The Crimson Shield

by Nathan Hawke

  ‘Don’t look at the light,’ growled Jyrdas. When they reached the pool of black beneath the bridge, he pointed to where the shadows were deepest. ‘That way. Keep in the darkness.’

  A half-moon shone high up in the sky. A fresh wind chased heavy rags of black cloud across the stars. A good wind for blowing them back across the sea to Andhun. They paused, waiting for the next cloud to darken the sky. The men up on the cliff had taken to singing bawdy songs, the words changed a little to give some needle to the islanders. Gallow knew these songs, knew their words. Not long ago he’d almost have wept with joy to hear them. Now they only made him sad. Truth was, he didn’t belong any more, not here, not anywhere.

  He touched the locket at his breast. Crazy stupid woman, pig-headed and bloody-minded. But his, and he missed her.

  The moon slid behind ragged black shadow. Gallow crept out among the waves, clinging to the rocks. When the moon came out again, they stopped where they were, hugging barnacles and seaweed, heads down, sackcloth wrapped over their helms and the surf breaking over their heads. The sea tossed and churned, clawing and tearing, did everything it could to rip Gallow away and suck him under. The water came suddenly up over his head and into his nose and his mouth to make him choke and then fell away again. Wave after wave, but they all three held fast, and at last a new cloud covered the moon once more. Beside him, One-Eye growled.

  ‘Waves looked smaller from up top.’

  ‘It’s not deep, One-Eye. Calm day, even Loudmouth could walk straight across without getting his hair wet.’

  ‘And if we had the time to wait for one of those then I’m sure that thought would cheer me greatly. First wave hits you, it’s going to knock you flat and you’ll sink like a stone. Keep your lungs full and your legs underneath you, and when you feel something hard under your feet, kick and kick hard. Bit a bit of luck it might be Loudmouth.’ He bared his teeth and chuckled. ‘True enough, it’s not that deep and it’s not that far. You keep telling yourself that. I’d have roped us up, but I reckon chances are good that one of you is going to drown and I don’t want the dead weight tugging on me. Go on then, Gallow. Show us how it’s done.’

  Gallow waited for the ebb and launched himself into the foaming water for the next boulder to break the surface. He took one step and his ankle turned. The next wave came, smashing him back against the stone he’d let go. He kicked again, pushing against it, took two steps before another wave bowled him over. The weight of his mail sucked him down at once and he couldn’t help but kick and thrash as the water covered him. Another wave sent him spinning. His feet touched stone; he pushed hard against it and broke the surface gasping. The ebb picked him up and threw him a yard further and then dashed him against the next slab of rock, thumping his head and shoulder against it, the barnacles shredding the sackcloth away from his helm. His fingers turned to claws, gripping at the stone, his feet scrabbling and slipping on seaweed then finally finding purchase, heaving him up until his head was out of the water and he could breathe again.

  The next wave broke over him and almost knocked him loose. It smothered him. He felt his helm slip but he didn’t dare let go with either hand. As it fell, he snapped his head around and caught the noseguard between his teeth, cracking one and slashing his lip. Blood and the sea mixed their salts in his mouth. He pulled himself tighter to the boulder and hauled himself round the other side where the crash of the waves kept him pressed in place and he could put his helm back where it belonged.

  He looked up. The moon was still hidden behind her shrouds. He knew where Tolvis and Jyrdas had been but they were lost now, swallowed by the darkness and the battering of the waves and perhaps by the sea herself.

  Maker-Devourer preserve us! Lhosir weren’t much for prayers because the Maker-Devourer wasn’t much for answering them. Another gulf that lay between him and the Marroc, what with Modris the Protector and all their other gods. They believed in guiding hands and greater purposes, but the Maker-Devourer offered none of that. Each man had his own fate and each man followed it to his doom, and that’s all there was.

  The next wave was a big one. He didn’t see it coming until it broke over him hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs and shake him loose, and then the ebb came after and pulled him off and he was sinking, everything icy and black. He thrashed wildly but found no purchase. Tried to kick towards the next stone but the swirl of the water had turned him around and he had no idea where it was. Salt and icy cold crept into his nose, making him gag. He still had the taste of blood in his mouth, and then the next wave caught him and dashed his head against stone hard enough to make him see stars. He grabbed at it but the ebb pulled him away and sucked him under once more, bouncing him across the stones under the water. Try as he might, he couldn’t get his feet underneath him. He envied the Marroc for a moment, for their gods. At least if he’d believed in Modris and Diaran and the Weeping God then he could have had a last moment of hope. Wouldn’t have made any difference to him drowning, but he could have hoped.

  His hand caught something. Too soft for a rock. It felt like . . .

  Sacking. With mail underneath!

  He clutched at it, swung his other hand towards it, all in the pitch-black heaving water, lungs burning now, and then another hand grasped his and was hauling him up, and at last he got his feet down to push against the bottom. He broke the surface and took a great gasp of air. Tolvis! He’d found Tolvis and they were right under the bridge, almost at the other side. They waited together for the next cloud and then launched themselves one after the other across the last foam-filled gap of water. It was easier with two. Tolvis went first and Gallow half threw him across; and then when he was on the other side, Gallow followed and Tolvis was waiting to pull him in. With a grinding effort they dragged themselves up the stones and out of the water and clung to the tumbled rocks at the foot of the rauk beneath the bridge, every limb as heavy as lead, slowly remembering how to breathe. Tolvis had somehow lost his sword. Gallow, when he thought to check, found he’d lost his helm again. At least they were under the bridge where the watchers on the wall couldn’t see them.

  ‘Right under the gate.’ In the light of the stars Tolvis’s eyes glittered. He patted Gallow’s head. ‘And you’re right. Calm day, I could have walked right across without even getting my hair wet.’

  They waited another minute and Gallow was beginning to think it would be just the two of them when Jyrdas finally clawed his way out of the water. His helmet was twisted around so he could barely see with his one eye.

  ‘Maker-Devourer’s bollocks!’ he spat, sitting on the stone beside them. ‘I’ve come out the wrong end of battles easier than that. Wish I’d gone with Medrin’s plan now.’ He looked up at the cliff above them. ‘Ah crap!’

  ‘You can always go back,’ panted Tolvis.

  ‘Only if I can make a boat out of your bones, both of you. Mostly yours, Truesword.’ Truesword. First time Jyrdas had called him that.

  ‘Can’t have been that bad with so much talk still in you,’ said Tolvis.

  Jyrdas straightened his helm and bared his teeth at Gallow. ‘Go on then. Show us the way up. I’ll be as ready as it gets for splitting heads by the time we’re up there.’

  Gallow made his way along the side of the cliff. He went slowly, each movement as smooth as it could be. Peppered with ledges and crevices, it wasn’t as hard as it had looked from across the water, even in mail and with a sword on his belt. Up by the bridge Medrin’s men were still singing their songs and shouting their taunts and insults while their fire burned brightly, and no one saw the three Lhosir as they traversed the cliff to the far end of the rauk and began to climb. Once they were above the water the stone was dry, even if it crumbled in places under Gallow’s fingers and clumps of grass came away in his hand.

  The monastery wall rose straight up from the the cliff. It was an old wall, the stones large and ill-fitting, the mortar between them crumbling and badly eroded. Gallow pulled a dirk from his belt and held i
t between his teeth. Where the cracks were too narrow for his fingers, he took it and widened them; where he couldn’t do that, he forced the dirk itself deep into the crack until it would take his weight. His feet found what purchase they could. The wall wasn’t tall, and he thanked the Maker-Devourer for that.

  There were no sentries on the back wall and he thanked the Maker-Devourer for that too. Once he was over he wrapped the end of his rope around his waist, braced himself and tugged. On the other end, Jyrdas tugged back. He came up fast, jumping over the top of the wall and landing with the grace of a man half his age, sword already out and gleaming in the moonlight. Tolvis followed, and there they were, the three of them in an empty darkness. The walls curved around to each side of them, following the shape of the rauk. From the outside they’d looked taller than they were. Two small towers rose from the walls, each with a sentry on top. The walls and the towers wrapped the space around the monastery itself, a stone longhouse with a steep leaded roof and that was all. Small and shabby. Gallow had expected something grander.

  The sentries on the towers and on the walls were all looking towards the bridge. So far the three Lhosir hadn’t been seen.

  ‘Right then.’ Tolvis squinted across the yard. ‘That was so easy that One-Eye here might possibly still be asleep.’ He frowned. Close by stood a pile of wood, a beacon carefully prepared and ready to be lit. ‘So now what? One-Eye shakes the ground with one of his farts and then while the islanders are screaming in horror and choking to death, you and I see if we can hold our breath long enough to get the gates open? Either of you got any idea how many people are actually in this place? Not that I suppose you care, eh?’

  Jyrdas grabbed him round the throat and snarled, ‘The sentries, piss-pot boy. We cut their scrawny necks.’

  ‘Really?’ Tolvis blinked as Jyrdas let him go. ‘Well, I suppose. If you say so, but I thought my way sounded easier. Painful as it is to say, One-Eye, but after sharing a ship with you, I think you underestimate your prowess.’

  26

  LOYALTY

  Gallow pulled them apart. Jyrdas took his axe off his belt and hefted it. He aimed at the sentry on the closer tower. Gallow caught his wrist. ‘Even the Screambreaker couldn’t fell a man from this distance, One-Eye.’

  ‘In my prime I would have split his skull.’

  ‘In your prime you had more eyes!’ hissed Tolvis.

  Jyrdas glowered, but he lowered the axe and crept toward the tower instead. Gallow watched him go and then turned his eyes to the one on the other side of the rauk. With Tolvis close behind, he sidled along the wall until he could see the gates past the dark bulk of the monastery. Torches lit the yard around them and he could see men moving there, maybe a dozen or so split between the yard and the walls. The shouting had died down, as though the Lhosir outside had given up and gone to their beds.

  When he pushed gently at the tower door it swung open onto a spiral stair. Gallow climbed in silence to a small round room, empty except for a handful of crossbows hung from pegs and a ladder to the roof. He put a finger to his lips and handed Tolvis the sword and axe from his belt, then inched up the ladder until the cool sea breeze touched his head and his eyes emerged back into the night. The sentry was looking the other way and Gallow didn’t hesitate: he grabbed the islander’s ankles and pulled hard, falling down the ladder and into the guardroom and taking the sentry with him. The islander let out a squawk. His arms flew out as the rest of him flew back, his face smacked into the stone roof, he fell down the ladder and the back of his head hit the floor below. He might have been dead from that, but in case he wasn’t, Tolvis jumped on him and twisted his neck until it snapped.

  Gallow climbed up again. From the tower roof he could see the gates clearly, the bridge and Medrin’s bonfire dying slowly. There was no gatehouse, just the two squat stone columns that held the gates. The gates themselves were barred, the sort of bars that would take two men to lift. And he was right: there were a dozen or so men in the yard and on the battlements, too many for even Jyrdas to hold at bay while he and Tolvis opened the way for Medrin and the others.

  He went back down and took a crossbow. ‘What we need is Gorrin or Durlak.’ They were a Marroc thing, crossbows, brought across the mountains by Aulian traders before they’d vanished when their empire collapsed. The Screambreaker had looked down his nose at anyone who tried to learn the use of one; Medrin doubtless saw them differently.

  Tolvis spat. ‘Nioingr weapons.’ Arrows were bad enough.

  On the south side Jyrdas had silenced the other sentry. They watched across the darkness, waiting until they saw him slipping back along the wall. Tolvis’s lips twitched. ‘I hate to say this and he surely wouldn’t thank me for mentioning it, but One-Eye was quite a good shot with one of these once. Back when he had both eyes.’

  Jyrdas climbed up through the tower. His eye gleamed at Gallow in the starlight. ‘Managed to keep Loudmouth quiet enough not to give yourselves away, eh? That must be a first. So, here’s what I say: stuff Twelvefingers. Half the islanders are out at the gate and the other half must be asleep. I say we slip into the monastery and find their shield and slip out again and murder anyone who opens an eye to our passing.’

  Gallow thrust a crossbow into One-Eye’s hands and picked up the fallen sentry’s shield and helm. They made him feel whole again. ‘We open the gates,’ he said. ‘That’s what we came to do.’

  Jyrdas gave him a long hard look, then shrugged and nodded. He looked past Gallow at the crossbows still hanging on the wall. ‘All right then. So we load them all up. You and I get as close as we can. Loudmouth stands at the top of the tower and starts shooting. When they all start running around like frightened chickens, we throw the gates open. Anyone comes after us, Loudmouth does for them.’

  ‘Which is fine enough,’ agreed Tolvis, ‘except I can’t hit a barn door with one of these things.’ He winked at Gallow. ‘Mind you, I have got two eyes, so at least when I shoot at something there’s a chance of the arrow at least going in the right sort of direction. So yes, probably best I take them.’

  ‘Give me those!’ Jyrdas pushed past Gallow into the tower and started cocking the crossbows. Gallow and Tolvis slipped out into the darkness of the yard. They hugged the wall, keeping in its shadows. The half-moon was heading towards the horizon now but the clouds were breaking apart and the stars were many.

  ‘Knowing that I’m about to trust my life to a one-eyed archer, I think I’d rather have gone with Twelvefingers’ plan too.’ Tolvis still had Gallow’s sword. Gallow loosened his axe. A small bonfire burned in the middle of the yard behind the gates. A cauldron hung over it and Gallow caught a whiff of boiling pitch.

  ‘A javelin or two would be nice.’ Gallow counted the islanders again. Four down in the yard, two of them tending the fire, the other two by the gate pacing back and forth and looking bored. Eight or nine up on the battlements, but there were wooden steps down from either side of the gates and the men up there would be down them quick enough when the fighting started. He wondered whether he and Tolvis could simply walk out into the yard and how far they’d get before anyone realised they were Lhosir. Gallow had a sentry’s helm and shield. It was dark. They’d know Tolvis for what he was as soon as they saw his forked beard, but they wouldn’t know him. Not until he spoke. Which just might be enough. He risked a glance back at Jyrdas’s tower. ‘Your one eye had better be a good one,’ he muttered. And then to Tolvis, ‘Stay here and follow my lead.’

  He walked out into the open towards the flames in the middle of the yard and the two men beside the fire. They glanced at him as he came up to them, but it took a moment for the nearest to realise that under the helm was someone he didn’t know.

  ‘Reidas?’

  Gallow picked up a burning brand from the fire. He nodded and grunted and shrugged.

  ‘Reidas?’ The islander was reaching for his sword. The other one had turned and cocked his head, trying to understand what was going on. Then a crossbow bolt hit
him in the chest. He staggered back with a grunt and fell. ‘Luonatta!’ shouted the man in front of Gallow. ‘They’re inside!’ He drew his sword but too late: Gallow gave the cauldron over the fire a mighty kick towards the nearer steps up to the battlements. The cauldron wobbled and toppled. Burning hot pitch spewed across the yard and he threw the burning brand into it. Flames jumped across the stones as he ran for the other stairs. The islander who’d sounded the alarm came after him with his sword and then stopped short and slumped, another crossbow bolt in his back. Gallow raced to the steps. He whipped his axe from his belt and swung at them. The two soldiers by the gates saw him too late. His axe split one of the wooden supports clean in two and a solid kick brought the whole lot crashing down.

  ‘Maker-Devourer!’ he yelled. Two on two in the yard, now that was better. The islanders on the battlements now either had to jump down with their mail and shields or walk through fire. Enough to slow them and Jyrdas would be shooting at them. He bellowed and ran at the nearest gate guard, hooking the man’s shield with his axe and then slicing at his neck. The islander jumped out of the way and straight into his fellow, tripping him up, and then Tolvis was there to split the man’s skull while Gallow stamped on the second soldier’s arm, snapping it. His axe finished the job, smashed into the man’s face.

  Tolvis looked at the axe in his hand and held it up to the moonlight. ‘Nice edge you keep on this,’ he said. ‘Six Vathen was it?’ They ran to the gate. Someone on the battlement screamed and fell. Gallow remembered six crossbows hanging in the sentry tower. The first three had all counted and the other three had to count too. For a moment, though, they were the only ones alive beside the gate. The smoke from the burning pitch swirled around them, choking. Three bars held the gates closed. They reached for the top one.