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

  It was a place of safety where the clans came together to arrange marriages, where foreigners were welcome, where children came to gaze for hints of the great world that lay beyond the highlands, forests and peat bogs.

  Near two decades had passed, and Shield recalled the Hounds racing along the pastures among the crazed steer and bouncing goats, ducking the curses and stones of the shepherds, until they had turned their horses about on this same hill taunting Cullan and promising to return as great men, as fierce warriors, as those that the Northlands would sing about forever.

  But the return to the peak of the hill had shown them that they could no longer return to the Cullan of old.

  It was dead.

  What they returned to they could not say and who they were that were returning had no anchor anymore both for what Cullan had become and for what Shield and the Hounds had become.

  The communal pastures that built the wealth of the clans were gone. Instead, small square huts dotted plowed fields where rows of corn and wheat struggled towards the sky. The stalks were pale and scraggly, desperate for sun and warmth but finding only cold, shuttered skies. Cattle, yoked, pulled plows. Goats pressed together in pens. Men, once warriors, drove plows.

  Instead of a circle of round houses, a walled fortress loomed, a Dhurman outpost. The walls were huge straight timbers driven into the ground, pointed on the top, with a defensive catwalk around the interior. Inside, Shield could see wide wooden barracks.

  The great hall of Beuw was no more. In its place stood a wood and stone building, red roofed, surrounded with fluted columns: a Dhurman edifice on the banks of the Black River.

  A shantytown spread around the fortress. Small shacks clumped together connected by muddied alleys. A stretch of dead earth indicated a market with ramshackle stalls. Beyond the walls and towards the river, docks and small warehouses had been built and, at the edges of the water, hide-covered tents stretched.

  Cullan had become a garrison town, a monstrosity to support the soldiers of Vas Dhurma, a drain for the resources of the North.

  In silence, the Hounds descended the hill, following Vincius who had driven the oxen and cart ahead.

  The first to greet them was a handful of Dhurman soldiers standing where the road of mud melted into a small creek just beyond the spread of the shantytown. Vincius had stopped to talk to the soldiers, show them his papers with the mark of the Emperor. The soldiers in their plated armor, eyes shadowed in the visors of their helms, spears tall at their sides, stared at the Hounds but said nothing, letting them pass before returning to a game of bones. Then the children came, a herd dressed in rags, dirty palms upturned to the travelers. No warriors with faces painted in woad came out to challenge the Hounds.

  Patch shifted uneasily in his saddle. "Feels like a trap."

  Eyes were on them, eyes wondering who these Northmen were traveling with a man from the South, a man whose seal compelled soldiers to bow their heads and part.

  "What have they done to Cullan?" asked Harad.

  "We are North again, just like you wanted," said Shield. "What could possibly be wrong?"

  "I feel like if I turn my back, someone is going to introduce me to cold steel," said Patch. "Maybe we should go back and camp in a field of heather somewhere."

  It was not the eyes of the Dhurman soldiers that bothered Shield. It was the eyes of the Northmen, or what once were his people.

  Just as the cattle had been yoked to the plow to grow the Dhurmans wheat and corn, his people looked as if they too had been bound and broken over the past twenty years. Where Shield and his men still wore their hair long and braided and wrapped themselves in their clothes of furs simply put together, the people of Cullan had adopted the ways of Dhurma. They had shorn their hair so it was tight to their head, cut above the neck and ear. The men looked like babes, cheeks and lips shaven. Only a few of the old timers maintained their whiskers. Not a single man's face was painted with woad and the few clan tattoos he saw were faded, near invisible. Gone were the tunics roughly sewn of bear or even cattle. Instead, they wore the thick hemp and durable cotton of the Dhurmans, tanned leathers, and even silks, and Shield saw a few men who had foregone the wool trousers to go bare legged in Dhurman style, despite the cold, despite their heritage.

  The women were near unrecognizable. He could have been in Vas Dhurma itself. They wrapped themselves in fine cottons and silk, robed in soft dyed wool, bangled and necklaced in the metals that Dhurma held so precious. The hair of the women remained long, but was no longer braided or matted, but oiled and brushed. The faces of the woman had changed too. No woad, no clan tattoos. Instead an excess of Dhurman paint lay on their lips, cheeks and eyelids.

  The three Northman wound their way deeper into Cullan, through streets of mud, past ramshackle shelters, past the unblinking eyes of a people who were once their own, deeper into the North, but further from what they had known. They had returned, relics of the past, strangers, enemies to their own.

  Shield hated it, but where else was there for him to turn to now?

  MEAD HALL

  HARAD DRANK IN the dark mead hall perched on the bank of the Black River. Inside the walls of salvaged timber, he sat with Shield and Patch, elbows heavy, cups of mead before them.

  "I can taste the black currants as if I had just plucked them from the bush," said Harad holding his cup of mead in front of his lips.

  "This is missed," added Patch. "Foul tasting grape wine for so long. Was afraid it had burnt the taste right off my tongue."

  Shield sliced the last bit of meat from the duck leg and then pushed the plate to the others piled in the center of the long table.

  "We have returned home," said Harad. The hall was near full with other Northerners lost in talk and games and drink.

  But even as he spoke those words, he knew it was a lie.

  The next morning his head would ache, not just with the excess of drink but with the brightness of the light as it shone on the corrupted town. He had returned to a place that he once knew but he returned as a stranger and to a place that was no longer the same.

  Patch rolled his eyes. "I suppose you squint hard enough and we could pretend that we never left."

  The mead hall was nothing like Beuw's Hall.

  The mead hall was long and narrow, near claustrophobic, with a single table and benches and stools on either side running the length. At the far end was a giant hearth where the owner and his wife turned meats and boiled porridges. Barrels and jugs lined the walls, and along those same walls ran a small raised walkway where those who had too much to drink could lie down against the cold of the night. Smoked meat and bunches of herbs hung from the rafters and over the hum of the river, the sounds of pigs and chickens peppered the air.

  The hall was slightly elevated on piles, even as high as it was off the bank of the river, and by the smell of mold and mildew, Harad knew that the sometimes the river rose up angrily. It would have been better to build the hall further up the bank but that was where the Cullan garrison sat, where the hall of Beuw, scourge of so many so long ago, once sat.

  Earlier that day, the Hounds had followed Vincius and the one remaining Dhurman soldier to the walled fortress.

  The guards had held the Hounds at the gate while Vincius with his sealed scroll passed through to find Urbidis, the commander.

  Harad saw the remnants of Beuw's Hall. The great timbers of black wood that once housed the hall had been hacked and hewed, turned into the wall that surrounded the garish Dhurman building and the squat barracks.

  As Harad waited, the wind seeping cold beneath his cloak, an old man of Cullan, his tattoos faded, his whiskers long and gray, had come up to them.

  "No coin for you," said Patch.

  The old man's teeth were black with rot and sparse. "Beuw's bones," he said running a weathered hand along one of the ancient timbers. "A few of us raised swords. But they were too many. I hid on the far shore. A flotilla of bloated bodies harassed by hungry birds. Once we sent warrio
rs to the Western Seas on long boats heavy with gold and weapons."

  Vincius, a silk cloth at his lips, came to the entrance choosing not to step outside of the fortress. "You'll need to find your own lodging. Urbidis does not care what legion you served under. Only room here for true Dhurmans."

  Patch laughed. "And they keep you?"

  "Be here at dawn. We have important work to do."

  As the light of the day paled, the old man guided the three Northmen and their horses beneath the shadowed eyes of the bored guards on the wall of the fortress, through the scattered hovels of Northmen without clan, into the mud, through the stench of shit, past weary eyes and finally to the mead hall.

  On seeing the Hounds the hall keeper was reluctant but the drop of coin in his palm brought them in and the Hounds began drinking.

  As the night grew long, the mead hall filled with Northmen.

  These were not the men of old. Not those Harad had left behind.

  These were men who had been yoked beneath the Empire of Dhurma, hair shorn, furs replaced with worked leathers, the wild fire in their eyes quelled. In the case of the younger ones, who had grown up only knowing Cullan as a garrison of Dhurma, their eyes drifted to the south and the promises that Harad now understood were dissipating tendrils of smoke.

  As the mead was poured, the North returned. Songs of old broke out. Fists flew. Die flew across tables, bones rattling.

  A few of the Northmen stared at the Hounds and while Harad's hand tired from gripping the hilt of his knife, he saw familiarity in the eyes. But still he could not relax.

  Late in the night, when the hour was lost, Shield topped off their cups and leaned in close to his two companions. "I raise a cup to those who never returned. May they be riding together in the afterworld."

  The Hounds tilted their heads and Patch refilled the cups. "To each and every one of them." Shocking Harad, Patch named each and every one of the former Hounds in the exact order that they had left them, finishing with the Brothers Bull, Cook, Night and Hawk.

  Harad filled the cups again, mead sloshing onto the wide planks between them. "A cup to what awaits us."

  But the Hounds never were able to bring their cups to their lips, because at that moment the wide wooden doors of the hall slammed open.

  Giant black figures silhouetted the dark starry night. Torchlight stretched and bent faces. A cold wind forced its way past them swirling the straw and causing the torches propped in the wall to flicker, and almost succumb to the darkness.

  A single figure stepped forward, a giant man, head and cheeks shaved clean.

  "Who comes to my Cullan town without paying his respect?"

  He was as tall as Harad, but leaner, brow furrowed and the edges of his eyes wrinkled with the passing of the years. The rend in his chest piece of molded and studded leather suggested that it was pilfered from a Dhurman corpse. Thick pale legs ran between a leather-stripped kilt and fur-lined boots.

  In his hand, he clutched a spear, battered, carved with the symbols of power, and topped with a grooved spear blade typical of Dhurman infantry.

  However, he was no Dhurman.

  The bald man's faced flashed in and out of the shadows as he crossed the hall.

  The other men at the table scooted down the bench or picked up their cups and retreated to the walls, pressing into the darkness and putting barrels and sacks between them and the Northerner dressed in second-hand Dhurman leathers. Behind him, his men, similarly garbed, had stepped through the doors with blades already drawn.

  Harad waited for word or signal from Shield, but their leader sat still, eyes to his cup as if he could not pull his gaze from his reflection.

  "Who comes to my Cullan town?"

  Shield slid his cup forward and rose. The leader of the Hounds lifted his head and turned to the man in Dhurman leathers. "Don't tell me that the passing years have dimmed your eyes so, Spear Spyrchylde."

  The bald man's eyes narrowed and for a moment, it looked to Harad, as if their former companion would pounce, spear in hand. "Shield Scyldmund? And Harad? And Brynyr? The Hounds returned. Or at least a few of them. But returned from where? Would have to be the underworld since you've been dead to me for twenty years."

  "If by hellish underworld, you mean the bowels of Vas Dhurma and the sand pit of Hopht, yes, we have returned, answering the perpetual prayers of Harad."

  Spear handed his weapon to one of his guard. "I had heard that men had arrived from the South, fighting men, but never in all of my dreams would I have imagined that the men coming into Cullan, my Cullan town, would be Northmen, much less the Hounds." He crossed the distance between himself and Shield in a few quick steps and dragged him into a tight embrace. "My litter brother returned."

  Jugs were waved to the long table and others cleared space on the bench for Spear and his men. A suckling pig was brought out. Jars of pickled greens were pushed among them. Forearms were clasped, backs were slapped and family lines spoken to find where they crossed.

  The laughter and drink filled the hall with a light of its own. Stories of times together and times apart were shared.

  Before morning, the question came.

  "Because Harad here could not get his itch scratched and somehow has gotten it in his thick head that a woman of the North would solve his problem," said Patch.

  "A wife is not such a bad thing," Harad muttered, eyes cast to the wood table as if it would hide him from the laughter. "Plus I bring back a book." More laughter tumbled out.

  Shield pushed his cup away from himself. "Because Empire no longer has a use for the Hounds. We served them and served them well. But now there is nothing in the armies. They would not have us. Too old, too loyal perhaps."

  Spear grabbed his forearm. "You never should have left. You should have stayed here with me."

  "We had words."

  "And a few fists thrown, if I recall correctly."

  Shield nodded.

  "I'll be honest with you, Shield. After Tryr, I saw you and the Hounds as traitors, clansmen who sold their swords to our conquerors. A lot of us saw you that way. And most still do. If it were fifteen years ago and you came back, after what you did, I would have embraced you with knives in my fists. I promise you that. And thinking about it now, maybe I should have greeted you that way."

  Harad's hands found the hilts of his knives, tucked in his belt. His hammer was behind him against the wall, too far to reach. There were two of Spear's men at his side, talking about a woman, apart from the conversation. If Spear's words turned, Harad was ready to draw blood, even here in his homeland.

  Across the table, two of Spear's men bordered Patch and they all visibly tightened, each wanting to draw weapons but none wanting to be the first. The hall keeper was frozen in step, jugs in each hand.

  "But time passes." Spear slapped Shield's shoulder hard. "Look at me. I'm a fucking Dhurman buffoon." His hands swept over his leathers. "I thought I'd never do what you did, never sell my soul to the Dhurmans, but look at me, Shield. I'm no better than you, and maybe even worse." His voice dropped and he leaned in close. "Ever have regrets? Ever wake up in a cold sweat to the horror of what you've done to our people?"

  "The gods don't care what my nightmares may be."

  Spear chuckled. "Those years ago when you rode off, hot with revenge, I thought you had gone crazy. More so when I heard you served them. But here we are twenty years later and I do the same. Funny how things turn out. Maybe you return more a Northman than me who never left."

  "We have stood together in fields of blood. We are still brothers of the same pack."

  Spear shook his head. "Always the hopeless romantic, always thinking that our lives were the stuff of legend, always dreaming that we were heroes. Some things don't change do they?"

  "Nothing stays the same."

  "Why are you here, Shield? What have you come back for?" His fingers, thick and scarred, found purchase on Shield's forearm. "Not looking to take away my little piece of Empire, are you?"
/>   "We're in the employ of a Chronicler. Hired swords to root out the old magic."

  "Not much of that left around here. You'd have to go far across the Black River. There it's strong. Rumors suggest it might be strong enough that Empire might want to take note."

  Shield ran his hands through his graying hair, bent to look in his cup. "Killing warlocks and wizards. It's what I do."

  "An unquenchable thirst. But I'll tell you what Shield. If things don't work out with the Chronicler, I could use the three of you. The Dhurmans may rule Cullan town on paper, but in the shadows, I pull the strings, play the heavy, keep things in line. Tomorrow morning, come with me. I'll show you around my little kingdom."

  Later Spear and his men left with embraces, promising to show the Hounds Cullan tomorrow. Harad retreated to the catwalks and unrolled his blankets on the old straw. Outside, the crickets sang against the endless hum of the Black River. Harad was back home and everything should have felt right.

  But, even wrapped for sleep, Harad's hands still touched his hammer, ready to raise it overhead, ready for something unnamed to descend on them.

  OLD MEN

  SPEAR WOKE THE next morning with his head aching and his stomach rolling. He could barely breathe through his nose. Wood crackled in flame.

  Morning light filtered through the gaps in the thatched roof and the cold with it. One of these days, he thought, a solid tiled roof over his head, just like the Dhurmans had. And walls of white plaster instead of mud. But that was still a long way off, despite as far as he had come.

  He pulled the furs on the bed high up to his neck. Winter was coming again. He had had hopes that summer would have been longer, but it went by too quickly, just like all the years, and here he was, barely making his way towards his dreams. Every day, he was one step closer to the cold ground and not necessarily closer to his dream of Dhurman citizenship.

  Yriel was already out of the bed, feeding a small log into the fire. The sight of her at the iron kettle stirred his loins, but the desire quickly faded when he pulled the furs down. Too cold, his head hurt deep inside, and his knees were in pain.