“Got you, Father!” the boy yelped, jumping with excitement. “Got you! Got you!”
Vaelin dismounted a short distance away, walking towards the blond man who dropped his stick and ran to embrace him.
“Brother,” Vaelin said.
“Brother.” Nortah laughed. “I could hardly believe it was true, but here you are.”
Vaelin drew back, seeing the curious stare of the boy, and the settlers beyond who had all paused to take in the sight of the Tower Lord. The blood-song’s note of recognition grew loud in proximity to so many gifted.
“Artis,” Nortah told the boy. “Give greeting to your uncle Vaelin.”
The boy stared for a few seconds more then gave an awkward bow. “Uncle.”
Vaelin returned the bow, feeling the song’s volume dip a little. The boy has no gift. “Nephew. I see you have your father’s arm.”
“You should see him with a sling,” Nortah said. He turned to bow as Dahrena joined them. “My lady. Your visit is welcome, as always.”
“Teacher,” she replied, returning the bow.
“There was talk of the Horde,” Nortah said. “My fellow townsfolk were concerned.”
“It wasn’t the Horde,” she replied. “Just starving people in search of refuge. Which the Tower Lord provided.”
“Cheated of battle, brother?” Nortah enquired, a small glint in his eye. “That must have been a bitter pill.”
“One I swallowed happily.”
Nortah’s gaze went to the canvas bundle hanging from Vaelin’s saddle. His eyes narrowed but he didn’t press the matter. “Come, come.” He turned, beckoning them to follow, taking Artis’s hand. “Sella will be anxious to see you.”
They found Sella hanging freshly washed sheets on a rope fixed to the side of a single-storey house. Nearby a girl of about four sat astride a huge cat which padded back and forth, the girl giggling as she bounced on its back. The horses began to fidget in alarm as the cat bared its daggerlike fangs. Vaelin and Dahrena dismounted and he ordered Orven to make camp a good distance away.
Sella came to him with a bright smile, gloved hands touching his in welcome. She was as lovely as he remembered, though considerably more pregnant, her dress billowing in the wind around the bulge of her belly. Twins, her hands said as she tracked his gaze. Boy and girl. The boy will be named Vaelin.
“Oh, don’t curse him with that,” he said, squeezing her hand.
Never a curse. Always blessing. She extended a hand to Dahrena who came forward to take it. “It’s been far too long.”
Snowdance came padding up, grown to full size since the fallen city, pressing her great head against Vaelin’s side, purring like distant thunder as he played a hand through her fur. The little girl on her back stared up at Vaelin in wide-eyed curiosity. The blood-song stirred in recognition and he felt a sudden tumble of images in his head, toys and sweets and laughter and tears . . . He grunted, blinking in discomfort.
Sella clapped her hands and the images faded. The little girl pouting a little as her mother wagged a finger at her. Apologies, her hands said to Vaelin. Her way of saying hello. Doesn’t realise not everyone can do what she can.
Vaelin crouched down, coming level with the girl’s gaze. “I’m your uncle Vaelin,” he said. “Who are you?”
A murmur in his mind, soft and shy. Lohren.
Sella clapped her hands again and the girl frowned and spoke in a sullen voice, “Lohren.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Lohren.”
“I had a dream once,” she said, smiling broadly. “I saw you on a beach, it was nighttime and you were killing a man with an axe.”
Sella took her hand and tugged her from Snowdance’s back, her free hand making the sign for food as she pulled her daughter towards the house.
“Don’t worry,” Nortah said. “You should hear the dreams she has about me.”
Sella gave them fish pie and potatoes cooked in an onion broth whilst Nortah related the tale of their journey from the fallen city to the Reaches. “Took us the best part of four months, and not all made it.”
“The Lonak?” Vaelin asked.
“No, curiously they never troubled us. It was the cold, the winter came early, caught us on the plains. If not for the Eorhil we’d surely have starved. Gifted folk can do many things, but they can’t conjure food from thin air. The Eorhil fed us and guided us to the tower where Fief Lord Al Myrna, thanks to the Lady Dahrena’s kind influence, saw fit to grant us tenancy of the long-unused settlement at Nehrin’s Point.”
“Your mother and your sisters?” Vaelin asked.
Nortah’s face clouded. “Mother had passed the year before we arrived, my sisters . . .” He trailed off and Sella clasped his hand. “Well, not everyone is able to master their fear of the Dark. Hearing your niece’s voice in your head before she’s old enough to talk can be a little disconcerting. Hulla is married to a North Guard sergeant, Kerran a merchant. They live in North Tower and don’t feel obliged to visit.”
Vaelin finished his meal before broaching another subject. “Is Harlick still with you?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Nortah replied. “Lives by himself in a hut on the beach, scribbling away from dawn to dusk. Never lets anyone read whatever it is he writes though. Most are content to leave him be, except for Weaver. Trades the baskets he makes for food to keep them both fed.”
Vaelin pushed back from the table. “I and the lady must speak with him, if you’ll excuse us.”
You’ll stay with us tonight, Sella signed. We have room.
The house was certainly large enough to accommodate several visitors. Nortah had described how it had been built by an exile from the Alpiran Empire who saw fit to continue his tribal tradition of keeping multiple wives.
“He hit one of them,” Lohren chipped in. “Hit her hard, and made the other ladies angry. They all stabbed him.” She took a firm grip of her fork and began to thrust it into a bread roll. “Stab! Stab! Stab!” She stopped with an annoyed grimace when Sella clapped her hands again.
“I should be glad to stay,” Vaelin told Sella, turning to Dahrena. “If my lady would care for a walk on the beach?”
“I’ve seen war, inferno and the souls of murderous men,” Dahrena commented as they strolled along the sand to Harlick’s hut. Night was coming on and the surf was high, her hair an inky tumble in the wind. “But that little girl scares me more than all of it combined.”
“Such power is bound to breed fear,” Vaelin assented. “Her gift will be hard to bear as she grows older.”
“At least now she has a gifted uncle to help protect her.”
“That she does.”
“How many years since you last saw the teacher?”
“Why do you call him that?”
“It’s the only name he gives himself, and it’s what he does. Every day save one, the children gather in his school. Some of the adults too, those that have trouble with numbers or letters. He teaches them all, and well. In his own way he’s gifted too.”
He recalled Nortah’s patience with Dentos before the Test of Knowledge, his ability to get Frentis to sit still for instruction and the rapidity with which he had trained the Wolfrunners’ company of archers. All those years a teacher at heart. Had he stayed with the Order no doubt he would have been Master of the Bow in time. “It must be over eight years,” he said. “Since the fallen city. It’s good to see them settled here.”
“There were those who counselled my father to send them on their way,” she said. “The Eorhil had been free in describing their abilities, arousing the fears of the Realm folk.”
“But he listened to you.”
“In truth I think he would have granted them sanctuary in any case. He had the kind of heart that couldn’t pass up a generous deed.”