The Riven Wyrde Saga boxed set

by Graham Austin-King

  “Kahrlson, Klöss,” Tristan said, shaking his head. “His name is Kahrlson.”

  Klöss waved the reproach away and waited. It was funny. He’d grown accustomed to the blood. He’d even become used to the fear that sometimes struck in battle but he’d never found a way to cope with the waiting. Though this was a scouting mission, the waiting was just as interminable, possibly worse.

  He hunched down behind a tree, toying idly with a dagger. A wild, savage part of him wanted to just charge in, numbers be damned. The beast wanted battle and the feel of steel in his hands. He forced it down. It was hungry for bloody vengeance against these things, these creatures that had stolen his child and his wife in all but name. He could feel it rising the more he thought about it and found his hand clenched so tight around the dagger’s hilt that his cramped.

  Tristan gave a soft whistle and then Gavin was there, breathing hard. He sank down quick beside the tree and pulled out a skin, drinking water in short gasping gulps before he spoke. “It is the trels. There must be thousands of them. The land dips a bit up ahead, almost into a little valley. From what I could see they’re filling most of it, though there’s some kind of mist blocking a lot of the view.”

  “They’ve made camp there then?”

  Gavin shook his head. “Not that I could see. They just seem to be milling around, waiting for something I’d guess. There’s some kind of old standing stones in the centre but I couldn’t get close enough to see much of it.”

  “What about the villagers?” Klöss asked.

  “I couldn’t see any of them…” His voice made it clear there was more.

  “But?”

  “There’s something else. I thought they were men until they walked into the shade. Their eyes are like the ones we saw in the reaping except these are blue.”

  “Blue?”

  Gavin shrugged. “They shine bright as any lantern’s flame, except for the colour.”

  “Fine,” Klöss said. “I’m not taking on thousands of them, villagers or no. We’ll wait for Kest and Kahrlson, and then we’ll move out. I don’t mind admitting I don’t like being this close to the bastards.”

  Tristan snorted at that but Gavin was silent, looking out through the trees. The hiss of his daggers as they came from their sheaths was almost buried in the explosion of leaves as Kest burst from the trees.

  “They’re coming,” he managed as he turned and held the arm of his small handbow against the earth with his foot whilst he levered the wire back over the hook.

  “Shit!” Klöss said as he drew his sword and long dagger, moving away from the tree he had rested against to give himself room.

  The first of the creatures tore through the woods, coming at them at a dead run and pulling knives as it ran. Gavin moved like a snake, shifting to meet the attack and throwing himself into a roll only to come up with daggers extended and thrusting at the trel’s chest. It batted the daggers away as if they were nothing, slashing with its own blades and forcing the thief back.

  Tristan hacked at the creature’s legs as they passed his position, but though his blade staggered it the monster suffered no injury and continued on in amongst them.

  The daggers flashed as both thief and trel slashed at each other, the blades meeting with a dull rasping ring with every block and parry. Klöss stood ready, waiting for an opening but the two spun and wove as they battled, making any swing risky at best.

  Between one slash and the next Gavin dumped his dagger, his hand flashing to the small of his back to grab another. He swung hard with his left, leaving his arms open wide, an invitation the creature couldn’t resist as it darted in with blades extended. Rather than simply stand there though, Gavin had never stopped moving. He spun against the attack and thrust the knife deep into the side of the beast’s neck as it passed him, its blades missing him by less than a finger’s breadth.

  Blue fire flared around the blade of the dagger and Gavin swore, flapping his hand and darting away as the trel burst into flame, screaming and clawing at the blade buried in its neck as it fell writhing to the leaf-strewn dirt.

  Klöss shut his gaping mouth with an audible clack of teeth and plucked the dagger free from the still smouldering corpse, handing it back to Gavin. “I guess you were right about the iron then,” he said. “Next time though, let’s try one of these first?” He hefted the handbow and grinned at the little thief as he sucked at his burnt fingers.

  The smiles soon faded as the sounds of combat drifted through the trees and they moved out at a trot. They headed in the rough direction of Skelf, covering each other with the handbows as they moved in two groups, leapfrogging each other’s position and turning to cover each other’s withdrawal. Their numbers grew slowly as other scouts found their way back to them. First individuals, and then small groups of two and three, all with wild eyes and small wounds.

  Attacks came sporadically and seemingly spontaneously. The trels came individually at first, rushing at them through the trees until an iron bolt brought them down. The handbow bolts were well made and were largely recoverable, if the men moved quickly enough. Blue fire had ruined several and they were too valuable to lose.

  Then the attacks began in earnest and it seemed that they barely had time to recover what bolts they could before the next group of trels ran at them.

  “We cannot keep at this, Klöss,” Tristan managed between heaving breaths.

  “I’m not exactly having fun myself.” Klöss replied, looking over the man as they ran. “If you’ve got ideas I’d love to hear them.”

  Tristan stopped and ducked behind a broad oak, covering the second group as they ran past them. “The road.” Tristan pointed vaguely through the trees. “It should be in that direction. We would move faster on the road with less chance of being surprised.”

  “Less chance of concealment too,” Klöss muttered beside him.

  “I do not think concealment is a worry at this point, do you?”

  Klöss looked back behind him at the retreating men, waiting until they were in position. “Fine,” he said to Tristan. “You lead off then. You’ve got a better idea of where you’re going.”

  “Lost again?” Tristan sighed. He flashed a grin at Klöss’s darkening face and, with a last look in the direction the trels had come from, started off at a run.

  The sounds of fighting still dogged them as the light began to fade. It was too distant to risk calling out and trying to gather the men to them. There might be safety in numbers but the noise would draw the trels. Klöss knew the information they carried was more important than individual lives but it was poor comfort each time the sound of blade on blade fell silent and the screaming began.

  Their numbers had grown to over thirty and they moved in three groups of ten in an almost continuous motion. It grew into a rhythm, cover a retreat, turn and run past those covering them, then cover their retreat. Again and again. And again. It did mean they were covering more ground but the attacks were wearing.

  A snarl of rage announced the satyrs at the last second as they attacked, tearing into the right side of them. Bolts flew wildly into the trees as shocked men turned to meet the attack, and for long minutes chaos reigned. The steel weapons they carried were largely useless. They clearly caused pain to the beasts but did little or no damage. Five men were down before the handful of iron daggers among them could be brought to bear. A trel went down with an iron bolt slammed into its face and, as the blue fire flared, men snatched up the bolts, using them as improvised daggers. In moments, silence fell.

  “Shit!” Klöss spat as he surveyed the mess. Ten men were down, a full third of his force. He examined a shallow cut to his forearm, a slash that had gone through his leathers as if they weren't there.

  “Three are dead,” Tristan reported after a few minutes. “Five can probably run but will be poor use when fighting. The last two we will need to carry.”

  Klöss swore again. “Let’s get moving as soon as we can. I think we’re still ahead of most of them.
I really don’t want to tangle with a large force do you?”

  Tristan grunted and went to hurry men along as wounds were examined and rough bandages tied.

  The two that were worst were men Klöss barely recognised. He felt a brief pang of guilt about that but shoved it aside. Now was not the time. Tristan took one over his shoulder whilst two others carried the other man. Both were pale, with teeth clenched tight as they fought to keep the groans inside their mouths. With a grim expression, Klöss waved them forward and the group set off at a slow jog.

  The first man died before it became fully dark. They’d stopped to catch their breath and Tristan let loose a long string of curses as he bent to look at the man he carried. He glanced at Klöss and shook his head. There was no time to mourn. The man was stripped of anything the others could use and wrapped in his cloak. It wouldn’t be the first man Klöss had left in the woods of this land but it didn’t make it any easier.

  The road caught them all unawares as they passed through a thick stand of holly and then out onto the broad, packed earth. They were all of them exhausted and Klöss ordered a staggered run. Five minutes jogging would be followed by two minutes walking, and then back to the run. It didn’t work as well as he’d hoped and they were forced to abandon it and drop into a walk as men started falling behind.

  “We will need to find somewhere to stop, Klöss,” Tristan observed in low tones.

  “Where do you suggest, Tristan?” Klöss snapped. “Is there a handy fort around that I don’t know about?” He regretted it instantly but didn’t make apologies. They needed leadership right now not coddling. He looked around and up at the dark, clouded sky. “We push on until while we can still see. I want to cover as much ground as we can.”

  They moved on in silence, the only sound the pounding of boots on the hard earth and the occasional rattle of a loose weapon. The pace slowed. Slipping from a jog to a trot, then from a trot to a walk. They’d had no signs of the things that stalked them for over an hour when Klöss finally called a halt but he knew they were out there.

  He looked around at the road. The path itself was little more than twenty feet wide but the trees and brush were cut back to either side, presumably to help deal with bandits and the like. He motioned the men closer and sank down in the centre of the group.

  “All right, normally I’d say we’d lost the bastards but I trust them like I’d trust a new oarsman with an itchy arse to row to the drum. If we’re going to fight I want to bloody well see what I’m doing and they can see just fine in the dark already. Build me some fires, boys. Make it so I can see what I’m shooting at.”

  The scouts set to work gathering up what wood they could without having to range too far into the trees. The fires surrounded them, arranged in rough rings that expanded out and away from them. Klöss looked out over the flames and into the darkness beyond.

  “You think this enough?” Tristan asked as he came up behind one shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” Klöss confessed. “They’d have to be blind to miss us but we can’t risk going without the light. If even one of those damned hell-beasts got in here among us in the dark it could do for us all. At least this way we have a chance to see them coming.”

  “Go and sleep,” the man told him. “I will sort the watches.”

  Klöss thought about protesting for half a second, and then nodded. He settled down in the centre of the circle of men. Half were already snoring. The other half stared out past the fires with handbows held ready. The tiny sliver that was all remained of the moon peered down through gaps in the cloud at them. Duty fought with fatigue. Duty lost.

  He woke with a grunt as Tristan kicked at him gently. “I think they are coming.”

  The words were all he needed to bring him fully awake. He rolled to his feet, taking up the handbow as he rose.

  “There have been shadows about the farthest fires,” Tristan advised quietly. “Nothing worth a shot but they are increasing. They test us, I think.”

  Klöss peered past the fires, into the darkness. The farthest had burnt down to coals that glowed sullenly against the black of the forest. “Has it all been from the same direction?” he wondered as he glanced around to either side of them.

  “This far,” Tristan grunted.

  “That won’t last unless they truly are stupid. Have you got them in quads?” Klöss nodded at the men closest to them. They’d worked out the idea of the quads on the retreat through the woods. Once the trels began to close, and they could no longer rely on handbows alone, then the men would work together in groups of four, one with a steel blade to engage the trel whilst the second struck with an iron dagger or a handbow bolt and the third fired handbows with his partner reloading.

  “They’re ready.”

  They waited. Sparks flew up as men darted out to throw wood onto the fires closest to dying. The shadows beyond the furthest fires grew, shifting in the darkness as the number grew. Firelight obscured the eyes that Klöss knew would be glowing in the darkness but there was no doubting they were out there.

  They came in tentative pushes at first. Small groups of four or five that flinched past the first of the fires and came charging at the waiting Bjornmen. Blue sparks exploded in amongst the fires as the trels fell writhing to the dirt.

  As if the first few had burst a dam the trels charged, a flood of dark bodies howling hate as they poured past the farthest fires. The Bjornmen fired in pairs, with one shooting a handbow whilst the other worked frantically to reload for him. The explosions of blue fire were all but blinding as the bolts tore into the seething mass.

  Klöss called out orders to fire, and then pass back the handbows to be reloaded in a calm voice that fell into a steady chanting rhythm. The keiju were advancing on them but the toll was horrific, and the stench of burning flesh and fur carried easily to them in the soft night breeze.

  They formed into the quads as the keiju grew closer, and Klöss abandoned his chant to draw weapons and take his place in the line.

  The keiju threw themselves into the fight with a savage abandon, seeming almost to relish the danger even as the steel swords left them open to the thrust of an iron dagger.

  The quads worked almost perfectly and blue fire flared along the line as the trel fell. Then the first man fell as the creatures adjusted to the tactic. Another screamed as a bone knife took his eyes and the line staggered as the Bjornmen were pushed slowly backward.

  There is a moment in a battle just before the panic takes hold, when the realisation that this is the fight that you cannot win slowly sets home. Klöss had seen it half a dozen times, on raids gone badly and in fights aboard ship against Dernish in their Broadscows. It began in the eyes, and by the time it had reached a man’s courage it was already too late.

  He could see it now in the men closest to him. There were simply too many of these damned things. Another two men fell, far along the line to his left, but their screams carried and he couldn’t help but look as they pitched forward and fell to the dirt.

  “Hold the line!” he growled, his order taken up by those closest and shouted on.

  Men on the right staggered back another five feet, forcing the rest to move with them or be left exposed. “Hold the fucking line!” Klöss roared.

  Tristan’s axe drove a creature to its knees and Klöss darted in with the knife before it could rise. He rammed the blade home, wrenching it free and backing away from the blue flames that gushed from its throat as dark blood boiled and hissed in the fire.

  Still they came. When one of his men fell the others only knew if they heard the scream or if they were close enough to see. These creatures though, with the fire that erupted whenever iron pierced them, the others couldn’t help but see it. Despite this, despite seeing every death, they came on.

  The line broke. A man fell, and then another, leaving a hole in the line as men staggered back away from the raging trels. It only took one to turn and run before the others followed.

  “We cannot hold, Klös
s,” Tristan shouted at him, his voice barely audible over the screams of the creatures.

  He was right. It was the choice between turning and running, risking a knife in the back, or staying and knowing he’d eventually get one to the throat.

  “Ready handbows and fire!” he roared, shrugging the weapon from his back and loosing the bolt without really bothering to aim. It would have been more work for him to miss at this range.

  The line exploded in fire and sparks again and Klöss was already turning as he shouted “Now run, you bastards!”

  He led off in a sprint, throwing the bow onto his back. Tristan ran beside him, his heavy axe in one hand. Already men were screaming as the monsters pulled them down one by one. Bursts of blue fire flared as men turned to loose a bolt into the horde that followed. A glance over one shoulder revealed an image that belonged in a nightmare. The fires were all but obscured by the creatures as they surged forward, dark against the failing flames. Their eyes though, burnt as bright as any flame. Glowing bright in the growing darkness, lit by strange magic or just by hate, it didn’t matter.

  Men fell around him. Some screamed as the clawed hands pulled them down, some gasped as the knife took them. He fought against the desire to rip his sword and dagger free and turn to fight. His own hot rage warring with the knowledge that he had to get the news back to Rimeheld. Death was a luxury he couldn’t afford to indulge in.

  His anger was bitter in his mouth as he ran. He’d failed. These deaths were his fault and his own death, another failure, would soon follow. A hand fell on his wrist and he glanced in shock at Gavin as the thief pulled him and Tristan off to one side of the road and into the trees.

  Gavin stopped them almost immediately, pressing his hands to their mouths to call for silence. He used his hands alone to push at them gently, making them crouch low and move no faster than a crawl through undergrowth that they could barely see. All the time, the sound of the pursuing trels thundered in their ears, punctuated with the screams of his men as they were dragged down, one by one, and butchered.

  Gavin stopped them with another hand in the darkness, pulling them down. He pushed and hissed curses at them as they reluctantly wormed under the edge of a half-rotten log. The ground was slick with mud and what could have been moss or perhaps some manner of mould. Either way it stank, and the damp worked its way through clothes and leathers until the icy touch of the stuff found skin.