People, clad in furs, and beasts. Bears, huge white-furred terrors, all labouring through a blizzard. Many are wounded, many are children. Riders appear out of the blizzard, dressed all in black, swords and lances stabbing and slashing . . . blood on the snow . . . so much blood . . . The riders wheel and turn, laughing as they kill, more and more charging out of the snow as the fur-clad people scatter. A man raises a great bone-staff and his bears turn on the riders, mauling and rending, killing many . . . but there are more . . . there are always more . . .
The vision faded, the shaman’s face still and unspeaking above the tip of his bone-staff.
Vaelin looked at Dahrena, noting the horror on her face. “You saw it?”
She nodded, hiding her trembling hands within her furs and drawing back a little. He could tell she wanted to flee, that this squat old man with no weapon save a length of bone, terrified her. But she stayed, drawing breath in gulps, refusing to look away.
Vaelin turned back to the shaman. “You flee these men, these riders?” It was clear from the man’s frown he didn’t understand a word. Vaelin sighed, glanced back at the ranks of guards and Eorhil, then sang. It was just a small note, unlikely to call forth any blood, conveying the sense of his query, coloured by his memory of the shaman’s vision.
The old man straightened, eyes widening, then nodded. He met Vaelin’s eyes again and soon another vision filled his mind.
A dark mass of people trekking across an ice field, the backs of their great white bears rising and falling amongst the throng as they flee, always westward, always away from the riders . . . no time to rest . . . no time to hunt . . . only time to flee . . . or fall out and die. The old people are first, then the younger children, the tribe bleeding its life away as it moves across the white expanse. The bears grow maddened by hunger, rending them from the shamans’ control. Hardy warriors weep as they cut them down and share out their meat, for without their bears, what are they? By the time the plains are in sight, they know their nation has died . . . They ask for nothing save a peaceful death.
Dahrena wept as the vision faded, gasping as tears streamed down her face. “What callous fools we are,” she whispered. Vaelin sang again, filling his song with the image of the battle tapestry from the tower; the Horde and its terrible beasts.
The shaman gave a disgusted grunt, replying with a vision of his own. The battle is fierce, no quarter is given, cats and bears tear at each other with mindless fury, the spear-hawks blacken the sky as they meet in a roiling cloud above, birthing a rain of blood and feathers, the warriors fight with spear and bone-club. When the red day is done the Bear People have shown the Cat People the folly of war on the ice. They see them no more, for they take themselves off to the southern plains, soft and cowardly in their desire for easier prey.
Bear People. Vaelin raised his gaze to the camp, seeing only starving men and women, a few children, no old folk, and no beasts at all. They lost their bears, they lost their name.
He looked again at the shaman, singing for the final time, recalling the image of the riders in black and ending the song with a questioning note, feeling the familiar wave of fatigue that told him he had sung enough for now.
For the first time the shaman spoke, his mouth twisting as it formed perhaps the only foreign word he knew. “Volarriahnsss.”
◆ ◆ ◆
He ordered the North Guard to give up half their rations and sent all but a dozen back to their postings. Captain Adal, whose sullen fury was becoming more irksome by the second, was dispatched south to call an end to the muster and send riders informing the Seordah their warriors were not needed.
“Cat People, Bear People,” he hissed at Dahrena before leaving, just within Vaelin’s earshot. “They are still Horde. They cannot be trusted.”
“You didn’t see, Adal,” she whispered back, shaking her head. “The only thing we have to fear from them is the guilt of letting them die.”
“This won’t be popular,” he warned. “Many will still call for vengeance.”
“My father always took the right course, popular or not.” She fell silent and Vaelin sensed she was looking in his direction. “Things have not changed so much.”
The Eorhil took their leave in the evening, Sanesh Poltar raising a hand to Vaelin as his people took to their mounts. “Avensurha,” he said.
“My name?” Vaelin asked.
The Eorhil chieftain pointed to the north where a single bright star was rising above the horizon. “Only one month in a lifetime does it shine so bright. It’s said no wars can be fought under the light it brings.”
He raised his hand again and turned his horse towards the east, galloping away with his people, all save one.
“She won’t leave, my lord.” Captain Orven stood at rigid attention, avoiding his gaze. Nearby Insha ka Forna was handing out strips of dried elk meat to a clutch of children, using hand gestures to warn them against bolting it down too quickly. “I asked the Lady Dahrena why. She said I, ahem, already knew.”
“Do you want her to leave?”
The captain coughed, brows furrowing as he sought to formulate a reply.
“Congratulations, Captain.” Vaelin clapped him on the shoulder and went to find Dahrena.
She was with the shaman, crouched next to an old woman propped on a litter. She was even thinner than the other tribesfolk, her chest rising and falling in shallow heaves, mouth agape and eyes unfocused. The shaman stared down at her with such a depth of desolate sorrow Vaelin had no need of any visions to tell him this was a man watching his wife’s final moments.
Dahrena took a vial from her satchel and held it over the old woman’s mouth, a few clear drops falling onto her parched tongue. She stirred, frowning a little, mouth closing over the fresh moisture. Some light returned to her eyes and the shaman bent down to take her hand, speaking softly in his own language. The words sounded harsh to Vaelin’s ear, a guttural rush of noise, but even so, there was tenderness in it. He tells her they’re safe, he surmised. He tells her they have found refuge.
The old woman’s gaze tracked across her husband’s face, the corners of her mouth curling as she tried to smile, then freezing as the light faded from her eyes and her chest halted its labour. The shaman gave no reaction, remaining crouched at her side, holding her hand, near as still as she.
Dahrena rose from the old woman’s side and walked over to Vaelin. “I have something to tell you,” she said.
◆ ◆ ◆
“My people call it spirit walking.” They sat together beside a fire on the periphery of the Bear People’s camp. It was quiet, the tribe consuming their new supplies in silence and tending to their sick with not a voice raised in celebration. They still think of themselves as dead, Vaelin thought. They lost their name.
“It’s difficult to describe,” Dahrena continued. “Not really walking, more like flying, high above everything, seeing great swathes of the earth all at once. But I have to leave my body to do it.”
“That’s how you found these people,” he said. “That’s how you found the Horde.”
She nodded. “Easier to plan a battle when you know the enemy’s line of march.”
“Does it hurt?” he asked, thinking of the blood that flowed whenever he sang for too long.
“No, not when I’m flying, but when I return . . . At first it was exhilarating, joyous. For who hasn’t dreamt of flying? I’d heard tales of the Dark, and knew it to be a thing to fear. But the flying was so wonderful, so intoxicating. I had just said farewell to my twelfth year when it happened. I was in my bed, awake but content, my thoughts calm, or as calm the thoughts of a thirteen-year-old girl can be. Then I was floating, looking down at a small girl in a large bed. I was fearful, thinking I had drifted into a nightmare. In my panic my thoughts turned to my father, and so I flew to him in his room, poring over papers late into the evening as he always did. He reached for his wineglass and knocked over an inkpot, staining his sleeve and cursing. I thought of Blueleaf, my horse, and flew to her in the stables. I thought of Kehlan and flew to him, where he was pounding herbs in his chamber with a mortar and pestle. What a wonderful dream this was, just think of something and I would fly to it, see them without their seeing me. And more, more than just them, the colour of them, the shine of their souls. My father was shrouded in a bright, pale blue, Blueleaf a soft brown and Kehlan seemed to flicker, red one minute, white the next. I flew high, as high as I dared, looking down at the entirety of the Reaches, all the shining souls, like the stars above reflected on a great mirror.
“But strangely, in this dream, I began to grow tired, and so I returned to my body. The bed felt a little chilly but not enough to prevent sleep. The next morning at breakfast father wore a shirt with an ink stain on the sleeve and I knew it had been no dream. It scared me, but not enough to stop me; the joy had been too great. And so I continued to fly, every spare moment, soaring out over the mountains and the plains, watching the Eorhil hunt the great elk, dancing in the storms that swept out of the ice. Then one day I flew out over the western ocean for miles and miles, hoping to glimpse the shore of the Far West. But the time grew long and I knew my father expected me at dinner, so I flew back to my body. It was like pulling on a skin made of ice, the shock of it made me scream and scream. My father found me, shaking on the floor of my room as if I’d just been pulled from an icy lake.