by Dan Abnett
The ten riders spurred away together down the mound into the lower part of Maltane. At the main yard, most pulled away to left and right, disappearing into the rambles of huts and dwellings on either side, leaving Nithrom, Vintze, Harg and Gilead riding in a tight pack down to the northern gate.
The torchlights were gathering and milling just outside the outer ditch as they came down. The gathered firelights revealed a troop of more than fifty Tileans, all on horseback, all bearing the blue and white badge.
Some called out and pointed as the four riders appeared on the far side of the outer ditch, emerging from the darkness of the apparently dead town. Nithrom’s group reined up just short of the crude ditch bridge.
The Tileans’ leader, a thickset man with an eye patch and a long blue cloak, rode forward with six of his men in flank, until they were facing Nithrom’s group across the bridge. Gilead took the man in: heavy and muscled, his armour more ornate than his common soldiers. He had no shield, but wore a short sword on each hip. His expression was haughty, triumphant and vain.
‘Greetings to you!’ the mercenary called out, his coarse voice shredding the soft vowels of the Tilean tongue.
‘And to you,’ Nithrom replied in perfect Tilean.
‘We are but a few journeying veterans, looking for a place to rest.’
Nithrom nodded. ‘More than a few, perhaps.’
The commander looked around at the gathered men behind him, as if surprised to find them there. He laughed. ‘Aha, yes! My merry band! They wouldn’t harm a horse tick, so please you. There’s no need for those drawn blades.’
‘Is there not?’ Nithrom’s voice was cool. Gilead was struggling to translate as the exchange continued. Suddenly, he did not need to.
‘What is this place, that I am greeted by two noble sons of Ulthuan, a Norse bearshirt and an Imperial swordsman?’ the commander asked in perfect low elfish.
If Nithrom was surprised, he did not show it at all. Maura’s band travelled the world, Gilead told himself; they have surely mixed with many peoples and places. Just because they were killers did not mean they had to be stupid.
‘A peaceful place,’ replied Nithrom, switching language himself. ‘One that has no desire or ability to harbour a full company of men-at-arms. There are streams in the woods where you may refresh yourselves and fine glades where you can camp. On the morrow, you can get on your way, and we can all be happy there was no… unpleasantness.’
‘Unpleasantness?’ the man laughed, and a couple of his men cackled with him. ‘Who said anything about unpleasantness? Come, Ulthuare te tuin, my gentle friend… all we seek is a roaring fire pit, a sound roof, and hay for our tired steeds. Maybe we could also purchase some game and some ale.’
‘I must offer you my apologies, for I must be failing to make myself understood,’ Nithrom said flintily. ‘Perhaps your fine command of my language is not so sharp after all. There is no place in this town for you.’
There was a long silence. Gilead flexed his grip on the pommel of his sword, waiting. The commander bent and spat dust-spittle into the mud, and then sat back on his steed, gazing absently up at the night sky as he adjusted the fit of his gauntlets. His men waited. The crickets clicked.
‘Who,’ he began at length, as if patiently trying to deal with a small child, ‘who do I have the… pleasure of addressing?’
‘I am Nithrom, of Tor Anrok. And you?’
The eye-patched man grinned. ‘I am called Fuentes, master-at-arms, colonel. These are my boys and they have ridden long and hard this day. You see, Nithrom of Tor Anrok, I believe you have it about right: we have indeed misunderstood each other. We are peaceful men, the war season is over, we are just going home. All we ask is hospitality.’
‘And that, I’m afraid, is the only thing we can’t offer you.’
‘You know,’ said Fuentes, turning in his saddle to address his men in Tilean, ‘if that kind of protest had been presented to me by poor, starving farmfolk, I might have seasoned my bearing with respect and humility. But when it comes from a quartet of armed warriors… well, I start to have my doubts. From the likes of these…’ and he gestured round at Nithrom and his companions, ‘well, it smacks of unfriendliness.’
‘Master Fuentes,’ Nithrom said in clear, precisely enunciated Tilean, ‘we both know that if humble farmers had met you at this gate and denied you access, you would have slaughtered them without a second thought. Perhaps the presence of myself and my comrades will make you think again. You will not cross that ditch unharmed.’
Fuentes shrugged, as if it were nothing. He turned his horse around and moved back through his waiting men in the torchlight.
‘We are beaten,’ they heard him say to his men, ‘fully and soundly by these overwhelming numbers. Let’s away.’
Gilead stiffened. He heard Harg curse beside him softly and Vintze hiss the words. ‘Here it comes…’
His back to them still, Fuentes dropped his hand sharply, and the first dozen dog-soldiers ploughed their horses forward onto the rough bridge, pulling swords.
‘Meet them!’ Nithrom bawled.
The four defenders powered forward, smashing into the head of the assaulting phalanx as it was bottled by the bridge so only three could ride aside each other.
Nithrom ran the first Tilean through with his silver blade as Harg reaped his way into the thick of them, roaring like a wounded bear and swinging his axe around. Two riders, one missing a head, tumbled left off the bridge into the ditch.
Gilead charged in, deflecting a sword thrust with his shield as he bent low and then ripping the Tilean off his horse with a slice that cut him from belly to chin. Gilead’s blue-steel blade had severed the breastplate; the flapping sections of metal fell away with the body.
Vintze was beside him, slamming a Tilean rider off his horse with a sideways blow of his shield, and plunging his broadsword through the eyeslits of the Tilean behind his first victim.
Inside ten seconds, the boards of the ditch bridge were sodden with blood and strewn with the dead and dying. Horses that had fallen into the ditch shrieked and whinnied like banshees. On the far side of the defence, Fuentes turned, his face now shining with rage, and drew two hooked short swords, one in each hand, guiding his horse with his knees.
‘On them! On them! Take them!’ he screamed.
The main force of the Tileans, forty or more, poured in at the bridge.
‘We can take them!’ barked Vintze, ducking a sword sweep and slashing out as he fought to control his bucking steed.
‘Aye! We can hold this bridge!’ Harg added, his axe-blade spraying Tilean blood as it swung.
But already some of the lithe Tilean chargers, under the skilled hands of their sell-sword masters, were leaping the ditch itself and thrashing up the inner slope.
‘Break!’ Nithrom cried. ‘Now! Break and fall away!’
Harg and Vintze, both reluctant, tore away, digging their heels into their horses’ flanks, heading back into the compound. Nithrom had to yell a second time before Gilead seemed to hear him.
Then the four of them were galloping back from the ditch into the outskirts of the town, with the main force of Tileans raging after them.
The quartet raced in between the first of the huts, heading towards the public yard and the mound. The first two Tileans on their heels went down hard, horses cartwheeling and crushing their spilled riders as arrows took them in quick succession.
Bruda appeared on the roof of the first hut, drawing her bow with her powerful arms. A third rider went down, a fourth. She whooped.
Several more mercenaries had gone inside past her, and were now cornering in the inner yard. There was a flash and a roar, and one was slammed off his mount. His immediate companion started, tried to turn his horse and died as a lead ball exploded his steed’s head, passed through it and punched through his own chest.
Reloading their handguns, Dolph and Brom ran their horses forward. They fired again, and two more steeds buckled and crashed over. T
hen they were in the thick of the charge. The twins from Ostmark stowed their deadly but slow handguns and laid in with maces. They broke heads, their brass armour flashing in the flickering firelight.
Cloden had dismounted. A greatsword worked better on foot. He came round one of the miserable huts and laid his massive blade into the next few speeding Tileans. His first strike cut completely through man and leaping horse alike.
Nithrom, Harg, Vintze and Gilead turned back to meet the incursion, having lured them into the killing embrace of the lower town.
Le Claux came charging out of the dark and lifted a Tilean off his horse on the end of his lance. He laughed out loud, triumphant.
Like a terrible ghost from distant times, the noble figure of Caerdrath also emerged from cover and charged in, his stallion racing. Each of his six javelins found their mark, and then he drew his sword. He became a steely blur, scything the Tilean cavalry down like corn.
In the thick of the ferocious fighting, Gilead slashed and whipped his sword around, severing limbs and heads, smashing shields and breaking weapons. For the first time in a long while, he felt he had found his place. In a company of proud warriors, however ragged the band, fighting for a cause.
He was still hacking when the Tileans melted back in retreat, destroyed and driven out. Gilead saw Fuentes riding with no more than half a dozen men towards the ditch bridge. Nithrom’s warriors had killed almost forty of the Tileans.
Bruda whooped again and Vintze joined her in a cheer, riding around the body-littered street. Gilead lowered his sword and tried to contain the rage inside him.
Above them all, the fence of the inner mound shone with the lights of a hundred torches, suggesting a garrison of massive strength. Erill had done his work.
The first attack had been repulsed.
THE VICTORS, IN exuberant mood, returned to the inner mound and the gate was shut and barred behind them. Dolph and Brom, ever grounded and practical, had suggested their immediate course of action should be to secure and bolster the defences of the lower ditch, for it seemed certain the Tileans would return sooner rather than later.
Nithrom thought this good counsel, but did not take it. Such work by night would be thankless and hard, and difficult to coordinate. He wanted to give his warriors time to rest and enjoy their victory. For tonight, they would simply lock themselves in the inner mound. If Maura’s men returned, then it would be bad luck but they would at least be fortified.
Besides, Le Claux was already calling for a wine skin, his face glowing with excitement and pride, and Harg, Vintze and Bruda would not need much convincing to join him.
Wine was brought to them, along with hot food that Erill had ordered to be prepared. Minor wounds and scrapes were dressed and bound as the warriors grouped in the inner hall to celebrate. The telling scale of their victory had also raised the spirits of the Maltane townsfolk too. As the middle night passed, a veritable feast was underway with much singing, drinking and general good spirits.
Nithrom watched over it all from the door of the hall, a cup of ale in his hand. He saw Harg and Bruda joking and singing their way through a rowdy, suicidal drinking game, surrounded by a circle of laughing townsfolk. Cloden and the twins from Ostmark were running an all-comers arm-wrestling contest near the fire-pit. Vintze had the utterly undivided attention of several village girls. Le Claux held court, retelling the action like an epic poem for a giddy group of villagers, his metaphors and symbols enhanced by each draft of wine. Even Gaude and Erill were relaxed, flagons in hand.
It would do them good, Nithrom thought. Good for morale. He took a sip of his ale. He would watch the wall till dawn.
Fithvael was suddenly by his side, wiping bloody hands on a rag.
‘Madoc will live, for now,’ said the veteran. ‘The barb is out. He is sleeping.’
Nithrom raised his cup. ‘To you, worker of wonders. Your hands are as bloody as ours. You’ve seen a life or death fight of your own this night.’
Fithvael nodded. ‘I don’t think Madoc will ever speak again,’ he murmured. ‘His larynx was torn away.’
Nithrom sighed. ‘A tragedy. The tales he can tell, from his time with the Templars.’
‘Madoc was a Wolf Templar? A White Wolf?’
‘Of great renown. Leader of their Gold Company, doughty in battle. Did you not note his wolf pelt and his warhammer?’
‘But not now?’
Nithrom smiled. ‘He… acted in a way that brought dishonour to his regiment and was cast from the temple. He’s been a sell-sword ever since.’
‘What did he do?’ Fithvael asked.
‘He refused to kill me.’ Nithrom sipped again, his mind clearly on distant memories. ‘The most courageous thing, to throw away his career to help a friend, especially one of another race. I will tell you the tale some time, Fithvael te tuin. Just know this: though he was cast out in dishonour, I have never known a man more honourable. To his friends. To what really matters.’
Nithrom turned towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Someone must stand watch, and I have asked more than enough of this brave band tonight.’
‘I will stand it with you, friend, if I may,’ said Fithvael. ‘We can watch the town and talk of old times.’
GILEAD LOTHAIN SAT alone, oblivious to the merrymaking, gazing into the flames of the fire-pit at the rear of the hall. He became aware of a figure beside him and looked up. It was Caerdrath. The elf carried a goblet of wine in each hand and offered one out to Gilead. The last son of Tor Anrok accepted it with a nod and Caerdrath took that as an unspoken invitation to sit down next to him. The elf had removed his helm but his long hair was still braided up on his scalp. The scintillating sculpture of his armour was flecked with Tilean blood.
‘I am called Caerdrath Eldirhrar, tuin Elondith, grandson of Dundanid Flamebrand, of the line of Tyrmalthir and the clans of High Saphery and the Marble Hills.’
‘Gilead te tuin Lothain, of Tor Anrok.’
They drank to each other.
‘We are alone here,’ Caerdrath said, though it was clear he meant symbolically, as the place was crazy with noise and bodies. ‘Old world, old blood. Your companion, Fithvael, he mixes better with the human breed, and Nithrom is so worldly, he is neither man nor elf anymore.’
‘Do you despise him for that?’ Gilead asked.
‘Not one scrap. Nithrom is the truest friend I know. He has made a place for himself in this ugly world. Why else would I ride with him?’
‘But what finds you here, Caerdrath Eldirhrar, tuin Elondith?’ Gilead savoured the chance to use the ancient high tongue, with all its formal modes of address. It was like old music, half remembered.
Caerdrath did not answer directly. ‘Nithrom tells me that you and Fithvael are the last of your house. That you have ventured out into this bitter world to find traces of our vanishing people.’
‘That is so.’
‘Then we are kindred in that also. I too came to the human world to uncover the past. The old realms, the lost cities, most of them now buried beneath the foundations of new human settlements, it seems. I wanted to find traces of the world we had lost. We are alike.’
The notion shocked Gilead. Since, well, forever, it seemed - since Galeth died, at least - he had been driven to seek out the forlorn scraps of the old race. He had also felt himself to be a diluted being, just an echo of elfhood, tarnished by the dull human world. But here was an old one, so much more glorious than himself, an example of the very wonder he had been seeking… who professed exactly the same drive. It was a sobering revelation. So long he had been trying to regain his heritage, and here came a pure, unalloyed part of that provenance, equally lost and equally unfulfilled.
As if sensing the thoughts, Caerdrath said, ‘Our age has passed, Gilead te tuin Lothain. Our stars have set. The day fast approaches when we must step aside for brute mankind forever.’
‘I have a favour to ask of you,’ Gilead said.
‘I will grant it, if it in my power.’
‘When this is done, this little war, I would see the peaks of Ulthuan before I die. Show me the best way, the routes I should take.’
‘I will do better than that, Gilead te Anrok. I have been out in this wearying world too long myself. When we are done here, I will journey with you back to Ulthuan and we will feast together at my father’s table in the Marble Hills.’
GILEAD WOKE LONG after dawn. The hall was cool and full of the after-scent of smoke and cooking. A few of the townsfolk were asleep upon the rush flooring and Le Claux was slumbering in a corner.
Pulling off his leather jerkin and his undershirt, Gilead strode out of the hall into the cold daylight. The sky above was bright and grey, with a threat of rain, and the gate of the inner fence was open. Womenfolk were washing pans and platters in a water trough and he crossed to them, naked to the waist, and dunked his head and shoulders. The women huddled coyly as he shook out his mane of white hair.
He nodded a courteous, flirting thanks to them and walked off towards the gate, his jerkin and shirt folded under his right arm.
From the gate, he looked down across Maltane, ugly and stark in the glare of a new day. Smoke rose from the ditch at the north end, black and rancid as the wind carried it back. He could see figures at work in the town below, most of them townsfolk.
Pulling on his shirt, he wandered down the mound into the common ways of Maltane.
Nithrom had roused those he could early and set them to work. Dolph and Brom who, with their artifice guns and tactical minds seemed to Gilead to have almost mechanical souls, had begun to command the defence work. Nithrom clearly valued them for their strategic, engineering bent. Gilead saw townsfolk working in teams to widen the outer ditch, and others who used their spoil to fill sacking to raise an inner bulwark. In the public yard, Bruda was training some of the young men of Maltane - and at least three of the strongest young women - to pull bows. As her pupils flexed, released and missed the straw-stuffed targets yet again, she grinned at Gilead as he passed.
Gilead saw Gaude entertaining a flock of the children, and Erill supervising villagers as they erected tar-soaked bales of straw at the street corners. Down by the outer ditch, Dolph and Brom, both stripped to the waist and sheened with sweat, were overseeing the digging work.
