After the merchant had recovered from the general shock of meeting Sig, the sight of a warrior giant seeming to unman him for a moment, and then the added shock of being introduced to Byrne, leader of the fabled Order of the Bright Star, he announced himself as Asger, a merchant trader recently from Kergard, the most northern outpost of the Desolation.
‘There was nothing there but ash and rock when last I travelled the Desolation,’ Sig rumbled. She looked out of the window at the far end of the chamber, which opened out onto a view of the north. The fortress spilt down the hill towards the river Elv, dark and wide, as it curved sluggishly around the hill that Dun Seren was built upon, a hundred quays and jetties jutting out into its waters. A bridge of stone arched over the river, leading into the Desolation, now more green than the grey it had been when Sig had dwelt there. In the distance leaden clouds were massing, creeping their way south.
And bringing snow with them, no doubt.
‘It is thriving now,’ Asger said, still eyeing Sig dubiously. ‘Kergard, I mean. Since the crater became a lake the land has become green again. There are fields and farms, a wealth of furs and skins to be had from the Wild. A good life to be had, if you’re not afraid of some hard graft, and the cold, of course. Or at least, it was a good life . . .’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Things have turned, sour,’ he said. ‘New folks, bad folks, fleeing the goings-on down south.’
‘Then why are you coming south, marching into these troubles?’ Byrne asked him.
‘There’s trouble all over, seems to me,’ Asger muttered, ‘but I didn’t like what I was seeing. Fights in the streets, friends killed, giant bear running amok. Lynchings. It all started with that bonfire in the Bonefells, and Old Bodil’s death.’ He stopped.
‘Bonfire? Like a beacon?’ Sig asked him.
‘Aye, you could say that,’ Asger said. ‘But I didn’t come here to tell you the troubles of the north; I’m sure you have enough troubles of your own to be dealing with.’
‘The Kadoshim are our trouble,’ Byrne said. ‘And they would be your trouble as much as ours, if we were not the shield that seeks to protect you from them.’
‘I’m sure,’ Asger said, though he looked as if he was thinking he’d never once seen a Kadoshim, and hoped he never would.
‘Least you don’t charge a flesh tithe for the service, like the Ben-Elim,’ he said, then shook his head. ‘I didn’t come here to grumble and complain. I was asked to deliver a package. To you,’ he added, looking at Sig. He bent down and rummaged in a bag at his feet, straightened with a package in his hand, about the size of a wooden plate, bound with twine, and held it out to her.
Sig turned it in her hands, saw it was some kind of spun wool, dyed black, though faded. With big fingers she undid the twine and let it fall away, unfolding the cloth. She stood there a moment, just staring.
Sig trod the spiral stairs of Crow Tower, torchlight flickering, her shadow stretching before and behind her. The cawing of crows grew louder, and then she was stepping into the chamber, a high-roofed room with a tree growing at its centre, spreading wide branches that were full of dark-shadowed nests.
‘Sig, Sig, Sig,’ a crow squawked, others joining until her name was ringing out like a manic battle-cry, Sig fighting the urge to cover her ears.
‘All right!’ she yelled and the crows fell silent.
She scanned the nests in the tree, saw black-feathered heads and glistening eyes staring down at her, eventually found what she was looking for. A gleam of white feathers in the highest reaches of the chamber, Rab peering out of a nest that teetered on the thinnest of branches. He puffed his feathers out, pleased to see her.
Tain was standing below a branch, having a conversation with a crow perched above him. Craf was sitting upon a table, one scabby wing over his head, sleeping. Sig thought she could hear snoring. Tain saw Sig and raised a hand, then came over.
‘Sten’s back from the east. More beacons and unrest,’ Tain said. He paused, looking at Sig’s face. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I need to speak to Rab, and I’ve a message I’d like you to send to your da in Drassil.’
‘Cullen,’ Sig said, standing over the young warrior in the feast-hall. A dark-haired woman was draped across his lap and he was curling ringlets in her hair with a finger, his other hand emptying a horn of mead down his throat. Sig recognized the woman as one of Tain’s helpers from Crow Tower.
Ah, now that would explain why Cullen knows so much about the behaviour of crows.
‘Eh? What?’ Cullen said as his eyes focused on Sig.
She turned and walked away. When she heard Cullen swear and stumble to his feet, the slap of boots as he ran after her, she nodded to herself.
The kennels were quiet and warm, more like stables than kennels, a long, stone-built building, straw thick on the ground. Broad, furry heads lifted, over a score of amber eyes and fangs glistening in the torchlight as Sig and Cullen strode through them. Two hounds growled, one of them only for a few moments before it caught their scent. All of the wolven-hounds of Dun Seren knew the warriors of the Order by scent. The other hound that had growled was separated in a stable of its own, because it had just whelped eight pups and would happily tear the face off any living thing that stepped within a dozen paces of its pups. As the visitors put some distance between them and the newborn pups the growling subsided.
They found Keld playing knuckle-bones with half a dozen others. By the look on the faces of those around Keld he was winning. He saw Sig’s expression and left the game.
‘Somewhere private,’ Sig said, and Keld led them to the far end of the kennels, into an empty stable that was used as a storeroom. Cullen flopped down on a sack of bones with a huge sigh.
‘This better be good,’ he said. ‘I was enjoying the celebrations.’
Keld leaned against the quartered carcass of a boar, both of them staring at Sig.
She took the package Asger had given to her from a pocket in her cloak.
‘A merchant from Kergard delivered this to me today,’ she said. She opened it, unfolding black-spun wool to reveal a silver cloak-brooch, fashioned in the shape of a four-pointed star. Cullen and Keld knew it instantly for one of their Order; they wore the same, as did Sig.
Beneath the brooch was a folded sheaf of parchment. Sig opened it and began to read.