Was it truly abandoned? Would they enter to find slain corpses? But of course not — the Greathall would certainly be aflame if that were so.
He shook off his dread and continued on. The Reddin brothers, as was their wont, said nothing of their thoughts.
No one challenged them as they leapt up the wooden stairs to the wide open entrance. Just within the darkness of the long hall, Heavyhand awaited them. He was armoured for war in a long mail coat over leathers manufactured in the old fashion: the rings as large as coins and riveted to the leather hauberk. His wild mane of greying hair was pulled back and braided, his beard tied off with strips of leather. The spear he held carried a blade as large as an axe.
He allowed them to pass, but offered no greeting, and his gaze was reserved. Beyond, Jaochim and Yrain waited in their raised wooden chairs, one to either side of the central empty one. Orman crossed to stand directly before them and inclined his head.
‘I am sorry,’ he began. ‘But …’ He found he could not speak the news he’d run all this way to give. His throat constricted as if in rebellion. The words for what he had to say remained burning in his chest.
Jaochim raised a hand in acknowledgement. ‘The Eithjar have informed us, Orman. They say also that you slew Lotji with Svalthbrul.’
‘Yes.’
‘That is good. They are gone then. More blood has been spilled, but the feud between us is done.’
Orman could not prevent himself from frowning his amazement and disapproval. This was their main concern? He glanced between the two. ‘Good? What of the invading army? They will return. The Bain Greathall is only the first …’
He broke off because Yrain surged to her feet. ‘Do not presume to lecture us, hearthguard. The Bain Holding is merely the most recent of some twenty others. All gone. Every disappearance witnessed by us. Do not think us unmoved by this creeping valley by valley pogrom we have been forced to endure. You presume to judge us by your standards. Please do not do so. It is misguided — and in error.’
Her gaze was so severe Orman almost thought himself personally responsible for the centuries of murders and purgings her story implied.
She lowered her gaze then, releasing him, and sat once more. ‘We are the last. We few remaining Holdings. It is up to us how to greet this final nightfall of our kind. We choose to meet it at our hearth’s side, face on. Without running. Without flight. For truly … there remains nowhere to run.’
Still panting, Orman wiped the sweat from his eyes and turned to the Reddin brothers. They shared a silent glance and nodded. Deep down, Orman wanted to run. He desperately wanted to live. But he could not shame himself in front of the brothers, or Jaochim, nor of course the memory of Jass. So he swallowed his fears, his yammering need to flee, and nodded as well.
Jaochim and Yrain smiled as if this was to be expected, then stood. ‘Very good,’ Jaochim announced. ‘We were right in offering you the roof of our hall and the food of our table, and the rings from our own hands. Sayer Greathall shall not fall so easily.’ He raised his gaze to Bernal. ‘Heavyhand, what say you?’
Bernal crossed his thick arms, hugging the haft of his pole-arm to his chest. ‘The outbuildings should all be burned. All the stored grain and foodstuffs should be moved inside. The animals should be scattered.’
Jaochim nodded his agreement. He motioned them out. ‘See to it.’
The Reddin brothers turned and went. Orman was slow to follow; he still had so many questions. But the two Icebloods descended to the rear of the raised wood platform. He reluctantly followed the brothers out.
In the muddy open ground before the Greathall he hurried to match strides with Bernal. ‘They really cannot expect to withstand a siege, do they?’ he demanded. ‘We cannot defend against fifty, or a hundred. They’ll just burn the place down around us.’
The veteran huffed into his thick russet beard. ‘Do not dismiss Iceblood magics, lad. They’re still powerful up here in the highlands.’
‘But Vala …’
Bernal pulled a hand through his beard. ‘What I heard suggests she chose her end, lad. She chose to pass beyond with Jass.’
Orman felt tears welling up once more. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes. Yes. She did that, didn’t she.
‘Now, as for us,’ Bernal began, ‘you lot can start bundling all the useful supplies into the Greathall.’
Rather than answering, the Reddin brothers inclined their heads and jogged off. Orman coughed to try to clear the burning heat from his throat, and followed.
* * *
It began before Jute noticed it. He and Ieleen had been surprised, and pleased, to see a longboat come their way from Tyvar’s vessel, the Resolute. In it came a contingent of Blue Shields together with its commander himself. One trooper carried what appeared to be a wounded sailor up the rope ladder and brought him immediately to Jute. It was a young man, and he was unconscious,
‘An escapee from the besiegers,’ Tyvar announced. ‘Perhaps a slave or a prisoner.’
Jute called to his wife: ‘Ieleen, a patient for you.’
She stood. ‘Bring him to the crew’s quarters — and someone must guide me.’
Jute signed to his crewmen to obey. Tyvar motioned to his troopers to follow the sailors’ lead.
Once the wounded fellow and Ieleen were below, Jute turned to the commander. ‘Why all the fuss? There must be many such deserters and escapees.’
‘His hands,’ Tyvar replied, rather enigmatically.
Jute frowned. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Soft, pale, unscarred, and stained black under the nails. No oarsman or servant, that one. Literate. And the ship we pulled him from was a Mare war galley.’
Jute’s brows rose. A Mare vessel? Quite the prize.
Tyvar reached into his belt and pulled forth an instrument Jute instantly recognized: an alidade. ‘And he carried this.’
Jute reached out and Tyvar set it in his hands. It was a beautiful piece of cast and polished bronze. Crude by Falaran standards, of course, what with their tradition of open-water exploration. But more important, he could see this one had been designed to personal order. He shook his head, amazed. What an accomplishment for someone coming from a region of shallow-water navigation!
He blew out a breath. ‘I see … Well, won’t you stay for a drink, commander?’
Tyvar pulled a hand down his beard and offered Jute a wink. ‘I do believe I shall.’
In his cabin, Jute poured two tiny thimbles of Falaran distilled spirit made from the seeds of a low bush that grew on the islands of their archipelago. They called it Peuch. When he turned from the cupboards, however, he found that they were not two, but three. He was annoyed, and rather alarmed, to find that Khall-head hanger-on from the Wrongway camp sitting at the table.
‘What in the name of the damned Mael are you doing here?’ He pointed to the door. ‘Get the Abyss out.’
Tyvar raised a hand to beg permission to intercede. ‘If I may, captain?’ Jute subsided, grumbling beneath his breath. The Blue Shield commander then surprised Jute immensely by saying slowly, and gently, as if addressing an infant: ‘You really should ask permission before entering the captain’s quarters.’
The Khall-head raised his brows in slow-motion surprise. His yellowed eyes roamed the chamber as if only now fully aware of his surroundings — which Jute did not doubt.
Tyvar continued: ‘So wait outside, won’t you?’
The fellow smiled then — his eerie empty raising of the lips — and bestirred himself. Despite his antagonism, the state of his limbs raised a wince of empathy from Jute: emaciated, scabbed by sores and the old weeping cuts of an unhealthy body hardly functioning, let alone healing.
He shambled from the cabin. Jute eyed the huge commander. ‘Who is he to you?’
Tyvar cleared his throat, tossed back his thimble of spirit and sucked his teeth. ‘Cartheron told me his tale. A man worthy of our pity. A sad tale that …’ His voice tailed off and his gaze swung across the cabin to the door.