The World Raven

by A. J. Smith

  ‘A good day,’ he agreed, latching on to her for a lingering kiss.

  ‘My queen!’ exclaimed Markos.

  From the press of standing warriors came Brennan and his column of riders. The Hawk major dismounted and shoved his way through them. He paused in front of his king, wiping blood from a deep sword wound on his armoured shoulder. Then he dropped to one knee.

  ‘My general, my king!’ stated Major Brennan. ‘We have victory.’

  Markos held his freshly cleaned greatsword aloft. ‘My general, my king,’ he shouted.

  Then Ashwyn dropped to his knee, followed by every man close to him. In a ripple of battle-hardened loyalty, hundreds of men, many of them wounded, took a knee before him. ‘My general, my king!’ they shouted, sending a wave of conviction and victory across the bloodied fields of Tor Funweir.

  ***

  Xander wandered the uneven field, stepping over bodies and round pools of blood, surveying the damage and gathering his strength. Over a thousand of his men were dead. The number had been told to him by Daganay an hour after the battle, and had been echoing in his head since he retreated to his solitary wandering.

  The dead Hounds numbered more than five times as many. Much of the Karesian army had broken into scattered packs and fled in every conceivable direction. They didn’t have the discipline or leadership to assemble as a single force and had been easily mopped up by Markos and his knights. The paladins acted with a tireless fury, following their leader wherever he beckoned. Only now, with no more enemies to fight and the sun beyond the horizon, did they take any rest.

  The king of Tor Funweir did not desire rest. He didn’t know what he desired. He wandered the battlefield, catching the globes of light from flaming torches and the occasional patch of clear moonlight. Daganay had men searching the fields of death for those still clinging to life and they did their work in silence, as the only light and movement in the darkness.

  Brennan had taken the army south, occupying the shoddy bulwarks left by the Hounds. The warriors of Ro were more integrated than ever. Even the Dokkalfar mingled freely among the soldiers, beginning to understand humour and camaraderie. The guardsmen from Tiris, Brom’s men from Canarn, even Lord Montague’s men; they were treated as equals by the Hawks. They shared weapons, armour, food, water and stories. He wondered how many of their stories were about him.

  After speaking to Tyr Nanon, and emerging victorious from the greatest of battles, Xander was beginning to think they could win.

  ‘Time to pray,’ said a gruff voice from the darkness. ‘I believe now is a good time to address the One.’

  Xander saw Daganay meandering round the dead bodies, torch in hand. His breastplate was being repaired and he wore only his Blue church robes.

  ‘You’ve never pushed me to pray to him before,’ he replied. ‘You always said the One didn’t give a shit.’

  The cleric nodded. ‘Maybe I give a shit, your grace.’

  Xander wanted to laugh, but it wasn’t funny. ‘Is that what you’re going to call me from now on?’

  ‘Not usually when we’re alone, no,’ replied Daganay. ‘But I thought it was worth reminding you this once.’

  ‘I didn’t need reminding.’

  They stood in a churned-up field, with the smell of death all around them and barely enough firelight to see each other’s faces. He’d left his ever-present guards and wandered far enough from their camp that he could no longer even hear the nightly sounds of his army. Battles were strange things that made you exhausted, but denied you sleep through insistent memories and constant aches. Many warriors of Ro would do without sleep on this particular night, and many others would fall into a sleep from which they wouldn’t wake.

  ‘You are Alexander Tiris,’ said Daganay, ‘and you are king of Tor Funweir.’

  ‘That’s just the long-form version of your grace,’ he replied. ‘And I still don’t need reminding.’

  Daganay lowered his torch, illuminating their faces. Xander sometimes forgot that his confessor was in his middle fifties. The man fought like a beast, far beyond what his age would suggest.

  ‘You’re not even wounded,’ Xander said with a smile. ‘I thought the One didn’t give a shit.’

  ‘About you,’ he replied. ‘I’m a cleric, remember.’

  They shared a laugh. It was his first since the battle and he felt as if he was releasing huge tension from his facial muscles. He’d been locked in a snarl of grim concentration for hours, glaring at everything in front of him. Now his face relaxed into a warm smile.

  ‘Xander,’ said the cleric.

  ‘You’ve never called me that.’

  ‘From now on, that’s what I’m going to call you when we’re alone. But you’ll be my king when others are present.’

  ‘You sound almost like Gwen,’ he joked.

  ‘I’m your other wife,’ replied Daganay. ‘Just not as pretty. Now, let’s get it over with.’

  Xander puffed out his chest and scratched across his shaven head. He hadn’t bent in prayer since they left Ro Haran and Daganay hadn’t mentioned it. Now, with battles fought and more death to come, they knelt on the sodden grass and spoke to their god.

  ‘I am Alexander Tiris,’ he said to the One God, ‘and I am the king of Tor Funweir. I know you care. I saw you watching when we stood at Cozz. Last time we spoke, I was in Ro Haran, kneeling on a thick carpet. The world has changed since then... and I am struggling to keep up. If it weren’t for Gwen... I don’t know, maybe I would have turned back.’

  ‘And,’ prompted Daganay after a moment.

  ‘Oh, yes – and sorry for cursing your name a few hundred times. In Haran, in Canarn, definitely a few times in Tiris... when I got blown up in Cozz... fuck, I can’t remember.’ He bowed his head, hating the honesty required of him. ‘And, err... I’ve killed a bloody awful lot of men.’

  CHAPTER 20

  INGRID TEARDROP IN THE REALM OF SUMMER WOLF

  LEAVING THE TENT had been a big step, but she knew it was time to end her captivity. Corvus convinced her with his insistent flapping that she would be safe, but poking her head through the canvas opening for the last time was still a nerve-wracking experience, even though she already trusted the big raven. Once outside, she skipped invisibly away from her confinement, smiling with glee.

  Rulag’s men sat at their fires, drinking their ale and rubbing their feet, apparently unaware that Ingrid walked within a few feet of them, skulking in the morning gloom.

  Corvus just looked at her, his beak somehow managing to appear smug. The raven cawed every few minutes, reminding her to hurry up, and she reached the first siege tower before the sun had fully risen. She had nothing but a blanket and a small sack of pillaged hard bread and salted beef.

  The guards were all outside and the empty interior was bigger than she had imagined, like a tall, thin house with no furniture. The stairs were wood and snaked up through six levels of the tower. There were slots for axes to be thrown, and hatches from which to pour oil and throw flaming torches. It would be rolled towards the city, loaded with men and used to mount the walls. But before that, it was a perfect hiding place.

  And now she slept at the top... and it was really horrible. The extra height doubled the wind chill and her stolen blanket was no protection. She’d been hiding in a cramped wooden compartment with her stolen food for several days. The top of the tower was divided into small sections, filled with axes, above which were platforms for axe hurlers. The level below held the drawbridge and would be the main route over the walls of Tiergarten for Rulag’s warriors.

  Rulag Ursa and Harrod were probably fuming with rage at her escape. They hadn’t stopped looking for her. Throughout the day, taking no rest, a hundred men had been tasked with finding her. They scoured every nook and cranny of the camp, sending patrols as far south and east as they dared, trying to find Rulag’s future wife. They searched everywhere, even the towers, but her hiding place was too small for them to thoroughly search without disassembling t
he structures. On the two occasions they had poked their bearded faces into the storage compartments, they’d appeared to look straight at her but hadn’t reacted, eliciting a mocking caw from Corvus.

  The raven had got her here and guarded her as she slept, but he couldn’t make her any warmer, or provide her any entertainment. The most interesting thing that happened was the daily movement of the tower, when dozens of men and dogs strained to shift her hiding place towards the city. It was a cacophony of grunts, shouts, barks and armour. Her view was of swarming men, each nothing more than a sound and a shape, carrying an axe and clad in fur. But multiplied by a few thousand it was scary and humbling. She’d been with them for weeks, dragged along at the centre of their advance like a reluctant mascot, sabotaging their army and causing mischief whenever she could. But now she saw what she couldn’t from the ground. She saw enough men to change Fjorlan.

  She wriggled out of the wooden compartment, pushing past bundles of throwing-axes to emerge at the edge of the top tier. She lay flat, with her face just peeking over the edge. The warriors were formed up again, as they had been for the last two days, in columns and mobs, with the baggage to the rear and the sled dogs at the flanks. They didn’t drink in the evenings any more; nor did they fight or gamble. A moving tavern had suddenly turned into an army. They still cursed, but now their vitriol was all aimed at the nearby city.

  The tower juddered as the sled dogs took the strain, and once again she was moving along the rugged gully at the front of the army, one of a dozen siege towers. The landscape was the same, with sheer walls of rock and snow either side of them, until a break in the ice showed her Tiergarten for the first time.

  ‘Wow,’ she breathed, stunned into awe for a moment.

  She had been born in Fredericksand and she loved Fredericksand, but Tiergarten was truly wondrous. It was taller than it was wide, cut into the side of a mountain as if it had been there since the land was formed. She smiled, suddenly confident that such a place could not easily be destroyed. Walls and towers and gates, of grey stone and thick hard-wood, were fixed together with a solidity that made it a part of the landscape, rather than a city of men. It looked out over a huge, open plain, stopped only by the Fjorlan Sea, which was suddenly visible over the gully walls. The army was moving towards the plain, but keeping well clear of the city.

  Corvus had been quiet, perched atop the siege tower, but now he sprang into the air and his glossy wings took him quickly across the snowy vista. He didn’t caw or flap, which made his flight silent but strangely ominous. He left the army and moved further inland, criss-crossing the gullies in smoothly curved lines. He wanted Ingrid to see something and she knew she wouldn’t like it. She felt a surge in her stomach, a nasty feeling of nausea that made her grunt and sit up on the wooden planks. She recognized the feeling and stopped smiling. The ground appeared to rise, suddenly hitting her eyes and making her retch. Somewhere ahead of the army, the black trees were moving. A shimmer and a mist rose in their path, undulating towards the city, though she couldn’t see the beasts themselves.

  The columns of men below were now narrow, snaking along behind the siege towers, allowing the beasts to get ahead. Perhaps they were just here to mop up after the trees had attacked Tiergarten.

  ‘Everyone’s going to die,’ she muttered, putting a hand to her mouth as she retched again. ‘Those horrible trees are going to kill everyone... even Alahan can’t fight things like that.’

  She crawled over the slotted wooden compartments to the front of the tower. As it moved, her view rose above the rocks to reveal the city, then fell below the gully walls, showing nothing but other towers and marching warriors. Even from the front she couldn’t see the trees. The army was moving parallel to them, separated by walls of ice and rock. They’d been freed. She didn’t know if they could be directed or just unleashed, but certainly the men of Ursa were confident enough to stay clear of the city and not rush an attack. Suddenly the walls of Tiergarten didn’t look so high.

  ‘Battle formations!’ came the command from beneath, relayed to all sections of the army, making them redeploy.

  The thin lines of men bunched up behind the towers as the gullies ended and the plains appeared before them. They were here, closer than she’d realized. Hiding in the tower had kept her ignorant of where they were and what they were doing. They’d been near Tiergarten when she’d escaped and, since then, she’d been too scared to speculate on how far they’d travelled. While she slept fitfully, pleased to be free but terrified of being caught, the men below had been preparing for battle. They’d camped just out of sight of the city and woken in the mood for a fight.

  Corvus returned, landing close enough to make her jump.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I’m scared. I don’t need any more surprises.’

  The bird clicked his beak and hunkered down, slowly stepping towards her on curved talons. She wished he could speak, maybe reassure her or tell her a joke to raise her spirits. Alahan used to pull funny faces behind their father’s back whenever his sister was miserable, usually about being told off or caught doing something naughty. But the bird didn’t speak, just pecked gently at her hands, lightly fluttering his wings.

  Caw

  Quieter now, Corvus hunkered down and cuddled up to her arm. For a moment she thought he was pretending to be a cat, or some other furry animal. He hopped up and down, padding his feet across her thick blanket.

  The tower began to lurch left and right as the ground changed from rocks to level plains of ice and snow. The gullies were now little more than small peaks, stretching inland as rocky crests, like the backbone of some huge lizard. The towers were lined up at the front of the army and now held position, a short distance from the huge stone monolith of Tiergarten and the mountain of Giant’s Gift. The men of Ursa could finally spread out after weeks of being stuck in narrow valleys. The plains, pushing west towards the Fjorlan Sea, were the biggest open spaces she’d seen since leaving her home, and the army moved from clusters to thick lines, with glaives, spears and axes pointing at their goal.

  Somewhere in Tiergarten, maybe watching them or planning the defence, was Alahan. He was strong, clever and determined. Ingrid hoped he was lucky too.

  Caw contributed Corvus. The raven hopped excitedly and jumped from the tower, soaring ahead of the army. The black shape of his body became smaller and smaller, his wings still as he glided on updraughts towards the city.

  From the gullies, well in front of the siege towers, shimmering black shapes crawled into view. Their sharp outlines cut into the white of Summer Wolf and a disquieting aura was carried with them. The darkwood trees crossed the ice slowly, spreading out into a line of twisted movement and writhing tentacles. Those below averted their eyes or gritted their teeth, fighting their fear of the creatures. She imagined the defenders of Tiergarten seeing them for the first time and their fear spreading like a virus up the stepped levels of the city.

  Then a sound reached her ears. It was deep and booming, coming from all directions and displacing the hiss of the trees and the grunting of the men of Ursa.

  From north and south, from Giant’s Gift and the Crystal Fork River, from every angle of the realm of Summer Wolf, could be heard keening. The trees stopped moving, thrashing their black limbs against the ice, as if they had heard the sound but searched for its origin.

  Ingrid knew the sound of trolls. It was imprinted in her ears from before she could remember. The Ice Men of Rowanoco gave voice to the anger of their god, making all true-hearted Ranen stand a little taller and feel a little stronger. Rulag’s men were afraid, as if they suddenly knew how angry they had made their god. All their talk of strength was made petty when they heard the trolls, their feeble arms cowed by childhood fears made real.

  From the base of Tiergarten, plumes of snow flew into the air and chunks of icy earth erupted upwards. Balls of dark fur emerged from the ground, stretching out their huge bodies, supported on bulbous limbs. A dozen trolls cl
awed their way from the ice of Summer Wolf and loped towards the trees. In the lead, at the point of an arrow of brown and black fur, was an Ice Man smaller than the others. He was on all fours, moving slowly and raising his tusked mouth every few steps to keen. The sound of the keening was beautiful to Ingrid’s ears, expressing a primal sadness that made a tear fall from her eye. When all twelve trolls made the sound, the trees began to buck and scratch at the ice. One monstrosity broke away from the line and approached the lead troll, a single black figure meeting another against featureless white.

  The Ice Man was less than half the size of the tree, which reared up, thrashing its tentacles in a bizarre dance of aggression. The troll just looked at it, as thousands of human spectators held their breath. The Ice Man’s wide, hairy face tilted upwards at the tree-beast, his chubby jaw and fleshy lips squashing into a look of confusion. The keening stopped and the other trolls hunkered down on all fours, snorting and growling, spraying phlegm across the ice.

  The tentacled beast gave voice to a hissing cry, sending shards of high-pitched whining across the plains. Ingrid’s resolve was strengthened by the trolls, but still the sound made her wince. Below, Rulag’s remaining army was on the back foot, unable to remain confident when faced with a family of trolls.

  The shriek grew louder as the beast crawled towards the lead troll. It thrashed in the air, spraying a mist of white at the troll, but still the Ice Man didn’t react with anything more than mild confusion. When the tree exposed its circular maw and splayed its needle-like teeth, the troll grunted. When the beast lunged forward and attacked, he barely moved an inch. The trunk of the black tree was thrust sharply into the troll’s chest, a dozen puncture wounds appearing at once. Silence descended for a moment, then the troll looked down at the creature that gnawed into his chest, as if that should be enough to kill him.

  ‘Varorg!’ roared the troll, loud enough that Ingrid imagined a rockslide somewhere in the gullies.