The Winter Road Page 5

  “Shush now, where’s Brek?”

  “He was trying to get on the boat, Mell’s gone down there, they turned over Da’s cart and they’re behind it. Ydka can’t do nothing because she’s carrying her dut.”

  The juice from Braidie’s spit is like cold milk on my eyes, the spores are running out with the tears. I take the moss she’s kept in alka and squeeze the fluids from the mixture into my mouth, an astringent for my throat, which is sore from the spores.

  “Here,” she says, and she gives me her quiver and bow, taking up a hatchet for herself.

  “Take Teyr to the boat. She’ll help you all better than any of us.”

  I begin to speak but she sharply cuts me off.

  “Protect our rope and honour, Teyr Amondsen, take these children away that they might come back one day.” She puts a hand to my cheek a moment, then we turn as two whiteboys come running at us. I shove the boy back so he falls over, and I use the quiver to knock the first spear past me. The other of them has an axe, which I’m grateful for as it means he’ll need to get closer to me. Braidie pushes past me, flushed with some sort of brew. I can feel it, the heat of it, the violence of it I can almost read with my eye.

  “Leave!” she bellows.

  Her axe bites at least one of them. The boy with me is up off his arse and running down the slope towards the river and the cart that’s near their boat, so I have to leave her, and I know she’s going to die.

  “Teyr!” It’s Maege, he’s running across the gardens, “Teyr, help us. Orgrif’s holed up with a few in his house, they’re setting fire to it.”

  He’s covered in blood, his quiver’s empty and he’s shivering and gasping for air. I have to calm him.

  “I’m sorry, Maege, I can’t. I’ve sworn to protect the Family’s children, I have to make sure they get on the boat now if they’re to live. Can you help me with the archer over the river that’s stopping us getting to the boat?” He looks over and on the luta sees what’s happening well enough.

  “I see him. There’s just the one of them. Teyr, Erlif and Kirvotte, they …”

  “I know, I know, Maege, and I’m sorry. And we’re out of spores, so each moment now we have to make clear in our heads, no grief and no pain or they’ll have died for nothing. Take Braidie’s quiver. When you see me wave start putting arrows over him, keep him behind that birch trunk until I can get us going.” I take a few arrows from the quiver and hand them to him.

  He looks down at the arrows in his hands, but I can feel the resolve building, I can see it in the tightening of his lips and around his eyes as the frown softens. “But we … Right, right I’ll do it.”

  “Mell’s down there, I’m hoping I can save her too. Orgrif would want nothing else.” I put my hands on his shoulders, bring his face close to mine. “You honour this Family, your tapestry. Breathe slow and hold it for the shot; you’ll pass out if you keep blowing like that.” I give him a wink, like I’m teaching an old goat how to kick.

  He smiles. “I will.”

  I follow the boy on through a run of veg. Mell stands as we approach though crouched still against the upturned cart. Brek is there, along with Ydka, Murin’s boy and some other children.

  “Maege’s going to cover us from that archer. When I give the signal, you need to run down to the boat. Brek, I want you to untie it while Ydka and Mell get on it.”

  “No, Teyr, it’s you who must go. I can’t leave this theit, my Family, Orgrif either. You’re their best chance of living, not me.”

  “Mell …”

  “No!” she shouts. I follow her eyes towards Maege, who’s turned away from us and is shooting five whiteboys charging at him. I then see what she’s seen, the thatch of her longhouse roof crash in, Orgrif running out to the whiteboys waiting for him.

  I look around me and the children are staring back at their people dying. Mell draws a sword, too finely worked and shining to my sore, luta-filled eyes to have ever been used. She looks back.

  “Go! You swore to help this theit, you’ll save them, save the Kelssen rope.” She doesn’t wait but runs on. Moments later she cries out, I can see the trail of the arrow’s flight as a momentary flicker. She’s hit in the thigh and falls over. Maege is overwhelmed. I turn to the children. One of the girls is screaming at what she’s seeing.

  “Children!” I shout. “You run for the boat.”

  “We’ll be shot,” says Brek.

  “You won’t. Ydka, I need you to help me lead these duts.”

  I look at Murin’s boy and a girl next to him, the next two oldest. “Take their hands and follow Ydka.”

  “Come on!” she says. Her baby’s crying in the wrap that’s tied against her chest as she runs out.

  I take an arrow and nock it. They’re running down to the boat, the older ones holding the hands of the littler ones, dragging them along as they bawl. I empty myself of breath. Maege and Mell are being hacked to death somewhere behind me as the archer steps out from behind the tree to find a target to draw on.

  I let the arrow fly, but he’s already spotted them all running for the boat and looses an arrow at them. My arrow punches through his face and throws him back. I’m running before he hits the ground.

  “Teyr!” It’s the boy that brought me down from Braidie’s. I look down the bank and Ydka and the children have frozen. The arrow’s hit Brek in the shoulder and he’s crying out.

  “Ydka, get them on the fucking boat! You, Murin’s boy, start untying it!” I turn to the boy who’s been hit; he’s panting, staring down in disbelief at the arrow shaft sticking out of him.

  “Stay with me, Brek. I’m sorry, lad, but this is going to hurt.”

  I drag him up and over my shoulder. He thrashes about in pain as I follow the children down the bank to the river. The children splash through the shallows and onto the boat. Murin’s boy unwinds the rope and with my spare hand I grab the younger children by their hoods and tunics and throw them into the boat. They know well enough to crowd the far end as I heave Brek onto the boat, and he hits it with a yelp before I’m pushing us out into the river.

  “One of you take the rudder. Ydka, take the paddle if you can, keep us in the main current.”

  One of the girls, clutching a sack, pushes past me. “I’ll do it, it’s my da’s boat.”

  I kneel down beside Brek. I’m only going to save his life if I stone all else to silence. The noise vanishes and I’m opening the boy’s mouth and dropping in some cicely followed by a rub of some poppy wax on his gums and tongue.

  His breathing settles in moments, so I pull the arrow out with as quick and sharp a tug as I can manage. He winces and cries out but it is already a softened pain. I sniff the wound and the blood that’s dribbling from it. Larkspur from the smell, a simple enough poison. If it was henbane he’d be dead now. I have powdered arnica; I press it into the wound and put a strip of gummed bark over it to seal it.

  I can’t look back as I take the rudder from the dut, but I have to watch instead their stricken faces, either hidden in the shirts of their kin or else staring at their huts, the fires reflected in their eyes.

  The river bends and the trees take the massacre from us. I need to give them something else to put their minds on.

  “Is Brek the oldest child here?” I ask. Ydka’s boy nods. He’s cutched into his ma.

  “How old is he?”

  “Eleven years.”

  “What’s your name? And can you tell me who’s in the boat with us?”

  “I’m Jorno. This is my ma.” Ydka watches me as she paddles, can see that I’m trying to calm them by getting them to talk.

  Brek’s fingers are tracing along the cork I’ve put in his shoulder. He’ll need a touch more poppy come the morning. He had a strong dose. He won’t be speaking much till daylight.

  “There’s Aggie, she’s three years,” says Jorno. She is sucking her thumb, eyes fighting to stay awake in the arms of her brother, who has a cloak must have been his ma’s over them both.

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p; “That’s her brother, he’s six. His name’s Litten.” He’s watching me, big for his age, plaited yellow hair and streaks of tears in the dirt of his face and chin trembling, trying to keep himself together.

  “I’m Dottke,” says the girl next to Brek, who’s wearing a grown-up’s boots with a tunic too small and short in the arms and a cap that again must have been her ma’s for she keeps having to push it back from falling over her eyes. Her hands are bloodied and the sack she’s holding for dear life must have been given for this escape. I lean back to give her room because she wants to help with the steering.

  “What’s your name and where are you taking us?” she says.

  “Her name’s Teyr, but Maege and Kirvotte was calling her Blackeye,” says Jorno, “and she killed twenty of those whitefaces, I saw her shooting them and fighting them on her own.”

  “Why is your eye black?” says Dottke.

  “The Oskoro put it in there,” I says, hoping to close off the questioning. “My name’s Teyr, I’m just trying to keep you alive. We have to find somewhere for you to go that will take care of you all.”

  “Can they see us through your eye? The Oskoro?” asks Jorno.

  “Don’t be stupid,” says Dottke.

  “Fuck off, Dott,” he says.

  “Don’t swear!” hisses Ydka, who gives Jorno a cuff.

  “Hey hey, easy now. Don’t fight. You all got enough worries, haven’t you?” I says.

  They don’t say anything to this, though Ydka pulls Jorno closer and kisses the head of her dut, who’s whimpering and wriggling against her chest.

  “They’re all dead in’t they, Blackeye?” says Dottke.

  We hear the horns in the distance and they all look sorrowful and are quiet a while.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I could say more to these duts about their bravery, Mell, Braidie, Orgrif and my boys. They killed a lot of whiteboys. There will be some awful torture ahead of any still alive in that theit. I keep my mouth shut instead and steer us on.

  Chapter 4

  Then

  I was surprised to see old Tarrigsen waiting when me and Aude got back from Othbutter’s court. He hadn’t been up here since the van was assembling but he’s stood in our main room trying to grab Mosa as he ran about him. We’d left Mosa with my cleark Ammie that morning, and it smelled like she was preparing pitties in the kitchen. Aude embraced him before leaving us to it.

  “Hello, Tarry. It’s lovely to see you up here.”

  “I don’t come enough, I know, I love it up here, cleaner air. Plays havoc with my chest though, that climb. But I had to be here today though, eh? I understand it’s tomorrow the van moves out. You’re the gossip of the guildhall tonight, I’m sure. A mad old woman blowing her fortune and making Othbutter look bad is what I’ll guess they’d be saying.”

  I went over to hug him, and I could hear his wheezing as I did.

  “It’s Uncle Tarry, Ma,” said Mosa, stopping next to me. “Are you stopping for pitties, Unc?”

  “No, lad, you’ve all got to be off before light tomorrow, I expect. You’ll need to bed down early. Go see what your da’s doing in the kitchen, I’ll bet he could use the help.”

  Mosa wrapped his arms around me and looked up at me before he ran out.

  “Look, one of my front teeth has gone. Can you see the new one?”

  “Let’s have a look.” I took his head in my hands, smoothing his fine blond hair away from his cheeks and turning him towards the candle over the fireplace.

  “Smile then.” He grinned, teeth like chips of frozen milk, two small gaps, top and bottom at the front, which he pushed his tongue against.

  “I gave the tooth to Da,” he said.

  “Run along then, tell Da I want some extra cheese with my pitties, but no extra teeth.”

  He left us stood before the hearth, a welcome heat seeping through my coat from the fire.

  “A fine lad and not fond of swords as far as I can see,” said Tarrigsen.

  “No, he’s starting his letters once we’re back from this. I’ll need a clever young man to take our work forward.”

  “Aaaah Teyr, careful. I can tell you that children are slippier than an oiled eel when it comes to your directing their lives.” He coughed then, a nasty hacking he needed a cloth for.

  “Are you all right? Your chest sounds worse today.”

  “I’m fine, it’s age and you get used to it. There’s no pipeweed or infusions that will make me young again. Come, walk me out.”

  “I’ve only just got here. Are you sure you can’t stay?”

  “I can’t. I made myself useful, double-checked the inventory with Thad and wore myself out chasing Mosa around.”

  We’d walked a short way from the house when he stopped us, out of earshot of those inside.

  “You have the seed?” he asked.

  “I do. Keep the other one in case something happens. I don’t think we’ll have trouble getting to the Almet forest, but I’d hate to lose both seeds for the want of caution.”

  “I’ll keep the other one safe, Teyr. I hope the Oskoro come when they learn you have a seed for the Flower of Fates.” The Oskoro had always lived in the Almet, the forest at the heart of the Circle, shunned over time as they experimented more and more radically with plant on and in their bodies. The Flower of Fates, rarest and most potent of all plants, had a place at the heart of their lives and their beliefs.

  “I hope they come too. I made a promise to their brethren in Khasgal a long time ago, and I mean to keep it.”

  “Teyr, there is no chance for peace in the Circle without the Oskoro. You know this. They are its heart, its living heart not its folklore, and they will do much to unite the people of the Circle, as they once did. But they can’t while spears and arrows are all that greet them. Put that seed in the Offering Stone, make sure they see you do it, and you’ll have a strong ally. The drudha the seed will inhabit will become a potent force in all the citadels, if we can recover our old friendships.”

  “I know.”

  “The clan leaders would not Walk together anywhere else but the Almet if you’re wishing to align them again with Othbutter. I don’t envy you that challenge, or managing his brother’s shitty diplomacy; Crogan’s more stupid than a dog on the droop. But plant speaks to all, as the saying goes. Oskoro plant will bring them to heel.”

  “The Oskoro haven’t treated with anybody I’ve ever heard from.”

  “Has anyone yet asked the right questions? Shown them good intent? Peace?”

  He did not expect an answer but embraced me again, so awfully weak compared to that of feeling crushed in his arms in years gone by. Then he took my hands in his. They were cold and they trembled a little and I became worried for him.

  “I’m proud of you, Teyr. Bringing the Circle back its peace, bringing trade. I would say I wished I had thought of it myself, but I’m twenty years too old.”

  “Twenty years wiser maybe.”

  “No, Teyr. It isn’t wisdom, hiding out here on the coast and leaving all those old clans to fall back to tribal ways, where once all Hillfast’s prosperity was shared. You’re doing what I wish I’d done, put a mirror up to the rest of us here, all those in the guildhall gossiping about that mad cratch blowing her fortune while they swindle Othbutter for tithes that might go to fixing up the broken trails they complain to him about. I have good standing here in Hillfast, but what difference have I made, how changed is the world for the fortune I’ve amassed from it? You’re better than all of us, Teyr, to drive this road through the hinterlands of the Circle, to bring wealth and plant to those good clans Othbutter has ignored—we’ve all ignored—for the safer, more profitable trade up the coast. He rules a divided land and you will be the one to heal it.

  “I can perhaps do you some good by keeping an eye on Cleark Thornsen while you’re away, not that he’ll need it, you have the best high cleark in the northern Sar. But I’ll look out for your interests wherever we share a port, my girl.”
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br />   He put his jumpcrick bones to his big pipe then, lighting bacca in a heavy-looking bowl of plain black wood that looked more like stone.

  “Pack enough of Thad’s Golden Brown mix and you might just float back and save your breath entirely,” I said.

  He smiled as he filled the air between us with a delicious silky orange-smelling smoke.

  “He’s a fine drudha. Go on, I’ll take a pound of it if you leave it with Thornsen. You can’t want his whole stock of Brown with you or what’ll there be to come back for?”

  It wasn’t the foulest of winters, and our heading off the next day was done with us knowing that we was on the cusp of spring, the first buds on branches, and cranes sighted down south of the Gassies marshes, meaning that Lake Cutter would be full of them in a few weeks.

  Apart from the mercenaries and soldiers we had to protect the van, there was Othbutter’s brother Crogan; overweight, looked like he hadn’t travelled further than the guildhall in his life, though he at least had the good sense to listen to whichever tailor and cobbler served him, for his boots looked strong and his wool cloak fur-lined and plain grey. He had a seal, coin and parchments that give him the power to cut a deal if we had to with whoever might stand in our way.

  There was also merchants, clearks and the families of a number of Othbutter’s soldiers who was heading to Ablitch Fort under our protection, and would go their own way once we hit my first outpost.

  I needed experience in the Circle but it was hard to come by. I’d hired an old mercenary, Sanger, the only other in our party to have been there before besides me. He had a younger man, Jem, with him. Tarrigsen had recommended both for their cool heads and fast hands. Sanger was older than me, a white stubble around his bald head, but he lifted our kegs easily for how ordinary he seemed, and that seeming ordinary was a priceless quality.

  I picked Yalle and her crew, Steyning and Bela, on Cleark Thornsen’s recommendation. They was in their prime, expensive, gave off an easy arrogance, all flushed green with the top-ups of Steyning’s brew, skin rubs giving their skin that waxy hard shine. They’d been on a few campaigns out east in Lagrad and was a lot more field-ready than Othbutter’s guard. Steyning was a drudha, I expected she would give us an edge in the wild. Both Yalle and Steyning were lean, both cropped their hair to a thick stubble like Sanger, but blonde as cream, striking against their colour. Bela was bigger, more a pit fighter than a trail runner in stature, a thick long black ponytail I envied, twice the heft of Yalle and a mischief about her and her talk the other soldiers soon warmed to.