by Darius Hinks
Finavar slumped against the tree and watched them approach.
As they thundered by, they hurled javelins into the crowds of daemons, dropping several of them to the ground.
The javelins thudded into necks and backs and, before the monsters could rise again, the riders of Cavaroc circled back, drew swords and hacked off their heads.
As they sliced and lunged, one of the riders spotted Finavar leaning against the tree and steered her horse through the spray towards him.
There was a look of pity in her eyes as she took in Finavar’s bloody, emaciated body, but there was no sign of the fear he had induced in the other warrior. She slowed her mount and stared at him.
‘This is not the time to ponder your next rhyme, poet,’ she said. Her steed was hopping from hoof to hoof, clearly eager to be away and Finavar sensed the rider was of a similar mindset.
‘I need your help,’ he said quickly, striding through the water towards her and pulling his stolen robes tighter.
She laughed. It was a bitter sound. ‘It seems that everyone needs our aid today.’
Finavar sensed anger and possibly despair hidden beneath her strident tone, but he did not have time to ask the cause. ‘I need to reach whoever is leading this army,’ he said. ‘I have news that could change their plans. News of a traitor.’
‘Plans?’ She rocked back in her saddle with laughter and was unable to speak for a moment. ‘Look around you, songsmith, do you see any sign of plans?’
Finavar studied the crowds battling through the valley. The asrai armies were fanned out around the foot of the waterfall, massed on either bank of the river and trying to push back the seething hosts that were shambling towards them out of the darkness. Their ranks were disintegrating though, and it was not because of the daemons.
‘The water’s rising,’ he muttered.
The rider’s laughter settled into a pained grin. ‘They have us cornered like rats, stranger. They have drawn us in and then dammed the valley. We’re both dammed and damned.’ She laughed bitterly, twisting the horse’s mane between her fingers and staring at the steep slopes that surrounded them.
Finavar shook his head. ‘Then whoever leads you should call a retreat. You can’t just stay here and drown.’
‘Retreat where?’ She glared at him.
Finavar looked up the slopes on either side of the valley. Daemonic shapes were tumbling towards them in every direction, and they were moving in shocking numbers. Any attempt to climb out of the valley would be hopeless.
‘Who leads this army?’ he asked again.
‘Prince Haldus.’ Her voice was full of scorn. ‘At least, he is the one who summoned us into the trap, claiming to speak with the authority of the Mage Queen. Who leads us now, I’d struggle to say. Haldus made his escape just before it was too late, claiming he would return with help. It seems he had no stomach for the fight.’
Finavar recalled the hawk rider and his heart sank as he recalled the last time Prince Haldus had led them to war. Then he shook his head. ‘Whatever else he might be, Prince Haldus is no coward.’
‘Well, he must be showing his bravery elsewhere then.’ The rider seemed to regret her words as soon as she spoke them, but did not take them back.
Finavar looked at the largest concentration of asrai soldiers – the armoured ranks of footsoldiers from the east. ‘And what of Lord Findol? Is he leading the army?’
The rider took a deep breath that seemed to calm her. Then she nodded and held out a hand to Finavar. ‘My name is Calepine,’ she said with a pained smile. ‘If you had met me before today, my manners would not have been so rough and I would not have spoken so poorly of our kin.’
Finavar gave her a cautious nod and climbed up beside her on the horse’s back.
She pointed her javelin towards the point where the fighting was most fierce, right in the centre of the valley.
‘Yes. If anyone is leading us all to our deaths, it is Lord Findol. I think that, if he weren’t about to drown, he might have even delayed our defeat. He’s almost as shocking as the daemons.’ She peered into the gloom with a bemused expression on her face. ‘He and the other nobles have sworn an oath to Prince Haldus that they will defend the Crowfoot Falls.’
She turned her horse around and sent it racing after the others who were already vanishing into the shifting dark. She waved at the noble who was leading the riders. He was clad in the same pale colours as the others, but he wore a tall leather helmet, topped with a plume of white horsehair. ‘Even my own liege, Lord Edrael, swore that he would wait for Prince Haldus to return. Despite everything we have been through. Haldus said that the falls guard a treasure too important to be lost, but what difference does it make if the whole forest is lost? It is all meaningless now.’ She glanced at the countless shapes gathering on the slopes above them. ‘We could not leave now if we wished to.’
She glanced back at Finavar and spoke in a softer voice. ‘What news did you have for Haldus?’
Finavar shook his head. ‘It can wait.’
A couple of the other riders looked suspiciously at Finavar as Calepine rejoined them, but as they continued on their way, they quickly returned their gaze to the toiling mass ahead of them. Finavar guessed that they had bigger concerns than a starving bard wearing clothes that were too big for him.
He was about to ask another question when the spellweavers’ magic flashed again.
He cursed and shielded his eyes, but his rescuer was undaunted – driving her horse on through the river as though nothing had happened.
‘What is your name, son of Loec?’ she called, struggling to be heard over the noise of the waterfall. ‘Who are your kin? Could I take you to them?’
‘I’m Finavar of Locrimere,’ he called back, but as the words left his lips they felt like a lie. His home was long gone and his memories of the place felt like they belonged to someone else.
‘Ha,’ she replied, with a gruff laugh. ‘That makes sense. One of Lord Beldeas’s refugees.’ The disdain in her voice was clear, but she quickly suppressed it and regained her softer tones. ‘Whatever happens today, I can still behave with a little good grace. Let me deliver you to your kin, stranger, if that’s what you desire.’
Finavar hesitated. What would his kinfolk have heard? Would they know of his supposed betrayal? Surely they would. Banishment to the Wildwood was a rare punishment. For a moment he thought of saying no and making his way alone, but then a spark of mischief flickered in his soul. He pictured himself side-by-side with Caorann and the others, dancing and joking as they did in their youth. He recalled the guile, grace and wit they had shown back then. He smiled, forming the unshakable belief that there was nothing he could not do, or overcome, with his friends by his side.
‘Yes,’ he replied, still smiling. ‘Yes, that is what I wish.’
Calepine looked confused by his smile, but nodded all the same. She made a clicking sound with her tongue and her horse bolted away from the other riders, pounding through the quickly rising river and filling the air with spray. She made for the largest gathering of soldiers – the ones who were rushing up the valley towards the oncoming host of daemons.
Finavar was no rider and, though he did not want to appear a fool, he was forced to clutch tightly onto her back as she lowered her head and drove the horse into a gallop.
They sped through the ranks of soldiers and Finavar had to cry out to be heard. ‘What has become of the forest?’ He recalled the grotesque sights he had seen on the other side of the dark paths.
‘The great realms are dying,’ she replied, speaking in hollow, flat tones. ‘The lords of the inner realms have failed us all and Prince Haldus has called on those who remain for aid. We all thought him our last hope, but this valley of death looks set to be his epitaph. And ours.’
She nodded to the line of riders they had left behind. ‘My Lord Edrael has spared what strength he has, though the gods know how pressed our own defences are. The south of the forest is more corrupted tha
n the rest. And we have the whole winter ahead of us. I do not even know what this treasure is that we’re guarding.’
She turned her gaze back to the ranks of armoured footsoldiers up ahead of them. ‘Lord Findol also answered the call, dragging his men away from the safety of their briar-rock halls at the request of Prince Haldus.’ She waved her javelin at other standards jutting from the crowds of soldiers, naming dozens of great lords and ladies of the forest who had abandoned the defences of their own realms to join Prince Haldus. It was a roll-call of heroes from every realm of the forest, but one of the names in particular leapt out at Finavar. ‘Mälloch the Elder is with the other wood-seers,’ said the rider, looking up at the luminous spellweavers. They were still drifting, jewel-like in front of the falls and Finavar thought he could just make out the Lord of the Fiùrann in his long, bearskin robes.
Despite the mayhem that surrounded him, Finavar felt another rush of excitement. He was sure that Mälloch knew he was no villain. The ancient noble had even attempted to defy the wrath of the Enchanter, Prince Elatior. He had to be forced to take him to the Wildwood.
Finavar could feel his old playful nature blossoming in him, like vigour, returning finally to the limbs of a recovering patient. He would prove Mälloch right. Even if just one of his old kinsmen survived he would find a way to turn this battle around.
‘Lord Beldeas,’ said Calepine, after a few minutes, pointing her javelin at a small hill, surrounded by bodies and water and topped by a group of pitiful-looking warriors, huddled beneath the tattered banner of Locrimere.
Finavar glimpsed his former lord, cowering at the top of the hill, his pale, skeletal face contorted by fear as he ordered his guards to stay close. The guards were archers and spearmen and Finavar realised that there were none of his own kind there. He scoured the shadows but could find no sign of wardancers.
Calepine saw his expression and laughed. ‘Your songsmith brothers have clearly found more heroic places to die.’
Finavar nodded. He would not have expected them to cower with Beldeas, but he doubted they intended to die. He was about to ask if Calepine would allow him to join her and the other riders when a familiar face caught his eye.
‘Thank you,’ he said, taking Calepine’s hand, ‘and good luck. This is as good a place as any for me to begin.’
Calepine seemed momentarily lost for words and Finavar realised that the hope burning inside him must be visible in his eyes.
She frowned, clearly confused. ‘I believe the gods do have something else in store for you.’ She hesitated, reluctant to leave, then she shook her head and laughed. ‘The trickster god is in you. You almost had me fooled into thinking we–’
Her words were cut short as the asrai lines buckled under a fresh wave of daemons.
Spears and swords clattered as Lord Beldeas’s guards tried to hold their ground, but the monsters that waded into view drew screams and curses from them.
Finavar jumped lightly from the horse’s back and dashed through the crush of bodies, waving to Calepine as he went.
She lashed out with her spear, skewering a one-eyed hulk that rose up from the throng. Its body was crusted with armour-like plates of bone and its head was topped by a long, crooked horn.
Calepine fought briefly, then turned and rode away, keen to make her final stand with her lord. As she left, Finavar noticed that she had a faint smile on her lips and some of the weariness had left her face.
He sprinted on through the battle. As he ran, he lifted a pair of blades from the corpse of a wardancer and began juggling them from hand to hand.
Just as Calepine left, a new phalanx of armoured warriors rushed to halt the daemons’ progress. Even here, forty feet from the riverbank, the water was knee-high and, as the asrai plunged their glaives into the daemons, there was an explosion of spray.
Finavar lashed out as he ran, severing limbs and slicing faces, but he did not pause. There was a group of figures huddled on another small knoll up ahead, cowering together as water and daemons pressed in on them.
Finavar gave a final bound, over the heads of two struggling figures, and left the water to clamber up the slope.
Hands reached out to help him, but his momentum was enough to reach the summit of the little hill alone.
The hill was surrounded by fallen daemons and, leading the slaughter was a slender figure with a shaven scalp and two ceaselessly whirling blades. Finavar paused to watch her for a moment, smiling to himself.
The wardancer was too lost in her rage to notice him, but the other asrai on the knoll stared at Finavar in shock. The carnage was horrific, but Finavar continued grinning.
Most of the asrai on the hill were too weak or wounded to fight, but a couple of them were attempting to protect the back of the wardancer who was defending them.
Finavar winked at them as he jogged to her side and joined her bloody dance.
The asrai on the hill watched in stunned silence as the two wardancers whirled back and forth, lashing out at the daemons and looping gracefully over the battle. Their movements became faster and more furious, but no less elegant and, after a while, they began to drive the monsters back into the water, shedding limbs and chunks of weaponry as they went.
Finally, the daemons broke ranks and scattered, lurching off in several directions and eliciting a weak cheer from the asrai on the hill.
The female wardancer reeled back and forth for a moment, hacking and stabbing at the struggling shapes that lay all around her. She moved in manic, twitching spasms, as though her body were being jolted around by a powerful storm. Once she had dismembered every pustulant body part she could reach, she whirled around to face Finavar, wearing a wild, rigid stare.
‘I knew you would return,’ she stated flatly, as if they had only been parted for a day. Her words were simple but her head flicked to one side a couple of times as she spoke, jolted by a violent nervous tic.
Finavar winced inwardly as he saw how her edginess had possessed her. He tucked his blades into his belt and threw his arms around her. She continued trembling and fidgeting, but did not push him away, and for a few moments they held each other in silence, deaf to the battle raging around them.
‘I thought perhaps you would have mellowed since I last saw you,’ said Finavar, still grinning. Then he shook his head and laughed. ‘What am I saying? No I didn’t.’
‘I thought perhaps you would have eaten a meal.’ She stared at Finavar’s gaunt features. ‘You look awful.’
He shrugged. ‘My strength has been returned to me, but I don’t think I’ll ever be handsome again.’
Despite her frenetic, nervous movements, Alhena’s reply was deadpan. ‘You were never handsome.’
Finavar frowned, then laughed, overcome by the simple balm of friendship.
Alhena frowned. ‘Your strength was “returned” to you?’
Finavar was about to reply when someone called out his name from the foot of the hill.
The warriors parted to reveal an awestruck youth. Another wardancer and another face from Finavar’s past.
‘Sibaris,’ said Finavar, giving Alhena a surprised, sideways glance.
‘Someone had to look after him,’ she said with a shrug.
Finavar noticed that she was blushing and her tics had become even more pronounced, so he held back the joke that had sprung into his thoughts.
There was a crash and clatter as more daemons tumbled towards the knoll. Sibaris bounded up the slope like an excited pet and joined Finavar and Alhena as they began another brutal display of acrobatics.
Finavar abandoned himself to the glory of the dance in a way that he had never thought possible. A sense of weightlessness overtook him and, as he weaved in and out of the other two dancers his soul flew free of his body, becoming one with the flashing light of his swords. The three of them lifted their voices in unison as they fought, singing a hymn to the glorious cruelty of their lord, the trickster god, Loec.
The dance seemed to take minutes at mos
t, but when it was done, and the daemons had been scattered for a second time, Finavar saw that several hours must have passed. Dawn was looming on the horizon, as though unsure whether to throw light on such a brutal scene.
The three dancers fell, exhausted, to their knees, their muscles aching and their throats raw from singing.
Finavar looked around and saw that, as they had fought, the battle had moved on.
Lord Findol and the other nobles had been driven back by the enemy, and had formed a single, final barrier of spears and glaives, right at the foot of the falls. The flood had risen even higher and in many places the asrai warriors were waist deep in filthy, red water, strewn with the corpses of their kin, daemons and horses.
Finavar’s smile finally fell from his face. The situation was dire. By the time the sun rose they would be drowning; drowning in their thousands.
The other asrai had fled from the hill, leaving just the three wardancers. He looked from Alhena’s taut, bloodstained glare to Sibaris’s childish grin. Even now, with a massacre looming, he could not shake the sense that their moment had come.
He jogged to the top of the hill and saw that they were utterly surrounded. The fierceness of their dance had not driven back the enemy, as he first thought, it had simply bored them. The daemons were now bypassing the hill on their way to the waterfall. The wardancers were on a tiny island of space, surrounded by an ocean of plague-riddled horrors.
As the other two stepped to his side they looked expectantly at him.
Finavar was unaware of them as he stared into the distance. The growing light had revealed a new horror.
‘What in the name of the gods is that?’ he asked, grimacing.
A few miles east of them at the far end of the valley was the blockage that was causing the valley to flood. As weak, grey light washed over the unnaturally gaudy landscape, it revealed that, rather than an outcrop of land, the shape was a vast, spineless mollusc. Its pallid, puckered flesh glistened in the growing light and its face turned to reveal a nest of tentacles that undulated, drifting like grass caught in the breeze. It was the scale of the thing that shocked Finavar most. The monster had blocked the whole width of the valley with its bulk.