She was alone in the cramped quarters she shared with three other maids. She sat on the edge of the wooden cot where she slept, working by the light of a single whale-oil lamp. The blade of the knife rasped over the stone that rested on her knees. Her fingers were not as straight and strong as they had once been, nor as dexterous or quick. Still, they were skilled. When she was done, the blade would have as sharp an edge as it could ever hold.
As she hunched over the whetstone, stroking the knife smoothly back and forth, Cailla’s old, soft lips moved. They did so almost soundlessly, but not quite. Far too faint to be heard by any save the God for whom it was meant, she repeated over and over again a few short sentences: “My feet are on the Road. I go without fear. I know not pride.”
CHAPTER 2
Next there is the mighty fortress Marain built amidst the Karkyre Peaks. No other Blood, nor even the Kingships of the far south, can claim such a stronghold as their own. The perdurable mountain itself, cut through by tunnels and chambers, is as much a part of the fastness as its walls and towers. Not Abremor, not the Red Hand of the Snake, not all the armies of Morvain’s Revolt could breach its defences, though each tried. Whatever use my lord may find for this great place, it will not fail through want of strength.
What use that may be, I know not. The road this place was built to guard is a ruin, for since the great war against the Kyrinin none make the journey through the Peaks to Drandar. That way grew thick with bandits and with Snake raiders in the Storm Years. The cobblestones were torn up and used to build sheep pens, the drains clogged, the inns and way stations were burned or abandoned. Thus there is now no fit path beyond Highfast to either east or south, and none to the north save a mule-driver’s track across the mountains to Hent. There was a village of quarrymen and drovers close by the castle once, but it is empty now. The airs here are cold and carry wild rains; the earth is thin, the rock is hard. It is a place fit only for the hardy or forgotten, for outcasts and exiles.
I
Mar’athoin of the Heron Kyrinin sniffed at the feather. It had been tied to a twig on the stream-facing side of an alder tree. The path Mar’athoin and his two companions were following crossed the stream here, and the feather had been positioned so that no one — no Kyrinin, at least — could fail to see it as they made the crossing. It was a finger-feather, from the wing-tip of a forest hawk. A single thin strand of birch bark had been used to attach it.
Mar’athoin made a guttural coughing sound in the back of his throat. It brought the other two drifting out of the undergrowth. He nodded at the feather and his fellow warriors examined it closely.
“It must be ettanaryn, yes?” Mar’athoin said.
Cynyn, the youngest of the three by only a few days, straightened and ran a finger along his upper lip. It was a gesture copied from his elders, Mar’athoin knew. Cynyn no doubt thought it signified careful consideration of a problem. He had always been over-keen to credit anyone more than a few summers older than him with great wisdom.
“It must be,” Cynyn pronounced.
Mar’athoin nodded. Like the other two, he had never seen Snake sign before, but there was nothing else this could be: ettanaryn, marking the furthermost extremity of the Snake clan’s range. The Snake, like most of the northern clans, kept to old ways of summer wandering, winter gathering. Some a’an had set this marker here at the furthest point of their journeys back when the sun was high and the days long. Mar’athoin’s own people, the Heron, were less wedded to the old cycle of a’an and vo’an, living as they did amidst the constant bounty of the marshes. Nevertheless, foraging bands did cover long distances in the height of summer, and they still sometimes left their own ettanaryn. Where the Snake used feathers, the Heron used split, notched bog-willow stakes.
Sithvyr leaned closer and sniffed at the feather as Mar’athoin had done.
“Not fresh,” she observed. “There is no hand-scent on it.”
“I thought the same,” said Mar’athoin, relieved to be able to agree with her. He desired her, and would have been pained had she contradicted his own instincts.
“Should we make pause, then?” Cynyn asked.
“We should,” Mar’athoin confirmed. He set out back across the stream. The other two followed him without comment. He was pleased with the way they had so readily accepted him as the leader of their little band. Before they had set out, seven nights ago now, it had not been certain whether he or Sithvyr would have the greater authority. Mar’athoin had hoped it would be him from the start. He had, after all, won his first kin’thyn in the fighting with the Hawk clan two summers gone — the youngest of the clan’s warriors to have done so that year — and that was an honour Sithvyr could not yet boast.
“Lacklaugh would understand,” Mar’athoin said as they retraced their steps a short way and squatted down to wait. “He carried spears with my father when they were younger. He knows our ways almost as well as we do.”
He was almost certain he was right. Lacklaugh had urged them to keep a close watch on the other na’kyrim, the female whose mind was cracked, but he would understand the need to hesitate before crossing into Snake lands. It was an old rule, and not one to be lightly broken, that only a spear a’an offering battle would enter another clan’s homelands without first pausing and reflecting on their action. So the three of them would wait here until the sun had turned another quarter of the sky in its endless journey. Only then would they follow the wandering na’kyrim woman into the lands of the Snake Kyrinin.
They went quickly through the evening, meaning to catch up with the na’kyrim before night fell. The darkness held no fears for them, but it would be harder to track her on a moonless night such as this promised to be. The forest path their quarry seemed to be following was far too obvious to be Kyrinin-made. Mar’athoin knew the Snake traded as well as fought with the Huanin lords to the south and west. It seemed likely to him that this was a traders’ way; there were a few old and stale signs of horse or mule.
That she kept to such a clear trail made their task at once simple — the na’kyrim was clearly not trying to lose or conceal herself — and potentially harder. She was more likely to wander into trouble if she kept to what must be a well-used route. Mar’athoin and his companions had promised Lacklaugh only that they would follow her as far as seemed fit to them, and guard her against harm only if they could do so without endangering themselves or their people. Should the na’kyrim fall foul of the clan on whose domain she now trespassed, Mar’athoin could do nothing to protect her: the Heron had no quarrel with the Snake. Equally, if she stumbled across some rough Huanin trader who took against her, she would have to look after herself. Killing such a man within their territory, and without their permission, might well antagonise the Snake.
The trackway was running along the side of a steep valley. It was only lightly wooded, and great stretches of bog were visible beside the river below them. After the first day and night of their journey, they had settled — by silent consent — on what the Heron called their trytavyr: their way of going. Mar’athoin ran ahead of the others because his eyes and ears and nose were a fraction sharper than theirs. Next came Cynyn, keeping a good two dozen strides behind Mar’athoin so that he would have time to react to any signal. Last, close on Cynyn’s heels, came Sithvyr. She had shown herself to be the fastest of all of them, at least over uneven ground. If Mar’athoin found trouble up ahead, she had the best chance of escaping to carry word back to their vo’an in the great marshes.