Bloodheir

VI

The woman was holding something up to Orisian, but he could not quite see what it was. There were scabs on her face, whether from injury or disease he could not tell.

“Please take it, sire,” the woman said. “It was my husband’s. He died well, at Grive.”

She was seated, with dozens of others, at the side of the road. It was a short street, in Kolkyre’s northern quarter, lined with shacks and crude shelters. It had been largely uninhabited until recently, the refuge of just a few impoverished or sickly souls. Now new huts were springing up, made out of scavenged wood. Old, abandoned hovels were once again occupied. The recent arrivals had come out of the Glas valley. They were Orisian’s people, fleeing all the way here to Kolkyre after the fall of Anduran and Glasbridge. Only those without friends or family, without the coin to buy better shelter, without a strong will or resilient hope, ended here on this squalid street.

Orisian took what the woman offered him. It was a simple leather skullcap. He pressed it back into her hands.

“Keep it. Please. I’m sure your husband would rather you kept it.”

He walked on, with Taim and Rothe on either side of him.

“How many are there?” he asked Taim quietly.

“A hundred or so here. There’re others who have found themselves a better place in the city. These are the lost, the ones who escaped with nothing but the clothes on their backs.”

A grubby little boy ran up and touched Orisian’s leg before retreating back to his young mother’s side.

“They’ve come a long way,” Orisian murmured.

Taim nodded. “There’s hundreds more at Kolglas, by all accounts, but there’s not enough food there. And people are afraid the Black Road will take it, of course, so some have moved on to Stryne, to Hommen, even as far as here.”

“They’re getting food, aren’t they?”

“Oh, yes. Lheanor’s paid for some of it. He even sent woodworkers down here to help with the huts. The Woollers have been sending sacks of bread. They won’t starve, Orisian.”

“The only thing they need is their homes back,” Rothe said. His anger was taut, a muscle beneath the skin of his words.

Up ahead, an old man was brandishing a stick at an overeager stray dog that nosed the sack beside him. The dog shrank back, baring its teeth. A younger man nearby threw a stone at it.

“Let’s get back,” Orisian said. “We’re doing no good marching up and down in front of these people.”

Rothe grunted. “I’d not be so sure about that. It won’t feed them, but the sight of you might warm their hearts a little.”

They walked back through busy, noisy streets, heading for the Tower of Thrones. Kolkyre’s northern parts were where most of the artisans lived and their houses, workshops and stalls were everywhere. Little wagons full of timber blocked the narrow roads; beggars and hawkers harassed every passer-by.

Anger was seldom far away for Orisian, these last few days. Everything he saw, everything he heard, was a little coloured by it. He struggled to distinguish between the anger born of what the Horin-Gyre Blood had done to his people and that summoned up by the hostile, patronising games he feared Aewult and the Shadowhand were playing with him. He vaguely sensed, but could not disentangle, another strand that was turned inward: anger at what he feared might prove to be his own shortcomings and inadequacies; his inability to live up to the demands placed upon him.

“We serve no purpose, lingering here while half our Blood is unhomed and the other half is starving,” he muttered.

A man pushing a barrow of charcoal came up behind them, shouting that they should move aside and let him pass. Rothe stopped and turned, glowering. The man almost slipped, hauling his barrow to a halt before it ran into the shieldman’s shins. He spat out some harsh words, but bit his lip when Rothe took a step nearer to him.

Orisian pulled Rothe aside. “Let him pass. It’s his street more than it’s ours.”

The man ran by them, weaving his way on through the crowds. There was an angry cry of pain as he scraped the barrow along someone’s calf.

As they stood there for that moment, withdrawn to the edge of the street, Taim Narran surreptitiously touched Orisian’s arm.

“There are two men, sire, some way behind us. Big. Leather jerkins. Do you see them?”

Orisian looked back the way they had come. He saw those that Taim meant easily enough: two burly men engaged in earnest conversation with a woman selling tallow candles through a window in the front of her house. He nodded.

“I saw at least one of them earlier, when we left the Tower,” Taim said quietly. “Come, let’s walk on.”

He guided Orisian back into the flow of townsfolk. Rothe fell a few paces behind, shadowing the Thane and his Captain. Orisian noticed the shieldman carefully freeing his injured arm from its sling.

“They’ve followed us all the way up this street,” Taim said. “Paused when we paused.” He flicked a glance sideways, at a stall festooned with simple pots and jugs and beakers. “Moving again, now that we are.”

“What do you suggest?” Orisian asked.

“Well, I may be seeing something that’s not there. Even if I’m right, chances are they mean no immediate harm. In either case, we could ignore them for now; worry about it once you’re safely back in the Tower.”

Orisian sidestepped a little pile of horse dung. A mob of seagulls swept screaming low over the street in pursuit of one of their number that had snatched up some scrap of food. In the Car Criagar, and in distant Koldihrve, Orisian had thought that some kind of safety awaited them if only they could take to the sea and slip away to the south. Now, at the end of that journey, he found only more struggles, more uncertainties. Instead of becoming clearer, answers receded from him. And they would keep receding, he suspected, unless and until he found a way to chart his own course.

“Could they be Lheanor’s men, watching over us?” he asked Taim.

“Unlikely, sire.” The warrior sniffed. “He’d not set such a watch on you without letting us know, would he?”

“Then I want to know who they are, and what they intend. Now, before we get back to the Tower.”

Taim beckoned Rothe without breaking his stride. The shieldman trotted up to join them.

“We’ll turn along the next side street,” Taim said quite casually. “You and Orisian press on down it, in clear sight. I’ll hang back. Give the hounds sniffing our heels a surprise.”

They took the next turning on their right. It was a narrow lane, though still busy. Some women and girls were hanging freshly dyed sheets out to dry. A pair of men were arguing over a cockerel that one of them held in his hands. Half a dozen children were throwing pebbles up onto a shingled roof, laughing at the rattle. Rothe led Orisian on at a slightly faster pace. Taim turned aside and Orisian lost sight of him.

“Best not to look back,” Rothe muttered. “Don’t want to give them any sign of what’s happening.”

“Can Taim manage two?”

“Oh, you needn’t worry about that. They’ll be sorry they woke up this morning.”

Only a moment or two later, a flurry of footfalls, shouts and dull impacts burst out behind them and both Orisian and Rothe spun around. Taim was kneeling on one man who lay face down in the roadway. The second was hobbling off as fast as what looked to be a thoroughly deadened leg would allow.

The cockerel had escaped its owner in the excitement, and ran chattering off down the lane. Both the men who had been arguing over it set off in pursuit. The little gang of children had dropped their pebbles and were pointing excitedly at Taim and his captive.

“Could only hold one, sire,” Taim said apologetically as Orisian and Rothe walked up to him.

“One’s enough,” Rothe said with feeling. “Let’s turn him over.”

They rolled the dazed man onto his back and Taim rested a swordpoint on his chest, pinning him to the cobbles. Rothe leaned down.

“Who are you, then?” he asked, and even to Orisian his voice sounded cold and threatening.

The prone man turned his face aside and maintained a stubborn silence. Taim tapped the man’s chest with his blade.

“Now is not the moment for bravery. We are none of us here renowned for our patience. You’ll come to no harm, if you but share your purpose with us.”

“I’d no purpose but to be walking with a friend,” the man spat a little indistinctly. He still seemed somewhat stunned, either by the unexpected course of events or by his fall to the ground. “We’d not thought to find bandits here. You’ve no right to set upon us.”

Rothe straightened. He and Taim glanced at one another and Orisian saw some kind of understanding pass between the two warriors. Taim sheathed his sword. He kicked the man, without any great force, in the ribs.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“I’ll not give my name to thieves.”

Orisian caught a certain texture in the man’s voice, an accent that was almost, but not quite, familiar.

“Stand up,” Taim said wearily. He looked to Orisian. “We may as well send him on his way, sire. He’ll tell us nothing beyond what he’s already done just by opening his mouth.”

Orisian nodded.

“Tell your master we don’t like to be followed,” Taim called after the man as he hurried, rather stiffly, away.

“Haig?” Orisian asked quietly.

Taim and Rothe both nodded.

“Nar Vay, I think,” Taim said. “Somewhere close to the border with Ayth. But Haig, yes.”

“Aewult, then. Or Mordyn Jerain.”

“Or the Steward,” Rothe suggested glumly. “Any one of them. All of them. It hardly matters which.”

“No,” agreed Orisian. “It doesn’t. How many men have you got here, Taim? Seven hundred?”

If the warrior was surprised at the question, he hid it well. “About that. A handful under, perhaps, that are truly fit to march. If marching is what’s in your thoughts, that is.”

“So long as we’re here, we’re guests,” Orisian said. “Beggars. Playthings for Haig. They mean to keep us here, rotting, while they settle affairs in the Glas valley. And what happens then? Aewult and the Shadowhand will make all our decisions for us if we let them.”

“They wouldn’t dare,” Rothe growled.

“They might,” Taim said.

“I just don’t want to fail those people, homeless on that street back there. Or Croesan,” Orisian sighed. Or my father, he could have added. Or Fariel, even. “Aewult might not be as clever as he thinks he is. He might not find it as easy as he expects to march all the way up to the Stone Vale. There are things…”

He left the thought unfinished. He had said nothing to anyone about what he and Anyara had witnessed in Yvane’s chamber. In truth, they had seen nothing. Only felt, and heard what Yvane told them. He did not doubt that Aeglyss was a danger; others might not be so willing to trust the words of na’kyrim. He shrugged.

“It feels… if we were in Kolglas, we’d be on our own ground, if nothing else. Nobody could tell us what to do then. Nobody would find it so easy to set their spies on us.”

“Aewult will be… upset, if we march without his approval,” Taim observed.

“Can you move quickly, or quietly, enough to ensure he’s got no chance of stopping you? That’s all that would matter. Once you’re on the road north, the way is clear.”

Taim smiled. “I should think so. Certainly, I should imagine, with a little help from Lheanor and his people.”

“I’ll talk to the Thane,” Orisian said. It eased him a little to make a choice, to set his feet on a path of his own choosing. Here in Kolkyre, he felt impotent and ringed about with uncertainty. Could it really be as easy as simply deciding to walk away from it?

“And another thing,” he said. “I want Anyara to have a shieldman.”

“A shieldman?” Taim echoed.

“The best man you have.”

“That’s… not usually done, sire.”

“If it was, I wouldn’t have to ask, would I? She’s faced more danger than I have since Winterbirth. And she’s all the family I have left. I want her to have a shieldman.”

Taim bowed his head a fraction. “I will find someone.”

Rothe took an almost sheepish step forwards, scratching absently at his beard in the way he always did when uncomfortable.

“You should have another shieldman of your own, Orisian,” he said. “Several, in fact. We’ve been remiss not to take care of it sooner. Now you’re Thane, and I’m broken-winged…”

“No,” said Orisian, too quickly perhaps. “No more.”

Rothe looked dismayed. Orisian touched him on his good arm.

“I don’t need anyone but you, Rothe. You’ve served me better than my father could ever have asked of you. I won’t have anyone else.. ”

He did not finish the thought. It might not be fitting, he imagined, for a Thane to show too much distaste for the sacrifice of others in his name. Already, on that torch-lit night of Winterbirth in Castle Kolglas, he had seen Kylane, his second shieldman, die in his defence: as hurtful a death, in some ways, as any there had been. Rothe had long ago made the promise to do likewise if needed, and Orisian would not shame him by trying to undo that, but he would permit no one else to shoulder the burden afresh.

He could see in Rothe’s softening, sad expression that he did not need to explain his reasons. The man had been with him long enough to know something of how his mind worked.

“It’s unwise,” Taim Narran said. “However worthy Rothe might be, he cannot guard you always. You are Thane, as he says. You must allow us to see to your protection as…”

“No,” Orisian insisted. He turned away. “Let’s get back.”

“It’s all right, Taim,” he heard Rothe saying with strained levity behind him. “These wounds are only grazes to the likes of me. I’ll have shaken them off in another few days, then you’ll see the Thane is still well-guarded.”

As they drew near to the barracks, one of Taim’s men, looking a little harassed, intercepted them.

“There was a messenger searching for you, sire. The, er, the guest in the Tower of Thrones wanted to see you. Urgent, I think.”

“Yvane, you mean? Is that who you mean?” The guard nodded, and Orisian frowned. “Well, call her by her name, then. There’s no one to eavesdrop on us here.”

A faint blush of colour spread in the guard’s cheeks. Orisian at once regretted his sharp tone.

“What was it about, then?” he asked, calm this time. “I’ve other things to be doing at the moment.”

“Don’t know, sire. Seemed pressing, though. The messenger was.. anxious.”

“All right,” Orisian said, struggling to conceal his disappointment. What he wanted to do now was see Ess’yr, and Varryn too. He wanted to see their pleasure at being given the chance to leave this place; reassure himself that Ess’yr — that both of them — would come with him. “Taim, we’ll talk more later. Rothe and I will see what Yvane wants.”

The na’kyrim was alone in her chambers, standing with her back to the window and her hands clasped behind her. As he entered, Orisian blinked. Some shadow or mote had passed across his right eye for a moment: a momentary blurring of his vision as if some invisible fingertip had pressed gently against his eyeball. It cleared.

“I don’t have much time, Yvane. There’s a lot happening now.”

“Just you, Orisian, if you’d be so kind. This is only for you.”

Orisian nodded to Rothe, whose indignation was undisguised. The shieldman opened his mouth to protest.

“It’s fine, Rothe,” Orisian said. “This won’t take long.”

Rothe went, closing the door behind him a little more firmly than was necessary.

“I don’t think there’s anything you could say to me that should be kept from Rothe,” Orisian said, turning back to Yvane. Again, that irritation in his eye like the scratch of a wayward dust grain. He twitched his head, as if that might clear it. “He deserves better from you than…”

“It’s my privacy that Yvane protects, not her own.”

Orisian jumped sideways, almost exclaiming in surprise. Seated there, in a chair that a moment ago had been empty, was a na’kyrim: a short young man with his hands resting on his knees. His voice was soft, fluty.

“Don’t worry,” said Yvane before Orisian could speak, or call for Rothe. “He’s no threat. This is Bannain, from Highfast.”

Orisian took another step backwards, still unsettled. The man, he was sure, had not been there when he entered the room.

“How…” he began, but was not sure how to complete the question.

Bannain smiled in a detached kind of way, and flourished his long fingers.

“Mere trickery. I apologise if I startled you.”

“Of course you startled me,” snapped Orisian.

Yvane laid a hand on his arm, all the while frowning at Bannain as if in reprimand.

“He might be a little full of himself, Orisian, but he means no harm. Bannain has the knack of using the Shared in a very potent, but very narrow” — she emphasised that word — “way. It makes him well suited to certain tasks. He’s been serving the Elect as a messenger for quite a few years.”

Bannain folded his arms across his chest and stretched his legs out, resting the heel of one foot on the toe of the other.

“It’s nothing too sinister,” Yvane continued. “He just makes the eye… slide over him, if you like. He can only keep it up for a few moments, so he’s not as clever as he thinks he is.”

The younger na’kyrim smiled again. “All true. Again, I am sorry. I only wished to avoid the attention of anyone who came with you. Normally, none but Lheanor and one or two others know of my visits to Kolkyre. Of course, once I found out Yvane was here with news from the north I had to come and speak with her; and she in turn insists I tell my story to you as well.”

“Your story?” Orisian asked warily.

“Bannain was sent here by the Council at Highfast to warn Lheanor,” Yvane explained. “I think you might want to hear what he has to say.”

“All right, then. Tell me.” Orisian could not quite shed his caution and mistrust. If Yvane said this man was safe, and had something useful to say, he believed her, but it did not mean he had to like Bannain’s manner.

“Hard to explain, to one who is not na’kyrim,” the young man said, “but Yvane claims you’re more likely to grasp it than most. She’s told you already about the canker that’s appeared in the Shared?” His nose wrinkled in distaste as he asked the question.

“She has. And about its cause.”

“Its cause. Indeed. You’ve met this man Aeglyss, I’m told.”

“Not met. I’ve seen him, once. My sister was unlucky enough to spend more time in his company than me.”

“Unlucky indeed, I imagine. We have one at Highfast — a woman from Dyrkyrnon — who knows Aeglyss of old, from when he was young. She has nothing good to say of him. She is certain that he is the source of the disturbances that now torment all waking na’kyrim. I gather Yvane here shares that certainty. But the real question is how did this happen? What does it signify?”

Bannain looked from Orisian to Yvane, his eyebrows raised like a tale-teller teasing his audience.

“Don’t overdo it,” growled Yvane. “Orisian is as much a Thane as Lheanor is, don’t forget.”

Bannain gave no sign of being abashed by the scolding.

“The Council at Highfast has given much thought to these matters,” he continued, now setting his elbows on the arms of the chair and making a tent of his fingers. “This is as close to understanding as they have come: on that night, the night none of us — none amongst the waking — is likely to forget, something happened to this Aeglyss. Something that broke the barriers between his mind and the Shared.

“Precisely what it was hardly matters. The nub of things is this: Aeglyss has become something… new. Or very old, depending on how you look at it. There’s been no na’kyrim who could cast such a long shadow in hundreds of years. The Shared has poured into him — and a little of him has leaked back into the Shared. He may be capable of remarkable things now.

“And thus the essence of the message Cerys had me bring to Lheanor: be careful. Be cautious. However things may seem to be now, it is the judgement of Highfast that the armies of the Black Road are not the most dangerous thing in the Glas valley.”

Orisian stared at the young na’kyrim. “That much we already suspected.”

“There’s a little more,” Yvane said, and looked pointedly at Bannain.

“A little, yes,” he agreed. “Harder, though, to read its significance. There is a man at Highfast we call the Dreamer. He sleeps and speaks, now and again, of the currents flowing in the deepest Shared. Little of what he has said makes any sense, but some of it, some of it is very dark. It seems that the changes in the Shared have caught the attention of those best left undisturbed. The Dreamer whispers that the Anain are stirring.”

“Well, that…” Orisian shut his mouth. He had no idea what he could sensibly say in response. The Anain — the race unlike any other, implacable, unknowable — were as far beyond his experience as anything could possibly be. To him, they were little more than creatures out of strange, usually fearful, stories; hardly more real than the wolfenkind who had disappeared from the world over a thousand years ago. He knew, having seen it with his own eyes and heard of it from Ess’yr, that they were more than that to the Kyrinin, but the knowledge had done nothing to blunt his own ignorance.

“The Anain have not roused themselves in a long time,” Yvane murmured. “Not since they raised the Deep Rove, in fact: better than three centuries. All that time, they’ve taken no interest in what’s happening. If they’ve shaken off their indifference now, there will be trouble.”

Orisian raised his hands in exasperated helplessness.

“Not trouble I can do anything about, though.” He looked questioningly first at Yvane and then at Bannain. “Aeglyss, the Shared: these things are far enough beyond my grasp already. But the Anain?”

“Beyond the grasp of any of us,” conceded Bannain.

“But you do understand things that others might not,” said Yvane, that blunt insistence Orisian knew so well creeping into her voice. “Your mind is a little less closed against all of this than most. You had Inurian at your side for all those years. You were there — you saw what happened — when I reached out to Aeglyss. This… this is moving beyond the understanding of… Huanin memories are too short. You all think you remember the likes of Minon or Orlane Kingbinder, but it’s been centuries. You’ve all grown too used to knowing only na’kyrim like me and Bannain, with our silly, secret little talents. And the Anain: a hundred thousand swords would not suffice if they chose to wake from their slumber.”

“I see that,” said Orisian. “I do.” And he did, at least in part. All those hours he had spent with Inurian, all his fascination for the Kyrinin, the days he had spent in a Fox vo’an and the anhyne he had seen there: these things told him that there was more to the world than the machinations of Thanes, strengths other than those that resided in swords and spears.

“Lheanor said the same thing,” Bannain said. “He listened to what I had to tell him, and nodded, and said that he understood.” The na’kyrim smiled ruefully and let his head tip to one side. “But he didn’t really. He can’t truly see how furious the coming storm might be. How could he? How could anyone but we na’kyrim? Aeglyss is becoming a fever in the Shared. And the Shared is… it is the thought of which we are all the expression. Huanin, Kyrinin, na’kyrim: all of us.”

“Come to Highfast,” Yvane said abruptly to Orisian. “Hammarn and I will be leaving tomorrow with Bannain. Come and talk to the people there.” She glanced at Bannain. “The Council of Highfast is not famous for stirring itself in aid of others, but they might. They might, if they believed you worthy of that aid.”

Orisian looked at her, and as he met her sharp, grey eyes he could have been looking into the face of Inurian: Inurian, who in the last few years had been the one person he had always felt he could trust and be certain of. Though Yvane was far less gentle and caring than Inurian had been, and Orisian had known her for only a matter of weeks, he did trust her. She made a great show of her indifference to the concerns of everyone else, but there were signs, now and again, that that was more out of choice and habit than nature.

“I’m going to Kolglas,” Orisian murmured. Highfast: a secret place, where Inurian had lived before he came to Kolglas. A year ago, he would have leaped at the chance to visit such a mysterious place, to make that kind of contact with Inurian’s history. Now, nothing was so simple.

“There’s one more thing you should know before you decide,” Yvane said. She nodded to Bannain. He leaned forwards a little.

“A surprise to me. I thought nothing of it, until talking with Yvane today. This woman — Eshenna — at Highfast, who knew Aeglyss all those years ago. She has mentioned someone else, also from Dyrkyrnon; has told the Council that there is some… some bond between Aeglyss and a woman named K’rina.”

Orisian recognised the name instantly. It was the name that Yvane had teased out of the Shared, when she had struggled with Aeglyss.

“I don’t know whether it has any significance, but Eshenna, just the day before I left Highfast, was claiming that this woman K’rina was… moving. And rumours have reached us — faint, unreliable little rumours — that there are White Owl bands on the move too, in the western reaches of Anlane,” said Bannain.

Orisian looked to Yvane. She shrugged and raised her eyebrows.

“I don’t know. I’ve dug up as many answers as I can. Something’s happening. What, I can’t say. Perhaps Highfast can tell us.”

“Is there a road from Highfast to Kolglas?” Orisian asked Bannain.

Bannain pursed his lips. “To call it a road might be to elevate it beyond its true worth,” he said. “But there’s a track — a good one — to Hent, and thence to the coast road at Hommen.”

Orisian nodded. He wondered briefly, as he had done more than once in the last few days, what Croesan or Naradin, Kennet or Fariel would do. Any of those who should have been Thane before him, but for the blind savagery of chance and misfortune. Inurian would have chided him for letting such distractions intrude, he knew. Anyara might too, if she could see what thoughts murmured inside his head. And they were right enough. For good or ill, the decisions were his to make. Nothing, and no one, could relieve him of that.

The air inside the warehouse was laden with aromas: spice and fur, oil and timber all ran together to make the darkness heavy with strangeness. The roof timbers creaked in the night wind. Somewhere up there, in the shadowed intricacies of the beams and planking, there was the chatter of rats’ claws.

Ammen Sharp cupped his hand around the tiny flame of a candle. The two men on watch outside had warned him not to make any light in here, fearful of a fire that could consume the whole building, but it was too dark and unfamiliar a place for him without it. He crept amongst the great towers of boxes and bundles, exploring the unearthly landscape of this treasure house. There were clay jars almost as tall as he was, their stoppers sealed with wax; crates stood one on top of another like cliffs; long rolls of fabric were piled up as if the trees of some soft forest had been harvested; strange powders and dusts covered the floor, releasing bursts of scent when his feet disturbed them.

For all his nervousness, Ammen found it exciting. Here, it seemed to him, was all the world, all its most distant and marvellous lands, collected together in this great stone ship of a building. Hidden away in here might be pots of carmine Nar Vay dyes, cloths from far-off Adravane, whale oils from the wave-lashed Bone Isles.

He clambered up over a mound of what he guessed were seal pelts, and onto a stack of crates. He squeezed into a space between two of them. He felt more secure now that he had a corner to call his own, hidden from view, and blew out the candle. He listened to the rats running, the faint knocking of anchored boats outside at the quay, the rattle of a loose shingle somewhere in the roof far above. He rested against one of the crates and imagined what it would be like on the road with his father, and in Skeil Anchor. People would know Ochan the Cook, he was sure. In the roadside inns and the fishing villages they would know Ochan, and they would see Ammen at his side and soon know him too.

A scraping sound disturbed his reverie. He shifted onto his knees and peered out over the bare expanse of stone floor towards the front of the warehouse. The little door by which the guards outside had let him in earlier was open once more, admitting a shaft of light from their lanterns. A thickset figure with a staff and a huge bag slung over his shoulders was stepping in. It was his father.

“Ammen,” hissed Ochan. “Ammen Sharp. Where are you, boy?”

“Here,” Ammen called, rising up and waving even though he was unsure whether his father would be able to see him.

“Quiet!” Ochan snapped. “Keep your voice down, you idiot.”

The door closed behind him, and the warehouse’s secretive gloom was restored. Ammen heard his father curse, and there was a thump as he dropped his bag to the ground.

“I can’t see a thing in here,” Ochan the Cook complained. “Have you got no light, boy?”

“They told me not to, but yes, I’ve got candles. I’ll light one.” He ducked down again, scrabbling about in search of the candle he had put out earlier. A splinter stabbed into one of his fingers and he gave a soft yelp.

“Oh, don’t bother,” Ochan muttered down below. “I’ll get a lantern from the watchmen.”

There was shouting then, and a sudden clatter of running feet.

Ammen sprang to his feet, but his father snapped, “Stay down, boy,” and he did as he was told.

He heard the door smash open once more, saw sudden bursts of torchlight rushing across the walls, careening through the roof beams, as men came in out of the night.

“What do you want here, you little…” he heard Ochan rasping.

“Hold your tongue,” came Urik’s sharp, agitated voice.

Ammen Sharp could not resist the temptation to poke his head around the edge of his sheltering crate. To his horror, he saw his father facing half a dozen men, the squat shape of Urik the Wardcaptain to the fore. They all carried the iron-banded cudgels of the Guard; three of them held torches, the flames stretching out and crackling in the wind from the open door. Wild shadows spun crazily around the warehouse.

“I’ll hold your tongue for you, if you come any closer,” Ochan said, and Ammen clearly heard the danger, the threat in the words.

“Be still,” cried Urik, raising his cudgel.

He sounded almost frantic to Ammen, on the verge of panic. This could not be what the Wardcaptain had wanted. He was surely too afraid of his own corruption being exposed to willingly allow Ochan to be cornered like this. Something must have gone wrong, Ammen thought as a cold, fearful anticipation ran through him.

“You’ve been followed half the day, Ochan Lyre,” Urik was saying. “Don’t think you can escape now.”

“Escape? Escape?” Ochan’s voice was rising, his anger with it. “And do they know about you, these thugs you’ve brought with you? Do they know-”

Urik howled and rushed forwards. Ochan was fast, though. He snapped the tip of his quarterstaff down and landed it square on Urik’s forehead, sending the stocky little man staggering. Had it only been the two of them there in the warehouse, there would have been no doubt about the victor. But Urik was not alone. The other Guardsmen closed in on Ochan at once, cudgels flailing.

A cry lodged frozen in Ammen’s throat as he watched the blows rain down. He wanted to leap out of his hiding place and fly to his father’s aid, but his legs were locked as if his knees had rusted in place.

Ochan had gone down on his hands and knees. Urik stamped up to him, blood running in rivulets down his face.

“You bled me!” the Wardcaptain screeched. “You bled me!”

He hit Ochan once, hard, on the back of his head with his heavy iron-clad club. Ammen saw his father fall to the ground and knew in that instant, from the leaden slackness of his limbs, the wet limpness with which his head smacked onto the stone, that Ochan the Cook was dead.

The other Guardsmen restrained Urik, who was still shouting furiously. Ammen shrank back, trembling, into his little dark corner. He closed his eyes, held his hands to his face, pressing down on his mouth and the moans that were rising towards it. Lights were dancing inside his eyelids.

“Drag the body out,” he heard someone say far, far away. “We’ll get a wagon to take it.”

And then, soon, they were gone and the door had closed behind them. And Ammen Sharp was alone with the dark, and his horror.