by Jude Fisher
Bera Rolfsen said nothing more. Instead, she waved her sword at the Istrians. ‘Women we may be: defenceless we are not. If you imagine we represent an easy harvest, you and your men may try your luck, Captain Galo Bastido; but you will find no easy pickings here, and the only crop you will reap shall be one of spears and arrows!’
Bastido shrugged. ‘Ah well, madam,’ he called back, ‘have it your own way. You cannot say we did not give you a fair chance!’ He turned to his men. ‘Try not to hurt them too much,’ he said loudly, ‘at least not visibly. Remember each of them alive and hale will fetch over three hundred cantari in Gibeon’s market!’
Just as the Istrains began to move forward, one of their number cried out suddenly and fell down. It was one of the north coast men, a wiry, dark-skinned man known as ‘the Gutter’, who’d worked the fishing fleet off Cera for over twenty years and had a way with a gutting spike. Fittingly, an arrow jutted out of his abdomen. He writhed about like a thrashing snake, clutching the shaft with gore-slimed hands and making the most horrible noises, until Baranguet cut his head off and quieted him. ‘Belly wound,’ he said matter-of-factly to Bastido, who looked faintly appalled. ‘They rarely survive a belly wound, and he was making a terrible racket.’
Pisto Dal laughed. ‘I never liked him much anyway.’
It was left to Clermano, the most seasoned of them all, to wonder whence the stray shaft had come. It had taken the Gutter, who had been standing towards the back of the group, in the left side; and it seemed too long a shot to have come from the hall.
Clermano was not the only one wondering this. Otter turned to the Seal Rock woman; but her arrow was still nocked; and Bera had not yet opened her quiver. She called down into the hall below, ‘Did one of you do that? Speak now!’
It was left to Kitten Soronsen to reply. ‘No one here has loosed an arrow: how that came about is as much a mystery to us as it is to you.’
Oblivious to the snagging thorns, Katla Aransen climbed swiftly down from her stance on top of the hawthorn arch and sped silently west, in the lee of a drystone wall, her bow bumping against her spine. Where the wall turned at a right angle to meet the home field, she stopped and peered over. She was now directly behind the raiders, some of whom were engaged in slinging the headless body of their recently dead companion into a ditch, whilst the rest were opening quivers and nocking their ornate, southern-style bows. Not much range on those, Katla noted. They’ll have to get in close to the steading to be effective. She saw how her mother and the women on the roof of the hall had their arrows trained on the visitors and nodded in appreciation. She had never seen her mother in such a light before. Her chest swelled with unexpected pride.
The raiders fired off a few testing bolts, which flew straight and true, but fell well short of their intended targets. Their leader said something to his men in the hissing Empire speech, and they began to advance. Go on, thought Katla, just another few yards . . .
Another few yards and Otter Garsen made good on her promise, taking one of the raiders right through the throat with a quarrel fletched with black-tipped goose feathers.
One of mine, Katla thought cheerfully, beginning to enjoy the situation. She extracted a similar arrow and fitted it to the hunting bow. Then she sighted it on a big man wearing his black hair in a tail and his right ear ringed with silver. With a whisper, the shaft whipped through the air between them and took the southerner between the shoulderblades. No question as to where that shot had come from: like a hare she scurried the length of the wall, keeping well down all the way. At the corner, she bobbed up. Three shafts looped over her head. She felt the breeze from them skim her hair. Two of the raiders detached themselves from the group and came after her.
‘Nuts!’ swore Katla, and ran away down the hill towards the copse, whooping with laughter. Once in the stand of oaks there, she shinned up one of the rough-barked monsters and pressed herself along a branch. It was awkward drawing the bow in such a position, but she and Halli had mock-hunted one another since the age of four, and she always won. The first man came crashing into the wood like a boar on heat. She shot him in the chest. The second man arrived a few seconds later. There was no way she could sight another arrow on him in time. Slipping her arm through the bow to stop it falling, she took her thigh-knife out of its sheath and waited for an opportune moment. This man was more wary than the first. He did not see his fallen companion until he had trodden on his outflung arm; but instead of bending to examine the body, he leapt away backwards and Katla’s knife embedded itself in the moss where he had been standing.
He turned his face up to the oak. A puckered scar ran the length of one cheek, gathering the skin on either side into obscenely pink and shiny folds, which stood out harshly against the walnut brown of the rest and the corner of his mouth was pulled up into a ferocious half-grin which exposed two sharp yellow teeth just like a rat’s. Fascinated by the disgusting irregularity the scar gave to his features, Katla scanned his face, then watched in horror as his black eyes fixed on her amongst the yellow, thinning leaves and the left side of his mouth curved up to match the right.
‘Got you!’ he said in the Old Tongue.
It was the last thing Pisto Dal said. Katla’s second knife, a finely weighted object with a chunk of sardonyx in the hilt and a damascened blade, inserted itself with a gristly thump in the place where his nose would normally be. She watched his eyes roll down to view this new protuberance, then back into his skull. His legs folded under him and he crumpled to his knees, ending his life in the traditional position of the devout Falla worshipper.
‘No,’ Katla said softly, letting herself down out of the oak. ‘Got you.’
By the time she had retrieved and cleaned her precious knives and got back to the top of the hill, matters had taken a turn for the worse. The raiders had got in close to the hall, too close now for arrow-shot from the windows. Only two of their number lay dead in the home meadow, though several dozen goose-fletched shafts pincushioned the ground. Several spears lay scattered like sticks. Another two men were limping, and had bloody fabric tied tightly around their legs, at calf and thigh respectively. Some of them had swarmed up the corner of the hall and made it onto the low turf roof. Of Bera and Otter there was no sign. One of the Seal Rock women, however, lay unmoving up there with two thick shafts protruding from her torso. The men on the roof were digging at the turf.
Inside the hall, Bera Rolfsen had something of a mutiny on her hands.
‘Send him out!’ demanded Tian Jensen again. ‘He’s not one of us: we don’t care what happens to him.’
For his part, Morten Danson looked like a man in shock. His face was still and white and his hands were shaking. Even so, ‘Send me out then, Mistress Bera,’ he said. ‘They want me to build ships for them: they cannot afford to kill me.’
‘That we will not,’ Bera returned fiercely. ‘Even if it would save the lives of those few of us here, to allow them to take you will result in many more lives being lost in the long run if you help to build them a fleet of vessels with which to storm Eyran shores.’
The shipmaker hung his head. He did not know what to say. He did not want to be taken captive by these rough foreign men, that was for sure; but neither did he wish to be held responsible for the deaths of these mad Rockfall women. Besides, if the raiders took the hall by force, might he not be killed anyway, by accident?
‘He could build flawed ships for them,’ suggested Forna Stensen guilefully. ‘Then they would sink in the Northern Ocean and take their accursed crews down with them and Sur can build up the walls of his howe with their bones.’
Morten Danson nodded vigorously. ‘I could, I could!’
Bera laughed bitterly. ‘If you think they will leave us be when they have their hands on you, then you are a greater fool than even I took you for, Master Shipwright. Once they have you safely bound, they will come for us: they may well be happy to collect whatever fee this Lord of Forent may pay them for your safe delivery; but these are not men who will
be so easily satisfied.’ She turned to the gathered women and addressed the room at large. ‘Take a look at them. These men are a rabble, a mob of hired hands and ne’er-do-wells who would sell their own mothers, grandmothers, aunts and lovers if it would make them a single cantari of profit or gain them a moment’s advantage. You have all heard tales of the Southern Empire and the illicit appetites of their men. They respect women so little that they cover every piece of them except those parts which may accord pleasure. And you saw what they did to poor Magla Felinsen—’ At this, Otter Garsen moaned and knit her hands, but Bera went on mercilessly: ‘And how they dealt with the man who fell with the arrow in his gut. These are not honourable warriors bound by a code of fair behaviour; they will kill for what they want and take whatever is left for profit. Mark what I say and imagine how they are even now calculating our worth on a southern slave block!’
Some of the women began to cry. Bera turned on them angrily.
‘Tears will not keep these raiders at bay!’ she cried, fixing Fat Breta and Marin Edelsen with an unforgiving look. ‘Dry your eyes and prepare to temper your blades with Istrian blood if you wish to save your lives and your virtue. I cannot promise you that we shall prevail, but we shall not shame our menfolk by giving ourselves up like calves to the slaughter.’
Sniffing, the women regarded their spears and knives dubiously. Then they gripped the handles harder and turned their faces to the windows with new determination.
‘Let them come,’ said Hesta Rolfsen resolutely, shaking her elm-spear at the raiders. ‘And if we die, we die bravely.’
Behind them, one of the roof-climbers pitched foot-first onto the floor. Fat Breta charged him with her spear. The point glanced off his mail coat with a screech and she tripped over the shaft and landed in a tumble at his feet. The raider, a lithe young man with almond-shaped eyes and a winning smile, extended a courteous hand to her and Fat Breta, who had never had any man smile at her, and certainly none as pretty as this one, took it without a murmur. The second man dropped through the roof at this moment and grinned at the first. ‘Hens in a coop,’ Milo Forin said to his brother in the impenetrable dialect of the north coast, squeezing Fat Breta’s hand reassuringly. ‘And well fed ones at that!’
Marin Edelsen plunged a dagger into his side and he fell over, looking surprised. She watched him collapse, looking even more surprised than he was and the reddened blade fell from her fingers. With a growl, Nuno Forin sprang at her and caught her by the throat. He looked wildly around at the shocked women, then back at his brother, who had staggered to his feet. The wound had not been deep, though the blood was still seeping.
A spear whirred through the air and took Milo Forin in the chest with such force that he was pinned to one of the roof supports. He expired there without a word. Gramma Rolfsen rubbed her hands down her apron. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it seems I haven’t lost my throwing arm.’
Nuno Forin held Marin in front of him to protect himself from a similar onslaught. What had appeared a relatively simple task had taken a desperate turn. With his free hand he drew his sword. ‘Door!’ he said in the Old Tongue. It was one of the few words he knew.
No one moved.
‘Door!’ he said again, and waved the sword around.
‘Leave the door alone,’ Bera said coolly.
Marin began to wail. The raider tightened his grip on her throat and she stopped. He dragged her towards the barred door, watching the women as he went, his handsome face suddenly ferocious. When he came level with Kitten Soronsen, he paused, his attention captured by the bright crimson of the silk tunic. His black eyes looked her up and down assessingly. Then drove his knife into Marin Edelsen’s throat and shoved her body aside, so that it cannoned into one of the old Seal Rock women, providing sufficient distraction for him to take Kitten hostage instead. His free hand travelled up and down the crimson silk, closing for an appreciative moment on her buttock. She stood stock-still, shocked by the sudden death of her friend, her fingers opening and closing around the shaft of the spear she held; then it fell with a clatter from her grasp. Nuno Forin pulled the pretty blue ribbons with their tiny silk flowers from her hair and, twisting viciously, wrapped her long braids around his fist and pressed the point of his sword to her throat. A thin welling of blood spilled down over the blade and dripped onto the shift and the floor. Thin Hildi gasped as Kitten’s knees began to buckle.
‘Door!’ he demanded again, holding the fainting girl upright. He made a mime of sawing off Kitten’s head if they did not comply.
Two of the women closest to the door started removing the benches which formed the barricade. ‘Don’t!’ shouted Bera.
‘We can’t just stand by and see her killed.’
‘Then watch from the window as they rape her before your eyes and then kill her anyway!’ Bera returned angrily, but the women continued in their endeavour until the door came free and Nuno Forin pushed his way outside. As he passed, Otter Garsen tried to pull Kitten from his grasp, but he swung his sword around in a tight circle and she cried out. Three of her fingers dropped to the ground, twitching, and she fell down in shock.
Outside, the raiders cheered and whooped as Nuno Forin made it back to them, pushing Kitten Soronsen in front of him.
‘How many are in there?’ Bastido demanded.
‘Maybe twenty. All women,’ Nuno replied. He grinned around at his companions. ‘No one touches this pretty bird but me. You can have the stringy old hens and the overstuffed turkeys.’
‘What about the shipmaker?’ the Bastard persisted.
Nuno shrugged, ‘He stands shaking by the window like a palsied rabbit, his eyes fair popping out with fear.’
‘Perhaps he is more frightened of the women of Rockfall than he is of us,’ Clermano quipped. ‘I have heard they have teeth between their legs instead of hair!’
Now Bastido and his men sent a shower of spears and arrows down on the steading, aiming for the holes the men had made in its roof, but they knew they were doing little damage with them when the women sent them back again, hurling them out of the windows or shooting the arrows from the gables. Night fell and the raiders began to complain of being cold and hungry and bored with their slow progress.
Galo Bastido knew what they meant by this. He had two more stratagems left to him. One might involve significant loss of life; the other was hardly less pleasant. First he had his men gather tinder and light a fire. Then he took Baranguet aside and made his thoughts known. His lieutenant grinned, then approached the giant, Casto Agen. ‘Hang onto Nuno Forin,’ Baranguet said softly. ‘And do not let him free until I tell you.’
The bare-knuckle fighter stayed where he was, frowning, and the firelight played over his wide features as on a wall. It took him a little while to assimilate information; half a minute later he grabbed the north-coaster in a headlock until Nuno’s face went bright red and he started to wheeze.
Galo Bastido pulled Kitten Soronsen to her feet, his eyes on the steading, the interior of which was now lit with a reddish glow which silhouetted the heads peering out of the windows. Then he shouted into the gloom, ‘We are bored and cold and need some exercise to warm ourselves up. Let the shipmaker out now or we shall treat you to a very special entertainment of our own devising!’ He pushed the girl towards his waiting men. ‘Strip her!’ he commanded.
At once, a group of raiders surrounded Kitten, each of them grinning maniacally. Given such licence, their hands were suddenly everywhere at once. The girl shrieked as they pushed her from one to another, each one tearing away a strip of cloth before passing her on until she stood before them, naked and terrified. Bruises the size and shape of hands stood out on her pale skin; gashes and gouges made by fingernails leaked crimson blood.
‘By the lord,’ Bera said through gritted teeth, ‘they are devils.’ She put down the fine sword Katla had made and took up a hunting bow, nocked an arrow and sighted down the shaft. The loosed barb took a short dark man in the upper arm so that he howled like a
dog. Three more arrows followed the first. One of the sea-wardens fell to his knees with a shaft in his gut; the other two fell harmlessly short.
The big man holding Nuno Forin let him go. Two of the raiders pushed Kitten Soronsen to the ground and held her down and the north-coaster began to fumble with his clothing.
Otter Garsen shook her bandaged hand out of the window. ‘Your pricks will swell up and turn black if you touch her!’ she yelled in the Old Tongue. ‘This I swear by the Troll of Fairwater! Your balls will shrivel up and fall off and your guts will twist in agony!’ She paused to draw breath, then bellowed: ‘Your kidneys will boil and your ribcage will burst open and propel your heart out of your chest and you will die in the most excruciating pain!’
Bera raised an eyebrow. It was not so much the content of the curse which surprised her, but the older woman’s knowledge of the common language, some of it quite technical.
She watched the men look from one to the other. Then Nuno Forin dropped his breeches and fell to his knees in front of Kitten Soronsen. For a moment, they thought he had done so in order to engage in the rape; then they saw the goose-fletching sticking out of his back. Before anyone out there could react, another man fell dead. A fleet figure scooted past the men like a wraith and disappeared into the darkness.
‘Katla!’ Bera breathed. ‘That was Katla!’ She turned to the women. ‘We shall not give in!’ she announced. ‘Take up anything you can throw or shoot. Let us show them what Rockfallers can do!’
Within moments, a hail of missiles engulfed the raiders. First it was sticks and staves and cooking implements; then it was all manner of bizarre objects.
Gramma Rolfsen grinned gleefully down at Fat Breta and Forna Stensen who were propping her up in a precarious fashion through the hole in the roof. ‘Hold me steady, girls,’ she demanded and took aim with Fent’s old catapult once more. A large ball of cow-dung enclosing a damaging collection of sheep’s knuckles and pebbles struck the knife-fighter, Clermano, squarely on the jaw, knocking him flat, if more with surprise than force. She followed this up with a bag full of rivets and some fire-blackened stones from the bread-oven.