The Watchers Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by William Meikle

  “‘The baby…’ she screamed. ‘The baby is coming.’

  “At first I moved forward, but that was the drink talking again. I was an Officer of the Watch, and I knew my duty. I closed the door shut in her face.

  “‘Burn it,’ I said, turning to the soldiers around me. ‘Burn it down to the ground.’

  “‘Belay that command,’ the fat Officer said. ‘There is a pregnant girl inside that church. Let her out. That’s an order.’

  “And do you know, some of them even moved to do it? I despair of some soldiers…they’ve got so used to obeying orders they have no mind of their own to decide when they should be disobeying one.

  “I did the only thing an officer of the Watch could—I laid the fat soldier out with a single blow. Then I set to burning down the church.

  “And just as the door caught fire, it burst open, and my Jinny tried to throw herself out.

  “‘The baby…save the baby.’ She shouted, and, even as her clothes burst aflame, she was holding her arms out to me, pleading. I did the only thing I could—I threw a bucket of burning pitch over her.

  “She screamed. She screamed something terrible. But I did my duty…I waited until the roof fell in. Nothing came out, either man or Other.

  “The remaining soldiers wouldn’t look me in the eye, but they were good men. They stood watch with me, making sure that the job was done.

  “I waited there until dawn came to the sky, and I remember nothing of the time. I heard later that the fat soldier was threatening to hang me before his own men told him to be quiet, but I did my duty. I waited to be sure.

  “And in the morning, I went to find my lad, to tell him what I had done. And he told me about a scouting party, about a wolf on the hunt for the Boy-King. I knew that was where I had to be, if only for a chance to see the Wall once more. And here I am. Your man, if you’ll have me.”

  Martin clasped the old man on the arm.

  “You have been my man ever since we left Derby,” Martin said. “You are a true man of the Watch. And any officer of the Watch is always welcome in Milecastle.”

  Old Barr put his pipe away in the pocket of a stained waistcoat, and lifted the pitcher once more.

  “Aye. I am your man,” he said. “But duty is a hard thing, young sir. Do not let it rule you…for it can bring great pain.”

  The old man stomped away, but Martin stayed in the corner seat for a while, thinking of loss, and of duty.

  His reflective time was ended when Megan found him.

  “Here he is!” she shouted, dragging him to his feet. “Come, young sir. Tonight is a celebration for your homecoming. We cannot have you lurking in a corner.”

  And once more Martin was thrust into the raucous, drunken melee. Later, when the roast pig was little more than a pile of bones and dripping, and the bread was long since gone, Harold Hillman sang “The Wives of Henry” and “The Maid of Orleans,” his high clear voice ringing strong in the rafters. Grown men wept.

  Townspeople kept pouring fresh ale into Martin’s pot until he was unsure how much he had drank.

  His last memory was of Fitz and Cooper laying him down on his old bed in the high tower. The ceiling swam above him, so he closed his eyes, and let oblivion take him.

  Martin dreamed of his father.

  The old man came to him in the night and led him out of his room and down into the Great Hall. The Thane sat in Hadrian’s throne, and Martin sat at his feet, just like they had done in all the years before.

  They spoke for hours, of the life of the town, of Sean Grant, and of Martin’s mother.

  When Martin woke he remembered none of it, but his pillow was wet with tears.

  The next morning he sat on his horse and hoped that he was not going to disgrace himself by throwing up over his saddle horn.

  He had thirty men behind him, and one cart, driven by Fitz and Edward Hillman, containing four barrels of bulb-and-silver water and the large set of smith’s bellows.

  “We go to scout to the North,” he said to Nat who was standing beside Martin’s horse. The big man looked nearly as bad as Martin felt. “Look for us again in three days.”

  Nat nodded.

  “Perhaps we might forego the homecoming party the next time?”

  Martin smiled.

  “I leave you the rest of the men...and the inn is now open. Keep the Watch alert. The party is over.”

  “Do not worry,” Megan said, approaching across the square. “I will not sell them ale...well, not too much anyway.”

  “And I do not wish to drink anymore,” Nat said. “Not for a few days anyway.”

  Martin led the men out through the North Gate. The sky was heavy and overcast, like a wall of slate hanging above them, but at least it was not raining. Megan and Harold Hillman stood on the wall, and they were still waving when Martin looked back from nearly a mile down the road. He felt a pang of loss as he turned his back on his home once more, and he had a premonition of doom, a blackness in his soul that told him he had a long hard road to travel before he saw the towers above the wall again.

  “Where do we travel to, sir?” Edward Hillman asked him as they followed the road north.

  “To the place where I learned that magic truly exists,” he said, and smiled as the boy’s eyes went big and round.

  He had a vague idea where he was heading...he had walked this road with Campbell. Then it had taken them all day to reach the ruins of Newcastleton. But on horseback, and being able to use the road all the time, they reached it just after noon.

  “Half an hour’s rest,” Martin said to Toby as they pulled up into the open ground in the middle of the ruined town. “Get the horses fed and watered...there is a stream to the North that should be clear fresh water. And make sure the men are careful. We still do not know where the Boy-King is, and his slaves could be anywhere.”

  Martin left his own horse with Edward Hillman and entered the ruin of the old church where he and Campbell had spent the night.

  The place was as deserted as he remembered it. Only the fluttering of a small bird trying to escape broke the silence—he could not even hear the sound of his men in the street outside.

  The remains of their campfire were still there on the stone floor. Martin bent down and sifted the ashes. Remembering the visions this fire had brought, he lifted some ash to his nose and breathed in.

  The wound in his arm throbbed in sudden pain. There was no vision, no foretelling of the future...but there was a smell in the air, the faintest taint of something dead but still walking. It was a long way away, far to the east, but Martin knew what it was...it was the odor of the Others.

  “Aye,” a voice said beside him. “They are in the wind.”

  He had to look down to see the voice’s owner. The smallest, fattest woman he had ever seen stood by his side. She was of the woodsman’s tribe...that much was obvious from the emerald green of her eyes and the pointed tips to her ears. She wore a long fur cape, and from what Martin could see her whole body was covered in tattoos.

  “I, Gwynneth, oldest of the stone,” she said.

  “My belly is full and my soul is empty. I am happy to meet another of Lennan’s people,” Martin replied, and the woman’s face lit up in a huge grin.

  “Greetings, killer of the gray shadow and Lennan-friend,” she said, and hugged Martin around the waist. He felt the joints of his spine pop and stretch.

  “You had best put me down, madam,” Martin said, laughing aloud, “before you do me a mischief.”

  The bear hug loosened, but only slightly.

  “Gwynneth is happy, for Lennan has a friend to remember him. And while you remember, his song will always be in the wind.”

  “I will always owe him for my life.” Martin said. “And if he ever needs me, I will be there when he calls.”

  The small woods-woman smiled sadly.

  “But Gwynneth’s soul is full, for Lennan has gone with the wind.”

  Martin was shocked into silence.

  �
��How...when…” he said.

  Gwynneth put her hand to Martin’s head.

  “Easier to show,” she said, and Martin’s mind exploded in the woodsman’s sight.

  …Sean Grant is fighting a pack of Others just outside the walls of Milecastle. One of them latches onto him and manages to bite him in the shoulder, even as Sean sends many of them to the final death.

  …Sean throws away bread and cheese, even though he looks thin and wasted from hunger.

  ...Sean attacks Campbell on a riverbank, fangs smiling from a bloody mouth just as Lennan shoots him with a padded arrow

  ... Gwynneth bleeds Sean in a cave high on a hillside ...Campbell lowers a silver cross into a bowl of blood as Sean screams

  ...Sean is tested on a long altar-stone in the middle of a circle of menhirs

  ...Lennan gives his blood to save Sean

  ...Lennan’s body is burned on a pyre in a high place

  ...Sean and Campbell take their leave of Gwynneth on a high hilltop at night...

  Gwynneth took her hand away from Martin’s forehead. He almost thought he had caught sight of another vision, a glimpse of Sean in a red chapel, facing a tall Other clad in chain mail, but the scene faded too quickly.

  “Sean is an Other?” he said. “The Captain of the Watch of Milecastle has been turned?”

  Gwynneth shook her head.

  “No. Not a dark one, but not man either...not now. He is a new thing under the Father...but fear not, you will see him, and ask him yourself. That not why I here.”

  She took Martin’s hand and led him in front of the stained glass window so that they were in the sunshine.

  “Old bones need warming,” she said, before lightly stroking the arm that had been so recently ravaged.

  “I come to tell you three things...what is, what was, what might be.”

  She counted off on her finger.

  “...Peredur-An-Lennan will take the people of the Father away from this land...you will see us no more...the new king has no stomach for fighting the dark ones.”

  She spat on the ground at her feet to show her disgust before she counted a second finger.

  “...Camp-bell has flown with the wind and sings with Lennan. He wishes to thank you for the gift of the gray-one’s cloak. It warms him when he is far from the Father. He says you are to trust Sean Grant...things are not always true just because your eyes see them.”

  She touched a third finger.

  “...the one you call the Boy-King is close by. He has brought his army to rest and sent his slaves away on a task. He is undefended when the sun is high. If you be quick, you catch him sleeping...send him to final death.”

  “Show me,” Martin said, and lifted Gwynneth’s hand to his forehead.

  “Gwynneth likes quick learner,” she said, and smiled again, showing the broken stumps of her teeth.

  Once more visions filled Martin’s mind as...

  ...he soars high above an ancient graveyard. The old graves, and the grass around them, are torn and disturbed. He knows he is looking once more at the resting-place of the Others.

  The graveyard sits on the edge of a tall hill. At the foot of the hill, in the valley, the flat ground near the river is similarly churned and broken over an expanse that seems to stretch for miles.

  He is lifted higher, and the sight takes him up the river to its source, and over the hill beyond to join another river flowing fast on the far side. He races along with the current until the ground levels, the river flattens, and, at a bend, he sees a group of ruined buildings, with men and horses in a wide street. He blinks...

  ...and was again back in the church with Gwynneth.

  “The Boy-King is there? In the churchyard?” he asked.

  “The sight is true.” Gwynneth said. “If you speed, you will catch him while he sleeps. Lennan’s gift will aid you. It knows where he lies, and you will always be able to smell him. The gray brother will know.”

  “The gift…what is it?” Martin asked.

  “Empty your soul.” The old woman said. “Then you will be with the wind and will not need to ask.”

  He wasn’t given time to inquire further.

  “You will go now,” she said. “Go now, and send the shadow to sing in the wind.”

  There was a noise from the door of the church, and Toby the smith walked in. Martin turned to talk to him, and when he looked back, Gwynneth had gone...he had not heard her move.

  “I heard voices,” the smith said.

  “I was talking to myself,” Martin replied, and smiled.

  The smith was not convinced. Martin saw him look around the church as if someone was playing a joke on him and would pop out from behind a pew at any moment.

  In truth, Martin did not know where Gwynneth had gone, but he had previously witnessed Lennan in action. It did not surprise him that she was fast and silent.

  “Get the men mounted,” he said to the smith. “We’re riding out...and we need to go now.”

  “Where to?” the big man asked.

  “East. We go east as fast as we can travel. We have a graveyard to find before nightfall.”

  The vision Gwynneth had provided for him was proved true some three hours later as Martin brought his men over the top of a ridge and they looked down on a graveyard in the lee of the hill.

  “How did you know it was here?” Edward Hillman said, and Martin saw some of the men muttering to themselves. Several of them made the sign against the evil eye.

  Martin said nothing. The truth would not help...none of these men had ever seen a woodsman. To them, the people of the forest were as supernatural, and to be feared as much, as the Others.

  “We will have to add another verse to ‘The Lay of the Thane’,” Fitz said. “...how the young Thane found the sight.”

  I may have found the sight, Martin thought, but will it be of any use to me, I wonder?

  “It matters not how I know,” Martin said, loudly, so that all could hear. “We are here, and there are black-hearted bastards to kill.”

  He dismounted and called Toby and Fitz forward with him to the edge of the graveyard. They looked out over the stones.

  Where the ground was disturbed old bones, brown with age, poked out of the earth. A skull, the black eye-sockets appealing for help against the desecration, stared at them from under a massive cross, carved in scrolls, knots and runes.

  “And tell me, Sire,” Toby said. “Just how did you know to come to this place?”

  “One of the forest people visited me, back in the church,” Martin said. Toby’s eyes went wide, but Fitz didn’t flinch.

  “Their sight showed you this place, did it not?”

  Martin nodded.

  “And they said that the Boy-King himself lies sleeping under these stones. I need your counsel...the dark army lies sleeping in yon riverbed beneath us...and they are there in huge numbers...maybe even the whole army. If we attack, and they come at us, we will be overwhelmed.”

  “But you think there is a chance to give the Boy-King the final death?” Toby asked.

  “Aye. We can end it here if we stand firm.”

  “Then we must try,” Fitz said. “If there is even half a chance...we must try.”

  “Come, then,” Martin said. “We must deploy the men quickly...there is not much of the day left.”

  Edward Hillman was left at the top of the hill with the horses.

  “But I am needed to stir in the silver,” he said. The lad looked like he was about to cry with frustration. “Toby needs me. If the silver is not poured right it will clog the bellows and make it harder to pump and…”

  Martin took him aside and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “I need you here, man,” he said, and the boy visibly straightened, his chest puffed out. “We may need to beat a hasty retreat and I need a man I can trust to keep the horses ready...we may need to move fast. Will you hold the horses for me...for all of us?”

  The boy’s eyes shone with pride, and he saluted, as crisp
and efficient a salute as Martin had ever seen.

  “I will not let you down, sir.”

  Martin returned to find Toby and Fitz manning the bellows, and one of the smith’s men pouring silver powder into the water barrel and stirring it. Edward Hillman had thought of everything, and had supplied a cut-off oar from a rowing boat as a means of mixing in the powder.

  “The men are deployed?” Martin asked.

  “Aye, sir,” Toby said. “We only await your order.”

  “Then let us go to it,” Martin said. “While there is still light in the sky.”

  He made sure his pistols were loaded and cocked, and gave the order. Toby and Fitz pumped hard and a jet of water flew out over the graveyard. The air was suddenly full of the stench of the bulb.

  At first it went as it had back at Thornton-in-Lonsdale. The ground heaved and began to burn in a clear blue flame. High screams rent the air, and a band of Others, about ten of them, pulled themselves out of the ground, only to be soaked by the spray from the bellows. They exploded, as if torched from within, pieces of burning flesh being strewn over the graveyard. The stench of death filled the air.

  Close to the cart and out to a distance of some thirty yards, an area covering almost half the graveyard was well ablaze. Beyond that the ground was beginning to heave and boil as many more Others struggled free from their sleep, desperate to escape the fiery death.

  Limbs poked out of the soil, only to begin burning, hands grasping for the sky even as flames burst over them and the flesh blackened. All over the site Others were thrashing free only to melt and burn as the silver, garlic and sunshine sent them to a speedy final death.

  Suddenly a group of twenty or more broke free of the ground at the same time, just out of range of the main spray. They turned towards the cart, then fled as the bellows turned towards them.

  “Burn, you bastards!” Fitz shouted. “Burn like you’ll burn in hell!”

  They pumped the bellows harder, and the jet of water shot out towards the group, taking the leaders full on and sending them down into a morass of steaming coagulated slime. The rest fled.