by CJ Arroway
The gap was only there for a second, but Evie and Aldrwyn burst through and headed across the thick strip of grass that stood between them and the trees that lined the river.
‘Get them!’ Skavan cried. ‘Forget these sheep lovers and get that girl!’ But the fight was not one that anyone could disengage from easily. Skavan grimaced. ‘Ok, I’ll do it myself.’
Evie and Aldrwyn had slid down the steep, muddy bank and were scrambling as quickly as they could through the wet rocks and shifting gravel of the river bed. The water was shallow and fast, but deeper potholes below the water meant speed had to be balanced with careful footing.
Behind them they heard the loud clunker of pebbles moving underfoot and turned to see they were not safe yet.
They had run down the course of the river as it cut deeper into the hillside, and the banks had risen until they were now hemmed in by small, steep cliffs either side of them. The only way was to follow the stream, however unsure their step.
Suddenly they stopped. What had looked from further back like another shallow drop into rapids was now the edge of a steep, narrow waterfall. It had been reduced to a thin stream in the summer heat, but years of running water had cut a deep fall into a blue-black, rock edged pool below.
‘You don’t know when you’re caught do you, Evie?’ Skavan said, striding towards them. She could see the thin metal chain he held in his hand – he’d learned his lesson from the last time.
‘Step aside boy – I will kill you without blinking. I just want the girl.’ Skavan snarled at Aldrwyn who had put himself in front of Evie on the narrow falls top.
‘Step back,’ Aldrwyn whispered. ‘Exactly where you are now – step back. Trust me.’
Evie glanced over her shoulder – behind her the wet rock led only straight down into the rocks and the narrow pool.
Evie stared at him in confusion, then back down into the black water of the pool, and shook her head.
‘Trust me… oh never mind,’ Aldrwyn reached his hand back across Evie’s shoulder and shoved.
She felt the world spinning, wet moss and rock flashed past her face, then the wind left her body and the air turned to water – still spinning.
Silence for a second, then the rush of wind and water as her head shot up out of the pool. She half-swam, half-scrambled the short space to the pool’s shallower sides, and hauled herself quickly up to standing in the waist-deep channel of the river as water stung her nose and eyes.
‘Run, Evie – run,’ Aldrwyn shouted from the ledge above, then the crack of Skavan’s chain against his skull, and he fell.
‘Aldrwyn, no!’ Evie screamed, as his body hit the water head-first and he disappeared down into the pool. Then a second splash, and Skavan was down, and quickly back up again.
Evie tried to think – she closed her eyes and thought of what she had read in the library. Control, focus.
The water around Skavan began to swirl and pull at his legs. For a second he almost looked afraid, then he angrily kicked out at the water and pulled himself up as if unsnagging himself from a bramble bush.
Evie stumbled and Skavan pounced, grabbing her around the neck and spinning her round into a headlock. ‘Your little Daw tricks aren’t going to save you now. Don’t make it difficult – I won’t hurt you.’
‘You’re right, you won’t hurt her!’
Evie and Skavan looked up in surprised unison to see the tall, broad figure of a warrior standing at the rim of the waterfall, bow drawn and aimed where they were standing. It took her a second; a moment of disbelief followed almost instantly with hope. Rachlaw.
‘Oh, don’t try to second guess me, that’s a dangerous game,’ Skavan called up – his knife now pressed against Evie’s throat. ‘I get out of here with her, or she dies. It’s a pretty simple equation.’
‘You won’t hurt her. You need her, don’t you, Skavan.’ Evie’s mouth was covered but her eyes spoke her surprise. Rachlaw knew the hunter.
‘No, Rachlaw – I don’t need her. I can happily kill her – I won’t get paid, but that’s nothing to me, I just don’t like to lose.’
Evie saw a flicker of hesitation – maybe doubt – flash across Rachlaw’s face.
‘Just put down the bow and she lives,’ Skavan shouted.
‘You know I can’t do that,’ Rachlaw said, as he raised the bow and aimed.
In a second the water burst around her and Evie felt the knife pulled away from her throat; the warm rush and red of blood filled the water.
The river churned and Evie reached for her throat, unsure for a second if the blood was hers. She stumbled back into the water and, as her head broke the surface again, she could see Rachlaw on the ledge – his expression as confused as her mind, and the arrow still firmly in his fingers’ grip.
Then the river boiled with motion again and Skavan’s ashen face, contorted with fear and anger, burst through – a jagged and ugly slash had ripped his handsome face, and a scarlet curtain of blood and water ran from his cheek back down into the river.
And there was Aldrwyn – Skavan’s knife hand, still holding the blade, was now firmly between both of his, as they grappled for control. Rachlaw aimed his arrow, but the tumbling of bodies meant any shot he might have taken could not be sure of its target.
Evie forced her way through the water as she tried to reach Aldrwyn to help his struggle. But Skavan had finally shaken Aldrwyn off and he fell back into the water – now though it was Aldrwyn’s hand that held the knife.
Skavan ran. His hand pressed to his face to stem the flow of blood, he vanished like a startled snake into the undergrowth of the bank, as Rachlaw’s arrow skitted inches wide of its moving target and bounced off the flat rock bed and harmlessly into the water.
Rachlaw scrambled quickly down the side of the rocky bank that flanked the waterfall as Evie pushed towards Aldrwyn, who stood exhausted in the river, his heavy hands falling to his side and dropping the knife into the water.
She could see now the open gash and angry swelling where Skavan’s chain had hit his temple, and his linen shirt was soaked in blood, both given and taken.
‘That showed him, hey?’ Aldrwyn grinned, then his eyes rolled back and he slumped down into the river’s embrace.
The Friends
They had searched the area for Skavan briefly, but he was too quick and too good at covering his tracks. They quickly turned their efforts to getting Evie, Aldrwyn and the injured Cyl raiders back to Brya, along with the body of Iynta and four other Cyl who had fallen.
The skirmish with the Borderers had ended – as so many did – with both sides’ poets singing of victory. Though in truth it was the Borderers who had broken away from the melee and run – six of their men dead and five who would never ride out in battle again.
Aldrwyn was in the care of the Cyl healers now, sleeping soundly – as he would for a while yet – but he was alive. Evie smiled to herself as she thought how Aldrwyn would feel if he could see the concern on Jinny’s face while she tended his wound with scented oil and yarrow.
Aldrwyn was Nix – Nan had told her after they brought him into the healing space – and Nix love water as much as they love music. He had spent half his childhood in water and he would happily stay in its airless space for as long as a cauldron of pottage took to boil, she said. Skavan had picked the wrong ground to fight on.
Iynta and the other fallen warriors were taken to the fort at Cran Dar and sent to the Plains of the Dead with fire, as was the tradition of the Cyl.
The flames of the great pyre were still burning late into the night as Evie and Rachlaw watched the last of the Cyl mourners cast their soul knots into the embers. They sat on a crude log bench, between the fire’s warmth and the cold of the mountain, and talked of all that had happened since they last met, what now seemed a lifetime ago.
‘I curse myself every day, Evie. It was my fault. I was too complacent. I knew they were strong, and many, but not how strong – how many. Or how cunning. I led my men to death.�
�� Rachlaw stared into the fire and Evie thought he looked older than she remembered him.
The Sea People had taken the fort in one night, not the months that Rachlaw thought it would take. Orlend had long ago learned victory came easier with gold than steel, and when Venner and his men were welcomed to Riverhead they dined with traitors and died in their beds. The Sea People had spent the time they won laying tracks of stone and wood just under the river’s surface and waiting for Rachlaw to spring their trap.
‘It’s not your fault, Rachlaw. I know you will have done what you could.’ Evie’s mind was still so full of questions she didn’t know what to ask next, so she was relieved to see Nan Tabyn approaching, still in her funeral robes, to give her time to pause and gather her thoughts.
‘Rachlaw – I’m sorry I didn’t have time to greet you earlier and even sorrier we have to meet again on a day like this.’ Nan’s face shaped a smile that would have been broader on a less sombre occasion.
‘Nan – it’s been so long. You haven’t changed a bit,’ Rachlaw stood and kissed Nan softly on her cheek.
‘Nor you,’ she said, smiling. ‘Still the same terrible liar you always were.’
‘You know each other?’ Evie asked, her eyes darting from one to the other.
‘Oh yes,’ Nan said. ‘We know each other very well. You should know Rachlaw is a unique man – the only one of all The People who isn’t a complete–’
‘We’re old friends,’ Rachlaw quickly interjected. ‘We spent some very happy times together. And some sad ones.’
‘Rachlaw is Cyl at heart, aren’t you love?’ Nan patted his broad chest. ‘Practically one of us.’
Rachlaw read the question written right across Evie’s face.
‘I spent a lot of time here in my youth. I wasn’t always a soldier of Wyrran – I earned my keep where I could at one time.’
‘He fought for us,’ Nan said, ‘and very well too – almost as good as a real Cyl warrior. Not quite, but almost.’
Rachlaw slapped her gently on the back. ‘When I wasn’t your prisoner, of course – let’s not forget that bit of the story shall we?’
Evie shook her head, looking again from Nan to Rachlaw, hoping one of them might explain what was going on.
‘I’ll tell you the whole story tomorrow,’ Rachlaw promised. ‘Now lets catch up, drink some ale and give a proper send off to those men we lost today.’
Nan raised her glass.
Evie kept quiet as Nan and Rachlaw reminisced, but a question she had yet to ask was still burning in her and she needed to put it out.
‘How long ago did you get my message?’
Rachlaw put down the tankard that was at his lips and turned to look at Evie again. ‘Hmm? Which message?’
‘I left a message weeks ago – in Wyrra, with a guard. I left him the cloth you gave me when I was a child. Remember?’
‘Cloth?’ Rachlaw shook his head.
‘You said – if I was ever in trouble, if people came for me, to find you. You gave me the dog… the lion. From your tunic. Remember. When I was little? You’ve forgotten.’
‘Of course,’ Rachlaw said, suddenly snapping his thick fingers. ‘No I didn’t get any message. I didn’t get to Wyrra. I lost my horse in battle, I had to avoid the roads. By the time I got there it had already fallen.’
Evie’s confusion was growing by the second. ‘Then why are you here?’
‘Fate!’ Nan spoke up suddenly. ‘I knew it. I knew it when she arrived and I knew it when I saw you. The spirits have spoken – this is fate. This is something – something I don’t know what, but there is fate’s hand in this. I know it.’ She suddenly stood up to leave.
‘Where are you going, Nan?’ Evie asked.
‘To my books – I need to see more.’ Nan kissed Rachlaw on his temple and turned towards the path that led out of the fort.
‘At this time, Nan? Stay and drink with us a little more.’ Rachlaw placed his hand on the empty seat next to him.
‘Fate waits for no one – when you hear its call you answer. If it wants to speak to me now then I cannot miss this chance.’ Nan gathered up her long robes and walked briskly back down the hill towards Brya and the hall.
Rachlaw touched his forehead where Nan had kissed him and shrugged at Evie. ‘Fate, hey?’
‘It does feel like fate,’ Evie said. ‘Could this mean something, like she says?’
‘Yes,’ Rachlaw said, leaning in. ‘It means Nan sees everything in terms of magic.’
Rachlaw half stood to draw more ale from a small barrel resting on a wooden stand beside the bench, then cursed the meagre dregs that barely wetted the bottom of his tankard. He sat down again a little closer to Evie.
‘Look – if your whole life is dedicated to magic then every poem is a spell song and every fall of a leaf is an omen. She is a wise woman, but she sometimes cannot see when a leaf is just a leaf. Or when a chance meeting is just chance.’
‘But you – and me – here, now?’ Evie insisted.
‘Evie – this is the Western Mountains. This is where people go when they are desperate. You are desperate, I am desperate. That’s it. Fate? Fortune telling? There’s enough magic in the world, trust me I’ve seen it. I’ve seen nearly as much as Nan but I’ve seen it with less trusting eyes than hers. There are many mysteries, there are wonders, there are curses and cures – but there’s no fate other than that we create for ourselves. We decide our own fate – however good, however terrible. That much I do know.’
Evie could see that Rachlaw had thought about this before, and she imagined his battles with Nan – ones where she would not want to pick a side nor be in the middle. It had been a long day, and now it was late. The other questions could wait until morning.
‘Well, fate or not, I’m glad you are here,’ she said, standing to leave. ‘Goodnight Rachlaw.’
‘Goodnight Evie – I’m glad too, I just wish it was for different reasons.’
Evie stopped for a second. ‘What is the reason you came here, Rachlaw? What is it you are desperate for?’
Rachlaw drained his tankard and stared into its empty wooden bottom for a moment, then looked at Evie.
‘An army.’
The Captive
Evie was satisfied that Rachlaw had answered most of her questions. The most pressing concerned news of her mother. There was none and while Evie had known the answer before she asked that did little to pull the belly punch of the words.
He had survived the battle through sheer courage and determination. That, at least, was what Evie took from his answer – though the words he had used reflected their different views of his actions that day. Whichever words were chosen, they described a desperate defensive stand that had given a few men time to break for the cover of the woods, with Rachlaw the last to join them and slip away as Orlend’s army turned its attention to Wyrra.
‘You’ve still not told me what you were doing at the waterfall – so far from the road?’ Evie asked, still trying to decide whether Nan was right about that or not.
‘I was far from the road you took, Evie, but right by the road I take. When you’ve lived among the Cyl you see there are many more roads through these mountains than those already flattened by others’ feet. I’d seen the Borderer horsemen making themselves hidden among the buckthorn and I knew trouble was coming for someone. I thought it better to stay out of sight – and to wait to see if it was any of my friends from Brya that they wanted to make trouble for.’
‘Ok. Well if it wasn’t fate it was my good luck. I’ll take that at least – unless you don’t believe in luck either?’
Rachlaw laughed. ‘Oh I believe in luck alright – good and bad – I wouldn’t be here right now without quite a lot of both!’
‘Yeah, what about here?’ Evie suddenly remembered his promise from the night before. ‘You said you’d tell me all about how you and Nan got so cosy – and I can’t wait to hear how you ended up in her prison.’
Rachlaw laughed even harder
, but he told her – at least those parts of the story that he wanted her to hear. The full story, he thought, was not one he was ready to share.
* * *
Rachlaw was not cut out to be a soldier.
He was the third son of a great family, and third in every way – third in line, third in status, third in favour. The eldest brother, Hakla, had his father’s name and was to have his title when the time came. Varlan – the middle boy – was taught to read and write, and told from his first word that he was to be the family’s eyes and ears at the King’s court.
Rachlaw, as befitted his status, was to be a priest at the Temple of the Spirits in Wyrra. His life would be defined by three unbreakable oaths: to reject all worldly wealth, to refuse all conflict, and to shun the temptations of the flesh.
This was complicated by the unfortunate fact that the three things Rachlaw must vow to reject were the exact same three he had already made an oath to himself to pursue with all his heart. And his father had taught him never to break an oath.
Rachlaw was younger by ten years than his next brother – a product of the brief and unhappy marriage of his father to his fourth wife. His disadvantage in age had helped Rachlaw hone a skill that would prove invaluable in battle years later – how to take a savage beating and get back up again.
But he would also join his older brothers in training with the sword, one of the few activities his father approved, as manly exercise to fasten his discipline and resolve. He learned to love it when he saw the tears in his brother’s eyes the day he removed his helmet and scarred his cheek with a viscous upswing of his wooden longsword.
He was not too unhappy when Hakla left for the King’s Men’s fortress, and when Varlan was packed off in robes Rachlaw thought looked far too grand and too large for his thin frame.
The day he told his father he would not be joining the priesthood was the last time he felt his father’s fist – but the first and only time his father felt his. Sent from the family home, he meant to travel in search of adventure but made it only as far as a small trading port in the far south of The Wyrran, where for six months he lodged with a group of enterprising women and kept true to at least one of his personal oaths.