Fritha looked up through a mesh of branches at the purpling sky, the sun a red line across the western peaks of the Bonefells as day relinquished its grip upon the world.
Where is Morn?
It was the third day since Fritha had fought the draig, since Drem and his companions had escaped her by leaping into a river.
Since Gunil found my egg.
A shiver of excitement at that thought, banishing for a few moments her unease about Morn’s absence and her vexation at Drem’s escape. It was quick to return.
She should be back by now. I warned her only to scout. To find Drem and then return to me, so that she could lead me to them. I thought Morn had learned her lesson, understood that she would not achieve her revenge alone, without my help.
“What should I do?” she whispered to herself. “Stay and wait for Morn?”
But every day here is a day behind Drem, or a day away from the cause. Should I continue my pursuit of Drem?
She swore at the first stars that winked into life, then turned on her heel and marched back to her camp. Her leg ached, a wound across her thigh; ragged rather than a neat cut, it was most likely from the draig’s claws.
Arn had cleaned and stitched it for her. A stab of worry at the thought of him, knowing he was sat at vigil with Elise. Fritha quickened her pace. She felt the presence of a Feral close by, loping in the darkness.
Ah, my babies are protective of me. The thought gave her a warm feeling.
They had buried their dead and then moved a short way from the draig lair, carrying their injured far enough to escape the hideous stench of the draig dung. Fritha walked through the sentry line, glimpsed one of her people standing guard, his shadow merged with a tree. Deeper within the boundary of their camp, Fritha saw the outline of Gunil in the gloom, standing with the shadowed bulk that was Claw. He was tending to the bear’s wounds. Fritha wasn’t sure the animal would survive—some of its injuries were leaking pus and starting to smell bad.
It will be a grievous loss to the cause, if it dies, she thought. She shrugged and moved on, towards a flicker of flame.
They’d dug a fire-pit, a dozen men and women ringed around it, hands warming on bowls of broth, their breath a mist in the air.
A crude hide tent had been erected close to the fire-pit. Fritha nodded a greeting to those around the fire, then stepped into the tent.
She saw Arn kneeling beside a prone form, his dark hair shaved short, his silvering beard neat and braided, as always. He looked up at her as she entered, his eyes pleading.
“Any change?” Fritha asked him. She received a curt shake of his head in answer as she joined him and knelt beside Elise.
“Help her,” Arn said.
“I have tried,” Fritha muttered, feeling a twist of emotions in her belly. Fear, that she would lose her friend—and they were few and far between. Shame, that she was not skilled enough to work a healing; and annoyance, at Arn, at Elise, at herself, that this should bring her lack of ability so unpleasantly to light.
She stroked Elise’s cheek, slick with sweat, remembering the time Arn and Elise had cared for her, when they had found her slumped on the blood-soaked ground, her dead baby in her lap.
I owe her.
Fritha began methodically checking over Elise’s wounds. Her ribs had been manipulated back into position and a collection of broken bones had been splinted where possible—right arm broken above the elbow, both of her legs broken in multiple places.
Shattered is a more appropriate word. Even if I save her, I do not know if she will ever be able to walk again.
But it was the internal injuries that worried Fritha most. Elise was coughing blood and her breath was shallow and erratic. Probably from when the draig had struck her in the chest with its tail, snapping ribs and bruising her lungs. There were a number of other possibilities, all of them worse. Internal bleeding highest on the list.
“Look what you are capable of doing, what you have accomplished so far,” Arn whispered. “The Ferals, Gulla, Revenants…” He stared at her, dark eyes desperate.
“I will try again,” Fritha murmured.
She unlaced a leather vambrace from her forearm, pulled the wool tunic back to bare her arm, and drew a knife from her belt. The blade hovered over her pale flesh and she closed her eyes…
She remembered a woman’s face, severe, hard lines and scars. A fresh cut along one cheek, blood scabbing. A warrior, an empty scabbard at her hip, an iron cloak-brooch fashioned in the shape of a four-pointed star. She was sitting against a tree, chained to it, her hands bound in her lap. Fritha had stood before her.
“Tell me your secrets,” Fritha had said.
The woman had just returned her gaze, strength and defiance in her eyes.
“You will tell me everything,” Fritha had said, drawing a knife.
The same knife she held now.
“Fola agus focail chumhachta, ceangail an fheoil seo, leigheas an cnámh seo,” Fritha breathed now as she drew the knife across her forearm, blood welling in a dark line. “Fola agus focail chumhachta, ceangail an fheoil seo, leigheas an cnámh seo,” she repeated as she turned her arm and held it over Elise, raising her elbow so that the blood trickled down to her hand, gathering into a droplet on one fingertip, fat and heavy, and dripping into Elise’s mouth, another drop on her lips, another, and another as Fritha breathed the words over and over. A sharp wind blew into the tent, swirled around them, sounding like whispered voices.
Elise sucked in a deep breath, her back arching, eyes bulging, and then a long, stuttered sigh, her body relaxing. Her breath seemed a little stronger, a little steadier.
Arn grabbed Fritha’s hand.
“Thank you,” he said.
Fritha gave him a wan smile.
“It has helped, but I am not a healer,” she said. “I wish now that I had questioned the Bright Star warrior more, and for longer. As it was, to learn this much I put her to the question for three days. But I was focused on other matters. I wanted to create things. But healing…” She shrugged. “Let us see how she responds to this.”
“She will be well. I know she will,” Arn said, stroking his daughter’s brow. He looked up at Fritha. “What is your plan?”
“I am torn,” Fritha said. “Drem and the others could be leagues away by now, so we may never catch them.”
“And is there any point, now?” Arn asked. “The goal was to catch them quickly, before they could send word to Dun Seren.”
“Aye,” Fritha grunted.
“Their crow, it was not with them,” Arn said.
“I know,” Fritha snapped. “Which means they’ve most likely sent it ahead of them, to warn that bitch, Byrne.”
“We should go back to Gulla, then,” Arn said.
Not a pleasant prospect. He doesn’t react well to failure. I do have the draig egg, though…
“There are reasons to continue our pursuit,” Fritha said quietly. “Drem shouted a name during the fight, before the draig appeared.”
“I heard,” Arn said. “Cullen.”
“Aye. Who would have thought that cocky child was Corban’s descendant? A prize indeed, if we took him prisoner.”
Arn shrugged. “If we can find them again, if we can catch up with them, if we can take him alive. A lot of ifs.”
Yes, but the glory and honour of returning with Corban’s descendant. It would be worth the risk.
“And the huntsman,” Fritha continued. “Did you hear him speaking the Old Tongue, using the earth power? He turned his blood to fire.”
An indrawn breath from Arn.
“I would like very much to take him alive and put him to the question,” Fritha said. “We both know how few of the Order are taught the old ways of blood and bone.” She looked at Elise, glanced quickly at Arn. “He could be skilled at healing. The Order value that.”
She could almost hear Arn’s mind focusing on that word, healing, and clinging to that shred of hope.
“Perhaps we should continue our pursuit, then,” Arn said. “But what of Morn? We need her. And she is Gulla’s daughter.”
He left the rest unsaid. Fritha knew if Morn was lost, Gulla’s wrath would be great indeed. She breathed deep, straightening her shoulders. She knew what she had to do, just did not want to admit it.
“I hope that Morn returns to us. But if she is not here by the time we have broken our fast on the morrow, then we must move on. I will need to speak with Gulla.”
“He will not be happy,” Arn said.
“I am not happy,” Fritha snapped. She calmed herself. “Death smiles at us all,” she said.
“All that we can do is smile back,” Arn replied, repeating their mantra, something they had said a thousand times to each other since the day they had first met. The day the Ben-Elim had come.
Fritha nodded, her thoughts already elsewhere. She squeezed Elise’s hand and made her way to the back of the tent, lifted up a fur hide to reveal what lay beneath.
The draig egg.
Fritha crouched beside it, stroked it gently with her palm.
I can feel you stirring, my baby, she thought.
Soon.
She rose and left.
Fritha shared a bowl of broth with her warriors around the fire. A pile of bones, teeth and claws were heaped close to the fire, and the draig’s skin was staked out where it had been scraped of flesh and fat.
It will make a score of cloaks and boots.
Then Fritha stood and paced into the shadows, finding a handful of her Ferals gathered together in a huddle, a weave of limbs and fur, the glint of teeth in the dappled starlight. The others had been sent out as guardians, their noses, ears and eyes making them far better than any human sentry. Some were sleeping, but they stirred and looked up at Fritha as she approached.
“Don’t get up, my children,” she crooned as she reached them, crouching and stroking the jutting brow of one. He looked at her and whined.
“We’ll find them soon,” Fritha said, knowing that the Ferals did not really care; they were guided by much baser instincts: hunger, thirst, a pack mentality. But they were faithful and true to her; if she wanted something done, so did they.
Fritha lay down with them, felt them shift to curl around her, their warmth seeping into her, a barrier that sent the winter’s chill fleeing. The smell wasn’t too good, Fritha had to admit, musty, damp fur and sweat, but it was a fair bargain for being warm and feeling safe, protected. Even loved, and that was a feeling that Fritha hadn’t known for a very long time.
She closed her eyes.
Fritha raised her hand, calling a halt.
She was standing on the slope of a hill, looking east onto the great plain of the Desolation that opened up before her, jagged and scarred. Snow had softened the fissured landscape, giving it an endless, undulating appearance. It was late in the day, Fritha having set her pace by the injured bear and those carrying the wounded on stretchers.
Here and there on the plain she saw pinpricks of light marking isolated holds. Her eyes fixed on the closest one, roughly two or three leagues from her position.
That will do.
With a gesture, she started her small column moving, picking a way down the slope, through wind-blasted pines in the failing light as dusk settled around them.
Morn had not come, and so Fritha had made the decision to move out. Waiting was achieving nothing, only allowing Drem to widen the gap between them. She had made her decision, knew that she wanted to catch them; she could not turn her back and walk away from the lure of the huntsman’s knowledge and power and the prize that was the young Cullen. But she could not build rafts and follow them down the river; they could not fashion a raft big enough to safely take Gunil’s bear, so Fritha made the decision to travel by land, which meant back-tracking on their route and attempting to find new paths through the Bonefells that would lead them back to the river.
She was concerned about Morn but knew that if the half-breed was alive and found her way back to the draig lair, she would have no great difficulties in tracking Fritha.
It had taken her most of the day to lead her dwindling, battered survivors to the ravine where Drem and his companions had fooled them and changed their course, but since then they had made better time, the sharp gullies and ravines of the Bonefells shifting to the foothills that bordered the mountains.
Fritha was deeply aware that she was losing time, that each moment was allowing Drem to widen the gap between them, but there was nothing that she could do about that right now, and as annoyed and vexed as she was about it, she was ever the pragmatist.
And besides, there is something else that I must do.
I need to communicate with Gulla, and for that I require certain… ingredients.
Fritha crept through the snow, slow and steady, minimizing the crunch of each frozen step, until she reached the post-and-rail fence of a paddock, marking the boundary of the hold.
Silent as smoke, she slipped between the rails and moved into the paddock, Arn a shadow behind her, a deeper darkness behind him that was Gunil. Fritha knew that her people were doing the same all around the hold, edging closer, like wolven stalking an unsuspecting elk. Fritha had commanded her Ferals to stay further out in a loose circle around the hold.
She needed people taken alive.
A building loomed and Fritha pressed tight against it, took a few moments to listen. From the smell and sounds, it was a stable. She leaned out from the shadows, saw two ponies and a thick-boned plough-horse. Beyond the stable was a courtyard, snow glistening like crystals in the starlight. It was bordered by outbuildings—a barn, a chicken coop, a pig-pen. A few goats roamed free. At the courtyard’s head was a small feast-hall, snow thick on the turf-covered roof. Light glimmered through shuttered windows, and Fritha heard the murmur of conversation.
There was a small gap between the stable and the feast-hall, Fritha slipping across, climbing the few steps that raised the feast-hall from the ground, Arn behind her, Gunil remaining in the darkness of the stable.
A shadow on the porch before the hall’s doors shifted, and then a hound was standing, growling and barking.
Arn stepped around Fritha, took half a dozen steps and put his spear in its chest; growls turned to a high-pitched whine, cut short.
The doors flew open, a dark silhouette with a tangle of beard, standing in a moment’s frozen shock. Arn tugged on his spear, trying to turn, but the blade was snagged in the dog’s corpse.
Shouts and footsteps came from inside the hall.
The silhouette threw himself at Arn, the two of them stumbling over the hound’s body and going down in a snarl of limbs.
Another figure burst from the hall, a woman, lean and wiry. Fritha slammed her spear-butt into the woman’s head. She dropped sprawling to the ground and didn’t move. Arn and his attacker rolled down the steps to the courtyard, but before Fritha could reach them she was attacked by another figure rushing from the hall, a gangly youth swinging a wood-axe at her. She blocked and retreated, blocked and retreated, resisting the opportunities to stab into his throat or belly.
Then Gunil was there, a fist clubbing the lad across his shoulders, and he was on the ground, too.
Arn was stood over his assailant, who was kneeling on slush-churned ground, a handful of Fritha’s crew around him, spears levelled.
“Bind them,” Fritha said.
She strode into the hall, saw a fire-pit with a pot hanging over it, a few stools and chairs around it. An old woman was sitting in one. She held out a knife as Fritha approached.
“I’ll not stand and knife-fight you as I would have once,” the woman said, “but I’ll give you a cut or two ’fore you take me.”
“I’m sure you would, grandmother,” Fritha said, dipping her head respectfully, “but it would be better for me, and for your kin, if you just drop the knife. I don’t want to hurt them, just need the use of your hall for the night.” She stood in front of the old lady, out of knife range, and rested her spear-butt on the ground. Fritha knew she could just skewer the old woman where she sat.
Behind Fritha her crew were entering the hall, dragging their captives.
“No harm will come to them?” the woman said.
“They will all live through this night, you have my oath,” Fritha said.
The woman nodded and dropped the blade.
“A wise choice,” Fritha said. She turned to Arn. “Take them to the barn, light a fire for them so they don’t freeze.”
Arn nodded and left, the captives herded with them.
“What about my mother?” the one who had attacked Arn called, a thickset man with a heavy beard.
“She and I have things to talk about,” Fritha said. She felt sympathy for these people, knew that they had likely come north into the Desolation to escape the rule of the Ben-Elim. They were not the enemy.
But these are hard times, and hard decisions must oft be made.
“Take them away,” Fritha said with a wave of her hand. She inspected the contents of the pot: mutton stew, by the smell of it. She gave it a stir with a ladle, offered some to the old woman, who shook her head, and then scooped herself a bowlful. She sat on a stool and shuffled closer to the old woman.
“A hard life for you, here in the Desolation,” Fritha said.
“Hard times all round,” the old woman said suspiciously. “Just different kinds of hard. The Desolation isn’t so bad.”
“Aye,” grunted Fritha, sipping from the bowl. It was greasy and watery but tasted as fine a meal as Fritha could remember right now. “Freedom’s worth much,” she said, watching the grandmother.
“True enough.”
“The Ben-Elim?” Fritha said.
After a long hard stare, the old woman nodded.
“I’ve heard talk of the Ben-Elim’s flesh tithe,” Fritha said. “They wanted your grandson?”
A long sigh. “Aye, they did. We were not of a mind to give him up, like coin in some kind of tax.” The old woman spat into the fire.
Fritha nodded, understanding. She wished she had time, knew that the Desolation was filling with people like this, with grudges against the Ben-Elim. But time was no longer a luxury that she and Gulla had. Not with Drem likely only a ten-night away from Dun Seren, and his cursed talking crow closer than that.
Still, she felt that she had to try.
“They’ll come here, too,” Fritha said.
“Maybe, maybe not,” the woman said.
“They will,” Fritha said. “And soon. You could stand against them, fight them. You and your kin.”
“Fight the Ben-Elim and their White-Wings?” The woman snorted. “Hah. I am no coward, but I am no fool, either. That way’s a quick path to an iron-edged death.”
“There are others that would fight the Ben-Elim. You could join them.”
“Who?” the woman said, eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“The Kadoshim,” Fritha said.
“Are you a mad woman?” the grandmother said. “They are worse than the Ben-Elim. Why fight for them?”
“I’ll wager all that you’ve ever heard of the Kadoshim has come from the mouth or quill of the Ben-Elim. Who has ever spoken highly of their enemy?” Fritha shook her head. “The Kadoshim are not the monsters that the Ben-Elim make them out to be. They would not be the masters of the Banished Lands, it is just the defeat of the Ben-Elim that they strive for. When the war is won they will share their power, and they will remember those who help them achieve that goal.”
“You’re insane,” the woman hissed. “You would have me trade one tyrant for another. No, better to come here, to leave them to their scrapping and start a new life. A hard life, aye, but a free one.”
“Free today, but for how long?” Fritha said. “You think the Ben-Elim will not come here? Of course they will, maybe not this moon, nor the next, but soon. Before your grandson is a man, is my guess.”
The old woman scowled at her.
“Why do you fight for them, then?”
Fritha looked at the old woman, saw a genuine question in her eyes.
“Because the Ben-Elim killed my baby,” Fritha whispered, choosing to tell the truth.
Footsteps. Fritha knew from the way the floorboards shook that it was Gunil.
The way the grandmother’s eyes widened as she looked over Fritha’s shoulder also gave Fritha the same answer.
“What monsters have you brought into my hold?” The old woman spat out a curse.
“War makes monsters of us all,” Fritha said. “And the trouble with war is that it follows you. Sometimes there’s no escaping it. Sometimes the only choice is to choose which side you stand on.”
“My son and his wife, my grandson,” the grandmother said, eyes fixed on Gunil, who was towering over Fritha now, as he examined the contents of the pot over the fire-pit. “You swore they would live.”
“They will,” Fritha said. “I can’t just leave them here, though. They will come with me and choose a side. You, though, grandmother, you are not up to the journey. And I did not swear to keep you safe.”
Fritha shook her head, leaning forward and patting the old woman’s hand. She felt a wave of sympathy for this woman, a sadness at what she had to do.
“I am sorry,” Fritha said, “but I need your face.” And, faster than a blink, she drew her knife and stabbed the old woman in the throat.
Fritha sliced her knife across her palm and squeezed her hand into a fist, letting the blood flow and drip into a small iron bowl she’d set on a table. Beyond it was a wooden frame she’d quickly crafted, four hooks in each corner. Attached to these hooks was the skinned face of the old woman she’d just killed, stretched out across the frame, hanging loose like an empty sail. Globs of fat and blood still dripped from it. The dead woman’s body lay cast upon the ground. Out of the corner of her eye Fritha saw a rat scurry from the shadows and start nibbling at the meat exposed beneath the hastily skinned face. She ignored it.
“Glacaim liom anois, Gulla, aingeal dubh, agus tríd an fhuil,” Fritha chanted as she dripped her blood into the bowl. It rippled as if some hidden wyrm were uncoiling within it.
“Glacaim liom anois, Gulla, aingeal dubh, agus tríd an fhuil,” she repeated, louder. The skin stretched upon the frame twitched and spasmed. Although the doors had been closed and barred, the windows tightly shuttered, a cold wind blew through the room, sending the flames in the fire-pit dancing and hissing, making shadows dance. Behind her, Fritha heard Gunil grunt.
“Glacaim liom anois, Gulla, aingeal dubh, agus tríd an fhuil,” Fritha said for the third time, and the skin on the frame shifted, filling as if a breeze moved it, then more violently, the mouth jerking, opening, the cheeks filling, changing shape, and the eyes sparking to red life.
“Fritha,” a voice rasped from the animated skin, Gulla’s voice. “What do you want? I am busy.”
Fritha drew in a deep breath.
Little point worrying about a thing. Best just to say it.
“Morn is missing, and Drem and his companions are likely going to reach Dun Seren. Even if we catch them, the crow that took your eye is no longer with them. I think it likely they’ve sent it on ahead to take word of you to Byrne.”
“What!” The face snarled, grating like iron scraping over a cairn-stone. A smell of decay wafted from the mouth of the skinned visage.
Fritha repeated her words. “I am sorry, Lord,” she added.
“Gunil?” Gulla’s voice asked.
“I am here,” the giant said. He was looking at the rat, still feasting upon the dead woman’s skinless face.
“Report,” Gulla ordered.
“Things have not gone well.” Gunil shrugged. “My Claw has been wounded.”
Is that all he cares about? Fritha scowled.
“By a draig,” Fritha added. “We have sustained casualties. Drem and the two Order warriors escaped by leaping into a river while we fought the draig.”
“And my daughter?” Gulla growled.
“She went out scouting four days ago and has not returned.”
The skinned face scowled, not a pleasant expression. Fritha controlled the urge to shudder.
Gunil raised a foot and stamped on the rat. Bones crunched.
“The Order are likely to hear of our presence at the Starstone Lake,” Fritha said. “Of the sword, of you…”
“I understand the implications,” Gulla snapped. “I am not ready yet, have more to do.” A silence. The red eyes shifted and flickered. “We will have to speed up the plan. There is nothing else we can do. I shall send forth the Seven.”
“You are able to do that?”
“Aye. We have turned half a thousand already, from Kergard and the surrounding holds. I wanted more before I sent out my Seven, but…” The face twitched, a movement like wind blowing across a sail.
“I will send them into the Land of the Faithful,” he said. A fierce shifting of his mouth, a ghastly parody of a smile.
“What of our allies in the south?” Fritha asked.
“I will send word to the Shekam also, but this may be too soon for them.” A snarl rippled across the skinned face. “A hundred years in the planning, and now there is no time. Because of a talking crow.”
Plans are wonderful things until they go wrong, Fritha thought. Which they always do. She held her tongue, though, and remained silent as the parody of Gulla’s features twisted in rage.
“Your numbers,” Gulla eventually said, “and, where are you?”
“Thirty of us,” Fritha said. “We are at a hold at the southern tip of the Bonefells; likely thirty leagues from Dun Seren.”
Another silence, the jaws of the animated skin opening and closing, as if Gulla were gnashing his teeth.
“You must return to me. You carry the Starstone Sword and you’re too close to Dun Seren. We cannot risk it falling into the hands of the Order of the Bright Star.”
Fritha hated to fail at a task, and she longed to take Drem and his companions prisoner, just so that she could drag them back to Gulla and cast them at his feet.
She muttered a curse to herself.
“What?” Gulla’s voice said.
“There are reasons to continue the pursuit,” Fritha said. “One of them, the huntsman, knows the earth power. He spoke the old words, melted the faces from a handful of my people. And the young one, he is Cullen, descendant of Corban.”
The skinned face creased as Gulla frowned. “Two valuable prizes.” The lips moved, a sibilant hiss. “One with the closely guarded secrets of the Order, the other a trophy to crush their spirit and raise our own. I remember that Corban.” Gulla spat the words like a poison. “The worm that dared stand against our king.”
“He slew Calidus, Asroth’s chosen commander, the legends tell,” Fritha said, intrigued to hear a Kadoshim speak of those days.
“Aye,” Gulla grunted, “through trickery. Calidus was a fool.”
“To capture his grandchild would be a great triumph, my Lord. One that you could proclaim to your kin. Something to set against the blow of being forced to move sooner than planned.”
Gulla’s face twitched and snarled.
“Hunt them a little longer,” he breathed.
“As you command, my Lord,” Fritha said.
“Good. Do not fail me.” With a long, exhaled sigh like the rattle before death, the skinned face deflated, sagging in its framework.
Fritha set to taking it apart, packing it away into a small wooden chest she’d found in the hall. She folded the skinned face and wrapped it in a piece of linen, putting it into the chest on top of the frame and iron bowl.
A fist pounded on the door and Fritha turned, swept up her spear.
Gunil strode to the doors and lifted off the bar he’d set across it. Arn was there, his arm around a figure half-slumped against him.
It was Morn.
She was wet and bedraggled, ice glistening in the hair on her stubbled head, and one of her wings drooped at an odd angle. Something was draped about her, a tattered net snared in one wing and arm, wrapped around her leg.
Arn half led her, half dragged her into the hall, Gunil taking the half-breed in his thick arms.
Morn lifted her head and looked at Fritha.
“I’ve found them,” the half-breed said.