Blood Ties (44 page)

The sound of the singing guided them as well as Terin, I would guess. Sound travels far underground. However that may be, they came upon us when the singing of the delvers had grown sweet and I was finally relaxing. I quenched the lantern, but it was too late. They had seen us. And we saw them. Lord Masil was flanked by two men with torches flaring.

“Greetings, my daughter,” he said, and his voice was rich and warm. He did not realize that the singing he had heard came from the delvers. To his eyes they were boulders, dark and rounded. “I have waited long to see you.”

It was the only time I have ever understood my sister Perian, when Masil stood there with his red hair shining in the flames and his shoulders broad. She had loved him, once. At that moment I was stricken with sorrow that I had hated her for her disloyalty, called her “the Lady” with scorn like the other villagers when she returned, strove to shame her.

When she died she was only eighteen, younger than my Nim.

At that moment I repented me of my hard thoughts.

“Time to come home, daughter,” he said, and held out his hand.

But she said, “I have no home to go back to. You have destroyed it. How many people did you put to the torch before you found a guide?”

And so I learned of my girls’ deaths, and learned hatred afresh.

The men behind him gasped at her Sight, but he was silent. Then, “As many as I had to,” he said. “You are worth more to me than a thousand lives.”

“I am worth,” Safred said, “no more than any other. Nor are you.”

Anger moved across his face. “I had this argument too many times with your mother. I will not listen to it from you. Take her.”

His men moved forward, but Safred sang out a harsh note, quick and sharp. As they leaped toward her, it must have seemed to them that the very rocks had come alive beneath their feet, as the delvers rose and, as formidable as winter, pushed them back, slowly, solidly.

I took her and pulled her away, following a delver who sang softly to us to guide us. Her father shouted after us, “I will find you! I will search until I do, daughter!”

I knew it was the truth, for he was burning with the shame of being tricked out of her once, and he would not rest until that shame was erased. And I knew that they would find a way around the delvers, eventually, for the delvers have no weapons, only strength and surprise.

So I hurried her down the tunnel, through ways I had never been before, until we came, weary miles behind us, into the greatest cavern I have ever seen. And here we could see everything, for there was a glow coming up from a wide lake, a pearly light that showed us the cavern plain as day. There were wonders: shapes formed by the water into statues like people, and animals, and even trees. And there was one shape there I marveled over, for it was as like a ship as any I have seen riding at harbor in the city.

The delver took us to it, singing happiness and escape. For it was a ship, a ship beached high out of the lake, with no sign of damp or rot upon it, though by rights it should have been covered in the stone growth that had created the pillars and statues. Who placed it there? I do not know. There were people who in the past had buried their warlords in boats, but this ship was empty.

Safred laid her hand upon it. “There is a spell on this ship,” she said. “A spell of forgetting. It has forgotten the ocean, the river, forgotten the very meaning of water.”

Then she went to the lake and, gathering up water in her hands, she poured it over the prow of the ship as you might wash a baby’s head gently. The ship shuddered. I would say it came back to life, except it was a made thing only, of wood and cloth and pitch. But it seemed to spring toward the lake as though set free from long bondage, and splashed gladly into the milky water.

Then it waited, quietly, while we said farewell to the delver and boarded, and Safred sang our thanks.

She laid her hand upon the ship and said, “My brother, take us to the light.”

The ship turned silently into the current.

We slid down waterways of glowing white. Pale fish swam in the waters, blind as delvers. The whisper of the water against the ship’s hull was soothing, and I slept, for the first time in a day and a night and a day, as far as I could reckon time. Perhaps Safred slept too. I did not need to guard her there.

We slid down a smooth current and gathered speed as we went, and we came to an area of sharp rocks and had to be ready to fend the ship off at every turn. We ate twice and slept once more, in turns, before we saw the light in the water growing less. I lit the lanterns at the prow and the stern of the ship. We carried on, an island of light in the darkness, until we realized that in the distance there was daylight.

So we emerged from the mountains into a strange country, onto a river we had never seen. Safred turned into my arms and we wept together as we came into the light again. There were fishers on the bank.

This is the first story of Safred, my sister’s daughter. All her other stories can be told by other people, for her life was a public life, and her deeds known to all. But this story only I, Cael, can tell, for I was there, and I swear to you, what I have told you is truth.

Ash

T
HE TOP
of that ridge, that’s the border to Golden Valley,” Martine said thankfully.

Ash nodded. He would be thankful, too, when they got out of Cliff Domain. The weeks of walking had been punctuated by bands of armed men riding or marching south, pushing everyone else off the roads and tracks. They weren’t just warlord’s men. The bands usually had two or three of those in charge, but they were made up of ordinary young men, farmers mostly, by the look of them, and the unpracticed way they held their pikes and shields. The warlord of Cliff Domain was either planning a war or expecting an attack from the south.

“They’re taking all the protection away from the mountains,” Martine had said a week earlier. “Let’s hope the Ice King doesn’t hear about it. He’d be over the mountains and raiding in a heartbeat.”

“Does that still happen?” Ash asked. “I thought the Ice People had given up.”

Martine was silent for a moment. “The last raid was twenty years ago,” she said slowly. “It was . . . bad. Since then, the borders have been heavily guarded. Who knows what would happen if they weren’t.”

She seemed uneasy whenever they encountered the marching men, turning her eyes back to the high mountains behind them. Fortunately, none of the bands were interested in two Travelers who had enough sense to get out of the way as soon as they heard the tramp of marching feet. The men only whistled at Martine halfheartedly as they went past, not even bothering with ribald comments. They were tired, not used to walking so far, and not enthusiastic about where they were going.

In the villages, the gossip said the men were going to force the Lake People to stop charging such exorbitant tolls for ferrying goods across the Lake at Baluchston. But that sounded unlikely to Ash.

“Go to war because of tolls?” he said to Martine privately. “Seems a bit of an overreaction.”

“Maybe the warlord here isn’t planning to actually go to war. Just frighten them.”

“Who’s the warlord?”

“Gabra’s in charge,” Martine said, “but the actual warlord is his father, Thegan. Thegan’s in the south, now. He married the daughter of the warlord of Central Domain, and left his son in charge of Cliff Domain.” She snapped her fingers. “So. There you are. If he takes Lake Domain, he’ll have all the middle of the country. From cliff to cove.”

It was part of a Traveler saying — From cliff to cove, from sand to snow — that described the extent of the Domains, from the eastern sea to the western mountains and from the southern deserts to the northern ice.

They looked at each other. War. And in the middle would be the remnants of the old blood, the Lake People.

“The Lake protects her own,” Ash said.

Martine nodded. “It might not be a bad thing,” she said. “If more ghosts arise, it might not be a bad thing to have the middle of the country ready for a fight. With trained men in an organized army.”

“You can’t kill ghosts.”

“No. But we might be able to cripple them. Stop them, as Mabry said. They have solid arms and legs. Without those . . . how much harm can they do? But that’s real fighting and it needs trained soldiers to do it . . . Thegan might be doing us all a favor.”

“The gods said that
we
have to stop them, not this Thegan.”

“He might buy us time, though. I suspect we’ll be short on time.”

Without discussing it, they began to walk longer each day, into the early spring dusk and sometimes, when the moon was bright, into the night as well.

Now, finally, they were leaving Cliff Domain and going into Golden Valley. From there it was only a couple of days’ walk to the pass over the northern mountains and into the Last Domain. They were only three or four days away from the Well of Secrets.

“Horses would have been nice.” Ash sighed as his legs complained at the climb up to the ridge. “You’d think the gods could arrange a little thing like that.”

They came over the ridge and immediately heard horses, several of them, going far too fast for the broken ground. The path below them was obscured by trees. Ash could just make out the shapes of horses coming up the trail — one in front and two following. It looked like a pursuit.

Then the horses broke cover. The first one, a black, was being ridden by a young woman with dark hair. Two men followed on the horses behind — warlord’s men, here in Golden Valley, Ash realized, where no warlord had power.

The woman tried to turn the horse downhill, but the black propped and she fell. Ash found himself running down the trail, sliding and slipping on the loose rocks. She was up in a moment, to face her pursuers. They exchanged words. None of them saw Ash hurtling toward them.

The men drew their swords.

She pulled a knife and sprang as the shorter one raised his sword to strike her down.

Ash barreled into him as the sword was coming down, ducking his shoulder so that the blade went over him, and he and the man ended up sprawling, rolling, scrabbling for a foothold.

Ash had no time to think; the man was well trained and came back at him immediately with his sword, but he lost his footing and slithered back a little and his first blow missed. Ash went forward before the man could recover, drawing his knife without thinking, moved in and under the sword arm, stabbing upward.

The man fell, and from the way he fell Ash knew he was already dead. His sword clanged to the ground.

Ash snatched it up and turned to face the other man, who had moved toward him. The warlord’s man was brought up short by the woman’s knife at his throat from behind. But she wasn’t going to be able to hold him long, Ash realized. She was flushed and shaking from fever, or a wound, or both. He noticed she had a wolf skin tied over one shoulder like a cape.

“Drop the sword, Horst,” she said. Horst hesitated. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will.” She whispered the words, but she meant them.

Horst dropped the sword. Ash kicked it away, keeping his eyes steadily on the warlord’s man.

The woman stepped back, shakily. “You’d better not take him home, Horst,” she said. “Thegan doesn’t like failure. If I were you I’d say he died of a fever on the road. I wouldn’t mention me at all.” Her face twisted a little. “He was going to kill me. It seems the gods protect the Kill Reborn.”

Horst spat out of the side of his mouth. “Sully and me go back a long way. I’ll not be lying about his death.” He turned to look at Ash seriously. “Will you be here for his quickening?”

Ash flushed. They didn’t have time . . . What was one ghost when so many might rise? “I’m sorry. We don’t have time to wait three days.”

Horst spat again, this time at Ash’s feet. “A curse on you, then, and I’ll be remembering you. And so will my lord Thegan. You’ve made yourself a bad enemy today, lad, and all for a Traveler bitch.”

“All for a Traveler,” Ash agreed.

Horst’s eyes lifted, for the first time, to his hair, and Ash saw him realize that he too was a Traveler. It was as though the fact that Ash could fight had blinded Horst to his coloring. A look of horror came on Horst’s face.

Ash smiled grimly at him. “It’s a bad thought, isn’t it, that we might learn to fight back?”

He was filled with fury, a long suppressed fury, born of all the nights sleeping in a stable instead of an inn room, all the times he’d been served last in a shop, all the times Acton’s people had sworn at him or spat in the dust as he passed, or charged him twice the fair price, just because they could. For a moment he understood the enchanter,
knew
why he had raised the ghosts. His hand tightened around the sword hilt.

Then Martine’s voice cut through. “Let him go, Ash.”

The voice was a balm to him, banishing the rage and leaving him empty. He stepped back and gestured to Horst. “Take your friend and your horses, and get out of here.”

Horst laid the body over Sully’s horse, mounted his own, and led the horse downhill. When he was a fair way down the slope he turned and shouted.

“Don’t think you’ll find a welcome in Golden Valley. You’ve murdered here.”

“You had no right to stop her here. It’s a free valley,” Ash called back.

“You attacked us unprovoked,” Horst said, his face grim. “Who do you think they’ll believe?”

Then he spurred his horse off down the track, Sully’s horse following.

“He’s right,” Martine said. “They’ll believe him.”

“We have to get out of here,” Ash said.

The woman was clinging to her horse. “Water?” she asked. Martine gave her the water bottle and she drank deeply, the color coming back a little to her face. “That’s better. Thanks.” She looked at Ash. “Thanks to you, too.”

He nodded acknowledgment. He was saved from wondering what to say when her horse whickered loudly and was answered by two more horses that emerged from the clump of pines above them.

Ash looked at the sword and felt sick at the blood drying on it. But he knelt and wiped it on a tussock of grass, then slid it through his belt. He’d have to find a proper sheath for it later.

“Throw it away,” Martine said.

“What?”

“You know the penalties for anyone other than a warlord’s man carrying one of those. Throw it away.”

It went against all his instincts.

“She’s right,” the woman whispered. “Cause you nothing but trouble.”

Reluctantly, Ash slid it out of his belt and tossed it in the grass. Both women nodded, for a moment looking like sisters.

“I’m Ash,” he said. “This is Martine.”

“Bramble,” the woman breathed. “Help me up.”

“Your arm is hurt,” Martine said. “We should see to that first.”

Bramble shook her head. “We have to move now, before he gets a gang together to hunt us down.” She whistled to the other horses and they came trotting forward, nosing her shoulder and cheek. She passed the reins of the bay to Martine and those of the chestnut to Ash. “Help me up?”

Ash hoisted her onto the black’s back. She was unsteady on her feet, but rock solid on the animal’s back.

“Can you ride?” she asked. They both shook their heads.

“Well, guess you’re going to learn,” she said, her eyes crinkling with amusement. “Use a rock to mount.”

The bay tried to lean his full weight against Martine as she reached for his mane to pull herself up. Bramble scolded the horse and he stood upright. The chestnut skittered a little as Ash approached her and Bramble soothed her — “There, Cam, he’s harmless” — and she stood calmly as he mounted.

“Are you a horse speller?” Martine asked.

Bramble smiled and shook her head. “Just a beginner at it,” she said. “Let’s go.”

She led the way, walking first, then, as they reached the firm grass at the valley bottom, picked up the pace to a canter. They avoided the farmhouses and villages, skirting them as widely as possible. Ash and Martine’s thighs were soon aching and chapped.

Bramble stopped at a stream to let the horses drink and Martine eased herself against Mud’s saddlebags, and sighed. “You had to go and ask the gods for horses, didn’t you?”

Ash snorted. “At least we’ll get there faster.”

“Where are you going?” Bramble asked.

Ash felt that she was pretending interest, trying to ignore the pain and swelling in her arm. She looked very pale. “The Well of Secrets,” he answered. No reason she shouldn’t know. Lots of people went to the Well of Secrets.

She looked sideways at him, eyebrows raised. Ash realized that she was really quite pretty, under the sweat and the pallor.

“Me too,” she said.

They took each other for pilgrims, and no more was said. They started off again, a little slower this time as Bramble was beginning to look more drawn and wince every time her horse moved sharply.

Golden Valley wasn’t large. A two-day walk was only a morning’s ride at a good pace. They were braced for sounds of pursuit, but they heard no followers. They would hear them, Bramble knew, if their pace slackened any more.

Bramble gestured to Ash to take the lead. She was swaying, but managed to twist her hands tight in her horse’s mane and she laid her head down on its neck. “Trine will look after me,” she said. “You go ahead and she’ll follow.”

Martine stayed behind Bramble and came up next to her when the path was wide enough. They moved through green-gold poplar groves and sparsely grassed fields where granite boulders edged up through the thin dirt. They kept as close to the foothills as they could, away from the villages and main road.

When Martine found a clump of comfrey, she insisted that they stop to bathe Bramble’s arm and put crushed leaves on it. It looked bad. Yellow pus was trapped under the skin and the whole arm was red and swollen.

“If we can’t get to a healer here,” Martine said, frowning, “the best thing we can do is make it to the Well of Secrets as fast as we can. She’s supposed to be a healer.”

Bramble chuckled painfully. “Well, if she’s not I reckon there’ll be a dozen who claim to be in Oakmere.”

Martine smiled. “You may be right. Charlatans gather around crowds.”

“Let’s go,” Ash said impatiently, watching behind them.

Bramble climbed painfully onto Trine.

It was late afternoon by the time they reached the end of the valley. They had to come back onto the main road to take the pass into the Last Domain, and Ash insisted that Martine take the lead so that he could guard their backs if necessary.

He was still jumpy from that morning: he didn’t want to think about it, but he kept replaying the fight in his head. Could he have avoided killing that man, Sully? Could he have chosen some other way? Was there a moment when he’d decided to kill? He couldn’t remember a moment. All he remembered was movement and action and instinct ruling him. But it was a trained instinct, and it had been trained, he realized, to kill. Not to safeguard, but to kill.

He pushed the thought away. He had been protecting Bramble and himself. Sully would have killed her — killed him. He’d had the right to . . . Did
anyone
have the
right
to kill? That was too hard a question. He dismissed that thought, too, and concentrated on the increasingly difficult task of staying on a horse when his legs felt like jelly.