Bloodheir by Brian Ruckley Page B

river had been cast down by the torrent; only a few that had been built of stone survived and even they were gutted and crumbling. The waves along the seafront lapped heavily, burdened by the flotsam that had been spewed out into the sea by the flood. And by bodies. Even now, the sea was still returning a few corpses each day to the city. They bobbed like bloated sacks along the harbour, pale and putrid.
    Most of what the waters had not ruined, fire had claimed. Everywhere the black shells of buildings and their smoke-stained walls told a tale of destruction. The Black Road conquerors of Glasbridge had been too few in number to control the inferno once they had set it loose, and had been disinclined to make the effort. The town could be rebuilt if fate and fortune allowed them the opportunity. For now, all that mattered was that the remnants of the Lannis Blood’s warriors could not gather here, and the other Haig Bloods could not use the harbour to bring spear-forested ships ashore.
    Few people – the old, the very young, the sick and infirm – could be seen out on the ravaged streets, scrabbling amidst the rubble in search of food, clothing or lost relatives. They shared their search with the dogs and seagulls and crows that fought over every scrap of food. Many bodies were still hidden beneath the wreckage. Packs of dogs dug them out; they and the carrion birds and rats consumed them.
    It was snowing as Kanin oc Horin-Gyre rode into Glasbridge. Big, fat flakes drifted like the seed-heads of countless winter flowers. They were blanketing the whole Glas valley, concealing its scars. Without any wind to drive them the flakes bobbed down in a lazy dance.
    Kanin’s horse trod carefully along the city street, stepping over the shattered remains of a trader’s barrow. Like every one of the forty warriors who rode behind him, the Horin-Gyre Thane was hunched down against the weather. He wore a thick woollen cloak, looted from Koldihrve. The snow had piled up on his shoulders. Only his hands, protected by thick gauntlets, emerged from beneath the cloak to clutch the reins. The band of warriors came into Glasbridge silently. This had been the home of their Horin forebears before the Black Road’s exile, yet they showed no jubilation at its recapture after so long. Kanin’s mood defined that of those who followed him, and his had been grim for many days now.
    The riders came to the place where a fine stone bridge had, until the town’s ruin, vaulted across the broad channel of the Glas. Now only the stubs of the bridge remained, jutting out from either bank. The water flowing between those banks was turbid and dark. The river was still carrying vast amounts of soil that it had stripped from the fields upstream of Glasbridge. Workers had already thrown a makeshift crossing over it, laying rows of planks across a series of small, flat barges.
    Half a dozen spearmen appeared from out of the snow. They challenged the riders. Kanin shrugged back the hood of his cloak, scattering snowflakes, and scowled at them.
    “Do you not know your own Thane?” he growled.
    The spearmen bowed their heads, begged forgiveness.
    “Where is my sister?” Kanin asked.
    Reunion with Wain lifted Kanin’s spirits for a time at least. He embraced her, held her shoulders with his great gloved hands. Around them, in the yard of a wheelwright’s abandoned workshop, his weary band dismounted and stood by their horses. The thick snow was crusting the animals’ manes.
    “I’d not thought to see you for a time yet,” Wain said to her brother.
    “We rode hard,” he replied, examining her features with a keen eye. “I looked for you at Sirian’s Dyke.
    I did not think you would be camped in Glasbridge already.”
    Wain glanced away. “The Dyke was broken. That eased our path.”
    Kanin already knew the tale of the breaking of Sirian’s Dyke, and the flood that had swept the road to Glasbridge clean of Lannis warriors and cracked open the town’s