Blood Song (Raven's Shadow 1)

Chapter 1

He took Spit and rode westward, keeping to the shoreline, finding a campsite sheltered in the lee of a large grass-topped dune. He gathered driftwood for a fire and cut grass for kindling. The stems were dried by the sea breeze and lit at the first touch of the flint. The fire grew high and bright, embers rising like fireflies into the early evening sky. In the distance the lights of Linesh seemed to burn brighter still and he could hear music mingled with the sound of many voices raised in celebration.

“After all we did for them,” he told Spit, holding a candy up for the war horse to chomp on. “War, plague and months of fear. Hard to believe they’re happy to see us go.”

If Spit cared anything for irony it was expressed in a loud snort of annoyance as he jerked his head away. “Wait.” Vaelin caught hold of the reins and unfastened the bridle before moving to lift the saddle from his back. Shorn of the encumbrance Spit cantered away across the dunes, kicking through the sand and tossing his head. Vaelin watched him play in the surf as the sky dimmed and a bright full moon rose to paint the dunes a familiar silver blue. Like snow drifts in the height of winter.

Spit came trotting back as the last glimmer of daylight faded, standing expectantly at the edge of the light cast by the fire, awaiting the nightly ritual of grooming and tethering. “No,” Vaelin said. “We’re done. Time to go.”

Spit nickered uncertainly, forehoof kicking sand.

Vaelin went to him, slapped a hand on his flank, stepping back quickly to avoid the retaliatory kick as Spit reared, whinnying in anger, teeth bared. “Go on you hateful beast!” Vaelin shouted, gesticulating wildly. “GO!”

And he was gone, galloping away in a blur of silver blue sand, his parting whinny resounding in the night air. “Go on you bloody nag,” Vaelin whispered with a smile.

There was little else to occupy his time so he sat, feeding the fire, recalling that day atop the battlements at the High Keep when he watched Dentos approach the gate without Nortah and knew everything was about to change. Nortah… Dentos… Two brothers lost and about to lose another.

It was only a slight change in the wind bringing a faint scent of sweat and brine. He closed his eyes, hearing the soft scrape of feet on sand, approaching from the west, making no pretence of stealth. And why would he? We are brothers after all.

He opened his eyes to regard the figure standing opposite. “Hello Barkus.”

Barkus slumped down in front of the fire, raising his hands to the flames. His muscle thick arms were bare as he wore only a cotton vest and trews, his feet shorn of boots and his hair matted with sea water. His only weapon was his axe, strapped across his back with leather thongs. “Faith!” he grunted. “Haven’t been this cold since the Martishe.”

“Must’ve been a hard swim.”

“Right enough. We were three miles out before I realised you’d gulled me, brother. The ship's captain took some hard persuading before he'd sail his boat back to shore.” He shook his head, droplets flying from his long hair. “Sailing off to the Far West with Sister Sherin. As if you’d pass up a chance to sacrifice yourself.”

Vaelin watched Barkus’s hands, saw how they were free of any tremble although it was cold enough to make his breath steam.

“That was the deal, right?” Barkus went on. “We get to live and they get you?”

“And Prince Malcius is returned to the Realm.”

Barkus frowned. “He’s alive?”

“I was sparing with the truth in getting you all out of the city without any fuss.”

The large brother grunted again. “How long till they come for you?”

“First light.”

“Time enough to rest up then.” He unslung his axe from his back, setting it down close by. “How many do you think they’ll send?”

Vaelin shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”

“Against the two of us they better send a whole regiment.” He looked up at Vaelin, puzzled. “Where’s your sword, brother?”

“I gave it to Governor Aruan.”

“Not the brightest idea you’ve had. How do you intend to fight?”

“I don’t. In accordance with the king’s word I will surrender myself to Alpiran custody.”

“They’ll kill you.”

“I don’t think so. According to the Fifth Book of the Cumbraelin god I still have many more people to kill.”

“Pah!” Barkus spat into the fire. “Prophecies are bullshit. Superstition for god-worshippers. You took their Hope, they’ll kill you right enough. Just a question of how long they take over it.” He met Vaelin’s eyes. “I can’t stand by and watch them take you, brother.”

“Then leave.”

“You know I can’t do that either. Don’t you think I lost enough brothers already? Nortah, Frentis, Dentos - ”

“Enough!” Vaelin’s voice was sharp, cutting through the night.

Barkus drew back in alarm and bemusement. “Brother, I…”

“Just stop.” Vaelin studied the face of the man in front of him with all the scrutiny he could muster, searching for some crack in the mask, some flicker of lost composure. But it was perfect, impervious and infuriating. He fought to master the anger, knowing it would kill him. “You’ve waited so long for this, why not show me your true face? Here at the end, what difference does it make?”

Barkus grimaced in a flawless display of embarrassed concern. “Vaelin, are you quite well?”

“Captain Antesh told me something before he left. Would you like to hear it?”

Barkus spread his hands uncertainly. “If you wish.”

“It seems Antesh isn’t his real name. Hardly surprising, I’m sure many of the Cumbraelins we hired felt the need to use a false name, either through fear of a criminal past or shame at accepting our coin. What was surprising is that we’ve both heard his other name before.”

Still no slip in the mask. Still nothing beyond the concern of a true brother.

“Bren Antesh was once greatly in thrall to his god,” Vaelin told him. “So great was his devotion it drove him to kill, to gather others who also thirsted to honour their god with the blood of heretics. In time he led them to the Martishe where most of them died at our hands, leading him to question his belief, to abandon his god, accepting the king’s gold and giving it to the families of his fallen men, then seeking death in a foreign war, all the time trying to forget the name he had won in the Martishe: Black Arrow. Bren Antesh was once named Black Arrow. And he assures me he was never in possession of any letters of free passage from his Fief Lord, nor were any of his men.”

Barkus remained still, all expression now vanished.

“You remember the letters, brother?” Vaelin asked. “The letters you found on the body of the archer I killed. The letters that set us to war with Cumbrael.”

It was only a slight change in the angle of his head, a small shift in the set of his shoulders, a new curve to his lips, but suddenly Barkus was gone, like smoke in the wind. When he spoke Vaelin was unsurprised to hear a familiar voice, the voice of two dead men. “Do you really think you’re going to serve a Queen of Fire, brother?”

Vaelin’s heart plummeted like a stone. He had been nurturing a withered hope that he might be wrong, that Antesh had been lying and his brother was still the noble warrior sailing away with the morning tide. Now it was gone and there was just the two of them, alone on the beach with death coming swiftly. “I’m told there are other prophecies,” he replied.

“Prophecies?” The thing that had been Barkus grated a harsh, ugly laugh. “You know so little. All of you, scribbling down your fumbling attempts at wisdom, calling it scripture when it’s just the rantings of the mad and the power-hungry.”

“The Test of the Wild. Is that when you took him?”

The thing wearing Barkus’s face grinned. “He wanted to live so badly. Finding Jennis was a gift of life but his sense of brotherhood was so strong he couldn’t bring himself to do what was necessary.”

“He found Jennis’s body frozen, with no cloak.”

The thing laughed again, harsh, grating, enjoying its cruelty. “His body and his soul. Jennis was still alive, half dead with cold, but still breathing, whispering pleas for Barkus to save him. Of course there was nothing he could do, and he was so very hungry. Hunger does strange things to a man, reminds him he is just an animal, an animal that needs to feed, and flesh is just flesh. The temptation sickened him, the hunger driving him beyond the edge of madness, and so he wandered out into the snow and lay down to die.”

Hentes Mustor, One Eye, the carpenter who burned Ahm Lin’s house, all once close to death. “Death is your gateway.”

“They call to us, across the hateful void, the plaintive call of a soul near death, like a lost lamb drawing a wolf. Not all can be taken, only those with the seed of malice and the gift of power.”

“Barkus had no malice.”

Another venomous cackle. “If there’s a man without malice in his heart I’ve yet to meet him. Barkus had hidden his so deep he barely knew it was there, festering like a maggot in his soul, waiting to be fed, waiting for me. It was his father you see, the father who had sent him away, who hated and envied his gift. He saw the wondrous things the boy could do with metal and hungered for the power. It is the way of things for those of us with gifts. Wouldn’t you agree, brother?”