The bearings he took from the north star by finding the odd clearing or hauling himself up a tree trunk told him he was holding a steady course southward but how far he had come or the distance he still had to cover he couldn’t tell. He peered ahead with increasing desperation, all the time hoping to glimpse the silver sheen of the river through the trees. It was when he had stopped to get another bearing that he saw the fire. A single flickering blob of orange in the black-blue mass of the forest.
Keep running. He almost followed the instinctive command, turning away and taking another stride toward the south, but stopped. None of the boys from the Order would light a fire during the test, they just didn’t have time. It could be a coincidence, just some of the King’s Foresters camped out for the night. But something made him doubt it, a murmur of wrongness in the back of his mind. It was a strange sensation, almost musical.
He turned around, unslinging his bow and notching an arrow, before beginning a cautious advance. He knew he was taking a risk, both in investigating the fire and indulging in a delay when his deadline for getting back to the House could not be far away. But he had to know.
The blob grew into a fire slowly, flickering red and gold in the infinite blackness. He stopped, opening himself to the song of the forest again, hunting through the nocturnal resonance until he caught them: voices. Male. Adult. Two men. Quarrelling.
He crept closer, using the hunter’s walk taught by Master Hutril, lifting foot a hair’s breadth from the ground and sliding it forward and to the side before laying it down softly after tentatively checking the soil for any branches or twigs that could give him away in an instant. The voices became clearer as he closed on the camp, confirming his suspicions. Two men, engaged in bitter argument.
“….’asn’t stopped bleedin’!” a self-pitying whine, its owner as yet invisible. “Look, it’s gushing like a slit hog…”
“Stop fiddling with it then, shit brain!” an exasperated hiss. Vaelin could see this one, a stocky man seated to the right of the fire, the sight of the sword on his back and the bow propped close to his hand provoking an icy shiver. No coincidence. He had a sack open on the floor between his booted feet, studying its contents intently in between casting tired insults at his companion.
“Little bastard!” the unseen whiner continued, deaf to the admonishments of his stocky companion. “Playing dead, vicious, sneaky little bastard.”
“You were warned they were tough,” the stocky man said. “Should’ve put another iron-head in him to make sure before you got so close.”
“Got him in square in the neck, didn’t I? Should’ve been enough. I’ve seen grown men go down like a sack of spuds from a wound like that. Not that little shit though. Wish we’d kept him breathing a little longer…”
“You disgusting animal.” There was little venom in the stocky man’s words. He was increasingly preoccupied with the contents of the sack, a frown creasing his broad forehead. “Y’know, I’m still not sure it’s him.”
Vaelin, fighting to keep his heart steady, shifted his gaze to the sack, noting the roundness of its contents and the dark wet stain on the lower half. A sudden, overpowering chill of realisation gripped him, fearing he would faint as the forest swayed around him and he fought down a gasp of horror, the sound undoubtedly an invite for a quick death.
“Lemme see,” the whiner said, moving into view for the first time. He was short, wiry with pointed features and a wispy beard on his bony chin. His left arm was cradled in his right, a bloodied bandage leaking continually through his spidery fingers. “Gotta be him. Has to be.” He sounded desperate. “You ‘eard what the other one said.”
Other one? Vaelin strained to hear more, still sickened but his heart steadied by a growing anger.
“He gave me the shivers, he did,” the stocky man responded with a shudder. “Wouldn’t’ve trusted him if he’d told me the sky was blue.” He squinted at the sack again then reached inside, extracting the contents, holding it up by the hair, dripping, turning it to examine the slack, distorted features. Vaelin would have vomited again if there was anything left in his stomach. Mikehl! They killed Mikehl.
“Could be him,” the stocky man mused. “Death’ll change a face for sure. Just don’t see much’ve a family resemblance.”
“Brak would know. Said he’d seen the boy before.” The whiner moved out of the firelight again. “Where is he anyway? Should’ve been here by now.”
“Yeh,” the stocky man agreed returning his trophy to the sack. “Don’t think he’s gonna.”
Whiner was silent for a moment before muttering, “Little Order shits.”
Brak…So he had a name. He wondered briefly if anyone would wear a mourning locket for Brak, if his widow or mother or brother would offer thanks for his life and the goodness and wisdom he had left behind. But as Brak was an assassin, a killer waiting in the woods to murder children, he doubted it. No one would weep for Brak… as no one would weep for these two. His fist tightened on the bow, bringing it up to draw a bead on the stocky man’s throat. He would kill this one and wound the other, an arrow in the leg or the stomach would do it, then he would make him talk, then he would kill him too. For Mikehl.
Something growled in the forest, something hidden, something deadly.
Vaelin whirled, drawing the bow - too late, knocked flat by a hard mass of muscle, his bow gone from his hand. He scrabbled for his knife, instinctively kicking out as he did so, hitting nothing. There were screams as he surged to his feet, screams of pain and terror, something wet lashed across his face, stinging his eyes. He staggered, tasting the iron sting of blood, wiping frantically at his eyes, blearily focusing on the now silent camp, seeing two yellow eyes gleaming in the firelight above a red stained muzzle. The eyes met his, blinked once and the wolf was gone.
Random thoughts tumbled through his mind. It tracked me…You’re beautiful… Followed me here to kill these men… Beautiful wolf… They killed Mikehl… No family resemblance…
STOP THAT!
He forced discipline on the torrent of thought, dragging air into his lungs, calming down enough to move closer to the camp. The stocky man lay on his back, hands reaching towards a throat that was no longer there, his face frozen in fear. The whiner had managed to run a few strides before being cut down. His head was twisted at an sharp angle to his shoulders. From the stench staining the air around him it was clear his fear had mastered him at the end. There was no sign of the wolf, just the whisper of undergrowth moving in the wind.
Reluctantly he turned to the sack still lying at the stocky man’s feet. What do I do for Mikehl?
“Mikehl’s dead,” Vaelin told Master Sollis, water dripping from his face. It had started to rain a few miles back and he was drenched as he laboured up the hill towards the gate, exhaustion and the shock the of the events in the forest combining to leave him numb and incapable of more than the most basic words. “Assassins in the forest.”
Sollis reached out to steady him as he swayed, his legs suddenly feeling too weak to keep him upright. “How many?”
“Three. That I saw. Dead too.” He handed Sollis the fletching he had cut from his arrow.
Sollis asked Master Hutril to watch the gate and led Vaelin inside. Instead of taking him to the boys’ room in the north tower he led him to his own quarters, a small room in the south wall bastion. He built up the fire and told Vaelin to strip off his wet clothes, giving him a blanket to warm himself while fire began to lick at the logs in the hearth.
“Now,” he said, handing Vaelin a mug of warmed milk. “Tell me what happened. Everything you can remember. Leave nothing out.”
So he told him of the wolf and the man he had killed and the whiner and the stocky man… and Mikehl.
“Where is it?”
“Master?”
“Mikehl’s… remains.”
“I buried it.” Vaelin suppressed a violent shudder and drank more milk, the warmth burning his insides. “Scraped the soil up with my knife. Couldn
’t think of anything else to do with it.”
Master Sollis nodded and stared at the fletching in his hand, his pale eyes unreadable. Vaelin glanced around the room, finding it less bare than he expected. Several weapons were set on the wall: a pole axe, a long iron bladed spear, some kind of stone headed club plus several daggers and knives of different patterns. Several books stood on the shelves, the lack of dust indicating Master Sollis hadn’t placed them there for decoration. On the far wall there was some kind of tapestry fashioned from a goat skin stretched on a wooden frame, the hide adorned with a bizarre mix of stick figures and unfamiliar symbols.
“Lonak war banner,” Sollis said. Vaelin looked away, feeling like a spy. To his surprise Sollis went on. “Lonak boy children become part of a war band from an early age. Each band has its own banner and every member swears a blood oath to die defending it.”
Vaelin rubbed a bead of water from his nose. “What do the symbols mean, master?”
“They list the band’s battles, the heads they have taken, the honours granted them by their High Priestess. The Lonak have a passion for history. Children are punished if they cannot recite the saga of their clan. It’s said they have one of the largest libraries in the world, although no outsider has ever seen it. They love their stories and will sit for hours around the camp fire listening to the shamans. They especially like the heroic tales, stories of outnumbered war bands winning victory against the odds, brave lone warriors questing for lost talismans in the bowels of the earth… boys killing assassins in the forest with the aid of a wolf.”
Vaelin looked at him sharply. “It’s no story, master.”
Sollis tossed another log on the fire, scattering sparks over the hearth. He prodded the logs with a poker, not looking at Vaelin as he spoke. “The Lonak have no word for secret. Did you know that? To them everything is important, to be written down, recorded, told over and over. The Order has no such belief. We have fought battles that left more than a hundred corpses on the ground and not a word of it has ever been set down. The Order fights, but often it fights in shadow, without glory or reward. We have no banners.” He tossed Vaelin’s fletching into the fire, the damp feathers hissed in the flame then curled and withered to nothing. “Mikehl was taken by a bear, a rare sight in the Urlish but some still prowl the depths of the woods. You found the remains and reported it to me. Tomorrow Master Hutril will retrieve them and we will give our fallen brother to the fire and thank him for the gift of his life.”
Vaelin felt no shock, no surprise. It was obvious there was more here than he could know. “Why did you warn me not to help the others, Master?”
Sollis stared into the fire for a while and Vaelin had decided he wasn’t going to answer when he said, “We sever our ties with our blood when we give ourselves to the Order. We understand this, outsiders do not. Sometimes the Order is no protection against the feuds that rage beyond our walls. We cannot always protect you. The others were not likely to be hunted.” His fist was white on the poker as he prodded the fire, his cheek muscles bulged with suppressed rage. “I was wrong. Mikehl paid the price of my mistake.”
My father, Vaelin thought. They sought my death to wound him. Whoever they are they know him not.
“Master, what of the wolf? Why would a wolf seek to aid me?”
Master Sollis put the poker aside and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That’s a thing I don’t understand. I’ve been many places and seen many things but a wolf killing men is not one of them, and killing without feeding.” He shook his head. “Wolves don’t do that. There is something else at work here. Something that touches the Dark.”
Vaelin’s shivers intensified momentarily. The Dark. The servants in his father’s house had used the phrase sometimes, usually in hushed tones when they thought no-one else could hear. It was something people said when things happened that shouldn’t happen; children being born with the blood-sign discolouring their faces, dogs giving birth to cats and ships found adrift at sea with no crew. Dark.
“Two of your brothers made it back before you did,” Sollis said. “You’d better go and tell them about Mikehl.”
This interview was clearly over. Sollis would tell him nothing else. It was obvious, and sad. Master Sollis was a man of many stories and much wisdom, he knew much more than the correct grip on a sword or the right angle to slash a blade at a man’s eyes, but Vaelin suspected little of it was ever heard. He wanted to hear more of the Lonak and their war bands and their High Priestess, he wanted to know of the Dark, but Sollis’s eyes were fixed on the fire, lost in thought, the way his father had looked so many times. So he got to his feet and said, “Yes master.” He drained the rest of his warm milk and gathered the blanket around him, clutching his damp clothes as he moved to the door.
“Tell no one, Sorna.” There was a note of command is Sollis’s voice, the tone he used before he swung his cane. “Confide in no one. This is a secret that could mean your death.”
“Yes master,” Vaelin repeated. He went out into the chilled hallway and made his way to the north tower, huddled and shivering, the cold so intense he wondered if he would collapse before he made it up the steps but the milk Master Sollis had given him left just enough warmth and sustenance to fuel his journey.
He found Dentos and Barkus in the room when he staggered through the door, both slumped on their bunks, fatigue evident in their faces. Strangely they seemed enlivened by his arrival, both rising to greet him with back slaps and forced jokes.
“Can’t find your way in the dark, eh?” Barkus laughed. “Would’ve beaten this one back easily if I hadn’t been caught by the current.”
“Current?” Vaelin asked, bemused by the warmth of their welcome.
“Crossed too early,” Barkus explained. “Up near the narrows. I thought I was done I can tell you. Got washed up right opposite the gate but Dentos was already there.”
Vaelin dumped his clothes on his bunk and moved to the fire, bathing in the warmth. “You were first, Dentos?”
“Aye. Was sure it would be Caenis but we’ve not seen him yet.”
Vaelin was surprised too; Caenis’s woodcraft left them all to shame. Still he lacked Barkus’s strength and Dentos’s speed.
“At least we beat the other companies,” Barkus said, referring to the boys in other groups. “None of them have turned up yet. Lazy bastards.”
“Yeh,” Dentos agreed. “Passed a few of them on the way. Lost as a virgin in a brothel they were.”
Vaelin frowned. “What’s a brothel?”
The other two exchanged an amused glance and Barkus changed the subject. “We smuggled some apples from the kitchen.” He pulled back his bed covers to reveal his prizes. “Pies too. We’ll have us a feast when the others get here.” He lifted an apple to his mouth for a hearty bite. They had all become enthusiastic thieves, it was a universal habit, anything of the meanest value could be expected to disappear in short order if not securely hidden. The straw in their mattresses had long since been replaced with any stray piece of fabric or soft hide they could lay their hands on. Punishment for theft was often severe but bereft of any lectures on immorality or dishonesty and soon they came to realise that they were not being punished for stealing but for getting caught. Barkus was their most prolific thief, especially when it came to food, closely followed by Mikehl who specialised in clothing… Mikehl.
Vaelin stared into the fire, biting his lip, deciding how to phrase the lie. It’s a bad thing, he decided. It’s a hard thing to lie to your friends. “Mikehl’s dead,” he said finally. He couldn’t think of a kinder way to say it and winced at the sudden silence. “He… was taken by a bear. I - I found what was left.” Behind him he heard Barkus spit out his mouthful of apple. There was a rustle as Dentos sank heavily onto his bunk. Vaelin gritted his teeth and went on, “Master Hutril will bring the body back tomorrow so we can give him to the fire.” A log cracked in the fire place. The chill was almost gone and the heat was starting to make his skin itch. “So we can gi
ve thanks for his life.”
Nothing was said. He thought Dentos might be crying but didn’t have the heart to turn and see for sure. After a while he moved away from the fire and went to his bunk, laying his clothes out to dry, unstringing his bow and stowing his quiver.
The door opened and Nortah entered, rain soaked but triumphant. “Fourth!” he exulted. “I was sure I’d be last.” Vaelin hadn’t seen him cheerful before, it was disconcerting. As was Nortah’s ignorance of their evident grief.
“I even got lost twice,” he laughed, dumping his gear on his bunk. “Saw a wolf too.” He went to the fire, hands splayed to soak up the heat. “So scared I couldn’t move.”
“You saw a wolf?” Vaelin asked.
“Oh yes. Big bastard. Think he’d already fed though. There was blood on his snout.”
“What kind of bear?” Dentos asked.
“What?”
“Was it a black or a brown? Brown’s are bigger and nastier. Black’s don’t come near men mostly.”
“Wasn’t a bear,” Nortah said, puzzled. “A wolf I said.”
“I don’t know,” Vaelin told Dentos. “I didn’t see it.”
“Then how d’y’know it was a bear?”
“Mikehl got taken by a bear,” Barkus told Nortah.
“Claw marks,” Vaelin said, realising deceit was more difficult than he imagined. “He was… in bits.”
“Bits!” Nortah exclaimed in disgust. “Mikehl was in bits?!”
“’Cos my uncle said y’don’t get browns in the Urlish,” Dentos said dully. “Only get ‘em in the north.”
“I bet it was that wolf I saw,” Nortah whispered in shock. “The wolf I saw ate Mikehl. It would’ve eaten me if it hadn’t been full.”
“Wolves don’t eat people,” Dentos said.
“Maybe it was rabid.” He sank onto his bunk in shock. “I was nearly eaten by a rabid wolf!”
And so it went, the other boys arrived one by one, tired and wet but relieved at having passed the test, their smiles fading when they heard the news. Dentos and Nortah argued over wolves and bears and Barkus shared out his meagre spoils to be eaten in numb silence. Vaelin wrapped himself in his blanket and tried to forget the sight of Mikehl’s slack lifeless features and the feel of dead flesh through the fabric of the sack as he scraped a shallow grave in the dirt....