by Tim Stead
“How’s it going?” the barkeep asked.
“It’s over,” Fane replied, pitching his voice so that everyone in the bar could hear it. “Another victory for the general.”
The barkeep smiled, lifted his head like a weight had been taken from his back. “For that news you drink free,” he said.
“Ale, then,” Fane said. “Do you still do Royal Ale?”
The barkeep smiled again, more broadly this time. “We do.” He began to pour. “An old customer,” he beamed. “Been away, sir?”
“A long time,” Fane said. “Too long.”
The barkeep put a heavy, brown jug of ale in front of him and Fane took a swig. It was the same – exactly the same as he remembered it from the heyday of the Seventh Friend.
“Very good,” he said. There was nothing like this in the Seth Yarra homeland, nothing this rich and heavy and comforting. The barkeep poured himself half a cup and raised it.
“To the general!” he cried, and drank.
His toast was echoed by everyone in the bar and Fane joined in. Cain was his friend. More than anywhere, this city was his home, these people were his people.
“Jerac Fane?”
He turned, recognising the voice. Sheyani stood in the doorway. Fane couldn’t help himself. He smiled and bowed. “Lady Waterhill, an honour,” he said. He’d always liked Sheyani, liked her a little more than was wise, perhaps, seeing that she was another man’s wife.
Sheyani strode across the bar and threw her arms around him, holding him for a moment that Fane wished would go on a little longer. Then she stepped back and studied him.
“You look good,” she said. “Older in the eyes, but good.”
“You haven’t changed at all,” Fane said. “Beautiful as ever.”
“Flatterer. It’s been the best part of a century.”
“One doesn’t easily forget such friends,” Fane said.
“Come. Sit down, tell me about the Seth Yarra homeland. I hear you won a war.”
“I had some help,” Fane said. They sat down and he told his tale – the battles, the victories, the villages and towns that had burned. It was a sorry tale and a bitter one. But somehow he never got round to describing the aftermath. He knew it was important. It was the most important part of the tale, but when he reached the last battle and the field was won, he changed the subject.
“And you, what of you?” he asked.
“Nothing so dramatic,” Sheyani said. “Alwain has been a fool, and that has led to this war, but there have been a lot of quiet years.”
“For me, too. Wars are usually short. There were some good years before and after.”
“But you came back.”
“In the homeland they say you can never go back,” Fane said. “You can go to the same place, see the same people, even live in the same house, but you’re always moving forwards, even if it’s a circle. Time is like weight. It only pulls you one way.”
Sheyani nodded. “That sounds like wisdom,” she said.
Did it? Fane had no idea why he’d quoted that. It was something Leras used to say a lot. He’d never really been sure what the ancient Farheim had meant by it, but now he had come back and everything was the same – everything except Fane.
They talked more – trivial things. The barkeep brought them drinks from time to time without being asked. After a while Caster appeared and sat with them. He was cheerful and time passed easily until Cain arrived.
“We’ll move to a back room,” he told the barkeep.
“Your usual room is prepared, General,” the man said.
So they followed Cain from the growing buzz of happiness in the public bar to the quiet comfort of one of the three back rooms. It wasn’t the largest, but Cain had brought a map with him and laid it out on the table. It was a map of Avilian.
Cain was all business. He pinned the map down with cups and pointed to Fetherhill and Great Howe.
“Here and here,” he said. “And Red Hill?”
“I have two thousand men there, laying siege.”
“But you have more.”
“Another four thousand, and more every day, but these are not trained men. They’re volunteers – fishermen, farmers, smiths, labourers.”
“Like the Seventh Friend,” Cain said.
“But with two weeks training. They’re keen, but they’re not ready.”
“If Alwain is pulling out tomorrow they have less than two weeks to get ready,” Cain said.
“Outnumbered in the open they’ll get slaughtered. If we’re going to meet Alwain and hold him we need a defensive position. None of the places we’ve taken is big enough, and I’m loath to split the army. He’ll eat us piecemeal.”
“Build one,” Cain said.
It was possible. Fane knew about Cain’s wire and stone forts, like the wall he’d built to defend the White Road a century ago. But there was one problem.
“There’s no time. Perhaps if we had the wire, but even so there’s little stone lying around in the west. It’s farm country.”
“What about a ditch and palisade?” Cain asked.
“For five thousand?”
Cain nodded, his eyes on the map. “A natural feature, then, something that can be enhanced.”
“A river. Perhaps.”
“Good.” Cain ran his finger over the map. “It’s been years since I was out west. What’s the Beldon like?”
“I’ve never seen it,” Fane said.
Cain drummed his fingers on the table. He turned to his wife. “Is Amberline still in the city?”
“I think so. You can never be sure with Abadonists. They come and go so easily, but she seems to like her rooms in the castle.”
“Can she be fetched?” Cain asked.
Sheyani smiled, understanding what he wanted, it seemed. “I will arrange it at once,” she said.
She left the room.
The conversation switched. Caster seemed to want to talk about today’s battle, but Cain was focussed on the future, so the talk swung both ways. Fane stayed quiet. He looked at the map.
Could he really hold the line of a river? He supposed it was possible, but there was the question of bridges and fords. He would have to know where they were and have adequate numbers to defend them. He could get the men to throw up a bank for shelter, but the danger would always be a flanking move. Alwain could cross a river in a place he hadn’t fortified and then move up the river and attack.
He shook his head. He didn’t see how this could work. A hill would be better. At least with a hill they would have to come up at him wherever they came from.
Sheyani came back alone.
“Amberline?” Cain asked.
“She was here this afternoon. One of the men saw her watching the fight from the castle walls. I’ve sent someone.”
“What about a hill?” Fane asked.
Cain shook his head. “Too easy, and it would have to be a big one. You’d have to throw up a rampart right round it – preferably several so you’d have somewhere to retreat to, and the inner circle must be big enough for all your men, supplies and reserves. You’d have no water.”
They looked at the map again as if it would somehow give up the secrets they needed, but it was just lines on paper – blue rivers, black roads, towns like clusters of flies, mountains and hills drawn inaccurately in fanciful ranges.
“How much cavalry do you have?” Cain asked. “How many archers?”
“Archers a-plenty,” Fane said. “Two thousand at least. We must have half the bowmen in the west, but horses? We have about two hundred men who won’t embarrass themselves.”
“Not mobile then. If you move, he’ll catch you and run you down.”
Fane knew that. He’d done it to infantry battalions himself. Standing and fighting was the only way.
The wall opposite shimmered.
“What the…?” Fane was momentarily startled.
It became translucent and beyond it he saw a room, but it was a room that he didn�
��t know. It certainly wasn’t next door. A woman stood in the hole. She looked at them for a moment then stepped through.
“Lady Sheyani, you called for me?”
The wall behind her became just a wall again. Abadonist. He should have expected that. It was the quickest way for her to get here. And Amberline was a handsome woman. She was perhaps the wrong side of thirty, but with her hair worn short, in the Durander fashion, she seemed younger. She looked around the room with captivating brown eyes and smiled. She had a pleasing smile, Fane thought. It sat well on her wide mouth, her full lips.
“We need your knowledge,” Sheyani said.
“Geography?” Amberline asked, looking at the map.
“Quite so,” Cain said. “What’s the Beldon river like?”
“Like any river. It begins as a stream in the Dragon’s Back, flows across the north of Berash and then turns south through Avilian. What did you want to know about it?”
Cain pointed to the map. “Here,” he said. “What’s it like here?”
“Swift, shallow, quite broad.”
“Shallow?”
“No more than two feet deep. Tell me, My Lord Duke, what is it you’re looking for?”
“A defensive position.”
“Attacked from where?”
“From the East.”
“Then you have a choice of two places,” Amberline said. “Raven Down or the confluence of the Beldon and the Silver Rivers.” She pointed to the places as she named them.
“Raven Down?” Fane squinted at the map. It wasn’t far from Red Hill, about twenty miles north but he had never heard of it.
“It’s an ancient place,” Amberline said. “The hill rises out of a flat plain. It’s half a mile wide and two miles long. Mostly it has sheep on it these days.”
“Water?”
“There’s a well right at the top – a deep one. The shepherds use it.”
“A well? Who would put a well there?” Cain asked.
“It was a fort once – in the time of the empire, so they say, before there were god mages and dragons. The shepherds have kept the well.”
Cain raised an eyebrow. “Defensive ditches? Walls?”
“Bits and pieces,” Amberline said. “The ditches are worn, the walls are no more than stubs, but the top is flat and the sides are still as steep as ever. I can show you.”
“Yes,” Cain said. “Do so. Please.”
Amberline moved a table, unhooked a tapestry, and there was a patch of bare wall about three feet wide. She took out a stick of charcoal and began to sketch. It seemed to take only moments. The black charcoal somehow acquired colour and depth and Fane found that he was looking through a window at a long, low hill.
“Raven Down,” Amberline said. “You can see the ridging on the slopes. In places it’s worn down to two feet – in others four or even five, a place a man could hide.”
There were three ridges and three ditches. But if he had two weeks to add to those…
“A good place for archers, don’t you think?” Cain asked.
Fane nodded. “The other place, by the rivers, what’s that like?”
Amberline tapped the wall and the picture vanished, a thin rain of charcoal dust falling to the floor. She began to draw again.
“Both rivers are strong and deep,” she said. “They flow around a headland of rock that rises twenty feet above the water. To the north the land is lower and marshy.”
“Sounds good,” Cain said. “How large is the raised ground?”
“Ten acres, no more than that.” Amberline began to sketch again, and again the magic took place – the lines became imbued with life and colour and they looked down on a promontory above a river confluence.
“Is it big enough?” Caster asked. “Five thousand in ten acres is packing them pretty tight.”
Fane looked at the map. The river confluence was further north, and Alwain would come to it later unless he travelled across country, which seemed unlikely. The rebel duke would follow the easy path, going west before turning north. He would come to Fetherhill first, then Great Howe and Red Hill. After that there would be Raven Down and this place last of all.
“Is there a bridge?” he asked. “Perhaps on the other side?”
“There is no bridge,” Amberline said. She gestured and the view shifted, allowing the whole place to be viewed from an eagle’s eye.
“It has to be Raven Down, then,” he said.
Cain nodded. “It looks that way.”
Fane studied the map again. He could clearly see Alwain’s line of march. He would have to take those castles before advancing on Raven Down. That was textbook warfare, and of course it was a weakness, just like the Seth Yarra’s mindless following of their Book had been a weakness. He could use that. Plans began to form in his head.
“I should get back tonight,” he said. “I still have to travel from Great Howe to Red Hill when I’ve passed through the gates.”
Cain nodded. “But stay to eat,” Cain said. “Even Farheim need sustenance, and I promise the food will be excellent.”
“An hour, then,” Fane agreed. He would not be staying the night after all.
More wine was brought, and food. It was, as Cain had promised, very good. Succulent roasted pork with pumpkin, beans glazed with honey, fresh bread and fruit. Fane ate well, but drank sparingly. He wanted to stay clear headed.
There was a celebratory air about the meal. Alwain had been fought off and was leaving. Bas Erinor could be resupplied and many men who might have died would now live. But Fane found himself uncomfortable in the company. These were his friends, but increasingly he realised that he had changed while they had remained essentially what they had been a century ago.
“I’ll be glad when this is over,” Cain said. “Degoran can give this damned place to someone who wants it and we can go back to Waterhill.”
“Or back to Col Boran,” Sheyani said.
Cain pulled a face. “Why is that place always so cold?”
“I preferred Wolfguard,” Caster said. “It was always warm there, and the food…”
“Is better here,” Cain said.
“But not at Col Boran,” Caster said. “It’s good, of course it is, but it lacks something.”
“The kitchen’s too far from the dining hall,” Cain said.
They laughed.
“But seriously,” Cain said. “It’s good to breathe easy again, if only for a few days. We have to be marching within the week.”
“Don’t dally too long,” Fane said. “We’ll be waiting for you at Raven Down.”
“Alwain will take his time,” Cain said. “We’ll be on his heels by the time he reaches you.”
“Maybe Degoran will give you Great Howe,” Caster said. “You’ve certainly earned it.”
The idea shocked him. Fane had fought a war in the Seth Yarra homeland. He had won victories, he had led an army of fifty thousand, and yet he had received nothing for it. He had gone back to his home after the war. He had been given respect, that was all. People had said kind words. He hadn’t thought of any reward except peace.
“I might go back,” he said. It was the first time he’d voiced the idea.
“Back?”
“I have friends over the sea, and land there.”
There was a moment’s pause as though what he had said had shocked them all. It had, Fane supposed. They would not think that he could want to live anywhere else but here.
“But the beer’s no good there,” he said. “So maybe not.”
They laughed again, but he could see that Sheyani was watching him. She, more than the others, had sensed his feeling of wrongness. He should have expected that. She was a Halith, and could sense the music in a man.
“Best I be on my way,” he said. “There’s much to do.”
“If you must. It’s been good to see you again, Jerac Fane.”
“It won’t be long until we meet again, I hope,” Fane said. “I thank you for the fine meal. Come quickly, Gene
ral. I do not know how long we can hold Alwain.”
“I swear it,” Cain said. He raised his cup and drank.
Fane left the warmth of the Seventh Friend and walked through the streets. There were a few people about now. Word of the victory had spread and the mood in the city was light. He ignored them all and trudged back to the house and the cellar where the Farheim Gate lay. The soldiers were still guarding it, which made no sense to Fane, but perhaps they were guarding the stores. They saluted, he commended them and walked through.
Emerging from the Gate at Great Howe he dropped lightly to the ground. Now he had to put his plans into effect. He sat for a moment at the base of the slope and closed his eyes, seeing again the map, the imagined line of Alwain’s advance, his response to that.
He tried other scenarios, but nothing worked as well. It was one of those situations where the best plan fell short. Even with two weeks to prepare, even with all his men safely inside Raven Down, even with General Arbak coming up behind Alwain, he did not know if he could save his army. There just wasn’t enough time.
He stood and went around the bottom of Great Howe and walked up the ramp to the gate.
67 The Village
Gregor Whitedale pushed open the tavern door and inspected the interior. It was a poor, grubby, stinking hole – exactly what he was looking for. This is where the worst people would be, the dregs, the thieves, the killers.
Gregor himself stood out like a lamb in a pack of wolves. He was sixteen and dressed in expensive finery, a jewelled sword strapped to his waist, but Gregor was no lamb.
He crossed the room and leaned carefully against the dirty bar.
“Wine,” he said. He didn’t bother asking what kind. It would be dreadful. He received a mug of dark vinegary liquid and threw a silver coin onto the counter. It was far too much, but he didn’t wait for change. He took a seat next to a rough group of men who looked him over with predatory eyes.
He pretended to sip the foul contents of his mug and looked around. He stopped when he got to the men sitting next to him. He stared at them. It didn’t take long for them to react as such men react everywhere.