Blood Song

The mixture had a bitter but not unpleasant taste and he felt his weariness receding almost immediately. Five days. He had no sense of it, no lingering memory of dreams or delusions. Five days lost. To what? The voice, the other blood-song, he could still hear it, a faint but persistent call. His own song answering, the vision of the marble block and chisel vivid in his mind. Sella’s words in the Fallen City becoming clearer. There are others, older and wiser with the same gift. They can guide you.

“I have to…” He raised himself up, trying to draw back the covers.

“No!” Gilma’s tone brooked no argument, her plump hand pushing him back into the softness of the bed. He found he didn’t have the strength to resist. “Absolutely not. You will lie there and rest, brother.” She pulled the covers up and secured them firmly under his chin. “The city is quiet. Brother Caenis has things well in hand. There is nothing requiring your attention.”

She drew back, for once her face was entirely serious. “Brother, do you have any idea what happened to you?”

“Never seen the like, eh?”

She shook her head. “No, I never have. When someone bleeds there has to be an injury, a cut, a lesion, something. You show no sign of any injury. A swelling in your brain that could cause you to bleed like that would have killed you, yet here you are. There was some wild talk amongst the men about Governor Aruan trying to kill you with a Dark curse or some such. Caenis had to put a guard on his mansion and hand out a few floggings before they calmed down.”

Floggings?

he thought. I never have to flog them. “I don’t know, sister,” he told her honestly. “I don’t know why it happened.” I just know what caused it.

It was another two days before Sister Gilma released him, albeit with stern warnings about over-exerting himself and making sure he drank at least two pints of water a day. He convened a council of captains atop the gatehouse from where they could observe the progress of the defences. A thick pall of dust was rising from the workings as men toiled to deepen the ditch surrounding the city and make good the decades long neglect of the walls.

“It’ll be fifteen feet deep when completed,” Caenis said of the ditch. “We’re down to nine feet so far. Work on the walls is slower, not too many skilled masons in this little army.”

Vaelin spat dust from his parched throat and took a gulp of water from his canteen. “How long?” he asked, hating the croak in his voice. He knew his appearance was not one to inspire great confidence, his eyes deeply shadowed with fatigue and his pallor pale and clammy. He could see the concern in the eyes of his brothers and the uncertainty of Count Marven and the other captains. They wonder if I’m fit to command, he decided. Perhaps with good reason.

“At least two more weeks,” Caenis replied. “It would go quicker if we could conscript labour from the town.”

“No.” Vaelin’s tone was emphatic. “We have to win the confidence of these people if we are to rule this place. Pushing a shovel into their hands and forcing them to back-breaking toil will hardly do that.”

“My men came here to fight, my lord,” Count Marven said, his tone light but Vaelin could see the calculation in his gaze. “Digging is hardly a soldier’s work.”

“I’d say it’s most certainly a soldier’s work, my lord,” Vaelin replied. “As for fighting, they’ll get plenty of that before long. Tell any grumblers they have my leave to depart, it’s only sixty miles of desert to Untesh. Perhaps they’ll find a ship home from there.”

A wave of weariness swept through him and he rested against a battlement to disguise the unsteadiness of his legs. He was finding the burden of command, with all the petty concerns of both allies and subordinates, increasingly irksome. His irritation was made more acute by the insistence of the blood-song calling him to the voice and the marble block he knew lay somewhere in the city.

“Are you unwell, my lord?” Count Marven asked pointedly.

Vaelin resisted the urge to punch the Nilsaelin squarely in the face and turned to Bren Antesh, the stocky archer who commanded the Cumbraelin bowmen. He was the most taciturn of the captains, barely speaking in meetings and the first to leave when Vaelin called a halt. His expression was perpetually guarded and it was plain he neither wanted or needed their approval or acceptance, although any resentment he may have felt over serving under a man the Cumbraelins still referred to as the Darkblade was kept well hidden. “And your men, Captain?” he asked him. “Any complaints about the workload?”

Antesh’s expression remained unchanged as he replied with what Vaelin suspected was a quote from the Ten Books, “Honest labour brings us closer to the love of the World Father.”