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Irunshahr, not much more than an overgrown boy.
Jason, whom he had loved like a brother, who had come through it all only to be
knifed in a petty brawl in Sinon, within sound of the sea.
    The sea. How he
had loved it, in his youth. And he remembered the remnants of the Ten Thousand
shouting out in joy at the sight of it. That moment, that bright flash of
delight was carved in stone within his heart.
    “It was a long
time ago,” Rictus said, a thickness, to his voice. “Half a lifetime, almost.
The march of the Ten Thousand is nothing more now than an old man’s memory.”
    Fornyx spat into
the river. “It’s more than that, and you know it. Just as you will always be
more than some highland farmer with a spear beside the door. We trail our past
with us wherever we go, brother, especially those of us who wear the Black
Curse. It is what we are.”
    They stood side by
side as the valley brightened further around them and the birds in the hanging
woods above filled the air with song.
    “It is what we
are,” Rictus agreed at last.
    * * *
    The snow was a morning wonder which
was gone by mid afternoon, save where the shadows of the trees protected
pockets from the sun. That first day back, Rictus tramped the borders of his
little kingdom with a hazel staff in his hand and a bronze knife in his belt to
cut the bread and cheese and onion that Aise had packed for him.
    He and Eunion and
Rian trudged up the tawny hillsides to the open country beyond the woods, and
there stood like royalty to survey the speckle of the goat-herd as the hardy
animals ranged across the last of the year’s good grass. Like everything else,
the herd had grown while Rictus had been away.
    The mismatched
trio sat on the grass as the wind surfed it into waves around them, and as the
time wound to noon they munched on red onions as if they were apples. The dogs
lay to one side, bright-eyed and watchful, and Rian’s chatter washed over
Rictus half-heard, tugging his mouth into a smile now and again as he caught
the gist of it. Chiefly, though, he sat enjoying the sound of his eldest daughter’s
voice, and he would now and again grasp her hand in the depths of the yellow
upland grass, as if to make sure she were real.
    Voluble though
Rian was, it was from Eunion that Rictus received the clearest version of the
year gone by. There was indeed a bear’s den in the slopes of Crag-End hill,
hidden in the brush and juniper that swamped the northern slope. Bears were
semi-sacred to the Macht, respected for their strength and ferocity, but the
occupant of this particular den was elusive and, for now at least, best left
alone.
    The vorine had
hardly been seen in the valley since the killing of the vixen and her cubs, but
wolves had been glimpsed in their place, scouting the hills. The bear would
sleep through winter, but the wolves would not - something to be considered.
    The billy goat,
wise, wicked old Grenj, had had a fight with an eagle, a sight Eunion had never
seen before nor heard tell of. Rian mimed the struggle as she described it like
some tale out of legend: one hand the eagle, the other, valiant Grenj. Anyone
else would have seen some portent in the goat’s killing of the eagle, but to
Eunion it was a fascinating natural phenomenon, something to be stored away and
analysed. And as if summoned by the story, Grenj himself ambled past them amid
his harem, with his regal spread of horns and cold yellow eyes. As good as a
hound for protecting his own, Eunion said, though he was old now - another
winter might see him done.
    “When he is, we’ll
put his horns up here on a pole,” Rictus said. “It’s what they used to do
around Isca when I was a boy. To keep his spirit here.”
    “He’ll live for
years and years,” Rian protested. “He must, after such a feat.”
    “I hope he will,”
Rictus said, kissing the top of her head. “You’re right - he deserves to.”
    “And your campaigning,
master - how went that with the year?” Eunion asked.