by Nathan Hawke
It occurred to Valaric, as they sailed their little boat through the twilight sea and back into the harbour of Andhun, that the Nightmare of the North might be kinder to his people than some Vathan ardshan. Yet he’d take a Vathan anything over the demon-prince. Anything was better than that.
‘We have to make sure he doesn’t,’ he said, after such a long pause that no one knew what he was talking about any more.
‘We make our stand now,’ said Sarvic. ‘Doesn’t matter who won. Never did. We keep them out until they go home.’
It wasn’t a stupid idea either. When the forkbeards had first come across the sea there were good reasons why Andhun had been the last city to fall. ‘Good luck telling that to the duke.’
Sarvic gave him a look as though he was mad. ‘Me? You have to tell him! You have to make him keep them closed!’
‘I’m an old soldier who fought the forkbeards and lost his family to old man winter for his pains.’ Valaric spat into the sea. ‘He’s not going to listen to me.’
‘If he won’t, others will. People know you! They will listen to you.’
‘And what would you have us do, Sarvic? Seize the gates and hold them closed? Fight among ourselves while the forkbeards laugh at us? I’ll not do that. I’ll not lift a blade against another Marroc. Might as well throw myself in the sea.’
‘So you’re just going to do nothing?’
No. Couldn’t do that either, but what else was there but to take the gates and hold them shut? Words, maybe? A silver tongue might caress the duke around to his way of thinking, but Valaric was never that. Hard rusty old iron, more like, and besides, he’d never get close enough to even try.
He didn’t sleep well that night. Every time he closed his eyes the shadows filled with old faces. Men he’d fought beside in the early days. Friends, killed, one after the other by the faceless forkbeard terror. And then forkbeards too, the ones he’d killed in the later days when he’d turned from battlefields and taken to hunting them in ones and twos, any who strayed from the pack and Wolf of the Wild Woods had been his name for a time. And when he finally pushed all the faces away, what he saw was the slight hump of broken earth, already covered with grass, where his family had been buried. All of them together, because the savagery of that winter hadn’t left those who’d survived with enough strength to dig separate graves for so many dead.
Forkbeard bastards.
Snow and starvation and the curse of an Aulian shadewalker, but he could have done something about any and all of those things if he’d been there. Could have hunted for them. Could have found more food. Could have taken them away to another place. Somehow. Something. He didn’t know what but he would never have let them die.
The forkbeards hadn’t killed them though. It was his fault and his alone. His choice. No getting away from it.
Sarvic was right. The gates should stay closed. The duke was right too. He’d made a promise to open them and promises should be honoured. Who was wrong then? Who’d be wrong when the forkbeards came back inside the walls and wreaked their revenge for what he’d done when the demon-prince had come with the Crimson Shield in his hand? Him, that was who. He’d tried to take the shield and he’d failed, and now it didn’t matter who led the forkbeards when they came, they’d want blood for that.
Stupid. Stupid to fail. Stupid to even try, and Gallow’s words chased him like hounds after a fox. If you’d had even one man like him in this city, Medrin would be dead and you’d be standing in front of me holding your precious shield. You know you’ve just brought doom on the whole of Andhun, don’t you? And he had, and Gallow was right, and all the other forkbeards too, and the Marroc were just frightened sheep and you couldn’t rouse a sheep to be a wolf, whatever you said to him.
He gave up on sleeping and wandered the streets for a while in the dark, until he came to the city gates and stopped where the rows of gibbets had been.
Maybe there was a way after all.
And Tolvis Loudmouth watched the battle at its end too, when the Vathen had finally hurled themselves in one last madness at the Screambreaker’s line. The fighting was over for him by then. Of the dozen men he’d taken into the woods, four were dead. Too few to stand in a wall of shields and spears against the Vathan horsemen who tried to come around the edge of the battle, they’d strung ropes between trees, dug trenches and set spikes in the ground. They’d thrown javelins and led the horsemen into one trap or another and then fallen upon them. A tiny skirmish when set against the battle as a whole, a hundred or so Vathen held and turned away, maybe a dozen killed and as many again wounded. A small victory. Perhaps it played some part in the greater one or perhaps not, but it would be quickly forgotten either way. But then the Screambreaker hadn’t sent them to that wood to turn the battle, he’d sent them there for what would come after and they all knew that too. In the darkness of the Lhosir victory they slipped back into the camp, in among the tents, looking for the men they knew, faces they called friends. The old soldiers who’d fought at the Screambreaker’s side long ago. The Screambreaker’s men. They took the words he’d whispered to them and passed them along to any who would listen and quietly they gathered themselves. In the morning they spoke out his deeds, one after the other for the wind and the sun to carry away across the land and his name passed among the Lhosir like fire across a stubble field. A thousand men had seen him fell the Vathan giant. They’d seen the Screambreaker take the unholy sword and hold it high, and when they couldn’t find his body in the breaking dawn light it was because the Maker-Devourer himself had come to take it, and so they made another pyre, a dozen men at once, all brothers-in-arms since that first crossing of the sea. The Screambreaker was gone but he’d left them his legend, and they took their time to honour him, even Twelvefingers. When they were done, the Screambreaker’s men turned their faces to Andhun.
41
THE OFFERING
‘I’m not a fool.’ Medrin stared at the little statue of the Maker-Devourer he’d brought with him from across the sea. Outside his tent the sun was rising. ‘I am not a fool,’ he said again. ‘We both know there can be no turning away from this. The Screambreaker would have known though, somehow he would have known which way to face. The Vathen or the Marroc? Which is it to be? I need a sign.’ And for a moment he felt himself missing the old man who just might have been planning to steal his birthright. Missing his certainty, his presence, his assurance.
And then, waiting for him outside his tent, were Horsan and the others to tell him how the Vathen were fleeing in terror, witless and lost without their precious sword, and what was that if it wasn’t a sign? ‘Which isn’t to say they’ll stay that way,’ he said to the statue of the god, ‘but when they turn, we’ll be ready. We’ll destroy them for a second time.’
There were a few Vathan wounded who weren’t dead yet. He saw to it that they were kept alive and set men to cutting wood for gibbets. Scouts rode off through the hills to keep an eye on the Vathan retreat. While they were away the Lhosir stopped what they were doing and honoured the Screambreaker and the dead who’d fallen beside him. He let the old ones do that, Tolvis Loudmouth and the rest. Let them start the pyre and, when the pyre was built, put the bodies of those they most wanted to honour on top and set it alight. He said a few words himself, because he was their prince after all, then let the old ones who’d fought with the Screambreaker against the Marroc finish speaking him out. The pyre was huge and there probably wasn’t a single Lhosir who hadn’t put a piece of something on it. It troubled him a little that they actually couldn’t find the Screambreaker’s body and the foolish whispers that spread like fire when that got out. More than likely the Screambreaker hadn’t been quite dead, had crawled off to breathe his last alone in the night and didn’t want to be spoken out because no one had spoken out his brother the Moontongue down at the bottom of the sea and he’d be damned if he didn’t find his way to the Maker-Devourer’s cauldron on his own too. But Medrin let it pass, let the old ones who’d known
him stay staring at the flames until his scouts came back to tell him what he already knew: camps abandoned, Vathen flooding away, a disordered rabble, thousands and thousands of them. Oh, they’d come together again in time – they were too many to be truly broken – but not today. Today he could let them go.
He turned his army to Andhun then, to the city the Screambreaker had abandoned. The Marroc would keep their gates closed but he was ready for that. He would array his men outside, build his gibbets, hang Vathan after Vathan outside the walls to remind the Marroc who they were dealing with until they finally cracked and let him in. And then . . .
And then? He wasn’t sure. Burn the city down for trying to take the shield from him? Or let them live? What would the Screambreaker do? Both. Somehow he’d find a way to do both.
He’d barely even started, though, when the gates creaked open and a dozen Marroc soldiers carrying the shield of their puppet duke lined the entrance to honour him. A herald cried out from the walls, ‘Duke Zardic of Andhun welcomes Prince Medrin, son of Yurlak, king of the Marroc!’
They weren’t going to keep him out after all.
Fools.
Valaric stood in an alley, hidden in its shadows from the afternoon sun, watching the gates as they opened to let in the demon from over the sea. He wore his sword and his mail and carried a spear in his hand. His shield was propped against the wall beside him. The gates hung open, and for a while Medrin waited where he was, outside the walls, more and more men gathering around him.
Close the gates! Modris, let them see him for what he is! Don’t let him in!
But the gates stayed as they were, and when Medrin at last advanced across the cobbles it was with a hundred men around him and more behind to keep the gateway clear. He entered the city slowly, the Crimson Shield carried close in his hand, tense, held high for all to see. No stones fell from above, no javelins, no arrows. Not yet.
Pity.
Valaric had thought about that. Thought about what one well aimed spear or arrow could do. But if a lone killer struck down the forkbeards’ prince, the reprisals would be terrible. Andhun would burn.
Medrin stopped. He stood in the middle of the square. Marroc watched from the edges, from windows and alleys and side streets. Scores of them. Watching and waiting to see what would happen and doing nothing. And what do I expect of them? They were ordinary folk with no swords, no mail, no weapons to speak of. The only soldiers here were the ones who’d honoured Medrin’s entrance and the duke’s herald who stood on the walls above, head bowed. So where are the rest of you? Kept in your barracks to keep the demon at his ease? Or waiting around the first corner?
A murmur rose from the far side of the square. Valaric stepped out of his alley to see what it was, but it was only the arse-licker pretend-duke Zardic, come with a bare handful of men to fawn over Medrin and hand over his castle again. The demon-prince smirked and raised the Crimson Shield high over his head, turning it slowly so that every Marroc could see. ‘The Shield of Modris the Protector!’ he cried. ‘Returned to you! I, Medrin, have brought it back to the land where it belongs! I, Medrin, have carried it into battle to face your enemies and I, Medrin, have defeated them! The Vathen! Tens of thousands of them! An army so great their numbers would have filled every street in this great city and still spilled through the gates and into the fields beyond! I, Medrin, son of Yurlak, have defeated them and I have done this for you.’ Medrin cast his eyes around the square looking for the challenge, for anyone who would meet his gaze, but no, they all looked away. Even Valaric. Not yet. Not while there’s still a flicker of hope.
The prince laughed. ‘See,’ he said to the man beside him, quite loud enough for even Valaric to hear. ‘They really are sheep.’
The forkbeards laughed. The pretend-duke walked slowly towards the demon-prince, head bowed. The square fell silent. ‘Prince Medrin, son of Yurlak, king of the Marroc, the people of Andhun greet and welc—’
Medrin cut him off. ‘When I came to this city two days ago, the people of Andhun set upon me. A goodly number of bodies attest to this. Marroc mostly, but not all. I’m not interested in your welcome.’ The duke opened his mouth but Twelvefingers waved him away. He pointed into the crowd and singled out two men. ‘Bring those two to me, Duke of Andhun.’
Why are we such cowards? Valaric looked away. He knew what came next. The men would be dragged from the crowd by Marroc soldiers. They’d be flogged, and it would be Marroc hands holding the whips. Marroc arms and Marroc tools would build gibbets and these two men would be torn open and staked to wheels like the Vathen outside the city, hung beside the gates as a lesson to others and not a single forkbeard would even have to raise a hand to do it.
All of a sudden Medrin was shouting into the face of the duke: ‘ . . . until their leaders are found, and I expect you and your soldiers to deal with them as I require! Those soldiers who should have been out on the battlefield, fighting the Vathen!’ he thundered. ‘Now bring those men to me!’
Valaric picked up his spear and shield and stepped out of the shadows. He pushed his way through the few Marroc who stood around the edges of the square. ‘Oi! Prince Forkbeard. Twelvefingers. Demon-spawn.’
The closest forkbeards turned and readied their weapons. Valaric stopped. Medrin was still shouting.
‘Medrin! Demon-beard! Prince nioingr.’
Now Medrin stopped.
‘I’m the one you want, you pox-scarred prince of filth. Twelve-fingered son of the mother of monsters. I’m the one who stood before you on the beach and I stand before you now. I, Valaric of Witterslet. I, Valaric of the Marroc. I’m the one you want and here I am. You wouldn’t face me then; do you dare to face me now, or are you the coward that even your own men know you to be?’
Medrin turned. He faced Valaric with the Crimson Shield held high. ‘A Marroc crippled me some fifteen years ago, Valaric of Witterslet. Men die from such wounds as I took that day, and so they should, for it left me as weak as a child and what place is there in this world for a weakling warrior? Yet I didn’t die. I fought for my life and I clawed it back again. I’ve taken this shield and I defeated an army that would have swept across your land. I will face you, Valaric of the Marroc, but only if you will face me as I am.’ His words changed for the duke, but his eyes stayed on Valaric. ‘Have your soldiers take this man and run a spear through his chest. Close the wound with hot pitch. Then we’ll duel. If he fights well, we’ll say no more of this. If he fights poorly, I’ll have one man in every twenty taken from your city and sent back across the sea to live as slaves.’
Valaric clenched his hand around his spear. ‘I came here to die so others might live,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll take your challenge, prince of oafs.’
He felt a movement in the Marroc behind him, and then a man come to stand at his side.
‘You try to take this man, Medrin, you come through me first.’
Gallow.
42
DEFIANCE
Gallow raised the Sword of the Weeping God high. He’d come to the square behind Andhun’s gates to see what Medrin would do. To stand against him, to fight and die if he had to. And seen that he wasn’t alone.
‘You’re neither shoeing my horse nor blading my scythe,’ muttered Valaric.
‘Settle that later?’
Valaric nodded. ‘It can wait.’
‘Horsan!’ Gallow called him out. Medrin’s sword-hand. ‘The servant of a man with no honour shares in his shame. The servant of a man with no courage shares in his cowardice. The servant of a man with no heart shares in his disgrace. You bring shame and dishonour to your kin. You’re a coward.’
Horsan pushed his way out from among the Lhosir, shaking his head, face set hard. ‘I’ll rip you apart, nioingr.’
Gallow ran at him. Horsan met him head on. The two crashed into each other and careened sideways. The lunge of Horsan’s spear pierced the air an inch from Gallow’s ear while Solace skittered off Horsan’s shield.
‘I knew your family
from before I crossed the sea,’ said Gallow grimly. ‘Your father always thought you were carrying a bit too much fat on you. Lazy, he said.’
Horsan snarled. He circled more cautiously this time, crouched behind his shield, spear held in one fist over the top, point remorselessly aimed at Gallow’s eyes.
‘I was on the same battlefield as him when he died.’ Gallow circled the other way, careful not to get too close to Medrin’s Lhosir.
‘Spit him, Horsan!’ The Lhosir were cheering and jeering. Gallow glanced around the crowd. The Marroc hadn’t moved but there was a change to them. They were restless. One bent down. When he stood up again he was holding a stone.
‘I didn’t see him fall. Barely knew him. But we recited the names of the dead that day and everyone who fell was spoken out, their words and their deeds offered up to the Maker-Devourer. I’ve heard a thousand men spoken out like that, Horsan. Spoken out a good few myself. Last man I spoke for was Jyrdas One-Eye. How many men have you spoken out, Horsan? Any at all?’
No. He could see that. They probably hadn’t honoured the dead yet. Too busy with Andhun and whether the Vathen would return. Times like this the fallen just had to stay where they fell for a day or two before they could be properly burned and honoured, but it made the Lhosir uncomfortable to think about it, that was the thing. Made them wonder, for a moment, if they were right. What if they were all somehow struck down? What if the fallen were never spoken out? What if they were lost, abandoned, alone after all they’d done. Unthinkable. Horrible.
A grim smile set on Gallow’s face. ‘No matter. The Maker-Devourer himself will speak for the Screambreaker and those who stood with him, and there were men there for your father. Who’s going to speak for you, Horsan? When you stand beside the Maker-Devourer’s cauldron and he turns up his ear to listen, what’s he going to hear? Nothing.’