by John Gwynne
The newly appointed first-sword, Fram, snorted. He was looking at Sumur with interest, though, not anger, as some warriors would under the circumstances.
I like that about him. A calm head.
‘Nathair fears for your safety,’ the old man continued, ‘and this seems to us to be the perfect solution.’ He smiled genially, but there was more behind that smile. Daggers. An implied threat. Do not refuse me, it said.
Don’t do it, thought Ulfilas. Do not take him. How can you trust an outsider – not a man of Isiltir? No matter how good, how could you rely on his loyalty? But Ulfilas remembered a conversation with Jael, how he seemed consumed with the fear of assassination. He could be tempted, if this man is as good as they say, and if he is anything like the one I met, then he is.
‘Are you sure he is better than Fram?’ Jael asked.
‘Perhaps a demonstration?’ Calidus said.
‘Yes. I would like that.’
Sumur rose and stepped into the cleared space before them, shrugging off his scabbarded sword, laying it carefully on a table, then picking up the wooden practice sword that Lafrid had used.
Fram stepped into the makeshift ring.
‘A friendly demonstration,’ Calidus warned. ‘No need for bloodshed or death. Or permanent injury.’ As he said it he stared hard at Sumur, who returned the gaze with his flat, black eyes. He shrugged.
Fram and Sumur bowed to Jael, then turned to face each other.
Sumur just walked forwards, as if Fram were an open doorway that he intended to pass through. Fram shuffled his feet, sword raised, looked mildly confused.
He is a counter-striker, prefers to defend, and strike off of his opponent’s blows.
Sumur’s feet moved, a ripple through his body, starting at his ankles, and then he was striking two-handed at Fram, a blurred combination to head, throat, chest, groin and thigh. Ulfilas did not see which blow connected – perhaps one, perhaps all, but a few heartbeats later Fram was lying groaning on the floor.
The problem with being a counter-striker is that you first have to block the strikes made against you.
Sumur stood over Fram, looked as if he hoped the warrior would get back up, then dropped the practice sword and calmly retrieved his scabbarded blade and slung it across his back.
‘Impressive,’ said Jael.
‘He is,’ Nathair said. ‘And he is yours. I will sleep better knowing you are watched over by one such as Sumur.’
‘My thanks,’ Jael murmured, ‘but . . .’
‘What? Ahh, I know. You doubt his loyalty. A shieldman must be prepared to give his life for you, and as he is not a man of Isiltir . . .’
‘Exactly,’ Jael said.
‘Sumur is loyal, to the extreme,’ Calidus said, leaning close in his chair. ‘Tell him to put a knife through his hand.’
‘That will not be necessary,’ Jael said.
‘I think it is. But the order must come from you, else you would still question.’
Jael frowned as Sumur padded closer.
Even walking he is graceful as a dancer.
‘Tell him,’ Calidus hissed.
‘Sumur, put your knife through your hand,’ Jael said, wincing as if the words tasted sour.
Sumur drew a knife from his belt, placed its tip against the palm of his left hand, and pushed. It was a slow, deliberate movement, the knife tip disappeared fraction by fraction into Sumur’s hand. And all the while Sumur stared blankly at Jael.
Ulfilas felt himself wincing.
‘Enough,’ Jael said with a nervous laugh.
Sumur stopped.
‘You are sure?’ Calidus asked.
‘Yes. Yes. Sumur, take the blade out.’
He did, one smooth pull, then cutting the edge of his linen shirt and tying a strip around his palm. Ulfilas saw one drop of dark blood hit the floor.
‘Well?’ Nathair said.
‘He is loyal,’ Jael said. ‘Of that there is no dispute.’
‘If you still have concerns then keep Fram as well. Who said we kings should only have one first-sword?’
Jael smiled at that, though Ulfilas could tell he was still not completely happy about this new arrangement.
‘How can I take someone of such skill and devotion away from you, Nathair? If I am at risk from my enemies then surely you, our high king, are in greater danger, and so would need his skills more than I.’
Nathair smiled. ‘That is not a problem – you must not concern yourself about that. And to prove it I’m going to leave you with another score of his sword-kin. Consider it an honour guard.’
‘I must protest,’ Jael said, almost squirming in his seat. ‘You cannot set aside such fearsome warriors on my behalf.’
Nathair waved a hand in the air, a dismissal. ‘I told you, that is not an issue. I have a thousand more making camp beyond your walls that are just like him.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CORALEN
Coralen pushed a branch out of her way, stepped onto a rotted and fallen trunk and jumped down, avoiding a patch of dark-vine that would stick to her boots and burn her fingertips if she touched it, all the while moving through the forest as quietly as she could manage. She’d had years of practice during her years with Rath’s crew.
But no amount of woodland hunting and living in forests could have prepared me for this.
Forn was like no other place she’d ever seen, dark, oppressive and enormous. The trees were on average as thick as a fortress tower, looming so high above that the forest canopy seemed like green-tinged clouds. Daylight was a nimbus glow high above, leaking down upon them like misted copper, most of the time the level of light hovering somewhere between twilight and full dark. The foliage upon the ground was sometimes just flat forest litter with clear spaces wide enough to pull two wains through, sometimes it was such a snarl of bush, thicket and thorn that Balur and his giants could not cut a way through it.
And they were not alone. The forest was alive with noise – during the day mostly birds and insects, though some of the insects were as big as her hand. Night was worse. There were the noises Coralen was familiar with: fox and owl and the occasional howl from a wolven – Storm always cocked her head at those. But also the sounds that she had never heard before. Strange clicking, scratching sounds and hissing, usually just out of the firelight’s reach. Once there was a deep basal rumble that she felt reverberate into her feet through the ground. Balur told them all that it was a draig, and reassured them that it was leagues away. And of course there were the notorious Forn bats – a hiss above from wings almost as silent as breath, sometimes a distant screech. So far she had not seen any of the great bats, only the husk-like, dried-out remains of their victims. A deer, a boar, once an elk as big as a horse. After that she’d resolved not to wander in the forest alone, and to ensure her scouts travelled in pairs.
They’d left Gramm’s hold almost two ten-nights ago, the first ten-night making good time, the second proving to be slower going. Even abandoning the wains had not proved the remedy that Coralen had hoped for.
‘How can we travel any further through this?’ Coralen muttered to Enkara, who was walking along quietly beside her.
‘We are nearly there,’ Enkara assured her, wiping sweat from her brow. By Coralen’s reckoning they were well into autumn and approaching winter, but the weather within Forn was surprisingly mild, the thick lattice of branches high above keeping out all extremes of weather, apart from rain, which would still drip from leaves and find the back of her neck with annoying accuracy. They’d been walking since dawn, when the air was cold and they could see their breath misting, and it was not highsun yet, but it didn’t take long to warm the blood when you were forging your way through a forest.
‘Nearly there?’ Coralen said, feeling a flare of excitement. ‘Drassil is that close?’
‘Not Drassil,’ Enkara said, ‘but something else . . .’
‘Coralen,’ a voice called from behind her.
They both stopped an
d turned, saw movement in the undergrowth and waited.
Dath appeared and Coralen frowned.
He is supposed to be on rearguard.
A figure appeared behind him, a dark blur in the foliage.
Kulla. Coralen rolled her eyes. She was like dark-vine where Dath was concerned.
Dath reached them, breathing hard and sweating heavily. He rested a hand upon his knee, opened his mouth to talk, realized he couldn’t yet.
‘Dath thinks we are followed,’ Kulla said for him.
He nodded.
‘You should be fitter,’ Kulla said to Dath, poking him in the ribs.
‘The Bright Star’s closest friend, you shame him. How could you defend him if you’d had to run a little first?’
‘I . . . am . . . fit,’ Dath said, looking more hurt than angry.
‘Followed?’ Coralen said.
‘Aye. I dropped back because I spied a doe pass us. Thought it would make a change from brot. I hunted it a while.’
‘He is very good at that,’ Kulla said.
‘I thought I saw something,’ Dath said.
‘Saw what?’
‘A glint of iron behind us.’
Coralen waited.
She had left Enkara to scout ahead and sped back past the long column of their warband, strung out over a league of forest, then carried on a little for good measure, gathering a few of her scouts along the way. Dath and Kulla were with her, along with Teca, the woman Coralen had saved from the Kadoshim in the woods of northern Narvon. She had the makings of a fine huntswoman. Yalric, one of Gramm’s warriors who had survived the battle of the hold, was with them too. And Storm, of course.
The wolven was crouched beside her now, both of them sitting in thick foliage upon an embankment, the rest of Coralen’s hunters spread loosely on the far side of the path. They’d been here maybe half a day, the glow of the sun above the trees steadily drifting westwards, waiting for whoever it was that Dath had spied. She rested her head against Storm’s shoulder.
‘I am glad you are healed,’ she whispered, tweaking one of Storm’s ears. The wolven had limped for a ten-night after her run-in with the bear at Gramm’s hold, ribs bruised, maybe cracked. She was brave, though, tougher than any warrior Coralen had known, and had loped on day after day, league after league. Coralen had seen Corban’s concerned looks, and had felt the same way, but one day Storm had uncurled from sleep, stretched and just seemed fine again. Coralen had felt a weight lift from her shoulders that she hadn’t realized had been there.
Can’t believe how soft I’m getting. Rath would be ashamed.
She felt a vibration and realized that Storm was growling quietly. She sat up, reaching slowly for her strung bow, half a dozen arrow shafts stuck into the earth before her. The odd ray of sunshine sloped into the forest from the west, motes of dust suspended in the amber glow.
‘Easy,’ she whispered to Storm, half-nocking an arrow, then concentrated on staying as still as possible. She focused on her breathing, as Rath had taught her, long, deep breaths, hold, slow release, over and over. Just when she thought Storm must have heard something else, there was a sound off to her left, a crackle of forest litter. Then, quiet but clear as the tree before her, a whispered conversation. Her skin prickled.
Dath was right.
Moments later a figure appeared in the gloom, pausing for a while on the path below her, then moving on, slow and steady, eyes sweeping ahead and the forest to either side. Then two more figures, further back, twenty paces apart, like an arrowhead. She waited longer.
No one else came.
A sound behind her, the scuff of bark, Storm’s surprised snarl and she was throwing herself forwards, twisting as she fell, loosing the arrow half-blind into a shadow looming behind her. A scream, then Storm smashed into the figure, an explosion of blood.
Coralen lurched to her feet, trusting Storm with her back, reaching for another arrow. The men on the path were scrambling for cover, one down with an arrow through his throat that she knew instinctively was Dath’s. Arrows whistled through the twilight, one skittered off a tree, another sank thrumming into a trunk.
Two men down there, at least two men.
Then she saw them – one flat against a tree, spear in hand, the other a dozen paces from him, crouched behind a fallen trunk. The one behind the tree peered around it, showing her his back and she put an arrow through it. He grunted and sank to the floor. The one behind the fallen trunk saw his comrade collapse, realized someone was behind them and leaped into motion. He was fast, running and leaping diagonally away from the others Coralen had placed on the opposite bank, but away from her as well. He weaved as he ran, Coralen releasing one arrow which missed him by a hair’s breadth, then she was up and running. In a dozen paces she knew he was faster than her.
But not faster than Storm.
The wolven hurtled past her down the slope, bone-white fur blurring in the gloom as she raced after the huntsman. He heard the drum of her paws, turned panicked eyes towards her, fumbled with a knife at his belt and then she was on him, tearing at him as they rolled.
Coralen ran faster, saw them separate and Storm spring to her feet, twisting to get back at him. The huntsman struggled to rise, blood slicking his shoulder and back. Storm ran at him.
‘Hold,’ Coralen yelled at Storm, and the wolven skidded to a halt before the man, stood snarling and slavering over him. Coralen reached him, kicked his knife from his hand and then kicked him in the head. He dropped onto his back.
Dath emerged from the gloom, others close behind.
The huntsman on the ground groaned. ‘Who do you serve?’ Coralen said, drawing her sword and pointing its tip unwaveringly at his chest. He curled his lip and spat blood.
‘That is rude,’ Kulla observed. Her sword was in her hand, and although she made no move the man on the ground cringed a little.
‘Look at me,’ Coralen said to him. He did. ‘I will have an answer to my question, one way or another.’
She held his gaze, preparing herself for what she might have to do. She’d seen Rath and Baird put men to the question, but never done it herself. Torturing defenceless men was not something she’d ever aspired to do.
But we need to know.
She remembered what Rath used to say in times like this, and sometimes it had worked.
‘This is the end for you, one way or another. I’ll not make you false promises, offer you your life. You’ll not be seeing daylight again.’
She took a moment, let the words sink in.
‘What I will offer you is a quick end, no pain. No flaying of your skin, or breaking of your bones. No putting your eyes out, or holding a flame to your stones. No giving you to her . . .’ She looked pointedly at Storm, who was watching him with her fangs dripping red.
‘So I’ll ask you one last time. Who do you serve?’
He licked his lips, eyes moving around their group, from Coralen to Storm, Kulla, Dath, Teca and Yalric, all stern and silent. He must have seen no hope amongst them, and no mercy, for Coralen saw the decision in his eyes before he opened his mouth.
‘Jael,’ he said. ‘I serve Jael, King of Isiltir.’
‘He’s no king of mine,’ Yalric growled, hefting his axe.
Coralen tutted.
‘How far behind us is Jael?’
‘He’s not following, yet. Far as I know, my master set us on your trail, went to report to Jael about the Hold, and you . . .’
‘How many of you following us?’
‘Four,’ he said without any hesitation.
And four are here – three dead, you soon to follow. Coralen thought about breaking her word, putting him to the question. They weren’t hard to follow, over a thousand of them and a few hundred horses tramping through the forest, it would be impossible to hide their tracks. But it was vital that there were no eyes on them – that’s what Enkara had said. No eyes watching us.
But looking at him she believed him, and it made sense. It’s what she would
have done – put a few good men on the trail, told them to hang back and not lose them. Report back when there was something to report.
She shifted her weight and stabbed him through the heart.
‘Get their bodies. Best we leave a message for those who come after,’ she said.
‘I like you,’ Kulla said to her as they made their way back to the warband.
Coralen glanced at her and grunted. Kulla was short, slim, large dark eyes in an oval face. And a deadly killer. Coralen had seen her spar, seen her take lives at Gramm’s hold with a deadly efficiency, as if she was harvesting crops.
‘You are strong, here,’ Kulla said, tapping her forehead. ‘And here.’ She pressed her palm to her heart. ‘Back there, you did what you had to do, even though you did not like it.’
They had gathered the four dead huntsmen, wound rope around their feet and hung them from branches so that they dangled over the trampled path. Then Coralen had gutted them, slicing their bellies and spilling their intestines in tangled heaps below their hanging arms. She knew the warband that would eventually come this way would find them, half eaten probably and butchered like game after a hunt. It would sow seeds of fear.
She looked at her hands, still stained with blood.
‘No, I didn’t,’ Coralen said.
‘You will make a good match for our Bright Star.’
Coralen blinked at that, felt her neck flushing.
‘Did Tukul talk to you?’ she said, more abruptly than she intended.
‘No,’ Kulla said, wrinkling her brow. ‘Why?’
‘Never mind.’
She found that she missed Tukul, had enjoyed his company on the mad ride through Isiltir. All of the Jehar were stern and serious, but there had been another side to Tukul, a pragmatic humour that seeped into all he did or said. He had reminded her of Rath.
And now he is dead, too. Like Rath.
She felt grief clench in her chest, like a fist about her heart, slowly breathed it out, her thoughts turning to Gar. He had howled like an animal when Tukul had died, and his grief was still draped heavy upon him, his eyes hollow and angry.