‘How long to get to Koldihrve?’ he asked her. It was hard work, fighting through the deepening snow, and he was out of breath, but the relentless silence of the mountains had begun to seem oppressive to him.
‘Not long,’ the na’kyrim said.
‘That’s a Kyrinin answer,’ Orisian observed.
‘Where is it you want to go, anyway? Not Koldihrve, I mean, but after that. What are you going to do?’
‘Go to Glasbridge, or to Kolglas, if we can find the boat we need at Koldihrve. I have to fight the Black Road ; restore my Blood. I have had enough of running, of hiding,’ Orisian said. And of losing people, he thought.
‘Be careful not to dress revenge in finer clothes than it deserves. You can’t always get back what’s gone. I wouldn’t try to, if I was you; disappointment can do strange things to people.’
‘You don’t understand. The Black Road has destroyed my home, my family. They’ve taken our lands. I’m bound by oath to defend my Blood against its enemies.’
‘Who is it you think is watching you?’ said Yvane irritably. ‘There’re no gods now, if there ever were, so they’ll not be your judges. Is it the dead? Better to leave that to the Kyrinin. What will you do when you’ve killed all of those who killed your dead? Sit back and wait for your own victims’ children to arrive, knife in hand, at your bedside one night? Blood for blood, life for life down through all the ages. That’s a kind future you’re planning for yourself and your kin. Think how much happier the world might be if people sought approval for what they do from their children instead of their ancestors.’
‘What would you have me do?’ demanded Orisian. ‘Run away? Hide in a cave somewhere?’ He allowed anger to colour his voice.
‘In truth,’ sighed Yvane, ‘I don’t much care. All your Thanes and warlords always think they are the ones making everything happen, making the decisions. As often as not, they’re plain wrong. Life has its own patterns, its chances and fortunes: they trip up great lords just as surely as the commonfolk. Whatever plans you lay, like as not they’ll twist and turn in your hands. Just be sure why you do what you do. I long ago wearied of people who spend all their time digging up old hatreds and polishing them up for fresh use. The past’s like a maggot in the heart of the present; it fouls it.’
Orisian looked down, watched his feet sweeping through the snow for a few strides.
‘It’s not revenge I want,’ he said. He had tasted a little of vengeance, when that Tarbain’s blood had splashed out over his hands. It had not soothed the ache within him, and it had not brought back any of those who had died. It had not even saved the woodcutter’s family. ‘I want ... to end it. It’s the future I want to see changed, not the past. If you can tell me how to stop what’s happening . . . if you can tell me how to stop that without taking up a sword against the Black Road, I’ll listen. But I don’t think you can.
And I know as well as you that nothing will make the dead live again, but that’s not the same as wishing they had not died. How could I not wish that of people I loved?’
Yvane smiled sadly. ‘You couldn’t. No one could ask you to.’ She glanced up at the listless sky. ‘We have to forgive ourselves for all the ways we failed the dead, you know. And forgive them for all the burdens they leave us; all the ways in which they failed us. Especially for dying.’
Orisian felt a tightening in his throat, and had to close his eyes for a moment. They strode on without speaking.
They had been walking for what seemed like hours when Rothe stopped. Orisian followed his shieldman’s gaze and saw why. Above and behind them, on a low ridge they had crossed less than an hour ago, the wind had whipped the snow up into twisting curtains that danced along the crest. Through those veils, a vague figure could be seen. It flickered in and out of sight as the cloud and snow washed around it. Orisian narrowed his eyes. It might have been an outcrop of rock, but no ... it shifted slightly, parted. Up there on the ridge, a tall man was standing with a great hound at his side.
‘It’s the Hunt,’ Rothe murmured. ‘It must be.’
Yvane began striding with greater urgency through the ankle-deep snow.
‘Keep moving,’ she shouted over her shoulder. ‘It’s not far to the tree line. There’s no sense in trying to hide out here.’
They fell in behind her, following a course diagonally down the slope. Rothe drew his sword. Low cloud came across the hillside, enclosing them in a dampening mist. They were alone again, struggling across the snow field in the midst of a grey sky. It was worse, in a way, to know what was behind them but not be able to see their hunters. Their pace picked up a little. The backward glances were more frequent, more urgent, but told them nothing.
‘Have a care, have a care,’ muttered Rothe, as much to himself as to anyone else. The mist deadened his voice.
‘Faster,’ Yvane called out, and stretched her stride. The snow hampered them, clinging to their legs as if it did not want them to leave its domain. Orisian wondered how long they could keep this up. He wanted to run, but knew that would only bring exhaustion. Without thinking about it, he pulled his knife from its sheath.
‘They are on us!’ Ess’yr cried. She and Varryn spun around in the same moment, springing apart and hefting their spears.
‘The cloud’s thinning,’ Rothe said, and in that same moment the beast was there.
Orisian had only half a second to take in what he was seeing: a great hound, massive and wild as a boar. It erupted out of the concealing mists in a flurry of snow. Ess’yr was the closest, and it rushed straight down upon her. She sank a little lower at the hips, her thighs tensing. Varryn made no move to help his sister: he was staring fixedly back up the slope in the direction from which the dog had emerged.
The hound sprang. Ess’yr swayed to one side and flung it aside with the butt of her spear. The animal drove a great furrow through the snow as it slithered on down the slope.
‘Get back,’ Orisian shouted to Anyara.
Rothe took a great bound forwards, seized Anyara’s shoulder and threw her away as the hound rolled to its feet. It was far too agile, too quick, for its size, Orisian thought. Rothe lashed out with his sword. The hound shied away from the blade, gathered itself and leapt for Rothe all in the blink of an eye.
Varryn shouted something in the language of the Fox. Orisian glanced at him, in time to see the Kyrinin duck his head a fraction to avoid a crossbow bolt that flashed out of the misty vapours and as quickly vanished back into them. Varryn dropped his spear and swung his own bow over his shoulder.
Rothe was crying out in rage or pain. He was thrashing on the ground, the hound’s jaw locked on the wrist of his arm. His sword was gone, flung away in the frenzy of shaking and pulling. Anyara was shouting too as she flailed at the dog with her walking staff. The crack of wood on bone said she found her mark more than once, but the beast ignored the blows as if they were gnat bites to a bull. Orisian threw himself across the hound’s back. He felt the immense strength of its neck as it shook its head back and forth, smelled its musty, thick hair. He stabbed it in its ribcage, again and again, until it went limp.
He looked up in a kind of numb surprise, and saw the Hunt Inkallim coming an instant before even the Kyrinin did. The man seemed to solidify out of the clouds, but did so at full speed, flying light-footed through the snow directly for Ess’yr, brandishing a quarterstaff that was bladed at both ends.
A warning began to form on Orisian’s lips but thought and voice could not hope to keep pace with a clash between Kyrinin and Hunt Inkallim. Even taken unawares, Ess’yr found the time to bring her spear up. Without slowing, the Inkallim veered sideways. The point of the spear went across his flank, caught in his deerskin jerkin and snapped him around. He leapt into a spin and his staff came in a huge arc, too quick for the eye to follow. Ess’yr was faster than any human could have been. Still, it was not enough; the blow took her below the sternum, flung her like a child’s doll through the air to thump into the snow a few yards away. She lay still.