“They normally appear in flocks,” she said. “Many were summoned during the invasion of Setharis.” She backhanded the snapping beak and it shattered like glass. The daemon bubbled and writhed in the snow.
Before Eva could finish it off I stepped in. “Hold, I want to try something.” It was the first time in my life that I’d had a daemon at my mercy. I’d always been fleeing for my life, always the prey and never the predator. That had to change. Now was the time to see if I could get into their heads like I could with humans. I’d never been able to do it with animals, but this was worth a shot.
I stood motionless and looked inward, probing with my Gift. Its mind was a confusion of half-formed thoughts and slippery as an oiled whore on silken sheets. It was every bit as impossible as trying to get inside an animal’s mind. Perhaps this bone vulture was just an animal hailing from some strange and distant realm.
All the same, I gathered my power and attacked it with crude force, taking a mental battering ram to a nut, again and again in different ways until I found one that appeared to work for these particular daemons. The creature convulsed, stopped moving and lay there drooling green blood and black bile, its mind beaten into scrambled eggs. “I’m done with the fucker now.” It was good to know I could use my Gift in this manner, but frustrating that each type of daemon’s mind would be very different and require unique tactics.
Eva watched me from behind her impassive mask, and I imagined her eyebrow lifted in that suspicious way she used to. She shrugged and kicked the thing. It exploded against the cliff wall in a cloud of feathers and stone dust. “These things are an insult to proper birds.”
That was our first night in the Clanholds. I suspected that warm welcome was just the start of our troubles.
Chapter 11
After a hurried breakfast of bread and cheese and a brief spell of morning weapon training, we packed up and hiked through a gentle snowfall up into a wider valley dotted with small farmholds like the one we had passed earlier. All were deserted with no livestock to be seen. Ice-rimmed streams gushed from clefts in the rock face and gathered in the centre of the valley to form a long, narrow lake before taking the lengthy and winding route southwards to reach Barrow Hill and the sea beyond. Tall weatherpitted standing stones jutted from the earth in an apparently haphazard fashion, monoliths left in their ancient seats by superstitious Clansfolk despite taking up prime farmland on the fertile valley floor.
Being geomancers, Cormac and Granville took great interest in the stones, but didn’t have time to do more than a cursory inspection with their magic. Whatever they did find troubled them, and as we marched they remained deep in conversation for several hours.
We kept a wary eye on the handful of bone vultures circling on the air currents high above the valley, watching us. Eva had to restrain our aggravated aeromancer Bryden from using his power to pluck the creatures from the sky. “Not yet,” she said to him. “Never show your hand until you have to.” I caught her glance in my direction as she said it.
I flashed a grin. The mask made it difficult to gauge her expression but she withdrew from my presence and kept her distance. It was probably another mistake, but why should I treat her any different now just because of scars and physical damage? I knew exactly how shallow the flesh was, and I’d liked her. Wasn’t normality what she wanted? I sighed and as we marched onwards I stared up at the fat, drifting snowflakes. If the ordeals of the Black Autumn had taught me anything, it was to cherish every enjoyment you could, while you could.
The valley splintered into four smaller, craggier paths, the widest route heading north east towards Kil Noth and eventually Dun Bhailiol. This was where my knowledge of the geography of the Clanholds ended. Of the valleys and holds located further west and north I had no real idea beyond a handful of names attached to barrels of ale and fine whiskies.
Eva sent scouts racing along every route while we waited, concerned that our larger force might be attacked in the rear by Skallgrim skirmishers. A half hour later word came back that no enemy had been sighted, so we began the advance. Eva and her heavily armoured battle coterie took the spearhead, marching two-abreast through deep snow, followed by Bryden, myself, Cormac, Secca, Granville and then Vincent bringing up the rear.
Even with Eva’s force ploughing a path through the snow, we found it slow, hard going. After an hour the wardens in front of us stopped dead and my nerves jangled as they readied weapons. The sky ahead was black with bone vultures.
Bryden looked to Eva, who nodded. His face burst into a wide grin. “Finally!” Wind whipped past and carried the lanky form of Bryden into the air at the centre of a swirling blizzard. He soared above the cliff walls, then higher still to survey the terrain ahead. The flock of bone vultures dived to attack him. He laughed as invisible fists of wind seized their wings and pinned them together. The things dropped like hailstones to smash against the mountainside somewhere above us, a drumming of dull thuds and very brief squawks.
A few scattered cheers erupted among the wardens. Even such a small victory lifted their moods, but for me every step just took us closer to Kil Noth, and to my grandmother.
I wasn’t nearly lucky enough for that spiteful old crow to be dust and bones in her family tomb. She was no kin of mine, whatever she claimed. My mother had fled Kil Noth as a young woman and hadn’t returned even when the madness of the voices overtook her. And six years ago I had finally discovered why.
A pulse of fear interrupted my thoughts. Bryden’s grin had vanished and he was staring hard at something in the distance. He plummeted towards us, slowing at the very last moment to land in a swirl of snow. “I see plumes of black smoke to the north east.”
I couldn’t be sure but from what he was describing it sounded like it was coming from Dun Bhailiol, the furthest east of all the Clansfolk holdfasts, and consequently the closest to occupied Ironport. It was right in the path of the Skallgrim advance, and only three days’ steady march away from us.
“Then that is welcome news for us,” Eva said. She had the good grace not to sound happy about it. “If they have stopped to siege the holdfast then it grants us more time to fortify the area around Kil Noth. Every day they delay in the Clanholds grants the Arcanum more time to take Ironport and come to our aid.”
With that we shouldered all our gear and marched quicker than ever before. At least our effort kept the winds from biting too badly, though already one or two wardens seemed to be suffering the beginnings of frostbitten fingers and toes. My group remained hale and hearty, and during a rest stop I ignored Adalwolf surreptitiously passing around a flask of cheap Docklands rum. I wasn’t about to take the last of their drink off them, not when I might have to share my own hidden flask of fine whisky in return. I took a belly-warming sip and slipped it back into my coat pocket.
We camped only a day from Kil Noth and we had still not uncovered any signs of life, just hastily abandoned homes and empty barns. Huddled around our fire, bowls at the ready, I doled out salt-beef broth and hard bread before settling down with my own. There was a little left over, but I’d leave them to argue over that. I could do without, mostly because I had a private stash of dried meat and fruit they knew nothing about. If there was one lesson that life had beaten into me, it was to look after yourself first before trying to look after others, and to always keep something back for when Lady Night’s luck flipped to the Night Bitch’s misfortune.