Free Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) by Elspeth Cooper Page A

animal, decorated with feathers and fur and beaded bone charms that tapped together in the breeze.
    She counted them; yes, every Speaker appeared to be present. Including the apprentices, that meant there were at least twenty-five, maybe thirty or more women with the power in this valley. Potentially far more, if she allowed for all those girls whose talents had not yet been discovered. No one should notice one more working in all that blather.
    Scrambling back down the slope, she hunted for a secluded spring that she could use. It took her nearly an hour of barked shins and stubbed toes before she found one and even then it was difficult to reach. She had to stretch over a sharp-edged boulder to fill her little basin, then carry it gingerly back to a spot where she could sit down comfortably.
    Viewing was a trick she had stumbled across by accident. She had been trying to scry and had lost her concentration. A stray thought about her mother had filled the water with an image of Ana’s face and Teia’s head with the sound of her mother’s voice. After that, she had amused herself more than once eavesdropping on her sisters’ conversations and occasionally got her ears burned overhearing something not meant for her, like the talk of the wedding fair.
    If she concentrated on Ytha as the focus of her viewing, she was afraid the Speaker would sense her immediately and know that she had been deceived. Even thinking about what might happen then was enough to chill her, so she would have to choose someone else, but she knew very few of the other chiefs well enough by sight to be sure of picking someone out. In the end she opted for Eirdubh, chief of the Amhain, a craggy, tough individual she remembered from the last Scattering, in the spring. He had offered to dice with Drw for her, and the old chief had laughed as if he had caught the Eldests’ own joke.
    In moments an image of the Amhain warrior filled the basin. He was frowning, rubbing his chin between thumb and forefinger. As she concentrated she heard a voice, gradually becoming clearer. Drwyn was speaking, the rest of the Moot silently hearing him out. ‘. . . too long. It is time we restored our honour.’
    ‘We were defeated in open battle, Drwyn,’ one of the chiefs said. ‘The vanquished must accept the victory. Such is the law of battle, clan law.’
    ‘They came here in their ships and settled in our lands,’ Drwyn countered. ‘They hunted our game, despoiled our holy places, trampled over our traditions. To protect our honour we fought and died as true clan warriors, but they defeated us. That is not in dispute. The settlement, the peace they swore us to, is. It was a sham and I do not hold myself bound by it.’
    ‘Word of honour was given,’ put in another chief. Teia did not recognise him, nor the one who had spoken earlier. Unusually for plainspeople, they were both pale-haired with deeply sunburned hawk-like faces; they could have been brothers.
    ‘Word of honour is binding only so long as the line remains. Where is the Black Water Clan now?’ Drwyn asked them. ‘Its honour was lost seven hundred years ago. It no longer has a place at this Moot.’
    The circle of chieftains rumbled their agreement, their Speakers nodding sagely. They remembered the histories of the clans, remembered how Gwlach of the Black Water had been raised to Chief of Chiefs, to lead them to battle and ultimately to defeat.
    ‘None of Gwlach’s line survives. His word is no longer binding.’ Drwyn spread his arms wide as he implored them to consider his proposal. ‘The iron men stole our lands then doled out bits and pieces to us and made us grateful for them. Thankful to be given back part of what was wrongly taken from us.
    ‘The faithless sacrificed their honour that day. They sold it to buy peace and broke a people that had roamed these lands for centuries before the settlers came. It falls to us, my brothers, to right that wrong, or else face the contempt of our