A Time of Courage

by John Gwynne

  ‘That is enough,’ Byrne said. ‘If you see her, kill her!’ she shouted. ‘And remember, DO NOT let them bite you.’ A moment’s silence as they thought on the consequences of that. ‘Now, to your stations,’ Byrne called.

  With that, Drem was jumping back onto the stone walkway and making his way a few hundred paces along the wall. Every twenty paces or so was a burning brazier, a stack of oil-soaked torches piled either side.

  Drem buckled his helm on, shook his head to check the strap was tight enough, then pulled his thick leather gloves on.

  ‘Ah, you’re learning, laddie,’ Cullen said with a grin, and thrust a shield at Drem. He didn’t really like working with a shield, preferred to have a blade in each fist, which he told Cullen.

  ‘It’s not about liking something,’ Cullen said, his face serious for once, ‘it’s about choosing the right tools for the job. You have one rune-marked blade, not two. And your blade is not so long – you will have to get close to these vermin to use it. You need a shield to hold them off; you know, to stop them from biting your face off while you stab them.’

  ‘Cullen’s right, much as it pains me to say it,’ Keld said, hefting his own shield and a sword.

  Drem thought about it, knew that the logic was sound and so took the shield. He slipped his hand into the grip behind the shield boss, tested the feel of the iron handle, a bar wrapped in leather riveted to the back of the linden boards. He hefted the shield, measuring its weight. It was large and round, banded in iron, painted black with a four-pointed white star upon it.

  The Bright Star.

  ‘My thanks.’

  He looked out over the wall.

  The night was as black as pitch, rain clouds hiding any sign of moon or stars. Bonfires blazed in the street surrounding the wall, crackling and hissing in the wind-whipped rain, buffeted beacons of light in the darkness.

  That is what we are, Drem thought, standing against the darkness of Asroth and his Kadoshim. They spread evil like a plague.

  ‘Where are they?’ Cullen muttered beside him.

  And then elongated shadows were detaching from the night, a swarm of long-taloned shapes surging towards the wall, mouths gaping.

  ‘Truth and Courage,’ Drem whispered, as he drew his seax.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  RIV

  Riv stepped off the wall and spread her wings. She glided across the open space between the inner wall and the buildings of the lower fortress. Below her, Revenants were breaking away from the darkness, outlined and silhouetted by the beacons Byrne had ordered built.

  Not a night for archery, Riv thought, cursing the wind and rain, because this was just when she could use a bow: a swarming mass of her enemy, no allies she did not want to risk harming amongst them.

  The first Revenants reached the wall, leaping and snarling, claws scraping on stone as they tried to climb. It stood as high as six men; even the Revenants’ unnatural speed and strength would not be enough for them to scale those walls.

  She swooped low over the invaders, lifted higher, over the first buildings. The darkness was so dense that even her sharp eyes were struggling to discern the Revenants’ movements.

  Byrne asked me to track them, but they’re all heading for the gate, so I might as well go and stab a few of them.

  She sped back to the walls.

  Revenants were swarming the huge gates, tearing at the wood, splinters flying, great gouges, but the gates were holding.

  They’re trying to eat their way in.

  But the gates of Dun Seren were thick, and banded with iron.

  It will take them a moon to get through.

  As Riv flew closer, she saw flaming torches hurled from the wall’s battlements, arcing down to land amongst the heaving mass before the gates, trailing sparks in the dark. A Revenant caught fire, gave a hissing scream, staggering away from the wall. More torches were thrown from above, setting many of the creatures alight, but they either stumbled away or were trampled beneath the press of hundreds.

  Riv drew her sword, swooping low over the mass of heaving bodies, slashed down, felt her blade bite, saw the crackle of blue flame that had come to give her so much pleasure. Then she was at the gates, hovering over the mass, which was rising as Revenants climbed on one another in their frenzy to reach their prey.

  Slowly the tide climbed higher, becoming a kind of living ladder or tower made of limbs and torsos.

  Riv slashed and roared, kicked one Revenant in the face as it bunched its legs and launched itself at her. Others saw her now, more propelling themselves at her.

  A beating of wings and Ben-Elim were dropping from the night sky: Meical, Hadran and the others, all of them stabbing with long spears, skewering Revenants as they leaped, killing others as they clambered up the seething mound that was slowly reaching towards the battlements.

  A snapping and snarling behind Riv, and she snatched a glance left and right. Black shapes were bursting from the darkness as far as she could see all along the wall, gathering in clusters, massing together to form more living ladders, knots of bodies merging, rising like a swarm of ants that Riv had once seen as they massed together to cross a stream. The Revenants surged higher at startling speed.

  The noise behind her again and she spun around in the air, saw a dark knot of shapes in the shadow of a building. She strained her eyes, her wings taking her a little closer, and saw two or three score Revenants. There was something different about them. They were still, staring, watching, their attention focused towards the centre of their circle, not the walls.

  Then Riv saw her, a Revenant standing half a head taller than those around her. She was broad, had long dark hair and an axe in her fist.

  Arvid.

  Arvid was gesturing with her axe, giving orders. Revenants were running where she directed, at the darkest points on the wall, between the reach of the bonfires. Here they were linking together, forming their organic, living ladders, rising with shocking rapidity towards the battlements; all the while, new Revenants were rushing to join them.

  Riv heard shouts and screams, the sound of battle drifting down from above, marking where the Revenants had reached the top.

  Glancing around, she saw Hadran and flew to him, shouting in his ear over the din of battle. Together they turned and flew straight at Arvid, Hadran’s arm pulling back, hurling his spear.

  A dozen Revenants leaped into the air in front of Arvid. Hadran’s spear skewered one of them, threw it back into the wall of a building, pinning it there, a crackle of blue fire rippling through its chest.

  Riv stabbed a Revenant in the mouth, cut another’s hand off, slashed another across the throat, caved another’s skull in, but where one fell, two more threw themselves at her. Hands grasped at her, talons raking her, mouths open unnaturally wide, until Riv veered upwards, flying out of reach.

  Hadran hovered there, his sword in his hand, but it was not a rune-marked blade.

  ‘Where is she?’ Riv yelled.

  ‘That way,’ Hadran said, ‘I think. She fled with a score or more around her.’

  ‘Come on, then,’ Riv said.

  Hadran looked back to the battle at the wall, where screams and the din of battle were echoing from the battlements, snatched and swirled by the wind and rain. Riv could see at least four ladders of bodies where the Revenants had coiled together and breached the wall.

  He turned towards the darkness where he had seen Arvid running.

  ‘You go back to the wall, Riv – they need your sword arm, and your rune-marked blade. I’ve lost my spear, so I’ll follow Arvid, see where she’s going. They won’t see me.’

  A moment’s hesitation. With every fibre of her being, Riv wanted to kill Arvid and end this. But she could have disappeared, and the screaming from the battlements sounded desperate.

  Riv nodded. ‘Don’t get yourself killed,’ she said.

  Hadran smiled at her, something she’d never seen him do before. ‘I’d give you the same advice,’ he said, and th
en he was winging into the darkness.

  Riv flew towards the wall. Meical and the other Ben-Elim were fighting above the gates, spread around Byrne and Ethlinn. She glimpsed Balur swinging a two-handed longsword. Revenants’ body parts were flying in myriad directions. Further along the wall, a breach to the right, the fighting looked more desperate. Two Revenant ladders were dividing and crushing a section of the wall’s defenders. Alcyon was there, with his two axes. Then she saw Drem, stern-faced, smashing his shield into a Revenant as it scaled the top of the wall.

  So many to kill – where do I start?

  She gave a bloodthirsty grin and headed to where she thought she’d be needed most.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  DREM

  Drem grunted, slamming his shield into a Revenant as it scaled the wall, its claws raking his shield, clinging on as he propelled it back into open air. He teetered for a moment, stabbing it frantically. It fell away, a flare of blue light exploding in its torso, but it was too late. Drem stood a moment, arms flailing, feet scrabbling for purchase, but the stone was slick with rain and blood. He fell. Keld lunged for him, but the huntsman was too far away. A scream built in Drem’s throat, and then a hand grabbed hold of him. He glimpsed wings and feathers, and then his feet were on solid stone.

  Riv laughed breathlessly.

  ‘Can you avoid getting into trouble just for a little while?’ she asked, turning to ram her sword into the face of a Revenant.

  Drem stepped to the left, took a taloned blow on his shield that would have ripped one of Riv’s wings off, plunged his seax into the Revenant’s belly. He shoved its body away as he tore his blade free. ‘I don’t think that’s a realistic request,’ he grunted.

  Riv gave him a grin, crouched and leaped into the air, flew straight up, then looped and came back. She kicked an invader in the face, sending it hurtling off the wall, stabbed her sword through another’s back, the blade bursting out of its chest.

  Drem swiped rain from his eyes and snatched a glance along the wall. He couldn’t see far, but the situation didn’t look good. Revenants were everywhere, two of their multi-limbed ladders latched onto the wall within fifty paces each side of him. Along from him, Alcyon swung his two axes, sending heads flying, but there were too many dead warriors of the Order lying in pools of blood, Revenants upon them, tearing at their flesh. Keld and Cullen were close, fighting back to back, holding off a tide of black shapes. Revenants were dying, but for every one that died, four more were scaling their living ladders.

  Even as Drem watched, Keld was reaching inside his cloak and throwing a vial, shouting, ‘LASAIR!’ A Revenant erupted into flames, stumbling off the wall and falling, a blazing torch.

  Those ladders, unless they are stopped . . . why doesn’t Keld just set them all on fire? But even as he thought the question, the answer was obvious.

  Not enough fire. How many vials does he have? Five, ten? He would need ten times that. There are just too many Revenants.

  He looked around wildly, flames from the brazier whipped in the wind, highlighting the scene in shifting flame and shadow. And then he was moving, ducking low under the swing of a clawed hand, stabbing up into the Revenant’s sternum as he rose, deeper into the chest cavity, blue light pulsing through a map of veins. He shoved the dying creature away, slammed his shield into another face, stabbed around the shield rim into a shoulder, ripped the blade free and slashed across the creature’s throat, hacked another across the face from scalp to chin. He stepped over it to reach the brazier.

  It was only a pace or two away from a Revenant ladder. He grabbed one of the torches leaning against the wall, shoved it into the flames to ignite, then he was swinging the torch with his shield hand, stabbing and hacking with his seax. Two Revenants caught fire, falling away into more of their kind, careening off the wall.

  ‘KELD, CULLEN!’ Drem yelled as he threw the torch at another, its face igniting, melting, then he dropped his shield and crouched, wrapping his arms around the brazier’s base, hoping that his friends had heard him and that they could reach him in time.

  The base was huge, as wide as a man. He grunted with the strain, barely able to lift it a handspan from the ground. Heat washed him as the wind tugged at flames. He ignored it, heaved again, veins bulging, feeling as if his head would explode, every sinew in his body straining. There was movement close in his peripheral vision, the gaping maw of a Revenant looming close. Drem screamed defiantly, determined to finish his task even as the teeth lunged for his face.

  And then the face was gone, a stump upon shoulders left where the head had been. The creature’s body toppled to the side, Alcyon’s bulk appearing beside him. The giant swung his two axes, blue light erupting as he cleared a space about Drem. Keld and Cullen reached him a breath later. Seeing what he was about, they both grabbed the brazier, helping him lift it. Slowly it rose, the bowl scraping against stone. A blast of air and Riv landed, crouched and put her back under the brazier’s base, then began to stand. She yelled as she stood, face red, eyes bulging.

  The brazier lurched higher, then it was teetering above the ramparts and Drem was shoving it, guiding its fall. Flames washed out of the bowl, white-hot coals and fire cascading over the wall, a waterfall of flame pouring down onto the seething ladder. The first Revenants burst into flames, an explosion of heat, not even time to scream. The flames spread greedily down the dried, desiccated creatures, the Revenants’ limbs and bodies so intertwined that it was impossible for them to disentangle themselves in time to avoid the fire. In moments the ladder was an inferno collapsing in upon itself.

  Drem and the others stood and peered over the wall. Bodies writhed and twitched, flames pooling and spreading along the base of the wall. The tide of Revenants that had been feeding the ladder was now scattered and retreating to the shadows in dismay.

  Alcyon grinned at Drem and the others. Almost immediately the fighting along their section of the wall lessened, with Revenants dying and not being replaced. Alcyon set about hastening that process, hacking at a knot of invaders who were tearing at a handful of warriors.

  ‘Well, I’m glad your da forgot to teach you not to play with fire,’ Cullen grinned at Drem. Riv barked a laugh.

  ‘Don’t encourage him,’ Keld said to her with a sigh.

  The screams of battle echoed along the wall and they all looked towards the gate. Battle was still raging there. Cullen slapped Drem’s shoulder and pointed at another brazier.

  ‘ALCYON!’ Riv shouted as she flew into the air, wings beating. Drem and the others linked their shields and started fighting towards the next brazier. The wall-top was just wide enough for them to form a shield wall four men wide. Alcyon joined them, standing behind and towering over them. His axes sang their song of steel above their heads as he chopped at Revenants beyond their small wall of shields. It was Revenants now who were caught between enemies from two sides, and in a few dozen heartbeats Drem and the others were at the next brazier. With Alcyon’s help this one rose more easily and they heaved it over the wall onto another ladder of Revenants. An explosion of flames and sparks, hissing and screaming, and the ladder was collapsing.

  ‘Next one,’ Riv said to them, and she soared off the wall, Drem and the others linking shields again. They pushed towards the gate, stabbing and cutting down any enemy before them, but before they reached the next brazier Drem saw Balur and Ethlinn heaving it into the air and hurling it down upon the next ladder.

  Three ladders had been incinerated now. The Revenants on the ground beyond the wall were more hesitant for the moment, retreating to the shadows beyond the bonfires. Riv alighted on the battlements next to Drem and the others.

  ‘There are more braziers further along, beyond the gate,’ she said, ‘but I’ve told Byrne; they’re going to throw them over.’

  Even as the words left Riv’s mouth, Drem saw a burst of fire and flame flaring bright in the darkness, an implosion of sparks as another ladder caught fire and was decimated.

  There
were still invaders upon the wall, and Drem and the others set to slaughtering them. The Revenants were fast and unnaturally strong, but the combination of rune-marked blades and their small wall of shields worked well against them in a tight space. Alcyon drove them back, and Riv swept in and out of the darkness, her sword leaving trails of blue sparks.

  Drem chopped at taloned fingers that clutched his shield rim, slashed his seax into the Revenant’s throat as it fell back. He looked for the next one to kill, saw one crouched on all fours, snarling over a dead warrior of the Order. It saw Drem and the others, bunched and leaped at them, but as it flew into the air Drem saw Queen Ethlinn appear behind it.

  She stabbed the Revenant with her long spear, skewering it, the blade bursting out through its chest. Blue light stuttered through its veins as Ethlinn lifted it high and hurled it out over the wall. Drem watched it crunch to the ground and roll, coming to a stop before one of the bonfires.

  He nodded a weary thanks to Ethlinn.

  The wall was clear for the moment, at least as far as Drem could see either way. Byrne was there, yelling orders, blood sluicing down her forehead, slick in the rain. She ordered the Revenant corpses to be thrown over the wall, then oversaw as the healers arrived to treat the injured and screaming. Some were put on stretchers and carried off.

  ‘Here,’ Keld said, tapping Drem with a water bottle. Drem took a sip and abruptly realized he was thirsty beyond all understanding. He lifted the bottle and drank deeply.

  ‘Is that it, then?’ Cullen said, glaring out over the wall at the brooding shadows. He sounded disappointed.

  ‘They’ll be back,’ Meical said, a whisper of wings as the Ben-Elim emerged from the night above them and alighted on the wall. ‘There are many more of them out there.’