A Time of Courage

by John Gwynne

  ‘Hai,’ Tark said, dipping his head to Jin. He rode off, barking at Cheren as he passed them, rounding out forty or fifty riders. They circled the captured Sirak, spent a while checking they were bound securely, and then they were prodding them to their feet with spears and setting off across the plain towards the wains.

  ‘You have done it, my Queen,’ Gerel said to her.

  ‘What?’ she said, still watching Tark escorting the prisoners.

  ‘What no Cheren king or queen has done before. Taken the Sirak Heartland, destroyed their Clan. How many of the Sirak do you think still live?’

  ‘We have maybe three hundred prisoners, now,’ Jin said.

  ‘Aye, but they won’t be breathing for long,’ Gerel said.

  ‘That is a truth,’ Jin said.

  ‘Once the prisoners are gone, the Sirak will be no more.’

  ‘Apart from Bleda, and however many he has with him.’

  ‘Ach.’ Gerel spat. ‘There could not have been more than a score that rode away from their raid on our camp,’ he said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Jin said. ‘While Bleda breathes, the Sirak still live. We will stay here a day or two, celebrate our victory.’ She looked at the prisoners moving across the plain, close to the wains now. They would play a large part in that celebration. Perhaps she would make them fight each other, like Asroth had done to the surviving White-Wings at Drassil. She smiled at the thought of that.

  ‘What is that?’ she said, still looking out onto the plain.

  ‘Where?’ Gerel asked.

  Jin pointed; out beyond the wains, there was movement on the plain. Riders. A hundred, more. Jin’s fist tightened around the hilt of her sword.

  ‘They are ours,’ Gerel said. ‘The hawk banner flies above them, and I can see blue deels.’

  ‘Ah,’ Jin said, the banner clear to her, now. ‘It must be Duya or one of the other chiefs, arrived late to the battle.’

  CHAPTER FORTY

  BLEDA

  Bleda cantered across the plain. He shifted in his saddle, rolled his shoulders, trying to settle the lamellar vest he had buckled over a blue deel. He’d taken them both from the dead Cheren chief. It wasn’t a bad fit, but Bleda had lived and breathed in his own lamellar coat, and this was no comparison. He felt lighter, though, as if he could move as fast as the wind.

  I will need to, if this doesn’t go to plan.

  He was riding across the plain, parallel to the great river Selen. The midsummer sun had made the water low and the riverbanks steep. A hundred and eight warriors rode behind Bleda; that was as many Cheren deels as they could salvage. Ruga and Yul were as close to him as shadows. Ellac was not there, and Bleda felt uncomfortably aware of the old warrior’s absence. He had ordered Ellac to stay behind, his stump marking him out and making him a risk. Ellac was the only warrior missing a hand still to be riding in a warband upon the Sea of Grass. The Sirak and Cheren were masters of the bow, and what use was a warrior who could not draw a bow?

  A great use, is the answer to that, Bleda thought. Ellac had proved he was no waste filling a saddle. With his one hand he had slain more Cheren than Bleda could count.

  And he gives good counsel, when he can be bothered to open his mouth.

  But Ellac would have been a danger, now. Because everyone knew that Ellac was Bleda’s companion, which was why Bleda had ordered the old warrior to stay behind. The look on Ellac’s face had given Bleda pause, though. It had been as if Bleda had given him the greatest insult. So Ellac had been given a new task.

  Only one hundred and eight of us. How many prisoners are in those wains?

  Bleda and each warrior with him had a spare mount tied to their saddles. That would not be suspicious to anyone looking at them – the Cheren often rode with spare mounts, and especially so on this campaign, where speed had been their greatest weapon. The only odd thing about the spare mounts was that they were already saddled.

  If we need more horses we can take them from the Cheren. I count fifty Cheren guards around the wains, maybe another ten driving them. If we are quick and do this right, we should be away without any trouble.

  A movement caught Bleda’s eye. Further away, beyond the wains. More riders, approaching from the Heartland.

  Hells.

  Beyond them Bleda saw flames and smoke curling up from his ancestral home, the Sirak Heartland. There were Cheren warriors at the fringe of the encampment, blue deels marking them.

  Bleda felt a sharp rush of shock, a frozen moment where his breath caught in his chest, followed swiftly by anger. The Sirak Heartland, in flames. The urge to kick his horse into a gallop and slaughter the Cheren before him was overwhelming. But that would mean more than his death. It would be the death of his people, of the Sirak. He drew in a shuddering breath and focused on the Cheren around the wains.

  Sharp-eyed Ruga had noticed the riders approaching. She pointed.

  ‘How many of them?’ Bleda asked her.

  ‘Maybe fifty,’ she said, after a moment’s silence. ‘They are escorting more Sirak to the wains.’

  ‘Ah,’ Bleda brightened. ‘More of our kin that we can save, then, and more horses we can take.’

  ‘Why not ride on and slay the whole Cheren horde, while we are at it?’ Ruga said cheerfully.

  ‘Perhaps we will,’ Bleda said.

  He did not feel so confident, his eyes scanning the plain, running along the river’s edge.

  Am I mad, leading a hundred warriors towards a warband of my enemy, at least two thousand strong?

  Should we have just left, ridden away with the warriors I have saved? Six hundred Sirak is a fearsome warband.

  No. These are my people. I owe this to them.

  He sucked in a deep breath, his hand dropping to the leather clip on his bow-case. He undid it.

  This will be bow work, quick and fast, or we are in trouble.

  He looked ahead now, as they drew closer to the wains, Cheren riders looking at him and his warriors. Behind them the wains were becoming clearer; the Sirak prisoners within them were crushed and piled tight, no room to move. The stench of urine and excrement wafted on the air. Bleda felt his anger stir, alongside his fear, his blood pounding in his veins, the imminence of violence sharpening everything. Sight, sound, smell, all seemed brighter, clearer. His fingers twitched for his arrows.

  In his peripheral vision he saw Ruga and Yul rest their hands on their bows.

  The riders from the Heartland had reached the wains. Cage doors were being opened, Sirak prisoners forced to clamber in, spear-points encouraging them. Bleda saw an older warrior leading the prisoners. He stared towards Bleda.

  He said something to a Cheren rider close by, and that warrior started to ride towards Bleda. He raised his hand in a greeting, then dropped it casually to rest upon his bow.

  A voice in Bleda’s head told him it was time, to hesitate now would mean disaster.

  Faster than thought, his bow was in his hand and arrows in his fist, the first one nocked, drawn, loosed. Two more arrows in rapid succession, the first one punching into the rider approaching him, a spray of blood as he toppled backwards over his saddle. The second arrow took a more distant Cheren in the shoulder, the third arrow piercing his throat as he opened his mouth to scream.

  A whispered word and touch of his heels, and his horse leaped forwards, moving from canter to gallop, the horse tied behind following.

  Yul, Ruga and the rest of his warband burst into motion, spreading wide, a hail of arrows flying from them a few hoofbeats later. Cheren tumbled from their mounts, twenty, thirty, more, the remaining warriors reaching for their bows. Bleda’s warband surged forwards, only the drum of hooves betraying their charge, no battle-cries this time.

  We will be as silent as wolves in the night, Bleda had ordered.

  Arrows came back at him. He bent low over his saddle, a touch of a knee and Dilis was swerving right, though a little sluggish with the spare mount tied to her saddle. Arrows zipped past him. A few screams behin
d him, the thump of Sirak bodies falling. Bleda saw the old warrior stab a Sirak prisoner with his spear. Other prisoners were turning on their guards, leaping up at them, dragging them from their horses.

  Another fistful of arrows, gone in a few heartbeats, and then another fistful. He was almost amongst them now, his warband in a loose line. An arrow slammed into his saddle-arch, a moment later another arrow punching into his left arm, like being hit by a rock. It threw him backwards, almost toppling him from his saddle. He swayed, righted himself, felt his grip going on his bow and managed to slip it back into its case. He looked around wildly, searching for where the arrows had come from.

  The old warrior. He was reaching for more arrows.

  Ruga saw him, too, screeched with anger that her lord had been wounded, aiming. Loosed two arrows in the time it took Bleda to draw a breath.

  The old warrior ducked and yanked on his reins, the first arrow punching into the horse’s shoulder; it screamed and reared, the second arrow piercing the warrior’s thigh. He fell from his saddle; his horse’s hooves crashed to the ground and it bolted, dragging the warrior fifty paces before his leather stirrup snapped.

  Blood pulsed from Bleda’s bicep. He grabbed the arrow shaft protruding from his flesh, tried to snap it, a jolt of pain and nausea that threatened to empty his stomach and sent dots flashing in front of his eyes. He left it and reached over his back, drawing his sword.

  Movement from his left, the thud of hooves as riders appeared from the riverbank. He grinned to see Ellac leading another hundred of their warband. They had made their way down to the river Selen and dismounted, leading their horses by foot along its steep banks. Taking advantage of the low waters, they had crept closer, hidden from view by the steep-sided banks.

  Now they were charging into the flank of the wains and remaining Cheren, arrows flying. Bleda saw Ellac reach the wains first, an arrow pinging off his buckler. Ellac put his spear into the belly of a Cheren standing on the wain’s driving bench.

  Bleda raised his sword, searching for an enemy to slay, and instead saw the last of the Cheren fall from his saddle, his throat opened by Yul’s sword. He held back a cry of victory, instead riding to the nearest wain and chopping at the bolts that kept it locked. Sparks flew and the bolts fell, the cage door swinging wide, Sirak within spilling out. He gave the first one the reins of his spare horse. More Sirak riders were there, helping prisoners into saddles.

  Ellac was throwing the cage doors wide on another wain, a mad scramble for empty saddles. Saran and other Sirak riders were rounding up empty Cheren horses, others leaping from their saddles to gather up quivers of arrows from the fallen enemy. Bleda saw Ruga take the reins of the old warrior’s horse, then ride back to where he lay upon the ground. He moved and Ruga’s spear arm rose.

  ‘Hold,’ Bleda called to her, and Ruga’s spear-point hovered.

  Bleda cantered over to her, looked down at the old warrior.

  He tried to rise, spat a curse at Bleda, but he had an arrow in one leg, his arm was broken from his fall and it looked as if his back had been ripped open from being dragged by his horse, a trail of blood smearing the grass.

  Bleda took his spear from its saddle-cup and stabbed down, held it a finger’s breadth from the warrior’s eye.

  ‘I am Bleda ben Erdene, Lord of the Sirak,’ he said. ‘I slew your King. Remember me to your Queen.’

  ‘You lie,’ the old warrior said. ‘All know that Bleda is the whipped dog of the Ben-Elim. He is in the west with his half-breed whore. He does not have the stones to come here.’

  Ruga’s spear twitched.

  ‘Hold,’ Bleda snapped.

  His wrist flicked, a red line opening along the old warrior’s cheek.

  ‘Just so you know that I am no ghost,’ he said. The old warrior looked away.

  ‘Look at me,’ Bleda said. ‘Look at my face. Describe it to your Queen. Tell her that I chose a half-breed Ben-Elim over her. And tell her that I will kill her, soon. Maybe not cut her throat, like I did her father, but she will die by my hand. Erdene will be avenged.’

  The old warrior stared at him, then, hatred bright in his eyes. ‘The Great Queen will see you dead,’ he said.

  ‘Ha.’ Bleda laughed. ‘Let her try.’

  A sound drifted over the plain to him. A high-pitched screeching, followed by a horn blowing from the Heartland. He looked up, saw riders massing at the encampment’s rim, two hundred, more joining them; some of them were already breaking into a gallop towards him. At their head was a woman. That was where the screeching was coming from.

  ‘Jin,’ he breathed.

  A cold anger swept him, then, the world shrinking to Jin upon her horse. The woman who had killed his mother. Who had slaughtered his people. His hand reached for his bow. A sharp pain from his shoulder. Ruga touched his wrist.

  ‘This is not the time,’ she said.

  A long, lingering moment, then he took a shuddering breath.

  ‘Tell her,’ he snarled at the old warrior, and then he was tugging on his reins, his mount turning. Most of the Sirak prisoners were mounted, Saran and Ellac leading them back across the plain, away from the Heartland. Bleda saw three of his kin still on foot. He kicked Dilis into a canter, rode to one of them, his hand out, and pulled them up into the saddle behind him. Ruga reached the other two, gave one the reins to the old warrior’s horse and grabbed the other one’s outstretched arm, and then they were galloping away from Jin, the wind whipping their warrior braids, horns blowing wildly behind them.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  JIN

  Jin galloped across the plain, a wild rage flooding her, filling her veins and powering her limbs, a feral, kinetic energy that needed to be released.

  Never had she felt such hatred.

  She had stared at the riders in their blue deels beneath the Cheren hawk banner as they’d approached her wains, at first pleased that more of her warriors were alive. She had been worried about them, and troubled by their absence.

  Her eyes had been drawn to their leader. A dark-haired warrior, sun glinting on a lamellar vest.

  And then she had seen the same man draw his bow and start putting arrows into her warriors.

  For a dozen heartbeats she had stared open-mouthed, struggling to understand what she was seeing. His riders had moved from a canter to a gallop, spreading behind him, and sent a hail of arrows into her warriors. She’d seen Tark shouting a warning, killing prisoners, then reaching for his bow, putting an arrow into the leader in the lamellar vest.

  Somehow, she had been frozen; confused, unbelieving.

  ‘It is the Sirak,’ Gerel had said, his hand gripping her arm.

  ‘It is Bleda,’ she had whispered back at him. By then other Sirak were surging up the bank from the river. Tark was down, prisoners pouring from her wains, and Bleda was cantering over to Tark.

  ‘It cannot be Bleda.’ Gerel frowned, straining his eyes.

  ‘It is BLEDA!’ Jin screeched.

  Her shock was burned away in a flare of hot rage, incinerated by it.

  She had screamed for her warriors, Gerel putting a horn to his lips and blowing, summoning the Cheren, wherever they were, even as Jin was kicking her horse into motion and reaching for her bow. In heartbeats she was hurtling across the plain, her body one with her mount’s, the two of them moving in unison, muscles and hooves flowing in the perfect rhythm of the gallop.

  The Sirak were fleeing, now, the one she thought was Bleda leaving last, pulling another Sirak up behind him onto his mount. She reached for arrows, knowing they were out of bowshot, but nocking and loosing anyway. It fell infuriatingly short of the last riders.

  A cloud of dust was swept up by the fleeing Sirak, marking their retreat, four or five hundred riders at least, by the look of it.

  There must have been three hundred prisoners, maybe more.

  They were riding up a ridge, now, beginning to disappear over it by the time Jin reached the wains. The ground was littered with Cheren dead, ni
nety, a hundred of her warriors. Jin dragged on her reins, a spray of grass and dry earth, pulling her horse to a trot, stopping where she’d seen Tark fall.

  ‘My Queen,’ she heard a voice call, saw Tark close by, trying to drag himself upright. He was badly wounded, blood sheeting his leg from an arrow wound, one arm hanging at the wrong angle.

  Hooves drummed, Gerel catching up with her, the first of her riders with him, around a hundred and fifty. More were riding from the Heartland, a steady stream, though she could still hear the faint din of battle, swirling on the wind.

  ‘See to him,’ Jin said, and Gerel slipped from his saddle, kneeling beside Tark. He cut Tark’s breeches around the arrow protruding from his thigh, gave Tark a drink from his water skin and then poured the rest over the wound, washing it clean. He touched the arrow, probed the wound. A grunt from Tark.

  ‘Will have to cut it out,’ Gerel said. He took Tark’s arm, a protruding lump on the forearm where the bone had snapped. ‘Bite on this,’ Gerel said, slipping his knife’s sheath from his belt.

  ‘Wait,’ Jin said. ‘The one who spoke to you.’ She paused, blew out a long, unsteady breath. ‘Was it him?’

  Tark looked up at her, pain, anger, shame mingled in his eyes.

  ‘He called himself Bleda,’ he said.

  Jin sucked in a strangled scream.

  ‘What did he look like? Describe him.’

  ‘Young, like you,’ Tark said. ‘He was arrogant, though I put an arrow in his arm. Dark. His face was soft, for a Sirak.’

  ‘Aye, like mine. Because we have not ridden the Sea of Grass for ten years.’ She looked at the last riders disappearing over the ridge line. ‘What did he say to you?’

  Tark’s eyes flickered away.

  ‘Tell me everything. You will heal, ride the grass again. If you wish to ride at my side, you will tell it all to me.’

  A grunt and nod from Tark. ‘He said he would kill you, soon. He boasted of cutting Uldin’s throat.’