The Black Hawks

by David Wragg

  ‘I’m sure he’ll try, highness,’ Chel said. The mail felt heavy and constricting and smelled of damp and rotting iron. The short sword was no better; it was cold, heavy, and dull as a sermon, and set his shoulder throbbing whenever he tried to raise it to a semblance of a fighting posture.

  ‘What if one of them shoots him? What if he sees all the weapons and turns tail? Then what?’

  Chel considered a calming hand on the prince’s shoulder, then decided against. ‘Everyone is out of sight bar Palo and Dalim, and they’re in Sisters’ robes. Nothing alarming here.’

  Tarfel did not look mollified. ‘Do you think he’s coming? Are you sure he got the message? He never sent a reply.’

  ‘I think that might have—’

  ‘What if he can’t get away? What if one of the bloody lords insists on riding with him and he can’t shake him? What if—’

  ‘Highness! Please. Try not to fret. Hope for the best, plan for the worst, right?’

  The feeble sun drifted through maudlin cloud, but the rain held off. Chel did his best to keep the prince focused while they waited, fearing a downward spiral in the prince’s thinking if too long unattended.

  ‘What did you and our friend the Watcher talk about on the road?’

  ‘Hmm? Oh, nothing really, this and that, politics, history. I’ll say it was nice to have someone telling me what’s going on for a change, though. He’s an odd fellow, no doubt, but he seems trustworthy.’

  Chel managed an insincere smile in return. His underlying unease toward the Watcher and his nebulous plans remained, but as he reminded himself, he was here for Tarfel. The sooner this meeting was resolved, the sooner he could find out where his sister was.

  It didn’t make him any less relieved that Rennic had agreed his extended contract after all.

  It was mid-morning when they heard the first horn, echoing around the woods from the direction of Talis Castle. A further chorus followed in short order, and the distant yipping of hounds came and went. Chel’s heart started to beat faster.

  The group made ready. Rennic stood in the broken shadow of the fort, pressed against the old stone, his hair tied back and breathing steady.

  Chel scanned the carpet of treetops that stretched around them in all directions. Even the roads, the shallow rivers they’d forded, were lost somewhere in the undulating spread of vegetation, dark and dewy in the skewbald sunlight. Despite Rennic’s words, he began to doubt that Whisper and the rest of the crew would be able to follow them. He began to doubt that Prince Mendel would be able to find his way to them, alone or with company.

  The horns moved on, growing fainter, and Chel’s hope went with them.

  A flock of birds burst from trees beyond the foot of the hill, and Chel realized that he could hear hoof-beats over the thump of his own pulse. He strained forward, pressed against the stone of the gantry, forgetting his tacit admonition to the prince.

  Two riders had emerged from the trees, the first on a gleaming grey horse festooned with sparkling adornments. The rider carried a long spear in his free hand, a gilded sword belted to his saddle, and his breastplate and helmet glittered with filigree. As he urged the champing horse up the hillside, the rider looked every part the prince they had been expecting.

  Chel remembered himself and ducked. Tarfel remained upright, peering over the wall.

  ‘It’s him! It’s Mendel! He’s come for me!’

  ‘Highness, get down!’

  The second rider was a bulky figure in tan and green, riding a stocky roan devoid of the first’s finery, a brace of short spears bouncing in their fixings at the saddle, a long, curved sword strapped to the rider’s back. The helm was dark, the guard down. The second rider stayed very close to the first.

  The two riders crested the rise, horses picking their way over the overgrown rubble that marked the fort’s former outer wall. Tucking his spear, the first reached up and removed his helmet, a cascade of golden hair billowing from within. The watery sun chose that moment to pierce the clouds, and for a moment the prince glowed in a shaft of honeyed light.

  ‘Good Sisters,’ he said, voice carrying easily over the battlements, ‘is this the hill of the raven?’

  Palo, still robed and hooded as any sister, nodded, her gaze low. Beyond the mules, Chel saw Dalim’s men shifting their hunched stances, keeping the animals between themselves and the prince. Dalim himself, to his credit, had stayed where he was, beside the lump of stone that hid his glaive.

  ‘Is this a field hospital? I’m to meet someone, you see – anyone else out here with you?’ Mendel said with a friendly grin. He stowed the spear and rested his fancy helmet across the pommel of his saddle.

  Palo had edged closer, keeping her hood forward, her gaze low. ‘You were to come alone,’ she said. ‘We should kill your brother immediately.’

  Chel shot a look at Tarfel, who had blanched.

  ‘I take it this means I have the right people, as well as the right place.’ Mendel frowned, his handsome features crumpled in perplexity.

  ‘Alone.’

  He spread his hands, helpless. ‘Oh, come now, I could hardly leave my first sworn behind. It was struggle enough to escape the rest of the party – “Oh look, a boar!” Whoosh! – but they’ll fret less if they know I have someone keeping an eye on me.’

  The second rider flicked up the helmet’s guard. The face beneath was black-eyed and malevolent and gave the surroundings a look of deep suspicion.

  ‘Balise da Loran,’ Chel groaned, as Tarfel sagged beside him.

  Mendel’s first sworn geed her mount a step toward Palo, unfastening one of the short spears at her saddle. Her voice was still as rough as pumice. ‘Who are you, false sister? Do you have breath left to repent your lies?’

  Mendel raised an arm. ‘Now, now, Balise, we’re here because – I hope, at least – my little brother is alive and well after all. Is that something, perhaps, that we could address before we go too far down another road?’

  Before Palo could signal, Tarfel was on his feet, waving from the narrow rampart. ‘Mendel! Brother! I’m here! I’m alive!’

  Mendel’s grin lit the hillside. ‘Tarfel! What a relief! Come down here, let me embrace you.’

  Tarfel was already scurrying. Chel scrambled after him, grabbing his shoulder. ‘Highness, wait!’

  Da Loran’s spear was in her hand, held ready to throw. She looked like she knew how. She fixed her dark gaze on Palo. ‘Bring him down and tell your vagrants to stand down if you want to keep your guts on the inside.’

  Palo made no move.

  ‘Very well,’ da Loran said with a snarl.

  Mendel was speaking very fast. ‘Hold on, hold on, there’s no need—’

  A howl echoed from the woods below, unnerving and murderous. Another followed, then a chorus, odd-pitched and malign.

  Hunkered at the edge of the gantry with the younger prince held firm, Chel exchanged a glance with the archer crouched in the shade of the upper floor. ‘The fuck is that? Wolves?’

  She shrugged, no less nervous. Chel found he wanted to stay close to her and her arrows. He looked for Rennic in the ruins below, but the big man was out of sight from their new position.

  ‘Well, wolves are everywhere,’ Tarfel said from beneath his grip.

  The howls repeated, this time accompanied by shrieks and screams, echoing faint and protracted from around the woods. Occasional barks, growls and yelps joined them, the sound of dogs in fear.

  Da Loran wheeled her horse around, spear still clenched in her fist. ‘What is that? What vile trickery is this?’

  Palo shook her head. ‘Not us. Not us.’

  Mendel looked alarmed, his earnest calm dissolved. ‘What’s happening?’

  Rennic’s head appeared through the wrecked floor beside Chel and Tarfel. ‘Gird your gonads, boys and girls, looks like someone had the same idea we did.’ He began to duck back below.

  ‘Wait, what do you mean?’

  ‘Someone’s ambushing the hunting
party. Get that fucking sword arm warmed up.’ Then he was gone. Chel pressed himself back to the rampart’s edge, peering down into the remains of the courtyard.

  ‘Enough of this!’ Da Loran rode to the edge of the hill and waved her spear in an arc, then swung around with a satisfied smile. From the woods behind her, a dozen new riders appeared, mail-clad, their shields bearing the sigil of Talis.

  Chel gasped. Mendel had betrayed them, brought a heavy guard after all. His gaze snapped to the crown prince. Mendel was caught between confusion and panic, wheeling his horse in a circle. ‘Balise! Balise, what’s happening?’

  No, Chel thought. This wasn’t Mendel. This was Balise. This was the Rose.

  The howling came again, much closer. It seemed to be coming from all around them. Palo dropped her arm, and Dalim dived for his glaive. Around the ruin, the archers nocked arrows.

  ‘Highness, to me!’ da Loran cried, flashing the spear to her off hand and drawing her sword, steering her horse with her knees.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Tarfel said, his voice a nervous whine. ‘Don’t let them hurt my brother!’

  The royal guardsmen were almost clear of the trees at the foot of the hill when the first horse stumbled and fell with a scream, throwing its rider to the mud below. A second rider jerked to the side, then slid from his mount, his helm split by a vicious-bladed axe. As the other riders faltered their charge in confusion, a figure leapt from the trees, a wild-haired thing with pale, pale skin, a double-headed axe in its grip.

  ‘Shepherd’s mercy,’ Chel said. ‘It’s Lemon!’

  Two more pale figures leapt from the woods, howling and screeching as they came, manes of ash and flaxen hair flowing behind them. The three of them hurled themselves at the confused riders, falling on them with razor-edged savagery.

  Chel’s throat felt thick, a cold feeling in his gut flooding out the hope that had bloomed. ‘That’s not Lemon.’

  One of the regulars on the tower’s far side gave the shout. ‘Horvaun!’ A gurgling scream followed from the same direction, and Chel realized with horror that pale figures were already at their back. He lumbered, thick-footed, to the gantry’s far side. Pale-skins flooded up the escarpment, maybe a dozen, circling the hilltop beneath the gantry. A handful were already scaling the fort’s broken-edged wall, questing hands finding easy holds in the crumbled stonework.

  Rennic’s head reappeared from below. Before he could speak, Chel almost shrieked at him. ‘What in hells are Horvaun reavers doing here? We’re in the fucking midlands!’

  Rennic’s eyes were wide, his nostrils flared. ‘Agonize later, little man. Looks like they’ve come after the hunt, and golden boy’s trick with the guards has led them right to us. They’re our problem now. When it comes to slaughter, Horvaun don’t discriminate.’

  ‘What do I do?’ Chel’s teeth were chattering, rattling in his skull.

  Rennic locked gaze with him. ‘Same old. Keep the prince alive. Don’t die.’ Then he dropped back through the hole in the floor, leaving Chel dry-mouthed on the gantry with the prince at his feet.

  He looked up, to the tower-top, and flinched at the sight of one of the regulars lolling over the battlements above, half his skull gone and an expression of limitless surprise still plastered to his face. Dark liquid flowed down from his body, a black flood staining a channel down the grey stone. A moment later, one of the Horvaun reavers staggered into view, hands clutching at something Chel couldn’t see. Flashes of movement followed, then the reaver was over the edge, arcing through the air, as limp as pudding. The body whistled past the gantry, clipping a foot in a sickly indifferent fashion, before thumping into the rubble below and rolling to a stop.

  ‘Fucking have that!’

  Spider stood at the tower’s edge, arms spread wide, a slick curved blade gleaming in each fist. For a moment, he met Chel’s shocked gaze with a vicious grin, then vanished back over the roof in the direction of the climbing reavers. Chel glanced back down at the bloodied shape below. Its white skin was riddled with scars and tattoos, black, blues and reds, so much so it was hard to separate bodily damage from decoration. The reaver’s face, half-covered by thick plaits of wild hair, had been painted like a skull, smeared with ash and charcoal, hollow-eyed and grinning. The reaver was not grinning now.

  More were climbing the fort. Chel grabbed Tarfel’s shoulder, jabbing his finger toward the twisted watchtower at the gantry’s end, away from the main keep. ‘Highness, we need to move. Go, go, go!’

  In the courtyard below, Palo had thrown off her robes, revealing gleaming mail beneath. She waved a heavy, long-bladed sword toward the fort. ‘Fall back inside!’ Reavers were already breaching the courtyard through its broken walls, the archers in the tower loosing off arrow after arrow.

  ‘Highness!’

  Balise da Loran was upright in her stirrups, javelin poised to throw, eyes fixed on the hillside. The riders from the wood had made it no further. Their surviving horses milled in panic, unsure of which way lay safety in the face of the howling, snarling reavers that had capered in their midst, hacking at the bodies of the downed riders. Now the reavers were halfway up the hill, blood-sprayed and shrieking, the lead runner a giant of a man with a short axe in each hand.

  ‘Highness, behind me!’

  Da Loran twisted and hurled the javelin. It streaked from her hand, ripping through the air and straight through the lead reaver, emerging a full two feet from his back. His howls turned to gurgles as he reeled and collapsed, but his comrades continued. Da Loran swung around to see where Mendel was, snatching up her second javelin. She saw the prince backing his horse away from an injured reaver, two arrows jutting from the Horvaun’s blood-streaked body, his axe swinging with mindless fury. Mendel’s hunting spear was gone, smashed from his hand by an axe-swing. Without hesitation, da Loran flung the second javelin, lancing the gasping reaver for a third time, driving him to his knees. She brandished her sword and urged her mount forward, racing across to carve a gaping wound in the stricken reaver’s neck.

  More Horvaun had reached the hilltop, scrambling up the cleft beneath Chel’s gantry. The group split, most heading for the fort’s ruined opening, others going for Mendel and da Loran. An arrow flashed from the fort’s lower interior, whistling high and wide, and one of the reavers flung an axe in return. Something inside made a wet crunching sound and began to whimper.

  The reavers were almost inside when Dalim erupted from the darkness, his glaive whirling around his head. The reavers’ attacks were repulsed in a whirl of steel, until two lunged for him simultaneously. He danced backward, up the rubble-pile, his breathing heavy, the glaive beginning to slow in his hands. Cut and furious, the reavers scented blood.

  Rennic surged out from behind them, bursting from his hiding place among the rubble piles. He smashed his splintered staff into the reavers as Dalim danced forward, the glaive once more a blur. Palo appeared at his shoulder, her long sword held up more in defence than assault, guarding Dalim’s open flank. Dalim pirouetted and slashed, sending sprays of arterial fluid in great arcs. Rennic was less ostentatious, but no less effective. He drove a reaver to his knees with the staff, then followed up with a fatal slice from the skinning knife at his belt.

  Something clunked beside Chel, a loose piece of stone clattering to the rough floor by his foot. He turned, slower than ever in the tight mail, to see a pale hand crest the edge of the gantry, quickly joined by another.

  ‘Highness, get behind me.’ He was already regretting dragging Tarfel to the gantry’s far end.

  Tarfel was shrieking. ‘Vedren, do something! Kill it!’

  Chel hefted the short sword. His shoulder throbbed incessantly, the bone never at peace in its socket. As a head crested the parapet, he swung.

  He missed. The dull blade of the heavy sword clunked against the grimy stone, spraying powdery flakes but doing no harm to the clambering reaver. Before he could drag up the sword again, the skull-face filled his vision. The reaver swung over the gantry w
all, lunging forward with both hands, long, inhuman fingers wrapping his throat. His breath caught, his eyes bulging, a sudden burst of pain spreading out across his body.

  Something flickered in the corner of his vision and the grip weakened. The reaver staggered sideways with a grunt, and Chel saw the arrow protruding from her thigh. The dark-eyed archer stood at the gantry’s far end, her face locked in concentration, fishing for another arrow from her quiver. It stood empty, and she met Chel’s gaze in panic.

  Tarfel cracked a large chunk of stone over the reaver’s head, and she dropped.

  Chel collapsed against the wall, gasping, hands probing his battered gullet. Unable even to summon the breath to thank the prince, he looked out over the courtyard. The reavers at the fort’s opening lay curled and bleeding, but those who had come from the wood had cornered da Loran at the courtyard’s far side. She was on foot, her horse fled or dragged away, facing off against three surviving reavers with her curved sword. Blood leaked from half a dozen shallow slashes on her arms. Mendel stood at her back, his helmet gone, his gilded sword held unsteady before him. He looked dazed.

  One slashed at da Loran, and, as she turned to block, another stung across the backs of her legs with a thin blade. She looked like she had moments left before she fell, and then the reavers would be on Mendel.

  Chel found his voice.

  ‘Rennic! Rennic!’

  The big man looked up, and Chel gestured frantically toward Mendel and da Loran.

  He looked across, then back. He was breathing heavily and streaked with blood, Chel had no idea whose. ‘What?’ he bellowed.

  ‘Save him!’

  The dark brows dropped. Palo stepped to his elbow, gaze distant. Chel struggled to make out her words. ‘Let them have him,’ he imagined her say.

  ‘Rennic! You swore!’

  Palo’s hand was on Rennic’s arm, and this time Chel heard her urgent voice. ‘Let him die! We need only the crown, not the man.’