*
Ess’yr held out a flake of greasy squirrel meat to Orisian. He took it with a nod of gratitude. They ate in silence, warmed by the little fire, while the stubby twigs of the apple trees creaked in the breeze. Heavy clouds were racing overhead, but down in the orchard, amidst the aged protection of the trees, with the comforting flames, Orisian felt safe. Almost at ease.
Varryn would not join them, of course. He sat cross-legged some little distance away, cleaning the squirrel skin. He scraped away at the hide with his knife in silence, studiously ignoring Orisian and his sister. Ess’yr herself picked flecks of meat from a leg bone with precise finger and thumb. Orisian watched her, but when she looked at him he averted his eyes with a fleeting self-conscious smile.
He was faintly aware of the warriors loitering beyond the trees, at the back of the Guard barracks. Theirs was not an intrusive presence, though. They were sufficiently comforted by the high stone walls that enclosed the orchard, and sufficiently trusting now of these two Kyrinin, to permit Orisian some little privacy. It was a kind of wonder, he recognised, that a Thane of the Lannis Blood could sit alone in such company without his warriors imagining or expecting disaster. Those protective walls sheltered a moment, a scene, drawn from another world, another possibility, less scarred by bitter history. Though Orisian could not forget all that had happened, or the storms that raged beyond this island of calm, he could find here, in this company, a brief span of rest. Of stillness.
He licked his fingers clean. The fire was burning low, sinking into its bed of bright embers. He threw another couple of sticks onto it and listened to them crackle and hiss.
“There might be trouble coming,” he said pensively. Ess’yr said nothing. She was watching him, her eyes set like polished flints in the blue frame of her tattoos. Varryn’s knife continued to rasp rhythmically across the skin.
“We think the Black Road has cut us off from the south,” Orisian went on, unperturbed by their silence. “Taim’s gone to meet them. He wouldn’t let me go with him.”
“You are precious to him,” Ess’yr said impassively.
“Yes.” Orisian flicked a sideways glance in her direction. Part of him longed to reach out to her, and lay a soft hand on her shoulder, her arm. “Yes, perhaps. Though I don’t know that I’m really any safer here than out there. I’m not sure such a thing as safety’s possible any more.”
Ess’yr looked down, returning her attention to the little carcass.
“I would not…” Orisian began, but the sentence collapsed beneath the confused weight of his feelings. He tried again: “I don’t know quite why you have stayed here. I am-I am glad of it, but… If you want to go, you shouldn’t stay because you think you owe me anything.”
He was aware that Varryn had stopped his work and was now staring at him. The cleaning knife rested point down on the warrior’s knee.
“Owe you?” Ess’yr said. “No. Not you.”
“Inurian?”
“It does not matter,” she said. A lie, Orisian thought; or at best a kind of truth his human understanding could not encompass.
“Our enemy makes alliance with your enemy,” Ess’yr placidly continued. “We do not need to seek them out, for they come in search of you. Your fight is our fight.”
“Your brother does not agree,” Orisian said.
Ess’yr ignored him. Varryn returned to his task.
“It is only that I fear what may happen,” Orisian said. His mood was darkening once again, and he half- regretted speaking. If he had said nothing, just sat here and treasured the silent companionship, he might have preserved the illusion of closeness, of intimacy, a little longer. “I see few paths that lead anywhere other than into shadow. I would regret it if you followed me that way when you did not need to. I just wanted you to know that.”
Ess’yr flicked bones into the fire. The trees above shivered in a momentary surge of wind.
“All paths lead to shadow in the end,” Ess’yr said.
“If we live through today,” said Orisian, watching the trembling flames, “and through the next night, I mean to leave this place. I don’t know what will happen, but the time is coming when all of this will end. One way or the other.”
He realised that he had lost their attention. The two Kyrinin lifted their heads, turned towards the west. Orisian saw the knife fall from Varryn’s hand and his fingers dance into a blur of motion. Ess’yr made a grunting reply to whatever message her brother conveyed and rose to her feet.
“What is it?” Orisian asked softly, looking up at her. He could guess, in truth, for he had learned to read the code of their bodies and moods: in some sound or scent upon the air, some sign too subtle for meagre human senses, they had caught forewarning of danger.
Orisian twisted, a shout for his own warriors gathering in his throat, but Ess’yr was already moving. One pace, two, away from the fire. A stoop to sweep up her spear from where it rested against one of the apple trees. Her front foot stamped down. Her arm snapped forward. The spear flew.
And as that shaft left her hand, and darted across the darkening air between the ancient trees, there was movement atop the wall: a head, and then shoulders, just rising into sight. Orisian had time to register nothing more than a swirl of dark hair, the dull flash of a blade clasped in a gloved hand, before the spear thudded into the man’s chest. He fell back silently and disappeared.
“There are more,” Ess’yr said, reaching for her bow.
But Orisian knew that for himself by then. He could hear the voices, the angry cries, the pounding feet. He leaped up and ran, shouting for his sword and shield as he went.
Taim Narran had abandoned any hope of imposing his will upon the battle. Slaughter swept across the fields and copses and stream beds. Like storm water, it went where it willed, its bloody extremities flowing down whatever channel the rise and fall of the land offered. No command could be given that would shape it or slow it. It was deaf to all save its own inner demands, which impelled it to consume and thrive and rage.
The men and women who acted upon its savage imperative forgot who they were and why they fought. They recognised neither friend nor foe, felt neither fear nor elation. There was within them only the burning need to kill. Each fought alone, subject to that need and only to that need.
Taim’s horse had been hit by a crossbow bolt. It staggered down into a tiny gully and threw him. He splashed across the stream, seeing dark strands of blood threaded in the rushing water. Higher up the gully bodies were lying in the narrow channel. A woman was hacking feverishly at one of them with a long-bladed knife. Taim started towards her, to kill her, but a knot of men came suddenly tumbling down into his path, struggling and stabbing even as they fell and rolled in the stream.
Taim could confidently identify only one of them as an enemy: a massive mailclad warrior who laboured to his feet, water cascading from his back and shoulders. Taim ducked behind his shield and barged into him, knocking him down. A single blow, with all of Taim’s strength behind it, was enough to stave in the side of the man’s helm. He began to convulse at once, thrashing about in the midst of the stream. Blood smeared out from his mouth; he had bitten through his tongue.
Taim was staggered sideways by two wrestling figures. He stumbled precariously over the smooth stones at the edge of the watercourse. The butt of a spear tripped him and in falling he punched his knee against a rock. The sharp, bone-shaking pain was like a lance of light, momentarily sharpening his senses, sending a beat of urgency and energy through him. Without it, he might have been too slow to avoid the axe that slashed down in search of his back. He rolled away through mud and spun onto his feet in time to catch the second axe blow on his shield and cut up into his assailant’s crotch.
He scrambled up the bank of the gully, the soft turf smearing beneath his feet. He emerged onto a field strewn with bodies and with dropped or broken weapons. The thin grass had been trampled and torn. A woman went staggering past, her shattered arm held tight to her side with a hand that was itself split and bloody. A horse was lying on its flank close by, its legs stirring faintly. Beyond it, a Kilkry warrior was fleeing from half a dozen Tarbains, who pursued him with howls of mad fervour. Taim ran to intervene, but his knee rebelled, and he faltered. The Tarbains pulled down the warrior and fell on him like a pack of wolves tearing at a deer.
A terrible hatred had hold of Taim, a formless thing that began with no clear target or cause but willingly
