The silver-haired man dragged a chair over and sat before Cywen. ‘I need to talk to you about your brother.’
The sky was a searing blue, wisps of cloud doing little to block the heat of the sun as Cywen rode to the paddocks beyond Havan. Over two thousand horses were roaming here, more than she had ever seen in her life – the war mounts of Owain’s warband mixing with Brenin’s herds. She was on Shield, could feel his barely controlled energy, his yearning to gallop reflected in how he lifted his hooves, how he held his tail straight and proud.
She was in the company of a dozen other stablehands, all ordered by the warrior Drust to bring back mounts from Brenin’s herd considered suitable for training in the Rowan Field. She rounded up half a dozen, Gar’s piebald stallion, Hammer, amongst them, and roped them in a line behind Shield. As she was leaving, a memory tugged at her and she changed direction, rode to a small copse of alders and followed a track, now overgrown.
She pulled up before Brina’s cottage, or what was left of it. It had been burned out, the charred framework still standing, the open doorway leading to a pile of rubble and ash. Brina would have a lot to say to the man that had put fire to her home. Even the herb garden was overgrown, a mass of weeds and grass gone to seed. Then she was remembering the night that Corban had sneaked into this cottage and stolen a comb, to prove his courage. She felt her breath catch in her chest. A tear rolled down her cheek and she brushed it away. Strange, how a memory from the past can sneak up so quietly.
Corban.
Last night had been so strange, woken in the dead of night by the strangest bunch of companions she had ever witnessed – a giant, a living, breathing giant walking around Dun Carreg – and questioned. Questioned about Corban.
She had been scared at first – who wouldn’t be with a giant standing in your kitchen? – but then the silver-haired man had started talking to her. His voice had been so calm. She had not said much, little more than she had told Nathair during their previous meeting, though some of it she found hard to remember. There had been so many questions from the old man with the strange yellow eyes.
He had asked about Meical, she remembered that, and she had thought instantly of seeing him sitting in the kitchen, talking to her mam and da, and to Gar. They had spoken about Corban as well. And finally Calidus had asked her for something that had belonged to Corban – an item of clothing, a knife, anything. She had given him Corban’s old forge apron, scarred and pitted by heat and flame, sweat-stained on the inside. She had found it in her da’s forge when she had been searching for her throwing knives, and for some unexplained reason had brought the apron home with her.
Calidus had held it, run his fingertips over its entirety, then closed his eyes and started singing, so quietly that it had been little more than a whisper. When he opened his eyes he had pronounced Corban gone from Ardan, said that he was across the sea, to the north-west. That had scared her more than anything else, even more than the giant staring at her. Calidus was an Elemental. She shivered at the memory. An Elemental, searching for Corban.
Corban. To her he was just her baby brother. Why were these people so interested in him?
Her thoughts stayed fixed on her brother as she rode Shield away from Brina’s cottage, leading the other horses back to Dun Carreg. The fortress and surrounding land was buzzing with activity. Owain’s warband was spread between Dun Carreg and the plains south of the giantsway, more of them arriving every day. North of the giantsway Nathair’s forces camped, swollen first by the arrival of his fleet and then the warband that had ridden in from the east only yesterday. Rows of tents filled all the land between the giantsway and the beach. She scowled as she saw black-clad figures in Havan, more of the Jehar that had stormed Stonegate the night Dun Carreg had fallen.
The warriors everywhere grew smaller and smaller as she steadily climbed the path to the fortress. Out in the bay a great cluster of ships with Tenebral’s eagle upon them were rowing for open sea, their sails billowing and filling as they left the bay’s shelter. As she watched, they turned east, becoming specks as they dwindled into the distance, and she wondered where they were heading. Eventually she clattered over the bridge and through Dun Carreg’s stone-paved streets until she reached the Rowan Field. Drust inspected the mounts she had brought in, grunting approvingly. He gave particular attention to Hammer, Gar’s stallion, who was also the sire of Shield.
‘You’ve done well, girl,’ the red-haired warrior said. ‘You’ve a good eye for horses.’
‘Thank you,’ she replied without smiling.