Although young, something of the eagerness for battle had left him then, driving him apart from his friends. Too many spilled out intestines, too many crushed skulls, too many desperate pleas for help answered by naught but crows and gulls. He had bound countless wounds, had stared into the glazed eyes of warriors shocked by their own mortality, or, worse, despairing with the misery of lost limbs, scarred faces, lost futures.
He did not count himself clever, nor in any other way exceptional-barring, perhaps, his talent for riding horses-but he now rode with eleven veteran Edur warriors, four of them Beneda, including the troop commander, Estav Kendar, Trantalo’s eldest brother. And he was proud to be at the column’s head, first down this coastal track that led to Boaral Keep, where, as he understood it, some sort of Letherii impropriety demanded Edur attention.
This was as far south from Rennis as he had been since managing to flee his aunt’s clutches just inland of the city of Awl. Trantalo had not seen the walls of Letheras, nor the battlefields surrounding it, and for that he was glad, for he had heard that the sorcery in those final clashes had been the most horrifying of them all.
Life in Rennis had been one of strange privilege. To be Tiste Edur alone seemed sufficient reason for both fear and respect among the subservient Letherii. He had exulted in the respect. The fear had dismayed him, but he was not so naive as not to understand that without that fear, there would be none of the respect that so pleased him. ‘The threat of reprisal,’ Estav had told him the first week of his arrival. ‘This is what keeps the pathetic creatures cowering.
And there will be times, young brother, when we shall have to remind them-bloodily-of that threat.’
Seeking to tug down his elation was the apprehension that this journey, down to this in-the-middle-of-nowhere keep, was just that-the delivery of reprisal. Blood-splashed adjudication. It was no wonder the Letherii strove to keep the Edur out of such disputes. We are not interested in niceties. Details bore us. And so swords will be drawn, probably this very night.
Estav would make no special demands of him, he knew. It was enough that he rode point on the journey. Once at the keep, Trantalo suspected he would be stationed to guard the gate or some such thing. He was more than satisfied with that.
The sun’s light was fast fading on the narrow track leading to the keep. They had a short time earlier left the main coastal road, and here on this lesser path the banks were steep, almost chest-high were one standing rather than riding, and braided with dangling roots. The trees pressed in close from both sides, branches almost entwining overhead. Rounding a twist in the trail, Trantalo caught first sight of the stockade, the rough boles-still bearing most of their bark-irregularly tilted and sunken. A half-dozen decrepit outbuildings crouched against a stand of alders and birch to the left and a flatbed wagon with a broken axle squatted in high grasses just to the right of the gate.
Trantalo drew rein before the entrance. The gate was open. The single door, made of saplings and a Z-shaped frame of planks, had been pushed well to one side and left there, its base snarled with grasses. The warrior could see through to the compound beyond, oddly lifeless. Hearing his fellow Edur draw closer at the canter, he edged his horse forward until he made out the smoke-stained facade of the keep itself. No lights from any of the vertical slit windows. And the front door yawned wide.
‘Why do you hesitate, Trantalo?’ Estav inquired as he rode up.
‘Preda,’ Trantalo said, delighting, as ever, in these new Letherii titles, ‘the keep appears to be abandoned. Perhaps we have ridden to the wrong one-’
‘Boaral,’ affirmed a warrior behind Estav. ‘I’ve been here before.’
‘And is it always this quiet?’ Estav asked, one brow lifting in the way Trantalo knew so well.
‘Nearly,’ the warrior said, rising gingerly on the swivelling Letherii stirrups to look round. ‘There should be at least two torches, one planted above that wagon-then one in the courtyard itself.’
No guards?’
‘Should be at least one-could be he’s staggered off to the latrine trench-’
‘No,’ said Estav, ‘there’s no-one here.’ He worked his horse past Trantalo’s and rode through the gate.
Trantalo followed.
The two brothers approached the stepped front entrance to the keep.
‘Estav, something wet on those stairs.’
‘You’re right. Good eye, brother.’ The Beneda warrior dismounted with obvious relief, passing the reins over to Trantalo, then strode towards the steps. ‘Blood-trail.’
‘Perhaps a mutiny?’
The other Edur had left their horses with one of their company and were now moving out across the courtyard to search the stables, smithy, coop and well-house.
Estav stood at the base of the steps, eyes on the ground. ‘A body has been dragged outside,’ he said, tracking the blood-trail.
