by John Gwynne
‘Fine. Then let us ride,’ Meical cried out and suddenly all were in motion, the Jehar mounting horses, giants making the ground tremble.
‘Coralen,’ Corban called. ‘Scout ahead, take whoever you wish.’
Coralen stared at Corban with one eyebrow raised.
Then she nodded. ‘I’ll take Dath,’ Coralen said, eliciting a look of shock from Dath and a frown from Farrell. ‘Enkara,’ Coralen called to one of the Jehar, one of the Hundred that had ridden forth from white-walled Telassar with Tukul all those years ago. ‘And Storm, if I may.’
Corban muttered something and his wolven padded over to Coralen. ‘And your crow,’ Coralen added to Brina.
‘Tired,’ the bird croaked from Brina’s shoulder.
‘Get on with you,’ Brina snapped, shooing Craf into the air.
Tukul looked back as they rode away, saw the flattened ground of their campsite, the stone cairns by the stream, and above it, like ragged banners swinging in the breeze hung a score of headless bodies, suspended from the cluster of trees, slumped, empty sacks of skin and bone.
A reminder to those who follow. That we are not so easily cowed, not even by the dread Kadoshim.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CYWEN
Cywen rode beside Corban, close to the head of their strange warband, Buddai loping along beside her. It was highsun, the sky above was a cloudless blue, a cold breeze blew out of the east. She glanced at Corban. Is this really my little brother? He had just taken his warrior trials and sat his Long Night, the last I saw him, and here he is, giving orders to a warband including Jehar and giants. So much has changed. He was taller, wider about the chest and shoulders, relaxed as he sat upon Shield with the easy grace of a warrior.
Even his face had changed; thinner and sharper, the stubble of a short beard shadowing his jaw. And he was pale, dark hollows beneath his red-rimmed eyes evidence of his grief. A shared grief.
Mam.
At the thought of her Cywen felt the dark wave of sorrow that lay beneath all else in her soul. She reached a hand up to the belt of her mam’s throwing knives strapped across her torso. It was the only thing she had of her.
So long apart, only a few moments together before . . . The image of Calidus cutting her mam down filled Cywen’s mind, grief and rage swelled inside, a physical thing that stole her breath away.
So many things I wanted to say to her, stolen from me by Calidus. She remembered crouching, stroking her mam’s face, trying to wipe away the blood that trickled from her mouth.
It is my fault she died. She would be alive now if she had not come to free me. She swiped at tears as they spilt onto her cheeks and she clenched her eyes shut.
Free. Thank you, Mam, I’ll not squander your gift.
She looked about, surrounded by a bleak, rolling countryside of purple heather and gorse and breathed in a deep lungful of air. Free. Even Cywen’s guilt could not suppress the relief she felt at having escaped the constraints of Nathair and Calidus. She shivered at the memory of them.
She felt a prickling sensation and realized that Corban was looking at her.
‘We have much to talk about.’
‘We do,’ she agreed. I have so many questions. Where to start . . . ?
‘Did they harm you?’ Corban asked, worry, concern and fear creasing his face.
‘Harm? Not really. Lots of threats. My wrists were bound at first – because I tried to escape; or kill people.’
Corban grinned at that. ‘Who?’
She had to think about that for a moment. It all seemed so long ago. ‘Morcant. Conall. Rafe.’
‘All good people to kill,’ Corban said. ‘But they didn’t harm you?’
‘No.’ Her thoughts slipped to her guards, Veradis and then the troubled giant, Alcyon. Veradis’ face hovered in her mind, so serious and determined, and she remembered one of the last times she had seen him. He’d told her of the bodies in the mountains when she had been sick with worry that Corban or her mam were amongst the dead. Heb and Anwarth, Veradis told me. Not Corban or Mam. Telling her that was an act of kindness.
‘Heb died,’ she said.
‘Aye, he did,’ Corban replied, his features twisting. ‘Brina took that badly.’
‘Looks like you did, too.’
‘I liked him,’ Corban said. ‘We became close. All of us did, on the road together. How did you know?’
‘Veradis told me – he was my guard, for a while. Along with Alcyon; they treated me fair,’ she said.
‘Veradis and Alcyon?’
‘Nathair’s first-sword, and his giant companion.’ I hope Alcyon is all right. She frowned at her own thoughts. He was my captor. But he did free me, cut my bonds at the end and hid me from Calidus. Alcyon and Balur had fought, Balur sending Alcyon crashing to the ground and taking the black axe from him.
Corban raised an eyebrow. ‘I think I met this Veradis too. In Domhain. He wanted to fight me.’
Cywen felt a stab of . . . something . . . at that thought. Worry? For Corban, of course. But there was more than that. She chose not to think about it.
‘We’re starting in the middle,’ she said. ‘Tell me from the beginning. From Dun Carreg. Were you with Da, when . . . ?’ Even now, after witnessing so much of war, pain and death and worse, she could not bring herself to say the words.
‘I was with him. Rafe and Helfach stopped me from helping him,’ Corban said, his expression grim. ‘Nathair killed our da.’
Nathair. And Calidus slew Mam. ‘One day,’ she said to Corban, a hand going to her knives. He nodded, understanding her meaning.
Corban spoke for a long while after that, of his flight through the tunnels beneath Dun Carreg, sailing away to Cambren and all that befell him and his companions. He told of seeing Rafe amongst the prisoners in Domhain, how Rafe had told them that Cywen was alive. How he and a few others had set out to rescue her. When Corban spoke of his capture by Braith and how he was taken to Queen Rhin at Dun Vaner he hesitated.
‘What happened there?’ Cywen prompted.
‘I was rescued,’ he shrugged. ‘Meical and Tukul were tracking me, came to Dun Vaner, although Farrell was the one who knocked my gaol door down with Da’s hammer.’ He grinned at that.
‘And Tukul is Gar’s da,’ Cywen said. She was still getting used to that.
‘Aye. Can you believe it – Gar, one of the Jehar?’ Tukul and Gar were riding a little further ahead, with a score of the Jehar spread either side of them.
‘The Jehar. They’re wonderful with horses. Akar helped me, healed Shield – he was shot with an arrow during the battle where Rhin defeated Owain.’
‘I don’t think he and Gar get along too well,’ Corban said as he leaned forward in his saddle, running a hand across the scar on Shield’s shoulder.
‘The Jehar – they look at you, a lot.’ Cywen had noticed many of the Jehar with their eyes on Corban, something like awe on their faces. She had discovered that Corban was the reason Nathair and Calidus had dragged her halfway across the Banished Lands; she was Corban’s sister and they suspected that she could be used as bait. They were right, come to think of it. But why? Why did they want Corban so badly? ‘Who do they all think you are, Ban? And who is Meical? They all act like you’re their leader.’
He looked away, appearing embarrassed. ‘This is going to sound very strange to you. Meical is one of the Ben-Elim.’
Cywen found it hard not to look sceptical. ‘An angel of Elyon. One of the Faithful?’
‘Yes.’
Two days ago she would have laughed at that. But since then she had seen Kadoshim boil out of a cauldron. The world was a different place now.
‘All right,’ she said, carefully. ‘Go on, then.’
‘And the Jehar call me the Seren Disglair. You remember the prophecy Edana told us about? Feels like a thousand years ago.’ Elyon and Asroth, their forthcoming battle, the God-War, their champions . . .
‘Yes.’ Cywen nodded dubiously wondering where this was going.
Corban looked even more awkward and refused to meet her eyes. ‘Seren Disglair is the Jehar’s name for the Bright Star. The prophesied champion of Elyon, enemy of Asroth. And apparently that’s me.’
Cywen gazed at the flames of the fire.
The world has gone mad. My brother, the champion of Elyon. She snorted with nervous laughter, remembering a host of moments with Corban while growing up – the day he ripped his cloak in the Baglun, when she’d attacked Rafe to defend Corban. Corban sneaking into Brina’s cottage, bringing home Storm as a pup, hitting at each other with sticks in their garden, seeing him amongst the rescue party in the Darkwood, watching him as he took his warrior trial and Long Night. And yet now they were sitting in a foreign land, Benothi giants sitting to her left, elsewhere Jehar warriors were tending to their weapons.
‘How have we reached this place?’ she said to Buddai, the hound spread beside her, his big head resting on her legs.
Figures loomed out of the darkness and sat beside her – Dath and Farrell, another with them – the red-haired girl, Coralen. She drew her sword and ran her thumb along its edge, then pulled a whetstone out of her cloak and started running it along the blade.
‘You look familiar,’ Cywen said to Coralen. There was something in the set of Coralen’s jaw, the confidence in her walk, the way she held herself.
‘She’s half-sister to Halion and Conall,’ Farrell said.
‘I can talk for myself,’ Coralen snapped at Farrell.
‘That would be it,’ Cywen said. ‘Conall was my guard for a while. We didn’t get along too well.’
Coralen just stared at her, her face a cold mask.
‘He tried to kill me. Twice,’ Cywen continued, not sure why. Something about Coralen’s emotionless expression annoyed her. ‘But, to be fair, I was trying to kill him. Pushed him off a wall the first time. Put a knife in him the second.’
A flicker of emotion, respect perhaps, crossed Coralen’s face, then it was gone. ‘You’re lucky to be alive,’ Coralen said. ‘Not many live to tell the tale once Con decides they’re for the grave.’
‘You haven’t seen what Cywen can do with a knife,’ Dath said, and Cywen liked him a lot more at that moment. Coralen looked at Cywen, then went back to sharpening her sword.
Dath passed Cywen a skin of something. She sniffed it suspiciously – mead?
‘Where’d you get this?’
‘Rescued it from Rhin’s stores in Dun Vaner,’ Dath said with a grin. ‘That’s the last of it, now.’
‘It’s good stuff,’ Farrell said. ‘Especially on a cold night like this.’ He unslung the war-hammer from his back and laid it on the grass beside him. Unconsciously he patted its iron head.
That’s Da’s war-hammer, Cywen realized, felt her grief swell in her chest. Again. She took a sip of the mead, the taste of honey combining with a pleasant heat in her belly.
‘It’s good to have you back with us,’ Dath said to her, reaching out and squeezing her wrist. She fought the urge to pull away, felt tears threaten her eyes.
She took a deep breath.
‘It’s good to be here,’ she answered. Her eyes drifted about the fires that dotted their camp. She saw Corban emerge from the darkness with Gar and Tukul at his side. He sat beside Meical, who was talking to Akar. Behind them, at the edge of the firelight’s reach, Storm prowled.
‘Corban told me some strange things today. What the Jehar are saying about him.’
‘Gar started all that. At first we thought he’d gone mad,’ Dath said cheerfully. ‘Then Corban gets himself captured by Rhin and a warband of the Jehar ride up and carve seven hells out of Rhin’s warriors. They call Corban the Seven Disgraces, or something like that . . .’
‘Seren Disglair,’ Coralen corrected, not losing time with her whetstone.
‘Whatever.’ Dath shrugged. ‘Whatever it is, those Jehar seem on the edge, to me.’
‘Edge of what?’ Coralen asked him.
‘Insanity. It worries me.’
Coralen laughed at that, a touch of warmth melting the coldness in her face, just for a few moments.
‘Do you believe it?’ Cywen asked. ‘That Corban is this Seren Disglair?’
‘Aye,’ Farrell said without hesitation. They all looked at him.
‘There’s more to what’s going on than border disputes and a power-mad queen,’ he said to their inquisitive gaze. ‘Look at what we all saw back in Murias. That was the Kadoshim that came out of that cauldron . . .’
Dath shivered and made the ward against evil.
‘Asroth and Elyon, the Scourging, Ben-Elim and Kadoshim, we’ve all heard the tales.’
‘Aye, faery tales,’ Dath said.
‘There’s usually a fire that starts the smoke,’ Farrell shrugged. ‘What I’m saying is: there’s something big happening. You’d be a fool to ignore it.’ He looked pointedly at Dath. ‘So Corban’s part of it. Why not? And that would explain a lot of things: like why we’re here, with giants and Jehar all around us and Kadoshim a dozen leagues behind us. Besides, if anyone is going to be this Seren Disglair, I, for one, am happy it’s Corban.’
‘What do you mean?’ Cywen asked him. She noticed Coralen was staring hard at Farrell.
‘He’s the best of us,’ Farrell said with a shrug. ‘Honest, brave, fair. Loyal. I’d follow him into any fight.’
Voices drew her attention then – Corban and Meical. Without thinking she rose and strode towards them, seating herself beside Corban.
‘I’m not saying that I’ve decided to go to Edana and not Drassil,’ Corban was saying. ‘What I am saying is that if we went to Edana I can see us doing much good by aiding her. Rhin is our enemy, a servant of Asroth. If we can help Edana defeat her, it would be a great victory for us.’
‘Rhin is an enemy,’ Meical said, speaking slowly, as if he chose his words with care, ‘but she is not the enemy. To defeat Asroth you must go to Drassil.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that is where the prophecy says you will go, and that the enemies of Asroth will gather about you there.’
‘I have heard much talk of this prophecy,’ Corban said, ‘but I have yet to actually hear it.’
‘I can remedy that,’ said Meical. He reached inside his cloak and pulled out a round leather canister. He undid a cord that bound it and slid out a scroll. It crackled as he unrolled it; everyone gathered close to hear it.
War eternal between the Faithful and the Fallen,
infinite wrath come to the world of men.
Lightbearer seeking flesh from the cauldron,
to break his chains and wage the war again.
Two born of blood, dust and ashes shall champion the Choices
the Darkness and Light.
Black Sun will drown the earth in bloodshed,
Bright Star with the Treasures must unite.
By their names you shall know them –
Kin-Slayer, Kin-Avenger, Giant-Friend, Draig-Rider,
Dark Power ’gainst Lightbringer.
One shall be the Tide, one the Rock in the swirling sea.
Before one, storm and shield shall stand,
before the other, True-Heart and Black-Heart.
Beside one rides the Beloved, beside the other, the Avenging Hand.
Behind one, the Sons of the Mighty, the fair Ben-Elim, gathered ’neath the Great Tree.
Behind the other, the Unholy, dread Kadoshim, who seek to cross the bridge,
force the world to bended knee.
Meical paused, glancing at the faces around the fireside.
‘Black Sun will drown the earth in bloodshed,’ Dath whispered to Farrell, his voice carrying in the silence. ‘Don’t much like the sound of that.’
‘There’s more,’ Meical said and continued reading.
Look for them when the high king calls, when the shadow warriors ride forth,
when white-walled Telassar is emptied, when the book is found in the north.
When the white wyrms sprea
d from their nest,
when the Firstborn take back what was lost, and the Treasures stir from their rest.
Both earth and sky shall cry warning, shall herald this War of Sorrows.
Tears of blood spilt from the earth’s bones, and at Midwinter’s height, bright day shall become full night.
As Meical finished silence settled upon them, broken only by the hiss and crackle of the flames.
‘Storm and shield,’ Corban whispered.
‘Indeed,’ said Meical. ‘So, you see, you are the Bright Star, our champion.’
This might all actually be true, Cywen thought. My brother, the Champion of Elyon. It was much easier to believe, sitting here in the dark around a flickering fire, Ben-Elim and giants for company.
‘Why?’ Corban said.
‘Why what?’ replied Meical.
‘Why me? Why am I this Bright Star? Why not Edana, or some prince or king? Me, the son of a blacksmith, a boy whose only ambition was to be a warrior and serve his king.’
‘I can’t answer that,’ Meical said. ‘I just know that it is you. The reason why does not even matter. It won’t change anything. Sometimes it is just best to accept what is, and get on with doing.’
Corban nodded thoughtfully. ‘When was this prophecy written?’ he asked.
‘Two thousand years ago,’ Meical said.
Corban blew out a long breath. ‘Two thousand years. Our fate was decided two thousand years ago. My fate . . .’ He looked at Meical, his expression hovering between doubt and hope. ‘So, if it’s prophesied that I am the Bright Star, then we are going to win?’
‘The prophecy does not say who will win, only who will fight.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Dath muttered.
‘But it does say that you must go to Drassil,’ Meical added.
‘Drassil is the Great Tree?’ Corban asked.
‘Aye.’
‘It’s a bit vague as to why I should go there.’
‘The Ben-Elim will gather to you there. If that is not good enough reason, then there are others.’