by Matthew Ward
Endas, 4th Day of Dawntithe
A warrior’s duty is to protect those in need.
All else is sophistry.
from the Saga of Hadar Saran
Eighteen
Grey dawn gathered reluctantly beyond the eaves of Ganadra Wood, driving night’s murk into the layland’s long shadows. Fresh snow lent the illusion of peace. Impossible to see the rubble of village and homestead razed in the Avitra Briganda or the mournful crops of lychfield headstones. A blank canvas upon which swords could paint a new future, for good or ill. Artistry which suited Rosa better than the sculptry of recent months.
Edran spat into the brambles, his expression furled in habitual disappointment. “He’s late.”
A big man – he surrendered little in height to the distant Viktor Droshna – Edran epitomised Silda Drenn’s followers. Unkempt, suspicious and lacking the discipline that was soldiering’s foundation, his weapons were nonetheless oiled and free of rust.
“We wait.” Drenn kept her eyes to the rolling eastern hills hiding the town of Yelska. Haldravord, and Prince Thirava’s makeshift court, lay leagues beyond. Her bow was strung, her quiver muffled with wool-cloth to still the clatter of arrows. “Castir said he’d be here, so he will.”
The soft-spoken words earned a flurry of scowls from the assembled wolf’s-heads – with Drenn in command, it was impossible to think of them as anything else – but they subsided. Drenn had tighter control over her followers than most. She knew when to listen, and when to stand firm – a knack of leadership some went their whole lives without learning.
“I’d hate to think we made this early start for nothing.” Rosa drew her cloak tighter, vapour dancing on her breath. “You’re certain he’ll show?”
“Nothing’s certain.” Drenn twitched a shrug. “Castir’s close enough to Thirava’s chieftains that he can come and go as he wishes.”
Rosa scowled. The prospect of what Castir might have traded to earn even conditional trust sat sour in her gut. “You trust him?”
Drenn nodded. “Wouldn’t give him coin for a horse, but in this…?”
“A hundred things could go wrong,” said Edran.
“True. Shadowthorns are paranoid, even around those they reckon they’ve tamed.” Drenn’s wolfish grin was echoed readily by others. “But they ain’t paranoid enough. Not yet.”
They numbered seven in all. Seven vagabonds crouched in the treeline’s sparse cover. Enough to travel in safety without drawing attention. A mix of old comrades from Drenn’s time in Thrakkia, and Heartwealders capable enough to not get themselves killed.
“Want me to take a look?” Jonas was one of those Rosa had chosen, a straw-haired farmhand. He’d joined up in Tarvallion’s marketplace, eager to prove his worth.
“Sit down, boy.” Edran shoved Jonas to his knees, provoking a ripple of laughter. “Have patience.”
“I didn’t pick this spot on a whim,” said Drenn. “You’ll have to trudge half a mile to see something we can’t.”
Jonas fiddled with the brass ring on his left hand and scowled away embarrassment.
Paces further north along the wood’s ragged extent, Mirada hugged her shoulders close and offered a thin smile. “Don’t be so keen. Adventure’ll find you soon enough. Might wish it didn’t. Right, Kalar?”
Kalar grunted in agreement. Rosa was certain the two were deserters. Mirada’s swordplay was too honed to be self-taught, too efficient to have been tutored. The stiffness of Kalar’s bearing betrayed him – not to mention the small, almost undetectable pause at the end of his every reply. The one otherwise home to my lady or sir.
Not long ago, Rosa would have distrusted both, but the difference between desertion and her own retreat from the army existed only in formality of language. She and they were more the same than different, and certainly had more in common than with Solveik, the Thrakkian who completed their small band. He wore the plain black claith of a thrydaxe – sellswording being an honourable trade in the south – but the entwined serpent-brands on his forehead spoke of one cast out from his thane’s service. Rosa hadn’t asked why. You didn’t.
A year before, she’d been mistress of Essamere. What was she now?
“There,” rumbled Solveik, his Tressian low-tongue accented and halting. “Northeast.”
Rosa followed the jab of gauntleted finger to a distant hilltop and the slash of a drystone wall, half-hidden beneath snow. A dark shape swaddled in a woollen greatcoat clambered over the crest and stumbled up the gentle slope towards Ganadra Wood.
“At last.” Edran stomped his feet. “Time to get moving.”
“Wait,” hissed Drenn. “Something ain’t right.”
A tingle at the base of Rosa’s spine offered similar conclusion, though reason hadn’t yet caught up with instinct.
“Of course something isn’t right,” said Mirada. “We’re up at the crack of dawn, shivering parts and pieces off. Sooner we get him, sooner we get back to a fire and warm food.”
Rosa stared northeast to the weaving trail of footprints and the figure hurrying at their head. Close enough now to read the urgency of his movements, to catch brief glances cast behind. “He’s being pursued.”
Edran snorted. “By cyraeths, I suppose? That being why we can’t see them.”
The hilltop behind the fugitive came alive with shadowthorns. A dozen men on foot. Three riders. Swords. Shields. Even a few spears. As far again behind the fleeing Castir as he himself was from the safety of the trees.
Drenn’s fingers brushed her sunburst pendant. “We’re done here.”
Edran and Solveik nodded. Kalar stared stonily at the approaching pursuit. Mirada scowled.
“What?” Jonas’ eyes widened. “We just abandon him?”
“We head back through the woods,” said Drenn. “And we pray to Lumestra that we reach the horses before the shadowthorns tumble to us.”
“And the folk captured at Bresanna?” asked Rosa. “Castir knows where they’ve been taken.”
“Maybe,” Drenn replied. “I said maybe he knows where they are.”
Rosa met her frosty glare unblinking. Word of Bresanna had reached Morten’s Rock the morning after she’d arrived. The village razed and the populace taken – those who hadn’t been slain. They’d already lost a day making contact with Castir. They couldn’t afford another delay.
And as for Castir himself…?
“Either way, we need him,” said Rosa. “And he needs us.”
She stood. Drenn rushed to check her, hand outspread and features tight. “You’re too new at this, Lady Orova.” She hissed emphasis into the title. “You’ve not got damn Essamere at your back now. Surprise and numbers. We don’t have those, so we slink away. That’s how we live to fight another day.”
Rosa rode out the scorn, her own anger rising to meet it. No small part of it was levelled at herself, for Drenn was right, for all that she was also dead wrong. “It’s also how we lose.”
“Say we go down there,” snapped Drenn. “There’s two shadowthorns for each of us. Even if we get Castir out, what will it cost?”
Rosa slapped her hand away. “I came to you to help save lives. That starts with one.” She stabbed a finger down the slope. “That one. Or I’ve no business here at all.”
“Then go.” Drenn shook her head and stepped aside. “But you’ll go alone.”
No one else moved. Only Jonas looked at all torn, but of them all he was the most likely to get himself killed if he followed.
“I’ve been alone before.”
Rosa strode free of the undergrowth, leaving trees and companions behind. She struck steady pace, swift of stride, boots crunching through virgin snows. Exertion crackled life into juddering muscles, driving out the chill. Was this rashness? Probably. You couldn’t know until the moment was past, and by then it was too late.
The first warning sounded on the slope below.
The Hadari were strung out, a stuttered line trailing northeast. Good. She needed all the ad
vantage she could get. Years ago, a dozen shadowthorns would have been nothing, but she’d been younger then. Younger, and eternal and thus proof from death. Now, Rosa felt every one of the intervening years twofold. The old wound pulled at her shoulder, stiffer than it should have been.
Castir – if Castir it was – fell headlong into the snows and rose shivering.
The leading Hadari quickened, swords drawn. At the end of the shadowthorn line, a horseman rowelled his steed, a spear held high to catch Ashana’s sight.
Rosa’s sole skidded on a hidden stone. Regaining balance, she stifled the mounting urge to break into a run, to have the uneven contest done with, one way or the other. Instead, she slowed. The cold was greedy. It would take all she offered, and leave her with nothing. The Hadari hadn’t learnt that lesson, or were too caught up in dreams of glory to care.
Dreams of glory ended in the grave. No one knew that better than she.
Castir fell again as she reached him. Hand about his elbow, she dragged him upright and gazed into a face flushed red with exertion.
“Keep going. Make for the trees.”
Garbling thanks, the eastwealder scrambled away.
Rosa swept her cloak open, hand on a sword not yet drawn.
The leading Hadari bellowed, his cry booming beneath brooding skies. He broke into a run, sword cleaving wildly at the air, as if vigour alone won battles. There was no caution in his dark eyes, only the gleam of youth burdened with duty unfulfilled and a name not yet made.
Rosa’s sword sang as it left the scabbard. An old comrade, come again to the battlefield. Without altering pace, she stepped inside the clansman’s swing. A thrust between his ribs left him dying in the snow, burdens gone and name forgotten.
She swept the bloody sword high, the old battle cry spilling free. “Until Death!”
Now she ran. To close the distance and fill the morning with blood.
The second shadowthorn died as swiftly as the first, without even chime of steel to mark his passing. The third was slower, cannier, but his parry came too late. Rosa’s sword jarred on bone. He fell, clutching at a gushing sword-wrist. A backswing ended his cries, and she ran on.
Shadowthorn voices raised to fury. Gold gleamed along the footprint trail. A havildar in golden helm and heavy scale rose high in his stirrups, sword sweeping in Rosa’s direction even as he bellowed orders.
A helmless brute with a milky eye blocked Rosa’s path, a tall, steel-rimmed shield steady and a spear thrusting at her belly. A scraping parry and the spearhead flashed past her side. A kick to the shield-boss staggered its bearer.
Warned by a thunder of hooves, Rosa dived aside, the shieldsman untouched. The sharp, wrenching tug at her neck and the sound of tearing cloth came as one. The world spun in a dizzying spray of snow that ended with a jarred shoulder against frozen ground. As she blinked red-black splotches from her eyes, the horseman wheeled about, spear lowered for another pass.
Tearing free her cloak’s remnant, Rosa stood. Breath a red wind, pulse a drumbeat that drowned all else, she hurled herself aside. The spear flashed past. Boots slewed in the snow, pitching Rosa sideways, and the milky-eyed shieldsman was on her again.
She chopped twice at the spear, strikes slowed by a tugging in her scarred shoulder. More shadowthorns closed the distance, snow spraying from their boots. Time and vigour – ever finite allies – were failing faster than she’d hoped. Beneath the hot rush of straining sinew, Rosa’s bones were cold. With every gasping breath, icy tendrils clawed at her flesh.
“Ki vasta!”
The shadowthorn set his shoulder to the shield and barrelled uphill, seeking to barge her to the ground. Rosa loped to meet him. Falling to hip and heel, she slid to the shieldsman’s left, shoulder level with his knee and sword slicing at his ankle. Blood spattered the snow. A howl of challenge became a pained shriek.
Rosa clambered upright. The shieldsman did not. Stalking a pace back uphill, she ended his cries in a red gurgle.
Again, the hoofbeats. Again the flashing spear. Tossing sword from right hand to left, Rosa seized the dead man’s spear.
It wasn’t an accurate throw. The spear was too awkward, too heavy. The speed the rider was closing, it didn’t need to be. The horse screamed, legs tangled about the shaft. Man and rider went down in a whirl of armoured robes and flailing hooves.
Without waiting to see who rose from the carnage, Rosa planted a foot on the milky-eyed shadowthorn’s chest and tugged free his shield. Taller than she was accustomed to, the balance off-centre, but with breath coming ever more ragged and three more shadowthorns closing about her, she needed every advantage.
Five shadowthorns down, and her cloak the only loss. Not bad, for a knight far out of practice. She was good for one more. And if she could manage one, why not two, or three, or four?
Maybe it had been recklessness. But sometimes, recklessness was all. Sevaka would understand.
An arrow hissed into the snow at her feet. Downhill, past the advancing swordsman, a rangy shadowthorn archer nocked another.
Rosa knew she had to move. To set herself side-on to the archer and the shield square in his path. Knew it, but was powerless to do so. She was back in Darkmere, arrow buried deep in a screaming shoulder, life slipping away.
The air whistled with the sound of an arrow in flight.
The Hadari archer spun about and pitched into the snows. Another scream sounded behind Rosa, the whumph of a falling body close on its heels.
“Vaega af vaega!”
A sword shattered beneath the strike of Solveik’s colossal axe, the strike enough to split the wielder’s torso nearly in two. Weary thoughts catching up with events, Rosa stared uphill. Jonas, his sword bloody, stood over a dying clansman. Edran plucked the spear from a second while Mirada ran him through. Kalar watched from a short distance away, arms folded, a bloody knife in each hand and a body at his feet.
As the last shadowthorn shield shattered beneath Solveik’s axe, the havildar spurred downhill. He made it a dozen yards before Drenn’s arrow took him in the neck. His horse stumbled to a confused halt.
“Edran! Get that bloody nag. We can use it.” Drenn half-ran, half-stumbled down the churned slope to Rosa’s side. “Next time, we leave you.”
The words held rebuke, but her tone held something very different.
Rosa let her shield drop. “As you say.”
Bannar Tor was the closest thing to a haven in the occupied Eastshires. What had once been a double ring of stone walls were now little more than grassy hummocks. The overgrown and subsided cellars served as shelter for Drenn’s growing band, and the trees offered vantage for sentries.
Nevertheless, Rosa felt no safer than she had at Morten’s Rock – itself little more than a fortified island at the merging of the Swiftblood and Rappadan Rivers. The soldier in her wanted battlements and towers. The fire, though? The fire she was grateful for. And the stew was scarcely worse than campaign rations, for all that its ingredients were scavenged or stolen. After the trials of the morning, she needed both.
Setting aside the empty bowl, she massaged her stiff shoulder. Cold and exertion had knotted it tight. “You’re sure?”
Across the slab serving as their makeshift table, Castir threaded ink-stained fingers and scowled. Though much improved from their first meeting, the balding merchant still looked fit to bolt at first provocation. “That’s what I heard. They’ve been gathering prisoners at Terevosk for the last week. From Bresanna and at least six other border villages. Might be three hundred, might be more. Word is the convoy’s moving out for Haldravord at dawn. From there—”
“From there, it’s back to the Empire,” growled Drenn. “And a sale to the highest bidder.”
Over by the doorway, Edran folded his arms. “Or sacrifice. Ashana never said no to a heart offered beneath moonlight, did she?”
“Pffff,” Drenn waved a dismissive hand. “Unless you know different, Rosa?”
Rosa scowled. “Kai Saran was capable of
any wickedness. His daughter is no different. We have to assume the worst.”
“I don’t know about that.” Castir scratched his scalp, his eyes restless and empty, his voice thick with loss. “Only that they’re going.”
“Still not clear how a coin-rattler like you gets to hear about this,” said Edran. “Been slaving your own kind?”
“No! I do a bit of trade where I can, of course, but nothing like that!” Castir bit his tongue. “My brother’s… friendly with one of the chieftains. Things slip in quiet moments.”
Edran growled. “If you’re in so tight with the shadowthorns, why were they chasing you?”
“Wasn’t supposed to be anyone in or out of Yelska, only I didn’t know.” Castir stared at the wall, cheeks taut. “Avin and Lukas held them long enough for me to get clear. They were good boys. They deserved…”
He broke off, bunched fingers to his mouth.
“How many guards on the convoy?”
The question came from Athaga Varalon, the greying, matronly woman who served as the third of Drenn’s lieutenants, besides Edran and Rosa herself. Beneath belted chainmail, her serene’s habit was patched and faded to the point of being unrecognisable. Her Lumestran vows were in rather worse order, the consequence of the late, unlamented Arzro Makrov ransacking Athaga’s convent for sheltering wolf’s-heads during the occupation of the south. She and Drenn had been together ever since.
“I don’t know,” said Castir.
“Won’t be more than a hundred,” said Drenn. “Maybe not even that, with the border how it is. Not like shackled folk can fight back, is it?”
Athaga nodded. “There’s not much in the way of shelter at Terevosk. It’s what? A stockade and a broken-down mining camp? I’ll ask around. Odds are good one of our motley bunch knows it.”
“So we’re going?” asked Edran.
“With three hundred lives at stake?” Drenn shrugged. “We’ve better than a hundred of our own camped hereabouts. If I send lads across the border with tales of drudgery and blood sacrifice we’ll double that before dusk.”
“No,” said Rosa.