The Seasons of Salt

Chapter One:

Autumn 1303:

The moon was cowled tonight. The clouds burnt across the skies in black and grey, obscuring its thin and hazy light and Ishgra of the Eighth was glad of it.

Her bare feet crunched across the bracken, the soles toughened long since by hard-use. Hard Soles for Hard Souls. She smiled grimly to herself. She was reverting to the childhood she had scarcely left, it seemed – all these little ditties skipping through her thoughts in crude litanies. Hard Souls were rare, even here in the lingering depths of the Gwyllt De forests. She had been hailed as a prodigy by the village, raised hard for this very night. For the destiny of all urach. It was only a shame destiny could not happen on a warmer night, she thought. Tendrils of cold slipped through the lichen-bound tree trunks and curled in her hair, matted and tangled.

The night was soft and crooned her name.

Soon. Soon.

She reached out a hand and touched the coarse dark vines curling away from the tree-trunks in gorsy hazes. They quivered under her touch, stretching out their leaves towards her in the dark. Thick, matted upon each other, dense and black. She pushed them aside and clambered through the poles behind them, tied upon each other to form a triangle, bound upon each corner with twine. The air seemed to ripple as she brushed her way through, tingling and shivering as it felt her presence here, and it felt colder in her lungs, as though she had birthed herself out into the pure magics at last.

The Heartstone circle. Few indeed were permitted here.

“The Hard Soul approaches.” A whisper, harsh and cold upon the darkness of the night, still, empty and alluring, and Ishgra felt her scowl deepening.

“I have a name, Mahata.” She pushed her way through the last of the thick gorse leaves and into the clearing, into the flittering shadows of the moonlight passing high overhead. There were no trees here within the circle, though they bounded them round like a womb. The night above was clear and bright and it shone down brightly upon the stones within it

Mahata hissed sharply, like a cat arching in fury, at Ishgra’s irreverent tone – so disrespectful of her elders - but she did not step out of her place in the uneven circle lingering there. Ishgra took a step forwards and took her place amongst them, beside one of the large grey soulstones, intricately carved and marbled with gold and ruby, designating the different cures of their craft. Her one, the Hard Soul one, was the most beautiful of all, though mayhap she was biased. The uneven rock was twisted and curved into a gnarled trunk, stone-leafed fingers clutching at the sky – its buds never flowering, its leaves never falling – beautifully, eerily haunted.

“Am I the last?” She looked around at the amorphous shapes, hoods up, cloaks bound tight, lingering by their own soulstones. She had recognised Mahata of the Second by her always so distinctive voice, but these other figures could be anyone. She kept her own hood down, enjoying the night breeze twisting in her elf-locks. She was not afraid now. She was a Hard Soul, and the time for fear was well past.

 “Well met, Hard Soul,” another voice said as hard, high and cold as the woman herself. N’hara of the Fifth. She towered head and shoulders over the other urach encircling her, standing opposite Ishgra on the other side of the circle.

Ishgra forced herself not to flinch. N’hara’s reputation went before her. Ishgra had not thought she would be here in person tonight – she had not thought N’hara would be willing to spend it all so soon. Something a little like pride edged through her. She would stand shoulder to shoulder with the Uncrowned Queen tonight. Their names would always be bound up together from henceforth. N’hara inclined her head a little underneath the shroud of her hood, as if reading these thoughts straight from Ishgra’s burning silver eyes, though Ishgra knew that was nothing more than fancy. Tusks did not have mind-magics.

“Well met, Tusk,” Ishgra responded with as much calmness as her voice could muster. She did not bow her head, and kept her shoulders loose and low, a feint of confidence and a challenge, one N’hara did not bother to rise to.

“You are not the last, Ishgra of the Eighth. We wait upon the Shadowbane and the child still.”

“They will not be long,” whispered Mahata, her voice hissing behind Ishgra’s ear, though her bent and crooked body was hunched beside N’hara’s on the other side of the circle. “Pritra of the Eighth has just entered the forest edge.”

“Good. Good.” N’hara’s voice was unusually warm, trying to bolster them all for this final battle. “Hold the course, sisters. It will not be long now. Courage, for just a little while longer.”

“You should not be here, N’hara. You are needed.” Ishgra was as surprised as anybody to discover that voice was hers.

“I know best where I am needed, Hard Soul.” Flint was softer than her voice, and she seemed, if possible, to grow even taller and broader in the dark night air. Still Ishgra did not flinch.

“The nights move quicker, the forest is falling, we are weak, divided, hunted. Without you- without the Uncrowned Queen-”

“The urach are more than any one woman.”

“But-”

“If we fail tonight, we fail completely. That must not happen. The sisters will falter, yes, they will flee the safety of our home – they may even lose hope for a little while, bastioned against their last defences – but they will not die out completely. Not if we hold fast. I will see it done, even with my last breath.” There was no room in her voice for fear or doubt, but Ishgra tried once more anyway.

“Why spend such blood in vain? There is no point in salvaging our dwindling magics if there are none left to use them.”

“No point?” N’hara’s voice was ice and fury and this time Ishgra did flinch away, unable to shield herself from it. N’hara threw back the hood of her cloak in one graceful movement, the better to pierce Ishgra with those molten silver eyes, so very like Ishgra’s own, and Ishgra stumbled to her knees.

She had not seen N’hara since she was an infant, held no memories of it in her mind and she felt truly privileged to be able to do so now. All the rumours she had gleaned and treasured were true. N’hara was beautiful – moonlight and ice – her skin shimmering with translucence, her tusks of shining, speckled diamond curling like hooped rings from her lips. Her hair fell in sheets of pure white waterfalls, flowing back behind her, the tangle of black bone she wore as a head-dress – the only crown she would ever own -  standing out stark against it, like right and wrong, simplicity itself. Frost seemed to crystallise around her, haloing her in her wrath. What could even a Hard Soul do against that? 

“Forgive me, N’hara, but-”

“You have been accounted worthy of the greatest honour of our kind, Hard Soul. We all have. We, the privileged few, will touch the core of magic itself tonight – will save, no, not our kindred, not a few little lives, hiding, cowering from the mortal man, but magic itself. Our legacy. Our birthright. Our home. And yet you ask if there is a point to such a war? You are not worthy of this honour. You are not worthy of the glory your name will bear – of the magics which burn within your blood. If I had but any other choice I would send you away and deprive you of the privilege you will bear.”

“Forgive me, N’hara. It is not of myself I think – I only – it is-” She stumbled into silence, her fingers digging into the dirt, burying themselves in the cold mud and bracken, sapping strength from it. “To leave them behind alone and undefended is a bitter thing.” She told the ground quietly.

There was the slightest breath and Ishgra risked a glance upwards. N’hara’s face was still icy, but the fiercest bite of her anger seemed to have left her.

“Take your feet, Ishgra,” was all she said, and Ishgra stumblingly complied, leaning a hand against the soulstone to steady herself. It was warm under her fingers, despite the chill of the night as though the flecks of red speckled through it were the first flushes of warm, pulsing blood.  None of the others spoke. The clouds shifted slightly and bathed them all in its cold, clear light. Ishgra closed her eyes, raising her face up towards the face of the moon, letting it wash her clean once more.  

“The Shadowbane approaches.” Mahata murmured suddenly, and the air in the clearing thickened slightly. The urach next to Ishgra shifted a little, foot to foot, but none of them moved from their positions – not even as a thick and cloying darkness crept around them, slipping around their ankles like smoke, curling them around with tendrils of nightmares. The crunching of feet echoed up hurriedly through the forest behind Ishgra, but she did not turn around.

“Well met, Shadowbane,” N’hara said. Pritra stumbled slightly as she pushed her way through the dense foliage of the triangle and edged her way into the circle beyond – her gaze fixed, gaping upon the Uncrowned Queen’s beauty. She dropped her eyes suddenly, as if aware that she was staring, and bowed her head.

“Well met, Tusk,” she replied.

“You have the child?”

Pritra looked down at the bundles of blankets clutched to her chest. It was a large enough beast, even swaddled tight as it was.

“It lives still?”

“Yes, N’hara. I had to spill much blood to gain it and I had to fly the night to take it safely away for they chased me hard, but the child lives.”

“Good. Then we shall begin at last. Place it upon the Heartstone.”

The Heartstone was large, flat and uneven, lying slanted upon the very centre of the circle. It was crackled with veins of marble and blood, tanzanite and jasper – and, the jewel of all, a rich ore of starfire in its very centre. Pritra lay the child down almost reverently on the stone, and the bundle squirmed a little. The blankets around it, blood and ash stained, fell open. The child was older than Ishgra first thought. She had imagined it had been a newborn from the way Pritra cradled it, but now she could see the smoothness of its plump face, the thick curls of its hair. It must be well over a year. Ishgra frowned a little, a newborn would have been better for purpose, but N’hara seemed satisfied enough with it. She nodded her head approvingly, watching the mortal child. It stretched out its fat fists, clutching greedily onto the air as though that might yet save it. Its eyelids fluttered a little, but it did not wake.

Pritra edged back into the circle, taking her place at the empty soulstone beside Ishgra, a swirling wispy onyx-flecked thing of solid nightmares, a strange contrast against the gentle Pritra.

“Sisters,” N’hara said quietly. “I know that fear would grip you now, but what we do we do for good. There are times when we must lose a little to gain the victory in the end. Do not shy away from that now.” Her eyes were fixed on Ishgra’s, silver to silver, fire to fire, and Ishgra nodded. N’hara nodded back.

“Draw the bone blade,” she commanded and every woman complied. Ishgra drew out her own blade from her belt. It had been a present from Greya of the Tenth – the most elaborate blade in the village, and more than one sister had envied it of her when they were growing up – just one of the perks of being the only Hard Soul in the Gwyllt De forest. Made for this moment, just as the child would be.

There could be no faltering now.

“Shadowbane, do you hear my call?”

Pritra flinched, and as Ishgra cast a glance sideways at the woman, she found her pale and uncertain. Pritra had clearly not known she would be called upon first, but she nodded, her jaw tightening.

“I hear your call, Uncrowned Queen.”

“Then blood to blood and mire to mire, draw your shadows out.”

Pritra blinked once, but did not flinch. With one last breath she plunged the bone blade deep into her own stomach, a pathetic little breath escaping her as it dug deep. Shadows seeped out of her hard and fast, fleeing from her body with a high pitched keening. She placed one bloodied hand on the soulstone behind her and the flecks within it seemed to glow and burn at the call of her blood. Then she stumbled out of her place in the circle and drew a circle on the child’s forehead in her own blood, before collapsing down at the base of the Heartstone and stilling for the last time. The soulstone almost hummed in the stunned silence, but the child did not stir. There was a soft gasp from one of the cowled figures, but N’hara did not hesitate. She merely turned to the next woman in the circle.

“Blackfang, do you hear my call?”

The Blackfang threw her hood back too. It was not a woman Ishgra recognised. Her voice was commendably steady as she replied:

“I hear your call, Uncrowned Queen.”

“Blood to blood and mire to mire, draw your thirst out.”

The Blackfang immediately complied – a second bloody handprint upon a soulstone, a second bloody circle outlined on the child’s head, a second corpse by its feet.

Mahata of the Second, an Eye, gave her prophesy, Lia of the Twelfth, a Flesh-Flayer, gave her second skin, the Wraith, unknown to Ishgra, gave her dreams and the Ashkara, also unknown, gave her flames – until there was only Ishgra and N’hara left standing opposite each other in the circle.

“What will happen once the rite is complete?” Ishgra asked quietly before N’hara could call upon her. “Who will tend the child? What if it should die anyway? It is mortal. It may catch Blood-fever, or fall from a tree. It could be eaten by one of the wild wolves which roam Gwyllt De.”

“It is a little late for second thoughts,” N’hara said wryly, gesturing to the gathered corpses around them. Her voice was a little warmer now they were alone. “Do not fear, Ishgra. It is fated. It will be done.”

Ishgra looked at her, a thousand unspoken words on her lips. She raised her silver eyes to N’hara, and N’hara smiled coldly.

“Yes,” she murmured. “I am proud of all you have become. You were made for this time, Ishgra. Do not doubt it now.”

Ishgra merely nodded. She looked down at the corpses in the circle once more, and the little child above them, baring all their precious hopes and gifts in its pale and tiny frame. N’hara sighed.

“I recall when you were that small,” she said softly in the moonlight. “I could scarce believe it when I cradled you in my arms. I had known – known – even as I grew you within me, that you would be a Hard Soul. None of the others credited it. There had not been a Hard Soul in the Gwyllt De forest for many decades, but I knew our time was coming, and I counted myself privileged to be the one to bear you. Do not be afraid.”

“I am not afraid.” The sound of it came out hard and defiant and N’Hara laughed.

“How very like your Seed-sire you are. I almost regretted the bloodprice when it came to be paid – but it was worth it. You were worth it. This is worth it.”

Her eyes were shining hard, more moonlight than the moon deigned to give, and Ishgra felt the pride of it swelling within her. She nodded again and this time N’Hara smiled at her indulgently, almost like a mortal mother might.

“Hard Soul,” she said gently, “Do you hear my call?”

Ishgra looked down at the bone-blade in her hand, at the bodies lying strewn around the clearing, at the child that bore so many of their faintest hopes inscribed upon its forehead, at those sharp silver eyes watching her patiently.

“Yes,” she croaked. “I hear your call.”