Blood Song

The western foothills were rocky and barren, broken by a seemingly unending series of gullies through which Vaelin was obliged to navigate his way north. Winter was coming on quickly and a hard, chill rain swept the hills with dreary regularity. Spit was more fractious than ever, tossing his head and snorting every time Vaelin mounted him, his mood unleavened a regular supply of candies from the mission house stores. He covered barely fifteen miles the first day and made camp beneath an overhang of rock, huddling in his cloak and resisting the urge to ignore Brother Artin’s stern warning against lighting a fire. Sleep, when it came, was fitful and troubled by dreams he could barely recall on waking to the dull glimmer of dawn. The blood-song was more muted now but still clear, still leading him on to the fallen city where he knew Nortah would be waiting.

Nortah… The anger returned, fierce and implacable. How could he do this? HOW COULD HE?

It had been building ever since Dentos related the tale, ever since the sickening realisation that he would have to hunt down and kill his brother. He found himself unable to muster much regret over Battle Lord Al Hestian’s severed hand, it was hard to pity a man intent on venting his grief on helpless captives. But Nortah…He’ll fight, he knew with a dread certainty. He’ll fight, and I’ll kill him.

He ate a breakfast of dried beef and set off through a light morning drizzle, leading Spit on foot as the ground was too rocky for riding. He had gone only a few miles when the Lonak attacked.

The boy leapt from the rocks above in an impressive display of acrobatics, turning over in mid air and landing nimbly on his feet in front of Vaelin, war-club in one hand and a long curved knife in the other. He was bare-chested and lean as a greyhound, Vaelin guessing his age at somewhere between fourteen and sixteen. His head was shaven with an ornate tattoo above his left ear. His smooth angular face tensed in anticipation of combat as he voiced a harsh challenge in a tongue Vaelin had never heard.

“I’m sorry,” Vaelin said. “I don’t know your language.”

The Lonak boy evidently took this as an either insult or an acceptance of his challenge since he attacked without further delay, leaping in the air, war club above his head, his knife hand drawn back for a slash. It was a practised move performed with elegant precision. Vaelin side-stepped the club as it came down, caught the knife hand in mid-slash and knocked the boy unconscious with an open-handed blow to the temple.

His hand went to his sword as he looked around for further enemies, eyes scanning the rocks above. Where there’s one, there’s more,

Brother Artin had warned him. There’s always more. There was nothing, no sound or scent on the wind, nothing to disturb the faint patter of rain on rock. Spit clearly sensed nothing either as he began to nibble at the unconscious boy’s leather-clad feet.

Vaelin pulled him away, earning a near-miss kick from a fore hoof, and crouched to check on the boy. His breathing was regular and there was no blood coming from his ears or nose. Vaelin positioned him so he wouldn’t choke on his tongue and tugged Spit onwards.

After another hour the gullies gave way to what Brother Artin had called the Anvil of Stone. It was the strangest and most unfamiliar landscape he had seen, a broad expanse of mostly bare rock, pocked by small pools of rain water and rocky tors rising from the undulating surface like great deformed mushrooms. He could only marvel at whatever design of nature had produced such a scene. The Cumbraelins claimed their god had made the earth and all it held in a blinking of his eye, but seeing the weather fashioned channels in the tors rising above he knew this place had taken many centuries to reach such a state of profound strangeness.

He remounted Spit and headed north at a walk, covering another ten miles before nightfall. He camped in the shelter of the largest tor he could find, his cloak once again tight around him as he sought sleep. His eyelids were drooping when the Lonak boy attacked again.

The boy raged in his unfathomable language as Vaelin tied the rope around his chest, his hands already bound behind his back. A livid bruise marred his temple and another was forming beneath his nose where Vaelin’s forenuckles had found the nerve cluster which sent him senseless.

“Nisha ulniss ne Serantim!” the boy screamed at Vaelin, his bruised face rigid with hate. “Herin! Garnin!”

“Oh shut up,” Vaelin said tiredly, pushing a rag into the boy’s mouth.