‘Nice and red!’ someone called, a storm of laughter following.
‘Looks as tight as a southerner’s fist!’ came a crude remark, another storm of laughter following and random cracks of knee-slapping.
They jeered and jibed and insulted her, and Genson tightened his grip on her hair further, almost lifting her from the floor, laughing loudly near her ear. Ceatha’s eyes fell upon Steel Face and Bald Head where they sat in the corner. They were the only two in the tavern who weren’t laughing.
Steel Face sat, watching the scene unfolding intently, eyes bright, wild – was that concern Ceatha saw there? Was she imagining it? Bald Head sat next to him, gloved hands clenched angrily on the table before him. His face alert, kept neutral despite there being something offended in his posture. He looked ready to pounce. Would they help? What were they waiting for?
As Genson shook her by the hair and her toes were all that remained on the floor, the Weaving rose suddenly inside her, begging release. She screamed then, seeing girls burn, seeing herself burn, Haverlon’s people laughing, tossing torches to the wood at her feet, her skin blistering and bursting. She squirmed, fought it down, refused it, pushed it away, the feeling of its passing cold emptiness.
Help me, she mouthed at the two warriors in black, tears staining her cheeks. Please, help me.
Bald Head blinked, and turned to whisper something to Steel Face. He didn’t respond, still looking at her. Then he cast his eyes downward, and shook his head, something bordering guilt outlining his movements.
Ceatha gave up as she watched that braided head shake, slumping in Genson’s grasp.
He dragged her outside. ‘Have this fucking bitch, lads!’ he cried, beckoning the patrons to follow him. ‘Free cunt! Get it while it’s going! Ha!’ And with that he threw her down into the dirt road, baked orange by the days blazing sun.
Sten lay some distance away. Silent and crumpled against the wall of the baker’s opposite the Singing Lyre. The ground was dark with his blood, his face a red ruin. He lay still. ‘Sten,’ Ceatha sobbed, reaching for him. ‘Sten, please say something to me, please.’
Nothing.
The door behind her opened again. Two men she had been serving stepped out into the dying sun, smirking at her cruelly. She backed up against the wall next to Sten. Passers-by heeded them not, and hurried on their way, or avoided the street altogether at the scene unfolding. They were alone in moments.
‘Well, if the cunny is free,’ one of them chortled to the other. A dirty looking man in a scruffy leather tunic left open at the front. He grabbed his crotch, readying himself.
‘Aye,’ said his companion, another filthy-looking oaf. She vaguely recalled the two of them being the ones who had insulted her constantly through the day for being slow and stupid, and had tried to pinch her arse numerous times. ‘Nothing better than a free fuck, eh,’ the second one continued, smirking. ‘Free cunt tastes better than copper cunt, that’s for sure.’ They both roared with laughter, and came for her.
Ceatha scrambled away from them on all fours, her breath ragged gasps in her throat, her hair wild and stuck to her face with sweat and tears, blood drumming loudly in her skull.
‘Look at that arse!’ one of the men laughed behind her. ‘I’m gunna shove my prick so far up it she won’t shit for a week!’
Always laughter, always. A rough boot thudded down on her ankle, drawing a yelp of pain from her as it twisted.
‘You’re not going anywhere, whore, till we’ve fucked you rotten,’ said the one with the bare chest. ‘Now turn around!’
She did, and kicked him square in the balls from where she lay. He fell howling, clutching his groin, but his friend was upon her already as she tried to stand and run, and a knee found her stomach, knocking the wind from her, making her vision swim.
‘Fucking bitch!’ shrieked the one she’d kicked, trying to stand. ‘Fucking bitch!’ A knife flashed in his hand. ‘Hold the cunt there!’ he screamed, hobbling towards her, holding his crotch. His friend put his booted foot on her chest and pinned her down, making sure to keep clear of her flailing legs that sought his balls with desperate fury.
She saw the door to the inn open again. Steel Face and Bald Head stepped out, helms tucked under their arms. She screamed loudly, begged them to stop, called pointlessly for help. Between the legs of her attackers she briefly saw the two warriors in black glance at her, and then head towards two horses tied near the inn.
‘Just make it quick!’ she heard Bald Head chide Steel Face.
Not him, too.
‘Fuck you, Marcher!’ she screamed up at the man pinning her down, and spat on him. ‘Fuck you!’ He made a disgusted sound, wiping spittle from his eye and cheek.
‘String the cunt up!’ the one with the knife wheezed, still holding his wounded scrotum. ‘I’m gunna cut her fucking tits off when I’m done with her arsehole! I’ll leave those white cheeks red by the time I’m finished, you horrible slut! What do you think of that, eh?’ He brandished the knife in her face as he bent over her, let the point trail along her cheek, so sharp it drew blood at the touch. ‘I’ll cut your dirty, savage, pink titties right off of –’
A shower of blood burst from his stomach, splattering across Ceatha’s face, making her scream in fright.
She saw briefly through terrified eyes, a sword point, withdrawing backwards through the man’s stomach. He dropped his knife and turned, eyes wide and white, mouth a quivering circle.
A flash. A shriek of sudden pain, and a blade cleft him from shoulder to groin, spilling his guts upon the floor at Ceatha’s feet in a stinking red mess.
She breathed in sharply, the boot gone from her chest, spluttering and coughing, rolling onto her side, then frantically scrambling away backwards through mud and filth, shrieking and crying at the violence unfolding before her eyes, her hands knotted in her hair.
A scuffle took place, the man’s accomplice swung a drunken slugger of a punch at someone she could not see, save for a dark frame that made the man look small, sidestepping as another sloppy blow was thrown. A crunch, an elbow to the face she thought, and the man stumbled backwards, holding a ruined mouth, drooling teeth, bubbling in agony and bent double.
A flash of steel. His hands clutched at the blade jammed through his throat and sprouting from the back of his neck, dying upon it in gurgling confusion.
‘What the fuck is happening out here!’ a voice bellowed from the tavern doorway. ‘What in Vathnir’s fiery fucking arse is going – you!’ It was Genson, she shut her eyes and screamed, her mind a shatter, her heart beating so hard it threw itself against her chest.
‘My two best customers, you filthy bastard! Who the blue, blazing fuck do you think you are!’
More sounds of fighting, blunt thuds as blows were exchanged. Ceatha clasped her hands over her ears to shut out the noise, but she could still hear Genson screaming, ‘Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!’
A noise, like a blade shearing meat, then Genson screamed wordlessly, shrilly, high-pitched and fearful. Ceatha’s eyes popped open unwillingly. Genson knelt on the ground, the stump of his right arm clutched in the hand of his left, blood pissing from the cleanly severed wrist. A dark figure loomed over him, enrobed by shadows in the dying sun. They seemed drawn to him, somehow, like ink spreading trailing fingers to move about him.
‘Fucking bastard!’ Genson whimpered, he sounded as though he wept. ‘Why? Why?’
There came no answer, only the movement of a gloved hand that grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back to expose his throat, as a steel blade was drawn across it. He was pushed back to the ground, twitching, flailing, gurgling, dying, his one remaining hand clutching at his gaping throat.
The figure turned, swathed in black, huge, towering, sword in hand, dripping slowly – and moved towards Ceatha.
‘No more,’ she uttered frailly, eyes raw from tears shed, backing away towards Sten on her arse, sheltering his body. ‘Please. Leave us be, we won’t say a word, I beg you, mil
ord, mercy on us, have mercy milord!’
‘Your friend is dead.’ The sun caught his features as Steel Face stepped out of the long shadows cast by cramped wooden buildings. His face was streaked with blood, but he seemed uninjured. His cold eyes made her cower. A thrill seemed to be alight in them, fading slowly as he gazed upon her cowering self.
Ceath knew, as she looked into them, she feared him more than any man she had met before.
She shook her head at him, fresh tears welling, taking Sten’s hand where it lay nearby, entwining their bloodstained fingers. His were still warm, though utterly lifeless.
‘Please,’ she wept, ‘I’m just a whore, I am nothing to you, I wish you no ills, please leave me be.’
‘I am not going to hurt you, Ceatha.’
She looked up at him. His voice sounded like it meant there was more to come. He wanted something else then. This silver-ring galloglách of such fearsome skill with blade and fist wanted to fuck her for reward. She stared at the ground, feeling hollow, prepared for more torment. Her eyes scanned the patch of dry earth around her, locking on the dead man’s knife next to his spilled innards. She moved for it, slowly, thinking to either jam it in his eye or slit her wrist, and then froze, mouth agape.
Silver coins tumbled into her lap. A good handful of them. She stared at them stupidly for a moment, open mouthed, and then up at Steel Face, where he looked down at her with those cold blue eyes that almost seemed to burn with some inner fire as she gazed into them.
‘Take them,’ he said to her, his voice hard, emotionless. ‘Take them and go. Your friend is dead. The Marchers will have you killed for this if they catch you, clanfolk have no rights here. Go now, and run. Head south. Never return here, or you will die.’
Ceatha looked at the coins in her hand, unable to believe what she was hearing. He gave such money away freely? After having saved her life? And wanted nothing? She couldn’t believe it, refused to believe it, waited for the ‘but’, the ‘if’, the ‘after’ she was sure had to be waiting for her. Only it didn’t. Only silence.
She held back more tears, closing her shaking hands over the coins, the metal clinking faintly as they moved against one another. She looked up again, and met his gaze tentatively, lest those fierce eyes consume her. There could almost be flames spilling from them, she thought. They burned so brightly.
‘Who are you?’ she whispered to him, lips trembling.
‘My name is Harlin, of Clan Faolán.’
And with that he turned away from her, the silver rings in his hair chiming faintly as they swung and bounced against each other, walking back to where his friend waited, already sat atop a horse, the reins of the other clutched in his hand, an approving look writ upon his face. They mounted up, and moved off up the road and out of sight. She followed them for a few moments, stumbling, body wracked with pain, and from the shadows she watched them head along the western road away from her until they were gone.
Faolán, she thought dimly, head swimming. Wolf. His braid rings had them etched upon them. She clutched the silver he had given her tightly to her chest, and trembled as she remembered voices from the night before.
Do you know of the wolf that stalks these lands?
It wears my face.
It was too much to be simple coincidence. Far too much. This was it. This was what she had asked for, what the Weaving had shown her. This was her chance at last.
There were shouts behind her suddenly, a glance over her shoulder showing her the remaining patrons of the Singing Lyre emptying into the street to point and yell and gawp at the carnage Harlin had unleashed.
‘There she is!’ one roared, pointing at where she crouched in the shadows of a wooden house, a filthy, toothless fellow with a ratty leather skullcap’s flaps swaying beside his grimy cheeks. ‘The island whore’s covered in their blood!’
‘Murderer!’
Someone took up the cry, dozens of voices screaming in hatred and outrage as a mob formed, passers by joining a swelling crowd about the scene. A few at the front, more brave or bloodthirsty than the rest, gestured angrily toward her, urging those behind them forward, every movement and sound feeding the growing mass of chained violence.
‘Get the bitch!’ someone roared at last, a thick finger pointing for her, and their violence finally spilled over as they came running for her, a gang of thirty or more, fists raised, eyes bulging, veins bursting.
Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!
Ceatha’s heart leapt into her mouth as she stepped out into the road, eyes darting and seeking shelter.
Not now, not now, she thought desperately, backing away up the road. Her eyes locked onto something. A low burning torch, spitting lazily outside a thatched house.
She breathed deep, eyes flitting between the torch and the rapidly-closing mob behind her. This was her chance, her chance to make a change, take what was hers at last and stand tall again.
Ceatha called upon her Weaving, feeling it surge through her veins as it awoke, a sudden wind rising about her and casting her hair back from her face. She spun to face the mob, two yards left between them. Those at the front slowed as her eyes fell upon them, faces suddenly uncertain, then drawn aghast in fear. They tried to turn back and run from her, but were pushed forward by those behind and trampled painfully into the road as they fell or were shoved out of the way.
For the briefest of moments, Ceatha saw frightful images again as the Weaving filled her, of young girls, bound and black and crisped, of herself burning and writhing. She trembled, but shook her head fiercely against it all and grit her teeth. She was a Weaver of Luah Fáil, not some Marcher whore, not some craven cowering beneath the lash of their master.
No more.
Flames exploded from the torch and leapt into her hand. She threw them overhand at the mob, liquid fire blazing across the ground before her in red tendrils like burning snakes, growing, spreading and devouring all they touched in seconds. The mob stumbled, crashed into one another, turned, ran, and bright flames washed over them in a searing wave. Screams rose and charring shapes writhed and tumbled within that red pyre. Ceatha slashed her hand gracefully upwards, and the flames erupted into the sky, trailing smoke as they fell like burning oil atop thatched roofs.
Her weaving had returned, unchained, unchallenged, and she felt no fear as it ate gleefully through everything around her, the feeling it filled her with one of relief and gratitude at its freedom.
The only images she saw then as the Weaving soared through her body and mind were Haverlon and its people, as they were consumed by unnatural, sentient fire. She smiled at the sight of it all, an idea forming in her mind’s eye, one laden with potential and reward long overdue.
Chapter 9
The Black Wolf of Easthold
The Battle of Easthold. Three years gone now, yet still its corpse lingered. The memory burned fiercely, mercilessly bright and refusing to dim with the passing of time. It seemed almost as though its foul light glowed ever more steadily the more he strove to forget that day, following him if he turned away from it, circling about him like some lurking, dread moon so that its light stung his eyes once again.
Harlin remembered it all, and all too clearly.
The stone walls that towered. The mountain pass that loomed. The pines that blazed with red fire atop stone-strewn heights as the land was put to the torch and scoured in Caermark’s name. He walked through that day once more, feet treading all too familiar paths, eyes finding ever familiar faces, the weight of his sword in his sweating grip almost real. He could have sworn he was there once more as those scenes played out for him again.
The trebuchets groaned and screamed, as their timbers swung and launched burning volleys high over Easthold’s walls. A storm of fire, its smoke blackening the sky above the besieging army. Great cheers thundered with every tell-tale thump resounding from within the walls upon a direct hit. Even greater cheers followed them at the sight of buildings and towers being laid low, their crumbling descent causin
g great ripples of joy through King Aenwald’s gathered forces.
Some twenty thousand stood in their lines and ranks before Easthold. A rippling sea of men. A forest of spears bristled before Easthold as it was torn apart from above, festooned by their scores of banners and standards that streamed and flapped out like a patchwork rainbow in the wind. Harlin waited impatiently with his Shield Brothers beneath their own banners, the Blackshield Dogs a black speck in a long, colourful ribbon. He trembled, limbering up and stretching for what was to come, trying to cage his urges, eager to fight.
The whistling of arrows sang a shrill chorus between the roaring artillery fire. Archers let fly their shafts in a high arc, up, onwards, down, clattering and pinging atop the walls, plucking unlucky souls from their perches, their own bows tumbling from their hands as they fell and crumpled.
Fire blossomed along the town walls as trebuchet shot struck and exploded into glaring, burning clouds. The walls stood strong still, shrugging off the trebuchets’ onslaught, their masonry broken in places, great blocks fallen and laid strewn on the land below, their blackened, pocked scars like marks of defiance against Aenwald’s wrath. Blue banners snapped defiantly above Easthold’s stout towers, their cloth and poles flapping and rattling as fiery shot passed them by. Some were ablaze, nicked by projectiles or caught in clouds of flame from nearby impacts. Harlin watched them burn with distant amusement, eager to be let loose on the defenders, praying that the trebuchets would hurry in their task. The Border Lords did not build their fortresses to be prised open so easily, not with the Gaussemen watching their every move, waiting for some weakness to make itself known.
Aenwald had known that, and he had come more than prepared. It was almost as if he merely wanted to draw out the town’s suffering, pelting it from afar with burning rock, casting down the town’s lofty grandeur, its might, to stomp its face into the dirt with iron shod boots. He had come here to teach a lesson in disobedience, make an example, as much as secure Caermark’s control over the eastern mouth of the Southscar River and Parting Sea, vital for the land’s slave trade.
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