by Greylady
A single quick glance satisfied him that the fire was making hardly any smoke, and the few small threads of grey that coiled up from the embers were dispersing on the wind that blew gently from the source of the voices. Bayrd took a few necessary seconds to give both horses their nose-bags; it was no guarantee of silence, but at least it gave them something else to do besides whinny after him when he slipped quietly out between the massive rocks.
This was something else for Youenn Kloatr to be wrong about, thought Bayrd as he snaked through the jumbled boulders to a vantage-point behind and halfway to the top of one of the largest. It looked and sounded as though someone’s retainers were less impressed by the tales of haunting than the headman thought, and Bayrd hoped Youenn’s assumptions wouldn’t someday backfire on him. There were eight of them – no, nine; he revised the count upwards as another man entered his line of sight. This last was still hitching at the fastenings of his breeches, and making little progress at it.
Bayrd would have smiled, except that he could see why the man was having difficulties – and it wasn’t much reason for amusement. He, and seven of the others, wore full armour underneath their furs, the elaborate harness of mail-linked plates he had seen before on Lord Gelert of Prytenon. Eight in armour, and one in travelling-leathers. Then the leather-clad person turned, and he revised his figures yet again. Eight armoured men – and one woman.
What they were doing here was anybody’s guess, and what she was doing in such company he couldn’t begin to imagine. She moved, and was dressed, in a style superior to the ordinary peasants he had seen before – except perhaps for Youenn Kloatr, but then the headman of Redmer was something of a mystery in more ways than just that. Both her voice and her gestures were those of someone giving peremptory commands, and the warriors seemed, though reluctantly and with no great haste, to be doing as they were bidden. For the most part their behaviour towards her appeared to be a rough-and-ready courtesy, though even at this distance he could see that the roughness took considerable precedence. Bayrd was sure that they were not her personal guard, and that they resented being ordered about by this female. He began to wonder what power or title she had that held their truculence in check – and why it was that her escort was composed of men of rank.
Their armour had told him that much. They were of higher status than the axemen he had encountered before, warriors perhaps of some lord’s retinue. There perhaps lay the seeds of their resentment, although there had to be more to it than that. They were certainly well enough equipped to do anybody honour as an escort; then Bayrd shook his head. If anything they were far too well equipped, more heavily armed than necessary for men travelling in – presumably – friendly or at least allied territory. As he dubiously eyed the plates and mail-mesh of their armour, the heavy cutting-spears they carried, the axes and maces shoved through their belts and the long swords hanging by their sides, he became uncomfortably aware that by comparison he was almost naked.
The taipan was at his belt, as was his tsepan dirk – though that was no weapon for a fight. Neither of them were. The shortsword was horribly inadequate, and the dirk was a joke. Everything else was back in the shelter under the ruined walls, just waiting to be discovered if one of the horses chanced to neigh a protest at eating all the grain in its feed-bag, or if the small wind changed and blew the smoke and smell of his fire in the wrong direction. Bayrd slithered silently back down the rocks and hurried off to do something about it.
Encased in his own armour for the first time in several weeks, he immediately felt more secure – even if the odds of eight or possibly even nine to one made that security illusory at best. It was just a precautionary measure in case he was discovered, because Bayrd did not intend to get himself into a fight without good reason, especially with the odds so heavily weighted against him; and if he could avoid any reason at all, be it good, bad or indifferent, so much the better. Gerin ar’Diskan and the Overlord had not sent him here to fight, but to watch, to learn, and to come back safely with his gathered knowledge.
With the fire extinguished and spare furs wrapped with strips of blanketing around the horses’ hoofs to deaden their sound, he led them cautiously towards the shadow of the trees and safety. Those trees were huddled as close to the ruins as their roots could find soil to support them, and he was grateful that whatever had happened in Dunarat – whether Youenn’s story, or something more historically accurate an boring – had taken place so long ago. Otherwise, in common with every other fortress he had ever seen, those trees would have been cleared back from the walls for a distance of one, two or even more bowshots. With the prevailing weather conditions of a fine, clear morning, there was no chance of his inadequate skill at sorcery creating a sudden fall of snow or even a convenient mist, and the prospect of crossing half a mile of open, snowclad country while still hoping to pass the gaze of eighteen eyes unseen was one he preferred not to consider.
Once in the friendly shadows, Bayrd tethered the pack-horse as far into the depths of the wood that any risk of accidental discovery was academic at best – though if worst came to worst and he didn’t come back, a determined search by the men who had…had prevented his return, would find the animal easily enough. He mounted Yarak, checked the weapons hung around his belt and saddle, then turned the mare’s head back towards the fortress. Bayrd still had no intention of going looking for a fight; but after all he had been told about this place and how reluctant Lord Benart’s people were to approach it, he was curious to learn what had changed their minds. If nothing else, he owed Youenn and the entire village of Redmer a sizable debt of gratitude for their hospitality, and a timely warning that their supposed supernatural defence was a defence no longer would go some little way towards repaying it.
Swinging around so that he would be approaching the place where he had last seen the intruders from straight out of the deep forest with the shadows at his back, Bayrd guided Yarak carefully through the trees as close as he dared before dismounting within sound of the voices and carefully setting hobbles round the mare’s front legs. He hooked the cased shortbow and its arrow-crammed quiver to his belt, set one arrow to the string, then eased forward on the yielding crispness of snow and long-dead leaves. He moved with all the delicacy learned during the brutal weeks of the woodland war in and around Gelert’s Forest, where a single sound out of place, a single missed step, would end in any number of particularly foul, protracted ways to die.
It didn’t matter that the voices were rising in argument, making enough noise of their own to cover any he might make. He knew well enough how such a reliance could betray, with a sudden, unexpected silence falling at the one instant when it could do most harm. Bayrd set down his booted feet as though the surface under the was not just vegetation and a crust of frozen water, but blown eggshells filled with red-hot coals – and even then, there were times when his tread was dangerously heavy.
Finally Bayrd could go no further. There was only the lightest screening of bushes and undergrowth between him and the enemy warriors – for they were the enemy, and would remain so until they had proved otherwise. He was certain that the scored, open area beyond was where past generations of peasant stonemasons had done their thieving from the vast quarry that had been the fortress of Dunarat, and the last had been recent enough that the encroaching forest had not yet recovered the broken ground. Not that there was need to risk taking another step; he could hear as well from where he stood. Bayrd relaxed the half-drawn bowstring – though most certainly he didn’t return the arrow to its quiver – and rested his armoured weight against the comfortably-broad bole of an elm tree to listen to what was being said.
They hated being here. There was no good reason to be here. And anyway, it felt wrong… Bayrd grinned harshly at that, knowing the sound of unadmitted fear when he heard it. He heard their accents, too, and it watered down his grin to an unpleasant smile, because despite where they were all standing, not all of them were Elthanek and entitled to be here at all. Four wer
e, as was the woman.
But the others were Prytenek, of High Lord Gelert’s own household. There had not been enough difference in the patterns of their armour for him to notice anything amiss, but the voices were unmistakable. Bayrd ar’Talvlyn leaned back against his tree and stared at nothing, trying to imagine what threat had brought these two old enemies together. From the first thought to the last, his answer remained the same.
Albans. Invaders. His own people.
And that answer told him something else he had kept restrained at the back of his mind during all the long, cold weeks of absence. In all that time without contact, without information except the unreliable rumours of war passed on to him by peasants who were more concerned to hear what he might have to say, one question had been nagging at him. And now he knew. Sorcery or not, the war was going in their favour. The Albans were not merely holding, they were winning, pushing Gelert back until he had been forced to turn for help to the very lord, the very province, he had hoped to defeat with Alban assistance. Until it all went sour…
Bayrd fought down the great whooping laugh of delight that came surging up inside him. This might even mean that his own mission no longer had any significance; that he could come home with honour and fight in a clean war that had no need to resort to the Art Magic – and that he could perhaps even forget all the things that had begun to happen to him since he first stepped onto the beach at Dunakr.
Except – the reality of the situation was like a dousing with cold water – that he could do nothing of the sort. Without the direct instructions of his lord to the contrary, Bayrd’s last orders still held good. Find a wizard or a sorcerer. Find out if he will help us. Bring him back. That was all; no room for flexibility, question, or debate. Do it.
“Purkanth’yen tarlekh!” roared a voice. Hard on the heels of the shout came a sound as unmistakable in its way as steel leaving a scabbard. A slapped face sounded much the same in any language. And this language had just called someone else a sorcerous bitch.
Bring him back. Or bring her…
Bayrd ar’Talvlyn had old-fashioned ideas about the mistreatment of women, or indeed anyone outnumbered and outweighed. He didn’t permit it. And at the same time he couldn’t intervene in this; it wasn’t his fight. Whatever was going on wasn’t even his business, except so far as it might tell him things that were. But inside the layered gloves of mail and fur and leather his knuckles were white against the skin as his fingers clamped around the grip of the bow. Trying to persuade himself to follow the road of duty, sense and silence rather than that of honourable, suicidal interference, he listened again to what was being said.
“…and Lord Yakez told you to help us,” said the first voice, its Prytenek accent thick with anger and what might have been poorly suppressed fright at what had just been done – and maybe also where it had been done. “He even made a formal promise to the High Lord Gelert that you would help us. So we brought you here. Now help us!” There was the high flat crack of another slap.
“I can’t help you,” said the woman’s voice. “Not here. Look at the place. How long since any of the lords, or any of their so-courageous warriors, came up here? It’s been destroyed. Taken to pieces. And any trace of sorcery is long gone too.”
“It’s haunted, wizard.” That was another Elthanek accent, heavier than the woman’s. “Everyone knows that. You know that. It’s your business to know it. The ghosts must have done this, because nobody comes near it. Even the closest village is a full day’s distance. So use the haunting, and let’s get out of here!”
Bayrd grinned again, though this time, with too many teeth on show and not enough humour baring them, it was nearer to being a snarl. At least Youenn and the villagers of Redmer were still safe after all.
“You can’t ‘use’ a haunting like that, if this place is even haunted at all – which I doubt.” For all that she had been slapped at least twice, and hard if the sound was anything to go by, the woman’s voice was calm and reasonable. “No matter what it looks like, it’s not a proper magic. You might as well put white wine in a lamp and expect it to burn just because it’s a liquid with the same colour as oil.”
From his hiding-place, Bayrd nodded approval. The argument was a sensible one. Now if they would just pay her the attention that her good sense deserved, and go away. But she had already put a dangerous doubt into their minds – if they had been listening – about whether the ruins were truly haunted or not. The risk, if the lord’s-men had heard enough for it to take root in their minds, was not to Bayrd, but to his friends in Redmer village. If a simple warrior said ‘haunted’ but a wizard said ‘not’, it was easy enough to see who would be believed, at least on that subject.
He unclipped the arrow’s sinew-wrapped horn nock from the string – the whole thing cleverly designed to hold a chosen arrow in place even at full gallop – and examined its wicked leaf-shaped steel head while at the same time an equally wicked idea took shape inside his own head. He slipped the arrow back into its quiver, and carefully selected another. This one looked, was, and most important of all, sounded different. The bulb that took the place of an ordinary arrowhead was made of wood, or metal, or even unglazed pottery, but each was pierced and channelled in a different way to produce a different sound.
They were called various things, depending on what that sound might be: whistlers, warblers, singers, and screamers – but depending on how they were used, their function was always the same, as signals, or to frighten horses. In the proper circumstances Bayrd hoped that this one might successfully frighten men as well. Any one of the half-dozen he carried as part of the quiver’s normal complement of missiles might serve to chase the doubts away, if shot at the right time out of the black depths of the forest. There was only one hazard: if any of the Pryteneks had heard such an arrow put to use before, perhaps down in the ‘invader’s country’, then the only thing Bayrd would have done was to reveal his all-too-human presence.
Decisions, decisions…
He risked a peek out from behind the tree. Until one or another of the warriors spoke, it was impossible to be sure which of them was Elthanek and which from Gelert’s household; but even at this distance he could make an educated guess. The Elthaneks, those who knew how haunted Dunarat was supposed to be, were the ones who looked scared. At least the warriors did. The Elthanek wizard, and the other four Prytenek lord’s-men, just looked angry. The woman wore the marks of those two slaps plainly on her right cheek, bright red handprints that seemed almost to glow against the pallor of her furious face, and as he rolled the screamer-tipped arrow to and fro between his fingers, Bayrd somehow didn’t think that she would try to dissuade anyone who jumped to the wrong conclusions about any eerie sounds that might surprise them.
He made up his mind, and fitted the screamer arrow to his bowstring, then rummaged briefly among the bristling feathered shafts and extracted two more arrows, these with singer tips. He clipped them next to the first, and made sure with a judicious plucking of the string that all three were held securely enough by their springy nocks. The result of loosing them off all together would win him no prizes for bowmanship, nor break any records – even though the unfamiliar strain might well break the string. Prompted by which thought, he hurriedly made certain there was a spare in its beeswaxed container at the back of the bow-case. But the record for flight and distance he was hoping to achieve had nothing, or at least not much, to do with the arrows, and a great deal to do with the quartet of sweating, nervous Elthanek warriors.
Fading back towards where he had left Yarak, Bayrd unhobbled her and swung easily up into the saddle. For all the cold, he too was sweating, and inside the cage of his ribs his heart was thumping with unnecessary vigour. Kneeing the little mare forward, he guided her slightly to one side so that if anybody chanced to look in the right – or for him, wrong – direction, they would be usefully illuminated by the newly-risen sun, while it would be at his back and shining full into their eyes so that he and the rising
arrows would be lost in the glare. Bayrd knew it would be a long time before he managed to forget his first shocking encounter with the hunter Jord Koutlan, and the way the big man had looked even bigger with the blinding light of morning behind him. If he was spotted, he wanted all the advantages that he could find.
But with care and good luck, those precautions wouldn’t be necessary. If all went well, at least four and hopefully all eight of the warriors would be interested in only one direction, that taken by their own horses along the shortest route away from the most definitely haunted ruins of Dunarat. Still sheltered by the trees, if only just, Bayrd rose just enough in his stirrups to make sure that he could still see where the warriors and their tame wizard were standing. Then he took a long, deep breath, and drew the bowstring back, and loosed the arrows in a long, high arc straight up and over their heads.
Even Bayrd was shocked by the eldritch triple wail as the arrows shot upwards – and he at least had been expecting it. To those taken unawares and unfamiliar with the sound’s more natural origin, or all too ready with an alternate explanation for its source, the arrowsong could have been little short of hellish. There were masculine yells, both deep and shrill, and a single female scream, hastily stifled. Bayrd guessed that was either because the wizard had guessed what she was hearing, or because her sorcerous training had given her more control over herself than most of the warriors, and showing fear in front of them was a worse thing than the fear itself.
