swore them to secrecy, an oath they’ve kept these many years, although I’m sure there are those who suspect, and those like Sanesh who just seem to know.”

“The Eorhil have no fear of the Dark?”

“Like the Seordah they respect it, for they know it can be misused, but they do not fear those who possess it unless given reason.” She raised an eyebrow at him in expectation.

Like for like, he thought. Secret for secret.

“The Seordah call it the blood-song,” he said.

Her face took on a slight echo of the fear he had seen when the shaman shared his vision. “A Seordah told you this?”

“A blind woman. She called herself Nersus Sil Nin. I met her in the Martishe.”

The fear on her face deepened and her next words were marred by a tremor. “Met her?”

“On a clear summer’s day in the dead of winter. She said it was a memory, trapped in stone. She told me my name in the Seordah tongue.”

“Beral Shak Ur,” she said, fear turning to mystification. “She named you?” She blinked, shaking her head. “Of course she did.”

“You know of her?”

“All Seordah drawing breath know of her, but none have seen her . . . save me.”

“When?”

“After my husband died.” She was deeply troubled, he could tell, like someone receiving unwelcome tidings they knew would always come. “The words she spoke . . . But, I was so sure . . . when he died . . .” She trailed off, lost in thought.

“Your husband?” Vaelin prompted.

The look she gave him was guarded to the point of anger, slowly fading to sombre distress. “I must think on this. My thanks for your honesty, my lord. I am glad my trust was not misplaced.” With that she rose and went to her shelter.

Vaelin turned his gaze to the north, picking out the bright star Sanesh had named him for, higher over the horizon now, brighter even than the moon. Avensurha . . . No wars can be fought under the light it brings.

It’s a good name, he thought with a smile. For once, a good name.