A Time of Dread

by John Gwynne

  Sig heard a distant shouted command and the front row of shields dropped as warriors hurled javelins skywards, the iron-tipped shafts arcing high, then thudding to the earth. Sig could almost see the imagined Kadoshim ripped from the sky, imagined the ruin of their fall, the shield wall marching forwards, short-swords stabbing down to finish any survivors as they trampled over the dead and injured.

  Much stays the same, and yet much has changed, since that day at Drassil. Heart and courage, iron and blood is as old as the hills, but we are ever finding new ways to kill our foe. The worry is that they are just as diligent at finding new ways to kill us.

  Sig turned, looking closer to home, and saw a knot of people staring at her: the two score new recruits from Ardain. Mouths were open, expressions a blend of shock and awe.

  They’d been at Dun Seren almost a ten-night now, but this was the first morning that Sig had resumed her duties as sword master of the fortress. The captains of each discipline rotated, so that some would train the warriors at the fortress, while others would lead missions and campaigns out into the Banished Lands against the Kadoshim. It had worked well enough for the past hundred years, keeping all warriors sharp in both training and experience, whether captain, veteran or newcomer.

  ‘Help . . . me,’ a thin, reedy voice wheezed.

  It was Cullen, still flat on his back from where Sig had spun him through the air and winded him.

  ‘You did ask to join in,’ Sig said as she stood over him.

  ‘Thought Tain and Fachen were enough to take the sting out of you,’ he gasped. He tried to sit up, grunted with pain. ‘I was wrong.’

  He tried to sit again, winced again.

  ‘I think you’ve broken my back.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Sig, ‘stop making such a fuss.’ She grabbed hold of his leather jerkin and hoisted him unceremoniously to his feet. He whimpered.

  ‘Bruised a little, maybe,’ Sig conceded.

  ‘Bruised a lot, more like.’ Cullen rubbed his back, then hoisted his wooden practice sword and brandished it at her.

  ‘Again?’ He grinned at her.

  Sig shook her head, hiding a smile.

  He has a death-wish.

  A murmur behind them, and Sig saw heads turning amongst the new recruits as Byrne approached, dressed in her training leathers, dull and scuffed, sweat-stained from years of use.

  ‘A fine display,’ Byrne said to Sig. ‘Glad to see half a year on the road hasn’t dulled your skills.’

  Fighting Kadoshim tends to keep you sharp.

  They were standing on the part of the field where individual sparring took place, with all manner of weapons. Byrne approached a weapons rack and sifted through the wooden replicas on offer. They were dull edged, of course, but every weapon had been hollowed out and filled with iron, making it heavy. Heavier than the weapons they were fashioned to represent, usually, unless it was a giant’s war-hammer or battle-axe, but Sig thought that was a good thing, forging strength in muscle and tendon and sinew, so that when a warrior came to use the sharp steel version, it felt light and responsive in their hands.

  Byrne selected a curved sword with a two-handed grip, the wooden likeness of the blade that she usually wore slung across her back. All who came to Dun Seren were trained in a multitude of martial disciplines: sword, spear, axe, hammer, bow; shield-work, knife-fighting, axe-throwing; the shield wall. Various swords – short-swords, longswords, curved swords, single grip, one-and-a-half hand, double grip. Blade-work on foot and mounted. Horsemanship, tracking and hunting. Everything imaginable, and all had to master each discipline. Most had a preference, though, a weapon or combination of weapons that they gravitated towards, a style of fighting, and they were free to choose it, once they’d mastered all of the disciplines and proved it in their warrior trial and Long Night. Sig preferred her longsword, loved the simplicity and elegance of it. Byrne had always been drawn to the curved blade of the Jehar, warriors from the east that had dedicated themselves fanatically to Corban. Gar, the man in whose honour Corban had built the weapons school, had been such a warrior.

  ‘Anyone?’ Byrne said as she walked into an open space. Sig grinned and took a step, remembering a thousand hours they had sparred together through the years, but before she could stand in front of Byrne another figure jumped before the High Captain of the Order.

  Cullen, his wooden sword resting across one shoulder.

  He’s a glutton for punishment, Sig thought, stepping back and leaning against a weapons rack, folding her arms.

  Byrne dipped her head, raised her sword, not taking her eyes off Cullen, and that was a good job, for he darted in, sword a blur, stabbing straight at Byrne’s heart. The crack of wood, Cullen’s blade was slapped away and he was spinning, a horizontal chop at Byrne’s waist was again blocked, almost casually, as Byrne shifted her feet, not wasting her energy on a counterstrike as Cullen was already out of range, dancing away and back in again, a combination of blows this time, chops, stabs and lunges, all met by Byrne’s blade, a discordant rhythm cracking out the timing of their battle as Byrne became the calm centre of Cullen’s storm.

  Sore back, my arse, Sig thought.

  ‘Is his tactic to wear her out?’ a voice said beside Sig. Keld was there, silent as only a master huntsman could be. His dark mood had lifted a little in the last few weeks, Dun Seren a tonic to him as it was to Sig.

  Sig shrugged. ‘If it is, he should be the one standing still, not dancing around Byrne like he’s had a barrel of mead on Midwinter’s Eve.’

  ‘I was thinking the very same thing,’ Keld said. ‘Mind you, he’s wearing me out just watching him. Maybe that’s his thinking.’

  Sig snorted.

  Despite their gentle mocking, Sig knew that Cullen was good. More than that, he was exceptional. But he was not the only exceptional warrior at Dun Seren. It took a large dose of exceptional to become high captain of the Order, as well as a significant portion of wisdom.

  And it might be the wisdom that Cullen’s lacking at the moment, while the stuff fair leaks from Byrne.

  And, as if to prove Sig’s point, Cullen was abruptly flat on his back, rolling to avoid Byrne’s economical chops, spraying turf where his body had been a heartbeat before. Somehow Cullen managed to make it back to his feet, circling Byrne as she resumed stooping falcon, sword high above her head, and waited for him to launch himself at her again.

  ‘Now, I’ve given you a chance,’ Cullen said breathlessly, ‘but I’m getting hungry now so it’s time to end this.’ He lunged in again, laughter rippling around the spectators.

  ‘Do you think he’s got a chance of even touching her with his blade?’ Keld asked.

  Sig had drawn breath for seven hundred years and was considered past her prime and slipping into old age by giant reckoning, and in that time she had fought all manner of foes. Only three people had ever defeated her in combat: Corban, his wife Coralen, and a man named Veradis, who had been one of the masters at Dun Seren, teaching the shield wall. He too had been exceptional with a blade, preferring the short-sword used by warriors of the wall. And he was Byrne’s great-grandfather, for he had wed Cywen, Corban’s sister. As Sig watched Byrne spar now she saw Veradis in her, not her physical appearance, which was all Cywen, but in her demeanour, the economy of movement and tactical brain, the way she would calmly weather any storm of blades and wait for her moment. And when she saw it, she would not hesitate.

  As if that was her cue, Byrne began to move, not a whirling storm like Cullen, but a steady progress forwards, pushing Cullen back, containing him, restricting him. Her blade hit his arm, then stabbed his thigh, came around high and chopped into his shoulder, making Cullen yelp and Keld laugh, and then Cullen had his back to the weapons rack and Byrne’s sword against his throat.

  He stood there, breathing heavily.

  A horn blast called time to move to a new weapon in the field.

  ‘All right, then, we can stop now if you like,’ Cullen said. ‘Call it a draw, and c
ount yourself lucky.’

  Byrne just stared at him. Sig thought that he’d finally gone too far and that Byrne would give him a week of kitchen duty, but instead a smile split her face.

  ‘Get on with you,’ she said.

  ‘He’s not right in the head, that one,’ Keld said to Sig.

  ‘I know, it’s part of what will make him great. If he lives long enough, that is.’

  ‘Got to love him for it, though I often want to strangle him for it, too.’

  Sig noticed a man approach Byrne. It was Odras, a fine healer, and warrior besides. He was the chief quartermaster of the keep, with a talent for keeping supplies flowing and the barns and grain stores full. He spoke in Byrne’s ear, and she turned, beckoning Sig over to her.

  ‘A visitor to see us,’ Byrne said with a frown.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A merchant from the north, Odras says. And they have asked to see you. I think I’ll come along, though. I’m curious as to who would visit the ill-tempered Sig!’

  They left the weapons-field together, leaving a few hundred warriors-in-training behind them. As they stepped from the field onto a wide street, Sig paused beside a great slab of rock that rose from the ground, taller and wider than she was. The Stone of Heroes, it was called, a host of names carved into it. Sig ran her fingertips over some of them.

  Gar and Brina were the first names, carved large at the top of the stone, and beneath them many hundreds more. Sig whispered some of them to the sky.

  ‘Dath, Akar, Kulla, Farrell, Veradis, Corban, Coralen,’ she breathed. As she said their names their faces formed in her mind’s eye, so many, many more, the names of those who had given their lives to the Order, whether they’d fallen in battle or to time and age, if they had served the Order, their names were honoured.

  Her eyes came to rest upon one last name, her fingertips tracing the rune-work carved into the stone.

  ‘Gunil,’ she whispered, just the sound of his name bringing back so many emotions, a gossamer web spiralling through her veins, about her heart.

  Sig shook her head.

  A hand touching her – Byrne, a small comfort.

  ‘We will never forget,’ Byrne murmured beside her, then turned and walked away.

  No, Gunil, I will never forget you. With a sigh Sig followed after Byrne.

  The merchant was waiting in a chamber of the keep, sitting at a table with a platter of food and a cup of wine poured for him. A barrel-chested man with thick-muscled arms, more hair on them than there was on his head. He stood as Byrne and Sig entered the room, a mouth full of crumbling cheese, his eyes widening as they took in Sig’s size and musculature, hovering on the sword hilt that jutted over her shoulder.

  ‘When he said warrior, what he meant was monstrous killing machine,’ the man muttered.

  Sig frowned. Is he touched in the head?

  After the merchant had recovered from the general shock of meeting Sig, the sight of a warrior giant seeming to unman him for a moment, and then the added shock of being introduced to Byrne, leader of the fabled Order of the Bright Star, he announced himself as Asger, a merchant trader recently from Kergard, the most northern outpost of the Desolation.

  ‘There was nothing there but ash and rock when last I travelled the Desolation,’ Sig rumbled. She looked out of the window at the far end of the chamber, which opened out onto a view of the north. The fortress spilt down the hill towards the river Elv, dark and wide, as it curved sluggishly around the hill that Dun Seren was built upon, a hundred quays and jetties jutting out into its waters. A bridge of stone arched over the river, leading into the Desolation, now more green than the grey it had been when Sig had dwelt there. In the distance leaden clouds were massing, creeping their way south.

  And bringing snow with them, no doubt.

  ‘It is thriving now,’ Asger said, still eyeing Sig dubiously. ‘Kergard, I mean. Since the crater became a lake the land has become green again. There are fields and farms, a wealth of furs and skins to be had from the Wild. A good life to be had, if you’re not afraid of some hard graft, and the cold, of course. Or at least, it was a good life . . .’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Things have turned, sour,’ he said. ‘New folks, bad folks, fleeing the goings-on down south.’

  ‘Then why are you coming south, marching into these troubles?’ Byrne asked him.

  ‘There’s trouble all over, seems to me,’ Asger muttered, ‘but I didn’t like what I was seeing. Fights in the streets, friends killed, giant bear running amok. Lynchings. It all started with that bonfire in the Bonefells, and Old Bodil’s death.’ He stopped.

  ‘Bonfire? Like a beacon?’ Sig asked him.

  ‘Aye, you could say that,’ Asger said. ‘But I didn’t come here to tell you the troubles of the north; I’m sure you have enough troubles of your own to be dealing with.’

  ‘The Kadoshim are our trouble,’ Byrne said. ‘And they would be your trouble as much as ours, if we were not the shield that seeks to protect you from them.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Asger said, though he looked as if he was thinking he’d never once seen a Kadoshim, and hoped he never would.

  ‘Least you don’t charge a flesh tithe for the service, like the Ben-Elim,’ he said, then shook his head. ‘I didn’t come here to grumble and complain. I was asked to deliver a package. To you,’ he added, looking at Sig. He bent down and rummaged in a bag at his feet, straightened with a package in his hand, about the size of a wooden plate, bound with twine, and held it out to her.

  Sig turned it in her hands, saw it was some kind of spun wool, dyed black, though faded. With big fingers she undid the twine and let it fall away, unfolding the cloth. She stood there a moment, just staring.

  Sig trod the spiral stairs of Crow Tower, torchlight flickering, her shadow stretching before and behind her. The cawing of crows grew louder, and then she was stepping into the chamber, a high-roofed room with a tree growing at its centre, spreading wide branches that were full of dark-shadowed nests.

  ‘Sig, Sig, Sig,’ a crow squawked, others joining until her name was ringing out like a manic battle-cry, Sig fighting the urge to cover her ears.

  ‘All right!’ she yelled and the crows fell silent.

  She scanned the nests in the tree, saw black-feathered heads and glistening eyes staring down at her, eventually found what she was looking for. A gleam of white feathers in the highest reaches of the chamber, Rab peering out of a nest that teetered on the thinnest of branches. He puffed his feathers out, pleased to see her.

  Tain was standing below a branch, having a conversation with a crow perched above him. Craf was sitting upon a table, one scabby wing over his head, sleeping. Sig thought she could hear snoring. Tain saw Sig and raised a hand, then came over.

  ‘Sten’s back from the east. More beacons and unrest,’ Tain said. He paused, looking at Sig’s face. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I need to speak to Rab, and I’ve a message I’d like you to send to your da in Drassil.’

  ‘Cullen,’ Sig said, standing over the young warrior in the feast-hall. A dark-haired woman was draped across his lap and he was curling ringlets in her hair with a finger, his other hand emptying a horn of mead down his throat. Sig recognized the woman as one of Tain’s helpers from Crow Tower.

  Ah, now that would explain why Cullen knows so much about the behaviour of crows.

  ‘Eh? What?’ Cullen said as his eyes focused on Sig.

  She turned and walked away. When she heard Cullen swear and stumble to his feet, the slap of boots as he ran after her, she nodded to herself.

  The kennels were quiet and warm, more like stables than kennels, a long, stone-built building, straw thick on the ground. Broad, furry heads lifted, over a score of amber eyes and fangs glistening in the torchlight as Sig and Cullen strode through them. Two hounds growled, one of them only for a few moments before it caught their scent. All of the wolven-hounds of Dun Seren knew the warriors of the Order by scent. The other hou
nd that had growled was separated in a stable of its own, because it had just whelped eight pups and would happily tear the face off any living thing that stepped within a dozen paces of its pups. As the visitors put some distance between them and the newborn pups the growling subsided.

  They found Keld playing knuckle-bones with half a dozen others. By the look on the faces of those around Keld he was winning. He saw Sig’s expression and left the game.

  ‘Somewhere private,’ Sig said, and Keld led them to the far end of the kennels, into an empty stable that was used as a storeroom. Cullen flopped down on a sack of bones with a huge sigh.

  ‘This better be good,’ he said. ‘I was enjoying the celebrations.’

  Keld leaned against the quartered carcass of a boar, both of them staring at Sig.

  She took the package Asger had given to her from a pocket in her cloak.

  ‘A merchant from Kergard delivered this to me today,’ she said. She opened it, unfolding black-spun wool to reveal a silver cloak-brooch, fashioned in the shape of a four-pointed star. Cullen and Keld knew it instantly for one of their Order; they wore the same, as did Sig.

  Beneath the brooch was a folded sheaf of parchment. Sig opened it and began to read.

  ‘This message is for the eyes of Sig, and for Byrne, of the Order of the Bright Star. If either of you still live. I am Drem, son of Olin, who was once a warrior of your Order. I have only discovered this recently, and also that I am blood-kin to Byrne. I am writing to tell you both that my father, Olin, is dead. I suspect he was murdered, and I don’t know what to do. Strange things.’ Sig paused there, looking up at them. ‘The word strange has been scored through here, replaced with sinister,’ she said, then looked back to the parchment.

  ‘Sinister things are happening. Men and women abducted, bound and slain, a great bonfire. Newcomers with murder in their hearts. I don’t know what to do. I know that my da was part of your Order, once, though he walked away a long time ago, and he has spoken to me of you, Byrne, and you, Sig, with great affection. If that counts for anything, after so many years have passed, then I would ask for your help. I would ask you to help me bring my da justice. I have thought on leaving Kergard and coming to you in person, but my heart will not let me leave while my da is unavenged.’