by Tim Stead
Yet Pascha did want to save Hestia. She did not doubt that the queen had been a fool to pick up a bow and put herself in danger, but she could not help but admire the spirit of the gesture. In a way the two of them, Terresh and Hestia, reminded her of herself and Alaran. Alaran, like Terresh, had made a bargain with the Seth Yarra, and like Terresh he had paid for the mistake, though Alaran’s price had been higher.
She saw the bond between them. Theirs was not a mere marriage of state, though it may have begun that way. They were one person, like she and Alaran had been – like she had wished they had been.
Pascha had decided to help. She knew that she could, but she did not really know how. Whatever power she possessed it seemed to answer to her will, and so she would will Hestia to be made whole. She didn’t want to do it in public, though.
She had them carry Hestia to the queen’s tent. She posted guards. She allowed only Terresh and Skal to enter, to be present. Terresh because she did not think she could prevent him without doing him some harm, and Skal because she trusted him. Skal had proven a solid ally and she remembered well enough that Terresh had already stabbed her in the back both metaphorically and literally.
She sat beside the queen. Hestia was in great pain, and it was difficult for her to draw breath. Every time she tried it made a terrible sound, bubbling and rasping. There was no hope in her eyes.
She thinks I’m going to kill her, Pascha realised, release her from her pain.
It was a common thing to do in such circumstances, and considered an act of mercy. She glanced across at Terresh, and saw the same thing in his eyes
They’ve already said goodbye.
Now was the difficult part. She had no idea how to do this. She could feel the power moving within her, but she didn’t know how to use it. Was contact necessary? Should she hold the queen’s hand? She took Hestia’s hand in hers. It was cool and damp, not at all as she had expected.
She closed her eyes and looked at the guttering fire that was Hestia’s life. The shapes and colours appeared sickly, but she did not know what to do to restore it. She concentrated. She reached out with her mind, like a hand, she thought of it as a hand, and touched Hestia. To her surprise she felt the energy running down her imagined hand like water, a warm flood. It burned faintly as it left her.
The effect was extraordinary. It was like throwing oil on a real fire, only there were no flames in the Sirash. Hestia seemed to blaze with colours akin to gold, yellow, blue and silver. Pascha felt the queen’s hand clench in her own, heard Terresh cry out somewhere in the distance.
Enough. She snatched her hand away and opened her eyes. Hestia was still looking at her, but now there was something else in her eyes. She had passed from despair through hope and into the realisation of what Pascha had done, all in that brief time. Pascha recognised the look. She had seen it a very long time ago in the eyes of soldiers by the sea in Afael, by the light of burning ships, and those eyes had been looking at Narak.
Terresh, suddenly released by Skal, rushed to kneel by his queen, but at the same time seemed torn by the desire to kneel to Pascha. He did both. He tried to speak, but seemed incapable of putting two words together. Skal stood open mouthed, staring.
It was Hestia who found her voice first - Hestia who had been ripped open by an arrow, who had faced death, who had suffered and was still painted in the colour of her own blood.
“I thank you for my life,” she said.
“You are useful to me,” Pascha said. She was trying very hard not to show her true feelings, which were sentimental and foolish. “Try hard to remain so.”
“You are truly a god,” Terresh said.
50. Hope
Narak stood high above the forest and looked down upon it with despair in his heart. The wind was at his back, blowing strong and steady from the east. It was exactly the wrong wind. Fifty yards to his left the small clutch of Durander mages sat about a fire and chanted for all the good it seemed to do. They had promised him a wind, and they were failing him.
Down in the woods where his mortal eyes could not see, the wolves were tracking the Seth Yarra army. Fifty thousand men had entered his forest, trampled his ground, polluted his air with their smell. He itched to be among them. It was an outrage.
Yet here he stood, listening to the mumbling of men who claimed to be able to control the weather, and down there, just three day’s march away the Seth Yarra army was creeping closer to the gate.
He had gone to the army. It was quickest that he went himself and did not send messengers, and Quinnial and Havil were bringing them north even now, horsemen moving in advance of the main body of men. In less than two weeks they would be here, but not before Seth Yarra.
It seemed that he had gambled and lost.
There had been plenty of time, it seemed. They had promised him a west wind two days ago, and still it had not backed around to the north. This was a prelude to a west wind, they had said. There were still days until a west wind could blow, and in less time than that the pass would be filled with Seth Yarra and just Cain’s three thousand to hold them.
The wall was built. At least there was that. If he walked a few steps to his right he could see it, but he had already seen it. It stretched across the pass, like a set of east facing steps that ended twelve feet in the air. At least the enemy would need ladders to scale it, and there was no wood left in the pass. Cain’s men had cut it all down and carried it up to the western neck where it had been stacked behind a wooden palisade, or what looked like a wooden palisade.
It was actually a trap.
Fighting a war against Cain would have been interesting. The colonel’s mind was quite original. The thing he had erected in the western neck looked from the west like an unfinished wooden wall. That was deliberate. Behind it, on the defenders side, there were other walls, set there to guide the enemy like sheep through a series of runs that could absorb at least a thousand soldiers. What could only be seen from above was that those runs enclosed a series of islands, and the islands were piled high with brushwood, and on that brushwood Cain had caused to be piled jars of oil that could be broken at will.
Men stood in the gap on the far side, stripped for work as though they were striving to complete the barrier. Their horses waited out of sight.
It was a clever trap, and a cruel one. Those caught in it would burn to death, trapped by the weight of their own men pressing forwards behind, caught in the narrowing runs so that they could not move forwards quickly enough to win free.
Yes, it would have been interesting to fight a war against Cain.
Narak did not think that the trap would make a difference. If he burned a thousand in it there were forty-nine more to take their place. He thought perhaps that the enemy would spend a week making ladders, and after that the wall would hold only a few days. That might not be enough time for the army to reach them and stop the gap. If he were a betting man he would have bet on Seth Yarra.
It was Cain’s plan that had inspired his own, that and the thing in the north that still sent him dreams, enticing him to embark upon a road that led north into the lands of ice. It was a road that he would not take. He had already decided that he would hold the pass.
If Seth Yarra came in force he would go out and face them. He doubted that he could kill fifty thousand men. Even he would tire eventually, and there would be blood silver blades and arrows. It would be an end, but such an end that his enemies would remember for a thousand years. They would be scaring their children with tales of him…
But they would not. The Bren would kill them all.
He had almost forgotten for a moment that the Seth Yarra were as doomed as he. They had months where he had weeks. The tale of his death would be blotted out in their own demise, and that was right, he supposed. In the remnants of the world, the six kingdoms decimated by Seth Yarra and Seth Yarra exterminated by the Bren, who would remember what? It was perhaps best that all was forgotten, that men made a fresh start in the world.
These were melancholy thoughts, and he knew it. He put them down to the recent deaths of three of his dearest friends. He had still not mourned properly for Beloff, or Perlaine or Narala. He did not know how. Each of them had been a companion for centuries, and he did not think that the word friend adequately described the bond between them. It was closer to family, but even more than that. Each of them had been part of what he was. It was like having portions of his mind ripped away, or being robbed of sight or his sense of smell.
Yet he could not see a way in which he would not soon join them in oblivion. He would fight here because he must. Perhaps he could reduce the Seth Yarra to a number that the army could defeat. Perhaps not. He would do his best.
He walked back to the tents behind the chanting mages. For all their lack of success he could feel the power of their magic as he walked by them. The weather was stronger, though. It resisted.
He sat by a fire, resting on the hard ground and wrapping a blanket around his shoulders. He was feeling the cold a little, which was uncommon. Normally he was as hardy as any wolf.
He felt a pricking at the back of his neck. This was a sign that someone was trying to talk to him, that one of his wolves was being spoken to. He closed his eyes and followed the thread of it.
He saw the forest, tall trees, mostly pines and the permanent twilight they gathered about them. A man was crouched before the wolf, speaking, his voice low. Narak guessed that the enemy must be near, and yet this man thought his message important enough to risk detection when detection meant death.
He was one of Henn’s men, a face that he recognised, but no name attached to it.
“…and they have not moved since,” the man was saying. “I do not know what it means, but something has them worried.”
He appeared to finish speaking and turned away, but it seemed to Narak that he had entirely missed the core of the message, and he caused the wolf to push the man, and place a paw upon his foot. The man was quick witted enough to know what this meant.
“You want me to say it all again?” he asked. “Very well.” He hunkered down once more. “Yesterday men came from the south. We saw them come. There were seven of them, all on foot as is the custom with these Seth Yarra. They seemed most tired and urgent, and had about them such superficial marks to indicate that they had been in a fight. We could not tell what message they brought, but it was clearly a grave one. The Seth Yarra stopped their advance. They have made camp here, and it seemed that they are to split their force. All day they have been loading and unloading wagons. Men have been running about the place shouting orders. Whatever the message was it has surely put the hawk in the hen house here, and they have not moved since. I do not know the meaning of it, but they are shaken good and proper, and that’s a fact.”
He turned away again, looking over his shoulder. “Time we were not here,” he muttered, and he ran off at a crouch, weaving from tree to tree, and in a few moments the wolf could no longer see him.
Narak released the creature and was once again before the fire on the ledge above the White Road, looking out at the forest.
It must be Pascha, he thought. She had struck at them in the south as she suggested that she might, and it seemed that the battle had gone her way. There men who had come north had been a remnant of that force, come to warn their master that his rear was now undefended, as they must. The Seth Yarra commander was unaware that haste was his best weapon and had set his army down to consider the matter and plan carefully.
Narak wondered why she had waited so long to attack, but it did not matter. It was only important that she had. The timing could not have been better. The Seth Yarra could not continue to advance without risking an engagement, and now that they knew that they might be attacked from the rear they must wait to set a distance between their new rearguard which was about to be dispatched, and the main force. How long had this bought him? Three days? No more than that, he was certain. Yet three days could make a difference.
He stood again, suddenly restless, and he felt the wind on his cheek. He looked north, and there it was: a north wind. The weather had begun to move.
Hope blossomed in his heart like a flower.
51. A Council at Fal Verdan
Skal felt that his was the only voice in council. There were five heads in the room, but only two spoke. Terresh and Hestia sat together on one side of the table, he sat on the other with colonel Tragil, commander of the wall. Passerina sat at the head, presiding.
They were in a strong position. Their casualties in the battle had been slight. Skal himself had lost less than fifty men, and the Telans a couple of hundred. Their combined force still numbered over five thousand, and a straggle of Telan soldiers drifted in to join them every day. This was not an entirely positive thing in Skal’s view. It showed that word of their rebellion against Seth Yarra had spread very quickly, and even now the Seth Yarra must know of it.
Tragil had a further three thousand men, but he would not leave the wall. It was his duty to hold it and he had given his oath to the king that it would not fall. He had already ruled himself out of any adventure.
Their position was temporary, however. The sparrow had confirmed that the men who had escaped the slaughter had gone north, and that they had reached their destination. Even now preparations were underway and a force would soon be marching south to engage them. They expected at least eight thousand men, and it would be unwise to meet such a force on open ground.
Skal could see an opportunity. If they marched now they could reach Telas Alt before Seth Yarra’s punitive force knew they had moved. There were only a few hundreds of the enemy in the city, and he was confident that they could recapture it, and the walls would give them sufficient advantage to hold out against the enemy for an almost indefinite period, given that they could find enough food. It would be a blow that would hearten their allies and embolden Telan soldiers everywhere.
The sparrow was more cautious. Skal could tell that her instinct was to withdraw behind the wall and the Telans were loath to side against her. Saving Hestia had inspired an almost dog-like devotion in Terresh, and his queen, now indebted for her life to the sparrow, would not raise her voice against her. Skal knew that they both thought well of his idea, but they would not speak.
“We have achieved our goal,” Passerina said. “The Seth Yarra who guarded the gate are destroyed. The ruse has worked and the army that faces Narak and Cain in the north has been reduced. We should take the victory and enjoy it. Our task is done.”
“One battle is not a war, Deus,” Skal said.
“And the war is Narak’s province, colonel,” she snapped back. “You are suggesting that we risk his reserve further, and put it quite out of reach, even if we are not overwhelmed by the enemy.”
“Then speak to Narak, put the question to him.”
Passerina stared at him. This was something that she seemed most reluctant to do, and he did not understand it. It was almost as though she had something to hide and feared that the Wolf would discover it. Perhaps she had not asked his permission to use the reserve at all, and now was afraid of being found out. But that did not seem likely to Skal.
“You might remain here, just a few miles east of the wall, and trap this new force between yourselves and our archers,” Tragil suggested.
“But unless you are prepared to sally forth to aid us they need simply push us back beyond your range and then it will be an even battle.”
Tragil looked grim. “I will not risk it,” he said.
“Then our five against their eight does not look decisive.”
“How long do we have?” Tragil asked.
Skal looked at Passerina. She was their source of intelligence. Her eyes watched the army, but she did not know much of marching through rough country. “Two weeks if we are lucky,” he said. “Ten days if we are not.”
Now Hestia spoke. She looked worried and spoke with exaggerated respect. “You cannot take a Telan army through the gate,” she said. “What
will you do with us?”
“There is already a Telan army through the gate,” Passerina said.
“Filamon,” Terresh said, and there was a note in his voice that Skal would have expected from a king whose subject lord had betrayed him.
“Filamon served the Benetheon,” Passerina said. Terresh looked away. Clearly there was a conflict between now and then that he could not readily reconcile. Hestia shook her head.
“We will not go through the gate,” she said.
“There is safety there,” Passerina said. “I will guarantee your safety.”
Tragil nodded. “And I will uphold that guarantee,” he said.
“Yet we will not go through the gate,” Hestia insisted. “Telas is our land, our kingdom. If we flee what does that say to our people? We would rather remain alone in Telas and do what we can. Perhaps we can raise enough men to make a stand.”