The Crimson Shield

by Nathan Hawke

  The Screambreaker nodded slowly. Medrin felt the old man’s eyes watching him hard. ‘They thought it made them invincible.’ He laughed. ‘Turned out it didn’t. Don’t think they ever got over that.’

  ‘You remember what happened to it?’

  The Screambreaker’s eyes blazed. ‘I know very well indeed what happened to it. My brother the Moontongue happened to it, and good riddance to both of them.’

  ‘I mean before.’

  ‘Before? You mean when the Fateguard sailed out of Nardjas for no discernible reason and demanded I hand it over. Yes, I remember that too.’

  ‘And you gave it to them.’

  The Screambreaker shrugged. ‘A shield’s a shield. I let them have it.’

  Medrin grinned. ‘I mean in between. You were still here, banging Marroc heads together.’ His lips pinched to a smile as the old bitterness crept up inside for a moment and every word was a razor between them. He shook it away and looked hard at the Screambreaker. ‘Everyone knows about what happened with Moontongue, but this was before. Before they sent it off to Brek. Beyard Ironshoe tried to steal it too, or so they said. I don’t suppose the name means anything to you. The Fateguard always said he’d had an accomplice or two, but Ironshoe never told them who. There were whispers that Gallow was one of them. The two of them were friends.’ He cocked his head. ‘Whispers were enough to ruin his family though. The Fateguard took Ironshoe and no one ever saw him again. Killed him, I suppose. I wasn’t pleased. Ironshoe was a friend, a good one.’ He cocked his head. ‘What was it like, the shield?’

  He’d managed to take the Screambreaker off guard. Corvin frowned as if trying to remember. ‘Big. Red. Heavy. Round.’ He shrugged. ‘The Marroc reckoned it was unbreakable so we had a go at it with some axes. Didn’t scratch it. Wasn’t too sorry to see it go after that, but in the end it was just a shield. A red one.’

  ‘A shield that doesn’t break. I was thinking we should try and get it back.’

  The Screambreaker’s face soured. ‘Yes, I heard you’ve been looking. Ever since One-Eye came back with his daft stories. Why? Why not let it lie? It never did any good for anyone.’

  ‘The Marroc still believe it’s the shield of their god Modris, don’t they? They’d follow it, Screambreaker.’

  ‘It’s just a shield, Medrin.’ The Screambreaker snorted. ‘The Fateguard weren’t happy when I took it from Sithhun. I doubt they’d look well on you following my example. Why in the name of the Maker-Devourer would you want to cross them?’

  ‘Because the Marroc would believe. The Vathen have their sword. Let the sheep have their relic too.’ For a moment the venom and the anger that Medrin Twelvefingers had spent the last dozen years trying to hide spilled through. He hissed, ‘And if it’s just a shield then why do the Fateguard care? I tell you, if they demand the Vathan sword, I’ll give them the sharp end! ‘He raised an eyebrow, catching himself. A moment to find his calm again. ‘Just a shield that an axe can’t mark, eh?’ He smiled as the Screambreaker scowled. Lhosir were ferocious enough in battle, but wave a touch of supernatural under their noses and everything changed. ‘At the least I was hoping it might give the Marroc some spirit.’

  Corvin nodded slowly. ‘It just might do that.’

  ‘We’ll take it away again after the Vathen are defeated. Let the Eyes of Time and the Fateguard have it back if they want it so much.’ He bared his teeth. ‘I’ll take it to them myself.’

  ‘So were One-Eye’s stories true then? Does he know really where it is? I thought it went to the bottom of the sea and the Moontongue with it. A good place for both if you ask me.’

  ‘It did.’ Medrin laughed and shook his head. ‘You know the story as well as anyone. Wouldn’t surprise me if you’d even been there. Blood being thicker than water as it is.’ He paused and waved a finger, revelling in the cloud of anger on Corvin’s face. The Screambreaker looked ready to smash something. Then he let out a long breath.

  ‘Tread carefully, Twelvefingers. I know the same as the rest of you. Moontongue stole it from the Fateguard on Brek. Some Marroc paid him to do it and then they killed him. The Moontongue’s men got to hear of it, caught them and sent them to the bottom. Drowned the lot, shield and all. Years later, One-Eye comes back with his stories that the shield has washed up on one of the western isles. So what more do you know?’

  ‘I know that One-Eye was right. It’s spent the last years in a monastery on Gavis.’

  ‘One-Eye!’ The Screambreaker snorted a laugh and shook his head, and for a moment all the tension between them was gone. ‘I suppose you want me to get it for you?’ There was an eager gleam in the Screambreaker’s eye. Up against the monks of Luonatta, relishing it already. Medrin shook his head.

  ‘You’re the Nightmare of the North. The Widowmaker. I want you here where the Marroc can see you. I know you don’t like all my ravens – I saw that look on your face from the moment you came in. Well, deal with Andhun your way then. However suits you. It’ll probably go down better than mine. I’ll get the shield myself.’

  ‘And if the Vathen come while you’re gone?’

  ‘You’ll stay in Andhun behind the walls and wait for me.’ He could see how much the Screambreaker didn’t like that, even more than being left behind in the first place. ‘We’ll need some Marroc legions to fight beside us when the time comes. Archers to counter their riders. You won’t have them ready before I get back with the shield.’

  The Screambreaker growled. ‘Two thousand Lhosir broke ten times that many Marroc. We’ll break the Vathen too.’

  Medrin smiled. ‘You can go now, Screambreaker. It’s good to have you back.’ He paused as a last thought crossed his mind. ‘Gallow. What’s he like these days?’

  ‘He’s cut his beard off, but he’s still one of us.’

  ‘When you go down you’ll find Loudmouth still skulking in the yard, I expect. Tell him to go after Gallow and get him back here. If the whispers about him and Beyard Ironshoe were true, perhaps he’d like to finally see it. Make sure they both understand their prince commands it.’

  He watched the Screambreaker go. Gallow. Of course he remembered. How could he not?

  THE TEMPLE OF LUONATTA

  17

  AN EXCHANGE OF GIFTS

  Gallow rode slowly out through the gates of Andhun. The dead Vathan heads watched him go while the bored Lhosir guards gave him sour looks. A Lhosir with no beard, dressed as a Marroc, riding a Vathan horse and leading four others. He must look strange. He felt a freedom though, unexpected and unsought, and also a sadness. A part of him wanted to stay. He’d tasted what it felt like to be among his own people again and now he yearned for them, for their strength and their simplicity. The Vathen were coming. The surge of battle, the fire inside, yes, he remembered all that, all buried and half forgotten, boxed away because he had a new life now where such things had no value, but not gone, and now he wanted it back; and he might have stayed if it hadn’t been for all the dead Vathen and Marroc, gazing down at him with their blind empty eyes. Another week, maybe two, maybe three before the Vathan host came. Varyxhun could have waited that long. Right now he still didn’t want to go back. For nine years Arda had been a good wife, strong-boned and strong-willed, not like the other Marroc. Now she’d betrayed him to his enemies. There was no forgiveness for that. Across the sea he would have killed them both, would have had no choice about it. Fenaric with a sword, Arda by cutting off her hair and strangling her with it.

  He laughed at himself. Strangle her? The idea was absurd. He patted the Vathan horse he rode on the neck. ‘Maybe I should stay, eh, horse?’ There were a hundred and one reasons why he shouldn’t strangle her, but they were all by the by really, since he’d open his own throat first. Love didn’t have much place in a marriage, Marroc, Lhosir or any other, but sometimes it came anyway in the most unlikely places. A mutual desire that sustained, never expected and never sought, but there nonetheless.

  Stupid doubts – they had no place in a Lhosir. An
d he still didn’t know what to do about her, because there really was no forgiveness for what she’d done. That lecherous nioingr of a carter, now he needed to be punished. Killing him would be too much for the Marroc. Send him away and take his wagon? Arda would shout and beat her fists but she’d see that he was right, wouldn’t she?

  Wouldn’t she?

  No, she probably wouldn’t.

  ‘Gallow! Gallow Truesword!’

  Maker-Devourer! He hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going, just aimlessly following the way he’d come. And Truesword? No one except the Screambreaker had called him that for years. He stopped and looked back, and there was Tolvis Loudmouth, slowing to a trot. He looked angry.

  ‘Well then, bare-beard. Seems you’re not going off to Varyxhun after all. Seems I’m to bring you back to Prince Medrin. So turn your horse around again, eh, clean-skin.’

  There were ways of asking a man to do a thing, and then there were ways of asking a man to break your face for you. Gallow turned his horse. His hand fell off the reins. ‘But Loudmouth, if I’d wanted to see Medrin, I’d have stayed in Andhun and seen him, wouldn’t I?’

  Tolvis bared his teeth. ‘Well I certainly shan’t be going back to Andhun on my own to tell him you said that. Our prince commands us. Both of us.’

  Gallow shrugged. ‘Not my prince. I turned my back on him years ago.’

  ‘And took off your wolf pelt and dressed up as a sheep, but the Screambreaker says you’re still a wolf underneath that fleece.’ Tolvis grinned. ‘Me? I’m not so sure. But either way, Yurlak is king of the Marroc too nowadays, or had you forgotten? So Medrin is your prince after all, and I don’t give a goose whether you like that or not, and he wants you back in Andhun, and so now that’s where you’re going.’

  ‘If that’s what he wants then he can come and tell me himself.’

  ‘Another thing I won’t be going back to tell him. Are you coming with me freely, sheep-lover, or do I have to carry you over my shoulder like some old woman?’

  With careful, almost bored movements, Gallow leaned forward. He swung his leg over the saddle and jumped to the ground. ‘I was wondering which road to take. Me and my horse were having a good long talk about it, whether Varyxhun was the right place to be heading, back when the road was pleasant and peaceful. Now there’s a bad smell in the air that seems to have set my mind for me. Can’t put my finger on it but I think I’d like to be on my way. Since you ask so kindly, I’m going to Varyxhun, Tolvis Loudmouth. You have anything to say about that, I’ll happily put you right.’

  ‘Oh ho! I’m definitely sure you said Andhun.’ Tolvis dismounted and pulled his axe from his belt. He gave it a few practice swings. ‘This looks like it’ll be some fun, eh? Twelvefingers wasn’t clear about how many pieces he wanted, but I’ll try not to break anything. I know how fragile you sheep lovers are.’

  ‘Varyxhun.’ Gallow drew his sword and settled his shield. It felt strange to face down another Lhosir again after so many years. But comfortable.

  Tolvis glanced at the sword and shook his head. ‘I’m not so sure the old Screambreaker’s right about you at all.’

  Gallow swung his arms back and forth, loosening his shoulders. ‘I use the axe for killing, Loudmouth. There’s six Vathan corpses between here and Fedderhun can testify to that.’ Now he gave the sword a few twirls. ‘Mostly I use this for spanking my boys when they’ve been naughty. Mind you, they’re only little. Shall we talk some more about kings and how little I care for them, or shall I spank you too?’

  Tolvis let out a howl and ran at Gallow, shield first. Gallow met his charge, springing forward at the last moment before they collided. Both of them staggered away. Tolvis swung his axe at Gallow’s head, the blade passing a few inches from his nose.

  ‘You hit like my wife,’ said Gallow. They circled each other now, half crouched and hidden behind their shields, eyes peering over the top.

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard which one of you carries the axe in your house, Gallow Cripplecock.’

  Tolvis danced closer and rained a flurry of blows on Gallow’s shield, easily blocked. Gallow lunged once, poking Tolvis hard in the side. Tolvis’s hauberk turned the point but Gallow saw him wince. ‘Nasty bruise you’ll have there.’ They jumped apart. ‘You can stop if it hurts too much. Take your time. Catch your breath if you need to.’

  ‘Filthy Marroc!’ Tolvis charged again, the way Lhosir often fought one another, trading shield blows until one of them was dazed enough for a swing of the axe to finish the fight. Gallow met him hard. The shock of the impact jolted his arm all the way to the shoulder and they stumbled apart. Gallow jumped right back at Tolvis, thumping shield against shield, pulled back and battered at him again. Tolvis took two steps back and now Gallow leaped once more, smashing the two of them together for a third time and pushing with all his strength, poking his sword over Tolvis’s shield, stabbing at Loudmouth’s face and driving him back. He gave one great heave and Tolvis staggered and almost lost his balance. For a moment his shield swung away from his body as he tried to catch himself. Gallow lunged again, a huge blow that caught Tolvis in the chest and knocked him down. He reversed his sword, ready to drive it down into Tolvis’s face like a knife, and then stopped. The fire in his belly still burned but he didn’t really want to kill this man.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Andhun.’ Varyxhun could wait. ‘Was settling on staying to fight the Vathen anyway before you showed up. I make no promises when it comes to Medrin though.’ He stabbed his sword back into its scabbard and offered Tolvis his hand. ‘When I said you hit like my wife, I suppose I should tell you she’s a giantess who fells trees with a flick of her fingers.’

  Tolvis stayed where he was for a moment. The surprise on his face turned into a deep frown. He dropped his axe, took Gallow’s hand and let Gallow haul him back to his feet. ‘And when I said she carried your axe, I think I clearly meant she brings it for you when you go to fight your enemies.’ He looked Gallow up and down. ‘I may simply have been mistaken about you being filthy.’

  ‘No, that was fair.’ Gallow grinned. ‘I’ve travelled a long way in these clothes. They are filthy.’ He bent down and picked up Tolvis’s axe and offered it back, haft first.

  ‘Yours,’ Tolvis wrinkled his nose. ‘You won it fairly.’ He was breathing hard, still bemused he was alive. Gallow looked at the axe. It was a decent piece, similar to his own and no small thing to give away.

  ‘That’s a fine axe and a fine gift then. I wish I had something that was its equal to give.’ He pulled his own axe from its loop on his belt and slid Tolvis’s in its place. Then he held out his own. ‘Suppose I won’t be needing this one any more. It’s Marroc made but it has the blood of six Vathen on it.’

  Tolvis stared at Gallow as if trying to read his mind. ‘I can’t take a gift from you, Truesword. I’d like to, but I can’t.’ He shook his head.

  Gallow shrugged. ‘I have enough things hanging off my belt. Anything more would be uncomfortable. You can carry it for me, if you prefer.’

  Tolvis took a deep breath and puffed his cheeks. He took the axe. ‘All right then.’

  ‘Do you know what Medrin wants?’

  ‘Not really. The Screambreaker said I should bring you back. Said something about there being something you needed to hear.’ He spat. ‘I know Medrin wants to go off looking for the Crimson Shield of Modris. Maybe it’s something to do with that.’

  Gallow laughed. ‘Well now, if you’d said all that at the start, we’d be halfway back by now.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have been half as much fun though, now would it?’ Tolvis laughed too, then shook his head and looked Gallow over. ‘Gallow Truesword eh? I remember him. You I’m not so sure. Are you one of us or not?’

  Gallow shrugged. ‘I suppose I’m a bit of both.’

  18

  THE OTHER JONNIC

  Some days it seemed that every other Marroc in Andhun was called Jonnic. The harbour was full of them. There was Angry Jonnic and Laughing J
onnic and Fat Jonnic and Thin Jonnic and about a dozen others. Now and then Grumpy Jonnic wished he’d been bald or red-headed or something else more obvious, but fate had endowed him with a dour demeanour and an unremarkable unkempt appearance, and so Grumpy Jonnic he was, like it or not. It was little consolation that he was right about how often things turned out worse than they looked. The Vathan horde drawing the forkbeards back from across the sea, there was a thing. He’d seen that coming clear as the sun, and now here they were. He did his best to avoid them but it wasn’t always so easy.

  ‘Well?’

  Valaric sat across the table. He had more scars than Jonnic remembered, most of them on the inside. The men with him were the Marroc soldiers from Lostring Hill. Years ago they’d all fought the forkbeards together and lost. Jonnic reckoned you got a sixth sense for that sort of thing. They ought to have been friends, but something about them unsettled him. And then the Vathen had come.

  He took a deep swig of ale and glared at the other two Jonnics beside Valaric, Angry and Silent. ‘There’s a lot of them. Two thousand or so and more coming every day. They’re eating everything and drinking the place dry.’ He spat on the floor. ‘This lot are demon-whores, that’s for sure. With the demon himself living in our whore of a duke’s keep.’

  ‘Turns out the Widowmaker didn’t die at Lostring Hill after all, and never mind what—’

  ‘You think that’s news here?’ Jonnic hawked up a gob of phlegm. ‘You’re getting slow, Valaric. The Widowmaker came through the gates this afternoon.’

  The look Valaric gave him after that was odd. Shifty, maybe. Troubled. ‘The Vathen are looking for him,’ he said after a bit. ‘I was wondering whether to help them, or whether that was a bad idea. What’s this Medrin like?’