The Black Coast

by Mike Brooks

  “This lord hoped to find the witch and execute her before she even knew we were looking for her,” Daimon explained. He had to admit that in Sattistutar’s place, he wasn’t sure he’d be happy with that explanation. “If all of your people started digging on the south side of their houses in case she had cursed them too, she would surely realise.” He spread his hands, fighting the burning sense of frustration and powerlessness in his gut. “Kelarahel has found nothing. But what can this lord do? If his people learned a witch had caused one of your clan to sicken and die, would they seek out the witch? Or would they shelter her?”

  Saana looked like she’d been slapped. “This man thought your people hated witches.”

  “We do hate witches,” Daimon said glumly. “But we also hate Raiders, and Raiders are here. Some of this lord’s people do not resent your presence, but some still mutter against you. If they saw a way to be rid of you, without having to take up arms themselves…” He shook his head. It felt like a betrayal of his people to utter such words, but if all lowborn could be trusted to behave honourably there would be no need for sars in the first place.

  “This man’s people are not all good-behaved, either,” Saana admitted heavily. “Today Nasjuk struck one of yours. He believes we should not be peaceful, we should take as we want.” She sighed. “He is a fool, and now in your cells, but Tjakorshi have a saying: what one fool says, ten others are thinking.”

  “That is a wise saying,” Daimon agreed. “This man Nasjuk: you think the cells will make him wiser?”

  “No,” Saana snorted. “The Hornsounder yelling at him may. She is his grandmother,” she elaborated, and Daimon winced. The old woman struck him as formidable, despite only having seen her in passing. While he sometimes lay awake at night dearly wishing he had an older relative to seek guidance from, he had to admit there was something gloriously freeing about not having someone looking over his shoulder, correcting him at every turn.

  “We cannot rely on the Hornsounder to convince all your people,” he told Saana. “And although Aftak seeks to ease the concerns of this lord’s folk, not all will listen. Working together in the fields or on the wall can lead to as much ill feeling as good, this lord suspects. We need something else, something to bring our peoples together, so those who harbour such thoughts begin to lose them.”

  “This man agrees,” Saana said slowly. “Do you know what?”

  Daimon was struck once more by her size. She was of a height with him, and he was tall, but while he was slender Saana was broad, with a thick waist and wide hips. It wasn’t just the bulk of her furs, either: he was sure that even out of them, she’d have the same aura of solid strength.

  “Blackcreek?” Saana said, and he realised he’d stared a little too long without speaking.

  “As it happens,” he said, embarrassment giving way to inspiration, “this lord would speak to his steward first, but he may have had an idea.”

  SAANA

  “CHARA STILL CANNOT recall what the man who directed her to the forest looked like?” Blackcreek asked. They were standing at the stronghouse gates, looking at the main square, where a crudely man-shaped effigy of branches and olds reeds was being raised. It was at least twice as tall as Saana, with two hornlike branches protruding from its head.

  “She cannot,” Saana replied. “It was raining, and she was so glad to receive an answer that she hurried on her way. Besides,” she added, “she says you all look the same.”

  Blackcreek turned her towards her, brows lowered and mouth open to protest, and Saana bit down on her smile. “This man apologises. That was a poor joke.” To change the subject, she gestured towards the preparations in the square. “What is this?”

  “The Festival of Life,” Blackcreek replied, after a pause that left Saana in little doubt he was not at all certain she’d been joking. “When we celebrate the life to come, and our hopes for a good growing season. The lowborn burn the Wooden Man”—he pointed at the shape of branches—“we eat and drink, there is the Great Game, and…” He trailed off, looking thoughtful.

  “And?” Saana prompted him.

  “And usually, we trade with the mountain folk,” Daimon finished. “They bring pelts, and we trade them salt and fish oil. But they have not come this year.”

  “Do they come every year?” Saana asked.

  “Every year this lord has been alive,” Daimon replied, nodding. “And before, too. This lord has asked: no one can remember a year when they did not come. It is troubling.” He nodded towards a woman raising a length of wood into place. Saana had seen her before; she had different features to most other inhabitants of Black Keep, and wore distinctive jewellery of wooden beads. “Amonhuhe was once of their people, and she has spoken of her concern.”

  Saana digested this. What would have happened if these mountain folk had come to Black Keep and found the Brown Eagle clan? Would they have allied with the Naridans and taken up arms? Would they have had sufficient numbers to drive her people out? Had Blackcreek hoped for this? No, surely not, else why tell her now? They could just be late, after all.

  “And what of this ‘Great Game’?” she asked instead.

  “Another amusement of the lowborn. Our hale menfolk divide into two teams, selected by a leader, and each team has three balls of cloth. They start at either end of the town, then compete to get all three balls into a barrel where the other team started from.” He shook his head. “It would seem to favour the brutish, but the quick can be just as effective.”

  Saana looked at him in surprise. “Favour the brutish? They…” She didn’t know the Naridan word for “wrestle”, if they even had one, but it was the closest she could come. “They fight, but as friends?”

  “Sometimes not so friendly,” Daimon admitted. “They are not supposed to actually fight, but there are few rules as to how the ball can or cannot end up in the barrel. No weapons are allowed, of course, and if one man injures another to the point he cannot work a field then the man who caused the injury must do the work instead.” He looked back at her. “Do you not have any such tradition?”

  “We fight as friends, one against one,” Saana told him. “Try to throw or trip. We have foot races. We see who can sail fastest.” She looked at the square, trying to envisage all the men of Black Keep engaged in one mass brawl, and winced inwardly at the thought. And they called her people savages! “Nothing like… that.”

  Daimon nodded slowly.

  “This lord spoke yesterday of an idea he’d had.”

  Saana eyed him with disbelief as understanding dawned. “You would pit our peoples against each other?”

  “Against each other?” Daimon smiled and looked back at the square. “No. No, not at all.”

  IT WAS PAST midday, and the square was full. The Thane of Black Keep announced the leaders of the teams, and Daimon had called forth Yaro the fisherman, father of Faaz the stable boy, and Gador the smith. Saana appraised them. Yaro was leather-skinned and wiry, whereas Gador’s shoulders and arms boasted hulking power. She knew which she’d back in a wrestling contest, but was equally sure which would win a foot race.

  Daimon flipped a piece of wood charred at one end, which was the end that landed pointing at Yaro. The fisherman nodded and turned to the assembled crowd of Black Keep men.

  “Samul!”

  There was a general cheer, and Samul the carpenter pushed forward. He was near as tall as Daimon, and more heavily set. He stood next to Yaro, and the fisherman turned to Gador to invite him to make his pick.

  Gador scratched his chin, as though thinking. Then he raised his voice into a bellow.

  “Tsennan!”

  There was a moment’s shocked silence. Then Tsennan Jelemaszhin, known as Longjaw, seventeen summers old and probably the biggest of the Brown Eagle clan since the death of Ristjaan the Cleaver, walked to stand at Gador’s side.

  Shouting filled the air, and continued even when Daimon Blackcreek raised both his hands for silence. It wasn’t until his expression darken
ed and he placed one hand on the grip of his longblade that the townsfolk quietened.

  “Yaro,” Blackcreek said, “you wish to object?”

  “He’s a Raider, lord!” the fisherman stammered. He sounded so outraged he could barely get his words out.

  “Aye, he is.” Gador looked up at Longjaw, who towered above him. “He’s also the biggest here, and he’s on s’man’s team now!”

  Yaro and Samul turned to Blackcreek, their expressions beseeching. Daimon shrugged.

  “You may pick any of the Brown Eagle clan who will play for you, Yaro.”

  “Lord,” Yaro bowed low. “With respect, you never said the Raiders were playing.”

  “You never asked,” Daimon replied. “Gador did. Of course, this lord understands if you do not wish to pick them, and he will not make you do so.”

  Saana saw the fisherman’s eyes flicker back and forth between his fellow countrymen and the clan. It didn’t take a witch to work out that a team consisting only of Naridans would be significantly smaller than one containing Tjakorshi, both physically and in terms of sheer numbers. Which was, of course, exactly what Blackcreek had counted on. Saana had to give the boy his due, he knew his people. It seemed that winning Black Keep’s “Great Game” was something to brag about all the way to the next festival, and the Naridans would use practically any trick they could get away with.

  Yaro hurried over to her, with Samul in tow.

  “You speak our tongue, yes?”

  She nodded. “This man does.”

  Yaro licked his lips uncertainly. “If s’man picks your men, will you tell them what he needs them to do?”

  Saana shrugged. “Your thane explained the rules to this man, and she has told her clan. They already know.”

  Yaro shook his head in irritation. “Yes, but s’man’s going to need to tell his team what to do, how we’re going to win. Will you tell them that?”

  “No.”

  Yaro opened his mouth angrily.

  “Unless you pick this man,” Saana added, jabbing herself in the chest with her thumb. “Then your team is her team.”

  “Women can’t play!” Samul objected from behind Yaro.

  Saana drew herself up to her full height and looked him in the eye. “If enemies attack this town, Samul of Black Keep, this man will pick up her axe and fight them alongside you. She thinks she can put a ball in a barrel with you.”

  Samul and Yaro looked at each other, then turned away. She caught fragments of their muttered words to each other:

  “… fucking Raiders…” ,

  “… unnatural big, though…”

  “… can’t trust…”

  “… been working with two of them, they seem sound…”

  They appeared to come to a consensus. Yaro turned back to her and, with an expression of extreme apprehension, raised his hand to point at her.

  “Chief Saana!”

  Saana smiled as she walked with them to the centre of the square, and didn’t bother to hide it from Daimon Blackcreek’s disapproving expression. He wasn’t the only one who’d had a plan for how this would go.

  EVRAM

  THE CALL OF silver trumpets sent Evram scrambling to his small window. After a lengthy interrogation by Sar Omet he’d been ensconced in an empty servant’s chamber, where he’d been effectively held prisoner, albeit with adequate food, water, firewood, and fresh bedding. However, Evram had spent most of his life outdoors, and the sunshine from the narrow window had been just enough to remind him what he was no longer experiencing, somewhat akin to a drowning man trying to breathe through a half-blocked reed. The days had run past, almost blurring into one, and Evram had got used to the rhythm and sounds of Darkspur.

  The trumpets were new.

  He couldn’t see much over the roofs, but could hear commotion and see townsfolk running out of their homes and into the street. Was something happening at the town gate? He stayed at the window, transfixed despite the awkward angle he had to crane at to see out properly, for the window was high, and Evram was not tall.

  Time passed. The tendons in the backs of his legs began to burn, but Evram stayed where he was. He could see some sort of movement between the houses, but couldn’t make out what was going on. There did seem to be a lot of people, though…

  Then the first dragon stomped into view, and Evram’s breath caught in his throat.

  It was a huge beast, easily as large as the biggest of Lord Blackcreek’s stable, its great brow horns banded with gold. Its plumage was a blue so deep it was nearly black, save where it caught the afternoon sun, and on its longer, brighter neck quills. The townsfolk scattered in front of it and bowed deeply as it approached: not the neck-and-shoulders bow of a lowborn to a sar, nor the waist-deep bow of a servant to their thane, but on one knee in the mud with their heads lowered. Evram didn’t need to understand the language of the trumpets carried by the two heralds that trotted alongside the dragon, or be able to hear the words they shouted between their blasts of music. The bows told him everything.

  The armoured man sitting atop the huge dragon, his face obscured by helmet and war mask, was High Marshal Kaldur Brightwater, Southern Marshal of Narida: the most powerful man south of the River Idra and, along with his fellow High Marshals, second only to the God-King Himself.

  Brightwater’s retinue was strung out behind him; perhaps twenty sars on dragons, and then rank upon rank of armsmen tramping in their wake. Evram watched the column approach the guardhouse at the base of the rock until the narrow window hid them from his vision. He had no idea how many men a High Marshal would usually travel with, but this was surely a small army.

  A scraping noise behind him alerted him to the bar across the outside of his door being drawn back, and the door swung open to reveal two guards in Darkspur livery. The taller, who’d most often been the one bringing Evram his meals, jerked his head.

  “His Lordship wants to see you.”

  Evram nodded, and hobbled across the stone floor. His blisters had healed, more or less, but there was a twinge in his left hip that hadn’t existed before his journey here. His body was getting old, he reflected ruefully.

  “You said His Lordship wants to see this man,” he said as they walked down the windowless, torch-lit passage towards stone steps leading upwards into the main body of the stronghouse. “That would be Lord Darkspur?” The Thane of Darkspur had never summoned Evram; Evram presumed Sar Omet had passed on their conversation, but he’d expected to give an account to Lord Darkspur too.

  “Lord Darkspur, and the High Marshal,” the taller guard said, and Evram’s stomach tightened. Him, appear in front of one of the most powerful men in the kingdom? There was a hint of tension in the guards’ faces, too. It seemed the appearance of such a large fighting force on their doorstep had unnerved them.

  “Do yourself a favour, Blackcreeker,” the shorter guard told him. “Make sure you sound convincing if His Lordship tells you to repeat to the High Marshal what you told Sar Omet.”

  “This man can only speak the truth,” Evram replied. His apprehension twisted his words, and they came out rather snappier than he’d have chosen to address two armed men flanking him.

  “Best hope the truth’s good enough, then,” the taller one commented. “If the High Marshal thinks His Lordship’s wasted his time then he won’t be pleased, and if Lord Darkspur thinks you’ve made him look a fool, you won’t be going home.”

  Evram’s stomach tightened even more. Should he change his story? But in what way? If Marshal Brightwater was here because of a message Thane Darkspur had sent, presumably he believed Raiders had taken Black Keep. Should Evram claim there were more Raiders, to make the threat sound greater? But what if they rode to Black Keep and found that he’d lied? No, he’d stick to the truth, and hope it served him well. Marshal Brightwater had been appointed by the God-King, so although he was only a man he had been raised to his office by divinity. That surely reflected well on his wisdom and judgement.

  The stairs
up from the servants’ quarters were steep and winding, and Evram’s hip was hurting by the time they reached an age-darkened wooden door. The taller guard pushed it open and ushered him through, and he found himself standing in the largest roofed space he’d ever set foot in.

  The Grand Hall of Darkspur was a single chamber that had to have been as large, and nearly as high, as the entire Black Keep. The great flagstones beneath Evram’s feet had been polished smooth from decades if not centuries of wear, and the walls were hung with vast sheets of paper taller than him, covered with intricately detailed paintings of battle scenes, or events from myth and legend. The ceiling was supported by four huge tree trunks rising up from the floor, hung with various shields and weapons, perhaps of defeated foes. Servants were bustling about, hastily lighting torches, scattering fresh petals over mats of woven rushes, and performing other menial tasks.

  “You!”

  At the sound of the voice, he instinctively imitated the guards beside him as they bowed deeply. When he straightened again, he saw the person who’d spoken—the Thane of Darkspur.

  Odem Darkspur was a big man, nearly a head taller than Evram and broad of shoulder, with a wide face and deep-set eyes, and prominent streaks of grey in his long, dark hair. He was wearing a thane’s robe in brown and gold, the sleeves double-pleated and falling to his wrist, and its heavily embroidered hemline brushing the tops of his boots. His face was creased with laugh lines, but his current expression suggested a readiness to chew through oak.Sar Omet stood at his cousin’s left shoulder. At first glance, Evram wouldn’t have placed them as related had he not known, although there was a certain similarity around the jaw and chin now he looked more closely.

  “You are the Blackcreek man?” Thane Odem demanded. His gaze rested only briefly on Evram before it darted off again, distracted.

  “Yes, lord,” Evram replied, ducking his head. You couldn’t be too careful with thanes.