by A. J. Smith
‘Enough?’ Brom asked with irritation. ‘Enough is whatever takes back my home.’
‘Then whoever we have will have to be enough,’ Nanon repeated.
Rham Jas thought he should interject before Brom became too annoyed. ‘Your Brown cleric friend will be able to give us an idea of numbers. If you and I go and see him first, we’ll form a plan based on that.’ This calmed his friend somewhat. ‘Nanon, do you have any black wart?’ Rham Jas asked, his ever-present grin becoming broad enough to cover his whole face.
Both of them looked up at the Kirin – Nanon smiling and Brom looking confused.
‘I’m sure I could find some,’ replied the Dokkalfar. ‘What are you thinking, Kirin man?’
‘I’m thinking about a way to thin the ranks of knights and give us a chance.’ Rham Jas was used to coming up with creative ways of killing people and a few sacks of Dokkalfar black wart would make a lovely surprise for the knights of the Red.
‘I know I’m only an ignorant Ro,’ said Brom, exasperated, ‘but what the fuck is black wart?’
‘It’s like Karesian fire or Ranen pitch, but…’ Rham Jas looked at Nanon and grinned, ‘it’s a little more explosive than flammable.’
Something seemed to occur to Nanon. ‘That reminds me, every Dokkalfar that falls must be burned to ash within a few hours of death.’
Brom looked back at him. ‘That’s the Ro way of doing things anyway. Is it a particular funeral rite of your people?’
‘No, it’s simply the best way of stopping a hundred new Dark Young sprouting up from our bodies,’ he said with deep sorrow in his eyes. ‘Our gift from Jaa caused us to burst into flame upon death. But now we are without the Fire Giant’s gift, and we need to think of other solutions… in your terminology, it’s quite shit.’
* * *
They had spent a restless few hours trying to sleep in the high trees and now, just after midnight, they found themselves at the edge of the Deep Wood.
Brom stood next to Rham Jas and the two of them looked out across the duchy of Canarn. The young lord was wistful as he had his first glimpse of his home since he had been named to the Black Guard.
On either side of them a line of Tyr emerged from the trees, each carrying several small woven sacks containing explosive Dokkalfar black wart as well as a number of knives for throwing and fighting. Their blades were heavy and leaf-shaped with ornately designed handles, far more beautiful than the functional weapons of men. Brom had acquired one of the blades and wore it in his belt as a secondary weapon, and Rham Jas had been given a fresh quiver of finely crafted arrows, several of which had black wart on their tips. Both their swords had been sharpened and their armour reinforced with hard wooden struts. The two men felt as ready for combat as they would ever be.
They had forty Dokkalfar Tyr with them, including Nanon, Sigurd and the huge figure of Rafn. They were an intimidating presence, even to Rham Jas, but he was sceptical whether their numbers were sufficient. As things stood, they didn’t even know how many knights held Canarn and it would require a stealthy incursion to see Brother Lanry before they could even begin to formulate a plan.
‘Bronwyn had better still be alive,’ grunted Brom, focusing on his sister’s safety to distract himself from the dangerous job at hand.
Rham Jas simply nodded.
CHAPTER 8
LADY BRONWYN IN THE RUINS OF RO HAIL
Bronwyn rose early from her bed and walked up to the forward battlements of Ro Hail. She had been sharing a small room with Stone Dog’s mother, an old wise-woman of Wraith called Freya Cold Eyes, while Al-Hasim slept in the communal room surrounded by the Free Company men.
They’d be in Ro Hail for nearly two weeks while Horrock Green Blade and Haffen Red Face supervised the fortifications of the ruined city. The gate had been rebuilt using solid planks of hard wood, the battlements reinforced with fallen stones and mortar, and the buildings surrounding the central courtyard turned into axe-throwing platforms. The two hundred and fifty men of Wraith Company had gone about their tasks with gusto and solidarity, daily prepared to undertake back-breaking work in order to defend their land. Now, as time was beginning to run out, the city looked like a fort rather than a ruin.
‘You can’t hold it, you know,’ Hasim was saying to Haffen as Bronwyn walked up the stone staircase leading to the gatehouse battlements overlooking the Grass Sea to the south.
‘Horrock thinks we can,’ replied the man of Wraith.
Hasim looked doubtful. ‘No, he doesn’t, he’s just hoping that you can hold them off long enough for Scarlet Company to arrive.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ Haffen asked with slight annoyance.
‘How many men does Johan Long Shadow command at South Warden?’
Haffen shrugged. ‘I don’t know… maybe a thousand axe-men.’
‘A thousand… added to your two hundred and fifty makes one thousand two hundred and fifty – against five thousand knights, clerics and guardsmen. You can’t win,’ Hasim said plainly.
‘And the Fjorlanders?’ Haffen showed a stubborn refusal to accept defeat, a trait Bronwyn had noticed frequently among the men of Wraith Company.
‘If they come, they’ll come by sea and attack Canarn, which means they won’t be here for a month at least. You can’t hold out that long. I hate to say it, but you should listen to Verellian.’ Hasim had counselled a withdrawal in line with the Red knight’s insistence that a massacre would help no one.
‘Horrock says we stay, so we stay,’ Haffen grunted.
Bronwyn reached the battlements and approached the two men. It was just starting to grow light and the wind was biting and cold as it whistled north off the Grass Sea. Both men wore armour, though Hasim’s was light and made of leather, in sharp contrast to the heavy chain mail worn by Haffen. Bronwyn had not yet donned her armour and wore a simple cotton dress which Freya had provided.
‘We could still fall back,’ she said by way of a greeting.
‘Don’t you start…’ snapped Haffen. ‘You two don’t represent the bravery of Ro and Karesians, do you?’
‘Do you represent the stubborn pig-headedness of the Ranen?’ Bronwyn shot back.
‘You say stubbornness, we say honour… did you roll over and accept the Red knights when they marched into your home?’ Haffen asked, not happy at being ganged up on.
Bronwyn smiled slightly and shook her head. ‘I didn’t get much chance to fight, but no… I didn’t,’ she conceded.
The Grass Sea was barren and quiet as the three of them gazed southwards. The rain had stayed away for the past few days and, though a mist clung stubbornly to the plains, the weather had been kind to the defenders of Ro Hail, allowing them fair conditions to fortify their base. Most of the entrances to the underground complex had been sealed and Freya had been given the task of protecting the young and infirm once the time came to fight. Behind them, men of Wraith began their daily duties of patrolling and construction, intended by Horrock to keep every man ready for when the army arrived.
Bronwyn liked these men – they were commoners who had chosen to join the Free Companies and to defend the lands of Ranen from invaders. Although they had not been required to repel an attacking army for decades, they were stubborn now that the time was rapidly approaching when they might be required to die for their land.
‘Al-Hasim,’ shouted Stone Dog from below, ‘Horrock wants you downstairs.’
The young man of Wraith had been assigned by the captain to look after William of Verellian during the knight’s incarceration and this meant both Bronwyn and Hasim had spent much time with him. He was a proud young man who spoke with conviction about his duty to Wraith Company and the Freelands of Ranen, and he never went anywhere without his large, hook-pointed axe.
‘What does he want?’ asked Hasim.
‘I don’t know, just get your arse down here.’ Stone Dog was frequently aggressive and blunt in his language, but he was a consummate soldier and did whatever Horrock asked of him,
whether he thought it worthwhile or not.
‘All right, give me a minute,’ replied Hasim wearily. ‘Maybe I’ll get some sleep one of these days.’ He winked at Bronwyn before turning to walk down the stairs.
‘Lady Bronwyn too,’ shouted Stone Dog.
‘What does he want with me?’
‘How am I any more likely to know that than what he wants with the Karesian?’ he asked ironically. ‘Just get a move on, he’s impatient.’
Haffen smiled broadly and pulled his bearskin cloak tightly around his shoulders as the wind picked up and Bronwyn and Hasim turned to leave.
They walked down the newly repaired stone steps which ran parallel to the forward defences and headed across the courtyard. Either side of them, where before there had been only crumbling stone ruins, there now stood wooden constructions built to defend inwards should the knights breach the city gates. Bronwyn could see men of Wraith moving bundles of throwing-axes around and stowing them in hidden places behind the fortifications. The men were all clad in chain mail and Bronwyn knew they’d been on high alert for several days now, expecting an attack at any moment. From the newly constructed wooden walls, stairs had been built leading up to the stone battlements that looked out over the Grass Sea, and men stood at the high points, keeping a watch on the realm of Wraith.
Although the city was now well defended, Bronwyn could still not conceive how so few men could turn back five thousand knights of the Red.
‘You and I could leave, you know?’ Hasim said, echoing her thoughts. ‘None of them would blame us if we fled north.’
Bronwyn looked at him and considered chiding him for cowardice, but she had to admit to herself that the idea of escape had occurred to her over the past two weeks.
‘I couldn’t do it,’ she said. ‘Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to abandon them.’
Hasim stopped and held Bronwyn’s arm, pulling her to face him. ‘You’re not thinking about drawing that toothpick and attacking the knights are you?’
‘I’m not staying in the basement with Freya. I have as many reasons to want to fight the knights as any man of Wraith.’ Bronwyn knew that Hasim would play the part of a protector sooner or later, because his friendship with her brother dictated that he should try to take care of her.
‘They won’t think twice about cutting you down, noble or not. These men are not coming here to make a point: the fuckers are marching to war; they want to invade and conquer Ranen.’ Hasim had a deadly serious look in his eyes as he spoke.
Stone Dog was a little way ahead of them and had reached one of the few doors to the basement that was still visible. He noticed that Bronwyn and Hasim had stopped in the courtyard and the young man of Wraith turned back to face them.
‘Am I interrupting something?’ he asked, with a mocking tone in his voice. ‘I know you two foreigners need your sexual tension in order to function, but hurry the fuck up.’
Al-Hasim laughed and playfully slapped Bronwyn’s behind. She didn’t wait for more than a second before turning and punching him hard in the face. Stone Dog erupted in laughter and Hasim staggered back, feeling his bloody lip.
‘Brom would kill you if he saw you doing that,’ she threatened with a smile. ‘And I might if you touch my arse again.’
Stone Dog sauntered slowly over to stand next to Hasim. ‘When you’ve quite finished your bizarre flirting ritual,’ he said with a grin. ‘Horrock is long-suffering, but he did say to hurry up.’
They entered the underground complex and walked quickly through the now mostly empty basement. Healing supplies had been prepared and bandages and thread lay in baskets around the central room, but the place was otherwise bare.
Hasim and Bronwyn entered Horrock’s chamber behind Stone Dog and immediately heard the captain of Wraith Company talking in a quiet and gentle voice. He was cradling a Ranen cloud stone and there was a look of deep concern in his eyes.
‘Wait,’ he said, ‘I have some friends here now… try to stop crying, okay?’ Horrock rarely showed emotion and Bronwyn was taken aback by this display.
Stone Dog stood at the door as Horrock motioned for Bronwyn and Hasim to come and join him. As they sat down around the central wooden table, Bronwyn could hear the sound of a child crying. It sounded like a girl, and her sobs were quiet and indistinct when filtered through the cloud stone.
‘Hasim, I have a friend of yours here… and she says she’ll only talk to you,’ Horrock said, with a confused expression on his face. ‘My children are all grown up and I think I lack the gentle touch.’ He placed the stone on the table and said, ‘Al-Hasim is here.’
‘Al-Hasim,’ a child’s voice exclaimed excitedly through her tears.
‘Who is that?’ Hasim asked with narrowed eyes.
‘Ingrid Teardrop,’ was the reply, causing Hasim and Bronwyn to look at each other.
‘Ingrid, what are you doing?’ the Karesian asked gently. ‘How did you get hold of your father’s cloud stone?’
More tears could be heard from the stone and Bronwyn leant forward to see the hazy image of a young girl. She was black-haired and blue-eyed and had tears streaming down her face.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she whimpered. ‘Tell me what to do. They’re hitting people with axes and I hid and I can’t find Alahan and I took the stone and I hid.’ The words tumbled out one after the other.
‘Ingrid,’ snapped Hasim, ‘calm down. I need you to tell me what’s happened. Breathe deeply and start again. Can you do that for me?’
Bronwyn was impressed with the way Hasim dealt with the young Ranen girl.
Algenon Teardrop’s daughter paused and sniffed loudly several times, rubbing the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her blue tunic.
‘Father left a few weeks ago in his ship. He had lots and lots of men with him and they were going to rescue Uncle Magnus. I overheard them talking, they didn’t think I was listening, but I was and I heard them.’
Horrock leant back. Bronwyn guessed he was pleased to hear the news of Algenon’s launch, but concerned about what was happening in Fredericksand.
‘Okay, then what happened?’ Hasim asked gently.
Ingrid starting crying again as she said, ‘Then the men from Jarvik turned up yesterday and started hurting people and they broke into the hall and smashed father’s chair and they were looking for me, but they couldn’t find me so they burnt down our house and started chanting things about a new high thain.’ Again, the words were jumbled and Hasim shook his head trying to make sense of the child’s speech.
‘Men from Jarvik, what are they playing at?’ Horrock directed the question at no one in particular and was growing more and more concerned with each passing moment.
‘Ingrid, you’re okay, I won’t let them hurt you,’ said Hasim with sincerity, ‘but you need to focus. Imagine you’re a thainess and Fredericksand is your city. Okay?’
Ingrid nodded and stopped crying momentarily, her big blue eyes pleading for Hasim to help her.
The Karesian picked up the cloud stone and tried to smile. ‘What happened to your father?’
Ingrid was fighting back tears and she looked away, biting her lip and sniffing again.
‘The big man that kicked over his chair was shouting about father being at the bottom of the Kraken sea. It’s not true, is it? It can’t be true. Father is the strongest man in the world and nothing can kill him.’ Her words were at the very edge of despair and she desperately wanted someone to tell her that her father was alive and well.
Hasim, Bronwyn and Horrock shared dark looks across the table, but none of them said anything. Bronwyn could tell that Horrock was fighting back his anger and Hasim was close to tears himself as he spoke to Ingrid again.
‘Where are you right at this moment, little wolf?’ Hasim asked.
‘I’m hiding in the monster man’s chapel. I don’t think the men with axes will look for me here. I need to find Alahan, he’ll know what to do.’ She was a little calmer now she had Hasim
to talk to, but she was still not the ideal conveyer of dark news from Fjorlan.
‘Monster man?’ queried Horrock.
‘It’s what she calls Samson the Liar,’ Hasim replied, not taking his eyes from the cloud stone, ‘the old-blood of Fredericksand; she was always fascinated by him.’
Bronwyn knew of old-bloods – those who had the blood of Giants – but she had never seen one. They were supposedly extinct in Tor Funweir, though stories occasionally surfaced of strange, semi-human beings hiding in caves or high up in mountain passes.
‘Do you know who the big man was?’ Hasim asked Ingrid. ‘The man who said your father was… dead.’ He said the last would in a low whisper, trying to not make Ingrid cry any more.
‘Yes, I saw him with father before the ships left. He’s called Rulag Ursa. I think he’s a battle-master or something but Wulfrick and Halla thought he was an idiot. He was mean about you too. He said you were just a spy but I stuck up for you.’
Hasim flashed a weary smile at her. ‘I’m lucky to have friends like you, little wolf.’ He was concentrating hard on the cloud stone and Bronwyn could see he was struggling hard to think what to say to the girl.
‘If Algenon’s dead…’ began Horrock, ‘I don’t want to think about what happened to the dragon fleet in the Kraken sea. Ursa would have had to kill thousands of men to get to the high thain.’ He was speaking quietly and mostly to himself, keeping the words from Ingrid’s ears.
‘Ingrid, do you know what happened to Wulfrick?’ Horrock asked.
‘He left with Father on board the Hammer of Fjorlan. He wouldn’t let them hurt Father, would he?’
A noise startled the young Ranen girl and she turned away from Hasim. ‘Someone’s coming. I can hear them on the stairs.’ She was clearly frightened.
‘Ingrid, stay quiet and find somewhere to hide,’ Hasim ordered with authority in his voice.
Then a loud noise and, in the flowing mists around the image of Ingrid Teardrop, Bronwyn could see a huge figure move past her, holding an oversized hammer. Ingrid moved to stand behind the huge being, who put a protective arm around her.