Ember and Ash Read online

  If they had nothing worth trading, how could they survive without raiding? If his children’s future were at stake, would he attack strangers to ensure it? He thought he would, especially if a Power like the Ice King encouraged it.

  He sat up, trying not to wince as the bruises caught, and slid around to sit on the side of the bed, stretching to stop himself stiffening up. Cedar scowled disapprovingly at him, but he just grinned and stood up, going over to the water barrel and dipping up a drink.

  “What does Nyr have to trade?” he asked Pib in a tone of idle curiosity. Pib rested his whittling on his knee as if glad of the break.

  “Furs, mostly,” he said. “We’ve been able to trap a lot more now the wind wraiths are gone. It took a while to outfit everyone with winter gear, but now we’ve got enough for ourselves and some extra. And there’s this—” He brandished the horn. “We’ve made carvings, some silverwork, soapstone jewelry, a bit of weaving.”

  “What do you want in return?” Cedar joined in.

  Pib gave a bark of laughter. “What don’t we want? You southerners have more than you need. The women want pots and wooden things, platters and such, and herbs for healing. Ari Hárugur King wants steel, seeds, tools…” He shrugged.

  “Dried fish would be useful, here, too,” Tern piped up. He was in a corner, rubbing tack industriously, but now he looked up. “I’m from the north, where it gets as cold as here, and salt fish makes a good standby in winter for stews.”

  Pib looked doubtful.

  “Never had fish,” he said. “What’s it taste like?”

  They looked at each other, trying to work out how to describe it. Cedar smiled. “Salty,” he said.

  “Salt’s good,” Pib acknowledged. “At least we’ve got salt.”

  “Really? You can trade that, as well,” Cedar said. “Especially down south.”

  “I’ll let Bren know that,” Pib said, and then, suspiciously, “Why you bein’ so helpful?”

  Laughing, Ash sat back down on the bed. “We’ve spent every summer of our lives defending our valley against you lot. I’d much rather sell you arrows than put arrows into you!”

  That was a joke Pib could understand, and he laughed full-throatedly, throwing his head back.

  I could slit his throat now, Ash thought, but that would be stupid. Which was a relief.

  Cedar said Ember was fine, but Ash couldn’t help worrying about her. He’d been surprised by how well she’d handled the king, but that was the courtier in her coming out—the part he liked the least. In the Forest they’d just been family and friends together; here she was the princess and they were servants, and that was increasingly hard to bear.

  The trouble with being cooped up was that he had too much time to think. He lay down again and buried his face in his arms. Ember. No. Don’t think about her. What about that girl, Iina? She was pretty, and much more the kind of girl he’d always fancied; slight, blonde, shy. He tried to summon up her face in his mind, but it wouldn’t come; only Ember’s green eyes, the freckles on her uptilted nose, the blazing hair which always escaped from its ties… people talked about their hearts being sore, but it wasn’t his heart but just under it that hurt. A hard knot that tightened every time he thought about her. He was her cousin, for Swith’s sake! Or even worse, her nephew. Not by blood, his treacherous mind whispered.

  He was a bowyer and she was a warlord’s daughter and blood or not, she was forbidden to him.

  Grammer would support you, he thought, but he banished it. Grammer Martine didn’t rule the Last Domain, and he was as sure as he could be that Arvid would forbid any marriage between him and Ember.

  He couldn’t believe that he had even thought the word “marriage.” His stomach clenched; she was beautiful, of course, but she drove him to distraction sometimes, with her tears and her spoilt assumptions about who would do the work for her. Yet, to be fair, on this journey she had pulled her weight, and if she’d cried, she’d had cause. And brave—she was as brave as Grammer, and that was saying something. She had stood up to Elgir as he wouldn’t have dared; an enchanter, a warlord—that was a bad combination! But she was fierce in defense of her people.

  That brought him to thoughts of Curlew and the cairn of rocks which covered him; and of Thatch, left behind for the wolves and crows. He mourned them both, in different ways, but the one he missed most was Holdfast, who had been his companion for five years, as Grip had been Cedar’s. Holdfast’s warm weight on his feet would have helped him sleep.

  “I wonder how the dogs are?” he said to Cedar, and saw his eyes go out of focus as he thought about them. Sight.

  “They’re fine,” Cedar said, half-smiling. “Playing like pups.”

  Tern stared at him, wide-eyed, and Pib stared, too. Although he didn’t quite understand what had just happened, he realized something had. Ash laughed. All of their family were so used to Sight and the gods talking that they forgot, sometimes, how odd it seemed to others.

  “It doesn’t always work like that, to order,” he said to Tern.

  “That’s the truth!” Cedar confirmed. “When you most want to know something, that’s when the Sight won’t come.”

  Pib came forward slowly. He pointed at the yellow pouch hanging from Cedar’s belt.

  “Are those stones?” he asked, with some awe. “My mam told me about them. Can you really tell the future?”

  Cedar nodded, taking the pouch and weighing it in his hand.

  “Aye. Most of the time.”

  “Can you tell my future?”

  “You have to ask a question,” Cedar said gently. “The more precise the question, the more precise the answer. I will cast for you, if you wish.”

  He was talking more like an officer’s son every day, Ash thought. They’d always been encouraged to speak properly; no Traveler slang, no slurring like most of the Hidden Valley people. But Cedar’s speech had shifted, and it was a reflection of how he himself had moved away from his past, away from being a simple farmer’s son to being a stonecaster, a seer—a warlord’s heir. It was a strange thing, seeing a younger brother grow in stature like that.

  Pib nodded.

  “What do I do?”

  Cedar spread out the kerchief Ember had given him on the bed, and motioned for Pib to sit down opposite him.

  “You have to spit in your hand and then take mine,” he explained. “Then ask your question. But remember, I will see the truth, so if there is anything you wish to hide from us, don’t ask that question.”

  Pib considered that carefully, then he spat in his hand and looked doubtfully at it before he clasped the hand Cedar held out.

  “I’m going with you tomorrow, on the trading trip,” he said. “How will the trading turn out?”

  Cedar’s brows rose. He dug in the pouch and cast the five stones. All face up.

  “Success,” he said with relief. “Prosperity, Rebirth, Certainty, Homecoming.”

  Pib beamed. “Well, that’s good!” He hesitated. “Lad, I wouldn’t go around talking about this. I understand, because of my mother. But most around here would think you were consorting with demons, or that the evil one had sent you here to confuse us.”

  “The evil one?”

  “From the evil place—Fire Mountain,” Pib whispered. “The Destroyer.”

  Ash grimaced, and nodded. Wonderful. He couldn’t argue with that description of Fire. Not after seeing Osfrid burn. But it wasn’t reassuring, to hear their destination described as “the evil place.” Not reassuring at all.

  Their escape wouldn’t doom Nyr’s trading trip. That was good.

  Ash slept for a while, and then was wakened toward evening by one of the young boys running in and shouting, “Food’s ready! A feast, a feast to celebrate Nyr our king’s heir!” and running out again.

  At least the men here didn’t dress up, Ash thought, but when they got to the hall he found he was wrong. The men were all arrayed in blue or red tunics edged with bright embroidery, the women in long gowns with sho
rt sleeveless red jackets decorated similarly and edged with fur.

  There were candles on every surface and the long trestle tables had been set up at the edge of the big space, leaving the area around the hearth clear.

  Ember, he was relieved to see, was sitting safely next to Halda, in the position of honor. As trusted servants, they were placed with Ari’s guard—a nice solution to the threat they posed. It meant that Ash was next to the man who had killed Curlew, with Tern on his other side, glowering at his plate and refusing to look up in case he met the man’s gaze.

  Oddly, Ash felt no anger toward the man, whose name turned out to be Sami. Curlew’s death had been a genuine accident—a misunderstanding which happened, sometimes, when men with weapons encountered each other. Tern would understand in time. If he’d been Sami, Ash thought, he’d have struck out, too.

  The feast made Ash even sorrier for these people, especially the women. While they had killed a couple of young kids and their hunting falcons had brought down a swan, that meat was shared out mainly among the men—the women got the scraps, and the children ate from their mother’s plate. There were greens, and small turnips, flat bread with a sour cream and fennel dipping sauce and the big event was a sweet slice made with oats and honey, which had the children begging from table to table for crumbs. Ash thought of Ember’s wedding feast. No one had had the stomach to eat much, but the tables had been overflowing: meats and breads and cakes and fruits, doves stuffed with raisins, spatchcocks and quail, as well as ordinary chicken and egg dishes, flummeries and fools, biscuits and salads and wine. At least here there was mead, and good mead it was. It eased the pain in his back, but he was careful not to drink too much.

  After the food some of the men got up and fetched instruments. Drums were the same everywhere, but there were no flutes or harps. Instead, there were horns—short ones, made from cow or sheep horns, and long ones constructed of a combination of horn and wood and bands of metal. They made a low sonorous noise which set Ash’s skull vibrating and then, as the drums came in, his feet tapping.

  As soon as the first note sounded, everyone got up to dance. Ash was glad his beating excused him, but the other men dragged Cedar and Tern up, too, Tern blushing red. He was young for dancing, Ash thought; young enough to be embarrassed to approach a girl.

  But none of the men went toward the women. They formed a big ring around the hearth and began stamping to the beat. The women formed a larger ring around them, clapping in time. Ari and Halda, standing opposite each other, threw their arms up into the air and everyone began to move. The two rings circled in different directions, both making intricate steps and stamps in time to the ever-faster beat. Ash clapped along, watching Ember’s efforts to stay up with the other women. She was laughing, her face flushed, her feet nimble. In the circle of women she seemed to stand out like a beacon, a kingfisher among sparrows. As the ring passed him she looked up and smiled. Their gaze held for a moment, and then she blushed red and looked away.

  He cursed himself. What had she seen in his face?

  As the dancing grew faster and more energetic, Ash noticed that the central fire burned brighter. Did they see it, too? They couldn’t possibly realize what it meant, not with the whole lot of them thinking the Fire was evil itself. He wondered why Fire let them go on thinking it. Why He didn’t show Himself.

  He got a clue when the musicians paused for a break. Everyone threw themselves down and drank and a singer, old Garn, came forward to chant a long ballad in a beautiful practiced voice. Pib translated for them. It was the story of Sebbi, an ancient hero who had sacrificed himself willingly to the Ice King. That extraordinary act had gained the King’s attention and had led to the first alliance between the Ice King and the Hárugur King of the day. The Ice King had told the Hárugur King about Mountainside, the complex of caves in which his people could survive the long winters.

  “We are alive,” Pib said, tears standing in his eyes, “because Sebbi bought us His approval with his own blood.” He paused, thinking something through. “He was a stranger, too,” he said.

  When Garn finished, there was no clapping, but everyone drummed their feet on the floor of the cave in applause.

  After that, the dancing went on for hours, until Ash’s back was pained simply from sitting up. He said so to Pib on one of the musicians’ breaks when everyone came back to the tables for a drink.

  “Go to bed, then,” Pib suggested, his words a little slurred. “After one of Bren’s beatings, no one would blame you.”

  Perversely, it made him want to stay up, but he couldn’t risk slowing the others down later, so he dragged himself up and made sure he walked a little more weakly than he needed to. Ember looked at him with concern and came over to him.

  “I’m all right,” he said, pretending to pretend, but his eyes were steady on her and she nodded in understanding.

  “Oh, you men, always trying to seem brave!” she scolded, lending him her arm which he took with exaggerated reluctance, aware that many eyes were on them. “Second watch is too early, with this going on,” she whispered. “An hour later.”

  “Aye,” he said, and stumbled a little to hide the fact that he was pulling the strip of leather from the end of her braid. She flinched but said nothing, and he slid the strip into his pocket. They would need it later.

  He left her at the entrance to the men’s caves, glad that the moment of awkwardness seemed to have been left behind. But the place where she had taken his arm burned beneath his shirt, and despite the quiet of the cave, sleep was a long time coming. He lay and listened to the distant bass beat of the dancing, praying to whatever local gods guarded this place that they would make it away safely.

  The others trickled in later, waking him from a doze. Cedar and Tern were tired, which was bad, and Pib simply saluted him from the doorway and winked.

  “Got myself a girl to see,” he said, letting the curtain fall. Could they be lucky enough not to have a guard tonight?

  No. A moment later Sami appeared, dragging his bedroll, and lay down across the entrance to the passageway with an excusing shrug. Ash nodded at him. He’d have to make sure Tern didn’t kill Sami. A knock on the head would be enough, surely, if they bound and gagged him?

  Killing as few as possible was an investment in the future Nyr and Arvid were trying to build, he thought.

  Sami had drunk deeply and started snoring almost immediately. Ash and Cedar cautiously rolled their sleeping pockets and stowed them, while Tern checked that they had not left anything behind.

  Ash looked around to find Tern standing over Sami, his throat working, his hand clutching a long knife. He must have stolen that, Ash thought in alarm. That’s not one of ours. Tern, of course, was trained as a soldier, used to carrying weapons. Moving as quietly as he could, Ash put a hand on Tern’s arm. The boy’s face was stone, his eyes dark with misery and the desire to kill. Ash shook his head.

  Tern tightened his grip on the knife as if to disobey, but Cedar stepped forward next to Ash and put his hand out to mime “Stop.” Tern’s lip jutted mutinously, but he spun on his heel and went to the other side of the cave, leaning his head against the stone wall.

  How hard should you hit a man to knock him out? Tern would probably know, but it would be a mistake to bring him back into it. They listened at the curtain—no noise beyond, but it wasn’t that long since everyone had gone to bed.

  Ash would have waited longer, but it was almost an hour past the second watch. He didn’t understand how he knew—in the Forest he had noted the stars or the moon’s position, but here, so deep underground, he just felt the passage of time as though it were a breeze that flowed through him at a constant rate.

  Ember was expecting them at an hour past second watch. She could be out there now.

  He pulled a kerchief and the strip of leather from his pocket and made sure Cedar had the cords they used to roll the sleeping pockets ready. He squatted behind Sami and gently pinched his nostrils closed. The man snorted and
his mouth opened wide to drag in breath. Ash stuffed the kerchief in and used the leather strip to bind it in place, gagging him. His eyes opened wide and he fought for air through his nose, coming awake as if from a nightmare, arms flailing. Tern was back, ready, and he and Cedar grabbed an arm each and flipped Sami over onto his back, dragged his wrists together and bound them quickly. Ash pushed down on his shoulders as Sami bucked and writhed and grunted, but with three of them on top he had no chance.

  They bound his ankles as well and hoisted him across to Ash’s bed, leaving him face down and tying him to the bed frame for good measure. He was still jerking and pulling at his bonds, giving muffled shouts.

  Ash bent and said quietly, “We don’t want to kill you.”

  Sami stilled suddenly. Good. Not a martyr.

  “No one will hear you. You made more noise snoring than you can now.”

  Sami turned his head and glared.

  “Yes, yes, I know, you think we’ve betrayed you. But believe me, it was necessary.”

  Ash straightened up, aware of his bruises and the deep cut across his back.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  The passageway outside was empty, lit by a single candle at the next turning. They had been through it often enough now to know it; there were four openings before the great hall, where the gods alone knew who they would meet. Surely there would be a guard somewhere.

  Hoisting their packs, they walked as quietly as though they were stalking deer; or rather, Ash thought, grinning, as quietly as deer trying to avoid a tracker.

  They passed the curtained doorways without a problem; at the second, they could hear a man’s panting breaths and a woman’s moans. Tern flushed red and Ash sent the couple a wish for good luck and a healthy baby.

  It cheered him and he walked faster; but at the entrance to the hall he was cautious, peering out carefully. Nothing. Nothing but the central fire burning low, the tabletops leaning against the walls, the eerie shapes of the paintings climbing the walls, seeming to move slightly in the firelight.

  No Ember. Should they emerge and wait for her, or wait here? He smiled to himself—she could be standing at the entrance to the women’s rooms, asking herself the same thing. He moved out into the hall as though he belonged there, the image of an arrow leaving the bow carrying him forward.