by John Gwynne
He felt guilty. For Nathair’s sake he should have fought him.
He heard footfalls behind him, stopping a few paces away. He turned to see Bos.
The big man sank to one knee. ‘I have come to speak for the eagle-guard, and myself. We disobeyed you. We are sorry, and will accept any punishment you judge fit.’ He looked at the ground.
‘Get up,’ Veradis said.
‘I have more to say.’
He sighed. ‘Go on then.’
‘You are our leader, have led us through many dangers. You are our lord, our general, our brother, and we love you. Any one of us would give our life for you, without thought. Last night you would have died. I, we, could not just watch . . .’
‘It was the Black Sun, Bos; Asroth’s champion, right there, before us. I had the chance to slay him, to end the God-War.’
‘The one in the wolven pelt?’
‘Aye.’
‘It was not him that worried me; it was the other one, the warrior with him. He was Jehar. You are the first-sword of Tenebral, but I doubt even you could best one of them.’
‘I think he was the man who killed Rauca,’ Veradis said.
Bos frowned at that and seemed to think about it for a while. ‘The man who killed Rauca and then ten of our eagle-brothers. On his own.’ He looked at Veradis, letting his words sink in.
I would have died, most likely. He stepped forward and squeezed Bos’ shoulder.
‘Disobey me again and I shall dismiss you from the eagle-guard.’
Bos looked up at him and nodded.
‘Now get up.’
‘What happens now?’ Bos asked him.
‘Geraint will march soon, and there will be a battle. We shall watch and wait; be prepared to be called upon.’
‘There is much talk. Many have fled,’ Bos observed.
It was true, the night raid had set a fear coursing through Geraint’s warband like a disease on the wind. Talk of changelings and demons prowling the night had been one thing, but corpses bearing claw marks, and witnesses testifying to seeing wolven and changelings slaying warriors with tooth and claw had led to hundreds slipping away in the darkness. Veradis had spoken to Geraint, told him it had been men in wolven fur, but he was not sure if even Geraint believed him. There were a lot of dead with their throats torn out.
‘I know. But the battle will still happen. Geraint cannot just turn around and go home. Rhin scares him more than wolven in the night.’
‘Sensible man.’ Bos chuckled. ‘But his men, they will fight with fear already planted in their guts.’
‘That was the goal of last night’s raid, I think.’ Veradis shrugged. ‘We shall see what we shall see. And we shall also keep an eye on those hills – I don’t want any more surprises.’
Horns rang out and the warriors of Cambren began to move along the giants’ road, no songs of war rising up, only the tramp of many feet. Veradis could see Geraint at the front, surrounded by a knot of his shieldmen. In the distance he saw Eremon’s warband standing ready, iron glinting in the weak sunlight.
He was standing with Bos; a score of his eagle-guard were spread a little higher up the slope. They were a long way from the trees that gave cover at the hill’s crown, and out of bow shot. Any attack from above would be seen early on.
The warband juddered to a halt, only a few hundred paces from Eremon’s lines.
‘They’ll do some drinking now,’ Bos said quietly.
‘Aye.’
It was a hard thing, starting a war, and harder still for those in the front ranks, those who would have to put some will into their legs and go willingly to battle, and very possibly to their deaths. The first steps were always the hardest. A few mouthfuls of wine or mead often helped summon the courage that was needed and Veradis could see skins being handed about between warriors in Eremon’s warband, too. I doubt if they’re full of water. A dose of courage to face a charge.
A roar went up from Geraint’s warband, rising up from the front and rippling back through its masses, like the muscular contractions of a snake in motion. The front ranks moved quicker, breaking away, running at Eremon’s warband.
They too roared, clashing swords and spears on shields, then charged to meet their foe.
Veradis saw the impact of the front rows before he heard it, then there was a great crash, like thunder overhead, ringing along the ravine, echoing about the hills. The two warbands filtered into one another, a patch work of the green of Domhain and the black and gold of Cambren. The battle descended into a thousand duels, each warrior finding a foe to fight, the one left standing moving on to the next. And so it would go, until all the enemy were dead, or one side lost heart and ran.
Bos drew in a deep breath. ‘It’s going to be a long day.’
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
CORBAN
Corban walked through the huge paddock that spread across the meadows behind the camp, then he saw her.
‘Morning,’ Coralen said as he approached.
They had only had a few hours’ sleep since their return to camp after the raid, but Coralen looked fresh and alert, ready for anything. She was checking the girth on a horse, other riders nearby preparing their mounts.
‘What are you doing?’ Corban asked.
‘Rath’s sending me into the mountains. In case they try and sneak around our flanks.’
‘Should be a quiet day for you, then. Don’t think any of them will dare step into those woods. Not after last night. They might get eaten by a shape-shifter.’
She flashed him a smile at that, a rare sight from her. It scattered his thoughts for a moment.
‘I wanted to talk to you,’ he said.
‘That’s what I was thinking.’ She looked at him appraisingly, one eyebrow raised.
‘About Conall.’
‘Oh.’
Corban didn’t know what Halion had told her, but he didn’t think it was much. After last night, the way he had seen her risk her life, he felt she deserved to know.
‘He killed my sister, Cywen. And he betrayed Brenin, sided with the man who opened the gates to Owain and let the enemy into Dun Carreg.’ There, I’ve said it, plain as I can. He tried to keep the anger from his voice, just tell the facts, without his own feelings creeping into it.
Emotions swept Coralen’s face, one chasing the other: anger, disbelief, disappointment.
‘Con did that? He’s a lot of things, but – betrayal? He’s always had his own code.’
Corban took a deep breath, keeping the anger at bay. ‘Something happened to him. He grew jealous of Halion, who rose in Brenin’s service – Halion was Brenin’s first-sword for a while.’
‘Was he now?’ Coralen said.
‘Did he not tell you?’
‘He’s not told anyone that,’ Coralen said.
‘That’s the kind of man Halion is. Humble.’
Coralen nodded. ‘I know. And Con didn’t like it?’
‘Not at all. I thought him siding with Evnis was as much to spite Halion as anything else. Just my opinion.’
They stood there in silence, Coralen fiddling with a buckle and strap in her mount’s girth. After a while she looked up at him, her eyes narrowing.
‘What are you waiting for? Are you wanting a kiss now? I’m not Maeve, you know.’
‘What?’ For a moment he was back in the feast-hall, Maeve’s arms about him, his face stinging from Coralen’s slap. She’s just jealous, Maeve had said to him. Somehow he didn’t believe that.
‘Maeve said you were jealous,’ he said, thinking Coralen would find that funny. She didn’t. She’s going to kill me, he thought and took a step back.
‘Jealous!’ Coralen spat the word.
‘She kissed me,’ he mumbled, some kind of defence. ‘Just thought you should know about Conall, that’s all.’ A kiss? He found himself looking at her lips, then remembered the long list of cuts and bruises she’d given him in the weapons court. He shook his head. What’s wrong with me?
‘A
ll right then. Thank you,’ Coralen said. He nodded and walked away.
‘Corban,’ she called after him. He paused and looked back.
‘I’m sorry about your sister.’
‘So am I,’ he said and left.
Corban wanted to cover his eyes. It was horrible. Just the noise of it was deafening. He had witnessed a battle of a similar scale once before, between Owain’s warband and men of Ardan come to relieve the siege at Dun Carreg. But he had been sitting high above on the walls over Stonegate, with the battle fought on the plains far below, where warriors had looked as small as ants.
This was different.
The warbands had crashed together like two great waves, a concussive explosion of noise slapping him, a physical blow that made him stagger. From his vantage point he could see individuals, see pain etched upon faces, see limbs severed from bodies, hear the screaming, smell the sweat and blood, the urine and excrement as death claimed victim after victim. Crows circled the air, hundreds of them, and he wondered if Craf and Fech were in the carrion horde.
He was standing on a small rise at the rear of Domhain’s warband, overlooking the battle. Tents were behind him, a score of healers gathered close by, bracing themselves for the coming work. Brina was amongst them, and had asked for his help. At first he had said that he would be fighting, but Rath had come and seen him soon afterwards and told him to keep out of the combat until dusk, if it went on that long. He had another plan up his sleeve.
So Corban had found Brina and told her he was able to help. It would be better than doing nothing. He was not so sure now.
Warriors started to trickle into the tents – some staggering, supported by comrades-in-arms, other carried on litters. Many were screaming, others delirious with pain. Corban spent much of his time giving men sips of usque, or poppy-milk that had been ground and mixed the night before. He had never seen so much of the pain reliever in his life, but it did not last that long. By highsun most of the jugs were empty.
‘Hold him tighter,’ Brina snapped at him. They were hunched over a warrior lying upon the ground, his foot and ankle a bloodied mess. He had been screaming, flailing with the pain a short while ago, but half a jug of usque had quietened him. Now he was groaning, until Brina started digging around in his wound with her knife.
‘Tighter,’ Brina ordered as she moved her blade around. ‘No point stitching him up with all of this filth in here,’ she muttered, pulling out slivers of leather and cloth, bits of the man’s boot that had followed the blade that had stabbed him into his wound. ‘His leg will just go green and swell, and he’ll die half a ten-night later.’ She stood up straight. ‘It’s going to have to come off.’ She looked about. ‘You’ll need help to hold him.’
‘I’ll help,’ a voice said behind them, a man stepping close. Ventos the trader.
Brina bustled off to get hot water and cloths, a saw.
‘I didn’t know you were here,’ Corban said to Ventos.
‘Might as well do something useful,’ he said. ‘The best way out of Domhain for a wain is the giants’ road, and it’s blocked at the moment. If I’m stuck here I might as well help in some way. And, as much as I like Eremon and Domhain, I don’t feel strongly enough to draw my sword and stand out there.’ He nodded towards the battlefield, where the muted roar of battle drifted on the cold wind.
Brina returned with her arms loaded. ‘Hold him tight, both of you,’ she said. ‘It’ll be hardest at first, but he won’t stay conscious for long.’ She looked at them both. ‘Ready?’
‘Aye,’ they both said, although Corban wasn’t.
The man screamed like Asroth was ripping his heart out, but Brina was right, he lapsed into unconsciousness soon after Brina’s saw started cutting into the bone of his lower leg. Still, after Brina had sawn for a while, Corban wasn’t sure which sound he hated most – the screaming or the iron grating through bone. Then came the cauterizing of the wound, the stench of burning flesh, the sewing of skin. The wrapping of bandages. By the time Brina was finished Corban’s hair was plastered to his face with sweat.
‘Go and rest for a while, get some air, drink some water,’ Brina muttered to him and Ventos.
Corban looked about the tent they were in and made for the entrance. He passed another healer bent over an injured warrior, saw the healer cut the man’s throat with a sharp little knife. It was not the first time he had seen that small mercy handed out today. He saw his mam, mopping blood from a gaping wound in someone’s shoulder.
He left the cloying heat of the healers’ tent and stepped into the cold air. It was late in the day now, the sun sinking into the west, sending shadows stretching east.
The battle still raged. It had moved back towards the mountains, leaving a field carpeted by the dead, startlingly still in contrast to the frenetic activity only a few hundred paces further on. The bravest crows were already swooping down. He just stood there, breathing deeply, the cold air sharp in his lungs, then turned around and stepped back into the healers’ tent.
A hand tapped his back. He was emptying a bowl of blood for Brina. He turned and saw Rath, blood spattered, a cut grazing his forehead.
‘Brina will see you soon,’ Corban said.
‘I’ve come to see you, Corban. Come, step outside now.’
Corban followed him out of the tent, felt a presence behind him and saw his mam had followed. Gar was leaning against a tent post.
‘We’re winning this battle,’ Rath said. ‘I think we could end it with you and your wolven’s help.’
Corban looked past him, saw Rath’s giant-killers lined behind him. Coralen nodded to him. She was already wearing her wolven pelt.
‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked Rath.
Corban buckled on the clawed gauntlet and drew his sword.
‘I’m ready,’ he said.
He was standing with Rath, Coralen, Farrell and Baird, all of them in their wolven skins. Storm stood beside him. At their back were the rest of Rath’s giant-killers, ten men, and Corban’s companions: Gar, Dath, Camlin, Marrock and Vonn. His mam was there as well, wearing a leather cuirass and clutching her spear. Knives were belted across her chest. Gar had told her she wasn’t coming.
‘You’ll not be stopping me,’ she had said, giving Gar a look that silenced any reply. She was still angry from last night, that she had not been told about the raid. She had been in a state of fear and rage combined when Corban had returned to their tents, and she had wept and scolded both Corban and Gar.
‘Come on then,’ Rath said, and they set off.
It was dusk. Rath’s plan was to launch an attack on one of the flanks of Rhin’s warband. They had already been pushed back, were tired and faltering. Seeing a pack of wolven and changelings attacking them might start a rout. That was Rath’s hope.
They skirted the battle at a distance, looping out wide. The sky was purple, an orange flush on the horizon the last of the sun. Then Rath signalled and they ran at a cluster of Rhin’s warriors.
They saw Storm first, her bone-white fur drawing the eye, then the rest of them, fur and blood covered. They must have been an eerie sight in the half-light of dusk. Corban saw men slapping each other and pointing, some scrabbling away, slipping and falling. One stood and stared in horror. He was the one that Storm leaped upon, her jaws latching onto his neck and shoulder, her momentum flipping him through the air and slamming him to the ground.
Corban and the others were only heartbeats behind her, carving into any who were wavering between fight and flight. Corban slashed a warrior across his gut, ripping into chainmail, and stabbed him in the throat with his sword; the warrior collapsed in a spray of arterial blood. Marrock ran past him, punching a warrior in the face with his buckler, the iron spike piercing the man’s eye. He collapsed into a boneless heap.
They cut down all resistance within moments and then moved on, carving deeper into Rhin’s warband. Coralen was close to Corban and he saw her raise her head and let out a keening, wordless war cry.
Corban echoed her, the rest of them following suit. They howled as they killed, and wherever they trod, men ran. First in ones and twos, but soon knots of warriors were breaking away, heading back towards the mountains. Then the trickle became a flood, and the whole of Rhin’s left flank was in flight. Geraint must have realized that the day was done, for horn blasts rang out, and the centre retreated slowly, fighting as they went.
Rath ordered the signal to break from the battle, and soon the field was full of men standing, exhausted, watching their enemy flee back to the hills. A ragged cheer went up, Corban and his wolven pack howling as euphoria swept them – relief at being alive, the mad joy of victory. Then Corban heard the screaming, men dying about him on the battlefield, the stench of blood and excrement. How can we do this to one another? For a sickening moment he felt overwhelmed with shame. Look what we have done. Then his mind flew back to the Darkwood, where Queen Alona had been kidnapped and killed, a spark that had started a chain reaction of death. Started by Rhin, and still happening, even here. He felt something harden inside, a resolve to see this through. I cannot run forever. To stop her we must fight her. And we have won. Today, at least.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
CORALEN
Coralen prodded her sword into the back of a prisoner, making him increase his pace.
The battle had been won, but she had not stopped to celebrate, or rest. Rath had sent her with a band of others back into the foothills to patrol for stragglers or surprise attacks.
‘Just because we did it last night, doesn’t mean they can’t do the same to us,’ the old warrior had said. Coralen didn’t mind, anyway. She’d rather keep busy – less time to brood about all that Corban had told her of Conall.
Horses appeared out of the gloom as she approached their makeshift camp. She handed over the man – a blacksmith by the look of his scarred and pitted features – she had found creeping through the undergrowth to Baird. Without a word, she slipped back into the woodland, heading for the slopes that led down to the giants’ road. That would be where deserters or raiders would appear, climbing up from the camps below.