by David Keck
Suddenly the hulking, scurrying monster came upon two long rectangles in the grass. Durand remembered the graves. The thing seemed to stare in an intent pause, then it passed its talons through the earth, which rippled and flowed around its hands. Durand recognized the mud he had tamped with his own shovel.
The thing plunged. It sank as it had flown, treating earth and air like water. With the sinuous power of a reptile, it churned downward, and Durand was tugged along for the ride. He caught the glint of needle-teeth. After a moment, through the thick slurry of earth, came a flash of yellow. A winding sheet. Durand saw crude stitches, then earth, then the stiff white curls of cold lips and nostrils.
Invisible fingers worked at rigid lips, darting in for a look at the smooth blue-gray passages beyond. Then it pulled back to tug. Its talons caught in the winding sheet and it jerked and pulled as it coiled upward through the earth. The corpse of Agryn rolled out of the straining cloth as the creature pulled and pulled, jerking the shroud away. The body itself was snagged on the nails Badan had driven through, and it hung like a drowned man caught on the way to the bottom. The greedy fiend heaved and tugged, frantic. Finally, it burst into the air yet again to tug on a corner of canvas—the only bit of Agryn that had made it to the surface.
IN THE YELLOW and green half-light of Cerlac's old tent, Durand winced a little air through his broken nose and blinked thick eyelids. He smoothed out his bedroll and checked his few possessions. His fighting surcoat was stiff as a butcher's apron, cold, and more brown than green. Slashes scored the face of his shield. Here and there, popped links scabbed his hauberk. The long leaf blade of his razor was powdered with rust.
They must not only survive another day; they must win. The wait was like an itch in his joints.
A ruby slit of light shot into the tent gloom as a woolly head appeared through the tent flap, bobbing a few feet above the floor. It was one of the shield-bearers. "Sir? I'm shield-bearer to Sir Berchard. Guthred sent me after your surcoat. He says he'll be cursed if he lets you ride into the lists in soiled gear and make Lamoric look a fool. He's told me your horse had no trapper, sir?"
"What?" started Durand. The boy's floating head blinked up at him in complete innocence. "No. There's no cursed trapper."
The young man nodded and stepped inside, unselfconsciously ignoring explanations that didn't concern him to tromp after Durand's muddy, bloody surcoat. "There's been no time," Durand said at the top of the shield-bearer's head. The boy balled the mess up and backed out, grinning politely without listening.
"There's breakfast," the boy said.
Again, Durand stood in the empty tent. The acid scent of lye bit his eyes. It had carried in with Berchard's boy—likely up to his armpits in it for hours. Honest work, but no longer his to do.
He pulled on his cloak and went after his breakfast.
As he stepped into the dawn, he shot a glance down a chance aisle between the tents. The churned earth of Agryn's mound lay dark against the east and the cliff's edge, and he thought of his dream. Uneasy, he walked the canvas alleyway toward it.
As he stepped squinting from the lane, two silhouettes ceased speaking. Durand was already too close to step away. Lamoric and Deorwen turned to face him. He could only bow.
"Durand," Lamoric said.
"Lordship; Ladyship," Durand said. Deorwen was playing her part, appearing mild and easy even after all that had happened.
"Did you see my brother yesterday?" Lamoric asked. "I don't—" Durand faltered.
"My brother. Father sent him. With our vote. Gireth. So he's come. I saw him up there." "No. I didn't think—"
"No. But that's him. Landast the heir. Too wise to go haring off to tournaments and rebellions with duties at home." He gave his wife an apologetic glance. "But that's how it's always been. Him at home, and me off riding. Him taking up burdens, and me playing games." He waved to the others and the Red Knight gear he still wore. "But it doesn't matter, does it?"
Durand thought of a thousand things that he should tell this man. Deorwen was right there. Even now, he was tempted, but he looked the man square in the face.
"This is the grave?" said a voice from the brightness.
Across the mounded earth stood a socket in the bright dawn: the Lord of Mornaway. No one answered.
"Lord Lamoric, after what has happened, I must—"
"Moryn, I have not always been the sort of man a brother would wish his sister to marry," Lamoric said. His hand crossed to Deorwen's arm, and she allowed him to take her hand.
After a moment's silent consideration, Lord Moryn abandoned much of what he must have planned to say, asking simply, "Why have you come to me now? Why"—his empty hand then faltered over the gray mounds—"this?"
"We had good reason."
"Radomor."
"He thinks he will be king."
Moryn did not argue, instead nodded slowly. "Many might follow such a man."
"If Ragnal loses the crown, some might suffer a man like Radomor of Yrlac to pluck it up, but when we are victorious today none of this will matter."
"Why only then?"
"He will take your vote from you."
Moryn made to protest.
"He will have the victor's boon," said Lamoric, "if he can best us."
Moryn stopped a long time, then. The shadowed face turned Durand's way, needled through with dawn's rays. "It would be his right."
"He will snare you with your honor."
"I have sworn," Moryn murmured. "As commander of the North Company, I've vowed to keep the customs of this place under the eyes of the prince and the king. Kandemar the Herald stood by. By their word are half-a-thousand knights bound to my house, and we to them. Trees and fields and mills and rivers beyond counting. I must serve as the king's justice in a thousand cases." He paused. 'There is no recanting."
'There will be no need," Lamoric vowed. "We will see to it, brother. Return to your people. Arm yourself and speak to any who will listen. On this day, it is in our power to keep war from our doorstep."
Lord Moryn faced this oration in silence. The grave was between them.
"He was close to you," he said.
"Agryn kept his own counsel, but I have known no wiser man," Lamoric allowed.
"He spoke to me," Durand said.
Moryn nodded, then straightened his surcoat. "Let us make certain that his life has bought more than one day," he said and left them standing around the grave.
'The others are nearly prepared to go in," Deorwen prompted.
Lamoric nodded, touching Durand's shoulder. "I am glad that you turned us back," he said. Then Deorwen and Lamoric left as well.
Durand settled to his knees, facing the dawn as Agryn had only a day before. His fingers closing in the chalky earth scraped a tatter of cloth: a yellow triangle of winding sheet jutted from the turned earth. It could have been some strange flower. He took the canvas between two fingers, letting the fabric slide as he looked into the earth.
In an hour, the rain returned.
DURAND WATCHED THE king and his train of black-clad toadies take their places. Despite the black sapphire crown on his brow, Ragnal looked like he should be in the battlefield breaking armies, not perched among traitors and cowards and fools.
Rain slithered through steel links.
The lines waited under the low Heavens. Iron-mailed hands scratched collars, slapped the necks of horses, and juggled battle helms. There were no pretenses. Agryn's ride had turned the mood. If anyone felt he wasn't part of a real battle, he was mad. Some had even changed sides: rats leaving the Mornaway ship.
Heremund stood among the shield-bearers, his shoulders up around his ears as the rain pattered down. "Radomor's got as many men today as yesterday. Not one fell. No one so much as wrenched his ankle."
Though the drizzle darkened their shoulders, Yrlac's green men stood straight as ever. Yrlac himself scowled fit to steam the rain from his skull. Before him the monstrous Champion knelt, his helmed head on the earth. Ne
ither man seemed much the worse for a fall that had killed a strong man and three horses only the day before.
Today, the Rooks flapped through the lines, stirring up the animals.
"I don't like it," said Heremund. "Yrlac and that Champion of his should've gone for a start. Radomor and his friend never so much as popped a shoulder. They had to drag Radomor off. He shouldn't be there."
Guthred grunted, rain trailing down his stolid face.
"And your company's down quite a few as well, I see," Heremund ventured. A score had gone. "Looks like the square after market day."
"Men are what they are," Guthred said. "More'll leave for fear than join for conscience."
The skald nodded. "A shame."
Guthred shrugged. "Worse shame, we're down four ourselves. Agryn and the young one, Cadarn, yesterday, and two more've come up lame 'smorning. That bastard Musgered's found himself a torn shoulder—didn't notice till this morning. And Badan's got fever." A superstitious quarter of Durand's mind recalled Agryn's moan and Berchard's words about desecration marking a man. It was just as likely to be cowardice.
"Bad luck," Durand mumbled.
He looked back to the bedraggled lines. It was bad. There were too many men in Radomor's host, and Moryn's company stretched very thin to line up against them. Surveying the grim line, Durand tried to conjure up some strategy that might counter Radomor's numbers. What he needed was something like Radomor's ploy on the first day. By letting the conrois think they were out for a day's sport, Radomor kept the fighting light and his men safe. And hitting hard right at the day's end gave everyone the same message: A real battle was coming on—just in time for Moryn's North Company to stew in their tents all night. "Clever," Durand grumbled.
"Radomor? He spends a day playing with us, then picks up twenty of your men for the rough going today."
"We're better without them," Guthred said.
Durand wondered if this were true.
"I spent some time watching the stands while you lads were busy," said Heremund. "You can see which way the wind blows, that's certain."
Durand peered down on the skald. 'There must have been some people sitting up when Radomor rode after Moryn's head."
"Aye, though they sat down again when your Agryn stopped him," Heremund said. "You could see them tensing up. Noble arses coming up off the benches. All these dog-feral gleams in their eyes. And then nothing." Heremund grinned his black-socket grin. "Beoran was near swearing over it."
In all this thinking about battlefields and strategy, a man might forget their real business: the Great Council and its vote.
"How do they stand?" Durand asked.
"Same as ever. There were as many ready to get up as not. As many grinned as cursed. Radomor's still got to win this, I'd say. And it's still ours to lose."
Durand nodded, filling his chest with sea air. "Right. Let's get to it then," he said and climbed into the saddle.
As Durand swung aboard his nameless bay, Coensar cut his stallion from the line, riding out before Lamoric's retainers. He looked over them all.
"Yrlac will come for Moryn Mornaway—that's certain— so we won't have to go looking for a fight today."
Ouen laughed. The rest smiled cutthroat grins.
"You're all going to keep your damned heads up, your eyes open, and watch for each other. You know this, but I'll tell you anyway: We're bigger together, and we're going to stay together, or it'll be me you've got to worry about and not some mad Duke of Yrlac. Got it?"
Half the men, smiling at this none-so-grand speech, hoisted swords or lances in wry salute. Coensar flashed a grin back, every inch a bandit captain. "Right. Watch for it, and let's see if we can't take this Radomor's head."
Horses stamped and nodded down both lines. Kandemar the Herald spoke again, holding the ivory battle horn like a scepter over them all. Durand pulled cords and cinched straps tight to creaking. The hardwood lance in his fist felt light as a reed.
Coensar was right: Radomor would come for them, and that would be their chance. They would fight and they would win. Again, Prince Biedin's black gauntlet was high in the rain. Durand's mouth was dry to his neck bones. The bay underneath him bobbed, its ears twitching. Then Biedin's hand chopped down, and two hundred horses surged into motion.
The hard men who'd stayed behind in Moryn's Company drove their horses with glinting eyes and clenched teeth—no cantering pass. Radomor's turncoats, meanwhile, howled like Writhen Man savages, some with their lances cocked overhand. A man could lose his mind. The whole rumbling arc of Moryn's line might have been falling toward a mirrored earth of flaring nostrils, feral eyes, and iron glints.
There was a heartbeat
And Durand struck a man under a dog's-head crest Dog Head's lance swatted Durand's shield. His own splayed point stamped shield and fist into his victim's snapping ribs, the shaft exploding into white blades and ribbons. Then they were past.
Durand cantered on, sucking mud and air through his teeth. The girth on his saddle had held. The hit to his shield had not been a square one. He was alive. He threw the lance butt from his stinging hand and wheeled. Dog Head's mount cantered riderless. The man himself rolled in flying skirts.
"In line!"
More than just Lamoric's conroi, the captain called the whole company together. Durand focused beyond Dog Head's writhing to see Radomor's line thundering in a great wheel. Never slowing, they swung back through the rain. A hundred horses rounded like death.
The others were too slow.
Coensar clawed his helm back and swung his sword in the air, shouting "Wheel! Wheel! Back at them! Back at them!" But already the enemy ranks were rolling into their charge, shaking the earth under the hooves of their scattered adversaries.
On Moryn's side, lone riders wheeled, men slapped helms over bare heads, and warhorses pawed the air. There was no hope of turning the whole line in time.
Coensar's eyes flashed hollow, shouting only at the men near him: Lamoric's retainers. "At them!" And, alone, Coensar and the arrow of Lamoric's men sprang for the heart of the South Company.
Scattered allies flickered past, then, long before the stricken could leave the field, the conroi broke into the open ground before the enemy. It was mad and wild. Durand tore his sword free and thrust it high over his head, then the iron arrow and the thundering wave exploded over the fallen horses in the middle of the yard.
Men and horses screamed.
Lamoric's conroi struck deep, tearing, as the giant South Company spasmed tight around them. Durand's shield leapt under a storm of swords, maces, and beaked hammers. All he could do was spur the bay mindlessly onward hoping no one could take aim. Fallen horses pulled eddies around themselves. Durand ripped himself free and lurched into one such pocket. For an instant, he knew that a living man lay in the tangle under his horse's hooves.
As soon as he found this refuge, the storm of blades flashed down on him. Barefaced, Durand found he could see and act where men in full helms were blind. Almost before he realized this, the surge threw a knight against him: a savage who shuddered blows against Durand's shield while Durand fought to get his blade around. Razor edges sparked through the thin shell of planks. Durand jabbed his spurs, and, in an instant, his massive bay had launched itself forward, its half-ton bulk bulling a gap between the two horses ahead. The landing ripped a scream and a leg from Durand's attacker.
"Durand! This way.'-'
Coensar, barefaced, but in his blue and white, screamed from a clot of fighting men round Mornaway. There might have been a league between them.
"Watch Lamoric!" he roared.
Radomor's men had pried Lamoric from the rest of his conroi. Twenty paces separated Durand from his lord, with every step of that distance seething with soldiers. Already, it looked as though someone in the South Company had figured out that Lamoric—and the ransom of a duke's son—was ripe to be plucked. The old Red Knight helm bobbed and tumbled in the cataract of Radomor's killers.
Clamping his ja
ws, Durand spurred the bay into that mob. Blades flashed. He could have been plunging down a river. The bay lunged and wallowed. He found that the only way forward was to cock his feet over the brute's shoulders. Blows clattered over his shield and mailed knee. A thunderbolt fell over his back, turned by iron and padding. He lashed at anything that came close.
There was no room.
Each lunge covered less and less ground. A dead man could not have fallen in the crush. Stealing a glance through the storm, Durand made out Berchard pinned at his master's side, laying about with an ugly spiked hammer. Half the paint had scabbed from the man's helm. He couldn't last.
In one motion, Durand planted his feet on the bay's withers and reared up over the mob. A grin jagged across his face as he looked over the blind tops of helmets. Suddenly, Lamoric was only a few steps away. Durand pitched himself toward his comrades, stilting a wild path across the battle with his boots slamming down on cantles and groins and withers and thighs. Friendly knights swore. Enemies swung too late. Berchard, his now-naked head gleaming, spotted Durand at the last moment. Berchard's opponent glanced up, too, just in time to catch a three-foot steel blade through the eye-slit of his helm.
Heaving the dead man by belt and collar, Durand dropped into his place.
While he fought for Lamoric then, one vain quarter of his mind could not stop thinking of the spectacle he had just made.
THAT STALEMATE GRIND outlasted the rain. Soon, even Radomor's company had had enough. The heralds, optimistic men, called a halt to the fighting. It was noontide and time for dinner.