He lowered his right hand and dropped his gaze to the symbol he had drawn.
‘Crow, begone!’
The sigh of wind, the murmur of waves. Then a distant cackle. Shivering, Udinaas bolted upright. Snatching up the basket, he ran for the gate.
The King’s Meet was a vast, circular chamber, the Blackwood boles of the ceiling reaching up to a central peak lost in smoke. Unblooded warriors of noble birth stood at the very edge, the outermost ring of those attending to witness the council. Next, and seated on backed benches, were the matrons, the wedded and widowed women. Then came the unwedded and the betrothed, cross-legged on hides. A pace before them, the floor dropped an arm’s length to form a central pit of packed earth where sat the warriors. At the very centre was a raised dais, fifteen paces across, where stood the Warlock King, Hannan Mosag, with the five hostage princes seated around him, facing outward.
As Trull and Fear descended to the pit to take their place among the blooded warriors, Trull stared up at his king. Of average height and build, Hannan Mosag seemed unprepossessing at first glance. His features were even, a shade paler than most Edur, and there was a wide cast to his eyes that gave him a perpetually surprised look. The power, then, was not physical. It lay entirely in his voice. Rich and deep, it was a voice that demanded to be listened to without regard to volume.
Standing in silence, as he did now, Hannan Mosag’s claim to kingship seemed a mere accident of placement, as if he had wandered into the centre of the huge chamber, and now looked about with a vaguely bemused expression. His clothing was no different from that of any other warriors, barring the absence of trophies – for his trophies, after all, were seated around him on the dais, the first sons of the five subjugated chiefs.
A more concerted study of the Warlock King revealed another indication of his power. His shadow reared behind him. Huge, hulking. Long, indistinct but deadly swords gripped in both gauntleted hands. Helmed, the shoulders angular with plates of armour. Hannan Mosag’s shadow wraith bodyguard never slept. There was, Trull reflected, nothing bemused in its wide stance.
Few warlocks were capable of conjuring such a creature when drawing from the life-force of their own shadows. Kurald Emurlahn flowed raw and brutal in that silent, ever-vigilant sentinel.
Trull’s gaze fell to those of the hostages facing him. The K’risnan. More than representatives of their fathers, they were Hannan Mosag’s apprentices in sorcery. Their names had been stripped from them, the new ones chosen in secret by their master and bound with spells. One day, they would return to their tribes as chiefs. And their loyalty to their king would be absolute.
The hostage from the Merude tribe was directly opposite Trull. Largest of the six tribes, the Merude had been the last to capitulate. They had always maintained that, with their numbers approaching one hundred thousand, forty thousand of which were blooded or soon-to-be-blooded warriors, they should by right have held pre-eminence among the Edur. More warriors, more ships, and ruled by a chief with more trophies at his belt than had been seen in generations. Domination belonged to the Merude.
Or it should have, if not for Hannan Mosag’s extraordinary mastery of those fragments of Kurald Emurlahn from which power could be drawn. Chief Hanradi Khalag’s skill with the spear far outweighed his capacity as a warlock.
No-one but Hannan Mosag and Hanradi Khalag knew the details of that final surrendering. Merude had been holding strong against the Hiroth and their contingents of Arapay, Sollanta, Den-Ratha and Beneda warriors, and the ritual constraints of the war were fast unravelling, in their place an alarming brutality born of desperation. The ancient laws had been on the verge of shattering.
One night, Hannan Mosag had walked, somehow unseen by anyone, into the chief’s village, into the ruler’s own longhouse. And by the first light of Menandore’s cruel awakening, Hanradi Khalag had surrendered his people.
Trull did not know what to make of the tales that persisted, that Hanradi no longer cast a shadow. He had never seen the Merude chief.
That man’s first son now sat before him, head shaved to denote the sundering from his bloodline, a skein of deep-cut, wide scars ribboning his face with shadows, his eyes flat and watchful, as if anticipating an assassination attempt here in the Warlock King’s own hall.
The oil lamps suspended from the high ceiling flickered as one, and everyone grew still, eyes fixing on Hannan Mosag.
Though he did not raise his voice, its deep timbre reached across the vast space, leaving none with the necessity to strain to hear his words. ‘Rhulad, unblooded warrior and son of Tomad Sengar, has brought to me words from his brother, Trull Sengar. This warrior had travelled to the Calach shore seeking jade. He was witness to a dire event, and has run without pause for three days and two nights.’ Hannan Mosag’s eyes fixed on Trull. ‘Rise to stand at my side, Trull Sengar, and relate your tale.’
He walked the path the other warriors made for him and leapt up onto the raised dais, fighting to disguise the exhaustion in his legs that made him come close to sagging with the effort. Straightening, he stepped between two K’risnan and positioned himself to the right of the Warlock King. He looked out onto the array of upturned faces, and saw that what he would say was already known to most of them. Expressions dark with anger and a hunger for vengeance. Here and there, frowns of concern and dismay.
‘I bring these words to the council. The tusked seals have come early to the breeding beds. Beyond the shallows I saw the sharks that leap in numbers beyond counting. And in their midst, nineteen Letherii ships-’
A half-hundred voices uttered that cry in unison. An uncharacteristic breach of propriety, but understandable none the less. Trull waited a moment, then resumed. ‘Their holds were almost full, for they sat low in the water, and the waters around them were red with blood and offal. Their harvest boats were alongside the great ships. In the fifty heartbeats that I stood and watched, I was witness to hundreds of seal carcasses rising on hooks to swing into waiting hands. On the strand itself twenty boats waited in the shallows and seventy men were on the beach, among the seals-’
‘Did they see you?’ one warrior asked.
It seemed Hannan Mosag was prepared to ignore the rules – for the time being at least.
‘They did, and checked their slaughter… for a moment. I saw their mouths move, though I could not hear their words above the roar of the seals, and I saw them laugh-’
Rage erupted among the gathering. Warriors leapt upright. Hannan Mosag snapped out a hand. Sudden silence.
‘Trull Sengar is not yet finished his tale.’
Clearing his throat, Trull nodded. ‘You see me before you now, warriors, and those of you who know me will also know my preferred weapon – the spear. When have you seen me without my iron-hafted slayer of foes? Alas, I have surrendered it… in the chest of the one who first laughed.’
A roar answered his words.
Hannan Mosag settled a hand on Trull’s shoulder, and the young warrior stepped aside. The Warlock King scanned the faces before him for a moment, then spoke. ‘Trull Sengar did as every warrior of the Edur would do. His deed has heartened me. Yet here he now stands, weaponless.’
Trull stiffened beneath the weight of that hand.
‘And so, in measured thought, such as must be made by a king,’ Hannan Mosag went on, ‘I find I must push my pride to one side, and look beyond it. To what is signified. A thrown spear. A dead Letherii. A disarmed Edur. And now, I see upon the faces of my treasured warriors a thousand flung spears, a thousand dead Letherii. A thousand disarmed Edur.’
No-one spoke. No-one countered with the obvious retort:
‘I see the hunger for vengeance. The Letherii raiders must be slain. Even as prelude to the Great Meeting, for their slaying was
Deep-etched frowns. Undisguised confusion. Hannan Mosag had led them into the unfamiliar territory of complexity. He had brought them to the edge of an unknown path, and now would lead them forward, step by
