Bloodheir by Brian Ruckley Page B

wet.”
    “It’ll get colder yet,” Orisian said. “Our winters aren’t really made for fighting.”
    “Ha! A bit of weather won’t hinder us. I’ve an army here big enough to cut a path all the way to Kan Dredar if we needed to.” The Bloodheir waved a bone from which he had picked all the meat, as if that somehow proved his point. “It’ll be a massacre. You’ll see. It’s only Horin-Gyre that’s come south, from the sound of it. Stupid, but then they’re all a bit mad on the cold side of the Stone Vale, aren’t they?”
    “It was Inkallim and White Owls that attacked Kolglas at Winterbirth, not Horin-Gyre,” Orisian muttered. There was a patronising, dismissive strand in Aewult’s demeanour that annoyed him. Apart from anything else, it belittled the price that Croesan, Kennet and all the others had already paid for Horin-Gyre ambition.
    The Bloodheir snorted, flourishing his empty goblet to attract the attention of a serving girl.
    “There’s not enough ravens or woodwights in all the world to trouble ten thousand determined men.
    Have you ever ridden to battle, Thane? Too young, I suppose. Have you even killed a man yet?”
    Orisian could not help but look away. He remembered driving his knife into the chest of a fallen Tarbain warrior; remembered a torrent of blood that only grew in his memory. And the emptiness that came after that act, leaving unsated whatever hunger for revenge had preceded it.
    Anyara was tearing at a slab of bread, concentrating with a fierce intensity that made Orisian glad he was seated between her and the Bloodheir.
    Aewult drew his own conclusions from Orisian’s silence.
    “No, eh? Well, don’t worry. You can rest here while we cleanse the Glas valley for you. You’re the last of your Blood, Thane. There’s no one to come after you. Can’t risk anything unfortunate happening to you, can we? Haig warriors will do the dying that’s needed to open the path back to your throne.”
    Orisian gazed at the storyteller, who was still manfully persisting in his efforts to make himself heard above the soft drone of conversation. Those last phrases had sounded glib, almost rehearsed, in Aewult’s mouth, as if he was repeating a thought crafted by someone else. Orisian wondered whether Mordyn Jerain held even the Bloodheir’s reins.
    “There’s been no shortage of dying already,” he said.
    “Maybe, but it’s not gained you much, has it?” grunted Aewult. There was a blush in his cheeks, whether born of drink or heat or anger Orisian could not tell. But the Bloodheir’s speech was losing its shape a little; his eyes were gleaming. He regarded Orisian with what seemed to be naked contempt.
    “Those who’ve died did so fighting,” Orisian snapped.
    “Fighting and losing.” Aewult’s lips were stained red with wine. “Make no mistake, it’ll take the strength of Haig to win you back your seat, Thane.”
    “At least you remember that my brother is Thane,” Anyara hissed from beyond Orisian. “The way you talk, I’d thought you had forgotten. Bloodheir.”
    For once, Orisian hardly cared if Anyara wanted to pick a fight. His own jaw was tightening in anger, and a kind of furious shame burned in him: so little did Haig think of his Blood, and of him as its Thane, that he was treated as nothing more than a child. He was uncertain whether Aewult deliberately meant to goad him into some mistake or whether the Bloodheir simply did not care.
    “Bloodheir to Gryvan,” Aewult said, and grinned. He turned his attention to his plate, cutting into the joint of a chicken leg on his platter. His movements were crude and imprecise. The knife glanced off bone. “I speak with my father’s authority. And I say Lannis stays behind when I march.”
    “We’ll see,” Orisian said. He turned to Anyara, urging her to silence with the slightest shake of his head.
    The noise was so sudden and sharp that he started, almost lifting from his chair. Aewult had punched his knife into