Assail (Malazan Empire, #6)(126)

‘We—’

She turned on Kyle. ‘What is your name?’

‘Ah, Kyle, ma’am. I don’t have to stay. I could just—’

‘Shut up.’ She thrust a finger at Cull. ‘Find the cows. They’ve wandered off again.’

Cull bowed low. ‘Yes, my chick.’ He headed off.

‘Why did you bring him?’ she called after him.

‘Because he is Lost!’ Cull shouted back, and laughed. He continued on, chortling to himself as he went.

The Iceblood woman now cast her sceptical eye to Kyle. ‘What did my fool of a husband mean, lost?’

Kyle cleared his throat. ‘Stalker and his brothers, ma’am. We were in the same mercenary outfit years ago. He made me a Lost.’

The woman grunted at this, eyed him up and down. ‘Hmph. I see it now. So, Stalker made you a Lost, did he?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Well, then. Better make yourself useful.’ She pointed to the trees behind the cabin. ‘There’s a cache back there. We might have a smoked haunch or two left. Bring one in.’

Kyle inclined his head. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Name’s Yullveig.’

He nodded again, ‘Yullveig.’

It took him some time to find the cache. It was a hut very high up in a tree. All the lower branches had been cut away. The ladder that led up to it consisted of staves of wood lashed to the trunk. They were fixed very far apart. After thrusting the haunch of venison into a burlap sack the only way he could manage the descent was to tie the sack to his belt.

He returned to the cabin and knocked on the timber jamb. Yullveig invited him in. The little furniture within – a table, chairs of lashed wood, and a bed – were all on a scale that made him feel an infant. It didn’t help that when she urged him to sit his feet barely touched the dirt floor.

‘I must apologize for Cull,’ she said as she minded the pot simmering over the stone hearth. The steam wafting from it smelled of parsnips.

‘Apologize? For what?’

The answer brought a small smile to her otherwise severe lips. ‘He fell climbing a cliff when he was a child.’ She tapped her head. ‘Never been the same since.’

‘Ah. I see.’

‘But he has a good heart,’ she said, adding, ‘Too good, his brothers said.’

Kyle peered about the rather cramped cabin. ‘There are just the two of you?’

‘A son and a daughter. Baran and Erta.’ She started slicing the haunch. ‘Cull left with two sons and returned with one. Not that I am complaining. He left at my urging.’ She pointed the knife at the remains of the Greathall. ‘In his absence the hall was burned and everyone killed by lowland raiders. Just the four of us now.’

‘Yet Cull won’t kill the trespassers.’

‘No. He says death does not erase death.’ She cast him a significant glance. ‘A view not popular here among the Holdings, you can imagine. Our son did not understand. Damned him as touched. He’s off fighting now and Erta with him. Defending the Holding.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Her gaze snapped to him. ‘Sorry? Why?’

‘That he did not understand your husband’s choice. I do.’

She nodded as she trimmed. ‘Yes. I see it in you. The blood-price.’

‘Blood-price?’ I owe no blood-price.’

The woman snorted, almost derisive. ‘You lowlanders and your fixation upon vengeance, vendetta, honour and debts owed.’ She waved the carving knife. ‘That is the cheapest and simplest of blood-prices. It is self-aggrandizing. Self-righteous. And self-defeating. No, I speak of the only real cost of blood that matters – the price it exacts from the one who spills it. I see that within you and I respect it.’

‘Yet there are those who think nothing of spilling blood.’

She nodded. ‘There will always be such. They are the enemies of order among people. They must prove their worthiness to enter into any accord. And if they fail …’ she shrugged, ‘someone must take it upon themselves to drive the dogs off.’

‘I think there are many dogs braying at the borders of your Holding, Yullveig.’

She laughed aloud at that. ‘I think you are right.’ She set a wooden bowl before him. It contained a splash of the boiled parsnips, slices of venison, and a portion of heavy dark bread.

‘Should we not wait for Cull?’

‘No. There is no telling when he might return – if at all. He comes and goes of his own pleasing. I am used to it. Indeed, it would gall me to have him here underfoot at all times.’

Kyle could not restrain himself any longer. He was famished, and tucked into the offering as if one of those exiled dogs himself. She watched him for a time, clearly taking pleasure from his appetite.

‘You wish to try to find Stalker Lost, yes?’

Kyle nodded, his mouth full.

Yullveig thought about this while she cleared up. ‘It will be difficult,’ she began, after a long silence. ‘The Losts are far to the east. You must cross all the surviving Holdings to reach them. You will probably be killed out of hand.’ She crossed her arms and stared down at him. ‘I suggest you return to the lowlands and journey east from there.’

Kyle could not keep from shaking his head. After coming all this way? ‘That will not be so easy either.’