CHAPTER NINETEEN

UTHAS

“Ravens and crows,” Uthas muttered as he trudged through the marshland, eyes looking skyward. He stumbled, his foot sinking with a splash into a patch of soft ground and he leaned on his spear to lever himself upright. Salach his shieldman reached out a steadying hand from behind him.

Marshland is not a good place for a giant to walk.

“What’s that?” Rhin said. She was sitting in the stern of a large boat, surrounded by a score of warriors as well as half a dozen rowers. Uthas was picking a path alongside the banks of the waterway she was being rowed down, a line of Benothi giants spread out along the bank behind him.

“Ravens and crows,” Uthas repeated, stopping and pointing up at the sky, to where a black shape spiralled high above them.

“What about them?” Rhin asked. She was in an unusually good mood this morning, the first that Uthas had seen since she had learned of her warband’s defeat in the marshes, and of the death of her huntsman, Braith.

“I don’t like them,” Uthas grumbled, thinking of Fech, Nemain’s treacherous raven.

Rhin stared up at the speck in the sky. “I’ve always rather liked them,” she said. “And I suppose this one suspects that we’ll be providing its dinner.”

Uthas scowled up at the bird.

Aye. As long as it’s not our eyeballs and innards that it is feasting upon. He looked around him. More boats filled the waterway, bursting with over a thousand warriors.

Not likely that we’ll be losing this battle, he thought, looking at the grim faces of men in every boat, bristling with iron, and the fifty Benothi warriors behind him. More than enough to put down this little uprising. But since they had left the tower at the marshland’s edge a dour mood had fallen across Uthas’ shoulders like a heavy cloak, and he could not shake it.

We should be getting on with the important business of finding Evnis and the necklace. That is all that matters.

Because when they found Nemain’s necklace, one of the Seven Treasures, then Uthas would be one huge step closer to achieving his dream.

King of the Giants. No more clans, no more divisions, just my kin behind me.

But first, I must find the necklace. Then it is to Domhain and Dun Taras, to find the cup. And then…

He saw Rafe appear up ahead, moving smoothly across the ground, his two hounds with him. He ran across the marshland towards them, hardly glancing at where he was putting his feet. Everything about the lad screamed vitality.

Uthas rubbed at the small of his back and frowned.

There is something about him, Uthas mused. Different. He hides something.

“Rafe comes,” Uthas said across the water to Rhin. She held up a hand. The rudder-man of her boat guided them towards the bank, the rowers slowing. All along their convoy men did the same, the boats rippling to a halt like a long, sinuous water-snake.

“Is he alone?” Rhin asked as Uthas took her hand and helped her step from the boat.

“Aye.”

Rafe had been given a score of woodsmen to help him scout out the ruins of Dun Crin, not that he seemed to need help.

“Be careful,” Uthas said. “I don’t trust him.”

“I don’t trust anyone,” Rhin replied with a scathing look and fixed her eyes on Rafe as he approached them. His two hounds reached them first, prowling a circle around Uthas, which he didn’t like. Rafe sprang across a stream and pulled to a halt, dipping his head to Rhin.

“My Queen,” he said.

“Well?” Rhin snapped.

“Dun Crin is ahead.”

A smile touched Rhin’s mouth.

“It is abandoned.”

Well, he wasn’t lying, Uthas thought as he stepped around a long-branched willow and saw the ancient fortress towering out of the lake. He heard Salach mutter a curse behind him. His shieldman had not seen Dun Crin before, and it was a tragic sight: the once-proud fortress laid low by time and circumstance. Dark walls and towers reared from the lake’s water like the submerged boughs of a rotting tree, reed and slime hanging from the decaying battlements.

A great work brought down. When I am king I will restore the glory of my kin.

Ahead of him Rhin hissed in frustration.

“There’s no one here,” Morcant said.

“Your powers of observation are staggering,” Rhin said, barely contained rage dripping from each word.

A strange sound rang out overhead, making Uthas jump. He looked up and saw a scruffy-looking crow sitting in the branches of a willow. It was making a clacking sound, almost like laughing. Uthas gave it a dark look. Still making the odd noise, the crow winged into the air, spiralled up and flew away.

Warriors were disembarking from boats to stand all along the lakeshore. Others had rowed out to the waterlogged fortress, men climbing up onto the ancient battlements.

Uthas tugged on one of the wyrm teeth set in his necklace as he stared at Dun Crin, eyes sweeping the lakeshore, the willows and alders that lined it. The signs of recent life were all about: abandoned shelters, woven willow fences, cold fire-pits, fishing-nets hanging. A pile of burned clothing—old boots and belts, some twisted war gear, nothing of much use.

“The far shore,” he said to Salach and Eisa beside him. They have younger eyes than I. “Men could be hiding there.”

“Can’t see anything,” Salach rumbled. He was disappointed, Uthas could tell. His shieldman had been looking forward to a fight. “But, it’s far…”

“No one there,” Rafe said from a dozen strides away, his back to them. He was standing staring at the far shore.

“Your eyes are good?” Uthas asked.

“I can see a heron standing in the shade of that willow,” Rafe said, pointing. Uthas squinted but could see nothing. Neither could Salach. Then there was a distant splash and a heron rose from deep shadows flapping into the air.

Rhin barked orders and warriors began to sweep around both arms of the lakeshore, searching for hidden men, wary of traps. Word of the last campaign against this fortress was in everyone’s mind.

“Why have they left here?” Morcant asked no one in-particular.

“To avoid you, I would suspect,” Rhin said.

Morcant nodded at that, thinking it a perfectly reasonable answer. “Well, we must chase them, then,” he said.

“A fine idea,” Rhin muttered. “Or, maybe not. What do you think, Rafe?”

The young huntsman frowned at that, was silent a while. “I can track them for you, my lady,” he eventually said, “but I don’t think it would be wise for your whole warband to give chase. We could be led straight into another trap like last time, or worse. Here we know the land, now, and your numbers would tell. Out there”—he gestured at the stinking marshland—“who knows?”

Calls were drifting over from the fortress, men signalling that the ruins were empty. Other men started adding their voices from the lakeshore as they circled around.

“They are fled,” Salach rumbled.

“Yes,” Rhin agreed sourly. “But the question is not why, but where. Where are they? While we are stuck in the heart of Dun Crin, where are they? And what are they doing?”

And where is Evnis? Uthas thought. He is the real prize. The only man with knowledge of where Nemain’s necklace is. All else is smoke on the wind.

Voices shouted from further along the lakeshore, a different tone and cadence…Men appeared, with someone definitely unwarrior-like between them.

She was brought before Rhin, a woman of exceeding beauty, Uthas surmised, beneath the starvation and grime that coated her. She was dark-haired with green eyes. As she was held before Rhin Uthas saw a host of emotions sweep this new woman’s face. Pride, fear, hatred. Hope.

Rhin stared at her, then began to laugh.