“And the halfbreed? She has drawn up your entire host, all the ranks of your ravens, at the side of some mongrel who was supposed to be nothing more than a tool in the hands of the Horin Blood. I find myself uncertain whose purposes are being served.”
Nyve regarded Theor pensively. He rested his hands, knuckles down, on the bench.
“I was never much given to deep thought on matters such as this; you know that.” He gestured, club-handed, at the lumpen scar across the side of his head. “Had I spent much time thinking about it, I’d likely have taken flight. Let the hound that took my ear go hungry. But the path of my life was not written that way. It seems to me…”
He hesitated, narrowing his eyes as he searched for the right words. “It seems to me that this is what we are for, you and I. Our lives have been very simple things: to serve the creed, to follow-and foster-the descent of this world to its inevitable ruin. We have been, in every sense that matters, meaningless except in our service to that purpose.
“So don’t ask me to shed whatever little meaning I have had now, in the twilight of my life.” Nyve smiled, as if feeling the glow of that very twilight on his skin. “The ascendancy of the creed is closer than ever before. By whatever means, however unexpectedly, Shraeve has restored us-the Inkalls-to heights we have not seen in many years. It is to us that the people look now for guidance, not the Thanes. If we pull back, hesitate, would we not make a lie of the long lives we have led? Would we not be denying the very purpose that has been our guide? I am too old to make such changes, friend. We both are. We’ve always been in the hands of fate. That the journey along the Road has become tortuous does not change that.”
Theor nodded. He understood. He felt it himself: the nagging sense that whatever doubts now assailed him were a betrayal of something precious and central to him. That if he surrendered to them, he would render himself, and the life he had lived, entirely empty. Still, those doubts were there. As was the insidious, all but heretical, fear that fate was somehow going astray from its proper path.
“Do you sleep well?” he asked Nyve. “Are your dreams troubled?”
There was only the briefest moment of hesitation. “I dream of violence. And of death. But I have always done so. They’ve been my sleep-companions as long as I can remember. And you? Is your rest uneasy?”
“It is.” Theor had to hold himself back. Some things he could not share, even with this oldest of friends. The waking dreams brought by seerstem belonged to the Lore, and only to the Lore. Yet a part of him wanted to tell Nyve how harsh and inhospitable the inner territories that seerstem opened up had become. The herb had blackened Theor’s lips over the years: the smallest of prices to pay for the comfort and insight it had brought. But whatever it brought now, it was not comfort. Fear, sometimes. Doubt. It obscured where once it had clarified. The strange dreamlands that lay beyond the seerstem gate were bleak and unwelcoming. There was always the sensation of someone looking over his shoulder, or some movement just beyond the corner of his dreaming eye.
“I’m tired,” he murmured. “Perhaps that’s all it is. Perhaps I grow too old and weak to face the unfolding of fate’s great plan.”
“You’ve a few years in you yet,” Nyve grunted.
“Perhaps. I am to meet with Ragnor oc Gyre. Down in Kan Dredar. He refuses to come to the Sanctuary, which is as sure a sign as you could wish for of his fraying patience. I thought perhaps you could provide me with an escort. I hear that there is unrest in the town. Riots. Killings.”
“You shall have as fine a guard of my ravens as you wish, First.” Nyve chuckled. “It will do our High Thane good to see that all the Children of the Hundred stand shoulder to shoulder in this. And that the Battle still has enough swords here to put on a show.”
Theor smiled, and in smiling tried to pull taut the old, secure strands of his friendship with the master of the Battle. But there was a looseness in them that had never been there before, and he could not overcome it. The profound agreement of their instincts had always persisted without having to be spoken. Now, he felt it to be seamed with faint flaws that could not be patched with words, or with mere affection. He secretly and fearfully mourned the loss of its perfection.
VIII
Taim Narran cast an experienced eye over the host of the Black Road as it edged its way up the road towards Ive. Only a few hundred, he thought, yet the knowledge brought none of the relief he might have expected. Rather, he felt an empty despair at the prospect of inevitable slaughter, and the knowledge that victory or defeat today would bring no release for any save the dead. There must be light somewhere amidst this darkness, he thought, but he seemed to have lost the ability to detect its gleam.
“Move the horsemen out to the right flank,” he said quietly. “They don’t look to have any horses of their own. Perhaps we can get in behind them.”
He did not look round, but heard the riders galloping off to deliver his commands. Everyone, whether of Lannis or Kilkry stock, deferred willingly to him here. A certain martial fame-nothing he treasured or relished-had long ago attached itself to his name, and the people of Ive imagined him to be something he himself had struggled to recognise for some time: a great warrior and leader. They trusted in him to save them, and their town. It was a burden he bore without protest, but not gladly, and not lightly. Never lightly.
There were banners and standards from several of the Black Road Bloods scattered through the approaching army, yet Taim could see little sign of ordered companies or disciplined array. The northerners came on in a jostling mass, spreading out into a long, thick rank on either side of the road. There were no obvious Captains, just these hundreds of men and women come together into one huge blood-hungry crowd. And they bore a grim forest in their van: dozens of tall spears jostling for space against the grey sky, each topped with a severed head or bearing strips of flayed skin that stirred on the wind like pennants.
A woman, hands bound behind her back, legs hobbled, was dragged out in front of the seething army. She was wailing and struggling. Five warriors marched her a few paces forward and threw her down in the middle of the road. One of her captors spread his arms wide and bellowed wordless hatred at the ranks of Kilkry and Lannis men. Then he and the others beat the woman to death with clubs and staffs.
Taim turned away. She had looked to be much the same age as Maira, his daughter. He had never seen this from the Black Road before. This wanton, tribal brutality. It was not how battles were meant to be fought. Or perhaps it was, now.
The noise was new too. In all his years of facing the Black Road, he had grown used to the grim, almost unnatural, silence in which they often fought. This time, his ears rang to hate-filled roaring, like the baying of a thousand leashed hounds.
And then those leashes were slipped, and the dark wall of bodies and blades was rushing towards him. He drew his sword, cast one brief glance up towards the clouds scudding across the sky, not knowing what he hoped to see there, and heeled his horse into motion.
*
Ess’yr held out a flake of greasy squirrel meat to Orisian. He took it with a nod of gratitude. They ate in silence, warmed by the little fire, while the stubby twigs of the apple trees creaked in the breeze. Heavy clouds were racing overhead, but down in the orchard, amidst the aged protection of the trees, with the comforting flames, Orisian felt safe. Almost at ease.
Varryn would not join them, of course. He sat cross-legged some little distance away, cleaning the squirrel skin. He scraped away at the hide with his knife in silence, studiously ignoring Orisian and his sister. Ess’yr herself picked flecks of meat from a leg bone with precise finger and thumb. Orisian watched her, but when she looked at him he averted his eyes with a fleeting self-conscious smile.
He was faintly aware of the warriors loitering beyond the trees, at the back of the Guard barracks. Theirs was not an intrusive presence, though. They were sufficiently comforted by the high stone walls that enclosed the orchard, and sufficiently trusting now of these two
Kyrinin, to permit Orisian some little privacy. It was a kind of wonder, he recognised, that a Thane of the Lannis Blood could sit alone in such company without his warriors imagining or expecting disaster. Those protective walls sheltered a moment, a scene, drawn from another world, another possibility, less scarred by bitter history. Though Orisian could not forget all that had happened, or the storms that raged beyond this island of calm, he could find here, in this company, a brief span of rest. Of stillness.
He licked his fingers clean. The fire was burning low, sinking into its bed of bright embers. He threw another couple of sticks onto it and listened to them crackle and hiss.
“There might be trouble coming,” he said pensively. Ess’yr said nothing. She was watching him, her eyes set like polished flints in the blue frame of her tattoos. Varryn’s knife continued to rasp rhythmically across the skin.
“We think the Black Road has cut us off from the south,” Orisian went on, unperturbed by their silence. “Taim’s gone to meet them. He wouldn’t let me go with him.”
“You are precious to him,” Ess’yr said impassively.
“Yes.” Orisian flicked a sideways glance in her direction. Part of him longed to reach out to her, and lay a soft hand on her shoulder, her arm. “Yes, perhaps. Though I don’t know that I’m really any safer here than out there. I’m not sure such a thing as safety’s possible any more.”
Ess’yr looked down, returning her attention to the little carcass.
“I would not…” Orisian began, but the sentence collapsed beneath the confused weight of his feelings. He tried again: “I don’t know quite why you have stayed here. I am-I am glad of it, but… If you want to go, you shouldn’t stay because you think you owe me anything.”
He was aware that Varryn had stopped his work and was now staring at him. The cleaning knife rested point down on the warrior’s knee.
“Owe you?” Ess’yr said. “No. Not you.”
“Inurian?”
“It does not matter,” she said. A lie, Orisian thought; or at best a kind of truth his human understanding could not encompass.
“Our enemy makes alliance with your enemy,” Ess’yr placidly continued. “We do not need to seek them out, for they come in search of you. Your fight is our fight.”
“Your brother does not agree,” Orisian said.
Ess’yr ignored him. Varryn returned to his task.
“It is only that I fear what may happen,” Orisian said. His mood was darkening once again, and he half-regretted speaking. If he had said nothing, just sat here and treasured the silent companionship, he might have preserved the illusion of closeness, of intimacy, a little longer. “I see few paths that lead anywhere other than into shadow. I would regret it if you followed me that way when you did not need to. I just wanted you to know that.”
Ess’yr flicked bones into the fire. The trees above shivered in a momentary surge of wind.
“All paths lead to shadow in the end,” Ess’yr said.
“If we live through today,” said Orisian, watching the trembling flames, “and through the next night, I mean to leave this place. I don’t know what will happen, but the time is coming when all of this will end. One way or the other.”
He realised that he had lost their attention. The two Kyrinin lifted their heads, turned towards the west. Orisian saw the knife fall from Varryn’s hand and his fingers dance into a blur of motion. Ess’yr made a grunting reply to whatever message her brother conveyed and rose to her feet.
“What is it?” Orisian asked softly, looking up at her. He could guess, in truth, for he had learned to read the code of their bodies and moods: in some sound or scent upon the air, some sign too subtle for meagre human senses, they had caught forewarning of danger.
Orisian twisted, a shout for his own warriors gathering in his throat, but Ess’yr was already moving. One pace, two, away from the fire. A stoop to sweep up her spear from where it rested against one of the apple trees. Her front foot stamped down. Her arm snapped forward. The spear flew.
And as that shaft left her hand, and darted across the darkening air between the ancient trees, there was movement atop the wall: a head, and then shoulders, just rising into sight. Orisian had time to register nothing more than a swirl of dark hair, the dull flash of a blade clasped in a gloved hand, before the spear thudded into the man’s chest. He fell back silently and disappeared.
“There are more,” Ess’yr said, reaching for her bow.
But Orisian knew that for himself by then. He could hear the voices, the angry cries, the pounding feet. He leaped up and ran, shouting for his sword and shield as he went.
Taim Narran had abandoned any hope of imposing his will upon the battle. Slaughter swept across the fields and copses and stream beds. Like storm water, it went where it willed, its bloody extremities flowing down whatever channel the rise and fall of the land offered. No command could be given that would shape it or slow it. It was deaf to all save its own inner demands, which impelled it to consume and thrive and rage.
The men and women who acted upon its savage imperative forgot who they were and why they fought. They recognised neither friend nor foe, felt neither fear nor elation. There was within them only the burning need to kill. Each fought alone, subject to that need and only to that need.
Taim’s horse had been hit by a crossbow bolt. It staggered down into a tiny gully and threw him. He splashed across the stream, seeing dark strands of blood threaded in the rushing water. Higher up the gully bodies were lying in the narrow channel. A woman was hacking feverishly at one of them with a long-bladed knife. Taim started towards her, to kill her, but a knot of men came suddenly tumbling down into his path, struggling and stabbing even as they fell and rolled in the stream.
Taim could confidently identify only one of them as an enemy: a massive mailclad warrior who laboured to his feet, water cascading from his back and shoulders. Taim ducked behind his shield and barged into him, knocking him down. A single blow, with all of Taim’s strength behind it, was enough to stave in the side of the man’s helm. He began to convulse at once, thrashing about in the midst of the stream. Blood smeared out from his mouth; he had bitten through his tongue.
Taim was staggered sideways by two wrestling figures. He stumbled precariously over the smooth stones at the edge of the watercourse. The butt of a spear tripped him and in falling he punched his knee against a rock. The sharp, bone-shaking pain was like a lance of light, momentarily sharpening his senses, sending a beat of urgency and energy through him. Without it, he might have been too slow to avoid the axe that slashed down in search of his back. He rolled away through mud and spun onto his feet in time to catch the second axe blow on his shield and cut up into his assailant’s crotch.
He scrambled up the bank of the gully, the soft turf smearing beneath his feet. He emerged onto a field strewn with bodies and with dropped or broken weapons. The thin grass had been trampled and torn. A woman went staggering past, her shattered arm held tight to her side with a hand that was itself split and bloody. A horse was lying on its flank close by, its legs stirring faintly. Beyond it, a Kilkry warrior was fleeing from half a dozen Tarbains, who pursued him with howls of mad fervour. Taim ran to intervene, but his knee rebelled, and he faltered. The Tarbains pulled down the warrior and fell on him like a pack of wolves tearing at a deer.
A terrible hatred had hold of Taim, a formless thing that began with no clear target or cause but willingly gathered those Tarbain tribesmen in and made them its object. Overruling his knee’s protests, he rushed to them. So intent were they upon their savage business that they were deaf and blind to his approach until he was amongst them.
One went down, and then another. A club battered against Taim’s thigh, and he felt the bone blades that studded its head punching through his skin, but there was no pain. He killed another. The rest fled from him. The Kilkry man was long dead, of course. The Tarbains had been trying to behead him.
There was no single battle happening here.
There never had been, from the first moments of contact between the opposing forces. Instead, many brutal, separate little struggles were played out across the fields, and on the slopes beyond. Many lonely deaths. A hundred intimate horrors and cruelties.
Taim reeled from fight to fight. His mind and body were exhausted but he drove himself on, possessed by the conviction that the only way he could escape this waking nightmare was by helping it towards its end, by killing everyone who could be killed. And in time he had done that, and he could find no more victims for his blade. The armies had drifted apart. There was no victory or defeat: the numbed survivors on both sides simply walked, or crawled, away, alone or in small bands. The cruel day had taken everything they had to give, and left them empty and trembling and lost, forgetful of themselves. They let weapons and banners fall and stumbled silently back the way they had come
Taim slumped to his hands and knees. He curled his fingers into the earth, making fists through the wiry grass. He was shivering, though he felt an almost feverish heat running through his skin. Blood was crusted all across his thigh where the Tarbain club had hit him. His guts were clenching, twisting. His stomach heaved and he retched and vomited up the morning’s food. Once he was done, he rolled onto his back and lay there for a time, blindly watching the sky as it darkened, moment by moment, towards the gloom of dusk.
*
Ive quickly, almost enthusiastically, surrendered itself to violence. Chaos descended, and as it did so something rose up within the townsfolk to embrace it. Small bands of Black Road raiders burst in all along the western flank of the town, but they were few and disorganised, not enough to truly threaten Ive’s safety. They were enough, though, to act as spark to the fire that had been on the brink of eruption for so many days.
The townspeople rushed from their homes, surging through the dusk in frantic search of enemies, whether real or imagined. In this great boiling cauldron the Black Roaders fought with savage abandon. They hurried from house to house, slaughtering all they found; they battled and died in narrow alleyways; they crept their way to the storehouses and the bakeries and the almshouses and set them afire. Smoke swirled in the yards and streets like acrid fog.
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