At dawn, they carried Harrag upward.
The whole camp did not go.
The whole camp wanted to, which was different. Children were held back. Goats did not care that a chief had died. Fires needed tending. Wounds needed washing. Meat taken from the wedding village needed cutting before warmth spoiled it, and the stolen goats needed counting before some fool decided grief made ownership unclear. Nella said the dead respected full stores more than full crowds, and no one had the courage to argue with her that morning.
Still, many climbed.
Painted Dogs first. Pale Roots behind them. Attached fires in smaller knots. Old men who had raided with Harrag when their beards were black. Women who had cursed him, obeyed him, fed him, defied him, buried sons under his orders, and survived winters because he had known when to raid and when not to. Hokor walked at the front beside the bier. Torren walked on the other side. Their father lay between them on the cloak stretched over spear shafts, wrapped in dark hide, his broken axe head set across his chest.
The haft was gone.
That seemed wrong.
Then Torren thought perhaps it was fitting. Harrag had outlived too many things meant to hold him.
The high stones stood above the old camp where wind always came, even on still days. Black rock rose from the slope like broken teeth. Old cairns hunched there, some small, some large, some so weathered that only the tree speaker knew which belonged to chiefs and which to men whose names had been eaten by snow. From that height the Painted Dogs camp looked both strong and fragile: smoke under stone, hides against wind, people moving below like sparks that had learned to walk.
They laid Harrag where the old tree speaker pointed.
No one asked why that place and not another.
The old man leaned heavily on his staff while the cairn was opened and deepened. Hokor helped move stones until Nella slapped his hand away and told him chiefs who bled on every rock made bad examples. He almost snapped at her. Then he looked at the blood still crusted near his nose and said nothing.
Torren helped too.
Lady Forlorn was wrapped in dark cloth and bound across his back for the climb. Even hidden, it was there. Men glanced at it when they thought he did not see. The sword did not rattle or drag or remind him of its weight. That was worse than a heavy blade would have been. It felt as if he carried a cold thought.
Harrag was placed under stone with his broken axe head, his belt knife, a strip of Painted Dogs hide, and a little dried meat because Nella said no man should go into the dark hungry just because he had been stubborn in life.
The tree speaker spoke in the Old Tongue.
Not loudly.
The wind did not need shouting.
"He held smoke when winter wanted it. He held men when anger wanted them. He bit below and did not let the below bite his fire back. He made sons and burdens. He lost none of his tongue to age, though many prayed for it. He chose his last road and bled on it."
A few men smiled through grief at that.
The tree speaker tapped the broken axe head with his staff.
"Old dog. Hard tooth. Bad temper. Strong fire."
Nella said, "He would have liked that too much."
Hokor looked down at the body. "He liked most things said about him if they sounded like complaint."
Nella's mouth moved.
Torren thought she might smile.
She did not.
The stones were placed over him one by one. Hokor laid the first. Torren laid the second. Nella the third. Then Vek, Sorn, the tree speaker, and others. By the time the cairn rose, Harrag had vanished beneath the mountain, which was what men always said they wanted for their dead until the stone actually covered them.
Hokor stood before the cairn after the last rock was set.
The wind pulled at his hair. The cut across his nose had darkened and swollen. It made him look older, though not old enough for what sat on him now. The clan had spoken before the climb. Not all in one voice, because no clan did anything so cleanly. But spear butts had struck stone. Knives had lowered. Names had been withheld because no stronger name could stand. Harrag's last word mattered. Torren's witness mattered. Nella's silence beside Hokor mattered more than most men understood.
The Painted Dogs had chosen.
Now the choice had daylight on it.
Hokor touched the cairn once.
Not gently.
"Rest if you can," he said. "I know you will not."
That was all.
It was enough.
...
The spoils were laid out below by the central fire after the dead had been put under stone.
Nella made them wait until the sun had cleared the ridge. She said men divided badly when their eyes were full of tears or revenge, and the morning had too much of both. By then the stolen goods had been sorted into rough kinds: food, animals, useful metal, rope and cloth, sept silver, small coin, candles, copper, tools, and things too pretty to be useful until someone traded them or melted them down.
The raid had been good.
No one said so loudly.
A good raid with a dead chief was a thing men approached sideways.
Nella stood over the goods with two tally sticks and a face that dared grief to make her careless. Hokor stood beside her. Torren stood across the spread hide with Brak's man from the Pale Roots hundred, two Painted Dogs store-keepers, Vek, Sorn, and the old tree speaker watching from a stone. Others crowded near enough to hear and far enough not to be struck for breathing on the count.
"Dead and wounded first," Nella said.
No one argued.
"Families of dead take meat, salt, and coin before chiefs count pride."
No one argued with that either.
"Wounded who cannot raid before the next moon take food. Wounded who can still boast get less."
A Painted Dog with a bandaged shoulder opened his mouth.
Nella looked at him.
He closed it.
Good.
After that came the split between the old fire and the southern one. One hundred Painted Dogs had gone. One hundred Pale Roots had gone. Painted Dogs had lost Harrag and others besides. Pale Roots had lost fewer. Painted Dogs had taken most of the animals. Pale Roots had opened the store shed and carried much of the grain. The sept silver had been gathered by a mixed group, though men began remembering their own hands more clearly when silver lay in sight.
Nella ended that before it grew teeth.
"Hands lie when silver shines," she said. "Counts do not."
"They do when you hold them," Sorn muttered.
"That is why you still have both ears," she answered.
Hokor listened more than he spoke.
That was wise.
When he did speak, men heard him.
"Food by raid count after dead and wounded," he said. "Animals by who can keep them alive. Silver split half, then hidden. Not worn. Any man wearing a sept cup on his belt gets it hammered flat against his teeth."
A few eyes went to Torren.
He nodded. "Pale Roots accept."
That mattered too.
The old camp saw it. The southern men saw it. This was not Harrag and Torren dividing a raid as father and son. This was Hokor and Torren dividing gain as two chiefs, one newly chosen, one already rooted elsewhere. The difference sat between them like a third fire.
Then came the sword.
No one had placed Lady Forlorn on the hide.
Torren had not allowed it.
It lay beside him, still wrapped in dark cloth, the heart-shaped ruby hidden, the smoke-grey blade covered. It did not need to be seen to be present. Men looked toward it even when nothing of it showed.
At last Sorn said what others were circling.
"That blade killed Harrag."
Hokor's face did not change.
Nella's did, slightly.
Sorn continued, "It was taken in a Painted Dogs raid, against the man who killed our chief. Some will say it should stay by this fire."
"Some can say it," Nella said. "Then some can be answered."
Sorn looked at Torren. "I am saying it before answered things become knives behind backs."
That was fair.
Annoying, but fair.
Torren reached for the cloth.
He unwrapped Lady Forlorn slowly.
Firelight found the smoke-grey steel and moved strangely along it. Not bright. Never bright. The ripples in the blade looked like mist caught under ice. At the pommel, the heart-shaped ruby burned red when uncovered, a little lord's heart set into a weapon that had cut too many living ones.
The murmuring stopped.
Torren lifted the sword.
Not high.
Enough.
"This sword killed my father," he said.
The words entered the circle and held it.
"The first blood it took after that was its old owner's head." His grip tightened around the hilt. "I took it. From his hand, from his body, from the stone where he fell."
No one spoke.
"From now on," Torren said, "it will keep spilling Andal blood in my hand."
A low sound moved through the Pale Roots behind him.
Painted Dogs watched Hokor.
Hokor looked at the sword for a long time.
Then he looked at Sorn.
"My father died beneath it," Hokor said. "My brother took it from the man who held it. Let the blade hate Andals in his hand."
That settled many.
Not all.
It settled enough.
Vek nodded once. "Harrag would have hated seeing it hang by a fire unused because men argued over whose grief was larger."
"He would have stolen it twice if someone told him not to," Nella said.
This time some men did laugh.
A little.
Hokor pointed toward the covered silver. "The sword is not in the count. It was not carried from a store. It was won in blood. Torren keeps it. Painted Dogs keep their shares. Pale Roots keep theirs. If any man thinks a blade feeds him better than meat, Nella can test his wisdom with an empty bowl."
No one asked for an empty bowl.
Torren wrapped Lady Forlorn again.
He did not thank Hokor.
That would have been too small.
Their eyes met once.
That was enough.
No one spoke much of the village.
There was little to say. It had been Andal. It had held food, silver, animals, a sept, a sword, and men who would have raised sons to hate the mountains if left with enough roof and breath. They had burned it. That was done. The lower men would name it horror because lower men liked to forget how often their own knights came upward with rope and fire when they thought the odds favored them.
Hokor did not apologize for the order.
Torren did not apologize for joining it.
Apology did not put Harrag back under skin.
By afternoon, the goods were divided, counted, hidden, or set aside for carrying south. Pale Roots would take food, a portion of sept silver, some copper, rope, salt, and two goats that could breed well if they survived the journey. Painted Dogs kept more of the immediate meat, the animals from the pens, and the larger share of tools because the old fire had lost more hands and had more winter repairs waiting. Neither side liked every part of the split.
That meant it was probably close to fair.
Nella said as much.
"Everyone looks half-soured," she declared. "Good. Done."
...
Torren and Hokor returned to the high stones before sunset.
No crowd followed this time.
The camp was busy turning grief into work, as it had to. Pale Roots prepared bundles for the south. Painted Dogs mended weapons, counted losses, tended wounds, hid silver, and began learning the shape of Hokor's commands in daylight. The old tree speaker had gone to sleep or to pretend at sleep. Nella had taken over three arguments at once and seemed happier than anyone had a right to be after burial.
The brothers climbed without speaking.
Harrag's cairn stood black against the lowering sun. Wind moved over it, around it, through small gaps where stones had not yet settled fully. Someone had tied a strip of Painted Dogs hide to a narrow rock above the cairn. It snapped softly in the cold air.
Hokor stood before it with his arms folded.
The cut across his nose had been washed properly now. It would scar. Torren could already see that. A thin line left by Lady Forlorn and Corwyn Corbray, running across the face of the new Painted Dogs chief. Men would make meaning of it whether Hokor wanted them to or not.
Torren had Lady Forlorn at his side, wrapped and tied, still without a scabbard.
For a while, neither spoke.
Then Hokor said, "He should have stayed."
"Yes."
"He would not have."
"No."
"I hate him for that."
"Yes."
Hokor looked at him then.
Torren looked back.
The wind made the silence easier.
"I gave the order," Hokor said.
"To burn the village."
"Yes."
"I joined it."
"That does not make it lighter."
"No."
Hokor looked down toward the old camp. Smoke rose thin and careful below. Men moved between fires. Women shouted. Children chased each other until one fell, cried, and then ran again. Life, rude as ever, had not waited for Harrag to be mourned properly.
"They were Andals," Hokor said.
"Yes."
"If we left them, some would grow. Boys into men. Men into spears. Spears into our paths."
"Yes."
Hokor's mouth tightened. "Then why does it still sit?"
"Because killing enemies is still weight."
"I thought chiefs were supposed to stop feeling that."
"Then chiefs would all be fools."
Hokor almost smiled.
Almost.
"Father felt it?" he asked.
Torren thought of Harrag choosing raids, refusing raids, sending men, stopping young blood when it wanted glory, cursing every mouth he had to feed and feeding it anyway. "He felt more than he said."
"That is not hard. He said little unless angry."
"He was often angry."
"That helped."
This time Torren did smile.
Only a little.
They stood together by the cairn until the sun touched the western ridges.
Then Torren said, "If something comes, and you need help, you know who to go to first."
Hokor did not answer at once.
He looked at the cairn.
Then at Torren.
"Pale Roots?"
"Me."
Hokor's eyes held his.
Torren continued, "Send a runner. Smoke. A boy with a bad story. A curse tied to a goat. Whatever reaches south fastest. I will come."
"You have your own fire."
"Yes."
"And I have this one."
"Yes."
"Fires do not always move for each other."
"No."
Torren stepped closer. "Brothers do."
Hokor looked away.
That was how Torren knew it had struck.
"Do not say that where men hear," Hokor muttered.
"They might think you have a heart?"
"They might think you do."
"Worse."
Hokor gave a short breath that was not quite laughter.
Then he looked back at the cairn. "If you need the old fire?"
"I know who to go to."
Hokor nodded.
Not as a boy.
Not as a new chief asking permission.
As Harrag's son answering Harrag's son.
Below them, the camp worked on.
Above them, the stones held their father.
Between them lay two fires now, old and new, north and south, Painted Dogs and Pale Roots. Not one fire. Not anymore. But close enough that smoke from one could still find the other if the wind was right.
When they descended, they did not look back.
Harrag would have hated that.