“I buried it.” Vaelin suppressed a violent shudder and drank more milk, the warmth burning his insides. “Scraped the soil up with my knife. Couldn’t think of anything else to do with it.”
Master Sollis nodded and stared at the fletching in his hand, his pale eyes unreadable. Vaelin glanced around the room, finding it less bare than he expected. Several weapons were set on the wall: a pole axe, a long iron bladed spear, some kind of stone headed club plus several daggers and knives of different patterns. Several books stood on the shelves, the lack of dust indicating Master Sollis hadn’t placed them there for decoration. On the far wall there was some kind of tapestry fashioned from a goat skin stretched on a wooden frame, the hide adorned with a bizarre mix of stick figures and unfamiliar symbols.
“Lonak war banner,” Sollis said. Vaelin looked away, feeling like a spy. To his surprise Sollis went on. “Lonak boy children become part of a war band from an early age. Each band has its own banner and every member swears a blood oath to die defending it.”
Vaelin rubbed a bead of water from his nose. “What do the symbols mean, master?”
“They list the band’s battles, the heads they have taken, the honours granted them by their High Priestess. The Lonak have a passion for history. Children are punished if they cannot recite the saga of their clan. It’s said they have one of the largest libraries in the world, although no outsider has ever seen it. They love their stories and will sit for hours around the camp fire listening to the shamans. They especially like the heroic tales, stories of outnumbered war bands winning victory against the odds, brave lone warriors questing for lost talismans in the bowels of the earth… boys killing assassins in the forest with the aid of a wolf.”
Vaelin looked at him sharply. “It’s no story, master.”
Sollis tossed another log on the fire, scattering sparks over the hearth. He prodded the logs with a poker, not looking at Vaelin as he spoke. “The Lonak have no word for secret. Did you know that? To them everything is important, to be written down, recorded, told over and over. The Order has no such belief. We have fought battles that left more than a hundred corpses on the ground and not a word of it has ever been set down. The Order fights, but often it fights in shadow, without glory or reward. We have no banners.” He tossed Vaelin’s fletching into the fire, the damp feathers hissed in the flame then curled and withered to nothing. “Mikehl was taken by a bear, a rare sight in the Urlish but some still prowl the depths of the woods. You found the remains and reported it to me. Tomorrow Master Hutril will retrieve them and we will give our fallen brother to the fire and thank him for the gift of his life.”
Vaelin felt no shock, no surprise. It was obvious there was more here than he could know. “Why did you warn me not to help the others, Master?”
Sollis stared into the fire for a while and Vaelin had decided he wasn’t going to answer when he said, “We sever our ties with our blood when we give ourselves to the Order. We understand this, outsiders do not. Sometimes the Order is no protection against the feuds that rage beyond our walls. We cannot always protect you. The others were not likely to be hunted.” His fist was white on the poker as he prodded the fire, his cheek muscles bulged with suppressed rage. “I was wrong. Mikehl paid the price of my mistake.”
My father, Vaelin thought. They sought my death to wound him. Whoever they are they know him not.
“Master, what of the wolf? Why would a wolf seek to aid me?”
Master Sollis put the poker aside and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That’s a thing I don’t understand. I’ve been many places and seen many things but a wolf killing men is not one of them, and killing without feeding.” He shook his head. “Wolves don’t do that. There is something else at work here. Something that touches the Dark.”
Vaelin’s shivers intensified momentarily. The Dark. The servants in his father’s house had used the phrase sometimes, usually in hushed tones when they thought no-one else could hear. It was something people said when things happened that shouldn’t happen; children being born with the blood-sign discolouring their faces, dogs giving birth to cats and ships found adrift at sea with no crew. Dark.
“Two of your brothers made it back before you did,” Sollis said. “You’d better go and tell them about Mikehl.”