A Time of Courage

by John Gwynne

  A memory of her father, black blood jetting as Bleda’s knife sliced through his neck.

  ‘What else?’ Jin said, a tremor in her voice. She focused on Tark. ‘There is something else.’

  ‘And that he chose a half-breed whore over you.’

  The fire in Jin’s veins turned to ice.

  I will kill him. By Elyon above and Asroth below, I will kill him, if it is the last thing I do.

  ‘Set his arm,’ she grated at Gerel. There were Cheren riders all around now. Maybe five hundred of her warriors, a trickle as more crossed the plain to join her.

  There was a grinding sound as Gerel pulled on Tark’s arm. The old warrior hissed, went rigid as Gerel manipulated his broken bone back into place, boot-heels scraping in the grass.

  They must have numbered close to two hundred. Then the prisoners, another two to three hundred, though most of them are weak, injured, weaponless.

  She made a decision.

  ‘WITH ME!’ she cried, standing tall in her saddle, and then she was riding towards the ridge line. The drum of hooves behind her, Gerel calling out, but she ignored him, setting her face to the dust cloud that still hovered in the air.

  Cheren riders settled around her, grim-faced men and women. Jin reached for her bow, slipped it from its case, took a handful of arrows from her quiver, holding her reins loose and guiding her horse with her knees and ankles. She was riding up the ridge, now, a steady canter. She was angry, angrier than she had ever felt before, but the wild heat was gone, replaced by an icy rage that she could think through.

  I will not rush blindly into some trap. She signalled right and left, a few score riders branching off, sweeping wide. Then she was cresting the ridge, arrow nocked, leaning low over her saddle to give a smaller target. She was expecting the snap and whip of arrows.

  Nothing.

  The ridge was empty, trails flattened through the grass. Jin rode on a short way, so that she wasn’t silhouetted upon the crest of the ridge, and then touched her reins, her mount stopping while she surveyed the land, using the high ground. A series of dried-out stream-beds clustered below her on the plain, separating again to thread their way to the river Selen. Where the streams met there were signs of her enemy, the ground churned by hooves, bloodied clothes and bandages discarded. Jin raised her hand and pointed. A handful of warriors rode down to the streams, searching. At the same time the warriors she had sent wide around the ridge appeared. They had been sent to root out any flanking ambush, or to undertake their own flanking manoeuvre if Jin had ridden into a fight. They signalled that all was clear.

  Jin was satisfied no ambush was imminent, and so lifted her gaze further afield. Riders were in the distance, a large mass riding away from her. They were riding hard, stirring up a dust cloud, travelling fast, not caring about hiding their passage or their numbers.

  They are fleeing for their lives. Bleda knows he has stuck his head too far into the wolf’s mouth; he has seen my strength. Survival is all he has on his mind. He is running scared.

  The drum of hooves behind Jin. She twisted in her saddle, but it was only Gerel. Tark was with him, his broken arm in a sling, the arrow that Jin had seen protruding from his thigh was gone, a bandage wrapped around it, blood starting to seep through.

  Tark reined in with one hand and a word; his new mount stopped. Bleda and the Sirak had taken his old horse. His eyes scanned the scene, taking in the stream-bed and then the fleeing warband. They were already over a league away.

  ‘Prepare to ride,’ Jin called out.

  ‘No, my Queen, they are too many,’ Tark said. ‘They could be hoping to lure you out, away from the strength of your host.’

  ‘No, Bleda is fleeing; he is scared,’ Jin said.

  ‘Is he?’ Tark said. He shrugged. ‘Either way, you have five hundred riders here. They have more.’

  ‘How many?’ Jin snapped. Her father had taught her how to count and measure riders on the plain, but usually by noting the banners flying above them. Bleda’s warband had no banners.

  ‘Nine hundred, a thousand horses,’ Tark said. ‘They may have spare mounts, but I don’t think so.’

  Jin sat there a few moments, not trusting her mouth. Her teeth ground, muscles in her jaw bunching as she thought.

  ‘Let me track them for you; they shall not escape,’ Tark said.

  ‘You?’ Jin said, expelling an angry breath and looking him up and down. His arm in a sling, his leg bound but bleeding.

  ‘You are not fit to ride.’

  ‘I am,’ Tark said. ‘What is a little pain. My arm and leg are seen to; they will heal. Besides, I could ride with no arms.’

  This was true, not some idle boast. The Cheren learned to guide their mounts through pressure from their knees and feet, far better than clumsy yanking on reins.

  ‘But you cannot fight,’ Jin remarked.

  ‘Maybe not.’ Tark nodded. ‘But I am the best tracker in Arcona, I have other uses. And I would make up for my failure to kill Bleda. Let me find him for you.’

  Jin gave Tark a long, measuring look, and then nodded.

  Tark snapped an order and a score of scouts set off after Bleda, moving down the ridge and onto the plain at a steady canter.

  ‘They cannot gallop forever,’ he said to Jin. ‘And they are unlikely to have spare mounts. We will catch them. Send word back to the Heartland, gather your warband about you. They will wish to see the death of Uldin’s killer.’

  Jin smiled coldly.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  FRITHA

  Fritha leaned over Wrath’s back.

  ‘There they are,’ she shouted, a flutter of joy in her belly at the sight of Asroth’s war-host. It had been over a ten-night since she’d seen it. ‘Time to land.’ The wind whipped her words from her mouth even as she spoke them.

  Wrath heard her, though, tucking a huge wing and turning in a wide, looping half-circle.

  They were flying above the treetops; the sun sinking into the west was turning the canopy of Forn to molten gold. Below Fritha was a line of her warriors riding a narrow road. Arn and her honour guard, her hand-picked warriors, on course to intersect a far wider road that carved through the trees. It ran from Drassil in the north to the Bairg Mountains in the south and was called Lothar’s Road, for some reason that Fritha could not remember from her histories.

  I was taught those histories at Drassil when I was trained, indoctrinated, as a White-Wing.

  Fritha still could not quite believe how much the world had changed in so short a time.

  Drassil fallen. The Ben-Elim routed. Asroth free. His child in my belly.

  It made her feel dizzier than Wrath’s spiralling descent.

  Below them was a sight that took Fritha’s breath away. A warband, the like of which the world had never seen before.

  First were the Kadoshim and their half-breed offspring, close to two thousand winged figures speckling the sky. Below them, upon the road, marched nearly four thousand acolytes. They were starting to move like professional warriors now, rather than the brigands and outlaws that most of them had been. Not that all of them were cut-throats, criminals and murderers. Many of them had been outlawed by the Ben-Elim for petty crimes or had turned to brigandry as a response to the harsh regime of the Ben-Elim. Arn and Elise had been such as these. Others were from a more martial background, like Fritha herself, or Aenor, chief amongst the acolytes. He too had been a White-Wing, disillusioned and outlawed for his own personal reasons.

  The warband on the road below Fritha was not in any discernible formation, just a disorganized rabble.

  They have been used to skulking in the dark places for the last ten years, in forests and mountains and caves, trying not to be seen. And now they are marching down Lothar’s Road for the whole world to see them, although that can hardly be called marching.

  The White-Wing warrior within her curled her lip at their haphazard progress.

  She swept down through the Kadoshim and their half-breeds, and
then lower, Forn’s trees rising either side of her. Crows squawked, lurking in the shadows of Forn, some circling the warband.

  They know that death and slaughter are coming.

  Fritha eyed the crows suspiciously, remembering Flick, the talking crow from Dun Seren.

  There could be talking crows amongst them, she thought, spying on us. But there are so many of them, we could never root out the spy.

  Horn blasts echoed up to her, people pointing up at Wrath.

  The acolyte warband filled the road as far as Fritha could see, a slow-moving river of men and women, leather and steel. At their head she saw Asroth. Although he was often in the skies, he also liked to ride at the head of his war-host, sitting upon the largest horse Fritha had ever seen. A piebald stallion found in the stables at Drassil, all muscle and mane. Fritha suspected that he had been used more for ploughing than battle, but he was broken to ride and responded well to all of the usual commands, and most importantly of all, he could take the weight of Asroth in all his war gear, which was impressive. Fritha felt her heart beating faster at the sight of him, clothed in his armour, shimmering like black oil in the setting sun.

  Horns sounded and the warband stuttered to a halt. A hundred wains were pulled to the roadside as men and women began to unload them and set up camp.

  Warriors were cheering and shouting, welcoming Fritha’s return.

  Wrath landed, a running crash, his wings beating to break their fall, Fritha clinging on. People leaped out of their way.

  ‘Still need to work on those landings,’ she said to the draig as she unbuckled herself and climbed down from her saddle, dropping the last few feet to solid earth. She breathed a sigh of relief. As much as she was becoming used to flying upon Wrath, and had made her saddle and harness more secure, she still preferred her feet upon solid ground.

  ‘Sorry,’ Wrath growled.

  Fritha patted his scaled neck and began undoing the girth of his saddle, warriors of her honour guard hurrying to help her. She heard the sound of hooves and the scrape and slither of scales on the ground and turned to see Elise rippling sinuously towards her, Arn riding at her side. A hundred of Fritha’s honour guard rode behind Arn, heading for a newly erected paddock. Elise smiled to greet Fritha, her fangs bright.

  ‘You have returned to me,’ Elise said. She had not come on Fritha’s task, unable to match the speed of mounted warriors that Fritha needed. Elise was shockingly fast, but she lacked the endurance to move at such speed for days at a time.

  ‘Of course I have,’ Fritha said.

  One of her Ferals loped past Elise to greet Fritha, pushing its head against her. She staggered with its strength, though she smiled and stroked its muzzle, tugging on a huge protruding canine. Elise slithered up, coils pushing the Feral away. It growled at her, and she hissed back, tail rattling.

  ‘Peace,’ Fritha said, smiling, ‘we are all friends here.’ She stroked Elise’s cheek, the snake-woman’s scowl melting away.

  ‘Well met, Father,’ Elise hissed as Arn slipped from his saddle, passing his reins to an acolyte. Arn’s hand rested upon the head of his starstone axe, which was hanging on a belt loop at his waist.

  ‘What news?’ Elise asked them.

  ‘Asroth will call a meeting, soon. Stay with me and you shall hear it then.’

  Elise nodded.

  ‘This war-host needs to move faster,’ Fritha commented.

  Arn shrugged. ‘If Gulla’s Revenants hadn’t eaten most of the horses at Drassil then this warband would be riding, not walking.’

  Fritha pulled a face, agreeing. By the time anyone had realized what the Revenants were doing in Drassil’s stable-blocks it had been almost too late. Little more than a hundred horses had been saved. Fritha had taken most of those for herself and her warriors, and scouts were riding the rest.

  ‘Wrath hungry,’ the draig rumbled, talk of eating horses obviously stirring his appetite.

  ‘Go and fly, find yourself something to eat,’ Fritha said.

  ‘Have to fly far,’ Wrath moaned. ‘Mist-walkers eat everything.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Fritha said, tight-lipped. ‘Happy hunting,’ she said and patted Wrath’s muscled neck, then shielded her eyes as he beat his wings, stirring up a cloud of dust, and winged into the sky.

  ‘Come with me,’ Fritha said to Arn and Elise as she walked away, a score of her honour guard following a few steps behind them.

  ‘Welcome back, my Queen,’ Asroth said as Fritha approached. He slung a leg over his saddle, slipping to the ground, took two long strides towards Fritha and swept her up into his arms, crushing her to him, kissing her passionately.

  ‘Ah, but this world of flesh is a constant joy to me,’ he said as they parted. ‘Two thousand years of living in the Otherworld as a spirit is really very dull.’

  Fritha laughed, still reeling from his kiss.

  ‘Come, our tent awaits,’ Asroth said. He gestured to a Kadoshim guard, who raised a horn to his lips and blew, summoning Asroth’s captains, then Asroth was striding through the entrance of a huge, hastily erected tent. Torches were already burning, a table being laid out with food and wine. Asroth thumped his long axe down onto the table-top and sat in a chair, draped one leg over the arm and held his cup out, an acolyte appearing at his shoulder to pour. He drained it in one long draught, then held the cup out for another. Bune and a handful of Kadoshim followed behind Asroth, some sitting at the table, others taking up various positions around the tent.

  Fritha unstrapped her weapons-belt and laid it over the back of her chair, then sat and sipped from her own cup. Arn stood behind her, Elise slithering into the smoky shadows of the tent.

  Aenor strode through the opening, short and squat. He poured his own cup of wine and sat at the table. Asroth held his cup out to him in greeting, drank that down, too.

  ‘Well met, Fritha,’ Aenor said, a dip of his head to her before he drank. ‘I am glad to see you returned to us safe.’

  ‘So am I,’ Fritha said. She liked Aenor. They had had their differences over the years, and Aenor could be rude, obstructive, a pain in the arse, but she knew that he was honest, and if he said he was pleased, then he was.

  ‘The warband looks bigger since I left,’ Fritha said to Aenor.

  ‘Aye, it is, thanks to you,’ Aenor said.

  Since leaving Drassil Fritha had taken to flying ahead of their warband, Arn and fifty of her honour guard riding on the road beneath her. Together they had visited the towns and villages scattered along the great road, declaring the Ben-Elim routed, and proclaiming the new order of the Kadoshim and humankind, working together in harmony.

  A draig with wings had made an impression, though many had run screaming at the first sight of Wrath. Once Fritha had proved he would not eat anyone without her say-so, though, people had seemed to be far more open to listen to her message.

  She asked all if they would join her warband. Well, not exactly asked. She told them of Asroth and his great army, and made it clear what would happen if they refused. Even this was no guarantee, and sometimes Gulla and his Revenants were needed to show what would happen to those who refused Fritha’s generous offer. One night Fritha had flown back to see what exactly Gulla’s lesson was. She had heard the screams long before she had seen the village. So, their ranks were swelling.

  Every man and woman in the Banished Lands learned weapons-craft from childhood. Spear and axe, mostly, as a sword was a costly weapon, so they were valuable additions to the warband. Once they joined, Aenor would teach them how to fight as a unit, in the shield wall or just as part of a fighting company.

  Many had joined, Fritha suspected, because they were in equal measure awed and terrified of Wrath. Over a thousand had swelled the ranks of the acolytes since their journey from Drassil had begun.

  ‘It is you who has to train them, not I,’ Fritha said to Aenor.

  ‘A task I am happy to do,’ Aenor said, raising his cup.

  While Fritha had been locked away within the f
orge at Drassil, working her dark magic upon starstone metal, Aenor had been working his own kind of magic upon the acolyte warband. He had been drilling them in the weapons-field every day, from dawn till dusk, and every evening since they had left Drassil, too. Even if they were not a match for the White-Wings’ discipline, Fritha was becoming confident that they could form a shield wall and hold their own in a fight. The new recruits were fitting easily into that routine.

  Aenor had also plundered the armouries of Drassil, and his warband looked like warriors now, many in shirts of mail, or if not mail then in boiled leather coats and cuirasses and carrying the White-Wings’ rectangular shields. The white wings embossed upon shields and armour had been painted black, though. Weapons had also seen a significant upgrade, thanks to Drassil’s armouries. Most of the acolytes had fought with spear and axe, but now the bulk of Aenor’s host had a short-sword at their hip.

  I suppose Aenor chose the right skill to teach first; fighting is more important than marching.

  A beating of wings and a dark silhouette filled the tent’s entrance, blocking out the last rays of the sun. Gulla entered the tent, his wings closed tight, a travel-stained cloak swirling about him like mist. He dipped his head to Asroth and sat at the table, ignoring Fritha. Black mist curled around him like smoke.

  He hates me, after what I said to him in Drassil’s Great Hall. I have made an enemy. Though better an enemy of Gulla and a friend of Asroth than the other way around.

  ‘Now that we are all here,’ Asroth said, ‘a warm welcome back, my bride. We are overjoyed to see you. Now, report.’ His smile of a few moments ago was abruptly gone, all earnest focus now. This was something she was becoming used to: Asroth’s ability to switch from one mood to another in the beat of a heart.

  ‘Haldis is empty,’ Fritha said. ‘It is no risk to us. There were signs that the fortress has been lived in recently, but its inhabitants are gone now.’

  ‘What inhabitants? How many? And gone where?’ Asroth said.

  ‘Maybe a thousand White-Wings,’ Fritha said. She had flown to Haldis with a hundred half-breeds in the air around her, Arn leading her honour guard on the ground. They had gone to scout out the fortress, to discover if it was inhabited and a potential threat to their flank.