The two Kyrinin were standing back, resting on their spears. They watched as Rothe closed the child’s eyes. He had to clean his hand on the grass afterwards. He turned the body over again to hide the face.
‘Not long dead,’ said the shieldman. He stood up. He looked tired, Orisian thought.
They could be no more than a day’s walk from Anduran, in a fold of the hills that hid the Glas valley from sight. For the last couple of hours they had been walking through parts of the forest that had been well grazed in the summer. Most of the trees were young and spindly; only stumps remained of those that had offered good timber.
‘This was in the wound,’ Rothe said, holding out his hand. In his palm lay a thin piece of horn, worked to a sharp point.
‘What is it?’ asked Orisian.
‘The Tarbains from the north set them into their clubs. That’s who killed him: Tarbains.’ He cast a glance towards Ess’yr and Varryn. ‘Savages. They’re barely human.’
‘Tarbains,’ said Orisian quietly. ‘Then it’s bad, isn’t it?’
Rothe nodded. He flicked the sliver of horn away. It disappeared into the grass as if it had never been.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘If Tarbains are roaming free this far south, it’s very bad. They could only have got here with a Black Road army. I’d not have believed it if it was any eyes but my own doing the seeing.’
‘We should take care of the body,’ Orisian said.
‘The ones who did this cannot be far away. It’s not safe to stay.’
Orisian looked at the dead boy. Once it had departed, life left no trace. The body had a shapeless quality. It was difficult to imagine it had ever been inhabited. As far as he could tell, all his family had come to this: certainly Fariel and Lairis, perhaps Kennet and Anyara. All of them. He wanted to look away, but could not lift his eyes from a patch on the back of the boy’s jacket where some old tear had been carefully repaired.
‘How old is he, do you think?’
‘I couldn’t be sure,’ Rothe murmured.
‘How old, though, do you think?’ Orisian repeated, and heard the strange insistence in his voice as if it was someone else speaking.
‘Perhaps twelve. Thirteen.’
‘We should find the ones who did this,’ Orisian said.
‘I don’t think...’ began Rothe.
Orisian pointed to the lip of the hollow. The grass there was trodden flat. ‘Even I can see the tracks,’ he said.
‘It would be better to pass around, and make for Anduran,’ said Rothe.
‘No. This boy wouldn’t be out here on his own. His family, his home, can’t be far away. His parents might be searching for him.’
‘More likely they’re dead and the Tarbains are feasting on their hearts, waiting for us.’
Orisian glared at his shieldman. Rothe looked back. His face was quite calm, quite firm.
‘Then we will kill them,’ Orisian said. ‘I am going to follow this boy’s trail, whether it’s wise or not. These are our people. Should we pass by?’
Rothe stroked his beard.
‘I will do it, Rothe. I am nephew to the Thane,’ said Orisian quietly. Never before had he truly thought that his uncle’s position made a difference to who he was, in his heart; perhaps it did, after all.
The shieldman held Orisian’s gaze for a moment or two, then knelt and began to examine the ground. Orisian glanced over towards Ess’yr. She and her brother had not stirred. They showed no great interest in what was happening.
‘We are going to find this boy’s family,’ he said to them. Ess’yr gave a slight nod. He had no idea what it meant, beyond the fact that she understood his words.
‘There were three or four of them,’ Rothe said. ‘They ran him down and killed him with clubs and spears. It’s easy to say, Orisian, but you understand that if they see us we have to kill them? All of them, if we can. If one escapes, he might come back with more.’
‘Of course.’ Orisian heard the coldness in his own voice.
Rothe stood up and faced Ess’yr and Varryn. When he spoke it was still to Orisian, though.
‘You’ve only a knife. The few who did this might not be the only ones around. We may need help.’
Orisian looked to the Kyrinin. Both of them were watching him, not Rothe.
‘Ess’yr, if there is a fight we may need your help. Please?’
It was Varryn who said, ‘We have no quarrel here.’
‘Perhaps not. I will understand if you do not come with us. But if the Tarbains have come this far, they can go further. They will kill Kyrinin as willingly as Huanin.’
‘We will come,’ Ess’yr said. ‘We must take you to the forest edge. We are not there yet.’
As they set out along the trail left by the boy and his pursuers, Rothe muttered to Orisian, ‘I am your shieldman, and you will allow me to keep you safe. Stay back if there is trouble. If you have to fight, show no fear. Whatever happens, do not run. Tarbains are dangerous but they’re cowards, too. They’re like wolves: quick to turn tail if they decide you have sharper teeth than they do. If you face one, let him see your teeth. And let’s hope your friends know how to use those bows.’
The boy had not come far. He had crossed a little stream, run beneath the spreading branches of a huge oak that had been spared the axe for some reason, crossed a glade that must be full of flowers in the spring. Not far.
They lay in the damp grass atop a rise, looking down between scattered trees towards the cabin a few score paces away. It was the kind of dwelling hundreds of Lannis folk lived in: square, made of timber and stone, with a little woodshed close by. There were snares hanging on the wall, sheltered beneath the eaves. A pile of unsplit logs lay in front of the woodshed, as if at any moment a man might come out from the cabin with his axe. He might be a charcoal-burner or a fur trapper, or even a honey-maker with hives somewhere out of sight.
The door of the cottage hung open, leaning at a broken angle, and the voices that Orisian could hear were not those of a woods-man and his family. They were crude, abrasive, and shouting in a language he had never heard before. Orisian was tense. It had been so clear, standing over that body in the hollow, that this was the right thing to do; a brief moment of clarity, when things for once had seemed simple. Now, faced with the consequence of his will, he was not so certain. Rothe had been right, of course. It would be wiser to pass by. Yet he was the Thane’s nephew, and those who lived here were people of his Blood. Orisian had taken the oath. The enemy of the Blood was his enemy. If it was to mean anything, surely it was this?
Then a figure came out of the cabin. It was a man, but one unlike any Orisian had seen before. He was tall, rangy like a lean dog. His heir was filthy and tangled in knots and mats. Dozens of splinters of bone were sewn into the fur jerkin he wore, a speckling of morbid ornament. His arms were naked but for two leather armlets, one at the wrist, one just below his shoulder. The great weapon he rested across his shoulder was vicious-looking: a long cudgel with a thick head from which five or six spikes protruded.
The man loitered in front of the doorway. He spat and scratched at his face. He looked around, and though his eyes drifted over the place where Orisian and the others lay he did not see them. He was relaxed, careless.
The Tarbain went inside again. There was a renewed chorus of loud voices, raised in what sounded like argument. Rothe eased himself back from the crest of the rise. The four of them squatted in a tight group once they were hidden from the cabin.
‘Can’t say how many are in there,’ Rothe whispered. ‘It doesn’t sound to be more than four or five, though.’
‘There’s no sign of the boy’s family,’ said Orisian. ‘They might be inside, do you think?’
Rothe shrugged. ‘If they are, they’re dead, or worse. Tarbains don’t take prisoners, Orisian. They’ll probably stay here a while, eat and drink as much as they can and then carry off everything else.’