by John Gwynne
‘I will take the sword back from her and fulfil my father’s oath,’ Drem said. His face was flat, emotionless. At this moment he reminded Riv of Bleda and his face of stone.
He thinks he’s going to kill Asroth.
It was a ludicrous claim, especially when Drem was sitting in a room with some of the greatest warriors in the Banished Lands. Byrne, Balur One-Eye.
Me.
And yet there was something about the way he said it that gave Riv pause.
‘Aye, well, to kill Asroth we’ve got to find him. And to find him we need to get off our arses and go after him,’ red-haired Cullen said. ‘What are we waiting for?’
‘Whisht, Cullen,’ Byrne snapped. ‘Not every problem is solved by charging at it.’
Cullen looked as if he disagreed and was about to say so, but Keld shifted beside him and Cullen winced.
Did Keld just stamp on Cullen’s foot?
‘There is wisdom in Cullen’s words,’ Meical said.
‘See?’ Cullen muttered.
‘Every moment you remain here is another day that Asroth grows stronger, tightens his grip.’
‘You all saw those Revenants, what they can do. I will not throw my warriors’ lives away because we rushed into battle unprepared,’ Byrne told him. ‘I aim to put a rune-marked weapon in the fist of every warrior here – man, woman and giant.’ She paused, drew in a long breath. ‘But I know time is vital. The longer we wait, the longer Asroth and Gulla have to consolidate their grip on the Banished Lands. The more innocents will die.’ She looked between Hadran and Meical. ‘What is your plan? Your purpose for coming here?’
‘Asroth is free, his enemies should work together,’ Riv said. ‘Otherwise Asroth will pick us all off one by one.’
Ethlinn nodded. ‘There is wisdom in that,’ she said.
‘What allies?’ Balur said. ‘Who is left?’
‘Kol still lives,’ Hadran said. ‘He leads the survivors of Drassil – Ben-Elim and White-Wings – south, to join with our garrison at Ripa. There are over seven thousand White-Wings spread along the borders of the Land of the Faithful, but most of them are at Ripa or close to it. He asks that you join us there, and that we face Asroth together.’
Riv felt a stab of worry thinking about Aphra marching south through Forn.
Byrne steepled her fingers, brows knitting.
‘Ripa is a long way,’ she said.
‘Drassil’s closer,’ Cullen said. ‘Best we go there, kill Asroth, toast our victory.’
Byrne and Keld tutted him. Balur chuckled.
‘What are your numbers here?’ Meical asked.
‘Around two thousand warriors of the Order. Less, since the battle.’
‘Two hundred giants,’ Ethlinn said. ‘Some with bears.’
‘A thousand warriors of Ardain,’ Nara and Elgin said together.
‘That is not enough to take Drassil,’ Riv said.
‘We’ve fought the Kadoshim long enough to know how to beat them,’ Cullen said, a curl of his lip.
‘There are too many of them,’ Meical replied, shaking his head.
‘There cannot be so many Kadoshim.’ Byrne frowned. ‘A hundred years of battle and hunting them has seen their numbers dwindle.’
‘They have bred an army of half-breeds,’ Hadran said with a scowl. ‘Thousands of them.’
A widening of Byrne’s eyes, then she nodded. ‘Gulla has planned long and well, it would seem.’
‘I’ve seen you train,’ Riv said, ‘and had the honour of fighting alongside you. You are a force to be reckoned with, of that there is no question.’
Cullen snorted.
‘But if you go alone you will be outnumbered and overwhelmed. They have warriors in the air, acolytes, thousands of these mist-walkers—’
‘Revenants,’ Drem interrupted.
‘What?’ Riv said.
‘They are called Revenants. I told you, that’s what Fritha named them, and she created them, so she should know.’ He looked agitated.
‘Fine. Revenants,’ Riv continued, scowling at Drem, ‘and Cheren horse-archers.’
‘The Cheren are allied to Asroth?’ Byrne asked.
‘Aye. They made a deal with Gulla, betrayed us. It was the Cheren who used a ruse to open Drassil’s gates for Gulla’s acolytes.’
Byrne drummed her fingers on the table.
‘The greatest warriors in the world could not hope to win against these odds,’ Riv continued. ‘Even with your magic swords.’
Byrne just looked at her.
‘We need each other,’ Meical said. ‘You need the Ben-Elim to fight in the air, the White-Wings to hold the ground with their wall of shields. The Order of the Bright Star and Ethlinn’s giants would be the hammer against their anvil.’
‘What of the Cheren?’ Byrne said. ‘I have seen their bow and horse work. They are not a force to be taken lightly. We would need to counter them, somehow.’
‘We have the Sirak,’ Riv said with a smile.
‘The Sirak are allied to you?’ Byrne said. ‘Truly? I doubt they have much love for the Ben-Elim.’
‘My Bleda has given his word. He is riding to Arcona now, to raise his Clan.’
‘Your Bleda?’ Balur rumbled, raising an eyebrow.
‘Yes,’ Riv said, feeling her face flush with colour. ‘My Bleda.’ She liked saying it out loud.
Byrne studied Riv, slowly she nodded. ‘Love is the strongest oath,’ she said.
‘The warriors you have here,’ Meical asked, ‘is this your full strength?’
‘No,’ Byrne said. ‘I summoned many for the campaign into the Desolation, but our holds have been left manned.’
‘There is a garrison at Balara,’ Shar spoke for the first time. Her eyes were still red-rimmed and sunken. ‘Two hundred swords. They would be disappointed to miss a battle with Asroth.’
‘Balara?’ Riv said.
‘A giant ruin in the south. It is not far from Ripa,’ Byrne said.
Meical smiled.
‘There are others at Brikan and other places,’ Kill said. ‘Perhaps another thousand in all.’
‘We will need them all,’ Meical said. ‘The battle is coming that will decide the fate of the Banished Lands for the next thousand years. Every man, woman and giant who would stand against Asroth and his Kadoshim should be there. It will be our only chance. We must wipe them all from the face of this earth.’
‘To my mind it is the Revenants that pose the greatest danger,’ Byrne said. ‘You saw them at Drassil?’ she asked Riv.
‘Aye. Impossible to tell their numbers; they moved in the forest and were shrouded in mist, but I saw five hosts converging on Drassil, each similar to the host we have just fought.’
‘We have burned over four thousand Revenant corpses,’ Tain the giant said.
Cullen wiggled his fingers, frowning. ‘Twenty thousand?’ he said.
‘Aye,’ Byrne nodded. ‘Even if every man, woman and giant here went into battle with a rune-marked blade we would be overwhelmed by such numbers.’
‘And their numbers swell with every victim,’ Ethlinn said.
‘All the more reason to move quickly,’ Cullen muttered.
‘We have to kill their captains,’ a voice said: Drem. ‘There were seven of them. Seven people that Gulla drank from that night. Ulf and Arvid are now dead, and their broods with them.’
‘Do you remember them?’ Byrne asked him.
Drem frowned.
‘Scar-faced Burg.’ He put a hand to his throat, fingers brushing a discoloration around his neck. ‘He tried to hang me; I won’t be forgetting his face. Tyna, Ulf’s wife. She made good soup. Thel and Ormun, two brothers, they were trappers, like me and Da . . .’ He trailed off a moment, looked out of the window to the north. ‘The last one I did not know. His head was shaved short, like one of the Kadoshim acolytes. He was tall, slim. A scar over one eye, making it droop, like this.’ He pulled the skin down over his right eye.
‘Well, let’s find them and
kill them,’ Balur growled.
‘Aye, that’s a plan I like,’ Cullen said, snapping his fingers. ‘Find the five that still live and kill them. That would just leave us with Kadoshim, half-breeds, fanatical acolytes and the Cheren to fight.’ He grinned. ‘Easy.’
‘I have a better plan,’ Drem said. All in the room looked at him. ‘Kill Gulla, and the five will fall and all their Revenants with them.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
BLEDA
Bleda sat on his horse and stared, the long grass of Arcona sighing in the wind about his horse’s legs.
‘No,’ he whispered.
He was staring at a Sirak camp. Flames crackled, gers burned to charred husks, and great clouds of black smoke billowed across the plain. Bodies scattered the ground, arrows and spears protruding from their charred, twisted remains.
We are too late.
A click of his tongue and his horse walked forwards. She was a skewbald mare, her name Dilis, which meant Faithful in the old tongue. Ruga, Ellac and Yul spread around him, his warband shifting into motion behind him. They had ridden hard to reach here, over a moon. The hardest part of the journey had been travelling through the snarl of Forn from the cabin to the east road. After that they had moved fast, the road cutting like an arrow from Drassil to the plateau of Arcona.
On the road they had found signs that had troubled Bleda: hoof-prints and dung indicating a large body of riders was ahead of them, the gap widening with every day. Wyrms of worry had been coiling in his belly since then.
Grass turned to ash beneath his horse’s hooves, his warband spreading wide, ninety-eight riders, all that was left of his honour guard and the warband his mother had brought to Drassil. Bleda passed a charred corpse clutching a spear in their belly, another face-down with three arrows in the back. More and more. Here and there a horse stood over a corpse, head low. Such was the bond between rider and horse that Sirak mounts would often return to their riders, dead or alive.
A touch of Bleda’s ankles and Dilis stopped. He leaned and gripped a spear shaft, tugged it free from another corpse.
‘A Cheren spear,’ Ellac grunted beside him.
‘Aye.’ Bleda sighed. He hefted the spear – the balance was excellent – and slipped it into the leather ring on his saddle.
‘Search for any survivors,’ he said. ‘Gather the horses and arrows.’
Smoke in the distance, faint screams on the wind.
They were three days deeper into Sirak lands, following the trail of destruction the Cheren were leaving. Seven more Sirak camps, hundreds dead. They had a change of mounts, now, though, which made their progress faster, and they were gaining. Bleda also had another twenty riders in his warband, survivors they had found, unconscious, wounded, all somehow overlooked by the Cheren.
They are moving fast, not taking the time to check the dead or even gather up their arrows. We will use them to slay those that made them.
A gentle rise in the land, beyond which the shouts were louder. Bleda signalled, the column of riders behind him spreading wide, like wings. Another signal and a score of riders peeled away from each wing, circling wider.
We should scout our enemy out, learn their numbers, approach cautiously, a voice in his head whispered. But there was a fire in his belly, his heart pounding with the frustration of seeing his people slaughtered.
Fresh cries on the wind, louder.
He slipped his bow from its case, gripped a fistful of arrows and took Dilis to a gallop, leaning low to the arch of her neck. He glimpsed Yul smile to his right, heard the drum of Ellac and Ruga’s horses’ hooves close behind.
And then he was cresting the ridge. Black clouds rolled up the slope, engulfing him for a moment. He rode on, blind, burst out into bright sunlight.
Instantly he knew that he was outnumbered. There were Cheren riders everywhere, a flock of warriors swirling through the camp before him in their sky-blue deels, mail and leather, bows in their fists. Impossible to tell accurately how many, but there were more than his hundred and twenty. Gers were on fire, flames reaching for the sky, Sirak warriors on the ground. The old and children as well. Others running for their horses. Bleda saw one leap onto her mount, an arrow taking her in the shoulder, throwing her back to the ground. She scrambled to her knees, but the Cheren rider was rearing over her, hooves crashing down, trampling her.
Another Sirak warrior was running up the incline, straight towards Bleda, three Cheren riders pursuing him. The Sirak stumbled, unsure of who Bleda was as he burst from a cloud of smoke. The riders behind him were galloping, screeching their battle-cries like the hawk that filled their banners. Bleda nocked and loosed, leaning over his mount’s neck; the first Cheren rider was punched from his saddle with Bleda’s arrow in his eye. The second Cheren fell backwards over his saddle with an arrow in his chest, Bleda slowing to look down at the Sirak warrior stumbling to a halt before him. Yul and Ruga swept past Bleda, their arrows pin-cushioning the last Cheren rider.
‘Who are you?’ the Sirak warrior breathed.
‘I am your kin,’ Bleda said. Ellac reined in beside Bleda, a small shield strapped to his right forearm, a spear in his left fist.
‘Ellac?’ the warrior said.
‘Aye, it is me, returned to give you a kick up the arse, Oktai. Now turn around, put some sharp iron in your fist and fight for your Clan.’
Bleda’s warband swept over the rise, bursting out of the smoke, and rode screaming battle-cries into the camp. Bleda grabbed more arrows from his quiver and rode on, Ruga and Yul sweeping wide and circling back to join him.
In a handful of heartbeats all turned to chaos. The slope had given some sense of the conflict, a detached view, but down here amidst the smoke and flame, warriors appeared from nowhere, horses thundering, the whistle of arrows through the air, iron clashing, screaming, smoke choking and stinging eyes, flames swirling. Bleda’s horse jumped over a Sirak warrior lying on the ground, trying to hold his intestines in, purple rope glistening between his fingers.
Bleda nocked and loosed, nocked and loosed, one arrow slamming into a Cheren’s back, throwing him forwards in his saddle. He took another through the throat as they raised a spear to skewer a Sirak on the ground.
‘UP,’ Bleda yelled at the fallen warrior as he rode past him, swerving amongst a cluster of gers, putting another Cheren down. His blood pounded through his veins: anger, fear, exhilaration combining into a heady joy that swept through him. Finally, to do, to fight, instead of thinking, chasing, worrying. His body took over, virtually no room for thought as he charged through the Sirak camp. Countless years of training, of allowing muscles to act in pre-programmed patterns. His arrows left a trail of the dead in his wake. Dimly Bleda was aware of Ellac at his left shoulder, a shadow protecting his flank. He was not sure if Ruga and Yul were still with him. A cloud of smoke billowed across him, the sound of hooves and clash of iron loud in his ears. Bleda slipped his bow back into its case and reached over his shoulder, drawing his sword. Then he was through the smoke, a knot of Cheren riders in front of him, eight or nine warriors stabbing and slashing down at a handful of Sirak, all of them on foot, desperately trying to stay alive a few heartbeats longer.
‘ERDENE!’ Bleda screamed, and spurred Dilis into them. A jarring crash as horseflesh collided, Bleda chopping right, a downwards, diagonal slash that opened the face of a Cheren warrior as he turned at Bleda’s scream. Bleda swayed in his saddle, a spear-point stabbing past his eyes, the upswing of his sword striking the spear shaft, Ellac finishing the woman holding it, his own spear punching into her throat. Bleda urged his horse on, constant movement, steel sparks as he parried a clumsy strike at his torso, a counterstrike at his opponent’s head, denting his helm, blood sheeting the man’s face, blinding him for a moment, Bleda’s sword opening his throat.
Then he was through the knot of riders, Ellac following. Bleda pulled on his reins, Dilis turning in a tight circle, just in time to see Yul and Ruga emerge from the smoke and crash into the Che
ren. Ruga snarled as she fought, mouth twisted. In four or five breaths she severed a hand at the wrist, cut into a shoulder, links of mail spraying, and slashed a warrior’s thigh. Yul, beside her, moved like a warrior from the tales. Bleda could only track the man’s blade by the arcs of blood that it left in the air and the warriors slumping or falling in their saddles. A head spun through the air, thumped to the ground and rolled up to the hooves of Bleda’s horse.
The Sirak on the ground dragged the last Cheren from her saddle and she disappeared from view. A scream cut short, and then there were no more Cheren breathing.
‘Up!’ Yul shouted, holding the reins of a Cheren mount and offering them to one of the Sirak on the ground. There were four still standing, all of them grabbing weapons and leaping into Cheren saddles.
‘WITH ME!’ Bleda cried, and turned his horse, riding on into the camp. Yul, Ruga and the others caught up with him.
Like a wave they swept through the spaces between gers, Cheren falling, confused by this new attack from behind. Bleda’s sword was notched and slick with blood when he burst out of the far side of the camp. A score of Cheren riders were ahead of him. Their leader, an older warrior, his warrior braid grey as it curled beneath his helm, sat on his horse a moment, the animal dancing.
He hesitates, unsure what to do.
Ruga put an arrow through the warrior’s throat, the man swaying and toppling.
More Sirak emerged from the gers, a line forming either side of Bleda. The remaining Cheren turned away and spurred their mounts into a gallop.
‘They can’t get away,’ Ruga snarled.
‘They won’t,’ Bleda said.
The two score riders he had sent wide appeared, curling around the camp and riding towards the fleeing Cheren, cutting off their escape route. A flurry of blows, the clash of steel, and then it was over, Bleda’s warriors cantering towards him. Many of them were grinning and whooping.
Bleda felt a rush of joy, at being alive, at being victorious. He looked about him, saw men and women from this camp about him, others joining them, as well as more of his own warband appearing. He patted Dilis’ neck, the mare sidling on the spot, the thrill of battle coursing through her muscles, too.