by Jason Malone
I glanced back and grinned. I did not know where the others were, but four from the group of warriors were on our tails. Our plan had worked. An arrow hissed past me and buried itself in the trunk of a thick ash. A sharp twig scratched my face. Another arrow thumped into the ground right in front of Lilly. I reared her, pointed my sword at the sky, and turned. I do not remember what exactly I yelled, but I recall shouting for Dughlas to join me before I invoked some god.
The next few moments happened very quickly. I pulled my shield from my back and charged Lilly forward. I picked my target — a bowman — and raised my sword high. He must not have been expecting me to turn and face him, for he turned his horse away and dropped his bow in panic. He drew his sword, but before he could strike I cut down into his shoulder. His blood spattered across my face and he cried as he fell from his horse.
The other three men were scattered, spread out among the trees. I heard a scream and spotted another of the black-dressed men tumble from his horse, an arrow in his chest. Dughlas was always good with a bow. I kicked my horse and charged at another man, but this one was ready. I could not see his face, for he wore a helmet. His sword was drawn, and he held his shield to block my incoming strike. As I sped past him, my blade thudded against the wood of his shield, the shock pulsing up my arm.
We turned to face each other, and he kicked his horse forward. He came at my right, I blocked his lunge with my shield, and he raised his sword to strike again, but I thrust at the opening, and the tip of my blade pierced mail. The man swore as I pulled away, and he kicked his horse in an attempt to ride off.
I turned to chase him, but an arrow whizzed through the trees. The black horse screamed as the arrow found its mark. It reared, throwing the man from his saddle, then sped off deep into the forest.
Dughlas pulled his horse up beside me and smiled. “I’d say that counts as mine,” he said. His breath was heavy.
I nodded. “You’ve always fought better on horseback.”
“Better than you, it seems. What do we do with him?” He nodded down at the groaning man on the ground. He clutched at his gut where blood leaked from the tear in his mail.
“Leave him. We need to find the others.”
The man yelled as we rode off, but I ignored him. Killing him would be a mercy but a waste of time. As for the fourth man, I did not see him die but learnt Dughlas had killed him too. We raced through the trees till we reached the path once more, then we followed it northwards as fast as our horses could take us.
Until we heard screams.
Matilda was calling my name, and I could hear a man shouting at her. We sped into a grove, where we found her and Philip up a tree surrounded by the other four men that had followed us. I could not see Matilda and Philip’s horses, so they must have abandoned them in order to climb into the pine’s branches. Philip was shouting insults, and one of the men had dismounted so he could climb after my companions. Matilda tossed a cone down at him.
“Edward!” she shouted.
The warriors turned to find us pulling our horses to a stop. Before they could react, an arrow from Dughlas’s bow buried itself in the skull of one of the mounted warriors. I threw myself from my horse, and one of the horsemen turned to face me. Before he could attack, I sliced by blade across his horse’s legs. It reared and fell to the ground with a loud thud, pinning the rider beneath its weight. Without hesitation, I plunged my blade through his neck. He died quickly.
The next man — the one on foot — came at me with a cry. I blocked his strike, swung at him, he blocked, stabbed, I blocked, then before he could strike again, a large pine cone struck him on the head. He stumbled, so I used the opportunity to smack his blade aside with my shield and thrust my sword forwards. The blade buried itself in his chest. He gurgled, spat blood at my face, and it was then I recognised him.
It was Egil.
I pulled the sword from my old oathman’s chest, and he fell to his knees before collapsing face down in the snow.
I turned sharply to a shout behind me. The fourth man, riding atop an enormous black stallion and dressed in a suit of fine mail, had charged his warhorse into Dughlas’s and sent him toppling to the ground. He rolled, the warrior leapt from his horse, and ran at Dughlas.
Dughlas quickly stood and faced him, but the man with his heavy sword swung down with both hands at Dughlas, who lifted his sword — not his shield — to parry the blow. The shock went through Dughlas’s arms, and he gave out a cry, falling back as the man’s sword struck his face.
I sprinted to his aid, but the man turned just in time to parry my slash. I lunged, and he parried that too. His face was full of rage, his eyes were red, and veins were popping out of his bald head. He was huge, and fury had overcome him. He bore no shield but carried a sword so large, most men would struggle to wield it, and his dark steel mail looked very tough. I could lose this, I thought.
I made another thrust at him, but feinted, then brought my sword up and back down. He dodged, flicked my sword out of the way, and now it was his turn to go on the offensive. He slashed, I blocked, he slashed the other way, I blocked again, and he sliced once more. I dodged this time, rolled to the side, and he lunged his sword at me. I parried, but I lost my balance and fell. My arms were aching. A pine cone thudded onto the dirt at my feet. The warrior lifted his huge sword to bring it down upon me, but before he could strike he let out a gurgling cry and fell to his knee.
I wasted no time. I jumped back up, threw myself onto him and pinned him down, then put the tip of my sword at his throat and climbed to my feet.
“You’ve lost,” I said, panting. The rush of battle had taken me over before, but now I had time to properly assess the situation. Philip had jumped from the tree, crawled over to my opponent, and stabbed his knife into the back of the man’s leg before he could strike the killing blow. Dughlas lay a few feet away, holding his face.
But before I could do anything more, I heard Matilda gasp, my opponent chuckled, and I felt the prick of cold steel on the back of my neck.
“Looks like you missed one,” the man on the ground said. I turned my head to look behind me and saw, with his sword pointed straight at me, the man I had left to die back in the woods. He had removed his helmet, revealing his identity.
“I believe you know this man,” said the warrior at the tip of my weapon.
“I know this man,” I said.
“Kill him, Cubert.”
Cubert hesitated. He appeared to be thinking, deciding whether he should do as his new master commanded. He frowned and pressed the point of his blade slightly deeper into my neck. Cubert and I had been friends once. Brothers, even. Now here he was, betraying me, with sharp steel at my neck.
I turned my head back to look at the man I had on the ground. “If you kill me, Cubert, I kill your master.”
The man on the ground only smirked. But that smirk quickly became a frown. I felt the prick of the blade disappear, and Cubert came around to my side. He threw his sword to the ground.
“I swore an oath to you, Edward. I know I deserted you, but I will not break that oath further by killing you,” said Cubert.
“Treacherous bastard,” said the warrior.
“Our orders were to take your sword,” Cubert said. “We never had to kill you if we didn’t need to. That was Leif’s idea.” He nodded at his master, who spat up at him.
I paused, staring at Leif, then looked back at Cubert. “Take it,” I said. I handed my sword’s hilt to Cubert, who stared at it with wide eyes.
“Lord, I…”
“Are these not your orders? Will your new master not reward you?”
Cubert hesitated for a very long while, while Leif and I just watched him. I knew he was tempted. Gods, he was tempted. I would not let him take it, of course, but I wanted to see what he would do.
He shook his head.
“That’s the sword of Godwin, lord. It belongs to you,” said Cubert.
I nodded and pointed it back at Leif’s throat. “
You will go back to whoever it is that sent you, Leif, and you will tell him that Edward will not be robbed so easily. Tell him if he wants my sword — or my life — he should come and take it himself. Understand?” I glared down at the man, who glared back at me, but finally he nodded.
I sheathed my sword and watched as he tried to reach for his blade. I kicked it aside, and he reluctantly limped over to his horse wounded and unarmed. He mounted and walked his stallion to me so I could smell its rank breath.
“You may have won this battle, Edward Corpse-Whisperer, but by all the Gods I swear you will not win this war,” Leif said. He turned his horse, kicked it forward, and rode back south the way he had come.
What war would I not win?
“Good fight, eh?” Dughlas said. He had propped himself up against a tree and was holding a bloody rag to his face. He smiled as I approached him.
“I’ve never seen you defeated before,” I said. “What happened?”
“The bastard nicked me with his sword.” Dughlas pulled the rag away to show his bloodied face. A long, open cut ran down from his forehead to his lips, and I grimaced. His eye had been sliced open and I doubted he would be able to see through it again. Dughlas grinned through the pain.
“That’s more than a nick. Does it hurt?” I asked.
“Just a bit.”
I shook my head. “Your eye is practically gone, Dughlas.”
“I’ve always thought one-eyed warriors were menacing.”
“Only the good ones, so you’re out of luck. We will need to dress that.”
“Aye.”
I turned to Philip, who paced around the tree. “Philip!”
“Yes, Master?” he called.
“Thank you for that. I probably would’ve died without you. Are you all right?”
“I am fine,” he said. “It was no harder than killing the chickens back home.”
I laughed. “Good lad, that’s the spirit.”
Matilda, looking a little green, rolled her eyes and tutted. “Farm boys…”
I opened my flask and gestured for Dughlas to sit back, then he pulled his hand away from his face and let me clean his gash. Matilda had brought with her a small flask of alcohol for treating wounds, and for that I was thankful. His scar was truly a gruesome sight and would need to be dealt with by a proper healer once we reached Everlynn. That was another two days through the forest, and I hoped Dughlas would last till then without his wound festering.
I tore a long, thin strip of linen from one of the cloaks of the men we killed and wrapped it tight around Dughlas’s head. I was never good with fixing wounds, but I thought that — along with Matilda’s alcohol — would be enough to keep him going for a few days.
The wound I had inflicted upon Cubert was less severe than I had thought. His mail had done its job well, so the wound was not very deep. I had Matilda wash the cut while I tended to Dughlas, and she wrapped Cubert’s belly with clean cloth so it would not fester. She had some skill in tending wounds from when her father’s men returned from hunting or fighting robber bands.
“You made the right choice, Cubert,” I said once I had finished with Dughlas. “What will you do now?”
“I was hoping I could serve you again, lord. I know I broke my oath, but I want to right my wrongs. Ever since Egil and I left you in Oldford, I’ve had regrets,” he said.
“You tried to kill me back there, before Dughlas shot your horse.”
“I was just defending myself, lord. We meant only to take your sword.”
I thought for a moment. Oathbreaking is a serious crime, but Cubert was a good man. He had been loyal until that night outside Oldford and served me faithfully. His sister had been killed during the attack on my home, and that must have been hard for him. I stared at Cubert, thinking. He could have killed me back then, when his sword was at my neck, but he did not. He disobeyed his orders in favour of me.
“You served a man named Hakon?” I asked.
“Yes, I did. He found me and Egil in Oldford after we deserted and offered us wealth and fame,” said Cubert.
“He ordered the raid that ended your sister’s life. Did you know that?”
“I did, lord. But when I swore to Hakon, I blamed you for Nell’s death. It wasn’t until we followed you from Oldford that I began to realise who was really at fault.”
I nodded. “What can you tell me about Hakon or that man who led you?”
“Not much, lord. Hakon’s the bastard brother of some nobleman, I know that much. But I did not get to speak to him after I swore my oath. Leif, on the other hand, is Hakon’s most loyal thane. He led the attack on your home, lord.”
I suspected that was the case. I recognised Leif from that day in Oldford when I first met Hakon. He was the big man that Hakon spoke to outside the Black Rose, and it was he who rode south out of the city. It seemed he was the man that did all of Hakon’s dirty work. Work that would ruin the reputation of Hakon and his noble half-brother, whomever that might be.
Cubert seemed to be telling the truth, and his desire to redeem himself in my service appeared sincere. I allowed him to swear to me. This would be his last chance, I told him, and if he were to break his oath or prove disloyal once more, I would kill him without question.
If I am being honest, I probably would not have taken him back if I still had a hall, men, and money; but now all I had was one oathman, an apprentice, and a young lady accompanying me, along with what wealth I salvaged from the wreck of my home. If I were to hunt Hakon down and kill him, avenge my people, and prevent the return of the Immortal King that Queen Aelda prophesied, I would need help. I needed men.
And so Cubert was once again my oathman, loyal to our ends.
I did not tell him what our purpose was, only that we journeyed to the Capital for Godspeaker business. He did not ask questions and did not need to. We buried Egil that afternoon beneath the tree by which he died under a pile of river stones from a stream Matilda found nearby. He may have been an oathbreaker, but he was a fine warrior, and once upon a time he had been my friend. He deserved a proper burial. We said some prayers by his grave and moved on.
The horses gifted to Matilda and Philip by Lady Ecwyn were nowhere to be found, and I suspected they had either returned home or would become lost in these woods forever. I took Egil’s black horse, given to him by Hakon, and I let Matilda ride Lilly. My new horse was called Brand, and he was a strong beast. Philip was too small to ride the horse left behind, so I had him share a saddle with Dughlas. They both complained.
We made camp at nightfall, then Philip and I caught us some rabbits to eat. I sat with Matilda by the fire after everyone else had gone to sleep, and we talked for a while. “Why did you not keep riding?” I asked.
“They were catching up to us. Neither Philip nor I are adept at riding through dense woods like this, but those men were.”
“So you climbed a tree instead?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
I chuckled. “Perhaps it was. At least you are both alive now. How does a lady even climb a tree?”
“I am not as useless as you think! I used to explore the woods with Gunn and Alia.” Matilda frowned and sighed. “We lost the horses.”
“I’m sure they will find their way home.” I smiled at her, and she smiled back, though I could tell she was troubled by something. Could it be the death she witnessed? Did she feel guilty? I did not ask, but as I lay there under the stars after Matilda had gone to sleep, I realised I should have.
We left early the next morning and headed farther along the track, and as I predicted, two days later we reached the forest’s edge. Fortunately, neither Dughlas nor Cubert’s wounds had festered, and Dughlas’s eye socket appeared no worse. It still looked gruesome, but at least there was no pus. We emerged from the woods late one morning and felt the sun warm our faces once more. I rode ahead of my companions and stood atop a hill, looking back at them.
“Matilda, Philip,” I called out. I pointed w
estwards. “If you look to the west, on the horizon, you will see the tall black towers of a great and ancient city. Welcome to Everlynn!”
I looked to the west and did indeed see the towers. The city rose up above the low hills, paddocks, and patches of woodland. Its snow-capped towers, famed for the darkness of the stones with which they are built, seemed to be competing with one another as they reached for the clouds. It was an ancient and glorious city and one of the most powerful in all Ardonn.
But as I gazed into the distance, a chill ran down my spine. My stomach dropped.
At the base of the towers, beneath the city’s walls, I saw people. Hundreds upon hundreds of men had gathered, with almost as many tents and horses. Flags and banners fluttered in the breeze.
It was as I feared. This was an army, and these men, Everlynn’s warriors, were marching to war.
9
March
Fate is a curious mistress. When poets and scholars tell the history of our world, they often focus on great kings and emperors and explain how the actions of one man have moulded and shaped their kingdoms into what they are today. But what the writers often neglect is the invisible hands of the Gods. Sometimes, the only thing needed to set the world ablaze is a spark. It is often difficult to see how something insignificant and ordinary such as light snowfall can lead the world into chaos.
Yet that was what had occurred over Winterlow. It all happened so fast, and most of the kingdom had no idea what had even occurred. The earl of a small town near the mountains far to the north had died at the age of eighteen when, after a little bit of snow, he slipped on the wet stone steps outside his keep and fell, hitting his head. He died instantly. He had been earl for only a few months, and he left no heir.
Lords die young all the time, and if they are childless, their titles and lands are often passed on to a distant cousin or some other relative. But as though the Gods were playing some cruel jest, when the Earl of Tillysburg cracked open his skull, his eldest cousins were identical twins.
There was no record of which twin was born first, and if there was, it could not be found. So the little town of Tillysburg had a succession crisis. Both twins had an equally justifiable claim to the town and its surrounding lands, but they could not come to an agreement.