David Gemmell. Winter Warriors

Wrapped in his cloak against the night cold Nogusta leaned back against the tree and fed another stick to the fire. Bison was snoring softly, the sound strangely comforting in the quiet of the night. Nogusta drew one of his ten diamond-shaped throwing knives from the black baldric draped across his chest and idly twirled the blade through his fingers. The silver steel gleamed in the moonlight.

Ushuru would have loved this place of high, lonely beauty, the vast expanse of the mountains, the wildness of wood and forest. She would have been happy here. We would have been happy here, he corrected himself.

Time had not eased the grief. Perhaps he had not wished it to.

His mind flew back, ghosting over the years, seeing again the huge living-room. They had all been laughing and joking, sitting around the hearth. His father and his two brothers had just returned from Drenan, where they had negotiated a new contract with the army for a hun­dred horses, and the celebrations were in full flow. He could still see Ushuru sitting on the couch, her long legs drawn up beneath her. She was Grafting a dream-deceiver for Nogusta’s youngest nephew. A web of twisted horse hair, woven around a sapling circle that would hang over his bed. Nightmares were said to be drawn to the deceiver, and trapped in the web, leaving the sleeper free

of torment. The twenty-year-old Nogusta moved to her side, placing his arm over her shoulder. Lightly he kissed her cheek.

‘It is a fine piece of work,’ he told her.

She smiled. ‘It will confuse the sleep demons.’

He grinned. She had learned the western tongue well, but her translations were always too literal. ‘Do you miss the lands of Opal?’ he asked her, in the ancient tongue.

‘I would like to see my mother again,’ she told him. ‘But I am more than content.’

She continued to weave the web. ‘Of what does Kynda dream?’ he asked her.

‘Fire. He is surrounded by fire.’

‘He burned his fingers last week at the forge,’ Nogusta told her. ‘Children learn by such painful mistakes.’ Even as the thought came to him a bright picture formed in his mind. A small child tumbling down a steep slope. As she fell her foot became trapped under a jutting tree root, snapping her leg. Nogusta stood.

‘What is it, my love?’ asked Ushuru.

‘A child hurt in the hills. I’ll find her.’

He kissed her once more, this time upon the lips, then left the house. The memory burned at him now with exquisite pain. He had been twenty years of age, and would never kiss her again. The next time he saw her, less than ten hours distant, she would be a corpse, her beauty destroyed by knives and fire. Kynda’s nightmares would have come true, flames roaring through his bedroom.

But this he did not know as he set out to find the village child. When he came upon her she was un­conscious. Freeing the child he splinted the leg then carried her back to the village. He had been surprised to find no search parties, and it was just after dawn when he entered the village from the north.

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A crowd surged out from the meeting hall as he approached. The girl was awake now. Her father -Grinan the baker – ran forward. ‘I fell down, daddy,’ she said. ‘I hurt myself.’ Nogusta saw that the baker’s shirt was smeared with soot. He thought it strange. Grinan took his daughter from Nogusta’s arms. Then he saw the splint.

‘I found her by Sealac Hollow,’ said Nogusta. ‘Her leg is broken, but the break is clean. It will mend well.’

No-one spoke. Nogusta knew the villagers had little love for his family, but even so their reaction was strange, to say the least. Then he saw that a number of the men in the crowd also had scorch marks upon their clothes.

From the back of the crowd came Menimas, the noble­man. He was a tall thin man, with deep-set dark eyes, and a moustache and beard trimmed to a perfect circle. ‘Hang him!’ he said. ‘He is a demon worshipper!’