by Rj Barker
Pulse.
The last step.
Troops come to a stop around me: they marvel at the statue of Dallad, are appalled by what has been done to Adallada, recoil from the statue of Xus that mocks the god they know.
“When they are dead,” I point at the eight who wait with my blade, “then we will burn that.” I point at the canvas and wood Xus. “I promise you all.”
“Do not make promises you cannot keep.” The voice is breathy, muffled by the visor it wears. I stare, seeing if the man who leads the eight will say anything more, but instead he raises his visor. White make-up still clings to his skin and where I cut him across the face in Ceadoc town is an open, bloodless scar. His eyes are red with blood.
Pulse.
Danfoth.
“You are dead,” said Aydor.
“Plainly I am not,” said Danfoth. “Xus bestowed his gifts upon me. I am reborn to lead my people.”
“This is sorcery,” spat Aydor. “Bowyers! Cut them down!”
Arrows sing through the moist air. Arketh shouts, “No!”
Pulse.
Heavy shields come up and the arrows bounce off them.
“No arrows,” shouts Arketh. “You may hit Darsese. No arrows.” There is a pause, just before she says “Darsese,” one I may not have noticed but for the strangeness of the atmosphere in the sepulchre, but one I cannot act upon or wonder about because …
Pulse.
… Danfoth and his eight are coming forward.
“Shields!” shouts Aydor.
I remembered the ferocious strength of the man I had fought in the menagerie.
“No,” I said. “Three take bows. Look for angles. These men are not as others. Do what damage you can, but be careful of Darsese. We need him alive.”
“We outnumber them,” said Aydor.
“But if we make it a test of strength we will lose. Drop your shields. Speed is your only friend.” Around me the clattering of dropped wood, the hiss of swords readying for action. “These men are fast and strong, and capable of taking a wound that would normally kill.” I draw my blades, spin the stabsword in my left hand. “Make every blow count.”
Pulse.
We met them on the cold floor, in the damp air, screaming out our fear and tension. They dropped their shields and I wondered why.
Pulse.
Arrows started to fly, peppering the two Landsmen nearest me. They staggered but did not fall.
Pulse.
All was chaos. The troops who had come with me streamed ahead, Aydor leading them in a screaming charge. I realised I was scared. I had fought one of these sorcerous men before and nearly been bested.
Pulse.
Giffett fell first. I saw her attack: her enemy swayed to the side, slashed back; she danced out of reach and then lunged. A perfect move, the blow hard enough to cut through the enamelling of his armour and gut him. A killing move, and one Giffett was used to seeing finish a fight.
Pulse.
But these warriors were not as other men. The wounded Landsman let out a roar and brought his sword round in an arc, half-decapitating Giffett with a single blow.
Pulse.
No time for fear.
Aydor had intercepted Danfoth: Aydor’s warhammer against Danfoth’s great sword. Our troops were holding their own, the archers hampering the Landsmen, though they shrugged the pain of the arrows off. Our swordsmen protected the archers. The sorcerous Landsmen themselves seemed slow, confused, and although they were capable of taking great amounts of damage they seemed broken somehow. Not like the man I had fought in the menageries.
Pulse.
The man who beat me.
No room for fear.
I realised he was not here. These men were big but, Danfoth aside, not as big. He must be with Fureth.
Pulse.
It was as if a weight was taken from me. I was freed.
I am the weapon.
Time to act.
Second iteration: the Quicksteps. Forward and into a run, legs pumping, stabswords rising and falling as my arms move. Giffett’s killer swinging toward me. An arrow takes him in the shoulder, twisting his body to the left and he becomes convenient steps. Twenty-third iteration: the Kissing Skip. Foot on his knee. My knee into his midriff, forcing the air from him, doubling him over. As his head comes round—Twenty-ninth iteration: Gwyfher’s Twist—arms round his neck, using my own momentum to turn me into the wheel spinning around the axle of his heavy, wrong, body. Arms locked so the stabswords bite into his neck as I turn. Release. Jumping away, leaving him standing but already dead. Windpipe cut, arteries and flesh cut, blood flowing down his armour.
Pulse.
I have the momentum now. Speed is my ally. I am running through the melee. Sword comes in from the left—the Shy Maid—step out the way, slash back, feel the blade bite into a leg.
Pulse.
Don’t stop.
Pulse.
Make space.
Pulse.
Blade from the right.
The Fool’s Tumble—under the blade and back to my feet. To my right one of the Landsmen raises his sword to finish a soldier on the floor. I jump a corpse—one of ours—land on the other side, turn my speed into a slide—legs bent to keep balance—and smash into the back of the Landsman, knocking him over the soldier. She is moments from dead, blood gouting from a chest wound. I land on the Landsman’s back. Stab, stab, stab, into the neck.
“Girton!”
Pulse.
Throw myself to the side as a heavy sword comes down, missing me and cutting into the man I was attacking, slicing through his armour and into his back. My attacker draws his blade: he does not seem to notice it is sheathed in one of his own. Behind him Aydor fights Danfoth, hammer and sword whirling. The Landsman attacking me has lost his helmet. His armour is ripped, enamel scales falling from the wire of his armour like water from a jug. His body is thick with scars, some old, some new but nearly all should have killed him. The area around his stomach is so thick with stitches it looks like a nest of millions of tiny black-legged creatures.
Pulse.
In an instant I come to a sudden understanding. This man should have died many times, and his attacks are far slower than any other I have faced because of it. They must pay in speed for the lengthening of their lives. The blade comes down and I roll. The sword hits the stone floor and shatters. The Landsman lifts it, looking at the shattered blade stupidly, and I spring to my feet. Place the Rose—blade into his neck, a vicious twist and I pull it out in a shower of blood.
That is not a wound he will recover from.
Pulse.
There is a space in the battle and I stand within it, wet hair sticking to my face, blood on my tongue. The archers have dropped their bows, taken up swords. Only three of our troops remain, apart from Aydor and me, and four of the Landsmen. Arketh is at the throne, struggling with one of the huge shields and using it protect Darsese from arrows that no longer fly. There was shouting before, screaming. I only notice the noise now it is gone. Now men and women fight in silence. Aydor and Danfoth trade blows, circling warily round one another.
Pulse.
To the left, Ysil Anith, one of the bowyers, dies. She has forgotten what I said and picked up a shield. The Landsman she faces thrusts his sword straight through the wood and into her. It is as if it happens in slow motion. As the blade cracks the shield, Gura Chennig, to my right, falls to a huge slash. As the blade shatters Ysil’s heart, Kert ap Fennig on my left dies, his face turning blue in the armlock of a huge Landsman.
Pulse.
And then there is only me and Aydor. And four of them.
Pulse.
Aydor glances away from Danfoth and the big Meredari takes advantage. His sword comes low, going for the weakest spot, the unprotected legs. Aydor, despite his bulk, makes a move that seems impossible and leaps over the sword, at the same time bringing his warhammer round in an arc that smashes into Danfoth’s midriff. It is a killing blow: crushin
g armour, smashing bones and sending the Meredari warrior skidding back over the floor to land, still, in front of Darsese’s throne.
Pulse.
Danfoth is dead. If we win here he will stay that way.
“Come, Girton.” Aydor wipes sweat from his brow with one hand. Blood runs down his other arm to drip on to the floor as he walks toward the three remaining Landsmen. “Let us finish this. Rufra will be starting to wonder where we are.”
Pulse.
You would not know they had been fighting to look at the Landsmen. They do not walk like they are tired, or look like they have had their comrades killed and in turn killed others. They walk like sleepers, swords held loosely, faces hidden behind visors: only the blood that drips down their armour gives away they have fought recently; only the scars and scratches on the green paint.
Pulse.
“Ready, Aydor?”
“Aye.”
Pulse.
We charged.
There was no finesse, no cleverness. Aydor and I had fought together a long time; we knew each other’s strengths and each other’s weaknesses. He went towards the man who had strangled Kert ap Fennig to death. I went towards the two who had cut down Ysil Anith and Gura Chennig. I was quicker than Aydor, easier for me to fight and dodge two, and he needed room to wield his warhammer.
“Do you speak?” said Aydor to his man as he circled round him. “Danfoth spoke.” The Landsman did not reply. The two I faced spread apart, the better to come at me from either side. Aydor’s man went into a crouch, longsword pointing at Aydor’s midriff. Aydor shrugged, holding his warhammer at his side like it was a child’s toy. The Landsman edged in toward him. “He spoke too much, in truth.” The Landsman lunged. Aydor danced back.
Pulse.
An attack from my left, a swinging sword, and I go under it. At the same time the second Landsman brings his blade down and I realise, too late, I have miscalculated, been distracted. I twist. The second blade catches me a glancing blow to the thigh on the same side as my club foot, cutting through meat and sending me sprawling on to the cold stone floor. But the Landsman’s swung with such power he almost overbalances. An opening. Before I can take advantage of it the first Landsman is on me, sword lifted above his head ready to come down.
He staggers, as if his sword has doubled in weight. Takes a step back. Arketh’s face appears over his shoulder, clinging to his back. She rips off his helmet and her other hand claws at his blood-red eyes. The Landsman drops his sword, groping for her as I push myself up. The first Landsman comes back at me. Lances of pain from my leg shooting through me. Arketh screams as she mauls her man. Her shrieks fills the sepulchre, echoing round and up and off the stone, somehow sounding like they come from the malformed statue of Xus. A sword thrust at me. No time for fancy tricks, nothing dainty.
Pulse.
Survive.
I sway to the side. He reverses the thrust, swinging the heavy sword back into me. His strength is tremendous, almost knocking all the air out of me, but not managing to puncture my armour. I lock my arm around the blade, trapping it between my bicep and my body, feeling the hot bite of metal in my flesh as it cuts into the unprotected lower part of my arm. He tries to pull the blade loose but instead pulls me within his guard. With a shout I bring the stabsword held at my side up and round, the classic placing of the rose: through his lower jaw, through his gullet, into his brain. He judders as if fitting for half a second and falls.
Pulse.
All is quiet.
Pulse.
The rasp of my breath. The beat of my heart. The insistent drip of my blood on to the floor.
Pulse.
Whimpering. I look up. Breathing hard, wincing at the pain from cuts. Arketh stands away from the Landsman she attacked, watching with interest as he crawls away from her, bleeding hollows where his eyes should be. Aydor strides past her, the crumpled corpse of the man he faced behind him, and he raises his warhammer, finishing the Landsman with a blow to the head. Then he walks over to me and helps me up.
I watch curiously disinterested. It is almost like I am back at the bottom of the pool.
Pulse.
“We have won,” said Arketh. Aydor glanced at her.
“If you are a torturer,” he said, nothing but distaste in his voice, “then you should know how to keep a man alive. Bind Girton’s wounds or we will lose him.”
Pulse.
“It is not that bad,” I said, but I spoke through a haze, a gauze of fine air hanging in front of me. I less saw Aydor and Arketh as felt them as glows of life. Beyond them the glow of Darsese, huge and filthy, like meat left to hang too long.
“Arketh, help him.” Aydor’s bark, loud enough to be heard on a battlefield, and I felt myself tipped back. Arm lifted, a tightness. Leg lifted, a tightness.
“He has lost a lot of blood.”
Pulse.
“We need him walking,” said Aydor. “I am not leaving him here.”
“I can do that,” she said, “but he will pay for it later.” Her words stuttered, like I heard only the only the softest reflection of them. I felt the gentle brush of feathers against my skin and the numbing warmth of a black cape around me. I found myself speaking but my mouth did not move, the words were aimed inwards.
“Have I done what was needed?”
A soft hand on my forehead. My master’s voice.
“Our task is neverending.”
Voices becoming louder. The soft hand becomes a cold one. My skin is ice beneath hot sweat. My legs spasming and striking out; my arms do the same. Someone is holding my head to stop it cracking against the floor. Aydor is shouting.
Pulse.
“What have you done to him, woman?”
“Given him marisk seed, this is normal. Do not worry.”
“Marisk is poison!”
“Only in the hands of the unskilled.”
She is right. I say the words to Aydor, but he does not hear. He does not hear because my mouth does not move. My body is thrashing and I watch it happen, hovering above myself.
Pulse.
I am back in the pool.
Pulse.
Back in the current.
Pulse.
The drain sucking at me, but this time it is not water that drags me down. It is the filthy red presence of Darsese that tries to trap me. The hunger I felt, it was not the land beneath the castle. It is him, he is a savage and ceaseless hunger for life. An open screaming mouth offering nothing but oblivion, no path to Xus’s dark palace, not even the half-life of a shatterspirit tied to the land. Just to be food for a hunger that will never cease.
Pulse.
I am not strong enough to fight.
Pulse.
He draws me.
Pulse.
Aydor is screaming.
Pulse.
“You have killed him!”
Pulse.
Arketh is screaming back.
Pulse.
“This should not be happening!”
Pulse.
I am screaming.
Pulse.
Darsese draws me in, the way a coiled lizard draws its prey. I am hypnotised with terror. I cannot look away from the wound of his mind. As surely as the pool would have drowned me so Darsese will consume me. There is no Tinia Speaks-Not here to sacrifice herself for me. There is no one.
Pulse.
My body fits.
Pulse
Aydor readies his weapon to kill the torturer Arketh.
Pulse.
Rufra’s plans unravel.
I travel.
I float.
I want to tell Aydor it is too late for me. My time is gone. I want to apologise but I do not know why. The maw of Darsese. Grinding. Grinding.
Pulse.
I will never see Aydor in Xus’s dark palace.
Pulse.
I will never avenge Feorwic.
Pulse.
Darsese will undo all I am.
Pulse.
A
ydor draws back his warhammer, ready to strike Arketh, she cowers before him.
P u l s e.
Aydor pauses, cocks his head.
P u l s e
“Do you hear it?” he says.
P u l s e
“Hear what?” she replies.
P u l s e
“Birds,” he says. “I hear Xus’s blackbirds.”
Silence.
A void springs into being, shutting Darsese behind it. A darkness dotted with too many stars to count. A reminder of my own insignificance, that I am one among so very many, but that nothingness is its own cold comfort. It is uncaring and it is the antithesis of Darsese’s hunger. It nulls it, stands between me and …
I
Hurt.
Pain!
Pain in my arms. Pain in my legs. My muscles ache like never before. I cough. I am filled with energy. I am almost crushed to death in Aydor’s sudden embrace.
“You live!”
“Just.”
“I thought she had killed you.”
“No, she had not,” I said. Energy flowed through me from the marisk seed. “But you may if you don’t let go.”
“Then let us save this high king,” said Aydor, “and hope he is worth it.” We turned toward the throne. Arketh had run ahead of us and was at Darsese’s side, holding up his head.
“Coil the Yellower’s poisonous piss,” said Aydor.
Because it had not been worth it. It had not been worth it at all. Because the woman Arketh held carefully in her arms was not High King Darsese.
Chapter 31
“That,” said Aydor, pointing his warhammer at Arketh, stepping over a Landsman’s corpse, “is not the high king.”
Arketh paid him no mind. She slapped the cheeks of the woman in the chair.
“Wake. I am here, my love. Wake for me. I am here.”
“All these dead,” shouted Aydor, his walk becoming quicker, sharper, angrier as his voice rose in volume. “My friends are dead and for what? Your lover?” He raised the warhammer. His anger had taken control. Even with the energy lent to me by the marisk seed I could only just catch him as he stomped toward her.
“No!” I grabbed his arm. “Not yet. We …” He spun, turning on me, weapon still raised.
“Rufra’s plans lie in tatters! He will be deep in the fight now. And for what? We will turn up with some woman and say she is the high king? All is lost because she,” he jerked the warhammer at Arketh, “lied to us.” He tried to shake me off. “Let go of me, Girton. She dies for this.”