by CJ Arroway
Luda pulled a face, then gestured for her to sit next to him. ‘You seem a bit brighter today.’
‘Yeah,’ Evie said, taking a bowl and filling it with the ladle from the cauldron resting over the fire. ‘I’m feeling a lot better. I feel more hopeful, do you know what I mean? Like a weight off my mind. Like it’s going to be ok.’
‘Mmm…’ Aldrwyn leaned across as he swallowed a hot mouthful of soup, bringing his bowl up to tap on the rim of Luda’s then Evie’s. ‘I’ll drink to that!’
* * *
Back in the library Nan Tabyn examined the book Evie had been reading and carefully turned a page or two, skimming its contents, before picking it up to put it back in its place. She walked purposefully back to the shelves where the oldest books were stored and drew back the wooden screen again. She reached on tip-toe to the highest shelf, where the ancient parchment Evie had asked about sat, and delicately moved it to the side while she slid a long fingernail into a thin split in the shelf wall behind it. The split clicked, and the wood popped open. Nan reached inside and slowly, very carefully, pulled out a dry and battered scroll, whose edges looked as if they had torn and cracked many years ago.
The ancient parchment unfurled carefully as Nan’s hand gently eased it flat, and her fingers traced the elegant calligraphy of its decorated title: ‘On The Lore of The Dead’.
The Raid
Evie returned to the library every day until she had read, and partly re-read, the whole of the Book of Daw.
She felt the thrill of uncovering a part of her past that she had not even known existed, so filled with excitement that at times she found herself rushing through and wishing pages away so that she could have read them and moved on to the next part already. She’d then had to go back and read a whole section again, slowly this time, to take in what she had seen.
But at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. As Nan had said, the section on the Daw’s history went back only to their first appearance in The Home and Evie was as frustrated as she was fascinated by the possibilities of where they may have been before – before the Fall and all that followed.
The lore had been an education however. For the first time Evie understood the method behind some of the magic she had done instinctively, and she found – in the quiet moments she had to try it out – that she now had more control over what she was doing, it was less frantic and haphazard and more purposeful. But there were no great surprises – no amazing new tricks or dramatic spell songs that she didn’t know, or would open new doors for her, or help her find her mother.
In fact, she almost felt the lore was something of a let down. It hadn’t even covered all the small magic she already knew, let alone show more than a handful that were new to her. But she closed the book, finally, with a sense of knowing herself better.
But best of all, she thought, something important had happened – without her even noticing at first. She had tried one of the new spell songs – just a little one that drew heat from the soil so you could warm your hands in the cold. It had only been later that day, when she put her head down to sleep, that she realised she had felt no shame after doing it.
Summer was now set in, and even in the high mountains the days were getting brighter and warmer. The sheep had moved to higher pastures and food was plentiful. The Cyl now kept themselves busy repairing and rebuilding old huts, reinforcing the defences of their scattered forts, singing and writing new poems and songs.
Evie and Luda were helping with the repair of one of the forts, under the supervision of Iynta, a renowned Cyl warrior and a man who seemed to take greater pride in this rough patchwork of wood and stone than any soldier of Wyrra did in that city’s great fort.
Evie thought of the vast red stone walls of Wyrra Fortress, and looked around the wind-blown hilltop of green ditches, low walls and wooden staves where only the one side facing the valley floor could boast deep walls and a great gateway.
But Iynta insisted, for all the size and strength of Wyrra, he would rather be behind these simple barriers.
‘Do you see this fort here – Cran Dar. This is my cradle, this is where I feel safe. This has never fallen in as long as anyone has memory of our people. Never. That Wyrra Fortress has fallen a dozen times or more over the centuries. It fell to the Cyl once – bet you didn’t know that? Long ago, but it fell all the same.’ Iynta sniffed and pulled back his shoulders.
Evie set down a heavy stone to fill a gap in the inner wall that circled the whole hill top, nodding acknowledgement to let Iynta know she was paying attention.
‘I’d far rather make a stand here than in Wyrra. The People have tried to take this fort; the Duvran, The Borderers – none have succeeded. So don’t you worry about that great castle of theirs – it’s not worth half of what we’ve got. Do you know why? Because theirs was built by man, and our defences were built by the spirits. The mountains are our walls, the rocks are our battlements.’
Evie wondered what Rachlaw would make of this windy hilltop as a great fortress, and her thoughts went back to him, to Wyrra and to the fate of The People. She thought again of her mother. There was still no news of Rachlaw, and the reports that came through from the Borderer traders spoke of a situation in The Wyrran that made it unsafe to return yet. If her mother still lived, she had no more idea where to start looking for her.
She was snapped out of her thoughts when Aldrwyn appeared at her side suddenly. He seemed more animated even than he usually was.
‘Want to go on an adventure, Evie?’ he beamed.
‘I thought we were already on one?’ Evie replied dryly, picking up another stone and placing it in the wall.
‘Well yes, but it’s not as exciting at the moment as this – we’re going on a raid!’ He gave a clap to accent the end of his announcement. Evie couldn’t decide if that was endearing or annoying.
‘A raid? That doesn’t really sound like me,’ Evie said, picking up another rock.
‘Oh but you have to come – it’s tradition. Isn’t that right, Iynta? She has to come.’ Aldrwyn addressed the Cyl warrior who had not been listening.
‘What’s that?’ he said, suddenly aware he was being asked a question.
‘Evie – she’s been invited on a raid. She has to come, tell her.’
‘Ah Evie, you are to be honoured! There is no greater privilege than to be invited to ride with the raiders. You should be proud – it will be a great day.’
Evie smiled awkwardly and set down her stone: ‘Of course, I’m honoured.’
* * *
‘Please tell me again – I will not have to kill anyone. I can’t kill anyone – honour or not.’ Evie was agitated as Aldrwyn helped tie the straps of her leather helmet tightly under her chin. ‘Ouch, do you mind – that pinched!’
‘Sorry Evie – it’s a bit fiddly, you need to keep your chin up.’
Her glare let him know she thought it already was.
‘No you won’t have to kill anyone.’ Aldrwyn said as he finally got the strap where it seemed tight enough at least. ‘They almost never kill anyone – the sight of a dozen blood-thirsty Cyl is usually enough to scare off the Borderer farmers and they’ll run one way while we take the cattle the other.’
‘“Almost never” and “usually” are not words I want to hear now, Aldrwyn.’ Evie shook her head to see if she could get the helmet to move. ‘If it turns nasty you are on your own, I promise that now. Why are we stealing their cows anyway – that doesn’t seem right?’
‘That’s just the way it is here,’ Aldrwyn shrugged. ‘The Borderers take their cows, the Cyl take the Borderers’, The People take everyone’s. I think they all kind of enjoy it really.’
‘I strongly doubt that.’ Evie scowled.
She was to ride one of the Cyl ponies. It was far smaller than the horses she was used to seeing Wyrran soldiers ride, and even smaller than the ones in the Gadd’s stable that Luda had taught her to sit on when his masters were away at market or the fair.
She reflected that Luda had managed to back his way out of the ‘honour’ by feigning a bad reaction to wild parsnips, and she cursed herself for not thinking of it first.
The Cyl ponies were better for the mountains than the clumsy horses of The People, Iynta had told her, and Evie had mischievously thought to ask – if everything of the Cyl was so much better – why it was they who lived in the barren mountains and The People on the rich lands, and not the other way round? But she said nothing.
‘The way we see it is, our horses are smaller but smarter. And by smarter I mean smarter than The People, not their horses.’ Iynta chuckled at his own joke, while Evie gave her best impression of laughing on the inside.
They were riding down a steep slope that lurched Evie in her saddle until she felt like she might tip over the front of her horse at any point. Aldrwyn was happily riding with one hand lightly on his rein and looking like he was born in the saddle.
‘I thought you’d be good at this, Evie,’ Aldrwyn chirped as she nearly bounced out of her saddle for what seemed to her like the hundredth time. ‘Can’t you just tell it to go easy, have a word with…’
Evie let out a sharp groan of frustration. ‘I don’t know what Luda said to you, or how many times I have to say this to people – I do not talk to them! I can help this… beast… know how I feel but I can’t tell it what to do. And – like some people I know – even if I could talk to it, that doesn’t mean it’s got the brains to understand what I’m saying.’
Evie’s horse suddenly kicked its back legs out wildly, sending her plunging forward so that her face hit and rebounded from the animal’s thick-muscled neck with an audible thud. Aldrwyn did little to hide his amusement.
In that moment, one of the men signalled to Iynta and pointed to the valley floor below.
‘There,’ Iynta said, quietly, ‘do you see them? Must be 30, 40 cattle. Just five men. Three look like fighters. This will be a simple one for your first go, Evie.’
Iynta kicked his heels and his horse suddenly broke into a gallop, quickly followed by the others. There were a dozen Cyl in total, plus Evie and Aldrwyn, and all but she were now rushing down the hill on their stocky horses.
‘What do I do?’ she called after them. Her horse stood still as the other riders poured down the slope. She kicked at its sides, as she’d seen Iynta do, but it simply tossed its head and whinnied.
‘Oh, you stupid creature – move!’
Her horse flicked its mane, then suddenly jerked forward, almost unseating Evie. It seemed it had now decided it should be with its stablemates and was making every effort to catch them up with a flat-out gallop. Evie clung desperately to its neck as it charged straight down the steep incline to try to join the rapidly disappearing party.
Suddenly, even while clinging on, Evie could see more horses – and they were coming from another direction. It must have been a trap. There were at least 20 of them – Borderer soldiers, carrying shields, spears, axes and bows.
Evie’s horse carried on despite her desperate protests, driving headlong towards the melee that was breaking out below her.
One of the horsemen broke from the pack below and began to charge back up the hill towards her. As he got closer, she could see it was Iynta.
‘Get on, get on!’ he yelled, riding up and grabbing the reins of her horse while reaching with his other arm to pull her across and behind him. ‘You’re our guest – I have a duty to protect you.’
‘What about the others? What about Aldrwyn?’ she yelled, as he pushed his horse into an uphill gallop.
‘They’ll be fine – Borderer soldiers can’t shoot straight and our horses are faster. We’ll catch them further up the valley, those cowardly bastards won’t go that far.’
Evie looked back to see he may have misjudged their skill with a bow, as two Cyl horses had been brought down by arrows, and she hoped he was better informed on their willingness to pursue them. But she could see the remaining Cyl riders – including Aldrwyn – were making good distance between themselves and the pursuing horsemen.
‘We’ll rejoin them further down the valley – just over this ridge, they’ll be away by then. Hang on, we’re going to go pretty fast.’
Their horse, who Evie had thought couldn’t go much faster, suddenly picked up speed then plunged headfirst down what seemed to her far too steep a slope, as she clung as tightly as she could to Iynta’s woollen jacket, her eyes firmly closed. Then something felt wrong. The horse pulled back a little and started to kick its legs up. Iynta did not seem to respond to pull him back in line. The movement of his shoulder as he pulled the reins had stopped and his back felt limp where Evie had her head pressed. The horse pulled up and Iynta slipped to the side, and down to the ground.
Evie looked down to see his startled face looking back at her, confusion and disbelief in his unblinking eyes. His mouth moved wordless shapes as his hand gripped the dark wooden shaft of a spear that had found the place between his throat and his chestplate. He pulled at the spear, his jaw fell and his fight was over.
Now more horsemen were coming across the ridge they had just crested, and Evie was alone. Frantically, she kicked at the horse’s side as she’d see Iynta do and, after a second that felt like minutes, it threw back its head and bolted, straight down the slope.
Behind, the horsemen were closing in. Evie was clinging on but the horse was slowing – she had no control of its actions and no idea how to make it obey her. She had tried to let it know that it needed to run, that she needed to run, but all she had done was scare it more so that it now kicked out its legs wildly, slowing itself down further.
She could see they were now below one of the many smaller outer forts of the Cyl, and Evie could make out some of its fallen wooden defences protruding haphazardly from the top of the slope.
She wished it had been one of those the Cyl were working on today, but it was empty and unfinished. There was no one here to help her.
Evie’s horse, which had seemed to be slowing to a stop, suddenly pulled sharply to the left and broke into a gallop again – the unexpected movement partly unsaddling her so she slipped around the flank of her horse, barely clinging on and hanging dangerously close to the ground.
But even if she hadn’t seen help, her horse had. Aldrwyn and the other Cyl riders were now catching her as quickly as the Borderers behind. She finally lost her desperate grip on her horse and hit the ground hard, bouncing and tumbling along the rough turf and stopping face down and battered in the path of the Cyl horsemen.
Behind the Cyl, more horsemen were arriving – the Borderer riders that had attacked them first. Evie raised her head stiffly from the dry grass and tried to weigh up the situation as quickly as she could. Maybe 12-15 Borderers were riding up, plus the four who had killed Iynta and chased her down the hill. And 9 Cyl – with Aldrwyn making it 10. She hoped Iynta had been right about how much better Cyl warriors were.
The Cyl dismounted and formed a circle of shields around Evie as the Borderers closed in on both sides – cautiously enough, Evie thought, to suggest they were as unsure of the outcome as she was.
Then one of the Borderer riders in the larger group stepped forward from their closed ranks. He pulled off his light leather helmet and brushed back his neatly cut, blond hair with a gentle smile. It took Evie a second to recognise him, but the her heart jumped suddenly in her chest – it was him, the hunter, the man from the woods.
‘You really need to be nicer to your guests, I have waited weeks,’ he emphasised the word with an exaggerated tone of exasperation, ‘weeks for you to take her on the raid. You’re really losing your sense of tradition, you know.’
‘Stand back or you’ll die, Borderer dog.’ One of the Cyl raised his spear as if to throw.
‘You really have forgotten how to treat guests,’ Skavan smirked. ‘I’m not a Borderer, but these boys are, so be nice to them while they visit you. They cost me a lot – although I think I got a discount on account of how much they wanted to kill you al
l.’
Evie could see, through the wall of mail-covered bodies around her, that the Borderer soldiers were cautiously edging closer, their hands tightly gripping their axes and spears.
‘Now here’s how I see it,’ Skavan continued. ‘There’s more of us, but none of us really want this fight do we? It’s just going to be messy. If you can hand her over, plus your horses for my friends here, we can be on our way and forget this whole thing happened.’
There was no time for answer as Evie felt a movement beside her and a thin-bladed knife flew from the middle of the Cyl circle. Skavan calmly ducked his head to the side, the speed of his reaction almost imperceptible.
The knife hilt barely kissed his cheek as he moved, and the blade continued its flight into the shoulder of the tall Borderer warrior standing behind him. Aldrwyn stared venomously at Skavan’s unflustered face.
Then the Borderer soldiers charged in from both sides. Skavan looked to the sky and groaned. ‘Oh, that is just typical! Do not hurt the girl, do not kill her. None of you will get paid!’
Iynta had been right about the Cyl. They were ferocious warriors. But he was wrong about the Borderers and they came in hard and fast.
‘Thank you – I think,’ Evie said to Aldrwyn as they huddled at the centre of the wall of shields the Cyl had constructed around them.
‘That’s ok – I just couldn’t stand the look on his face,’ Aldrwyn replied, twisting down lower as the point of a spear reached through the shield wall to almost catch his arm. ‘Was that pretty boy the one from your forest?’
Evie nodded.
‘We’re going to open for you – be quick, make a run for that line of trees, there’s a river there, good cover.’ One of the Cyl warriors, a thick set man with prominent scars on his arms, gestured to where he and two more Cyl had their shields locked, ready to create a brief gap in the wall.
‘Now!’ he barked – and the men either side of him suddenly pushed out their shields and thrust their spears, pushing back the Borderers in front of them. One of the spears struck home, to the sound of a tortured scream.