Page 3 of Dragonbound

A look of horror pressed upon Dalla’s face, and again, Sereh felt the unfamiliar sensation of pity towards Dalla.

‘No, my darling jarl, you don’t understand. I may not have long for this world, but there is a woman in your steading who can feed him. He’ll be strong and handsome like you,’ she whispered desperately.

‘No need for that, my love. I don’t take on extra mouths to feed. Food and resources are too stretched as it is. I thought you knew that.’

Frantically, Dalla glanced past Rankil and caught sight of Sereh. She wasn’t sure what Dalla saw on her face, but whatever it was, Dalla’s face crumpled as she expelled her last breath.

Rankil waited for barely a heartbeat before turning to his servants.

‘Now isn’t that helpful of her. We won’t even have to lie about where the child has gone. Put about that mother and child died in childbirth.’ He clapped his hands together, and Sereh suspected this was the most pleasure Dalla had given Rankil since informing him of her expectant condition. ‘Now clear this mess up and get her out of here.’

With that, Rankil picked up the small bundle Dalla had been trying to protect in her dying moments. He roughly shoved the wrapped child in Sereh’s hands.

‘Get rid of this. I don’t care if you keep it until the sun rises or if you leave it with its mother, but I want no more noise today. I’ve got quite a headache.’

With that, he disappeared back through the curtains.

It took mere moments for the stunned servants to begin erasing Dalla’s existence.

The steward stuck his head through the curtain. ‘It’s bloody inconvenient to die at this time of the rotation. There’s not enough peat left to cremate her, and it’ll be nigh on impossible to bury her with the depth of the snow and the frozen ground. Put the body at the farthest reaches of the animal shed, and ensure none can eat her. We can’t do anything with her for the time being. And make sure you get the blood off everything.’

Without hesitating, Anya pulled up the bloody sheets from around the bed. She wrapped them expertly around Dalla so no one would have to look at her anguished face. Another servant picked up the cauldron of warm water Sereh had brought into the room earlier. With practised ease, she sloshed it all over the bloody mess on the floor before getting down on her hands and knees to scrub at the blood with a wire brush in the hope it wouldn’t stain the precious wooden floorboards.

Sereh watched on with disbelieving eyes, still clutching the now sleeping baby. The jarl’s previous children had never been born during the Long Night. Sereh didn’t know what to do.

She couldn’t go now, as she’d not be able to walk far from the steading without fear of getting lost in the permanent dark. What should she do?

Sereh hoped it wouldn’t be long until the Dawning. Only then would the days and nights begin to differentiate themselves, in more than just candle lengths. Sereh understood from her reading that the Long Night this rotation had been longer than normal. She felt impatient to step outside again without risking her life. She wished the Long Night would end.

The steading stank of too many unwashed bodies and animal dung. There was no way to get the smell out until the huge wooden doors could be thrown wide open. Cleansing the steading after another Long Night would involve backbreaking hard work for her and the other servants, but anything had to be better than the current fusty smell permeating everything. She longed to clean out the stinking latrines. She put off going in there as often as she could. And now she had a new problem to contend with which the continuing Long Night made even more difficult.

While Sereh weighed up her few options, Rankil stuck his head back through the curtains, grimacing at the mess and making her jump when he called her name. ‘Hurry up, Sereh. I want you to come and read for me.’

Noticing the baby still in her arms, he added, ‘Get rid of that thing and do it quickly.’

With no more time to think, Sereh made her decision. Mult would feed the baby until the Long Day returned. She’d not mind. Only with the arrival of the Long Day would Sereh be able to dispose of the baby in the usual place. It surely couldn’t be much longer before the sun returned. By her reckoning, the sun should rise within the next few days. She couldn’t wait.

Resolved, she slid back through the curtains, determined to find Mult before she was made to read to the jarl.

2

SEREH

‘By the Gods,’ she sobbed, unable to mask the fear in her voice, even from herself. ‘Where are we?’ she demanded from Arrow, although the wolf-dog couldn’t answer, and the words could barely reach Arrow above the howling wind. ‘We’re lost. We’ll never make it back tonight.’ Her words rushed from her, sped on their way by the fierce wind and blinding snow being flung into her face. Helplessness dragged at her feet. Her earlier tears had restarted. They and the snot from her running nose stuck to her face. Even Arrow whimpered as the wind blew relentlessly against the pair of them. Sometimes, it felt as though she took two steps forward, only to be driven back another four.

‘Where are we?’ she sobbed once more. ‘Where can we go?’ Stopping briefly, but bending low against the wind’s might, Sereh flung her hand over her eyes, as though that might help her determine where she was and where she could go. ‘There’s nowhere,’ she admitted, trying to still her sobs from the wave of defeat engulfing her, as her shoulders shook.

‘If only we’d stayed with the baby,’ she whispered, not truly wishing to admit to herself how desperate their situation was. ‘Then, we’d have met our death together.’ Muttering the words aloud made them more real, and only the feel of Arrow beneath her hand made her stand tall and continue to move onwards, or what she hoped was onwards.

She’d barely made it halfway home when the deep violet of night had taken all light from their surroundings. Now she was stumbling around in the dark.

‘What you doing, girl?’ she called to the wolf-dog, lifting her voice in an effort to combat the wind. ‘Are you trying to follow our previous trail?’

Against the onslaught of the wind, Arrow had her nose close to the ground. But surely the wind and fresh snowfall had obliterated their trail.

Sereh followed her, hoping the wolf-dog would take her to safety, but doubting that there was anything Arrow could do. She simply wasn’t prepared to sit down and wait for the cold to claim her. Not yet.

She could see nothing against the blackness of the night.