by Tim Stead
“You could not close the door and then reopen it when we call for it?”
“It takes some time. I fear you would be hard pressed before I could reopen the way. Easier by far to keep it open once the battle has begun.”
“That is what I feared.”
“Yet you have a way?”
“It is a card that I will not play until I am forced.”
“You will not say what it is?”
“Not yet, Areshi. You must allow me this small secret.”
She studied him for a moment, as though trying to see through his flesh to perceive what his secret might be, but eventually she nodded. “Very well,” she said. “You may keep your secret for now, but there is something about you that I do not entirely trust, Lord Skal. Your secret is a grave one, I fear.”
She saw so much? It was simple enough. If Skal wanted to attack Seth Yarra he would have to forego the pleasure himself and send another to lead his men. He himself could stand by Morianna and protect her. He was Farheim, and it was possible. Yet he would have drawn his sword against his allies, and that alliance would be washed away in blood. As much as he wanted to attack Seth Yarra this was not something that he would throw away lightly.
“You will permit me time to think?”
“Of course. No wisdom ever came quickly, Lord Skal. My help is available to you when you need it, as long as I am able.”
Skal was surprised at her words. “As long as you are able?”
“As I mentioned, we go against the king in this. Hammerdan is no fool, and in time he may discover those that go against him. This is not the only way in which we do so.”
Skal nodded. It made sense. So whatever wisdom came to him would have to be a little hurried after all, if he wanted to take advantage of the strategic weapon the mage Morianna was offering.
“I will think quickly,” he said.
“There are other ways that I can help. I watch Seth Yarra, as do we all, and I can tell you of any movements that threaten you, if any more men come north.”
“That would be most useful, Areshi, but how will you tell me?”
“In dreams, of course.” Of course in dreams. How else? “I will open the way for you now, and you may return to the chain, but before you go, take this.” Morianna took a ring from her finger and gave it to Skal “It is a calling ring,” she said. “If the circumstance arises and you must speak to me, simply enclose the ring in your hand and speak. I will hear you.” She walked to the table where the candle and the water stood and he saw he close her eyes. She began to mutter under her breath. She took the chalk in her hand and began to touch the wall, making small strokes of white on the stone, wielding it much like a sword. Skal had the impression that she was cutting the way, both the opening and the distance. This was magic in its raw state, he realised, stripped of all the show and performance.
Slowly the chalk cuts came to resemble a tunnel carved in the stone, but still only a drawing, and quite crude. Morianna picked up the candle, and to Skal it looked as though she had set fire to her hand. It burned, flames licking up towards the ceiling, yet she did not cry out. Instead she reached into the stone, her hand passing through it as though it were no more than mist.
The flames doused themselves, and as the smoke cleared he could plainly see his own bed chamber, and his bed with the heavy skins thrown back. It was only a pace or two away.
She stood to one side. There was a glazed look to her eyes as though she were not quite in his world, the magic surging still within her like a restless tide.
“Go now,” she said.
“Thank you, Areshi,” he said.
He stepped through, suddenly in the cold and dark. There were stars beyond the window and when he looked round it was just in time to see the doorway fade, the lines shimmering like an image beaten into bronze, and then dark. The wall was simple stones again.
Skal sat on the edge of his bed and pulled the furs around him tightly, tucking his legs up out of the air. He rested his back against the wall. Now he had his wish. There was a door that would allow his cavalry to attack Seth Yarra. But if he used it he could spark a war between Telas and Avilian. It seemed unfair that people could be so stupid, so overcome by their emotions. It was simple sense to put aside their enmity with Durandar until Seth Yarra was defeated, but at the same time he knew that it could not be so, or at least not for the stiff necked nobility of Telas. He would need to think about this. There must be a way that he could use it.
He laid his head on the pillow.
Tomorrow there would be such a display of arms on the battlements of his forts that Seth Yarra would be left in no doubt which end of the chain was weak.
Eighteen - Cain
Cain had thought there would be a third regiment. They had lost so few men at the White Road that he believed the new volunteers could be assembled into such a force and marched to war under their own commander as the third regiment of the Seventh Friend, to find their own glory and make their own traditions. Now he knew that it could not be so.
He had ridden back from Waterhill with Sheyani as hard as they could, bringing the five cavalrymen they had taken as escort once again to Bas Erinor. As they hurried up the road past the training grounds he could see wagons being loaded, and all the preparations for a march well underway.
Quinnial’s message had been simple. Seth Yarra have landed in Avilian. You are needed. It had taken less than an hour to pack and abandon his pretty estate once more. He felt regret, but it was this war, this duty that had brought him all he had, and he did not hesitate. Even so, it was dusk by the time they guided their horses up the Divine Stair and to the gates of Bas Erinor Castle.
Quinnial was welcoming, but Cain could see that the young duke was worried. He sympathised with the boy. He had never sought the dukedom, nor thought to have it. In the same way Cain had never dreamed to command a regiment. Yet for all that Quinnial was a good duke. He cared, he was clever, and he seemed to trust the right people. The latter was in itself an underrated talent. Cain counted himself fortunate to be among the trusted. He had been thrown into the cauldron of war almost by accident, and so far his good fortune had held. He had been wounded a couple of times, but he had never lost a battle.
“You will rest tonight,” Quinnial told them. “But tomorrow I want you to ride south. What we can spare will ride with you – I think about three hundred men, fifty of them on horse.”
Cain did not miss the choice of words. “Not quite cavalry then?”
“There are one or two as fine as any, but most are green and unsteady. Still, they’ll put a fright into Seth Yarra, and that might be enough.”
“Archers?”
“You’re better there. A hundred men who can pull a good bow. It seems that Captain Henn’s example brought in more foresters and countrymen from around the city over and above what a levy might have brought. It seems the people want to fight this war.”
“And Captain Henn himself?” Cain harboured a faint hope that he could use Tilian and he men as scouts. They would be useful.
“I sent him ahead to Berrit Bay. Here, look,” Quinnial smoothed out the map that dominated the table. He pointed to Berrit Bay, a blot of the coast. “There are three hundred Seth Yarra marching here, towards the town. This other force…” he pointed eastwards towards Golt. “They seem to have split again. Jidian is watching them for us, but there’s another three hundred heading north. I’ve called for four thousand men to come south, and they’ll meet somewhere round here.” He stabbed at the map again. Cain squinted.
“That’s close to Latter Fetch,” he said.
“Skal’s place? Yes, but there’s nobody there to resist them.”
Cain thought of Seth Yarra marching through Waterhill. He remembered Skal saying something about the library at Latter Fetch. He’d sounded proud of it. Still, the enemy would probably bypass Latter Fetch. It wasn’t on the main north-south road.
“How many men did you send with Tilian?”
“Just his own.�
� Cain raised an eyebrow. “I know,” the duke said. “But I wasn’t going to give an untried man an untried regiment.”
“You did once before,” Cain remarked. “It worked out quite well.”
“I was lucky,” Quinnial said. “Luck isn’t a good strategy.”
“You sent thirty men against three hundred?” Cain could feel the faint stirrings of anger. Tilian was a hero, a genuine man of the regiment. He’d fought at nearly every engagement the regiment had seen, been promoted, commissioned, knighted, and he was being thrown away.
“His orders were to delay Seth Yarra. I told him not to sacrifice his men.”
But Cain could see in Quinnial’s eyes that it was exactly what he expected. Tilian would do his best, but if it was a choice between saving his men or saving the people of Berrit Bay, then he would die. It was what people like Tilian did.
“When did he leave?”
“Yesterday after midday. They should be at Berrit Bay some time today.”
“Then we will leave tonight,” Cain said.
“But you have not been properly briefed…”
“Send a rider after us. Tilian alone can’t hold Berrit Bay, and if we’re to save the town we must ride at once. Numbers alone should be enough to turn them back if we can be there tomorrow. If we’re any later… well, there are other towns along the coast, other villages.”
Quinnial looked flustered. It was his decision, as duke, and Cain could not go against him. If the duke said they left in the morning he would have to delay until after midnight to avoid disobeying the letter of the order. If he permitted them to go at once, then they would simply change horses and be off. A couple of hours could make a difference.
The duke looked at the map. Cain could see him tracing the route they must take. “Here’s your problem,” he said. “If you take the best road you will come to the coast here, at Windy Head. From there to here…” he traced a short stretch with his finger, “you will be forced to take the cliff path, and it cannot be done safely in the dark. After that you will be at Berrit Bay. The alternative is to head west and come to Berrit by the southing road. It will take half a day longer.”
Cain did not know the area, but it was plain that Quinnial did. “How far from Berrit Bay is this cliff road?”
“It is no more than a mile on the cliff road, and then a mile beyond it. You see, here, you will find the same thing the other side of the town. The cliff roads, both east and west are day roads. Even the Berrits do not chance them by night.”
“So the best we can do it to be at the town an hour after first light, and that will be the day after tomorrow.”
“I believe so. If you leave now it will be no benefit. You will not reach the path before nightfall tomorrow.”
Cain nodded. The argument was well made, and he could not fault it without disbelieving the duke, and he was not inclined to do so. Quinnial had no cause to lie, certainly not in this. So Tilian would be on his own for a day at least, probably two. Cain’s only hope was that Seth Yarra were advancing along the coast as slowly as they had been before Henfray.
“First light it is, then,” he said.
They discussed plans for another three hours, but to little purpose, Cain thought. The Seth Yarra force was behaving unpredictably, which in itself was worrying, but also meant that any plans they made would be worthless. He knew he would have to face whatever he found, and with an advantage in numbers he was confident that he would win.
Yet for all his certainty Cain felt a nagging doubt. These attacks looked like provocation. They looked like a strategy. If it was the case, then it was certainly clever. He could not guess the object of the attacks. There was no doubt that there was an attempt to draw and scatter their forces, and that was working well enough. Such a move suggested a strong Seth Yarra force was waiting somewhere to take advantage of it, but what were they hoping to achieve? Nothing substantial could be hidden this side of the Dragon’s Back, he was sure. Jidian or Passerina would have seen it.
He longed for wiser heads in council. Quinnial was no fool, but through no fault of his own he had not yet been blooded, and Cain would have liked to see Narak present, or even Skal. Skal had shown he had a good instinct for war, and that was what they needed now. Quinnial was overburdened with theory.
He wondered at the absence of so many, and it chilled him to this that might all be part of a greater strategy that even Narak had not seen. Were they all just game pieces in some great hand?
He dismissed the thought. Such doubts invited defeat. All he could do was face what lay before him, fight the enemy, and win.
Nineteen - Tilian
It was a relief, in a way. Riding into Berrit Bay Tilian could see that it was undamaged, business as usual, blissfully ignorant of the doom that threatened it. He could see brightly coloured sails out at sea, and bright winter sun gave the place a spring-like air. The looks the citizens of Berrit gave him and his men were not overtly hostile, but certainly guarded. There was no cheering or clapping.
Yet in another way it was a closed door. If the town had already been taken, smashed, its buildings burned and its people killed, then he would have been free to act, to follow and watch. An intact town meant he was bound to defend it.
Tilian wanted to stop. His men had ridden hard to make the cliff road before nightfall, and they were tired. One of them had an uncle in the Bay, and told them not to try the cliff roads after dark. Tilian was glad to have had that advice. The cliff road, or at least the eastern one, had been a nightmare.
Berrit Bay occupied a portion of a flat triangle of land split by a little stream that they called the Bay River. It ran in from the north at the sharp end of the triangle, tumbling down a series of small waterfalls at the head of a short, narrow gorge, and then flowed out across the flat land, channelled in a man made dyke until it met the sea in Berrit Bay’s small harbour where it gently scoured the side of a breakwater and kept the boat moorings clear.
At each of the other points of the triangle the high ground rushed to meet the sea, forming tall cliffs, and at each of these points a road, but it was flattery to call it a road, rose up to the plateau, climbing across the face of the cliff.
The sea constantly attacked the cliffs, and the road had to be re-cut every couple of years. It was uneven at best and strewn with rubble varying in size from tiny pebbles to rocks the size of a horse’s head. In places the path cambered out towards the sea, and a foot badly placed on a stone would see you over the cliff. In other paces the camber was reversed and a man couldn’t walk upright without being pushed sideways into the cliff. That was a lot safer, but no less annoying. In any case, Tilian’s men chose not to ride, but led their mounts down the precarious track to the plain and the town that inhabited it.
He wanted to camp, to rest, but night was coming in quickly, and if they waited even an hour they would be trapped in the town until dawn, and the morning might find Seth Yarra coming down the cliff road and his men still here. That would be fatal. With only thirty men he had to find some trick, some advantage, even if it meant trying to provoke them into attacking him. So they rode through the town, passing along its main street, bordered on one side by the sea and on the other by an assortment of fish sheds, shops, and a couple of inns. The boats were coming in, sails giving way to oars as they rounded the mole, men and women running along the top to catch ropes, carrying baskets. An ordinary life, Tilian thought, a life without war and slaughter, a life he had been ordered to protect.
At the base of the western cliff road they dismounted, and began the climb up the other side.
The western cliff was, if anything, worse than the east. The lower part of it was all cambered out, so it was backs to the wall and each foot carefully placed. Then they came to the bridge.
At some time a stream had flowed over the top of the cliff. It was the only explanation Tilian could muster. Whatever the cause, there was a vertical slash, fifty feet wide at the top, narrowing as it went down but never quite closing
up. The path crossed it an even fifty feet above the sea where it was still twenty feet across, and someone had built a bridge. It was a thing of rope and planks that swayed even in the light breeze that blew from the water. The men stopped when they got to it.
“Do you think it’s safe, Captain?” Jackan asked.
Tilian put a foot on a plank and pressed down. It creaked and flexed a little. “Only one way to find out, I suppose,” he said. He stepped out, hands raised either side for balance, but the thing was surprisingly stable. He walked across with care, feeling it bounce slightly with each step. It was stronger than it looked.
He walked back and took the reins of his horse.
“Someone else should do that,” Jackan said, but he said it quietly, and Tilian did not press him to volunteer. The bridge bounced a little more, and the horse clearly didn’t like the feeling underfoot, but it allowed itself to be led, and in a few seconds they had crossed safely to the other side.