He came briefly to befuddled wakefulness in the depths of the night, roused by some sound. The fire still blazed and he could see nothing beyond its glare. From somewhere in the darkness, muted voices were coming. Drowsy apprehension had just begun to rise in his breast when he recognised them: Rothe and Varryn, deep in conversation. In the few moments before sleep reclaimed him, Orisian recognised that fact for the small wonder it was.
They woke to rain. It was a miserable morning. The fire died quickly. Varryn kicked earth over the embers and then spread them out with his foot. The rain grew heavier as they descended through the forest, but it was at least better than snow and biting wind. They found a rocky stream and drank from it. Ess’yr could not bend to drink, and Varryn raised water to her lips in his cupped palms. Orisian could well imagine the pain each step must bring her. The wound in his own side still made itself known every now and then, not by pain exactly, but a taut tenderness. To see Ess’yr struggling with her own injury brought home how graceful she had been before. He had almost stopped noticing her poise and precision; now that it was stripped from her its absence was glaring, like a bird that could not fly.
The rain eased off towards midday, and the going became easier as the slope flattened out. At last, there came a moment when the gradient disappeared altogether, and for the first time in what seemed an age there was only flat ground beneath their feet and before their eyes. Anyara gave a heartfelt sigh of relief and even Rothe could not keep a slight smile from his lips.
‘Welcome to the valley of the Dihrve,’ said Yvane. ‘Some call it the Vale of Tears, but we may hope for rather happier times here perhaps.’
Varryn exchanged a few words with Ess’yr. They seemed to agree something.
‘There is a vo’an,’ said Ess’yr. ‘One or two hours. We can rest there.’
Nobody disagreed, though Orisian caught a surprised, perhaps even shocked, expression on Anyara’s face. It was easy to forget she had not been where he had.
‘It’ll be fine,’ he said to her, and tried to put strength into his smile.
Aged willows covered the damp ground. The trees were too uniformly old and thinly spaced to be a dyn hane, but still the place had a haunted, wild feel to it, as if it had a life of its own upon which Orisian and the others were intruding. Fallen trunks lay all around, being slowly sucked into the earth by swathes of moss and fungus.
They halted in a clearing and sat on a hummock that was the closest thing to dry ground.
‘We are close,’ Ess’yr said. Her words were breathy, each one costing her some pain. It made Orisian wince in sympathy. ‘We will go in, ask leave for you to come. Wait here.’
‘Be certain,’ said Orisian softly. ‘No arguments about being sent to the willow this time.’
‘No,’ agreed Ess’yr.
‘Leave us a spear, at least,’ said Rothe to Varryn. ‘We’ve no weapons save my knife and these walking staffs.’
The words seemed to wash straight over the Kyrinin. He and Ess’yr disappeared to the north, leaving the others to sit and watch the clouds scudding overhead. Tiny brown birds were hopping around amongst the undergrowth.
‘Are we sure this is safe?’ asked Anyara.
‘Not entirely,’ replied Rothe before Orisian could draw breath.
‘They wouldn’t have brought us here if it wasn’t safe,’ Orisian said.
‘That’s true enough,’ said Yvane quietly. ‘They think we’ve rid ourselves of hunters, at least for now, or they’d not have left us. Ess’yr certainly would do nothing to put you at risk.’ She looked from Orisian to Anyara. ‘Do you understand the ra’tyn? The pledge she has made?’
Orisian frowned, not understanding. The word ra’tyn was vaguely familiar, but at first he could not say where he had heard it before. Then it came to him that Inurian had spoken it, when he lay by the Falls of Sarn . It had been a part of what he had said to Ess’yr; and Ess’yr had said something, in the moments before Yvane found them in Criagar Vyne, about having sworn an oath of some sort. He had forgotten about it.
‘I didn’t think so,’ mused Yvane. ‘She’ll not tell you herself, that’s certain. I overheard them talking—arguing would be more precise, I suppose—about it back in the ruins. In any case, you can rest easy that she will not put you in danger.’
‘But they cannot speak for the wights in this camp,’ muttered Rothe.
‘Things go a little differently in the Dihrve valley,’ said Yvane. ‘Huanin and Kyrinin share much of the land here. It’s a rough kind of peace but it’s peace nevertheless, so I’ll give you a word of advice; two, in fact. Do not speak of “wights” too freely here. It is something you would call an enemy, and as I say, things go a little differently here. Second, no Kyrinin will be willingly parted from spear or bow while they are outside a camp. For a Huanin to be asking for it . . . Varryn bears the full kin’thyn, and he didn’t get that by being shy about spilling blood. He must like you, or he’d have given you the spear point first.’
Rothe lapsed into glum silence after that. Once, Orisian thought, the shieldman might have had something to say about Kyrinin pride.
Time slipped by. They ate and drank. Orisian and Anyara dozed. There was a rustling amongst the trees to the west of them that had Rothe springing upright and clutching his dagger. For a few moments they were all poised, listening intently for any other sound. Then there was a sharp, grunting bark and the sound of some animal bounding off through the woods.
‘Marsh deer,’ said Yvane.
Varryn returned alone. He had been gone no more than a couple of hours.
‘Come,’ was all he said.
This was a very different vo’an to the one Orisian had seen before. Emerging from the dense woodland they arrived upon the brink of a lake fringed with vast swathes of reeds and rushes. The winter camp reached out over the marsh and water on stilted platforms and jetties of wood. There were many huts made of animal hides stretched across wooden frames, more permanent structures than the domed tents he had seen in In’hynyr’s camp. At the edge of the platforms were tethered rafts of logs which supported more shelters. A powerful scent spilled from sheds where racks of fish hung over smoking fires. The whole place had a settled feel that suggested it had been here for many years; there were probably twice as many Kyrinin here as in the vo’an on the southern flanks of the Car Criagar. A few children stopped what they were doing to watch the strange party as Varryn led them up on to one of the platforms, but the adults largely ignored them.
Varryn guided them to a hut out over the water.
‘Sleep here,’ he said. ‘I speak with the vo’an’tyr.’
‘Where’s Ess’yr?’ Orisian asked. ‘Is she all right?’
Varryn nodded. ‘She will rest. You all rest.’
‘And tomorrow?’
‘Is tomorrow,’ Varryn said, with the faintest shrug of his shoulders. ‘No harm comes here.’
The Black Road had taken over the old inn at Sirian’s Dyke. The inn’s staff were dead or had taken flight, like all the inhabitants of the village. Shraeve’s Inkallim had put a guard on the stores of ale and wine, but some of the food stocks had been shared out. In the hot, crowded room where weary travellers had rested and slaked their thirst, warriors now jostled for space in a constant hubbub of excited talk and shouts. The mood was good even without the encouragement of drink; almost all of them had been present at the fall of Castle Anduran, and that victory still intoxicated them.
Their advance down the valley had been unopposed, until they came to Sirian’s Dyke itself. Just outside the village they had routed a motley force of two hundred Lannis men—warriors and common folk mixed together—and they had done it by the strength of their arms alone. The woodwights had melted away, gone to wage their own war against the Fox; almost all of the Tarbains had scattered to plunder hamlets and farmsteads; nobody had seen the na’kyrim Aeglyss since Kanin had confronted him in the White Owl camp outside Anduran. It was a purer fight now, Blood against Blood, and tasted the better for it.