by John Gwynne
‘You did right,’ Marrock said.
‘We need to get Edana out of sight,’ Halion said.
‘Agreed. Camlin – with me. The rest of you get back into the trees. We’ll see you there soon.’
With that, Corban was running back towards the treeline, his feet heavy in the sand and shingle. Halion drew them up within sight of the beach. Marrock and Camlin were dark shadows, crawling through a patch of spindly grass.
‘What are we going to do?’ Dath whispered. Corban just shook his head. His pulse was still racing from their ambush of the riders on the path. Dath was as pale as a corpse.
‘We need to get back on my boat,’ Mordwyr said to Halion, who nodded agreement. He was standing protectively beside Edana.
‘Agreed,’ Brina snapped. ‘It’s the how that is the problem.’
‘They’re coming,’ Gar said.
Marrock and Camlin sprinted across the beach. Halion stepped into view to guide them back to the group.
‘Fifteen warriors at least,’ Marrock panted. ‘They’ve torched our boat.’ Even as he said the words a thick plume of smoke broke above the ridge.
‘No!’ Mordwyr exclaimed and started back for the beach. Vonn grabbed his arm, stopping him.
‘What are we going to do?’ Dath said.
Marrock looked at Edana.
‘We’ll take their boat,’ Halion said.
Corban shifted the weight of his shield on his arm and gripped his sword hilt, trying to still the tremor in his hand. He peered over the ridge, eyes drawn immediately to their boat. It was a burned-out skeleton, flames still licking at the charred ribs. Thick smoke spread along the coast, snatched by a strong wind from the sea. Mordwyr let out a strangled cry, but the sound of the surf was loud, muffling his grief.
A handful of warriors was grouped a little further down the beach, standing beside a half-beached shallow-draughted fisher-boat. Figures moved on its deck – two at least that Corban could see.
Marrock slipped down the ridge and they all huddled close to him.
‘Any ideas?’ he asked, looking at Camlin.
‘There’s no chance of sneaking up on them, and the wind’s too strong to be accurate with a bow from here. Our best bet is to get from here to there quick as we can, ‘fore they have a chance to push off and sail away. An’ keep the charge quiet, no point announcing ourselves.’ With that, Camlin was scrambling over the ridge, Marrock close behind him. Corban took a deep breath, trying to control his rising fear, and followed.
They were spotted almost immediately as they charged, the warriors about the boat crying out, drawing swords, levelling spears. They were closely matched in numbers, but these were all warriors, no strangers to battle by the look of them. Still, judging from the expressions on their faces, something about the sight of Corban and his companions must have been unnerving. Corban glanced at Storm, the grey streaks in her white fur a blur as she gathered speed, spittle spraying from her bared fangs. He felt the urge to laugh; a full-grown wolven hurtling towards you would unsettle anyone.
Halion yelled a war cry, high pitched and keening; somewhere close Farrell bellowed, then the bands were upon each other, a bone-shaking collision.
Corban turned a warrior’s spear-point with his shield, slammed into the man, sending both of them crashing to the ground. They rolled together, the warrior somehow on top of Corban, grabbing his throat. Corban thrashed, felt a flood of panic as he tried to draw breath and couldn’t, then there was the sound of snarling, a ripping, tearing noise, high-pitched screaming, then a crunch, and the grip on Corban’s throat was gone. He staggered to his feet, Storm still shaking the dead warrior by his broken neck.
Corban snatched his sword from the ground, looked about him. Gar tugged his sword from a warrior’s chest. Farrell was standing knee-deep in the surf, swinging his war-hammer at a warrior who had slipped to one knee. There was an explosion of gore as the hammer smashed into the man’s head. Halion blocked an overhead blow, swept his sword round and chopped into the man’s ribs, kicked him back into the surf. Edana stood close behind him, holding her sword two-handed. She was staring at the man Halion had just slain. Vonn was trading furious blows nearby, Marrock running past, hamstringing Vonn’s opponent as he waded into the sea, making for the boat. Corban realized it was moving away, two men pushing desperately on the half-floating hull. An arrow sprouted in the back of one, sending him face down into the foaming sea, but the other carried on, another arrow skittering off the hull, then the boat was floating, hands reaching down to pull the man over the side. Before he was over, someone was grabbing him from behind, swinging a sword into the man’s ribs, clutching onto his ankle as the boat gained momentum. Mordwyr.
Spears stabbed down, one piercing Mordwyr between shoulder and neck. He gave a strangled cry and fell into the sea.
Behind Corban there was a scream: Dath. He dropped his bow and ran into the surf, slipped, fell, staggered on. He reached his da and began heaving him back towards the beach.
Along the shoreline the battle was over, but they had failed; the boat they needed so badly was slipping out to sea, the water too deep now for them to chase after it. Then something punched into the boat’s mast. A flaming arrow. Before Corban registered what was happening, flames caught in the sail, leaping up, consuming the cloth. Another fire-arrow slammed into the mast, heartbeats later another onto the deck. Men were yelling, running about, throwing buckets of water. Corban looked back and saw a figure standing knee-deep in the surf beside Mordwyr’s burned-out fisher boat. Camlin – he was tying strips of cloth to arrows, igniting them in the flames that still flickered on the fisher-boat, firing them in a steady stream at the retreating boat. Marrock joined him and soon a dozen flaming arrows were burning on the enemy ship. Flames were roaring now, smoke swirling thick and black. The shapes of two men appeared near the rail. A flaming arrow pierced one’s neck, sending him crashing back into the smoke. The other leaped from the rail and began swimming for shore.
Corban splashed into the surf, wading out to Dath. His friend was staggering under the weight of his da, his mouth moving, but Corban couldn’t hear him over the churning sea. He put his arm under Mordwyr’s arm, the water foaming pink around the fisherman. His mam joined them and together they pulled Mordwyr to the shore.
Dath fell upon his da, calling to him, shaking him, tears blurring his eyes, strings of snot hanging from his nose; one look was clear to Corban. Mordwyr was gone, his eyes empty, the muscles in his face loose, like melted wax. He put a hand upon his friend’s shoulder.
It is over, and I’m still alive. Relief washed through him, slowly replacing the rush of fear and desperation that had consumed him during the short battle. He searched for his mam’s face and saw her standing with her bloodstained spear. Tears streaked her cheeks. Bodies lay limp and twisted about them, blood pooling in the sand, the sea frothing pink. So much death. Is it ever going to end? He felt a wave of nausea, fought to keep the contents of his stomach from rising.
Vonn, Farrell and Anwarth had waded into the sea. They were moving towards the man swimming from the boat, all of them with weapons raised.
‘Wait!’ Marrock yelled, splashing out to them. ‘Don’t kill him.’
Anwarth heard and lowered his blade, Farrell and Vonn obeying more reluctantly. The three of them grabbed the man and dragged him out of the waves, throwing him to the sand close to where Corban stood with Dath.
‘We saw a host of boats sailing; there is a warband camped beyond these woods. What is happening here?’ Marrock asked, but the warrior just stared defiantly at him. His eyes were drawn to Storm, stood in the surf beside Corban.
In a burst of speed, Camlin had the man’s hair in his fist. ‘We don’t have time for this,’ the woodsman said, and slashed the prisoner across the back of one leg.
The man screamed, tried to pull away, but Camlin held tight to him, then brought his knife-tip to the warrior’s throat. He was abruptly still, silent except for his laboured breathing.
‘Now answer the question.’
‘Queen Rhin has conquered Narvon. We are sailing to invade Ardan.’
‘How many of you are there?’
‘Over a thousand. Most have sailed.’
‘Why not all of you?’
‘Not enough boats. We’ve got to wait for those that left today to unload in Ardan, then come back for us.’
‘How many still here?’
A shrug. ‘Two, three hundred.’
Marrock nodded grimly. ‘And who leads you?’
‘Morcant.’
Corban stiffened. He knew that name. Rhin’s first-sword, the man who had duelled and lost to Tull, back in Badun on Midwinter’s Eve. The man who had led the ambush where Queen Alona had died. The man who had killed his friend, Ronan.
‘Is he in the village?’ Edana asked. She also knew who Morcant was. They all did.
‘No, he has sailed already.’
Marrock looked out to sea. ‘And why have you come after us?’
‘Thought you were spies of Owain. He cannot know about us.’ The man shrugged, causing Camlin’s knife to draw a drop of blood.
Marrock sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.
‘I have told you all I know,’ the man begged. ‘Please, let me go. I will say nothing about you, tell them I was knocked unconscious in the battle. Anything you want me to say.’
Marrock frowned at him. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Haf,’ the warrior said, his eyes pleading.
Marrock opened his mouth to speak, then Camlin cut the prisoner’s throat.
Dark blood spurted, the warrior gurgled and sank slowly to the ground, his blood soaking into the sand.
“He could not live,’ Camlin said, facing Marrock’s glare, wiping his blade clean in the sand. ‘He has seen us, knows our numbers, our strengths. He saw the wolven.’ He nodded at Storm. ‘She’s a surprise that has helped save our necks more than once today.’
Marrock was pale, stiff with anger. ‘Right or wrong, it was not your decision,’ he said. ‘We are no cut-throat rabble. You will wait for a command, is that clear?’
Camlin held Marrock’s gaze, then nodded. ‘Aye, chief,’ he said.
‘What do we do now?’ Anwarth asked, voicing Corban’s own question. ‘We have no boat to escape with.’
‘It’s either steal one or cut inland and walk to Domhain,’ Halion said.
They discussed the options back and forth: Marrock wanting to steal a boat from the village, Halion advocating fleeing inland.
‘Fleeing to Domhain does not seem to have been the safest choice,’ Marrock said.
No one knows what to do, Corban thought. All of us exhausted, scared.
‘For what it’s worth,’ Camlin said into the silence, ‘I think there’s more chance of staying alive if we cut across land. I’m not saying we’ll make it to Domhain, but I think we’ll stay alive longer that way.’
‘But we would move too slowly,’ Marrock said. ‘We do not have enough horses, even if those that you hobbled are still there. We will be chased, and those doing the chasing will be mounted. We would be run down within a day.’
‘Aye, there is that. But let me have a few hands and I think I could steal us a few extra horses – there were paddocks along the river – my vote is that horses are easier to steal than boats.’
They discussed it a little longer, until Heb finished the conversation. ‘Talk can accomplish much, but all it will accomplish here is our deaths,’ he said. ‘It will not be long before the men sent to find us are missed.’
‘Heb is right,’ Edana said.
‘For once,’ muttered Brina.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CYWEN
Cywen was on her hands and knees collecting eggs in the garden. Buddai thought it was an invitation to play and was swatting at her with a paw. Absently she told him to shoo.
Days had begun to pass in a kind of haze for Cywen. Two nights had passed since she had been questioned by Nathair. She had filled most of her time since then with routine chores – cleaning the house, tending the garden, working at the stables. She was worried about Shield, Corban’s stallion. He was such a fine mount, too fine, and there was more than one of Owain’s men with an eye on him. It would be a grief too far if one of them were to take Shield from Dun Carreg. She must keep him here, safe for Corban’s return. Somehow that was important to her.
In her mind she had spent almost every waking moment going over the questions Nathair had asked her – about Gar, about Ban. Nathair and Sumur were linked to her family, somehow. And it was obvious that Sumur knew Gar, though that should have been almost impossible.
And behind all of this was the thought, the possibility, the hope, that Corban and Gar and her mam were hiding in the tunnels beneath Dun Carreg. It was a vision that she clung to, that helped her to rise from sleep every day and put strength in her limbs. All she wanted to do was get a torch and go searching for them, but on the morning after her meeting with Nathair she had noticed a shadow following her as she’d made her way to the stables. Conall. That night someone else had stood in the shadow of a doorway opposite her house. All night. She was being watched and she could not lead people – the enemy – to the hidden tunnels where Edana might be hiding.
But she could not wait forever; her need to know was a physical sensation in the pit of her stomach. And with that, suddenly, she was done waiting, a plan forming in her mind.
She took the eggs indoors, the last of the day melting into dusk. Quickly she gathered all she needed: a bundle of rush torches, flint and tinder, a bag to put it all in, and buckled her belt of knives across her shoulder. She gave Buddai a thick marrow bone she’d traded for with the butcher earlier. Then, as the shadows were dissolving into night, she stepped into her back garden and agilely scaled the rose wall at the garden’s far end, slipping almost invisibly through her neighbour’s courtyard and into the street beyond.
Cywen stood staring at the beach. Something was wrong, different.
She had entered the tunnels through the hidden doorway in the fortress high above, made her way slowly through them, and now she was standing in a cave that looked out on the beach and bay. It was still night, dawn a long way off, although she had spent long hours searching the tunnels for her kin. Only at the end had she found evidence that they had been in the tunnels at all – the dead wyrm and warrior nearby, lying in the cavern at the end of this cave. But they were not here now. She felt drained, defeated.
They were gone.
Had they escaped into Havan, then made their way to the marshes in the west that everyone was saying were where Ardan’s survivors were fleeing?
A full moon silvered the bay and beach, shimmering on wave-tops and shingle alike. The only shape in the bay was Nathair’s ship, bobbing on the swell of the tide, huge compared to the fishing vessels on the beach. The fisher-boats were lined along the shore, none out at sea, as all able-bodied men had been taken to the fortress and forced into labouring at defences for Owain as he prepared for the coming of Queen Rhin. I hope she rips his heart out, she thought. Or the other way round. Either way it is one less that’ll need killing.
Then she realized what was different. A boat was missing, the only boat she’d ever had cause to look for.
Dath’s boat.
She checked again, studying the outline of each boat slumped in the shingle. It was definitely not there. So they had sailed away – her mam, Corban, Gar, Edana and the rest. But where to? The thought of following reared first in her mind, but follow them where? Perhaps they’d sailed west to the marshes, but perhaps they hadn’t. There was no obvious course, and they would have been scared, maybe injured among them, the need just to get away driving them.
She sighed, long and deep, then turned and made her way back into the cave, striking sparks into a fresh torch once she had turned a corner on the narrow path, hiding her from anyone looking from the beach.
She slipped once on the sea-soaked path that sn
aked into the cave, then pushed through the glamour and found herself inside the great cavern where the dead wyrm and warrior lay. She gave them hardly a glance as she strode through the room, eager to be back home. Ever up she climbed, the tunnels high and wide, built by giants. Shadows flickered and water dripped, echoing. In time, Cywen found herself in the other cavern, where the skeleton of another wyrm lay, the one she had found with Ban when they had first discovered these hidden tunnels that bored into the cliffs beneath Dun Carreg. As she passed through the tunnel, something caught her eye – a reflection on the far wall. She paused, thoughts of her warm fire and curling up next to Buddai calling to her, but her inquisitiveness won and she walked away from the exit, raising her torch high, looking at the wall.
She blinked, eyes widening. There was the outline of a great creature on the rock. At first she thought that it had been painted on, but as she held her torch closer she saw that she was wrong. They were bones, embedded, fossilized into the rock. The creature had a mouth full of sharp teeth, wings that spread as wide as a fisher-boat. Her da had told tales of creatures, whole species that had existed before the Scourging, great monsters that had been wiped out in Elyon’s day of wrath, caught in either flood or fire. She reached up, her fingertips tracing long talons.
Nearby there was a darker shadow in the rock wall – she moved closer and saw that it was an entrance to another tunnel, disguised somehow by a curve in the rock. She peered back at her route home, then looked into the new tunnel.
She took a deep breath and stepped into this new tunnel, driven by curiosity.
It was much the same as those she had already searched, high walled, smooth and damp. It turned more, giving the sense of spiralling, somehow, though it was hard to tell. In time she noticed a change ahead of her – it sounded different, the drip of water louder, a deeper echo. She stepped into an opening, a black hole spreading before her. A chain hung through its middle, disappearing above and below into darkness.
This is the keep’s well, she thought, peering up, the darkness a solid thing, consuming her torchlight. The path she was on hugged the well, narrower, twisting upwards. She followed it as the tunnel bored back into the rock, leaving the gaping hole that was the well behind. She breathed a sigh of relief.