Bleda unbuckled his weapons-belt and laid it upon the ground, making sure his bow-case and quiver were in reach, and then he sat on a stump of wood at the foot of an old cabin and set about fletching a bundle of arrows. His oathsworn guard Ruga stood behind him, her head shaved apart from one long warrior braid lying across her bandaged shoulder. She held a strung bow in one hand, a fistful of arrows in the other, and her eyes were never still, constantly prowling the forest gloom about them.
There are enough guards on duty out there to warn us of any danger, but she will not stop.
Bleda reached into a bucket where deer-sinew was soaking in warm water, then separated it into strands, selecting one to bind a goose tail-feather to a shaft of birch. Carefully he wrapped the sticky sinew about the feather, binding it tight, then repeated the process with two more feather vanes, careful to space them evenly. When he was finished, he tied it off and laid the finished arrow with the bundle beside him, then started another.
He’d hoped the task would distract him.
It wasn’t working.
Images of his mother swam in his mind’s eye. Her face beaten and bloody, one eye purple and swollen shut. Of Jin standing over his mother, a sword in her hand. The blade stabbing down…
The sinew in his hand snapped.
His eyes blurred with tears, grief and anger mingled, as he remembered his mother’s words to him.
Stay strong.
He sucked in a deep breath.
I will, for you. For vengeance’s sake.
Jin’s face filled his world: once his friend, then his betrothed, and now the most hated person in his entire world.
Jin, I will watch the life drain from your eyes, if it is the last thing I do.
The arrow in his hands broke and he looked down to see his knuckles white.
“Waste of a good arrow,” a voice said behind him, and Ellac appeared, the old warrior squatting down in the forest litter beside him. “Think of the enemy that arrow might have pierced.”
“I am,” Bleda muttered, cuffing away his tears. He saw Ellac studying him, but for once the old warrior held his tongue and did not lecture him on the Sirak Iron Code, on the cold-face and the mastery of emotions. Bleda knew it all, knew the benefits of discipline and control, but his anger was like a stallion that would not be broken.
Is this how Riv feels, all the time?
He suppressed a chuckle at that idea. The thought of Riv was the only light in his dark world. Without thinking, he looked up, though it was not as if he would be able to see her winging down to him out of the clouds, because all he could see was trees, thick boughs laced above him like a latticed tapestry, only a few scattered beams of spring sunshine piercing the treetop canopy.
“It is too soon,” Ellac said.
“Aye,” Bleda answered. Riv had been gone less than a ten-night. Too soon for her to fly to Drassil and then make her way here, to their cabin in the woods. Perhaps another ten-night, if she had kin on foot with her.
Every day would be an agony of waiting.
He remembered watching Riv fly away, towards Drassil, and every day since then he had felt an ache in his chest at being parted from her. She had saved him, flown into the heart of the Cheren camp and plucked him from certain death. Her, and Ellac and a score of Sirak warriors who had ridden out of the darkness in a desperate attempt to save him and his mother, Queen Erdene.
“She will come,” Bleda said, “soon.” He was not sure if his words were for Ellac or himself.
Ellac said nothing, just scrutinized Bleda. They both knew that there was no guarantee of Riv’s return. She had flown to Drassil to warn the Ben-Elim, and to save her kin. But Bleda had seen their enemy, had been given a taste of what Drassil and the Ben-Elim were facing: Kadoshim, winged half-breeds; Ferals, savage, unstoppable beast-men, and worse, the creatures in the mist.
“She will come,” he said again.
“Huh,” grunted Ellac. “How long will you wait?”
Bleda shrugged. He had not dared to think of that question, did not want to acknowledge the possibility that Riv would not return to him, and what that would mean.
“If she does not come soon, we should go,” Ellac said.
“No,” Bleda muttered.
“If she does not come soon, then she is dead,” Ellac ploughed on. “Staying here will not bring her back from the dead.”
Bleda looked at Ellac, felt his knuckles whitening again.
“Don’t say that.”
“You are our leader now, our king. You must lead us.”
Leader? King? I have only led you into defeat. Love, revenge, duty—these things claw at me, drag me in different directions.
“Lead you where?” Bleda muttered.
“To Arcona. To our people. They need you.”
Bleda knew it was logical, that Ellac’s words were wisdom, but the thought of leaving, of riding away and turning his back on Riv—it took his breath away.
“She will come,” Bleda whispered.
Twigs crunched and Bleda looked up to see a score of Sirak warriors approaching, Yul at their head, more joining them.
Yul was no more than thirty summers old and looked like any other Sirak warrior, shaven-haired in a long coat of mail split in the middle for riding, the sleeves cut short above the elbows to allow for bow work. He moved with a grace and efficiency of movement that marked him as dangerous. He had been Erdene’s first-sword. Champion and guardian to the Sirak Queen. Bleda could see that her death still sat heavily upon him.
Bleda and his Clan had arrived here only three nights ago, injured and exhausted from eight days of struggling through Forn Forest. It was only a timber cabin and a small grove of cairns, but they had already turned the area into a defensible position. They had cleared trees, dug the foundations for a stockade and used the trees they’d felled for timber posts to make a wall. A paddock had already been made; their first priority was to look after their mounts, because without a horse a Sirak was only half a warrior. Rows of felt gers lined one side of the encampment, pots hanging over fire-pits. Bleda was keenly aware of their vulnerability to attack, but they had to rest somewhere, there were too many wounds to heal, and he had agreed to meet Riv here. Even if they managed to complete their encampment, Bleda knew it would not stand against a concerted attack from their enemies, but it would help, would buy them some time at the very least, and it had given them something to do other than wait.
Yul skirted the cairns that lay beyond the cabin, each one the size of a bairn, testament to the terrible secret Kol and his Ben-Elim had been keeping for over a hundred years. Half-breed children, the progeny of relationships between Ben-Elim and humans—killed or died—and buried in this lonely clearing.
Until Riv. She could have ended up in one of those cairns, if not for Aphra.
They have changed the world.
As Yul drew close, yet more warriors fell in behind him, until it looked as if the whole company was gathered.
What is happening here?
Yul stood before Bleda, who remained sitting upon his stump, looking up at the warrior.
“There are things that must be said,” Yul croaked. A gash across his throat had been stitched, blood crusted on it, and a dark bruise covered one side of his face, orange and green now as it began to fade. Bleda had found Yul on the road where the battle had taken place. After Riv had left him, Bleda had led his small band of followers, just over a score of his own honour guard that had survived the attack in the forest, back to the site of their defeat, to the road where they had been ambushed by Kadoshim and Ferals.
And betrayed by the Cheren.
There they had gathered arrows, weapons, food from saddlebags, tools and provisions, and said words of respect over their dead. Bleda and his band had wanted to wrap them in shrouds and light their balefires, but that would have alerted every living thing within ten leagues, so they had left the dead where they lay.
During their search of the battle site, Bleda had been thrilled to find survivors. Injured, wounded, but alive. They found more scattered and lost in the forest, and now their group numbered almost a hundred. Half of them were too injured to ride or draw a bow, but they would heal.
If we are given the time.
Bleda had dragged Yul out from beneath his dead horse and the huge carcass of a Feral. Yul was unconscious, half-crushed by his horse as it fell, and he had a claw slash across the throat that would have ended him if it had cut only a little deeper. But he was alive.
“What things?” Bleda asked.
“Some here have served you, trained with you, at Drassil,” Yul said. His voice ground like breaking ice.
“Aye, my honour guard,” Bleda said. “What is left of them.” Little more than twenty left from a hundred. I let them down, led them into a trap. He sighed and looked at his hands, remembering the blood of Tuld, his oathsworn man. He had died in Bleda’s arms. He looked back up at Yul. They don’t want me to lead them. And who can blame them? Not me.
“But we were oathsworn to your mother, to Erdene, the Falcon of the Sirak. We have not ridden with you.”
Old Ellac stood.
“He is your Prince,” the old warrior said, not quite keeping the snarl from his voice. “And now your King.”
Bleda felt Ruga tense behind him.
“Peace, Ellac,” Bleda said. “Let him speak.”
Bleda stood, too, his coat of lamellar plate chinking. It was a weight upon his shoulders, but he was always dressed for battle, now.
“We had not seen what kind of a man you are. What kind of a leader you are,” Yul continued quietly. “We have, now.”
Quicker than Bleda thought possible, Yul reached over his shoulder and drew his curved sword, before he, Ellac or Ruga could react, and stabbed it into the soil. All the while Yul held Bleda’s gaze. He reached for his bow, took it from its case at his hip, and then he knelt, placing his bow reverently on the ground between them. The four score men and women gathered behind him did the same.
“You slew Uldin, King of the Cheren, lord of our sworn enemy. You slew Uldin our betrayer, in the heart of his camp, before his sworn honour guard and before his heir. You slew Uldin, our blood-sworn foe, in the sight of Erdene, our Queen. My Queen.” Yul paused, a tremor running through his cracked voice. “For that, if we knew nothing else about you, we would follow you to the ends of the earth. Our bows, our blades, our lives are yours.”
“HAI!” shouted the kneeling warriors, making crows squawk in the canopy above. Each of them took an arrow from their quivers and sliced their palms. Fists were made, blood dripping onto their sword blades.
“With our blood we swear this,” Yul said.
Bleda stared.
“HAI!” cried the Sirak.