Deep Water (29 page)

“ ’Morning,” he shouted genially. “Sorry if we’ve woken you!”

Hesitantly, the farmer raised a hand in reply. Ash willed himself to keep Mud to a walk, matching Cam’s gait. He didn’t turn
his head — with his hood up, the farmer couldn’t see his hair or eyes, and wouldn’t know he was a Traveler. Flax’s light brown
hair was clear in the growing light, and he hoped that would be good enough.

The farmer stood, scratching his head. He watched them until they were well past the boundary of the farm and the wild scrub
started, but that was fair enough. Any farmer might do the same to strangers. Yet . . .

“Look back,” Ash said. “Can you see him?”

Flax flicked a glimpse back over his shoulder. “Dung and pissmire!” he swore. “Someone’s riding off the other way.”

“They set a watch, in case we came this way,” Ash said. His heart was beating faster and he felt fear coil in his gut.

They urged the horses to a canter and kept the pace up as long as they dared, until the trail became too steep and winding
for it to be safe. There was no sense cutting across the trails they found. Now it was a race — they had to be around the
bluff before they were caught. Had to be out of Golden Valley by nightfall, or they would not be leaving at all.

All morning they climbed up and southward into scrubby forest where rocks broke through the ground like warts on a toad. They
stopped only to spell and water the horses. There was no food left and they filled their bellies with the cold stream, which
only made Ash feel emptier. He allowed himself to hope, just a little. If they could just keep far enough ahead until nightfall . . .

“There they are!” a shout came from behind them. Immediately, Flax whistled, crouched low on Cam’s neck and urging him on,
pushing him to a canter and then a hard gallop along the narrow trail. Ash was taken by surprise when Mud responded enthusiastically
to the whistle, following Cam along the trail. All he could do was cling on as the horses took the winding path as fast as
they dared. His hood fell back in the rush.

“Get them!” the shout came behind them. “That black-haired bastard killed my friend!”

Ash recognized Horst’s voice. Horst. Not some nameless pursuer, but a real enemy. But why was he still here? He realized with
a shock that it had been only a couple of days since he had killed the war-lord’s man. Horst must have stayed for the quickening,
which would come — oh, gods, was it tomorrow or today? Sully’s ghost would rise, looking for acknowledgment and reparation
from Ash, his killer. It was his duty to be there, to set his spirit at rest.

He couldn’t. He had other duties, more important; he had to forget the image of Sully returning from beyond death to find
his killer gone and his friend — his friend more intent on revenge than on freeing him for rebirth. Ash put his head down
on Mud’s neck and trusted to the horses and to Flax, because it was all he could do.

The shadows were closing in… if they could keep ahead until nightfall, and lose them in the dark… it was a forlorn
hope. Ash could hear the sounds of pursuit getting closer. They were nearing the cliff face. There might be caves, but surely
going into a cave would be stupid? There would be no way out.

The trail branched and Flax unhesitatingly took the left-hand fork. Around two bends, low branches whipping their faces, and
then they had reached a clearing before the cliff, broken here by huge boulders. There
were
clefts in the rock, not caves so much as fissures, but they were narrow and no doubt had dead ends which would trap them.
But if they could hide in one until the others passed . . .

The party behind had taken the wrong fork, but it wouldn’t be long before they realized their mistake. Flax jumped off Cam
and came to take Mud’s reins so Ash could jump down, too.

“What now?” Flax asked. Off the horse, it seemed that authority had passed back to Ash.

“Hide,” he said simply. They led the horses to one of the furthest fissures in the cliff face.

“They’ve got to be here somewhere,” Horst’s voice came. “I want them both, but don’t kill the black-haired bastard. He’s for
me.”

“You’re not the law in Golden Valley.” Ash recognized the voice of the second brother, the reasonable one. “We have no warlords
here, and no warlords’ men, remember?”

There were rumbles of assent from other men — at least six or seven, Ash estimated.

“Then I’ll take him back to my lord Thegan and he can decide his punishment. Your laws allow for that, don’t they?”

“Aye,” the second brother said. “That’s allowed.”

Flax and Ash threaded their way through the fissure as fast as they could and found it led, not to a cave, but to another
small clearing. Before them was a slope leading up to the top of the bluff. The going was rocky and perilous for the horses,
full of sharp rocks and boulders, with no level ground at all. But they could manage it, if they had to.

At the top… wind spirits. Doronit had controlled them, with Ash’s help, but he had only been helping. Just as with Safred,
lending his strength to her will. He had never done anything like that by himself. He had a queasy suspicion that his own
will wasn’t strong enough, that the spirits would simply laugh at him if he tried to control them. Laugh and reach those long,
clawed hands for his eyes… He shuddered. He couldn’t do it. Better to face the trial and be hanged.

“They must be here somewhere!” Horst’s voice came from beyond the fissure, startlingly loud. “I’ll have both of them dragged
before my lord and they’ll pay.”

Both. Ash looked at Flax, who was pinching the noses of both horses to prevent them from whickering. He had promised Zel he
would look after him. Dung and pissmire.

“Here they are,” the second brother said with a note of relief in his voice. Flax and Ash strained to hear and both they and
the horses jumped when the hounds began to bay, the excited note of a fresh scent.

There was only one way to go. Up the slope, to wilderness. They scrambled as fast as they could on the rough surface, trying
to find a way to go sideways, any way but straight up. Behind them, voices were arguing.

“I’m not losing my best pack for you!” the first brother’s voice sounded. More shouting followed.

Any further and they would be beyond the screen of the trees, open to view — unless they threaded through the maze of rocks
which led up to the bluff. The dogs were still sounding. Ash could hear them panting with eagerness — a sound from nightmares.
He had once seen a man brought down by a warlord’s dogs. Not even a Traveler — one of the lord’s own farmers who had tried
to cheat on his taxes. He had been begging for death by the time the warlord reached him.

Ash touched Flax on the shoulder and pointed upward. Flax paled and shook his head vigorously. Ash moved very close, until
his lips were by Flax’s ear. “I can control the spirits,” he said.

Flax drew back in astonishment, staring at him. Ash shrugged, trying to look as though this was something he did every day.
He saw the moment when hero-worship kicked in, when hope overcame fear in Flax’s eyes, and it made him feel sick.

They started up the slope as quietly as they could in the fading light, Flax leading both horses as trustingly as a child,
sure that if Ash said he could do it, he could.

But Ash wasn’t sure at all.

T
HUMP
. T
HUMP
. R
EGULAR
, deep, but not like a drum. More like… a fist on flesh. Yet not quite . . .

Bramble’s sight cleared and she felt herself back in Baluch’s body, then wished she weren’t. The sound wasn’t a fist on flesh,
but a thick wooden rod. On Acton’s bare back and sides. Harald was wielding it, his face red and furious. Acton held on to
one of the posts in the big hall, his head hanging and his body shaking with each blow. Blood dripped onto the floor from
where a roughness in the rod had caught him. Bruises were already appearing under the skin.

A circle of people watched — men and women, but no children. Bramble could hear them playing outside, pretending to be invaders
and defenders. The contrast made her shiver, but Baluch was barely conscious of the noise. He flinched with every blow. Asa
stood next to Acton, her face like stone.

“You disobeyed my orders,” Harald said, finally standing back.

“He had good reason,” Baluch said. “What we found —”

Harald wheeled on him. “Keep silence! The only reason I’m not belting you the same is that you were bound to follow his orders,
as he was bound to follow mine.”

Acton was breathing heavily. He used the post for support and pulled himself up to stand straight.

“We found —”

“I don’t care what you found!” Herald shouted, breathing as heavily as Acton. He glared at his grandson. “I should have known
you had treachery in your blood. Your father had to show himself in you sooner or later. You have lost a fine young man, a
man who would have been valuable to our people. For a boy’s prank! An adventure! It makes me sick to look at you.”

He threw the rod on the floor and walked off. Asa picked it up and watched him walk out of the hall. Once he was through the
door, she dropped the rod on a table and turned to Acton, putting an arm around him to support him. He pushed her gently away.

“I can walk.”

He made it to a table in four faltering steps and sat down on a bench. Ragni was at his side immediately, with a warm bowl
of water and soft rags for cleaning his blood away, but the deep injuries she could do nothing about. A woman passed Asa a
drinking horn smelling of mead and she held it to Acton’s lips. The mead brought a little color back to his cheeks.

He smiled ruefully. “I didn’t expect him to be back so soon.”

“That’s why he’s in a foul temper,” Asa said. “The boats never sailed. First they had to fight their way through to the coast,
past parties of raiders from the north, and then, when they got there, the bays were still iced over. In mid-summer. They
couldn’t get the boats out.”

“It’s the King,” Baluch said. “He brings winter with him.”

“Tell me,” Asa said. The others crowded around to hear, but before he could speak a man ran into the hall. Tall, with wiry
hair the same color as Sebbi’s. Perhaps three or four years older. His face was pale, with tears running freely down his cheeks.

“You killed my brother!” he accused Acton.

Baluch intervened. “No, Asgarn. Sebbi was chosen by the gods to die a man’s death. A great death, which shall be told in song
and story for all the generations of our people.”

Asgarn hesitated, and looked at Acton, who began to describe what they had found in the valley of the Ice King.

When Acton described Sebbi’s death, Ragni said, “His mother should know of this, that he had a hero’s death,” and she hobbled
out of the hall, looking as old as time itself.

After Acton had finished speaking, the hall was silent. Asgarn turned away, his shoulders hunched.

“He was only a boy,” he whispered, but the hall was so silent that his words echoed.

“He died a man,” Acton reassured him.

“For nothing! You say the ice will still keep coming.” He walked out of the hall with his fists clenched. They watched him
go silently.

“The Ice King takes everything,” Baluch said. “Those from whom he takes must go elsewhere.”

That brought a babble of talk, but one question kept recurring. Acton put it into words for them all.

“We can defend ourselves against the invaders, but if the sea lanes are blocked all year round, how can we trade? Without
trade, we’ll starve.”

Asa considered. “There is a path over the mountains,” she said finally. “People live there. Where there are people, there
can be trade.” She looked into Acton’s face and smiled wryly. “I think it’s time you met your uncle.”

Bramble was beginning to get a sense of what the gods were showing her. Not just Acton’s life, but its turning points. The
moments of destiny. She wondered again if she should try to change the events she witnessed, but again the gods rose in her
with immense pressure.
What has happened must happen
, they insisted, and she surrendered to their surety with something like relief, as the waters rose gently and floated her
away. So, she thought, we go to meet the uncle.

“Cast!” someone yelled, and she felt her body draw back its right arm and throw something. Then again. This time, she could
feel the smooth shaft of a spear in her hand, and her eyes took in the light just in time to follow its flight. The spear
soared high, in a perfect arc, and came to earth in a man’s neck. Blood spurted.

Suddenly she was aware of the noise: men were yelling, screaming defiance at the approaching war party. Those who had cast
their spears rattled their swords on their shields. The band of men was below them on a slope, and although they threw their
own spears they didn’t have the same heft as the one thrown by — Baluch, was it? No, there was no music in this head. It was
someone else who danced on the rock’s edge and shook his sword in the air. The war party was made up of red-headed warriors
who reminded her of the men who had cut Sebbi to pieces.

She saw Acton and Baluch out of the corner of the man’s eye. Acton was shouting and thumping his sword. Baluch was quiet,
but he hefted his sword more comfortably in his hand and set his feet to give him the surest footing. Acton gave a whoop of
exhilaration and the man turned to grin at him, his cheeks drawn back wide in enjoyment.

“That’s it, lad!” he bellowed to Acton. “Get your heart up!”

Acton grinned. “It’s a good day for a fight, Eddil!” he shouted back.

There was no doubt that he was genuinely having fun. Wait until the fighting really starts, Bramble thought. This lot won’t
retreat because of a few spears.

Nor did they. The war party, thirty strong, forged up the hill and came to grips with the defenders. Eddil yowled and swung
his sword; not, as Bramble had expected, at the man’s head, but at his legs. The blow was blocked and the shock of that ran
up Eddil’s arm and made his fingers numb. He held on and swung his sword again. His blood was running light in his veins and
his breath came easily. They had been training, then, Bramble thought, trying to hold on to her own mind in a deafening flurry
of blows and counterblows, any one of which could have killed. She was not prepared for the clamor of battle. Or the smell
of sweat.