The Wolf's Call - Anthony Ryan Page 0,13

cut on his nose. He swallowed a grunt of pain as the concoction seeped its fiery way into the wound, unable to suppress the sense that it hadn’t stung quite so much in his youth.

“Fetch the others,” he told Ellese, dousing his face with water from his canteen to wash away the residual blood. “Meet me at the canyon’s edge. And, Ellese,” he added as she turned away. “The bluestones.”

He held out his hand, meeting her gaze until she gave a huff of annoyance and handed over the stones, griping in a low mutter, “You have me hunting scum for no pay.”

“Your mother sent you to me for an education. If you want paid work, there’s plenty to be had in the North Guard, or the mines. Until sold, under law bluestone and gold belong to the queen. You know that.” He pocketed the stones and jerked his head in dismissal. “On your way.”

* * *

◆ ◆ ◆

It transpired that the outlaw camp was in fact a stockade formed of a semicircular enclosure arcing out from the eastern wall of a canyon known as Ultin’s Gulch. The place had been named in honour of the Reaches’ most famed miner, a man Vaelin remembered fondly from the Liberation War.

Ever a cheerful soul, Ultin had returned to the Reaches bearing the queen’s order to scrape all the wealth he could from the mines, thereby filling the royal coffers to meet the escalating costs of war. Honoured for his efforts as a Sword of the Realm with a generous accompanying pension, Ultin had politely refused Vaelin’s offer of a position as Lord Overseer of Mineworks. Instead, he retired to a smallholding near North Tower where, over the course of the next three years, he proceeded to drink himself to death. It was the war, my lord, his widow had told Vaelin the day they gave her husband’s body to the fire. All those murdered souls, murdered children. The men he lost at Alltor . . . all of it. He could never get it out of his head.

Vaelin spared a brief thought for Ultin’s memory before focusing his attention on the stockade. It was plainly new built, the timbers forming its defensive wall still green and unseasoned, although they seemed solid enough. The occupants had constructed a lookout post atop the canyon wall, providing a no doubt fine view of the surrounding landscape. Vaelin knew the ground to the east consisted of a half-mile-long expanse of bare rock, across which no attacking force could expect to approach undetected.

The canyon floor was similarly lacking in cover but also narrower, allowing for a rapid assault. Even so, he didn’t relish the prospect and found this new tactic of fortification troubling. Usually, the various outlaw and smuggling gangs would establish temporary camps deep in the forest or the more inaccessible crags from which they would raid the caravan routes. Now it appeared this particular group had opted for a permanent home. Are they getting bolder? he wondered. Or just more desperate.

He detected only the smallest sign of the Cumbraelin’s approach, just a faint scrape of buckskin on grass before the man appeared at his side, lying flat as Vaelin did.

“My lord,” he said.

“Master Tallspear.” Vaelin glanced behind to see the war party of Bear People emerge from the forest at a crawl, spears and bows held low so as not to break the silhouette of the skyline.

“You can see it’s as we said,” Tallspear said, nodding at the outlaws’ stockade. Over the course of recent years Vaelin had often pondered the fact that Tallspear’s face possessed only the most meagre vestige of the man who had once tried very hard to kill him. The Cumbraelin’s features were still the hardened, weathered mask of a lifelong hunter, but the fiery glint of fanaticism had long since faded from his gaze. Apart from the longbow he carried, his garb was that of the Bear People and he spoke their language, still beyond Vaelin’s skills to master, with an easy fluency. Although Vaelin still couldn’t help thinking of him as Cumbraelin, in any way that mattered he was now a hunter of the Bear People clan, evidenced by the name they had given him. Vaelin knew he would probably never learn the man’s birth name, and found himself content in his ignorance.

“You said you found this a month ago?” Vaelin asked.

“Twenty-five days, to be precise. It wasn’t here two weeks before. Our people come here fairly regularly, plenty of