by J. M. Martin
He stepped inside the flat and closed the door as quietly as possible, intent on a soft bed and a dreamless sleep. But he heard someone stir in one of the bedrooms.
“Is that you, Otalo?” the old man’s voice came, angry and petulant and still drunk.
“Yes, papa,” Otalo said patiently. “I’m home.”
Better To Live Than To Die
John Gwynne
The Banished Lands has a violent past, where men and giants clashed in a war for supremacy and near-extinction for the vanquished. Now men rule the land, giants little more than a memory, lurking in the wilds and dark places.
This tale takes place ten years before the events of Malice, book 1 of the Faithful and the Fallen, within the Darkwood, a great forest that splits the western realms of Ardan and Narvon. It recounts a key moment in the life of a young bowman, Camlin, who is part of the Darkwood Brigands. A moment that has far-reaching consequences for the great conflict to come.
~
Camlin sat and waited, and as he waited, his mind wandered.
When he was a bairn his da would sit Camlin upon his knee and tell him to stay away from the Darkwood. He’d carry Camlin to their window and point at the ocean of trees just south of their Hold, stretching on and on to the ends of the earth, or so it had seemed to Camlin. Then his da would tell tales about the Darkwood brigands, how cruel and fierce they were, how they’d cut your throat for a handful of grain or a half-chewed copper.
Never thought for a moment I’d end up being one of ‘em.
He concentrated on the road in front of him, looking down from an embankment shrouded in dense cover. A dozen black-fletched arrows were spiked into the earth before him, his bow of yew held loosely across his lap. In the canopy above, wood-pigeons cooed, further off a woodpecker drummed against a tree. Camlin’s eyes drooped, head nodding, and with a jerk he sat straight.
“My da never told me how boring a Darkwood brigand’s life was, either,” he muttered.
“Shut up,” a voice said close by—Casalu, his chief, words hissing through a gap in his teeth. He couldn’t see him, but he knew he was there, squat and hulking in the undergrowth like an old, surly boar.
“Sorry, chief,” Camlin muttered.
“I said, shut. Up.”
Camlin did. Upsetting Casalu was not how he wanted to start the day. Far better to be overlooked, as he usually was. Fifteen summers old he’d stumbled into the Darkwood. After a moon of wandering and starving he’d been found and taken in by Casalu’s crew. Five years later he was still here, mostly because he had a knack for keeping his head down and his mouth shut. People that Casalu noticed didn’t usually last too long.
He fixed his eyes back upon the road, a wide strip of crumbling flagstone that had seen better days. The giantsway, they called it. Built by giants, his da had told him, and Camlin reckoned that was true. All the giant relics were stone made, like this road, and there were enough of them littered about the land, most of them crumbling ruins now, a few of them taken and occupied by their conquerors. Moss and lichen grew on the giantsway, flagstones cracked and broken by countless years of freeze and thaw. It was still the best route through the Darkwood, though, linking the realm of Narvon in the north with Ardan in the south. And good roads meant travelers.
A fallen tree lay across the road before Camlin, branches splayed, roots twisting up to the heavens. To his left, further along the road, birds exploded from branches, squawking a protest.
Here they come.
Camlin reached for an arrow and nocked it loosely. Riders appeared around a far bend in the road, four, six, ten of them, behind them two wains pulled by shaggy coated oxen, and behind those another ten or twelve riders.
They drew closer, shifting sunlight dappling the road through the treetop canopy, details appearing upon the riders. All warriors, with thick-shafted spears and swords at their hips, iron torcs twisted around their necks, and their warrior braids tied with leather. Huge iron-rimmed shields were strapped to their saddles. Camlin saw all of this in a few heartbeats, but his eyes were drawn to their cloaks. Gray cloaks that marked them out as shieldmen of Brenin, King of Ardan.
This was wrong, supposed to be a merchant-train with a handful of mercenary guards. In Camlin’s experience paid guards ran, sworn shieldmen didn’t.
“Hold,” Casalu hissed, continuing to mutter a string of unintelligible curses.
The riders reached the fallen tree. A few sharp words from one at the head of the column and a dozen warriors dismounted to move it, while the others sat tall in their saddles, their eyes scanning the trees about them.
Two wains were sat in the middle of the convoy—the first with a single chest in it, the second with three people, hands bound, and ropes about their necks.
Gently Camlin shifted his weight, muscles in his legs starting to burn.
“Be still,” Casalu hissed at him.
Odds aren’t good enough for Casalu, a score of Ardan shieldmen with sharp iron and fine war-gear against our ragged crew. We may outnumber them but I doubt we could out-fight them. Casalu will let them move the tree and go on their way. Too much of a fight for him.
A hissing sound from the far side of the road, a gray-cloaked warrior stiffening in his saddle, toppling backwards in a spray of blood, arrow through his throat.
There was a frozen moment. Camlin’s heart lurched in his chest.
They were supposed to wait for Casalu’s signal.
More arrows snaked from the trees. Horses screamed, warriors yelling, raising shields, drawing swords.
More swearing from Casalu, and Camlin heard the big man’s bow creaking, saw an arrow fly into the chest of a stallion.
Camlin nocked an arrow, drew, felt the fletching tickle his cheek. Held his breath. Sighted. A warrior on foot by the tree, back to Camlin, scanning the far bank.
Release.
His bow-string thrummed, arrow flying true, sinking a handspan into the warrior’s back, through boiled leather and wool padding and linen and into flesh. A grunt and the man was hurled forwards by the force of the bolt.
He reached for another arrow, nocked, drew, breathed, released, arrow slamming into the thigh of a rider, pinning his leg to his mount.
Another arrow, this one punching into a shoulder, spinning the warrior, dark blood spattering his gray cloak.
All of Casalu’s crew could use a bow—had to if they wanted to lead this life—but none could wield it so well as Camlin. His instinct for it came right from the first, as little more than a bairn, when his da had put carved yew into his small, pudgy hands.
Another arrow, this one sinking almost to the fletching into a horse’s neck, causing it to rear, screaming, sending its rider crashing to the ground.
By now their chosen victims were usually broken, fleeing in all directions. Not these men. A half-dozen of them were surging up the far bank, on foot or horse, yelling war-cries. They hit the undergrowth where Casalu’s boys were lurking, fresh screams rising up as spears stabbed and swords hacked. Camlin saw old Annan flushed out of the bushes and ridden down, saw him tumble down the embankment in a tangle of boneless limbs.
A handful more of the gray-cloaks were forming up and facing towards Camlin. He felt a jolt of fear as he realized what they were doing, shields raised, thudding together as they charged up the embankment. Panic bubbled in his guts, and he sent an arrow thrumming into a shield. More arrows flitted from the bank, Casalu and the others. One gray-cloaked warrior staggered, a shaft skewering his calf, but the rest surged on up the slope. Twenty paces away now, then ten.
Beside him Casalu roared and rose from the undergrowth, hefted his heavy-bladed boar spear, and hurled it at the oncoming warriors. It crashed into a shield, blade pinning an arm behind it. Casalu shrieked wordlessly and ran at the gray-cloaks, knife and cleaver in his hands, chopping over the sagging shield-rim of the injured warrior.
Follow him, he’s your chief, a voice screamed in Camlin’s head. Before he realized what he was doing h
e was scrambling in the litter and soil, dropping his bow, and reaching for his sword.
Other figures burst from the undergrowth, more of Casalu’s crew eager to be seen backing up their chief. Camlin ran down the slope, tripped on a root, and crashed into a gray-cloaked shieldman. They fell together, a glimpse of Casalu crouched and snarling over a bloody corpse, then Camlin was rolling, grunting, trying to drag his sword free of the tangle of limbs and shield, the warrior he’d collided with growling and spitting in his face.
With a crunch they hit the road and burst apart like a shattered barrel, flying in different directions. Camlin fell into a clump of mushrooms growing between crumbling flagstones, pushed himself to his hands and knees.
Get up, up, get up. He’d seen it before, a dozen times in a knife fight, first one to his feet was usually the only one. This wasn’t a knife fight yet, but the principle was the same.
The gray-cloak hadn’t been so lucky with his fall. He lay on the road, moving groggily, a pool of blood leaking from his head. Camlin searched for his sword, found it, and put it through the fallen man’s throat.
Most of the fighting was happening up on the embankment now, the gray-cloaks taking the fight to Casalu’s crew, the clash of iron and battle-cries echoing muted through the forest, telling him it wasn’t over yet.
Brave men.
A sound on the road drew his eye. The wains were sitting still and unguarded. The first with a chest in its back and its driver slumped backwards with an arrow through his eye. The second was where the noise was coming from.
There were people in it, three of them, bound hand and throat, a cage of iron bars built into the back. The wain’s driver was unlocking the cage door, a woodcutter’s axe in his hand. The people in the cage were screaming.
Don’t think he’s searching for some firewood, or about to set them free.
Camlin pulled a knife from his belt, gripped it by the blade as his brother Col had taught him so many years ago, and threw it as the wain-driver swung the cage door open and raised his axe.
The knife caught him just below the ribs, buried to its hilt in flesh. With a confused look on his face the wain-driver staggered back a step, then slumped to the ground.
Camlin ran to the wain, looked in to see three people, a woman and bairn huddled before him, and further back a man, sitting calm as if he were waiting for his lunch to be served.
“Please,” the woman said.
Camlin looked at her, squeezing a young lad tight, both regarding him with pleading eyes. A memory flashed in his mind, so bright the world about him dimmed, of his mam and brother, Col, laying still and unseeing, blood seeping into the dirt of his Hold’s yard. He blinked, banishing the thought and the sharp pain in his chest that accompanied it.
Cries echoed through the forest. Camlin peered up and saw Casalu and a few others hacking at a lone gray-cloak, the man retreating before them. As Camlin watched, the gray-cloak’s sword snaked out, and one of Casalu’s crew reeled back with blood spurting from his throat.
Fight’s almost done. And Camlin knew what would happen to the woman and her bairn once Casalu and the others came down here, glutted with victory, blood still up.
“Run,” he said to them, holding a hand out. The woman lifted her bound hands and he reached for his knife, remembered it was still in the wain-driver. He heard a noise from behind, started to turn, then an arm swung around his throat.
The wain-driver!
Apparently a knife in the belly was not enough to keep the man down. Camlin swung his elbow, threw his head back, felt cartilage crunch. His attacker only grunted and carried on squeezing. The woman and bairn shied away from them, the man in the wain just watching them.
Camlin braced his feet against the wain’s iron wheel and threw himself backwards, wriggling like a worm on a hook, his attacker staggering a few steps, but then he was swung around and they crashed back into the wain, this time in reverse. The arm about his throat tightened. Sounds came out of his mouth, desperate, choking, spittle bubbling, a dark nimbus closing in on his vision, white dots exploding within it.
Then his attacker was grunting, making strangled sounds of his own, sour breath washing over Camlin. Abruptly the arm about his neck was gone and he staggered forward a step, dropped to his knees, sucking in huge gasping breaths. When he could breathe again he stood and turned, saw the wain-driver’s face turning slowly purple, the prisoner in the wain with his bound hands around the man’s throat, pulling the rope tight.
Camlin surged forward, grabbed his knife’s hilt still protruding from his enemy’s belly, ripped it free, and stabbed the man, again and again. Slowly he slumped in the prisoner’s grip, arms sagging, face purple and bloated, tongue swollen. The prisoner loosened his grip and dropped the man to the ground, a sack of meat and bone.
Camlin rubbed at his neck, regarding the prisoner, who stepped back and resumed his place on a bench.
“Come on,” Camlin croaked at the woman and her bairn, his throat burning. They stared at him frozen, so he grabbed the woman’s wrists and cut her binds.
“Get out here,” he grated, throat raw and swollen. She just looked at him as he sawed at the child’s ropes.
He looked up at the embankments, heard Casalu shouting, saw others bending over fallen gray-cloaks, stripping them.
“Can you ride?”
The woman nodded.
“Then ride now, as fast as you ever have done, because if they catch you and your bairn…”
She hoisted her child and ran to a horse, a warrior’s boot dangling from a stirrup. Without a look back she was pulling on the reins and kicking the stallion on, and in a clatter of hooves she and her bairn were gone.
Casalu heard them and came running down the embankment, snarling commands. He saw Camlin and strode to him, stopped when he saw the chest in the first wain. With his cleaver he shattered the lock and opened it. The look on his face flickered between greed and fear as he dug his hands in and let silver coins slip through his fingers.
“Too much,” he muttered. “Brenin won’t just walk away from this.”
“It’s yours now,” a voice said, the prisoner from the wain.
Casalu snapped the lid closed and stalked over. He was thickset, all slabs of muscle, short-cropped hair and scars, with small intelligent eyes. His lower jaw jutted, too big for his face, making his bottom teeth stick out like tusks. Camlin often wondered if that was why he was called the Boar.
“Who are you?” Casalu asked the prisoner.
“Nobody.”
“Answer the question, or you’ll be a nobody with my cleaver in your skull.”
“Name’s Braith.” He smiled, and despite the fact that Casalu had just threatened a quite unpleasant death the smile seemed warm and genuine.
Others started to join them, filtering out of the undergrowth laden with spoils—coin chinking in purses, boots, weapons, cloaks, the iron torcs of Brenin’s fallen shieldman. One stepped over to the wain, Drem, Casalu’s captain. He was one of the old-timers, streaks of iron in his black hair and beard. In his left hand he had a leather cord, threaded upon it the fresh-cut ears of dead shieldmen, still dripping blood. He liked his trophies.
“Out,” he said.
Braith did as he was told, stood with his bound hands, still calm as if he were at the spring fair. He was tall, broad shouldered, a hint of gracefulness about him as he climbed from the wain. He didn’t look much older than Camlin.
“So, Braith,” Casalu said, stepping close. They were of a height, which was rare, Casalu usually looking down at everyone, though Casalu was wider, the muscle on his frame thick as an old, knotted oak. “Why are you a prisoner to Brenin’s shieldmen?”
Braith held Casalu’s eye a long, silent moment.
You don’t want to do that.
“I’m being sent back to Narvon for trial,” Braith said with a shrug.
“Trial for what?”
“Murder.”
“Who?”
“One o
f King Owain’s shieldmen.”
“Why’d you do a fool thing like that?” Casalu asked, putting a boot upon the face of one of the dead shieldmen on the road. Laughter rippled about him.
“Self defense.” Braith smiled his big smile.
“That’s what they all say,” someone called out.
Casalu stared at him again, sucked on his teeth.
“There were others,” Casalu said, eyes fixing onto Camlin. “In the cage.”
“Aye, chief. They escaped.”
“How, when they were in a cage, hands bound?” Casalu looked about, saw the cut ropes of their bonds on the ground.
“They took off while I was busy,” Camlin said, nodding at the dead wain-driver. His eyes flickered to Braith, but the man was picking dirt from a nail.
Casalu curled a lip at him but said no more. He hefted his cleaver, then gripped Braith’s wrists and sliced his bonds.
“Welcome to my crew.” He strode away a few steps, then paused and looked back. “And if I find out you’re lying to me, I’ll gut you.”
#
Camlin was sat with his back to a broad oak. Not for the first time this day he checked over his kit. It was a routine that calmed him when he was anxious. He’d put a fresh coat of wax on his yew bow, had a collection of hemp strings rolled in wax in a leather pouch. A quiver of thirty arrows stood wrapped in oiled doeskin—he’d killed and skinned the doe himself. He drew his sword with a whisper from the sheepskin-lined sheath he’d taken from one of the dead shieldmen the day Braith had joined them. He laid the blade across his lap.
Everything seemed to change from that day.
Braith had entered their camp almost a year ago, and since then the world had changed. He brought something with him, unseen yet influential and pervasive. Ambition.
He was a natural leader, Camlin finding that he would do things just in the hope to be noticed by Braith, and when a word of praise or a pat on the back was given, it would make him stand taller. Casalu ruled by fear, but slowly, incrementally the power balance began to shift. And Casalu saw it. He chose to send Braith on ever wilder and more dangerous raids, to Camlin’s mind hoping that Braith would not come back. But he did, and always with that broad smile on his face.