"It's just intimidation, sir," Johnrey said to the lieutenant. "Pay it no mind. It cannot hurt us."
"Oh, it is more than just intimidation, Corporal," Marcum said aloud. "It is desecration, and if we are not careful, it will rob us of our fortitude."
"How dare they!" Keily seethed between gritted teeth. "They break our walls and sack our lands … and now this, too? What sort of hatred must they have for us?"
"It is just stone, dear," said the old corporal. "There was nothing particularly holy about it, nothing more magical than whatever we told ourselves it was. I would suspect that the only thoughts to cross their minds were of conquest, and a carnivorous victory. "
She looked up at the gratuitous mockery of this once-glorified shrine, and she knew that the white-haired, old soldier was right. "It's just—I don't know—salt on an open wound. I can hardly bear to look upon it."
"I know, girl," Johnrey agreed. "But whether this altar be broken or not, the way of the flint was never confined to any stone, not even the ones that once hung around our necks." He noticed a score of eyes now looking at him, hanging onto his words, desperate for some kind of reassurance. "We can still strike the night, we can still bring forth a spark that births a light so bright that neither raven nor dragon can withstand it."
"But how?" asked a voice from the crowd.
"Yes, how, Corporal? How will we do this?" came another.
He thought about it for a moment, running his dirt-stained hands through his snowy beard. "I don't know how just yet, but I do know that we won't create any spark at all if we give way to bullying threats and sacrilegious mockery."
"The corporal is right. And I, for one, needed a bit of reminding," Marcum said to the people as he clasped Johnrey's shoulder in a gesture of gratitude. "We can start by getting some rest. I fear that we still have a long journey ahead of us."
"A long journey?" asked an old woman. "Where are we going?"
"Do you know where the mountain palace is, Lieutenant?" The young boy who still stood near Keily's side spoke up innocently. "Do you know the way?"
"A palace?" questioned a voice from the crowd.
"What palace?" asked yet another.
Marcum stared intently at the outspoken child, reading his foolish forwardness and finding it bereft of malice. His gaze then shifted to the curly-haired bar maiden, but all she returned to his silent inquisition was a proud and rather bemused smile.
"Tell me, boy," Marcum said rather sternly. "What is your name?"
The young boy's expression changed from an honest curiosity to an ever-so-subtle clouding of self-aware shame. He lowered his gaze at the sharpness of the lieutenant's questions before he answered. "Roshan, my lord," he said meekly. "My name is Roshan."
"Well, Roshan," the lieutenant said in reply, his words intended for both the young boy and the gathered crowd. "No. I do not know where this ancient mountain palace lies, nor if one even exists in this darkened world of ours. But a reliable witness has said that it lies to the north and the west. So, perhaps, if the THREE who is SEVEN wills it, we might yet make our refuge within its ancient walls."
"May it be so," came the sound of a collective, whispered prayer and nervous kisses from all who looked on.
"There may be some truth to these rumors of a place that still offers hospitality for the likes of us, though we will still have to find it," Marcum addressed the remnant. "Come now, gather your things and prepare to make camp on the north side of the first foothill, right at the base of the Hilgari," he said, gesturing to the north.
The people nodded their agreement, sensing that the time for group discussion had come to an end.
"Corporal!" Marcum called.
"Aye, my lord?" Johnrey replied.
He walked with Johnrey a few paces away from the gathered crowd. "I do not want to be taken unawares, nor do I want to expose the whole of our position if, by chance, we are overrun. It would be better if some of them have the chance to flee than for all of our people to perish out here," Marcum said as he rubbed his tired and weary eyes.
Johnrey stood strong, nodding his understanding.
"Take a dozen, maybe a score of your bravest," the lieutenant thought aloud. "Set up a defense there, right there at the Altar. I will take the rest of the host a few hundred paces towards the mountains, and in a few hours I'll send another dozen or so to relieve you."
"Yessir," the white-bearded officer said. "There is no cover here … so if we are spotted by the Raven Army? Or if we espy them—what would you have me do?"
Marcum thought about the heaviness of this question, and his shoulders slumped ever-so-slightly with the weight of his response. "Well," he sighed. "Do you still have your horn?"
"I do," Johnrey answered.
"If you are overrun," he said with great solemnity, "then for the love of the THREE who is SEVEN, please use it and we will come to your aid. If you but spy the enemy, or any movement whatsoever, then use your flint. We will signal back with the silent spark of the flints when your relief has come; three flashes to be answered by seven if all is clear."
"And if it is not?" Johnrey asked his leader.
Marcum looked up to the grotesque abomination that stood mockingly overhead. "Do not risk your spark, and neither will we."
The corporal crossed his arm over his chest in salute, and the lieutenant returned it before the old officer turned to leave. When he was just a dozen paces out, Johnrey called back to Marcum.
"We will find it, you know," he said with the confidence of a man who had to believe in this long shot of a hope. "We have no other choice."
"Yes, right, of course we will," Marcum solemnly agreed.
"This ravenous siege will not wholly consume us, Lieutenant. It can't. It mustn't," The old corporal went on. "We will find this mountain palace, and perhaps ... perhaps somewhere within the ancient rock, salvation will yet still come for us."
Marcum smiled and nodded in exhausted agreement. "I do hope you are right, Corporal. I do so hope you are right." And with that he turned and walked to the main body of the host.
Johnrey gathered his men, choosing twenty to position in two flanking points on either side of the North Road, hoping to make it appear as if his line was significantly longer than it really was. He gathered his men and as he was giving them their orders, the curly-haired barmaid interrupted him in a whirl of offended indignation.
"Why did you not choose me?" she demanded, her gaze fixed accusingly at the white-haired officer. "I am a better bowman than any of these guardsmen of yours. I should be staying here with you. I should be part of the first watch."
"I am sorry, but you do not have any armor, you have not been seasoned in combat-" Johnrey tried reason, but she cut his words off with her own fury.
"Was my time there upon the wall not considered combat?" she seethed. "Did my arrows not pierce the same raven flesh as these men? How can you say that, how can you-"
Johnrey held his hand up to silence her. "Keily," he said with stern authority, his face first hardening at her outburst and then softening a bit with respect for her courageous spirit. "We cannot afford to lose you so soon if we are overrun. It was you who gave us this flickering hope of a mountain palace, and it will be you who will have to lead us there."
"But I can fight!" she argued.
"And fight you will, girl," he granted her. "Fight for their freedom, fight for their survival, fight for the lad, Roshan, and all the others who need you to endure, to withstand these damned raven assaults." He took her by the shoulders and looked at her with fatherly affection, his eyes pleading for her understanding. "But do not fight me on this, girl. Now, go and see to it that our people find whatever rest there is to be had out here in this damnable darkness."
She stared at him hard, her pride bruised even though in her heart she knew he was right. She turned and left without so much as a word in response, walking swiftly through the thousands of stumps and bramble weeds that stood as markers to a once thriving forest.
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Keily followed the remnant of Haven across the plain and down the embankment that Marcum led them to. "Here now, rest well, and rest quickly. We will take watch in shifts, for I do not trust the darkness about us. And when we have rested, we shall make our way in search of this mountain refuge." Marcum's confident voice gave the people enough courage to believe that they had found a safe enough spot to rest, so with this order they dispersed and found whatever places they could find to make their camp out here in the exposed darkness of this cold land. They found fresh water from a fen of the mighty Abonris that had fingered its way in and along the rolling lands. Shallow pits were dug, and small dried knots of willow grass and elderberry bushes were used as fuel to feed the shallow fires of this cold, new family.
Keily looked around at all the people huddled among the fires, desperate for some kind of relief from the north winds. She very much missed the Gnarly Knob, with its great, river stone hearth and her big iron cauldron of stewed mutton and the smell of freshly baked bread. She missed her father; she even missed the patrons and their brash compliments. But mostly, she missed Yasen.
"He would know what to do out here," she whispered to the darkness around her. "He would know where to look."
"Who would know?" asked the curiously innocent voice of the little, sandy-haired boy.
"Yasen would," she stated.
"Who is that? Is he one of the guardsmen?" he asked her.
"What? No! No, he is much braver than any guardsman," she whispered conspiratorially to him. "He is chief of the woodcutters, sent with the men of the first colony to the Western Wreath, but he knows these outlands here like the back of his axe."
"Is he your husband?" Roshan asked.
"What?" she said, surprised at such a question. "Husband?" She sighed longingly. "No, he is not my husband, but he does have my heart." Her eyes smiled back at the boy. "Perhaps one day, Roshan, he will be; and if so, I'll be expecting you to be the light bearer for me."
He smiled and blushed a bit at the thought of so great an honor. "Well, then, I wish he were here, too," he said with boyish conviction.
"You need to rest, you know," she told him.
"I know," he said. "But ... can I rest here, with you?"
"What about your mother? Or your father?" she asked. "Won't they be worried?"
"My mother and father never made it out of Piney Creek," he said as he, too, stared longingly at the darkness in the distance. Keily placed her arm around the boy's shoulders, pity overcoming her own bereaved heart. "Well, in that case, please, please come rest with me. I could use the company."
He looked up at her, his eyes still wet with sadness. "Alright, then, thank you."
Chapter Forty-Six
A FEW HUNDRED PACES AWAY, Johnrey and his men kept watch over their kinsmen as they rested. The corporal had dug in behind the desecrated altar, while another ten of his men huddled behind an outcropping of stone that flanked the North Road. The men were more than nervous, exposed as they were to the comings and goings of the nocturnal invaders.
"Do you think there are any more of them out here?" one of the younger archers asked.
"How can there be? Did you see how many of them filed in through our broken gates?" another guardsman replied. "They must all be in the city."
"Oh, I don't doubt for a moment that more will come," said another. "They may have broken Piney Creek, but they still have the barracks of Westriver and Abondale to deal with!"
"Don't forget the jeweled walls of the Citadel!" grunted another.
"That's right, and they are-" The archer's voice stalled out in his throat as the flash of flint sparked in the darkness from behind the stone.
"Shhh," came the whispered orders of the white-bearded corporal. "Someone is coming." He ordered his guardsman to signal back their receipt of the message, and they all waited and watched in breathless silence.
Off in the distance, advancing towards them from the eastern darkness, pounded the sound of boots upon soil as they marched in numbered unison. The small group of soldiers watched with sinking hearts as the sickly, green torches came into view, flickering at the vanguard of the nocturnal formation. Their standard, a white raven on a field of black, flapped brashly in the cold, north wind.
"Steady now, lads," Johnrey whispered. "Keep your wits about you."
The men were nervous. Some fingered their blades and nocked their bow strings, while others held their breaths and wrung their hands, attempting to stay out of sight of the company of green-eyed monsters advancing closer and closer to their weak and vulnerable position.
Without a word, the legion of the Raven Army turned their gaze upwards, towards the defiled Altar of the woodcutters, their heads all snapping to the right in an almost involuntary fashion as their un-lit eyes beheld the desecration. The motion of their march stopped instantly as the enemy officer's hand raised into the air, and with a soul-chilling silence the soldiers halted in homage before the winged mockery.
"It would seem that the General has served the Raveness well, does it not?" thundered the deep voice of the company's leader.
"Yes, Commander Črotmir," came the whispered response of the entire legion.
"Soon all of Aiénor will see by the un-light that we have been privileged enough to be given," the hulking commander boomed. "It falls to us now to ensure that all subject themselves to the will of the sorceress."
"Yes, Commander Črotmir," the Raven soldiers whispered again, eerily as one.
"Though Aius may have taken the city for her, we will keep it for her!" His words resounded across the plain, colored with yellowed hatred.
Johnrey and his men watched and waited in nervous silence as the invaders continued to gather from the east. Their bows were drawn and at the ready as they hid behind the sloped mound of earth that the altar crowned.
The rest of the road-weary remnant huddled quietly in the distance. They had been startled awake from their all-too-brief rest by the thunderous voice of the Raven commander. The small bramble fires were quickly covered with soil and the guardsmen went to arms, cautiously climbing the bank of the hillside to see what terrors awaited them. Now all they could do was remain hidden and silent, praying that the legion would advance toward the city and pass them by. Marcum, Keily and the other archers and guardsmen formed a small defense between the invading army and the fearful exiles of Haven.
CRACK! The sound of crunched kindling rang out in the near distance, behind their position. "What was that?" Roshan whispered to Keily, his eyes wide. Keily raised her finger to her lips, motioning for the boy to go back and wait with the rest of the hidden remnant. He scrunched his nose and held to her skirt, stubbornly refusing her silent request. She shook her head in frustration, then pulled an arrow from her quiver and nocked her bow, drawing it back and aiming it into the darkness, beyond their violet vision.
CRACK! The noise came again, as if something heavy was trampling the brittle underlayment of this dead forestland. "What is that noise?" he whispered to her. The unsettling sound came again and again. Her bow was drawn tight, her breathing even and calm, though her heart beat wildly with fear of whatever it was that crept in the shadows behind their camp.
The world around them was silent, desperately listening in the darkness, hoping for mercy and favor. All of a sudden, the sound that they had hoped most not to hear met their ears. A bright brass trumpet of the Citadel cut through the heaviness of the moment, causing their very stomachs to retreat frighteningly into their chests.
"They have spotted Johnrey," Marcum said with a resigned fortitude. "To arms!" he whispered.
Keily turned to see the nervous tension, men and women everywhere huddled with blade in hand or bow trained on the ridge line above. She forced her eyes back ahead of her, determining to not be distracted by the ominous sounds still crunching in the shadows behind her.
The noise of battle collided with the dense silence of these darkened lands. The thwang of bowstrings and the clash of iron ravaged the still
ness as thuds and screams erupted on the plain, a mere two hundred paces from their position. Keily winced as she thought of Johnrey and his men being slaughtered, just to buy the rest of them a few more moments of life.
"Make ready to fire!" Marcum whispered his orders.
"Keily?" Roshan said nervously, but her attention was focused on the assault. "Keily?" he pleaded to her again.
"What is it, Roshan?" she spat out, more harshly than she intended.
"Something is coming!" he said nervously. "Something is behind us, close ... too close."
"Are they going to flank us?" she whispered in dread.
CRACK! This time the sound could not be ignored. The barmaid whirled around, tearing her attention from the ridge line and peering west into the darkness. "Get behind me, quickly now!" she ordered the boy as she trained her bow at the unknown noise.
"Keily, what is it?" Roshan asked again.
The brass horn of Johnrey rang out again. Whether it was signaling for help or warning the rest to flee from danger she did not know, but its call beckoned her heart to turn and take notice.
She glanced at the ridge line above, where the last score of guardsmen made their defenses. "Steady now, men. Wait and be ready to fire," Marcum said in a frantic whisper as he gazed in pained horror at whatever was happening near the altar.
The cracking sounds drew her attention again, and she turned back towards the camp. As she did, she beheld a figure in the shadows making its way into the violet vision of the huddled remnant. "What in the damnable darkness?" she said as she peered at the approaching wonder through the sights of her bow.
"A horse!" Roshan shouted, his boyish excitement overpowering his prudence to hide their position. "Don't shoot it, Keily! It is just a horse!"
Črotmir turned his gaze sharply to the hillside just beyond the North Road, for he had heard Roshan's small voice ring out from within its darkened folds. "Over there!" he ordered as he pointed to the rolling expanse.
"What is a horse doing out here?" Keily said in bewilderment as she watched the tired looking beast wander into their encampment.
The Ravenous Siege (Epic of Haven Trilogy Book 2) Page 42