Winterbirth Read online

  Winterbirth

  Brian Ruckley

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2006 by Brian Ruckley

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Orbit

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: 2008

  Orbit is a trademark of Little, Brown Book Group Ltd.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-06831-4

  Contents

  Copyright

  Cast of Characters

  Maps

  Preface

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Winterbirth

  Chapter 2: Kyrinin

  Chapter 3: The Black Road

  Chapter 4: Car Criagar

  Chapter 5: Vale of Tears

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Meet the Author

  The Passage of Time

  IT IS A WORLD OF ICE.

  IT IS A WORLD OF BLOOD.

  IT IS A GODLESS WORLD.

  He felt no pain, just a solid blow in the square of his back as if someone had thrown a stone. No pain, yet his legs were no longer his own and he sprawled face-down into the damp leaf litter. He clawed at the earth, struggling to rise. His legs would not obey him. He reached behind to finger the arrow buried in his back. He felt something rising in his throat.

  Then there was a powerful grip upon his arm and he was turned over. The arrow snapped and sent a lance of pain clean through him, transfixing sternum and spine. He cried out and crushed his eyes tight shut against it. When he opened them again, blinking through the mist of tears, there was one last surprise. It was not into the pale face of a Kyrinin that he looked, as he had expected. Instead, he met the gaze of one of his own kind: a black-haired woman, clad in dark leather, with a sword sheathed crossways on her back. . . .

  “You should know why you die,” she said, “so know this: the Children of the Hundred have come for you, for all of you. The Bloods of the Black Road will take back that which is ours, and where you go now, all of Lannis-Haig will follow.”

  Lekan’s mouth moved. There was no sound. The blow fell, and he plunged toward the Sleeping Dark.

  PRAISE FOR

  Brian Ruckley

  “A gripping story that builds to a grim climax. No one who enjoys heroic fantasy should miss this.”

  —TIMES (LONDON)

  “An epic tale of revenge, betrayal, and greed . . . an intriguing and imaginative story.”

  — DREAMWATCH

  For my parents, who, in all senses, have made everything possible

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  THE TRUE BLOODS

  Haig

  Lannis-Haig

  Kilkry-Haig

  Dargannan-Haig

  Ayth-Haig

  Taral-Haig

  Haig Blood

  Gryvan oc Haig The High Thane, Thane of Thanes, on campaign in Dargannan-Haig lands

  Kale Gryvan’s bodyguard and Captain of his Shield, on campaign in Dargannan-Haig lands

  Aewult nan Haig Gryvan’s first son, the Bloodheir

  Mordyn Jerain, the Shadowhand Chancellor of the Haig Blood, a Tal Dyreen

  Tara Jerain The Chancellor’s wife

  Torquentine A man in Vaymouth

  Magrayn A woman in Vaymouth, Torquentine’s doorkeeper

  Behomun Tole Gryvan’s Steward in Anduran

  Lagair Haldyn Gryvan’s Steward in Kolkyre

  Lannis-Haig Blood

  Croesan oc Lannis-Haig The Thane, lord of Castle Anduran

  Naradin nan Lannis-Haig Croesan’s son, the Bloodheir

  Eilan nan Lannis-Haig Naradin’s wife

  Taim Narran Captain of Castle Anduran, on campaign with Gryvan oc Haig in Dargannan-Haig lands

  Kennet nan Lannis-Haig Croesan’s brother, lord of Castle Kolglas

  Inurian Counsellor to Kennet, a na’kyrim

  Anyara nan Lannis-Haig Kennet’s daughter

  Orisian nan Lannis-Haig Kennet’s son

  Rothe Orisian’s shieldman

  Kylane Orisian’s shieldman

  Lairis Kennet’s wife (deceased)

  Fariel Kennet’s elder son (deceased)

  Kilkry-Haig Blood

  Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig The Thane

  Ilessa oc Kilkry-Haig Lheanor’s wife

  Gerain nan Kilkry-Haig Lheanor’s first son, the Bloodheir

  Roaric nan Kilkry-Haig Lheanor’s second son, on campaign with Gryvan oc Haig in Dargannan-Haig lands

  Dargannan-Haig Blood

  Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig The Thane, in revolt against the authority of Gryvan oc Haig

  THE BLOODS OF THE BLACK ROAD

  Gyre

  Horin-Gyre

  Gaven-Gyre

  Wyn-Gyre

  Fane-Gyre

  and The Inkallim

  Gyre Blood

  Ragnor oc Gyre The High Thane, Thane of Thanes

  Horin-Gyre Blood

  Angain oc Horin-Gyre The Thane, lord of Castle Hakkan

  Vana oc Horin-Gyre Angain’s wife

  Kanin nan Horin-Gyre Angain’s son, the Bloodheir, campaigning south of the Vale of Stones

  Wain nan Horin-Gyre Angain’s daughter, campaigning south of the Vale of Stones

  Igris Kanin’s shieldman, campaigning south of the Vale of Stones

  Aeglyss A na’kyrim in the service of the Horin-Gyre Blood, campaigning south of the Vale of Stones

  Inkallim

  Theor First of the Lore Inkall

  Nyve First of the Battle Inkall

  Avenn First of the Hunt Inkall

  Cannek A Hunt Inkallim, campaigning south of the Vale of Stones

  Shraeve A captain of the Battle Inkall, campaigning south of the Vale of Stones

  OTHERS

  Huanin

  Kyrinin

  Na’kyrim

  Huanin

  Edryn Delyne Captain of a Tal Dyreen trading ship

  Tomas First Watchman of Koldihrve

  Kyrinin

  Ess’yr A woman in the vo’an of In’hynyr

  Varryn Ess’yr’s brother, a warrior

  Na’kyrim

  Yvane A na’kyrim living in the Car Criagar

  Hammarn A na’kyrim living in Koldihrve

  Cerys A na’kyrim, the Elect of Highfast

  Tyn A na’kyrim, the Dreamer in Highfast

  Eshenna A na’kyrim in Highfast, originally from Dyrkyrnon

  Preface

  THEY SAY THE world has fallen far from its former state.

  In the beginning there was but one race. It failed the Gods who made it and, though it wounded their hearts to do so, they destroyed it. In its place they fashioned five which they put in the world to inhabit it, and these were the races of the Second Age: Whreinin and Saolin, Huanin and Kyrinin, and Anain.

  The sky turned a thousand thousand times and beneath the gaze of the Gods their children prospered.

  Cities, empires, rose and fell. But at last the Huanin and Kyrinin wearied of the cruelties of the wolfenkind, the Whreinin. Despite the will of the Gods they made war upon that race, and they destroyed it utterly and it passed out of time and history. For this deed are the Huanin and Kyrinin named the Tainted Races. And upon that deed were the hopes of the Gods broken, for they saw that what they had made was flawed beyond mending, marred by an unyielding vein of discord and hubri
s. The Gods took council upon the highest peaks of the Tan Dihrin, where the rotating firmament grinds sparks from the mountaintops, and they chose to look no longer upon the failure of their dreams and to suffer no longer the rebellions of their children. They left the world, departing to places beyond the thoughts or imaginings of any save their own kind, and with them went much that was best in the peoples they abandoned.

  This is how the Second Age ended and the Third began. It is how this came to be a Godless World.

  That is what they say.

  Prologue

  I The Third Age: Year 942

  THE SOLITUDE OF the wild goats that made their home on the rock faces above the Vale of Stones was seldom interrupted. The Vale might be the only pass through the high Tan Dihrin, but it was a route that led nowhere: the bleak and icy shores of the north were home only to savage tribes. There was nothing there to draw traders or conquerors up from the lands of the Kilkry Bloods to the south.

  When a sudden river of humanity began to flow up and over the Vale of Stones, it therefore sent unease darting through the herds of goats on their precipitous territories overhead. Bucks stamped their feet; does called for their kids. Soon, the cliffs were deserted and only the mute rock was left to witness the extraordinary scenes below, as ten thousand people marched into a cold exile.

  The great column was led by a hundred or more mounted warriors. Many bore wounds, still fresh from the lost battle on the fields by Kan Avor; all bore, in their red-rimmed eyes and wan skin, the marks of exhaustion. Behind them came the multitude: women, children and men, though fewest of the last.

  Thousands of widows had been made that year.

  It was a punishing exodus. Their way was paved with hard rock and sharp stones that cut feet and turned ankles. There could be no pause. Any who fell were seized by those who came behind, hauled upright with shouts of encouragement, as if noise alone could put strength back into their legs. If they could not rise, they were left. There were already dozens of buzzards and ravens drifting lazily above the column. Some had followed it all the way up the Glas valley from the south; others were residents of the mountains, drawn from their lofty perches by the promise of carrion.

  A few of those fleeing through the Stone Vale had been wealthy - merchants and landowners from Kan Avor or Glasbridge. What little of their wealth they had managed to salvage in the panic of flight was now slipping through their fingers. Mules were stumbling and falling beneath overladen panniers, defeated by the desperate whips of their handlers or the weight of their loads; the wheels and axles of carts were splintering amidst the rocks, cargoes spilling to the ground. Servants cajoled or threatened into carrying their masters' goods were casting them aside, exhaustion overcoming their fear. Fortunes that had taken lifetimes to accumulate lay scattered and ignored along the length of the Vale, like flakes of skin scoured off the crowd's body by the rock walls of the pass.

  Avann oc Gyre, Thane of the Gyre Blood and self-proclaimed protector of the creed of the Black Road , rode amongst the common folk. His Shield, the men sworn to guard him day and night, had long since abandoned their efforts to keep the people from straying too close to their lord. The Thane himself ignored the masses jostling all about him. His head hung low and he made no effort to guide his horse. It followed where the flow carried it.

  There was a crust of blood upon the Thane's cheek. He had been in the thick of the fighting outside Kan Avor, his beloved city, and survived only because his own Shield had disregarded his commands and dragged him from the field. The wound on his cheek was little more than a scratch, though. Hidden beneath his robes, and beneath blood-heavy bandaging, other injuries were eating away at his strength.

  The lance of a Kilkry horseman had pierced the Thane through from front to back, breaking as it did so and leaving splinters of wood along the tunnel it drove through his flesh. He had a fine company of healers, and if there had been time to set his tent, to rest and tend to his wounds, they might even have been able to save his life. Avann had forbidden such a delay, and refused to leave his horse for a litter.

  What was left of the Thane's armies came behind. Two years ago the warriors of Gyre had been one of the finest bodies of fighting men in all the lands of the Kilkry Bloods, but the unremitting carnage since then had consumed their strength as surely as a fire loosed upon a drought-struck forest. In the end virtually every able-bodied man — and many of the women — of the Black Road had taken to the field at Kan Avor, drawn not just from Gyre but from every Blood: still they had been outnumbered by more than three to one. Now barely fifteen hundred men remained, a battered rearguard for the flight of the Black Road into the north.

  The man who rode up to join his Thane was as bruised and weary as all the rest. His helm was dented, the ring mail on his chest stained with blood, his round shield notched and half split where an axe had found a lucky angle. Still, this man bore himself well and his eyes retained a glint of vigour. He nudged his horse through the crowds and leaned close to Avann.

  'Lord,' he said softly, 'it is Tegric.'

  Avann stirred, but did not raise his head or open his eyes.

  'My scouts have come up, lord,' the warrior continued. 'The enemy draw near. Kilkry horsemen are no more than an hour or two adrift of us. Behind them, spearmen of Haig-Kilkry. They will bring us to bay before we are clear of the Vale.'

  The Thane of Gyre spat bloodily.

  'Whatever awaits us was decided long ago,' he murmured. His voice was thin and weak. 'We cannot fear what is written in the Last God's book.'

  One of the Thane's shieldmen joined them, and fixed Tegric with a disapproving glare.

  'Leave the Thane be,' he said. 'He must conserve his strength.'

  That at last raised Avann's head. He winced as he opened his eyes.

  'My death will come when it must. Until then, I am Thane, not some sick old woman to be wrapped warm and fed broth. Tegric treats me as a Thane still; how much more should my own Shield?'

  The shieldman nodded in acceptance of the reprimand, but stayed in close attendance.

  'Let me wait here, lord,' said Tegric softly. 'Give me just a hundred men. We will hold the Vale until our people are clear.'

  The Thane regarded Tegric. 'We may need every man in the north. The tribes will not welcome our arrival.'

  'There will be no arrival if our enemies come upon us here in the Vale. Let me stand here and I will promise you half a day, perhaps more. The cliffs narrow up ahead, and there is an old rockfall. I can hold the way against riders; spill enough of their blood that they will wait for their main force to come up before attempting the passage twice.'

  'And then you will be a hundred against what, five thousand? Six?' Avann grunted.

  'At least,' smiled Tegric.

  An old man fell in the crowds that surrounded them. He cried out as a stone opened his knee. A grey-haired woman - perhaps his wife — hurried to help him to his feet, murmuring 'Get up, get up.' A score of people, including the Thane and Tegric, flowed past before she managed to raise him. She wept silently as the man hobbled onwards.

  'Many people have already died in defence of our creed,' Avann oc Gyre said, lowering his head once more and closing his eyes. He seemed to shrink as he hunched forward in his saddle. 'If you give us half a day - if it has been so written in the Last God's book — you and your hundred will be remembered.

  When the lands that have been taken from us are ours again, you will be named first and noblest amongst the dead. And when this bitter world is unmade and we have returned into the love of the Gods I will look for you, to give you the honour that will be your due.'

  Tegric nodded. 'I will see you once again in the reborn world, my Thane.'

  He turned his horse and nudged it back against the current of humanity.

  Tegric rested against a great boulder. He had removed his tunic, and was methodically stitching up a split seam. His mail shirt was neatly spread upon a rock, his shield and scabbarded sword lying beside it, his he
lm resting at his feet. These were all that remained to him, everything he had need of. He had given his horse to a lame woman who had been struggling along in the wake of the main column. His small pouch of coins had gone to a child, a boy mute from shock or injury.

  Above, buzzards were calling as they circled lower, descending towards the corpses that Tegric knew lay just out of sight. His presence, and that of his hundred men, might deter the scavengers for a while longer, but he did not begrudge them a meal. Those who once dwelled in those bodies had no further need of them: when the Gods returned - as they would once all peoples of the world had learned the humility of the Black Road - they would have new bodies, in a new world.

  From where he sat, Tegric could see down a long, sloping sweep of the Stone Vale. Every so often he glanced up from his stitching to cast his eyes back the way they had come. Far off in that direction lay Grive, where he had lived most of his life: a place of soft green fields, well-fed cattle, as different from this punishing Vale of Stones as any place could be. The memory of it summoned up no particular emotion in him. The rest of his family had not seen the truth of the creed as he had. When Avann oc Gyre, their Thane, had declared for the Black Road they had fled from Grive, disappearing out of Tegric's life. In every Blood, even Kilkry itself, the blossoming of the Black Road had sundered countless families, broken ties and bonds that had held firm for generations. To Tegric's mind it was a cause for neither regret nor surprise. A truth as profound as that of the Black Road could not help but have consequences.

  An old man, dressed in a ragged brown robe and leaning on a staff, came limping up the Vale. He was, perhaps, the very last of the fleeing thousands. Though they were close to the highest point of the pass, the sun, burning out of a cloudless sky, still had strength. The man's forehead was beaded with sweat. He paused before Tegric, resting all his weight upon his staff and breathing heavily. The warrior looked up at the man, squinting slightly against the sunlight.

  'Am I far behind the rest?' the man asked between laboured breaths.

  Tegric noted the bandaged feet, the trembling hands.