Widowmaker Read online

  Widowmaker

  The Clan Wars

  Book II

  Peter Morwood

  Bayrd’s left hand slapped against Isileth’s pommel, and the sword seemed to shift uneasily in its scabbard—

  —like an excitable hawk under its hood. There was a faint creaking of leather, a faint ringing of metal, as if the hawk had strained briefly against the restraining jesses and stamped one belled, taloned foot. All of it might only have been from the pressure of Bayrd’s hand.

  And then again, it might not.

  “Some of the men have given that thing another name,” said Marc softly. “They’re calling it the Widow Maker.”

  “Are they?” Bayrd drummed ironclad fingertips against the longsword’s guard, making a tiny clinking sound that at least had an honest source. “I must be growing older, Marc. It’s not as easy to insult me as it was.” He glanced down.

  “Widowmaker let it be…”

  Novels by Peter Morwood

  The “Horse Lords” Series

  The Horse Lord

  The Demon Lord

  The Dragon Lord

  The War Lord

  (Forthcoming: The Shadow Lord)

  The “Clan Wars” Sequence

  Greylady

  Widowmaker

  (Forthcoming: Cradlesong)

  The Tales of Old Russia

  Prince Ivan • Firebird

  The Golden Horde

  (Forthcoming: The Blue Kremlin)

  In the Star Trek universe

  Rules of Engagement

  The Romulan Way

  Other Novels

  Keeper of the City

  Space Cops 1: Mindblast

  Space Cops 2: Kill Station

  Space Cops 3: High Moon

  Seaquest DSV

  For more information, visit http://www.petermorwood.com

  For David Gemmell

  WIDOWMAKER

  Content

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  Prologue

  The Words of the Wise One

  “Thus Bayrd Ar’Talvlyn became Clan-Lord

  Talvalin, the first of that name and the first of his line. After much fair-speaking he prevailed at last upon the Lady Eskra, so that she consented to become his wife, and his consort, and the mother of his children.

  “He built the fortress of Dunrath, the fortress in which we sit tonight, and made it his dwelling-place. But though he built it to be a stronghold against his enemies and a defence in time of war, no foemen came against it. For by his marriage he made alliance between the people of Now and the people of the time Before, and if there were many such in after times, yet his was the first of them.

  “It brought long years of peace to the north country, so that the Land and all its people prospered, and all was well in Alba…”

  The old man struck once upon the strings of his harp; not a discordant twang to attract the attention of a rowdy audience and bring them to silence, but a sweep of barely-touching fingertips that drew a fading shimmer of music from the instrument. He palmed the sound to silence and doffed his black slouch hat, bowing his head – and the last notes were swallowed in a thunder of applause. There were shouts of approval, the hammering of fists and cups against the tables, the hollow pounding of heels against the great hall’s wooden floor.

  There would be more tangible rewards later: food and drink, a warm bed for tonight and perhaps other nights to follow, and at his departure, gold. The well-wishing of Lord Halmar Talvalin would go with him and enhance his reputation, so that on later nights those same rewards would be more easily earned. But they would not be a night like this one. This was Gorefan-tlai’cuith, dé Delestrau, the fifteenth day of the last month of summer, the holyday of Landing, and three hundred years since the keels struck shore.

  The holyday would end tomorrow, at the rising of the sun, and the fourth century would begin. But for the rest of tonight, the celebrations would continue.

  As he slipped the harp into its case of worked leather, the old man wondered how much applause he would have received, how many rewards, if he had mixed more truth with his story, or if he had continued it down the years and generations from Bayrd ar’Talvlyn’s time. Not much of either, if any at all. He had made that mistake before, just once, early in his career. Never again. He had spent a cold night in the stables after a certain clan-lord’s men had flung him bodily from the high hall, for saying a deal too much about the man’s ancestry and how he came to his high estate. There was every suggestion that even the straw and the company of horses was too good for him, that a storymaker who could not control the tongue with which he sang or the fingers with which he played might not have need of either.

  Now he left truth to the Keepers of Years.

  The tales were what his listeners wanted to hear; tales where men were brave and women virtuous, where only villains set aside their honour in pursuit of gain, and where wicked sorcerers were inevitably brought to nothing by clean steel in the hands of heroes.

  As the old man put out his hand, to accept the first of the many cups of wine he would be offered that holyday night, he smiled at the thought. If those offering the wine thought he was merely smiling at the prospect of wetting a throat made dry by the long hours of his story, that was just as well. There had been a time, not so long ago as forever nor so far away as tomorrow, not far at all as such things are reckoned, when the Talent of sorcery, and the power of the Art Magic, were as worthy of respect as skill with a blade or a horse or a bow. That time had passed. Perhaps it would return, and perhaps not.

  But even in a clan and House and line as noble as Talvalin, the Talent could emerge all unbidden. It had done so with Bayrd the Linefather himself – though the old man smiled again as he recalled how prudently he had made no mention of it in his tale. And as for the Lady Eskra… When a warrior with the Talent married a trained wizard, their children were hardly born of common stock, let their descendants deny it how they would.

  “Now that would be a tale indeed,” the old man murmured to himself, and despite the background of noise in the hall, the words were not spoken softly enough.

  “What tale, arr’eth-an?” asked someone, a lord’s-man or a high retainer by the fine material of his crest-coat. “Why not tell us…?” He fell silent then, transfixed by a regard cold and hard as jewels, the empty opal stare of the harper’s blind eye and the sapphire blaze of the live one.

  “A tale—” the old man began, then hesitated. The blaze became a twinkle, and the chilly immobility of his bearded face flowed into yet another of those easy smiles. “A tale for another night,” he said at last. “Not for this one.” He drank the wine and took silent refuge for a moment in the complex shadows of his own mind, remembering what he had heard, what he had read, and even – when he still had two good eyes – what those eyes had seen. An errant thought spoke to him from the darkness, and it said:

  This is how it really was…

  1

  Troubles

  The light was bronze-green, an underwater light, cold and remote. Bayrd Talvalin stared drowsily at it, toying with the image, visualizing himself deep beneath the surface of some still lake, far removed from the cares and concerns of an Alban clan-lord. It was an idle notion, and he knew it. Those cares and concerns hung around his neck like so many proverbial millstones, as impossible to set aside as any of the lesser responsibilities that came with marriage and parenthood.

  And with the ever-present menace of Gerin ar’Diskan.

  It didn’t matter that Gerin had never called feud or clan-war, and that so far his loudly-voiced thr
eats had been nothing but noise and bluster. That so far was the problem. Until the man was dead and burned and his ashes scattered on the evening wind, Bayrd knew that he could never truly relax.

  Patience was a Clan Talvalin virtue – or vice, there were enough who claimed it as such. But it was by no means the sole prerogative of the Talvalins, or the ar’Talvlyns before them, and the more Bayrd might have to lose, the more grim satisfaction ar’Diskan would have in engineering that loss. There was only one advantage about such a depth of personal animosity. It was no more than personal, a matter between Gerin and himself that hadn’t involved family, retainers or vassals on either side. To the best of Bayrd’s knowledge, the rest of the ar’Diskan’r regarded their Lord’s resentful attitude towards the Clan-Lord Talvalin as a waste of time that could be better spent increasing the prosperity of his own line.

  Bayrd hoped the rumours were true. There was more than enough trouble abroad in the Land to keep the most aggressive kailinin fully occupied.

  As awareness replaced sleep, he gazed at the pale, cool green light, abandoning imaginings, knowing what it was: the dawn of another day, filtered through the small panes of his bedroom window. He could hear the wind blowing, even through the fortress wall, as it flung a spatter of raindrops against the thumb-thick glass. They beaded for a moment, then streamed down like so many tears.

  That glass had been an unnecessary indulgence. Or maybe not so unnecessary. It had been a demonstration of wealth – and yes, of pride. Maybe it even smacked a little of arrogance, that any man – and especially the lord of a newly-founded blood-clan – should put something so fragile into a fortress that even after six years was no more than halfway completed.

  And that was why Bayrd had done it.

  The glass was hardly a weakness in Dunrath-hold’s massive walls, the windows in which it was set were far too small for that. But it was as much a show of unconcern as gilding on a battle-helm, or gemstones set into the hilt of a taiken longsword. Neither was necessary, both were done, and all three said the same thing.

  I have confidence enough in my own strength that I can make use of more than stark utility.

  So this was the dawn of another day. Another tomorrow, tomorrow no longer. The day that, some day, might have Gerin ar’Diskan waiting in it, to take his revenge for an insult that was pure accident. That insult, and the incident leading to it, had been the founding of Bayrd’s fortunes. It had been a means for the Overlord Albanak to put one unruly vassal in his place, and issue a warning to all the others.

  And it had hung a sword on a fraying thread above Bayrd’s neck ever since.

  He had been Bannerman and Companion to Gerin before that, acting honourably as a Companion should, offering his hand – literally – in place of Gerin’s so that his lord might win a race and the land that was its prize. It was a story both simple and elaborate, and painful in both respects.

  Even though the severed hand had been restored by Bayrd’s own Talent of sorcery, there was a thin, pale line like a bracelet around his wrist that still ached in damp weather. And even though Bayrd gave up his hand on his lord’s behalf, for honour’s sake alone and not through any hope of gain, Albanak had treated the result of the race in the most literal manner possible.

  Since Bayrd’s was the first hand to shore, Bayrd had won the race. And so the Overlord granted him the land.

  Gerin at once suspected a trick, some conspiracy that this result had been Bayrd’s intention all along, and no protestation of innocence would persuade him otherwise. From honourable Companion, and as close a friend as any low-clan warrior could be with a high-clan lord, Bayrd had become an enemy with Gerin’s threats of vengeance ringing in his ears.

  All for a land like this.

  He hadn’t known then that Dunrath and its domain lay in the Debatable Marches, a strip of territory that had lain along the borders of Elthan and Prytenon for time out of mind. It had changed hands as the seasons change, with blood spilled freely every time.

  It was a hard land with hard names that echoed hard times; each of its tors and dales and rigs, its fells and laws, could tell their tale of generations of ravaging to and fro, and those who dwelt in it were perforce a hard people. It was a land that endured the heat of its short, hot summer with all the panting impatience of a thick-furred dog, because its true climate was the iron fist of winter. Or better still, grim windblown greyness like today.

  Bayrd had desired this land and this fortress when he saw them, first with their outlines softened by a layer of snow, and then again on a warm summer day when the sun gave a glow to the jagged stones that they didn’t deserve. But if it hadn’t been gifted to him, a part of his new-found honour as lord of his own clan, Bayrd Talvalin would never have held the place any longer than his first winter.

  Little more than obstinate pride kept him there – though now that the citadel had begun to take shape, his pride had increased in due proportion and its flavouring of stubbornness was almost gone. That change of mind had taken place slowly, over more than six years, and in all that time Gerin ar’Diskan’s threats had come to nothing.

  Yet.

  But Gerin was like any other Alban, and believed in the truth of that old proverb about the flavour of revenge.: how it tasted better cold than hot, better slow than fast.. All the old tales said so; all the maxims and wise sayings concurred.

  While an enemy lived, there was always a risk.

  It had been six years of…not fear, Bayrd didn’t rate Gerin ar’Diskan so highly, but certainly wariness. The nagging need for caution was as much a nuisance as a menace, and Bayrd had long since grown tired of the game. He had decided his response, if one was needed, would be as brutal as it had to be. It was as if clan ar’Diskan knew that too: there had been no provocations, no intrusions, no probings at the borders of the Talvalin domains. Nothing that might give Bayrd or his retainers any excuse to put an end to this nonsense once and for all.

  Gerin was bad enough, but he was only a risk to Bayrd. Gelert the last Lord of Prytenon was also unaccounted for, and he was a risk for everyone. His escape had all the flawed dissatisfaction of a story badly told, a tale more concerned with truth than with entertainment. In a perfect world, the Albans’ first foe would have either bowed to his conquerors, sworn his oaths of allegiance, and become their foremost and most trusted supporter in this Land – or he would have been destroyed in a satisfactory battle, and maybe even a single combat between notable personages. Something, at least, worthy of record in the Books of Years.

  Instead of which, he and his entire household had disappeared. Not fled, because there would have been some trace of it, but…vanished. As if they had stepped sideways out of the world and closed the door behind them.

  If his son Kalarr cu Ruruc was as skilled a sorcerer as Eskra claimed, that was more than likely. Gelert might still be alive somewhere out in the wilderness, or in some stranger and more distant place; and if he was, he would surely be laughing now.

  Because the country was at war again.

  Bayrd snorted soft disgust and groped for a robe before swinging his legs from the warmth of the bed into the chilly room. He was wide awake by now – the thought of this war, and particularly its causes, would have woken a stone statue – and moved carefully so as not to disturb his wife, still fast asleep beside him.

  It was one of those stupid, pointless wars, the bloody-minded adult equivalent of two small boys kicking each other’s shins because neither will allow he might have been wrong. Bayrd had read of others like it in the Books of Years, what the chroniclers with their fondness for neatly naming things called tsedakh. The name meant ‘small-war’, a skirmish rather than a battle, something petty rather than important. Some of the small wars in the Archives were petty indeed.

  Twenty years ago, the War of the Nose had started because the town guild of Morval had slit the nostrils of a Kalitzak merchant caught giving short measure. It emerged only later, once King Daykin of Kalitz had added Morval to his domain
and the bodies had been burned or buried, that the noseless merchant had been acting under instruction. Daykin had long had his eye on Morval and its rich agricultural lands, but had needed a better excuse than mere greed to keep other lords and princes from interfering where they weren’t wanted. The engineered insult offered to his merchant had been more than good enough.

  That conflict had at least involved a twisted sort of sense. The War of the Standard, half a hundred years ago, did not. That was its formal title. The Alban mercenaries involved in it called it the War of the Prick.

  Two Vlakhan city-states had declared war on one another for no better reason than because both carried bulls on their banners. One bull was black, the other red; the black bull had its horns, hoofs, tongue, eyes and grossly masculine genitals picked out in a contrasting colour, in accordance with the Vlekh rules of blazon. The red bull – in accordance with those same rules – did not. And of course, someone on the wrong side had to open his big mouth and suggest that this lack of any obvious pizzle said something not merely the bull on that banner, but the men who marched beneath it…

  Bayrd Talvalin had always thought and hoped that his own people would have too much honour – or too much sense – to involve themselves in such an idiotic conflict. He was wrong. This present unpleasantness deserved to be commemorated in the histories as, of all things, the War of the Fine Point of Grammar.

  The least foolish thing about it, indeed the only sensible thing about the whole affair, was that it was about a woman. Many truly epic confrontations had begun with such an excuse. But after that, matters went rapidly downhill. Like all the other petty-wars, it would have been funny if lives had not already been lost; and for a man with a sense of humour as crooked as Bayrd Talvalin’s sometimes seemed, it was still funny.

  Her name was Yraine, she was the Overlord’s daughter, and at twenty-six she was the eldest of his children by some several years.

  And Albanak the Overlord was dead.