The Seasons of Salt

Chapter Five

Make haste.

The thought thundered through Holmar Tulliver's mind with every racing, clattering hoof-print as they all but fled across the plains and flats. The shadow of the Wasteland Woods grew thin and distant, a blackened smudge haunting the horizon behind him. Make haste.

And yet, haste would not be hasty enough when they were so far from the blessed Horseplains. He cursed Royce Ferris desperately under his breath, aye and even Glengower too – and Dowse, Rowley, any and all of them that thought this whole wretched thing was a good idea. Himself for agreeing with it. And the urach most of all.

A three-week now he had been sitting outside the Wasteland Woods, besieging those hags in their nests, ensuring they could not swell the ranks of Hagwhore, or come to his defence as Glengower battled his way up across the causeway to the Brenin Penisula.

We’ll leave the hags to you then, shall we, Holmar? Dowse had been bracing, full of the brash and easy charm the Bridgenford Large Lords were known for. The Horse Lord knows how to deal with a few dozen women, I'm sure.

But they were not women – they were not mortal at all, for all that they could pass for it. Holmar had seen first hand what blood the urach wrought, the lives they stole, the shadows and the nightmares...Protected by his endless rivers, the Bridgenford Lord could afford to be blasé about them. He had no experience of them in his damnably soggy marshlands. It was easy enough for Dowse to say that taking and keeping Holdfast was the harder job. He had no idea what he was talking about and no more did the King.

 Mayhap if Ferris’ men had been the ones blood-drained, if it had been Penisula babes stolen from their cribs, if the Crown’s soldiers had been fed dreams and shadows until they were half-mad and turned their swords on each other and even themselves – aye, well, mayhap then Hagwhore would be less keen to crawl into bed with the urach and make his little alliances. Mayhap then, the counties would not have to rise up in arms and depose the arrogant little kingling who thought he could do no wrong. Mayhap then – mayhap, mayhap, mayhap. There was no good dwelling on it. It was done. Right or wrong, they had all thrown their dice now. They had to play it through to the end, come what may.

Make haste.

Holmar gripped tighter to the reins and the horse shook its head irritably as it cantered forwards. He’d dressed the beast lightly, a war saddle of light leather made for long rides, not the ceremonial one decked in prancing ponies and wind-tossed manes that his daughter loved. He’d dressed himself light too, leaving the embossed plate armour behind with the camp and his war-commander. He’d brought his sword though, Canterwind, strapped down safely at his side. He was more than ready to bloody it upon any hag he came upon. The rearing horses upon the pommel were shiny smooth now, worn thin by aeons of use. He ought to have the pommel replaced, mayhap, only there seemed but little point. Hartley was never going to lead his troops from the front-lines, even if he lived to inherit his father's seat. Canterwind would be little more than a bauble of authority for the poor kid.  It glinted down by his thigh, protruding from the leather sheath like a promise of war and fury.  

A dozen different scenarios tumbled through Holmar's mind as they surged forwards, each more dire than the last. He knew there was no point torturing himself with possibilities, but how could he help it? His steward, Greener, knew Holmar had to hold the forest, and he was a staid man of good sense. Greener would not have sent for him unless it was urgent.

Mayhap it was naught but a trick of the urach, or even of the king’ forces. Mayhap they wanted Holmar to split his men, so that they could march out in number and bypass the siege, rousing to the king’s defence. Well, if that were true, then their plan had worked.  Holmar had indeed split his forces, he had left but a skeleton crew behind to hold the forest in as he drove his own men hard back home. But he could not risk it, he could not risk it. Not with all he had left.

Where was the luck of the Tullivers now? That famed luck he was supposed to hold. All the luck of the Tullivers, that was what they said, and it had been true, once. Heavens above: One son broken, another three sons dead, only two daughters left to him: one a babe, not yet found her second year, and the other, the eldest, wild. Untameable. The Untameable Tulliver. Where was all the luck of the Tullivers now?

The lands were laughing at him, he knew, laughing at him for being unable to quell his own child. He heard the whispers. Tulliver cannot even control his own daughter, he cannot even control the women of the Wasteland Wood, how can he rule the Horseplains?  Some days he thought he'd rather face a dozen urach than try to quell Celeste.  I can rule the Horselands or I can control Celeste, he'd told Greener once acerbically. I cannot possibly hope to do both. The old steward had laughed, but he had not argued. He knew Celeste was a hopeless case, too. Whipping did no good, he'd tried it. Locking her in the damned embroidery tower until she had finished her sewing did no good either – she had embroidered an elaborate curse in the middle of the fabric and then climbed out the window – three full flights high, with no climbing hooks or ropes. Starving her never worked either, for she was right stubborn and would not back down, aye, even to death if he pushed her, and he had no desire to actually see her buried out there amongst the horsehill cairns, for all that she was a trial to him. She rode bare-back across the plains, hair flying wild, and only wore shoes when he could wrestle them onto her feet. He despaired of ever having her wed – and oh! How he adored her.

Make haste.  

 He dug his heels into the flanks of the sweating beast beneath him though the beast was already flying as fast as it could. Mayhap it was Hartley. The boy had been weak since his accident. Mayhap he had passed over to join his mother and brothers at last – and yet, surely Greener would not send for him if the boy had already gone. And even if he was sick, they would surely know there would be nothing he could do for the poor lad.

Four lads. Four. Now half a boy, a babe and a wild-woman.

He ought to wed again, mayhap. Try for another son to inherit Reinmere from him. Mayhap Celeste would do better under a step-mother than she had under a dozen Nannas and nursery maids. The spirits knew he could scarcely keep them more than a few months at a time – and she had grown wilder than ever since Melly had passed.

It was a curse, that was what it was. A wretched curse from the urach for the continual defiance the Horseplains showed them, for refusing to lie down and die at the hag's behest. He had sometimes even wondered, hateful, blasphemous thought, if there was not something of the hag in Celeste after all. He would have thought she’d been switched at birth, if she had not inherited her mother’s thick and wavy autumnal hair, the snub little nose, the pout of defiance when you crossed her. Her ma, Melly, though, she won her way with silent dinner tables, hostaged petty-comforts and closed bedroom doors. Celeste was more likely to fight her way out than siege her way to victory. Melly now, she’d have been grand at sieges, if she had been born a man. And if Celeste had been born a lad – well, all her wildness would be proof of her manhood. It was not suitable in a girl. Poor mite. She did not have the Tulliver luck either, clearly. She’d had the misfortune to be born wrong, and now they all had to suffer for it.

The horse beneath him tossed its head wildly. He was killing the poor beast with this punishing pace and he knew it, and yet what else could he do? Make haste, make haste, make haste.

The words merged into one another until they formed but one word: an incantation, a litany of prayers to whichever deity the horse-spirits which roamed these plains happened to be listening, wild and willing. The spirits that had abandoned them all.  

Mayhap it was just Hartley, after all. Nurses were known to be flighty. Mayhap they just wanted him to make his last goodbyes whilst he could. Or mayhap, more likely, it was the Starfire Isles, making the most of his absence to come stealing from the coastal towns. Aye, that would be it. The eastern edge of the Horseplains would be burnt and ravaged, whilst Holmar was gone playing war and now they wanted him back to secure the borders.

The heavens knew they’d have to do something about those wretched Isles in the end, but one war at a time, eh? And besides, Glengower got a good deal of his wealth – and, indeed, his dour-faced wife - from the Starfire mines. He’d not want to rock the boat that sailed him.

His horse tossed its mane again, and Holmar smiled as he realised why. They had reached the Holloway at last; the old, familiar straightways to home. Beside him swelled the horsehills where his ancestors all slept their last, deep sleep. Etched into the rough grasses and daisied greens was that great chalk beast rearing over them all, watching over their bodies. It was starting to be over-grown again. He’d have to talk to Greener about it, send the men to pick it clean once more. He’d send Celeste to help, mayhap. She loved to roam about out of doors, and she might as well do something useful. He remembered his own youthful days upon the hillside, picking at the moss and grasses which ventured too far upon the chalk horse. He’d spent many days there, basking in the sunshine when it dared to appear, the last remnants of a happy childhood.

 Another ten minutes and the top of Reinmere would come creeping into view over the tops of the trees if those wretched storm-clouds relented enough to allow it. They covered the skies before them in grey and black, like charcoal and retribution. The rain had held so far, though. Some of the Tulliver luck must be left to him after all. Just as well, we will need it in this blessed war. 

His face grew grimmer yet as they streaked homewards, over the final strait. War was a bitter business, and it had been brewing far too long here. And yet, Ferris had brought it upon himself. You cannot sell your own people out to the hags and the firebeasts and not expect an uprising. 

Holmar did not trust Glengower much either if it came to it. He was full of Court Talk. Fancy words that were lighter than air, that sounded good and meant absolutely nothing at all. But Burtlett Glengower knew which way the wind was blowing at least, he knew that he had to keep the Large Lords on side to rule the Counties – he knew, at least, the lesson his cousin, little Ferris Royce, had never learnt – that kings only ever ruled by consent, no matter what they thought on it. Now Glengower was a power-hungry weasel, true – and he ought by rights to count kinship higher than ambition, but they had few other choices. And better Glenglower than Royce. Better an ambitious weasel than a hagwhore.

Holmar had seen it often enough in the stables, some cob that was hungry for it, that would run faster than his legs would stand, would head-butt his stable-mates out of the way of the trough if the handlers were not looking, would bite and kick the stable boy but never the groom. But, like those damned cobs, Glengower knew the limits to his own powers, surely. He’d remember how far his stolen crown would stretch and when it would stop short. And more than anything, Holmar was just ready for some blessed peace now.

Make haste, make haste, make–

He pulled up on the reins so sharply the horse beneath him reared, almost sending him cascading to the ground.

No. No. No, no, no, no, no.

He swore loudly and pushed the horse on faster.

Come quickly? He had come too late – far, far too late.

They were not storm-clouds. They were fire and shadows. Hag work.

The horse pounded the path with a vengeance, but he could not fly fast enough to undo what had been done. Corpses lingered unloved along the path where they had fallen, trying to flee. Ash crept its fingers across the trees lining the Holloway, painting them black. The flags of Reinmere, a rearing black horse on a field of gold, were burning in the air, aye, even as they fluttered. They crackled with it, waving desperately, still smouldering. Who knew how long the castle had been burning for? The drawbridge was down, the portcullis up – the doors wide open, but the horse would not ride through it. Holmar slid from its back and drew Canterwind with the whispered hush of metal on leather. He sprinted forwards, his leathers creaking as he did so, his hand gripping the hilt hard.

Bodies, charred and smashed, barely recognisable, only by their yellow shifts or their stable uniforms, lay strewn across the courtyard floor. The Orthried priest, the intercessor between the horse-spirits and man, lay split open upon the floor. His horse-skull mask had been smashed in, the bone cracked and splintered, laying in shards across the cobblestones. His black and gold robes were bloodied, his horse-head staff lay upon the floor just out of reach of his withered fingertips. By all the spirits, the man had been an ancient, his skin more leather than flesh. The matted plaits beneath the mask had been as thin as a cut-purse’s promises, and star-white until the blood had stained them crimson. What sort of man would slay a Sacred so?

He knew the answer. No man at all.

But the Orthried’s was not the only body lying face-down upon the floor. Holmar feet his stomach lurch, his heart break out from within him.

“No. No!”

He sped to Hartley, lying toppled and motionless upon the floor in the courtyard where he had tried to flee, his wheeled chair smashed beside him, charred and useless. Borgan, the man who usually pushed it for him, was lying behind it, his eyes wide and staring horrified into the sky. There was no obvious wound to him, no bloodied gape across his throat or sword hole in his chest. He had choked on shadows and fear alone, and again Holmar cursed the wretched hags whose powers were so endlessly unassailable. What can mortal man do against that?

Hartley had always joked that Borgan was his groom, that the chair was his hobby-horse; a wooden horse for a broken Horse Lord.

He pulled Hartley’s body into his arms. It was already cold and stiff. It was already far too late. There had been the first sproutings of thin, whispy whiskers there upon his cheeks. They had looked ridiculous on the soft, plump, young boy’s face and Celeste had teased him about them mercilessly. They would never more be joined by compatriots now.

“Hartley. My son. My boy.”

Holmar clutched him to his chest, just as he had when he was a little boy with two working legs and a spine that grew straight and unbroken. The howl of anguish would not stay within him; it roared out to the sky. Hartley stared unseeingly up at him, as he would stare evermore onto the cold dark sod that covered his brothers and mother. His boy. His last boy.

Holmare heard the gasps and curses as his men followed him through the gates into the courtyard.

“Find any who still live,” he roared to them, tears still streaming down his cheeks like retribution, as he sat upon the floor, cuddling his son. “Find me my daughters. The hags will pay for this day’s work. I swear it. I will burn every last leaf of their hag-wood down if I must.”

The men stumbled to obey, and Holmar did nothing but sit there upon the floor, cradling his son’s body to him one last time, even as the smoke rose high around them, obscuring the sunlight. 

He knew what they would say, even as they approached him, hours later. Cold horror crept through his veins like ice-water, or like the saltwater waves of the coast at the expression on the servant's face as he approached Holmar. It was too quiet. She would have been here by now. She would still be fighting with a knife in her hand and a scream on her lips if she lived.

“My daughters?” he croaked. “Little Melly? Celeste? My Celeste? Tell me she lives," he ordered. "Tell me she escaped.”

But the servant just shook his head.

Gone. All gone. Like the last drop of Tulliver luck. Never to rise once more.