by Tim Stead
* * * *
“I like what you’ve done with the place.”
Arbak knew the voice was familiar, but for just a second he could not place it. He turned back to the public room, and the glass he was holding dropped from his fingers, shattering on the stone flags behind the bar.
“Narak… I mean Deus.”
The wolf god stood in his tavern, fully clothed in red armour, swords across his back. It was not yet time for the midday, and there were only a couple of dozen customers in the room, but they were all silent, all staring.
Narak smiled. “I hear you have the most popular inn in the city,” he said.
Arbak was suddenly unsure again. He had done what Narak asked, but perhaps he had gone too far. This was judgement day, come suddenly upon him. Part of Arbak had never expected to see the wolf god again, and certainly not here, so soon.
“I have done my best,” he said.
“More than I could have expected,” Narak said. “I am more than pleased. I am impressed.”
Arbak felt relief. He was painfully aware that his life had been spared by this man, this god, and for this reason. It was better, this life, than the one he had lost when Narak took his hand. It was better in every way, and Narak had paid for it.
“But there is more,” Narak said. “Tell me about the regiment.”
Another worry. But Arbak had only done what was needed, what he had been asked to do.
“The merchants asked me, Deus. Quinnial approved the idea.”
“You should not fear my displeasure, Colonel Arbak – your new rank, I have heard. You have done something good, something that may save us all. Now you must do something more. I have spoken to the lord Quinnial, and he agrees with me. You must take the regiment to war.”
“Me?”
Narak laughed. “Can you think of another?” he asked.
Arbak lowered his voice. “You know that I am not an officer. You ask me to lead men, but I do not know how.”
“Arbak, Cain, Colonel, you have done this,” he gestured around the tavern. “You have raised a regiment, trained three thousand men, prepared the city for war, and you say that you do not know how to lead men?”
Arbak shrugged. “I did what you asked, what the council asked.”
“All men do what others ask, even kings.”
“But I am no soldier,” Arbak half lifted his right wrist, the scarred stump where his hand had been, but of course it did not need showing to the man that had cut it off.
“You think that generals fight battles, Colonel? You think that they do each and every task, wield every sword, shoot every arrow? If you point and men walk the way that you show them, then you command. There is no secret to it. Generals fight with their minds and with their hearts.”
“Deus, Lord Quinnial may have someone else in mind.”
“As I said, we have already spoken. It is you, Colonel. You must gather your men and march at the earliest hour. If it is midnight, then that is the time you must leave. Our success in this may be measured in hours, even minutes. Take the regiment to the Green Road. You will meet others there, some Berashi and some Duranders. Together with them you must retake the gate from the Telans. There is a Seth Yarra army in Telas which will march today or tomorrow towards the gate. You must take the gate and hold it.”
“Seth Yarra? In Telas? So the Telans side with them. But what of the army in the east?”
“Sheshay, I was going to practice on the dais…”
They both turned at the interruption. To Arbak’s surprise Sheyani immediately dropped to one knee and bowed her head.
“Forgive me, Mighty God of Wolves,” she said. “I did not know you.”
“You have done better than Hammerdan’s gate keeper, Areshi,” Narak said. “You are a Durander, and a Halith by your pipes. Please rise and tell me your name.”
Sheyani stood. “I am called Sheyani esh Baradan al Dasham, Deus.”
“And your rank?”
“I am a master of the path of Halith, Deus.”
Narak studied her for a moment, and Arbak could tell that she was uneasy.
“Your father was Baradan?” he asked.
“Yes, Deus.”
Narak was full of questions. Arbak could see them in his eyes, and equally he could see that Sheyani did not wish to answer them. The moment was uncomfortable. The wolf could insist. He could ask and she would answer. There was no choice. But Narak looked away, allowed his eyes to drift across the floor of the tavern, inspecting the other customers. They were all suddenly deeply interested in their ales, or some conversation that had been almost forgotten a moment before.
“I am sending the man you call Sheshay to war,” he said eventually. “Will you go with him?”
“Who is the enemy, Deus?” she asked, relieved, it seemed, that the conversation had turned away from her and her father.
“Telans,” he replied. “Telans and perhaps Seth Yarra.”
Sheyani smiled. “Then I shall be happy to go to war,” she said. “Among my people it is considered a thing of merit to kill Telans, and what we know of Seth Yarra does not make them seem any better. They will seek to destroy us as the Telans do, or so it is said.”
“And I have no say in this?” Arbak interposed.
Narak looked at Arbak, and seemed to see something there that Arbak would not have wanted him to see. “Of course,” he said, his tone conciliatory. “If you command her to stay in Bas Erinor, she will.”
“He cannot,” Sheyani said. “I am as free as a hawk to come or to go. He has already said this.”
Narak nodded. “What has been spoken cannot be taken back. But it is not a matter for me. It is between you two. I have other tasks to attend to, and for that I must be elsewhere. You will have to forgive me if I do not spend as much time as I would wish in your fine tavern, Colonel. Make all haste with your men. The Green Road, as soon as it can be done.”
He nodded to each of them, turned and walked out into the street.
Arbak and Sheyani looked at each other.
“Well, now I shall not practice,” she said.
Two things occurred to Arbak. One was that he now had the full set of patrons. The council had been here, and the nobility in the person of the duke’s son Quinnial, and now he was blessed by the Benetheon. It was going to be terrific for business. The other was that he might not have to time to enjoy it. Within the hour he would be running about the town trying to raise the regiment, and he had no doubt that they would march tonight.
He knew enough about war to know that it was an unforgiving profession. In the past he had been a man with nothing to lose, and he had told himself that this protected him somewhat. He had seen better men, men of rank and wealth, men with wives and families, men who were loved and loved in return, all cut down with no more concern for their value than a fire cares for the trees it burns. It seemed sometimes that war perversely picked out the ones with most to lose, like a mouth doctor deliberately pulling the good teeth and leaving the rotten.
Now he was a good tooth. He had money, a business, friends, a place to come back to and a life that he did not want to abandon. He could feel the inevitability of his death, but just now he was not prepared to accept it.
“Sheyani,” he said. “It will be dangerous. I would not see you die in someone else’s war.”
“I must come,” she said, her voice all firmness and certainty. “Who else will keep you safe?”
How little he seemed to control his own life. Since he met the Wolf on the Bel Erinor road he had been whirled across the land in a storm of events with barely a moment to reflect. Now he was stepping once more into the wind, leaping into the darkness of the future with both feet, but as least he was not alone.
“Bargil,” he called across the public room. Bargil would have to stay behind. Someone he trusted would have to keep the inn. “Bargil, have the wagon made ready. We’re going to Berash.”
* * * *
Finally he went back to Pascha. Ever
ything else was done. He had spoken to the commander of the Durander regiment, and that small army was turned around, heading back towards the gate. They would be the first to arrive, he guessed, and he had given the man the strictest injunction not to engage the enemy before all help had arrived. He hoped the Durander had the required restraint.
He drifted in the Sirash and looked at the light that was not a light, and he knew that it was her. He allowed himself to stay near for a while, not touching, just close. She was alive, and he estimated she was still close to the coast.
He reached out.
“Narak?”
“Pascha, are you unharmed?”
“Of course.”
“You are still close to Benafelas?”
“On the hills above, in woodland. There are no soldiers here.”
Suddenly he could see through her eyes. She was permitting it, allowing him to pass through her. He had not expected it. The ships were there, as she had said. Ships and men and boats, swarming the coast like some marker of sickness, like flies. There were many of them, but they were not marching. Like all Seth Yarra before them they were building a camp, a fortification. It seemed to always be the first thing. They land, they build, and only then do they march and fight. It was good. It meant that Arbak and the Duranders and the Berashi had more time.
“Thank you for this,” he said.
“I know that you like to see things for yourself,” she said “What will you do now?”
“The Telans have taken the gate on the Green Road,” he said. “We must take it back before Seth Yarra can reach it. Can you watch them, tell me when they begin to march northwards?”
“I can.”
“When they begin to move, it would be a great help to have eyes on the Telan side of the gate.”
“I will do it,” she said.
Narak thought that he detected a warmth in her voice that he had not heard in hundreds of years, but it might just be wishing that made it so.
“There may be some Berashi trapped on the Telan side. There was a fight for the gate, and it seems likely that they were wiped out, but some may have survived. The gate was closed when I saw it and some may have escaped, though it is certain they did not go by way of Berash. You will watch for them?”
“I will watch for them.”
For a while neither of them spoke. Narak looked through her eyes at the ships and the men, black insects moving in distant squads, and all in silence. The noise of their boots and voices did not carry to this wooded slope. Instead there was birdsong and the wind nudging leaves in cascades of silver sound. He could smell the grass, and the tang of salt from the ocean.
“I’m sorry about Alaran,” he said.
“Are you?” Her voice was sharp again. Any warmth he thought had had detected was gone again.
“Yes. You were happy with him. It was wrong, what you did, but it was good to see you happy.”
Another pause grew between them. It was Pascha who broke it.
“You should go,” she said. Her voice did not seem harsh. It had become sad instead.
“Pascha…”
“Go and fight your war, Narak.”
He looked once more at the ships and the men, and he withdrew.
* * * *
Narak opened his eyes and blinked at the brightness of the sun. A moment before he had been talking with Pascha in the Sirash. It was done now, and he was back with Jiddian, and he was tired, and he was hungry. The morning was gone.
“Nothing has transpired,” Jiddian said, seeing that he was no longer a wolf and that his eyes were open. “I shot a few of them an hour ago, but they stay tightly hidden within their walls.”
Narak did not speak. He reached for the wine jug and poured himself a glass, took two large swallows, and felt it warm him from within. He picked out a juicy piece of fruit and bit into it.
“Were you successful?” Jiddian asked.
“Things are in motion,” he said. “An army of sorts is gathering to retake the gate.”
“That is good. What are we to do here? Things seem more urgent, and the men will want to act. They are tired of waiting.”
“Yes, we must move. If we begin our preparation now we can get the army moving before nightfall.”
“The Seth Yarra will see us go. Would it not be better to move after nightfall?”
“I want them to see.”
“You have a new plan?”
“The same plan, but timings have changed. As you say, there is a new urgency.”
They left their small pavilion overlooking the Seth Yarra walls and walked together back over the crest of the hill. Narak was surprised to see movement in the camp. Men were packing wagons. Horses were being saddled. Cooking fires were steaming where they had been doused. It was the Berashi. They were preparing to pull out.
Narak strode into their midst with Jiddian at his side. He looked for Havil, and found him standing by his tent, shouting orders to his men.
“What are you doing?” Narak asked.
“We are going to defend the kingdom,” Havil said. “There are Seth Yarra in Telas and they have taken the gate.”
“Who told you this?”
“I did.” He turned to see Fashmanion, Crow God, standing in the midst of the chaos, black cloak wrapped around him like folded wings. “Do you deny it is true?”
This was a new departure. Fashmanion had never dared go against him before, and the news should have been brought to Narak before Havil. Narak was the general, after all.
“I do not deny it,” he replied. “In fact I have discussed it with King Raffin, only a few hours ago. The situation is well in hand. You are needed here, Prince Havil, and your father agrees with me.”
“But the gate..?”
“Will be retaken. Even now there are thousands of men, Avilians, Berashi and Duranders converging for that purpose. You did not think I would sacrifice the gate, Havil?”
Havil stood still. He was transfixed by conflict. He desperately wanted to ride and fight and save the kingdom. Narak could see that. But his duty was to his father and to Narak, and he knew that Narak would not lie.
“So what shall we do, Deus?” he asked.
“Each army must be defeated,” Narak said. “This one first. Tell me, Prince Havil, if you rode day and night how long would it be before you came to Tor Silas?”
“Three weeks.”
“Three weeks and your horses would be dead, your men would be exhausted. Let us say five, assuming that your men wish to fight when you get there, and that they need horses to do it.”
“Five weeks.” Havil sounded defeated.
“And if Seth Yarra march, starting a week from today, from the furthest corner of Telas, when will they reach the gate?”
“Seventeen days. Perhaps three weeks. They will be through the gate before we arrive. They will be in Tor Silas.”
He laid a hand on the prince’s arm. “Havil, have faith in me. I will deliver your kingdom, I will save the gate. Seth Yarra will never tread the halls of your father’s castle. I swear it. Battles will be won, traitors will be punished, and we will be victorious. Do not doubt it for a moment.” He deliberately glanced at Fashmanion as he spoke of traitors, and saw the crow god drop his eyes. A moment later his black cloak swirled as he turned and walked away through the milling crowds of Berashi soldiers.
Havil nodded. “Deus, I do believe it,” he said. “I shall tell my men to restore the camp.”
Narak shook his head. “No, noble prince, you anticipate my order by only a few hours. The army marches tonight.”
“Where, Deus, where do we march?” Havil’s eyes were bright with the expectation of battle, but a trick doesn’t seem clever if you reveal it before it’s played.
“All in good time, Prince Havil.” He left the prince standing by his tent and, with Jiddian at his side, went to rouse the rest of the army.
35. Keb
Keb, son of Jarl sat alone in his cell. There was one candle, and he was, he had b
een told, permitted to read, though he did not think there was a book in Bas Erinor that he would willingly study. It was all taint.
The cell was small, but it was dry and not particularly cold. They had given him a straw pallet to sleep on, some small comfort above the hard wooden bed. There was even a chair. The food, too, was adequate. Apart from being deprived of his freedom he had no cause for complaint. He had expected to die, so in a way this was all a pleasant surprise.