The Crimson Shield

by Nathan Hawke

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title page

  SCREAMBREAKER

  1: THE VATHEN

  2: VALARIC

  3: DEAD WEIGHT

  4: THE ARDSHAN

  5: FORKBEARD

  6: ARDA

  7: NIOINGR

  8: VIDRIC

  9: THE FESTIVAL OF SHIEFA

  10: FENARIC

  11: THE CRACKMARSH

  12: IRON AND STEEL

  13: THE ROAD TO ANDHUN

  14: GOSOMON

  15: ANDHUN

  16: MEDRIN

  THE TEMPLE OF LUONATTA

  17: AN EXCHANGE OF GIFTS

  18: THE OTHER JONNIC

  19: GIVEN TO THE RIVER

  20: THE WEEPING GOD

  21: THE LEGION OF THE CRIMSON SHIELD

  22: ENEMY AT THE GATES

  23: SARVIC

  24: SHADOWS UNDER STARS

  25: SEA AND STONE

  26: LOYALTY

  27: JYRDAS

  28: THE CRIMSON SHIELD

  29: THE MARROC

  31: THE PYRE

  32: THE SCREAMBREAKER

  33: THE ROAD TO VARYXHUN

  34: THE VANGUARD

  35: GIANT

  36: THE SWORD OF THE WEEPING GOD

  ANDHUN

  37: TOLVIS

  38: THE ARDSHAN

  39: THE WOODS AT NIGHT

  40: THE WALLS OF ANDHUN

  41: THE OFFERING

  42: DEFIANCE

  43: OUTSIDE

  44: THE SCREAMBREAKER’S MEN

  45: DARE TO DARE

  46: DARK ENTREATIES

  47: JUSTICE FOR ALL

  48: HOLDING THE DOORS

  49: THE SEA

  EPILOGUE VARYXHUN

  PROLOGUE THE RAKSHASA

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Also by Nathan Hawke

  Copyright

  Honour has not to be won, it must only not be lost

  The Vathen rode slowly through the ruins of the village. There was little left. Burned-out huts, not much else. They stopped at the edge, at what had once been a forge, and one of them dismounted and poked through the rubble. Whatever had been done here, it had been a while ago.

  ‘The forkbeards call themselves men of fate.’ She said it without much feeling one way or the other, as if noting that the clouds had turned a little darker and perhaps more rain was on the way.

  ‘This is a Marroc village,’ said one of the others with a voice that was keen to push on.

  ‘Yes,’ said the first. ‘But a forkbeard lived here once. They called him Gallow. Gallow the Foxbeard.’

  SCREAMBREAKER

  1

  THE VATHEN

  Beside him Sarvic turned to run. A Vathan spear reached for him. Gallow chopped it away; and then he was slipping back and the whole line was falling apart and the Vathen were pressing forward, pushed by the ranks behind them, stumbling over the bodies of the fallen.

  For a moment the dead slowed them. Gallow turned and threw himself away from the Vathan shields. The earth under his feet was slick, ground to mud by the press of boots and watered with blood and sweat. A spear point hit him in the back like a kick from a horse. He staggered and slipped but kept on running as fast as he could. If the blow had pierced his mail he’d find out soon enough. The rest of the Marroc were scattering, fleeing down the back of the hill with the roars of the Vathen right behind. Javelots and stones rained around him but he didn’t look back. Didn’t dare, not yet.

  He slowed for a moment to tuck his axe into his belt and scoop up a discarded spear. The Vathen had horsemen and a man with a spear could face a horse; and when at last he did snatch a glance over his shoulder, there they were, cresting the hill. They’d scythe through the fleeing Marroc and not one in ten would reach the safety of the trees because they were running in panic, not turning to face their enemy as they should. He’d seen all this before. The Vathen were good with their horses.

  Sarvic was pelting empty-handed down the hill ahead of him. They’d never met before today and had no reason to be friends, but they’d stood together in the wall of shields and they’d both survived. Gallow caught him as the first Vathan rider drew back an arm to throw his javelot. He hurled himself at Sarvic’s legs, tumbling them both down the slope of the hill. Gallow rolled away, turned and rose to a crouch behind his shield. Other men had dropped theirs as they ran but that was folly.

  The javelot hit his shield and almost knocked him over. Another rider galloped towards them. At the last moment Gallow raised his spear. The Vathan saw it too late. The point caught him in the belly and the other end wedged into the dirt and the rider flew out of his saddle, screaming, the spear driven right through him before the shaft snapped clean in two. Gallow wrenched the javelot from his shield. He forced another into Sarvic’s hand. There were plenty to be had. ‘Running won’t help you.’

  More Vathen poured over the hill. Another galloped past and hurled his javelot, rattling Gallow’s shield. Gallow searched around, wild-eyed and frantic for any shelter. Further down the hill a knot of Marroc had held their nerve long enough to make a circle of spears. He raced towards them now, dragging Sarvic with him as the horsemen charged past. The shields opened to let him in and closed around him. He was a part of it without even thinking.

  ‘Wall and spears!’ Valaric? A fierce hope came with having men beside him again, shields locked together, even if they were nothing but a handful.

  Another wave of Vathan horse swarmed past. The Marroc crouched in their circle, spears out like a hedgehog, poking over their shields. The horsemen thundered on. There were easier prey to catch but they threw their javelots anyway as they passed. The Marroc beside Gallow screamed and pitched forward.

  ‘You taught us this, Gallow, you Lhosir bastard,’ Valaric swore. ‘Curse these stunted hedge-born runts! Keep your shields high and your spears up and keep together, damn you!’

  The Vathan foot soldiers were charging now, roaring and whooping. As the last riders passed, the circle of Marroc broke and sprinted for the woods. The air was hot and thick. Sweat trickled into Gallow’s eyes. The grass on the hill had been trampled flat and now gleamed bright in the sun. Bodies littered the ground close to the trees, scattered like armfuls of broken dolls where the Vathan horse had caught the Marroc rout. Hundreds of them pinned to the earth with javelots sticking up from their backs. There were Lhosir bodies too among the Marroc. Valaric pointed at one and laughed. ‘Not so invincible, eh?’

  They reached the shadows of the wood and paused, gasping. Behind them the battlefield spread up the hill, dead men strewn in careless abandon. Crows already circled, waiting for the Vathen to finish so they could get on with some looting of their own. The moans and cries of the dying mixed with the shouts and hurrahs of the victors. Before long the dead would be stripped bare and the Vathen would move on.

  ‘Got to keep moving,’ Gallow said.

  ‘Shut your hole, forkbeard! They won’t follow us here.’ Valaric picked up his shield. He kicked a couple of Marroc who’d crouched against trees to catch their breath, glared at Sarvic and headed off again at a run. ‘A pox on you!’ he said as Gallow fell in step beside him. ‘They’ll move right on to Fedderhun and quick. They don’t care about us.’

  But they still ran, a hard steady pace along whatever game trails they could find, putting as much distance as they could between them and the Vathen. Valaric only slowed when they ran out into a meadow surrounded by trees and by then they must have been a couple of miles from the battle. Far enough. The Marroc were gasping and soaked in sweat but they weren’t dead. There wouldn’t be many who’d stood in the shield wall on Lostring Hill who could say that.

  The grass was up to their knees
and filled with spring flowers and the air was alive with a heady scent. ‘Should be good enough,’ Valaric muttered. ‘We rest here for a bit then.’ He threw a snarl at Gallow. ‘This is the end of us now, forkbeard. After here it’s each to his own way, and you’re not welcome any more.’

  ‘Will you go to Fedderhun, Valaric?’

  Valaric snorted. ‘There’s no walls. What’s the point? Fedderhun’s a fishing town. The Vathen will either burn it or they won’t and nothing you or I can do will change that. If your Lhosir prince wants a fight with the Vathen, I’ll be seeing to it that it’s not me and mine whose lives get crushed between you. I’ll be with my family.’

  There wasn’t much to say to that. Old wounds were best left be. Gallow’s own children weren’t so many miles away either. And Arda; and they’d be safe if the Vathen went on to Fedderhun. He touched a hand to his chest and to the locket that hung on a chain around his neck, warm against his skin, buried beneath leather and mail. He could have been with them now, not here in a wood and stinking of sweat and blood. ‘I’m one of you now,’ he said, as much to himself as to Valaric.

  Valaric snorted. ‘You’re never that, forkbeard.’

  Gallow set down his spear and his shield and took off his helm, letting the air dry the sweat from his skin. ‘It’s still your land, Valaric.’

  But Valaric shook his head. ‘Not any more.’

  2

  VALARIC

  ‘Not any more.’ Valaric spat. Four hundred men. King Yurlak had sent four hundred forkbeards to fight ten thousand Vathen, and no one, not even a crazy forkbeard, was that terrible. The fools on the hill were always going to break. He’d seen that from the moment he’d seen the Vathen and how many they were – and it grated, thinking that if every man standing on the top of Lostring Hill this morning had been a Lhosir forkbeard then they just might have held the line, even outnumbered as they were, and maybe it would have been the Vathen who’d broken and fled. Maybe. Because Yurlak hadn’t just sent four hundred men. He’d sent the Screambreaker, the Widowmaker, the Nightmare of the North, and the Widowmaker had called the Marroc to arms and Valaric had been stupid enough to believe in him because a dozen years ago Valaric had been on the wrong end of the Widowmaker and his forkbeards four times, one after the other, and each time the Marroc had had the numbers and Valaric had been certain that the Widowmaker couldn’t possibly win, and each time he had. A man, he reckoned, ought to learn from a thing like that.

  Out of the shadows of the trees a Vathan rider stepped into the clearing. Valaric froze for a moment but the rider was slumped in his saddle. He had blood all over him and he was clearly dead. Half his face was missing.

  ‘Well, well. An unwanted horse. Now there’s a blessing.’ He grinned at the other Marroc around him. He’d picked them carefully, the ones who’d fight hard and long and keep their wits. Torvic, the three Jonnics, Davic, all men who’d fought the forkbeards years ago and lived, even towards the end when the forkbeards had hired Vathan mercenaries with their plundered gold and sent them in after the Marroc lines broke. The Marroc were used to running away by then, but not from horses. Thousands of men dead. And here he was not ten years later: same forkbeards, same Vathen, only now the forkbeards claimed they were his friends. Valaric was having none of it.

  The other Marroc were on their feet now. They were all thinking the same thing. All of them except the forkbeard Gallow, who’d keep quiet if he had any sense. Valaric got to the horse first. He took the reins and hauled the dead Vathan out of the saddle.

  ‘So let’s see what we’ve got, lads.’ He left the body to the others and started going through the saddlebags. Food and water they’d share since none of them carried any. A rare piece of good fortune. Someone else’s horse and saddle were fine things to carry away from a battle even after a victory. They’d have to divide it somehow. Needed a care that did. He’d seen men kill each other over spoils like this, men who’d fought side by side only hours before.

  ‘There are more.’ Gallow was pointing off into the trees on the other side of the clearing.

  Valaric growled. He let go of the horse and slipped his sword into his hand and picked up his shield where he’d left it in the grass. ‘Men? Or just horses?’

  ‘Horses.’

  Horses was more like it. But still . . . He looked around the other Marroc. They all had a greedy look to them, but nervous too. ‘Right. You lot stay here. Keep on the edge of the trees. Shields and spears ready in case. Me and the forkbeard, we’ll go see what’s there.’ He took a long hard look at Gallow. He was tall – certainly compared to a Marroc, and maybe even tall among his own kind – and broad. His muscles might be hidden beneath mail and thick leather, but the man had been a soldier for years and worked in a forge before and after, and there was no such thing as a weak-armed smith. His face was strong-boned and weathered. Valaric supposed there’d be some who’d say it was handsome if it hadn’t been for the scar running across one cheek and the dent in his nose that went with it. He didn’t have the forked beard of a Lhosir any more, but Valaric’s eyes saw it anyway. Demon-beards. Thick black hair that didn’t mark him as anything much one way or the other, but eyes of the palest blue like mountain glaciers. Lhosir eyes, cold and pitiless and deadly. Valaric cocked his head. ‘You man for that?’

  Gallow didn’t blink, just nodded, which made Valaric want to hit him. They stood face to face. Gallow looked down at him. Those ice-filled eyes were piercing, but Valaric didn’t see the things he was looking for there. Forkbeards were merciless, filled with hate and rage – that’s how they’d been on the battlefield – but Gallow’s eyes were just sad and weary. They had a longing to them.

  ‘You can go back to your own kind after this,’ he said shortly and brushed past on into the trees, eyes alert for the horses Gallow had seen. He picked up two of them straight away, two more Vathan ones, riderless this time. Probably they’d followed the first. If there were more, so much the better.

  ‘I have a family, Valaric,’ said Gallow. ‘A wife and an old man and two young sons and a daughter. Those are my people now, and yes, I’ll go back to them. I don’t know these Vathen but they’ll head west for Andhun. If that falls then who knows what they’ll do? Maybe they’re set on making new kings and cities and will leave my village alone. Or maybe they’re the sort to swarm across the country with their horses and their swords, with burning torches, sweeping everything before them until nothing is left.’

  ‘Two young sons and a daughter, eh?’ Valaric couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. ‘Sounds like you’ve been busy since you finished raping and murdering and settled to the business of breaking our backs for the pleasure of your king.’

  Gallow didn’t answer. Didn’t care, most likely, and the thought flashed through Valaric’s head to kill him right there and then while the two of them were alone. None of the others would think any less of him for doing it. They’d all lost something when the forkbeards had come across the sea in their sharp-faced boats. He had no idea why Gallow had stayed. Married a local girl, a smith’s daughter, and that alone was enough for Valaric to hate him. Our land, not yours. Nine years ago that was, when everyone had hated the forkbeards and everything they stood for; but over those years the world had slowly changed. Everyone in these parts had come to hear of the forkbeard who hadn’t gone home. Maybe he even had friends now, but for Valaric time had healed nothing. Gallow wasn’t welcome. None of them were.

  ‘There.’

  Among the trees in the shade Valaric saw the shapes of more horses. A dozen maybe, one for each of them to ride and a few spare. Good coin if they could get to a place where they could sell them. Changed things, that did. Not so much chance of a squabble over the spoils. The battle was going to give him a decent purse after all – which wasn’t why he’d come to fight it, but a man still had to live.

  Gallow pressed ahead through the trees to the horses, his hand staying close to his axe. He moved quickly but with cautious feet. Valaric let him
go ahead while he tied up the first two animals and then ran after him. Couldn’t let a forkbeard take the best of the pickings, but by then Gallow had stopped. When Valaric caught up, he saw why.

  ‘Modris!’ Cursing the old god’s name was the only thing left to do.

  There were bodies everywhere. More horses too, a lot of them with their Vathan riders still slumped on their backs. The bodies on the ground were mostly forkbeards. Valaric took it all in and nodded to the dead. He pointed through the trees, roughly back towards the battlefield. ‘Forkbeards were riding through the forest. The Vathen got ahead of them. They encircled them and took your friends from the front and from behind.’

  Gallow nodded. ‘The Lhosir made a stand rather than run. They dismounted because that’s how we like to fight. Like you, with our feet on the earth. The trees made that work for them. No one ever thought of running. Not our way.’

  ‘The Vathen stayed in their saddles. Maybe that wasn’t so clever of them.’ There were a lot more dead Vathen than forkbeards. One of them had an arrow sticking out of his chest. Valaric saw it and frowned: the forkbeards almost never used bows in battle. Arrows were for hunting or for cowards, but someone had used one here. For once not losing had mattered more than how they fought.

  ‘They were protecting something,’ he whispered.

  Gallow was staring around the corpses of his own people. He nodded. ‘These were the Screambreaker’s men.’ He walked slowly among them, axe drawn, eyes darting back and forth among the shadows.

  ‘A pretty sight. Forkbeards and Vathen killing each other. My heart soars.’ Valaric didn’t feel it though, not here. He’d told himself that he and Gallow were enemies from the moment they’d met, reminded himself that one day they might face each other in a different way, iron and steel edges drawn to the death. He hadn’t bothered much about that though, because they both had to live through the Vathen first for that to ever happen, and Valaric had been in enough battles to know when victory lay with the enemy. The Marroc were mostly too stupid and too fresh to fighting to see it, but the forkbeards must have known too, yet they’d faced the enemy anyway. They’d stood and held their shields and their spears and roared their cries of battle. ‘Is he here then, your general?’