by Tim Stead
So it was agreed that Urgonial would stay with Skal’s Avilians, and Morianna returned to Durandar. The boy seemed to settle down easily enough, though he did not mix with Skal’s men but preferred instead to sit alone in a quiet corner with one of the books he had brought with him. The men did not bother him.
Preparations were well in hand. Urgonial scried the way ahead, using a water bowl, a small yellow candle and a knife. He found no trace of Seth Yarra within three days march of the chain, and so they determined to depart as planned. All was prepared by the evening of the last day, the regiment being in full marching order and ready to pack and depart at dawn. The sun was already past its unimpressive zenith when Skal was called once more to the gate.
“You must come,” Lissman said.
“Emmar again?” he asked. He was in the warming room, taking a last advantage of its warm air and copious tea.
“It is the queen,” Lissman said. “She waits before the gate.”
Skal was on his feet in a moment. “How many does she bring with her?” he asked.
“None, Lord Skal. She is alone.”
“Alone? Not one soldier?”
“Quite alone, sir.”
It was unprecedented. Skal could not begin to imagine the consternation among the Telans to see their reigning monarch ride out alone. Not that there was any danger from Skal and his Avilians, but even so…
He ran out into the bailey.
“Open the gate,” he called. Men strained and the studded wooden doors swung back revealing a single black horse, and Hestia seated upon it. She spurred the animal forwards, passing beneath the gate. She dismounted as soon as she was within the bailey, threw the reins at one of Skal’s men and strode towards him.
“We must talk,” she said. Skal could not read her expression, except to say that it was not contented. He nodded. This would be best conducted in private, no matter what she had in mind. He led her to the warming room, thinking that even in circumstances such as these his own chamber would be a presumption too far. He ordered the men out of the room and when they were alone barred the door.
“You should not have come alone,” he said.
“You are leaving tomorrow? It is true?”
“We are returning to Avilian,” he replied, though he sensed this was not what she wanted to hear, and she confirmed his guess almost at once.
“No, you must not.”
He shrugged. “You want to put me on trial,” he said. “And the victory here is won.”
“You are needed here, Lord Skal,” she said.
“You have enough men to hold the Chain. There will be no more Seth Yarra sent north this winter, and my duty is to Avilian. We are not needed, and if we were your people will never forgive my dealing with Duranders.”
But Hestia wasn’t talking about the war. He could see it now.
“I need you, Skal, you. I don’t trust the others.”
“Emmar is devoted to your cause. Many others, too.”
“They are devoted to the throne, Skal. If someone put a knife in my back tomorrow they’d bow at the feet of the man that put it there. You know that.”
Skal laughed. “Nothing to fear then,” he said. “And anyway, you do have supporters. There are many who will stand with you against any usurper.”
“There are many who think I am a usurper.”
Skal turned his back on her and looked at the fire. It was a good fire, recently stacked with fresh wood and the logs were just beginning to succumb to the flames. They cracked and spat, protesting at their destruction, but it was to no avail.
“You do not need me, or an Avilian army to secure the throne of Telas, Hestia,” he said. He spoke without turning, as though he spoke to the fire.
“You will make me say…”
“No.” He interrupted her, turning quickly. “No, I will not make you say anything, and pray that you will not.”
“Why?”
“You are queen of Telas,” he said. “Telas will fall into division without you, and even if it does not, it will lack your will and your strong hand. I know what you are, Queen Hestia. I am the same. No man will overthrow you.”
“One already has,” she said, taking a step closer.
“Please say no more,” he said.
“Again, why? You yourself…”
“I was wrong. The war overmasters all. I must take my regiment back to Avilian. You must prepare your people for whatever comes with the spring. Nothing else matters.”
“Then why are we fighting, Lord Skal?”
“For them,” he gestured at the door, meaning all the men outside, all the people of Telas, all the masses of the six kingdoms.
“And they are more important that we?”
Skal shook his head. “You know better than to ask that, Queen Hestia. There is a price to pay for power, and this is it. You are both the most important person in Telas, and at the same time the least. Responsibility and honour are your gaolers.”
“Tell me that you wish me gone, then, Lord Skal.”
“Gone? No.” He looked at her, the softness of her throat, the young, blushing lips and her dark eyes burning at him. “I want these few minutes to last the rest of my life, but time is not so gracious. We must part and go to our separate duties. You know it is true. Yet the war will end, and if both of us still draw breath it is possible that things may change.”
“You are cruel, Lord Skal.”
“I hope not,” he replied. “Because we shall survive the war – we are Farheim, and others will fall but we will not. Somewhere in our conjoined fate there is a god mage, the one who made us this way, and it may be that our duties may meet our desires in some other service.”
“You think Passerina will cast me down from the throne of Telas?” Again Hestia’s expression had become unreadable. However much she wanted to be with Skal she was still a queen and a woman that loved power.
“You know her history.”
“King Alaran. Yes, I know it. You think it is a case of once a kindness, twice a fool?”
Skal shrugged. “No-one may know the future, nor read another’s mind,” he said.
“And after the war, will you seek me out?”
“It is my dearest wish that we shall meet again,” Skal said, and he meant it, though what that meeting might bring he could not say. Hestia’s glance made his heart beat more quickly, but she had tried to trick him, she was steeped in royal pride and he thought that perhaps there were many things closer to her heart than an Avilian Nobleman. “And meet we shall, when there are no more battles to be won.”
Hestia nodded. “So you cast me out,” she said, a small smile twisting the corner of her mouth. “Yet I am cast out with promises, and that must sustain me.”
“So it must be,” he replied. He stepped forwards and took her hand. It was the first time he had touched her for weeks. Her hand was warm and dry, smooth as a child’s.
“And will you give me one token before you go, one thing to remember when you are far away and I am besieged by duty?” She leaned into him, her face very close now.
If one moment could last for the rest of his life, he would have chosen this one.
“Yes,” he said.
40 – The Ghosts Come Home
They had come twice more, the Seth Yarra. The first time had been in the morning, but it had not been a full blooded attack. He guessed it was a feint, and that the real thrust was at the main gate where damage had been done the previous day. His men had held them off easily, and there had been barely a step upon the wall before it was over and they were retreating to lick their bloody wounds.
The second attack was more determined, and it seemed that more of them came. There were certainly more ladders. Once again he felt that they were drawn to him, and once again he fought with two blades, the long sword which had been a gift in his right hand and the short, borrowed blade in his left.
He looked nothing like Narak, nor fought like him he was sure, but it seemed that the Seth Yarr
a knew as little about it as he, for they came at him like he was the Wolf himself, and they died.
Jerac took six blows in that second fight. He counted them. It was hard for him to say if any of them would have been fatal to a natural man, but he thought at least one of them so. But Jerac healed. As soon as metal abandoned his flesh the wounds knitted and the pain went. His opponents seemed barely surprised by it, but they died all the same.
Yet Jerac never tired. As Alos he had been tired all the time. But Alos had been old, and Jerac was not only young, but seemingly unstoppable. After the best part of an hour on the wall his arms still felt light, his breath came easily. He was ready to fight again, all day if it was called for. Night was welcomed by his men, though. They slumped along the wall, secure in the knowledge that Seth Yarra would not attack after the sun had set. It was their immutable practice.
He longed to go back to his room at the inn. Fresh as he was, he knew that he would sleep, and a cup of ale would send him nicely to that desirable state. He also knew that it was impossible. It was his duty to keep the gate, and with that in mind he climbed into one of the hammocks slung in the gatehouse, covered himself with a coat and closed his eyes.
He awoke to find someone shaking his foot. It was still dark, but the fire in the guardroom had been kept burning, and the foot shaker carried a lamp, so there was no lack of light.
“What is it?” he asked.
“There’s something up with the Seth Yarra camp, lieutenant,” the man said.
“What sort of something?” Jerac swung his legs over the side of the hammock and nearly fell out, having to clutch the rim of it as it swung wildly to and fro’. Whatever else it did, the near fall did a fine job of waking him.
“Can’t say, sir,” the man said. Jerac looked at him. He wasn’t one of the original five, not one of the gate guards. Jerac didn’t know his name, but he recognised respect in his eyes. He pulled on his boots, buckled on his swords and threw a cloak about him. In less than two minutes he was on top of the gate looking out into the night. He could see the camp fires of the enemy, but there was something else burning, too, and he could hear voices calling in the night.
“How long ‘till dawn?” he asked.
“Not an hour, sir.”
He looked again, but there was really nothing to see. That larger fire might be no more than a minor accident among the enemy, a shirt left too close to a fire, a lamp knocked over. He closed his eyes and listened, allowed his head to filter through the distant cacophony that drifted in from the camp.
He heard shouts. The words meant nothing, just Seth Yarra gibberish. There were other noises, too, much fainter. At this distance it was remarkable that he could hear anything at all, but he was getting used to miracles, especially those performed by his rejuvenated body.
There, and there again. He heard arrows flying. There was no noise of swordplay, no steel, but amid the confusion there was from time to time the buzz and thud of an arrow striking home. Men were dying out there.
He turned and looked east. There was no sign of dawn. If what they knew of Seth Yarra held true, then someone was attacking their camp, for the Seth Yarra were forbidden by their book from fighting after the sun set, before dawn.
“Bisalt?”
“Sir?”
The man was already beside him. It was remarkable how a man could change, Jerac thought. They had been less than friends a week ago, and now the man was at his right hand constantly, loyal as a dog, burning with enthusiasm. Yet that was false. Bisalt had not changed a jot, not really. He just saw Jerac in a different light. For Bisalt he was now the Wolf’s hand in Bas Erinor, and there was scarcely a soldier in the city, or anywhere for that matter, that did not worship Narak.
“Someone’s at them,” he said.
“Perhaps they could use some help,” Bisalt said.
Jerac shook his head. “Not yet. Our duty is the gate. But have the men stand ready with bows. Dawn may bring more than light.”
Bisalt nodded and was off among the men. Jerac heard whispered words, the rustle of arrows as they were propped against the wall, the odd bowstring creaking as it flexed. He loosened both his swords, and waited.
Dawn, when it came, was quiet. There was little movement from the enemy camp. Thin trails of smoke moved up through the sheltering branches above it, but he saw nothing else. Certainly there was no assault upon the gate.
“Half on relief,” he said, and Bisalt was off again, sending every second man down below for rest and warmth and breakfast. Jerac was puzzled. He was certain about the arrows, and that could only mean an attack, but now there was no sign at all from the camp. He would have expected something either way. An attack from the enemy or some sign from the men who had attacked them.
There was something.
He saw a man standing outside the camp, looking towards the gate. It was just one man, and he did not seem to be wearing armour. There was no helmet and no plate, but he could see what might have been a short sword hanging down. From this distance it was hard to tell. The man was joined by a second, and then more. They came out of the camp in ones and twos, hefting packs onto their backs, and Jerac saw bows. Several of them were carrying bows.
Were these the men who had attacked the enemy in the night?
About twenty of them gathered about that first figure, and then they began to march down the road in perfectly slovenly ranks as though they were out for an afternoon stroll. A bow creaked to Jerac’s left.
“Do not shoot unless I give the word,” he said, loud enough for all to hear.
“They don’t look Seth Yarra,” Bisalt said, appearing at his elbow again. “No ladders,” he added.
It was true. The men sauntered down the road towards the gate as if they hadn’t a care in the world. They certainly didn’t look dangerous. Jerac watched them come, and they walked right up to the bridge and stopped, well within range of his bow, just on the bridge were all on the wall could see them.
“Who’s in charge?” one of them called up in city accented Avilian – a Bas Erinor man. Jerac stood up.
“I am,” he replied.
“Well, open the gate then,” the man said.
“I’ll need your name,” Jerac replied.
“Of course,” the other said. “Tilian Henn, Captain, Second Regiment of the Seventh Friend.”
Jerac knew the name. Of course he did. Everyone knew the name, and they knew the legend, too. He looked down on the motley bunch beneath the gate for a moment, hardly able to credit that these shabby figures were the legendary Henn’s Ghosts.
“Sir?” Bisalt prompted him.
“Open it,” he said.
Bisalt shouted down and ropes were pulled, the portcullis began its steady rise. Jerac abandoned the top of the wall and jogged down to the mouth of the gate in time to see the first men step through the postern. He made directly for the man who had declared himself to be Henn.
“Captain Henn?”
“Aye,” Henn said.
“Lieutenant Fane,” he told him, thankful for a moment that he was an officer. He offered his hand and Henn took it. “The Seth Yarra?” He gestured towards the road and the camp.
“Dead or fled,” Henn said. “Mostly dead.”
“There were more than two hundred men out there,” Jerac protested.
Henn grinned, and it made him look very young indeed. “Aye, lieutenant,” he said. “We nearly ran out of arrows.”
Accept it, Jerac told himself. Accept it like you accept yourself.
“You were with Cain Arbak,” he said.
“We still are,” Henn said. “If we got our times right he’ll have dealt with the bunch at the main gate by now.”
“Well, I thank you for your work, Captain,” Jerac said. “They’ve been troubling us for a couple of days now.”
“Fane,” Henn said. “Fane. I know that name. You’re the hero, the one that save the duchess from assassins.”
“I was lucky enough to be in the right place.�
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“I heard you slaughtered twenty men,” Henn said.
Jerac flushed. “Ridiculous,” he said. “There were only five of them, and the duchess killed one, and I took them by surprise.”
“Wouldn’t have made any difference if there had been twenty,” Bisalt chipped in, much to Jerac’s chagrin. Henn raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I’ll look forward to the tale in full,” he said. “I’ll doubtless see you in The Friend.” He signalled his men to move off, and they shambled, grinning, past the gate guard. “Until then, Lieutenant Fane.” He saluted and walked off down the street after his unruly band, barely waiting for Jerac’s answering salute.