He threw the spear over to him, head facing down. Whitey failed to catch it and it struck him lightly on his side before bouncing on the floor. Whitey whimpered in affected pain before picking it up and nodding a grudging thank you to Cygan.
Then the Malaac came again.
This time they did briefly breach the defences; it was at a place nowhere near Cygan, though, so he told Whitey to stay at his post while he ran towards the source of the shouting and tumult. Two men lay dead and a whole section of wooden stakes and posts lay scattered, leaving a gap through which a dozen Malaac were trying to force full access to the camp. Holding their ground, another dozen men pushed back at them, hacking with swords, spears, bone knives, whatever they had to hand. They were up against naked tooth and claw, though, and the Malaac were finding their quarry, armoured or not; one of the dead men had had his head torn off with plain brute force, and all of the close defenders had been wounded somewhere or other. Cygan rushed to join them, thrusting his spear into the unprotected side of one of the attackers; other men soon followed and gradually the Malaac were forced back beyond the defensive perimeter, where they seemed happy to call off the assault for now and melted back into the water.
As the defenders started to hastily repair the gap in the stockade, Cygan sought out Dumnekavax.
‘They are getting closer with each attack and their numbers seem plentiful as it is,’ he said. ‘We will not be able to hold them till dawn. I have brought men and equipment here at great risk to myself, as you asked me to. Surely the time to use it is near. Listen to the children.’ Close by for the first time there was genuine terror among the little ones; many were crying and screaming as the older women struggled to comfort them. Their fear had even transmitted itself to the goats tethered nearby; they, too, were bleating in distress. The defenders from both the Marshes and Sketta were glancing nervously behind them at the cacophony.
‘I will give the signal when it is time,’ the Elder replied. ‘Listen for the drums; the drums will say when it is time.’
Cygan clenched his jaw. ‘Surely the time is the next attack.’
‘And what if we light the oil and it does not deter them?’ Dumnekavax was not backing down. ‘We still have hours to hold out against them without any recourse other than our own sinews, muscle and obdurate will. While hope in this plan remains we will be so much the stronger for it, but take that hope away and our strength will wilt. Wait for the drums, Cygan. This attack is far stronger than the others we have faced before. Wait for the drums and hope Cygannan is there for us.’
Cygan returned to his post, shaking his head. He passed his wife who looked nervously at him. She had been using her sling to good effect that night, but her missiles were running low and the number of the Malaac was not diminishing.
It was quiet for a while allowing things to calm down inside the camp. The night passed; the moon started to sink a little in the sky. This was the longest gap between attacks yet. People started to hope – perhaps the Malaac had given up? Even if they had stopped for that night only, it would be some relief, and dawn was now only a couple of hours away. Even Cygan started to feel lulled; maybe the oil would not be needed at all.
Then a shrill scream pierced the night air and hope dissipated like smoke from the fires. The Malaac, showing far more cunning and guile than anyone had given them credit for, had emerged silently from the water and had crawled on their bellies up to a point of the fence at the opposite side of the camp from Cygan and Whitey. Then, in a coordinated attack, the front rank assailed the fence itself, tearing posts from the ground, pulling up the stakes and hurling them at the stunned defenders. Heedless of any damage they might receive, they succeeded in opening a large gap in the fence in less than a minute, and then the Malaac waiting behind them – and there were at least a hundred – overwhelmed the hapless humans and flooded into the camp biting, rending and devouring any creature of flesh – man, woman, child or beast – that they found in their way.
The first Cygan knew of the situation came with the screaming of the children and the cessation of the drums. The Malaac were past the fires at the heart of the camp and were attacking the most vulnerable among them. The elders and children were having to bear the brunt of the assault undefended.
‘Stay here! They may attack elsewhere!’ he yelled at Whitey and the other Sketta men and ran past the fire brandishing his spear. Whitey was non-plussed; before him the lake was silent while behind him the sounds of terror and struggle assailed his ears. He wandered from his post; it was difficult to see exactly what was happening but he could see many silhouettes, dark figures engaged in a deadly ballet, and not all of them were human.
‘Uba take me for the fool I am,’ Whitey hissed to himself and started to walk towards the fire spear held before him. He was learning a lot about himself tonight and very shortly would find out a whole lot more.
Breaking past the fire came two tiny children. At least one was a girl – the high-pitched screaming was unmistakeable – but he could tell little more about them because of the darkness. Then, just seconds behind them, came one of the Malaac. The ones he had seen before had been man-sized or a little smaller, but this one was huge, well over six feet tall, its scales glistening red from the flames, its mouth open showing a row of sharp white teeth. It was fairly bounding in its pursuit of its prey and would be on them within a trice.
Whitey realised that he did not want to see what it would do to them.
Without thinking and with a speed he did not know he possessed Whitey flung himself between pursuer and pursued. He dropped his spear as it was a hindrance to him and did little more than block the Malaac off, offering his own flesh up to the beast rather than that of the children. It was an offer the creature gladly accepted. He felt it sink its teeth into his already wounded shoulder and felt needle-sharp claws stab through his leather tunic to prick his flesh. He could tell it was a lot stronger than he and could do little else than fall on to the floor, trying to protect himself as the monster bit him again and again. He finally managed to get some purchase with his feet and used it to try and roll away from his attacker, but it clung to him fiercely. He cried out as its claws started to draw blood on his torso, but, he was partly successful as he started to roll along the ground, albeit in a different direction to the one he intended.
However, his foe rolled with him, gripping him like a vice. It stunk of peat, slime and bog plants and its scales were so slick he could not grab it to try and push it away from him. They rolled over and over until Whitey felt something strike his leg. He twisted his neck for a better look and saw what it was. It was a log from the fire.
The Gods throw me to the furnace! he thought in a flash. I am going to die anyway. And so, rather than check the momentum he had gained in their downhill roll, he carried on until his back lay on smouldering bricks of peat and his lungs were full of heat and acrid smoke. He smelled his hair burning but the Malaac was still on him. Finally he felt his clothes start to smoulder as the fire started to take a hold. He had been inches from death many times in his life but never had it felt so inevitable, so unavoidable and so inescapable as it did now. He relaxed his muscles and stopped fighting. He could almost see Xhenafa come towards him, withered hand outstretched ready to lead him before the Gods and a judgement that he knew would not be kind.
There was a hand, two of them in fact, but they were large, strong and very, very human. And they were pulling him away from the fire and patting down the flames on his clothes. He looked up and saw a powerful, dark Marsh Man staring at him with blank impassive eyes. He pointed to his chest.
‘Fasneterax,’ he said.
‘Er ... Whit ... Barris,’ he replied.
Fasneterax pointed at the two small children, who had stopped running and were standing a couple of feet away staring at him. ‘Cygan’s,’ he said.
‘Cygan’s?’ said Whitey. ‘Oh, I see.’ He realised he had never thought of the Marsh Man as having children before. He had thought tha
t they had little more to concern them in life other than getting drunk on their infamous plant rotgut and fighting each other.
‘Cygan’s,’ he said thoughtfully, then suddenly felt the pain in his shoulder. ‘The Malaac?’ he asked. ‘Where is the Malaac’
Fasneterax stepped away to show Whitey what his stout frame had been concealing. Behind him a large dark shape lay spread out on the ground. It was still and had a spear jutting out from between whatever it called its shoulder blades. But that was not all, for the lifeless figure was on fire. Flame licked up and down its full length, spitting and popping as it did so, and from its corpse a putrid smell arose.
‘Malaac, burn,’ Fasneterax said laconically.
Whitey got to his knees. His chest had been scored by claws and a searing pain shot through his wounded shoulder. He felt a little faint and swayed unevenly, having to steady himself by placing his hand upon the ground.
Then Cygan emerged from the darkness spear in hand, with black ichor staining his clothes. He and Fasneterax spoke briefly after which he looked at Whitey with some surprise. Whitey, however, was oblivious to his surroundings as his nausea finally overcame him and he fell in a dead faint, his fingers twitching nervelessly as a thin stream of spittle ran from his lips.
‘The poison of the Malaac,’ Fasneterax said. ‘It is what killed Tegavenek.’
‘I will see the elf sage looks at him. It appears I now owe him a debt.’
Cygan was about to speak further, but then a Malaac came hurtling out of the darkness and charged straight at Fasneterax. The man pulled his knife to defend himself as Cygan tripped the thing with his spear. This gave Fasneterax time to dive on to the thing and bury his knife into its neck. Other men ran to join him and help finish the creature off.
‘Enough of this,’ Cygan said to himself. ‘The drums are silent; that is signal enough for me.’ He went over to his arrows stuck in the ground, pulled out one, then as he looked at the exhausted line of men trying frantically to keep the Malaac away from the children he put the arrow into the fire. The cloth burned immediately and with an expression of satisfaction he fitted it to the bow and sent the arrow flying straight into the midriff of a Malaac standing over one of the Sketta men’s prone form. The creature barely seemed to notice at first as it leaned over the man ready to tear out his throat. Then the oil in which he was coated finally caught and rippling waves of yellow-blue flame enveloped his entire body in seconds. Confused, enraged and panicked, the Malaac turned to bolt back into the lake. Running blindly, he felled one of his fellows, transferring some of the fire on to him where it, too, ignited like dry tinder.
‘Burn them!’ Cygan called at the top of his lungs. ‘Burn them all!’
The two Malaac, now little more than flaming torches, dived into the lake’s still waters, no doubt expecting to find sanctuary there. Instead, as they plunged under the surface it was as a candle thrown on to a bale of dry straw. The lake, placid, gentle and calm for all of Cygan’s life, metamorphosed before his very eyes into a lake of fire, the sort that he heard surrounded the lake of the eye, the home of the Malaac.
Not that the Malaac here seemed to like what was happening to them, whatever its familiarity. The defenders had caught on and flaming arrows now rained on to the lake, sending the entire perimeter of the island into a burning conflagration, a circle of fire. On land, people wielded flaming brands taken from the fires at their foes, keeping them at bay. If they attacked they ran the risk of being set aflame, and if they fled to jump into the lake they ran the risk of the same thing happening. One by one they seemed to chance the second option. A hundred Malaac became eighty, then seventy, then fifty, as they ran into the flaming lake, hissing and shrieking in anger, pain and fear. Emboldened, the defenders hit at them with spear, stone and arrow, a hail of missiles forcing them backwards, out of the fortified perimeter on to the tiny strip of land banking on to the lake. The Malaac looked at the grim-faced men coming towards them with a new resolve; they looked at the lake and, finally, the remaining twenty or so jumped as one into the flames. Most caught fire before vanishing under water, scarred and wounded, the natural slime enabling them to swim, breathe and keep warm partly stripped from them. In the days to come many Malaac bodies were found drifting against the shores of the lake or floating in the adjoining swamps and rivers, to which they had fled before being overcome by wounds, exhaustion or cold.
The lake continued to burn long after the Malaac had gone, turning the island into some kind of fiery underworld suspended between the lands of the Gods and the lands of men. Despite the best efforts of the defenders, children had been killed or taken, as had a couple of their nurses and members of the Circle of the Wise, whose drums, their skins now torn and useless, lay scattered next to the fire where they had been played.
By dawn the island was a scene of devastation. Smoke rose from the dead fires and from the blackened bodies of the dead Malaac, who lay across the land like a dark malevolent fungus. The bodies of the human dead were laid next to each other: eleven men including two of the contingent from the north; five women including three of the elderly nurses who had flung themselves at the Malaac to protect their charges, and finally those they couldn’t protect – five sad little children shrouded by blankets. More, though, were missing; their numbers were yet to be known.
Many more were wounded, including Dumnekavax the Elder. Terath and Dirthen went among them, attempting to help with their magic. Terath seemed optimistic that they could neutralise the Malaac’s bite at least. Cygan ensured that Whitey was among the first to be seen, though he had not yet regained consciousness. Amid the tears and wailing of the bereaved he felt it was his duty to tell everyone that the Malaac could still return the following night, and so those fit to fight rebuilt the defences and waited, spears in hand, for the next attack as the moon again rose before them.
But that night the Malaac did not return.
Nor the night after that, or the two nights following.
By the fifth day Dumnekavax was well enough to order the rebuilding of the houses destroyed to prepare the defences. This, of course, included Cygan’s. He also called for a meeting at the great house to discuss the next step in the campaign to drive these creatures back to the place they had come from. As some rebuilt, others visited the fish traps, which were now chock-full. A feast to thank the Gods was to be prepared, for, despite the death, injuries and destruction wrought upon them, one thing was becoming patently clear. The sacrifice of Cerren and their own doughty resistance had not been in vain.
The village had been saved.
21
When it came to battle Esric Calvannen held strongly to two beliefs. Firstly, that troops should not be committed to the field unless victory was all but certain, and secondly that a goodly portion of any conflict was won and lost in the mind. Psychology was all important, and if a fighting man believed in his inevitable triumph even before swords were drawn, then triumph was probably inevitable. However, as he lined up to face Baron Garal’s rebels across a muddy field not less than three miles from the enemy’s home town and estate, he realised that in this case neither of his beliefs had been adhered to. Firstly, victory here was not certain at all, far from it in fact. Both lines of troops numbered at just over a thousand. He had the advantage in heavy cavalry and experienced regular troops, but they were superior in light cavalry and archers. His men sported contingents from Barons Josar, Spalforth, his own men of Sketta and some lesser barons, as well as a hundred of Emeric’s knights. They had Garal’s own men, some southern mercenaries with olive skin and wicked curved blades, and Arshuman reinforcements including some two hundred light cavalry. Though the heavy ground would do them no favours, it was still a lot more than he had been expecting.
Secondly, Garal, a cunning man of mixed Tanarese and Arshuman ancestry, had already inflicted two attacks on his men’s psyche. Last night a group of his men had silently infiltrated Esric’s camp. Their target was Mikel the mage and, although their assas
sination attempt had been foiled, he had taken a nasty blow to the head, leaving him groggy, semi-conscious and in no condition to fight. The other blow had taken place but a few minutes ago. It turned out that Garal had captured one of Esric’s second cousins, a callow young man named Andrean who was about sixteen years old. The poor boy was paraded in front of Garal’s troops by the Baron himself, in full view of the watching Esric.
‘Behold!’ Garal had shouted. ‘One of the Calvannen whelps! How he has snivelled and begged for his life the last two days. I ask all of you,’ he called out to his men, ‘what ransom shall we ask for him? A hundred crowns? A thousand? Or would we rather spit on Calvannen gold and send him to the furnace?’
He cupped his hand to his ear as a thousand voices all shouted at once. After a couple of minutes of this charade he spoke again. ‘Very well, I accept your judgement; we will get Calvannen’s gold the hard way.’ With that he cut the poor boy’s throat, letting his body pitch forward on to the wet grass. After a minute or so of watching the boy twitch feebly as he died, Garal opened his breeches and emptied his bladder on to the boy’s corpse.
Esric could hear the rage and anger of the men behind him, not just at Garal, but at his own reticence to do anything to prevent the execution happening. Finally, he turned and addressed them.
‘He is trying to goad us! He wants us to charge his lines without thinking and swing our weapons with anger and not precision! Do not fall for his tricks! Win this battle and I swear to you his punishment will be as brutal as that meted out to any traitor, high born or low! Your generals have their orders. Follow them and we shall spend the evening on Garal’s estate, eating his food and drinking his wine under the gaze of his own severed head. Trumpeters, sound the advance. Let us give this arrogant little upstart the justice he so richly deserves!’
The Forgotten War Page 104