The Winter Vow

by Tim Akers

  “I want nothing to do with your demons, witch,” Martin spat. “My house has fought for the church, and we will stand by it still.”

  “The power of the gheists is interesting, yes, but I am offering you so much more than that. Aren’t you tired of the Circle of Lords? The fracture between Suhdra and Tener? This land should be united, don’t you think?”

  “It is united! By the church!”

  “Does this look like unity to you? Gabriel Halverdt did little good with his life, but he was right in one thing: the pagan north cannot be trusted. It must be held by the head, like a snake, lest it bite. It’s a pity Suhdra has never had the will to crush that snake.” Helenne offered her hand to Martin. “I will unite Suhdra, and Tener, and all Tenumbra. This island will bow before its queen.”

  “Do you really think the void priests will hand the island to you? The tribes? You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “When this is over, I don’t think they’ll have a choice.” Helenne’s face fell a little, disappointment creasing both the beautiful half of her face and the ruined. “A pity. You would have made a fine champion.” She motioned to her guards. “Be done with—”

  Helenne threw her head back and screamed in pain. Trueau, still at her feet, had driven her mercy knife into Helenne’s calf. Burning veins of fire spread from the wound, wrapping around the duchess’ leg. Helenne stumbled back.

  “You have no power here!” she howled. “Die, and your damned goddess with you!”

  “Strife’s might never truly sets,” Martin said. The guards were distracted by their lady’s distress. Martin rushed forward, helping Trueau to her feet. She was struggling to breathe, but the fury in her eyes would keep her moving, Martin was sure. He glanced over at the other vow knight, the man who even now cowered beside Helenne. “Get to your feet, man! Your god needs you!”

  Helenne turned toward them, then grabbed the vow knight by the neck and pulled him close. He hung from her grip like a rag.

  “This one serves me now,” Helenne said. She pulled Trueau’s knife from her leg and drew it across the vow knight’s neck. Hot blood spluttered down his chest, running down Helenne’s arm and soaking into the fine silk of her dress. “As will all Tenumbra!”

  The vow knight fell to his hands and knees, staring down at the growing pool of blood beneath him. He sputtered, trying to breathe through the cascade. As he died, he reached toward Martin, crying.

  “To hell with this,” Martin said. He shoved Trueau into Lucas’s arms, then pushed both priests down the stairs. “You will get the judgment you deserve, Bassion, even if I have to deliver it myself!”

  “But not today, apparently,” Bassion crooned. “Run, little knight. Run into the arms of your falling gods!”

  Martin ran down the stairs after the priests. Helenne’s laughter followed him.

  Fights had broken out across the courtyard below, Bassion killing Bassion, knight slaughtering peasant, farmers overwhelming men-at-arms with clubs and sheer numbers. The cobbles were slick with blood. Martin ran as far as the upper chamber of the gatehouse, kicking in the door and rushing inside.

  It was already a bloodbath. Soldiers of Bassion lay dead around the room. One was dragging himself away from the door, leaving a long smear of red blood on the floor. On the other side of the room, a knight stood, staring out of the archer’s eye at the battle below. At the sound of the door crashing open, she whirled around. It was Sir Travailler, commander of Bassion’s vast navy. Her eyes were pinpricks of anger.

  “Roard! Are you part of this damned betrayal?” she barked.

  “Only on the ‘getting betrayed’ end of things,” he said. “Do you follow Bassion’s new heresy?”

  “No. I guess I’m going to need to find a new lord to swear my vows to,” she said. As Lucas and the badly injured Sir Trueau tumbled after Martin into the room, Travailler marched across the room and slammed the door behind them. “Find something to shove against this, will you?”

  They dragged a bunk from the guardhouse in front of the door. No sooner had they secured it than someone outside started hammering against the door. Travailler returned to the narrow window. “What the hell is going on out there?” she muttered.

  “Lady Bassion has thrown her lot in with the celestials. A long time ago, it seems.” Lucas held up a hand to stop Travailler’s protest. “I know, they killed her own people. All part of her plan, apparently. But she has shown her hand.”

  “There goes Halverdt’s last stand, and Blakley with it,” Travailler said. “It’s just a matter of mopping them up now.”

  Martin ran to the windows and stared as Blakley’s banner collapsed into the whirling melee. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He turned and ran to the chains that held the portcullis in place. He took the hammer that lay there for this purpose, gripped it in both hands and knocked the block clear of the windlass. The chain screamed past, links chattering as they scraped over the stone. The portcullis fell, trapping the rest of Bassion’s forces inside the castle.

  “That’s the best we can do,” he said. “Now we just have to pray that Malcolm can hold out until reinforcements arrive.”

  “Pray to who?” Trueau muttered. “Who is left that will answer our prayers?”

  No one responded. The hammering on the door filled their heads.

  51

  THE LIGHT WAS dying. As the corrupted gods of the north rumbled toward Malcolm’s line, a wave of mist billowed over them, blotting out the sun. The air, temporarily warmed by the army of the light, grew chill. Malcolm’s breath hung in front of his face in icy clouds. His heart hammered in his chest, but he felt no fear. They were coming. He was ready.

  The gheists that lumbered toward him were twisted and broken. Black vines crawled across their bodies, digging into divine flesh, leaving puckered scars behind. Their skin was pale and spotted with disease. Whatever deities they had once been to the tribes, these gods no longer answered to their ancient rites. They were bent only to destruction.

  “Sophie Halverdt is not breaking, my lord!” Doone shouted over the thunderous charge. “She is rallying her forces on the right!”

  Malcolm looked in that direction. Though the left of Halverdt’s force was completely routed (and gods pray Castian Jaerdin was safe in that tumult), the right held steady. Sophie could be seen towering over the ranks, standing on the broken remnant of that damnable cart, the one driven by the half-child with white hair. She was waving her sword and shouting, drawing courage from her troops and throwing them back into the fight.

  “We cannot fall back until we know her madness is ended,” Malcolm said. “Form the lines! Lock shields! We stand with Halverdt!”

  His troops gave a hearty cry and surged. Steel shields clattered together, and spears, broken, splintered, stolen, and whole, bristled along the line. They were down to only a few horses, not enough to form up a proper charge, but not enough to run, either. Malcolm straightened out the line, barking orders, correcting formations, letting the men and women under his banner know that he was there. That he stood with them.

  He spared a moment to look at the rout on the left. It was absolute. Panicked horses were dragging their riders through the abandoned camp, the first waves of foot soldiers just reaching the picket line. Maybe they would rally around their damned black tree. Maybe not. Either way, they were out of this fight.

  The walls of the Reaveholt stood silent to his right. Bassion would keep her promise. She had to. Hopefully before his own lines broke.

  “Steady now!” Malcolm shouted. The gheists were nearly to them. Celestial handlers trailed just behind, surrounded by halberdiers in black and gray. The broader celestial line followed at a distance, marching in step across the snow-churned field the gheists had just covered. First the gods, then the heretics. Malcolm picked his spot on the line, near the center, not far from the banners. Best to be seen. He raised the black blade of his feyiron sword and shouted. “The hound! The hallow!”

  “The hallow!”
some answered back, and then the gods were on them.

  Directly in front of Malcolm, a gheist the size of a small house reared up on its stubby legs, roaring as it smashed down with fists as big as barrels. A dozen spears punched into its leathery chest, piercing skin and drawing divine blood, shafts bowing and splintering as it pushed forward. It screamed in pain and swept an arm across the forest of spears, snapping them in half. Still bristling with the broken hafts, it picked up a soldier and crushed her head in its hand. Her twitching legs kicked against its face as she died.

  Malcolm leapt forward, his mount jumping the wavered shieldwall to land at the feet of the ravaging gheist. It chest was shot through with dark veins just beneath the skin, pulsing with purple light. Malcolm’s horse reared back and hammered steel-shod hooves into the beast’s throat. Malcolm slashed at the gheist’s arm. It dropped the corpse of the dead soldier and howled in pain.

  Malcolm wheeled and struck, a rapid series of blows that cut across the gheist’s arm, shoulder, chest, and neck. Each strike severed flesh, the feyiron cutting easily through its thick skin. Whenever he struck one of the black vines that curled across the creature’s body, the feyiron would hum, as though it had struck stone. The gheist stumbled back.

  Behind him, the Blakley troops roared in victory, surging into the gap left in their lines and bolstering the shieldwall. With the line reinforced, Malcolm spun around and urged his horse over the shields of his compatriots.

  The gheist rallied. The black vines stretched across its body, filling in the wounds and burrowing into the flesh. The veins of purple light under its skin grew darker, its skin paler. It roared and lashed out at Malcolm. Just as he was about to jump back to safety, the gheist backhanded his mount, crushing its legs and chest. Malcolm tumbled to the ground, briefly hidden by the screaming horse, hooves crashing into the ground next to him, kicking up frozen clods of dirt. Malcolm rolled, briefly covering his face, and the horse spilled away, crashing down the line to topple the next gheist. Both went down in a heap. Malcolm struggled to his feet.

  The gheist towered over him, howling in pain, shaking enormous fists in the air. It brought them down, cratering the ground in front of Malcolm, then drew back to strike.

  Behind him, the shieldwall broke forward, washing over Malcolm in a tide of screaming soldiers. They slammed into the gheist, hacking into its thick hide with axes and swords, using shields to hammer at joints. The gheist stepped back, scattering the troops as its talon-tipped foot rose into the air, stumbling as it tried to retreat. It slid on blood-churned mud, fell to one knee, then crashed its arm into the horde of armored gnats that swarmed over it. The blow went wide and it lost its balance. As it pitched forward, the soldiers of House Blakley streamed over it, covering it in a blanket of chain mail and hacking steel.

  The soldiers to the right and left of Malcolm’s position weren’t so fortunate, however. The gheists there punched through the shieldwall, crushing skulls and shattering steel as they went. The ravaging gheists wrapped around Malcolm’s small force. The shieldwall closed around him, circling into a ring as the first lines of celestial guards reached them.

  “Closer, closer, don’t let them through,” Malcolm shouted, dragging soldiers back into line. “Don’t lose heart, soldiers of the hound! We will answer steel with steel, and blood for blood! We have nothing to fear, not even death! Stand tall and be counted in the ranks of the brave!”

  A rain of arrows clattered off their shields, downing a precious few soldiers, but the ranks closed and the wounded were dragged to the center. The celestial guard approached cautiously, lapping around the circle of Tenerran steel, closing off their retreat. Sir Doone stumbled out of the chaos. Her left arm hung limp, but her face was twisted in determination.

  “Halverdt is encircled, but her banner still flies, my lord!”

  “As does ours! The day is not lost, Doone, not while I still breathe! We must fight to her side. Shieldwall, at the half-step, advance toward Greenhall’s banner!”

  Malcolm’s troops began a slow, shuffling march, the two lines of shields facing back and forward holding their position while soldiers in the center dragged the injured along. The right flank, closest to Halverdt, advanced in her direction, filling the gap left behind with troops from the middle of the formation. The left flank fell back, cycling their numbers into the center to help with the injured, then taking their place in the gaps left by the right flank. Slowly the formation crawled toward Halverdt like a giant snail, leaving a trail of their dead, or those too badly hurt to be moved. Malcolm stood at the center, coordinating the whole movement.

  As they approached the Halverdt position, Sophie saw what they were doing and started giving orders. The near flank of her line burst open, covering the distance between the two in a series of rapid advances. The two formations merged, like drops of water running together. Malcolm pushed through the chaos to Sophie’s side.

  “Lady Halverdt! You weathered the storm, I see.”

  “Houndhallow. Well done taking down that gheist. We’ll make a vow knight of you yet.” Sophie’s eyes burned with infernal light, and her voice echoed in Malcolm’s bones, but she was smiling, mad and free. Her banner flickered with half-seen flames, as though a dream of it burned overhead, almost reaching the mortal realm of the waking. “The true faith is finally blossoming,” she shouted, waving her sword. “Come, you heretics of shadow, come and be burned by the light!”

  A roar went up from the tight knot of soldiers, but it was drowned out by an answering shout from the celestial lines. Malcolm scrambled onto Halverdt’s broken wagon to see what was happening. A smile crossed his face.

  “Bassion answers our call!” he shouted. Glancing around, he saw that Sophie’s guards were looking elsewhere. Bassion would clear the celestial line. Halverdt’s madness no longer had to be tolerated. It was time to strike. He measured her neck for the strike, drawing his sword back. “Justice can now be done.”

  “Something’s wrong,” Doone snapped. From the ground below, she grabbed Malcolm’s leg. “Hold your blade!”

  Her shout drew Sophie’s attention. The lady of Greenhall glanced at Doone in confusion, then up at Malcolm. Her eyes lingered on Malcolm’s sword, drawn back to strike. She was the only possible target. “What are you doing, Houndhallow?”

  His answer never came. The thunder of steel-shod hooves filled the air, and then the shieldwall shattered, blowing apart like autumn leaves to the first wind of winter. They both spun around to watch as a wedge of knights tore through their lines. Malcolm’s jaw dropped.

  Their attackers wore the yellow and blue of House Bassion. As he watched, they broke Halverdt’s shieldwall, and then his. The wagon he was on shattered into pieces, driven apart by the rout. He slid to the ground, landing hard on his shoulder. Doone’s voice filled his ears, but all he could see was a blur of steel and mud as she dragged him into the lee of the wagon’s wreckage. Bassion’s knights lapped around him, driving the remnants of his force into the ground.

  The black-and-white banner of House Blakley fluttered overhead, catching in the wind created by the charging knights. It twisted and then fell, to be trampled underfoot by the fleeing mobs that had moments before been ordered troops.

  They were broken and betrayed. The celestials had won the day.

  Not exactly to plan. He had no hope of breaking them, even with Ian’s help. Jaerdin was gone, and Bassion turned. The balance had been so narrow, and now it was upended. He had failed.

  “I will do it myself, then,” Malcolm muttered. He stood from behind the broken wagon and faced the celestial charge. “They will know me. They will remember.”

  52

  THE CELESTIAL FORCES were an unending tide against the steel of Gwen’s shieldwall. They wrapped around the burning tree and came at her position in wave after wave of black-clad axemen. Routed soldiers of Halverdt mingled in, as desperate to reach the safety of the woods as the celestials were to run them down. Gwen stood behind the line of Deidra’s
spearmen, watching the slaughter.

  “What do we do with Halverdt’s troops?” the big ranger asked. Her rangers were not made for this sort of fight, and the press was wearing on them. “I thought we were here to fight the void priests.”

  “Cut them down. The god Halverdt serves should have been destroyed ages ago. We can’t let its influence spread.”

  “I am happy to kill Halverdt’s zealots, but… Malcolm Blakley is allied with her. If soldiers of the hound approach?”

  “Save the ones you can. Any who will join with our side must be spared,” Frair Gilliam said sharply. He shot Gwen a hard look. “I am learning to forgive what I can.”

  Gwen turned away, angry and abashed. She nodded to Deidra. “Do as the frair says. We need all the spears we can muster.”

  “I don’t understand why Bassion has betrayed Houndhallow,” Deidra mumbled. “As it is—”

  “As it is, we have no choice. This is what the gods ask of us,” Gwen said. She cast a glance in Gilliam’s direction. “All the gods.”

  “And what of these?” Deidra asked. “Are we to cut them down as well?”

  A thin column of mounted knights approached the line. It wove back and forth, charging and then wheeling, each arc bringing them closer to Gwen’s position. They wore the colors of Redgarden, and fought with a furious desperation. A cloud of celestial knights pursued them, trying to cut them off.

  “Redgarden stood with my family at the Fen Gate,” Gwen said. “Give me a horse and your mounted reserve. They will never make it to safety on their own.”

  “We can’t risk our strength—” Kesthe started, but Gwen jumped on an unsecured mount and rallied the anxious column of pagan riders.

  “Riders of the tribes, loyal rangers of the gods! Our allies require our steel! Fight at my side, and for the safety of all Tenumbra!” Gwen forced her mount past the spear line and into the celestial ranks. Her horse trampled the nearest foes, dancing in a narrow circle, driving steel-shod hooves into the enemy line. The shieldwall split open to release the pent-up rage of the reserve riders. They poured through.