Trull grimaced. ‘I see the truth of that, Fear. I shall endeavour to curtail my indifference.’
His brother did not react to the sarcasm. ‘The council is gathering in the citadel, brother. Will you enter the King’s Hall at my side?’
Trull relented. ‘I am honoured, Fear.’
They turned away from the black water, and so did not see the pale-winged shape gliding over the lazy waves a short distance offshore.
****
Thirteen years ago Udinaas had been a young sailor in the third year of his family’s indenture to the merchant Intaros of Trate, the northernmost city of Lether. He was aboard the whaler Brunt and on the return run from Beneda waters. They had slipped in under cover of darkness, killing three sows, and were towing the carcasses into the neutral Troughs west of Calach Bay when five K’orthan ships of the Hiroth were sighted in hard pursuit.
The captain’s greed had spelled their doom, as he would not abandon the kills.
Udinaas well remembered the faces of the whaler’s officers, the captain included, as they were bound to one of the sows to be left to the sharks and dhenrabi, whilst the common sailors were taken off the ship, along with every piece of iron and every other item that caught the Edur’s fancy. Shadow wraiths were then loosed on the Brunt, to devour and tear apart the dead wood of the Letherii ship. Towing the other two sows, the five Blackwood K’orthan ships then departed, leaving the third whale to the slayers of the deep.
Even back then, Udinaas had been indifferent to the grisly fate of the captain and his officers. He had been born into debt, as had his father and his father before him. Indenture and slavery were two words for the same thing. Nor was life as a slave among the Hiroth particularly harsh. Obedience was rewarded with protection, clothing and a dwelling sheltered from the rain and snow, and, until recently, plenty of food.
Among Udinaas’s many tasks within the household of the Sengar was the repair of nets for the four Knarri fisherboats owned by the noble family. Because he had been a sailor, he was not permitted to leave land, and knotting the nets and affixing weight-stones down on the strand south of the river mouth was as close as he ever came to the open waters of the sea. Not that he had any desire to escape the Edur. There were plenty of slaves in the village – all Letherii, of course – so he did not miss the company of his own kind, miserable as it often was. Nor were the comforts of Lether sufficient lure to attempt what was virtually impossible anyway – he had memory of seeing such comforts, but never of partaking in them. And finally, Udinaas hated the sea with a passion, just as he had done when he was a sailor.
In the failing light he had seen the two eldest sons of Tomad Sengar on the beach on the other side of the river mouth, and was not surprised to hear the faint, indistinguishable words they exchanged. Letherii ships had struck again – the news had raced among the slaves before young Rhulad had even reached the entrance of the citadel. A council had been called, which was to be expected, and Udinaas assumed that there would be slaughter before too long, that deadly, terrifying merging of iron-edged ferocity and sorcery that marked every clash with the Letherii of the south. And, truth be told, Udinaas wished them good hunting. Seals taken by the Letherii threatened famine among the Edur, and in famine it was the slaves who were the first to suffer.
Udinaas well understood his own kind. To the Letherii, gold was all that mattered. Gold and its possession defined their entire world. Power, status, self-worth and respect – all were commodities that could be purchased by coin. Indeed, debt bound the entire kingdom, defining every relationship, the motivation casting the shadow of every act, every decision. This devious hunting of the seals was the opening move in a ploy the Letherii had used countless times, against every tribe beyond the borderlands. To the Letherii, the Edur were no different. But they are, you fools.
Even so, the next move would come at the Great Meeting, and Udinaas suspected that the Warlock King and his advisers, clever as they were, would walk into that treaty like blind elders. What worried him was all that would follow.
Like hatchlings borne on the tide, the peoples of two kingdoms were rushing headlong into deep, deadly waters.
Three slaves from the Buhn household trotted past, bundles of bound seaweed on their shoulders. One called out to Udinaas. ‘Feather Witch will cast tonight, Udinaas! Even as the council gathers.’
Udinaas began folding the net over the drying rack. ‘I will be there, Hulad.’
The three left the strand, and Udinaas was alone once more. He glanced north and saw Fear and Trull walking up the slope towards the outer wall’s postern gate.
Finished with the net, he placed his tools in the small basket and fastened the lid, then straightened.
He heard the flap of wings behind him and turned, startled by the sound of a bird in flight so long after the sun had set. A pale shape skimmed the waterline, and was gone.
Udinaas blinked, straining to see it again, telling himself that it was not what it had appeared to be. Not that. Anything but that. He moved to his left to a bare patch of sand. Crouching, he quickly sketched an invoking sigil into the sand with the small finger of his left hand, lifting his right hand to his face, first two fingers reaching to his eyes to pull the lids down for a brief moment, as he whispered a prayer, ‘Knuckles cast, Saviour look down upon me this night. Errant! Look down upon us all!’
He lowered his right hand and dropped his gaze to the symbol he had drawn.
‘Crow, begone!’
The sigh of wind, the murmur of waves. Then a distant cackle. Shivering, Udinaas bolted upright. Snatching up the basket, he ran for the gate.
****
The King’s Meet was a vast, circular chamber, the Blackwood boles of the ceiling reaching up to a central peak lost in smoke. Unblooded warriors of noble birth stood at the very edge, the outermost ring of those attending to witness the council. Next, and seated on backed benches, were the matrons, the wedded and widowed women. Then came the unwedded and the betrothed, cross-legged on hides. A pace before them, the floor dropped an arm’s length to form a central pit of packed earth where sat the warriors. At the very centre was a raised dais, fifteen paces across, where stood the Warlock King, Hannan Mosag, with the five hostage princes seated around him, facing outward.
As Trull and Fear descended to the pit to take their place among the blooded warriors, Trull stared up at his king. Of average height and build, Hannan Mosag seemed unprepossessing at first glance. His features were even, a shade paler than most Edur, and there was a wide cast to his eyes that gave him a perpetually surprised look. The power, then, was not physical. It lay entirely in his voice. Rich and deep, it was a voice that demanded to be listened to without regard to volume.
Standing in silence, as he did now, Hannan Mosag’s claim to kingship seemed a mere accident of placement, as if he had wandered into the centre of the huge chamber, and now looked about with a vaguely bemused expression. His clothing was no different from that of any other warriors, barring the absence of trophies – for his trophies, after all, were seated around him on the dais, the first sons of the five subjugated chiefs.
A more concerted study of the Warlock King revealed another indication of his power. His shadow reared behind him. Huge, hulking. Long, indistinct but deadly swords gripped in both gauntleted hands. Helmed, the shoulders angular with plates of armour. Hannan Mosag’s shadow wraith bodyguard never slept. There was, Trull reflected, nothing bemused in its wide stance.
Few warlocks were capable of conjuring such a creature when drawing from the life-force of their own shadows. Kurald Emurlahn flowed raw and brutal in that silent, ever-vigilant sentinel.
Trull’s gaze fell to those of the hostages facing him. The K’risnan. More than representatives of their fathers, they were Hannan Mosag’s apprentices in sorcery. Their names had been stripped from them, the new ones chosen in secret by their master and bound with spells. One day, they would return to their tribes as chiefs. And their loyalty to their king would b
e absolute.
The hostage from the Merude tribe was directly opposite Trull. Largest of the six tribes, the Merude had been the last to capitulate. They had always maintained that, with their numbers approaching one hundred thousand, forty thousand of which were blooded or soon-to-be-blooded warriors, they should by right have held pre-eminence among the Edur. More warriors, more ships, and ruled by a chief with more trophies at his belt than had been seen in generations. Domination belonged to the Merude.
Or it should have, if not for Hannan Mosag’s extraordinary mastery of those fragments of Kurald Emurlahn from which power could be drawn. Chief Hanradi Khalag’s skill with the spear far outweighed his capacity as a warlock.
No-one but Hannan Mosag and Hanradi Khalag knew the details of that final surrendering. Merude had been holding strong against the Hiroth and their contingents of Arapay, Sollanta, Den-Ratha and Beneda warriors, and the ritual constraints of the war were fast unravelling, in their place an alarming brutality born of desperation. The ancient laws had been on the verge of shattering.
One night, Hannan Mosag had walked, somehow unseen by anyone, into the chief’s village, into the ruler’s own longhouse. And by the first light of Menandore’s cruel awakening, Hanradi Khalag had surrendered his people.
Trull did not know what to make of the tales that persisted, that Hanradi no longer cast a shadow. He had never seen the Merude chief.
That man’s first son now sat before him, head shaved to denote the sundering from his bloodline, a skein of deep-cut, wide scars ribboning his face with shadows, his eyes flat and watchful, as if anticipating an assassination attempt here in the Warlock King’s own hall.
The oil lamps suspended from the high ceiling flickered as one, and everyone grew still, eyes fixing on Hannan Mosag.
Though he did not raise his voice, its deep timbre reached across the vast space, leaving none with the necessity to strain to hear his words. ‘Rhulad, unblooded warrior and son of Tomad Sengar, has brought to me words from his brother, Trull Sengar. This warrior had travelled to the Calach shore seeking jade. He was witness to a dire event, and has run without pause for three days and two nights.’ Hannan Mosag’s eyes fixed on Trull. ‘Rise to stand at my side, Trull Sengar, and relate your tale.’
He walked the path the other warriors made for him and leapt up onto the raised dais, fighting to disguise the exhaustion in his legs that made him come close to sagging with the effort. Straightening, he stepped between two K’risnan and positioned himself to the right of the Warlock King. He looked out onto the array of upturned faces, and saw that what he would say was already known to most of them. Expressions dark with anger and a hunger for vengeance. Here and there, frowns of concern and dismay.
‘I bring these words to the council. The tusked seals have come early to the breeding beds. Beyond the shallows I saw the sharks that leap in numbers beyond counting. And in their midst, nineteen Letherii ships—’
‘Nineteen!’
A half-hundred voices uttered that cry in unison. An uncharacteristic breach of propriety, but understandable none the less. Trull waited a moment, then resumed. ‘Their holds were almost full, for they sat low in the water, and the waters around them were red with blood and offal. Their harvest boats were alongside the great ships. In the fifty heartbeats that I stood and watched, I was witness to hundreds of seal carcasses rising on hooks to swing into waiting hands. On the strand itself twenty boats waited in the shallows and seventy men were on the beach, among the seals—’
‘Did they see you?’ one warrior asked.
It seemed Hannan Mosag was prepared to ignore the rules – for the time being at least.
‘They did, and checked their slaughter… for a moment. I saw their mouths move, though I could not hear their words above the roar of the seals, and I saw them laugh—’
Rage erupted among the gathering. Warriors leapt upright. Hannan Mosag snapped out a hand. Sudden silence.
‘Trull Sengar is not yet finished his tale.’
Clearing his throat, Trull nodded. ‘You see me before you now, warriors, and those of you who know me will also know my preferred weapon – the spear. When have you seen me without my iron-hafted slayer of foes? Alas, I have surrendered it… in the chest of the one who first laughed.’
A roar answered his words.
Hannan Mosag settled a hand on Trull’s shoulder, and the young warrior stepped aside. The Warlock King scanned the faces before him for a moment, then spoke. ‘Trull Sengar did as every warrior of the Edur would do. His deed has heartened me. Yet here he now stands, weaponless.’
Trull stiffened beneath the weight of that hand.
‘And so, in measured thought, such as must be made by a king,’ Hannan Mosag went on, ‘I find I must push my pride to one side, and look beyond it. To what is signified. A thrown spear. A dead Letherii. A disarmed Edur. And now, I see upon the faces of my treasured warriors a thousand flung spears, a thousand dead Letherii. A thousand disarmed Edur.’
No-one spoke. No-one countered with the obvious retort: We have many spears.
‘I see the hunger for vengeance. The Letherii raiders must be slain. Even as prelude to the Great Meeting, for their slaying was desired. Our reaction was anticipated, for these are the games the Letherii would play with our lives. Shall we do as they intended? Of course. There can be but one answer to their crime. And thus, by our predictability, we serve an unknown design, which shall no doubt be unveiled at the Great Meeting.’
Deep-etched frowns. Undisguised confusion. Hannan Mosag had led them into the unfamiliar territory of complexity. He had brought them to the edge of an unknown path, and now would lead them forward, step by tentative step.
‘The raiders will die,’ the Warlock King resumed, ‘but not one of you shall spill their blood. We do as predicted, but in a manner they could not imagine. There will be a time for slaughter of the Letherii, but this is not that time. Thus, I promise you blood, my warriors. But not now. The raiders shall not know the honour of dying at your hands. Their fates shall be found within Kurald Emurlahn.’
Despite himself, Trull Sengar shivered.
Silence once more in the hall.
‘A full unveiling,’ Hannan Mosag continued in a rumble, ‘by my K’risnan. No weapon, no armour, shall avail the Letherii. Their mages will be blind and lost, incapable of countering that which arrives to take them. The raiders will die in pain and in terror. Soiled by fear, weeping like children – and that fate will be writ on their faces, there for those who find them.’
Trull’s heart was pounding, his mouth bone-dry. A full unveiling. What long-lost power had Hannan Mosag stumbled upon? The last full unveiling of Kurald Emurlahn had been by Scabandari Bloodeye, Father Shadow himself. Before the warren had been sundered. And that sundering had not healed. It would, Trull suspected, never be healed.
Even so, some fragments were vaster and more powerful than others. Had the Warlock King discovered a new one?
****
Faded, battered and chipped, the ceramic tiles lay scattered before Feather Witch. The casting was done, even as Udinaas stumbled into the mote-filled barn to bring word of the omen – to warn the young slave woman away from a scanning of the Holds. Too late. Too late.
A hundred slaves had gathered for the event, fewer than was usual, but not surprising, since many Edur warriors would have charged their own slaves with tasks of preparation for the anticipated skirmish.
Heads turned as Udinaas entered the circle. His eyes remained fixed on Feather Witch.
Her soul had already walked well back on the Path to the Holds. Her head drooped, chin between the prominent bones of her clavicles, thick yellow hair hanging down, and rhythmic trembling ran through her small, child-like body. Feather Witch had been born in the village eighteen years ago, a rare winter birth – rare in that she had survived – and her gifts had become known before her fourth year, when her dreams walked back and spoke in the voices of the ancestors. The old tiles of the Holds had
been dug up from the grave of the last Letherii in the village who’d possessed the talent, and given to the child. There had been none to teach her the mysteries of those tiles, but, as it turned out, she’d needed no instruction from mortals – ghostly ancestors had provided that.
She was a handmaid to Mayen, and, upon Mayen’s marriage to Fear Sengar, she would enter the Sengar household. And Udinaas was in love with her.
Hopeless, of course. Feather Witch would be given a husband from among the better born of the Letherii slaves, a man whose bloodline held title and power back in Letheras. An Indebted, such as Udinaas, I had no hope of such a pairing.
As he stood staring at her, his friend Hulad reached up and took his wrist. Gentle pressure drew Udinaas down to a cross-legged position amidst the other witnesses.
Hulad leaned close. ‘What ails you, Udinaas?’
‘She has cast…’
‘Aye, and now we wait while she walks.’
‘I saw a white crow.’
Hulad flinched back.
‘Down on the strand. I beseeched the Errant, to no avail. The crow but laughed at my words.’
Their exchange had been overheard, and murmurs rippled out among the witnesses.
Feather Witch’s sudden moan silenced the gathering. All eyes fixed upon her, as she slowly raised her head.
Her eyes were empty, the whites clear as the ice on a mountain stream, iris and pupils vanished as if they had never been. And through the translucence swam twin spirals of faint light, smeared against the blackness of the Abyss.
Terror twisted her once-beautiful features, the terror of Beginnings, the soul standing before oblivion. A place of such loneliness that despair seemed the only answer. Yet it was also the place where power was thought, and thought flickered through the Abyss bereft of Makers, born from flesh yet to exist – for only the mind could reach back into the past, only its thoughts could dwell there. She was in the time before the worlds, and now must stride forward.
To witness the rise of the Holds.