Valour

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

CYWEN

Cywen looked forward into the distance. A snow-capped mountain loomed on the horizon, dominating the range they had been following steadily north. Lower down its slopes she could just make out the walls of Dun Vaner, where torchlight flickered from battlements and windows, little more than pinpricks in the distance. Queen Rhin’s stronghold and, originally, the seat of power of the Benothi giants. She could not help but look at the slopes and plains before her, imagining what it had been like for her ancestors to battle the gathered strength of the Benothi here. And her ancestors had won, Cambros striking down Ruad, the giant king. A memory sprang to life in her mind, of old Heb telling the tale of that battle to a crowd gathered on the meadows below Dun Carreg, on the day Marrock had been handbound. She could see herself, sitting on the grass with her mam and da, Corban and Gar, all of them entranced by Heb’s story. And now Heb was dead, so Veradis had said. From nowhere she felt emotion swell in her chest, her vision blurring with tears.

‘Time to stop, child,’ Alcyon said from beside her. He’d appointed himself her guardian. I preferred Veradis. At least I could have a conversation with him. It had been over a ten-night since they had left Veradis at the giants’ road, and she had spoken only a few sentences since then, to the reluctant giant or the Jehar Akar.

She climbed from Shield’s back and led him to the makeshift paddocks that the Jehar built every night, unbuckled his girth and took his saddle and rug from his back, then rubbed him down and checked his hooves, all the while under the watchful eye of the giant. When she was finished he led her to the edge of the camp, looking for a spot to make their camp. They passed the draig paddock, where Cywen glimpsed Nathair climbing from the back of his long-tailed mount. Soon after, she heard the bellows of an auroch as the draig ripped into it. The same happened every night, Nathair leading an auroch into the draig paddock for it to hunt and eat. By morning there would be little left but patches of fur and some bone.

Alcyon found a spot to his liking, beneath a copse of withered hawthorns. He set about making a fire, hanging a pot over it and boiling up some water. This had been their routine every night, Alcyon reluctant to share a place round a fire with any others.

That suited her just fine. They sat in silence, Cywen stroking Buddai.

‘Here,’ Alcyon said, handing her a bowl of porridge. She let it warm her hands first, then blew on it as she spooned some into her mouth.

‘Of all the things the tale-tellers say about you giants, they never mention how good your porridge is,’ she said.

Footsteps thudded and she looked up to see the other three giants walking by. Alcyon’s dark eyes tracked them.

‘Why don’t you like them?’ Cywen asked.

‘They should be with their clan, not here.’

‘But you’re here.’

‘They have a choice. I do not.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Nothing.’ He shrugged. ‘Also, I am Kurgan. They are Benothi. We are different clans. There is blood-feud between us. Between every clan.’

‘Wasn’t that from before the Scourging, though?’ Cywen’s grasp of history was a little vague.

‘And after,’ the giant said. ‘The clans have warred since they were formed — since the War of Treasures. And they did not stop until your kin were washed up on these shores and began the Giant-Wars.’

She listened avidly. Alcyon usually kept his peace, no matter how many questions Cywen asked him.

‘So you are Kurgin?’

‘Kurgan.’

‘Where are your kin, then?’

‘A long way from here, child. They live in Arcona, the sea of grass, far to the east.’

‘How have you come to be so far from home?’

A look swept his face — sorrow, regret, shifting to misery, all in a heartbeat — replaced by something cold. ‘That is not your concern, child.’

‘Just trying to learn something about my captors,’ she muttered.

He looked at her a while, then, just as she thought the silence was permanent, he spoke again. ‘I am Calidus’ servant. I do his bidding, that is all. His business is here, with Nathair, with Rhin, so I am here also.’ He looked into his bowl and slurped from it. He didn’t use a spoon.

‘Calidus,’ Cywen said. ‘His business is with Nathair, and Rhin. And Corban, my brother. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it. Something to do with Corban.’

‘Aye,’ the giant rumbled.

‘What is it? How can Corban be of any interest to Calidus, to kings and queens?’

Alcyon just looked at her over the giant axe resting across his knees.

They reached Dun Vaner by highsun the next day and stayed one night in its cold and damp halls. The fortress was almost deserted; most of Rhin’s warriors had joined the warband attacking Domhain, with only a small garrison left to man the stronghold.

Early the next day they set out, Nathair and the three Benothi giants leading as Rhin bid them farewell beneath the stone archway of Dun Vaner. Cywen rode Shield towards the rear of the column, Buddai beside her, Alcyon’s strides keeping easy pace with the horse. As they left the mountain slopes and the ground levelled out, Buddai stopped, frozen to the spot, looking back. He whined.

‘What is it?’ Cywen said to him. The hound just stared into the distance, ears pricked, head cocked.

Alcyon paused, listening. Then she heard it too, faint as a sigh, floating on the wind from the mountains. A wolven howling.