Blood Song: Wulfharan Series, #4

By sarah downing

War-King Elam was facing a lifetime of slavery in the home of his enemy until Coiran rescued him with the help of thief-mage Imari Atwater.

On the eve of their return, Elam's pregnant widow is attacked. Assisting with the investigation, Imari discovers a disturbing link between Nalise's attacker, the mage council and the Circle – the secret society behind the theft of the god's soul that caused the destruction of part of Roscara.

When Nalise's newborn child is kidnapped, Elam and Coiran will do whatever they must to get the child back safely – even resurrect a murdered god.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sarah Downing
• Release date: Sep 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201765941

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

ELAM

Coiran sat beside me where I huddled in the ship’s prow, my chin resting atop my knees and my hands clasped about my shins. I was uncomfortable, but it was the best I could manage thanks to the knife wounds high on my back. Pain kept me awake most nights, and when I did sleep, nightmares disturbed my rest. I was beyond exhausted.

Everything will be better once we’re home, I assured myself, deliberately ignoring the problems my return would cause. I had been declared dead. The body mistakenly identified as mine interred in the ossuary at the Haranheim. According to Coiran, my lands and titles had already been dispersed in accordance with my will, but I wasn’t worried – at least not about that. I had been martlet, back before my brother had made me War-King, and had managed well enough. It was my injuries that worried me. The healer had warned me the wounds would scar and likely hamper the range of movement in my upper arms and shoulders. Would I ever be able to draw a bow or swing a blade again? Did I even want to? I would need to if I decided to rejoin the herjer. Yet the thought of being taken in battle once more had me shivering with fear – as the thought of dying never had.

Mistaking my shiver for a chill, Coiran shifted closer and nestled against my shoulder. I rested my cheek against the top of her head, feeling the prickle of stubble against my cheek. The stubble was a reminder of everything she had risked in order to come rescue me. ‘Thank you for coming after me, love.’

‘You’re welcome, he’beshi.’

‘Uncle’s going to beach the ship,’ Imari announced as he came forward to join us. Already I could feel the ship slowing as the sails were furled. ‘Easier to do that, with so many aboard. We’d be here until dawn and past if we tried to ferry everyone ashore in skiffs.’

‘Help me up.’ Coiran bounded to her feet at my request and slid a hand under my elbow as Imari moved up on my other side. Between them they hauled me to my feet and braced me against the gentle pitching of the ship. The constant shifting of my weight, required to keep my balance against even the gentlest swells, pulled at my wounds. After weeks of holding myself tense against the motion of the ship, my back muscles were knotted tight. Together we watched the coast as granite buildings roofed in turf materialised out of the night-shrouded landscape. I was home.

Wolf song drifted on the air. It sounded different to the call we’d been hearing on and off for the last several leagues. Coiran raised her head, adding her voice to the chorus. Torch light flared in the Trade Harbour as if in response, revealing the crowd gathered on the beach to welcome us home. There was a knot of people dressed in my family colours of red and blue; they would be my brother and his kynn men. I spotted men and women dressed in the yellow robes of the temple healers and the mustard yellow jerkins of the city beadles. Scattered amongst them like stars were the verferi, their white hose and tunics readily visible in the poor light. I knew the herjer would be there as well, though their taupe-coloured gambesons acted like camouflage against the sand. So many people. Too many witnesses. I did not want anyone to see me being unloaded from the ship like cargo, even if it was the only way for me to disembark.

We all lurched as the hull grated against the seafloor. My pained oath was lost beneath the shouts of the crew as they tossed anchor ropes ashore.

Ambassador Theudar?’

I turned at the sound of Rodar’s voice. My friend and mentor looked like a blond bear, if bears were clean shaven. He had a square face and blue eyes sunk beneath a heavy brow. Rodar must have scrambled aboard as Captain Hakkon beached the ship.

‘I am he,’ the ambassador said. He stood with his wife and daughter before the doors of the cabin set just aft of the mast. All three had already changed into court attire. The sea would ruin the silk and fine wool when they disembarked. The ambassador frowned when Rodar pulled a set of leather cords from his belt.

‘You are under arrest for the keeping of slaves.’

Stunned, the ambassador made no attempt to struggle as Rodar jerked his hands behind his back and secured his wrists. Rodar started him moving towards the gunwale.

‘Wait!’ the ambassador cried, struggling, having recovered his senses. ‘Wait! There must be some mistake. I’ve been in Thinis for the last several years. Slavery is not illegal in Roscara.’

‘The embassy building and its grounds are the sovereign lands of Mocene,’ Rodar informed him coldly. ‘Which makes the keeping of slaves there illegal.’ He shoved the ambassador hard towards the ship’s rail.

‘He’s a slave owner?’ Captain Hakkon asked, stepping into Rodar and the ambassador’s path, halting their progress. Rodar nodded, and the captain’s lip curled in disgust. ‘Had I known, I would have left him in Roscara to burn.’ He spat on the ambassador’s fine silks. ‘Get this hornung off my ship.’

Crewmen swarmed forward before Rodar could start Ambassador Theudar walking once more. Picking the ambassador up bodily, they hurled him overboard.

I was a step behind Rodar as he hurried to the gunwale. It would not look good if the ambassador drowned before the councils could try him and find him guilty of his crimes. A broad-shouldered man dressed in the blue and red of my brother’s kynn stood waist deep in the surf. He grabbed the thrashing ambassador by the collar and started hauling him towards the safety of the beach.

‘Huh!’ I heard my friend mutter. ‘I didn’t even have to say fetch!’ Seeing my confused look, Rodar grinned. ‘Sige is a varwulf.’

‘Ladies,’ I heard Captain Hakkon say. I turned to see him frowning at the two noblewomen; mother and daughter were huddled together like terrified leverets. ‘I won’t do you the discourtesy of ordering you thrown overboard, but I suggest you disembark before my crew take it upon themselves to do so.’

The ambassador’s wife nodded and shepherded her daughter to the gunwale. Rodar handed them down to the waiting beadles. The three of them would be taken to the assize for questioning.

Once the beadles had removed the ambassador and his family from the beach, the verferi on board brought the former slaves forward. The temple healers waded into the surf to take them in hand as the ship’s crew lowered them over the side. The verferi who had been attached to the embassy followed them ashore. At last, it was my turn to disembark. At least most of the crowd on the beach had dispersed. Only my brother and his kynn remained. Captain Hakkon made a seat from a couple of lengths of rope and a deck board with which to lower me over the side.

Cold water lapped about my calves and I gasped. I fought down a tide of panic as the sensation transported me back to the afternoon I’d almost drowned, trapped in the box that had been my prison on the road to Burrélan as it slowly filled with water.

‘It’s all right, he’beshi.’

Coiran rested a reassuring hand on my shoulder. I’d not noticed her vault over the gunwale. Imari landed in the sea on my other side with a splash. They steadied me as I climbed out of the make-shift chair and stayed at my back, blunting the force of the waves that buffered us as we waded ashore.

My brother Jera met me at the tideline. His sharp blue gaze, identical to my own, took in the blanket wrapped about my shoulders in lieu of a shirt, my shaved head with the harsh black lines of freshly inked slave tattoos and the weeks’ worth of beard growth that covered my cheeks and chin. I looked like a vagabond. I felt like one beside my brother.

‘When Sige told me Coiran had found you alive, I hardly believed him,’ Jera said. He removed his thick wool cloak and wrapped it around my shoulders against the first bite of winter that filled the autumn air.

‘When I told you he was alive, you didn’t believe me at all,’ Coiran complained.

‘For which I owe you an apology,’ my brother said as he dropped to one knee in the sand and bowed his head in contrition. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.’ Bounding to his feet once more, he wrapped Coiran in what looked like a bone-crushing embrace and kissed her cheek. ‘Thank you for bringing my brother home.’

Seeing I was shivering, Jera shook his head and released Coiran from his embrace. ‘Let’s take this reunion inside, out of the wind.’ He jerked his head inland and we started up the beach.

When we reached the street, one of my brother’s kynn men offered me the reins of his horse. I shook my head. ‘Thank you, but I’ll walk.’ My brother, about to mount up, changed his mind at my words. Handing his reins to one of his men, he fell into step beside me.

‘Coiran told me of Volna’s death,’ I said as we started towards the palace. ‘I’m sorry for your loss. Sitting through Waldron Haelan’s trial must not have been easy.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’ My brother shook his head. ‘The hornung gave the wulfs the slip.’

‘What?’ Coiran asked in shock. ‘How? Blàc?’ She turned to look at the man who walked behind her. He was a short, dark-haired man with lean muscles, tanned skin, and dark eyes.

‘He fell in with a caravan.’ There was a soft growl to the words as he spoke. It startled me to realise he was yet another wulf. How many had travelled south with Coiran? ‘We tracked him easily enough, but when we ran the caravan down, the gebur was no longer with them. He’d left them at a ford several miles back. We searched up and down the river for miles, but we never picked up his trail again.’

‘He’s outlawed,’ I said, trying to reassure my brother. I knew the frustration he must be feeling. ‘Haelan cannot run forever. Eventually someone will bring in his head.’

‘Indeed, like they did Bocea’s killer?’ Jera asked. I stopped, shocked by his low blow.

‘I still hope to find her killer.’

After a moment, Jera blew out his breath. ‘Sorry. Sorry, that was uncalled for.’

It was, though I understood the need to lash out. At least he was lashing out with words rather than weapons. We started walking once more, but we had gone less than two hundred yards before I halted again. I ran my fingertips over the fresh gouges left by a sword blade in the stonework of a nearby pillar. Coiran had told me that the Tamarans had overrun the city, but I hadn’t quite believed it.

The evidence of battle grew as we drew closer to the palace. The heathland before the palace gates showed evidence of scorching by war fire and the earth was pocked by explosive charms. If the destruction looked this bad in moonlight, how much worse would it be in the daylight?

‘How many died?’ I asked. If Coiran had told me, I couldn’t remember.

‘A little under six hundred, all told,’ my brother replied, his tone solemn. How many of those were herjer and verferi? Coiran whined in concern as I swayed on my feet. The walk to the palace had taken more out of me than it should have. ‘You’re exhausted,’ my brother said as we came to a halt before the great hall. ‘We can exchange news properly once you’ve had time to rest.’ He hugged me. ‘I’m glad you’re home safe.’

We parted company then, my brother and his kynn heading for the keep as Coiran and I made our way round to the bastel house tucked in its own courtyard beside the walled kitchen garden. Coiran unlocked the heavy oak gates. The key turned smoothly in the lock. I laid a hand on hers, halting her before she could push the gate open. After all this time the lock should have been stiff with disuse.

‘It’s all right, he’beshi,’ she reassured me.

Shifting her hand out from beneath mine, she pushed the gate open wide enough for us to slip inside before locking it behind us once more. The grass hadn’t been mown. It was waist-high and full of half-dead wildflowers. A worn path no wider than a game trail stretched from the gate back towards the old stable block built up against the side of the great hall. Coiran seemed unconcerned, which reassured me. We turned off the trail, the air was thick with the rotten, sweet smell of decomposing apples as we ducked beneath the near bare branches of the courtyard’s sole apple tree, and headed for the exterior door of the bastel house.

Coiran struggled to turn the key in the lock, proof that no one had been inside since she had left to come looking for me. Finally getting the door open, Coiran stepped inside. The ground floor of the old farm building had once housed livestock. Now it housed my study, the old stall doors replaced with massive glass windows that let in just enough moonlight for Coiran to navigate the room in the dark. The strike of steel against flint told me she had found the tinderbox. Sparks flared a moment before a tiny flame flickered to life. Coiran was quick to light a spill before the small flame could burn itself out.

I moved deeper into the room as she went round lighting lamps, filling the space with warm golden light. Halting beside my desk, I picked up the book weighing down a stack of documents and turned to the ear-marked page. I had a vague memory I had been reading the tome before we’d ridden north. It felt like a lifetime ago.

‘Are you all right?’ Coiran asked, her brow furrowed slightly.

‘It’s hard to believe I’m actually home,’ I admitted.

She walked towards me. I forced myself to hold my ground but couldn’t help flinching when she reached up to gently cup my cheek. ‘Believe it.’

I caught her hand, stopping her before she could shift away from me. ‘Lass—’

‘It’s all right, he’beshi,’ she said with a trembling smile. ‘I’ve stood where you’re standing. You don’t need to apologise.’ She lifted my hand to lay a kiss against the fading bruises on my knuckles. ‘I’ll go make up your bed.’

I watched her walk away with a sigh and wished there was a way to erase the image of her dead and mangled body from my memory. I hadn’t actually killed Coiran, but the woman had looked enough like her that I couldn’t look at Coiran without seeing what I’d done, or fearing what I might do. I was dangerous. I always had been – my training as one of the herjer made me so – but Captain Salihah had broken my control and I’d killed an innocent woman. I could no longer be trusted with the safety of others.

With another sigh, I headed up the stairs to the main room, gritting my teeth in pain as I negotiated each step. By the time I had reached my chamber, Coiran had unrolled the mattress and put fresh linens on the bed. She fetched a down comforter from the blanket box. Seeing me, she tossed it on to the bed and walked towards me. Neither of us spoke. She laced her fingers through mine, and I let her guide me to a seat on the bed.

Kneeling, she removed my borrowed boots, setting them squarely beside the foot of the bed before rising and relieving me of the cloak and blanket still wrapped about my shoulders. She pressed a gentle hand to the linen bandages about my chest before moving away to drape the cloak over the clothes rail set beneath the shuttered window. ‘Do you need anything else, he’beshi?’ she asked as she folded the blanket and set it down atop my clothes chest. When I shook my head, she wished me good night and let herself out, leaving my chamber door ajar.

I climbed into bed and lay shivering beneath the comforter, listening to Coiran moving quietly around in the next room, and waited for sleep to find me. I was finally home. I just hoped it wasn’t a dream.

CHAPTER TWO

Nalise

I rearranged my pillows in a vain attempt to get comfortable, rubbing absently at the burning sensation lodged just beneath my ribs. My back ached as though I’d spent a day at hard labour rather than sitting in the Haranheim’s library reading. Herta, a homely red-haired woman who was the healer for the varwulf pack that had accompanied us from the north, insisted that such symptoms were common during pregnancy. She might have been right, but I suspected fear and stress contributed to the nausea and constant indigestion I suffered with. Being under house arrest and waiting for the Mage Council to try me for malfeasance would make anyone ill.

I sat up in bed as the haunting sound of a wolf pack in full voice carried over the city. Rusa, the varwulf who was currently acting as my lady’s-maid-cum-bodyguard lifted her head from her paws. She would not have reacted even that much if the pack were just singing the bounds of their territory. ‘Are they home?’ I asked as Rusa pushed to her feet. She stretched, fore and aft, before turning back to her human form, the fur on her head changing to shortcut curly brown hair that fell level to her chin whilst the fur of her body gave way to a brown leather jerkin over a dark grey riding dress; the colours blended seamlessly into the darkness, just as her tawny pelt had when she was in wolf form.

‘The sentries have sighted their ship,’ Rusa confirmed. At the end of summer, Coiran had sailed for Roscara in search of Elam. I had convinced Imari to go with her, playing to his ego. After all, it had stood to reason that if Elam was a slave, she would need Imari’s skills as a thief mage to rescue him. And if Imari was in Roscara, he would not be tempted to seek revenge against my uncle for setting the Mage Council on me. The last thing I needed was for my uncle to turn up dead before my trial.

‘I wish I could go down to the harbour to meet the ship,’ I said, my tone wistful. Such a thing was impossible. Unless I wanted to give up my magic. The temporary binding the Archmage had laid on me would become permanent should I venture beyond the walls of the temple.

‘I’ll ask Sige to tell Imari where you are,’ Rusa offered as she opened the door, preparing to go down to the street. Both she and Herta refused to call from the window. My guest room overlooked the temple’s central courtyard, and the wolves insisted the acoustics were terrible, the echoes distorting the call and garbling the message. ‘Do you want anything from the kitchens whilst I’m down there?’

‘Could you see if there are any more of the honeyed plums we had with dinner the other night?’ I asked. I had a sudden hankering for something sweet … and pickled? ‘Oh, could you grab a bowl of that seaweed dish as well, please? If there’s any left over.’

Shaking her head in amusement, Rusa stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind her.

I shifted my pillows so I could lean against the headboard. ‘Your father will soon be home,’ I whispered, rubbing a hand over the tight flesh at the top of my protruding belly in an effort to encourage my unborn son to shift. It felt like he was trying to use my lungs as a pillow.

Knowing Imari had returned eased some of my anxiety, though there was little he could do to affect the outcome of the trial. Still, he would substantiate my claims that my uncle had had the geas laid on me first and my retaliation had been in defence of myself and the crown. And whilst I could call on oath-helpers to support my case, the council gave their words little weight – since the signature of a spell was as unique as the aura of the person who cast it. That was all the proof of guilt they required.

I frowned as something scratched against the full-length shutters that covered the room’s sole window. Just a wind-tossed branch scraping at the gallery railing, I thought, dismissing the noise. The sound continued. A consistent scritching noise unlike the erratic sound I imagined a strong breeze would create. Curious, I climbed out of bed and crossed to the window. As I drew closer, the sound resolved into the unmistakable scraping of someone probing for the latch with the tip of a knife. I grinned. There was only one person I knew who would break into the occupied guest chamber of a temple.

My welcoming smile slipped from my lips as the shutters swung inwards, revealing the figure crouched on the gallery beyond. His clothing was as dark as the night sky behind him. A cowled hood covered his head, and he had wrapped a scarf about the lower part of his face to hide his features. Even so, I knew the man was not Imari. He was too tall, too broad through the shoulders. Spinning on my heel, I raced back towards the bed as fast as I could. My belt knife lay on the nightstand and my mage’s kit sat on the floor beside the bed. With my magic bound I could not cast, but I had several charms in my kit that I could use to defend myself; if I could get to them.

I screamed as much from anger as fear as a hand closed over my arm. I twisted in his grasp, driving the elbow of my free arm towards my assailant’s face. Cartilage crunched beneath my elbow as the blow connected with his nose. Surprise and pain caused him to loosen his grip and I wrenched free of his grasp. Turning, I drove my knee towards his cods, cursing when my attacker turned aside at the last moment, my knee connecting with the meat of his thigh rather than the more tender part of his anatomy that had been my target.

Hampered by my belly, the blow lacked any significant force. It didn’t even give my attacker pause. Rearing forwards with the speed of a striking adder, he head-butted me in the face. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I stumbled back, dizzy and disorientated, and felt his foot hook my ankle. I had just enough presence of mind to wrap my arms protectively around my belly as I fell.

The back of my head struck the floor. I bit my tongue and tasted blood. Helpless, I watched in a daze as my attacker raised his foot. Fear for my unborn child shot through me. ‘Please don’t.’ My whispered words were cut off as his foot struck my solar plexus, driving the breath from my lungs. I could only wheeze as he grabbed a handful of my hair and drew the knife from its sheath on his belt. I closed my eyes and waited to feel the edge of the blade against my throat. The sudden burn of pain along the inside of my forearm made me gasp. I opened my eyes, expecting to see he’d slit my wrist, to discover he’d only nicked me. A quarter-inch long cut leaked warm blood across my skin and stained the fingers of the leather gloves he wore.

Fishing a paper charm from inside his jerkin, the man pressed it to the wound on my arm. Light chased across the page as my blood activated the spell. Flames followed on the heels of the magic, burning the page to ash. Was this another form of geas or something worse?

The door to my chamber slammed open, revealing Rusa standing on the threshold, her drawn sword in her hand, her eyes glowing an eerie green in the half-light. Seeing the man standing over me, she slipped her skin and rushed him with a howl of fury. Turning, the man raced for the gallery, vaulting the rail a moment before I heard the snick of Rusa’s teeth as her jaws closed on empty air. A sickening crunch followed his brief scream as he struck the ground four storeys below.

Rusa reared up on her hind legs and planted her forepaws on the railing. Staring down at the body below, she gave a soft whine. I picked myself up off the floor, cradling my wounded arm to my chest. Something about the knife wound gave me a shivery sense of déjà vu, but there was no chance to wonder about it as I hurried to join Rusa at the rail. The man lay in a tangle of limbs between the trunk of the courtyard’s central cedar and the juniper bushes that surrounded it. Even in the darkness I could see the odd angle of the man’s neck and hoped he was dead, though maybe it would be better for us if he weren’t. The beadles would have questions for him.

‘It’s not your fault,’ I told Rusa softly.