Black River (The Hounds of the North Book 2) Read online

  She saw that he was awake and smiled. She was half Dhurman, half of the North, one of those children of the conquest. She more resembled a Dhurman with her dark curled hair and that was what first drew him to her. She represented the life that he had wanted to acquire. At first, that had all it had been: she was a status symbol. But he had grown fond of her, the way she attended to him, the way she saw the world in a bigger way than he did.

  "Do you think he will stay?" asked Yriel.

  "He seems done with the south." Spear imagined what he thought the south was like, the hot sun, groves of olive trees, the men and women in the tunics and robes, resplendently white against the red earth. One day he would know.

  "I hope he leaves."

  "Why would you say that? He's just arrived. We were close once, as close as brothers, you know that?"

  "You ran together as youth. But who was the leader?"

  Spear thought about how many naturally gathered to Shield. He was everything that they wanted to have in themselves, which was also part of the reason that Spear had felt so betrayed when his litter brother had left to fight for the Dhurmans, their enemy. Spear's leadership was harder won. Yes, he was strong and had charisma but it was always work and cajoling and more often than not a gross display of violence that made men adhere to him. Shield has gathered the best of the best around him, yet now he returned with two. Would the best of Spear's men go over to Shield? Would Spear lose everything that had scraped together?

  "Things are different now. We're old men."

  "Not so old, my love." Her hands ran over his chest.

  "More than forty summers is a boon for a man of the North. Not too many fighting days left."

  She let her hands continue to play over his body, beneath the folds of the Dhurman tunic he wore. "As long as your days of loving aren't over yet." And they fell into each other's arms.

  NOTHING MORE THAN DOGS

  IT WAS ONE of those rare days near the Black River when the sun broke early through the stifling clouds and, despite the lateness of the season, the morning was already warming. Yet Harad, slightly hung over from the excess drinking the night before, surged with unease, as if in a single moment, the clouds would crash in from the horizons, darkness would swallow the world and a cold biting rain would descend with a fury.

  Most of this feeling of dread had to do with Spear.

  If there were any of the former Hounds that Harad wished were dead, it was Spear Spyrchylde. As a youth, the hulking bald man was rotten to the core and Harad could not imagine that the challenger to Shield had changed much since then. Spear's words last night had almost resulted in blood.

  Harad trailed several paces behind Spear and Shield as the bald man, the man who so desperately sought to mimic their Dhurman rulers, swaggered through the small, permanent market that had grown up around the perimeter of the garrison fortress. A few steps behind Harad himself, he heard the heavy footsteps of Cruhund, the scowling second to the strong man, and two other thugs. Harad now wished that he had dragged Patch from his blanket and the hay. Another sword by his side, even if outnumbered would have made him feel more comfortable.

  Spear's swagger through the market brought back a memory to Harad of a day that was as bright as this one but filled with an unfathomable darkness. It was early spring rather than the edge of winter, and the Hounds, several days prior, had split into two parties after a minor skirmish with a small Dhurman patrol. A handful of the youth, including Harad, had gone with Shield as he took Cook north across the Black River to a witch so that he could be healed of a festering sword cut on his leg. The remaining Hounds ran with Spear and Sword south and east of the Black River sniffing out the Dhurman settlers who dared push into the Northlands.

  Even then Harad stuck close to Shield, knew that within him there was something that he could follow without question. Harad had doubts about Spear and Sword, the two others that the Hounds gathered to.

  That bright morning, Shield and the others, returning from the visit with the witch, had come riding hard over the hills towards where black smoke billowed into the sky. Harad had thought that the Hounds had set fire to another Dhurman settler farmhouse.

  But when they reached the crest of the hill, their horses quivering between their legs, what they saw drew curses. A small clan village burned. A village of Northerners. As they rode forward, Harad could not pull his eyes away from the bodies of the children, the dirt clumped with blood, the smell of burnt flesh.

  The Hounds had slaughtered a small clan village, men, women and children.

  Harad numb with shock, followed Shield through the smoldering village, guided through the ruins and corpses by the sounds of screaming women.

  The Hounds gathered in a dark panting mass. Shield slid off his horse and shoved his way through the throng of the men he once considered brothers. The men parted, eyes suddenly full of shame. Sword was having his turn with one of the women. Shield kicked him to the ground.

  "What's your problem?" Sword's face was black with rage.

  "Are we nothing more than dogs? These are our own people."

  "Suddenly high and mighty." Sword spit at Shield's feet. "Our right to take the spoils."

  Shield turned to the village, the corpses, the pools of blood, the heads severed and piled up. "We are warriors, clans men, not savages. There is no glory in this."

  "Always a fucking problem when Shield Scyldmund doesn't have his tight grip around our throats." Sword had pulled up his trousers and drawn his sword. "Knew this day was going to come soon. Can't share, can you?"

  Shield refused to draw his sword. "Blood is bad enough among the clans as it is. When their warlock chief hears of this, it will come to us across the river. You're going to bring the clans to war with this, idiots."

  "I'm not interested in the clans. I'm interested in me," said Spear.

  "We're not part of clan laws now," said Sword. "We're running dogs now and by the sword we rule."

  Harad blinked in the bright light of the market, the memory of the destruction of the village fading from his mind.

  The red-bearded giant shambled along behind Spear and Shield, twenty years since that slaughter of the village, twenty years since war erupted between the clans and everything since then: Shield taking the head of obstinate Sword, the murder of Shield's father, the splitting of the Hounds, the assassination of the Warlock King and the long years of the Hound's servitude to Dhurma.

  Here after all this time, what remained of the Hounds had come together again, but Harad wondered for how long. How long until dark clouds swallowed the sun?

  A little girl darted out from a ramshackle stall and handed Spear an apple and, in return, he tousled her hair. A man burdened with a sack of grain moved into a deep patch of mud to let Spear pass. The daughters of a butcher smiled at the bald man from behind their blood-caked palms.

  Small wooden stalls leaned precariously above the mud and shit strewn ground. Vegetable stalls stood next to basket weavers, smithies belched smoke into the neighboring soup stall. A trail of blood rivered out of the makeshift stall of an itinerant goat herder who was slaughtering the last of his herd. The people here were all dirty and desperate, either villagers displaced from their traditional homelands or those who traveled for days to bring a sack of potatoes and cabbages hoping to trade them for some dried or salted meats to get them through the impending winter.

  In Vas Dhurma, the markets evoked prosperity. Here the market mustered despair, fear, the dream that the occupation by the Dhurman soldiers would somehow lift them out of their dreary existence. Dhurma had risen in the past generations – from farmers and small cities to an Empire – while the North did not change. Once it did not matter. The worlds were separate. But now that the Dhurma Empire had grown, spread its wings and begun to conquer, it was the slow death of the North.

  Harad could see it plainly here – the shadow of his people, the clans pushed further north, Northern dreams that were replaced with dreams of Dhurma – the North
as he knew it was dying. His people would not last for many more generations and there was nothing that he could do about it.

  He touched the book at his side. It sat solid against his ribs. The weight of it comforted him. He would find clans people tonight and he would read. He would let his voice ring out. He would show them that they lived in the book and that they need not disappear. The clans of the North had a place in the world.

  Spear stopped at a metal worker's stall. It was near bare. A few copper urns, an ill-formed helm, and half a dozen bracelets, armlets and necklaces. "Clansman, it is the end of your moon."

  The man, younger than any of them standing there but looking worn near to death, lifted his hands. "Have mercy on me, Spear. I will get you the rent for the space. No one is buying anything."

  Spear scoffed. "The vegetable seller pays her rent. Every month. On time."

  "No one will buy what I make."

  "I told you this before, fool. No one wants to buy old clan ornaments. Look at what the Dhurmans wear, copy it the best you can, and you will sell your wares."

  "I'm not a Dhurman craftsman."

  Spear lifted up the blanket on which the wares were displayed and snapped the edge of it causing the items to tumble behind the man into the mud. "You fucking standing up to me? You, you little shit eater? I gave you a chance." Spit flew from Spear's mouth; his face had turned red, eyes bulging. "In front of my brothers long lost, you embarrass me." A kick sent the man to his knees.

  "Leave him be," said Harad laying a hand on Spear to restrain him. "He's simply poor."

  Spear trembled with rage, body craning towards the metal worker. "I should kill you. You are the blight of our people."

  "I have mouths to feed," said the metal worker.

  "Spear, he means nothing ill," said Harad. "Let's go back to the mead hall. Talk about the old days and the days ahead."

  "A blight that has to be stopped."

  Shield stood some distance away. Harad looked at him, imploring him to step forward, to do something.

  Spear kicked the man again and again, and then his men led by Cruhund dropped blows on him, dented his urn, tossed his helmet into a sewage ditch, stuffed the bracelets in their pockets.

  Harad finally stopped trying to tear the men away from the defenseless metal worker.

  Shield breathed heavily through his mouth. He took a step forward.

  Then it was too late. The metal worker no longer moved and a pack of urchins were dragging his body down towards the river, their grubby fingers rifling his pockets, stripping him of his boots and furs.

  When Harad turned around again, Shield was gone, a soft impression in the ground where he had stood. By now, the clouds had returned, and Cullan was deep again in shadows, and the first frozen drops of rain hit Harad's cheeks like shards of glass. As he scurried back towards the shelter of the mead hall, hand over head, he wondered if they had returned to a nightmare. He wondered if he had anything to bring back to the North.

  EDGE OF EMPIRE

  IN THE DARKEST part of the Northern night when the cold crept deepest into his bones, Vincius of Xichil, Apprentice Chronicler, came to realize that his time in Cullan was not a reward for having helped save the life of Attia.

  At first, Vincius did not understand that this was his fate. He had held out hope. He had purpose. By night, he would lay out his maps to methodically plot how he would sweep through the neighboring villages to find witches and warlocks. During the days, he would lead the Hounds along the narrow trails to the clan villages and begin his interviews and interrogations. He knew that if they hid something from him, he would sniff it out. He would collect his words.

  The first crack in the dream came as he got to know the Dhurman soldiers who held the border fort. These were not the finest men that the Empire had to offer. They were the degenerates, the drunks, the politically unconnected whose crimes had not earned them the gallows but who the powers wanted out of sight.

  The second crack came when the commander of the fortress turned.

  Urbidis was friendly enough at first, giving the Apprentice Chronicler well-warmed quarters and inviting him to sit with him for rambling meals every night. But after two weeks, a dark mood fell over the commander, one that the serving men suggested was more of the order of the day.

  Then one afternoon, Vincius returned from one of his unsuccessful forays to the local villages to find that all of his belongings had been moved into a room shared by the corpulent Sergeant Pullo, a fellow exile of the isle of Xichil. He was told that his meals from that point forward would be served on the cold benches outside with the rest of the soldiers, or if that did not suit the Apprentice Chronicler that he was welcome to leave and find his own accommodations.

  It was then that Vincius fully realized that the Master Chronicler had simply wanted to get rid of him, that the mission to Cullan was no reward for either years of patient loyalty or his misinterpreted actions in the market. The North was where those who fell out of favor were sent, as close as one could get to being exiled without actually being sent past the borders. He had been sent to the edge of empire, to a freezing frontier.

  Despite the bitter cold of the North, the Apprentice Chronicler from Xichil refused to adopt the furs of the locals. Even Urbidis, the commander of the outpost, had given in to the local dress, a bear skin vest on his massive shoulders and wool trousers cinched up beneath the leather skirt of his armor.

  Vincius held in his mind that if he refused to give in to being absorbed into the exile in the North that somehow he would rise above what fate had offered him and that he would return glorious to Vas Dhurma.

  In order to return, he would need to hunt down the warlocks and witches. He would need to return with precious words.

  "More of us here than you would think," said Pullo one night as he stared at his unkempt beard in a small hand mirror. The fat sergeant sat barefooted on the edge of his cot. "Do you think I should grow it out?"

  "What do mean by that?" asked Vincius not looking up from his maps rolled out on the floor of their cramped apartment.

  "Grow it long like the Northmen. Maybe braid it. Seems to keep their faces warm. Last winter, when the snows finally came, I thought I was going to die."

  "No, what do you mean by 'more of us here than you would think'?"

  "Xichils," said Pullo. "There are about a dozen of us in the outpost out of a hundred some men. Not quite proportionate to our number in Empire."

  "You think there is something to it?"

  Pullo laughed. "No, they just hate us, hate us when we start not living up to their image of us as backwards peasants. Me, I fought well. As a reward, they made me a sergeant ahead of a handful of lazy Dhurmans and then shortly after that sent me up here. Claimed it was a reward for time served and bravery. We're no better than dogs, dark dirty Xichils. Though you could almost pass for a Vas Dhurman proper. Not all hairy like me and stinking of the sea."

  "The Master Chronicler sent me here on a mission."

  "Okay. I get it. You're different. Still a Xichil but different. Things change. Don't forget Dhurmans are social animals and right now they're lambs to the Emperor's call for a return to the traditional ways, the old religion, the pure Dhurman race. We Xichils have no place in all that, so we get sent away."

  "I am being given a chance to prove myself."

  The sergeant put down his mirror and stared at the young man. "You don't need to prove yourself to them. Who are they to pass judgment on you? You chase that down and you'll quickly lose yourself."

  Vincius knew that the disheveled Pullo was right. Empire did not care for anything but perpetuating itself. However Vincius still felt that the Grand Collegium and the Guild of Chroniclers were different. Magic favored no people and some of history's best Chroniclers and Speakers, men who had risen from places even lower than where Vincius had started, were not Dhurman. If there was any vocation where he could rise through his merits, he knew it was as a Chronicler.

  So, despite the
words of Pullo, Vincius bent to the map. Here in the North, here where there were rumors of dark magic, especially in the unmapped lands across the Black River, the young Xichil would prove himself.

  RAISING THE DEAD

  BIRGID WORDSWALLOW HAD escaped the tower of the warlock.

  But not Fennewyn himself.

  The small party crept through the mists, south, towards the Black River.

  She was wrapped in a cloak of deerskin, but despite the cover, the cold wet her skin. Fennewyn walked ahead of her. He almost seemed to vanish in his cloak, black, undulating like the night sky reflected in the sea, a cloak made for a man of greater size than he was. One hand, bony, big knuckled as if arthritic, spotted with age, clutched a knotty staff. He looked as if at any moment he might stumble. But that appearance of weakness was a lie.

  Fennewyn was the most dangerous man that Birgid had ever known.

  She was tired. They had been walking for several days, meandering, as if the warlock did not know where it was that they were going. Her body ached from sleeping on the cold ground, the constant walking, the eyes of the dozen Painted Men giving her no privacy. The warriors did not seem to need any rest.

  She wondered if they were simply to wander for an eternity as if lost in the mists.

  Then they reached the farmstead.

  It sat in a small vale close to the Black River but still distant from the fortress at Cullan. A small creek ran through the cluster of rickety wooden buildings and grain stores. A few horses ran a pen, snorting defiantly.

  The party of travelers kept behind the crest of the hill. Fennewyn sent Gyrn through the tangle of bushes. It was hours before he came back.

  "The men are not in the fields. Or maybe they are all dead."

  Fennewyn nodded. He was a small man, his beard white and scraggly, not as full as one would have expected, more as if he struggled to grow a healthy beard. His face was equally haggard, skin sagging around his sunken eyes, eyes a murky blue.