The Barrow

by Mark Smylie

  Stjepan waved idly, which seemed to make Godewyn even angrier, and then he and Erim and Arduin, joined by Sir Helgi and Gilgwyr, walked to the crest line. The five of them crouched, looking out over the eastern Plain of Flowers.

  “We’ve put in some good miles today after the late start,” Stjepan said.

  “Almost thirty. The Plain of Flowers is almost as smooth as a good road,” grunted Sir Helgi, his hands brushing into the flowers and petals around them. “It’s like the flowers are a bed, waiting for you to lie down on them.”

  “The Bed of the Earth Goddess,” Erim said quietly.

  Stjepan grinned at her in the dark. “Aye, but don’t fall asleep directly on the flowers. Folk tales say they sometimes strangle people in their sleep, and pull them into the earth.”

  Arduin shook his head. “Peasant superstitions,” he repeated through gritted teeth. “Though I admit that we have few options, I will nonetheless reiterate my objections that this hardly seems a safe place for us to stop, on top of a place of fae power.”

  Gilgwyr and Stjepan glanced at each other in the evening gloom. “We shouldn’t have to worry about the fae here, my Lord Arduin,” said Stjepan. “What we have to worry about is whoever’s following us out of the east.” And he pointed off the rise down across the dark plain.

  “I don’t see any torches,” Gilgwyr commented lightly. “Or campfires. I suspect that doesn’t bode well.”

  “No,” said Stjepan. “Two columns of horsemen, neither of which wants us to see them, apparently. They were a few hours behind us, but on this plain and without heavy wagons to slow them, they could well close the gap and be on us soon if they’re pursuing us in the dark. Our main hope will lie in what cover the night gave us, to disguise the direction we were headed. If we’re lucky, since we didn’t turn toward Hallorenge until after the sun set they will pass to our south looking for us, thinking we were making for Hingriff, or perhaps turning off to the south toward Rosemont. We should post lookouts to all four points of the compass, but look mostly to the south-east, from whence we came, and the south.”

  And so Erim found herself with Stjepan and Gilgwyr, lying on a soft bed of flowers with a vantage point of the approaching dark plains, bows strung, and quivers set beside their swords. Erim set Stjepan’s spyglass next to her bow but in the dark it was of little use. Three of Godewyn’s men had been dispatched to three other lookout spots, and the rest of their caravan was waiting within the wagon circle, Arduin leading the heavily armored last line of defense around the Ladies’ coach.

  The three of them lay there silently, just watching and listening. The wind had picked up a bit, occasionally buffeting them on the exposed ridge. They could occasionally hear the tinkle of metal on metal from within the camp, or the muted whinny of one of the horses on the picket line. She hoped the sounds weren’t carrying far, but it appeared as though they were on the highest point of the plain and she winced every time there was a noise from behind them. But for all the tension she felt, it was a beautiful night; the Celestial Path, the Star Road of heroes through the sky, was bright and clearly visible. She was about to ask Stjepan to point out the Star Signs on the Wheel of the Heavens, when he raised a hand. “There,” he whispered. “Did you hear that?”

  She shook her head, then froze when she heard a distant yell brought their way by the wind from out of the dark plains in front of them. She strained to listen. For a long moment there was nothing else and she began to wonder if she’d imagined it.

  Then came the sharp ring of metal on metal, then again, and someone screamed, and a low hunting horn gave an ominous blast.

  The sounds grew and built on each other; horses neighing and men screaming and yelling, clattering thuds and sharp rings, orders being barked, fading in and out as the wind ebbed and flowed and changed direction. But in the dark there was nothing to see. A phantom battle was occurring somewhere below them on the plain, its sounds floating up to their vantage spot on the ridge.

  And for some reason that made it even more terrifying to Erim than if she could plainly see it.

  “What the fuck is going on?” she finally hissed at Stjepan when she couldn’t take it any longer. She felt him shrug next to her.

  “How should I know? I’m guessing they’re about a mile or two from us, whoever they are,” he whispered back. “Some of the Erid King’s men, for sure, as we saw them coming down from Prince Fionne’s hold at Hagenwall; but then who the others might be . . .”

  “Perhaps they’re squabbling over the bounty,” offered Gilgwyr with a snicker. “Surely the Court will have offered a reward?”

  “The High Priest of the Public Temple in Therapoli is dead,” whispered Stjepan. “Whoever has the honor of catching us will have a thousand priests praying for their safe entry into Heaven when they die. But if that is not reward enough for the faithful, I don’t doubt that they threw in some gold crowns, as well.”

  They mulled that over in silence, listening to the sounds of the battle. The rings and cries slowly became less frequent, and then faded entirely into the wind. Several long minutes passed as they waited. Erim could feel tightness in her chest from holding her breath for so long and she realized she was gripping the hilt of her rapier so hard her knuckles and fingers were visibly white in the starlit blue-black darkness. She forced herself to relax, to breath normally, and for a time that was all she concentrated on.

  There was a long, low call from the horn. Then silence again. Then after several minutes the horn sounded again.

  “It’s a rally signal, the knights of Erid Dania use that call,” Stjepan whispered. “The Erid Prince is gathering his forces; they’re the victors, presumably, though the Goddess only knows who they were fighting.”

  “I wonder if that is good for us or bad for us,” said Gilgwyr.

  “Little we can do about it, other than watch and wait,” Stjepan replied, shrugging again.

  Long minutes passed, and then Erim saw a small light appear, a torch sputtering to life some distance away. Two miles away? Maybe three miles, or even four? She found it hard to gauge distance in the dark of night. Other torches were lit, a growing group of small lights out on the darkened plain. Some of the lights were in constant motion, circling and milling about, so it was difficult to count them, but Erim guessed there were at least thirty of them. Her breathing slowed and became more measured. She slid an arrow out and nocked it.

  “That’s what, twenty, thirty horsemen?” she asked.

  “If they are the Prince’s men, as I suspect, then they’ll be in groups of three and one man will be holding a torch for two others,” Stjepan said quietly.

  “Bad for us,” said Gilgwyr glumly.

  “No, I rather think good for us,” said Stjepan. “If they knew where we were and were going to come at us, they’d have done so without lights in the dark, as they did with whoever they fought first. They don’t care if anyone sees them now.”

  The lights seemed to spread out for a bit, in ever-widening circles, for long minutes. They’re searching for something; the enemy they fought? Or our tracks? she thought. Finally the horn sounded again, and the lights came back into a tighter group, and then started moving off back toward the east.

  They all let out a sigh of relief. “Good for us,” said Gilgwyr, with a sense of surprised finality, and they all started to get up.

  “Aye, but don’t let anyone light any fires,” said Stjepan. “You can see how visible they are from a distance out here on the Plain. Tell Godewyn to cut his watch in half, but keep a man at each of the cardinal points all night.” He hefted a bow and slid the strap for a quiver of arrows over his head and shoulder so it could hang across his back.

  “So where the fuck are you going?” asked Erim.

  “I’m going to go see who lost that fight,” Stjepan said. He grinned and she could see his white teeth reflecting starlight. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t wait up.” And with that he slid over the side of the ridgeline and disappeared out into the
dark of the plain.

  Stjepan moved through the fields of flowers swiftly, the night landscape illuminated in his eyes in shades of silver and blue and black thanks to an Incantation of Seeing. He used the bearing of Nisanu, the sign of the Ram currently in the Twelfth House of the Celestial Wheel, and a cluster of ancient Düréan heroine-stars that lingered to the sign’s south as markers to keep him on line with where they’d seen the torches out on the plain. But not so swiftly, being wary of observation and ambush, and he was briefly distracted by a great swarm of fireflies that danced in the night, so it took perhaps a half hour for him to reach the general area and find the first corpse. The dead man was stretched out in the flowers, his chest rent by a great piercing blow. Lance, thought Stjepan.

  It took him twenty minutes of searching to the west to find the next bodies, a group of four spread out over a hundred yards or so. Lance, sword or axe, sword, and lance, he thought. All run down from behind, two of them finished when they were on the ground. It took him forty minutes to find what were most certainly the rest of them, as they weren’t where he expected them to be and he had to widen his search circle; it looked like the defenders had tried to swing back toward the east and head back for the Scented Hills, only to get caught between two sets of attackers. He found fourteen dead men and three dead horses, most of them clustered before a stand of flowering trees but a few scattered inside the copse and a couple that had made it past the trees before they fell. There was a tight cluster of six bodies, almost back to back, just before the trees. The last stand of the main group, Stjepan speculated. Or prisoners who had surrendered and then were summarily slaughtered. The horses looked like they’d been lanced, either on purpose or by accident; only one hit had been instantly fatal, the other two horses had been put out of their misery afterwards.

  He turned each man over so he could look at their faces, a dagger in one hand in case any of them were faking it. Some of them wore hoods or masks and he had to peel them away to see who they were. In life they would have looked tough, surly, mean, intimidating. In death they looked startled, scared, anguished, pained. Most of them had a familiar, familial set to the lips and eyes. Their weapons were largely left wherever they fell: a mix of broadswords and hangers and hunting swords, falchions and axes, perhaps a spear or two that would have passed for a lance for this motley crew. A few crossbows were scattered here and there, probably of minimal use in a horseback battle by starlight. The bodies appeared to be unlooted. They were mostly dressed in dark leathers and roughhewn, patched clothing, with brigandine jacks, plate cuirasses, or mail hauberks slipped over or under the leather clothes. Definitely points to Danian knights and sergeants out of Hagenwall under Prince Fionne as the attackers; Fionne’s men never loot the dead unless they are enemy knights, he considers it beneath them. But they took the horses that survived.

  He turned one man over, and underneath the man’s hood, sopping with blood, Stjepan saw long straggly black hair, and a patchy growth along his chin and mouth, and the same curled lip and a slightly crossed set to the eyes as so many of the others, now frozen in death. A mail hauberk had been slipped over his jacket of patched, undyed leather. He’d taken a blow to the back of the head, and another to his gut that appeared to have ruptured skin and organs even though the mail had held.

  I remember you, Stjepan thought grimly.

  Godewyn had fallen asleep in the back of one of the two wagons on a pile of boxes and chests, a cloak pulled over him and his head nestled against a folded tent. He slept fitfully, his dreams filled with odd visions of beautiful women walking amongst fields of white flowers and standing stones, laughing at him. He awoke suddenly, sensing a presence nearby, and his fingers closed over the hilt of his dagger as his eyes widened and darted about. He could see the dark, bundled shapes of Caider Ross and Giordus Roame still sleeping on the other side of the wagon, and then his eyes settled on Stjepan casually sitting next to him to his right, leaning against the wagon’s sideboard and looking off into the distance. Godewyn blinked once or twice, the grip on his dagger hilt tightening, and then he forced himself to relax.

  “Nineteen dead Woats out there in the flowers,” said Stjepan.

  “You don’t say,” said Godewyn groggily. He rubbed his eyes and sat up to prop himself against the sideboard, squinting a bit to look at Stjepan.

  “Now I suppose one or two might have gotten away, but by all appearances Prince Fionne Thurias had led almost ninety of his household knights and sergeants out into the field, having spotted the Woats riding into the no-man’s land of the Plain of Flowers and in the bright of day. They don’t get many chances to kill Woats outright these days, normally the elders are far too clever about hiding their business. But I don’t think Gelber had much choice, we were moving too fast and they didn’t know where we were going, he had to act hastily and move in the open. Prince Fionne is a young man, sharp, and eager for more experience of war and battle, and a passel of Woats out on a raid would’ve got his blood going. So I think they bottled them up pretty tight. Leaving nineteen dead Woats,” said Stjepan. He studied the stars for a moment. “Nineteen. What does that number say to you?”

  “I don’t follow,” said Godewyn, flat and quiet.

  “Nineteen Woats,” said Stjepan. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, the Woats are a fearsome brood, murderers and rapists and cutthroats for a thousand years, with the blood of the Wyvern King running in their veins. But I don’t believe for a second that Gelber Woat would have been stupid enough to send only nineteen of his kinsmen against a Tourney Champion, seven knights in full kit, two squires, an enchanter, Gilgwyr of the Sleight of Hand, myself, Erim, and Godewyn Red-Hand and his band of butchers. There’s twenty-one of us. We actually outnumbered them.”

  He leaned in closer, fixing his gaze on Godewyn’s narrowed eyes. “Unless maybe Gelber Woat was expecting the odds to be different when his kinsmen actually caught up with us,” said Stjepan, almost in a whisper. “Unless he was thinking the odds would be more like twenty-six to fourteen in his favor, with the bonus of an inside job giving his lot the element of surprise and a lot of us dead before we knew what was happening.”

  A slow grin spread over Godewyn’s face. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Black-Heart,” he said.

  “Keep it that way, Red-Hand,” said Stjepan. “Do your job. Get paid. Go home alive. Yeah?”

  “Oh, Black-Heart, really, must we do this?” Godewyn said, and opened his mouth to say something else when he heard a whisper even closer, right in his left ear.

  “Do your job. Get paid. Go home alive,” whispered Gilgwyr, pressed up behind him from the other side of the wagon sideboard and nestling his cheek against Godewyn’s. Godewyn froze, his bowels suddenly clenching. He could feel the light touch of cold hard steel against his throat. He and Stjepan stared at each other for several heartbeats as he felt Gilgwyr breathe against his neck. He could see his death in Stjepan’s eyes, feel it in the press of Gilgwyr’s cheek and dagger.

  “Yeah,” said Godewyn, calm and easy. “Yeah, of course. Do our job. Get paid. Go home alive. Nice and simple, yeah?”

  He felt the pressure against his left cheek and ear lift and disappear, and then Stjepan was slipping over the side of the wagon and off into the darkness.

  Godewyn didn’t move for close to a minute, then he let out a long breath and slumped against the sideboard. “Fuck me,” he said with a groan.

  “Everything all right, chief?” said Caider in the dark. Caider sat up, rubbing his eyes.

  “Yeah, everything’s fine,” said Godewyn. He coughed and leaned his head over the sideboard to spit the bad taste out of his mouth. “But it looks like we might have to go with the back-up plan.”

  “What, actually do the job?” asked Caider, surprise in his voice.

  “Yeah,” said Godewyn with a sigh. “The Bale Mole on a fool’s errand, here we come.” He shook his head in the dark.

  Fucking Woats.

  Sleep came fitfully for most of the
m during the night. Perhaps in part due to the tensions of the long, mysterious pursuit the day before, in part due to the hurried cold dinner and lack of a hearth fire, in part due to the nearby presence of the circle of ancient menhirs that loomed beside them and marked the close proximity of the Otherworld and things of ancient ken and power. They kindled fires for breakfast, and that seemed to warm their spirits a touch, but only Stjepan and Leigh took the time to wander in and around the circle of standing stones in the light of day. Everyone else eyed the rune-carved stones with suspicion and dread, and were eager to be on their way across the Plain.

  By mid-day on the 25th of Emperium, they were able to come down out of the Plain of Flowers without attracting too much attention from the castles and keeps that dotted the north side of the Holbrae, a creek that ran down out of the Plain into the great Volbrae River. At the juncture of the Holbrae and the Volbrae stood the city of Hartford once An-Damagraile, the hold of the Earl of Hartford. They passed through the towns on the south side of the creek and entered the Tiria Road, and crossed the bridge over the Holbrae into Hartford.

  As they paid out the entry tolls into the city, Stjepan turned casually to one of the guards at the gatehouse. “Say, any word on where I might find a fellow named Gause Three-Penny?” Stjepan asked. “He’s from around here, I’m told.”

  “He a friend of yours?” asked the guard. He looked at Stjepan a bit suspiciously.

  “Acquaintance is more like it,” Stjepan said with an easy grin. “The man owes me money from an evening of dice down in Aprenna.” Which was, in fact, true.