A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

His chest was on fire. He had swallowed all the water in the sea, and suddenly he woke – in Halgalant, now, in the hall of the Saint. Surely he could have that, this time. Let it be the end.

When he had dreamed of the heavenly court, he always hoped it would be warm. Instead there was a deep chill in his body, even though a fire rustled nearby. He peeled open his eyes, finding himself in a lumpy bed, bandages around his chest. Beneath them, his skin burned.

Memories formed a cracked mirror: a warrior devoured by hatred, hacking at the wyrm, at him. The greatsword slashing his chest. A scaled hide crushing Karlsten of Vargoy.

A hand stroked his brow. It belonged to a woman, sitting on a stool at his bedside.

He guessed she was about fifty, perhaps a touch younger or older. Tight black curls tumbled almost to her broad shoulders, rippled with grey, and her skin was a warm dark brown, freckled across her neckline and nose. A sole one sat on the bow of her lips, right where an archer would hold it. She wore a collared linen shirt tucked into trousers.

‘Who are you?’ Wulf said hoarsely. Her gaze was tender on his face. ‘Do you speak Hróthi, or Inysh?’

‘Neither.’

The words came from a pale woman, also tall, her golden hair in a long braid. She wore a gown of grey wool, kilted up to the thigh, showing calfskin breeches and fur boots.

‘She is from Lasia,’ she said, stepping into the room, ‘and has learned only a scantling of Inysh.’ She came to sit on the edge of his bed. ‘You must be Wulfert Glenn.’

This one did speak Inysh. She had one of those rare ageless faces, though he doubted she was much older than forty.

‘Aye.’ Wulf wet his lips. ‘You know me?’

‘I know many things.’

‘You’ll know where Thrit is, then.’

‘Your friend is keeping watch outside. We are in the outpost at Járthfall,’ she said. ‘We stopped so you could rest a little. One of the wounds you took went deep into your chest.’

‘Karl.’ Another memory caught up with him. ‘Those women. They . . . rode a wyrm.’

‘Peace, Wulfert. Everything is all right.’ She placed a calming hand on his shoulder, as if she could hear the dunt of his heart. ‘They are both gone. So is their beast.’

Her touch raised an odd feeling. Even though he was sure he had never seen her before, something was familiar. The other woman had not once taken her eyes off him.

‘I assume you’re raiders,’ Wulf said, searching the room for his weapons by sight. ‘Were you after food?’

‘No, though the supplies here will be useful for our onward journey. My name is Canthe. And this,’ the towhead said, ‘is Tunuva Melim. She’s your mother, Wulfert.’

Wulf stared at Tunuva, and Tunuva gazed back. Her thick lashes were damp.

‘Armul,’ she said, very softly.

He sensed its significance in her tone. This must be the name he was given at birth.

‘This can’t be right,’ he said. ‘I was found in Inys.’

Yet he did see a convincing resemblance. They shared the same high cheekbones, the same chin and strong jaw, and there was a certain likeness in their eyes as well.

‘Yes,’ Canthe said. ‘Tunuva has long thought you dead.’ She folded her hands in her lap. ‘I am Inysh, like you, but also a traveller. A long time ago, I saw you at Langarth with your adopted family, the Glenns. Years later, I met Tunuva, and we fit the clues together. We set out to find you at once.’

‘To find me. While the world is burning.’

‘Tuva has walked through fire and plague to do just that, Wulfert.’

Wulf glanced again at Tunuva. He could see the grief and hope etched into her brow, smelted from the darkness of her eyes, laid so bare it almost hurt to look her in the face.

His thoughts were a strand picked loose from a cloak, unravelling into disorder. He found his anchors in her face, clinging to every detail: the empty piercings in her nose and earlobes, a faint birthmark near her temple, the places where lines had started to set in. Sad and tired though she seemed now, tiny dents were smiled into the corners of her mouth.

He was looking at his mother. He had a mother. After all these years, she had come searching for him, as he had always dreamed she might.

‘Wulfert,’ Canthe said, ‘there will be time for explanations.’

She wore a gold love-knot ring on her forefinger. It looked old. Gold, he thought, distantly. For royals.

When he faced Tunuva again, a muscle clenched in his cheek. ‘I want one explanation now,’ he forced out. ‘Ask her how I came to be alone in the woods, with no one on earth but a wolf to protect me. Ask her why I had to live thinking I might be cursed.’

Even if Tunuva had no Inysh, it was clear she heard his bitterness. Pain showed on her face. Canthe translated, and she answered in a soft voice.

He wished he understood her. Every time he had imagined meeting his first family, he had imagined them Inysh, too poor to have ever fed another mouth. Not once had he thought he might come from elsewhere. Not once had he pictured a woman like this, hale and strong.

‘Wulf, I’m sorry,’ Canthe said, ‘but Tunuva has no idea how you got to Inys. We think you were abducted. She will tell you all she knows, but it is a deep wound you ask to tear open.’ Wulf gave her a stiff nod. ‘For now, may I ask why you were this far east?’

‘Thrit and I were sent to bring the Hróthi from this outpost home.’ He started to get up. ‘Sauma and Karl, the others. I have to bury them.’

He tried not to think of the broken mess of Karlsten, or Sauma with stained hands. He wondered if the plague seeped through the skin, so even the skeletons would have red fingerbones. Now there were only two in their lith. Eydag and Vell and Regny, dead, Karlsten hissed into his ear, as if from Halgalant itself, and all they have in common is Wulfert fucking Glenn.

‘We have already laid your friends to rest, in a cave not far from here,’ Canthe said.

‘You touched them?’

‘Not with our bare hands . . . but the plague cannot take root in witches. Not you, either, I suspect.’

‘You admit to being a witch?’

‘It is the only word you know for what we are – but there are others, Wulfert. We can teach you.’

Wulf narrowed his eyes.

‘Tunuva would like to take you to the South, to show you where you come from,’ Canthe said, her tone gentle. ‘She will tell you about your family and its purpose – the heritage that kept you from a cold death in the Ashen Sea. The part of you that you have always feared.’

‘How do you know anything about me?’

‘I am Inysh. Of course I know of the witching.’

‘I can’t go with you. I am sworn to the House of Hraustr,’ Wulf said curtly. ‘Einlek King needs all our blades.’

‘Tunuva is a great warrior. She can teach you how to fight wyrms, and slay them. You can return to Hróth with even greater strength.’ Canthe raised her eyebrows. ‘Do you not want to know who you are?’

Wulf drew a deep breath. Sooner or later, Einlek would find out about the outpost and assume he was among the dead.

If he went, he might finally understand why he survived and others perished. He would know the answers he had sought all his life. The prospect lured and chilled him in equal measure.

For the first time, Tunuva spoke in Inysh.

‘Please come,’ she said quietly. ‘I will tell you.’

He did have a memory of her. Not quite a picture in his head, but a feeling – the same feeling that had fretted at him as he ran through the haithwood. A love that had surrounded him. A low, calming voice, and a laugh in the sunlight. Those had belonged to her.

Salt tanged in the corner of his mouth. Seeing it, Tunuva stroked her thumb along his cheek.

‘Armul,’ she said again, in a whisper.

Einlek needed him. Thrit needed him. But when Tunuva called him by that name a second time, he accepted defeat. He had to go with her – to hear, at last, the tale that had been kept from him for twenty years. The secret that had stalked him all his life.

He owed it to himself. He owed it to Tunuva, if he really had been stolen from her arms. He owed it to the bairn inside Glorian, who might yet inherit whatever curse or gift was in him.

So he said, ‘Where is it you want to take me?’

‘To Lasia,’ Canthe said. ‘To see the truth.’

****

The outpost was two days behind them when Furtia Stormcaller collapsed. Dumai slid from the saddle and trudged up to her head. Her own skull hurt for lack of sleep; her face was swollen on one side. At least her waist had stopped bleeding.

Furtia flicked her tongue over the snow. Blood smeared her claws where she had blindly crushed the Northerner, and patches of dark scale had been misshapen, melted and warped by red flame again. She had not said a word since they fled the valley.

Dumai knelt before her and reached out to touch her claw, head dipped in deference. She needed to open her mind to the gods again, but now she was afraid, not knowing what poison might drip into her dreams. She had to make the waters of her mind freeze over, stopping any voices from entering.

‘Great one,’ she said, slow and clear, ‘please, let me try to take the spear out.’ A briny huff whipped her hair back from her face. ‘Furtia, you need to heal.’

Mist curled from the dragon. Pain must have defeated her, for she finally lowered her enormous head to the ground. Dumai took hold of the spear and heaved at it with all her might. Furtia hissed as her crest squelched and clenched, and blood dribbled down her snout.

Dumai blew out a breath. Nikeya came to grasp the haft, and together they wrenched it clear. When the rest finally came free, they both fell into the snow in a heap.

‘The only way this could be worse,’ Nikeya said, puffing fog, ‘is if a wyrm appeared and ate us.’ Furtia shook herself, growling at the spear. ‘Do you have anything resembling a plan?’

Furtia laid her head back down and closed her eyes. Dumai leaned against her, her stomach aching. ‘We need to find a mountain or a lake. The sea would be best,’ she said, her breath freezing in front of her, ‘but I don’t think we’re anywhere close to it.’

‘The glacier would thaw into a lake, wouldn’t it?’

‘We can’t go back that way. Not when one of them could conjure wyrmfire.’

‘Six met on the ice, not counting Furtia.’ Nikeya reached up to stroke her. ‘Which was your messenger?’

Dumai swallowed, her throat tethering. ‘The one who attacked me. The pale woman,’ she said, with difficulty. ‘It must have been her, because she knew me, but . . . she was not like she was in my dreams. She lured me here. I always thought she was my gift from the gods, but her words were a hook on a line, drawing me in.’

‘Our gods have butterfly spirits to serve them. Master Kiprun said all things had their equal and opposite. Perhaps the wyrms have spirits, too, sent to trick and misguide us.’ Nikeya knelt in front of Dumai, taking a knotted wrap from her coat. ‘She wanted this, didn’t she?’

Dumai watched her undo the wrap, revealing the stone. Furtia shifted in her sleep. ‘What do you know of it?’

Nikeya wore a face Dumai had never seen on her, and did not understand. ‘I heard an old story of a blue stone that could raise the sea,’ she said, turning it over. ‘Did you take it from Tonra?’

‘Why are you asking me this?’

‘Because it was not yours to take. Surely a godsinger knows better,’ Nikeya said, her brow creased. ‘Would you steal bones from a dragons’ grave, or goods from a funeral boat?’

‘You presume too much.’ Dumai grasped the stone back from her. Furtia twitched again. ‘Kanifa told me to take it. He trusted me to care for it, as you must not.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I am under no obligation to explain or justify myself to you – you who dare to speak of taking what was never yours. A kiss does not make you my consort.’

Nikeya flinched.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course not. After all, I am a devious Kuposa, and you, a perfect Noziken.’ She stood. ‘We should find our way back to the river, Your Highness.’

As she returned to the saddle, Dumai pressed her brow against her knees, gnawed by remorse. She had not meant to be cruel to Nikeya. Furtia gave her the gentlest nudge in her sleep, but even with a god at her side, she had never felt more forsaken.

At least there was the stone, tucked into her glove. It was all she had to show for her journeying.

‘Great one,’ Dumai said, touching Furtia, who cracked one huge eye open. ‘Do you know what this is?’

She held it up. Furtia smelled it, light waxing beneath her scales.

The star shed this. It should have been swallowed into the waters. The words broke through the ice Dumai had tried to layer on her mind, giving her a sudden headache. It holds a great and terrible power.

I can’t use it.

It drinks from somewhere far away. It drinks, and it binds, and it does not sleep. Furtia gave it another sniff. It has little more to give, but it sings to me. I am of the star, and so is this – and so are you. She touched the very tip of her tail to it, and the whiteness at its core shone like a tiny moon. Dumai breathed fog as it turned colder in her hands. With this, we will be stronger, earth child. It will lead us back to the salt waters; it will lead us home.