Across the moors north of Dun Aygll, the host of Black Road spread. It splintered and crumbled, like a vast flock of birds that had ridden fierce winds but found them, in the end, too potent and been scattered by them. It consumed everything it encountered: farms and villages and the fragile remnants of the Haig army. And it consumed itself. Tarbains hunted stragglers of any ilk, slaughtered and stripped them. Parties of Battle Inkallim rode back and forth across the bare and sodden land, seeking to reassert control over this vast beast, only to find it ungovernable. As often as not, they encountered nothing but madness and frenzy and feral bloodlust. Where they could not impose order, they imposed death instead, for there was a kind of madness upon many of them as well.
The masterless villages on the eastern shore of the Vaywater, where no Blood and no Thane held sway, turned on one another. The fishermen and goatherds and hunters and weavers laid down the tools of their crafts and took up knives and axes and spears instead. They fought over disputed fields and over stolen goats. They paid no heed to other concerns, and one settlement-Karlakan-was thus taken unawares when a wandering band of Heron Kyrinin, straying perversely far from their territories, descended upon it in the night. By dawn, blood was running down into the waters of the great lake and curling away in stained eddies.
In Koldihrve, at the mouth of the Vale of Tears, the men of the town hunted na’kyrim after nightfall.
The Heron and the Hawk, who had planted peace staffs along their boundaries only one season ago, disinterred all the grievances that had been so recently buried. The young men and the young women took up their spears once more. They raided, as they had done before, but this time they went not in their tens but in their scores, and wherever the spear a’ans went, they left not even the youngest of children or the frailest of elders alive.
And in Anlane the White Owl Kyrinin made war upon themselves. A few who had doubted all along the intoxicating promises of the na’kyrim Aeglyss, and found themselves dismayed by the fierce passions that now seemed to rule their fellows, spoke out. And were slain. The last of them was cut apart on the hard ground before the lodge of the Voice herself. But the killing, and the dissent, once begun did not stop. Though many of the warriors were long gone, venturing far beyond the clan’s territory to assuage their lately rediscovered martial pride and hunger for the blood of their people’s myriad enemies, enough remained to fight over every trifle, and even the least warlike, the youngest, the oldest, the most infirm, found enough passion burning in them to lift a spear or set arrow to string.
The dyke had been broken, and through the breach came flooding every resentment and division. Rumour and accusation spun all through Anlane like seeds upon the wind. Vo’ans began to break apart, families and warbands taking to paths that would normally remain untrodden until the summer, many neither knowing nor caring whether they were fleeing or pursuing, hunter or hunted. The wise chanted in their tents, questing after truth, but no answers came. Only fear and confusion. But still they chanted, and hoped for clarity, while outside and everywhere in the Thousand Tree-Clad Valleys the bloodshed continued.
III
The contours of the darkness within Ragnor oc Gyre’s fortress in Kan Dredar were subtle. Slight gradations laid a patchwork cloak of blacks and greys and shadow over the foundry and the bakery, the barracks and the stables, the low keep where the High Thane dwelled; and the Great Hall loomed over all with its huge steepled roof and its giant doors, around the edges of which light and noise and heat bled into the winter’s night. All else was quiet. Rats ran along the base of the storehouse wall, noses down. There was smoke coiling out from the armourer’s workshop, but the fires from which it sprang had long since been left to dwindle. The smiths were in the Hall with everyone else.
Beyond the outer palisade, in the trees down by the river, an owl called. There were none to hear it, save the guards in the watchtowers and at the gates, and most of them were too busy bemoaning their drawing of such a cold duty while the rest of Ragnor’s household had its revels. None to hear it, save those guards, and one other.
Shadow separated itself, a part of it coming free and slipping silently across the narrow stretch of ground between storehouse and Great Hall. Two rats, startled by this sudden intrusion into their nocturnal dominion, scampered for their tunnels in the hard earth.
The assassin who came to rest crouching at the foot of the hall’s looming rear wall had ash thickly smeared over his face. Every garment he wore was black. His hands were sheathed in gloves thin enough to ensure their movement would not be hampered. He paused there, secure in lightless obscurity, and took a few steady breaths to regulate his heartbeat and clear his mind. Satisfied, he rose smoothly to his feet, still pressing himself against the stone wall. The whites of his eyes were the only imperfection in his sombre concealment. They darted this way and that now, like pale pebbles. And found nothing to concern him. No light in any overlooking window, no movement.
Turning, he extended one arm up and took hold of the rough stonework. He was lean but nonetheless powerful. Fingers like steel bars raised him up the wall. His boots were light, little more than black-dyed slippers of soft calf-hide. It was easy to find places for both hands and feet on the surface. He climbed without haste, for haste was the enemy of both precision and silence. If anything betrayed him now, it would be sound rather than sight. There was not even enough moonlight for him to see the details of the wall before his own face. He went by touch and feel, and by memory. He had studied the route he must follow from down below over the last two days.
The small crossbow on his back was tied tight to prevent any movement. The cords constrained him only very slightly, not enough to impede his ascent. That distant owl was calling again, and that pleased him. It gave the night a veneer of normalcy and calm, and would thus offer false comfort to those keeping watch. It allowed him to think that fate might favour his endeavour.
Up to the very eaves he climbed, and into the utter darkness of their overhang. Fingers locked into crevices, he drew up his knees, bracing his feet between the rough-cut blocks of stone. Now he was entirely hidden. Even someone wandering unexpectedly along directly beneath him would struggle to descry his lofty presence, should their gaze drift improbably upwards.
Another moment or two to moderate his breathing and his heart. Then exploratory fingers delicately extended along the very top of the wall, tracing the line where the stones met the protruding woodwork and beams of the huge roof. He could hear the voices of those within, dull and indistinct, a rumbling murmur punctuated by occasional laughter or shouts. He shut the distraction out. He dwelled only in this moment, thought only of his own body, his holds and what his reaching hand sought.
Soon enough he found it: a gap where uneven stones and prised-apart wood combined to yield less than two hands’ span of space. Even through his gloves he could feel the heat of the air oozing out from that opening and he could smell the smoke and the scents of food and drink and bodies that the hall exhaled through this tiny flaw in its fabric. Two crab-like cramped movements across the stone were enough to take him there, and now, with his eyes directly before it, he could see the soft orange firelight reflected on dark woodwork within. One hand hooked in there gave him enough security to loosen the crossbow’s bindings with the other. The weapon preceded him into the roofspace. He emptied his lungs to shrink his chest and followed it, forcing himself through this most narrow of entrances.
Others had preceded the assassin up this wall, just a handful of times. One had climbed to open the way, easing apart wooden struts just enough to admit a lean and determined body. He did not know how long ago that had been, for it was not his place to know such things. One or two, after that, had entered the High Thane’s hall just as he now did, though they had brought only their ears and their eyes with them, seeking only information. He came with more fatal intent, and felt himself to be the first. The only one that mattered.
The roof of the Great Hall rode a massive and intricate fretwork of beams and timbers, a supportive weave of wood and nails. Like a marten making its sinuous way through the branches of a forest canopy, the assassin edged towards an angular perch, where he would be concealed from all but the most acute of eyes but able to lock his own gaze upon Ragnor oc Gyre, who feasted below.
The High Thane filled his wolfskin-clad throne. His lavish gestures and bellowing voice said he had already drunk more than his fill. As had most of the others who thronged the length of the great chamber. They sat on benches and rugs, crowded round the three huge fires blazing in their open hearths. They milled about-many
