blank expression. Then he laughed. It was a horrible sound, like a dying man gasping for breath. Finally he quietened, wiping tears from his eyes and snot from his chin. ‘First Supreme Augmentor. Then Marshal. Now soon to be a father? Do you want me to shake your hand? Give you a manly embrace? I would offer you a gift as is the custom, but I am certain there is nothing one so blessed as you does not already possess.’
‘I want nothing from you. It was foolish of me to expect any empathy from a hateful—’
The Halfmage held up a hand, shocking him into silence. The wizard squinted into the distance, raising his other hand to shield his eyes from the dying sun. ‘Hold onto that anger, Supreme Augmentor. It will come in handy. The Sumnians are here.’
Summer Time
The sound of drums dragged her awake.
Yllandris had been dreaming of a morning long ago, when she had been a girl not yet blossomed to womanhood and the arrival of summer had been one of the highlights of her year. Her mother had been tending the hearth, a broad smile on her kindly face. Her father was nearby. The promise of the new season appeared to have softened even his dark mood, and he gave her an affectionate grunt as he passed her a warm bowl of last night’s stew and a hard heel of bread.
She sat up, wiping sleep from her eyes. Had she imagined the sound?
No. There it was again. Boom. Boom. Boom.
She thrust the fur blanket away from her, jumped up from the pallet and pulled on some clothes: a pair of deerskin trousers, her purple shawl and some boots. The beating of the drum was growing louder. She quickly washed her face, not bothering to apply any paints, and then hurried outside.
Has the King finally returned? A full three days had passed and still no word from Magnar or his huge entourage had reached Heartstone. Additional riders had been sent to investigate. They had not returned either. With the Shaman still absent, an undercurrent of panic was beginning to pervade the town.
The sun was up already and the skies were clear. The snow had melted, revealing soggy green grass and mud underneath. As she joined the townsfolk making their way towards the northern gate, she could hear the trickle of the last of the snow melting on the roofs of the huts and longhouses that lined the thoroughfare. Soon Lake Dragur would thaw, if it had not already, and the boats would be out on the water bringing in trout and perch and anything else the fishermen could catch. All in all it was set to be a beautiful day.
‘Sister,’ called a slightly shrill voice somewhere to her right. It was Thurva. The young sorceress scurried through the crowd to intercept her.
Yllandris suppressed a sigh. ‘Greetings, sister,’ she said with forced pleasantness. ‘It appears our king returns to us.’
‘With the head of the demon, I hope,’ replied Thurva. She made a face. ‘I don’t enjoy burying the dead. It’s a grisly business.’
Yllandris stared at Thurva’s mismatched eyes, not bothering to hide her annoyance. You barely lifted a finger to help, she thought. I did most of the hard work.
One of the circle’s duties in Heartstone was to perform last rites for the dead. Though the gods were gone, there were other, even more ancient forces in the world – the many spirits of land and sea and sky – that demanded supplication. In return for worship the spirits were said to bestow the gifts of foresight to the wise men and women and magic to the sorceresses. Males who possessed the spark underwent the Shaman’s ritual and transcended, becoming one with the animal that best represented their nature.
The spirits were also said to shelter the souls of the dead once they departed their mortal shells, until it was time to be reborn in a new form. It always amazed Yllandris that the men and women of the Lowlands held no such beliefs. She didn’t know how a people could survive without faith. Perhaps that was the secret of the Lowlanders’ love of gold – it was their religion, one they could see and feel and spend and pretend mattered. Until, inevitably, the moment arrived when it no longer did.
She and Thurva finally reached the crowd gathered around the gates and pushed their way through to the front. The huge wooden structures were flung wide.