A Time of Courage

by John Gwynne

  Bleda was walking along the riverbank, within the boundaries of the camp. He was aware of Ruga following him, ten or twenty paces behind. He knew as Lord of the Sirak he had to accept this, but Bleda felt suffocated, overwhelmed, and had just needed to walk and think. Since leaving the last camp he had been preoccupied with finding Jin, and her warband. The Cheren prisoner had spoken of the strength of the Cheren, every last man and woman that could sit on a horse and wield a bow.

  That is a lot of Cheren to kill. What am I to do?

  He felt the weight of his newfound leadership. It was taking some getting used to. Especially as he had felt that he’d failed so disastrously with his first command. His hundred honour guard. He’d led them into a forest full of mist-walkers, and never seen most of them again.

  But I still live, though I do not deserve to. I will think, this time. Not charge blindly at my enemy and just expect a victory. Courage is good, but it must be tempered with wisdom and strategy.

  And that is what he had been trying to do; to use his wits first, an attempt to win battles with the fewest casualties to his warriors. Like at the last camp, hiding in wait for the Cheren, surprising them, and crushing them with a flanking force. It had worked this time. Only five Sirak slain, a dozen wounded, for two hundred dead Cheren.

  But he knew it would not be so easy against Jin and her horde. The prospect was overwhelming. He was not scared. Well, not scared of dying, anyway. He had come face to face with death the night his mother had died, when he had cut Uldin’s throat and then stood open-armed, waiting for the arrows to pierce his body.

  No, he was scared of failing. Of letting his people down, of letting Riv down.

  He came upon the stump of a willow, lightning-struck and fire-blackened, the dead trunk fallen into the river. He sat, looking into nowhere, just thinking, took a wedge of cheese from a pouch at his belt and carved a slice. A sound filtered through his thoughts, a tapping. He looked up and saw a huge black crow sitting on the blasted tree trunk. It had a snail in its beak and was bashing it against the fallen tree. The snail shell was proving to be remarkably resilient, the crow banging it harder and harder against the tree, its feathers becoming more and more ruffled with the effort.

  ‘Here, have some of this instead,’ Bleda said, cutting a slice of cheese and throwing it at the crow. The cheese landed close to a taloned foot. The crow stopped its frustrated banging, the snail still in its beak, and eyed the cheese. Its head swivelled, looking at Bleda, then back at the cheese.

  It dropped the snail, then took one sidestep closer to the cheese. The black beak stabbed down, skewered the cheese, threw it into the air and swallowed it whole.

  Bleda smiled.

  ‘Thank you,’ the crow muttered, looking at Bleda with a beady eye.

  Bleda nearly fell off the tree stump.

  He blinked, staring at the crow.

  ‘Pardon?’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ the crow croaked. It took a few sidling steps closer to Bleda. ‘Nice cheese. Got more?’

  I did not imagine it, Bleda thought. Or am I losing my mind? Then he remembered something Riv had told him.

  ‘You are from Dun Seren,’ Bleda breathed. Riv had told him of a talking crow, a messenger from the Order of the Bright Star, who lived at Dun Seren. It had been bringing word to Israfil. Riv said its name was Flick.

  ‘Are you Flick?’

  ‘Dun Seren, home, yes,’ the crow squawked. ‘Flick, no. Me Durl. Flick dead. Flick brother.’ The crow hung his head.

  ‘Ah, I am sorry to hear that,’ Bleda said. ‘It is always hard to lose kin. Here, have some more cheese.’ He cut a slice and threw it, Durl catching it deftly.

  Ruga stepped out of the twilight, frowning at Bleda.

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ she asked suspiciously.

  Bleda pointed at the crow. Ruga scowled at him.

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ she asked again, eyes scanning the riverbank.

  ‘Talking to Durl,’ the crow said, rocking from one taloned foot to the other.

  Ruga stumbled back, reached for her bow.

  Durl squawked and flapped his wings.

  ‘No, Ruga,’ Bleda said. ‘This is Durl. He is an ally, from Dun Seren.’

  ‘A talking crow!’ Ruga said.

  ‘Obviously,’ Durl muttered, eyeing Ruga with disdain and running his beak through a ruffled wing.

  ‘Sit, Ruga,’ Bleda said. ‘You’re upsetting Durl.’

  Ruga looked as if she didn’t want to get any closer to Durl, but she sat on the stump beside Bleda.

  ‘You are a long way from home, Durl. What are you doing here?’ Bleda asked. Ruga was looking at him as if he was insane.

  ‘Tain give Durl important task,’ the crow cawed, puffing out his chest feathers. ‘Looking for someone.’

  ‘Arcona is a big place,’ Bleda said. ‘It can’t be an easy task.’

  ‘No, not easy,’ Durl agreed. ‘Durl been flying long time. Wings ache.’ He eyed them. ‘You help Durl?’

  ‘If I can, I will,’ Bleda said. ‘Who are you looking for?’

  ‘Durl looking for Raina. Giant. She needs to go home. Back to Dun Seren.’

  ‘There are no giants in the Sea of Grass,’ Bleda said.

  ‘There were, though,’ Ruga said thoughtfully. ‘There were tales, remember? Of a giant Clan who dwelt near Kletva.’

  Bleda did remember, but he had never given the tales much credence, thinking them faery stories designed to keep young riders from swimming the lake for the island.

  ‘Yes, yes, the Kurgan,’ Durl squawked. ‘Raina one of Kurgan.’

  ‘Why don’t you look at Kletva, then?’ Bleda said, pleased that he might have helped. ‘It’s a lake, north and west of here.’

  ‘Durl already been there,’ the crow said despondently.

  ‘Have some more cheese,’ Bleda said. It seemed to cheer the crow up.

  ‘Thank you,’ Durl cawed. He swallowed the cheese, then flapped his wings. ‘Durl keep looking. Can’t give up, must keep trying,’ he said, jumping and beating his wings, taking to the air. ‘If you see Raina, tell her Durl looking for her.’

  ‘I will,’ Bleda said.

  ‘A nice crow,’ Ruga said with a shrug as they watched Durl disappear into the twilight.

  ‘And wise,’ Bleda said with a frown. ‘Don’t give up, keep trying,’ he breathed to the night air.

  Bleda crawled through the grass on his belly, up to the ridge of an incline. The scraping of grass either side of him, a handful of others joining him: Ellac, Yul, Ruga and Saran. They all stopped at the ridgeline and stared.

  Bleda swore softly.

  The Heartland was in flames. A Sirak encampment, the closest thing to a town or fortress that the Sirak had. It was not fortified; it had never needed to be, situated at the centre of the Sirak’s land, a hundred leagues in all directions of Sirak-controlled plains and Sirak warriors about it. But it was big. A sprawling mass of gers, many of them up to ten times the normal size of a travelling ger, their wooden framework more solid, timbers planted into the ground, felt and animal skins stretched wide and high on the frames.

  And it was all burning.

  Bleda could see Cheren riders speeding between the gers, hawk banners everywhere, could hear the faint screams on the wind. He tried to count those banners, to try and gauge how many Cheren Jin had mustered, but in the chaos it was too difficult. Even so, it was obvious that there were thousands of his enemy down there.

  And we are six hundred and twelve.

  Something drew Bleda’s eye, a dust trail. He followed it, saw on the plain between him and the Heartland a column of wains that tracked the river Selen, wide and dark that curled across the plain, a long way from its meltwaters in the Kalevala Mountains, far to the north. There were maybe ten or twelve wains, Cheren riders spread around them.

  Is that their baggage train? Food? Not likely. The Cheren usually ride light, and they would have been plundering the Sirak camps they have destroyed.r />
  He squinted, straining his eyes to see the wains. They were wide, and had some kind of structure atop each one.

  Like . . . bars on a cage.

  He swore again, and then signalled for the others to follow him back down the incline.

  ‘We cannot beat them,’ Bleda said. ‘They are too many.’ Yul and Saran and many others scowled back at him. These were words that no Sirak ever wanted to hear about the Cheren.

  They were sitting in a great circle beyond the ridge Bleda had climbed, letting their horses drink at a stream. Over six hundred Sirak were staring at him.

  ‘We strike hard and fast, and hope that works. If it doesn’t, we do not stay and fight. We will run, and live to fight another day. I have not saved you from the Cheren horde only to see you throw your lives away now.’

  Bleda had his plan firm in his mind, knew there was a chance it would work. But equally, he had seen many a plan fall apart. And he knew his people. They were proud, stubborn, stiff-necked. He knew they would not be inclined to flee from the Cheren, so he had to deal with that possibility here, now.

  A ripple of muttered curses confirmed his worries.

  ‘I will not run from the Cheren,’ Saran said, voices behind her murmuring agreement. ‘I will not show them my back. I am not weak.’

  ‘To die now is the weak choice,’ Bleda said, his Sirak cold-face still and emotionless. ‘Die now, and the Cheren will dance on our bones and wipe the Sirak name from this earth. Follow me, stay alive, and I vow to you a chance at fulfilling our vengeance.’

  Ellac quietly grunted his approval. Bleda was glad for the encouragement.

  ‘How can we ever hope to beat them?’ another voice called out. ‘You said it yourself, they are too many. Better to die fighting, in our Heartland, defending our Clan, than to die running. Chased and hunted down like a stray goat.’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Saran and others.

  ‘There is another choice,’ Bleda said. ‘We have friends in the west. Allies. We lead Jin and her horde there. And once we are there, with our allies beside us, we will turn and kill them. Jin, her honour guard, and every single Cheren warrior who follows her.’

  ‘Allies? Foreigners! The Ben-Elim are as much our enemy as the Cheren,’ Saran spat. ‘What use are they? They would betray us.’

  ‘Things have changed in the west,’ Bleda said. ‘I thought of them like that, but war with the Kadoshim has altered everything. It has brought out the best, and the worst.’ Bleda remembered the road in Forn, as he fought alongside his mother against a swarm of Ferals, he remembered how Kol and the Ben-Elim had abandoned him, flown away and left them.

  But not everyone abandoned me.

  He bowed his head, thoughts of Riv filling his mind, how she had flown out of the darkness at Uldin’s camp and saved him from certain death; he saw her fierce smile, could almost taste her breath. How her wings felt as they wrapped around him, soft feathers against his back. His hand strayed to his chest, where beneath his lamellar coat and woollen tunic sat a dapple-grey feather, pressed against his heart. He would go back for Riv, if nothing else.

  Where are you? Did you succeed in your task with the Order of the Bright Star? Will they stand with us on the field of battle against Asroth?

  Asroth.

  There was more to go back for than love, though that alone would have been enough for Bleda. He hated Kol and did not trust him, but he did trust Meical. He had only known the Ben-Elim a short while, but his words at their brief council had filled Bleda with something he hadn’t felt for a long time.

  Hope.

  Meical will keep his word. Will gather all who would stand against Asroth and his Kadoshim. And they are a great evil, even more than Jin and her Cheren scum. Asroth must be beaten, and the Sirak are needed in the west for that to happen.

  ‘We have allies in the west, and they are worthy of our friendship. Some amongst the Ben-Elim. Giants. The Order of the Bright Star.’

  His warriors looked at each other, a hundred conversations beginning. Even in Arcona the Order of the Bright Star was known, though mostly through tales and fables.

  ‘But our people are here. Our home is here,’ Saran said.

  ‘No, my home is here,’ Bleda said, touching his heart. ‘And here.’ He put a hand upon Ellac, and then on Ruga, moved on to touch Yul, and then gestured, taking them all in. ‘We are kin, Clan; we are the Sirak, not this dust we stand upon. Wherever we are, there is our home.’

  Nods of agreement.

  ‘I am your King, last child of Erdene. You follow me, or you do not.’ He shrugged. ‘It is your choice. Either way, I will not change my course.’

  Without hesitation Yul was beside him.

  ‘You slew Uldin; I will follow you to the ends of this earth.’ He looked at Saran and her followers. ‘I am a simple man. I love my kin and my Clan. I give and keep my oath. I can aim an arrow and wield a sword, but I do not know much about strategy. I do know that Bleda promises me revenge for Erdene’s death.’ He paused a moment, a tremor in his cheek. ‘Bleda promises me a chance at defeating the Cheren. He promises me vengeance.’ He shrugged. ‘That is enough for me.’

  A silence settled over them.

  ‘Will you follow me?’ Bleda asked.

  ‘HAI!’ the crowd called out. Saran met Bleda’s eye and she gave a curt nod.

  ‘Good,’ Bleda said. ‘Now we ride, and show our enemies what it means to fight against the Sirak.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  JIN

  Jin reined in and wiped sweat from her face, spat a glob of blood onto the ground. Her jaw ached, blood leaking from her lip where a sword-pommel had been punched into her face. She probed it with her tongue, found a tooth was loose.

  I came off better than you, though, she thought, looking down at the woman who had injured her. Her head flopped to one side, half-severed by Gerel. He had seen the blood on Jin’s face and gone into a frenzy that had seen him hack the offending warrior from her saddle, and then swept him on into another knot of Sirak warriors. Jin shifted her weight in her saddle and rode after him, her honour guard in a line behind her.

  They crashed into the Sirak, a storm of swords and spears, of snarling faces and screams, Jin’s sword moving fast in short, economic strikes. She sliced and stabbed, lunged and swayed. The Sirak fought with a wild abandon that only the cornered can do, but her honour guard were too many, too skilled, and in a score of heartbeats all the Sirak before Jin were dead.

  She looked at Gerel, saw him sitting on his horse, covered in blood, his face a red mask, his chest heaving. Jin grinned at him.

  We are here, at the heart of my Clan’s enemy, dealing them their death-blow. Think not of Bleda and the future. Enjoy the now.

  ‘On,’ she said, urging her horse forwards.

  The encampment was burning, smoke and flame destroying a thousand years of culture, her Clan sweeping through it, slaughtering those that had built this place, who lived here, refusing to leave.

  I admire that about them. They knew I was coming, saw our host approaching on the plain and knew they were outnumbered. But they chose to stay. They chose to stand.

  The battle had roared through this part of the Heartland and moved on, the sound of skirmishes here and there floating through the wide spaces between the great gers, so much bigger than a normal camp. They were built to accommodate the whole of the Sirak, a few thousand people.

  By nightfall it will be burned to the ground.

  Exhaustion draped over Jin like a shroud, every muscle in her body burning, aching, throbbing. She leaned back in her saddle, the high back supporting her, and for a moment she lacked the strength to lift her sword.

  Dead Sirak were all around her.

  She had fought her way through the encampment, through the chaos and blood, and somehow now found herself back on the outskirts of the camp, close to where she had originally entered. Half a league behind her the wains full of Sirak prisoners were waiting on the plain. Jin had ordered that they keep t
heir distance until the battle was done. She didn’t want to risk them entering the Heartland and catching fire somehow, or being attacked by any survivors. She was looking forward to the entertainment her prisoners would bring.

  Tonight, when we celebrate.

  Gerel was close by, his battle-frenzy gone. He sat straighter than Jin, though, his eyes everywhere, alert as always. She was becoming used to his constant presence, and reassured by his vigilance and watchfulness. More of her honour guard were around her, seventy or eighty. The others had either become separated from her in the confusion of battle, or they were dead. Tark was there, too, his spear red almost the length of the shaft.

  Just beyond Tark survivors were being herded out from the blackened husk of the encampment, Cheren warriors leading handfuls of bound prisoners out and depositing them on the plain. There were at least a hundred, so far.

  I do not like these warriors being grouped together, while my force are still spread through the encampment, rooting out any last resistance.

  ‘Tark,’ Jin called out. ‘Take those prisoners out to the wains. Load them up, lock them away. I don’t like them just sitting here. There are too many of them.’ Their numbers had grown again, a hundred and twenty, maybe. ‘Take as many riders as you need to get it done.’