by Terry Madden
The new snow was dry as barley flour and made the climb over the rocks slick and slow. When they reached the tower base, Nechtan found the door hanging from its hinges. Lyl lit a rushlight and the sputtering flame revealed a damp, low room. It smelled of molding leaves, wet ash and urine and they stepped around mounds of bat droppings.
“My family’s holding wasn’t far from here,” Lyl whispered. “When I was a girl, an old soothsayer lived here. She taught me to read clouds.”
“And what do this night’s clouds tell you?” He took her hand and led her to the stone stairs that spiraled up the wall.
“That the battle’s already been won.”
He turned to her, to measure her meaning, and saw what he hoped to see in her eyes. The Five Quarters might fall into oblivion, but nothing could change what they shared.
Taking the rushlight, he made his way up the stairs. The floor on the second level was buckled, for the weather had come through a hole in the roof. He kept going up to find a wooden hatch swollen shut. He was able to force it open with his shoulder and heft the snow away.
He put out the rushlight, climbed out onto the wall walk and found it stable enough, at least the side that faced the glen below. Seeing Dylan and Talan, he motioned for them to come up.
The boys climbed the steps with dead wood bundled in Dylan’s cloak.
“Put it there.” Nechtan pointed at the ribs of the exposed roof joists.
They obliged, and shivering, Dylan pulled his cloak back on.
“Stack it for proper burning, and douse it with this,” Nechtan said, tossing a skin of walnut oil to Dylan. Marchlew’s failure to maintain this tower was unfortunate, but it would make a fine torch.
Nechtan searched the glen below. A shepherd’s holding of some size lay tucked between the watchtower and the big sweep of the river bend. He could just make out the bridge and the darkness of the forest on the other side where Marchlew’s horsemen would be waiting. Far to the west, he saw the flicker of burning holdings. Ava’s brutality would mark their movement eastward very clearly.
“Fiach baits me like a fish. How long till dawn?” he asked Lyl.
She leaned on the wall and, with her fist extended, measured the moon’s height above the horizon. “Little more than an hour until first light.” She pointed at the circular enclosure of wattle that surrounded a herd of sheep outside the holding below the cliff. They bleated restlessly. “The sheep smell our dogs.”
“Then we’ll have to engage Fiach long before he reaches that holding.”
Snowflakes caught in Lyl’s eyelashes, like cold stars they hung there; and then melted on her cheeks. He would miss this woman beyond measure. He had missed her for untold ages until she called him back to this moment. And if he believed her now, they would not be parted long, but would wash up on a new shore, and look upon each other with new eyes.
As he always had, Nechtan chose to believe her.
He walked to the western side of the tower and looked to the wood below where Pyrs awaited his signal. Pyrs’ dogmasters were some of the best in the Five Quarters. The war dogs of the Ildana were trained to serve a single master, not starved before a fight as were the dogs of Cadurques, but trained to voice commands from one man. They killed to please their master, not to fill their bellies. Nechtan had learned that men kill for much the same reasons, and pursue both rewards with equal fervor.
From the eastern side of the tower, he saw Maddoc at the base of the steep scarp, shaking his shield to indicate he could see Nechtan.
Everyone was in position.
He paced the short square of the wall walk. Even if Fiach thought to skirt the glen and take the north bank of the river, Marchlew waited. But where would they hold Ava during the fight? Surely she wouldn’t take the field.
At last, the eastern sky kindled to sapphire and pink. And at last, he saw them. They must have stopped to rest where the snow gave them cover.
“There,” he pointed. “Maybe a league away, close to the river.”
Lyl followed his finger to where the horses and men appeared like dirty smudges on the fresh snow. They’d cleared the mouth of the glen during the night.
Lyl’s breath streamed in the cold air. “I see them.”
As the sky brightened, so did the snow. Birdsong echoed through the woods. Nechtan roused Talan and Dylan with a kick to their feet. “They come, lads.”
He never heard Lyl nock and draw the shaft, just the song of her bowstring slicing the air as she released. He looked up at her target and watched a crow spiral into the trees below.
“The red crow,” she said. “Ava.”
When they reached the place where they’d seen the crow fall, it was no crow they found. War dogs leapt at the trunk of an oak, barking and snapping through their muzzles. Wedged high in the branches was the grey flesh of a man, an arrow through his neck. Without arms or legs, his back was broken on a branch, the flesh blackened and seared and falling from the bone as if he’d hung there since summer.
“I know him,” Talan said. The boy circled the base of the tree and stared up at the dead man. “He’s my father’s man. Finlys.”
Dylan vomited in the snow.
“The druí Ava executed,” Lyleth said.
“But how is he here?” Talan asked.
“It’s dark work,” Lyleth answered. “Ava tethered his soul, trapped him in the body of a conjured red crow. She’s been watching us.”
“Is it the work of a druí?” Talan asked her. Nechtan saw a morbid exhilaration flash in Talan’s eyes.
“Not the work of one who serves the green gods,” Lyl said flatly.
Nechtan met Lyl’s eyes, and he took the meaning in that glance—she had tethered his soul no less than this. But Nechtan was thankful for his chains.
Talan set aside his spear and swordbelt, and took to the branches with the agility of a squirrel. When he reached the corpse, tendrils of red vapor curled from the ragged sockets of its absent limbs. With wide eyes and a trembling hand, Talan reached out to touch it.
“You mustn’t,” Lyl warned.
But Talan paid her no mind.
Nechtan watched the boy’s fingers pass right through the rotting flesh. Before Nechtan’s eyes, the breeze gained strength and unmade the corpse. It dissolved into fine blood-red chaff that eddied about, catching in Talan’s hair and cloak. Within moments, the cloud had blanketed the oak’s trunk and Talan with it. Instantly, the rough bark soaked up the stuff, leaving no trace of Finlys or the crow.
Nechtan thought he saw the tree swell and writhe, like a snake that’s swallowed a rat.
Talan looked down from his perch, his eyes wide as if he’d awakened from a nightmare.
“Ava,” Nechtan said.
Dylan appeared at his side. “Is Ava dead, too?”
But Nechtan was already running. He bounded back up the snowy cliff to the tower. Once on top, he struck a rushlight and tossed it on the pile of brush and timber. It was time.
Dawn drove the clouds to the south and day broke blindingly clear and cold. The storm left drifts of snow up to the men’s knees. Behind them, Morcant’s Roost shoved a hot spear of fire into the morning sky. The remainder of the roof collapsed with a fountain of sparks and flames, and snow fell with cinders.
As if in answer, the bridge over Hag’s Gossip billowed smoke and flame. Marchlew was across. And as Nechtan had instructed, he burnt the bridge to ensure that there would be no escape northward for Ava, nor for Marchlew if he decided to seek the safety of Cedewain’s walls.
Nechtan must press hard and fast.
He raised an axe to signal Pyrs, and the dogmasters’ horns bellowed. Freed of muzzles and harness, the war dogs lit out across the snow in a snarling surge.
Once in open ground, they set out to cover the snowy bowl of the glen quickly.
Ava’s footsoldiers had seen them. Good. Nechtan would draw them to him while Marchlew closed from his position across the river.
Nechtan reined up and measured th
e movement of his men to the west and east. They closed like a scythe from the borders of the shepherd’s holding. He had sent a bank of archers to take position behind a long wattle sheep fence, and now the first volley of Arvon arrows blackened the sky.
Talan rode up beside him. “Shouldn’t we follow the dogs, uncle?”
“The dogs will soften them for your spear, lad.”
There was something changed about Talan, anticipation of the fight perhaps, or the memory of something he’d seen up in that tree. The boy’s lips had gone blue with cold. Eyes just as blue were wide behind a silver-gilt face piece that extended from a helm of filigree and gemstones. One blow from the butt of a sword would dent the work beyond repair. Nechtan hoped there was some steel under that silver.
“Come. You’ll stay behind me as we agreed.”
“I’m a man, uncle. I don’t need you as a shield.”
Nechtan couldn’t help but smile. “And if I fall, your spear will be all you have, lad. And I doubt it’s as experienced as your cock.”
By the battle standards, Gwylym and Lloyd had taken charge of Ava’s van, their foot soldiers forming a shield wall while Marchlew slammed into their northern flank. Fiach’s horsemen trailed farther down river, no doubt planning to use speed to cut Nechtan’s forces in two.
But where was Ava? After the red crow fell, would she even live?
Nechtan pushed through snowdrifts and closed ground to see war dogs meet Fiach’s horsemen. The archers had already dropped a good number of them, but now the dogs leapt and ran up the horses’ haunches to pull men to the ground. Growls mixed with screams, the whine of bowstrings and the sound of battle horns from the river.
“Now your spear has a task,” he told Talan. “Finish what the dogs started.”
Nechtan glanced at Lyl. She needed no orders. She and Dylan dismounted and took a stand with a score of archers behind an abandoned wagon, a position that would allow her to guard Talan.
Nechtan spurred on, leading his small party of horsemen toward the southern flank where he would tighten the noose.
He rode straight for a man he recognized as one of his own retainers.
“Man of Ys!” he called. “You swore your life to me. Now it’s mine to take.” He would not hesitate, for if he did, this day would never end.
The man froze, his shield tucked tight to his chest.
Nechtan wheeled his horse and swung an axe. The man didn’t even lift his shield as his helm and skull split like a rotten log.
No king should have to kill his own men.
Nechtan leaned over his horse’s neck and caught the long haft of the war axe, retrieving it before the next man was on him.
But this man reined up and made the sign against evil. “Stars and stones… you’re dead.”
“Not as dead as you’ll be if you don’t join me now.” Nechtan rode at him.
But the man spun and spurred his horse back through the confusion.
“Tell them!” Nechtan yelled to his back.
He turned to see a rider come at Talan from his blind side. Nechtan called out, but an arrow found the attacker before Talan could test his spear. Lyl. But within a few strides, Talan found a fallen rider crawling away from two dogs and drove his spear home, his expression as calm as if he threw against a quintain. He glanced over his shoulder at Nechtan and smirked.
Perhaps Talan was indeed the king this land needed, one without mercy.
Nechtan hacked his way deeper into the men of the Ildana and the sun crawled higher. Fiach’s men attempted a shield wall, but the dogs needed only take down two men to open it like a gaping wound. As he’d hoped, many turned and fled when they saw him, but his axes bit the flesh of too many who should have fought beside him, not against him.
Then he saw Fiach’s standard, the crossed barley sheaves of Emlyn.
He was less than a spear’s throw from Nechtan. No other target mattered now.
The snow was a slick stew of frozen blood and entrails, and dying men’s wails drowned out shouted orders.
Nechtan pushed toward Fiach, but when he looked back, Talan rode in pursuit of a man who fled the field. Nechtan glanced to Lyl’s position behind the wagon. Talan was moving out of her range.
“Talan! Let him go!”
The words had just left his mouth when a spear caught Talan’s shield, upsetting his balance. A foot soldier took advantage of it and pulled him to the ground.
Nechtan rode down the foot soldier, hacking at his shield until Talan could find his feet and join him. But a horseman rode past and regained a cast spear. He rode at the lad, now without a shield.
Nechtan sent his axe end over end. It struck the horseman’s chest hard enough to unseat him, though the blade didn’t break the mail, just bones.
Sliding from his horse, Nechtan drew his second axe. The foot soldier from Emlyn hammered at Talan’s sword.
“Keep your feet,” Nechtan yelled to Talan.
Nechtan took on the horseman.
Just the right angle of parry and Nechtan had the blade trapped in the deep horn of his axe. He twisted until the sword popped free of the man’s fist, then he buried the axe where the man’s neck met his shoulder.
Talan was backed against a dying horse, his feet tangled in its thrashing legs.
Nechtan’s axe bit cleanly through the foot soldier’s leather hauberk and the man fell forward into Talan’s arms, both of them collapsing onto the horse.
Nechtan pulled the man off Talan, not a man at all, but a boy no older than his nephew with red down on his upper lip. Nechtan wanted to beat Talan himself.
“You’ll ride back to Lyleth now.”
“But he was getting away—” Talan’s breath pumped fast.
“I have a mind to send you back to suckle your mum—”
“No, please, uncle, I’ll do as you say, I swear it.”
Nechtan pointed at the wagon in the distance. “Then ride back to Lyl and you’ll not leave her side. Ever.”
Nechtan retrieved the axe he’d thrown and wiped the blood from the haft with his cloak.
“Ride,” he said to Talan.
The boy mounted up and headed across the field.
Nechtan mounted up as well. Scanning the melee near the river, he warmed his hands on his horse’s steaming hide, and started back to where Fiach’s banner fluttered.
Chapter 35
With a score of archers, Lyleth and Dylan held their position behind the wagon. In the distance, Nechtan assaulted Fiach’s southern flank with foot soldiers, dogs and a handful of horsemen. No sooner had Fiach’s shield wall formed than it collapsed, and now Nechtan split Fiach’s forces in half, but the fighting had moved well out of bowshot, and so had Talan.
Lyleth looked at the holding behind them. She must either move her band in range and search for Talan, or fall back in case men broke from the woods, a tactic she would expect from the ice-born.
“Come,” she told the archers. She prepared to mount when she saw a lone rider coming toward them from the melee.
“It’s Talan,” Dylan said. “But where’s Nechtan?”
When the boy reached them, he slid from the winded horse, hurled his spear into the snow, and planted his hands on his hips.
“Where is he?” Lyleth asked.
“Going after Fiach without me.”
“Fiach would eat your heart for supper,” Dylan said.
Talan shoved Dylan, who returned it, and suddenly the boys were scuffling in the snow. Lyleth took hold of Dylan by the cloak and dragged him off Talan, who stood up, drew his sword and held it to Dylan’s throat.
“You’ll not speak to me ever again, minstrel boy.”
“Not if I’m lucky—”
“Sheathe that sword,” Lyleth said, “before I take it from you.”
Talan stared at Dylan for a long moment, spat, then sheathed his sword. He showed his palms to Lyleth with an impertinent scowl. “Yes, mum. Do we flee?”
She glared at him. She had to take him with her, w
hat else could she do?
“We’re riding to the holding.”
“They’re behind us?” Talan’s face brightened. “Why haven’t they attacked yet?”
“That’s what we go back to know.” Lyleth hitched her quivers on her back and swung onto her horse. “We can use a sword with us. But you’ll do exactly as I say.”
“You command me, druí, or so says my uncle.” He wiped a bloody hand over his mouth, but Lyleth saw that hand tremble, just perceptibly.
Dylan bristled, his pride clearly bruised. It was unfortunate Dylan wasn’t Nechtan’s heir. How easy it would be to see him to the throne.
Lyleth led the way across snowy pastures to the holding’s sheep pens. From the fence line, she could see an open gate through the stockade. The sheep would tell her more.
Leaving their horses tied to a withy fence, she led them through churned snow. The sheep bunched and flowed away, bleating, but as they parted, Lyleth saw the body of a man, not a soldier, but a shepherd. His throat was slit. She opened his mouth and inserted two fingers. The back of his throat was still warm, telling her he’d been dead since dawn, possibly earlier, but not much. Whoever killed him had either fled, or hid inside the holding.
Lyleth looked for the answer in the whites of the sheep’s eyes. They sniffed at the air and so did she, smelling little more than the smoldering tower on the crag above and the blood of the dead man at her feet. But a ram was staring at the open gate.
“Come.”
She scanned the timber walk that ran along the top of the stockade, and saw no one.
Keeping to the fence, she led them forward. It had all the markings of a trap. “Archers take the wall walk. Talan and Dylan, come with me.”
The barnyard was silent. The bodies of a woman and two children lay where they fell, while chickens pecked for grain between their fingers.
The door of the house stood wide open.
“Stay behind me,” she told Dylan and Talan.
“What if they’re in there?” Talan’s breath was rapid and shallow.
“Watch the door.” He didn’t argue this time.
She touched Dylan’s arm and he followed. She drew her dirk and Dylan a shortsword.