‘I know that,’ Drem said, a memory of a banner snapping in a breeze, above a stone keep, above an arched gateway.
‘You should,’ Olin said, holding the brooch up, catching more rays of light. ‘It is the sigil of Dun Seren, Drem, where you were born, where you spent the first five years of your life. Because your mam and me, we belonged to the Order of the Bright Star.’
Drem swayed, felt unsteady for a moment, felt as if the once-solid ground of his life was shifting beneath his feet. He sat on the floor beside his da, blinking.
‘Dun Seren. I’ve heard its name, many times,’ Drem said. ‘But never from you. People talk of it . . .’ He searched for the right word. ‘Reverently.’
‘Aye,’ Olin nodded, ‘I suppose some do. Dun Seren guards one of the bridges into the Desolation, but is much more than that. It is the centre of a warrior caste, an order dedicated to learning the arts of combat and healing. Dedicated to hunting down and destroying the Kadoshim.’
Olin fell silent, then, his head drooping.
‘That’s how Mam died?’ Drem whispered.
‘Aye. Fighting the Kadoshim. We had received word from the Ben-Elim – never our trusted ally, but we shared a common enemy and so on occasion would share information – your mam and I, many others, rode out. We were ambushed . . .’
‘Mam?’ Drem asked, though he knew already.
‘Aye,’ his da said, a crack in his voice. ‘She fell. Many fell.’ Olin was silent a long time, staring into nowhere. A tear rolled down his cheek, disappeared into his iron-streaked beard. Eventually he sighed and shifted, lifted the sword, turning it to show Drem the hilt.
‘I killed the Kadoshim that slew your mam. Took me half a year to hunt it down, but –’ he shrugged – ‘I took its head, brought it back to Dun Seren. I imagine it’s there still. Apart from this piece.’ Olin rubbed a finger along the sword hilt, where Drem thought the leather had frayed, revealing the hilt of bone beneath. He looked closer, saw that was not the case. A tooth was set into the hilt, a long, curved fang, the size of a finger.
‘That—’ Drem began.
‘It is the fang of the Kadoshim that slew your mam, aye,’ Olin said. ‘Couldn’t exactly be carrying its head all around the Banished Lands wherever we go, could I? A sword, though.’ Olin shrugged. ‘And it’s yours, now.’ He held the sword out for Drem, offering it.
Slowly, hesitantly, Drem reached out and took it, brushed his fingertips across the leather hilt and long tooth, felt a shiver run down his spine at the history within it, the tale it could tell. The pommel was round, engraved with a four-pointed star. He wrapped one fist around the hilt, the other gripping the scabbard, pulled it free. A rasping hiss of steel and leather. It was a long blade, a weight to it, though well balanced, the steel bright and gleaming, signs of notches in the blade worked on with a whetstone.
‘About time you had your own blade,’ his da said. ‘You’re making fine progress with the sword dance.’
‘Am I?’ Drem asked. It hadn’t been that long since his da had introduced him to their new morning routine of sword dance and sparring, but Drem felt it was going well. It felt like putting on an old cloak, a bit stiff from lack of use, but fitting well and moulding to him in no time. It felt like coming home.
‘Aye,’ Olin said. ‘But that’s no surprise. You were holding a blade at Dun Seren from the age of two, and Sig had to pick you up and sit you on a wall to keep you off the weapons court when we were sparring.’
‘Sig?’
‘Aye. And you remember her, too, I think. You have just spoken of her. A blonde woman, tall. You’re right there, she’s a giant.’ Olin snorted a laugh, his smile a rare sight. ‘She used to pick you up and perch you on a wall while we were doing the sword dance, else you’d run around with your own wooden sword, practising on our shins.’
Drem smiled at that. ‘Me?’
‘Aye. Sig was my weapons-master. A great warrior.’ He was silent a few moments. ‘And an even better friend.’
Drem raised his eyebrows.
‘Why have you never told me of this before. Any of it?’
So many emotions were coursing through Drem, competing to be heard. He felt hurt, deceived, deemed untrustworthy. And the one constant in his life, the solid rock that he had clung to for every remembered moment, his da, was not the man he had thought he was. He sucked in a deep breath.
‘To protect you,’ Olin said. ‘To keep you safe. And, if the truth be known, because remembering . . . hurts.’
‘But, to protect me from what?’ As far back as he could remember Drem’s memories were of an isolated, solitary existence of travelling, moving, only his da for a companion, working many trades as they travelled, on a farm, elsewhere for a blacksmith, hunting and trapping.
‘What exactly were we running from?’
‘From the Kadoshim, from war and death,’ Olin said. Something about his da’s voice was hollow, though. Like when they had been out in the Bonefells being tracked by wolven, and Olin told Drem to go to sleep, that all was well, but really Drem knew it wasn’t. He’d awoken to his da stitching a series of wounds on his shoulder and chest, a dead wolven beside him.
‘There’s more you’re not telling. If I lived at Dun Seren, the home of the Order of the Bright Star, home to the greatest warriors that have ever lived if half of what the tales tell is true, why was I not safe there? Surely leaving Dun Seren put me in greater danger.’
Olin looked away, could not meet his eyes.
‘Please, Da, tell me. I cannot stand the secrets any longer, the not knowing.’ He felt a wash of anger. ‘I’m a man, fully grown. Stop treating me like a bairn!’
Olin met his gaze, a sadness in his eyes. ‘But you’re my bairn,’ he said. ‘And you always will be.’
‘It’s not fair. I deserve to know,’ Drem said. He held his da’s gaze until finally Olin sighed.
‘I took you from Dun Seren to stop a war.’
‘What—’
‘Let me tell it,’ Olin interrupted, ‘and then ask me your questions.’
Drem nodded, gritting his teeth. He felt angry with his da, a rage simmering in his gut.
‘Before your mam died, when the Order marched out to battle the Kadoshim, she . . .’ Olin paused, eyes distant. He drew in a deep breath. ‘She slew a Ben-Elim. It was in Forn Forest. This Ben-Elim was a captain, Galzur was his name. He insulted the Order. When I responded with anger he insulted me and challenged me to a duel. I . . . declined. He struck me.’ Olin stopped, his hand caressing his jaw, as if remembering the blow. ‘And your mother slew him.’
He stopped there, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. ‘What I’d give to go back to that moment and accept Galzur’s challenge. So much would have been different.’