‘I would be grateful for any news,’ said Taim.
‘Of course, of course. That is understandable. Regretfully, I do not think I can tell you anything that will ease your worries. The last word we had was of a battle, somewhere between Anduran and Glasbridge. Gerain nan Kilkry-Haig fell there, and many others. The Black Road was victorious. Anduran is besieged.’
Taim’s shoulders slumped a fraction. ‘Gerain’s death is ill tidings. He was a good man; his loss will break his father’s heart. How can all this have happened, so quickly? Anduran besieged?’
The Secretary gave a nervous shrug. ‘It is difficult to sieve fact from rumour. There are many wild tales coming out of your lands. Tales of wild men from beyond the Tan Dihrin who eat human flesh, tales of a Kyrinin army pillaging the valley. I am told, though it stretches belief, that woodwights and Inkallim together assaulted Kolglas. A White Owl raiding party attacked the town while the ravens slipped into the castle.’
Taim Narran looked bleakly down at his hands. He should be there, at Croesan’s side.
‘I am sorry,’ said the Secretary. ‘You know how such times breed fear and fancy. Perhaps things are not as grave as they appear.’
‘Even if the tales are only halfway to truth . . .’ Taim did not finish the thought. There was, in the end, little to say. The Craftsman cleared his throat. He shifted a fraction closer to Taim.
‘Word has been sent out from Vaymouth, summoning new armies. There will be gatherings here, and in Drandar. The greater strength must triumph in the end, and that belongs to Haig, not Gyre.’
‘My home will be a wasteland by then. If the High Thane had stood shoulder to shoulder with my Blood, and with Kilkry-Haig, from the start instead of caring only for the southward spread of his shadow, this would not have happened.’
He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. The Crafts were greater powers here than in his own lands, more woven into the fabric of rule and influence. Although the Woollers were not known as great friends of the Haig Blood, it was still rash to speak ill of the Thane of Thanes without knowing when and to whom the words might be repeated.
The Secretary looked at Taim with an indecipherable expression on his face.
‘Is it true,’ he asked softly, ‘that the High Thane had Igryn blinded?’
‘It’s true. The Mercy of Kings.’
The Secretary nodded slowly. After a few moments’ thought he drew a deep breath.
‘Gryvan oc Haig stands shoulder to shoulder with none save the Shadowhand. Those two make for poor friends in times such as these. Armies have been summoned, yet there are no great companies on the road. Why is that, do you think? I heard tell of a man—a captain of Haig archers—whose tongue ran free in a tavern near here. He claimed there will be no move north until your Blood is ruined. There will be no more Lannis Thanes in the Glas valley, he said.’ The Secretary shook himself and glanced around. ‘Mere rumour, I am sure, but not one you heard in these precincts.’
‘No,’ murmured Taim.
‘I should return to my business. I have a meeting with the master of our almshouse. The work of the Craft never ceases.’ ‘No,’ said Taim again. ‘Thank you. I am grateful.’
Taim walked back through the streets of Dun Aygll, lost in thought. When he marched south all those months ago, he had promised his wife he would return to her. Now he was doing so, but perhaps too late for her; for all of them. He feared that he was taking his men back to die upon the fields of the Glas valley. It was, at least, a more fitting place to find the Sleeping Dark than the mountains of Dargannan-Haig where they had left so many of their comrades, and the Bloods of the Black Road were a foe worth the sacrifice. But if there was truth in the words of the Craft Secretary—and they were of a piece with Taim’s instinct—there must be, somehow, a reckoning with the Haig Blood too. Taim had the clear sense that whatever happened in the weeks and months to come, he would never again know peace or rest. What time was left to him would be bloody.
The dyn hane swallowed them. As the willows crowded in, daylight was replaced by gloom and shadow. Orisian struggled on, lost in a daze of disbelief. He wanted to cry out, to stop them and turn them back. This was all wrong. It was not supposed to be like this. But Rothe was close on his heels, and they could not stop. And it was, after all, like this.
Thin branches lashed at his face. The trees pressed close. There was no path through this place of the dead. Orisian felt something on his cheek and flicked at what he thought must be an insect, only to find that it was a tear.
They came abruptly out from amongst the trees. A sheer rock face rose before them. Close by, Sarn’s Leap plummeted from the heights into a churning pool, throwing out a mist of spray. Orisian looked up, and felt the cold touch of a thousand water droplets on his skin.
‘We should go back,’ he whispered. Only Rothe heard him above the sound of the waterfall.
‘It was a grave wound, Orisian. There was nothing we could do. Perhaps they will tend to him.’
Orisian stared at the cliff. It was a seamed and cracked wall of stone. Mosses and ferns clustered by the cascade, immersed in its saturated breath. Elsewhere, the cliff was naked of life. Boulders were jumbled at its foot.
Ess’yr had started to climb, following a crevice that angled up beside the falls. Varryn went after, gesturing for the humans to follow.
Orisian and Anyara hesitated, but Rothe said softly, ‘We must go,’ he said. ‘We cannot go back now. We’ve no choice but to trust them in this.’
In the moment his foot left the earth, Orisian felt himself to be irretrievably alone. He was as small as a beetle scaling the wall of a tower. His mind was filled by the texture of the rock beneath his fingertips and by the howl of Sarn’s Leap. To fall would be nothing; the world had already receded from him. There were surfaces only—the thin skin of rock to which he clung, the transparent roof of the sky above—and nothing at all beyond them, save a void. He could hear its inchoate voice inside his head. Perhaps it was the thunder of the falls, perhaps not.
The crevice petered out. He looked up, and saw Varryn and Ess’yr climbing on above him. He followed, for little more reason than that his body kept moving. The Kyrinin reached a perilously thin ledge that fractured the cliff face. As Orisian hauled himself on to it, they were shuffling themselves sideways, drawing ever closer to the plummeting mass of water. The mist of the falls swirled about them and they disappeared from sight. He stood up to go after them and for the first time looked over his shoulder. He saw the canopy of the dyn bane stretching out down the gorge. The waterfall cast clouds of vapour over the treetops, glistening in the autumnal sun. His body swayed as the space sucked at his back. He edged along in the footsteps of the Kyrinin.
Ess’yr and Varryn had entered a narrow, vertical fissure in the rock, half again as high as a man. The Snow River was crashing down through the air within an arm’s length.
‘Come,’ a voice beckoned from within, and Orisian squeezed through into the cliff face.
The Kyrinin were waiting inside. In the half-light, Orisian found a tight, oppressive chamber. A flight of steps vanished up into the mountain. A malign breath seemed to descend out of the gullet of the stairway. It laid clammy fingers on his face and sent damp tendrils down into his lungs. The smell of a hundred stagnant years pressed upon him.
Anyara and Rothe came in. Varryn led the way up the stairs. Ess’yr followed, and then Orisian. He discovered what true darkness meant. They went in single file. Orisian fell into a numb rhythm, the distant weariness of his legs growing but not troubling him. He could tell that the stone beneath his feet had been worn smooth. The tread of centuries had bowed the steps. He could hear the others before and behind him. In the lightless tunnel, as black as a distillation of night, patterns began to swirl and writhe inside his eyes. He could not catch them, for they faded when he tried to turn his gaze upon them. And in his strange, lost state of mind, he wondered if it was the Sleeping Dark he would see if he could hold one of these fleeting glimpses. Perhaps that was what lay beyond the wall he was burrowing through. His stride faltered. He almost tripped, and came to a halt.