CHAPTER X
ON HIS THIRD day descending into the valleys and ridges of the Bain Holding, Orman spotted something strange in a meadow of waving tall green grasses far below: the single figure of a large man running. But ponderously, awkwardly so. And, breaking from the cover of a nearby treeline, a pursuing party of some ten men. Orman froze in his sliding descent down a steep scree slope. He shaded his one good eye. He might be mistaken, what with his different vision now, but that shambling figure practically had the appearance of a bear running on two legs.
He charged down the slope. He skittered and slid, kicked up a great fan of tumbling gravel and rocks. These he leapt in greater and greater jumps until an ankle turned on a loose rock and he joined the minor landslide as one more object making its way in the inevitable rush, rolling and tumbling, down to the rocky base. As the hissing wash of stones slowed he jumped up and cleared the mass of boulders awaiting him, rolled, and leapt up to continue running.
He drew his hatchets as he ran. He jumped fallen logs, or attempted to, as he still was not used to his differing vision and fell a few times. Standing, damning the irreversible loss, he shouldered through dense thickets then burst forth on to the meadow. The roars of battle-joy he heard from over a nearby gentle rise confirmed his suspicions, and he charged.
From the crest he saw Old Bear himself below, surrounded by spearmen. The man held a body in front of him and this he raised in both arms over his head and threw upon a spearman, then charged. The ring flinched, men backpedalling. Old Bear batted the glinting spearheads aside.
Orman was spotted and the ring eased back into a line, facing the two of them. He charged in headlong. He took one prodding spear on the notch of his bearded hatchet and yanked the haft aside, then smashed his blade into the nook where shoulder met neck and half decapitated the man. A spear thrust at him from his blind side, appearing from nowhere, and he was rocked by the surprise. He had only an instant to realize what a disadvantage he now possessed and took to bobbing his head from side to side. He successfully knocked aside two more thrusts.
Roaring with laughter now, Old Bear picked up another corpse to hurl on to the spearmen. He took a thrust in the shoulder for his trouble.
‘Stop fooling around!’ Orman yelled.
Another spearman lunged forward. Old Bear snatched the weapon from his hands and cracked the butt-end across his head, felling him. ‘Fooling around?’ he bellowed, affronted. ‘Why, you young pup!’
Three charged. Orman hurled a hatchet taking one in the chest. The remaining two Old Bear somehow managed to force to cross hafts, and these he yanked from their hands. A blow from one of his huge paws felled one; the other fled. The remaining ones also backed off then turned to flee.
Old Bear simply waved them off as he stood puffing and drawing in great lungfuls of air. He eyed Orman and a wide grin spread across his shaggy features. Then he frowned. ‘I resent your interference,’ he said, practically wheezing.
‘I saved your life, you old fool.’
Old Bear waved a dismissal over the fallen men. ‘All you did was cheat me of a great boast – should I have succeeded.’
‘Should you have succeeded,’ Orman agreed.
The grin returned and the old man opened one arm – his good arm – and Orman embraced him. Old Bear pounded his back. ‘Good to see you, y’damned fool!’ He took hold of Orman’s shoulder and pulled him away to give him a good look up and down. Orman noted the flinch as he examined his face. ‘Running off north! What do you think you could accomplish?’
‘I saw him.’
The old man’s tangled greying brows rose. Even the one over the blind milky eye. ‘Really? You met Buri? What did he say?’
What Buri said returned to Orman’s thoughts, and he half turned away. He shook his head.
Old Bear pulled a hand through his thick beard. ‘Ach – you tried, lad.’ He winced and gripped his shoulder. ‘Damned bastards tickled me.’
Orman took his arm. ‘Let’s find a stream. Clean that wound.’
Old Bear motioned to Orman’s patch as they made their way down the slope. ‘We’re practically twins now!’ he chortled.
Orman laughed as well. ‘Yes – how will they ever tell us apart? So, what’s going on? What in the name of the ancients are you doing here?’
‘Your plan was accepted, Orman. We’re working with the Losts.’
‘My plan? It wasn’t my plan. Was one of the Lost hearth-guards’ … Cal, I think.’
The old man made a face as if insulted. ‘Of course it was your plan! No dim hearthguard of the Losts could come up with a decent plan!’ He grinned anew. ‘Only the Sayers.’
Orman just snorted. Then he drew a hard breath, tensing himself. ‘Any word … on Jass?’
Old Bear lost his grin. He cleared his throat as he limped along. ‘No, lad. He’s a hostage of the Bains. They’ll keep him safe. Don’t you worry. It’s the old ways.’
‘And Lotji?’
‘He’s out there somewhere. It’s one big running battle. We’re trying to herd them together. Us ’n’ the Losts. But they just ain’t organized. Just a bunch of raiding bands, all independent.’ The man grumbled under his breath. ‘Like herding cats.’
‘Well … I’m for Lotji.’
The big man shook his head. ‘Don’t do it, lad. He’ll run you through with Svalthbrul.’
‘I’ll just have to take my chances.’
But Old Bear would not stop shaking his shaggy head. ‘No, lad. Don’t you lot there in Curl tell the old tales?’
Orman snorted his scepticism. ‘You mean that it never misses?’
‘That’s right, lad. Svalthbrul, once loosed, never misses its mark.’
He had no answer for that. Yet Buri had advised he challenge Lotji; he must know the truth of those old tales, if anyone did. And, anyway, he really had no choice in the matter. It would be confronting Lotji, or abandoning everything he believed about himself. It was no choice at all.
They found a stream and Orman cleaned and bound Bear’s shoulder. Then they headed south, down the valley. The shadows lengthened; the sun sizzled atop the ridge to the west. Twilight already pooled in the depths of this particularly steep mountain vale. Orman was considering finding a place to settle in for the night when he heard the clash of fighting echoing from the very bottom of the valley. He and Bear broke into a trot, started jogging down the forested slope.
He glimpsed figures through the trees running parallel to them. Too many to be any allies of theirs. In his rush he’d left Bear behind, and now he broke through a dense thicket of tearing brush to nearly fall into a shallow stream. Halfway across the rushing water, hunched amid gleaming wet boulders, were the Reddin brothers with Vala, Jass’s mother. Even as he watched, arrows glanced from the rocks; they were pinned down by a band of archers on the opposite shore.
Lowlanders came charging out past the line of bowmen, making for them. Bodies lay in the stream all about the hearthguards and Vala, like boulders themselves. The rushing waters coursed over them as over any other obstruction.
Orman charged out as well. He hoped that the archers on the far shore would merely take him for one of their own. Some eight attackers now engaged the brothers and Vala. The three formed a rough triangle amid the rocks. The archers held off, not wanting to hit their fellows. When Orman neared the fight he lashed out with his hatchets, chopping down through the shoulder of one attacker, then stabbing another through the ribs with the spike of his second. The brothers and Vala instantly shifted to the attack. Both brothers had their shields up and were using their swords one-handed. Vala fought with long-knives. She cut down two of the attacking men, and a woman, in swift blows that amazed Orman. Her power was such that she nearly severed a man’s leg at the thigh.
An arrow cut angrily past his head and he threw himself low in the frigid stream, on his haunches, next to Keth – or – the brother he was fairly certain was Keth.
‘I did not think I would see you again,’ Vala shouted from where she crouched.
‘I’ve come for Lotji,’ he called back.
She gave a fierce nod, answered, ‘As have I.’ Roaring gusts of laughter sounded from the forested slope above the stream and Orman shared a grin with the Reddin brothers. ‘Old Bear is keeping them busy,’ Vala said.
Keth – or was it Kasson? – directed Orman’s gaze to the stream. He peered about for a moment, uncertain, then he saw it: where the waves slapped up over the fallen bodies the water left behind a wash of sand, and amid the sifting granules tiny flecks gleamed in the fading light. It was as if someone had tossed a handful of gold dust over the corpses.
Orman could only shake his head at the poetry of it. ‘They came seeking gold …’ he said.
‘… and they found it,’ Keth finished.
The other brother motioned to Kyle’s patch. ‘The Eithjar reported you had lost your eye. They say that one who loses an eye, gains a second sight.’
Orman offered a weak smile; they were trying to cheer him up, but they all knew what a handicap he now carried in any battle.
Vala had been studying both valley slopes, and now she nodded to herself. ‘Very good. I believe we’ve drawn them in. Now it’s time to push them.’ She faced the north, upstream, and waved a hand low over the surface of the chilling water. It looked to Orman as if she were casting something out across the stream, or perhaps summoning something.
The arrow fire intensified. It seemed more of the outlanders had arrived. He dared a glance over the top of his cover; some twenty archers were now creeping out into the stream, stepping over the wet rocks, searching for sound footing.
Damn the hoary old Taker! It would be the end if they succeeded in flushing them.
Keth tapped his shoulder, inclined his head upstream. Orman squinted into the shadows of the gathering dusk. A fog was rising. It came tumbling down the stream in thick billows and rolls. And it was no normal mist or haze: Orman could hardly see through it.
Curses sounded from the archers, along with mutterings about Iceblood magics. A new party of attackers came crashing through the thick verge along the shore. Here they halted, blinking. They took in the descending wall of fog, the archers now retreating before it, and they too ran.
The treacle billows washed over them, and the shocking chill stole Orman’s breath. Stars of frost appeared on the iron of his hatchets. He felt his beard frosting over. Yet while the cold was sharp, even biting, he did not feel uncomfortable. Instead, as before, he felt refreshed, even invigorated.
They straightened. Their breath plumed in the icy fog. Vala gestured anew; she thrust her hands down the slope. She waved for them to accompany her and started slogging through the water.
Far off, disembodied in the fog, came Old Bear’s booming laughter.
‘Was that them?’ Orman asked.
‘Who?’
‘The invaders.’
Vala’s laugh was just as loud and unreserved as Old Bear’s. ‘That was a scouting party. The main body is camped to the south. We will attack on the morrow.’
Orman almost laughed himself. ‘Us? Attack? How many of them are there?’
‘Some five hundreds,’ she answered, indifferent.
‘So all ten of us have them surrounded?’
‘The Losts have hired mercenary hearthguards,’ Kasson explained in his soft voice, perhaps so quiet he never used it.
‘Must have amassed a lot of gold …’ Keth mused.
That was the most he’d heard from either of them; they seemed to get quite voluble during a fight.
‘Find a campsite and start a fire,’ Vala told them.
‘A fire?’ Orman wondered.
Vala smiled indulgently. ‘None will see it in this fog. I have no use for it – but you might wish to dry yourself.’
Her leathers were rimed with ice, yet mist drifted from her as if the Iceblood woman were afire. But Orman knew it was not heat driving those tendrils of mist; he knew that if he touched her, his hand would probably freeze. He ducked his head. ‘Thank you.’ Then he remembered he was walking with Jass’s mother – a lover of his own father – and what had happened, and he hung his head even more. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured.
‘Do not chastise yourself. The Eithjar told me of it. Your only mistake was in not understanding that Lotji is very … old-fashioned.’
‘Old-fashioned?’
She nodded; her mane of black hair was frozen in one solid slab down her back. ‘For Lotji, the old bloodfeud and vendetta remain everything. That is what drives him. These invaders, these lowlanders … he cares nothing for them.’
‘I see. So he is here for you Sayers.’
‘And you.’
The Reddin brothers had selected a copse of trees to camp in and had started gathering dry branches for a fire. The fog remained dense about them; they moved in some otherworld where shapes emerged suddenly from shifting walls of haze, and sounds returned distorted and echoing eerily.
‘Me?’
Vala’s smile appeared touched with melancholy. ‘Haven’t you seen it yet, Orman?’
He had no idea what the Iceblood woman was hinting at. ‘Seen what?’
‘We are the same, you and I. Your people and mine. We share the same ancestors from long ago.’
Orman stared, dumbfounded. Impossible, he thought. How could that possibly be? They are Icebloods!
Vala continued, her voice calm, almost wistful. ‘Your clans separated from ours long ago to make their own way in the southlands. They mixed with humans they found there. Over the generations we drifted apart. Yet not so far apart. Orman, our numbers are few, we remaining clans. Our blood is too similar. When we wish to add to our numbers we take a mate from among you lowlanders – our distant cousins. Or, sometimes, we offer a position in our families to those few who arise every generation or so who seem to fit in among us.’
She regarded him directly now. Her strange oval eyes seemed to glow amber in the shadows. ‘Such an offer was made to your father. And so … whatever should happen …’ Her gaze released him and he found he could breathe once more. ‘Well … please know that I am glad you and Jass met. Glad that you did what you could for him.’
The Iceblood woman seemed to be suggesting that nothing more could be done for her son – his half-brother. Yet Old Bear had told him not to worry. He fought to find his voice, murmured huskily, ‘We’ll get him back. I swear.’
Her half-smile simply eased into a purer sort of wistfulness and she walked away to disappear into the shifting banks of fog. Orman knelt on his haunches with Keth and Kasson, who were minding the fire. ‘Where’s Shortshanks?’
‘With them,’ said Keth – or was it Kasson? He was no longer certain he had them straight after all.
‘Sleep,’ said the other. ‘We’ll trade off watches.’
‘What of Bear?’
They shook their heads. ‘He will not come to the fire,’ said one. ‘He says he does not want to smell of smoke but I think he doesn’t like fire when he’s raising the bear.’
‘Raising the bear? So it’s not some sort of spell? He truly is a shapeshifter?’
‘Have you not heard all the old tales? It was quite common, once. Now he is the last.’
‘And the morrow? What is the plan?’
But the brothers appeared to have used up their store of words, and merely glanced to one another, shrugging.
Orman lay down on a brushed-together bed of dried leaves and needles, facing the fire, and watched the tendrils of mist rising from his drying leathers wend their way up to the surrounding billows and there mingle among them.
*
Dawn came as a diffuse pewter-grey light. The fog cover remained; if anything, it had thickened. The cold was intense. Frost glazed the blades of his hatchets and the grass blades and brush crunched underfoot. Vala motioned them on; she appeared to be able to penetrate the dense soup of haze. Orman reflected that, while she might claim they shared an ancestry, he still couldn’t see a damned thing.
They descended a dividing ridge into another valley, this one not so steep. Fog still obscured all the distances; trees stood as ghosts, boulders emerged like cave openings into darkness. Distantly, Orman could make out many voices and the jangle and ringing of equipment.
‘They are searching the fog,’ Vala snorted. ‘Fools.’ She motioned to the Reddin brothers. ‘Time to push them in. Spread out. A slow sweep down the side.’
The brothers nodded and moved off. They were readying their shields when the mist swallowed them. ‘What of us?’ he asked.
‘We will stay together. We are after the same thing.’ She motioned him off a little. He refreshed his grip on his hatchets and stepped aside until Vala became a shadow amid the haze. Then he began edging his way down the valley side.
Men and women called to each other further down the slope. Their accent was strange, yet he could understand some of the basic words. Outlanders. He considered shouting confusing orders, then decided a silent approach would be best.
The clash and grating of weapons sounded from his right, followed by the yell of a wounded man, cut short. As Orman felt his way down, a figure emerged ahead from the coursing banks of fog. It was a man shielding his gaze to peer up into the haze.
‘Who is that?’ the fellow called. ‘Name yourself!’
‘Greki,’ Orman answered.
‘Greki? Greki who?’
Still advancing, Orman said, ‘Greki … the False,’ and lunged, swinging a hatchet upwards to catch the man under his jaw, splitting it. The fellow gurgled a howl, clutching his face, and fell. Orman finished him with a cut to the back of the neck.
‘Who is that?’ someone shouted from further down among the brush. More than one came running. Orman crouched to ready himself. Fortunately, they came in a disorganized rush; stumbling upon him almost one by one. Every advantage was Orman’s as he knew that whoever appeared would be his enemy. He did not bother with the niceties but took out knees and arms – whichever was nearest – then finished with single crippling blows and moved on.
The panicked calls and clash of blows exchanged and shrieks of wounded was constant now up and down the thinly treed valley side. The fog remained so thick Orman could make out none of the battle, and neither, he knew, could the invaders. It seemed that only the Icebloods could penetrate the haze. A powerful advantage for any engagement.
He felled three more as he edged further down the slope. The last actually still held a raised crossbow as he futilely searched the fog for a target. Orman almost felt sorry for the fool.
A shape appeared next to him so close and so silently that he flinched, almost falling to the ground; the tall figure of Jaochim reared over him. The Iceblood wore mere hunting leathers, but held two long-hafted bearded axes. ‘You are falling behind,’ he growled. ‘The battle is on the valley floor. Speed is our ally. We must break them before they organize a defence.’
‘I am sorry,’ Orman stammered.
Jaochim raised one axe almost in salute. ‘Never mind.’ Then he paused, frowning. ‘Did you really meet with Buri?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said he was readying himself for the true enemy.’
The Iceblood appeared startled by that. ‘The true enemy,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Those words?’
‘Yes.’
Jaochim scanned the fog. Again he seemed to speak aloud to himself: ‘Then we are wasting our time here.’ He suddenly waved all such concerns away, a gesture that reminded Orman of Old Bear. ‘Hunh. Well, run now. Hack and run.’ Then, unaccountably, he suddenly offered a fey smile that bared his prominent canines. ‘Lotji is here.’ And he loped off, to disappear into the swirling mist.
Reminded of what he should be doing, Orman set off running pell-mell down the slope.
Figures appeared through the fog’s chiaroscuro of shadow and light. He merely slashed at them in passing. What a fool he’d been! Wasting his time among these outlying pickets and scouts! It was Lotji he wanted – and he’d cut his way through the middle of this army to find him.
Following the clashes and shouts, he tracked down the main engagement. Figures charged him but he did not pursue the duels: he slashed and ran on. He passed knots of mêlées, glimpsed the Reddin brothers, back to back, surrounded but calmly defending – he left them to it.
He burst into the ruins of a temporary camp: trampled tents, smouldering fires, scattered fallen spears and equipment. And bodies. Many bodies. All invaders as far as he could see.
He turned full circle to scan the banks of mists. This was useless. He could search until the dawn and not come across the man. Then it struck him: the one thing that would draw him in.
He lifted his hands to his mouth. ‘Lotji! I am come for you! Where are you? Coward!’ He stumbled on. ‘I challenge you!’ Rounding a half-fallen tent, he practically crashed into a band of invaders.
‘Get him!’ one screamed.
Orman yelled a war-bellow and threw himself upon them, slashing right and left. But there were far too many. He spike-thrust one in the mouth and tried to disengage while they shifted, working round to his blind side. Then one threw off his cloak on to his neighbour, knifed another, and leapt to Orman’s side: Gerrun Shortshanks. ‘Heard you yelling,’ he grinned.
Orman nodded his gratitude then turned to the remaining troop, who were edging inward, wary but determined. Gerrun startled him by charging one side. ‘Don’t wait for them!’ he yelled, taking a sword-swing on one dirk blade and kicking the man down.
Orman followed his example. It was a shifting, swirling mêlée from then on. He blocked blows with his hatchet, took out knees with counter-attacks, dodged, and shifted his head left and right, ever circling. One canny fellow kept him pinned on his blind side until he surprised him by tossing a hatchet to wind him and slow him down long enough to snatch up a fallen spear and run him through. He spun then, quickly, but not quickly enough as another invader slipped inside the spear from his left, blocking the haft to slash a blow that Orman only slipped by throwing himself backwards. He lost the spear in doing so.
The outlander closed, shortsword reversed. Orman rolled, and as he did the fellow grunted and clasped a hand to his chest. The grip of a knife stood there from his leathers. He fell to his knees, cursed impressively, and toppled.
Orman straightened, panting, his limbs quivering. He retrieved the spear. Gerrun appeared next to him. The short man grinned up at him and winked. ‘You let him get inside,’ he said.
‘I’ll try to watch for that,’ Orman allowed. His mouth was as dry as stone.
‘This way,’ Shortshanks said, and headed off. Suddenly, he stopped, and tottered back into Orman’s arms. His front was slashed open and blood and inner fluids now poured down his fine felt trousers all the way to his cured leather boots. Orman gently lowered him, dead already, to the trampled grasses. He straightened then, knowing what he would see: Lotji standing a short distance off amid the fog, leaning upon Svalthbrul.
‘It is I who must challenge you,’ the Bain said.
‘Don’t be a fool! There are hundreds of invaders! We must work together to turn them away!’
But the Bain only shook his head. He straightened, levelled Svalthbrul at Orman. ‘A challenge, once given, must be answered.’ He smiled then, and Orman was reminded of Jaochim’s smile. ‘And thankfully we are upon Bain lands.’
The knapped stone spearhead gleamed wet with blood. This close, it appeared enormous. Lotji’s arms tensed for the thrust. Orman realized he held no weapon and snatched his fighting knives from the rear of his belt. ‘Fool!’ he damned the man, fully expecting this to be his last moment.
Both he and Lotji froze then, utterly shocked by a bellowed roar bursting so close that Orman swore he felt the hot breath. An enormous black shape burst through the mist. A swatting paw the size of a shield knocked Lotji tumbling away, to disappear into the swirling scarves of haze. The beast, the size of a wagon, lumbered off in pursuit and disappeared. Orman shouted uselessly: ‘No! He has Svalthbrul!’ Cursing the old man for a fool, he gave chase.
The crashing and roars of their battle guided him. He stumbled amid the wreckage of a camp: flattened torn tents, scattered cook-fires, scattered equipment. Invaders ran straight past him in their panic to flee the duel. The trail of debris and deep pawprints torn in the soft ground led onward out of the camp to a copse of ghostly alder and birch. Orman found shattered trunks and trees that had been knocked askew and were now leaning drunkenly. The ground was torn by claws. Blood lay splashed across one fallen bole. He followed, knives readied.
The tumult subsided. Amid the coursing banners of fog, he glimpsed a huge dark figure lying across shattered trunks. Old Bear. He quickly sheathed his blades and cradled the man’s bloodied head.
‘Speak to me, old man.’
Old Bear drew a long, shuddering breath. ‘What use is a glorious duel,’ he growled, ‘when no one can see a blasted thing!’
Orman burst out a laugh. ‘Y’damned old fool!’
‘It would have been something to boast of,’ Old Bear answered, his voice far softer now. ‘Anyway,’ he swallowed, said wearily, ‘softened him up for you.’
‘Should’ve stayed out of it. It’s my fight.’
The old man attempted to rise. ‘No, no. Would’ve been … would’ve …’ He eased back, his limbs relaxing.
‘Would’ve been something for the hero songs,’ Orman finished. Old Bear just nodded his shaggy head. His remaining brown eye closed and Orman felt his massive frame sag in death. He eased the head down, stood.
It was strange, he reflected. Outland invaders were here to steal the land from his own people, yet it was one of his own who had taken everything from him. ‘I know you are there!’ he called to the mists. ‘Let us end this now.’
As if answering a draught of fresh wind, the fog thinned. Off a short distance stood Lotji. ‘I wanted you to see your end!’ he shouted. He drew back his arm and launched Svalthbrul. Orman flinched. For some reason he hadn’t expected the man to simply throw the spear. He thought he’d have a chance to engage. Some sort of fair chance.
A grating thud sounded then and Orman blinked, surprised. Instead of being thrust through as he’d expected, he found the spear Svalthbrul jutting from the ground not an arm’s length from him. Its thick haft stood quivering.
Just as he had left it, he realized. When he had given it to Lotji.
Given it. And he remembered Old Bear’s words: ‘wrested it from the dead hand of Jorgan Bain …’
Svalthbrul, it seemed, was still his.
He snatched it up. Raised his gaze to Lotji. The Bain was staring, his eyes widening now. Unaccountably, he laughed, almost in approval or resignation, and gravely saluted Orman. Then he turned and walked away to disappear into the mists.
Orman brought the cold faceted stone head of the spear to his lips and did what he knew Lotji now understood, and accepted, as his unavoidable fate. ‘Find the bastard,’ he whispered, and heaved the weapon as high as he possessed the strength to do. Svalthbrul flew from his hand, almost leaping, and vanished. He drew his fighting knives and followed the line the weapon’s passage had cleaved through the mist.
Distantly, it registered upon him that the noise and tumult of battle had faded almost completely. He stepped over the corpses of fallen outlanders. Ahead, three standing figures solidified from the haze. He heard their laboured exhausted breathing. Sensing his approach, they tensed, swords rising.
He met three soldiers, two women and one man, armoured alike in long mail coats, belted, with broad shields and helmets. Their shields featured a much battered and scraped field of dark red with some sort of wiggly line across.
‘Identify yourself,’ the man ordered.
‘Orman, hearthguard to the Sayers.’
The three relaxed. The man sheathed his longsword. ‘Jup Alat. We are with the Losts. This is Laurel and Leena. Fight’s over, I think. What can we do for you?’
He motioned onward behind them. ‘I’m tracking someone.’
The big fellow frowned. ‘No one passed us.’
‘Nevertheless. If I may?’
The three parted. ‘Certainly. If you wish.’
Orman nodded and continued on. The three stood motionless, peering after him until the coursing fog closed between them once more.
He walked until he began to suspect that he’d somehow lost the trail, or had perhaps passed where the weapon had fallen. He paused then, listening. A stream of some sort rushed and hissed a good distance off. A freshening wind shushed through tree boughs. Far off, people called to one another through the fog.
An explosive wet cough sounded to one side. Orman tightened his grip on his weapons and closed. He found Lotji standing, tottering. The spear Svalthbrul had driven through him straight up and down; its end stood above his head, the haft disappearing into one shoulder. The spearhead stood forward, almost straight down, from his pelvis. At some noise from Orman the Bain turned, slowly, in lurching steps.
His grin was a smear of blood-red. The mouth worked and out came a faint: ‘You win.’
‘I care nothing for your damned feuds. Where is he?’
‘Who?’
‘Jass! Damn you!’
‘Ah. Him.’ The man drew a shuddering breath. His eyes closed, then fluttered, blinking. It occurred to Orman that the man could not fall even if he wanted to. The haft of Svalthbrul held him rigid, tree-straight. His knees buckled and he fell straight down. Svalthbrul’s blade drove into the ground and the man moaned an agony beyond reason. His head rose, revealing that he grinned once more as if at some cosmic jest. ‘I would try the Greathall,’ he mouthed.
Enraged, Orman kicked him down. He fell and lay motionless.
Bending, Orman took hold of the wet, bloodied haft close behind the spearhead and yanked. He set one boot against the man’s thigh and yanked again. The haft came sliding free in a slither of fluids. Mist curled from the gore-slick length.
‘And what of Jass?’ Vala spoke from behind and Orman spun. She stood breathing deeply, her long-knives bloodied to the grips, her forearms splashed.
‘He said to try the Greathall.’
The news rocked the woman. Open dread filled her alien oval eyes. ‘The Greathall is more than a day south of here,’ she breathed, appalled.
Orman wasn’t certain he understood. ‘But then …’
Vala did not pause to answer. She spun and ran. He took a few faltering steps after her, calling, ‘Vala! Vala … Dammit to the Abyss.’
Twin figures came jogging up through the thinning fog: the Reddin brothers. Both appeared hale, if sliced and cut by minor wounds. Neither carried his shield, which must have been battered to pieces in the fighting. ‘Here you are,’ said one, Keth perhaps.
‘Where is Bain Greathall?’ he demanded.
‘South of here,’ answered the other.
‘South? Where?’
One brother extended an arm, gesturing downhill. ‘South.’
Orman took off at a jog. After a short time he found the brothers flanking him. ‘What is it?’ one asked.
‘Jass is at the Greathall.’
They entered a more mature forest of tall pine and birch and the ground opened up. They had left behind the localized banks of fog. Orman glimpsed other figures also fleeing south through the woods. He ignored them.
‘If there are any Bains left they will be defending the Greathall,’ one brother offered.
‘Let us hope,’ Orman muttered beneath his breath.
Through the rest of the day and into the night they alternated between walking and jogging. The sky was clear and bright. The Great Ice Bridge could clearly be seen spanning the entire inverted bowl above. It glittered from one horizon to the other. The moon, battered and blurry still from the strange fires that burst upon it years ago, was a sickle blade waxing.
They ran straight past camps of some few stragglers, or latecomers. These men and women watched them without a shouted curse, a yell, or a fired arrow. It was as if they considered them some sort of ghosts, such as the Eithjar.
Dawn’s orange light brightened behind an eastern ridge. In its glow Orman spotted the faint smudge of black smoke rising from the forest canopy below. He broke into a run.
The pall was quite distant; he had to splash through two small streams while he pushed his way through the underbrush. He heard the brothers following. He burst through to cleared fields and saw ahead the Bain Greathall, aflame. Figures surrounded it.
Orman could not be certain, but believed he howled something as he charged. Faces turned his way. He crashed into armed men and women, thrust right and left. He was now truly blind in a red mist of fury and a crushing dread. More lowlanders came closing in from surrounding the hall. The brothers joined him but instead of remaining within their cover he charged from one man or woman to the next. Some remaining rational part of him seemed to watch this and wonder whether Old Bear’s talent of ferocious shapeshifting had passed to him.
He then became aware of himself standing motionless, spellbound, exhausted, his limbs quivering, before the dark opening of the gaping entrance. The arrow-pierced corpse of an Iceblood, an old man, lay upon the stairs. Vala held the doorway. Smoke gouted out about her in a black river. Embers glowed in her hair. Her leathers were slashed over countless wounds – but that was as nothing to the agony in her wild staring eyes. Devastation had hollowed them completely. But most of all what held him breathless and fascinated was their grim and absolute despair.
He reached out to her; she flinched away as if some wild beast, turned, and ran within to disappear among the licking flames and smoke. He lunged up the stairs but hands held him back. He believe he howled and fought then froze, transfixed.
Through the billowing smoke he’d glimpsed something.
Amid the churning coils, the collapsing roof-timbers, something hung from the immense log that was the roof crossbeam. A small figure swinging ever so slightly. His leathers were curling and smoking in the intense heat. His hands were tied behind his back and he’d been thrust through the chest.
Thrust through by Svalthbrul – the weapon he now held in his hands. A burden he now knew to be wholly and inescapably cursed.
He screamed then. Bellowed to the sky. Howled on and on until something struck him and he fell, knowing nothing more.
*
He awoke in an out-building, a small hut of chinked logs. He smelled stale smoke. Svalthbrul stood leaning next to his cot. He left it there and arose to push open the door of thin wooden slats. It was late in the day. White smoke wafted from the collapsed ruins of the burnt Greathall.
Keth Reddin stood without, arms crossed. Orman nodded him a greeting.
‘The Bains are no more,’ Keth said.
‘Yes.’
‘I am sorry for the loss of your half-brother.’
‘Thank you.’
Keth nodded; he’d said what he meant to say and was finished.
Orman took a deep breath of the reviving air. ‘We must return to Sayer Hall to bring word of this … this loss.’ Keth nodded again.
The Reddin brother shifted to peer back through the open door. Orman followed his gaze. Yes. Svalthbrul. He took a hard breath to steel himself and re-entered the hut. Yes. He closed a fist upon the weapon. Though he now hated it, it was his. His burden to carry. His curse. If it could speak, he now understood it would be laughing at all the blood it had drunk, the discord and violence it had sown.
He ducked from the hut and crossed to the smouldering ruins. The brothers followed. He stood for a time facing the pile of ash and blackened logs, Svalthbrul cradled in his arms. He adjusted the patch of ragged leather he’d cut to cover his eye. He bowed to his fallen kin. There were no words to say. No tears to shed. His heart had been thrust through as irrevocably as Jass’s. He was done, finished; as burnt and ashen within as the hulk of this Greathall.
He set off north.