by John Gwynne
He cantered first up the hill towards his father’s warband, holding the banner high. It was white linen, the black branch and red berries of a rowan stark upon it, symbol of truce. As he drew closer he began to see faces he recognized – these were by and large men whom he’d grown up around for the first eighteen years of his life.
A murmur spread along their ranks, rippling ahead of him as he rode along their front line, nodding to those he knew. When he reached the centre of the line he reined in before a man a head taller than any other gathered upon the slope. His brother Krelis.
They just stared at each other, silence settling about them, between them.
‘Didn’t expect to see you here,’ Krelis said in the end.
‘We need to talk,’ Veradis said. ‘Bring Father, down there.’ He nodded into the centre of the field, where a white tent was being erected by Caesus and two dozen eagle-guard.
‘This has gone past talking,’ Krelis said.
‘If we don’t talk lives will be lost for no good reason.’
Behind the tent being raised Veradis’ eagle-guard were marching in shield-wall formation. For a moment Veradis just sat and admired them, pride washing over him. The crash of their shields as they turned and stood behind the tent echoed about the field.
Krelis watched too.
‘It’s a trap – I don’t trust that bastard Lykos.’
‘Trust me. It is a rowan-meet. My men will guard all who set foot there.’
He looked at Krelis again, noticing lines around his eyes and across his forehead that had not been there the last time Veradis had seen him.
‘You’ve changed,’ Krelis said to him.
Veradis smiled. Krelis had always made him smile.
‘You’ve changed too, big brother. You look old.’
‘Cheeky pup.’ Krelis grinned.
Veradis kicked his horse into motion. ‘Down there, bring Father, and anyone else who you think should have a say.’
He rode away from the warband, towards the north of the plain, where Marcellin was camped.
More than four thousand, Veradis thought as he approached Marcellin, closer to five.
Marcellin hailed from Baran, a fortress carved out of, and into, the Agullas Mountains. He was a big, gruff man of somewhere between fifty and sixty summers, and he had a pair of bushy eyebrows that dominated his craggy face.
Bos came from Baran, grew up there, I remember. He felt a stab of sadness at the memory of his friend. Good friends were hard to find.
‘Who are you?’ Marcellin asked him as he reined in before him.
‘Veradis ben Lamar, first-sword and general of King Nathair, and I speak with his voice.’
‘Oh, do you now?’ Marcellin asked, eyebrows bunching as he stared up at Veradis.
‘I do, my lord.’
‘Well, don’t think to try and persuade me against kicking that arse Lykos out of my country. He is a disease, and I mean to cut him out. There’s nothing you can say to sway me.’
‘I am not going to try,’ Veradis said. He reached inside his cloak and suddenly Marcellin’s shieldmen were pointing a lot of sharp iron his way.
‘I am no assassin,’ Veradis said, trying to keep the anger from his voice, and not entirely sure he was successful.
‘Go slowly, then,’ Marcellin said. ‘My lads are fond of this old man.’
Veradis pulled out a rolled scroll, sealed with red wax.
‘From Nathair,’ Veradis said.
Marcellin took it, frowning bad-temperedly at it.
‘Read it, and if it is to your liking, join me for a rowan-meet with Lamar and Lykos in that tent.’ Without waiting for an answer, he rode away.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CYWEN
Cywen wrapped bandages around Gar’s chest; it had started to bruise already but he didn’t so much as wince as she pulled the cloth straps tightly to bind his ribs. He sat upon a bench in the feast-hall of Gramm’s hold, eyes downcast. Once she’d tied off the bandage she squeezed his hand and he looked at her, eyes red-rimmed and hollow.
I remember that pain, can feel it still, though it is buried deeper now than it was. Da, Mam, Heb, Tukul – how many more people we care about will we lose before this is over? She wished she could do something to ease his pain.
‘You’ve some cracked ribs,’ she said. ‘The bandages will give some support, help them heal, but the fact is anything you do is going to hurt, and that includes breathing.’ He nodded and she helped him back into his coat of dark mail. ‘Take this with you,’ she said, offering him a vial.
‘What is it?’
‘Poppy milk, it will dull the pain.’
‘I do not want it dulled. I deserve it,’ he muttered. He picked up his scabbarded sword and walked away.
The feast-hall had been turned into an impromptu hospice, and bodies were everywhere, filling long tables, the metallic tang of blood thick in the air. Cywen had stayed on the ship during the battle, ordered by Corban to help in the organization of unloading the provisions they’d need from ship to shore. She’d been annoyed at first but had seen the sense of it. She was not Corban with a blade, or Gar, or even Farrell for that matter. And the ships needed unloading by someone with more than half a brain, so she’d set to it, with Brina snapping orders at her and Cywen delegating the heavy lifting to Laith and a dozen other giantlings – who had also been forbidden by Balur and Ethlinn to join in the fight.
Added to the giantlings there were over two score of the villagers who had joined them during the journey through Narvon, as well as a few score oarsmen who had rowed the last sprint to the hold and had been too exhausted to move, let alone fight, so Cywen and Brina had quite the workforce at their disposal. All eight ships were close to unloaded when Cywen heard a great rumbling and ran to the raised deck at the back of the ship to get a view of what was happening. The hold on the top of the hill was wreathed in smoke, but the din of battle had faded, only the occasional muted rumble. Now, though, that rumble grew, a cloud of dust rising beyond the hold and swirling eastwards. Brina and Laith had come to stand beside her, then other giantlings.
The dust cloud had veered north, down the hill, then Cywen had seen what looked to be animals, running, small from this distance, but still clearly bigger than horses, three or four of them, with figures riding upon their backs.
‘Are they auroch?’ Cywen mused.
‘They are the war-bears of the Jotun,’ Laith said beside her, something in her voice hovering somewhere between awe and loathing.
Then Cywen saw what the bears were running from: a mass of horses, Jehar, and giants. Amazingly the gap between the bears and those chasing them widened. The bears ran with surprising speed once their momentum was up, straight to the river and without a pause leaping in, sinking beneath the surface for a moment before reappearing and swimming steadily to the far bank. Cywen watched them cross the river and climb out upon the far side, bears shaking themselves dry. A giant had dismounted and walked back to the river’s edge, stood there staring across at his pursuers, who had reached the riverbank now and stood ranged along it, Cywen seeing the silver of Balur One-Eye’s hair. The giant across the river had raised his arm, holding an axe or war-hammer – Cywen could not tell from this distance – and shouted. No one gave a response and the giant turned, climbed onto a bear’s back and the three bears had shambled away.
After that, word had come down to them that the battle was over and Brina and Cywen were needed at the hold.
And here she was still. She watched Gar walk from the feast-hall, the bright light of highsun beaming through the open doors about him. There were many working on the injured: Cywen and Brina, Ethlinn and Laith, as well as healers from the hold itself, chief of them a woman named Hild, the wife of Gramm’s son, Wulf.
The far end of the hall was being filled with the dead, Jehar, Benothi giants, men of the hold laid out upon tables. Cywen looked back at Tukul’s corpse, wrapped in his cloak now and lying alongside Gramm’s body.
So many dead. She felt a hot flush of rage, aimed mostly at Calidus and Nathair. All of this goes back to them, eventually. Calidus most of all, by whatever webs he has woven and pulled the threads; he is the author of this ill.
She turned and walked for the doors, suddenly feeling suffocated by the cloying stink of blood.
Fresh air, I need fresh air.
She walked out onto a balcony before wide steps; Buddai uncurled from the spot he’d been lying in, tail thumping on wood. Cywen made her way to one of the columns bracing the overhanging roof and leaned against it, taking long, deep breaths. There was a cold wind blowing through the hold, but right now it was refreshing, setting her skin tingling and easing the taint of death that was thick in the feast-hall. She looked at the bloodstains on her hands, under her fingernails, saw stains on the column she was leaning upon, pooled about her feet.
Blood, everywhere.
She forced herself to look away and saw that she was not the only one who had been busy.
The courtyard was clear of the dead, instead filled with a score of wains and a herd of horses, all being laden with goods – barrels, chests, clothing, weapons tied in bundles – harvested from the dead, no doubt. At the edges of the courtyard long stable-blocks rang with life, familiar sounds of saddling up, horses neighing, harness jangling that reminded her with sudden and sharp clarity of Dun Carreg, so much so that it almost took her breath away. Closer she saw Corban at the bottom of the steps. He was standing with Meical and Balur, in conversation with Wulf, now lord of this hold. Gar stood behind Corban, his eyes fixed grimly on the carcass of a great bear that had been dragged aside. Corban saw Cywen and beckoned to her.
‘The wounded, Cywen,’ Corban asked her when she reached them. ‘Can they travel?’
Brina should be asked this question. Where is she?
‘Most,’ Cywen said. ‘There are a few who could not sit on a horse, probably for at least a moon.’
‘How about a wain?’
Cywen looked at the wains in the yard. ‘Aye, that should be fine. Stitches will need to be kept an eye on, fevers and so on, but I’d say there’s none amongst the living unfit to travel.’
‘Good,’ Wulf said with passion. ‘I would be gone from this place.’
‘Agreed,’ Meical said. ‘We need to leave. Word will spread of what has happened here, and we need to be long gone before Jael sends a larger warband, or Ildaer braves the river with the full strength of his clan.’
Balur grunted at that.
‘There are so many of us, so much to bring . . .’ Hild said.
‘There is plenty of room in Drassil,’ Meical said. ‘But we must travel light – we will most likely be hunted. We must make it to Forn with all haste.’
‘The horses,’ Wulf said. ‘My da spent a lifetime breeding them, I cannot just abandon them.’
‘Bring them,’ Meical said. ‘Drassil is colossal. There are no stables, but there are bear pens the size of this hold that could be easily converted. And meadows have been cleared for a league all about the fortress – your da did not rest idle at Drassil for sixteen years,’ Meical said to Gar.
Coralen approached them, the first that Cywen had seen of her. She’d been sent to oversee the sinking of their ships, Corban determined that nothing be left for their enemy’s use. Her red hair was dark with sweat, her face was soot stained and tight with grief. She was carrying an axe in her hands that she offered to Gar.
‘It is your da’s. I found it in the skull of a dead bear, beyond the wall,’ Coralen said.
Gar took it. ‘His sword I leave with him,’ he said, voice hoarse. ‘But I would be glad to carry one of his weapons. It feels . . . right. Especially one that he was so fond of.’ He frowned, looking down at it. ‘But I have never used an axe before . . .’
‘I will teach you,’ Wulf said, then his mouth twisted as he looked at his bandaged hands. ‘If I can.’
‘He spoke highly of you,’ Gar said. ‘And of your da.’
Grief swept Wulf’s face. ‘He tried to save my da – pulled him down from . . .’ His eyes flickered to the column, to his bandaged hands. ‘He stood over us, before that bear . . .’
A warrior ran up, one from Gramm’s hold.
‘Has the half-breed been found?’ Wulf said to the man, a cold rage in his voice.
‘She is not amongst the dead,’ the warrior replied.
‘Fled, then,’ Wulf snarled.
‘Who?’ Meical asked him.
‘A half-breed traitor. We gave her a home, raised her, yet she chose to betray Haelan to the enemy. It was only thanks to the boy’s quick wits that he’d fled his hiding place before Trigg revealed it to our enemies.’
‘Sometimes it feels that this world is full of traitors,‘ Meical said.
‘Aye.’ Wulf nodded. ‘But I vow, if I ever see this one again, it will be one less amongst the living.’
‘We should raise cairns—’ Corban said, looking at the blood-stained hold.
‘Too long,’ Meical said. ‘We would still be here when Jael came riding up with a thousand men.’
‘Burn them,’ Wulf said grimly, ‘burn the entire hold, leave nothing for our enemy.’
Cywen stood beside her brother, facing the feast-hall, a host gathered behind them. Beyond the gates a long column of wains and horses loaded with provisions was waiting for them.
A silence fell over the courtyard and Brina sang the first lines of the lament, the melody stark and pure, Gar and Wulf adding their voices first, then more joining until the whole host sang the song for the dead, their voices rising to deafening crescendo, filling Cywen’s heart with a tide of emotion. As the last notes died, Wulf and Gar stepped forward and threw burning torches at the feast-hall steps.
The steps and hall had been doused with oil, and flames roared skywards, hungry and crackling. In short moments the hall was ablaze, heat rolling at them in great waves.
Wulf turned and left the courtyard, followed by Corban and then all of the others. As Cywen mounted her horse she saw Gar standing before the gates, outlined by flames, still staring at the hall.
Cywen glanced sidelong at Brina.
Should I talk to her, about last night, about the book? After all that’s happened it seems almost unimportant . . . Still the memory of the giant words she’d seen had haunted and swirled about her mind throughout the whole long day. She’d wanted to talk to Corban about it, but there had been no opportunity thus far.
‘You might as well come out and say it,’ Brina said acerbically. ‘Holding your tongue suits you just about as much as it does your brother.’
They’d ridden leagues across rolling meadows, their convoy now close to a thousand souls, heading steadily towards what looked like an ocean of trees that filled the horizon in every direction. Behind them the hold still burned, a flickering beacon upon its hill.
‘The book,’ Cywen said, talking quietly, even though they were riding between two wains full of the injured and semi-conscious.
Brina sighed, lips pursing, but she said nothing.
She’s not going to make this easy.
‘It scared me,’ Cywen said.
Brina was silent, again. Cywen thought she would not answer. Then Brina spoke softly.
‘It scares me, too.’
‘It is a book of spells, isn’t it?’
‘Aye, some of it is.’
‘I don’t understand. I thought the book is about faith, that being an Elemental is simply believing it and speaking it. That’s what you told me – that’s what the book says. I read it myself.’
‘Aye, that’s right,’ Brina said. Her wrinkled face twitched.
‘So why the need for spells, when faith is all?’
‘Faith is not all,’ Brina snapped. ‘That is the point. Faith can be strong, then weak, then gone, all in the same person, all in the space of a hundred heartbeats. That’s why Heb died. His faith wavered.’ She was silent a moment, abruptly her breathing laboured. ‘So the book explains the
alternative. The other way. Spells give the wielder more control, more consistency.’
‘So they’re easier?’
‘Not exactly. With faith, there is no cost, no price to pay. But spells are . . . different. Firstly they are harder to perform, in one sense – there is the gathering of ingredients, how to prepare them, knowing the words of power and so on.’
‘Like a poultice, or medicinal potion?’
‘Exactly.’
I knew she wanted to talk about this, would not be able to stop once she started.
‘Although from what I can see, the ingredients are not so easy to come by as meadowsweet or foxglove, or as pleasant.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, the ingredients for these spells are often hard to come by, and by and large unwholesome.’
‘Unwholesome?’
‘Yes. For example, blood is often an ingredient.’
Cywen was silent. She didn’t like the sound of this, just talking about it was making the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end.
‘But there is also another cost.’ Brina stopped there, looking around to check that no one was listening.
‘What other cost?’ Cywen prompted.
‘I’m not sure,’ Brina said. ‘The book hints and alludes, but –’ she shrugged – ‘I need more time to work it out. It is appealing – could be useful in this God-War. To go into battle knowing what you are capable of, having confidence in what you can do. Not like my poor Heb . . .’
‘I don’t like it,’ Cywen muttered.
‘I don’t like it either,’ Brina retorted. ‘But that doesn’t mean you don’t use it. I don’t like swords or spears, or fire when it’s used to burn a person. There is much in life I don’t like. But should I throw away or choose not to use a weapon that could help us win?’
‘I don’t know,’ Cywen said begrudgingly.
‘I know you wish to speak of this with Corban,’ Brina said. ‘I am asking you to wait. There is more I have seen – hints and riddles about the cauldron, about the Seven Treasures. I am trying to understand it.’
‘We could ask Balur, or Meical,’ Cywen said.