“I will, and gladly.”
The rider grunted, reversing the hold on his lance and throwing it into the ground at Vaelin’s feet. Despite the hardness of the earth the steel point was buried up to the hilt, the lance shuddering with the force of the throw. “I, Sanesh Poltar of the Eorhil Sil, bring my lance to answer Tower Lord’s call.”
“You are very welcome.”
Dahrena came forward to welcome the Eorhil chieftain with a broad smile. “I never doubted you would find us, plains-brother,” she said, reaching up to clasp his hand, their fingers entwining.
“We hoped to find the beast-people first,” he replied. “Make you a gift of their skulls. But they leave us no tracks to follow.”
“They elude us also.”
This seemed to puzzle the horseman. “Even you, forest-sister?”
She shot a guarded look at Vaelin. “Even me.”
◆ ◆ ◆
That night they ate dried elk meat with the Eorhil. It was tough but tasty fare, improved by a few seconds over the fire, washed down with a thick white beverage possessed of a pungent aroma and a palpable kick of spirits.
“Faith!” Orven exclaimed, wincing after his first taste. “What is this?”
“Fermented elk milk,” Dahrena said.
Orven suppressed a disgusted shudder and handed the fur-covered skin back to the young Eorhil woman who had appeared at his side as they gathered round the fire. “Thank you, lady. But no.” She frowned then shrugged, saying something in her own language.
“She wants to know how many elk you’ve hunted,” Dahrena translated.
“Elk? None,” he replied, nodding and smiling at the young woman. “But many boar and deer. My family has a large estate.”
Dahrena relayed his reply, provoking a puzzled exchange.
“She doesn’t know what an estate is,” Dahrena explained. “The Eorhil have no understanding of how one can own land.”
“Or even that the plains they live on are owned by the crown,” Adal put in. “One of the reasons they saw no need to fight the first Realm settlers. You can’t claim something that can’t be owned, so why fight over it?”
“Insha ka Forna,” the young woman said to Orven, patting her chest.
“Steel in Moonlight,” Dahrena said with a small smile. “Her name.”
“Ah, Orven,” the captain said, patting his own chest. “Orrvennn.”
This provoked another exchange with Dahrena. “She wanted to know what it means. I told her it’s the name of a great hero from legend.”
“But it isn’t,” Orven said.
“Captain . . .” Dahrena paused to smother a chuckle. “When an Eorhil woman chooses to tell a man her given name, it’s a considerable compliment.”
“Oh.” The captain gave Insha ka Forna a broad smile, finding it returned. “Is there a suitable response?”
“I think you just gave it.”
A short while later Dahrena bade them good night and rose from the fire, making her way to the ingenious contrivance she had carried with her since leaving the tower. Seemingly little more than a bundle of elk-hide and wood, a few minutes’ work formed it into a small but serviceable shelter, equal to any of the tents used by the King’s Guard. Some of the North Guard carried similar items, though most were content to sleep in the open clad only in a wrapping of furs.
Vaelin waited for a time before going to speak to her. His questions had been mounting over the course of their journey and he had delayed long enough in seeking answers.
“My lady,” he greeted her as she sat outside her shelter.
She didn’t reply and he noticed her eyes were closed, her hair fluttering across her face in the chill wind with no sign she felt it.
“You can’t talk to her now, my lord.” Captain Adal appeared next to the shelter. His ebony features were outlined in red from the fires and tense in warning.
Vaelin looked again at Dahrena, seeing the absolute stillness of her face, the way her hands sat in her lap, absent of any twitch. The blood-song rose with a familiar note: recognition.
He gave the captain an affable nod and returned to the fire.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Steel Water Creek,” Dahrena said the next morning. “It’s about forty miles north-east of here. It’s the only supply of freshwater large enough to service so many this far south of the ice. It seems reasonable to assume the Horde will be camped there since they don’t appear to be moving.”
“Just a reasonable assumption?” Vaelin asked. “Is there no other source for this intelligence, my lady?”
She avoided his gaze and bit back an angry retort. “None, my lord. You are of course free to discount my advice.”
“Oh, I think it would be churlish to ignore the words of my new First Counsel. Steel Water Creek it is.”
They rode in a three-group formation, Vaelin with the North Guard and Orven’s men in the centre and the Eorhil on both flanks. He had heard many tales of the horsemanship of the Eorhil and saw now they were well-founded, each rider moving in concert with their mount in an unconscious reflex, like a single animal forged to range across these plains. He was aware they were limiting their speed to keep pace with the Tower Lord’s men, and one had opted to join their company for the ride. Insha ka Forna rode at Orven’s side on a piebald stallion a hand taller than the captain’s own warhorse, her braids streaming back from a face wearing a faintly smug expression.
It was late in the afternoon by the time they came upon them, a large camp on the eastern bank of the creek, numerous fires seeping smoke into the ice-chilled wind. Vaelin called a halt two hundred paces from the camp, signalling for both flanks to spread out and ordering his own men into battle formation. He took the canvas bundle from where it was lashed to his saddle, placing a hand on the largest knot. One tug and it’s free. He knew it would shine very bright today, the sound it made as it cut the air would be another song of blood, one he sang so well. It had remained sheathed and bound since the day he faced the Shield of the Isles. He hadn’t liked the way it felt when he drew it that day, the way it fit in his hand . . . so comfortable.
“My lord!” Captain Adal’s shout brought his gaze back to the camp, seeing a solitary figure walking towards them. A cluster of people had gathered at the fringes of the camp, it may have been an illusion of the light and the distance but they all appeared thin to the point of emaciation: gaunt, flesh-denuded faces poking out from their furs, staring at their enemies with numb expectation free of any anger or hate.
“I see no weapons, my lord,” Orven said.
“A trick, no doubt,” Adal replied. “The Horde always had a thousand tricks.”
Vaelin watched the lone figure continue towards them. He was squat but thin, like the rest of his people, and considerably older, walking with a slow but purposeful gait, aided by what seemed to be a large gnarled stick but soon revealed itself as a long thighbone from some unknown beast, covered all over with intricate carvings and script.
“Shaman!” Adal hissed, unlimbering his bow. “My lord, I request the honour of first blood.”
“Shaman?” Vaelin asked.
“They command the war-beasts,” Dahrena explained. “Train them, lead them in war. We never learned how they did it.”
“He doesn’t appear to have any beasts,” Vaelin observed as the squat man came to a halt twenty yards away.
“More fool him,” Adal said, raising his bow.
“Stop that!” Vaelin commanded, his voice snapping through the ranks, absolute in its authority.
Adal gaped at him, his bow still drawn. “My lord?”
Vaelin didn’t look at him. “You are under my command. Obey my order or I’ll have you flogged and dismissed.”
He angled his head as he studied the squat man, ignoring Adal’s choking fury as Dahrena sought to restrain him. The shaman took hold of the bone in both hands and held it out before him, trembling and swaying in the black wind.
Vaelin felt it then, the blood-song’s note of greeting to a gifted soul. Dahrena stiffened in her saddle, her calming hand falling from Adal’s shoulder. Vaelin inclined his head at the shaman. “It seems we are called to parley, my lady.”
Fear made her eyes wide and her face white, but she nodded and they trotted forward, halting to dismount before the shaman. Up close his emaciation was a painful thing to see, the bones of his face white under skin that seemed no more than wet paper wrapping a butcher’s leavings. A black-and-grey tangle of hair grew from his head to his shoulders, a few talismans hanging unpolished in the unkempt tresses. The tremble was not just fear, Vaelin saw, but hunger, bringing a harsh realisation: They don’t come for war, they come to die.
“You have a name?” Vaelin asked him.
The shaman gave no response, planting the bone on the earth before him, both hands resting atop it, his gaze taking on owl-like focus as he stared into Vaelin’s eyes. The gaze fixed him, drew him closer. There was a moment of concern as something stirred in his mind. A trick, like Adal said. But the blood-song was unwavering in its welcome and he let the stirring continue. It was like a memory, a forgotten vision of another time, but it was not his.