by Simon Kewin
“The undain will push through easily,” said Nox. “There's nothing I can do. A few minutes at most.”
“Are there any more barrels of black powder buried in the ground?” asked Hellen.
“Some. See the trees with only red streamers? They mark where the barrels are. Zap those when the undain get near, and we'll take a few out.”
Cait could see only six or seven trees with red streamers. It wouldn't be anywhere near enough. “What do those bells mean? Are they summoning help from somewhere?”
“They just mean there's bad things happening,” said Nox. “Far too late to be telling everyone. Unless the riders have come north from Caer L'dun, there is no one to help.”
“They're also telling people to leave, abandon the city,” said Hellen. “Escape into the wilds. The longer we can hold on here, the more time we'll give them to get away.”
Cait joined Hellen and a few other witches at the wall, climbing stone steps to stand behind the crenulations that gave the defenders some protection.
“Can you fight them off with magic?” asked Cait. “Can we touch them?”
“We'll do what we can. Don't know much about spells for the battlefield. Mostly it's easing people's pains and persuading rain clouds to go elsewhere. We'll do what we can.”
Hellen was a weatherworker, so she'd explained, and she fought by whipping up squalls that whirled and smashed into the undain. It slowed them down but in truth did little to harm them. Cait joined in, sending ice shards lancing into the nearest attackers. Delving into their minds and breaking them one by one as she had in Angere would clearly take too long. The witches laboured away for ten minutes, all of them grunting with the effort of each spell woven. Most of the undain still hadn't moved, only small groups setting off to cross the wooded plain.
“Why don't they attack in force?” asked Cait. “They could overwhelm us easily.”
“Ignorance,” said Hellen. “They don't know how many of us there are, what strength we have. It seems the vigilance of Borrn and the other wyrm lords has prevented Menhroth's spies from reporting back.” Hellen unleashed a red flame that flew toward one of the red-garlanded trees. The explosion that followed shook the ground. A small group of advancing undain were blown to pieces.
“In any case,” said Hellen, “I think their commander is testing us, sending a few of his soldiers forward to draw our fire, see what we're capable of.”
“That's terrible,” said Cait.
“So far as they're concerned these foot-soldiers are expendable. Hideous, yes, but it also makes them hard to fight.”
From behind them, Nox bellowed something, an urgent note in his voice. Peering through the smoke of the explosion, Cait tried to grasp what was happening. Then she saw. The undain commander of the northern army had clearly decided enough was enough. A mass onslaught was running at the walls.
The undain moved across the ground with such speed that they were there in moments. A few final explosions caught the second and third ranks, but not enough to slow them down. The undain leaped onto the walls in a line to hack and slash at any defenders daring to oppose them. There were suddenly thousands of them and only a few scattered defenders.
Cait screamed and almost fell from the wall. An undain soldier stood over her, sword raised to strike her and Hellen. The older witch was preparing some powerful magic, working in conjunction with the other remaining witches. But there was no time left. Desperately Cait tried to blast the undain backward from the wall as the creature swung its sword. But in her panic she couldn't get her jumbled thoughts into line.
The undain stopped in mid-swing. The tip of a sword appeared through the front of its chest. The creature looked down as if wondering what it was. Then he slumped to the wall and rolled back to the ground.
Ran stood there, out of breath, sword in hand. He'd been scouting in the north and must have raced south one step ahead of the army. A look of purest alarm, almost panic, twisted his features.
“We must flee,” he said. “There are too many of them. Far too many.”
Hellen and the others of Islagray worked their magic then. A wall of fog swept forward, so dense it was almost as solid as the stone of the wall. It pushed outward, sweeping the attackers from the walls, obscuring them completely. Cait could feel the power of it. She could sense, also, the mounting fury of the undain attackers as they battered at the grey walls the witches had crafted.
Exhaustion was clear on Hellen's face as she turned to Cait, Danny and Ran. “That will hold them for a little time. We must go. There's nothing more we can do here.”
They had to fight their way through the screaming, panicking crowds on the streets. The Golden Square was crammed with people, many of them gathering to demand the Doge or the mancers do something. Or simply because they felt safer in the press of the crowd. Pushing through proved to be impossible. Fortunately Nox appeared to know which back streets to take to get around the worst of the crush.
“Always pays to have a good map, even if you have to memorize it,” he said.
A heaving mob had developed at the southern gates as people tried to force their way through onto the road. People were starting to use their fists to beat off those in their way. Panic rose in the air like a cloud. Fortunately they didn't need to go through the gates. Guilden was completely open to the river on its west side.
Lines of boats lay ice-locked in their moorings. Some people were there, desperately trying to hack vessels free to push them southward to open water. One or two coaxed huge carthorses on the ice, the great beasts leaning into the effort of hauling the boats free, slipping on the ice despite their spiked ice-shoes. One great black beast, crashing to the ice, went right through into the water with an alarming scream. It thrashed around, white eyes panicky, until it managed to right itself. It tried to swim for the shore but the ice stopped it.
“We have to help,” said Cait.
“No time,” said Hellen. “They've all been warned often enough. Now they're on their own.”
Other people, forgetting about the ice-locked boats, were simply skating south, only using the land to work their way around the gap in the ice blasted out by the Line of Fire.
Cait and the others went that way. The thought they were abandoning Guilden and its people to their fate gnawed at Cait. But what could they do? If they stayed they would only be caught again, enslaved or killed.
“We have to flee south,” said Nox, apparently thinking the same thoughts. “Live to fight another day.”
Hellen nodded, her eyes narrowed as she stared into the sky, as if seeing answers written up there. “Agreed. We can go no farther north. It's time to turn back and retrace our journey. This time we'll have the undain snapping at our heels.”
Smoke on the Water lay half a mile offshore, Johnny waiting inside. They'd calculated that most people leaving Guilden would cling to the banks as they fled. The other witches would go with the refugees while Cait, Danny, Hellen, Johnny, Ran and Nox slid across the ice in the sleigh. One after another they climbed inside. The golden figurehead opened its eyes in readiness.
“South,” said Hellen.
“To where?” said Johnny. “I mean, what's the point now?”
“We'll see about that,” said Hellen. “But we've made some progress, and learned something, too.”
“I don't see what.”
“We know for sure what we're up against now. We've seen the scale of the attack. We've destroyed some of them, too, mainly thanks to the serpents. The death of Charis was an unexpected bonus.”
“And now?” asked Nox
“Perhaps we can delay them again at Hyrn's Oak and the other towns,” Hellen replied. “But Caer D'nar is our only real hope. And then, after that, Islagray.”
“And if that's not enough?” asked Danny.
“Then it doesn't much matter any more. There will be no one left in Andar to know what's been lost.”
They were about to set off when they heard shouts from the ice. A single
figure shambled toward them, limping from some leg wound.
Cait expected it to be the Doge, fleeing the city he'd once ruled. Or perhaps the Lord of Misrule. Instead it was Merdoc, lumbering across the ice as quickly as he could.
“I saw you leaving the city. I beg you, is there room for one more?”
The look of horror on his face was familiar. She'd seen something similar on many of the people.
“Step in,” said Hellen. “And then we must flee.”
“My thanks to you once again, Eldest of Andar. I am in your debt.”
“Good. Then I'll expect some very good prices next time we buy from you.”
“You think there'll be a next time?”
“There might. I see you had enough presence of mind to bring your takings with you?” A leather pouch, heavy with coin, dangled beneath Merdoc's cloak.
“I salvaged what I could,” he said.
“As it should be,” said Hellen. “I think that's all any of us can do now.”
Smoke on the Water jerked forward as if being hauled by invisible horses. They picked up speed, heading south. Everyone on board watched in silence as, behind them, the tallest tower on the Doge's palace, the Sun Tower, came crashing to the ground in a ball of dust and smoke. Flames raged in Guilden.
“Well,” said Johnny after a moment. “That was an Ice Fair they won't forget in a hurry.”
10. Hyrn's Oak
Word of the sacking of Guilden had reached each town and city they came to on their flight south. At least people no longer doubted that the warnings of invasion were real. Word had passed rapidly through the aether from hedge witch to wise man. The undain are coming with the ice. Andar is invaded.
Hyrn's Oak was a very different place now. They could see no revellers, no cheering, laughing crowds as they approached. The Midwinter festivities had been forgotten and no music played. Up in the arms of the great oak, guards holding bows scanned the river. No fairy lights flickered among the branches.
“We'll stop here,” said Hellen. “Perhaps we can delay them further.” They were back in open water, but a crust of ice covered the An, crunching and squealing as Smoke on the Water cut through it.
“Do you think we're ahead of them?” asked Cait. There'd been no sign of the pursuing army on the banks, and her attempts to sense them through the aether had revealed nothing.
“I think they'll take their time to deal with the people of Guilden.”
“You mean … to kill them?”
“Eventually. I suspect for now they'll be taken back to the White City to be imprisoned until they can be dealt with by Menhroth's clerics. That Ritual of theirs takes time to perform, and it must be many years since they had so many to deal with. The dungeons you were kept in will be full for a time.”
Cait didn't reply, imagining being back there, imagining the people of Guilden hauled screaming up those steps one by one and not returning. She felt so powerless. There had to be something she could do.
“I was thinking,” she said. “You remember we were attacked by an aether creature in Angere.”
“An aethernal.”
“The thing is, if they can survive in the real world, why don't we try and summon one and unleash it on the undain army? I mean, then we'd have an aethernal to face, sure, but that seems preferable right now.”
“I've thought about that,” said Hellen. “I don't think it would work. Why do you think you met the creature in the far north of Angere?”
“Because … that's where all the normal, living people and animals are?”
“The undain have no life, no spirit to drain, save for the occasional spark like those you've glimpsed. An aethernal would be too dangerous, most likely it would ignore the entire undain army and come for us.”
“So, will Hyrn's Oak be any different from Guilden?”
“Perhaps. At least we won't have to persuade them the danger is real. Hyrn's Oak doesn't have Guilden's high walls, but they proved no barrier anyway. What it does have is running water all around it. The Teem on three sides and the An on the fourth. We might be able to work something with that. If we can keep the waters flowing we might hold them up for a time. Nox had a chance to look around on the way north, too. Apparently he has plans.
“Do you really trust him?”
Hellen glanced sideways at her, a sparkle of amusement in her eye. “About as much as you do. But from what I've seen of his thoughts, he genuinely wants to defeat the undain. They annoyed him, and he wants his revenge.”
“I didn't see any black powder he could use when we were here before.”
“No, but there are those archers of theirs. They might be able to inflict some damage.”
“I don't think a few arrows are going to bother the undain much.”
Hellen nodded in agreement. “Perhaps. But a shattered knee can at least stop one walking for a time.”
“It seems so hopeless,” said Cait. “They're marching across Andar and there's nothing we can really do.”
Hellen nodded her agreement. “We should have been more prepared. People don't like to hear dire warnings, that's the problem. They see the sun rising in the morning, as beautiful as it was the day before, and refuse to believe anything could change.”
A group of armed townsfolk waited for them on the wooden quay as they drifted nearer. Most held bows and while none had arrows knocked, Cait was under no illusion they could fire in a moment if they wished. Wary eyes studied them as they docked. Johnny leaped out of the boat to help tie up Smoke on the Water. He, at least, seemed to put the townsfolk at ease. Clearly there was more than one there who'd enjoyed his performance on the way north.
Venn and her father pushed through the group of archers. Both wore the same grim expression, the resemblance between them clear in the light of day. Venn's hair was nut-brown where Torven's was wispy and grey, but they had the same sharp nose and keen eyes. They carried their bows in their hands: long, gently curving spars, highly polished. Both had leather bags full of feathered arrows strapped to their backs.
“Guilden is lost?” asked Venn.
“It is,” said Hellen. “Are you ready here? Have you stopped drinking and dancing long enough to prepare your defences?”
Venn looked too exhausted to quarrel with Hellen. “We've done what we can. The children and the sick and old left this morning for the deep woods. There are glades and caves higher up in the hills where they might be safe for a time.”
“Who's left here?” asked Nox. “How many archers?”
“Perhaps three hundred of us.”
“All armed?”
“All are hunters of Hyrn's Oak. Some of the witches who came north from Islagray are here, too, awaiting your return, although a couple left with the children.”
“Have you destroyed the bridges?” asked Hellen.
Venn looked puzzled. “No. Why would we do that?”
“You'll have more chance as an island. How can you live in Andar and not know magic doesn't like to cross running water? The flow sucks it away, drains it. A little trickle like the Teem won't stop the undain, but they might choose to wait a day or three for it to freeze before they come for you. That won't be long now given how cold it is. But if there are bridges, they can just walk across, can't they? Same as you can.”
Glances passed between Venn, her father and the others in the group. There was no Doge in Hyrn's Oak, no one was in charge, so Johnny had explained. The town ran itself, any disputes handled by verderers' courts that met every month. The archers were the closest thing they had to authority. After a moment, without a word being spoken, the group on the quay appeared to consent.
Venn nodded. “We'll see to it immediately. Will there be other witches coming to our aid?”
“No more from the south. One or two fleeing from Guilden, perhaps.”
“Won't they need the bridges to reach us?”
Hellen shook her head. “The risk is too great. They'll take their chances. If they arrive ahead of the undain horde
we can send boats over for them. Most likely they'll spend their time holding up the advance in whatever way they can. In truth, I doubt any of them will reach us.”
They took axes to the wooden bridges that crossed the Teem, including the one Cait had crossed on her first visit. The hollow sound of the blades chopping into the stays reverberated off the boughs of the trees, thirty of forty yards beyond the far side of the river. When they were done, the archers manhandled the detached bridges downstream with wooden staves to reach the An. Hyrn's Oak was an island once more, separated from the rest of Andar by ten yards of water.
The central course of the Teem flowed quickly, the waters gushing off the mountains, but it looked a meagre defence to Cait. A crust of ice crept from both banks, joining up in places, the gurgling waters rushing underneath. When she dipped her fingers in, the chill was intense. Hellen was right, with the ice creeping south it wouldn't be long before the Teem froze, too. Every branch and twig of the trees lining the far banks was coated in a heavy frost, sparkling gold where the sun struck.
Nox spent his time walking the defences, helping them organize. He came to stand with Cait for a time, muttering about the archers being too used to hunting alone to act together as an army. He was good at what he did, though, she had to admit. She'd worried he'd start barking orders at them, throw his weight around and get an arrow for his efforts. He was more subtle than that, though. Hyrn's Oak was different than Guilden. She watched as he suggested and hinted to the archers, pointing out to Venn and the others how they might arrange themselves, asking whether this or that approach might be a good idea. Most of the time, she saw, the archers thought they'd come up with the suggestions rather than Nox.
Within a couple of hours he had them set up in groups all the way around the circumference of the town, each cluster of archers within sight and arrow-flight range of each other. Their arcs of fire covered the whole perimeter. He'd made sure each group had a bell, too, so they could raise the alarm when the attack came. He'd worked out a whole language of rings, allowing the defenders to pass round details of sightings, attacks and all-clears even in the dark or the mist. There was no wall around Hyrn's Oak, but they assembled what barricades they could for each group: lugging stones to build sections of wall tall enough for the defenders to hide behind, vertical slits built into them to shoot through.