Icefall (29 page)

‘Who, the psycho?'

‘Hannah, let me tell you something. Fond as I am of Alasdair—and that's very fond, since he's so loyal—I can admit that he's not a very nice man. I'd like to protect you from his
extremely
high dudgeon regarding the loss of his eye.'

‘He was about to cut Seth's tongue out,' I cried.

‘Yes, because I told you, he's loyal. And I was upset when I thought him dead, my dear. I'd go so far as to call it grief. If it hadn't been for Raib MacRothe nursing him back to health, keeping him hidden and protected for a whole year, I might never have seen him again. Hannah, he has many fine qualities. I'd like you two to be friends. And I'd very much like for him not to kill you.'

My jaw felt loose. I mumbled something and I'm not even sure what it was. I thought: he's going to kill them anyway. They're all going to die, all my friends, and I love them but I don't want to die with them. I especially don't want to die of Alasdair Kilrevin. I didn't even want to imagine what it would be like to die of his pique and his
dudgeon
, and I had a choice now that I'd never expected to have.

And I was a coward.

And I wanted to live.

And I wanted, really wanted, to live to know what I was capable of doing.

And she was looking at me with actual warmth and affection.

Sionnach wasn't. But there was something in his expression that wasn't just regret: something kind, something that understood me. As I stared into his grey eyes, I saw the skin around them crinkle with an almost-smile, and he gave me a barely-perceptible nod. He glanced sidelong at Kate, then back at me.

~
It's all right, Hannah. She's right.

‘Sionnach,' I said through tears.

~
Do it, Currac. Live.

Kate had heard him. Her face lightened, and suddenly she giggled, like a favourite conspiratorial aunt. ‘I'm your mother in all but full-mortal generation. Join me, Currac-sagairt! Find your destiny!'

‘You tried to kill me,' I whispered.

‘Oh. Darach?' Kate sniffed. ‘Poor girl. She wanted approval and a captaincy, and she rather … shall we say … exceeded her remit. If Sionnach hadn't stuck her like a pig, I'd have had someone else do it. It's why I absolutely insisted that Alasdair left Lauren alive; I wasn't having anyone else make that mistake. If anyone's to decide my family members will die, it'll be me, not some
employee
.'

I shook my head. I wasn't denying anything, I was just trying to get my head straight.

‘There. I want you with me, Hannah! Come back to your true family!' She held out her arms for my embrace.

I managed to stagger upright. I stared down at her. And this time, I picked the right word. This time, I truly meant it.

‘No.'

Kate's face fell. When I say
fell,
I really mean it froze, turned to a death-mask carved out of ice. She cocked her head, and watched me. For a long moment of nothingness, I felt her, probing my brain, twisting my soul this way and that to examine it.

‘Oh,' she said, and rose elegantly to her feet. She spread her hands in a gesture of acceptance. ‘Whatever. Pity.'

All I could do was stare. My mind, my past, my self, they were all crumbling and I didn't know what to do about it. If I moved I would die.

‘No you won't, dear.' Kate caressed my cheek with the back of her hand; soft and fragile and scented with hazelnuts. She kissed me again, and smiled a loving grandmotherly smile.

‘Not yet.'

 

Jed

Glanadair was right about one thing, Jed thought: Faragaig was a small community. Prosperous, but small. Smug, but snug. The assault was tantamount to a massacre, but Jed cared no more than Seth did. He only had to rattle his blade softly on the bones of a rebel as he passed a dule tree in the darkness, and what was left of his conscience could be soothed.

Glanadair had posted guards, of course; he wasn't stupid, just undermanned.
And he didn't have to be,
mused Jed viciously, as he wrapped an arm round the throat of a sentry and jerked him back onto his blade.
He had twice the fighters, but they're all spiked on gibbets now.

Even forty fighters would have been enough to take Faragaig without casualties, though Seth had drawn fourteen more to his cause in the last twenty-four hours. And the very destruction of Faragaig, with a tasteless irony, should bring them more supporters. Jed knew that Iolaire knew it, and he knew that was why Iolaire pressed on, silent but for an occasional grunt of murderous effort. Jed saw his lover's blade flash, latticed with blood-streaks, in the shadows on the other side of the street; then Iolaire nodded at him and they moved forward together on parallel paths towards Faragaig's centre.

Faragaig had to be taken, and taken without mercy, and it was the inhabitants' bad luck that they had, in this particular instance, backed the lamer horse. And, of course, that they'd had another horse inhumanely destroyed. The memory of Howedale stirred the anger in his belly again, and Jed was glad of it.

A shape moved at a tight corner as he edged towards it, but when he brought his sword round ready to strike, he recognised the glint of a half-moon on bright blonde hair. ‘Orach,' he murmured.

‘Where's Seth?' she said softly. ‘Have you seen him?'

Iolaire, guarding Jed's back, half-turned and winked at Jed. ‘He'll be cutting his bloody way to the hall steps, Orach. You know? Like we agreed?'

Jed grinned at Orach. ‘You need to stop worrying. Apart from anything else, Finn's starting to look at you sideways.'

‘Oh, shut it.' She gave him a rueful grin, then jerked her head round. ‘Listen!'

The place had erupted. Perhaps two streets away, there was the echo and ring of metal, newly raised voices, a scream or two and a hideous vocal gurgling. Lights blinked on across the settlement, and Jed gave a hoot of satisfaction. No more silent, skulking deaths, then. He raced for the central hall, Iolaire and Orach close behind.

A man skidded in front of him as he ran into the square, sliding low and slashing for his belly, and Jed was forced to jump high. He twisted as he fell, and as he swung his blade he felt it bite into flesh. No time to check the man was dead, but Jed was sure enough. He yanked out his blade with effort and turned for the next one.

The melee was close-quarters and rapid and intense. Faragaig had not expected an attack, and their certainty of protection had done them no favours when one came. Morale was almost visibly collapsing every time Jed could take a breath to glance beyond his immediate sword-reach. One by one, blades clattered to the steps outside the hall; and once the surrenders had begun, the chain reaction was swift. Seth ended the fight sweating and bleeding from a cut to his arm, but his wound was one of three, and his clann had suffered no fatalities. The dead of Faragaig obscured the village square.

When Jed's last opponent flung his sword to the ground and he stepped back, Grian was already wiping his blade and sheathing it, and striding swiftly towards Seth.

‘Where's Glanadair?' he asked grimly as Grian pushed aside his t-shirt sleeve and set to work. ‘Gods, Grian, leave it, it's a scratch.'

Grian sighed, but he didn't release Seth's arm. ‘Give me strength,' he muttered.

Braon shoved the village Captain forward; he stumbled, but recovered before he could actually fall at Seth's feet. The man gritted his teeth and spat on the ground.

‘Leoghar,' he snarled. ‘You call that a defence?'

His lieutenant stepped from among the clustered captives, his mouth tight with fury. ‘You were adamant we didn't need one. What with Kate watching over us so benevolently.'

‘I didn't tell you to as good as open the frigging gates to Murlainn.'

‘Carry on,' murmured Seth. ‘Talk amongst yourselves.'

Sorcha and Fearna were flinging together a pile of captured blades in the square; Leoghar barged forward, snatching his own sword from the pile. Lifting an eyebrow, Sorcha kicked a stray dagger onto the heap and reached up to her own scabbard, but Leoghar ignored her. Formally he marched up to Seth, went down stiffly on one knee and offered him the hilt. The blade, Jed noticed, was cutting Leoghar's palm, but then the man was clearly seething.

‘Yours, Murlainn,' he gritted. ‘I've had enough of this shit.'

‘You fucking turncoat,' shouted Glanadair. ‘This is a peaceful community and Murlainn's a murdering bandit!'

A few of Leoghar's men shot Glanadair looks of distaste, and some of them were already gathering supportively behind their immediate commander.
Bloody hell,
thought Jed.
So much for loyalty. But it's not as if we can't use the fighters
.

Seth took hold of Leoghar's sword hilt and presented it back to him. ‘Ask my healer to fix your hand,' he muttered. ‘And watch your sodding temper.' He turned to Glanadair. ‘Want to change your mind?'

‘And follow a man who'd loot and murder a village the size of Faragaig?' Glanadair spat again.

‘Oh, you're small.' Seth tilted his head to examine the Captain's face. ‘You could've been bigger. You could've had a useful ally down the road. Pity you let Howedale burn.'

‘Howedale made their choice,' growled Glanadair. ‘Kate never threatened us. They asked for war and they got it. And I have responsibilities. So long as the Lammyr were at Howedale, they weren't here.'

‘But I'm here now,' said Seth. ‘And you don't have responsibilities any more.'

Glanadair's face went shades of red and white. ‘You have no right,' he yelled.

‘Conqueror's rights,' said Seth, shrugging. He glanced up at the subdued ranks of non-fighters gathered at the edge of the square. Nobody seemed especially keen to support Glanadair.

‘Murdering bandit's rights,' snarled Glanadair. And spat again, this time hitting Seth's foot.

‘Did your mother never tell you that was unhygienic?' Seth wiped the toe of his boot on the back of his calf. ‘Gods' sake, somebody gag this bugger.'

Wiping his sword blade, Jed watched from the corner of his eye as Seth turned and walked away. Jed didn't like the speed of his stride. Seth, he thought, was angrier than he ought to be in the wake of a fast successful raid and the recruitment of another fifteen-odd fighters; not to mention the acquisition of enough horses and weapons.
Finally.
Yet with all that, and a cathartic bloodletting to avenge Howedale, still an aura of frustrated savagery seeped off the man. Seth yelled to two of his fighters to summon them, and Diorras and Oscarach leaped to their feet as if newly afraid of him.

‘And bring whoever's in charge of the armoury,' he barked.

After a moment's heavy silence, while the villagers looked uncertainly at one another, a shaven-headed man pushed truculently out of the crowd. Jed got to his feet, and followed. Jed knew where the Faragaig armoury was located, in a barred stronghold behind the village hall, and Seth was heading straight for its ironbound door. He tested the strength of it, then stood back and watched while the armourer wrangled the three locks.

Seth watched him the whole time, but the man didn't resist and he didn't demur. When he'd freed the locks he stepped back and made an elaborate gesture of invitation. ‘Help yourself, Murlainn,' he grunted.

Diorras and Oscarach stepped forward, but Seth put out a hand to hold them back, and edged into the armoury himself. Jed sidestepped between the two men, who shot him a questioning glance, but he shook his head and went to Seth's side.

The air within was steel-cold and speckled with dust, and slanted moonlight hatched the tiled floor through a high barred window. Darkness pooled in the corners and behind racks of swords and longbows. Jed's palm prickled.

‘Seth.'

His warning was too low and too late. A human figure flew from the space between two racks, a shard of metal glinting lethally in its fist. The short blade made an arc of light as it swung for Seth's neck, and if he hadn't doubled himself backwards his head would have been clunking on the floor. Crashing forward with the impetus of the attack and the unexpected evasion, the attacker stumbled and twisted on the tiles, swiftly leaping back to his feet.

Jed shoved Seth back as the blade swung for him again; Seth rolled with the shove but crouched and sprang upright, his own sword in his hand. Catching another movement in his peripheral vision, Jed took a wild guess and slammed back his fist. A grunt of pain, and the attacker slammed back hard to the tiles. An agonised wheeze betrayed that he was winded.

Jed felt Seth grab his arm and drag him out of the way; then Seth was on top of the oddly small figure, slamming his fist twice into its face before rising to give it a breath-stealing kick in the ribs. He grabbed the figure's collar and drew back his blade.

‘Seth!' yelled Jed, grabbing both his shoulders. ‘Seth, it's a kid.'

The small figure sucked in air at last, wriggled desperately loose and cat-crawled sideways. Seth seized it by the hair, hauled it upright, slammed his boot into the small of its back. It smashed forward into one of the sword racks, and this time it lay stunned, fingers twitching hopelessly for safety. With a snarl of fury Seth flipped his sword in his fist and raised it to stab downwards.

Jed flung himself forward, knocking him off balance. ‘Did you hear me? It's a child!'

‘It's a bloody assassin.' Seth's words hissed through clenched teeth. His blade lunged forward again. Jed intercepted Seth's arm with a jab of his elbow, just enough to deflect it through the sleeve of the boy's shirt.

‘
It's
defending its own frigging armoury! Are you mad?' Jed seized a handful of Seth's hair and dragged his head back, forcing the man to look into his eyes. ‘Kill it and I'll pulp your face,
Captain.
'