It cut through to Kanin, piercing the clouds that surrounded him. He struck Aeglyss in the face with the back of his hand, and all of his resurgent fury went into the blow. The na’kyrim reeled against the butchered corpse of the cow, and tumbled away to the side. He fell heavily and rolled on to his back. His hands were half-raised to ward off further blows. There was blood on his lips.
Kanin went for his sword.
‘Lord,’ said Igris softly but insistently.
Kanin looked up and saw the thickening of the White Owl crowd around them. Silently, Kyrinin were edging forwards. Half of them bore freshly inscribed tattoos upon their faces, blood and dye mixing on their pale skin.
‘No need to test the woodwights on this, perhaps,’ suggested Shraeve. ‘We do not know how they regard him.’ The Inkallim remained placidly seated on her horse, her hands resting lightly on the animal’s neck. She gave Kanin a slight, wry smile.
The Bloodheir released his sword with a curse. He straightened his back and shouted across the yard.
‘I am done with this one. He is nothing to me now, and nor are any promises he made to you. If he made them in my name, he lied.’
At his feet, Aeglyss was groaning, garbled words flailing in his bloodied mouth.
‘He is a dog,’ Kanin shouted. ‘Less than a dog. Do you understand? Who here speaks my tongue? Who speaks for you?’
The Kyrinin did not stir. Their grey eyes were fixed on Kanin, but none responded. There was no flicker of understanding or interest, just those passive, inhuman eyes.
‘Dogs!’ Kanin cried and swept up into his saddle.
They returned to Anduran in silence. Heavy skies weighed down upon the earth. Kanin could feel the dark mood that had settled over the warriors who accompanied him. He regretted losing his temper as he had, especially over one such as Aeglyss. But the loss of Anyara, and now it seemed of her brother as well, plagued him. And the halfbreed had dared to play with his thoughts... that was intolerable.
At length, against his better judgement, he said to Shraeve, ‘I should have rid myself of him long ago.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said.
Her apparent indifference reignited the embers of his anger briefly.
‘It would not have come to this if your ravens had done their work properly at Kolglas in the first place.’
‘Nor if your fine warriors had managed to escort a young girl from gaol to castle without mishap.’
Kanin caught himself just in time as he made to reply. Whatever momentary release it might provide, trading insults with Shraeve would do little good. He was a Thane’s son, but even that did not put him beyond reach of an Inkallim blade. They had killed more than a few of the powerful over the years. Always in the interest of the creed, of course.
Kanin found Cannek in the stables of Castle Anduran. The Hunt Inkallim had seen fit to install their dogs there. Cannek and two of his comrades were squatting amongst the straw, feeding the great beasts scraps of meat. Kanin had to suppress his instinctive wariness of the creatures. The hounds of the Hunt were almost as ruthlessly trained as the Inkallim themselves were, to track and kill humans. Kanin himself had seen a dozen of the Hunt and their dogs raid a Tarbain village in his family’s lands, in punishment for cattle-thieving. It had been a spectacle to make even the most hardened of warriors uneasy.
Cannek glanced up as the Bloodheir approached. He scratched the thick neck of the nearest dog, working his fingers underneath its collar. The animal had fixed its soulless eyes on Kanin and there was a low rumble in its throat.
‘He means you no harm,’ the Inkallim said.
‘I want to know how the pursuit of the Lannis girl goes,’ Kanin said.
Cannek rose to his feet. His knees cracked disconcertingly as he did so. He brushed straw from his leather trousers.
‘I have not heard anything. But you need not concern yourself. Two of our finest are on the trail. They will not give up so easily as the White Owls did.’
Kanin grunted. ‘I am beginning to mistrust the promises of others regarding the Lannis-Haig Blood,’ he said stiffly.
‘Really. Your discussions in the Kyrinin camp did not go well?’
‘I’m sure Shraeve will give you a detailed account if you ask it of her. Where did the trail go, after the Falls on the Snow?’
Cannek shrugged. He made even that simple movement seem considered and precise. ‘Up and into the Car Criagar. That is all I know, Bloodheir, and more than I need. As I told you, the best of us are following the scent. They will not return until their quarry is dead.’
Two of the dogs suddenly snapped at each other, unleashing a volley of snarls. Their jaws worked with a clattering of teeth. Kanin could not help but take a half-step away.
‘Can I be of any more help to you, Bloodheir?’ Cannek enquired.
Kanin left with a mute shake of his head. He had made a decision, and there was no point in delaying its consequences. He was tired, after so many days of little sleep and constant tension, but he knew he could expect no rest. If Kennet’s offspring made for Koldihrve—and they would surely have to, with Hunt Inkallim on their backs and the White Owls intent on flooding the forests of the Car Criagar with strife—that town was the key. Kanin knew nothing of the place save where it lay—the mouth of the Vale of Tears—and that it was a foul nest of masterless men and woodwights. But it was on the shore, and therefore had boats. It was the only possible way he could see that the Lannis-Haig rats could escape from this trap. Kanin meant to reach it before them.
He knew it was a rash decision, but it felt right in a way few of his decisions had in recent days. Despite all the triumphs since they had marched south, despite the victories at Kolglas, at Grive and Anduran, he felt as if events were spiralling away from him. Aeglyss and his White Owls had certainly spun out of his control, if they had ever been within it; the Inkallim seemed like little more than amused spectators; and all that he and Wain had won still could not be held unless the other Bloods of the Black Road came to their aid.
The one clear and certain thing he could see before him, the only need that he could answer directly, was that there was unfinished business with the family of Croesan oc Lannis-Haig. If he put an end to the Lannis line, nothing that came after could rob him of that. And he would have succeeded where the Inkallim had failed. They, for all their vanity, had let a mere youth slip through their fingers at Kolglas. To be the one who put right that mistake would be a small revenge for their betrayal of the Horin-Gyre Blood at the battle in the Stone Vale all those years ago.
Wain came to him while he was sitting with his captains, making final arrangements for the supplies his company would need. Something in her face made him dismiss the others before she had even spoken. She sat in a chair at his side.
‘Messengers have come,’ she said, looking down at the surface of the table. ‘Tanwrye still holds, but the land between here and there is subdued. They can spare us some of their strength: a hundred horse will be here in a day, twice as many spears in another two or three. Mostly our own, a few of Gyre.’
‘These are good tidings…’
‘The messengers brought other news,’ she cut him off. ‘Our father . . . died on the first day of winter.’
Kanin bowed his head. He had known this moment must come—had already said his farewells—but still it caught him a fraction unprepared, as was in the nature of such things. It would be a long time now before he saw his father again. The world itself would have to die and be reborn before that could happen.
And would it be wrong to see a sign in this? The lives of men and women were nothing in the vast movement of fate, yet there could be pattern—meaning—in their interplay. Nothing happened by chance. Word of his father’s death came on the eve of a journey to finish what was started in his name. There might be significance in that.