Stormrider Stormrider

by David Gemmell

  “Your brother killed the other two.” She said it so matter-of-factly that Draig found himself chuckling.

  “Who would believe it?” he said.

  “Sit still.”

  He felt the prick of a needle in his skin. It was as nothing compared to the jagged pounding hammering in his skull. He closed his eyes, fighting to hold back another wave of nausea.

  “The ball struck you at an angle,” he heard Chara say. “You were lucky.”

  “Oh, I feel lucky,” he muttered. He took a deep breath, which seemed to calm his stomach. “We’re an army, we Cochlands, you know. Unstoppable.”

  Feargol came and sat beside him. “There’s lots of blood,” he said. “Are you going to die?”

  “I damn well hope not,” answered Draig.

  “Are you going to stitch Eain’s wounds?” the boy asked Chara. She paused and stared down at the child.

  “Eain’s wounds?”

  “The men who came in shot Eain as he was by the fire. He fell over. Then they came over to me and Jaim. One of them said: ‘Which is the one?’ And the other one said: ‘Don’t matter. Got to do them both anyway.’ Then Eain got up and shot one of them through the face. Then he shot the other one. The man with the bloody face ran at Eain and stabbed him. Then Eain took out his knife and stabbed him, too. You ought to stitch up Eain’s wounds.”

  Chara swung around. Eain Cochland was sitting by the far wall, his big overcoat drawn about his body.

  Draig rolled to his knees, then scrambled across to his brother. Chara was on the other side of him. Swiftly she opened his coat. Beneath it Eain’s shirt was soaked in blood. Drawing her knife, Chara sliced away the cloth. Draig saw that Eain had been shot in the chest and belly. A bulging section of entrails was showing.

  “Are we going home now?” asked Eain.

  Draig looked into his brother’s face and could think of nothing to say. Chara pulled the coat back into place and sat quietly beside the brothers.

  “Are you going to mend him?” asked Feargol.

  “Shhh,” whispered Chara, rising and leading the boy away.

  “Told you I could shoot,” said Eain.

  “Yes, you did,” whispered Chara.

  “Shouldn’t have got involved, though. I’m going home.” Eain moved as if to rise, but Draig gently pushed him back.

  “We’ll just sit here for a while, eh? Gather our strength. Then we’ll go,” said Draig.

  “I’m starting to hurt, Draig. Did you kill Tostig?”

  “No. Chara did that. Shot the bastard through the throat.”

  “Like to have seen that,” said Eain.

  “I’m sorry, Eain. I shouldn’t have brought you with me. You were right. Not our concern.”

  “You say that, but it won’t make no difference. Next time you’ll still go off pigheaded. You won’t listen to me.”

  “I will. Next time.”

  “I’ll hold you to that. Still, we won, eh? So no harm done, then. Did you get any of them?”

  “I got two.”

  Eain smiled. “Two each, eh? Your head looks bad.”

  “Tostig shot me. Ball bounced off my skull. Feels like I’ve been butted by a bull.”

  Eain groaned. “I think they nicked me, you know. Bastards came running in as I was clearing away the pots. I fell over. Got ’em both, though. Think I’ll sleep for a while. I’ll feel better in the morning.”

  “Yes, you sleep. You get some rest. You did well, Eain.”

  After a while Chara came alongside Eain and gently touched her fingers to his throat. “He’s gone,” she said.

  Draig reached out and stroked his brother’s face. “I know. Just leave me with him for a while. All right?”

  “I am so sorry, Draig.”

  “Don’t matter,” he said, gruffly, his voice breaking. “Didn’t like him anyway.” Draig’s head dropped forward, and Chara saw that he was weeping. She moved back quietly to where the children were waiting.

  Jaim was trembling from the shock of the attack. At age two he had no sense of the reality of the danger he had faced, but he had seen men fall down and not get up.

  He hugged Chara tightly. “Bad men, Mama,” he said.

  “Yes, my sweet, they were bad men.”

  Feargol sat very quietly. Chara settled herself down, Jaim on her lap, and reached out to the boy. He gave a sad little smile and leaned into her. Chara closed her eyes, saddened that the vileness of the world should have scarred the two children. She could think of nothing to say to comfort them. In the background they could hear the sound of Draig’s weeping. Chara leaned back, resting her head on the cold wall of the cave.

  “Someone is coming,” whispered Feargol.

  Setting Jaim aside, Chara eased the pistol from her belt and cocked it.

  A moon shadow fell across the cave entrance, and a small woman with white hair came into sight.

  “Have you come to take Eain home?” asked Feargol.

  “Yes, child,” said the Wyrd of the Wishing Tree woods. “Now let us go back to the fire, where you can rest.”

  “I’m not sleepy,” said Feargol.

  “You will be,” she promised him.

  Chara lifted Jaim, and they moved quietly back to the dying fire. Jaim stared at the bodies of the two assassins with wide, fear-filled eyes. The Wyrd spread out blankets for the two children. Jaim began to cry as Chara laid him down, but the Wyrd gently touched his brow and the child instantly fell asleep. She did the same for Feargol. Chara covered the boys with blankets, then added fuel to the fire.

  The Wyrd moved silently to where Draig sat, holding his brother’s hand.

  “Come to mock me?” asked Draig, his eyes red-rimmed from the tears he had shed.

  “No, Draig. I have come to help Eain.”

  “You’re a little too late.”

  “He is still here, Draig. He is a little confused. He doesn’t know why you are weeping, and he doesn’t know why you can’t hear him.”

  “So you have come to mock me, after all,” he said. “Go away, woman. Leave us in peace.”

  “Give me your hand, Draig Cochland,” she ordered him. At first Chara thought he had ignored her, but then he looked into her eyes and at her outstretched arm. Finally his huge hand reached across and touched her fingers. “Now look up.” Draig did so—and drew in a sharp breath. “Aye,” the Wyrd said softly. “There he stands. Now say these words after me.

  “Seek the circle, find the light,

  say farewell to flesh and bone.

  “Say them, Draig.”

  The big highlander spoke them softly, and the Wyrd spoke again.

  “Walk the gray path,

  watch the swans’ flight,

  let your heart light

  bring you home.”

  Chara watched them both. She felt the hairs on the nape of her neck rise and shivered. Both of them were staring at the far wall. There was nothing there that Chara could see.

  “Where has he gone?” asked Draig.

  “Wherever his heart light took him,” said the Wyrd. “Now we have work to do, for when the children wake, we do not want them frightened by the bodies. We must remove them from the cave.”

  “I don’t want Eain lying alongside them bastards,” said Draig, pushing himself wearily to his feet.

  Together with Chara and the Wyrd, he dragged the bodies of the assassins out into the night. Draig loosely covered them with snow. Then he returned and with Chara’s help lifted Eain’s body to his shoulders. With the Wyrd beside him he struggled farther back along the cliff face to another cave, where he laid Eain down. Then he began to weep again.

  “I can’t just leave him here,” he said. “He’s my brother.”

  “He is not here, Draig. In the spring we will return and carry his body back into Rigante lands. We will lay him alongside others of the clan.”

  “He didn’t want to come, Dweller. He didn’t want to get involved. It should have been me who died.”

  “Of course
he wanted to come. Why else was he here? You didn’t force him, Draig. He came because you were his brother and he loved you. He could have left at any time once the pursuit began. He made his own choices. Just as you did. Just as I knew you would.”

  “Because I have Rigante blood?”

  “In a way,” she answered. “Now let us go back. You need to rest.”

  Once back by the fire, Draig lay down. The Wyrd touched his brow, and he fell asleep.

  “Would you like to sleep, too, Chara?” she asked.

  “Not yet, Dweller. There is so much here that I do not understand. Why would the Moidart want Feargol dead? Why would the Cochlands risk their lives for us? What is happening here, Dweller?”

  “It is not the Moidart, though soon it could be. As for the Cochlands, well, they are highland men, Chara. Draig asked me if they had acted so because of their Rigante blood. The truth is they wanted to act so because of what the word ‘Rigante’ had come to mean to them: honor and courage, nobility of spirit. The Rigante are like a banner flying high above an army. Men look at that banner and feel inspired. What of you, though, Chara? How do you feel?”

  “Confused,” she admitted. “I did not want to walk out into the wilderness with these men. I was frightened by them. Now?” Chara sighed. “Now I feel as if everything has changed. As if I have changed. I’ll never forget that time in the dungeon. Never. Yet somehow its hold on me has gone. I know this. I feel . . . I feel like that time when the first sunshine of spring touches the face and you know that winter has passed.”

  “From now on you will be able to remember the dungeon without reliving it,” said the Wyrd. “That is the gift the Cochlands gave you.”

  “I am sorry that it took the death of a kind man to bring me that gift,” said Chara.

  “Time for you to rest,” said the Wyrd. “Tomorrow we will take Feargol to safety.”

  7

  * * *

  After the duel Gaise Macon’s reputation had grown among the soldiers of all the units. Men talked of the Gray Ghost, and the soldiers of the Eldacre Company found themselves suddenly more popular. The name of the cowardly Lord Ferson was spoken with contempt. Ferson had left the camp the same day and had not been seen since.

  The body of the elderly Lord Buckman was taken to the royalist city of Sandacum for a state funeral where the king spoke movingly of the general’s courage and loyalty. Buckman’s regiment was given over to Lord Cumberlane. Winter Kay became the lord marshal of all the king’s armies.

  A winter truce negotiated between Lord Cumberlane and Luden Macks was agreed to, and many of the twelve thousand militia serving the king were allowed to go home, with orders to reassemble in the spring. The standing army of eight thousand men remained, some wintering in Sandacum, others in the regional capital of Baracum a hundred miles to the north.

  Gaise Macon requested to be allowed to take his Eldacre Company home with other militia regiments, but the request was denied. His cavalrymen and scouts were to patrol the truce lines west of Shelding, watching for incursions by covenant skirmishers. A supply depot was set up within the town, and in a time of famine and desperation it needed to be guarded. Billeting the men proved of little difficulty. As with many towns in the center of Varlain there were many empty homes. Privation, sickness, starvation, and the relentless drive for recruits by both factions had seen populations shrink year by year. The arrival of six hundred soldiers for the winter was a boon for Shelding, though not necessarily a welcome one for all. New industries blossomed to service the troops. Plays were put on in the village hall, and older women took to sewing and mending for the soldiers. Younger women offered other services, and the men paid for their pleasures in food and clothing as well as coin.

  Gaise Macon met with the town elders and churchmen to establish rules of behavior for both townsfolk and soldiers during the winter and to set up lines of communication between civil and military authorities. He also appointed Mulgrave as watch captain, with orders to select thirty men to act as a policing force to patrol the town and keep order. This was not an easy role. On the second night a group of rowdy young soldiers got into a fight with some of the townsfolk after an assault on a young woman. Mulgrave and five of his men broke up the disturbance. A hasty hearing was called for the following morning. The woman gave evidence that two men had burst into her home and attempted to rape her. Her screams had been heard by neighbors, who had run to her aid. A fight had taken place, and a townsman had been knifed in the leg.

  Gaise Macon ordered the two men flogged, a punishment carried out in the market square and administered by the veteran sergeant Lanfer Gosten. Each man suffered forty lashes. Both were unconscious by the conclusion and needed to be carried from the square. One of them was Kammel Bard.

  On the fourth day in Shelding a convoy of seventy wagons arrived from Sandacum, bringing supplies for the new depot. With them came Quartermaster General Cordley Lowen, a company of dragoons, and two Redeemer knights. Mulgrave was there to greet the new arrivals. Cordley Lowen, his daughter, and his three servants were assigned a pleasant house overlooking a millstream. The dragoons rode back to Sandacum. The two Redeemer knights approached Mulgrave. He recognized them as the loaders from the duel with Ferson. Neither man wore battle armor, but both were dressed instead in dark tunics and leggings and long black coats bearing the white tree of the priesthood upon collar and cuff. Many of the Redeemer knights, Mulgrave knew, took holy orders in the first three years of their service.

  “Good morning to you, gentlemen,” Mulgrave said, coolly.

  “And to you,” replied the first, a tall, broad-shouldered young man with black hair and deep-set eyes. “I am Petar Olomayne, and this is my cousin, Sholar Astin.”

  “Welcome to Shelding,” said Mulgrave.

  “We are on our way south to the shrine at Meadowlight,” said Petar Olomayne.

  “A long journey. Will you be staying overnight in Shelding?”

  “Possibly, Captain.” The two knights offered a bow, then led their horses away toward the village square.

  Mulgrave watched them go. He had heard of Petar Olomayne. The man was a noted swordsman, having fought five duels. He had also been decorated for courage after the Battle of Nollenby. Sholar Astin he did not know, though he knew his type. Cold-eyed and heartless.

  Mulgrave thought of Ermal Standfast, the little priest who had saved his life. The two Redeemers wore the same priestly garb as Ermal and had studied the same texts and passed the same examinations. Yet where one lived to love, the others loved to kill. It was baffling to Mulgrave.

  Later that day, in the rectory behind the crooked church, he spoke to Ermal about his confusion. The priest sipped his sweet tisane. “No need for confusion, my dear Mulgrave,” he said. “Beautiful wine and sour vinegar come from exactly the same source. Curiously, if one leaves a bottle of wine open long enough, it will become vinegar. Happily, in this house wine never survives long enough to go bad.”

  “I was raised in Shelsans,” said Mulgrave. “The priests there used to preach the words of the Veiled Lady. They talked of human life being sacred and told of how the early cultists refused to fight. They believed in love and forgiveness.”

  “As do I,” said Ermal.

  “Does it not strike you as strange that the people of Shelsans were massacred not by pagans who believed in gods of death and violence but by people who professed to follow the same religion?”

  “Not strange, Mulgrave. Infinitely sad. Are you still having the nightmares?”

  “No. She does not appear to me anymore.”

  “Is this why you are still a soldier?”

  Mulgrave shook his head. “Gaise Macon is my friend. I cannot desert him now.”

  “Friendship does carry responsibility,” agreed Ermal.

  “I sense a ‘but’ in that comment,” said Mulgrave.

  “But a man needs to look after his own soul, Mulgrave. Your upbringing in Shelsans taught you that killing is to be abhorred. And somethi
ng is calling to you.”

  “Aye, I know.” Mulgrave finished his tisane and rose to leave. “Is there anything you need?” he asked.

  “I am content, my friend,” answered Ermal. Then he grinned. “Though if another bottle of apple brandy should find its way into your possession, I would be delighted to share it with you.”

  In his twenty-two years of life Gaise Macon had known few moments of true happiness. His childhood had been spent in the gloomy environs of Eldacre Castle under the baleful eye of the Moidart. No playmates to run with, no toys to brighten his days. His youth had been no less strained. He had known one day of enormous pleasure when he had joined the local Varlish school, but then, seeing the boy’s pleasure, the Moidart had taken him from it, hiring a series of tutors to teach him.

  Reading proved to be his salvation. In books Gaise could travel far from the cold misery of Eldacre. He could journey back in time to the great days of Stone and read about the campaigns of the legendary Jasaray. He could ride with the Iron Wolves of Connavar and fight again the wars of the Battle King Bane. He did not outwardly glory in these pursuits, for had he done so, the Moidart would certainly have removed those pleasures also.

  His greatest happiness had been supplied by two very different men, one a soldier and the other a teacher. Mulgrave had been the first shining light to enter the boy’s life, brought to Eldacre to teach him the arts of personal warfare: to ride a warhorse and to use the sword, the pistol, and even the bow. Mulgrave had soon learned of the Moidart’s cruelty toward Gaise, and the teacher and his student had entered into a secret friendship. They did not laugh together in public, nor were they seen to be outwardly affectionate. But on long rides together Gaise would open his heart to his friend. The second man to have an impact on the life of Gaise Macon was a skinny schoolteacher named Alterith Shaddler. He taught Gaise history and arithmetic but also smuggled into Eldacre books of verse and works of imaginative history in which the characters spoke one to another, leaving the reader convinced he was in the same room with them. These “fictions,” as Alterith called them, were the water of life to a parched soul. Gaise devoured them. Here he found what was lacking in his own life: stories of honor and chivalry, friendship and love. Gaise dreaded to think what kind of a man he would have become without those yardsticks to measure himself against, and even now he found himself having to rein in the more ruthless side of his nature. One of his deepest regrets was hanging the soldier who had lost the Emburley rifle. One moment of anger, one careless command, and a man’s life had been snuffed out. Such was the legacy carried by the Moidart’s son.