Radu headed for the great house. Cygan could see people moving around within it; he assumed Dumnekavax, the Elder, would be one of those present.
And they had been noticed, too. Small groups of children ran to the water’s edge pointing and shouting in high-pitched excitement before being called back by the nearby womenfolk. This
made Cygan’s heart sink a little; children were rarely encouraged to stay away from the water, not without very good reason. In the Marshes, water was not normally something to be afraid of,
but to be embraced from as early an age as possible – life, after all, would be impossible here without it. Cygan remembered his father throwing him into the lake before he could walk, then
fishing him out again once he had got used to splashing around and had conquered his fear. These children would end up scared of the water and that was not a good thing.
They tethered their boats at the great house and Cygan showed everybody the way up on to the floor. Dumnekavax was there, waiting along with the Circle of the Wise and some half-dozen warriors
carrying their spears, Fasneterax included. Dumnekavax was wearing his robe of raptor feathers, something only to be donned when the entire tribe was at war. The warriors, too. had attached crow
feathers, black and iridescent, to the haft of their spears and tied on a loose cord around their necks. The crow had long been admired in the tribe for its intelligence; the wearing of its
feathers therefore meant they had taken on some of its resourcefulness.
Cygan gestured for Terath and Dennick to stand forward with him. He knew his role now would be that of an interpreter. The Elder had some of the northerners’ tongue but not enough to
converse freely with them. Therefore, the onus was on him to make sure everybody understood each other.
‘Cygan,’ said the Elder, ‘I see you have succeeded in your mission. I never doubted that you would. Please convey our welcome to our guests and our gratitude for coming to our
aid. Never has their arrival been so timely for we have been hard pressed these last few nights. The entire tribe, along with many other people who have fled here from other villages, has spent the
nights on the island, fending off assault after assault from the Malaac, but we have been doughty and have not yielded. Even now as I speak the warriors and womenfolk are preparing for
tonight’s assault, gathering stones for the slings and brushwood for the torches. Shortly everyone will gather on the island in readiness. Before all this, though, let us have a formal
introduction. Give these people our names and let us have theirs in return.’
Cygan translated for the men of Tanaren, then gave them the names of the Elder and the other people present. He then gave Dumnekavax the names of the people he knew, before asking the others
their names. Finally he came over to Whitey.
‘Your name,’ he asked him curtly.
Whitey looked confused. ‘It is Whitey; I thought you knew.’
‘Our Elder has a name and it is not “Elder”. Whitey refers to your appearance only but it is not your name.’
‘My name? No one has asked me that since I was a child.’
Cygan ground his teeth in exasperation. ‘Is the question that difficult? Give me your name.’
Whitey still looked thrown by the question, but composed himself enough to reply. ‘It is Barris – Barris of Sketta’
Cygan gave the name to the Elder then turned back to the albino. ‘Then Barris is how you shall be known here while you remain.’
Cygan spoke to the Elder and translated his reply to Whitey. ‘The Elder welcomes you, Barris of Sketta, and hopes you find our village and its people friendly and accommodating. Our
gratitude for your assistance will last as long as our village, a place where you and your colleagues will always be welcome.’
Whitey swallowed in surprise. ‘It is nothing; I am glad to help.’
The conversation moved on. Dumnekavax and Terath were very interested in what the other had to say.
‘Your people come to us out of legend. Tales from Elders long past remember your people coming down the rivers in their sailboats to trade and explore. I believe that when you went to war
with the men of the north we sent men to aid you. Following the defeat of our peoples, many men of the north raided our tribes burning villages and despoiling our lands as punishment for our
support. As far as I know, this is our first contact since those times. It is one that we will remember in our stories to our children. May our Gods smile on this meeting, and may its outcome be a
fruitful one.’
‘I hope we will have the time to talk of the past and of our shared history,’ Terath replied and Cygan translated. ‘But for now we need to decide how to deal with this
strangest of foes. Tell me, Elder, do they react badly to fire?’
‘Yes, we have found that our torches frighten them.’
‘And do they breathe air or water?’
‘Both, but they seem happiest under water.’
‘Then,’ said Terath, stroking his chin, ‘we have two choices. Firstly we could poison the water, but the problem with doing that is obviously we would kill everything else as
well. Also, we do not know what is poisonous to them and we do not have the time to find out. Which leaves the other choice.’
Dumnekavax nodded, understanding what Terath meant. Cygan, though, was the one who voiced what they were all thinking.
‘We burn the lake,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Terath answered, ‘we burn the lake.’
Shortly afterwards they left the great house and headed out to the island. Once there, the barrels of oil and lime were taken from the boats and into the stockade, which was filling rapidly with
people. The lake was so still it could almost be frozen; only the slightest ripples on its surface caused by the chill breeze revealed its true nature. Conditions couldn’t be better for what
they needed to do. Esric’s men rowed slowly around the island, pouring some of the oil on to the barely shifting waters, eventually forming a greasy slick that lapped gently against the
island’s shores. When that was done, they joined everybody else behind the ditch and stakes of the stockade wall, waiting for the light to fade.
Cygan took no part in these activities. Rather, as soon as he could, he headed towards the island’s centre, past the makeshift shacks holding the wounded or elderly, past the weapon and
food and water stores, past the tethered goats bleating meekly at their unfamiliar restraints, all the way to the middle where the children were being herded. The children and their mothers.
‘Vaneshanda!’ he called. ‘Children!’
And he was heard. From the far side of the milling throng of toddlers, infants and harassed mothers, a dark-haired woman beckoned to him. He was at her side immediately, embracing her, smelling
the soft murmur of the winter’s breeze in her hair. The children were with her, too; he did not have enough arms to embrace them all.
‘I knew you would come back,’ she said gratefully. ‘Ukka would not dare take you from me; even she would fear my wrath.’
‘You don’t know how close it was,’ he said to her softly. ‘I was seconds from death, seconds.’
‘And yet you were spared,’ she replied. ‘You have a purpose, Cygan; you have a destiny to fulfil, that much has always been obvious to me. It will be dark soon, my love, and
they will come again. The children will stay here with Tenevutuu.’ She indicated a white-haired lady, her arms brown and wrinkled, who was sitting close by. ‘Then I will take my sling
and stand behind the line of men, where you will be.’
He smiled at her and held her again. It was one of those times where words were entirely superfluous; they both just shut their eyes and enjoyed a moment of serenity, while all about them was
bustle and organised chaos. They seemed to enfold each other for hours rather than the seconds it actually took. Then a voice called out and Vaneshanda looked at her husband with watery eyes.
‘Dumnekavax calls; you are needed. Go, I will see you later after we drive them off again.’
With legs feeling like they were shaped in clay Cygan tore himself away, walking through the children and supplies to Dumnekavax, who stood by the stockade close to where Cygan’s house
used to be, the only thing remaining being the wooden piles poking out of the water.
The Elder was holding a skull. It was fresh, for it had a new white gleam and its hair was still attached to it.
‘Tegavenek,’ said the man proudly. ‘The bite of the Malaac poisoned him and took his life, but it does not stop his spirit from watching us tonight.’ He affixed the
object to a pole, its orbits facing out on to the lake. Cygan saw that there were many other skulls positioned in the same way, formed into a circle behind the line of warriors, fronting up to the
sharpened wooden posts of the stockade.
Cygan took his spear and picked his spot. By pure chance, Whitey was next to him on his left; Radu was to his right. He checked his bowstring was taut and his arrows were ready and prepared.
Behind him he saw the younger men and some of the women preparing their slings to force back any enemy that got through. The slings themselves were attached to poles that, in the hands of an
expert, would be swung round to pick up momentum and distance before their release. They would be of little use in darkness, but would aid in the early stages of the battle and could always be used
as a final defence if things got desperate. Whitey looked at him as he stared out over the water, its surface limpid and reflective as the sky slowly darkened.
‘Starlings,’ said Whitey absently.
It was true. Far out over the marsh was a stand of trees close to the sacred lake where Cerren met his end. Over them the starlings flocked, a black ever-changing smoke calling and chattering
over the brooding landscape. With the rush of thousands of wings their shape would change – now a hand, now a cloud. They would disperse; spread apart, their definition fading only to clump
together again just seconds later, a thick ball of speckled shimmering feathers and tiny hollow-boned bodies. Yet there was nary a collision between them, so precise their coordination, so rhythmic
and fluid their movements. As Cygan watched them closely, he saw a hawk hovering above them, eager for a kill no doubt. It must be a young bird, he thought. It must be being driven mad by the
proximity of so much food, yet somehow unable to get a claw on to any of it. He saw it dive through the scattering swarm, plummeting to earth, its talons out ready to grab a helpless victim, only
to emerge from the bottom of the flock, fruitlessly clutching at thin air and obviously sadder and wiser for the experience.
We all have to learn, thought Cygan, as the birds rattled their quills together making a noise not unlike water pouring on to a flat rock baked by the sun. Their excited chatter conveyed a
certain nervous energy to all those watching them. The starlings were a common sight in this part of the Marshes, yet whenever a display of this sort happened, every child in every home would
insist on their parents coming out to watch, such was the hypnotic quality of their dance, especially at the magical time of dusk.
Then, though, there was something else. He had heard it before – a high-pitched howling that wavered and ululated. Familiar with it he may have been but his blood still froze in his veins
when he heard the sound. Setting his spear down, he gripped his bow, a reassuring feeling for his cold hands. He breathed on them, getting the circulation going, though he knew soon enough there
would be plenty of work to warm them through.
For, out on the lake, the Malaac were calling each other.
There are many different types of pain but right now Morgan felt as if he was experiencing all of them. He lay on a soft mattress, steadfastly refusing to open his eyes and
aware of every twinge in his body. His chest on his right side had burned fiercely ever since the knife metal had melted on to it. He seemed to remember it had given him a fever; he was sure he
must have been delirious for a while but as to how long he had no idea at all. He could feel a cooling poultice had been placed there and the pain had receded from its ferocious height, but it was
still there grumbling away like an unwelcome guest at a dinner party.
His hand and his shoulder were bandaged and needed to be. The assassin’s knife had pierced both, as well as his back, and, although his flesh had closed around the holes driven into his
body and was slowly knitting back together, his wounds still hurt enough to make his eyes water. He had been breathing slowly since wakefulness had returned, aware of the damage to his lung, but
things had gradually seemed to ease a little and now he seemed to be breathing quite freely. Magical healing perhaps? Above all, though, he knew he was very very lucky still to be alive.
An involuntary sigh escaped from his lips and for the first time he was aware of other people sitting closely around him. Curiosity overcame his desire to sleep a little longer and slowly his
eyes fluttered open. It was difficult to see anything at first, for his eyes were sticky and the light seemed extremely strong, causing them to water further. Slowly, though, they adjusted to his
surroundings and he gradually saw who was with him in his room.
For it was his room, He was in his bed looking up at the canopy supported by the bed’s corner posts. Around him were many concerned faces. Closest to him was Astania, with her pointed
features and vivid blue eyes. Cheris was next to her then Cedric. On the other side of the bed was Lady Mathilde with Kraven sitting close by. He saw Dominic pacing the room, wearing out the
carpet, and saw a couple of sisters of Meriel standing close by the door.
‘He wakes!’ Mathilde sounded very relieved. ‘Morgan, can you hear me? Do not speak if it pains you.’
His breath rattled through his teeth. His throat was dry and his tongue swollen. Despite that, he managed to force out the words.
‘Hello, Mathilde, there is no getting rid of me, is there?’
‘Ha!’ Dominic barked brusquely, though it was obvious he was delighted. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be killed by a woman. Now stop malingering and get back to defending this
town. The Gods only know, you are needed here badly.’