"It is understood that you have Taim Narran here with you. Is that true?"
Orisian put a hand to his brow, fending off the aching beat in his skull. His hands were so chilled that he barely felt the touch of skin to skin. He envied Gorred his fine gloves. But he made no reply to the messenger's question.
"I was instructed to ask after Taim Narran's presence, you see," Gorred persisted, "because certain charges were raised against him during the period of your absence. The Bloodheir requires --"
"Requires?" echoed Orisian. "Taim Narran is my man, not Aewult's."
"Nevertheless," Gorred said. "Nevertheless." There was a dogged, somewhat glum determination about his manner now. As if he had at last resigned himself to abandoning any pretence at courteous discourse; as if he accepted the futility of clothing hard words in fine silks. "No command was issued to release him; rather, you might say, Taim Narran chose to bestow freedom upon himself. And he fled from battle."
Torcaill and the other Lannis warriors stirred at that. Orisian bit back his own instinctive contempt for Gorred's accusations.
Erval was returning hurriedly from the gate. Behind him, Orisian could see a solid knot of Guardsmen now barring the entrance to the courtyard. There were other figures moving beyond them, rushing up and down the street. Something dark, which at first Orisian thought must be a bird, darted over the heads of the Guards. The object arced down and broke apart on the yard's cobbles, a clod of muddy earth.
"Trouble," Erval hissed into Orisian's ear. "There's a crowd gathering. They know who's in here. Haig's little better liked than Gyre these days."
Gorred was watching them, frowning. Orisian turned his head enough to hide his lips from the emissary.
"Can you quieten it all down, if we keep them out of sight?"
"Not sure, sire," Erval whispered. "There's more folk arriving every moment, and I've not seen a bloodier mood on them in years. Not ever. Could easily go bad, this. My men... it could be difficult if I ask them to fight their own people in defence of Haig."
Orisian looked back to Gorred. The messenger raised questioning eyebrows. Orisian came to a decision.
"We're done," he said, as clearly and firmly as he could. "For your own safety, emissary, you must leave at once. Erval here will have his men escort you out of Ive, and see you a way down the road."
"Sire? We have not finished our discussions, surely? If I am to return to the Bloodheir with nothing more than this, I must of necessity make an honest report of how I was received and treated."
"Report as you like," snapped Orisian. "Dead men make no reports, and that's what you'll likely be if you tarry here."
Gorred smirked, as if Orisian's words were preposterous. "Messengers are protected, sire. They are not to be harmed, on pain of death. Everyone knows as much."
Orisian pointed at the gate. "Does that not sound to you like ignorance, then? Do you really think such laws are what govern hearts today? I'm trying to protect you."
Gorred looked from Orisian to the gateway. Some of the Guards were dragging a man into the compound and beating him with their clubs. Another of them was on his knees, pressing his hand to a bloody scalp wound. Aewult nan Haig's messenger pondered for the space of a few heartbeats, and the fight leached out of him.
"Very well," he said curtly. At a single, sharp gesture his companions and escorts began to mount their horses. He glanced almost dismissively at Orisian. "You have the messages, Thane. The Bloodheir will anticipate an early reply, to both of them. Or better yet, your presence, and that of Taim Narran."
The ten horses clattered over the cobblestones towards the gate. Erval ran ahead of them, shouting at his Guards to clear a path for the Haig party. Orisian and his men followed more slowly in their wake. It all felt unpleasantly like disaster to Orisian. A chasm was opening up between the Haig Blood and those of Lannis and Kilkry, yawning ever wider with each defeat and humiliation visited upon them by the Black Road.
The Guardsmen pushed out into the street, and Orisian saw for the first time just how large and frenzied a crowd of townsfolk had assembled. There were scores of them, of every age and kind. They choked the street. They fell back before the determined advance of Erval's men, but it was only the crowd reshaping itself, yielding in one place to thicken in another. Not a retreat. More figures came rushing from side streets and houses, like bees plunging in to join a furious swarm.
The Haig riders ventured out onto the muddy roadway. Their horses were skittish, catching the feral mood of the throng. People were falling, crushed between the lines of Guardsmen and the mass of townsfolk surging up, howling abuse at Gorred and the others. On every face Orisian saw visceral hatred, an instinctive yearning for bloodshed.
"Gods," he heard Erval muttering at his side, "it's bad."
A stick came tumbling end over end through the air, blurring past Gorred's shoulder. The envoy ducked and scowled. His horse tossed its head. Slowly, edgily, the beleaguered company moved down the street.
"You need more men," Orisian said to Erval. The Captain of the Guard looked bewildered, almost lost, in the face of the savagery that had taken hold of his town and his people.
"Send for more men!" Orisian shouted at him, and this shook Erval from his daze. One of the nearest Guardsmen was dispatched to find reinforcements.
It was too late. The townsfolk of Ive were possessed by a terrible fury, one that would brook no restraint and had purged them of any doubt or sense. Events rushed, like avalanching snow, towards their conclusion, as if that very conclusion had reached back and dragged everything irresistibly into its hungry maw.
One of the Guardsmen facing the multitude was knocked down. The space around Gorred and the others was abruptly constricted. Someone flailed at one of the Haig messengers with a hoe. A flurry of missiles came tumbling in: sticks, earth, stones, even a clattering pot. A Haig warrior was struck and reeled in his saddle, almost falling. His horse lurched sideways. Its mass ruptured the protective ring of Guardsmen. Townsfolk boiled into the gaps.
"Stop them!" Orisian shouted at Erval. The Captain was shaking his head, not in denial but impotence. He took two leaden paces out into the street and shouted angry commands. His voice was drowned in the flood of rage-bloated cries and howls.
The mob thickened around the horses. Here and there, like helpless flotsam on a surging sea, Guardsmen struggled against the crowd, but they were too few, and the ire of the townsfolk was far too fierce to be dampened by half-hearted blows from clubs or staves. The horses were rearing, their riders now slashing about them with swords and spears. Stones and chunks of wood were raining down on them.
A couple of men had climbed onto the roof of one of the houses and were stripping its tiles; the slate squares sliced through the air, spinning straight and true. Even as Orisian watched, one hammered into the forehead of Gorred's horse. The animal screamed and staggered. As it stumbled, eager hands reached up from the crowd and grabbed its mane, clawed at the rider's legs, tore at the saddle. Man and horse went crashing down and were instantly swallowed up.
Orisian started forward, but Torcaill held him back.
"If they kill them, Aewult will blame us!" Orisian cried. "Lannis, Kilkry, all of us."
"I know," Torcaill said, "but we can't stop it now. Look at them. It's not safe to even try."
Horrified, Orisian turned back to the street in time to see one of the Haig men leaning low to jab his spear into a youth's belly, and then in his turn being hooked out of his saddle and dragged down. The riderless horse went charging off through the mob, battering a path clear, trampling bodies as it went.
Torcaill was pulling Orisian back from the gateway. A stunned Erval retreated alongside them. Someone was screaming amidst the chaos. It was a raw, unrestrained sound. Another horse, its saddle empty, came pounding back into the courtyard, wild-eyed and bleeding from cuts to its neck. It ran in great circles, shaking.
It did not take long, once that peak of violence had been reached. The awful sounds
surged and merged and then gradually fell away. Men spilled out from the barracks in some numbers, too late: Guards, and warriors, and Orisian's own men, with Taim Narran at their head. Careful, cautious, they advanced out into the street, and found there only the dead and the injured and the debris. And shocked and shivering townsfolk, left feeble by the ebbing of their fury, staring at their bloody handiwork, murmuring in unsteady voices, trying to drag the wounded away to shelter or aid.
Orisian and Torcaill and Taim walked numbly among the bodies. The corpses of the Haig party were easy enough to find. Fur cloaks were bloodied and soiled and trampled, velvet gloves torn.
Torcaill prodded Gorred's body with the toe of his boot. The messenger's head rolled to one side. His face was broken in, the cheekbone and orbit of his eye shattered. The one eye that remained intact stared up at Orisian. He felt the cold, accusatory weight of that dead gaze, and turned away.
"The day's hardly begun, and already it's decided to be a bad one," Taim said. "Our troubles breed faster than mice."
Torcaill stood looking up and down the street, his gaze drifting over the dead and the dazed. "I count eight Haig dead. Two short. They must have broken out. This'll foster no friendship for us if word reaches Aewult," he said.
"Soon we'll have nothing but enemies left," murmured Orisian.
IV
Kanin oc Horin-Gyre ran. The snow was thick on the ground here on the western fringe of the Karkyre Peaks, but still he ran, and took a bitter pleasure in the burning of his lungs and the aching of his legs. He pounded through the drifts, not caring whether his warriors kept pace with him, barely even remembering that they were there behind him somewhere. Past and future were gone from his mind, and only this momentary present existed for him; only the straining of his muscles, the heaving of his chest. And that small group of fleeing figures just ahead: the men he meant to kill.
One of them glanced back and staggered to a halt, shouting something Kanin could not make out. Several of the men kept running, but as many stopped and turned. It must mean, of course, that Kanin had left his Shield behind. These Kilkry peasants thought they had him outnumbered. Outmatched. He rushed on. They did not know him; did not know what cold passion burned in him. They could not see the embracing shadow of death that he felt all about him now, in his every waking moment.
He brushed aside a spearpoint with the face of his shield, slashed an arm with his sword. Snow sprayed up. Shouts crowded the still air. It was only noise, without meaning, to Kanin. Figures closed upon him. He did not see faces, only bodies to be cut at, dark forms to be broken. A second went down beneath his blade. A spear thrust glanced harmlessly off his mailed shoulder. His opponents seemed slow and clumsy to him. He, by contrast, rode a cresting wave of death-hunger. It sped his limbs, sharpened his eyes and mind. It made sense of the senseless world for him.
A man whose brown hair was speckled with the silver of age came towards him, gesturing ineffectually with an old sword. Kanin could see that the blade was notched and had no edge. He ran to greet it, unhindered by the snow that tugged at his ankles. He killed the man, and then another, and rejoiced in the shedding of their blood. And soon there were only bodies about him, and he could hear his warriors coming up behind him.
Kanin stood still and straight for a few moments, panting out great gouts of misting breath. Sword and shield hung slack on either side of him.
"Half a dozen must have escaped us, sire," Igris said.
"So?" Kanin growled. "Send someone after them, if you wish. I'm done with it."
"These'll not be hunting any more of our scouts, at least," Igris said, surveying the corpses laid out around his master.
"They're nothing," grunted Kanin, sheathing his sword. "Look at them. Farmers. Old warriors, perhaps, who've not lifted a blade for years. There's none left north of Kilvale that are worth fighting."
"Except those shut up in Kolkyre with their Thane," the shieldman suggested.
Kanin shook his head, not in denial but frustration. He strode away, back down the trail of trampled snow the pursuit had created. Whatever warriors Roaric oc Kilkry-Haig had at his side behind Kolkyre's walls were beyond reach. They could not venture out without risking destruction, but nor were the investing forces of the Black Road strong enough to storm the place. Not without a firm guiding hand to muster them all together and drive them into an assault, at least, and it seemed there was no such hand at work any more. Things had passed far beyond that. Forces more ferocious and unthinking held sway.
Kanin slipped and slithered down the rocky slope they had ascended to outflank the Kilkry bandits. He went recklessly, letting his feet stutter over slick stones, taking a slide of loose snow and pebbles with him. He hit the ground at the foot of the incline hard, punching his knees up into his chest. The cold-looking men who had been left to guard the horses watched in silence. Kanin ignored them and went straight to his mount. He hung his shield from the saddle and brushed dirt and grit from his elbows.
The urgency of the chase and the slaughter was leaving him, retreating like a slack tide. It left the familiar hollowness behind. Only violence seemed to fill him now; without it he had only an empty kind of longing. So it had been since his sister's death. So, he knew, it would remain until Aeglyss was dead too.
There were a dozen or more tents around the huge farmhouse Kanin had slept in for the last couple of nights. Horin warriors were scattered amongst them, tending fires, clearing snow, sharpening blades. Three were deep in discussion with a band of Tarbains who had come up to the edge of the camp; negotiating, Kanin guessed, a trade of booty or food. Kilkry lands were thick with such roving companies of looters and raiders and scavengers. The army of the Black Road had once, briefly, been mighty and vast. Triumphant. That had changed since their crushing defeat of the Haig forces outside Kolkyre. Great fragments of the army had splintered off, becoming a thousand ravening wolf packs, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, seething back and forth across the land, almost delirious in their desire for blood.
He reined his horse in outside the stables and left it to a stable boy to feed and water the animal. It was the third mount Kanin had had since marching out from Castle Hakkan in the far north all those months ago. The first, he had felt some affection for, but it, and the second, had been killed beneath him. This one would no doubt suffer the same fate soon. He felt nothing for it.
Icicles bearded the eaves of the farmhouse. Kanin heard laughter from within: a brief outburst in response to some jest or mishap. It was like hearing a language he did not know. Beyond the building, a column of men and women trudged through the shallow snow. They were folk of the Kilkry Blood, pressed into service as pack animals by their captors. Each carried a deep, wide-mouthed basket strapped to his or her back. They bore firewood and grain down towards the sprawling Black Road camps on the plain around Kolkyre.
Their escort looked to be mostly Wyn-Gyre warriors, but there were several overseers who carried no weapons at all save stubby whips. One of these men was standing off to the side of the column, flailing away at some fallen victim. Kanin paused to watch. The whip cracked back and forth. None of the other guards so much as glanced at the scene. Many of the passing prisoners did, but their burdens were heavy and they could spare no more than a moment's attention for fear of losing their footing on the path of hard-packed snow. No matter their age, Kanin thought, they all looked old: bent and ragged and gaunt. The badge of defeat.
He found himself becoming irritated. The blows from the whip were having no effect on the prostrate form at the overseer's feet, yet the man went on and on, his exertions becoming wilder and more frenzied with every stroke. The futility of it angered Kanin.
He walked closer, approaching from the side to avoid the flailing whip. The man curled in the snow was folded down into a small, pathetic bundle like discarded sacking; unmoving beneath the increasingly savage blows. Kanin did not need to see his face to know that a whipping was not going to bring him back to his feet.
&nbs
p; "Enough," shouted Kanin. "He's dead. You're wasting time."
The overseer ignored him. He lashed the corpse again, and then again, each strike accompanied by a grunting snarl that took to the air in a cloud of mist. As the man drew back his arm once more, the whip curling around and out behind him, Kanin stepped forwards and seized his wrist.
"Enough, I said."
The man spun about, his face contorted by rage. He shrugged off the Thane's grasp and stumbled back a few paces as if unbalanced by the ferocity of his emotions. Such ire burned in his eyes that Kanin could see nothing beyond it: there was no spark of recognition, no glimmer of anything other than animal fury. The man came forward. He raised his arm, the whip quivering with all the anger it inherited from its bearer.
Kanin arched his eyebrows in disbelief, but did not move aside or raise any defence against the imminent blow. Igris, his shieldman, was quicker. The warrior stepped in front of his Thane and, even as the whip began to snap forward, put his sword deep into the overseer's belly. The man fell to his knees. The whip snaked out feebly across the white snow. Igris pushed, tipping the man onto his back, then set a foot on his chest and pulled his blade free. The overseer gently placed his hands across the wound in his stomach, interlacing the fingers almost as if he were settling himself to sleep on a soft bed. He blinked and panted. Tears ran from the corners of his eyes. His blood trickled into the snow and stained it.
Kanin turned and walked away. The column had shuffled to a halt, both guards and bearers watching. Their interest was desultory, remote. Kanin ignored them. Igris came hurrying after him.
"Did you see his eyes?" Kanin asked.
"Yes, sire," Igris answered.
"Nothing in him but bloodlust. Didn't even know me; blinded by it. That's what we've come to. We turn on each other, like starving dogs."
"Perhaps you've some ale you could offer me, Thane?"
Kanin looked up from the platter of goat stew he was hunched over. Cannek was standing in the doorway of the farmhouse. Over the Hunt Inkallim's shoulder, Kanin could see snow falling. Cannek's cloak--a heavy, rustic garment more suited to an impoverished farmer--was smeared with melting flakes. The Inkallim was smiling. He smiled too much, Kanin thought, and without good reason.
Godless World 3 - Fall of Thanes Page 4