Wain put a hand on his shoulder, disturbing his dark musings.
‘Come away,’ she said. ‘The time of our testing is here.’
He looked at her questioningly.
‘Our scouts have found an army gathering, between Glasbridge and Kolglas. It’s coming up the south side of the valley’
‘So soon?’ said Kanin. ‘I’d hoped . . . well, no matter. How many?’
‘Three or four thousand, they say. With Kilkry-Haig riders in the van.’
That was a bitter blow. Lannis alone, Kanin would have hoped to defeat; an army strengthened by the prideful horsemen of Kilkry was a sterner test. What was coming now would be utterly different from the skirmishing that had been going on up and down the valley for the past few days. He had, at best, equal numbers to stand against the enemy, and hundreds of those would have to remain in position around the castle to keep Croesan from sallying forth. Worse, almost a third of his strength was Tarbain tribesmen who would be grass beneath the scythe of Kilkry cavalry. Shraeve and her Inkallim might be enough to make a difference, but he would not ask for her aid.
‘That will be enough to test us, indeed,’ he murmured.
‘We should send for Aeglyss,’ Wain said. She shook her head slightly at the doubt on Kanin’s face. ‘He has not given up hope of winning our favour. We can use that. He may be able to persuade the White Owls to give battle once more. It probably won’t work, but we lose nothing in the attempt. If he succeeds, we can dispense with him and with his woodwights just as we did before; if he fails, he fails.’
Kanin grimaced. ‘Are we so desperate? We were going to do this together, for our father. For the Blood. I don’t want it . . . fouled. In any case, what can a na’kyrim and a few woodwights do against an army?’
She shrugged. ‘I do not know. Is there harm in trying, though? I like him no better than you do, but if fate dictates that Aeglyss is a weapon we are to use against our enemies, that is what he will be. It is not for us to choose.’
‘I suppose they are good archers if nothing else, the wood-wights.’ Kanin glanced back towards the Inkallim. Their swords were flashing in the low morning sun. Shraeve was watching him, he saw. She ignored her warriors and stared directly at the Bloodheir.
He turned away. ‘Very well. Let’s talk to Aeglyss. If he can turn the White Owls to our cause again, he’s got even more talents than I thought. But as you say, we lose nothing in the attempt.’
There was no singing or cheering in the ranks of the army that Kanin and Wain led out from Anduran. A grim silence hung over the tight-packed companies of warriors. There was a certain resolution in the quiet of the Horin-Gyre men and women; that of the Tarbain levies who swelled their numbers had more the feel of nervousness about it. Open, massed battle against a strong foe was not the way the tribesmen would choose to make war. They were still raiders and ambushers in their hearts.
Although Kanin and his sister had debated the wisest course almost to the last hour, the outcome had never seriously been in doubt. They both knew they could not retire northwards. If they did, Croesan and Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig would just gather their forces and come after them. Standing and fighting, victory was still possible if fate allowed it. And if this one victory could be won, Castle Anduran might well fall before their enemies could mount another relief attempt. Wain resolutely confirmed Kanin’s instinct: give battle. Test fate, and do it on open ground, too far from the city for Croesan to take a hand. The story of the Road’s course was told long ago. It could not be escaped; only faced.
The Inkallim were taking the field, at least, with Shraeve at their head. Kanin had not asked them to come. In this as in all things the Inkallim did as they pleased. They had dyed their hair before marching, though: it was as glisteningly black as fresh pitch. That might mean they would fight.
Beneath heavy skies and a soft rain, they passed by Grive. The little town was still. No smoke rose from the chimneys, its streets were empty and the windows of the houses shut fast. Most of the inhabitants had fled. The remainder hid themselves away. The land here was flat, crossed by narrow ditches, dotted with tiny copses of willow and alder. Abandoned cattle lowed disconsolately as the army went by. Kanin dispatched a handful of warriors to round them up and return them to Anduran. A swirl of crows, kites and buzzards was circling above an unseen carcass. You will be gorging yourselves soon, thought Kanin.
They were not far beyond Grive when Kanin’s outriders returned. They reported that the enemy was a few hours away, moving along the southern edge of the Glas Water. Kanin found a place where any attack upon his lines must come across the wet, heavy ground of a wide grass field, and drew up his forces. Ditches to the north and south would hamper any attempt to turn his position; bloody and bruising as it would be, a face-to-face confrontation, stripped of any subtlety or manoeuvre, seemed to offer his best chance of victory. His two hundred or so mounted men he kept in the rear, with his Shield. The Inkallim arrayed themselves upon his right, behind the main line. They squatted down on the grass. Kanin ignored them. He would not demean himself by asking Shraeve her intentions.
With so few riders, the Bloodheir could not hope to attack. Too many of the horses that had left Hakkan with him had died, or fed the hungry, in Anlane. All he could do was wait, and hope that spears, courage and the muddy ground would suffice against the charge that he knew must come. If Aeglyss could somehow produce some White Owls willing to fight it might help, but Kanin had all but resigned himself to the halfbreed’s failure. Aeglyss had been gone for more than a day and time had run out. It was no great surprise: whatever subtle tricks of persuasion and deceit the na’kyrim could work with his half-human voice Kanin had never really believed he was equal to the task of convincing the wood-wights to once again serve the purposes of the Black Road . His willingness to make the effort had been embarrassingly effusive, though. The halfbreed’s urgent desire to ingratiate himself was pathetic.
Out in the distance to his right, he could see a dark mass looming over the flat expanse of the Glas Water. It could only be Kan Avor, the drowned city that had once been the Gyre Blood’s home and now called like an imprisoned lover across all the miles to every northerner’s heart. It would be fitting to test the fates here, within sight of those broken-backed towers. And so close to Grive: that had been the home of Tegric, whose hundred men held the Stone Vale against all the Kilkry Bloods for the day the people of the Black Road needed to escape into the north. It was the Inkallim who called themselves the Children of the Hundred, but any warrior might draw inspiration from Tegric’s example. Here, today, Kanin would make his own stand.
Far from Anduran, beyond the vertiginous peaks and heaving glaciers of the Tan Dihrin, light snow was falling on the slopes around Castle Hakkan. In the night not long gone, for the first time in a week, the scouring northern wind had ceased to blow across Horin-Gyre lands and the morning’s snow was settling on frost-coated ground.