When a chill greyness came I wondered if it was what departed spirits see. Sounds came from great distance. Greyness persisted, and I understood this was just a drab, drear daylight. I didn’t try to move, but soon stillness became too great an effort and I stirred. I’d been laid upon some brush and covered with cloth and skins that, in my weakness, held me to the ground as surely as a cairn of stones. The side of my face was gnawing, cold fire.

“Stop groaning.” A familiar voice, dry, shot through with things unsaid. “He knows you’re not dead. Spared you, he says.” The pop and crackle of a fire, the sound of rainfall on leaves. “He won’t come here though.” I had a question, but no words. My mouth and tongue were dry, foreign things. “What? Crow got you tongue? Rest, boy. You’ll need your strength.”

I could do little but what Speaker said. We were sheltered by an overhang of rock, among the outcroppings in the high birch woods north and east of the village, a dreary place, home to ill spirits that drive off game and lay traps among the roots and crevices. None but Speaker would lightly venture there.

“He killed her father and mother. She lives but he’s disgraced her. Aye, boy, you can cry for her now.” And I did. I remembered her gaze in those moments as I had hesitated. After long silence, “You might think you could set it right” he said.

“How?”

I heard him shift. “How do you think?” There was a scrape and a sudden thump of weight across my chest. “Bloody that. He’s right to fear its makers.” I raised myself painfully to sit. The foreign sword, the workman’s tool, lay across my lap.

“I’ve seen them.” The Speaker sat on a rock, his cape drawn around him, looking into the valley below the rocky cleft. “A great people. Their lands lie far to the South but their dominion spreads over half the world. Splendour you cannot imagine. They build in rock and stone and defy nature with their roads and great cities, dwelling places of multitudes all together. All who resist them are ground to dust or made slaves.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No. No you don’t. But Ghadran does. He’s known no greater power than his own in all his life. There are taller houses, larger clans than his but he always believed he would rise above them by his own will and labour, given time. Now he knows, as he grows older, he won’t have that time. All he’s done will be brushed aside.”

“Is it so?”

“It may be. He believes it, I think, so he will make it so. He will destroy himself.”

“Then I need not do it.” Rain fell, its sound mixing with the buzzing in my head and the throb across my cheek and brow. I set the strange sword to one side.

“Will you leave here then? You may have no other choice. Go south, see some wonders for yourself perhaps. It’s a hard journey but you’ll learn some wisdom. You might become a man none hereabouts could recognise. Perhaps you’ll never want to return to this hard, damp country, only go on into ever-stranger lands.”

“You’ve made such a journey?”

He looked slantwise at me. “Once a man is walking he may often go on as easily as he may stop. He may find himself beyond any land he has imagined and still see hill and mountain, sea and river going on before him. He’ll hear strange tongues, learn their words to know such stories…”

“This is my home. Everything I need is here.”

“Need? Aye, to stop at need may be wise if beyond lies only wanting.”

“I have a better riddle, Speaker. Why has my father turned against his own people?”

“You turned him. And you a blind fool.” He took up a stone and cast it into the valley’s cleft, following its fall with his eye. “D’you know, at first I thought the girl had bewitched you, as well she might have. Then I thought you’d chosen her to stir up Ghadran’s fury, and I marvelled at the guile of that. Now it all seems blind foolishness and accident. Truly there are devious spirits in the world.”

“I meant none of this. I have never . . .”

“So you say. And I believe you, boy. But this girl . . .If you and she live long enough you’ll learn her nature, and don’t then turn to me for help, Dran Gheodran. That destiny you’ll make for yourself.”


Two days and nights I lay up in the woods. Speaker came and went, bringing bread and word from the village. He said a strange calm had fallen, but few chose to make their beds in the great house now the outland girl was confined there, roped to the roof-posts and sickening into a fever. Anger and shame ran through me in rivers of heat and icy chill. Speaker cleaned and dressed my wound while I hissed my breath through gritted teeth.

“You’ll heal. Your eye is saved. Your looks . . .? Some girls will like it.” In the village the Speaker stalked about like a great, stiff bird, speaking only the harsh words of prophesy. Now I saw the real man.

“I cannot sit here much longer.”

“True.”

“I’ll need strength to face my Father.”

“Does this place not strengthen you?”

“Wet leaves and drizzle? The spirits here have their own concerns I think.”

“There’s truth indeed. But think on it, these rocks and stones that so pain your bones will endure well beyond your time. Even the trees outlive us. We flit like flies, by their reckoning.”

It was late in the afternoon, and the sun had passed behind the wooded shoulders of the land. Gloom pooled in the valley. “I must go to my father’s house, Speaker. Maybe I can reach him yet, if his wrath has cooled. I fear to go unsupported, though I cannot ask more of you.”

“Hmm. Let’s see what you brother says.” And suddenly Rhandren was there, stepping around the rocky threshold into my sanctuary.

“How now, Brother?” He said.

I tried to stand, but my legs were cramped and I staggered. He caught my arm, steadied me. “Rhandren. Have you come for me? I will go with you, my brother.”

“Stay. Sit. By the spirits, you’re a mess. Will you mend?” He sat too.

“I’m told I will be well again, though I do not feel it yet.”

Rhandren eyed the Speaker, who moved away. “Everything is turned on its head, Dran. Our Father has killed his own people.”

“It’s my fault.”

“Ah, Dran, I too stood aside.” He hung his head. “You acted, at least, while I only hid in the darkness.” He looked at me, “What shall we do?”

“What can we? He is . . .”

“Marpath will stand with you, he’s told me so. There are others. Dran, Ghadran will not let the women tend that girl. She is outland and strange but he can’t do this. The Ancestors will forsake us!”

“They will guide us. We’ll find the wise course. Is Marpath near?” I wanted that counsel then as never before.

“Fuck wisdom! We’ve too long borne his mastery in any case, and now he arms us for war! Where will he lead us? He has some new purpose, Dran, and I want no part of it.”

“He struck me down. I can’t fight him, Rhan’.” Even then I would have taken any path but that destined to me. “Are there enough discontent that he will have to listen, if we speak to him?”

“Discontent is a pretty way to say it. Some ask him the meaning of these things but he only roars and says his wisdom will not be doubted. He can’t strike us all down, Dran. If some stand then more will take courage, I’m certain of it! But we need you. I will lead if I have to but you must be with me.”

“And those that stand with him? Some would go to the Ancestors for our father.”

A silence stretched between us. “Then we must send them on.” There was a clear light in his gaze. He had six years and a head’s height over me, and we had spoken only of weather and livestock in three years at least. Behind his shoulder I saw a sword hilt, the one that had slipped from my hand three nights before.

“It will go beyond talk, Rhandren.”

“I know it. Dran, if you’ll not stand against me I’ll do this myself. I say again, it is time.”

“No,” I said, the burden settling into its true place. “It’s mine to do. With you at my back I will face him.”

Rhandren left, promising to return in the dark of the night, when the moon had set. Speaker and I waited at the fringe of the birchwood. Seeing Rhandren then with company, we hid ourselves. I saw Marpath, Fornoth and Bernt ‘Steepsides’, all armed with spear or bow. I looked at the Speaker, who only stuck out his lip at me.

“Rhandren.” I called, stepping out.

I saw his teeth in the darkness. “Hail, brother!” We clasped hands. “These others have come to your side, and more are waiting.”

I took their hands in turn, searching their eyes. “Friends, I do not ask this service of you, much as it warms my heart to see you.”

“It is we who ask much,” said Marpath, “This is a grievous pass.”

“Grievous? Who can say what grief is yet to come? We go not to any certain consequence.” There was silence, and Bernt, holding a spear of ash, iron pointed, clenched his fist over his heart.

We walked, Speaker a little way behind, into the vales that stood before my father’s house, paths known since childhood amongst the copses and the chattering watercourses, as though we were children, playing at some game of war, all innocent of blood and fire.

Rhandren said they’d been watched leaving the village. He’d seen nobody but there was too much rumour among the people for his group to go unnoticed.

“Is it wise to go by these paths?” asked Fornoth. Of Marpath’s kin and skilled in the care of beasts, he was a close member of my Father’s household. It surprised me to find him an ally.

“An ambush?” Marpath seemed unconcerned. “Ghadran defends his house; he must stay within the gate, no?”

I agreed. “Marpath is right. But enough may be loyal to him that he might send some out to slow us, or turn us back perhaps? It may suit him to keep this matter outside the palisade if he’s not sure of the people. Rhan?”

“He’s not at all sure of the people. I don’t know his latest counsels but I judge that he will keep his friends close. Harahd, Ghennath, Meffrem of Redwater. Cathad I think. Wanfeld spoke long with him yesterday; his boys are strong and skilful.”

“We will go quietly. He can spare one or two to harry us.” But we went unchallenged, even to the valley beneath our own dear hill, and so came out under the trees as the sky grew pale. On that march I thought of Ulyen. Her face swam and changed before me, now smiling, now weeping, now twisted in hatred; I shrank from learning her thoughts of me. Almost I wished that she was gone, and hated myself for it.

We went up the well-trod path and saw that the gate was closed against us, torches burning upon the gateposts.

“Dran, I was forgetting.” Rhandren untied the cord at his chest and held out to me my Grandfather’s sword. “I picked it up when you fell. Ghadran bade me keep it but it is yours by right.”

“No, Rhan. I dropped that blade, or it departed me. Perhaps it will serve you better. I have another, and Ghadran fears it more.” I showed him the Outlander sword under my cloak.

We came within bowshot of the gate as I guessed it, but no arrow came; perhaps the wall was not held against us. But, when we neared the gate, a voice came.

“Dran Gheodran! You are not welcome here!”

“Who speaks for my father? And who speaks for my father’s people?” I called back.

Marpath said “It is Ghennath, I know his voice.”

“I too, but he cannot think to hide, surely? Let him show himself.”

“Dran Gheodran!” the voice again, “Ghadran renounces your kinship. The others may enter but you are sent away.” A bag, thrown from behind the gate, dropped into the foot-high corn by the path. “Here is bread for your journey, Dran the Kinless.”

“Who are you to call my brother kinless, Ghennath?” called out Rhandren. “It is Ghadran who stands renounced, as this day will show.” The dawn light was spreading over the hilltops behind us as we went forward. I stayed a couple of paces ahead, thinking to draw any attack onto myself, quailing inwardly. An arrow then might have ended it.

“Stay out of this Rhandren,” came Ghennath’s further plea. “This isn’t your fight!”

“Yes it is. Is it yours?”

I spoke out. “Ghennath! Open this gate and go to your house. There need be no fight within this clan. We are all kin! We’ll set all to rights and return to our labours. Do you hear me? Stand aside.”

“I can’t admit you, Dran. You come with weapons to our village. No good can come of it.”

A thought nagged at me. If I turned and left, went to Fathaf’s house or further, would Ghadran’s spirit cool? Might a truer remedy lie in days and weeks, the labours of the harvest and common cause against the grip of winter? We could not bring back the dead with spears and arrows.

“Dran,” said Fornoth, “I care not for this breakfast.” He poked the fallen bag with his bow. “I’ll have no appetite until our houses are swept clean.”

The gate suddenly shook and began to open. We looked at one another. I heard a scuffle inside and found myself running, the others with me, reaching the threshold in a few strides. I brought out the outland sword and plunged through into the village. I saw Ghennath immediately, freeing himself from Sleyn, my former playmate, and reaching for a fallen spear. Two or three men were running towards the Great House and I saw the gate hauled fully open by others. I leapt onto the shaft of Ghennath’s weapon and stuck my blade under his nose as the wood cracked. He stilled his movement, eyes blazing.

“Sleyn?” He was sitting on his backside.

“Dran.” He stood, testing his jaw for its movement. He would need it, for Sleyn was ever wagging his jaw. “I’ve a remedy for this fool.” He brought out a cord of leather.

“You’ll not bind me,” said Ghennath.

“Then give me your word to return to your house and take no further part.” I looked into his eyes. People were all about, in the shadows and under the shelter of the palisade. Rhandren moved among them, sending them to safety, although I saw that some stayed. Some were armed.

“There is a madness on your father, some dark spirit. You can’t stand against him. He’ll kill you.”

“Aye, and then you’ll wish I had bound you.”

Rhandren came up. “We must go on quickly. The whole village is awake. This one?” He indicated Ghennath.

Ghennath straightened himself. I stepped back and sheathed my sword, holding his gaze. “I gave no word to Ghadran,” he said, “and I give none to you. Please go from here.”

“I can’t.”

“And I will not cower under my doorcloth.” He smoothed his moustaches. “I’ll bring you to your father and listen to your counsels.”

Fornoth had an arrow knocked and Ghennath knew it, but he turned away and moved off towards the House leaving his broken spear. Rhandren shrugged at me, and we followed.

At the door of the House I saw as if for the first time the carved lintel, the spirit-creatures curling up and around to fix any who would pass with their baleful eyes. These were the guardians, Nefrud and Madrud, holding all to an unspoken promise of just intent. As if intent had ever held any water. But they saw me then, and I saw the depth of their knowledge. Ghennath ducked inside. I went to follow but Bernt pushed ahead, hand on my chest. A moment later I saw Bernt’s hand again, caught by the Sun rising behind us, beckoning me in.

It was dark inside and although torches were burning it seemed they served only to deepen the shadows. I saw that Ghennath had moved away to one side, leaving an open space before the hearth, the goods and people that would normally clutter there being absent. A log had been set upon the embers but had not kindled. Beyond the hearth sat Ghadran Gheodran.

At first he seemed not to see me. My companions arrayed themselves at my shoulders but his head remained bowed as though in sleep. Behind him on either side were armed men with spears and bows, each of whom I’d called friend in former days. I didn’t look now into their faces, my resolve flickering in the sudden solitude of the moment. I’d many fine things I intended to say but could bring none of them to speech.

“What’s this?” Ghadran’s head came up, his voice coming as if from deep within. “The whipped dog crawling back to the fireside? You’d have done better to slink away. If you’ve come to say farewell, speak it and go.” I drew my cloak closer around myself. My head ached but fear had given way, calm running through me as a cool stream. Ghadran stood, rising to his full height, approaching around the fire. His torc gleamed in the torchlight above his great grizzled trunk, stripped as though for combat. “No words now? Is this a new insolence to beat from you? You see, Wanfeld?” He looked back at his supporters. “Are these the children we looked for? A puny crop I’ve raised.” He studied those with me. “Marpath? I’d have expected better of you. Or did you always scheme behind your straggly whiskers?” He tugged Marpath’s beard. “And is this more of my own flesh?” He stood before Rhandren. “What curse brought such mangy pups around my hearth!”

“You have disgraced this house.” I said.

“What? It find its voice? How dare you yap at me!”

“Your name and your house are dishonoured. I will keep both in tribute to your labours here, but your time in this place is ended.” He stood again before me with wild colour in his face, lips drawing back, and as I looked up into his eyes I couldn’t find my father there.

“Ended?” He gave a great roar and leapt back. A gesture brought his sword arcing over the fire to his hand; he cast away the scabbard and the leaf-shaped blade hung like a flame of metal in the beam from the door. A man ducked forward with a shield which he took, pacing back towards me. “We shall see about endings.”

I shrugged aside my cloak, showing the outland sword, and at that instant there came motion and a flickering of the dawn light in the doorway. I looked, and armed men were crowding in, shields, spears and bows in hand, Sleyn directing them into the array behind me. Those behind Ghadran, the sternest among our people perhaps, looked at one another.

Ghadran was close, and spoke more levelly now. “Why am I not surprised to see you holding that thing? It befits treachery.”

“It is a tool. You said it. It serves its purpose.”

“Without honour.”

“Then we are well matched.”

He looked about him. “You and me then, to save these others. This scene serves only death.”

“We need not.”

“You see a different path? We passed that turning, Dran.”

And he began, his blow seeking to make an ending of it, his whole weight behind the swing. The outland sword rang as I parried him, stepping back. A shield came to my hand, and it was Ghennath who placed it there, and then we circled back behind the hearth as I blocked and twisted away from an iron hail of blows. To left and right he came and always I fell back. He cut me, upon the arm and then upon the head so that blood misted my sight. Those in the house pressed back against the walls, struggling to allow free space and yet keep eyes upon the other faction, bows half drawn and shields cocked.

“Strike back!” called Marpath.

“Aye!” yelled Ghadran, “Did I teach you nothing? Strike at me!” He was at his game again, showing me this and another way to hit him, bold in his over-mastery. “You’ve not asked me, does she live?” His weapon cracked onto my shield, driving wood into my arm as the leather split apart. “Well,” another sweep, caught upon my bronze crosspiece with jarring force, “I don’t know!” He broke away and grinned wildly. “She’s stopped struggling anyway.”

A gale blew up behind my eyes and I drew breath like a rising swimmer held long below. Ghadran’s eyes darted left and I saw Rhan’ and Marpath run that way behind me. They tore away the cloth and skins of the sleeping place and there, hanging from bound and bloodied wrists, was Ulyen, naked, pale and still.

Freed of all bonds now, that cold stream of calm suddenly liquid fire, I took two steps and flung all my power into my outland blade. Ghadran, astonished, took the full strength across the his shield’s boss, the iron there springing open to show pale wood. He roared and dropped the shield, his hand broken and running blood. I struck again and he parried, sparks jumping from the metal as he stumbled away.

Rhandren covered Ulyen and cut her bonds, lifted her as Marpath’s spear held my Father’s followers at bay. Ghadran stuffed his bloody hand through the bindings of a fresh shield and stalked forward once more.

“Now we see what stirs your blood,” he said. “Foreign bitches. Bloody witches. I know her nature, boy. If yet she lives it will be to your doom, one way or another.” He came on again with renewed strength but I was done with the game. Two, three more times we tried each other’s force and then he was wrong-footed. The swords rang along each other’s edge and caught at the hilts. I twisted mightily and heard a bone crack in Ghadran’s arm. Even as he cried out I smashed my shield into his face, then my swordhilt, and kicked him back onto the hearth. A splash of embers marked his fall, and a great cry went up.

An arrow sang, then another, then “Hold!” called Wanfeld as one of his men sagged, wheezing.

Bernt Steepsides, looking at the dart pinned through the meat of his arm, said, “Shit!” It was his first word that day.

*

The sons of Wanfeld gathered my father to his feet, half gentle, half with strength to hold him. He was faint and bloodied about the nose and mouth, his breeks smouldering from the fire. Wanfeld came forward.

“We’ll take him hence. I gave him my word, Dran Gheodran.”

“See him safe away.”

“He has led us well.”

“I looked for no other leader. Some darkness took his mind.”

“Darkness is all about.” He examined me closely. “Look to the people. We are all bloodied.” He left then, his sons bearing Ghadran. They went straight to the gate and away into the mist in the valley.

I said that any that followed my father from the village that day should not look for welcome again in that year or the next, but that any who now remained would be as kin to all. Rhandren saw five families and twenty other men go out. Fornoth’s arrow had killed Dernth, a husband, father, and skilful worker with leather. I would that he’d been the last.

I looked for Ulyen. Rhandren had passed her into the care of the women, unknowing whether she was alive. He wanted me to stay in the house while others sought word of her, but I wouldn’t. A group of men followed me bearing spears though I wanted no guard. Ulyen’s old house was cold and deserted but finally I found a place where women stood about the door. As I came up there was a stir and my mother came out, tears upon her face.

“Dran.” I embraced her. “What have we become? He would not speak to me or let us come to this poor girl. Oh, Dran, the Ancestors have forsaken us.”

“We’ll set all to rights again. We are still are as we were.” I saw something deep in her eyes. “This was not the man you know, Mother, who did these things. Ghadran was taken from us. Truly, I will look for his return when his darkness is lifted.”

She wept a little. “This girl yet lives. I don’t know how she has been preserved but our healing may now help her. She asks for you.”

I went in. Ulyen was laid upon straw, covered by cloths but deathly pale and shivering. The women fell back from her and I realized that I still held my sword. I put it aside. Her eyes were closed and her lips moved a little.

“Ulyen? Ulyen, do you hear me?”

She trembled and I was scared, but then she quieted, opened her eyes. Her lips formed words without sound.

“Water.” I said to those nearest.

“She won’t drink.”

“Water!” A cup was brought. I raised her head and poured some drops onto her lips. Her tongue, whitish and ill-looking, tested them. She turned her face away. There was another tremor and she turned back. Her eyes were intense, sunken but suddenly bright, her nostrils flaring. She craned her neck towards me, struggling to speak. “What? What is it? Be at peace, please. He has gone.” But she shook her head, closed her eyes again.

With a renewed effort she strained upward again. “Sss . . . . Send . .” She fell back and cried a little, then stared again. “Ssend them…away!”

“Go!” I said. “Go all of you! Don’t just stare like owls, get out!” I made to sweep them out bodily and they tumbled for the door.

I turned back and saw her Ulyen lying peacefully now, her breaths longer and easier, as though in sleep. I saw in her the frail beauty that had caught me in the Spring. I stooped close. I leant down and kissed her lips.

Her eyes opened. I cursed inwardly, seeing that coming straight from the fight I had fouled her mouth with blood. Horrified, I sought a cloth to wipe the stickiness away but her gaze caught me, drew me in. She raised a slender hand to my face and brought it away reddened. She put the fingers to her lips.

Her voice was a whisper, if she spoke at all. “I will heal your hurts, my love, and you mine.”